Expresso (bike) love

Two random questions for a rainy fall morning:

1. What in heaven’s name was I doing in the wee early hours of the morning – both Tuesday and Wednesday -- pedaling away in the McCann Center on a stationary bike called “Expresso?”

2. And! How in heaven’s name did this photo of me wind up on Snapchat?

Fortunately here at Blog Central, I come prepared with answers (not to mention sore glute muscles). The answer to #1 is the craze that has been engulfing the Marist Athletics department the past few weeks – but especially this week: The Expresso Bike Challenge. Put on by the bike company of the same name, it is a single-elimination bracket-style tournament where schools go up against each other for the most cumulative miles in a 48-hour period. Marist is currently in the Final Four, pitted against a formidable powerhouse Expresso team from a school called Schoolcraft College in Michigan. It is an intense battle, with the final outcome not known until midnight tonight.

We are all trying to do our part. In particular, the men’s crew team and the men’s and women’s XC/track team have been killing it on there, pedaling furiously at all hours of the day and night (also, a special shout out to men’s lax assistant coach Ethan Fox who is a one-man wrecking crew on the bike, inching close to 200 miles!). Several members of our track team camped out in the fitness center, on the wooden floor near the Expresso bikes, and pedaled relay style throughout the night. Grad student and team captain Mark Valentino has been mobilizing the effort, creating a sign-up sheet and nudging an old, broken down coach like me to participate. This is the answer to question two, as Tino snapped this photo of the two of us at 3:16 a.m. (or thereabouts) on Tuesday, during the early hours of the Fall Frenzy Fearsome Four round, pitting top-seeded Schoolcraft versus underdog No. 4 seed Marist. Unbeknownst to me, he put this photo on the Social Media outlet called Snapchat, which meant that everyone on the team knew that Coach Pete was pedaling away while they were sleeping.

Of course, such mind-numbing monotony is what I live for. In typical fashion, I have chosen to ride the shortest, most boring course on the Expresso – called the Expresso Freeway, a one-mile track style loop, with no hills. Over and over and over again. With my music in my ears. The only limiting factors for me are time (very early morning is the only time I can do it) and pace (I’m slow and steady … emphasis on slow). My pace hovers somewhere between elite, international men’s marathon pace at best and goal Running Red Foxes men’s race pace. As in: After a few particularly tedious 5-mile and 6-mile stretches of pedaling, I thought to myself, “Gee, that would be a great 8km time for Spencer” or “Hmm, I wonder if Deet can get down to that for 10km eventually.” I’m still working on the men’s mile world record. Maybe next week. 

To quote Dire Straits: Is this Expresso Love? You bet it is. Let’s keep pedaling, Red Foxes, right into the final round next week.