John’s Ramblings

The weather was pretty nice today, but the forecast calls for a series of rain showers to move in for the next several days. When the call came in from Julie C. to go for an after-work ride, I figured this was my last chance to get a ride in for a couple of days. Probably a little bit too soon, given Monday’s exertions, but I need miles. Julie’s pretty fast, and I need the challenge as well. So the bike went back up on the car, and I headed out to Covington to meet up with Julie and another friend of hers, Dan.

I got on to Hwy 18 heading east, glanced at the dashboard and saw that my little gas light was on. I burned an entire tank coming home on Monday from Pendleton, especially because the traffic had been so awful from Ellensburg to Easton. I peeled off the highway at Auburn Way, and filled up before proceeding.

We set up our bikes at Julie’s and headed east on Kent-Kangley, the plan being to loop out to the Green River Gorge, Kanasket, Ravensdale, and back on some devious route that Julie had acquired from a racer friend. The ride started uphill, and I was definitely feeling the fatigue in my thighs from Monday’s climb up Cabbage Hill. On the flat sections, I could fly pretty fast and we clipped along at 18+ mph. As soon as the pavement kicked up again, I was in serious energy deficit. By about the third climb, the little amber “out of gas” light went on in my head, and I decided to pull the plug before I got into serious trouble on the portion of Julie’s map that read “the wall”. I thanked my fellow riders, made my graceful exit, and spun back home at 18+ (except for those damn hills).

I’ll take a couple of days off now, in anticipation of the weekend. There will be an easy spin on Saturday with the Cascade Bicycle Club Newcomers Ride that I’m leading, then I’ll likely concoct some hammer-fest for Sunday with my buddy Kevin, weather permitting.

18 miles tonight, YTD 1,512 miles.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.