Stuck the landing…finally

Back in March I set goal, a goal I came tantalizingly close to during both June and July only to watch it slip through my fingers like quicksilver. Failure almost reared its head again in August, but I knuckled down and last night, somewhere across from Terminal B at National on the Potomac Trail, the trip odometer on my handlebars rolled to 25.00 miles.

Doesn’t seem like much, but the 25th mile of the ride was my 200th in August (ftr – the ride ended up being 27.25 miles). When I set the goal, I had no idea how hard 200 miles in a month would be. Actually, looking at my ride-tracking app stats, there was a period between mid-June and mid-August where I’d done 400 miles in 60 days, but it wasn’t quite the same.

It was like the Tiger-slam of goal fulfillment.

But August was different…and a bit the same. I kicked ass the first half of the month riding a total of 136 miles on the 4th, 9th, 11th, 13th and 16th. Then I took a week off because of weather, alcohol and just not giving a shit and had to get 64 miles in during the last eight days. For some 64 miles isn't a big deal. For me it's three medium rides or two long rides. Or one really, long ride and a couple of laps around Haynes Point.

I did it, but let me tell you it as a Herculean task making myself hit the road last night. Once I got out there I was fine, it was the gettin’ that was tough. You wouldn’t think it’s hard to ride eight times in 31 days, but it is. I think my biggest stumbling block is that I most often ride alone. Most of the people I know who ride, ride a lot faster and longer than I do. When I ride with them it kicks my ass and I don't have fun. When I ride along I ride at my own pace (about 16-17 mph), but I get bored after about 90 minutes.

I don’t know if – OK, who am I kidding – I’m pretty sure I won’t be hitting the 200-mile barrier in September. What I think I’d like to do is get to 1,500 for the year (I’m at 973 right now), which I think is pretty doable averaging about 150 miles a month till the end of the year.

Who knows, now that it’s cooled down a bit, might be able to go even longer. Yeah, no.

Way back home...

My brother sent me this video. Suffice it to say I was blown away by Danny MacAskill's skill and artistry on his bike.

Here's the description: "Way Back Home is the incredible new riding clip from Danny MacAskill, it follows him on a journey from Edinburgh back to his hometown Dunvegan, in the Isle of Skye."

I have to say, this is almost as good as the "I want to dance with Matt" video.

The scene around 4:30 riding on the pipes and then, around 5:30 where he's jumping the red English phone booth are some of my favorites. I can't begin to imagine the level of skill all of this required.

And, since I know you'll want to see the whole clip, and since Blogger seems to enjoy cutting things in half, here is the link to the video.

Happy Friday everyone! Have a great weekend!

May the road rise up

Tomorrow, a friend and I are headed out for a little bike ride. For me, the ride will be the longest I’ve ever done – 50 miles. Not so much for him. He’s ridden 50s and more before, but it’s still an important ride.

You see, next week, the two of us will be heading over to Maryland for the St. Mary’s Century. For those of you unfamiliar with biking terms, that’s a hundred miles. I, personally, will be taking the wimp’s way out and doing the metric century – 100 kilometers (about 65 miles), so I’ll be setting personal bests on two consecutive weekends.

The thing is, while I’ll be curled up in a ball whining in pain the next day, my friend’s going to head back out on the road to see if he can do it again. There is a method to his madness: He’s training for an even longer ride for a better cause than just a T-shirt. But I’ll let him explain in his own words:

Colleagues, friends, family, and fellow cyclists,

As some of you may know, I am riding my bike from San Francisco to San Diego, Calif., next month as part of KPMG’s Chasing Daylight charity ride to raise money to help fight cancer. The Chasing Daylight Tour will cover 635 miles from San Francisco to San Diego in eight days from Oct. 10 to the 17.

This year, we are raising money for Lance Armstrong’s Foundation, LIVESTRONG. My personal goal is to raise $5,000. Our collective goal is to raise $200,000, which will make us the biggest single grassroots fundraiser for LIVESTRONG. You can be sure that your donations will be put to good use. KPMG and the individual Chasing Daylight riders are bearing all costs for the ride: transportation, lodging, food, and support. That means that 100 percent percent of the money that you donate will go to LIVESTRONG to help inspire and empower people affected by cancer.

Most of us probably know or love someone who has been touched by cancer. Please help me honor those people and help others who are currently fighting the battle by donating whatever you can.

