a funny thing happened on the bike ride today

yesterday i was talking with Curly. He came excitedly to my cube to tell me that he'd attained, after 6+ months of being a runner, a "runner's high".

as far as i can tell, i get a "runner's high" pretty much every time i go for a run, which is why i come write the gushingly enthusastic blog posts. i posited that perhaps what i experience is not a runner's high, but more of an intermediary runner's middle, and asked him to describe his experience. what he described was a state of euphoria followed immediately by a burst of energy. yup, that's what i get. pretty much every run.

i told him as much, and admitted that there's no equivalent that i know of for biking. sure, biking is more fun overall, and i get a second wind around mile 40 on my 60 mile route (preceded by a bonk on mile 30!), but i never quite get the runner's high. or so i thought.

today i did probably my hardest route ever, though not necessarily my hardest ride: i climbed parrot, then zipped down de anza, then a tiny bit of hillsdale (up) before taking de anza back, to bunker hill, to a long, gentle climb to san mateo's golf course. hilariously at the time, while the long gentle climb took about 10-30 minutes, the reverse course, at 35mph, took about 2 (exciting) minutes.

it was at about this time that i began to, well.. dissociate. not exactly an out of body experience, not exactly a runner's high. but definitely something new and interesting. riding a bike is potentially much more hazardous than running, because road hazards inflict more damage, so i wasn't "zoned out". the opposite, in fact; i was focused entirely on the ride. unlike the runner's high, it was not accompanied by a burst of energy.

riding, i came up with a route i'd like to try sometime soon, it being the most hellaciously hilly 20-or-so miler i can locally imagine:

parrot to de anza, quick roll to bunker hill, up bunker hill to the cross street at the top, nice flat to a roll down to polhemus, polhemus up to ralston, down ralston, up crystal springs (never taken this route) to hillsdale, up hillsdale (never done this either), up de anza, and then reverse parrot if i'm in the mood for more pain, or roll down thru the obstacle course. maybe next thursday. yow.