Saturday ride

Well, my plans got a bit of an ax today. I was hoping for around 50 miles or so starting at 11:00 with Alex and hopefully a couple more guys, but Tammy told me of her shopping plans in Des Moines around 9:30 so I had to cut the ride short. Tammy was leaving for shopping with her friends at 1:00 so I had to get back so that my daughter Paula (15 years old) wasn't home alone. Her boyfriend of over a year lives about 3 blocks away and the last thing I want is for her to be home alone knowing Tammy is in Des Moines and I am in the middle of no where on a ride. So, we had to make it short.

I took off from the house around 10:15 to meet up with Alex at Ada Hayden at 10:30. We chatted for a bit and then took off. Within 3-4 minutes I was getting text message after text message from my daughter about afternoon plans. I was seemly stopping every tenth of a mile to get my message and text back. I had these thoughts of, "Dad, can RJ come over?" and if I didn't reply she would just assume it was ok! If you have a teenage daughter you know the feeling! Then my wife called. I am sure Alex was quite thrilled with our incredible pace of stopping every tenth of a mile to get my messages or phone calls!

Finally we made it to a gravel road I wanted to show Alex as it is a great road just outside of Ames. Unfortunately, it was covered in ice. On an earlier gravel road I took a minor spill, but on this skating rink I took another minor spill and then a third, harder, wipe out sliding down the road a bit. Nice. Talk about grace! Well, we finally got out of Ames and took off east and then north creating a loop back to Gilbert.

Riding with Alex is always a blast. I really enjoy talking with him about his job and bike parts. Being a mechanical engineer he looks at parts in a different, very interesting way. Being a bit of a nerd I get into that for some reason. Also, Alex is a strong rider, riding a 44 X 20 single speed Cross Check. He obviously doesn't have to work at all while riding with my fat tire, 32 X 17, mountain bike being ridden by a weakling. But, I think we did ok. We rode roughly 25 miles in 2 hours with a bunch of stops for my text messages and phone calls. We must have averaged around 14 which is pretty decent for my current conditioning. I was happy that my achilles didn't seem to bother. I could feel it, but it didn't really effect me at all. I will try to get into another similar ride tomorrow and keep building up my biking fitness.

Only 5 weeks until the GRAID. Not much time that is for sure! I am praying for a north wind at 15 that day!

I really missed out on the Des Moines guys ride. I have been getting emails from these guys and they seem like a blast to be around. Hopefully I can join in on their fun soon.


Happy training.