Relo

Fri, 1 May 2009 23:12:01 -0400

One thing about getting ready to move, which has happened to me each time, is you start to think of your time as limited. Knowing this might be the last time you do whatever you’re doing. Favorite restaurants like Palani Drive, easily seeing friends, doing a certain trail a certain way. (Remind me, I need to hit up Poor Farm soon.)

You also develop an appreciation for your surroundings. Byrd Park really is very beautiful and full of life. Fan houses are the most colorful I’ve never seen. Meadow St. jaywalkers don’t get on my nerves when I think of them as characters more than nuisances.

Richmond though, like Austin, has so much personality that it’s hard to comprehend unless you live here. On the road bike today, I was finishing up on my 35th mile and taking it easy on Main St coming home. Two guys in t-shirts and jeans riding cruiser bikes jumped the pedals and flew past, smiling and laughing. I jumped and chased and caught up but not without a fight. Thumbs up and laughs as we went our separate ways. I doubt that’ll happen in NorVA.

I find myself saying that alot. “I doubt that’ll happen up north.”

We’re going to miss our house but are excited about our new one. We’re going to miss our friends but will make new ones (and visit). We’re going to miss our urban neighborhood, but like our forest one. It’s going to take a while to adjust.

A couple weeks ago, I needed to borrow a Digital8 camcorder. No friends had one and I finally found a video production company that would rent one out. Wearing an Xterra shirt, I show up to be told road tris are where it’s at. Find out the guy I’m borrowing from has been on my running email list for over a year, but we’d just never met. We’d ran on the same team, just not in the same event. His business partner had been doing the same Tuesday night rides as Liz and I, but rode in a different group. He remembered me as “the guy that doesn’t get cold.”

I doubt that will happen in Northern Virginia.

PSPing

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:46:42 -0400

I once called, to a visiting MTBer, the downtown trails “Richmond’s pride and joy.” Though, I feel their kind of a crowning achievement and something that’s special and unique, I hate that those compliments distract from other areas of significance. Buttermilk, North Trail, and Forest Hill are great for a quick spin or a couple laps. When I want to go long and hard on the bike though, I head south. Chesterfield’s Pocahontas State Park has the vastness in forest road and singletrack that never gets old.
Rode today for 36 miles on the 3-speed, mostly 34x16, and almost all singletrack. During which, I felt the heart and soul of mountain biking. Perhaps, mountain biking can be described as the combination of two elements, trills and and endurance.
Endurance, I’ve written about over and over. Conquering fatigue, pushing through, and finishing what I (or you) started.
Thrills are another game, cut up into split seconds and experienced individually or in sequences. One instance, on a fairly steep twisty optional downhill after struggling and sweating my way to the top, the bottom comes to a whoop. Climbing generates a lot of heat in the muscles and the body, just a like an engine. The body cools by secreting salty water through the pores, which role across the body by gravity or collect in fabrics or spongy materials. Styrofoam helmets are made to protect the head in an accident but also have pads for comfort. Those pads will fill with sweat.
A whoop is a small valley that the bike enters and exits quickly, under 2 seconds. Very fun on a bike, but not on a run. At the bottom of the whoop when the bike changes direction from down to up, the G-forces cooperate with momentum to force anything that can move down to move down. The bike, the rider move up with the uphill and the sweat trapped in the helmet pads streams off the the front of the rider’s face very quickly.
In a quarter of a second, an ounce or so of sweat moves from the head to the ground (or lands on the bike) and an attentive, experienced set of eyes will see it fall.

As the ride wears on, this will happen over and over again. As endurance’s fatigue sets in, the sweat stream will lose focus, though always there. Those together, makes a good ride.

Under The Bridge

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:36:22 -0400

For years, I’ve been running the same 7.5 mile loop around the Fan. From the house, I go past the Byrd Park lakes, follow Boulevard next to the tennis courts until Main to VCU, through Up-Town. Then the old money of Monument and back through the boutiques and restaurants of Carytown.
It’s a good run, mostly done at night, well lit, mostly flat, surprisingly little traffic most of the time.
One thing critical to doing the same run dozens, perhaps a hundred or more times, is the entertainment value. I recently told a non-runner that to run, you have to enjoy repetition. Repetition’s much more tolerable with more occupy the mind.
I’ve seen Bill Clinton, fights, kisses, beer and/or wine drinkers, runners, cyclists, students doing any number of student things, 3-block line of tuxes and evening gowns, pot smokers, diners, shops come and go.
I’ve smelled flowering trees of apple blossoms and dogwoods, urine, and freshly baked bread from CanCan.
I’ve heard rain, angry motorists yelling at me, excited friends yelling at me, pep rallies, and homeless men saying “Go get ‘em.”
The people I pass are constantly changing, but even the static never matures. I still haven’t seen all the living rooms of people that leave their blinds open to show off. I still don’t know which block each store on Cary’s at. I still haven’t found the best way to run that block from Boulevard to Robinson through the park.
Finishing up the run, as I pass over the Expressway on Boulevard, crossing the southbound lane to the median. I run this until the other lane is open, then finish crossing with about 1 mile left to the house. I chanced look down today, on a rare daytime run of the loop, and saw that median has an expansion joint below me. For years of running, this sidewalk crack has been one inch of air on a five inch wide foot down fifty feet to the expressway of traffic at 60 mph.
What does this mean in the big picture? Absolutely nothing, except one more observation to stay entertained while doing the same thing one more time.

Commuting and bike culture

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:31:03 -0400

The times I’ve gone to the Netherlands, I’m always impressed by how the majority of people bike as their primary transportation. 20 degrees and snowing? Two kids with you? Wear a suit to work? They ride to work in long, orderly lanes with their own traffic lights.
Americans talk about riding to work and a few do (myself excluded). Where’s the disconnect? Can it be changed? Do people want to clear the hurdles?
A New York Times addressed the issue and it’s good reading. Excerpt:

Would he have gotten in the accident on a Dutch bike? He laughed. “Probably not,” he said. “I was riding with no hands, and the guy came out of the bike lane. If I’d been on one of those, I would probably have been going in more of a straight line.”

The article.

Back to the beginning

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:00:44 -0400

At times throughout the year, you will feel strong. At times during the season, you will feel weak. In general, it’s a function of nutrition and fatigue and motivation. When all three are down, you’ll end up getting dropped like you did your first year on the trail.
After 3 months of eating, drinking, and traveling, I’m at the dropping point regardless of preparation. I’m so off that Woody thought I was bluffing during a climb out on the Devil’s Backbone course this week. The next day, I had to walk hills on North Trail. It was downright shameful.
Liz and I still have a long way to go to get our lives settled down. Closing on the old and new houses next month and moving afterwards. Doing some updating to the new house over the spring and summer. Still, I’m going to have more time to train and hopefully be ready to get my ass kicked in a somewhat respectable manner late season.
In the meantime, cheers to I-95.