Living in a town of 6000 in the middle of corn fields presents it's own difficulties, especially for a cyclist and triathlete. In my four years here I have seen exactly one cyclist, a guy who never wears a helmet and usually has a pro team jersey. The problem is that I would always see him when I was at practice or running or in my car and never had a chance to talk to him. This past saturday I woke up feeling kind of blah and cold. As the day progressed I wavered back and forth about riding. It was a sunny, warm day, almost too good to pass up and my training has been awful recently. Finally I decided to go ride at about 3 or 4 figuring if I felt bad after ten minutes I could turn around and come home and still get in 20 minutes of aerobic work. I also believe that when you are sick you need to get the blood moving, get the antibodies moving throughout the body and sweat it out. I planned to ride a route that would take about an hour at a fairly easy pace. I got started and about ten minutes in I was feeling pretty good so I decided to do the whole route. As I was riding on one road that heads east to an intersection where I planned to turn south I saw three riders ahead of me. They were all on road bikes (most of the riders I see are on Wal-Mart bikes) and looked to be wearing cycling shorts and jerseys! Now came the hard part, I had to decide whether to chase them down and turn north and stick to my route. They were far enough ahead that I knew to catch them I was going to have to ride hard. I had one of those moments when you think about 100 things in a second or two and made my decision. Too many times in my past I have done things that I regret not just going for, like not asking a girl out, or not taking the lead in a race when I felt good or not doing something that the kids at school might think was uncool, but I wanted to do...I was afraid. We all have these regrets, not necessarily things we truly want to go back and change but just things that, when you are reminded of that person or that event, you think "I should have done that." I know that going back and changing these things would mean I would not have had most of the experiences I have had, not have most of the friends I have, achieved some of the things I have achieved, not met my wife, not had my son, etc. so I don't really want to go back and change them, but I do wonder what would be different if I had. Back to the story. I knew if I didn't try to catch them I would be laying in bed that night kicking myself for not trying...so I did. I put my head down and put the hammer down...though, being sick the hammer was more of a small mallet! I finally caught up with them about five miles later and found out they were three local guys training for a Half Ironman Triathlon.
The dictionary defines Synchronicity as "an apparently meaningful coincidence in time of two or more similar or identical events that are causally unrelated." Last tuesday JP was home from school sick, so I stayed home to care for him and CBS College Sports showed the men's and women's college triathlon national championships. Watching them and seeing how into it JP was getting (When the bike legs started he kept pointing to the riders and saying "bike" or "hat," what he calls helmet. and cheering for the competitors) had me thinking about figuring out a way to get back into triathlons. My small town has two pools but only one has lap swim and it is one night a week, so after the first year I was here I stopped doing triathlons. I had this interest in getting back and just days later I meet three triathletes who live here in town, are nice guys and have a swim time set up a few days a week with the local pool. We exchanged numbers and I thought that I had better warn them about my lack of running and swimming before I work out with them and get to running! They also told me the race they were training for was Steelhead, a Half Ironman in Benton Harbour, MI, the one I have done twice!
On sunday I was feeling much better so I went for an easy hour ride to get some miles in and recover from my effort catching those guys on saturday. About 7.5 miles into my ride I heard my text ring tone and checked it. It was Jeff, one of the guys I had met on saturday, asking if I wanted to ride. I said dure but that I was doing a recovery ride. It was great he had no problem going my speed, we talked about all kinds of stuff and really got along and when I said I was probably too slow to run with his running group he convinced me that I could run with them. It was so nice to meet people I could train with, that I got along with and that were not what I call "athletisnobs." You know, those people who isn't as fast or as good as they are and, if you aren't, treat you like a lesser species.
A connecting principle
Linked to the invisible
Almost imperceptible
Something inexpressible
Science insusceptible
Logic so inflexible
Causally connectible
Yet nothing is invincible
...And now for something completely different
Today at the Giro d'Italia, a rider for the LeOpard-Trek team crashed on a mountain descent and died. Wouter Weylandt was his name and I hope that you will say a little prayer for him and his family and friends. Tragedies like this really make you think how precious life is and how often we take risks.
