Early on the morning of the Fourth, dad and I went out for a bike ride.  He's been training for the MS300 bike race and does quite a bit of biking every day.  My biking schedule is a bit different - the last time I biked any distance was in 1999 when I biked from Fridley into NE Minneapolis and then had to get a ride home.  Despite our differences, I figured I was game for anything.  He gave me a biking shirt and told me that it would help me not to sweat so much.


No problem, I thought, I'm not usually all that sweaty.  Then, he pulled out some velcro straps and tied my pant legs to my ankles.  Not really fashionable, but I figured that very few people would notice my ankles on this bike trip, and really, I wasn't in it for the fashion.  Still, I wasn't too worried about the whole thing and we went off to the trail.  It wasn't until he pulled out an energy gel pack and told me to eat it before getting on the bike that I started to feel a little uneasy about what lay ahead.

We did stop every five miles, and we went slower than dad normally does, and my legs did feel more wobbly than steady - but I made it.  All twenty miles, and it felt great.