Georgia On My Mind

The kid, Big Worm, and I met at the old Miccosukee school at 10:00 last Saturday morning for another Ric Silk designed clay roads ride.  Ric and Big Jim The Awesome (BJTA) had rolled from Ric's house with a route that totaled 120 miles so we had planned to meet them on the road somewhere as we headed north.  I only needed 4 hours of easy riding to complete a light week of the OMTP and the map I'd briefly looked at the night before had shown 65 miles total for our abbreviated route.  The kid was not jumping up and down to go, he had had a tough experience on the last Silk death march, but he figured he could do 65 miles.  He'll learn not to listen me someday.

As you may have already figured out the 65 miles did not include our whole ride.  The map started from Metcalf, which looked a lot like Miccosukee the night before without my glasses.  Since we had started at Miccosukee it added almost 20 miles to the ride.  This didn't dawn on me until after we crossed Ga. 84 north of Dixie and we were over 2 hours in.    Please don't get me wrong, I love going on these rides and I really appreciate being allowed to tag along.  I'd have just put on a little more chamois butter if I'd have looked at the map correctly and maybe left the kid at home.  Anyhoo, once again, I am NOT whining.

I started to get the feeling the kid and I were in trouble at two and a half hours when BJTA got to the front and we were doing 20 mph on a wash board rocky dusty road.  He had those "angry calves" he gets when he's in his training mode.  The kid started to fade off the back.  When we got to the next paved road I got Ric to show us a bail out back to Boston and the kid and I took pavement into town.  There is a world of clay roads and beautiful paved roads in the Boston Ga. area, it begs to be explored further.

We rejoined the group at a store and rolled out together, but not for long.  Since they had more miles to cover and really wanted to up the pace, they waved goodbye and disappeared into the distance.  Big Worm kept us company for a little while when even he felt the need to ride faster.  By this time I knew I didn't want to put this much pressure on my legs at this point in the OMTP so the kid and I put it in survival mode and just enjoyed the scenery.

Five and a half hours after we left we were back in Miccosukee.  Big Worm was lounging on his tail gate enjoying the cool breeze.  83 miles on the clock.  I am soooooo impressed by Silk and BJTA.  I don't know if I'll ever have that kind of leg.  Forty miles further?  Plus a faster pace?  Of course they are all between 10 and 20 years younger than I am.  Is that an excuse, well, kinda.

On the way home the kid was happier after a stop at the store for junk food.  He felt a little bad since this was the second time in a week he had caused me to cut a ride short (he flatted at the end of the warm up lap on our first Joe's ride last Wednesday).  By the time we got home he was feeling good about the trip.  You know how that goes.  We watched Paris-Roubai that night and had a new appreciation of what that must be like.

Even though I burned 5000 plus calories I still gained 2 pounds.  This seems to be common for me after longer rides.  My fueling system on the bike still needs work as my food got stuck together and was hard to eat.  According to my OMTP I shouldn't be doing rides longer than my race time.  I'm still a little stiff today and I've been off the bike for 2 days.  But you know the chance to go riding with friends on an amazing spring day couldn't be passed up just because of some stupid plan right?