cycling
that's me to the right cycling up cottownwood pass in the 2008 edtion of the ride the rockies tour. my good friend alicia had been trying to get me to go on this tour for years and i finally got it together to go. i had a blast and met a lot of fun people. i definitely learned a thing or two about climbing and descending.
i got scared into running when i was a teenager because of the early death of my grandmother and my family’s dismal CV history. i ran cross-country in high school in a most undistinguished manner, but i didn’t care (well sometimes i did) and i enjoyed the camaraderie. i still run, but at a snail’s pace and to survive. it’s hard to give it up even though i’m punished by 30 extra pounds i didn’t have to contend with in high school. mais, c’est la guerre!
i swam a lot in college to keep in shape. i loved learning the technique and the feeling of moving through the water. after separating my shoulder in a bike crash, i'm not sure how much swimming is in my future. don't really have the time now anyway. but i think it is a beautiful sport.
i started biking too much during the course of doing rehab for an acl allograft. i now bike about 5,000 km per year, about half of that on my own and half with the ann arbor bicycle touring society (aabts), hanging out with an extreme faction in that group made up of racers and other borderline lunatics. i love it. each bike ride is like a small vacation in the country.
here's a view from a nice vantage point on the 17 mi. climb up to the hurricane ridge lodge:
and here's the lodge itself at the top of the climb:
here’s another ride in the olympics i’d like to do some day, up on crescent lake:
