I moved to Ottawa from Vancouver in 1993. John was the first person to befriend me outside of my work environment. We met through the Masters Swim Club at Carleton University which we had both independently joined. Joan also swam with us in those early years. John and I swam in the same lane, four times a week, for at least fifteen years. We did our first triathlon together and dozens more over the years. For a couple of decades, much of our social life revolved around the friends that we made in the swim club and triathlon community. We had a lot of fun training and even more fun socially. John also introduced me to some new sports. He taught and took me cross-country skiing and we both joined and tried speed skating together to train for the Ottawa Winter Triathlon. When I think about memorable times with him there were many. One of our road trips took us to Oka to do the Sri Chinmoy triathlon. The preceding two weeks were blistering hot and we drove in Johns car to Oka, the afternoon before the race. We never made it. His cars radiator blew a gasket and we were stranded outside of Cornwall. Luckily, a phone call to Joan and she drove down in her much smaller car to rescue us. With his car in a garage, the three of us spent the night in Cornwall and drank a bit too much beer which is not a good idea the night before a big race. Nevertheless, the next morning, we made it to Oka to start our race. It was so hot that the Quebec health authorities were going to shut the race down unless there were water stations every kilometre along the run route and the organizers willingly complied. John came out of the water before me, but I knew that at the time as I passed him going up a hill on the bike portion of the race. I had an exceptionally good race. Two kilometres before the finish line, the eventual winner, Pierre Harvey stubbled in front of me. Pierre was the first Canadian male athlete to compete in both the 1984 Summer Olympics and 1984 Winter Olympics. Pierre fell quite hard and I helped him get up and get going again. He then had the audacity to beat me to the finish line. Of course, I was heading out on the run and he was heading back without anyone with five kilometres of him. And this is the point of the story. John and I were never uber-competitive with the elites of these sports, but we participated for our own personal satisfaction and goals. We were the canon fodder that made these elite athletes look good. If there is a next life, I am sure that John is already getting a head start on me with his new training regime. I will dearly miss him as he was one of the good guys.