Group Ride

Yesterday I had my first group ride in a long time. In attendance were my supervising assistant manager from work, Brian, my next door neighbor, Dick, two of their riding buddies and myself. The four other guys are all the sort that stay in a fair state of physical conditioning throughout the year and have all logged 50+ mile rides this year while I tend to take about 3-4 months off at the end of the season and hadn't even logged 100 road miles yet.

Things turned out about as I had imagined they would. I was able to hang in for about the first 20 miles until the terrain started rolling a bit more. I knew going in that my conditioning was such that I would be dropped at some point and that I wouldn't have the endurance and recovery to stay with them once we hit some hills.

True to form, we hit some hills and I hung on about half way up before I lost contact with the wheel in front of me. Once that happened, it was all over. I tried to dig in and hang on, but felt my legs give out. I kept pushing to the top of the hill (really more of an exaggerated incline) and the guys already had a pretty significant gap on me. They were kind enough to hold up and allow me to catch up, but I was using time that I would normally use for recovery to catch back up. By the time I would catch up, we would hit the next hill/incline and the situation would repeat itself.

This kept up for five miles or so before I had to turn into town to head for home so that I could get to work on time. I had about 11 miles on my own to regroup and formulate my plan for the rest of the day. I hit Brian's at 11:20, managed to get home at 11:37, showered, packed a lunch and hopped in the car by 11:48, ate and shaved in the car and clocked in at 11:59. I cut it a little closer than I intended, but got there all the same.

I was frustrated but not surprised by the ride. I simply haven't put in the off season work to hang in with these guys. In another month or two, I should be able to hold on in a group ride without being an anchor when the road starts to roll. I keep comforting myself with the thought that they don't have as far to go to hit peak form, so they will not improve over the next few months to the extent that I will. I intend to test that theory by staying in the loop and riding with them from time to time whether I get dropped or not. My best bet for improvement is to continue to ride with stronger, faster riders, so that's what I'll do.

As far as the rest of the day went, I suffered through nine hours on my feet after the most physically demanding activity I had taken on since September. I held together okay, but felt like a zombie for most of the day. By 9:30 p.m. when I got home, I was really ready for some rest.