Like A Child

There are only two ways to live your life. One as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as if everything is.

-Einstein

For a moment it was summer in Girona. The café was warm, almost a perfect temperature. Paul walked back to the table, stepping around a helmet and gloves left on the floor, and handed me a mug of hot coffee. Rod, Fro and the KOM were still waiting for their drinks. The five of us sat around the little table at the coffee shop in Girona.

The problem is, I've never been to Girona.  I've read of it in books though I can’t tell you in whose book I encountered it. (I suspect it was either David Millar’s, Tyler Hamilton’s or Floyd Landis’s…or some combination thereof.)  For a moment, though, I was at a café in Girona after a training ride with my team.

In reality, we were far from Girona, far from summer, far from a training ride and far from pros (me especially.) When I left my house that morning just after 6:30, it was 28 degrees Fahrenheit. I met up with the guys and we rode to the café. It could not have been an easier ride- physically anyway- hardly a training ride. And yet here I was, (however briefly) laughing with my pro-cycling team in a Girona café after a training ride.

They say that riding makes you feel like a kid again and children love to pretend. They make something out of nothing- a fort out of a refrigerator box, a racetrack out of tile patterns. One of my girls asked me recently if we could get more boxes. What was trash for me was a gift for her. As goofy as it may seem, I've climbed the Alpe d'Huez and sipped coffee in Girona, though I've never been to France or Spain. A bike will do that for you.

Thanks to Gary Walter for the Einstein quote.