My Day

When I know I am going to ride pretty far at an intense pace, I have a pretty much ritualistic breakfast.

First thing I do is get the espresso machine going.
Then I wash and cut the fruit/vegetables that I am going to juice. Today was 5 apples, 10 carrots, a beet and a chunk of ginger. I love my Champion juicer.
While I am prepping the fruit and veges, the espresso finishes and I drink it as I do everything else.
Before I start actually juicing I take a steak out of the fridge and throw it on the grill outside. Steak is great for not bonking on long rides.
When I come back in, I juice everything and put it in the freezer - then I prep 4 eggs and get the cast-iron skillet warmed.
I go outside and flip the steak.
When I come back in, I cook the eggs (over-easy).
Once the eggs are done, I retrieve the steak and pull the juice from the freezer.
MMMM...

Today I did the 7am and the 10am. We are lucky to have so many cool group rides in DC, and it is cool to be able to do these two back to back if you want the miles.

I went pretty steady on the flats, and hard up the three hills on the 7am. I figured I would roll hard on this ride and sit at the back of the 10am. I even sprinted at the end, which I don't usually do because of how sketchy this sprint has been in the past - but Ken Johnson, Brian Butts and Jose Escobar led it out so well that the only guy left was DC Velo's Dave Bozak. It was a pretty fun head up sprint.

After the ride we went to Einsteins bagels and ran into Russ. He came in, giving us the evil eye and asked "why are you guys blowing up my place?" I was pretty surprised to see him because I heard he was having some nerve problem in his hip and hadn't been ridding.

As we rode out to the 1oam, we picked up the most fire power I have seen on that ride. All hopes of just sitting on the back comfortably went out the window when Nick Bax and Matt Cooke joined the ride.

Well, when the ride hit the fast part, it did just that - weren't fast. Russ and Matt pulled Nick and I away from the group. The group caught back up, the Russ took a gnarly pull and him Matt and I were clear - for good. I was definitely the weak link, and doing the 7am didn't help. I pulled, Matt pulled harder then Russ pulled and I was cross-eyed (Matt later said he was 'on the rivets'). After this, Russ pulled off and disappeared. I am glad he was gone because he was killing us. Matt and I went easy/steady the rest of the ride and never saw the group again.

Good food, good rides = good day. Can't wait for some beers and the NFL play-offs.