Tack and the Iron Maiden

This past weekend, Vardo was in town for some family stuff and, since we both needed to train, we opted to do our long ride together on Saturday. Unfortunately, Mother Nature was being very fickle and didn't really cooperate, so Vardo ended up throwing her trainer in and we ended up biking together in my living room. Admittedly, it was WAY better than going it alone for 2 1/2 hours...but that's still a LONG time to ride on a trainer. It was cool, though--we talked about everything from Sparkle's latest adventures to RAGBRAI logistics (for the non-Iowans in the crowd, RAGBRAI is the annual bike ride across Iowa--I'll be tagging along for a few days this year for the first time) to lodging for our friends coming to cheer us on at IM WI. Plus, I finally got to see "Wedding Crashers"--at least most of it when we weren't talking.

It was funny, though...at one point during the ride, Vardo turned to me and said something to the effect of "did you ever think this is how the two of us would end up hanging out when I came to Chicago to visit?" The answer, of course, is hell no...and yet there we were--pedaling away towards this really cool goal we're going to finish together. No, there's no way I would've ever predicted this...but there's also no way I'd change anything about it.

Just in case anyone is wondering what a bi-state training session in one's living room looks like, the pics are above...the first is (clearly) of Tack and the Iron Maiden (that'd be Vardo's spiffy new red Cannondale), and the second is quite possibly the cheesiest photo I've taken (God bless self-timers on cameras, by the way)...we only took it so Vardo's mom (who was also in town) could have photographic proof of our activities.

All in all--not a bad training outing for our first training session together since we started our IM programs...we even finished off the day with a fun little 3-mile brick run. Plus, we ended up doing a little shopping en route to her grandma's...and even managed to work in a stop at Baja Fresh for some yummy fish tacos...I mean, biking, running, shopping, talking with a good friend AND fish tacos???? Sounds like a pretty darn good day to me...