Saturday, August 4, 2012

It seems so distant now, a couple of lifetimes ago at least.  My then scoutmaster was also the school cross country coach, and the junior high team was very small.  If I would join the team, they would have enough members to officially compete.  It was a tough sell, as I hadn't been too interested in competitive sports before, quitting a soccer team ostensibly because of the excessive running during practice.  As it turns out, I stuck with the cross country team and did quite well through my high school years.  Over those seven years the team grew and shrunk, and we ate through at least four coaches.  Some were good, some were bad, and a couple were key in driving us to winning a state championship my senior year of high school.  I was never the standout athlete of the team, but I managed to keep up with the pack, and was most often in the top 7 (5 out of 7 score points in varsity races, and the 6th is a tie breaker), and was the fastest 6th man from any team at our winning state meet.

After our state-winning race.

Moving on to college, I made a very conscious decision to not run competitively.  I could feel the strain of keeping up with such a great team, both physically and mentally, and I could sense that it was time to ease off a little.  Since I was planning to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering, I also saw that winning the state meet would probably be the highlight of my athletic career in any case.  I would still run, to be sure, but it was very nice to be able to train and run races without having to worry about anything but my own satisfaction.  It also allowed me to focus more on running longer races, and I completed several half-marathons.  Still, I felt that I wouldn't be able to keep it up forever without getting hurt.

Approaching the finish of a half-marathon.

Then a few more changes came along.  I graduated with my bachelor's degree, got married, and moved on to graduate school.  Most semesters in my undergrad, I lived within walking distance of campus.  For grad school, we bought a house a few miles away from the lab where I work.  This prompted me to start riding a bike to work when the weather is conducive (most of the warm months).  Growing up, my family was into cycling in a big way.  When I was quite young, we rode in a couple organized weeklong tours of Ohio on our custom made three person bike.  Later, we rode single bikes on weeklong rides from Lake Michigan to Lake Huron/Erie across Michigan's lower peninsula.

Filling up the gas tank on a weeklong ride across Michigan's lower peninsula.

Something clicked.  I dusted off the old road bike I'd acquired through some kind of squatter's rights from my dad.  On a trip home, my parents caught me eyeing up the ancient Schwinn tandem that had been collecting dirt and rust in the barn since I could remember.  They decided that they probably would never ride their slightly newer Dawes tandem anymore, and it was in much better shape.  We managed to get it down to Indiana, and I spent several weekends replacing cables, adjusting brakes and saddles, and tightening chains.  My wife Ashby was a good sport throughout the restoration process, once walking four miles back home with me after a snapped chain stopped us cold on a steep uphill.

The chain in use here is probably the one that stranded us recently!

Now the tandem seems to be in reliable shape, and we're set to do our second Wabash River Ride toward the end of this month.  Last time we managed the shortest 33 mile route on our single bikes, but this time we're hoping to do one of the longer loops.  It's nice to have found a sport I can do with Ashby thanks to the tandem.  She's even worked up the courage to do solo rides on the back roads near our home, and I've noticed that she's much more confident riding her single bike now.  She tried running several times, but it just wasn't her thing.  Now I think we've finally found a sport that we can do together.  It's nice to have rediscovered cycling.  I plan to continue running the occasional 5k, but I'm having too much fun being back in the saddle to think about that right now!


No comments: