Today I led a 31 mile ride with another woman. It's someone I was in outdoor leadership training with and she came on my first ride I led. Anyway, only 3 people came, but it was really nice. Was spritzing and a bit cool at first, but after we stopped at 3.5 miles, it had stopped raining. That was good, as I had no jacket. I led all but the first 3 miles. One of these women is someone who always rides behind my husband when we lead; however, she must have not been feeling it today. When we had gone about 6-7 miles, right near where I used to live in Boxborough, all of a sudden we started seeing tons of riders going the other way, and coming from a couple of different directions. It was obviously a charity type ride (I saw a sign that said BHA, but i have no idea what that was). So, we had that and a HS nordic ski team roller skiing, also the opposite way on one street. Thankfully, it was only for about 2 miles, but during all this, the other leader who was sweeping, lost one of our people! We stopped, but I made the decsion to go ahead, as she did have a cue sheet and she's from this area. As we were regrouping at the top of the biggest climb, she caught up with us and had realized her mistake quite quickly.
This ride has some of the most beautiful and quietest roads that used to be my go-to roads for riding. It's hilly, but nice. Then we went down a steep (I mean so steep I have seen people walk up this street on group rides) downhill near my old school where I taught. At this point, I was feeling exhausted and knew I needed to eat, but we had a stop a couple of miles after that. I ate my bar and on we went. As we turned back toward our start I asked them if they would like to cut out some of the neighborhood streets on the route, that I added, just to get 33 miles. Everyone was in agreement, as we all had commitments, so we headed straight back to the start, and the ride ended up at 30.7 miles.
I got lots of thanks, which is nice. Usually, I am sweeping for DH, so this was no stress, as we always argue about speed! Going to dinner at a friend's tonight; I hope i can stay up.