The Group Ride

The Group Ride

Karma wheel sandwich

I’m that guy.  I’m the guy who comes to the group run and scares the new runners.  My club mates ask me not to approach new runners because I scare them.  Some poor sot, who just wants to start getting in shape, and maybe wants to enjoy a nice easy outing with some new friends.  Then I show up talking about marathons and ultra- marathons and ‘would anyone like to tag a couple hours on to the end of this run?’

The new runners ask; “How far are we going?” and “How fast do you go?” and I respond honestly that we’ll just do an easy 5-6 miles, that we welcome runners of all abilities to our group runs.  Of course in the depths of my self-denial I forget that I’m lying.  That 5-6 miles for me is easy, the pace that I consider a jog is going to kill the poor new runner, and that I welcome all abilities but you’d better keep up ‘cause me and the dog are in the zone.  I’m that guy.

I remember one night run in particular.  We had some new runners show up.  I got us lost in the woods and we ended up running 9 miles.  Many times the new runners don’t come back.  I’m that guy.  My club-mates try to keep me away from the new runners so that my enthusiasm doesn’t kill them.  I’m that guy.

Which is why I harbored no anger, shame or regret as the peloton pulled away, leaving me gasping for air like a biggest loser contestant, heart jumping out of my chest and my quads crying foul.  I was trying to just hang on the back, get in the slipstream and let them pull me but I could not maintain contact as they accelerated up the rolling hills.

One scene summarizes it.  There I was furiously struggling to stay in the pack and one of the youngsters drifts by casually pedaling and talking on his cell phone.  Yup, I was that guy.  The guy who shows up for the group ride because they said ‘all abilities are welcome’.

I harbor no ill will because I see the impish hand of karma and irony at work.

…

My friend Dan lives on the bike course of the Escape the Cape triathlon that I raced in on Saturday, the day before the group ride.  Dan and I are karma brothers.  We met in college, he was in my wedding and we were immediately drawn to each other’s intellect and appreciation of the absurd.

We had drifted apart as old friends do with family and career.  A few years back when we drifted back together we realized we had taken similar trajectories – me, an overindulgence in running and he, the same in bicycle riding, especially mountain bikes.

I had dinner with his family Friday night.  On our parting he invited me to join the group ride Sunday morning.  It was a good 50 mile spin on the roadies, and, of course all abilities were welcome.  Because I’m that guy I asked about the effort level.  I really didn’t want to get involved in a hammer-fest the day after racing a triathlon.  Dan assured me it was all abilities.

…

The morning after the triathlon arrived with me a bit creaky in the joints but no worse for wear.  As Dan and I had both assured his wife on the advisability of a long ride the day after racing  a tri  – “It was only a sprint tri”.  It was going to be an easy ride, right?  All abilities welcome, right?  And I’m an endurance athlete, right? I’m that guy, right? Yeah…right.

I knew I was in trouble when we showed up at the bike shop.  All these guys were wearing those uniforms.    These guys had shaved legs.  These guys were in their twenties. The bikes they had were expensive bikes, but not expensive in the tour de France or poser way.  They were well worn like the journeyman’s tools.  Worn and crafted from custom parts scavenged from the shop.

They looked at me and my 15-year-old steel Fuji commuter bike, (with the luggage rack still on it).  They looked at me with pity.  I did not feel bad.  I am comfortable in my own skin.  I smiled and joked like the odd man out at the party, like the poor cousin.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to wanting to somehow try to explain to them that I was not a soul to be pitied.  That I have done things.  That I have conquered things they have yet to see, things they have yet to even consider. Big things.  Hard things.  But not on this day.  On this day it was to be the group ride and I was that guy.  The poor cousin.

As we left the parking lot I could hear the click of carbon fiber with an echoing resound like an expensive mandolin as they climbed through their gears.  Within a ¼ mile they were accelerating.  It only takes one guy in the pack to feel energetic and they all feed off each other.  Each ratcheting up the speed to match the other.

I hung on the back and focused on the cassette of the last guy in line.  Focused and cranked.  My heart rate maxed.  Within a couple miles I slipped off the back.  I was unable to maintain contact.  I let them go.  I feared I might injure myself trying to ride max effort on race weary legs.

Thank heavens for Lou.  Lou was an older guy (like me) and heavy set.  He had a obvious love of the sport and a beautiful carbon time trial bike.  One wheel of that bike would buy four of my bikes.  It whirred like a beautiful instrument.  Lou fell off the back of the pack to ride with me.  Then Dan came back as well, a bit guilty I suppose for roping me into the ‘all abilities’ group ride cum hammer-fest.

We had a nice hard 50 miler.  Dan and Lou instructed me on the course and how to ride in a pack and how to work the hills, just like I have instructed many beginning runners on group runs in form and cadence and effort.  We regained the pack once when someone flatted, but I quickly got dropped again as they took off with renewed vigor.

We had them in sight at the turn around when we took a short cut.  Dan, bridling at the relatively easy pace of Lou and I, his ego as large as mine, took off after them.  He rode by them hard when he caught them.  Called them all ‘pussies’ and sprinted off ahead.  When they chased and caught him he laughed, turned around and came back to ride with Lou and I having made his point.

At the end of the day I got a great ride in and met some nice people. I think we ended up still averaging close to 25 mph even in our ‘slow’ pack of 3.

If that’s how it is when a seasoned endurance athlete shows up what the heck do they do when it’s a real newbie? A vacationing retiree couple on recumbents?  Some over excited house fraus? Who knows… I was sore on Monday.  And I’m still that guy.

Chris,