Category: life

Happy Father’s Day and Summer’s here

Yesterday – wow.

My mom’s in town (dad’s tied up on business). Jake and I headed off to church a little early to take care of some admin on the Fair Trade coffee mission that Missy and I run, and Missy, mom and Nate followed about a half hour later in the other car. It didn’t make sense to drag two cars around for lunch, so Jake and I planned to take the bike and third wheel back to the church while Nate napped that afternoon.

So, we did. There was a little kerfuffle about a half mile from the house when Jake’s pedal fell off – hadn’t torqued it in, mostly out of habit and experience with well-made bike stuff. The third wheel’s a cheap one from Target. Works like a champ, but weighs in somewhere upwards of maximum ratings for automobile freight. The pedal’s in there good. I dragged him with the mountain bike, with knobbies still attached, so, given our combined weight and rolling resistance, we weren’t about to set any land-speed records.

This was the first time we’d attempted a ride of any real distance without him in the trailer. He did swimmingly. There was absolutely NO complaining about “Are we there yet?” and only a modicum of worry while going down hills. We stopped at Spicer Park – surprised that there were no rowers out – for a couple of drinks of gatorade, and I got a “Come on, daddy, we’re wasting time that we could be riding…” The kid could turn out to be a killer. Though he did get distracted on the way back to the parking lot by some ants and shiny rocks.

The drag up Long Hill past the high school and police station was as tough as I’d expected; however, I swear I could feel the kid pushing. Absolutely awesome. We made the car and about 12 miles in around an hour, give or take. Even though it was the hottest day yet this year, there was no whining by the boy, and he looked fresh when we got off. What a trooper.

When we pulled up to the house, the wife was putting out the Slip’n’Slide in the front yard. They’ve gone high-tech with these things: Not only are they slippery now, but they come with integral “splash pools” and inflateable bumpers at the end. I finished mowing the back yard, and joined the boys sitting in the splash pool. Then the wife actually let me cook for once – kabobs on the grill, followed by a wild blueberry cobbler (frozen berries, but if you’re cooking them, what’s the difference?)

Today: Determined not to let the week get half done before I start running, I laced’em up at lunch, and decided to see how the old rash would feel. Turns out, running actually made the residual itch bearable this afternoon. 5.2 miles, over 47 minutes. So, not so speedy, but it was 80 and 70% humidity – the hottest I’ve run since, like, September. But, I was running again. Good stuff. The wife ordered me a Frazz t-shirt from comics.com for Father’s Day, and I broke it in. Think Mallett might approve. Next step is to get it showing up randomly in RBF pictures…

Scale was down to 168 again. Still no net loss since like January, but who’s complaining? It’s summer, the race monkey is off my back (which means I’m itching to line up again), and I can focus on slaying my own demons.

Edit: Completely slipped my mind – before supper, we realized that the cobbler for dessert was going to be way, way too healthy – granola, next to no sugar, etc. So, we started jonesing for some vanilla ice cream to wash it down. And rather than burning dinos and going to the real grocery, I threw the baby in the jump seat of the wife’s bike and shimmied on down to the gas station/convinience store down the road. Sure, we paid an extra buck for the half-gallon of delicious vanilla bean ice cream, but we saved 8 miles in the car, and I got to hear my youngest yelling “Pedal faster daddy” while pounding my back.

For the Dumb Idea File

Using the weed-eater (string trimmer, whatever) on poison ivy while wearing sandals; then sitting on a plane wearing same sandals without first steam-sterilizing them. The ivy’s some weird stuff – had an incubation period of about 4 days before the rash got really, really bad. But I went and checked where I ran the weed whacker, and yes-indeedy! “Leaves of three, let them be.”

Let them be sprayed with round-up, if I weren’t violently opposed to using serious chemicals in the yard.

Fertilizer doesn’t count. Weed’n’feed will count after this summer.

Tried to go run today; feet hurt too much to get more than a half-mile. Grrrr.

