One of the best moments I had with my oldest
daughter's husband, my son-in-law. (What are
son-in-laws for?),...
...No taking it away from you Greg, you
stepped up and came a long way in a short
while, as you should have. Remember forever,
you have it in you now! Damn good ride Greg!
Truth be told:
Greg bonked like a b*$#h at about 70 miles. When
I slowed down to give him a draft, he slowed down
more; over and over again. Finally I slowed to a
stop, dropped my bike in the street, and walked
back to him and chewed his ass.
It was Greg's 2nd or 3rd year, we'd done some
really decent training over the past two seasons
too: intervals, hills, distance etc. Greg had
even bought a new carbon fibre bike to boot.
Conservatively, we thought we could expect to
finish the century at least at a pace of 18 mph
with Greg, based on riding as only a group of 3.
But we arrived early and started up front so we
were able to join and enjoy the benefit of every
group of riders better than us as they caught
up; instead of if we had started behind them;
surely we might have struggled to ever catch a
couple of the fastest groups at all.
During our last long ride in training, we agreed
to drop anyone who bonked hard. During the event,
as things happen, I just couldn't live with that;
"Leave no man behind" and all that, was too much
in my conscience, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada,
besides, we were on pace for a 23 mph average
speed if we could keep our pace up above 20 mph
for the last 30 miles; --because the 'peleton'
actually enabled us to easily cruise extremely
fast, almost effortlessly for the first 25-30
miles, before crashes, break-aways and drops.
I really just didn't want him to bonk and quit
like he had a couple times before. But Greg so
enjoyed the exhilaration of peleton-pack speed
soooooo much, that instead of taking a brief
15-30 second rotation at the front, he decided
to pull it for a couple miles, which by the way
he absolutely did not do! He was lucky if he
pulled even a quarter of a mile, which he later
described as "20 minutes" -- which is absolutey
total BULLS#!T!!!! Trying to be cool, he wasted
himself foolishly, mid ride!
Anyway, I thought he needed the sense and
reality of a significant accomplishment as a
milestone and life-lesson:
--Dig Deep, don't give up, you can do it, you'll
be glad you persevered....yada, yada, yada,
because once you go that deep, for the rest of
your entire life you know you can; and you know
others can too. You can beat defeat with mind
over matter, at least sometimes maybe when matter
fails;--at the point of total fatigue and
exhaustion. I thought he should have that, this
gift of 'rights of passage' from father-in-law to
son-in-law!
Anyway, Mike must had felt the same, because he
finally circled back and we both enjoyed a pull
at a nice pace. But not only did Greg get benefit
of our compassion and camaraderie, the child of
no bicycling etiquette what-so-ever then spited
our friendship with revenge by sprinting the last
25 yards of the 100 mile ride like he was winning
the Tour de France and we were his unworthy
domestiques! "He beat us!", instead of thanking
us (because some girls are like that). Anyway,
That's what you call making a better day of it!
We finished 5 seconds under 5 hours; just better
than a 20 mph pace. Damn good for a first
century Greg. Much better than dropping him or
finishing at less than the 17 mph pace we would
have ended up with had Mike not come back and
helped pick up the pieces!
Thank you Michael Jones!
For his poor manners, when we got to the pub, I
sent Greg to the bar to fetch the first round,
but I also immediately ordered from the waitress
as soon as Greg went to fetch. The waitress
said she "...could get beers quicker" than him,
so I didn't order Greg one. By the time he got
back with the beers, we were on our second.
After driving home and cutting the lawn, most of
the rest of the day was spent napping; its a
good thing I used a push mower or I would have
crashed!
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