Paul Asay

RAIN was not something I was planning on this year, but when Chris Hancock of the ISU Foundation ask me if I wanted to ride with the group from ISU I said yes. Have to admit I was later rethinking that decision knowing what a hard effort it is to ride 160 miles straight. Even the last week I was thinking hard about it. However, come the morning of July 18th I showed up at ISU to join in the group of around 60 brave souls. We had a group picture taken about 6:20 am which included Dr Dan Bradley the University President and his wife. How many university presidents would take part in a ride like this, probably just the 1. We actually added 7 miles by riding from ISU to the state line for the start. I took it really easy and was trying to keep the positive thoughts flowing. I jumped into the line of 1,200 other cyclist near the front and waited the 10 minutes for the ride to start. The weather called for tail wind and near record low temps for July so God was especially good to us.

This is the first week that the new Student Recreation Center opened at ISU. It is just behind the library where I work and I park not 100 feet from the door. It has already started to change the way I approach the day for my triathlon training. For instance today I made it in at 7:15 am, hit the pool for an easy 1200 yards before work and an extra 5 minutes in the hot tub for a nice back massage. Got a nice hot shower and headed out at 7:57 am and made it to work on time at 8:00 am. The only thing that could have made the morning better was champagne and chocolate covered strawberries as I headed out the door. What a great start to the day. I was thinking about taking the day off since tomorrow is the Ride Across Indiana, one long 162 mile ride. However, the water just looked to good to pass up so a nice easy swim was just the ticket. Earlier in the week I met Ryan at the pool for a 6:30 am swim. With the awesome glass exterior just behind the pool we watched the day get ligh

For the family vacation we did a fairly typical thing of going to Orlando Florida area for a week. We were staying at the Summer Bay Resort fairly close to Disney World. Brought my TT Bike since my road bike was in the shop. Not really any place to ride much at the resort I came across some promotional material about Central Florida. It mentioned several cycling trails the longest being the Van Fleet trail of 30 miles. Turns out in was easy to find just 15 miles or so away. The trail is very well marked just off of I-4 west of Orlando in Polk City. Easy to find a place to park, and took off on a Friday morning. This is by far the longest ride I have done without a single bend in the road. It could have been laid out with a laser beam. It is also perfectly flat and only a few county roads to cross here and there. I rode 20 miles before getting a bit hot and decided to turn around and head back. Each mile is mark so not having a cycle computer was no problem. Since I had so l