. . . and my best friend and training partner, Jeff.
Friday, December 17, 2004 was the 5 year anniversary of his remission from cancer. They call that “cured”. I called it a good day to ditch work and train all day in multiples of 5.
We work together, so I cleared his calendar and my own and planned the day. The idea was to celebrate life by being out and active, not to hammer:
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2500y swim, specifically the off-season special of one set of 5x500, no warm-up, no cool-down, just get in the water and churn.
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50 mi ride on the longest local rails-to-trails conversion. It’s our regular serious tri-ride route, as there’s no traffic, not too many other folks once you get out of town, and you can stay down on the bars the whole ride with no worries. Of course, being the off-season, we were on road bikes this time.
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5 mile run off the bike on the same path. I haven’t run off the bike since my last 1/2IM in May, so 5 instead of 10 was my being realistic and wanting to not have to walk.
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Dinner out with 5 good friends, all made closer by dealing with Jeff’s illness, treatment and recovery.
So, having made all the plans, we were ready to rock.
Hurdle #1, a Judge who was not inclined to move a hearing I had from Friday at 10:00. Damn, later start than I wanted, but still doable, no worries. See if you can find my car in the courthouse parking lot:
I Finally got out of Court around 11:00, hopped in the Rodeo and headed to pick up Jeff, who got to sleep in, have extra coffee and chill at home on the couch. Throw his bike on the roof, and take time to snap the “before” photo, balancing the camera on the mailbox since his dog refused to help out and take the photo.
Then we’re off to our local pool. Jeff and I live in Atlanta, and swim at the MLK, Jr. Natatorium, 1 block from where Marty grew up and 2 blocks from Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he preached at the height of the civil rights movement.
The pool is great because it gets used massively by the kids in the neighborhood, and hosts the city swim team, the Dolphins.
The pool sucks because it’s freakin’ closed today!
Damn! How come they didn’t call us?! No respect.
No worries, I know the quick way into the Aadamsville pool, which is on the way to the ride anyway. Maybe they’ll even have it set up for long course since it’s the off-season! Yeah, this is way better and we can sneak in the back. I swear, I know the way in:
Sonofabitch! They never lock this door. So we go upstairs to check it out and find ta conspiracy is clearly in the works:
Apparently lifeguards need holidays too. Yeah, whatever. OK, so swimming is clearly out for the day. No problem, we’ll just hammer the bike to make up for it. Triathletes are nothing if not flexible in their training, right?
So, we make it out to the ride and it’s a beautiful day. A quick snap after we’re changed and ready to go and we’re off!
This path really rocks. It’s about a 25 min drive from downtown, but when you’ve got the time it’s really nice. No traffic, beautful scenery, generally flat (trains don’t climb well, evidently) and perfect for sitting on pace and clicking off the miles. Here’s Jeff early in the ride.
Taking photos while riding turns out not to be as difficult as I thought it was going to be. The hardest part was getting the camera out of the jersey pocket without busting my ass. So, while I had it out, I figured everyone would want a close-up of us in all our winter-gear glory.
Followed by the gratuitous-appeal-to-Demerly-shadow-photo:
One of the cool parts of this ride is going through an old tunnel. maybe 1/5 of a mile and pretty dark in the middle. Made even more sketchy by the icy spots from the first real cold of the winter. Made even more sketchy by trying to take a photo while riding to catch the ever-present graffiti on the walls in cool artsy-shot.
Since it was a work day, I didn’t want everyone to think that the day was void of educational content. We learned much local history on the day, especially about the size and shape of Ma White’s ass:
Oops, on closer inspection, that is actually a reference to the land itself, cows, creek and trees included.
A stop for a scenic photo,
and we’re back at the car. 50 winter miles in the bank for next season!
While we were heading back to the parking lot, we passed a mom on roller-blades with her two kids riding bikes. The older kid, about 7, was up ahead and as we came up on him, he was weaving all over like a high-school senior on prom night. Not wanting to mack him in front of his mom and little bro, I calmly called out “I’m going to pass by you on your left, so stay to the right” as we approached.
Damn if the kid didn’t turn to look over his left shoulder, which made him swing left. When he sees us coming, he screams, hits the brakes and put his feet down. Made me glad we were on road bikes or else we’d have been picking pieces of spiderman mittens out of our spokes.
His mom was cool though, and gave a nice talk to the kid about riding in public space, being aware of other people, and holding your line. Nice to hear, hopefully the kid listened.
So, back at the car, put the bikes up, and hit the trail for 5 miles. At this point, not having taken a running step, I’m on top of the world:
Now, it should be known that Jeff is a rockin’ runner. He’s 47 and was a marathoner before I talked him into triathlon right before cancer hit. He’s run so long and so many miles that we don’t need a GPS when we run together. He can tell you pace and distance with crazy accuracy, he’s so familiar with his running. This is a long way of saying that he felt lot better than I did on the run. I was afraid my stride was so short that my right foot wouldn’t be out of the way before my left foot came down. Memo to self: more bricks, sooner.
So, we finish up the run and the day’s training. Because of the late start we’re behind scheduled and have to bail on the planned 50 wings and 5 beers stop, so we head home.
Jeff, being older and wiser than me, called ahead and saved our day by having his wife throw some beers in the freezer so they’d be chilly when we got home. He won the race to the kitchen:
Shower, changed and we hit dinner out at one of our favorite places for a “team” celebration. When Jeff got diagnosed, I was living in New Orleans. I moved back to Atlanta and in with Jeff to help him and his family through the treatment and recovery. I was worried about him and the family, and Jeff was mostly worried about his daughter, who was 4 at the time. Between his wife Gretchen (Short hair on the right), and our good friend Rebecca (Long hair with glasses), we managed to keep things on an even keel and Jeff got through the treament with a minimum of interruption to his daughter’s life. My wife Rachel (Red hair on left) stayed behind in New Orleans until after the treatment and recovery and then came back to Atlanta as well.
So, Jeff wanted the Team together for the night of celebration. As Jeff said multiple times during the day, we are incredibly lucky.
Lucky to be healthy enough to train.
Lucky to GET to exercise to exhaustion instead of HAVING to work to exhaustion.
Lucky to have jobs where we can take the day off to train.
Lucky to have jobs where we have enough money to be able to spend it on selfish things like recreation.
Lucky to have friends and family.
Lucky to have found a sport like this.
So, a day in the life of Jeff. Just another member of the peaceful tribe.
T