E’s Rock

Ok so this wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be. In fact, I was adamant about staying away from the whole “group” thing for the coming weeks…at least while this ‘eye’ issue completely resolved itself.

With that said, I’m not quite sure if it was just the name of the event (PUMPKIN PATCH PEDAL) or just the fact that the words “pumpkin patch” got me all nostalgic, bringing back memories as a kid going “hunting” for pumpkins with the 1000 other pre-schoolers. Maybe a combination of both.

Be it as it may, it was a total last-minute thing and due to somewhat personal reasons, I didn’t want to be at home. I had to get outside and ride. And if it meant riding for 4 hours, meeting up with a good number of friends, having a good time and enjoying the outdoors…what the hel.

I popped in my contact lenses for the first time and off we go.

Somehow it was decided that the 62-mile course was the plan. Being that I haven’t officially ridden in…hmm…5 weeks, the 62 miles seemed like a stretch. The only riding prior to this outing were a few hours on the trainer, watching Grey’s Anatomy (don’t ask me how or why), spinning to get the legs back in action.

Well, as LJ (or is it JL? who the hex is JL?) so [URL=”http://www.westwoodvelo.com/showthread.php?t=2527″]eloquently put it[/URL], they might as well have called this the Tour de Pumpkin or something of sorts. (Though to this day I’m still looking for those dang pumpkins.) From start to finish it was a single pace-line, 20mph avg, from the second we left the parking lot 5 miles from the start to the time we got back to the car. 72 miles total. (I’m not sure if people just see the Westwood uniform and automatically default the ride to hammer-fest, “Hey guys let’s drop the hammer until one of these WWV guys cracks.”) Not exactly the ride I wanted but super-fun nonetheless. Got to catch-up with old buddies here and there…definitely nice seeing everyone out there still in good form.

The ride was about having fun and just being out with friends. So with that, the watt and HR numbers were all over the place and nowhere specifically.

In case anyone’s interested, same gang, give or take a few, will be doing a ride through Round Valley on Nov 4th. This could change though.