Intervals

Intervals are hell. A necessary evil, to boost mental and physical strength in order to arrive in peak fitness on race day. All racers do them, all riders seeking to improve their fitness should. If you're doing them right, you should have to dig nearly as deep as you would in a race, albeit for a shorter time. Add in whistling winds and driving showers and you have a wet, cold, painful hour and a half in front of you. Let alone muscles burning from the effort, the rain, whipped up by the wind, stung my face. I often wonder what the people in the cars going by think when they see roadies in foul weather. Wrapped in a toasty car they must look at us as if we're insane. Sometimes you need to be a little crazy to get in the saddle on these days; but it almost always helps--even if it just fortifies your mental attitude. I know I can drive hard in the rain, I've suffered through enough rainy interval sessions to know that when it rains on race day, I'll be more prepared than the guy who only went training on the sunny warm days and sat indoors in all other circumstances. A couple close calls kept me on my toes, overshooting one corner and almost ending up in a field (only luck prevented me from dropping down the ditch into the field); and in another instance, I almost got hit by a second logging truck in as many rides. Slightly disconcerting is that neither truck even bothered to slow down and they didn't move over, thus forcing me off the road. Thankfully I was able to keep the bike under control and I safely got back on the road and kept going. After the cold, the wet, the wind, the pain, coming back to a HUGE bowl of chili was awesome.