Thursday, January 8, 2009

From Kris Hartner



Per Rich's request, here are a couple of the photos from our training ride in Madison in 2003. Sorry, aren't high res. Here are my notes from that day:

-It was June 7th, 2003. 79 mile ride. Had never ridden over 50 miles in my life.
-Androo showed up with two water bottles, no cages on his bike and nothing else to eat or drink
-Witnessed, first hand, Rich's scary habit of veering into the oncoming lane of traffic. Tom told me not to worry, that he'd seen Rich do it many times before and he hadn't been hit yet.
-Rich blew a tire at the bottom of a very steep hill and managed to maintain control of the bike. If I'm not mistaken, Tom helped Rich replace the flat.
-At the beginning of the second lap, Tom put the hammer down (I believe there was a bit too much dawdling around at the halfway break at the Mobil station for Tom's liking). I decided to go with him. Mistake! I would hang on his wheel as long as I could, he'd get a couple hundred yards ahead and then slow down until I caught back up. Then we'd hammer again. Repeat. Repeat.
-Cramped so hard with three miles to go, had to jump off my bike. Took several minutes to get back on my bike because every time I lifted my leg over the top tube, it would cramp again.
-When I finally got back, Tom was there, rested and waiting to go for a run.
-While driving home, my legs cramped so bad in the first five minutes, had to pull over, move to the back of the van and had Gary drive the rest of the way.

Tom taught me many lessons that day - nutrition, hydration, pacing, etc. But the one thing that I always thought was so cool was that he wasn't even training for IMW, he was there to be with friends and lend a helping hand. The definition of a true friend. We'll miss you Tom.

Kris Hartner

3 comments:

  1. It's so funny to hear you talk about that! I remember him telling me about that day! Yah, wasn't he amazing? He was never training for an Ironman but always training the Ironmen and women.

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  3. Brings back some great memories Kris....... Sadly these don't include the shot I'm thinking of. The one I remember so clearly was a shot of Tom all by himself, grinding up the hill into Mt. Horeb with a great view of the uphill trek behind him, and of course the big (glad that one's behind me) smile on his face. Not only a great shot of Tom but a very nice composition on Turbo's part. We gotta see if we can find that baby.

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