I thought I was going to be the outcast at this ride, since I only have my tri bike, but I was wrong, there were a few people doing it on their tri-bikes, not many, but a few. Started out planning to do the entire thing by myself, so I kept my HR in Z1/Z2. At about the 8 mile mark I saw three guys on the side of the road fixing a flat...and it was on one of the Tri bikes....I saw that and was hoping that I would not get hit with mechanical faliure on this day. So I am crusing right along and a few miles later I see a shadow from behind me, I look back and see the three guys that were changing the tire on my wheel. This is what I was hoping for. After a few minutes of me pulling (and not knowing about it) they went around me, and I decided to ask if I try and hang on. At first I thought this was going to be the death of me, but I thought, what the hell, it is worth a shot.

I have never riden in a pace line, or really with anyone else beofre for that matter, so I was a little skiddish about getting close to their wheel. But, I quickly realized that once you do, the effort goes down significantly!! :)

We stopped at the 1st rest stop, about 25 miles into the ride, to fill our bottles w/ gatorade and the guys commented on how they were suprised I was able to hang on. I thought at this point, there was no way in hell I was going to fall off the pace, unless I completely blow up. We skipped the second rest stop and made out way to the 3rd, which was at 56 miles, filled the bottles, grabbed some candy, an orange and half a banana and we were off again. It was at this point it really set in how fast we were going, as one of the guys said our average was at 19.3 MPH and we have yet to have the wind at our backs.

Since the 4th rest stop was only about 15 miles down the road we decided to blow that one off as well, and kept on trucking. Just as we turn to go with the wind and get trucking at 24 mph, with a group of about 8 other riders, one of the guys gets a mechanical issue so we stop and try to figure out what was wrong with his bike. everything looked ok, but the group we were hanging with is now long gone :(. We get going again and come to the spot where the 62 mile ride and the 100 mile ride come together and the same guys has the SAME issue with his bike, but for the lives of us, we still could't figure out what the heck was wrong. It was at this point a group of 30+ riders flies past us, and I am thinking man, that is really cool. Well, after we all finished checking out his bike and still finding nothing wrong with it, we get going again, and catch the big pace group! I tell you, if you have not riden in a large pace group before it is REALLY cool, the drafting aspect of it was awesome!!

After about 5 miles of riding with them we decide to pull out ahead as there was way too much jockeying for position and all 4 of us did not feel really safe.

Up to this point I was hanging off the back but said, whenever you want me to take a pull, let me know.

Well, we were about 65 miles into the ride and I thought, I probably should take a pull, so I head up to the front and just MASH away. We were flying at 27 mph on the flats on I was leading!! It felt really cool. That is until I looked at my HRM and realized that at a HR of 167, I was going to be in a world of hurt soon. At that point in time, I really did not care, I thought, push with everything you have and do yourself proud, becasue this may never happen again. I ended up pulling for about 20 minutes, and I was spent. I was really glad when I was able to go back to hangning off the back! :)

At about 80 miles I started to have the "I am going to blow up at any moment" thought/feeling, but I knew there was a rest stop at mile 85, so I decided to try and hang on for dear life. These guys were hard core! They were maintaing about 22mph, and I was struggling to stay in the draft, but every time I would end up back in their draft, I would decide to coast a little too long to rest and fall back out of the draft. It was all I could do to hang on. I was able to hang on until the rest stop and all 3 of the guys commented on my pull and how they were REALLY impressed that I was able to hang with them. I felt REALLY proud of myself at that time, I almost needed a bigger helmet my head was swelling so much :)

We took an extended break at this rest stop and then headed back out, this time directly into the wind, but there was only 15 miles left to go, so that was really comforting. My body did not feel too bad considering what I put it through, so I was a little suprised. With about 5 miles left to go I took another turn at the front as it seemed like the other 3 guys were about as spent as me. I pulled until 2 miles left to go and then turned the reigns back over to the guy that seemed like he would have been content to pull the entire way.

We made it back to the HS, and we all said thanks for the ride to eachother and headed our seperate ways. I had a lot of fun today and hope that next year is just as nice.

Not much

10 minutes of stretching