Yesterday was my first GVC Tuesday night ride of the year doing the full route. I've done a couple earlier this year but it was before we had enough sunlight to get in the full 45ish mile route. Two weeks ago I attempted to make the ride, but I was a little over 10 minutes late thanks to a dead Garmin battery and ended up riding solo until realizing I would not likely catch the group before we got to Railroad Highway. I had no desire to ride on that particular highway at dusk with no lights all by myself so I turned around and soloed home.
There was an okay turnout last night, featuring several strong riders. Grant Rotunda, Noah Marcus, Matt O'Donnell, Paul Eichler, and Adam Stoll being among the most notable pain bringers. Dave Cleasby was also there and is also riding really strong, but he and Michelle headed home after the white church so he didn't get to participate in the fun for as long as the rest of us. I, yet again, showed up late, but only by 5 minutes this time and so I was able to catch the group before they reached Mudhollow.
When we hit the final rise on Mudhollow, the pace heated up as per usual. I watched Grant and Noah ride away from me and was unable to match their pace. There's nothing all that weird about that however, and I continued to push my pace over the top of the rise and all the way through to the white church. While being dropped by the likes of Grant and Noah is not surprising, I could still tell that my legs didn't have quite the snap I was expecting. Perhaps the 30 minutes of threshold work I did the day before had left my legs wanting. Oh well, it's not like I'm training to win the Tuesday night ride!
The final rise on Mudhollow was foreshadowing for the rest of the ride. Just maintaining a smooth rotation on L34 proved to be quite the task towards the end of that stretch and the moment the pace got really going on Mahogany, I was popped. We had a nice steady rotation at a very doable pace for me on Railroad, but as we neared our turn on to Birdsley, Grant pulled through and calmly said to me, "I'm going to go." He proceeded to turn up the power and I was dropped again. It wasn't for lack of trying though, to be sure. I just didn't have to strength to hold his wheel. The last two hills, Birdsley and Coit, were mostly just a matter of survival for me. In the past, I've found that they have been great places to hit it hard towards the end of the ride, but I was all tapped out at that point last night.
This kind of "getting dropped again and again" suffering is one of the things I love about group rides like the Tuesday night ride. When I ride solo, I just can't dig quite a deep as I can when I ride with people faster than me. Don't get me wrong, I also really enjoy those rides where I might get to be the one dishing out the suffering. Those are just more rare for me.
Now it's time to rest up and try to recover as best I can for this weekend's Psycowpath race at Platte River State Park. That is, assuming the trail is dry enough for us to race. I've already missed the first Psycowpath race at Tranquility and I'd really prefer not to make it two in a row!
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