I guess the climbing was the same going the other direction but my legs sure did think they were hurting a lot more than usual!
Our Team Manager called a team meeting for last night and the team got together for a "no one gets dropped" road ride. We did the normal World's routem but backwards. Boy those hills seemed long coming from the other direction. But maybe it was just my head playing silly tricks on me. It does that when I can't breather and oxygen is in short supply. We had about half the team show up for the ride with a good mix of Cat 2 and Cat 5 riders. Even though it was a drop no one ride, there was no way I was hanging with Scott S., Scott M., and Dave. Man, they are fast going up hills.
Been fighting a cold since last weekend (the joys of having kids) so I was not feeling 100% but decided to do the ride anyway. And I was happy I did. I pulled up the rear, not last, but towards the rear, and I felt decent. I needed a good lung burning to get the body back and give it a little shock.
After the ride, most of the other team were waiting at Keith's house up on Emerald Mt. to begin the food and festivities, oh, and also a meeting. Festivities were kept under control with tea, cokes and lemonade. Nobody got naked and nobody tried throwing a 720 off the rooftop. It was a good chance to sit down with a few of the guys that I had not had as chance to hang out with yet and talk.
Food included organic angus beef hamburgers (they rocked) and hot dogs (not organic, not even beef, more like lips and tongues) with all the fixings, chips, fruit, homemade salsa, redneck caviar... I think we were pretty well taken care of and stuffed by the time dinner was over.
Meeting ran long, don't they all. We discussed everything from the 2007 cyclocross season and the races we are hosting to our new gloves to future races to past races to global warming and everything in between. Maybe we need to have meetings more often but at least we got a lot accomplished.
HUGE thanks goes out to Keith and his wife for opening their house up to a bunch of two-wheel junkies. I think we have a pretty good group of guys and gals on our team!
