Training for RAGBRAI; Slow Start But Steady Progress

Training for RAGBRAI is slow going after a long, brutal winter and a bad case of flu, which I came down with March 18th (sore throat, cough, and body aches), and Jim, my husband, came down with a week later on March 25th. Jim called in sick at work for two days in a row. He hasn't done that since he had surgery. I spent five days coughing and sleeping as much as I could. My lungs are still inflamed and my eyes are still mattered over a month later. I couldn't train until recently.

I was really fast in my forties. I could ride 45 miles of nothing but steep hills. My son and daughter were even faster. They grew up on RAGBRAI, beginning at ages seven (Jesse, almost eight) and three years old (Sarah). With us they rode 66 miles to Nauvoo once and people thought we were pushing them too hard because they were still pretty young. Sarah was probably five or six and Jesse was 10 or 11. We stayed at a convent with a big hill. As soon as the kids got off their bikes, the rest of us sat around resting while the kids ran up a steep hill and then rolled down laughing. They did it again, and again, and again.

"I guess you're not abusing them," one rider said thoughtfully as he observed them enjoying themselves.

However, Sarah did get sun poisoning and a rider cut the sleeves off of his shirt to cover her little legs. He was kind.

Right now Jim's our strongest rider unless the kids can still beat him, but I'm not aware that either of them has been on a bike recently

Sadly, now I'm on three-mile training rides daily with soft slopes. Jim says I'm doing better and we might be able to tackle the north side of Scott Boulevard soon and go to Short's for a drink.

I might have to walk up the steepest hills. The last time I tried going up the steepest hill up to Muscatine Avenue just as it turns into American Legion Road, I wondered if I could attack the hill. As I wondered, I suddenly fell over and lay there, pondering how I could have fallen so unexpectedly. Jim waited for me at the top of the hill and stared straight ahead.

A woman in a car pointed backward to me lying on the sidewalk. An elderly couple on a walk rushed toward me to help me up. Jim finally realized I was down. He and the elderly man pulled me to my feet. I don't think I could have gotten up otherwise.

It was a disgrace for someone whose nickname as a kid was "Tarzan." I roller-skated, climbed trees, outran the junior high boys who chased me home every day from grade school, won the standing broad jump competition at school, and played on every girls team at boarding school.

My son was always my revenge for what I couldn't do or couldn't do as well. On RAGBRAI I told him not to pass the ambulances that rode with us on RAGBRAI. He said, "I'm not passing them, Mom! I'm drafting them!" That's how fast he was. He rode 110 miles on RAGBRAI once and pushed his little sister the last 10 miles. I was always happy when I felt his big hand in the middle of my back, pushing me up a hill.

I miss doing RAGBRAI with the kids. I'm not sure they miss doing RAGBRAI with us, but I sure miss them. Teenagers don't like losing their beauty sleep, and Jim gets everyone up early, earlier than we like. Each child abandoned RAGBRAI at age 16, and now, of course, they're all grown up and living with their partners.

Sarah and husband Matt just got back from five days in Florida and the Keys where they slept in Ernest Hemingway's estate on a bed already provided with one of Hemingway's six-toed cats. They saw a lot of alligators and a big snapping turtle. No boa constrictors, but they are in the Everglades.