Survived

Today on facebook I posted that I survived. What did I survive? My very first Peddler ride. (I did not say I actually hung on the whole ride, just survived). :)

Memphis people know which ride I am talking about. It is the one that I pulled up to this morning and saw only men, 40 or so of them, in team uniforms, way way faster than I can only dream of being. Practically every single guy on my team was there, and they are super fast. Then all of these super fast roadies. Then me. Thankfully Laura showed up for support.

This is the ride that I have found a million excuses to avoid, even though it starts a mile from my house. It is too fast for me. I will never keep up. I am not strong enough. I can't wake up that early to ride. I can't surge with roadies. I can't sprint. Lots of cant's.

The ride was exactly how I imagined it would be, and I liked it! This huge group heads down the road. It is pitch black and you can't see anything in front of you on the road. First scary thing was beating the train. Beating a train on your bike at 5:45 am in the dark. Smart. Then it was just riding with roadies- the movement, the weaving, going in and out of neighborhoods to get to the big roads. Doing everything possible to avoid being that person getting stopped at a light or by a car- because you will never catch back up.

Then came the sprints- or I guess the start of the real ride. I was actually hanging on. I even needed to pass some guys because I realized that they were falling back, causing me to lose touch with the group. I tried to focus on just staying with the back of the group. It was fast- but fun too!

I realized, though, that I couldn't see Laura. One thing we had talked about was not leaving each other on this first ride since we didn't really know the route. I had no clue if she was in front of me or behind me in the darkness. Well, you can't lose concentration on this ride or you will be off of the back, if you are a rider like me that is just barely hanging on. So, after a mile or so of worrying, I started to drop back and then got caught at a light. I waited for Laura but never saw her. A couple of guys were behind me, but they said they had not seen a girl. I could only hope I had missed her and she was really in front of me, or she had turned around and just did her own thing. (Found out later she had some mechanical probs and didn't know her way around the city enough to meet back up with the group).

Total edit, which I normally don't do to my blog. I want to make it clear that with a little lapse in concentration and completely burning quads, I was off of the back and fading. Waiting for Laura was just convenient- otherwise I was riding going to be riding with some strange guy that was dropping back too!

I finished the ride solo and still got in a good ride- especially for me in the early morning. Who would have ever though I would wake my very non-morning self up for a ride?

It was so fun to not have any more excuses to get out there. Yes, the ride is way too fast for me. But, there were other people that struggled to stay up. And, how will I ever get better at doing the ride if I don't get out there and do it? So I am going to just try to hang on a little further each time I go- make goals to make it to the next street or light before getting dropped. I am super proud of myself for actually attempting to get out of my comfort zone and forcing myself to do something I feared- I pulled up the BGPs this morning.