Yep thats me - dead and beat. I had my choice of two rides today, 70 with the B group or 53 with the B+ group. Since I have been feeling pretty confident with the B group I decided it was time to move up - besides I wanted a little bit more time in the afternoon to do stuff around the house. The B+ group usually runs a more rolling course with a good climb or two thrown in - the average is usually 2 MPH more. Today the speed on the flats was at a pretty good pace but as long as I didn't get cocky I felt OK with it, draining bit by bit but OK. When the big climb came I faded pretty fast, in fact the B ride (which we had passed a mile back) was doing the same climb and I got passed by 1/2 of them as well. I didn't feel so bad about this as we had a lot of rollers on our course and we were holding a strong pace. For the most part I stayed with the group the rest of the ride, I only got well behind on that one big climb, the rest I handled pretty well - they waited for me to regroup. But at the last 7 miles I had had enough - I could not hold on any longer and let them go.

I rode with this group two months ago and was dropped early in the ride - so I have gotten better. I think I need to ride with this group now and work on pushing to the next level. Although right now I am feeling a bit over trained. Even on this ride I felt there was no depth to my reserves. I had to take every opportunity to rest and if a sprint was required I had little to draw on. After my recovery ride tomorrow I will not touch the bike for 5 days. Hopefully when I return so will my reserves.