Immediately we head over the bridge and she looks down at my bike. Just checking to see that you are in the big ring, she says. Not a good sign. No sooner do we get on the path going into the wind then she takes it up to a pace I would call just slightly below hauling ass. Now, maybe it was the Thanksgiving 5K I turkey trotted the day before or maybe the fact that in the past three days I have done roughly 3000 yards of IM or maybe just the fact that people that move/talk/think as fast as her should not be permitted to have caffeine EVER in the first place, especially before a ride.
I’m wondering if we are going into the wind or going up a hill, if my tires are flat or my brake pads are rubbing. Because I’m barely catching my breath while she keeps chatting away. I tell her I have reached my ventillatory threshold and might need to slow down. Meanwhile, she is verbally reciting all of the reasons why she is going so fast – bigger bike, no heart rate monitor, extra special Pearl Izumi tights that I MUST also have, there had to be a dozen reasons none of which contained the most obvious, the word CAFFEINE. Nothing seems to slow her down, snow covered bridges, unleashed dogs, patches of ice. The less I talk the more she talked and by now I know the caffeine is pumping through her full force and I’m just hanging on for the ride.
Up ahead she says we will turn around. Like 10 minutes later. I am thinking there will finally be some rest with the tailwind but no such luck. Instead, we are cruising at over 19 mph on the path and when you factor in the cyclocross bike it feels like we are going 25. Over the snow covered bridges, the icy patches, the unleashed dogs, and walkers on the path. In this entire time she has not stopped not even to turnaround while I unclipped in the turn just to have one freakin’ moment to stop pedaling and, finally, catch my breath.
At last, we are on the street heading back to her house and she puts it in the small ring. I take this as my cue that we can finally allow the speed to fall below 15. Though I am riding behind her, she is still talking away. And I hear her say “I wonder what it was today? I wonder if it was the caffeine?”
You think?
We go back to her house and she asks her husband to make me some coffee. Dear god whatever you do Jerome keep her away from the caffeine. She makes herself tea and announces that she has switched to decaf. And that’s a good thing – if not for me, than for Jerome because they were going shopping later that day. And since he just did IM Florida a few weeks ago, there’s now way he could keep her pace. No way.
