Hi ladies:
I probably should start checking in on this thread as it's one of the first I read every day anyway.
>I did the group ride this morning and it kicked my butt! They
>were too fast for me.
I was the slowest girl. Bummer to be
>me! We went 31 miles and our average speed was 17mph.
Way to go! That's a great average for 31 miles! Nothing wrong with that at all. There are so many things that can change the average - winds, hills, traffic, pulling in a paceline, slowing down to wait. Heck, when I go with the guys, I'm the slowest girl, and I'm the only girl, but they still help me out. One guy even pushes me when I start to fall off of the pace. You just have to keep thinking that it will make you stronger. One thing for sure, you will get stronger, but so will they, so you have to get your head around it. The fast group that I rode with last year would ride fast and then slow down, ride fast, then slow down, so you got to recover from your efforts. Or they would push hard on a short hill, recover on the other side, letting everyone regroup. Now if it was a group that just went balls out the whole time, well, it would get discouraging to get dropped and have them waiting for me to catch up all the time. I was fortunate as the rides I joined in on were not their main training rides, more like recovery rides (or so they said at first). Then the rides got faster and faster due to the testosterone factor. I thought I was getting slower, no they were just speeding up!
This coming Thursday, our club is having a hill climb. Not like a time trial where you start out a minute apart, but a mass start (yep, like a race). I KNOW I will be last, and waaaaay last. I anticipate they will finish, come down the hill to me and ride up with me for the extra climbing. I've just got to do it anyway as it'll be good for me to push on an extended climb. Think I will get the ladies together and do an easy ride on Tuesday with them.
> There were a bunch of guys who had never met each other, so it was a
>big testosterone ride apparently.
This is soooooooooooooooo typical!!! Happens every time, unless it's more a recreational, casual ride. We have some really nice guy riders in our club (they are in their 50's, 60's and 70's) that don't care to impress. They do care about riders getting dropped and will fall back to ride with the slower ones, though they could easily ride faster if they wanted to.
There were 6 guys and 4
>girls. The other girls thought the whole group should have
>stayed together but they were too busy impressing each other.
>I don't think they should have had to wait (not that they did
>the whole time - a couple of guys did - even one who just went
>pro in cycling of all people - we compared heart rates - his
>was 120 mine was 178! - he's amazing).
When I'm working hard, but can sustain, mine is in the 150's, but everyone's different. If I hit my redline (wherever that is, just know my body is hurting for oxygen) too early or too often, I'm shot for the rest of the ride. I think part of the trick is to not redline so you can last at a faster pace longer, but it's tough when you're just trying to hang onto a fast group. A longer warmup helps me too. Really hard when they start out like a shot from a cannon.
Anyway, you will get
>faster riding with faster people, but that might have been a
>little too fast. I liked my pace much better. I think they
>ended up around 18mph, but they did a lot of waiting. I'm sure
>they're in the 20's easily without having to wait. It's just
>more motivation for me to drop some weight. Ideally I'd like
>to lose 10 pounds but realistically I think maybe 6.
A few years ago, I weighed probably 6 pounds less, but I ride better now, even on the hills. Something about power to weight. I would like to weigh a little bet less, but don't want to sacrifice power for it.
But who
>knows, maybe I will suprise us all! And it's only the
>beginning of the season, so I'm not going to give up.
You will improve!!! Glad you got a ride in, it's raining again today, sigh. Tomorrow is our club's group ride, but it probably isn't a fast one, however, when we get to hills, everyone does their own thing. Hopefully, we'll do at least 40 or more.
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I see you just emailed me, I'm off to check it out!
Jeanette
