ride on tired legs

This morning Bryan, Col, Kyle and I met around 10ish - later than normal so that the bad weather could finish up and not soak us. Of course as soon as we got going it started to rain - nothing bad but still. We road from Col's house down to green lake then down/out to Fremont - then toward downtown and out to west Seattle. From the start my legs and actually my whole body was sore and generally tired. I did ok till we got out to alki beach area and then the crew decided we should take some back roads out and around west Seattle to avoid the crowds that were forming on alki since the weather had turned sunny and very nice. Usually I don't mind some hills but today I just did not feel it in me. Anyway we climbed up for what felt like forever though I'm sure it was closure to a mile or so.. I survived of course but my legs felt like they were going to explode and dye. I think Kyle was worried about me because he rode next to me just to make sure I did not need a hand to get up the hills. I just kept going - I fell back a bit but never to far since I'm sure they slowed down to let me catch back up.
Of course what goes up must come down - we went down some crazy steep and rather long hill that of course wound up having a stop light at the bottom - my hands completely cramped up from braking. It did not help that I felt exhausted, sort of light headed and definitely not very coordinated so I found descending very scary - so scared I almost broke down and cried.. It is so weird that I dislike descending so much since I grew up skiing fast downhill - Kyle is always mystified by this. I just know that there is a huge difference between falling on snow and falling on concrete or asphalt... I am very aware I need to get over this and have been working really hard on it but sometimes my fear just seems to attack. I was soo happy when I made it down ok. We wound our way back through downtown and along the water front - with the help of a gu/gel I found enough energy to stay mostly with Col the rest of the way.
We had planned on going to the Tri Expo after we finished but realised the show closed at 4 today and we were pushing it to make the show if we rode all the way back to Col's house - so we rode to Bryan's boat and called Futa to meet us there to go to the show from there. In total we rode just under the planned 40 miles for about 2:56:13 of ride time.
The show was a bit of a disappointment/uneventful - I guess I just thought there would be more to it. Though I understand and respect that it was the first year and Sunday afternoon. Hopefully next year will be better and by going we did our part to support the Seattle area tri community.