Ok, I Take It Back

I need to officially apologize to all the cyclists in the world out there whom I may have offended in my previous post. I ventured onto a new trail yesterday morning, knowing it would be further from traffic and a bit more peaceful. And flat. My heel likes flat right now.

Yesterday's cyclists were downright great. I was actually supposed to meet up with some runners from a local running group--many of them had done the Bayshore Marathon or Half last week up in Traverse City, so they were using this week to recover and had opted for a long bike ride. I missed the group due to some early storms but caught up with them eventually. But in the meantime, I rode for awhile with a very nice retired gentleman -- a runner-turned cyclist named Tony who moved up here from St. Louis at some point in his life. Turned out we knew several people in common, so that was kind of fun to chat and realize just how small this world is.

He went a bit further than I did, so I had to eventually say goodbye. On my way back to my staging point, I came upon a woman whose bike chain had dislodged from the crank, so I stopped to help her. Wasn't much help, as I foolishly didn't have any tools with me, but I did have some Wet Ones so she could wipe grease off her hands. Within about 7 or 8 minutes, another cyclist stopped to help--he had more experience with these problems and was able to fix it for her (and I was able to learn what to do sans tools!). So I had about a 15 minute delay in there, but I found friendliness, so it was worth it.

In all, my ride was a bit over 24 miles. I made sure to keep my gears harder so I had to pedal the whole time--great calorie burn! It was nice to have the endurance workout I am so used to receiving from my long runs. It was nice, too, to prove myself wrong on those cyclists.

I still miss running though.