Monday, April 11, 2011

The Last Two Miles

April 9th, 2011, 10 a.m.: "Just two more miles to go." That's what I told myself when I hopped on my bike at a Cary Starbucks and started a training ride.

Around 1p.m., a convenience store clerk in Broadway asked how far I was riding that day, I told her, "Just two miles."

Ten minutes later, I realized I'd missed a turn. The blessing of a GPS-enabled cell phone got me back on track. While I was on my unexpected detour, I told myself: "Just two more miles to go."

I pulled into Jitter Bugz in Sanford about 3 p.m.,  and settled in for a lunch break.  It has a nice atmosphere, and the espresso was excellent; I'll have to go back again.  I finished my lunch, hopped back on my bike, looked at the hills ahead of me, and started riding the last two miles.

Around Five p.m., the hail started; it was hardly enough to wet the roads as it melted, and it stopped after 15 minutes.  I kept riding, and told myself "I just gotta ride the last two miles."

At Six, as I was winding my way between Jordan Lake and Shearon Harris, it began to rain. The forecast had called for isolated thunderstorms, which come and go very quickly.  I only had two more miles to go,
so I put on my rain gear and just kept riding.

By Seven, while I coming into Apex, the rain transformed into a torrential downpour.  But it was no big deal, because I only had to ride the last two miles.

By seven-thirty, the lightning started; it was getting dark, and the rain was so heavy that I had trouble making out the street signs.  But the lightning was far away, and I was relatively warm.  I had headlights, tail lights, and my rain gear was just only starting to soak through.  As I backtracked through Apex due to a wrong turn, I reminded myself that I just had those last two miles to go.

August 17th, 1985. I woke up early, rode to Richard Barkschat's house, and we went for a ride.  Like many Saturdays, we had no particular destination in mind.  We ambled along Pacific Coast Highway, inland to visit a few friends, had pizza at our favorite place near the college, stopped to catch a movie, and finally turned our wheels home at sunset. When I left Barkie's place, his odometer read 95 miles. When I got home, I'd ridden an extra 3 - two miles short of a full century. It was dark, I had no headlight, and safety was a concern; I called it a day.  Soon after, my bike was stolen; unable to replace it, I gave up cycling.

By Eight O'clock, I was back in Cary.  the rain was still coming down hard, & the lightning was getting close.  I was soaked to the skin, & my feet were floating in my cleats.  I could no longer see well enough to avoid the rain-slick lane markers on the roads; Again, as it was twenty-five years earlier, I called the ride due to safety concerns, but I'd already completed the goal I'd set out: my odometer said I rode 101.7 miles, but as far as I'm concerned, I simply finished the last two miles of a ride I started twenty five years ago.


Sunday, April 3, 2011

Everybody's home, and Pixie is happy

My wife made it home today.  Pixie is happy.

We actually had to schedule her arrival so it would NOT coincide with one of Pixie's bell-ringing trips outside; we didn't want to reinforce her idea that if she went outside, people would magically appear.

I need a rest.  Keeping up with a frantic puppy for three days straight is a lot of work.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Ride Postponed

My wife is visiting her best friend, who lives a couple of hours away.  This is a Good ThingTM.  I'm a big fan of keeping my wife happy, and visiting her best friend helps make her happy.

But two things happened this weekend that changed my plans.  First, we decided that Pixie, our lovable toy poodle, would stay home with me.  She gets carsick, and the two hour drive is just miserable for her.  Second, at the last minute, all the kids decided to go with mom.

So here I am, at home with Pixie, and getting ready to ride a century.  Now, Pixie is a Good Girl.  Normally, I could feed, water, walk, and play with her, then schedule my ride right, and she'd happily curl up into her crate while I was gone for 8 or more hours.  Normally.

But Pixie is also a very social dog.  We have a big family - eight kids - and we usually have people in and out of our house a lot.  With 'mom' and all the kids gone, Pixie is very lonely.  Everybody left Thursday night, so she's been missing everybody for over a day now.  She rings her doorbell to go outside, so I take her out, and walk her for 30 minutes while she takes me all over the neighborhood.  I get her inside, and she runs all over the house looking for the people she was convinced had come home while she was out.  Five minutes later, she's ringing her bell again, and we start the cycle over.  It went on like this all evening, and now all morning.

It took me a while to figure out that she was headed everywhere where my kids hang out - the path to the bus stop my two daughters take, the walkway to the elementary school my youngest son takes... the yards to my kids' friends' houses...  the park where they all play... over and over, every trip, two or three times an hour.

It's pitiful.  She's lonely, and no amount of ME spending time with her can distract her from the basic truth of her world: everybody is MISSING, but she's convinced that if she goes outside and comes back in enough times, they will magically come home.

I just simply can't see abandoning her in her time of need.  Next week, that ride is mine.  For now, I'm trying to console a lonely puppy.

Friday, April 1, 2011

This Saturday: April Fool Ride

I'm riding my first Century tomorrow. Let's see if everything comes together like it should.