April 25: Great Day!

Today I finally had my 'life partner in crime' (aka the wife) back with me for the weekend from her recent trip to Houston and Boston and so we headed out for the same bike ride that I did last weekend. However, while we are the topic of Boston I would like to give a very special shoutout to this guy, who continually inspires me with his no-nonsense approach to training and running, to this guy whose motivation and training is just completely awesome, and to this guy who I just met prior to leaving Houston but makes me often wish I could be on the west side for what I am sure would be some great runs and great conversation. I also need to congratulate my sister-in-law for posting a PR of 3:34 at Boston. She has run 4 marathons now and every single one of them has been a Boston Qualifier...that is just awesome!

Also, my brother turned 32 yesterday! He is in Perth and experiencing the new learning curve of life right now. This can be both a very exciting time and a very challenging time! As the French would say, Bonne Chance! Happy Birthday Jon!

Ok, back to today. Jennie and I got on our bikes nice and early this morning and rode 50 miles outside of Paris. I was really looking forward to taking Jennie on this ride and to taking some pictures to show all of you the beauty of the trip. Unfortunately, as it turns out our BRAND new camera that Jennie took to Boston with her kissed the pavement along the Freedom Trail (or what I will now refer to as the 500 Euro trail) so we are (again) without a camera. For those of you who keep up with this blog, you may recall that Jennie decided that our previous camera should be introduced to the pavement beside that Eiffel Tower just several months before! So after our ride we went shopping to replace it but all of Paris is out of stock of the camera I wanted. Regardless, we pre-ordered it and are currently waiting for our new camera to be delivered, which we should get prior to our vacation to the Czech Republic and Poland May 9-18.

So, although I do not have pictures to show you I can tell you some weird highlights. Just along the Marne River we saw a donkey (looked just like Eeyor (sp?)) eating grass with no tether or person nearby in a highly urban area...it just seemed out of place and was quite unexpected. Later in our ride we came across the Paris Pompier (the firemen) pulling a dead body out of the canal. A mile later I saw a guy fishing but decided that it would probably be too much effort to try and tell him that he may not want to eat the fish in the canal today...Bon appetite!

Also of note, Jennie is still getting used to riding with clipless pedals, which she says really hurts her ego (especially when she falls sideways at a stop sign infront of traffic trying to clip out of the pedals!!). I thought it was really cute...but the bruise on her elbow does not agree!

Jennie showed me this on You tube today and I thought it was hilarious! What Jennie and I thought was interesting was how many people just sort of ignore this guy but if they just stopped to enjoy the world around them they would realize that there is some pretty fun things going on (instead of going home and watching it later on the iternet!). Enjoy!


A+