Ride Around Marshall

Sunday April 9, 2006

Sunday morning. It came a little early after a night of gazing dreamily at my new beloved, my yellow Gunner singlespeed with the big, beautiful wheels, clean lines and promises of sweet rides to come. The plan was a ride around Marshall, VA., some place I'd never been to. Mike Scardaville and I had been planning a ride in the Frederick, Maryland area with some big climbs, but thought it would be fun to ride with others. Mark Wigfield had sent out an email a couple of days earlier to organize the Marshall ride, but it didn't come together until late Saturday.

10:30 AM we make it to the community parking lot in Marshall. Mark is on his sweet new Trek 5000 all carbon frame. Damn that thing is light! It must be like riding a feather. Susan Driano was going on the ride as well on her yellow LeMond, and of course Mike was there on his cross bike. I wasn't sure what to expect out of the ride, but it was in a picturesque area. It was a weird temperature. Standing around we were hot, but when we got out on the road with some wind it was quite chilly. The first half of the ride was kind of flat, with a bit of up and down. I was feeling really good that day, and it showed in the second half of the ride when we encountered the two small mountain climbs. I just felt really good going up them. Well, not good exactly, because I was suffering; I guess strong would be a better word. And for someone who "wasn't in shape", Mark was damned strong and climbing like a demon. Man he made me work going up those two mountains!

The final mileage was 54.9 according to the GPS and I felt every mile. I was really surprised at how tired I felt. It took enough out of me that Monday was a long drawn out day of staring out the window and drinking cup after cup of weak and thoroughly sub-standard office coffee in an attempt to gain some kind of focus.

Chalk up one more really good training ride for the year. I feel like Mike and I are far ahead of where we were last year at this time in terms of fitness. It could be a very good year for racing...