Had the last t-ball game today; went surprisingly well. Think I’ll miss the kids…

I broke my mother’s heart

A couple of years ago, my mom sent up a kid’s book for Jake. It was about a mother who, every night, would sneak into her son’s room while the boy was sleeping and give him a kiss. Which is all well and good, except this book showed the mother

1. Actually belly-crawling along the floor, hiding in curtains, and that type of thing; and
2. Continuing to do this even after her son was grown and moved out of the house.

I told Mom I found the book actually kind of creepy.

She said it was probably her favorite kids’ book ever.

I’m a terrible son.

Anyway, I bring this up ’cause tonight caught me creeping into the boys’ rooms about midnight and kissing both of them on the head while they slept. Though I think I was secretly hoping they’d wake up. I’ve been down FedLand way – Maryland and VA, with a side trip to DC for breakfast one morning. Great trip. Good professionally, and enjoyable. Hit it off with my boss and our sponsors.

Running’s been pretty good – made 5+ on Saturday, 6-ish on Monday, and 5-ish on Tuesday. We were staying up by BWI, and there’s a great trail around the airport. Wish I’d taken pictures – if you’ve flown into Baltimore/Washington Int’l, you’ll recall that the airport is up on kind of a plateau. The view kind of goes on over the rolling hills of the Pax River valley, and the sunsets were nothing short of spectacular. Plus, the Maryland Highway department isn’t mowing, likely to save gas, and the wildflowers were everywhere.

Hope everyone’s having a great week. Two more t-ball games…

Pshew.

Life’s been hectic as of late.

Little back-story: A couple of months ago, I sat down and thought, really thought, about where I was professionally, where I wanted to be, and fleshed out a job description that was realistic and appealing. Not the “if I win the lottery” or the “if I drop everything and spend the next couple of years back at school” job description; this was the “I’ve seen a lot of cool stuff, and know what interests me and what does not interest me” job description. Complete with consideration given for actually having a life the 14-16 hours a day I’m not at the office.

Great mental exercise if you haven’t done it lately, by the way.

Based on that, I fired off a couple of extremely targeted resumes (and by couple, I literally mean less than a half-dozen) and directly approached exactly two people. I didn’t want to shake the boat with where I was – I knew that i was in a good spot professionally, and, absent the moon-shot, I was going nowhere.

Well, boys and girls, the moon-shot paid off. I got the job; started a week ago, and it is looking like all that and the bag of chips. So, I’ve been busting the last two weeks, making sure I left the last company happy, and hitting the ground running with the new position. I’m getting somewhat back into the nuts and bytes side of engineering, which pleases me to no end, while still leveraging my MBA. Somewhat of a step up responsibility-wise, but, since I walked off the brow of USS ANNAPOLIS back in 1999, I’ve missed being “The Man”, and actually having weight on my shoulders. Give a 20-something real power and responsibility early in his life, and you’ve ruined him or her for the rest of their careers.

There was also a little matter of a trip down to Norman, Oklahoma to see my little brother graduate from Law School. Granted, the last thing the world needs is another lawyer; but if someone’s got to do it, I’m glad it’s my little bro. “Doc” (his first two initials are MD, and everyone needs a nickname) is going to be doing title law, specifically for oil and gas. He’s a runner – ran Mystic Places with me, and has done the Austin marathon several times.

The trip was unexpectedly great – Norman is every bit as cool a college town should be, and Oklahoma gave me the same vibe as Texas used to before it went all suburbia – the vibe of the possible and of community all at the same time. Did some good running, and had a great time spending a night camping in the Witchita Mountains Nat’l Wildlife Area.

I took last week off from running. Got to go to the Bluff Point trail race – saw Susan, Dianna, Michelle, and April-Anne (who completely thrilled Jake by wearing #100 and being a school teacher), and proved that my wife isn’t just a figment of my imagination. Our sitter couldn’t get off of work in time to support the race, so I didn’t run, but it was good to go huddle in the rain, and even better to see the rainbows as the sun set.

And T-Ball has been completely great. Practice was rained-out on Tuesday; we had a great time on Thursday, and a good game on Saturday. There’s a ton, ton, ton of energy on the team. If we were playing soccer, this team would be killer. As it is, I’m happy – my biggest job as a coach with these kids is to stop them from all trying to pile on the ball after it’s hit, which is infinitely superior to having to watch it dribble past the kid drawing in the dirt. And they all seem eager to get back on the field each week, which is progress towards the larger goal of giving them a life-long love of sport.

