"Make your eyes bleed" hard

"They're going pretty fast", "They are just showing off because they are riding past Nate's", "This is still pretty fast", "Oh crap we're sprinting now". That was my first 2 minutes of the Tuesdays Founders Ales Racing Team road ride, a ride that was billed as being so hard it will make your eyes bleed. Needless to say this was a fast ride. I had been out for a long ride Sunday and had come back pretty cooked, but my legs felt completely recovered by time Joe K. started talking crap about the Founders ride. I figured why not see if I could throw down with a couple elite mountain bikers. I loved it, I haven't ridden that hard outside of a race ever, Dan Jansen made sure that every stop ahead sign was a sprint and even with a small group 2nd or 3rd place was a tough snag. Once I settled in and realized that this was going to be the pace it was time to match pulls, keep the pace high, and keep my eyes peeled for stop ahead signs so I wasn't leading out a sprint. The eye popping moment for me came about 30 miles in when a gap started opening to the rider leading up a decent "Michigan climb", sitting 3rd wheel I felt it was my duty to come around and close the gap. I realized to late that I had given it too much gas and had committed myself to the attack and decided to just go with it until the top. I managed to gap everyone except Dan, who wanted to keep them chasing, so we traded pulls until the next stop ahead sign where he blew me out of the water in a not so hotly contested sprint. The ride ended at Founders for some of their excellent recovery beverages. Hopefully I can attend this ride on a regular basis as its a great group of guys and super fast. With the countdown almost to an end and the number of fast rides under my belt rising I don't know whether to be exhausted or exuberant at the progress I have made.....and A.Lo I don't train I just sometimes take long rides without any destination, no heart rate monitors, intervals, or power meters here.

GBK