Stinger of a Ride

After missing my Saturday run due to the shin splint issue, I was dying to get in a nice ride on my bike yesterday. Weather looked perfect, route was said to be pretty flat, and I was planning on riding with some pretty quick folks who were sure to make me work hard.

We arrived, signed in, made a bathroom break, picked up a cue sheet and very quickly started off on the ride. Over the past week, I dropped my handle bars down one spacer just to see if I could be more comfortable riding a bit more aero. Unfortunately, I know there is a point where you're going to lose power when you do this, but since I don't have a power meter, I am not going to be sure if this move is a good thing, but I wanted to see how it would feel. Very quickly, we got into a good pace. And it started to feel like we were hammering. I was uncomfortable, yet holding a solid pace. We passed a group of guys that ended up latching on and it bugged me. I sort of wanted to just slow down so they would pass, but I also wanted to see how long they were actually going to draft off WOMEN. So it went for the first 20 miles, we'd slow down for an intersection, yell "clear", the dudes would fly past us around the corner and as soon as we got our groove back, we'd pass them and they'd jump back on our wheels. It was a bit aggravating.

At the first stop we caught up with the Salt Creekers. This made for a nice little break in the pace. I didn't think I could've kept up the whole ride at the pace we took out the first 20 miles. I'm uncomfortable again. Spent the next section sort of chatting and riding. Pace was still strong, but not crazy. We talked about recent races, upcoming races and how training was going. It was pretty cool, all but one in this group was training for an upcoming Ironman. At the next stop, I raised my seat up a little. When I took the back bottle cages off this morning, I think I might've put the seat back on a little too low and it was taking it's toll.

Our stops were fast - maybe 5-7 minutes. Just enough to give everyone time for a quick pit stop and to refill water bottles. There was definitely no lollygagging around. We were on a mission! I hopped back on my bike and immediately, my position felt better. It's amazing what just a fraction of an inch can do for positioning. There was a section of road on this stretch (I think it was on this stretch) that was rough. Bump, bump, bump....much like that final stretch of Muncie. And they were too frequent to get out of the saddle each time they came by. It was painful. My aerobottle kept bouncing around and making a lot of noise.

We kept running into this dude training for his first Ironman. We'd pull up to him on the bike and then he'd speed up. Just enough so that we couldn't pass him. It became comical after a while. Not sure at what point this happened, but we started cruising along and I was in the biggest gear I could be in. I came up on the guy and started to slow down, I didn't want to be playing any cat and mouse games. But my group just kept going, so I was like, OK, but we'll have to fly by him fast so he doesn't even think about pulling back ahead. It worked. We dropped him like a ton of bricks. I felt a little sorry for him. But if he wouldn't be trying to be all macho, like he has to be in front the whole time, I guess I wouldn't have tried to make it a point to crush him. It was a little fun. He caught up to us at the next stop and tells us that this is his first long ride. His Ironman is in 4 weeks. He's doing Steelhead next week and Pleasant Prairie 2 weeks later. Is this dude crazy?

Speaking of CRAZY - look who just passed by - Sheila! WHAT? What is she doing? She just did Lake Placid last week. Shouldn't she be recovering? Unfortunately, she was on the way out, so we didn't get a chance to talk to her until the next stop, but when we did, she looked and sounded good. She definitely didn't sound like someone who is recovering from an Ironman! Sheila had a great race out there, of course, she will tell you that it wasn't all that great, but I guess we're all our own worst critics.

We dwadle just a little at the last rest stop when Eileen misplaced her gloves and had to go back to find them, but still, I don't think we were there more than 10 minutes. Everyone was feeling a little tired at this point, so we actually started our first paceline of the ride. The macho dude even snuck into the line for a little while, but it was clear he was a loner and he dropped off the back pretty quickly. There were also a lot of little ruts in the road covered by tar. When your tires got caught in those ruts, it was a little scary and you had to make sure you had a good grip on the handle bars because they'd start doing their own thing. In fact, it kinda felt like bumper bowling, your tire would hit one side, then the other, then back to the first side, and it just happens whether you want it to or not. Very frightening when it's happening to the person you're drafting off of!

The pace was good, but the wind was picking up. Then, with maybe 30 more minutes to go, a bee flew into my sunglasses. He got right through the top and flew into my left eye. He then got stuck between my face and the sunglasses and proceeded to sting me! I screamed and yanked off my glasses, but he was still hanging on, stinger stuck in my face. I swatted him off, but the damage was done. Everyone was wondering what the hell was going on, but I was not quite sure myself, it was happening so fast! Was I really stung or did I just get hit with a bug? No, it had to be a sting because it hurt. All the while, we kept the pace strong. After all, there wasn't anything we could do and our ride was near the end.

We kept the pace strong, but lost a couple people in the group. As my face started swelling up, our pace continued, even getting stronger, it seemed. I rode with anger. I could feel the skin under my left eye puffing up, but I could still see just fine. We were still going strong and so engrossed in the ride, we missed a turn. Next thing you know, we're lost. Well, not lost, but no where near the car! Huh? Some friendly riders point us in the direction of where we're supposed to be and we head on back, my face throbbing.

Excellent ride. I felt great the whole time and I think the pace was strong. I didn't even look at the avg mph, but I will check it out the next time I go out on the bike. I looked in the mirror and my face was only just a little swollen. It hurt, but wasn't too bad. I took some Tylenol when we left and as soon as I got home, I took some Benadryl.

Benadryl is awful. Within 30 minutes, I could barely hold my head up. I had to go lay down. It knocked me out for about 2 hours. Face still looked OK, went out to dinner and went to bed.

However, bad things happen overnight and the skin around my left eye is all puffed up. It looks like I was punched in the face. And it hurts terribly. It also itches, but I can't scratch it, because it hurts too much. I took this shot as soon as I woke up. Unfortunately, it's swelling even more as I'm typing this. Ice feels good, but I can't work while I'm holding an ice pack to my face! Guess I won't be swimming because goggles would hurt. So now I can't run and I can't swim. WTF??!?!?