Wednesday a.m.

IronBill fixing Roy's tire

Good morning! It's Wednesday, the long but good day. This particular Wednesday has a little more to take on than usual, so I have to stay focused. The first scheduled activity is a MAMA meeting. Mitchell Area Ministerial Association. My old joke: since we are all living in Indiana, it should be called Hoosier MAMA.

Toward the end of the day, I have an unusual bus driving adventure. I need to help out by taking the junior high track team to Bedford and then wait for someone else to come over to drive them home. That works for me. I get home in time to eat and to teach my class at church.

Yesterday was another good one. I had some time to focus on the Book of Ruth, which is the focus of my sermon on Sunday. It's Mother's Day, and I always find that day challenging. There are lots of different emotions associated with the day, so I think we should be sensitive to all that. I'll go for bigger themes on the day, rooting them in some motherly thoughts.

Last night was our first Pace Line Tuesday. It went well! The weather, which was a little threatening, turned out to be great. There was a little annoying northeast wind, but it wasn't too bad. My friend James showed up with his new bike. Wow, what a bike! It was his first ride with it, so he was still working out a few things.

We had a nice ride out to the start line, which is the Washington county line on 337. We had a very new rider last night, Scott. He ran with us over the winter and did really well. Now he is on a bike, one he purchased from Iron Mike.  He has only ridden a couple of times and never 37.5 miles, which was what we rode last night. He did really well.

We decided to do a moderate pace line back to Orleans, shooting for 22 mph average. James wanted to do a time trial, so he was going to wait a few minutes and then try catch us. Well, Iron Bill, one of the most competitive persons in the galaxy, decided he would do the same.

The pace line took off and did as promised. Scott, understandably, had trouble staying on. Finally he told us to go ahead, so we did. I didn't get my watch turned off at the finish line, but here is the data anyway. We averaged 22.3 mph. It was a nice ride back to Orleans.

James and Bill did not catch us. Bill took off a minute before James, and James did not catch him. They both averaged around 26 mph. It's going to be interesting to see how those two compete the rest of the season. James is 32 and Bill is not. James is still working on his new bike...

On the way back in, Roy had a blowout. That took a little while to fix, but we made it back to church in plenty of time for a trip to Wendy's. It was a great evening. Seven of us got the season under way. I'm sure we will see more and more each week.

Running out of time... so see you later!