My training is finally getting a little more consistent and I have been able to make it out to the Tuesday Noon Hill Ride organized by NCVC the last couple of weeks. This is a great ride that usually has 20 or so people showing up and a few heavy hitters to make the ride nice and hard.
The weather guessers were calling for rain so a few folks stayed home but we still had a good group of 10 to start out. We cruised out of the parking lot and begin chatting about the last weekend of racing fun for a few minutes. The speed was lifted shortly after and the talking ceased and we got to the task at hand, which for me means pull as much and as hard as possible until I can no longer see straight. This used to mean a whole bunch of other people would be in a similar condition but I am just getting back into this racing/training thing.
Anyway I decide to do my part and take a nice long pull up one of the hills and continue over the top and as I am cruising down the hill, slightly oxygen deprived, I forget which way the ride goes and quickly look back to ask, when all of the sudden, KA-BLAMO, I nail a dumpster sized pothole at 35+. Water bottles are instantly ejected and my rear tire deflates in no less than 1.2 nanoseconds. I pull over, grab my bottles and fix the flat, while waving bye to the group. Even my old school bullet proof 32-spoke Mavic open pro-CD single butted 14 gauge rear wheel didn't make it through that incident without any trauma. I managed to create a nice little dip and bubble out the brake side of the rim that caused a interesting rear braking sensation.
I decided to do a few hill repeats while I waited for the group to return. Once the front group of 5 was in sight, I u-eed and latched on. Since I had somewhat fresh legs I decided to take a couple of good pulls and tried to salvage this training day. I did have the benefit of a 10 or so mile trail ride back to work solo into a decent head wind, so I tucked my head down, imagined I was Fabian Cancellera and put the "hammer" down for most of the way back.
My random rambling (a.k.a. journal) about all things exercising and racing. I used to keep a journal during my racing days and love to go through it years later and vividly recall all the fun. I will probably also post different tips and things I have learned along my journey so far.
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