Pallas Athena

Half-Fast, his wife, Mike and Dave last year rode the Sugar River, Badger and Jane Adams trails in one day with a shuttle between trail ends. I missed out, due to a very bad night out on call. I recall dialyzing a lithium overdose for 10 hours. It was someone who had done this before, and my attitude sucked to say the least. We had all been talking about it, and I really wanted to go. That was not to be. This year, we have been talking about doing the whole thing "minus the sissy shuttle". Mike thought a clover-leaf pattern route would be cool. I really liked the idea. So much that I decided Wednesday night I would spend Thursday doing it. Start time was supposed to be 7 am. I ate a huge breakfast with plenty of protein and fat. It was 7:50 when I finally got loaded and moving. There is nothing worse than a good bonk when you don't have anyone to call. So packing was important. There were a couple of mountain dews, pb&cheese sandwiches, gatorade and a bag ...

That was the predominant thought bouncing off the inside of my skull out putting in another 70 for this fall’s IM. As I hammered through town doing 26 mph + and caught a glimpse of myself in the store windows, I thought “geese, you look like a cyclist”. Next thought? What the heck is that? What is a “real cyclist”. Well, search that one and find a ton of ideas that quantify your cycling worth. Running is much easier to figure out. There are plenty of dorks out there that are ready to tell you if you cannot run 8 minute miles that you aren’t really running. Straight, to the point quantifiable bull right there in your face. Hell, even some misinformed folks at Pearl Izumi bought into this idea for their “run like an animal” campaign. Where are these wiseguys when I’m trying to figure out if I can cycle? Many of the tests I found online involve cycling in Europe (who cares), biking to work frozen (no distance set, which nullifies this as an important qualifier), ridden a recumb...