Weird Wednesday

This Ride: 24.2 miles
Kona Distance: 2,513.2 miles
Month to date: 274.3 miles
2010 Total: 3,079.7 miles
Pace to 5,254.8 mile goal in 2010: (62.5 miles ahead of goal pace)

Wow, what a Wednesday.  I got out early enough to ride about 3 miles before deciding whether or not I would join the Wicked Wednesday Ride.  My heart wasn’t into it but I decided to join the group this morning anyway.  The ride to the Rusty Bridge was uneventful, except for encountering the runner wearing all dark clothes.  Good thing I didn’t hit him.  There was a good group that started out, I think 7-8 riders.  No one was terribly excited to push it hard, so a brisk, not impossible pace was set and we settled in at an average of about 19 mph.

I had some trouble keeping in the pace line.  A couple of riders ahead of me were not very steady with their track, making it hard to follow.  By the time we got to Old Country Road, I knew I was going to avoid the big hill and just play “rabbit” with Alex, going straight on Old Country Road.

Alex blew me away.  He didn’t know I was going with him, and he put his head down and struck out hard up the gradual hill, and soon was a very long way ahead.  Try as I might, I couldn’t close the gap.  I kept the pace up as hard as I could once back on the trail, because I didn’t really want to get caught by the other riders.  Soon, I saw headlights in my rear view mirror, but I made the end of the trail before getting caught.

Dave wasn’t in the group.  No one knew where he was.  Since I was having trouble keeping up anyway, I volunteered to go back on the route and check to make sure he was ok.  I didn’t find him.  I emailed when I got home and he told me that he wasn’t in fast form, and had told people that if he were dropped to keep going.  I missed that news.  No wonder they were so nonchalant when I kept asking where Dave was.

This was quite a warm and humid morning.  I sweated buckets.  I’m definitely planning an easier ride tomorrow.  It is possible that I’ll have two longer rides on Friday and Saturday, depending on how things go the next couple of days at work.