So, next week is a new week, with hopefully less life-related stress. The new job gives holidays on top of vacation – I’m looking forward to my first Memorial Day that hasn’t counted against vacation since 2001.

As an ironic aside, Missy’s been watching the help-wanted ads in the newspaper for the last few weeks. Yesterday and today, after I’ve started the new gig, there were two ads that I could have written as pie-in-the-sky jobs:

1. The New London School Board is looking for a physics teacher, specifically with an engineering background, to start a program at their magnet high school. Luckily for me, they aren’t offering any alternative certification paths…

2. The Cannondale Corp is advertising for a Mechanical Engineer with experience with composites to do frame design at their lab in Connecticut. The ad mentioned something about “passion for cycling”… I wonder if building a plywood/fiberglass/epoxy kayak counts as “experience with composites”. The downside here is that I don’t think I could pay the mortgage at the lowest salary to which Cannondale could get me to agree.

Stupid gift horses…

Semi-hiatus again

Sorry y’all – Life is exciting for the next two weeks. Heck, life is exciting almost every day.

Regardless, I’m wrapped around the proverbial axis until further notice. Apologies in advance. Good stuff, though.

T-Ball practice was the greatest. 7 kids, mine was the most ornery. We’re sponsored by a funeral home. Not sure if we’ve got the black t-shirts – kind of hope so, out of morbidity. But, again, reading the kids was the key to a good practice – they get squirrley when they’re bored. Great parents, too.

Worked out a bit…

Friday, I made it out for the run to the Gazebo. 46 minutes; I’m getting slower as the month progresses. But at least I’m out there.

Billy rides again

On Saturday, I finished what is likely going to end up being the most expensive wheel change ever. Yes, boys and girls, I put knobbies back on my mountain bike. After t-ball practice, I headed out on the trails in the neighborhood. I’d hiked it a bunch, and had thought that it was too (steep, rocky, excuses, excuses) to bike on. For sure to tough to ride on my ancient Trek 930 – hard fork, hardtail.

I was wrong.

There’s not a huge space, but it’s cut through with trails by the kids with dirtbikes and four wheelers. Never thought I’d appreciate them, but they’ve got a great eye for terrain. None of the climbs were straight up grades, the turns were all good, sweeping turns. And, most surprising to me – they’d largely avoided the boggy areas. Good stuff…

So, I steer off of the road, onto the trail, and line up for the first obstacle – a pair of 6″ limbs across the path, about 10′ between them. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Well, it shouldn’t, but it’s been almost 5 years since I dropped in on singletrack, and the last time landed me in the hospital with a snakebite. Like, from an actual poisonous snake. I hesitate momentarily, forget to unweight the front wheel, and endo. How sweet is that?

Pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again. I cleared them on the second try.

The rest of the ride rocked – Connecticut singletrack at its finest. Plenty of babies’ heads and roots. Not a single bit of level ground in 100 acres. The beauty of approaching gloaming through the trees. I fell a couple more times, and headed back to the house fat, dumb, and happy.

Epic Run

Sunday Afternoon, we did our usual Family Swim at the Y, with Missy hitting the gym while the boys and i stave off hypothermia in the pool. On the way home, I tried another new route – cutting through Pequot Woods to add a couple of miles of trail to the run home. Talk about getting my butt kicked…

First, there was the climb up Baptist Hill out of Mystic on Route 1. The hill just keeps going, and going, and going. Then, there’s a steep downhill to the south end of Pequot woods, followed by one of the roughest trails I’ve run (Though I’m sure it’s similar to what Dianna eats for breakfast). The trail – uphill, too.

Finally, it’s over the top of Cow Hill (THe one that ate Warren’s lunch at the end of our epic), with a little bit more heading up Lamphere at the stoplight, instead of straight down to my street. Over the tip-top of Cow Hill, down Oslo, past Freeman Hathaway school, and another third of a mile of trail, and I’m spit out.

As icing on the cake, one of our neighbors who I haven’t met yet is out raking. I stop to shoot the breeze, and she lets drop that her daughter is of babysitting age. Woo Hoo!

OH – Due to fortuitous circumstances, the engagement that had me missing Bluff Point is being pushed back a month or so. With the addition of a babysitter to our bag of tricks, it looks like both Melissa and I are going to race. She’s doing 3.6; I need to register for the 7.

We’re very, very, busy…

Doing most important things in most important ways.

Good things are afoot at the Jank house. Good things that hopefully will spread Jon’s way after his recent brushes with worry. Although, historically, things going as well as they have been usually is followed up by something on the magnitude of a comet crashing into the ocean. Though, Jon, they’re backing away from the Frenchman’s claim.

Because of a fiercely busy week, I haven’t run/biked/swam since last Friday. I managed to squeeze in 5.2 Thursday at lunch, in a pleasant 46 minutes, on a day that was made for runners – brilliant blue, gentle breeze, and about 60 degrees. Awesome. I should try it again sometime.

In other news, I’m coaching Jake’s t-ball team. Not that I volunteered to coach – on the form, I clearly checked the “I’ll help with the team” box, not the “I want to be a coach” box. Let’s be honest here – learning baseball from me is about as useful for the kids as learning, oh, say, FLYING by flapping one’s arms from me. I still close my eyes and cringe when catching pop flies.

On the plus side, it’s t-ball, so if I can manage to get a majority of the kids not playing in the dirt for the majority of the time, I’ll count it as a win. Truthfully, I think I’m looking forward to coaching. Nothing better than a chance to mold young minds. I think we’ll all run the bases for the first practice. Spend an hour learning running skillz…

The worst part, personally, has been calling the parents of the kids to let them know about practices, schedules, etc. Not that the other parents aren’t wonderful – they have all been swell, and last year there weren’t any of those parents at any of the T-ball games. Good folks in this town.

It’s just the whole cold-calling thing. I hate it. Absolutely hate getting on the phone with people I do not know, and who may not be expecting me to call. Irrational? Sure. Lazy? You bet. But it still bugs the crap out of me. The upside is that it’s done now. There’s just a couple of stragglers who haven’t returned calls – we’ll see if they show up on Saturday.

Which was the other part that I had irrational issues with. I called the league commissioner (which was somewhat easier – he goes to our church, and we gabbed on Sunday) this week to see about practices, etc. He says “Sure, you tell me when and where.” I say “Well, what’s available?” He says “Whatever!” So it was up to me to figure out when and where, which was tough, since I didn’t have any idea at that point what the other parents could support.

Until I remembered that I was the coach. Once that clicked, it was easy to make arbitrary decisions. Bringing to mind the great rules of leadership. Brogan posted it as four rules a while back. I can distill it down to two:

1. The best plan is the one that you begin executing
2. The information you have now is adequate to start executing, provided you’re willing to shift as information shifts

Once i realized I was at step one, the rest was easy. We’ll reassess schedules for the rest of the season on Saturday.

That’s pretty much it. I’m off to read about music theory until I fall asleep.

Half an hour for me, half an hour for my homies

Heart rate doesn’t lie, right? At least, that’s what they tell us.

A week ago, I swapped out my old, non-whiz bang heart rate monitor for a younger, snazzier, curvier model (this one here, in fact). It’s a bit on the chunky side, but it doesn’t spike high every 2 minutes like my 6 year old one, and it does laps. Swam with it on Wednesday, in fact. I’m pretty much satisfied. If it lasts a year or two, I’ll be happy, even.

So I split from the office this afternoon just slightly early (which was offset by working just slightly late a couple of other evenings last week), and swung by the North Kingston rail-trail, which I hadn’t seen in a while. I was thrilled to see a lot of folks out biking on the trail, and at least one mom running behind her son-on-training-wheels. Made me want to boogie on home.

Good podcasts to listen to and great weather – in the mood to run. So I did. Warmed up to the mile 0 mark, and hit the split button. HR about 130, just barely aerobic. Cranked it up. Tried to figure out the new graffiti – black paint on blacktop doesn’t work really well.

