Giving an old friend the push he needed...

Saturday, May 12, 2012
I started the day with my ‘Mimi’ workout.  Though I didn’t have 5 yards of anything to haul around the yard, I did need to put her sun porch back together, which required ceiling to floor washing, moving furniture, some painting and other miscellaneous odds and ends.  I was washing her furniture on the wooden deck off the back of the house…slipping and sliding like I was on a frozen pond in the middle of the winter when I decided I needed to do something about the algae that had built up on the decking.  I filled a bucket with hot water and a large splash of Spic and Span, put on my knee guards for crawling around on roofs, took a stiff scrub brush and went to work.  It took an hour…and three pounds of sweat…but I removed it to the point that Mimi wouldn’t need her ice skates every time the deck got wet.

I returned home and called Dan to tell him I was riding his way.  I’d been threatening to get him out on his bike since the end of last summer when, in exchange for some work on the car, I’d rehabbed his Univega touring bike.  We’d trained and raced together over 25 years ago when he’d put the bike in the attic while I’d kept going.  I knew Dan.  If I didn’t ride to his place and stand there while he put on his gear and climbed on the bike, he’d never do it. 

It was almost 7 p.m. when I arrived at his place in Chardon…which means I’d been riding uphill for over an hour.  We pumped up his tires and for the first time in close to three decades…Dan was riding again.  His bike is geared for racing, which is to say it doesn’t have the range for climbing hills that mine possesses.  I’d warned him of this because I’d ridden it to his place once I’d fixed it up…almost losing a lung and my guts climbing the Wilson Mills hill from River Road east.

“You need a new cassette on that bike, Danny boy,” I reminded him before climbing our first hill.
“I’ll be okay,” he said.

He wasn’t though.  After climbing two lesser hills over the next 15 minutes, he proclaimed he was taking a left on Sherman and heading for home.  I needed to smoke the rest of my ride if I was going to beat the dark and so I did.  I wound my way through neighborhood side streets for the final couple of miles in a dwindling light and arrived home at 8:30 p.m.  I’d told Jack when I’d left that I’d make burgers when I returned and I knew he’d be hungry by now.  As I climbed from my bike, I could hear the phone ringing in my saddle bag.  It was Jack.

“Dad…when are you going to be home…I’m really hungry,” he said without thinking much.

“Jack…did you think I could ride my bike and answer a cell phone at the same time?”

“Um…no?”

“That would be correct.  I’m in the driveway,” I answered.

And here’s where I undid all the work I’d done over the last ten hours.  We both knocked off three burgers…though I did leave off the cheese.

Yard Work Duration: 6 hours.  Bike duration: Two hours and 30 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 70-100 for yard work and 120 for the bike.
Calories burned:  1800 for yard work and 2100 for the bike.