Stuff

I made it through the trail marathon in Bloomington, Indiana, over the weekend, albeit, slowly. Steve and I camped near the finish, then rode the bus to the starting line. Steve won a slab of wood signifying a top three age group finish. I won nothing. It was good.

Into the Wild was playing at the local theater so we decided to go see it. Beautiful movie but it seems they glorified this guy's journey more than was necessary. He really was a pathetic hero to my way of thinking-a sad way to die. I read the book awhile ago.

I've been bike commuting the past two days and not running. My knees are still aching from the trail run. It reminds me I'm not as young as I used to be. I used to bounce back from a long run and be back running within the next day or two. Now, it takes longer.

It looks like I may be riding home from work tonight in the snow (and the dark). I've still got slicks on my bike so it could get interesting-I'll just take it slow. Combine this and my recent headlight woes (my battery seems to not hold a charge very well over the last couple of weeks) and I'm feeling a bit anxious. I hope my 6:00 PM appointment doesn't show so I can start an hour earlier. I've got a home-built headlight that really works great but I still haven't figured out how to attach it to the bike! Maybe I'll get time this weekend. By the time I get home during the week, I just haven't mustered the energy to figure it out. I did try a couple of velcro-inspired options but it just wasn't secure enough. Buying a new light isn't out of the question but I shutter to think about spending more for the light than the bike is worth. We'll see how it goes.

Road Trip

Steve and I took our yearly road trip to the Indiana State Track Meet in Bloomington, Indiana, last weekend. For the second year we camped at Yellowwood State Forest. Yellowwood is a wonderfully undeveloped area that suits our purposes well. It has primitive, uncrowded, camping and plenty of trail to run on. Yellowwood is home to the Tecumseh Trail Marathon in the fall. We ran about the last eight miles of the marathon course on Saturday.

Steve brought out his new ThermaRest sleeping pad (the ProLite 4) for this year's trip. Although Steve is relatively new to camping, he's the master when it comes to the cool stuff. He's also got a JetBoil that we use on this trip to heat water for coffee in the morning. Me, I've got my 25 year old Sierra Designs three person tent. This tent refuses to wear out. It's on the heavy side so we haven't used it to backpack, but it's roomy and easy to pitch when we're car camping. Between the two of us, we've always got all sorts of camping/backpacking gadgets, although I did forget my sleeping bag one time! I won't do that again.