HOW YOU CAN HELP
You can make a donation by going to my LIVESTRONG fundraising site
Enter an amount in the box
Click “Continue,” and follow the instructions from there

If you are interested in finding out more about LIVESTRONG, please click on the links below:
What We Do
Get Help
Our History
Milestones

Yeah, you read that right, 635 miles in eight days. In case you didn’t, lemme spell it out for ya: Six hundred and thirty-five miles. In eight days. San Francisco to San Diego.

As he said, “Most of us probably know or love someone who has been touched by cancer,” and that is true in my case as well. My brother-in-law was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease two weeks before he married my sister. And, come Nov. 1, it’ll be nine years since my mom died after her second go ‘round with cancer.

I checked this morning, my friend’s a little more than halfway to his $5,000 goal. Any help you can give to help him reach that goal is greatly appreciated.

Live. Strong.

“May the road rise up to meet you,may the wind be ever at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.”

Rule of 3s? Law of thirds?

I've never been too much of a rule-breaker, at least not intentionally. Although I do subscribe to and try to live by the maxim of "Tis better to ask forgiveness than permission."

Gotta tell you though, whether you call it the Rule of 3s or the Law of Thirds, I intend to ignore the possibility that bad things happen in threes. You see, in the past two days both of my best friends have visited one of these:

Yeah, the hospital.

One had an MRI on his back and the other had ERCP which, upon further study, looks like the more uncomfortable of the two procedures. FTW! Seriously, owwww!

Does a blog post count as a "Get Well Soon!" card?

And since I'm a big fan of cards that make you laugh (sent my dad a "serious monkey" card for Father's Day. It had a picture of a chimp wearing a suit and glasses), here's a funny thought, and I say this with love: My friends are five weeks (ERCP boy) and seven weeks (MRI boy) younger than me. Each year they enjoy harassing me when my birthday comes first. Yes, that's very funny. Makes me think about this video a little. (Seriously, click the link, suffer through the 15 second commercial and then watch the video. It is one of the funniest and, at the same time, saddest, three-minute short films ever made. I'm not kidding.)

Of course what really got me thinking is that I'm riding my bike to work more and more these days. During a conference call yesterday with, incidentally, a co-worker of MRI boy, it came out that we're both occasional bike commuters. The comment he made, the one that got me thinking, was, "From one bike commuter to another we both know if you ride your bike to work it's not a question of if you get hit by car, but when and how bad."

You know, I never really thought about it that way before, but thanks, thanks a lot for that thought.

Anyways, best wishes to both of my best friends. Get well soon cause I look forward to many more years of harassment.

Making a list...Doh!

Y'all remember my new toy, right?

So I finally dragged my ass out of bed this morning and made good on my promise to myself to start riding into work. According to the fancy-schmancy computer I got last Friday, The 3.5 miles from door-to-door took me 16 minutes and 48 seconds. For those doing the math, that's an average of 12.4 mph. A little slow, I admit, but I also hit a top speed of 34.2 mph going down a hill. I probably could have gone faster, but I figured work was better than an ER at 6:30 a.m.

I have to say, riding in was the easy part. It was the getting ready that was hard. It probably took me about 90 or so minutes Sunday night to get everything packed into my spiffy new bike commuter pack. Funny thing, after you buy a bike you find all kinds of other little toys you just need...

As I'm packing and, for that matter, all night long, I was going through a checklist of things I needed like a space shuttle pilot getting ready to head to orbit. I figured the best way to do it was to work from top to bottom:

Dress shoes...check.
Socks...check.
Skivvy drawers...check.
Skivvy shirt...check.
Trousers...Check.
Shirt...check.
Tie...check.
Shaving bag...check.
Money clip, wallet, ring, pens, security badge, CAC card...check, check, check, check, check and check.

I got up this morning, chowed down on some breakfast, made my lunch, pumped up my tires, ran through my checklist one more time to be sure and headed out the door.

Sixteen minutes later I was rolling into the parking garage. I parked my ride in my office and headed over to the gym next door with a spring in my step to take a shower. Man! What a great way to start the day.

[Shower. Dry. Shave. Dress. I won't bore you with the details.]

I'm feeling good, I'm feeling right and...

Damn!

Yeah, take a look at that list above. What's missing?

Perhaps a device to, yanno, hold my frigging pants up? Yep, forgot my belt.

Garrrrr!

Good thing the Target next door opens at 8.

300*

Update: Hey folks, just found out the kind people at Well Done are offering me a free pair of tickets to Wine to Water to give away to some lucky person who comments on this post. So anyone who comments by 12:01 a.m. Thursday, June 3 is eligible to win.
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No, not the movie.
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I meant to write this last week or, barring that, over the weekend, but the beautiful weather and many other things pushed writing a blog post down the list of priorities. Anyway, this is my Opus 300. Three hundred posts since July 31, 2008.

