Another day, another mile

After next week's light 5hr recovery week, Build 1 will be in the history books. I wrapped up my 3rd week with the group ride. The route took us from Niceville, to Defuniak Springs and back to Niceville- a 70 mile loop. Even though I didn't feel super fresh on Saturday, it was a good thing I was feeling as good as I was. While most of the ride was fairly normal, albeit a slightly higher pace than usual, I had a couple of incidents that really pushed me to my limits.

We were on the homeward leg of the ride, and we'd already dropped a couple of riders. The group had just turned onto a military road that was gonna help us bypass some of the spring break traffic heading to the beaches. About a mile down the road and I slipped my chain. Maybe 15 seconds and I was back on my bike and moving, but that was plenty of time for a gap to develop...and a sizable gap at that. I was pushing hard to catch back on, as I didn't really want to spend the rest of the ride by myself. One of the group fell off the pace and after a few minutes I caught up to him. As I pulled along side of him I said "Let's see if we can't bridge up to the rest" and he said "ok". I continued with my pace, fully expecting him to sit on my wheel for a bit. After 2 or 3 minutes I look back and he was nowhere in sight. So much for getting some help.
The good news is I finally caught back up with them just as they were turning back onto the main road. About 10-12 miles down the road I get a flat tire, and after much fussing, fuming and creativeness I'm ready to go again. As I'm getting my crap back together the group goes ahead and takes off, and damn wouldn't you know it... another big gap to overcome. Another 20 min of pain and I catch back on. Now though I am toast. I have enough juice to stick on a wheel and that's it.
The upside to that whole thing is that my fitness has indeed come a long way. If that would've happened to me last year I never would've caught up, or at the very least I would've gotten dropped again because I wouldn't have been able to sustain the pace.

Because of my solo forays, my TSS for yesterday's ride was a whopping 193! That's the highest TSS I've recorded since I started using WKO.

Ohh, did I mention that I'm gonna have to get new tires? Whatever caused my flat tire put a nice big slice in it. I had to use the ole dollar bill trick to get home.
I only had this set of tires a month...ohh well. Considering that this is the first debris caused flat in 4000 miles, I shouldn't feel too bad.

The week, by the numbers:
Planned- 9hrs
Actual- 9:59
Miles- 203