The First TMD Century Stage: 2019

"One thing about the cold weather:

it brings out the statistician in everyone."

Paul Theroux

The first Tour De Mad Dog Century stage of 2019 and I am in terrible shape.  Yes, I have gone to the gym.  I have done Pilates and Barre classes faithfully other than the months a couple of broken toes were healing.  I have squatted and lunged and crunched until my squatters, lungers, and crunchers were sore, but I have not really ridden my bicycle much and I know it will show on a 100 mile ride.  Once, I think with disgust at myself, I have been on my old stationary trainer once this winter. So I actually go back and check to ensure that it was not a dream, that I did receive an e-mail saying the course is changed due to flooding and will be a much flatter course than the course originally scheduled.  I intended to ride anyway, and even with the change I know it will be painful, but I also know this course, one I normally will not ride due to the danger of high traffic volume and the lack of any significant scenery, will be less painful by far. I'm in.

The ride will go from the Outer Loop down to Lincoln's boyhood home and then return along the same route.  I know there will be memories, but I am unprepared for how they haunt me throughout the ride.  Many of my friends from those first years have given up the century rides for shorter, less demanding rides, but here I am.  Newer friends are not returning opting for shorter rides, but I am here.  And I decide it is time to evaluate why I am here and if I truly want to be here. Dave is the only one present today from the original group that rode the series starting 2004.  We were really not friends that first year, at least not in the way we later became friends, a friendship forged through countless miles on countless century and brevet courses.   Still, I doubt we will ride together and I am surprised to find we spend quite a bit of the day together.  Gayle is the only other woman present.  Again I think how last year there were, I don't believe, any new women to finish the tour.  But things lose their popularity, and the numbers definitely seem to grow smaller.  And it is hard.  Riding all these centuries is hard and seems to become harder.

I think about the brevets and how I purposefully did not do the Kentucky 200 this year.  The decision was abetted by a wedding I needed to attend the evening before that kept me out until midnight, but one I perhaps would have made anyway.  I keep hoping my desire to ride the long brevets will return, but just the thought of being that tired makes me tired.  Still, I am glad that I was that tired.  Personally, I don't believe that until you have ridden a 1200 K, you really to know what it means to be truly exhausted. 

I know how to dress for this ride, but I shiver at the thought.  This is one of those days that, while not really cold, will be one where you sweat and are chilly at the same time.  To prevent that, I would have to overdress which would not only mean a slower pace than the snail's pace I anticipate, but greater dehydration.  It is supposed to be in the low forties all day with a mild wind, and so I bite the bullet: thin wool base layer topped with a wool jersey, vest, and very light jacket, booties and my bar mitts, something I left on only because of the cold weather prediction for next week, a decision I am exceedingly grateful for throughout the ride.  Age, it seems, whether mental or physical, has lessened my tolerance for discomfort.  As my friend, Lynn, has told me, it does get harder to be mean to yourself as you age. 

Dave heads off before me, and I leave the parking lot in the middle of the fast group chasing him, for he pulled out on his own.  I hang for a few miles before dropping back knowing that I do not have the endurance to hang there the entire ride but pleased to keep up for as long as I do.  As with running, one thing I am good at is pacing myself, a valuable skill for anyone who does endurance activities. Indeed, it turns out only three riders do, but that happens further down the road.  When I drop, I am ride by myself for a number of miles before being caught by John and a rider I don't know when I stop to adjust the cue sheet.  I giggle to myself as I hear them chatting behind me expressing their gratefulness for the flooding because it caused the route change.  It is good to know that I am not the only wimp in the group.  But then, I think, other than Larry, I probably am the oldest of the group.  As I thought to myself last year, "You old fool.   You're 62 (now almost 63) and can't expect to keep up with 40 to 50 year old men." But today, for the most part, I do. 

