For some reason I thought I’d have no problem doing the Blues Cruise Wheels for Wellness century the day after a little hill climb. Was I wrong! If I hadn’t pre-registered, I probably would have bagged it. I didn’t get home until late yesterday and I felt awful when I woke up this morning. But I got up, ate a light breakfast and then rushed to get my stuff together and headed out anyway.

There didn’t seem to be as many century riders as last year but we still had a decent-sized group. We rolled out at 7:00 AM and it was nice and cool. I chatted with a few people as we rode south on Cloverdale…and I mean really south. All the way to Poen! Then we turned west and were faced with a stiff head/cross-wind. That’s when I the effort level changed from a leisurely ride to a full on hammerfest! I managed to stay in the group for a while until I realized that I wasn’t having very much fun. I’m one that likes to save my racing for races, so when I do a charity ride, I like to enjoy it.

I knew the course did a couple “U” shaped spurs to add mileage so I decided I would cut some of those off and try to get back to the finish early (but not too early to miss lunch). I had a lot of chores planned for the afternoon. Rich B. caught me and we rode together for a little bit, but when we came to one of those points where I could cut the course, I said bye.

I ended up riding by myself the rest of the ride, and I kept it to a steady low tempo effort, as my body didn’t want to do anything harder than that. I also felt a little bonk coming on towards the end so I was glad I had made all those shortcuts. Even though I only  rode 88 miles I felt worse than I did when I woke up this morning. Between the Tour de Park City, double-time on the Bogus Tuesday Nighter, and yesterday’s hill climb, I definitely think I made the wrong decision!