The Return of StravaMo

Sunny summer is over.  Its been wet and dark recently.  Time to pull out the lights and the plastics.

This blog has been conspicuously silent on StravaMo and the MoMiles Friday rides.  This is due to Mo's generous employer which offers a sabbatical of 4 weeks paid every five years of employment.  Well, July and August brought that wonderful gift to Mo and his family.  And with that gift, I was deprived with several weeks of Mo-less riding (I was also blessed with sleeping in on Friday mornings and being somewhat productive on Fridays having not ridden 5,000 feet of climbing on the way to work).

Alas, yesterday and this morning I received two emails from StravaMo announcing his return and his intentions:

From: StravaMo
To: FatGuy
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2012 10:59 AM
Subject: RE: riding tomorrow?

Finally caught up on your blog…seems you have many stories to share…awesome reading. And love that you noticed how I beat you up camino alto by a tic…and even better that you got it back again.

 

Wish I realized that yesterday on my way home…I was flying despite the wind. I have purposely avoided strava and your blog and emails most of the 4 week break. I didn’t want to crave riding and avoiding this stuff helped me. Wanted instead to focus on riding with kids, and just relaxing with family on vacation.

 

Mo

From: StravaMo
To: FatGuy (and many others)
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2012 10:17 AM
Subject: Mo's riding schedule

I’m back,

 

And with a new schedule. I have some training to do if I hope to ride W2W this year. So my general training plan follows

 

·         Mondays

o   ~20 miles

o   Straight shot basically

·         Wednesdays

o   ~40 miles

o   Tib loops, Pan Toll, Muir Woods Back Country, Sutro Tower

·         Fridays

o   ~80 miles

o   Commute from Novato, Stinson, Muir Beach, Tib loop and Sutro,

 

You get the idea.

 

Note, I’m in crazy horrible shape after my break. 4 weeks off the bike + 4lbs makes for slowMo miles currently. For example my morning ride today was an less than impressive 14.6mph average :-> I blame the backpack and Oregon brews I enjoyed.

 

Mo

I find those email hilarious for several reasons.  First off, Mo's Monday email shows just how looney this guy is. Really!?!  His 'normal' schedule will be 20 miles on Monday, 40 miles on Wednesday and, oh, 80 miles on the way to freaking work on Fridays?!?!?  There is nothing 'normal about that'.  I will post an update in a few weeks to see how closely Mo adhered to his proposed schedule (no pressure, buddy).  Second is Mo's bike riding obsession.  He can not even bare to read the FatGuy blog for fear of losing sleep dreaming about my rides to and from work (and Aptos and Marin Century, btw).  Lasty, in Mo's Monday commute, his first ride in four weeks, he claims to have ridden an embarrassingly slow 14.6 mph average to work that day.  Well, looking at my data from the same morning, I put in an impressive 14.2 mph, returning from a relaxing weekend and only a short spin on Sunday morning.  Thanks for showing me up, Mo.

Welcome back.  You were missed.