so that's what it feels like.... not good

well, as a follow up to the cycling story. Monday night's ride was shortened due to thunderstorms and of course hail. That's right cold winds, cold water, and hail... fantastic really. Let's you know you're alive. Thursday rolls around and my buddy Duane was like...hey let's do a group ride and i was all... okay let's do it. It turns out there is a group ride on Thursday nights. The group follows the same loop as the Monday night ride, but there is one small difference. That difference being the fact that the real men (including some hard core ladies) ride on Thursday. See, I thought the men were out on Monday and i felt cool that i could at least hang with them, uh... wrong. Turns out on Thursdays, cycling robot monster freaks come home from training in the alps or 100 mile rides with Lance Armstrong or 6 hour spinning classes or leg shaving lessons or wherever the fetch else they might spend their days and they look to destroy each other on their fancy race bikes. So i hung with cyborgs for a little more than half of the way and i kept thinking, 'holy crap we're going fast' and 'I think my legs are going to fall off' and 'is that blood in my lung?' and 'do these guys sleep in their lyrca?' and other thoughts like that. Each lap the group picked up the pace and for the most part I was able to hang. We started up the largest hill in the loop and I stomped up the hill with the rest of them. At the top, my legs were toast and i thought that for the most part the group's pace would slow so that i might recover and keep hammering. Not so, not even close, the group gets to the top of the hill and no one slows, in fact the leaders hammer harder and i quickly find myself going from the middle of the pack to the end of the pack in a matter of seconds and then seconds latter the pack is gone and i'm out of the windstream and they are pulling away at 30+ mph. I hit it as hard as I can, but it's too late I've been dropped. Being dropped is the cyclist way of saying, "i am better than you, so much better that i am going to ride away from you and never look back". It was very humbling...to say the least. So that's been on my mind a bit more than i'd like to admit, definitely more than i'd like to admit on the internet, but there it is, I am bothered by getting dropped. A lot of self discovery happens when you are at the limits of physical exhaustion.