Bike mania

Can’t decide if I’m extremely proud or extremely pissed. Probably a little bit of both, with the needle slightly pointed toward the “proud” side (or, at the very least, mildly amused). I’ll explain. Upon waking up at 4:50 a.m. for our usual Friday morning group run from Marist, I saw a missed called and a text from Henderson. The after-midnight text (and really, does anything good happen in the wee hours after midnight?) was accompanied by this photo and read as follows: “350 mile comeback in 4 hours for the victory!!” Of course, I knew exactly what this meant and the shenanigans of these men on a Thursday night in college. It’s the Expresso Bike Challenge, a nationwide contest among colleges with these type of stationary bikes in which you log in and log as many miles. Marist advanced to the mano a mano elimination round, versus a relatively obscure but big state school from the Midwest. Let’s just say the energy level among Marist students for this contest was lacking. Not among the track/cross country team, though, and the boys rallied to advance to next week’s round. Which is good news and bad news. The good news is, they bucked up and prevailed. The bad news is, we have a hard tempo workout scheduled for this morning, and next week we have an important meet at Lafayette. This is where the “pissed” part comes in; are we gonna be facing tired legs this morning? Next week? Shouldn’t these idiots be resting up for today’s workout? Next week’s meet? As I complained about this at home, my wife made an astute comment: “Hey, they could be out drinking all night.” Fair point. This group selfie could be from Darby’s or some other place that I don’t want my athletes to be on a Thursday (or any) night, in which case: a. I would most certainly not have received it and b. I would most certainly not post it on this blog. But still, discretion needs to be used next week. Or, at the very least, let’s get the crew team or some other, out-of-season athletes on the bikes. Geez?