I was SO NERVOUS to bike ride with the TEAM. We started the season biking indoors at 45-90 minute spin classes held at various gyms in the area. Sometimes we’d spin together and sometimes individually. I went to these classes religiously, worked hard and truly felt the pain afterwards, but I had no way of knowing how strong I was compared to the other riders. The spin coach might tell us to set our bike resistance to a level 7, but our bikes have no numbers. We each set on our bikes to what feels like a 7 to us. I may have made been working harder than anyone in the class, or half as hard. I just couldn’t tell.
When the weather got warm enough the TEAM started riding outside. I, unfortunately, missed the first few rides because of my ear infection, bad weather, and trips out of town. Here comes in the SO NERVOUS part. In the past I have always been the, or one of the, slowest riders in whatever group that I was with. Will that happen again? What if I can’t keep up with the group? Will they tell me to go home? Will they get mad because they have to wait for me? If so, will they let me ride with them again next week? I was assured over and over again that this would NEVER happen, but I still had an uneasy feeling. So here comes my first ride with the TEAM……
We met at the Syosset train station and rode 5 miles to the SUNY Old Westbury campus. There we were supposed to ride a 4 mile loop around the campus 4 times and then ride back to the train station, 26 miles in all. GREAT! I figured that the worst case scenario for me would be that I would do 3 loops instead of 4 and I would not hold anybody up. We started our ride and quickly split into two groups. I was in the front group. YEAH! To be sure, I was the slowest one in the front group, but I was not holding the TEAM up. When we got the campus we faced a lot of hills and the fast riders broke away from me. I had a little trouble with my bike so some of the second group caught up to me, but I still wasn’t last. I’d pass some teammates, some teammates would pass me and we would shout encouraging words to each other and move on.
After a while a girl names Hillary asked me if I had seen anybody in a while. I thought about it and realized that I had not. We stopped our bikes at the beginning/end of the loop and waited for the other riders. Nobody came. I waited at the meeting point as she did the loop backwards. She saw no one. They left without us. No, they would never do that. Steve knew that I was having trouble with my bike. He would not abandon me 5 miles from my car. Come to think of it how do we get back to our cars anyway? We followed the coach here. Can we remember the way back? Hillary doesn’t know the area at all, but I am kind of familiar with it. I think that I can get us back to the train station, maybe not the same way, but we’ll probably get there.
Hillary is a much stronger rider than I am, but she was patient and stayed with me the whole time. (I guess that she didn’t have much of a choice if she wanted to find her car.) When I saw my other teammates a few days later I scolded them for leaving me. Shari told me that they had only done three loops when Steve, the head coach, told them it was time to go. She told me that she pointed out that I was not with them but Steve told her that a few riders were staying behind to work hills. (I am doing the hilly triathlon. Most of my teammates are doing a flat one.) They all just assumed that a coach was staying behind with us, or somebody, at the very least, he told us that everyone was leaving. but no, we were left behind to fend for ourselves.
I guess that I was right to be nervous after all.
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