One Seventeen

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 164.5%, 7.5% BF

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 166.5#, 9.5% BF

Morning weigh-in (Friday): 165.5#, 9.5% BF

 

So, uh...

 

Rode the benchmark ride last night, did it in 1:17 for an 18.7 mph average -- that included city traffic and a long stretch of major road construction on Bushkill drive. I didn't feel particularly good, but going fast felt easy... Why the fuck couldn't I have been riding like that last Saturday? (One reason: last Saturday my strategy was to attack the hills, figuring that a slight speed gain at low speeds would chip away the most time -- I still think this is true, at least in terms of math and theory, but in practice I think I might have worn myself down too early in the race, leaving me vulnerable in the later, also-time-eating singletrack sections. The big test on "the benchmark" is Upper Mud Run Road, and I went up that no faster than usual.)

 

Other than that, lets see: rode Tuesday, a nice easy road ride, maybe 20 miles or so. I stopped in at Brian's house, found him watching TV on a perfectly nice day -- turns out he'd had another heart operation and was required to take it easy for a while. Hopefully this one -- sort of like cauterizing aberrant cells to get his heart beating normally again -- will be the procedure that works.

 

Wednesday was yoga with Carmen, and I totally felt my recent lack of practice. That's bad, because the "old Carmen" is back, and her classes are starting to get tough again.

 

Last night after the ride (and after a little cleaning/laundry) I went down to Porters, which was this week's Christian's Spring Hotel: me, Anne, Joe & Sally, Judy, Lee, Mike, and Larry & K-Jo, we had a big table in the back room. That Sally had some hilarious stories... Most everyone else left early, but Anne and I stuck around to catch some of the open mic show.

 

Maria was singing, and I pointed out how she sometimes would get this very serious, daggers-shooting-from-her-eyes look; this morphed into a story about seeing Laurie Anderson a few years ago, where she told a story about her dog, which in turn morphed into a story about 9-11, and she didn't say it, but her eyes were daggers by the end, as if to say "this happened to me and my friends, fuck you for trying to co-opt it into your little games."

 

Tonight is the towpath, maybe the Delaware one if it's been fixed enough to ride, followed by sushi downtown.

Thermidor Number Nine

Morning weigh-in: 166.5#, 9.5% BF

So OK, the anniversary of the collapse of The Terror and the death of Robespierre were over the weekend. I've been saving that blog post title for a while and damn if I wasn't going to use it...

Did the beginner yoga class last night, it was about all I could handle but my body feels a lot better today. Dinner was cereal (sigh), left over from the camping trip. Tonight I'll probably have a pork loin as long as 1) it thaws out in time, and 2) I don't go to ride Sals. My plan is to do a road ride though, so I should be good.

Meantime, I have to come up with a new chili recipe for the Bash. I think I'll lean more towards pork, potatoes and black beans, do a little experimenting over the next few weeks.

101: Done, And Done!

Morning weigh-in: 169#, 7% BF

 

Wilderness 101: Well it's done, and though it was not as well-done as I'd like, I did see some improvement: my "aim for the stars" goal was to break 10 hours, and my "aim for the stars and maybe hit the moon" goal was, say, breaking 11 hours. My actual time was 11:59:54, so I (barely!) broke 12 hours, but that was a half hour faster than in 2004, the last time I did this. Aim for the stars, miss the moon, but I at least landed in the top of the tree...

 

Drove down Friday night and hooked up with Greg & Judy, and Eric B, at the campsite Greg reserved for us. (Joe & Sue were at the same campground, but they were in their pop-up camper while we were out in the boondocks at a primitive tent site. We saw them in the morning.) I won't get into the blow-by-blow, mile-by-mile or anything, but the race itself was really nice. It started around 7:00 AM Saturday, with a very similar course to the one they ran last time I was there: the first 40 miles or so were mostly (dirt/gravel) Forest Service roads, there were a few really big hills between miles 40 and 60, and then just over half of the remaining course was singletrack. The weather was primo, terrain was in great shape, you couldn't have asked for better conditions -- I joked with Joe afterward that, except for my time, I had a great race.

