I'm Telling You Now

The thought DID enter my mind. Without knocking in a darkly subconscious, potentially dangerous and covertly ill intentioned way. I did have the premonition that it could happen, but shook it off as phobia or weakness. I do need to refine my translation abilities and listen to this voice with greater respect. 

Yesterday as I went about my chores, I entered the preparatory phase of building today’s set list and workout structure. Usually the set list is the easy part, and I was pleased to add a couple of classics from the Beatles 1965 release of HELP, Ticket to Ride and Things We Said Today as well as Character Zero from Phish’s 1998 Billy Breathes LP. Serious vinyl here folks!

The challenging part, both from the choreography structure and eventual execution, is in making it work. It must demand things of my class, and remember these are advances riders, as well as offer something fresh, interesting and of high value. In a phrase -  It’s Gotta Rock. 

This is what I eventually came up with, and to make things interesting and quasi scientific, to mention nothing of irony, I chose the metric du jour to be the time it takes to recover from the interval’s hard efforts. It looked like this:

10 minute warm up

1 minute standing at 16

1 minute recovery @ 7/120

Repeat ascending 16-20

.30 seconds seated sprint

.90 seconds in recovery

.30 seconds standing sprint

.90 seconds in recovery

Repeat four times.

That irony? We has just finished the third set when I felt so good that I had to share with the group my take on ‘second wind’. It was during the particularly juicy instrumental portion of the greatly underrated Simple Sister by Procol Harem. I mean I was killing it - no whooping cough here! And then?

And then as I reached over to adjust the EQ for the mono version of the Kink’s classic All Day and All Night, my heart nearly jumps out of my chest, my left arm twitches and I lose both power and ability to focus. I almost stopped and got off my bike before I fell off. I look at my heart rate data, something we have been talking about the entire class, frighteningly watching it jumping from 0-225. I have leaped into A-Fib like a toad into a lilly pond. With a splash. 

We are at minute 45 of the 60 minute session and my first thought is how I am going to explain my departure from class and into the massage room, where I can lay down and try to recover. But I know I cannot. I make a concentrated effort to keep a steady output, hydrate and re-establish sinus rhythm as well as to not let the class in on my personal (and pathetic) issue. 

I am successful. We finish. There was a touch of disappointment as I skipped the last two sprints, but we made it. One of my most loyal regulars commented on her way out that It wasn’t like me to skip the closing hard part. 

Somewhat cryptically I told her yes, it wasn’t like me at all - and one day I will tell you why. 

I’m telling you now.