Time to catch things up.

On Saturday, I went riding with Mike & the guys from Epic bikes. The weather wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't raining & it was starting to clear up a bit by the time we left. The roads were still wet, but that was ok. We had 4 of us riding total. We did the Jordan Hill loop. I really like riding that loop, it's mainly rolling hills, but the last part of the ride is really the fun part. We rode like Mike usually has the group doing, going hard on certain sections of the ride, then taking it a bit on the easy side when someone starts to drop back. We hit Jordan Hill & I was in a 53 x 17 hoping to get up the hill without shifting, that was not to be, I made it up about 2/3's of the way before having to downshift to a 53 x 19. We regrouped after that & cruised through Hampton. Once we hit Mt. Carmel, it was the fun part of the ride. Mike let me lead & I started pushing it. I kept the speed between 24-26 mph, then my legs started to cramp up. I just kept going a bit farther. My legs started to cramp up even more by now. Mike noticed that I was slowing down & passed me, encouraging me to get on his wheel. I somehow was able to catch up & he was pulling me at 28+ mph. After the ride was over, I cleaned up my bike a bit & got ready for the fitting I had scheduled. Mike told me he had been watching me while we were riding & already had some ideas on what needed to be changed on my bike. He told me he was going to shorten my stem because I was too stretched out & he raised my saddle a bit. He told me that should help me with getting more power to the pedals & should help my climbing. On Sunday I put the new position to the test. I rode with the group leaving from The Bike Store. The new position felt comfortable & during the ride, I noticed that it did help with my climbing. I actually tried chasing Charles on one of the climbs & seemed to be closing in a bit. Later in the ride, a few of the guys tried attacking & I was able to catch up to them & hang in there contesting the sprint. I haven't been able to do that before. On Monday after work I went & did intervals. I did 5 minutes as hard as I could go & then 5 minutes easy. I finished 5 sets of intervals after a 15 minute warm up. My legs were a bit sore to say the least. Today it was raining so I was on the trainer doing a pyramid workout. It was one tough workout & I know I'm going to feel it tomorrow. Mike says that tomorrow is going to be a steady tempo ride on the small ring to workout the soreness from the past two workouts. I'm looking foward to taking it a bit easier on the bike. I'm getting ready for the race weekend it Perry. I'll get several chances to pre-ride the course during the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned for more.....