1) Started in front of Briggs/Hale homes with the pre-ride-prayer(PRP) asking for safety on our ride and blessings for Kim and family. As always the PRP was filled with a slight amount of levity to get the day off as usual - e.g. early morning banter regarding updates on previous injuries (Wood & Hale). Pre-ride negotiation on how easy we all needed to go today (Jensen the sandbagger), and eventually onto the pampered bike comments.
2) Cool morning in Coleville, and a beautiful day with friends experiencing the sunrise.
3) Riding together = miles apart. (Resulting in Little Man repeatedly swinging back to the "social group" (T.Romney chairman) to encourage the social riders to pick up the pace. Which eventually caused LM to utter the statement, "If your mouth is working, your heart isn't")
4) Jensen pounding out a consistent pace with very little drama
5) Wood finding friends (female +1) along the road to talk with, and finally
6) Little man beating Wood (and Hale) in the finale sprint stage, followed with chocolate milk and post-ride banter.
LM was assigned the TATS at the Wyoming/Utah border. In spite of mocking, he bore for needing to refer to iphone notes, and unable to quote the book of Isaiah like some (Hale, Jensen) he did manage to produce under pressure the following inspirational thoughts to consider:
- "Life can only be understood backwards, but unfortunately it must be lived forward".
- "My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance and in inverse proportion to my expectations"
What was different this week:
1) Someone (Wood) dropping something (a chain) and the other competitor(Lloyd) not taking advantage of this misfortune within sight of the finish line. (Wood has no idea what Lloyd is talking about because he was miles in front of him when the dropping of the water bottle happened.)
2) Finding someone who has a larger gift of gab than Wood. (will remain nameless, but initials are TR)
3) Finishing together with no one getting injured (although Big Man continues to try with the running of that final stop sign).
We look forward to next week for all that is usual and comfortable, as well as the opportunity to discover something new.
YIPPY SKIPPY!
"There's a Bright Golden Haze on the Meadow"
Carl Empey, this lady told us A LOT of stories about your mischievous high school days... :-)
The OLDER you get, the more COLORFUL you become and the need for smartphones to be SMART!
Really, I have to sit on a beach towel on the way home??? I'm NOT that sweaty!
Masters of GIFT OF GAB University
