Thick As A Brick

The theme for this weekend was probably exercise...

Friday night I did a towpath ride. The paved "bike path" parts were actually plowed, and the snow was hard enough that, except for maybe a half inch of powder, you rode on top of it. The going was slow though, and I did a shortened ride but still took almost two hours. Called my friend Joe with a trail conditions update, made plans to meet him for a ride Saturday, then went to bed.

Saturday I got up early and went to yoga. Big breakthrough for me, I did a sort of armstand/headstand. Seems stupid, but I was pretty proud of myself, even if the instructor helped me (a lot). After that was breakfast at the coffee shop, where I got out just in time, gulping down the last of my coffee and skedaddling when that "Trans-Mongolian Vacation" dude came in.

Next stop was the gym, good workout and fun times with Dawn -- our workouts are really gab-fests with some weightlifting thrown in. This officially made it a multi-workout day, what the triathlon people call a "brick workout," but just to make sure I seized the day I had another workout coming...

Home, a lunch of chili, and then I went up to Jacobsburg where I rode with my friend Joe G for two or three hours. The conditions there were awesome, except a few heavy-use areas, and one section where an ATV got on the trail. Pretty fast and hard ride, and I was parched and starving so I stopped at Which Brew for dinner on the way home. Very different crowd in there that early (say 6:00-6:30), very odd to be a stranger among a bunch of people who all know each other, in a place where you consider yourself a regular. Nice people though, at least the ones I got to talk to, but I got out of Dodge as quickly as I could and was in bed by 10:00, slept the sleep of the dead.

"And your wise men don't know how it feels,
To be thick, as a brick."

Sunday, today, I went with Doug and Lori up to Jim Thorpe. We brought snowshoes and XC skis, but conditions were best for skiing so that's what we did, over three hours worth: we were bushed when we were done. Funny thing, we ran into a friend on the trail, Kathy from the PPRAC ride. She invited us back to their weekend house (next to the trail) but by the time we finished and stopped in, they'd already gone home. Not so funny were the chafing issues Lori had with her socks -- yeeouch, her feet looked scary painful when we got back, needed bandages on some pretty good blisters. Bandages, then sandwiches in town, and it was time to head home. You can find the photos on my flickr page.