Saturday Race

First the good news: today was my fastest solo 50 miler of the year. But, and there's always a but, it was not exactly a fun ride. Three guys from my old cycling group passed me about one hour into the ride, just after I had done a personal time trial for 2 miles across the dam at the end of Lake Grapevine, so I was in rest mode when they went by. I thought about giving chase, but I was spent and there were three of them, which allows for them to alternate drafting and besides, the reason I don't ride with them anymore is that they are all about 20% faster than I am -- and there's one guy in the group who is not friendly.

None-the-less, I did amp up my speed and made somewhat of an attempt and caught them at a light in about 4 miles. I rode with them for a while, but J., the one guy from my old group who no longer talks to me was leading and increased the speed to 24, which even drafting was too much for me after a mile, so I dropped back. I am sure he did it on purpose (Only the paranoid survive!), as he looked back at one point to see if I was still there. Then he slowed down to a normal 18 mph, so I put on a furious attack up to 25 mph and caught up to them just to say thanks for the ride to the one nice guy I know in the group. Then I let them go again. That attack caused me to go too far into my anaerobic zone and it took me 15 minutes to recover. Do I admit to being a bit competitive? :) Well, yes, despite my slow speed.

I did pass them again at mile 30 when they stopped for a bio break on the side of the road. Then they passed me at mile 36 and that was that.

But I did maintain my speed all the way in and averaged 16, which is high for me solo, as my usual speed is 14.

Finished at 155.8 lbs, 5.5% body fat and 60% hydration, which is odd, because the sweat today was running off my head. It was 85 with 61% humidity. Pretty awful out there

But the ride was not much fun. Too back and forth in speed. I never got into a comfortable rhythm. I plan on a nice easy ride tomorrow! No more chasing down folks.