Lilac Century Surprise

Jayne, Tony and I rode in the Lilac Century Surprise today. This is a charity ride for the local rotary club. It has various distances you can ride 100 mi,66,50,25 and 15 I think. It's very popular and riders of all ages and abilities participate. This was my longest ride so far this year. Previous long was 48 miles. What make this ride so tough is it is hilly.I'd love to be able to say exactly how hilly but we have a little disparity between my Garmin and Jayne's. Mine says we did ~2600 ft of climbing Jayne's say ~4000 ft. Felt more like 4000. I fell a little beat up but I rode pretty hard for the first 45 miles or so. I really freaked out coming down Charles hill. So much so that I was taking to myself, out loud, trying to calm myself down. I was only going 32 mph felt like 132. I'll be glad when I get over this pussy phase I'm going through. All in all it was a great ride and a great workout. This is the last last on my "recovery" week so a day off tomorrow then hit it hard on Tues.

Training has begun

Now that I'm back to training my shoulder is holding up fine. I have however discovered another problem. I seem to have turned into a pussy. Some may say I've always been a pussy, not to my face. But at any rate the problem seems to be a fear of a repeat crash. I've never had a problem going downhill fast. But now I seem to reach for brakes in situations that I would not have before the crash. Yesterday "The Hobbit" and I rode the Charles Hill loop. When we were going down Coolie Height, a hill I've gone down many many times without using my brakes, I was on the brakes the whole time. I was even telling myself to relax, just ride. But the whole time I was on the verge of panic. I know that with time this feeling will abate but right now it kind of takes the fun out of riding, at least downhill. The problem with that is around here most of our rides are hilly. Not to mention the race I'm training for has several thousand feet of climbing and decending. This is a side effect I think of getting old. When your young and dumb you have no fear. When you get old, things break, they take longer to heal and they leave a scar on your memory that is a constant reminder of what could happen. I liked it better when I didn't think it could happen to me.