Trying to put words to my feelings in today's ride

I don't think I'll be able to put in words how I felt in today's ride, but I want to try because I want to be able to recall it in the future.

I'll start saying that I felt great. It is not because today's numbers were that great, I have done better numbers in the past. Also, numbers are numbers and they are not that related with feelings and this entry is about feelings.

It is not that I got first to any of the climbs either. Getting first to the climbs is great and definitively more related to feelings than numbers but the best I can say about today's climbs is that I wasn't last in any of the climbs.

I think it is more related to expectations. Today's ride was probably the fastest Kingston Wheelers ride and I wanted to join it to see how I was going to feel. I was expecting to be dropped in the first hill so I loaded the route in the GPS to make sure I was able to make it to Tanhouse and told Rupert not to wait for me if they dropped me. I was also expecting weather to be in line with the one we had had the whole week, "not that good weather" I call it when I want to be nice and polite.

But the day woke up sunny and with blue skies. I found myself riding with about 15 other riders and I knew most of them. The pace was fast but I could manage it and when the first climb came it all began to feel great.

You know that feeling when your mind is asking your legs to give a bit more and your legs give you more?

You know when you see your heart rate and you know it is the highest you have seen it in the last six months but miraculously you feel you can keep it?

You know when you push it, and it is hard, but you find yourself enjoying it, having fun?

You know when you are riding in a group at speed and you feel the harmony of how things are working?

You know when you get to the top of the climb and you look to your colleagues and you feel gratitude? You appreciate that they make the ride interesting, challenging and fun.

Do you know when you feel your bike as a great machine?

Do you know when a gap opens and you push, and your legs scream but you close the gap?

Do you know when at the end of the ride there is a sprint and you actually sprint when you thought you would never going to dare to sprint again?

You know when the ride is finishing and you feel that you could keep it going, that you still have energy?

You know when you feel the strongest in the last months?

That was me in today's ride.

These are great feelings; you obviously can't feel like that in every ride but when it feels like that it really compensates for all the work you have done on the bike. I actually think I ride and train just to feel like that every now and them. I'm just glad that today was one of those days and I was able to appreciate it.

Take care
Javier Arias González