Respect Your Elders

“Experience beats youth every time.”

Let me set the stage for you. I am older than 40, but younger than 45, and consider myself to be in decent shape with the amount of training that I can squeeze in between work and life.

As I was cycling home yesterday from work (~ 25 miles one way), I hooked up with another cyclist with about 9 miles to go. I am guessing that this guy was about 55 or so.

The cat and mouse game begins.

I pass him; he passes me. Every time that I think I dropped him, he’s right back on my wheel. As we come upon a red light, I slow down in order to stop. I turned to my left and this guy blows right through the red light. I’m like, shit, this guy is serious. So, I pushed hard and passed him again.

I start feeling sick to my stomach, which means that I am at or near my max heart rate. Anyways, this guy is giving me a true run for my money.

As we slow down and approach town together, he reaches out and shakes my hand and says, “Hello, I’m Johnny D.” I’m still in a race haze, so I am not sure if I caught his name correctly. We talked for a bit, a real friendly guy.

Then I said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but how old are you?” Johnny D. says, “67.” Damn, you’re 20 years older than me and you taught me a lesson out there on the road. “Well, I try to ride 25 miles everyday” says Mr. D.

As we went our separate ways, I said, “You’re a true inspiration to me, 67 and still schooling the youngsters. God bless you.”

I vowed to push my training a bit harder next time.