Crack of Dawn

I was able to see the sun rise this morning while getting ready for my ride. I was out the door by 7:15 and headed for Fryin' Guys to meet up with the St.CCC crew, big turnout today. A chest cough was added to my massive congestion this morning so I wasn't too sure how the ride was going to go. It was the hilly route today on top of that.

There was a small break on the first climb that I was letting go but I started to feel good and bridged up before the top, the wind was so much warmer on top of the escarpment it was unreal, like 5 degrees hotter, maybe more. The next climb went much better and I stood up and put a good solo effort in and went back down to the last rider and came back up. My legs were feeling a little burnt and I was coughing and blowing out massive amounts of mucus but other than that I wasn't feeling too bad at all. The next big climb I followed an attack at the bottom and we battled it out until Nathan Chown came flying by us and there was no chance for a response. We did some good tempo into the headwind and I was taking some long pulls and there was still no sign of being cooked, if only I had rode like this yesterday.

We did a sort of figure 8 loop and made our way to Mountainview climb which would be the longest one of the day. I broke away early and stayed away for quite some time until a group of 6 or so caught me and I sat in for a bit and broke away again, this would end up being my best effort of the day. On top of the climb the 7 of us started an echelon and Chown put out a massive attack and would survive until Smithville. He had us working hard in the echelon to bridge and one by one people were dropped until there was 3 of us that joined him and we spun easy into Smithville.

After Tim's the group split up and there was 5 of us (including Rob Watt and Jeff Moote) battling the headwing until we climbed Saylor's and parted ways. When I got home I went right to my bed and was unable to move for half an hour until I got up to make some food and now I'm back in bed. Lots of fluids and vitamin C and we'll see what tomorow brings.