The first thing that I wished I had done after my awesome ride on Saturday was get directly into my car to go eat somewhere. Instead, I went over to the post race party with Yankee Boy for a hamburger. We sat down with Yankee Boy’s burger. I wasn’t feeling up to the feast, but I was up for a conversation with Yankee Boy. We were talking about ideas for a first date that he was about to go on when the girl we sat down next to joined into our conversation with, “Are you the girl that fell at the first rest top?” From there, she was chatting it up with Yankee Boy.
She was pretty after a 64 mile bike ride, way to go Yankee Boy.
The day was perfect for a moment. I felt great about my ride, and I was amused that Yankee boy was leveraging my bike accident to chat it up with Cute After Long Bike Ride Girl. Then she had an intense look of concern on her face. I realized she was looking past Yankee Boy, and I turned to see what she saw. A 50 year old man had literally dropped dead of a heart attack just outside the pavillion area where we sat. It took a moment for anyone to react.
I remember seeing my grandfather laying on the floor of his house when he had a heart attack and died, and the man on the ground outside the pavillion had that same distance look in his eyes. I knew he was dead. The EMT’s came and started doing CPR. I thought to myself that is someone’s Dad, brother, co-worker, neighbor, friend.
I left in hopes of convincing myself on the way home that the paramedics had revived him, but I knew that was not the case. I cancelled my plans to go to work that day. I had a terrible sunburn, and I simply needed some down time. I spent the remainder of the day appreciating life.
The second thing that I wished I had done after my awesome ride on Saturday is stay in bed on Sunday. Sunday’s ride was a disaster, which would completely over shadow Saturday’s accomplishment.
<stay tuned for the next blog post>