This afternoon I cut out of work a little early to go for a bike ride with my friend Julio, a bonafide cyclist. We did about 22 miles on the Mt. Vernon trail, with me literally trailing him most of the way, as he's in much better shape than I am and has a far superior bike. It was only my second ride of the year, however, so I'm not going to dwell on that. Trying to keep up with him (or just keep him in view) gave me a fantastic workout.
To get to the Mt. Vernon trail from my house, I have to go down a long hill. This means, of course, that I have to come up the same evil hill at the end of the ride, when I'm tired, in order to get home again. I usually drive to the trail and then get on my bike, so that I can avoid the hill. I know, it's pretty wimpy. But you haven't seen that hill!
During our ride today, Julio causally mentioned that he's been riding over at least once a week to train on the hill. He goes up and down it three times in a row, just to practice climbing. Later, as we were nearing the end of the trail, Julio offered to ride up the hill with me in a show of solidarity. How nice. Except that I had driven to the bottom of the hill before the ride so I wouldn't have to ride back up it! Of course, I didn't tell Julio that. I had to save face in front of this bonafide cyclist! What could I do? With a small whimper, I clicked into my lowest gear and pedaled up that vicious hill behind Julio, who I don't think was even winded at the top.
When Julio turned around and headed back down the hill towards home, I pretended that I was continuing on towards my house. Instead, I turned into the neighborhood at the top, went down an adjacent hill, and looped back to where my car was parked on the side of the road. Oh the lengths I'll go to save my ego!