For those that are brave enough to do the daily lunchtime Thrasher Ride, and there are only a handful of you brave ones out there, today was the typical EPIC EZ ride. It's a Monday and usually an EZ day, but hey, we're all old school, which means "what's an EZ day?".
Here's the email I sent to Randy earlier in the day.
Not sure I can make it out today. It's a bit too warm, and sunny. Not sure I can handle riding in weather that's not in the 30F range.
only joking. I'm looking for an EZ recovery ride. Went pretty hard this weekend.
Sat: did 15 intervals of 4-7min in length (Mass, MacA, Anglers, GFPark). 10 of these were up GFPark.
Sun: BP shop ride
Legs are fried.
Legs are fried.
Well, here's a compilation of emails I sent out after the ride.
Great ride today. My early morning intentions were to go EZ today, but with the lack of winter wear, temps in the low 60's and with the warm wind in my face, my legs felt good and EZ was no longer in my vocabulary. I took some long hard pulls along Bradley and through Potomac.I felt good and my legs felt great.
That was until we got onto Clara Barton and our efforts dramatically increased. Each pull started hurting more each time. And then as Joe popped up one of the inclines......Jay took off and developed a good gap that wasn't shrinking.
Randy, Ad, Paul and I slowly got organized and started pulling him back but we really weren't gaining any ground. On the last downhill section before the flat run to the turn off Clara Barton, I was sitting second wheel behind Ad and we were probably a good 400 meters behind Jay. I was thinking about all the times I sat on Ad's wheel and let him pull me around and I said "I think I need to pull my weight today and pull us back to Jay". As I passed Ad, I said "I'm going to pull as hard as I can for as long as I can". And, I put in a major effort to pull us back to Jay. Although it felt like a 2 minute effort at 30+MPH, in realty it was only about 20 secs at L11 (yes, like Spinal Tap, I have an L11). I think we got to a hundred feet of Jay before I popped. I really wanted to pull all the way, but I was at my limit, and there was an ever so slight rise in the road, and my mind said "time to shut down". I went for as long as I could and as hard as I could. I pulled over and with a flick of the elbow, Randy, Ad and Paul went past me. I had nothing left and I didn't even think about trying to jump back on their line. So I watched them catch Jay and pass him like he was standing still.
As they say, I left it all out on the road.
As I was noodling along, Joe caught up to me and then we merged with Brian, who had skipped CB thinking it would take too long, just as we turned onto Goldsboro. Brian was pretty surprised that we had done Clara Barton and caught up to him. I pulled really hard after the Mass light, and we were just coming up the last rise before River when the light turned green. I just didn't have a lot left to try and jump to make the light. Plus, my legs were fried.
Randy, Ad, Paul and I slowly got organized and started pulling him back but we really weren't gaining any ground. On the last downhill section before the flat run to the turn off Clara Barton, I was sitting second wheel behind Ad and we were probably a good 400 meters behind Jay. I was thinking about all the times I sat on Ad's wheel and let him pull me around and I said "I think I need to pull my weight today and pull us back to Jay". As I passed Ad, I said "I'm going to pull as hard as I can for as long as I can". And, I put in a major effort to pull us back to Jay. Although it felt like a 2 minute effort at 30+MPH, in realty it was only about 20 secs at L11 (yes, like Spinal Tap, I have an L11). I think we got to a hundred feet of Jay before I popped. I really wanted to pull all the way, but I was at my limit, and there was an ever so slight rise in the road, and my mind said "time to shut down". I went for as long as I could and as hard as I could. I pulled over and with a flick of the elbow, Randy, Ad and Paul went past me. I had nothing left and I didn't even think about trying to jump back on their line. So I watched them catch Jay and pass him like he was standing still.
As they say, I left it all out on the road.
As I was noodling along, Joe caught up to me and then we merged with Brian, who had skipped CB thinking it would take too long, just as we turned onto Goldsboro. Brian was pretty surprised that we had done Clara Barton and caught up to him. I pulled really hard after the Mass light, and we were just coming up the last rise before River when the light turned green. I just didn't have a lot left to try and jump to make the light. Plus, my legs were fried.
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