Sunday Group ride

Today I did my local Sunday Group ride, a staple of my training year round, but especially at this time of the year because it is some of the only race simulation I get. Although the group is usually only 5 to 20 people, all the local hammers show up, including cat. 1's, 2's and 3's and a lot of other strong riders. Today, 11 people started out but after an hour or so 6 people had turned off or been dropped. That made a group of five left including: My Dad, a strong cat. 4, Greg Combs, a strong masters rider and cat. 1, Justin Beard, also a 1, and myself.

After warming up it became apparent that today wasn't going to be the hammer fest I had hoped for, but rather a steady, not-super-hard tempo ride. None of the remaining 5 got dropped until the cool down when me, my Dad, and another person chose to hold off warming down as we were going to ride for 20 more minutes than the other 2 were.

After my Dad and I got back to the bike shop where we started, we still had another 30 more minutes to go until we completed the goal of 3:45 total ride time, so we rode around for a while in downtown Southern Pines and then raced up the Connecticut Road Hill, the longest climb in my area at 260 feet of elevation gain. When my Dad pushed the pace at the base of the climb, I thought he had the win but somehow I stayed with him and attacked on the steepest section. Surprisingly I stayed away and won the race to the top.

After that we cooled down for 10 more minutes and then drove home, ending a nice long group ride. I don't have all the power stats yet since I haven't downloaded my Power meter but I do know we rode for 3 hours 35 minutes, and went 62 miles.