 

(I did crash once though: I came across a guy walking one rocky downhill, had to dismount to get past him, and hooked my bike shorts on the nose of my seat when I got back on. Bouncing through the rocks, trying to unhook my shorts without mooning anyone, I eventually went over the bars. I continued down the hill sans bike for a ways, but at least I still had my shorts on.)

 

The guys I went down with all had great days: Greg broke 11 hours with a time of maybe 10:50, Eric had 10:15 (wow!) or so, and Joe got 9:45. (Congratulations, you lurkers! I'm not giving up the Camelback, but I may have to take up sailing.) They were waiting for me at the finish when I arrived; I got & filled my commemorative pint glass -- I love mountain bike races -- showered, changed, grabbed some dinner and joined them to watch the festivities. We stayed until the last rider came through and the kegs were emptied -- something I don't remember from last time, three half barrels should have been plenty for a bunch of exhausted racers, but there were some West Virgina boys doing "keg stands" and they made short work of the beer. Anyway, party over, back to the campsite where I slept like I was dead. Yesterday I drove home & took care of the camping gear, then spent most of the day eating (Quadrant, Porters, Taco Bell) and sleeping.

 

Tonight is yoga (I am still kind of sore), then tomorrow I may do an easy road ride.

Off Again

Off from work, and off on my next big adventure: I'm leaving for the Wilderness 101 in a few hours, just as soon as I get all my weekend errands/chores done, pack for a weekend of camping etc, and go for my final pre-race prep ride. No morning weigh-in, sorry I forgot but yesterday's was like 166.5# or something.

A Brain Teaser: I'm getting my next mug at Porters.There are 60 you have to do to earn it, in no particular order but I decided to do all the squares in order -- when I go over 60 I'll just loop over again, and if any number is a duplicate I'll skip it. Thus: 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 21, etc... My question is, will this get me all the beers on the list, or are there numbers in there that will never be picked? (Hint: I tried this using an octave script, letting the numbers go up to about 1000, and only got 12 unique hits. I also tried it for different list sizes; none of them were filled completely. I suspect it's not possible to fill the list, but can't prove it.) Let me know what you think when I get back, and don't forget to show your work!

Yo later. Wish me luck.

You're Late, Where Ya Been?

No morning weigh-in! I forgot my belt and work badge too, so I'm shambling around with a "Visitor" badge as my pants droop, fit in well with the rest of the absent-minded engineers walking around here...

 

By the way, we are about to go to a 4-day work week (every other week) here, on a trial basis to save commuting costs. Starting in August we do four 9-hour days, one 8-hour Friday, four more 9-hour days the next week with Friday off, then we repeat the two week cycle. Our Houston office has been doing this for years; we'll see how it works out here.

 

Willy From The Auction: I was in Porter's the other day, the only seat was next to Donny so there I sat. He was voluble as always, and repetitive, and he monopolized my time and attention but I didn't really mind. One thing that caught my ear though, was him telling me that he never got back that CD he lent me -- I couldn't find him so I left it at Which Brew, knowing he would stop in. The girls assured me (at the time, months ago) that they gave it back to him, but now I hear that that might not be the case. Hmmmm...

 

I Know a Place: Speaking of Porter's, check out their new website. Nice!

 

Last night was dinner with Anne at CSH, and we also saw Judy, and Mike, and CSH regulars Don & Nancy as well as Rich and Greg with Greg's kids -- those guys were coming back from riding Jacobsburg. (We were going to do a road ride, but it was pouring, everywhere except the 'burg apparently.) Tonight is yoga.

 

So, Where Were We...

Morning weigh-in: 164.5#, 10% BF

 

Oh yes, weekend report:

 

Friday night I rode with Larry. Not bad, I took out the singlespeed and just hamster-legged my way down the towpath and back. Porters for dinner, saw KEF and knocked some more beers off my punch list; I am now about a third of the way towards my 4th mug there.

