recovering from the "recovery ride"

I was planning on riding yesterday, and wanted to head out for a couple mellow hours to clear my head and enjoy the good weather. Alex raced on Saturday was meeting up with a couple other guys who had raced too...ended up being bart, bob, ohran, and jared. Alex talked me into it, and told me what a tough day everyone else had the day before. I've been riding a bunch for the past couple weeks, but nothing really before that on the bike, but i've been feeling pretty good. SO I figured what the hell, it'll be cool to ride with Alex and some new guys. woops. bad idea. long story short: hung on pretty good for the first part of the ride, did ok on a steep as shit climb, had a fun dh, bombed shoreline to dry creek, blew up climbing dry creek, made my way to the top of bobsled, had a sweet dh, found out I missed dinner at Lesha's dads house, managed to make it home on the road in one piece, took a nap, and finally had some amazing mac and cheese from wild oats.

So now, as the title suggests, I'm recovering from the recovery ride. probably the hardest I've gone since racing last summer before I hurt my knee. I guess if there's good new it probably helped me get into decent race shape if I can stay on it with a couple more rides. bad news is that I might have to miss my two favorite icups because of work trips -- DV and solitude. bummer.

While I was still thinking coherently up the first climb, and still had my sense of humor, I came up with a short list of comparisons from the ride, and signs at the beginning that I might not have the legs to keep up on the ride:
1. only guy in a jersey advertising beer
2. only guy without shaved legs
3. only guy on a bike worth less than 5 g's retail whose name doesn't have the word "team" in it's name
5. (i thought this one might actually help me out) only guy who didn't race for 3 hours the day before

maybe the list isn't so funny any more now that I'm off the bike, kept me entertained for the first part of bart's climb though. Definitely motivates me to hit it again and keep up next time. I don't think I could ditch the beer jersey or drop a wad of cash on a new bike, but maybe i should try the shaved legs routine. it better make me damn fast if i do to make up for the hard time i'll get from lesha.
/ty