Hope I haven't bored you too, too much.

So much time so little to do. Wait, strike that and reverse. To make things easier I'm going to break them up into more easily readable chunks.

Drink wine, feel good about yourself

Well Done is holding a charity wine-tasting to raise money for its clean-water programs around the globe. You can buy tickets to Wine to Water (a fun name if ever there was one) and check out the squeezings from a couple of Virginia vineyards. Wine to Water is this Thursday, June 3, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Darlington House, 1610 20th Street NW (Dupont Circle).

According to the unsolicited e-mail they sent me inspiring this section of the post, the wine tasting will "include a raffle, silent auction - including a private tasting for six, brunch at Mie N Yu, Bacon Handmade Neckwear, Crooked Monkey T-shirts, original works of art and more...all proceeds going directly to the charity."

Tickets are $10 and you get to try five wines, or one wine five times if you're so inclined, or any combination thereof. Seriously, you're going to spend that much on one overpriced drink at your local this Friday or, worse, five bottles of water between now and then.

The commercial I currently loath

Memo to Volkswagen: Just because all your cars have a "VW" on them doesn't mean people get to punch the crap out of each other every time they seen one of your vehicles. Let me refresh on the rules: The only time you get to punch someone is when you see a VW Bug (the original Beetle or "Slugbug") or a VW Bus (punch buggy elephant). Thankfully there aren't enough of your cars on the road to make this too much of a problem. But, like any modern corporate monstrosity, you've gone and turned something childish and fun into people just punching each other for no reason.

Rolling along

I did not one, but two great bike rides this weekend. Saturday I took the Capital Crescent Trail up to Bethesda and came back down through Rock Creek Park. For me it was a nice two-hour, 25-or-so mile ride (I parked by the Pentagon and rode across the river to the G-town trail head).

The other ride was a big circle of Arlington on the Four Mile Run, Washington & Old Dominion, Custis and Mount Vernon trails. Sadly, I can't find a link to Four Mile Run which, now that the 395 bypass is open, is one of my favorite routes in the area. This ride was a quick 18 miles in about an hour and a half. In case I haven't mentioned it, I really, really love my new bike.

Well, that's all for number 300. And, seriously, check out the wine tasting. We may take turning on the tap for granted, but there's a lot of people who don't know where their next drink (of water) is coming from.

*If anyone bothers to do the math, this is not my 300th post. It's actually my 301st. The 300th was, obviously, the previous one, but I didn't want to clutter up a farewell to a friend by rambling along about numbers. Hence the asterisk. Kinda like Roger Maris in 1961.

Caution: Bikes ahead!

As I was casually clicking around the Web yesterday, I found a link to this:

The 2010 Bike D.C. ride. All in all it's a 19-mile tour of some of the best sights in D.C. and Arlington. According to the website:

"The 19-mile Bike DC ride starts on America's Main Street-Pennsylvania Avenue-with the U.S. Capitol as the backdrop. On the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, of course, is the White House, the first of the national treasures along the route. Others include the Marine Corps [War] Memorial, Arlington Cemetery and the Air Force Memorial.*"

The ride doesn't just go around D.C., it also goes over into Arlington and up the GW Parkway to Fort Marcy Park (just past Chain Bridge), turns around and ends up in Crystal City (click here for the route). Sounds like fun to me. And, since I just got this:**

I think I might sign up and tag along. Anyone else feel up for a ride?

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The details:

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Day: Sunday, May 23

Time: Start time is 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m

Location: Pennsylvania Ave. between 7th and 14th

Registration info: here

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One other thing, if four or more adults sign up together, they all get a $10 discount. Anyone want to start a group?

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*Otherwise known as the "Wolverine" or "Standing Rib Roast" memorial.

**No, I didn't just buy a bike, I just bought a new bike. Ever since I realized running was quickly turning my knees to dust biking has been my major form of exercise.

Some of this, a dash of that…

This weekend just past was one of those weekends that can only be described as…pleasant. I saw a great movie Friday night, went for one of my favorite bike rides on Saturday and spent Sunday wandering around the recently reopened Eastern Market. The only downside was dinner on Saturday (after the bike ride), but we’ll get to that in a minute.