Mile 1 – right at 8 minutes. Hmm, not sure where that came from. But, I’m sure things’ll even out. Mile 2’s slightly uphill. Wow – under 8 minutes, HR right around 150. Mile 3; mile 4 – same story. Finished the 4.2 in just over 33 minutes, with less than 1 minute over 158, which is theoretically 85% of Max for me.

Then it was time to go fulfill civic duty – our church was hosting the Groton area ecumenical blood drive this time around. I stopped and did the frat boy shower (soap and washcloth in the sink, topped off with deodorant) at the CT Welcome station on IH-95, then rolled into St. Andrew’s right in time for my appointment.

As a side note, can I say a huge note of thanks to people who work flexed hours in services? The Red Cross had pushed the hours for the drive from like 2 to 6:30, giving folks like me a chance to fit it into my schedule. Ditto the good people at the Groton Public Library, who, most weeknights, remain open until 9 PM – I can get the kids in bed and actually have a little time to browse myself, so our weekend trips can focus on the kiddos. And I cannot thank the folks at the Y enough – if I can get up that early, I can swim at 0530, or as late as 2130.

After having pie, I stuck around a bit to help pick up chairs, etc, and shoot the breeze with the pastor, who’d just gotten back from a run. Wish that I had half the energy of that guy, and a fraction of his compassion and empathy.

So that’s pretty much it. Whoever ends up with my pint’s gonna get to enjoy a boost of endorphins, I hope. Glad to share. Good end to a great week.

BTW, can I just point out here how much inspiration y’all give to me? Even though I couldn’t make it to beantown, meeting Lower Case Jeff, riding with Warren, and hanging out with the CT RBF rocked. I think I’ve talked my wife into running Bluff Point in my stead (“Your marathon friends aren’t going to make fun of me if I just do the 3.6 mile race, are they?” she asked. The beauty is the number of cases in which we can look back and see that that’d never happen.) But the goodness isn’t just up here:

– Angie set a PR and married off some running friends in a canyon
– Jon managed not to eat himself into a coma after going back on the brown stuff following Lent
– RunninTurnip has a great opportunity to get new wheels (but we’re thrilled she’s safe)
– Lance Armstrong is going to follow in my footsteps for a change and run NYC in November
– And Mark is trying to extort cash from us in exchange for compromising pictures.

Apologies to those I’ve left out. Great things are afoot at the Circle K, boys and girls.

Great Things

Hippo Birdie Two Eye

Runmystic – Run, run, run, run, run, cycle, cycle, too – turns two today. Way back then, I was over 185, and way overestimating mileage.

Two years later – 20 lbs lighter, two marathons under the belt, and a much better swimmer. But still not a good swimmer. I’m also a slightly better web jockey; but I still can’t code a page from scratch. Maybe in another two years.

I’ve gone through some of my archives. My favorites? May of last year.

Thanks to everyone in the RBF and elsewhere. I’d like to think I could have done this all on my own, but frankly – knowing that there’d be people scratching their heads if the blog went dark keeps me strapping on the shoes.

Did the 5.2 miles to the Gazebo yesterday. Will likely do it again today.

New Spring Classic: Mystic/Watch Hill/Mystic

So, it turns out that Salty War is a great guy, in fact, and not an axe murderer.

There is goodness in the world*, and a large chunk of it resides in Ottowa, apparently.

I’d mentioned to Warren in a chat a month or so back that he was welcome to crash at our place on the weekend before Boston, and we’d head up to see Jeff run. This was, of course, before either of us had realized it was Easter Weekend. But, after wrangling our respective better halves, it was decided that Warren’d head down Sunday morning, and head back up after the race.

So, a bit after 2, a sensible vehicle drives up, a tall, thin, runner-lookin’ guy steps out, and I drop the rake and say “Warren?” Sure enough.

We talked for a bit, let him take care of what ailed him following his wee jaunt in the car, and I talked him into a quick ride – a mere 20 or 30 miles before supper. He was game – eager, in fact, and broke out his snazzy yellow bike, pulled on the “Around the Bay” shirt (Which I was surprised to see that Jon hadn’t autographed), and we were off.

