Anyone who has competed in sports, played an instrument, gave a presentation, or most other acts of concentration have felt what the phrase "being in rhythm" means. It's when the subconscious drives the outcome and the conscious takes a back seat. In biking, for me that means forgetting your cadence and speed, forgetting how far I need to go, forgetting about the bike and imagining you are flying through the woods, and being eerily aware of everything around you.
I reached this state during the second lap of my ride this evening.around Accotink. I was aware of the deer, the trail bends, the leaves falling, and the rider coming at me from around a tight turn. Unfortunately, he wasn't in the same state ... BONK! OOOF! Fortunately, the BONK was his bike hitting the tree to avoid me, and the OOOF was him one-upping the bike's impact on the tree. Yea buddy, how about taking the turn a little wider next time?
It was a good ride, 2 hrs 16 min's for 34.8 miles. The first loop was 1hr 7min's, second was 1hr 9min's. It's getting dark pretty early nowadays, so thankfully I brought the light. If I had not had the light, that would have been a very interesting ride through the path out to Pickett Road. It was dead dark back there.
This was a good training run for jumping forward to Nov 20 or 27. Those are the weekends I'm thinking about riding the 184 mile C&O Canal (now in 2 days). 4.5 hours for 70 miles, plus another 1hr 15 min's totaling about 6+ hours of riding time each day.
Life is more interesting with goals and challenges.
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