Monkey See, Monkey Do

I did cross practice yesterday and my legs said enough is enough. They were tight balls of knots. They hurt so bad, I could barely go up and down stairs. Marc tried rubbing them out for me and it was just agony. When I woke up this morning I lay in bed thinking there's no way I'm riding today, my legs need a break. I get up, go down stairs, look out the window and it's beautiful. I talk to Marc and tell him I don't think I'm gonna ride, I'm gonna take a rest day. I wait for his response, thinking it will be, no you need to get out and at least spin them out. Instead he says ok. Crap, ok, I'm going riding.
I follow him down to the PWC light ride. I figure I'll just do flats down there won't be bad. I'll ride with them to Frazier and then pull off and do my own thing. We take off, and it's not too bad. By the first turn I'm in my big ring. Mmmm, not good, Marc told me to stay out of my big ring today. Oh well, I'm still spinning. I'm talking to Billy V. He asks me if I race road when not racing cross. I said "no way, mountain bike. On the road you get too hurt". He replies with, "well you fall more in mountain biking". I said "yes, but it's bumps and bruises, on the road you're loosing skin". He chuckled and agreed.
We get to Frazier. Marc asks if I'm going to pull off. I said not yet, I'm doing ok, I'll hang in a little longer. We ride on, I'm hanging on to the wheel in front of me trying my best not do to anything stupid in the pack. We hit the two more turns. Each time Marc asks if I'm pulling off. I said I'll wait until we get to 213, then I'll head off to Locust Point. It was kinda nice cruising along at a nice pace. I couldn't do that by myself. We get to 213, crap, the pack makes a right, I'm on the inside, I can't make a left. Oh well, going the wrong way now. We get out to 40 and we're headed off to Northeast. Now this is bad, I can't stay with this group and I no longer know how to get back. Finally Marc pulls up beside me and tells me where I need to go to get back. Finally I pull off.
I'm now on my own on roads I don't know. I ride on and get out to an intersection I recognize. It's only a few miles from my house, but my car was at Peoples. I start working my way back. I hate going through major intersections, so I took off hard to get through quickly. On the other side I'm riding along, spinning trying to recover a bit and this guy pulls up beside me and say hi and tries to ride on past. Well of course I can't let that happen. Especially since he looked like some guy just out for a Sunday ride. He had on a t-shirt and shorts, sneakers, had some old bike and toe clips, he must have been easily 250 lbs or more. So I click up a couple gears to pass him. Only he sees me and he clicks up, or kinda clicks up. His gears sounded a mess. So now we're racing down 213, finally I get in front of him, but I think I can still hear those gears behind me. We come to a slight down hill, and here he comes rolling up again. Gearth was on his side. It took everything to get him up the next roller. I just couldn't believe I couldn't get this guy off me. But I'm sure he was thinking, there's no way I'm letting this little girl drop me. Finally I turned off and he went straight. I'm sure he had a heart attach shortly there after.
So I'm almost back and then I see a rider, we wave to each other, and as we get closer we recognize each other. It's Fort James. We turn around and talk. He says he's headed out to Locust Point and asked if I wanted to go. I said sure, I was supposed to be headed there in the first place. So we go down around Locust Point, start working our way back, and finally I get back to the car.
So good for a nice easy ride. Ooops.