I had two Progress moments today. First me and my pal Erich the Former Fast Cat 2 Who Got Old & Gained 30 lbs. are chatting on the (nearly empty 6:30AM) MUP. We're about to start our interval workout, the first 5 miles or so are on the MUP. We come up on this guy we've seen on the MUP before, a reasonably fast Fred. Those are the most dangerous kind. Anyway, I turn to Erich as we're about to start out interval session (about 13-14 miles of trading 2 minute pulls as if we're in a 2-man break, hard workout) I ask 'are you ready to go?' He nods. I turn to this fast Fred and say 'OK, nice seeing you, we gotta go', and I dial it up to 25 mph. I half expected him to try to grab our wheel, but when I turned around to flick my elbow half a mile later, he was out of sight.

Then on the one long-ish upgrade (maybe half a mile of 3-5%) I gapped Erich pretty hard. He's very fast on the flats, the extra weight kills him on upgrades longer than 300 meters or so.

That interval session I do with Erich is great, we're good training partners, we both agree we'd never ride that hard on our own.