Near death experience

Jared and I did the Greco ride in Tampa on saturday. I introduced him to the guys and he did great. He's a natural for group rides. He chatted while I tried to work at the front as much as possible. I got 1:25 at the front with most of it in the 53-11. 12 miles from the end of the ride there is a hill that the guys tend to ride hard even when we're doing tempo rides. I pulled off the front to go back and check on him. He must have been feeling good because he was next in line and pulled hard all the way to the top. No mercy. They rode hard over the top and he got himself into a bit of bother. I made sure he got a wheel and then I bridged to the front and sat up for the sprint up the next hill. I rode back to and paced him and another dude back to the group.

Today, we set out with about 18 guys and gals for a 50 mile ride. We stopped at a store at 30 miles. I knew at that point it would be at least 60 and when we headed out from the store and were still traveling away from home, I figured Jared would be in trouble. He was having trouble finding the sweet spot in the draft in the wind so I showed him where to ride to save some energy. It was at that point that I discovered he had got some poor advice on the ride yesterday from one of my buddies. He was told that to lose weight not to eat before or during the ride. No calories at all. Just water. I hadn't noticed that he didn't have anything at the store. I'm the only person I know that does stupid stuff like that to lose weight. We got a gel into him and I gave him my sweet tea. He did good until 4 miles to go and the wheels came off. He stood up to accelerate and cramped in his calf so he limped in, literally. 71 miles was the total. His longest ride ever by about 20 miles.

I rode beside him for about 10 minutes at one point when he was still with the group and his heart rate was in the 180's the whole time. Incredible. He gets my utmost respect for his ability to suffer. Hopefully he keeps riding. That's the stuff that keeps me in the sport.