Left Behind

Several years ago, I weighed almost 100 pounds less than I do today, spent many hours each week on my bike racking up the miles, and would sign up for a half-century (50 mile) bike ride every now and then without giving it a second thought. My dear wife and I would enjoy training rides in the morning after the kids went to school, or on the occasional Saturday morning in which we would ride for ten, fifteen, twenty miles or more – much of that time side by side, talking about a myriad of subjects, or not at all, just listening to the sound of the road and of each others’ breathing and shifting of gears.

As the stronger rider of our duo, and prone to becoming lost in my own random thoughts, I would at times suddenly realize that I had pulled away from Diana and would look back over my shoulder to see her hundreds of yards or even farther behind. I would usually slow down so she could catch up, or – if the distance was too great – turn around and ride back to where she was.

For several reasons which I will write about in upcoming posts, we stopped riding almost entirely — other than the occasional hop back on the bikes every few months to see if we remembered how to do it on particularly gorgeous, mild days.

As a result of this lack of riding, and the return of my many extra pounds, lots of things have changed on our rides. Not only are our rides being considerably shorter than they used to be, but my wife is now the one out in front on any given ride. If it’s a downhill stretch of road, yowza – I’m out in front like John Candy on a greased bobsled. But let the road turn into even the slightest incline and I start to drop back like I’m riding with flat tires through wet concrete.

Short of shoving a rocket pack up my hiney, there’s just no way I’ll ever even ride alongside my pedal-pushing honey, much less pass her up. Those days – for all intents and purposes – are gone. At least for now. Sometimes it really gets me down – like our ride last night. Between our son’s Lance-like speed and endurance, my wife’s strength and stamina, and my lack of endurance and inability to take deep enough breaths due to a certain rather roundish mid-section between my lungs and madly pumping knees – I may as well have been all by myself the entire ride. Whoopee.

My hope (and one of several goals) is to realize at some point in the not too distant future that I’m riding up the west side of the Rose Bowl loop right alongside my wife, maybe even chatting her up, and I know I’ve got some juice still left in the tank if I wanted to blow past her in a manly, dominant Alpha male sorta way. Not that I would, of course.

Then again, as soon as that happens, I know without a doubt that Diana will catch me at the next water break and say, “Hey … it’s no fun riding by myself, y’know!?!” I live for that day.

Oh, and for anyone keeping score – as of last night, I have been on my bike ten times for a grand total of 100 miles since my “restart” during the last week of February. It ain’t much, I know. Hopefully before too long, I’ll be able to look at numbers like those and laugh what’s left of my butt off like most of you are probably doing right now. Until then, it’s a start.