The White Rabbit

No, not the Japanese candy that was recently taken off the shelves.
More like the fuzzy white thing that dogs hopelessly chase around a track.
The white rabbit, that's my friend Hoku. And I'm the dog.
So, he says, I got my new bike, let's go out for a ride.
Sure, I say, it's Sunday, so let's take it easy.
Sure, he says.
Hoku is the same friend that went out with my brother and I.
This time, I am going to out for a warm up ride before I meet him.
This time, I am going to choose the route, kinda of sort of.
This time, I am going to set the pace.
This time, I only lost sight of him twice.
And I only almost died once.
The first time I lost him, it was because of a red light. I was also about a hundred yards behind him.
The second time, he went over the top of the hill as I struggled up. I told him to wait for me at the bottom.
I was feeling all right, but needed a pit stop after going up and over the Mokapu Saddle road. I even offered to go back up and over but instead we went along Kaneohe Bay Drive and stopped at Tamura's in Aikahi Park.
That's when it hit me. Like the proverbial ton of bricks.
I got light headed and my vision began to get loopy.
Dehydration and low blood pressure.
I had to drink a couple of bottles of water and lie down. Took me about twenty minutes to recover.
Sort of.
We got going again. My legs felt like a couple of noodles.
Maybe I needed to eat a Cup o'Noodles.
I slogged my way back to Hoku's place, my legs feeling like they were detached from my body. I felt fine though, all the effects of dehydration had passed. I felt fine except for the two long things dangling beneath my torso.
It's interesting how when you ride with someone, you end up pushing yourself harder than you think. I used to think I rode hard when I was alone; I now know having someone in front of you is a very different thing.
The good thing is that you get faster.
The bad thing is that everything else seems slower.
I went out today with newly restored legs. My pace seemed to be a couple of MPH slower, but a check of the evil speedo revealed my normal pace. The road seemed to go by a little slower, and things seemed to pass by in slow motion.
I picked up the pace a bit and everything went back to normal. But now, I was pushing it a bit.
Seems the faster you get, the faster you must go.
Taking it easy and going slow just seems so....slow.
Damn that white rabbit.