Tour de Perth

A few weeks ago a professional bike tour zoomed through Point Reyes Station, the village where I work. People lined the main street to cheer the riders on.

This morning, motivated by a stomach bulge that I discovered while looking at myself in the mirror, I dusted off my bike,
and started pedaling up Perch, a street that runs past our property and up to the Inverness watershed about a mile away. My wife and I walk up the hill, which in places has a 7% grade. We regularly see young cyclists chatting as they effortlessly pass us. Those kids, of course, aren't carrying an excess 20 pounds, my "handicap."

Half-way up the hill, I had serious doubts about the enterprise. The phrase "quit now" flashed on the scoreboard inside my head. But recalling that the riders in the Tour de France tame mountains three times as steep as Perth, I pushed on. My desperate breathing at first distracted me from the pain, then frightened me. The phrase "heart attack" replaced "quit now."

That was an upsetting thought, because if I collapsed, my family couldn't even say "He died doing what he loved." What I love is typing, not sweating." Nevertheless, I was determined to reach the top of the hill. And somehow I did. I'm sure it was a record run: the slowest time ever.

At the top, no crowd applauded.There was no yellow jacket for me to don. But I felt the kind of joy that, I'm certain, is closer to what the pro riders feel than what is felt by the folks at the side of the road cheering them on.