Sundays are no longer Slow

I met up with a couple of other first-year grad students (both women, one artist and one chemist) for a fun training ride this morning around 11. After a minor mechanical, we were on the road - it's amazing how fast you can get out of town and into great road riding territory here. Also, the cars are pretty used to cyclists and are therefore more courteous - usually giving the whole lane, even though we were on the shoulder most of the time.

It was a good ride, but we kept a pretty hard pace for a good deal of the ride, somewhere around 22 mph on the flat sections. I felt like I had trouble keeping up at some points. On the other hand, even though I'm pretty sure they are both stronger than I am right now, we seemed evenly matched enough that I could keep up... though I was definitely a wheelsucker when I could and rarely pulled the whole train, I wasn't the slowest climber. I had fun and got a great workout, and we followed the ride up with a french toast feast! I think we've started a new tradition here.

Aaaaand... classes start tomorrow! Time to see what life is *really* going to be like here. Think it'll go well... got my fingers crossed.