The rain began to fall as we rolled out from Finley Stadium on the 3 State 3 Mountain century. It began to pour as we crossed the top of Suck Creek Mountain (which was absolutely gorgeous, by the way). The descent was a bit scary, and it pretty much killed my brake pads. A lot of people at the bottom were gathered under any type of overhand they could find because at that point, the rain was torrential. A lot of people quit and called on friends to come and pick them up. I ate a powerbar and pressed on, and eventually the rain let up to a steady pelt rather than a constant dump. I warmed up and found a nice-paced group to stick with.

I had all intentions of riding the century, but for some reason, I was feeling homesick. When we reached the turnoff for the metric century, I bailed. Figuring I should make the best of my shortened ride, I put my head down and rode into the headwind at a steady sub-threshold/tempo pace. I passed one guy and didn’t think much of it. A little while later, I heard something behind me. Looking back, I realized that I had a train of about 5 guys sitting on my wheel. It was kinda funny. I kept going and one of them thanked me for pulling him around.

I didn’t care. It was good training, and, when you’re in front, you don’t get water spray in your face. I felt kinda bad for making the trip and only going 62 miles (2 states, 1 mountian!), but I was happy to get home before dark.

Today Ryan and I rode to the Cory Horton Cycle for Safety ride. On the way out, I stayed with the front group. The pace got a little bit brutal at times, but I was motivated to keep up by Maggie, an uber-strong tri-lady who was making it look easy. I told her she needs to road race.
When the group left the turnaround point, I didn’t even attempt to ride back with them. Instead I took it (sort of) easy and rode/talked with another rider who I graduated with from U of M. Eventually, I met back up with Ryan, who had left the front group and turned around to ride back to me. At that point, I was fried. Along the way back, I felt a bonk coming on, so I ate a powerbar (note to self- I like powerbars…Â need to get another box!) and stopped to watch some incredibly noisy guinea fowl wandering around next to the road. It headed off the bonk, but I was still hurting by the time we got home. I think that the hard ride out combined with using Ryan’s spare compact crank (with 175mm arms)Â zapped my legs and made my knees ache a bit (though I did adjust the saddle for the modified crank size… it’s still different from what I’m used to).

Now, it’s time to clean some gutters and move some gravel.