Strava: http://app.strava.com/rides/4439398 (Used Todd's since mine malfunctioned and Shannon got a flat just before the 73)
Since it was a beautiful day outside, we opted to hit the BB CDM NPC Vista route vs. the Starcrest route that I had solicited earlier. The winds were fairly tame and the sun just felt good...for me anyway. It was a good sized group that came out with Shannon, Todd, Hiroshi, Jaffe, Vin, Seon and Marc making it out with me.
I had disclaimed up front my plans to take it easy given my recent admission of being an "overtrainer;" the first step to resolving a problem is admitting you have one...write that down. I was content to ride the back for the most part just to manage my heart rate given recent rides should have killed me, but I still did my share of work when I felt the need.
Todd and Vin had a little breakaway on Back Bay, so I sat to watch Shannon up front holding the chase group together. I think there may have been one rotation out to help him, but Shannon led a lot probably muttering the whole time "wtf!" At some point, guilt got the best of me and I decided to help close the gap on Todd and Vin jumping up front to pull also. Once we caught them, I was again fine with just being a shadow.
When we got on Jamboree, Todd and Shannon had gone straight but the rest of us made the left turn light. Hiroshi and Jaffe (or was it Seon) took off and Vin held the front of the chase group. However, I got up front to help and somehow managed to stay up front keeping a fairly reasonable pace but still not closing on the two ahead. Todd and Shannon had caught up to our group at some point, so by the time we hit Avocado, we all were pretty much together.
Hiroshi and Vin had broken away at one point again through CDM, but I think they were caught sometime just after getting back on PCH. I didn't want to be part of the chase, so I held back from being in the chase group and just managed a decent pace on PCH with either Jaffe or Marc in tow. Ultimately, we ended up catching up to everyone at the light to cross onto NPC.
Up to this point, I had done pretty good with keeping my heart rate down, but I knew the climb would still be taxing. Once the light turned green, everyone took off and I just started a pace that I thought I could hold off the seat going up. Despite the lights, I did manage to get by Marc, Jaffe, and Seon in that order but Vin and Hiroshi were just ahead of me. Shannon and Todd were up there.
On Vista, I did the same thing and managed to find a rhythm that let me get by Vin and Hiroshi, and finish just a bit behind Shannon at the top where Todd was waiting. Hiroshi came up after as did Vin, who kept going, and with no one in sight, we ended up going ahead.
On the left to San Joaquin, the 5 of us made our way to the horseshoe where Todd led initially. Shannon took over at some point, and I watched from the back to see if anyone would relieve him. Guilt set in again so I went to jump up to the front letting Shannon know to jump on, when Todd came by as did Vin to finish the loop strong.
Back on San Joaquin, the pace down hill was pretty fast where off the back, I had to work to close on Todd and Shannon who were bombing down. Eventually, the pace had gotten pretty fast after Marguerite so the 3 of us ended up breaking away from the others. Todd and Shannon were moving on McArthur and after skipping 1-2 rotations, I took my mandatory guilt pull. When Shannon opted to keep the pace up after Ford, I waved Todd on or face a relapse to my 12-step program.
Shannon ended up getting a flat on Bison, and after confirming he was okay where he was going to just walk back to BRCM since it was close, Todd and I went on and finished the ride.
The weird thing about this ride for me was, I was able to manage my HR better, but managed to acquire PRs on NPC and Vista. Hmmm....
Thanks for coming out, gents!
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