Cheers! (or Saturday on the Cap Trail)

Ultimately, it's a sense of camaraderie and friendship with local people that is core to my journeys. -- Tim Cope

Yesterday I had a long brick workout on the schedule, so we went down to the Virginia Capital Trail.  It's great because it's off the road, has potties and store stops at reasonable intervals, and ... what I realized yesterday... it's where everyone is.  Because...sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name...

Seriously.  Over the course of four hours I kept running across people I knew or people I've seen on the trail before.  Sometimes we met with a little lift of the hand, other times we said hi to each other.  One time, getting passed by a lady I swim with at masters, we chatted for a minute, before she sped off.  Then on my brick "run" along the same trail, I ran into another guy from town doing his own brick run.  Again, it was just a "hey, how are you, dang it's hot"...but that level of interaction is exactly what I like.

I train mostly by myself - in part because it works best for my schedule, and in part because I'm an extroverted introvert...that person who can do the whole public thing, but then I seriously need to be ALONE.  And for the longest part of my tri career (the part that happened already - I expect to keep doing this craziness for a good long while, but anyway), I was totally alone.  Well - not totally alone - I played on Beginner Triathlete.  Those were my tri friends, my people, my tribe.  But they lived in my computer, except for rare occasions when we met in real life, which was always weird, but I made some friends that way.

Now I live in a real live tri community, with real live people and real live friends.  In fact, probably half of my friends that are local are triathlon-related.  I am active in my triathlon club, I talk to people at Masters and at races, but I still mostly train alone.  And that is good for me.

But it does get lonely - even for an introvert.  Which is why the Capital Trail is perfect for me.  I can ride and run all by myself (or with IronSherpa, who rode with me for part of yesterday but also rode alone so he good for faster for part of it).  Even though I'm alone, though - my friends are there.  We say hi, we lift our fingers, we wish each other a good ride, we recognize that everyone is suffering through the same heat and humidity...and then we are on our own way.

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got. Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot. Wouldn't you like to get away? Sometimes you want to go Where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same You wanna be where everybody knows Your name.