"Oh and then they gave me a purple heart"

Day 4 - June 6th

First Day of Riding today. 37 miles from Providence, RI to Plainfield, Connecticut.

We all stopped at the Narangasset Boat club to dip our tires, be surrounded by overeager parents, and generally feel good about ourselves. It was a fun little ceremony. Saw mom and dad there, who aside from heaping amounts of love gave me a proper pillow. Perhaps my sleep has some hope.

The whole way the ride itself felt like just another training run. Its hard to understand that we are going one way all the way. Right next to the state border sign introducing Connecticut was a huge cemetery. Talk about a warm welcome...

The ride was decent with some awesome sights along the way including an amazing reservoir(which i believe goes all the way to my faucet in nyc) and some great rural scenery. The highlight though goes to a MONSTER hill at the very end of our ride where I clocked my all time high of 40.2 mph. It was awesomesauce.

At St. Paul's Episcopal Church we were yet again met with unbelievable hospitality. Upon my humble request for a tailor in town to fix one of the pouches on my luggage bag, one church member called another and before I knew it the amazing Linda(who just happened to be a professional seamstress) totally pimped out my entire bag. We're talking reinforced zigzag stitches everywhere, even on the pouches that weren't ripped. Thank you Linda!
At the dinner there was also this interesting looking fellow who I decided to sit next to. Within the first minute of conversation, I found out he had been a church member for all 84 years of his life. Highlight of dinner was Linda's amazing Mac and Cheese with corn recipe that her husband Ernie had found in a tractor magazine! Over dinner I also overheard that Charlie had played lots of sports when he was younger, including baseball.

I love baseball and approached him later about this looking for some casual conversation and this is where stuff got crazy. It turns out that not only did he play several varsity sports simultaneously, taking the places of students 2 years older than him, he had also been asked to go to a St. Louis Cardinal's tryout. But wait, he couldnt do this because he was instead required to show up for an army physical.

A couple of months later he's in the frontlines of WW2 Germany fighting for his life, sleeping in ditches in ten degree weather with snow. Wasn't long before he got caught by a mortar and had shrapnel in his legs. He survived and recovered fully. Oh and by the way he casually earned a Purple Heart, you know, no biggie. And all of that from an unassuming cheery 84 year old man who doesnt exactly run up stairs. Oh and Linda casually reminded me that many of his state athletic records remain untouched.

Honestly its people like Linda, Charlie, and Robin(from Providence) that make every single day so unbelievably exciting. These people have led such amazing lives and you would never know it. Plus seeing the excitement in their eyes when we talk about what bike and build does is unbelievable.I can't wait to keep on meeting so many cool people.

Today I also started another pledge to do at least as many pushups as miles cycled that day, given i remain injury free. Would i mind a little bit of tanned rippedness at the end of the summer? Hmm...

56 miles to Middlefield, CT tomorrow and we're not even at the Appalachians.