Landry's Group Ride

Once upon a time on a cruise ship my father, sister, and me were doing a workout when the instructor said that this next exercise would work our obliques. I asked my dad what they were, and he replied "Do this for 30 seconds and you'll know exactly where and what they are." Boy he was right. If you asked me today what muscles are used in bicycling I could point to every single one.

I woke up at 6am to drive down to the Landry's in Norwood for their Saturday group ride. Last week I had coasted along in the last group over 23 miles, and with the biking I did this week solo I was pretty sure I could handle the faster 16-18mph group that would travel 33 miles. Well, I finished the ride in one piece but it was way more than I bargained for. The fast group ended up merging with ours, and the pace was killer. I was dropped by the main group multiple times only catching them when they'd wait for us stragglers at a stop sign. The main problem for me was their acceleration on flats and the speed they climbed hills. Time and time again I'd be latched onto someones wheel in the back when the rest of the group would go. By the time I would make a move to pass and rejoin them it would be to late. I found myself alone between the groups more than once and spent a lot of time without protection. The times when I did manage to stick with the main group the ride was a blast. It was great fun to feel like I was coasting when we were moving along at 19-20mph on the flats. The last 3rd of the ride I pretty much gave up hope of sticking with the main group and hung onto the wheels of several riders that were struggling to keep the pace like myself.

Despite the crazy pace when I did have a chance to sit up and talk to other riders they were nice and supportive. It was also a lot of fun to have people to ride with as they gave me multiple mini-goals to reach during the ride. I'll probably end up getting a second water bottle cage next week as the one bottle wasn't quite enough for the full ride. I had brought a second smaller bottle to put in my jersey but decided to leave it in the car instead. I ended up sucking it down when we made it back to the parking lot. I also tried GU Gel for the ride, since I've never done a ride of this distance and intensity before I'm not really sure if it helped but it certainly didn't hurt. I ended up taking one just before the ride and two during. In any case despite all the hurt and blowing myself up on a couple of the longer climbs I still had energy when we finished. It wasn't until this afternoon when things started to tighten up that the hurt began in earnest.

One other thing I noticed is a number of people on the ride had tires that looked under inflated. It makes the advice Pat from Landry's gave me of deflating my tires every night more clear for me. If you're inflating your tires every morning you always have them topped off. If you're not in the habit its easy to just head out with tires that have lost pressure and aren't optimally inflated.

I'm going to head out on a ride with Michelle tomorrow on the MTB, it'll be interesting to switch back to it after all the time on the Synapse this last week. All told I managed right around 120 miles from last Sunday to today. Not to shabby, though I'm sure that number is bound to climb.


The Food Log
Glass of Water - 7
Morning Ride - 24Oz of Gatorade and 3 Gu Gel packets
Breakfast - 1 Glass of Chocolate Milk, and a mess of chocolate chip pancakes
Lunch - Ham & Cheese Sandwich and a Glass of Chocolate Milk
Dinner - Lasagna & Chicken Parm
After Dinner Snack - 3 Chocolate Chip Cookies, and a bag of snow peas