HE MADE IT!!

Here's my bike-trail buddy Ray on August 10 at the end of his trail. He had told me, while we were riding, that he was looking forward to having someone take his picture in front of the Capitol building.

Here's the email post he sent out to his cheering section:

Hi! Well I made it to the nation's capitol (see attachement for photo) this afternoon. After a 45 mile ride on the C&O Towpath trail I managed to ride through some of D.C.'s traffic to the safety of the National Mall where many monuments and memorials are located. Riding around the Lincoln Monument, past the World War II, Korean, and Viet Nam Memorials, and along side the Washington Mounument was quite a thrill. After riding some 4,000 miles across the country I was, to say the least, smiling ear to ear with a great sense of accomplishment. Knowing I had the support and well wishes from many friends and relatives helped me continue through the tougher times along the tour route. So thank you for your support, thoughts, and prayers. This was a bicycle tour that will be hard to duplicate, though I'm sure I'll try again in the future (read: southern tier route - CA to FL).

Read that last sentence again.... he just rode 4,000 miles and is already planning to do it again. Just like us goofy Ironmen who finish 140.6 miles and immediately sign up for another one.

Remember All in the Family? The episode where Mike and Gloria had their baby? And Gloria finally pushed the baby out and Michael was excited beyond sanity, yelling, "That was great! Did you see that? That was so great! Wow, honey, when do you want to have another one?"

To which Gloria replied, rolling her eyes, "Not now, Michael, I have a headache...."

A correction to my comments about Ray: It's not Landis, it's Lander. And that's not his last name; it's the name of his hometown. Oh, well, at least I noticed that he had something written on the placard on the back of his bike... some of you may be familiar with the email tagline I sometimes use: "I'm not totally lucid. Maybe I need sodium."

Anyway, you gals whose curiosity was piqued by my description of the man who took care of me and asked me to dinner, here he is. And I will be forever grateful to him for sticking with me when I was down. And the truth was, I was in fact down. I felt really, really crappy. Mildly scared. I was glad not to be alone.

It has taken me a whole week to get back on my bike. But I just finished a nice 30 miles. And I found that an easy, even effort, even here in the hills, netted me a better average speed -- 14.6 mph -- than when I try to push the hills and bust my backside on each one.

Another lesson learned.

Congratulations, Ray. And thank you.