For the first leg of the ride, we were accompanied by Jake, who raced us down the street to “Dog Barking Road” (’cause there are like dogs that like bark on it) and back.

Then, the plunge down the woefully rutted road that leads from the neighborhood to Old Mystic. “Watch out for the bumps” I say, as I turn down the hill. “I wondered at first why you took the really wide line” says Warren at the bottom of the hill, pulling his seatpost out of his nether-bits.

M/WH/M’s first and largest climb, the Category 2 Pequot Trail, comes at about 1.5 miles into the classic, just after the trip through the industrial heart of town. As we started up the climb, Warren kept holding my wheel. As I looked back, his face was impassive, legs churning, as we danced up the hill. At the top, I pointed out the sweet stone shell of a house, the one I’m buying when I hit the lottery, and then tucked in for the screaming descent.

At the first stop sign, I turn around and ask Warren how the pace is. “Fine” he says, impassively, leading me to confess that there’s not a whole lot more I could put into it. “OK,” he says.

The rollers on Rt 234 into Pauckatuck are amazing, as always – a series of half to three quarters of a mile climbs, followed by matching descents. We turn onto Route 1, briefly, to start going to Watch Hill.

I confess that I’ve never actually ridden all the way out to Watch Hill – usually, given the time for a long ride, I head up north into the hills. For shorter rides, I usually just head to Stonington and back – not a lot of climbing (sometimes I throw in Pequot Trail Hill). Warren’s cool with that – we’ll just go ’till we’re about 15 miles from the house, then turn around. We chat a bit on some side roads off of Rt 1A, along the river separating Connecticut from Rhode Island. Mention Susan and David’s family summer places just up the coast from where we are.

In the end, we hit about mile 16 as we crest a hill and look through someone’s yard at the Atlantic. I’m not quite sure how far we are to the parking lot for Watch Hill, so we take a break, talk triathlon, and suck down some water. Warren acts a little worn out to make me feel better.

On the way back, we take Route 1 south out of Pauckatuck, towards Stonington. And, I realize that what’s usually a decent offshore/westerly breeze, the breeze that should be pushing us back to Mystic, is an onshore, easterly breeze, straight in our faces. Again, we manage.

We take the turn into Stonington Borough, ’cause I’m pretty sure there’s some cobblestones still on the street, and a classic’s not a classic without cobblestones. We ride out to the point, past the pair of cannon that held off a British Frigate during the War of 1812, and chat for a bit at the point. I’ve got a great picture of Warren, but haven’t pulled it off the camera yet. He’s got one of me, too, that cracked him up somewhat fierce. I’ll let him tell that bit.

Finally saw some other bikers at the point – there was the rude guy on the Giant road bike, playing the Ugly American, convinced that Ottowa was somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. There was the smokin’ chick on the vintage Trek mountain bike, asking for an allen wrench (and actually calling it that – is there anything hotter than a woman who knows tools?) and looking for singletrack.

And then we were headed back towards home.

On the climb out of Stonington on RT 1, Warren pretended to drop his chain so he could climb at his screamin’ pace and not have to wait for me. I didn’t notice until I was over the hill, but by the time I turned around, he came screaming over the top, looking like Salvodelli coming over the Finestre, ready to scream down into Mystic.

We chatted through town. Then I asked – “OK, 5 miles and not so much up and down, or 4 miles and a killer hill back to the house?” Warren opts to tackle Cow Hill, and take the shorter route.

One final crushing climb under our belts, and we roll back into Casa Jank, just in time for Easter Ham.

Man.

Can’t ask for much more than that – perfect weather, great riding companion, and good eats to top it off. It’s going to be tough to beat the ride for 2006.

*I mention this, not because it’s a great surprise, but because it bears out something that a friend of mine linked to today:

But I also reject my neighbor’s representation that what neighborhoods are about is not bothering anyone. I fear that this definition is what has resulted in the culture of deep alienation we live within.

So what can we do? Nothing but spread a little bit of goodness ourselves.