Reincarnation
Well, I think I can officially declare this blog dead. I hope to reincarnate it but I can’t figure out what it needs to be. I had tried to copy many of the blogs that I love and that completely failed. What I love about most blogs is that they write about a topic I am interested in. I think the real issue with this is that I don’t think I’m interesting at all. I have been giving thought to what makes me different. This year I have really started training and racing again and I think this blog will become the chronicles of a career cat W4. There’s a trick to training, working, and balancing life. I won’t talk about work or family except in the affect it has on my training. I’m hoping to get a GoPro so that I can post ride and race video too. So, Welcome back to life Blog!
This weekends training plan called for one 3-4 hour group ride. I had to pick Saturday or Sunday. Saturdays ride was a bit mysterious. It was leading a “charity ride” out of the shop. SG and KS were signed up to lead it. The ride was supposed to be only 40-ish miles but they were going to add more. Winds were out of the north and I had a hankering to do the Hutto route. I got SG’s text about adding more too late and ended up not going. Sunday’s option was for 54 or 63-miles but it was west, around the damn, and I hate that route. Not only that, but KP was the leader and I was not looking forward to that. My expectation was that only 3-4 people would show up, since it was mothers day, and I would get beat up. I was surprised to find that 9 women showed up and only 3 of them were planning on doing the full 63-miles.
The day could not have been better and, under different circumstances, I would have loved to do the full 63-miles. The ride was very difficult and we went hard from the start with no warmup. I tried not to pull on the front for too long, especially once the wind picked up. I was happy that I was mid-pack when we went up the damn-hill but I hated how we all broke up and looked pretty random compared to our normal semi-pro double paceline. I also feel like I missed out on some great conversation because nobody was talking! On the bright side, it turned out Saturday only a few kids were on the ride so it was slow and horrible. Of the two, it seems like I picked the right one. After KP split off to do the longer route, everybody agreed that Hutto would have been perfect. That made me feel good.
When I got done with the ride, I was feeling pretty good. It was a gorgeous day and my legs were sore. Heading home, I passed a girl changing a flat. As I passed, I noticed she looked completely defeated. I looped around to check on her and it was a good thing I did because she was out of tubes, C02, and patience. I offered her a ride, 3-miles, back to her car. She was so thankful!! It would have taken her forever to walk her bike back to her car. I love this idea of paying it forward. She was so thankful, I told her someday somebody else would need help and she could just pay it forward. I’m sure she will.
Life is good.