Back on the Back

The streets were almost dry when I left home this morning to see how many people would be waiting at the Morning Call for the last Northshore training ride of 2006. Considering that it was New Year's Eve, and there was a Saints game, I wasn't expecting many. As I drove into the parking lot, I looked around for the usual cars, but didn't see any, so I parked, half-expecting I'd be the only one today. Then I glanced over to my right and saw Tim. He said that a bunch of the Herring guys would be in town for the ride today. That could mean only one thing -- it was going to be a couple of notches faster than usual, for sure. I think we had at least a dozen riders, maybe 15, at the start. Scott K went to the front right out of the gate and pulled steadily into the wind at 22-23 mph for the first five miles. I wondered if it was a good idea for me, on my first real ride in over a week, to be diving into the deep end this way. We lost a couple of guys within the first ten miles, as the pace stayed significantly faster than usual. I was being careful to keep my pulls short and sweet, and wasn't hesitating to let the blue guys into the paceline ahead of me. Jay and Jaro had also been sick over the holidays, and were keeping low profiles. Scott was hammering up all the climbs and by the time we were 25 miles in, the strain was starting to show. We waited at an intersection to regroup, but the rest of the group sent Jason up to tell us to go ahead, so it was down to six guys and me. After that, Kenny and I were keeping toward the back as much as possible! Tim flatted about halfway through the ride and I swear it took two inner tubes and three CO2 cartridges to get it fixed.

Anyway, we ended up with around 70 today with an average speed of something in excess of 22 mph. I was actually really happy to find that I felt pretty good toward the end, and even though I had obviously been doing as little work as possible, it was nice to know that I hadn't lost quite as much fitness as I had feared. It was nice to end 2006 with a good ride!