Please Pass The Ketchup

Weight: 223.8

Delta M: -2.2

Mileage: 23.5

July Mileage: 58.5

It was kind of a weird group ride tonight. Brian and Greg showed up. I’ve only seen them on the faster rides. Then some Marcos guy showed up on a Haro MTB wearing gym shoes, and we picked up some people as we headed out of town. The Wednesday group usually averages around 16 or 17 mph, we were pushing that out of town. Brian got in front and as the wind picked up and we hit an uphill he brought us up to about 19. I haven’t seen these other guys do that before, but I have no doubt at least a couple of them can put the hammer down when they want to. Anyway, next thing I know we’ve turned into the wind, I’m trying to keep on Brian’s wheel, Greg is right on my mine, and we are doing 21-23 mph. I held on till we hit mile 5.9 but then blew up. My heart was hitting the upper 180’s. I was pretty stoked about that though, last time I tried to keep up with these guys a few weeks ago, I was only able to hold on for about two miles, maybe.

As I peeled off to the left Greg realized I was toast and took off to catch Brian on his own. That’s what you get when you draft the Clydesdale of the bunch, I don’t know what he was thinking. Drifting away from the shoulder I fully expected the rest of the group, minus the dude on the Haro, to blow by me. That’s what used to happen when I blew up. I kind of expected to hear Joel chuckle something under his breath as he went by me, but soon remembered where I was, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, not sure of what roads we took to get there. I looked back and the rest of the group was barely visible coming around the last turn, damn near a mile away. This has never happened to me before. Then they took another turn. Brian and Greg were disappearing over a hill and I knew I wasn’t catching them so I beat feet for the others.

I caught them and held on for a while, but it was hard, I was pretty tore up. One of the other riders started having some back spasms or something, then started cramping and decided to turn around. I was just going to let them go, but we were kind of in the middle of nowhere, and I remembered my bout with heat exhaustion so I opted to ride back with them. We were about 10 miles out and I was pretty much shot anyway, so it was no big loss. Shortly after we turned around we came across that dude on the Haro, I was impressed.

So about last weekend… I started the gorge fest early at Culver’s on Wednesday night. I got called back into work on an emergency just as I was getting home. We had lost power in a storm, and the generator never came online and the UPS ran out of juice. Very Ugly. Chas offered to drive me back and hang out with the kids while I kick started the server back up, then we could eat. It was a way cool idea, I hadn’t got any good family time all week, and Son#1 loves going to work with me when I do weekend stuff. After that it was series of small steps that led to eventual all out gluttonous rampage that really didn’t end till Sunday night. I did get one ride in the 4rth with Chas, we hit some old trails I use to ride with Steve at one point, way back in the mid 90’s. Chas actually did 17 miles! Not bad for only second ride, after more than a year off the bike, and having just spit out a 10 pounder on Valentine’s Day. It was a great weekend, but oh man, did I pay for it. Did you know you can get a food hangover?