Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Saturday, November 03, 2007

OK...so today was the first Peach Peleton ride. The Peach Peleton rides are supposed to be Saturday long, steady distance (LSD) rides where a group of us from around the region sort of spin through central Georgia at around 18 or 19 miles an hour and build our base. After Christmas the rides get longer and harder as we move into "Tempo" miles. My usual preparation for the PP rides is to not eat the night before and on the morning. I drink a little extra caffeine to promote fat burning and then I ride for three hours at around 70-75% of my max heart rate. Given that this was the first one, I was looking forward to spinning and chatting with some guys I haven't seen in a long time.

We've got a pretty diverse group with a few 50+ triathletes (that seem to actually know how to ride in a group), a few of us 40ish psuedogeezers, several 30 somethings and finally a 17 year old who rides for the US Junior National Team (he spent two weeks in Europe late in the summer). A couple of guys are Cat 1/2 and the rest of us are strong Cat 4s so it's an interesting and fun mix. When things get a little faster after the year turns the goal for us slower older guys is to try and hang on to the fast guys' wheels when the attack zones start.

So I head down to Tarmac (my name for Macon) this morning looking forward to a great ride and as we gathered in the parking lot, Chad, the ride organizer, says that the plan has changed. Uh-oh, I think. Did he say there would be an attack zone? Oh no. I haven't eaten for this. Maybe they'll take it easy until then but I have my doubts. When people say attack zone it has a way of energizing things. Still, the weather was perfect and I was looking forward to my first group ride in about six months.

My fears were well founded. What was supposed to be an 18.5 mph ride ended up being a 20.5 mph ride. I spiked my heart rate to over 185 several times on hills. There was one time when the HR monitor read 194. Given that I'm 41 that's way over what my max should be. By the attack zone I was cooked and starving and so I sat up. Still there were some of the hardest hills on the route and I had to slog up those. Yikes!

Still, I had a great time and it was great to see the guys again. Best of all, no dizziness. Now I'll spend the most of the upcoming week recovering so that I can do it again next Saturday.

Thanks for Reading

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