Chasing a Dream

Yesterday I decided to get in one of the Monday night rides. This ride is fast group ride and it usually draws a large group of diverse cyclists. Generally, all of the hammering starts out early and the pack dwindles as riders are spit out the back the further the ride continues. Last night was a particularly fast ride and early on, Shawn O'Neal decided the pace was going to be kept high. Immediately, we rolled out stringing the group down the road. I was joined by Kent Jones from my team and we took up spots near the front of the pack. As we rolled out of the first turn, we decided to slide back to recover.

As we rolled along, the traffic was a little heavy and the front of the group used that to their advantage by blocking off the back half of the group. They immediately sensed blood and surged the pace. Gapped, we fought to get back into the crowd. Kent and I found ourselves with 11 other riders in a chase group. The lead group kept the pace high and with the headwinds, we organized into a good rotating paceline to keep our own pace high. We seemed to be gaining some ground, but never enough to close the deal. Our group eliminated 1-2 rider and then it was 9. One two occasions, I decided to ride off the front of the group. While I wasn't expecting to bridge up, I was effectively working on the effort it would take to do so under race conditions. Suffice it to say I need more work in this area. I'm not sure it was the wind or the unrelenting gears we were pushing but my back was really starting to ache.

With 5 or 6 miles to go, I again decided to ride off the front to see if we could get our group's pace up and reel in the lead pack. While I did get off the front for a while, I basically burned my self up in the process and was done for the night. With 4 miles to go, I was fighting to stay in the chase group and once that feeling hit me, I shut it down and cruised solo at 23mph in no man's land finishing 45 seconds behind the chase group.

After I finished I cooled down with Kent and listened to his advice. Don't pull too hard into the headwind and don't do more work than you need to. I've got a lot to learn in this sport. I'm thankful men like Kent are there to help point out my faults and keep me coming back. In the end, it was one of the fastest rides I've done this year and that includes all the races I've done. I'm shutting it down for the rest of the week and only doing recovery spins until the TT on Saturday. And then, I'll chase down that elusive dream. A dream of speed.