Ridin'

It was so easy to sleep last night. Did the morning bike ride, followed by a short run, then followed that up Tuesday evening with the first weekday group ride south of town. I stayed with the group for the first half of the ride then rode the rest of the way with Jonnene. Yeah, she was ahead of us but she left earlier so we caught both her and Kathleen as we got into Frierson.

The first half of the ride bordered on brutal since we were flying down Ellerbe Road at 25-27 mph into a strong headwind. Everytime I thought I was going to lose the pack, I'd find myself back into the middle of it. Part of that was the disorganization of the pack in establishing an effective paceline. There had to be around 22 of us, the biggest grouping of the team this year, and I think everyone was looking for someone to take charge...of course, nobody did. Patrick and Jason sat in the back, Bolt wasn't there, so that first six miles resembled a mass of riders looking for places to hide from the wind, finding a wheel to follow, failed breakaways, etc. It was a mess but I've been in races that weren't much better. I even got into a small break with Patrick, Mack and Frankie G....the latter two and myself all over the age of 50 and we're pulling away from the field! But the wind beat us up and we would be swallowed up by the others in short order.

After we got to the Crossroads, we slowed up to wait for Kiki since he got there late. He lost his father a few weeks ago and hadn't been able to ride much but it was good to see him back outside on the bike and it was probably good for him, too. Once he latched on we were back to speed again, and we were blowing and going toward the village of Frierson. My legs were getting fried but I was rather pleased that I was still with the group at this point despite my low mileage this year. The Wife had left earlier with Kathleen, and we caught them getting into town. Kathleen, being the monster biker she is, went with the group. I spoke to her and said I was going to ride the rest of the way with Jonnene since I knew my legs weren't up to going hard the rest of the ride. Off they went, I dropped back to J and we rode together at a pretty brisk pace. We ended up with about 30+ miles but when we got home and went to bed we were out like lights! I ended up with 55 miles for the entire day. I'll take Wednesday off and get back at it on Thursday.