My bloganonymous American son lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Like me, he's pretty crackers about bikes and loves riding. Unlike me he has really fancy bikes, one of which has a fixed wheel. He tows the kids' trailer behind him on this fixie, which strikes me as verging dangerously close to masochism.
Yesterday, while out on his bike, he pulled up at some lights next to another guy on a super-slick triathlon bike. He described the guy as 'typically Colorado' and explained that this means wiry, skin tanned like leather, a regular outdoor type.
The guy turned out to be 75, and just off for a ride. Bloganonymous Son got chatting to him as they pulled away from the lights. What had he been doing today, and was he going far ?
Just bike riders' chit-chat, really.
But the answer floored him, being so unexpected even for a Coloradan septuagenarian, however tanned and wiry
The guy had run to Denver and back, a round trip of 60 miles, and was hoping to squeeze in a century on the bike before the end of the day. No misprint, that's sixty miles running followed by 100 miles on the bike. At 75 years old.
I was feeling really proud of my minuscule 50k this morning, but now I need to go lie down for a bit.
Even my suntan feels paler.
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