I forgot how much it hurts. I hadn't been on a morning raid since August, August of last year, and I didn't recognize half the guys on the hill this morning which means I didn't know which wheel to follow. It's just like it was back in youth soccer, too, when lining up against a team you haven't played before. I always looked, but you can't judge the team's best players by their shoes, just as you can't judge the best riders by the bike; all you get is either the biggest purse, or the one most willing to spend the largest amount of their income on their bike and accessories, which often isn't who you want to follow.
So I just started riding, passing Packy Bonnor on the bottom, and then hurring to get on a wheel I didn't recognize just before the False Flats. But I should have waited for another wheel because I didn't last a minute on this group of three, the new (to me) group of hummingbirds and I was stuck in no man's land on the Flats deciding whether to push thru solo or wait for another. I did what I almost always do then and almost always shouldn't, which is just put the head down and push.
By the end, I think I'd passed a few more than passed me - what you hold on to when you can't reach the podium - and most definitely passed a few people in the last hundred yards to finish in 8:23, the 28th fastest time in 33 timed attempts over the last 18 months. Small victories, that not getting passed at the end part, which is I remembered after I rode the sprint pretty well, but not well enough to lose the hummingbird I never used to see in the Presidio, St Nick, who flew on by with fifty yards to go, leaving me a view of CYTOMAX spread across his bottom, getting further and further away, then closer and closer, but not close enough.
So I just started riding, passing Packy Bonnor on the bottom, and then hurring to get on a wheel I didn't recognize just before the False Flats. But I should have waited for another wheel because I didn't last a minute on this group of three, the new (to me) group of hummingbirds and I was stuck in no man's land on the Flats deciding whether to push thru solo or wait for another. I did what I almost always do then and almost always shouldn't, which is just put the head down and push.
By the end, I think I'd passed a few more than passed me - what you hold on to when you can't reach the podium - and most definitely passed a few people in the last hundred yards to finish in 8:23, the 28th fastest time in 33 timed attempts over the last 18 months. Small victories, that not getting passed at the end part, which is I remembered after I rode the sprint pretty well, but not well enough to lose the hummingbird I never used to see in the Presidio, St Nick, who flew on by with fifty yards to go, leaving me a view of CYTOMAX spread across his bottom, getting further and further away, then closer and closer, but not close enough.
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