4th of July aka The Oval Ride

This is me right now. Sigh…

Well, I finally dragged myself out to do a road group ride. The truth is that I had been dreading it every since Rick da man suggested I go. I am a terrible roadie and I waste tons of energy riding in groups. I don’t know what my problem is, but I have a hell of a time staying at the front and/or holding the wheel in front of me (someone always steals it), only to fall backwards, then have to work to get back up there. It’s a vicious cycle.

By the way, Meredith has some AWESOME socks and I must buy some stat.

Trying to stay on top of things. The Miller ladies made it look easy. (Amanda and Meredith), who are not related, but both strong as heck.

There were about 50 people that came out today. Not many survived.

I haven’t been on a group ride since May of 2008, so it was kind of weird. I did ok for the first 1.5-2 hours and hung with the first set of accelerations. Of course, my HR was well into zone 5 (190s) and I even saw my HR get to 205 and power spike to 765 watts. After attempting to push 300+ watts in zone 90, I exploded. It was like the grand finale of a fireworks show, except drench the fireworks in gasoline and use a blow torch.

It was at the Windsor Wall where I went backwards, along with a bunch of others. I am not one to give up, so I attempted to pin it at a HR of 195 and try to catch the group. I caught a few other people and was making ground until we caught a red light. There were about 6 of us, so we decided to ride together. I was happy to have the smiling, familiar face of Carnizzle, who was pulling us around in the wind. Congrats to him – he won his race at 12 hours (SOLO) of Temecula last weekend in SoCal. The worst of it today was riding into a crazy headwind that put last Sunday’s wind to shame.

I was throttled. My legs were aching really bad, I was nauseated and tasting blood. Welcome to the first days of intensity. It’s so tough to come out of base and dive head-first into intensity, but that’s how it is every year for all of us. I always look forward to getting through this stage of training. I tell you what, the 100 mile mountain bike ride I did last Sunday was a cake-walk compared to finishing this ride.

Some people came back, and Mr. Kerkove was a site for sore eyes. He showed me the easy way to get back to the house.

4 hours, 68 miles, and tomorrow is a new day.