and not try to humiliate established riders. Instead, Maertens, just 21, charged in and upset everyone by demanding they make room for him and make room quickly". What Van Wallaghem saw as his blunder was greeted, he said, by Belgian journalists eager to write of something else after years of Merckx's international domination. That worsened relations between them.

1973 world championship

Relations between the riders and their fans reached their nadir on 2 September 1973 in the world road championship around the Montjuich climb near Barcelona. Maertens had said he was not willing to ride for Merckx. That angered Merckx's supporters who, Maertens said, six times threw cold water over his legs.

Merckx broke clear on a hill. Maertens said none of the others took up the chase and so heexperience living with MS for the past decade and my marathon training progress.Help me reach my goal!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

October 29th, 2012: Yesterday, Steve and I participated in a 5K benefit run for MS. Being close to Halloween, there were many people in costume wandering around. Before the race started I noticed a girl in 80's style workout gear who looked strikingly like the younger sister of a friend and cross-country teammate from high school. Maybe that primed me to be thinking of my first races, long before I had any clue that MS would someday affect my mobility, but as the race began the course was like a flashback. It started on paved road, but quickly veered off onto grassy and sometimes muddy fields. As it looped