Rise or Fall?

Justin is now all set to travel with his bike. He'd been looking to rent a bike case for the trip to Miami but also kind of looking at purchasing one. I'd kept my eyes open as well and last week I saw an ad by someone selling one. Some emails were exchanged and today I met up with the seller to take a look at it. It was the same model as mine and mine has been very good to travel with. It keeps the bike and wheels very protected and can take pretty much anything the airline baggage handlers throw at it. Justin couldn't make it so I was given full responsibility in the purchase. I think Justin trusted my judgement. The case looked solid with a normal amount of wear so the deal was made and I purchased it for him. So now I'm responsible for 2 recent major triathlon purchases by Justin, the case and the P2. I'm not sure how he feels about that, I think he's good with it but as I told him tonight, at thus point he's made too much of an investment to back out. Next year, an Ironman 140.6. So tonight we did a short brick. We went for a 35 km ride and for a change we took one of our older routes out along Elgin Mills to Woodbine and back. Right off the bat the little weasel tried drafting off me heading up 10th Line but I could hear his wheel when he coasted so I picked up the pace and pulled away forcing him to push himself if he wanted to keep up. Once we turned around at Woodbine he settled in behind me again so this time instead of picking up the pace I slowed down some and then hoping to catch him off guard I got out of the saddle and hammered away. The bugger jumped on his pedals right away though and kept up with me. I think that I should have slowed down even more though because he probably still had plenty of speed from drafting me. Either that or the P2 and the HED 3's are really working! I could tell that he wasn't tired just by looking at the smile on his face when we stopped at traffic lights so I eventually made him take the lead for the last 5 km of the ride. Well coming down 9th Line less then a km from home I pulled up beside him and the smile was gone. No more drafting for you young man. before heading home we dropped in on Chris who was getting ready to head off to Louisville for his race this weekend. We talked for a bit, wished him luck and just before we left I noticed that my X-Lab bottle carrier was broken. So now I have to get in touch with X-Lab to see if it's warrantied or if I need to get another one. The run was an easy one, about a 6:00 pace. I monitored Justin and decided he could have gone harder then that pace but I let him maintain it for the duration and at the end he had a real good kick. Next time there'll be no more drafting and I'll have to push him a bit more on the run so that it's a bit of an effort for him because "We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training".