Tempus Fugit

It's been awhile since I've posted! Summer's almost gone. I spent most of August away from any running due to a recurring injury that reduced me to a walk at the trail marathon I went to at the end of July. I just returning to running now-September. I put together two record (for me) months of bike and commuting.








July bike miles =555
August bike miles=634.9
2008 bike miles =3186.85

Price of a gallon of gas=$4.25

GO CUBS!

Chicago

Arndt and his bike on the road to the Emerald City

Last year Steve and I planned to ride our bikes to Chicago from my house in Chesterton-it's about 100 miles round trip. The morning of the trip there were torrential rains and our trip was washed out. This year we tried again to give this a go and the weather couldn't have been better. Much of the route can be made via a network of bike trails that have sprung up over the last several years. Neither of us had ridden much of the second half of the route before. We were also worried because the bike path route takes us at least five miles out of our way (I know...if we're worried about five miles maybe we shouldn't think about riding 100 miles!) So we decided to take the shortest, albeit more complicated, route to Chicago. There are no bike trail until we get to the south terminus of the Lakefront Bike Trail across the Illinois-Indiana state line on this route. Much of this route is on two US highways-12 and 41. Near the state line, the road is marked with unobtrusive Dan Henrys that were very helpful and led us to the bike path proper which I think starts around the South Shore Country Club. All in all it was quite an adventure. We found the bicycle center at Millennium Park but we never found the Intelligentsia Coffee Store at Millennium Park because it's not actually in the park. It's down Randolph Street from the park! We did drink some wonderful Jamba Juice in the cool shade of the buildings along Michigan Avenue. I think we'll try this again!







May Bike miles=447.2
June Bike miles=420.15
2008 miles=1996.15
Price of a gallon of gas=$4.19

Olympics

Do you look forward to the Olympics? I know I do. My excitement has started to build already. Friday night Amy Yoder-Begley made the team in the 10,000 Meters. That's a 10K for all the road running crowd. The politics of the Olympics aside the sheer joy of an athlete like Amy making the team is wonderful to watch. Amy has a local connection too. Her mother graduated with me at Chesterton High School in 1970. She's being coached by Alberto Salazar. Alberto has a wonderful story too. It could be argued that he was the last great American marathoner, although Ryan Hall could become the next one. Alberto was a main character in the legendary Boston Marathon race captured in the book Dual in the Sun. Now he just may be the best coach of this new generation of American distance runners. NBC will televise the Olympics and also the trials, although not in real time.

Bike Northwest Indiana on YouTube!!

Bike to Work Week-Day #4 & Day #5

Thursday morning I got a few bonus miles in when my route was closed so they could replace a culvert. It seems we just can't quite let go of the cool weather this year and today was no exception. I was actually hoping to use a work vehicle to get to the detention center where I facilitate a group every Thursday afternoon but there was no vehicle available. I walked the 1-1/2 miles to the detention center and back. Lucky for me it was dry. I wore my new Cascadia 3 Trail Running Shoes for the first time (I didn't get the red version!). They were great! The evening ride was overcast but dry. My mind always wanders more during the ride home, maybe because when it's dark there's not as much scenery to look at. I've composed some wonderful blog entries riding home only to have them dissolve away as soon as I park the bike in the garage. I guess it's only for the moment-kinda like one of those sand paintings.

Friday! Bike to Work Day! It was my turn to bring donuts at work so I rigged a flat base to my rear rack so I could Velcro the donut box there. Sorry, no pictures. I also stopped for some coffee at the "coffee hut" in Valparaiso. I bought a thermos awhile back that keeps a big cup of coffee hot for several hours. It won't quite fit into a water bottle cage so I just stick it into my pannier. It was a nice sunny morning and a great morning for a ride. Too bad I had to work.

So I did it-I went all week without a moment in a car. The price of gas hit a peak of $4.05 for a gallon midweek and slid slightly lower by today ($3.89/gallon). I rode 139.8 miles to commute to work five days. Assuming I get about 27 miles/gallon (I think I can actually get a little more than this), I saved 5 gallons and about $20.00!

For Your Late Night Viewing Enjoyment

This is for my buddy Joe.

Bike to Work Week-Day #3

The morning commute is a misty foggy blur. It's a comfortable 58 degrees. I've developed a sort of kinship with the landmarks on my route-especially the animals. There's a guy with his dog on the bike path I see many mornings-big guy, little dog. There are the three horses at the small farm just south of town. There's the Dalmatian who runs up to the edge of the road to bark at me but always stops before actually getting to me. There are two big white guard dogs that used to run along the fence barking at me, especially on my evening ride home. I think I've become so familiar to them that they no longer waste their energy on me. I've seen them looking blankly at me as I'm riding by. There are four turkey vultures who seem to have taken up residence in the abandoned barn that marks my halfway point to work from home. I usually see them at the peak of the barn warming up in the morning. Two more dogs that I used to see up on the roof of a house aren't there any more. I figure the owners finally figured out how they were doing it and put a stop to it. Of course riding to work and home allows me to see and hear all kinds of birds, raccoons, rabbits,squirrels,possums, and occasional coyotes, deer, and foxes. I've had near misses in the dark with a few of them.

Bike to Work Week-Day #2

Well, I made it to the end of the driveway before I noticed that my front tire was flat (again)! Lucky for me I have some old tubes hanging up in the garage. The strong south winds are bringing warm temperatures with them. Today is supposed to be the warmest day of the week. Just my blue nylon vest and a light Patagonia long sleeve today. The wind gusts rocked me from side to side. I'll be looking for them to help me rocket home tonight.

