Ow, ow, ow!

Holy crap! I can't walk down the stairs today. Well, I can. But it hurts.

Last night, I had the brilliant idea to do an hour and a half of hill repeats. I knew I was going to be riding with Coach Girl today, and Coach Girl always rides hard. So, I don't know what I was thinking. Went to bed last night thinking, "What was I thinking?"

So, leaving on the longish ride this morning, Coach Girl say, "So, I want to get this ride done in two and a half hours today. So we need to average over 20 mph." Okey, dokey. I take off pulling at 23 mph, a good pace. But at about 25 miles into the ride, I start to slide. I am starving my butt off! Very unusual for me. And I keep getting slower and slower. Cardio-wise I was fine, holding between zone 3 and 4. But my legs were toast.

"I gotta stop and get something to eat." We stop, I eat. Much better. We're off again. The hills don't seem so foreboding anymore. Once again, I'm pulling at 23 mph. But then, I give up my pull and Coach Girl takes off. I'm starting to hurt. My butt is aching, my hands and feet have gone numb.
"How come you can pull at 23, but you can't draft at 20?" comes the question.
"I dunno."
"Well, stop pulling for so long if you're going to burn yourself out."
Okay, I'll let you pull the rest of the way. Drafting is good.

We managed to get back just under our goal time: 2:29:28, 46.18 miles.

Oh, the best part of the ride was that there was a tri going on. We managed to get onto the tri's bike coarse just as the leaders were heading out on their bikes. People were cheering for us as we went by. It was great. You don't get that kind of attention every bike ride.