Getting dropped

It's been a woeful year for me on the bike, if all I'm looking at is numbers. Otherwise it's been OK, as the few that I have logged in this year have all been memorable, in their own ways. By now I usually have a couple of thousand miles in my legs (based on 100 mile weeks over 6 months, give or take a few low mileage or no mileage weeks). The weekly club rides are never a problem when my base is laid.

I MAYBE have 350 miles in this year, if I'm charitable. It's no wonder that I'm being dropped like a bad habit on rides that normally are easy. In recent years (and especially when I tried to race), getting dropped was usually a trigger of increasing self-doubt and teeth gnashing which begat all kinds of lame conversation with whoever would listen to the self-loathing. As I hate to hear that as much as the next person, I try to clam up when the discussion of in-season form comes up during the small talk. It's all hollow.

Getting dropped often this year, however, has been kind of liberating. I'm not going to be involved in the animated competition that takes place during the rides because I simply can't hang right now. This is a brutal sport, in which one needs to train consistently hard just to suck. Riding alone gives me ample opportunity to resolve things bangin' around my head, of which there has been a lot of activity lately.

A couple memorable moments from my few rides this year, and lessons learned.

1. Don't eat 4 chorizo breakfast burritos before riding from Herndon to Silver Spring via Poolesville. The demands of the GI tract are much louder and more irrational than most human urges, and certainly harder to control voluntarily. I started that ride with arm warmers; I no longer have those in my wardrobe.

2. When embarking on the annual century with the intention of riding only half of it, I plan on paying attention to where I am so that I don't end up riding 20 miles shy of the 100. While I didn't bonk, I cramped in muscles that were buried in other muscles, numerous times. Stupid is as stupid does.

3. Realize that getting dropped in places where I used to lose contact when I started riding seriously again 5 years ago is because I'm at about the same form now that I was then.

Duh.