Solstice Friday!

Morning weigh-in: 165#, 8.5% BF

 

Did my "southern benchmark ride," aka "the hill ride" or "the Hellertown loop with Morvale Rd extension," last night. It was a fairly hot lap, 25 miles in about 1:30, not bad considering the hilly nature of the ride: mile-long climbs followed by mile-long descents, over and over again as the road crosses and re-crosses the hill south of Easton. It's funny how those climbs used to seem like hell. (Saw Scott S, and also Tom A riding in Hellertown, not sure if they were together. They're friends and 24-hour teammates, but Scott was on a road bike, and I could have swore Tom, about a half mile back, was on a mountain bike.)

 

More Full Moon Madness: I almost stacked it on one downhill, when a young rabbit ran into the road, playing chicken with me and an oncoming car -- it came out out part way, stopped, went most of the way across, and then chickened out and crossed back. Trying to avoid it was like one of those Three Stooges routines, I actually touched it with my front wheel. I was doing maybe 35 mph, if I hit it square I would very likely have gone down. Nasty concrete ditch on the roadside there too. Little bit of excitement, in case my heart wasn't pumping enough...

 

Dinner was a roast beef sandwich at Christian's Spring Hotel. Me, Lee, Anne, Judy, and Sally & Joe, the usual crew. We also saw Nick and Alison, but they were mostly keeping to themselves.

 

Tonight (weather permitting) I'll be riding with Larry and maybe Kirk on the towpath, but I am probably staying in after that, since tomorrow is shaping up to be a marathon of fun: Chain Gang ride(s) & picnic at South Mountain, then the last evening of the Southside Film Festival, and finally a Trapdoor concert/party.

 

Bethlehem is the town with its fangs at my throat.

Blast From The Past

Morning weigh-in: 166#, 10.5% BF

 

Yoga last night, yoga this morning... road ride tonight unless it rains, in which case I'm hitting the gym. Dinner will be Christian Springs Hotel, where I expect to see Ann, Judy, Lee, and the rest of the Which Brew Thursday Night Diaspora Supper Club.

 

I hit Pearly Baker's after last night's yoga class; it was dead despite the "Wednesday night blues jam" going on, so I absconded over to Porters, which was also pretty dead -- dammit I miss Which Brew! Saw Larry there though, as well as Kirk (whom I hadn't seen since Which Brew closed), and ended up talking to some guy about the Wetlands Preserve, among other things. Turns out, he's a big fan of the Spin Doctors, like he even hangs out with them on occasion, and he just went to the premiere of a documentary about the Wetlands. (He also used to drag race at Englishtown, so we had a nice trip down memory lane.) I'm not a big fan of the Spin Doctors, didn't even know they were still around, but I traded him (the promise of) a poster from a recent show, for (the promise of) some scans of old Wetlands mailers, which I used to use as bookmarks. I went looking last night, found a schedule of upcoming shows for January 1991, and I know I have more.

 

Interesting Fact: Wetlands was forced to close because they lost their lease. Just like Which Brew, and like Weyerbacher before that. Oh, the humanity!

 

Reading: Ann F loaned me Blindness, and since I bitch so much when others don't read/return my loaners in a timely fashion, I put other stuff to the side so I could concentrate on this. So far so good by the way, but really I just started.

Too Tough To Die

Morning weigh-in: 166.5#, 7.5% BF

 

Wild ride last night. Me, Joe C, Greg and Joe G hammering out a road training ride. A somewhat different set of fools but it was the the typical "Tuesday night follies," until... Joe G had a mechanical problem with his rear wheel, decided to keep riding anyway, and of course the inevitable happened: speeding along in the pack at better than 25 mph, he stood up to sprint and his chain slipped. He went flying over the bars and got slammed into the road -- wham! Sliding and tumbling, he smacked the back of his head hard enough to break his helmet, ripped his shorts, and got some nasty "road rash" abrasions on his butt and shoulder before rolling into the roadside brush.

 

I was a little behind when it happened and was the first one to get there: he was already sitting up, conscious but a little dazed. We were really worried for a few minutes, he could have had anything from broken legs to brain damage; he got up (still woozy), and we inventoried his injuries -- except for the whacked head, he got off easy, and after a few minutes he was feeling a little better & even said he was OK to keep riding...

 

Long story short: we finished the ride, mellow at first but with gradually increasing pace as it became apparent that Joe wasn't seriously hurt. Our final distance was like 32 miles, with an 18 mph average. I'll say this, he's tougher than me -- I would have definitely bagged the rest of the ride, or at the very most I would have just ridden easy back to the start.

How Can You Put The Genie Back In The Toothpaste Tube?

Morning weigh-in: 167#, 7.5% BF

 

Did a little "active rest" yesterday: a beginner yoga class and some laundry; dinner was Taco Bell. So, I'm slowly pushing myself back into my routine...

 

The weekend:

 

Well, I guess I should start with Thursday night, because I got a chance to see West Coast Megan, back in town to visit friends and celebrate her upcoming wedding. (Her boyfriend proposed to her on the giant screen at a baseball game.) She had her bachelorette party Friday I think; this was just the usual "supper club" crowd at Christian's Spring Hotel and she's been close friends with Judy's daughter since like milk-money days, so the two of them came out. A couple of extra peeps at the supper table, then when the cigar crowd came in we took over the other room (comfy chairs, no smoking), where Bill & Danielle also joined us. Nice night out.

 

Friday was a baseball game, with Anne F and a few of her friends. Triple-A, Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, it was actually a lot of fun (they won). Great stadium, our seats were awesome, and it really was all about the food & beer -- too bad something disagreed with me, my stomach was in knots for the drive home.

 

Saturday was my usual "selfish day," then Saturday night I hit Porters where I ran into old-school bartender Carrie, also Megan one last time, and Sunday was a long ride, towpath/Sals (with breakfast & lunch stops), before trekking down to Jackson for Father's Day.

 

Tonight is the Tuesday training ride.

Stop Drop And Roll

Morning weigh-in: 168#, 8% BF

 

OK, weight's trending the wrong way, my life seems out of control, and my skin feel like it's on fire...