Hurl runs a coffee shop/bike shop. He seems to take most Saturdays off and he always takes Tuesdays. He likes a good challenge and last year he rode the Almanzo 100 and won it on his Eddy Merckx fixed gear. Oh, yeah, the answer is “yes, the race is named after Laura Ingalls Wilder’s husband.”

This year he can’t defend his title but there is a new kid in town that promises to be even more challenging so Hurl has signed up for it and needs to get fit fast. I have oodles of vacation to burn and I’m usually very fit so Hurl invites me along on his training rides because everyone else looks at him like he’s crazy when he asks them to take a Tuesday off work to ride with him.

I wasn’t able to go on his first few rides because I was traveling but I was able to take today off. All travel and little riding makes Jack a dull boy. These rides aren’t competitions (we do sprint for city limit signs) but there is an unstated expectation that one is going to be able to keep up and if the going is tough then turns at the front are taken. Not today. The ride kicked my ass so hard.

I wasn’t drinking enough because my water bottle was frozen (when I left home for One on One it was 16F). The Clif bar I had was hard as a rock but I’d take a bite every now and then. The Odwalla bar was a stone and I had both in an interior chest pocket so they were getting some body heat. About mile 35 I was getting kind of bonky and was way off the back. Hurl took pity on me and was soft-pedaling most of the time.

I remember seeing Hurl up ahead of me and he was moving very slowly and I was pedaling hard and I was moving fast and yet I was not catching him. This irritated me a great deal. I really did feel that I should have been gaining on him. It never occurred to me that my eyes were not lying and maybe, just maybe Hurl was going slowly to help me keep in touch and I was going even slower.

Worse still I recall seeing Hurl coasting several times and I was pedaling hard and still not gaining any ground on him. Well, it was really no surprise. I was bonky and Hurl has done several longer rides in 2008 and is looking to do well in the Ragnarok 105. He’s fit and getting fitter. However, Hurl was riding his Eddy and it sports a fixed wheel. He can’t coast. I was in deep.

As we neared Wayzata Hurl asked me how I was doing and I told him I needed a convenience store. He did me one better. There was a Caribou just a few minutes away. Two pomades (pomegranate-flavored lemonade 56 grams of carbs!) one slice of pumpkin almond bread and one oatmeal raisin cookie later I was somewhat fortified.

Of course, my hat was soaked, my jersey was soaked, my shorts were soaked, my glove liners were soaked. I was a mess. Normally, I wouldn’t have sweated like that but when the bonk nears the sweat pours off my body. It took about three miles before I started to warm up again.

We parted ways at the Kenilworth Trail/Greenway intersection. Hurl picked up the pace as he headed north and my speed immediately dropped and I limped home. When I arrived home I logged into Sanoodi and placed points for what seemed like forever. More than 62 miles. Not bad for the first long ride of the year.

(Photo shows Hurl sharing the road with horses on Deer Creek Rd. somewhere in exurbia.)