Storing it up

Squirrells come to mind. Furry creatures that spend tremendous amounts of time gathering and hoarding nuts full of energy - storing them to be opened later. It seems like that's the story of a MTB racer's life: spend months on stationary trainers and studded tires maintaining basic health and a modicum of fitness during the cold months, followed by waking up and thrashing our legs as we hit the road for build phase during the introduction of spring, then moving to the sweet, transient joy of hitting the trail - poking around to see what condition the world is in and waking up those MTB-only muscle relationships, which gives way to repeated hard efforts - engaging the discipline and mental fortitude that drives us on that all important date with the starting line. Storing it up. Storing it up. Storing it up.
I haven't released it yet. Nope, it's building, held back behind the dam. Lean body weight at 150 something, noticable definition and mass appearing - especially in the hamstrings and vastus groups, mitichondria responding confidently when summoned. Which brings me to what I wanted to share in the first place:
This week I introduced race starts - those fuzzy little warm critters that live in the woods. I ride out to Mast Yard where several miles of flat flat flat doubletrack coax the effort out of me. At it's entrance, I put down a foot after the 25 minute road warmup. Then I unleash the emergency response crew BAM! Pounding on the pedals, out of the saddle for 10 seconds after clicking in, settling in to the saddle as brute circular force drives me over 20 mph, flying over the few roots and through the sandy stretch right to the 60 second point of "I can't possibly do this any loooooonnnngggggeeerrrrr! and I back off everso slightly, HRM at 171, 172, and the sickening feeling of lactic acid and hormones breaks over me in a huge wave, shouting at me to STOP! ... Then I settle in for the next 4 minutes of robust charging over the uneven and slowly curving route, easing back and forth to find hard ground PLEASE!, over the bumps, churning ever forward in the pine needle-filtered sunlight ONWARD! 173, 174 and finally it's coming... the end at 176. 30 seconds into the return trip, my HR is at 135, 60 seconds and I'm at 122, ahhhhh... the slow ride back to the start with a hit of water and a bite of power bar en route.
There is an effect, a realization that becomes apparent during hillclimb and race start intervals... dissociation. Part way through them, I become the observer. The watcher. My legs are cranking, my heart is running, my breath is even, my arms and shoulders relax a bit and I am doing the hard work while my mind monitors - as if from a distance. Legs? check. CV? Check. Mind? Present and calm? Check. It's remarkable when I, and we, get to this state. It's meditative. It's physical. It's spiritual. Consciousness. ( I often point this out to my yogini wife, whose kundalini practices take her there through a different mechanism daily. )
They've been allowing me to keep building more energy up higher and higher behind the dam, dammit! The nuts I'm gathering are accumulating into a big pile. Pent up. Waiting. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon! I can hardly (under) stand it!