Originally Posted by
big john
My goal is to not get dropped by the group or at least not feel awful when they stop to wait for me. I'd like to be able to do 60=80 mile rides at a fast enough pace to stay reasonably close without feeling like crap later. I was actually getting there before the shutdown of all group rides happened. I did 100 group rides for years and even more after I retired. Been solo for weeks now.
I understand totally, but a wise man said this to me: "Whenever you think 'I have to do this', replace those words with 'I want to do this' and whenever you think 'I want to do this' replace those words with 'it would be nice if...'"
So I just avoid the mind set of having goals as things I need to do and just go with the flow surrounded by things that would be nice if they happen. That does NOT mean that it is not worth investing the time and effort to improve the probability of those things happening, just realizing that you can't MAKE them happen.