Weekend Bike Ride

I have avoided puting too much info about my bike rides on here, because i don't think they are very interesting to anybody but me. Especially because all of the other info i put up here is very, very interesting, maybe even captivating. I did have the chance to go down to st george this last weekend and spend a few days rolling around. My dad , dysfunctional brother and i went down on thursday morning, and the ladies in my life came down then next day. We met up with some guys from the American RADD race team who is sponsored by agel. Thursday's ride was supposed to be "rolling terrain". The difference between rolling terrain for my 61 year old dad and rolling hills for 28 year old Bryson Perry are fairly significant. about 30 minutes into the ride when they said that we were going up to gunlock resevoir my dad knew he was in trouble.
he had been there a long time ago to swim in the resevoir and remembered it being up hill. After passing the resevoir we made our way over to the st george marathon route and down snow canyon and back in to town. He remembered this part of the road as well, from the times he ran the st george marathon. he knew this part of the ride had hills as well. My dad took up cycling last fall to keep in shape and lose some weight, since his body can't take the impact of running anymore and after a few injuries, cycling was a nice alternative. Last fall on a ride, he got his heart rate up to 147. He thought he was gong to die. he has been faithfully riding his bike on the indoor trainer 6 days a week since christmas, and has lost some weight. The difference between riding indoors on a trainer and riding outdoors with some pro racers became quickly evident to my dad. 2 of the guys we went with helped my dad up the hills with a hand on each side of his back pushing him along. You may be thinking to yourself.."hmmm, that sounds really nice of them to help him up those hills"... my dad saw it a little differently. When you are riding and get to a hill, you ride up it at your own comfortable, but hard pace, whatever that may be. When you have a guy on either side of you, pushing you up the hill, you tend to work harder. A LOT harder. The old man's heart got up to 164 on a couple of occasions and averaged 150 for most of the ride. My dad just kept asking if they had been promised a part of the inheritance if they succeeded in killing him early.
As hard as they tried, he lived that day and did 30 miles on friday and 40 miles on saturday. Although the other 2 days were at a slightly slower pace, he kept riding.
Pain is temporary, Quitting last forever. In his case the pain lasted a little longer than he was hoping for. I got in a few more miles than that and felt good for this time of year.
The girls got to play outside and ride their bikes and stayed down for a few extra days since they are off track right now. They went swimming and had a great time. I'm Happy to have the snow this winter but it is nice to ride in shorts again.