The Red Queen's Race

Morning weigh-in: 178.5#, 11.5% BF

 

Checking in, recording the weight, staying on top of my daily spew, etc...

 

I set up some goals at the Garmin website, and I've been under the gun to try to keep up with them: I'm currently on target for my December running goal, but my cycling goals are weekly and, thought they're not overly ambitious (100 miles this week and next, for example), it's a little hard to stay on top of them with the recent weather (and all my other distractions) -- and each week the grind starts over.

 

Meantime, I went to yoga last night -- I am falling behind there too, and I'm getting really tight again. That abandoned missive I was writing touched on this: a lot of things got me where I am right now (ie with Anne), some of which -- like Which Brew or Christian Springs -- are gone, but that's OK because they were like booster stages or something, they fulfilled their tasks. I think I could even lose bicycling (another thing that brought us together) and keep moving forward, and that's saying something... Yoga is different: it helped me be emotionally capable of being in a relationship, and maybe the changes were permanent, but if my body can return to graceless stiffness, maybe my soul can too. This is something I have to stay on top of.

 

Yoga last night, and this morning was another run (3.25 miles, 36 minutes), and tonight is the gym, a place I haven't seen in more than two weeks -- spot a pattern?

 

In other news: My skin has been very dry and itchy lately, which is my excuse to post this.

 

Winter Project: I think it selected itself, I've been playing with GRASS quite a bit lately, mostly with my maps of Walking Purchase Park.

 

Vapor Lock

Morning weigh-in: 179.5#, 11.5% BF

 

Little bit of suppression weight loss in there -- evening bike and morning run yesterday, dehydration issues etc -- but I'll take the win, especially since last night was tacos and Two Brew Tuesday. Those numbers could have been better, but they also could have been worse. Getting there, sort of...

 

(By the way, one reason for the recent logo-constipation was that I was working on a post, which grew to become an essay, and it kept morphing and growing until it was no longer timely or interesting, and I abandoned it -- suffice to say I have much to be thankful for, and I am.)

 

Garmin tells me I burned 3900 calories on last night's ride, but that seems way excessive, even considering that I was on the Iguana (aka "Old Paint," but also affectionately known as "the 50-Pounder") and I was riding the hilly roads out by Williams Township -- 25 miles, two hours, average heart rate of 125 bpm, no way I had to crank that kind of wattage. Beautiful night for a ride though, chilly enough on the downhills to slow me down, which is just as well: Old Paint has developed a weird, slow precession or oscillation of the front wheel at higher speeds, pulling left then right then left etc, which undermines its claim to better stability on winter roads, and which makes downhills more "interesting" than fun at speed. (At lower speeds it was fine, even on the occasional icy stretches near streams.) You could see the sky getting ready to snow, and passing the power plant, with its cooling towers going full blast, was a total trip. I used to dream quite a bit about power plants, especially some of the bigger ones out in the Tennessee Valley, all sepia colors and strange, skewed perspectives, like my Easton dreams.

 

Anyway, I met Anne at Brew Works afterward, and the ladies seemed pretty jazzed up. Tacos, two brews, and I personally was mellow (read: sleepy), and so we went home around 10:30 or so. I slept like the dead last night, and I think tonight's post-yoga activity will be "quiet evening at home."

 

BTW2: Yesterday was the 29th anniversary of John Lennon's death, but today, the next day, being in school and hearing the announcement over the loudspeaker, was the day I remember. Strange, I know people, adults pushing 30, who were never alive when he was.

 

Knock Knock

Morning weigh-in: 181#, 11.5% BF

 

Hi it's me. I've been here all along, but I have just been too super-busy to write. What's up (besides weight)?

 

Thanksgiving was awesome, and it lasted for the full four days: cooking/eating Thursday (ribs), Friday (the actual Thanksgiving turkey), and Saturday (the turducken); riding Thursday (Lehigh) and Sunday (Allamuchy). Emmi was home, and her college friend visited, and the whole scene was really fun. I posted pictures you-know-where...

 

I managed to hurt my thumb a few weeks back, so I've been avoiding the gym -- you need your hands to do just about anything there -- as well as any really hard riding, so I've been doing a little more running than usual lately. I had a bit of a breakthrough this past Friday, on a morning run with Anne: I wanted to get in four miles, and she suggested the towpath to protect my ankle. (My problems are not wind/fatigue/fitness, but leg pain.) We ran down to the towpath, out approximately to her usual turnaround, and ran back to pavement before dropping to a walk -- 4.79 miles, no pain, and this morning's 3-miler felt fine too.

 

The rest of this past weekendwas also really nice, mostly spent with friends Debbie and Donna, and a cameo appearance by Anne's sister too. We started with Friday afternoon at the library (internet was down at the coffee shop), then bounced around southside for First Friday (saw WB'ers Andrea and Kateryna at Tulum), before hitting Brew Works (Doug, Lori, Greg, and Arnie). Saturday, needless to say, was fairly mellow, though I did manage to dope out some useful things in GRASS while watching the snow fall. Sunday was a breakfast walk to Blue Sky, then home for knitting (Anne and the ladies -- I played on the laptop), and a nice late-afternoon snow ride at Sals, doing a little more GPS exploring.

 

I was going to ride the towpath last night, but the Turner was such a disaster (and so was my laundry pile) that I took the night off to play catch-up, and while I was in maintenance mode, I also got the Iguana cleaned up and functional. Nothing major -- clean/lube, loosen a few stiff links, pump up the tires and it was all good. I'll probably bust it out for a road ride tonight if the rains hold off. Meantime, I tried shifting the Turner with my bad thumb, and we're almost back to normal.

 

See you in a week?