Valentine's Day Ride

Today was the Jalapeno 100.  I haven't ridden this ride since I've lived in the Rio Grande Valley, and this year I skipped it AGAIN.  My parents are in town this weekend, and I'm still commuting to Austin, and I just couldn't rationalize driving to Harlingen to start a century ride.  In lieu of an organized century, I decided to ride up to Burger King and see who else decided not to ride the Jalapeno, but still wanted to do a group ride.

There were quite a few riders that met at the BK, with a good mix of intermediate and beginners.  We all started together, but the pace was moving a little slow for me.  Within a few miles of the start, I saw another rider about 1/2 mile ahead of us, so I broke from the group and sprinted to try to catch the distant rider.  I caught him, and it was Sal, one of the stronger triathletes / time trialers in the area.  We talked for awhile, moving along at 18-19 mph.  As we turned onto Military Highway towards Progreso, we cranked it up to the 20-21 mph range.  We were moving into a slight headwind, and these speeds felt very near my maximum.  We swapped pulls, but Sal did more than his share.

Once we reached Progreso, I fueled up with Nuun and a package of Grandma's Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Sal turned north.  I waited on the group, and 5 minutes later they made it to Progreso.  I grouped up with 2 of the stronger riders, and we headed west on Military.  With the tailwind, we were averaging 21-22 mph, and I was feeling much better than I did on the way out.

I decided to vary my route and head for home instead of back to BK, but the other 2 riders turned off to head back to BK.  I was alone, but riding a route that I've ridden many times.  A few miles later, I felt a lot of movement in my shoe or pedal.  I stopped, and saw that my left cleat was almost detached from the shoe.  I had to stop for 15 minutes, disassemble the cleat, and retighten.  I think that my cleats loosened up this week while doing some out of the saddle climbing in Austin, although it could have been a gradual build-up that I just didn't notice.

When I started pedaling again, my quads were very stiff.  I warmed back up, and struggled home, grateful for the tailwind.  I finished with 66 miles, with an average of 18 mph.  Today's lessons learned are:   maintain my Speedplay cleats a little better, challenge myself by riding solo or in smaller groups more, and don't give up on the Jalapeno.  There's always next year.

And if you're a data-driven reader, here's the link to the ride stats, and I've inserted a screen grab of the summary for those that don't like to click through to other sites.