 

Saturday was early morning yoga, then breakfast at the coffee shop, and then I was off to Bethlehem for the rest of the day. Picked up my bike (they just replaced the chainstay, not the whole swingarm), got my haircut, and hit Sals where the conditions were great but it was stinking hot. Home, laundry, then I met Anne for a light dinner -- she just got back from Tennessee (by car), wasn't exhausted or anything but we blew off that party anyway, show wasn't supposed to even start before 11:00 PM...

 

Sunday I hung with Anne, checked out "her" coffee shop (actually it was just Wired in Bethlehem; she has another one she goes to on Southside, her more regular place), did the "dog exchange" and went up to Jacobsburg, spent the afternoon walking and exploring Bushkill Creek. Fish in the water, bugs and crayfish under the rocks, many giant tadpoles, a perfect way to spend a hot summer day. Dinner was a burger at Bethlehem Brew Works.

 

Tonight I'm doing yoga, then getting my act together for next weekend, at least in terms of food shopping.

Here Comes Another Weekend

Morning weigh-in: 167#, 9.5% BF

 

My ride got skunked last night, when an end-of-the-world thunderstorm came pouring down just as I got home from work. I  guess I was lucky in the timing, but the sky (and the radar) was so ominous I probably would have skipped the ride anyway. I played on the computer for a while instead, but then that got knocked out, so I did a few chores before going to gain weight over at Christian's Spring Hotel, hanging with Judy, and also Joe & Sally. Interesting, Sally talked about Joe having a journal when they first met: he let her read it and she dove in, expecting to find all sorts of juicy details, but it was mostly where he went each day, what he did, what he had to eat etc. I could only laugh, it sounded so familiar.

 

I did the Porter's "open mic night" thing after that, stopped in for a bit to punch my ticket. I was sitting next to some guy, familiar dude, pretty regular there & a mug club member, and we got to talking. He asked me about how I was choosing my beers and I told him "well last time I picked Fibonacci numbers modulo 60, but this time I'm just doing the squares in sequence, modulo 60 of course."

 

Score! Turns out he was a math major in college, and in fact used to work as a cryptographer for the NSA years ago. Much geeky conversation followed...

 

Doing the towpath tonight on the singlespeed, then hitting Porters again to see KEF. The Turner is ready, so I'll be picking that up tomorrow after yoga, then while I'm in Bethlehem I'll get a haircut and go ride Sals... I saw my barber last night at CSH; she's throwing a party tomorrow night and I got the invite, but I'll be hanging with Anne tomorrow... I expect she'll be a little tired from driving across the country, so we'll see.

 

 

 

Yes Anastasia

Morning weigh-in: 164.5#, 8.5% BF

 

So the bike's at the shop, getting the new swingarm (from that spare frame I bought, in some random act of foresight, off Doug a few years ago) installed, my bike box is loaned out, the Chain Gang meeting went swimmingly, and tonight I guess I'll be hitting the road for a nice long hill workout.

 

Listening: Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes. I was going to name this post "Tear In Your Hand" because I keep listening to that song -- it reminds me of driving past the Mount Storm Lake & power plant on the way to Canaan -- but then I found out that today is the anniversary of the Romanoff family execution, so I went with my all-time favorite T.A. song, even if it's on Under the Pink. (Strangely enough, I just found out today what "me and Neil will be hanging with the Dream King" actually means.)

 

Meantime Anne should be back this weekend. I keep getting updates about her vacation in the Smokies; I'm glad she's having fun but but I do miss her. I'll probably hit Christian's Spring Hotel for dinner tonight, but it just won't be the same...

God Bless You, Magical Realism!

Morning weigh-in: 162.5#, 8.5% BF

 

Doop-de-doo, oh I wonder what's new... Rode last night at Allamuchy, 19 hard miles in about 3 hours, and I broke my frame. Swingarm, right chainstay just behind the pivot, snapped it right in two. It's a problem I can solve easily and quickly enough, but -- wow.

 

(The title of today's post refers something I thought late in the ride, when I looked up from the dark woods, through the canopy to the still-light sky. Pure magic.)

 

Tonight I'll be dealing with the bike, and will also be going to the Chain Gang meeting. Tomorrow will more than likely be a road ride, and Friday will be the towpath on the singlespeed.

 

 

Things Been Gettin Quiet Round Here Lately

Morning weigh-in (Monday): 167.5#, 8% BF

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 164.5#, 10% BF

 

I had a pretty big post planned for yesterday to cover all the things that happened this weekend -- such as K-Jo's "Virtual Which Brew" picnic (with subsequent trip to Pearly Baker's) on Friday night, Saturday's all-day mountain bike ride (with Eurostyle pit stops at various outdoor cafes), and Heritage Day festivities (including Paul & Mary's party) on Sunday -- but it got so big and unwieldy I decided to skip it. Maybe I'll talk about different parts of this later in the week.

 

One thing I'll mention: Here's a plug for a friend's new venture, seen on a t-shirt (the logo, not the salsa), and soon to be found on finer chips everywhere.

 

Anyway, it was a good weekend, but things are settled back down now. Last night was a total rest day (bike maintenance, computer chores, light housework), and tonight I'm hitting Allamuchy rather than the usual Tuesday Night Follies -- I need as much offroad practice as I can get; the Wilderness 101 is now less than 2 weeks away. Dinner will probably be a turkey sub somewhere.

 

I posted few photos from last weekend (like, Independence Day Weekend), rides, belly dancers etc, but things are going to get quiet over at flickr for a while too: the camera finally died for real, I have no shots from this past weekend, and now I have to do my research & get a new gadget...

 

Finally! Well it looks like Roast Beef and Molly are finally hitched.

 

Still Tired

Morning weigh-in: 164.5#, 7.5% BF

 

Last night I hit that "Yoga Burst" class -- what a workout! I was totally soaked and exhausted by the end of an hour. Class was taught by Alicia, and her husband Rob was also there in the class. I shouldn't be too surprised to see them there -- they're the proprietors, they're usually there -- but it was interesting because they came up in conversation the other day. Nothing too exciting, just a little synchronicity.

 

After yoga I went to Judy's for what I thought was a barbecue, but it was really more like a little get-together, with Middle East-themed salads & snacks (hummos, babaganouj, tabbouli, etc), no grilling. Me, Anne, Judy, and Lee (the usual "supper club"), as well as Kelly-Jo, Pete R, and a few of Judy's neighbors. Really nice, just talking and relaxing on the porch, and all of a sudden it was 1:00 AM.

Tired

Morning weigh-in: 163.5#, 7.5% BF

 

Rode last night, towpath and Sals. I got in a pretty hot lap down to Sals, and then ran into Eric R (on his singlespeed, since he cracked another frame on his main bike), kept up the hot lap for the Orange and Upper Red Trails, but then ran out of steam just before hitting the Spanky, which is where we picked up Dave L. I faded pretty hard, started screwing up on the rocks, and just decided to call it a day -- when we reached the start of the switchback I bailed. I was pretty whooped, but I noticed on the ride home that I was riding the towpath and a few of the hills (on the road) faster, and in bigger gears, fallout from the adjusted foot position I've been working on. (I've been riding with my heels down to get a longer power stroke, but I'm having trouble doing it in the technical stuff.) Bike rode well, but I still have a few kinks to work out, including a very annoying squeak and some cable routing issues.

 

Dinner was at the Brew Works, tonight is the early (and short) "Yoga Blast" class, followed by a barbecue.

Crush Groove 2.0

Morning weigh-in: 166.5#, 8% BF

 

"You're late, where ya been? People been asking about you..." -- Willy the Auction Leech

 

Stunning weekend, lotta stuff going on, among other things: an Independence Day picnic (and a ride but I blew it off because of the rain), plus Bethlehem's fireworks show on Friday; yoga and a 40-mile singlespeed ride (featuring bellydancers!) on Saturday; a 25-mile ride in Jim Thorpe on Sunday (featuring a lot of fatigue from the day before, and two guys who are way faster than I am -- ouch!); and a going-away party Sunday night. I could say something about all of this but I'll just expand on one...

 

A Vignette from Last Weekend at Porter's: This was a week ago Friday. A certain person is handing out flyers, and hands me one -- it's an invitation to his "Going-Away Party."

 

ME: Cool, I'll definitely see you there, and where are you going away to?

ACP: Jail.

 

Well alrighty, then... Anyway, cool party, tucked away in the garden behind Connexxions Gallery downtown. I didn't stay long, just stopped in while laundry dried -- ironically, I went there at least partly to check out the band, and they were on break the whole time I was there. Lotta people I knew there though, or half-knew, younger faces from the Porter's crowd.

 

Dinner itself on Sunday was supposed to be at Porter's, like post-laundry; I met Anne there (she was coming from a picnic, and had already eaten), but I sort of lost track of time and their kitchen closed before I ordered. Oh well, there's always Taco Bell, which is probably why that morning weight is so high.

 

Yesterday was catch-up with chores and errands, and I also picked up a new drivetrain for the Turner: cassette, chain, and integrated cranks/BB/chainrings. It was a pretty big hit, but it was long past time for a replacement, especially those cranks. (Tonight will be the towpath/Sals for a test ride.) Dinner was pasta & tuna with wilted greens. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, it was a very domestic evening

 

By the way, some of last night's chores included uploading new pictures from the Chain gang ride/picnic, and as an experiment I also uploaded some video of the ride -- but no more of that unless I ditch dialup. Check em out, yo. I have more pics coming, stuff from this weekend, so stay tuned.

 

An Early Friday

Morning weigh-in: 164#, 10% BF

 

Went to yoga last night, really good workout, and we even had a theme for the class: truthfulness. After yoga I went to Bethlehem, had dinner at Brew Works with Anne, and got to practice some of what I learned in class:

 

ANNE: OK, where do we stand? This is what I want, what do you want?

ME: Hemmina, hemmina, hemmina...

 

Or words to that effect. Long story short, she broke the ice, I had to come clean and I guess we're dating for real now, instead of meeting for dinner here and there, and stringing things along in my usual passive-aggressive style. Anyway, we'll see where it goes from here, hope I don't screw this one up.

 

Last day of the week here, before the July 4th festivities. Run/gym tonight, then most likely over to Christian Springs for the usual Thursday supper club, where I will be having dinner once again with a certain someone.

 

Wisdom

Morning weigh-in: 163#, 8.5% BF

 

"Dance on, ye foolish ones; ye sought not wisdom, neither have ye found it." -- Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution

 

I Fly Towards Grace: Another A++ ride, as Joe put it: 48 miles in 2:36, for an 18.5 mph average. (Our ride the week before was 6 miles shorter in about the same time, but had slightly more climbing -- 2960 feet vs last night's 2900 feet. There's a lesson in there somewhere.) Me, Joe, Greg, Scott and Eric B, we basically did the old Mountain Road route: through Wind Gap and over the mountain, then down Mountain Road to the bottom of Blue and over via Little Gap -- we actually climbed to the ski resort upper parking lot this time -- plus a little backing and filling on the way home. I was a little tired and said so, and a few other guys were talking about "riding smart" and not killing ourselves on the hills etc, but that kind of wisdom only lasts for a little while on Follies Night...

 

A Screaming Comes Across The Sky and it ain't pretty. You'd scream too, like it was the DT's crawling all over you, but Gaia's got a real infestation.

 

Needless to say, after last night's ride I did not feel like biking in this morning. I'll hit yoga tonight and the gym tomorrow; I don't know what's going on for the 4th yet. Dinner last night was a chicken sandwich at Christian Springs (sigh, but I controlled myself, for the most part), and tonight I'll be going down to Bethlehem Brew Works.

Reconfigurator

Morning weigh-in: 164.5#, 8.5% BF (back to the old pig-and-python game)

 

Happy Darwin Day! Well it's not really Darwin Day, but it was 150 years ago today that Darwin's and Wallace's papers, outlining natural selection, were first presented. (This was pretty much the precursor to The Origin of Species.) In honor of all that, here's a little bit about evolution going on right now out West. I think I may celebrate tonight by taking up smoking in gas stations, or biking -- maybe I'll win an award! Meantime, here's my favorite quote (again), the last paragraph of The Origin of Species:

 

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

 

And So It... Continues: Got my rear shock bushings replaced last night (we're talking bicycles), and dropped off my rear wheel to be rebuilt, then while I was there, impulse buy, I ordered a new drivetrain... I need to get my bike and equipment ready for the Wild 100, now less than four weeks away. (I also have to get myself ready.) I hit Sals after the bike store, got there around 7:00, and rode with Dave L and a young guy named Jeremy out with his dog. We did a fast but abbreviated loop, returning to Dodson via the road just before dark.

 

Hail Hail, Some Of The Old Gang's Here: Dinner was a quick salad, then I went to do laundry, and I stopped in at Porters while it dried. A nice surprise, I ran into Stu and Cathy walking out as I walked in. They turned around, came back in and had one last beer while we caught up: Stu has been living, working and house-hunting in Florida for the past two months, while Cathy has been getting their old house ready to be put on the market. Kind of funny, we never biked together up here except one time, just before he disappeared, but apparently he's become a fairly avid biker down in Florida, and even joined a cycling club. Good for him!

 

Also saw Kateryna there, which was also nice but less of a surprise, because she now works at Porters -- last night was in fact her first night, she said. She also said there may be a Which Brew picnic coming up soon.

 

Tonight is the Tuesday night "hard ride," and tomorrow is yoga; I may also try to bike in to work tomorrow.

 

Parting shot: Well, yeah.

 

Gaaaa! Cow Itch! AAAAAAAH!

Morning weigh-in: 168.5#, 8% BF (uh oh)

 

Happy 100th Birthday, Tunguska Event! (Also noted, on the hometown front: the 230th anniversary of the Battle of Monmouth was this weekend.) Yeah, good weekend by the way -- maybe too good, according to the scale.

 

Friday night I skipped the towpath and went to the Velodrome with some peeps, basically the same crowd as the Iron Pigs game, Anne and her pinochle friends, though I also saw Brian and a few other people there. Way cool, lotsa very dramatic racing. I got a text that Kelly-Jo was going to Porters, so I stopped in on the way home. Kind of like a homecoming for the old Which Brew crowd.

 

I had maybe a little too much fun the night before: I overslept on Saturday and blew off early morning yoga, then all the rest of of my "selfish day" in favor of a Sals/towpath ride. I'm a bit under the gun in terms of Wilderness 101 preparation, so that was very much what the doctor ordered, but I cut the ride short (skipping about half of Sals) and absconded when rain started to fall -- felt stupid on the way home when the sun came back out, but was finally vindicated by the deluge that hit just after I got home. (Also rode through a bunch of nettles growing along the river, maybe a mile-long gauntlet, thought I was going to die.) Home, shower, oil change, haircut, chores, errands etc etc, then I hit a friend's graduation party.

 

Lucas, about 22 I'd say, is someone I know from cycling, and he just graduated from college. His older brother's a local musician, and the party was also for his (and some other guy's) 30th birthday, so there was basically an all-star jam going on when I got there (apparently it was a pool party earlier in the day). Pretty good times, and there were a number of people there I half recognized, but except for a few parents/relatives, the next oldest people there were like fifteen years younger than me. I'm glad I got a chance to congratulate Lucas & help him drink his beer, but I felt like the onion in the petunia patch, and when the band took a break I headed home.

 

Sunday was trail maintenance and a ride at Allamuchy.

 

Riding Sals tonight after some bike maintenance, and tomorrow is the Follies. Dinner better be light for a few days...

Central, Massive

Morning weigh-in: 166#, 8% BF

 

Sorry Algernon: Charley sez, love my rapamycin...

