Poker Ride and more

My cards were a seven, six, three, Jack, and a nine. Needless to say, I didn't have a winning but this is how it goes sometimes.

This morning, I either purposely or by accident put way too much on my schedule. Funny, how easy something sounds when I think about it, but when I actually do it; the difficulty really starts to sink in.

At 4:31 AM, the alarm goes off. By 5:15 I have everything loaded in the car that I will need for one really hard brick workout.

6 AM, I met Megan and Mike for 10 miles with 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 taking half recovery between each hard interval. Not much really to say about this workout other than, I am getting old and slow. I thought I could at least stay close, but my legs just would not cooperate. I was dragging up the rear on every interval.

To honest, I was actually glad to get back to car.

But then, I looked at my watch and saw that it was 7:25. I had 25 minutes to make it over to TrySports, register for the Poker Ride, and put on my bike clothes.

Not sure how I did it, but I rolled in to the parking at 7:45. Ran into the store registered, and ran back to my car to get ready.

7:55 I rolled to the front of the store, cycling clothes on – check, bike – check , Garmin – check, and water bottles – check. I was ready to go.

If you are not familiar with a Poker ride, basically, we go to 5 locations. At each location, we were given a playing card. The cyclist with the best Poker hand once we get back to TrySports is declared the winner. This was my first Poker Ride, so it added something new to the over ride.

Since TrySports is off of Rea Road, we hit 5 locations on the south side of the city: Sports Connection, downtown Waxhaw, Harris Teeter over by Providence Road, Rush Espresso, and the Ballantyne YMCA.

TrySports was expecting about 60 cyclists to show up but ended up having 107 riders. Proceeds from the ride went to the Y children outreach program.

So with 107 riders, they broke us up into two groups. One group rode about 17-18 while another group rode 15-17.

I was in the first group and doing well, until we got the Rush Espresso. My legs were finally started to balk from fatigue. Luckily, we only had about 10 miles left in the ride.

Overall, I wish I had more kick in my legs but I muddle through.

There was some food and drinks at the store and I met some new people. Saw Glen, Kent, Billy, Jerry, Rob, Rob, Andre, Stan, Jinnie, Coy among others at the store.

I wish I could have hung out longer, but I still had stuff to do and more places to go today.

By the way, here are some pictures from the ride. I took my cell phone along and uploaded them as we rode. It is kind of like in race reporting.

 

Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner