Month: February 2023

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Sunset at N. Schroeder and Mulberry

A leafless tree sillhouetted against a cloudy sky, gold across the bottom as the sun sinks in the sky. And there is a major intersection with a car and streetlights.

I spent the weekend in Atlanta with the ladyfriend on a much-needed weekend getaway. We saw the Deana Lawson exhibit at the High Museum, took the bus and the metro, went to a show, took The Nephew out for lunch, got tattoos, tried sodas from all over the world, and saw a whole lot of girls in spangles and paint, in town for the Cheersport National Championships. My god, it looks so expensive to have a kid on a traveling competitive cheerleading team, and the moms look like they are simultaneously having the best and worst time of their lives. It was such a great weekend away, and we just walked and walked and walked. That city is geographically enormous.

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Tunnel to Nowhere at Herring Run Park

Looking down a tunnel under a bridge that dead ends into nothing.

The last time I trained for a century ride I was ten years younger and hadn’t been through cancer treatment. I had a different body back then. I do, though, have a very similar body to the one that trained and ran a half marathon during the COVID lockdown, though, so I know if I give us some space and time, we’ll get to peak adult onset endurance athletic form together. But that means I have to be patient, which people who know me well know is most assuredly not by strong suit. I am also a compulsive person, so if I have a plan, it is very hard for me to deviate from it. This week, though, I heard my father’s wisdom: listen to your body, not your training plan. My body requested a drop down week in mileage for my long ride instead of upping it by five miles, so on Wednesday I rode 20 miles instead of 35, and my body is thanking me for the rest, I think.

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Swytch E-Bike Conversion Kit Review

Me in a red t-shirt and capri jeans balanced on my green Surly Long Haul Trucker while talking animatedly on the phone.

This week marks my 14th anniversary with my Surly Long Haul Trucker. This is a picture of us on our first ride together (yes, New Orleans in February is sometimes warm enough to dress like that!). A friend met me for a photo shoot, and this is me, on my bike, talking on the phone to someone about how amazing my new bike is. I imagine I was talking to my dad, who was even more excited about the bike than I was. His motto was always “shop often, buy once,” and he had done a lot of shopping on my behalf. It was between this bike and the Trek 520–I don’t even remember why a touring bike was deemed necessary–and the LHT was a few hundred bucks cheaper, and dad’s good friend Tom rode it, so voila, my new bike! I ordered it from Bicycle Michael’s on Frenchman Street, paid half in cash from the six hundred dollar bills my dad sent me in the mail–always cash in the mail because as a former postal officer, he trusted the U.S. Mail like no one I have ever known.

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Military Vehicle Parked Along Dundalk Avenue

The thing about training for a century is that every week your long ride gets longer, and if you don’t want to haul your bike out to the airport to do circles around BWI or go to and from Annapolis, you have to figure out how to get all those miles on city streets with their hills, stoplights, drivers, and pedestrians zipping in and out of the street without warning. It’s like that Paperboy game we used to play at the Brass Lamp back in Boise. I looked at the 25 miles on my calendar for Wednesday and decided that yes, I was going to do this in the city because I don’t want to get in the car to ride my bike. Dundalk, I thought. If I zig and zag enough, that’ll get me to 25.

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