 

Ran yesterday, which was followed by a gym workout and a trip to XSH for dinner. Anne, Judy, Lee, and special guest Mike H. As usual, nice evening. Tonight I'm hitting the velodrome with pretty much the same crowd. It's also a much-needed rest day; tomorrow will be another big day (yoga, gym, ride, haircut, party), and Sunday is trail maintenance plus a ride at Allamuchy.

Come For The Cold War, Stay For The Jelly Donuts

Morning weigh-in: 164#, 8.5% BF

 

"Ich bin ein Berliner!" -- John F. Kennedy, June 26, 1963

 

Nice Sals ride last night. Me, Kirk and his friend Kurt, Jeff and Dave (both of whom have connections to Genesis as well as Sid's Bikes), and a girl Terri (Tracy?), who was apparently the driving force behind the ride: she's from Colorado, has been in the area for three months and is about to return home, and was sick of the towpath so she told them "Show me the good stuff!"

 

And show her the good stuff we did, basically hitting everything there (except the Yellow Trail and the Boulder Trail) in one huge loop. We rode about two hours, getting back to the cars just before dark. I think those guys were surprised a bit by the trails too; they were like New Yorkers who've never been to the Statue of Liberty until they take an out-of-towner, but I think they liked it and I'm sure they'll be back. Jeff and Dave are strong riders, and they were especially loving it. Strangely enough, I felt really strong too, even after Tuesday's "leg tenderizer" ride.

 

I had a few errands/chores to get done and my plan was dinner at Porters, so I had to bust a move after the ride. Pretty proud of myself, got it all done -- all I really had to do was drop some stuff off at Doug's, get gas & do laundry, but still -- and made it to Porters just before the kitchen closed. Woo hoo, turkey dinner sandwich!

 

Crowded night there, bartender Scott was tearing his hair out it was so busy, but I didn't totally mind, it was like "girl's night out" or something, cool enough -- though I did get muscled away from the bar by a birthday party of pocketbook-wielding twentysomethings, oh hi girls welcome to my space now get off my foot ow OK I'll move over a bit...

 

Saw Kateryna there (not part of that crowd, thank goodness); she said she's been back about a week, and I got some of the California road trip story, but not all of it I'm sure. I also saw Joe's ex-GF Paula (of course she asked about him) and also my MTB friend Lucas. Like I said, busy night at Porters.

 

Tonight is the gym, then dinner at Christian's Spring Hotel.

 

Scales Fell From My Eyes: Whoops! Gotta clean the house again, I just noticed this morning that it's getting pretty bad.

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

Morning weigh-in: 163#, 9.5% BF (nice suppression work there, Lou)

 

Happy Anniversary, Battle of Little Big Horn!

 

Awesome ride last night at the Follies, 42 miles in 2:35, on a course they call "Greg's leg tenderizer." Me, Greg, Scott, Jorge, and Joe & Cindy, north over Blue Mountain at Little Gap, then a hilly loop out by Klecknersville and return via Little Gap again, the highlight of the evening being a duel between Greg and myself, bottom to top of Blue Mountain, on the way back. He beat me, in a sprint (!) by half a bike length, but I got him to admit he was working pretty hard. (Our actual time, from the lower lodge to the top entrance at Blue Mountain Ski Area, was 10:26. I could swear that thing used to take a half hour to climb.) That was one of the best rides of the year, in terms of a workout, and also in terms of scenery -- it kind of reminded me of the PPRAC ride, and Greg said the same thing.

 

I kept my promise to myself: dinner was a bag o'salad with some leftover BBQ fixin's thrown in. Tonight I'm riding Sals with Kirk and some out-of-town friends of his; I did some yoga this morning to make up for the missed class. (I don't like to miss Wednesday yoga, the week's "hard class," but Kirk asked me to show them around, this is the day that works for them and for the weather, and my weak link right now is technical skills -- I really need those offroad miles.) Dinner will probably be somewhere in Bethlehem, hopefully I'll not break too many promises...