Yesterday I blogged about my rest week.  Rest is relative, right?  I mean Tuesday’s mean the Tuesday Night World Championships at Donaldson Center.

Yep, I showed up.  However, my thinking was that we only have a couple more opportunities to ride out there before the time change.  I enjoy being out there not just for the riding, but to be with the cycling community.

Not only that, but I figured I could call it a rest ride if I behaved myself and didn’t go tearing off the front.  My plan was to sit in and just do half the laps.  I would then spin my way to the finish for the final one.  That should be a good compromise.

The group decided on four laps.  A couple guys wanted to squeeze in five, but they were over ruled.  Looked like it would be two at speed laps for me.

It was pretty uneventful.  I did sit in in most cases.  The problem I had is I kept getting caught out in the wind on some sections of the course.  I knew where the wind was coming from, but still couldn’t manage to get in the right position.  That caused me some extra work.

The pace was pretty high starting about halfway through the first lap.  I was pretty proud of myself for the way I didn’t get carried away on that first lap.  I entered the second on feeling pretty good.

The speed had the group starting to string out and there were little breaks and chase groups forming during the second lap.  Near the end of it I was in a group that was chasing a rather large group of riders between us and the break.  I did come to the front at this point in order to help pull over to them.

We were going uphill and I was trying to put out a steady tempo that would still bring us up to the riders ahead.  However, after making some good progress early on it seemed like I couldn’t close the deal.  We were stuck with a 30 meter gap or so.  It was at that point my legs reminded me they hadn’t done this in awhile.

Some other riders started to move around me and do the work.  I slowly slipped back.  This was near the end of the first part of my plan anyway.  Suddenly, I felt a hand on the base of my back.  A rider behind (was that you Andy?) gave me a major push – I mean enough to push me past some riders.

Well, I wasn’t going to just pull over after that.  So, I worked my way back in.  It is amazing how that once you get gapped how hard it is to get back in.  Just a short distance can really put you over the red line.  However, if you can just make contact with the group, you will be surprised how your fortunes change.

Rather than go spitting out the back, I was now back in the group and continued to hold the pace until we passed the golf course.  At that point, I knew I needed to back off.  It was an easy ride in from there.  Even better was I came across some friends toward the end and we rode in together.

I think it was a good compromise.

9 days left to help me raise $5000. $1115 raised so far to fight cancer. Give to my fight today!

 

Tags: Donaldson Center, Rest

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 5:41 am and is filed under Rides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.