Old Friends

Had a chance to ride with an old friend on Tuesday. I took the day off and drove to Madison to ride 2 loops of the 40 mile loop which comprises part of the IMWI course. First loop by myself and 2nd loop with Steve.

Steve and I grew up in Oshkosh. I don't believe we ever went to the same school but we did play some competitive baseball on the same Oshkosh little league traveling team when we were about 11-13. I remember enjoying Steve as one of my favorites on the team. Steve went to college in Madison and was a pretty accomplished bike racer during this time. He has since moved to Texas.

Steve's mother and my sister are good friends. He learned of my training and was planning a business trip to Madison. My sister put us in touch via email and on Tuesday Steve flew in and borrowed a friends bike to join me for a loop of riding.

We had a fun time and Steve was a pleasure to be with. It is great to see someone after so many years and realize what a quality person they continued to be. We shared the trait of having gotton out of our respective sports for a good long time after college and both have only returned in the last couple of years. A couple of middle aged coggers getting the blood and competitive juices flowing again.

Steve was a good sport to put up with a slow guy like me. I explained to him that when doing what I am doing one needs to remember that after the ride is over you still have to run a marathon. I was out in front pulling most of the time which is good because me training by drafting off someone doesn't do much good for the race. It was also good because when Steve would get ahead of me, if he didn't look back continuously he would be miles ahead in no time. On some of the longer climbs near the end of the loop Steve would "stretch his legs" a little while I tooled up them spinning like a kindergarten school girl. It really is impressive to ride with someone who has real cycling power. I would catch up a mile down the road while he was checking his voice mail; like I said he was a good sport.

Thanks to Jodi for re-connecting us. I will send Steve my race # in September so he can follow my progress on race day. In his future business trips hopefully he can make his way east for a ride in the Kettle Moraine.

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On a seperate note my plan for a critical volume week which I laid out here last week didn't really materialize for a number of reasons. This was all probably for the best and I will try to blog some more detail and thoughts later this weekend. The two long rides I did earlier this week (112 on Sun and 82 on Tues) did tell me I am ready to swim and ride and Ironman.......now that running part...........