So, yesterday was arguably the greatest day of my life, but also one of the most dangerous. It was just a normal day for me, I was cycling to work after my strength sets and swim that morning. As I approach the intersection of Ten-Ten Road and Holly Springs Road, I hear the sound of a large truck let out a big amount of exhaust behind me, that kind of Chink-Chunk sound. I look behind me and see that a huge dump truck is pulling up right behind me. Right as we get to the light, it turns red. Now, personally, I hate having any large vehicle behind me, due to how close they pass you and the fact that you hold up traffic and make motorists angry. So, to avoid this, I decided to be a good, considerate cyclist, and so when the light turned green, I meandered off to the right of the road and balanced there, giving the truck roughly a lane and a half of space to pass me. I waved him on, and the driver looked warily at me, then started to get his vehicle chugging along. I saw that the driver was looking at me very intently and frequently, and I was wondering why he was going so slowly. "He probably is just making sure I'm not going to jump in front of him", I thought to myself. But, as he finally started to pass me, his speed was not increasing that much. Not really thinking, I got up out of the saddle and sprinted after him. I caught him quickly and I just sat right behind his truck. I looked at my Garmin 200 and saw we were going 25mph and I was feeling nothing! I looked down a few seconds later and we were going 48mph! I sat right behind him, in my highest gear and with a cadence of around 120, going 3 miles per hour above the speed limit! It was the coolest thing ever to experience, and as I was riding behind him, I learned a lot about drafting. First of all, it's awesome! But on a real note, the smallest changes can really affect how much work you do; for instance, I drifted a little over to the right and caught a huge blast of wind that almost made me lose the draft. I got back in the exact center behind the truck and then was able to just hang out again. But, I also was made aware that if there was any debris in the road ahead of the truck, it would've ended badly for me. I had to be so close to the truck that I couldn't see any of the road ahead of me, so the smallest rock or stick, hit at 48mph, would've yielded a catastrophic result. The truck pulled me for a complete mile, averaged that quickly. I pulled off when I reached a right turn and the truck driver went straight, but I waved and yelled in triumph and joy after him. Although it was very dangerous, it was coolest thing I've ever had happen to me. The rest of the ride I was laughing, because I was giddy over the experience. It was honestly ridiculous. But you've just got to be careful in those situations, and accept that you're doing something very dangerous, and be prepared for the consequences. So like any ride, be careful out there guys! Don't d anything stupid that can get you hurt, it isn't fun to be injured for any level of triathlete.
Happy training!
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