accepting recovery

I've been griping about recovery rides lately.
they bore me, and I have only figured out a single recovery path so I find it tedious and much too predictable. because I am neither an uber-cyclist or a really strong guy, it doesn't take too much to get my heart rate up into those anaerobic zones. thus I have to stay on something relatively flat and I just don't live in a part of utah that has an abundance of flat.

so today I decided to change my attitude.
ha!
it sounds so easy . . .

I fought my lousy attitude pretty much the entire time, and that probably increased my heartrate by a good 2 beats.
nevertheless, I managed to keep that rate under my cut-off (which for me is 159), while mentally compiling a list of all the wonderful things about riding my awesome recovery route:

• I get to ride past 2 coffee places, both ways, for a total of 4 great whiffs of freshly brewing coffee.
• I see lots of ordinary folk---waiting for the bus, out perusing their yards, chatting with neighbors, just out walking---which I rarely see up a canyon.
• I get to see some street lights go dark.
• I get a different perspective on the sunrise: it first lights up the sky above emigration canyon, backlighting the clouds, tinting every available cloud light pink, its rays throwing this intensely powerful light straight up and out over this small, low break in the ridge of mountains that line our eastern city boundary.
• I get to watch the sun break next over millcreek and olympus cove, again backlighting the clouds that hover low behind the mountains. today those clouds were outlined in piercing silver, and they drew me up 45th south toward them, my whole being mesmerized by this miraculous sight. how many other people got to witness those divine, fleeting moments before the sun rose just a few more feet and the intensity of the image faded?
• I get to inhale the cold and mulchy smell of the salt lake country club golf course, a smell so distinctive I think I could name it if I were blindfolded and given a test tube full of it to sniff.
• I get to ride past 2 bread stores, both ways, for a total of 4 great wafting breezes full of warm baking bread smell.
• I get a different perspective on city life: the many different houses, yards, cars, routines, commutes, pets, and cocoons people inhabit and work with each day.

it was a focus on being right here kind of morning, and I did a decent job.

but I already know that tomorrow I'll be grateful to be heading up emigration, my heartrate soaring back up into those working zones, and my heart once again connecting with everything I love about being in the canyon.

besides, the smell of frying bacon that hangs around ruths diner on my way down is worth 4 shots of coffee plus those 4 whiffs of warm bread.