One Can Ride...

Today was my first real ride post-Beach2Battleship. The ride was a charity ride for a local food co-op and was hosted by one of the bike shops I frequent in the area. Apalachee Cycle is pretty convenient to where I work and they have treated me so well when I was trying to get a bike fit, aerobars and the like I wanted to support them in any way I could. There were 2 rides on the agenda, a 30 miler and a metric century. Although I feel basically "recovered" from B2B, mentally I wasn't interested in sitting on a bike for 62 miles. I guess there is some mental recovery to be done... :)

I was a little nervous about the ride only because I didn't know anyone else that was participating. I didn't want to be the slow one in the group. (I guess that feeling never goes away). I got over that feeling real quick when I thought about how far I have come in the last six months. If I can do a century ride and an ironman by myself, I am pretty sure I should be able to do a 30 mile ride by myself, right? I even manage to annoy myself with the lack of confidence sometimes.

I unloaded my bike and rode over to the starting area in front of the store where everyone was gathered. One woman on a hybrid bike said something about her friend not being there to ride with her. The woman looked familiar to me and I realized it was a woman who had talked to me one day in the parking lot at Stone Mountain. She was just getting back on the bike and couldn't remember the hand signals for turns and had asked me to show her. I asked her if she was doing the 30 miler or the 62 miler. She said she was doing the 30 miler and then quickly added that she was capable of doing the 62 miler but had just run a half marathon last week. Another man said he was only riding 30 miles because he had to run 11 miles later that day. I thought it was interesting that they both felt the need to explain why they didn't go for the longer route. As if someone was judging them for not going for the metric century. I told them I was doing the 30 miler because I just didn't want to ride 62 miles, plain and simple. :)

I knew the ride was probably going to be hilly. It had been a couple of months since I had ridden many hills which is quite the trick living in Atlanta. If you want to ride flats you have to go out of your way to find them. In my case, I had been going to the Silver Comet Trail for the 4 weeks leading up to B2B. It is about a 45 minute drive from my house. If you want to just step out of your house and ride, you should expect to navigate quite a few hills.

I rode off and on with the man who had the 11 mile run later today. I asked him what he was training for (because most people don't do a 30 mile ride and follow it up with an 11 mile run for fun) and he said IM Florida. He said he was registered for 2012. I was kind of puzzled by the training that was already in progress; I guess he just wants to be REALLY prepared since the race is November 3, 2012.

The rest of the ride was kind of uneventful. Except for the hills. There were plenty of them. I even had to pull it into the granny gear on one particularly steep hill towards the end. Judge me if you want... HA HA.

Post ride, I headed to the gym to get some weight training in. I am trying to do that three times a week now. It can be initimidating with all the boys up there doing their thing but I just throw down my ironman water bottle and they know what's what. Ironman water bottle = instant credibility :)

In other news... I joined the sticker club today. Finally!