the training never stops - an MS Ride update

Saturday morning we participated in the kickoff ride for the Bike MS training season. It started in Ponte Vedra Beach and ran south down A1A to a gas station/convenience store and back again, for a total of about 29 miles. The picture's from the finish line.

I got the youngster up bright and early so we could get there in time for the 7:30 start. The boy surprised me. I started putting together a cooler with some Gatorade in it for after the ride and he asked why? When I told him, he said, "Daaaaad, it's only 29 miles." (Yeah, it was the three syllable dad.)

For whatever reason, he does better on rides that are group affairs like this. I'm not talking about training rides where everyone is part of one organized group. I mean things where it's just a bunch of different people and we're all going to the same place. I noticed it in April when we did the Katie Ride and I saw it Saturday.

If I wake him up on a Saturday when it's just the two of us, or us with a neighbor, he's difficult to drag from bed and get out the door, and then when we get going, he's not exactly pushing it.

In the April ride, and the one this weekend, once we get around all the other people, he's rarin' to go. I saw some friends and asked if they wanted to ride with us, knowing they're pretty slow, but thinking that'd be OK with the youngster. It'll probably change one day in the not too distant future when he gets stronger, but for now, our pace is as fast as fast as he'll go. We talked about it and they wanted to go about 13-15 miles an hour. He looked at me and said, "I don't know, Dad. I'm feeling pretty hyper. We could be doing 17 easy." I laughed and said we'll see, but we did. We stayed between 17 and 18 for the whole trip, and he wasn't exactly winded when we finished. In fact, we passed several people and he was wondering how they ever go in front of us. I explained that some folks have never done a ride this long and didn't know how to pace themselves and were probably burning out, or they never made it to the halfway point at the convenience store, and turned around when they realized they need to just go home and train.

On top of all that, I think he realized he needs to do more work during the week. For the first time since we started this training thing, he's getting up early and riding during the week. Of course, part of that is that he can. It's summer vacation after all. Still, it's summer vacation and he's up early, so I'll throw him a few brownie points.