Intervals between breaths

GO!

Recovery Based Training - Part 3.

Another blogger actually read my prior posts  regarding recovery based training (Part 1 and Part 2) and had some important concerns and questions. You can read our full exchange here.

That conversation made me realize that I had not updated my progress on this training plan. So I decided to take a look at how things went in 2012.

A notch above: The North Country 600K and the Kancamagus affair.

I ride long stretches - 20 miles, 30 miles, 50 miles - on remote roads. I pedal past mountain lakes, through wildlife refuges in Northern New Hampshire, the North Woods and over the White Mountains of Maine. In this unfamiliar vastness, at times as distant as the blue peaks on the horizon, at times as close as the thicket of trees edged along the shoulder, I am uncertain but eager. A child of adventure taking his first steps, wavering but willing. Without the barriers of a car or the silencing noise of a motor, an unbound consciousness tentatively reaches out for the edges of the world, stretches toward the distant mountains, rises toward the cumulus clouds, teeters at the edge of the wilderness, learning to find its way.

I leave invisible traces as I travel through this place. Molecules of my DNA infuse the North Woods. My breath joins the cool air. My sweat seeps into the asphalt. But this place also leaves its traces in me. My legs and my lungs intimately know the measure of Dixville Notch and Kancamagus Pass in ways beyond mere miles and meters. Hours spent climbing mountain passes are not soon forgotten. Between the conversations, the arguments, the dances, disappointments and triumphs, we practically had a relationship.

Along the way, thoughts bubble up and burst into ideas and emotions - at times elated, at times melancholy, at times at peace. Rain falls sporadically from a turbulent sky. Flowers bloom in colors that overflow from the fullness of the summer rains. The road rises, falls, twists and turns and still I ride. Always moving forward until movement becomes its own stillness.
 

First Friday Writings for Randos - "You. Are. Not. Giving. Up!"

{First Friday Writings for Randos - A monthly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This month it's an excerpt from . . .
 

Trans Iowa

By Mauricio Babilonia
'sconnyboy

The birds began to sing and the sky began to brighten for a second time. We walked another hill. Pete and HB pulled ahead, but I stayed with Ben as his mood continued to deteriorate. Shortly after dawn, Ben and I came upon HB waiting for us at an intersection.

"Our navigator is gone."
"Where is he?"
"I dunno. He took off."