Jun-3

Jun-3:

PUE: FireStation + DocN-Patterson-Kemp; w/ Jessica, Melissa, Julia; 32.4 miles, 1hr, 55min, 16.8 mph avg pace.

1st Qt. tot: 20 rides; 755.3 m.; 47 hrs, 31 min; 15.9 mph.
Apr tot: 13 rides; 666.4 m.; 42 hrs, 58 min; 15.5 mph.
May tot: 14 rides, 803.1 m.; 50 hrs, 39 min; 15.8 mph.
Jun tot: 1 ride, 32.4 m.; 1 hr, 55 min; 16.8 mph.
YTD: 48 rides; 2257.4 m.; 143 hrs, 3 min; 15.8 mph.

I had tentatively planned to do a 30-ish mile ride from BJP at around 5 pm. Then I got an e-mail from Jessica: I knew what it would say even before I opened it: "is 'such-and-such' a reasonable late afternoon route?" "Standard" lake loop starting from PUE @ 5:30 -- that would be okay. A little harassment on my part and a (probably) not-entirely-meant invitation to join J & M for their ride.

I went to BJP a little early and prepped the bike, thinking to warm-up until J & M started their ride. But then I thought "what if they start 15 or 20 minutes late, and there is a mechanical or something? I might be pushing the 9 pm closing time for BJP mighty fine." I decided to drive the car and bike over to PUE.

I rode only 2 1/2 miles round trip from PUE to the Bayleaf fire station on Norwood near Creedmoor Rd, returning to PUE just a couple minutes before 5:30. No Jessi, no Melissa, but I recognized a friend of Jessi's whose name turned out to be Julia. About 5:35, Melissa arrived, and a few minutes later Jessi arrived. About 5:47 I started riding, hoping the others would be right behind me -- we were already looking at 8:17 or so for a finish time if we had no problems and took no breaks.

I would have been better off continuing to ride "warm-up" instead of standing in the PUE parking lot waiting for J & M to be ready, as when we got to Old Creedmoor Rd, Melissa took the lead and instantly was dragging us at a pace that I thought I might regret later -- either worn out or my right leg might become painful. A little past half-way between Kemp and Coley, Melissa appeared to drift slightly to the left, so I quickly asked if she was pulling out; I tried to make it sound like I was just asking an informational question, not make it sound like the prayer it actually was. Luckily, after pulling strongly for those 3 + miles, Melissa was ready to drift to the back of the line and I took over the lead.

I tried to come close to matching the pace that M had set, but wanted to back off the equivalent of about a mile per hour as I thought that would be just enough slower to allow my right leg to warm up without suffering bad consequences. I stayed in the lead for the rest of Carpenter Pond and then pulled out so that Jessi could lead us across Leesville Rd. The pace and terrain was now such that I could handle both while still continuing to warm up. Two of us needed nature breaks by the time we turned onto Doc Nichols, so the women road a completely separate ride than I did on the Doc.

I think I took the lead when we pulled away from the stop sign at Doc Nichols / Olive Branch -- not because I was all that interested in leading again, but because with the initial half-mile downslope, I knew I would be better off in the front where my gravity advantage would be a boon and not the hinderance it would have been had I been behind the three svelt women. After a LONG wait for cars at NC-98, we finally managed to do the six-tenths of a mile on the highway across to Patterson. Again, I wanted to stay in the lead, at least for the first long downslope run on Patterson. At the first upslope, all three women passed me and then I just dangled off the back all the way across to Cheek.

As we approached Cheek, the weather seemed to be closing in, the wind picked up significantly, and there was one bright flash of lightening. During a quick pow-wow, we decided the smarter thing to do would be turn and get back to PUE as fast as we could. I don't know if I was finally warmed up, if the terrain on Patterson from Cheek to NC-98 favors my limited "climbing" abilities, or if I was more scared about the lightening than the women, but on almost every upslope I found that I would have to back off my pace because they were dropping me off their front. After careful consideration during the latter part of that 3 1/2 miles, and needing a wedge with which to harass Jessi & Melissa in the future, I decided to go with the story that "warmed up, I just was a faster climber". This will allow me to repeatedly point out to them how much stronger they would be if only they joined the Irregulars once in a while on Saturday mornings instead of just leaching the cue sheets. Yep, that's it: the slowest climber of the Irregulars is a faster climber than the svelt women.

I think the three women plotted a kind of revenge for the first climb on Kemp: after crossing the bridge at the bottom of the first valley, all three of them went past me like I was standing still. Sort of like all five of the guys did last Saturday at an interesting point in the Range Rover ride. I chuckled to myself. Esp. when Jessi & Julia slowed and I began to reel them back in well before reaching that first summit near Virgil; they gotta' realize that if you're gonna' make a statement goin' upslope, you gotta' carry that statement all the way to the top. Anyway, I swooped around Jessi & Julia on the way down to the bottom of the second valley, catching Melissa just as we got to the really bad surface that is nothing but patches. Melissa slowly pulled away on the climb up to Coley, and Jessi & Julia appeared to be deep in important conversation and just mosied their way up. This pattern repeated on the last valley and climb on Kemp leading up to Carpenter Pond.

By the time we reached Carpenter Pond, I had decided to turn the ride back to PUE from Cheek into a long "hot interval", so I pressed the pace all the way to Mt. Vernon Church Rd and then across to NC-50. Melissa stayed in my slip-stream the entire way; I think Jessi & Julia may have continued their engrossing conversation. As I usually do when ending a ride at PUE, I backed off some on the last climb on MVC up to PUE, but not as much as I usually do. The women all swept past and zoomed up the hill in good time.

As we approached PUE, the women informed me that they were going to add more miles to get to their desired 40-mile ride; I chose to stop because I had accomplished my original goal for the day: a 30-ish mile fast (?) tempo ride. I also thought the young women might enjoy their post-ride conversation a bit more if there wasn't an "old guy" hanging around.

And I also had some ammunition with which to harass J & M for the coming weeks. The only question is how much harassment will be too much. After all, they are are sugar and spice, not nails and puppy dog tails, so I don't know that I can conduct a six month harassment program as I did with Iva. And teasing Iva about probably having turned his bike into a couple new golf clubs is better material for amusing harassment than teasing the svelt women about how I out-climbed them when it counted.