Getting my legs back...

In cycling, once you get a good level of performance, you have to keep on riding to maintain that endurance. Anything that takes you away from riding totally destroys all that you have worked for. I have missed a couple of rides due to hurting my ankle, and just plain nasty weather. Just a couple days off the saddle and I totally feel like I'm the slowest guy out there. On sundays ride I attempted to go out with the elite riders only to get dropped three times!!! I knew right from the start of the ride that I would struggle because my legs felt like if I was pedaling through sand. Not a good feeling to have when your trying to stay up with a group that doesn't go under 24 mph!!

Today I went out for my first ride since monday because of bad weather. I felt as if my legs were coming back. The clay feel was gone. We set out for a good 50 mile ride. Right away my front derailler did not want to switch to the large chain ring so I was stuck pedaling at 100+ rpm the whole ride. We rode out to military road and headed towards McAllen. Sergio and Billy came along for the ride. Thinking we were going to do a regular endurance ride I let Billy and Sergio pull for a little while then Sergio picked up the pace a bit. A whole 17 mph he was going before he said he was winded!!! Yea he has been off the saddle for a bit too. Seeing that Sergio was falling back Billy told me we should try and do an attack to drop Sergio. I said ok and started to gun it. Billy took his place on my wheel and off we went hitting a good steady 24 mph pace leaving Sergio eating Billy's dust. After Billy put in a couple of his pulls we switched to neutral so Sergio could catch up. Sergio mentioned to Billy that he had seen such an improvement in his riding that he himself better step it up or he would be getting dropped every ride.
Sergio put so much effort to catch up to us that he almost passed out. Billy felt accomplished. He felt what it was like to drop someone. I am always glad to provide these moments for other riders. Lol.

We took it easy the rest of the way as to not put so much punishment on Sergio. Off days are a pain when you get back on so don't out do yourself. If you attempt to hang with the big boys on a bad day you will get dropped like a bad habit as I was on Sunday and Sergio was today. All in all it was a good 2 and a half hour ride and I burned lots of calories.