Recency Effect

I've always liked climbing hills on my bike.  Like is a loose term, I'll admit.  But I do enjoy the effort, the struggle, and mental games it involves.  I say all of this, of course, before I am about to embark on training for the Death Ride (5 Sierra Mountain passes, totally 15,000 feet of climbing).  Check back with me in a few months . . .

As part of the ramp up, yesterday (last week -- a week late in publishing this), my friend Todd and I set out for a ride that included climbing Old La Honda, which is a 3.5 mile windy and steep-at-times climb. Yesterday was a terrible, classic January winter day here. It was cold, windy, and pouring rain. After the ride, I was literally pulling twigs out of my hair and picking mud from behind my ears. My socks were dripping wet.  While I was riding my shoes were full of water and I could hear the squish every time I pressed down on my pedal.  Todd and I chatted for the first 2/3 of the climb.  And then the conversation slowly faded.  And then all I heard was the squish squish squish of my shoes interspersed by my heavy breathing.  And then finally, a big whoop when we arrived at the top.  We proclaimed ourselves bad ass for riding in the rain and high fived all around.

The rain started to pick up, so we quickly turned around to head back down.  Normally, this is a fun decent, but with all the storms, there was so much crap in the road.  Add in pouring rain and wet brakes on a windy road with traffic, and the decent is slow going and fairly miserable.  Then toss in a bit of speed to the 46 degree weather and suddenly you're freezing all the way down what seems an eternity.  My hands are tired and numb by the time I meet up with Todd at the bottom.

As we race out onto the flat road trying to warm up, I declare that the decent was worse than the climb.  Todd tells me it was the recency effect, and in fact, the climb was worse than the decent.   We're both probably right -- they were both miserable yesterday, but it got me thinking about how our mind plays tricks on us. We have this ability, probably a good thing, to block out past bad memories and move on with life.

I think perhaps this is why I've signed up for the Death Ride.  I've forgotten how miserable it can be to climb a 10 mile hill for hours, how miserable it can be to be on your bike for half the day sitting on a tiny saddle, how terrified I am descending at high speeds.  And all I remember is the joy of conquering the hills, spending all day with friends in the sunshine,  putting you mind to something and achieving it, and seeing the beauty of the Bay Area at the average speed of 12 mph. 

Next week, we commence the series of mind torture and suffering that I some how end up describing as fun. The mind is indeed a beautiful thing.

Wish me luck (and support me in my endeavors!)