Feel the Burn

This past week we had half days because of conferences. Steve was getting off early on Friday and planned on riding at 2:15 with the Thompsons since the weather was supposed to be pretty nice. The weekend was calling for rain/snow. My A+ peeps sent me a couple of emails asking me to come along. In theory it sounded awesome. I would get to spend some time with some of my favorite people and have my long ride out of the way for the weekend. Just one minor detail: those three ride like the wind and I don't! I had quite a long internal dialogue about the ride on Friday morning. "It would be great to get it done, but you'll never be able to keep up. You'd be proud of yourself at the end, but they're going to have to sacrifice their workouts and slow down for you, etc." I knew I wouldn't regret it if I did it, so I finally made a deal with Steve: I would come as long as he promised he wouldn't ride slow for me. He agreed, so off I went. As you might remember, this is the same group I went on that long ass run with and had no idea what I was getting myself into...apparently, I didn't learn my lesson!

We rode for a total of two and a half hours. Where did we go, you might ask? I have absolutely no idea! LOL! My sense of direction is so awesome. As we were riding, Jessi and Rog would be gone and then slow down to wait. Steve, however, stayed pretty darn close to me. I even got to draft off of him a few times. I pointed out that it was kind of weird how he kept on turning around. I told him he couldn't possibly be looking for me because of what he had promised. He insisted he was just watching for cars. Silly me. I equated Steve turning around to touching the feet in front of you when circle swimming in the pool. The second you accidently touch them, the person in front of you speeds up. It was the same on the bike. If Steve saw me on his wheel when he turned around, he sped up. I tried to hide, but it was no use!

By the end of the ride, my legs were toast. We were on Hwy 2 and I thought we were heading for Farwell when Rog hung a right onto Shady Slope. A couple minutes later, I realized the only way back was going to be to ride up Mill. I was mortified. Maybe I could do it with fresh legs, but my quads already felt like there were going to explode. Crap. I knew complaining about it would get me absolutely nowhere with this group. I contemplated stopping and calling Eric to have him come get me, but I knew I would never hear the end of it if I did. So, up we went. I was just waiting for my already burning quads to spontaneously combust and I'm pretty sure I know what the beginning of a heart attack feels like. In true A+ style, Steve was there with words of encouragement the entire time. All I could think while listening to him was, "How the hell can you talk right now?!" Definitely not fair.

For those of you who don't live in Spokane, or aren't familiar with the north side, I thought it was important for you to have a visual of Mill. As you can see, it forms a true 90 degree angle with the street below!
When we got back to the house, everyone started getting their running stuff on. This is what I did:
I was dead. My legs hurt. But it was a good pain because I finished that ride!

Things I need to work on on the bike:
Staying in aero when going down hill - it just freaks me out to not have my hands by my brakes!
Not braking when going down hill - right now I can only reach about 30mph without breaking.
Pushing and pulling, especially uphill - it's just so easy to rely on pushing alone!

Things I learned:
Sometimes it's ok to be nervous as hell to hang out with some of your closest friends!
The best friends are those that push you, sometimes literally. Thanks, Rog!
You only get faster by riding/running/swimming/whatever with people who are faster than you.
Once again, doing something outside of my comfort zone (which I despise doing by the way) paid off.
Working hard over the winter paid off. I'm definitely stronger on the bike now than I was last year at this time.

Thanks for slowing your ride down for me guys and for all of your encouragement. I really appreciate it. And Steve, thanks for checking for those cars so often. I think I'll get you one of those little rear view mirrors that attaches to your helmet so you won't have to turn around all the time! ;)