While I am by myself, I ride a road where I remember Mike Pitt having a flat 14 or 15 years ago.  I remember how we lazed at the side of the road while he changed it, laughing and joking, easy in our friendship.  I remember the warmth of the sun beating down on us, the greenness of the grass, the sweetness of the air.  I pass the gas station where Mike stole Tim's wheel and hid it. I remember Vickie, camera ready and then stealthily put away, no photo taken, when Tim became incensed and rode off by himself leaving everyone stunned by his unexpected reaction.  I remember another time, all of us sitting at the picnic tables, warm and sweaty in the summer sun, eating sandwiches,  and Mike Kammenish lying on the pavement easing an aching back prior to his spinal surgery.  Across the street is the restaurant we used to eat in where a toy train ran along a shelf at the top of the room near the ceiling, the restaurant where I got my first Mad Dog (removable) tattoo.  "Where," I think,"did the time go?"  "Where did the people go?" Yet still I ride.  "Is there," I think,"something wrong with me that I have not moved on as others do?"  But even on this cold day, a day where I chill and am uncomfortable any time I slow or stop, there is no place else I would rather be or any other activity that I would rather be in engaged in than riding my bike.  Curse or gift?  I don't know.  Perhaps a bit of both. But thank God for the health that allows me to continue to participate.

At the first store stop, Gayle and Dave are waiting and we share the road until Dave needs to make a pit stop.  Gayle thinks it is morbid when I am talking about the divorce of a friend and lamenting that he had not found the woman to live out his days with as I had hoped. My daughter tells me I talk of death too openly, and I can't say I am not afraid of death or that I look forward to death, but I also am not afraid to talk about it and have accepted that it is inevitable.  But she is right and people do find it unsettling. Still, I did not look at my statement as morbid.  I envy those who have life partners and I miss my own. And it is something that I wish for my friends:  loving and being loved. Even now, when I see something Lloyd would have liked, I think how I miss telling him about it or buying it for him.  I miss fixing his favorite dinner for his birthday.  I miss having a life partner.  I miss loving and being loved, and if I have another romantic relationship, I will wish for an enduring one. The words of a favorite song by James Arthur come to mind, "I want to stay with you until we're gray and old......I want to live with you even when we're ghosts."

The man I don't know behind me  has been complaining about his toes.  Sympathizing,  I give him the toe warmers I have stowed in my handlebar bag and he is hesitant but grateful. I ride with John and this fellow until the turn around. They stop but I roll onward.  I decide not to stop at the Subway that is the traditional lunch stop but to ride on until the third stop as it is still early.  At the turnaround, John asked the fellow riding with us our average.  He replies in kilometers, but that is not what John wanted, so I tell him we are at 16 mph.  Not fast, certainly, but not too bad after months without any serious riding.  As stated above, the cold has turned me into a statistician.  Throughout the ride, whenever I notice my discomfort, I calculate the anticipated finish time. 

Dave and I stop to eat at the third store stop.  As we sit there for what seems like forever, I realize I had forgotten how slowly Dave eats.  Never have I seen anyone who enjoys his food as thoroughly as Dave. It is a source of amusement, delight, and frustration. Though I enjoy hearing about the new bicycles he has bought (and have been lusting after the one he is riding), it seems an eternity as the statistician again takes over calculating the additional time it will take to finish.  My thigh muscles are tightening and I am chilling by the time we leave.  As often is the case after a stop, especially a prolonged stop during a colder ride, it seems colder than it did prior to the stop.   I wonder if I have another thirty miles left in my legs and realize I better have as I have no sag wagon.  Dave said the sun was supposed to pop out, but it never does.  Everything is dark and gray and chill, a chill and grayness made worse by the previous taste of spring.

Dave tells me about the brevet, about who rode, about the challenges of the course.  I ask if he is going to ride his new bike at PBP and he says he is not:  he is going to ride his green Kirk.  I ask if he rode with Steve and he says he rode mostly alone.  A part of me wishes I had ridden, but as much of me or more is glad that I didn't, particularly after feeling how tired my legs are after 100 basically flat miles. And then we are pulling into the parking lot, a lot that holds my car that has seat warmers that will be on high all the way home.  Unlike in the warmer months, we only hug briefly and don't hang out long afterwards before heading home.   I grin as I pull out calculating how long it will be before I am submerged in a tub full of hot water.  But I am glad that I rode. I am grateful for the time alone and the memories that surfaced.  I am grateful for the time with Dave.  Life is good and so is bicycling.  And spring will come.