As it got closer to time to ride home, I watched nervously as a red blob crawled across the weather radar. Would I get home before the blob arrived? Nope. As soon as I clicked into my pedals for the ride home, the rain began. I'd packed my Red Ledge rain coat in case of rain so I stayed dry for the most part. The temperatures were fairly mild. There was one huge flash of lightning but then only rain. All in all a tolerable ride home. I stared down at my tire periodically to make sure it was still inflated. When I got home I checked the tube I'd removed in the morning. One of the three patches on the tube was leaking. Time to retire (a pun) this tube!

Bike to Work Week-Day #1

I made a goal to ride to work every day this week. Day one started out unseasonably cool. My hands were on the edge of going numb. I had the wind at my back (off the chilly lake) on the way to work.

The ride home was excellent. The temperature wasn't much warmer but without the wind, I was comfortable. The clear night sky still showed a warm glowin the west, suggesting the sun had just set. The moon was already high in the sky. There's something magical about a bike ride in the dark!

Still looking for Spring

I got snowed on riding home from work last week!

I trained more this year for the Michigan Trail Marathon and ran evan slower than last year. It's frustrating to know I ran over an hour faster for the same race less than ten years ago. It's not only aging that's taken a bite out of my speed. These knees of mine are constantly aching. The food was good at Zou's Zou's and there are a couple of more Starbuck's opened along the route to the race. Next year the REI in Ann Arbor will definately be on the tour! Of course I didn't do myself any favors in the run by doing my longest bike ride in a couple of years (76 miles) a week before the race. I got to practice my flat fixing routine during the ride too-I got two flats! Did you know that the glue in those little tubes that come with the flat kits will evaporate if given enough time?

It was my best bike commuting month so far this year.










March bike miles=333.4
April bike miles=469
2008 miles=1128.8
Price of one gallon of gasoline=$3.59 (and rising)

Signs of Spring

We moved our clocks an hour forward last night but everyone made it out at the regular time for the run. Steve can't help but slip into his Henning Falkenstein imatation as Joe finds the first skunk cabbage peeking through the ice on the Cowles Bog Trail this morning. The shelf ice still hugs the shoreline as we crest the big hill before the beach. Yesterday there was significant lake-effect snow just west of us. The birds seem to be unusually noisey as we run through the woods. The tug of war between winter and spring is being played out. Spring will win this war eventually of course but how long from now? The college basketball tournament selection takes place a week from now and the season ending games are on television this afternoon as I change my commuter bike tires over from studded snow tires to "summer" tires. All together now "Here comes the sun...do, do, do do......."


February bike miles=163.2

;^)

Lost Weekend

I love the internet! I subscribe to a blog called Boing Boing. They blog about all manner of things, including some guy who spoke at one of the TED Conferences. This guy, J. J. Abrams, has his talk posted on the TED site. I realize upon listening to him speak that he's one of the creators of a television series called LOST. As it happens, ABC currently has every episode available online to watch. Prior to a couple of weeks ago, I'd never seen even one of the episodes. Since then, I've spent many hours catching up on over three years of episodes. Maybe I'm a bit obsessed with it but it's cold and unpleasant outside so what the heck. I can certainly see why the writers want a piece of the internet pie because this is a wonderful thing. No need to TIVO your favorite shows. Can't wait to see where this leads-for me and the industry.

Form v. Substance

This is what I'm talking about! Thanks to the folks at EcoGeek.org for sending me to this.

Groundhog Day

Well, the groundhog didn't see his/her shadow around here, but you can't tell by the weather over the past couple of weeks. We've been under a "Flood Warning" continuously for two weeks now due to some heavy rains. Tom Skilling has been going slightly mad on the evening weather! I've already got four February bicycle commutes in February, compared to none last year. One commute left my regular cycling shoes wet enough so they didn't air dry for two days. Last night I slid home on three inches of new snow. It was an adventure! I'm learning to commute in colder, winterier (is that a word) weather this year. As Richard Dreyfss would recommend-baby steps.

My old Nissan was put to rest a week ago. The repair bill of $2000.00 was just too much. I was hoping to get 300,000 miles but 226,000 is not bad. I'm reminding myself and anyone who reads this blog (both of you) that the greenest way to use a car is to buy used, keep it maintained, and run it as long as you can. It seems like Earth-friendly environmentalism has become trendy these days (For example, I saw a hybred Ford Escape SUV on the way to work the other day). But as with many other things in our whacked-out society, this seems to be more form than substance. President Bush did sign an energy bill that will finally mandate higher fuel economies but we lag behind much of the world in this.

January bike commute miles:163.2
February bike commute miles (so far):81.6
Total for 2008: 244.8

Distributed Computing

I wrote about my crashing desktop computer awhile back. I eventually bought a Dell Dimension 8200 desktop on eBay for $65.00. A great deal and the computer just hums along. The only downside I can see so far is that memory upgrades must be done in pairs of memory sticks that make the process more costly. Anyway, I started to get back to some of the interests I had on my computer before the whole blue screen of death episode. One of my recent things is to go back to running SETI@Home. SETI@Home is a distributed computing effort to sift through huge quantities of data in search of extraterrestrial signs of life. As a die-hard X-Files devotee this idea appeals to me. Now the software used to accomplish this feat, BIONC, is also used for several other distributed computing applications. There are many worthy projects going on but I settled on Rosetta@Home for now. Here's an interesting description of this project:

As a person who's trying to always become more socially responsible (a life long quest). The concept that my eBay computer might actually share some small credit for truly historic scientific breakthrough is exciting. Since my computer sits idle most of the time, I'm giving it something to do.

Happy New Year

In case you haven't seen this already...





Happy New Year from the shores of snowy Lake Michigan!