Adrenaline Rush
I had a couple of thrilling moments today when my heart beat really fast and hormones flooded my body, making me all crazy strong and stupid for a few seconds.
The first was this morning when some lady almost ran into me with her car. I was coming slowly across an intersection on my bike, in a crosswalk, with the light; she was turning right and suddenly was inches away from my front tire. I screamed “Raargh!” and amazingly, caught her attention just before she ran into me.
My favorite part was when she mouthed the words from inside her rolled up windows, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.”
As if I were wondering about that. Duh.
The second time was this afternoon when I went way too fast on the turn from the footbridge on the bike path by the UW softball fields to the gravel path that runs behind the tennis courts and—as my .83 pals like to call it, “ate shit,” pouring like water over my handlebars onto the pebbles, giving myself a nice case of road rash on my right hand and my chin and spraining my left wrist badly enough that I know it’s going to be tough doing sun salutations for the next six weeks or so.
Damn!
In both cases, the incident itself had that extended slow-motion quality and then, it seemed, time didn’t catch up until a little while afterwards.
I wasn’t nearly as scared, for instance, while the car was coming at me, as I was a bit later at the bus stop thinking about it. That’s when my knees went all weak and I almost fell down.
And right after I wrecked, I hopped up and started walking in circles; it took a few moments before I realized I was bleeding and bruised.
Adrenaline is a pretty amazing drug, I guess; it sure seems to work better than the ibuprofen I’ve been pounding this evening, anyway.
The first was this morning when some lady almost ran into me with her car. I was coming slowly across an intersection on my bike, in a crosswalk, with the light; she was turning right and suddenly was inches away from my front tire. I screamed “Raargh!” and amazingly, caught her attention just before she ran into me.
My favorite part was when she mouthed the words from inside her rolled up windows, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.”
As if I were wondering about that. Duh.
The second time was this afternoon when I went way too fast on the turn from the footbridge on the bike path by the UW softball fields to the gravel path that runs behind the tennis courts and—as my .83 pals like to call it, “ate shit,” pouring like water over my handlebars onto the pebbles, giving myself a nice case of road rash on my right hand and my chin and spraining my left wrist badly enough that I know it’s going to be tough doing sun salutations for the next six weeks or so.
Damn!
In both cases, the incident itself had that extended slow-motion quality and then, it seemed, time didn’t catch up until a little while afterwards.
I wasn’t nearly as scared, for instance, while the car was coming at me, as I was a bit later at the bus stop thinking about it. That’s when my knees went all weak and I almost fell down.
And right after I wrecked, I hopped up and started walking in circles; it took a few moments before I realized I was bleeding and bruised.
Adrenaline is a pretty amazing drug, I guess; it sure seems to work better than the ibuprofen I’ve been pounding this evening, anyway.
posted by Professor Dave at 8:13 PM
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