5:30am for real

So yeah, I joked earlier today that I only agreed to come down here because I knew there was a solid group ride that left every morning at 5:30 am

not sure i was joking, without it...  well i'd probably figure out how to make it work but it would be more challenging maybe more frustrating.

As it is now, my legs are destroyed from today, haven't ridden that hard in a while.  Wasn't anything impressive really, a few solid pace ramps, a few sprint lines, and what seemed to be just easy rolling riding and talking up there in the Southern Shores.  Maybe we were poking along, it was me, Matt and Gary and one other after the light on 158 after the first sprint point.  The one other dropped off after we headed north and started to pick up speed.  I rotated through the pace line, but man i was at a decent limit, legs felt rusty, ending all carboned up. Not good.

After the Kitty Hawk town line sprint (one of the segments - the bay drive push) I sort of opened up.  Felt better.  I didn't try and sprint for the final one on The Woods before we hit 158.  But I tagged along.  I need to work on my spin a bit i guess, esp since I kept shifting only to find I was still in the 12 and there's nothing smaller to go.  Me showing up at a pancake flat sand bar with a 46t big ring.

Hitting the little "hills" in Southern Shores actually felt good, no effort.  But when i got back I felt the ride.  Deceptively hard.  That or i'm really fucking out of shape.

Good group.  I'd get lost in that Southern Shores mess if I didn't have a guide. Check Matt's ride here or Gary's.  Man Gary had a long ride, sort of envious, i only add 10 miles to Matt's distance with where we are staying.

Can't wait for the morning. Also did that ride in the dripping sweat with 1/2 a small bottle of water.  No food, and only one swig of iced coffee before I left.  Maybe that explains the slightly sluggish feeling in the first couple sprints.

Maybe tomorrow the sensations will be better.

But feels silly talking about that when Myles and Adam are articulating serious shit.  I've been accused of using too much vinegar when i should use honey, JD likes to say you can get more flies with Honey, but sadly you usually catch more with vinegar.  In this case, I never saw the original rant but man it must have been beyond sour and right into the poison category based on how Myles and Adam and Mo and the rest piled on.  Huge props to Myles and what he said here.  There is some back story, and other stuff over in face place.  It is a good question. If you get the prize money will people show? Not always.  Get people to show first then build the prize list based on attendance? Chicken and the Egg thing.  What do you do, how do you make it work.

Title 9 is what I grew up with.  Sort of. I watched collegiate programs shift to have to balance participation, I saw it as a good thing.  But it didn't solve the inequity completely.  Participation.  Important.

Grown and build.  It is a process.  I like what the trend is with the swelling of the 3/4 women's race.  And yes people need to move up, to advance to the big girls race to make that work, or the back end will get discouraged and the top will wither.

The governing body doesn't do much to help with the equality and they almost seem to do less to push people to upgrade when they have the points.  They can only do what they can do, not knocking them, without them it would be different.

Cross is on all our minds.  All the time pretty much.

And that's a good thing.  Guys like Paul B think about it all year.  It takes a whole year to make this stuff work.  Same level of work goes into Magical Strings Celtic Yuletide Concerts.  There might be a week or so after w/o thinking about next year but often there is less than that.  I'm not unfamiliar with the process of making something monumental come off perfectly.  Mostly from the sidelines, but i notice stuff.  It is a flaw how much I notice.  It is what it is.

Thanks promoters.  Thanks for what you do.  Thank you for giving purpose to my pedaling

heddwch
G