The movie
It’s a small film, playing in only two theaters I could find in D.C., but The Hurt Locker is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while (read the Chicago Tribune's review). It takes place in Baghdad in 2004 and focuses on the lives of the men assigned to disarm the improvised explosive devices scattered about the besieged city like leaves in the fall. [Note: I just checked and it’s actually playing in five D.C.-area theaters, so git while the gittin's good.]

Jeremy Renner (28 Weeks Later, The Unusuals) is Staff Sgt. William James, a soldier who seems to live his life as if he’s already dead. I don’t mean that he is morose or looking for death. He just accepts the fact he’s in a dangerous profession and if he thinks too hard about it, he’d never be able to get out of bed in the morning.

One of my favorite parts comes after James inspects a suspected car bomb and discovers it packed with explosives. Instead of running, like any sane person, he starts taking off his protective suit. When asked why he's doing it, he says, “There’s enough boom in this to kill us all, I might as well die comfortable.”

Some of the scenes, like that of a man locked in a suicide vest or the discovery of a booby trapped body, may seem over the top. But, according to friends who served in Iraq, they are some of the more mild tactics used by the insurgents.

All in all, The Hurt Locker is a great movie that never tells you how to think about the fighting in Iraq, it only makes you think. The Hurt Locker gets two thumbs and two big toes up from the Foggy Dew.

The Ride
Saturday morning/afternoon I went out for one of my favoritest bike rides in the area: The Crescent and the Park. It has other names, (the Zoo Review according to BikeWashington.org, but I like to call the little 20-or-so-miler in the map below The Crescent and the Park. Not very creative, I know, but it’s better than the Zoo review.


The ride took me from G-town up the C&O Canal towpath to the Capital Crescent Trail up to Bethesda. The Crescent is one of the many rails-to-trails trails in the area and I totally recommend it. It’s totally paved (although the part of the towpath I rode is crushed stone), only goes slightly uphill, is pretty shady and has some great scenery. The only annoying part is actually riding through Bethesda to get to the Georgetown Branch extension, which takes you to Rock Creek Park.

For those of you worrying about pulling yourself up the hill from Georgetown to Bethesda, don’t worry, you get all of that back once you reach RCP. The best part? Beech Avenue is closed to (most) traffic on the weekends, so you can go as fast or slow as you like along this part.

The only down side is the bike path in RCP is really in need of an overhaul. Those with skinny-tire bikes may not enjoy it as much as those of us who are used to a few bumps and potholes.

The dinner
After my ride I was, to put it plainly, hungry enough to eat…well, anything. I was particularly craving meat. But seeing as how I was a bit tired after my ride I decided I didn’t want to drive to my favorite barbeque joint and so I decided to try another place.

The new place I tried was the Rocklands Barbeque & Grilling Co. in Arlington.

Fail.

Now I’ve never thought I was a snob when it comes to food. Ask any of my friends, I’ll eat just about anything you put in front of me. But I think when it comes to meat, fire and smoke, I’ll make an exception.

I’ve been lucky enough to live in two very different barbeque havens: Eastern North Carolina and Texas. If you don’t already know, the Carolinas are all about the pork, and Texas is, well, in if it sits still long enough in Texas they’ll throw it in the smoker. But Tejas is famous for, and rightly so, it’s brisket.

I went to a party earlier this year catered by Rocklands and enjoyed their work. I’m thinking now that might have been an anomaly. Perhaps caused by the fact the meat was all cooked onsite. Not that it wasn’t cooked onsite at their location in Arlington, but it was mass-produced there, and that’s the problem.

First off, the brisket was charred a little too much for my taste, which means most people would think it was burnt through-and-through. And second, and this is the worse sin, there was a lot of, how to I put this gently, a lot of “connective tissue” in the pork. And by “connective tissue” I mean cartilage. The part of the animal you can’t really eat because it’s pretty disgusting to chew. I shudder just thinking about it.

The coleslaw was OK, the addition of little carrot cubes and peas was interesting, but coleslaw is merely a side show when it comes to meat. Don’t get me started on the beans.

All I can say is if you find yourself with a hankerin’ for some barbeque, avoid this place.

Eastern Market
What can I say? D.C. got its money’s worth with the rehabilitation of Eastern Market. As my friend and I decided, the fire was probably the best thing that could have happened to the historic market. If for no other reason than the fire probably made the place a lot cleaner.

The crowd you’d expect on a sunny Sunday afternoon was there, pawing over the produce and the overpriced trinkets splayed about. If you’re looking for something to do next weekend (or the one after that), head on over and explore this reborn D.C. treasure.

[Note: I took a bunch of pictures and will be adding them here one of these days. So keep an eye out.]