Funny story. This trail is with a group in Howard County. My friend joined so I decided to give it a try. Apparently, this week was hill climbing week. So I start out fine until the 4th hill when I slowed down drastically. Then the sweeper kept pacing me back to the pack quite a few times. About the halfway point(~12 miles) he tells me that at the pace I'm going we won't be back before the 2 hour mark, which they try to keep to. So I told him I would go back with my GPS. In the meantime my friend is pushing through and doesn't see me drop out. So I trudge backwards thinking I'm not going to make it back before dark but I calmly proceed to the start point. I did stop for about 5 minutes to talk to someone in a pickup truck to see if I was going the right way. After I verified that I was and he gave me directions back, I felt much better. At this point I was making a steady 12 mph. I did stop again to check my GPS after the roundabout. Then I see a lone lady biker pass me. She was going at a nice pace so I decided to keep up with her. Once I caught up I asked her where the community center was and apparently she was headed that way. We started talking and I found out she was dropped from the group. So we made our way back. Then about 1 mile from the finish, my friend zooms by me. Then three guys behind him go by. I was scratching my head because I thought these guys would have been at the parking lot and leaving by now. Apparently he told me that I had 3 ladies behind me, one that I knew about, two I wasn't even aware they were behind me? I tried to catch him but I wore myself out. Then the first lady I met overtook me at the last 1/2 mile. My friend was at the parking lot with a few people following about 5 mins later. I talked to my friend for about 15 minutes and I saw very few riders come in?? In those 15 minutes he told me what happened. Apparently the leader of the group kept a fast pace. It seems that she cracked after a few too many hills and they stopped to take a break. He pushed on leaving them behind. I was a little amused when he told me this. I knew I was keeping a good pace for the C group. Apparently the leader underestimated the hills and the trail was too long for a 2 hour ride. I made it back under two hours and only missed a few miles of the entire ride. I know this because my friend had his GPS and we compared notes. If I was not dropped and kept going at my pace I would have ridden the whole trail and made it back before the two hours. At 12 mph average the additional 2-3 miles would have taken me another 15 minutes (the amount of time I spent talking to him in the parking lot, which was close to 8:00 pm).
Needless to say, I didn't' like the first part of the ride too much. The pace was too fast for me and I kept feeling like I was a bad rider(which I probably am) with the sweeper coming back to push me to a faster pace. In a way, I'm glad I was dropped. The second half of the ride was much better. I went at my own pace pushing myself when I could and even met a few people along the way. I knew what I was capable of and did it my way. The only thing I wished was that the sweeper saw me in the parking lot. He had not made it back those 15 minutes after I arrived and started talking to my friend. I bet he still thinks that I was out there somewhere. :)
Elevation
My trace
Friend's Trace
Overlap between my trace and friend's trace. It looks like there is a big difference between the two but in reality I only cut the path short by two of the corners, which ended up being ~3 miles.
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