Thursday, September 15, 2005

Time For A Rest Day

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 174.5#, 6% BF
Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 174#, 6.5% BF

Well, since Blogger ate yesterday's post...

Rode home with Scott S on Tuesday. Friend, co-worker, he used to live up the block from me until he moved to Nazareth. (Here's a shot of him with me at Allamuchy.) Anyway, nice guy but fast, he also biked in to work & wondered if I wanted to carpool -- luckily he was into being sociable or I wouldn't have seen much of him on the ride home... He was going to Kim's Healing Center (a Chinese alt-medicine/massage/acupuncture place near me, Scott's into that kind of thing) so we rode almost all the way to my house together. We took my route through Stewartsville, which avoids the battle of dealing with traffic at the 173/US22/I-78 intersection, but took his route through Easton, via Northampton St and Pine Street (which is really an alley, the one that goes behind the old Weyerbacher location).

I went out after that, dinner at Which Brew while the laundry dried, but it became "I 'went out' went out" rather than "I went out for dinner" -- if you know what I mean -- when I ran into Scott U and Pete the radio DJ/mechanic, and Theresa came in, and we all trooped over to Porter's, and Carrie and Megan were having a bit of a goodbye party before Megan left for Seattle, and time passed, and one thing led to another... not that much alcohol involved, or even lateness, but I sure was tired when the alarm went off Wednesday.

The plan came together though: it was threatening rain, so I didn't want to bike commute, and my friend Joe wanted to ride but wanted me to be on my "real" road bike rather than the Iguana so we could fly through one of his training routes, therefore I drove in with the road bike on the roof. The weather was very iffy, I thought we'd probably cancel but Joe said "let's just do it" and we managed to miss almost all the rain. Blistering pace I thought, we rode from his house out almost to Stewartsville, then back to 173 almost to "that" intersection, then down those almost-abandoned roads and along River Road to Reigelsville, then Milford, then back through Holland Twp along roads I didn't know. A little less than 40 miles I'd guess, in about 2:15.

After that I went directly to Brian's house, where the "going to Moab next spring" crew was making travel plans & booking reservations, and after that I went home & fell asleep.

Tonight is rest/gym, then back to Which Brew to see the reunion show of some band whose name I forgot... bunch of friends used to play out around here a lot, I think they had a falling out but are back together just for this occasion.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

The Weather Still Holds Steady

Morning weigh-in: 175#, 12.5% BF

Rode in to work today, pretty nice ride but a little warmer than expected, especially in town; it'll probably be hot on the ride home. Tomorrow may be the start of the rain. My plan is to bring the road bike, and ride with Joe G if it's nice enough.

Speaking of hot, this kind of thing really burns me up. My friend Heath got a new dog, a pit bull mix named Isabella. Beautiful & very sweet animal though definitely still a puppy -- Margarita's a gardener, and the dog ate some of her flowers on Heath's watch, so the both of them were a bit in the doghouse when I visited Sunday... We talked about those dudes in Bethlehem, stealing pit bulls for dogfights, jail is too good for them and they probably only got fined.

Monday, September 12, 2005

They Call It Happy Monday...

Morning weigh-in: 173#, 13.5% BF

... but for me it's just another rest day.

Well, I dodged that bullet: I got asked Thursday if I'd be willing to go into the field for a period that could last up to a month (WTF??); I said I'd have to check my situation and get back after the weekend. Today I said OK, and find out that the whole thing's been cancelled -- apparently just some kind of panic attack on someone's part...

Eric


Eric
Originally uploaded by donXfive.
My photos from our ride last week are up at flickr. Here's Eric riding through the blueberries on some rather tight singletrack. He's smiling now, but wait till he sees the scratches on his legs...

Sunday, September 11, 2005

"Smashing Stereotypes, One Hit At A Time"

Saw the movie Murderball last night, about Quad Rugby aka "murderball," sort of like a cross between basketball, rugby and hockey in Mad-Max-like wheelchairs. I thought The Constant Gardener was good, but this'll probably end up being the best movie I see this year. Unbelievable, two thumbs up.

Rode today, 52 miles on the mountain bike: downtown for coffee/breakfast, then over to Bethlehem to ride the Sals trails, then back to Easton and down the Delaware towpath (bad idea, it's completely destroyed) and Rt 611 to the Raubsville Inn, then over to Heath & Margarita's (they live about a mile from the Inn, had also biked over) to see their new dog before riding home. I saw: deer, lots of clueless riders on the towpath (hey at least they're out there, they'll eventually learn to steer), a recumbent tandem, and people I didn't recognize at Sals -- cool, maybe the word's getting out.

Friday was the towpath, Saturday was the gym and also helping out at the P'burg Crit, and today was exhausting. I seized this day and throttled it.