Sunday April 11 Ride Reports

[Crankin]

I had an "OK" 20 mile ride with my friend yesterday. I took her on part of the club ride I did Wednesday. It was warm and very, very windy. We had one big climb near the beginning of the ride and I just about was blown off of my bike as I got to the top of the hill. One good thing was that I found a new street to ride on, as an alternate to one that is all torn up.
Lots of cyclists out. At one point, we were on a street that the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail crosses. The people on the trail have a stop sign. I approached and saw I could ride faster than the riders on the trail, who were approaching the stop sign and I had a feeling wouldn't stop. My friend, who was behind me a little, almost crashed into a rider from the trail who blew through the stop sign; she gave him a piece of her mind!
My legs were burning, and every sports injury I've ever had I felt on this ride. On Saturday we led a 30 mile ride for AMC... the slower people who had signed up didn't show, and I was, let's say "dropped," even though I was the sweep. DH and the group waited for me at one point, and I did stick with them for the middle part of the ride, including the big climb. But, at the end, I just couldn't do it. I was furious at my DH, which is most unusual, and embarrassed in front of my son and his very close friend since age 7, who came on the ride.
Of course, the fact that I was quite sick all morning, before the ride, in the bathroom, had something to do with it... I had to fill up with Pepto, to even get to the start. Then there were the 30 mph wind gusts, and the fact I got caught at 2 lights at the beginning. Still, I am disgusted with myself. One part of me says who cares, and the other is upset, since up to this point, I was very happy with my progress at the beginning of the season.

[WindingRoad]

Sorry to hear that Crankin, its frustrating sometimes riding with others I've decided. We just have to love the sport to keep doing it at times

I rode this weekend with one of our good friends and she just got brand new beautiful carbon road bike. This is only her second ride of the season so she's still getting back into shape obviously so she is very slow right now. It worked out great though we all (me, my BF and her BF) took turns sticking with her. I even got her to draft for the first time yesterday which was awesome she could go WAY faster. I think maybe in the past her old bike has just been too awkward for her to handle for her to feel safe doing that (it was way too big) but she did it on her first ride out on this new bike. That was pretty huge for her! Very proud of her! We ended up going as far as our butts could manage to take us being we are all pretty 'soft' at this stage of the game, LOL. We did right at 37 miles and it was a lot of fun but we were all wiped after, did I mention the we are all 'soft' still, grin. We gotta get busy training for RAIN this July; gotta get tough butts for the 168 miler

[OakLeaf]

The up-side of my Achilles injury was that after a couple of enforced rest days, I was fresher than I'd been on a Sunday ride in a long, long time. It was a big group (for this ride) and a pretty hard pace and I was able to hang with the group the whole time. Last hard ride before the marathon....