Training Log Archive: PG

Up to Middlebury to ride in a charity ride. I had decided on the drive up that 50 miles would be more than enough. After a couple of miles on the bike there seemed no reason to change that assessment.

And it fact it was absolutely correct -- 50 miles was more than enough.

"Enough" would have been 35, as at that point the route turned south and right into the wind, time to pay back for about a dozen miles with the wind earlier on. And a good stiff wind it was.

With 5 or 10 miles still to go, I was starting to wonder if I really was going to make it. The legs were incredibly tired. They'd been tired when I went to bed last night, they'd been tired when I got up, just one of those days. And the high humidity (dewpoint about 70) and wind didn't help.

So I was reduced to a single thought -- just keep the pedals moving, it doesn't matter how slow, just keep moving. And slowly the miles disappeared, and after a while I was done. With no distinction at all, but at least not road kill. Time does not include about 18 minutes of stoppage time, mostly to socialize.

Might have helped to have done a bit of training. :-)

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But the rest of the trip was just great. There is a somewhat distant family connection. I see quite a bit of a second cousin of mine, he handles much of my mom's investments, and very successfully so. He has a couple of outstanding kids. The boy went to Middlebury, married a girl he met there, the girl (Kelly) was a hotshot ski racer, her mom skied in the '76 Olympics. But sophomore year she took a bad fall racing, hit an unprotected ski tower and severed her spinal cord.

She's quite the amazing woman. Paralyzed from mid-spine down, she still works full-time as a nurse practitioner, plus is a poster girl for the possibilities of adaptive sports -- in addition to biking she skis, plays tennis, plays golf. And the family started a foundation to raise money with a dual purpose, to improve safety at ski areas, and to give grants to similar individuals to purchase the equipment so they can continue doing their sports.

So I got to see the ride organization in action, totally professional. And visit with my cousin and the kids, and meet other relatives, and meet the very sharp woman who is ED of the foundation, and be just amazed at the bunch of disabled athletes using their hand-cycles to do their loops. Three were even doing the 100-mile loop.

Quite the rewarding day.

Bike ride tomorrow unless the weather looks really awful, in which case stay home. Maybe Pawtuckaway on Sunday.

Easy loop around Whiting reservoir.

In the area anyway for a visit to the Social Security office, signing up for benefits, something which I would have thought could have been done online. Had an appointment for 11:15. Got called in to see someone at 12:40, after many (and increasingly persistent) inquiries about why the delay. Best as I can figure, when you make the appointment you get assigned to someone. And if that person is running late….

Basically, it's the supermarket solution to lines -- multiple lines, you pick your line, hope you get lucky, but at least you can see who is ahead of you and how fast or how slow the cashier is -- as opposed to the bank or airline solution -- one line, when you get to the front you go to the next available person. Obviously the latter makes more sense, usually much more sense. But apparently not to Social Security.

I ask enough times to see a supervisor that finally the "assistant manager" showed up. Other than being routinely apologetic, she gave no indication at all that good customer service was something that mattered. If I treated people like that in my work I'd deserve to be run out of town. But in this case, there's no choice, got to deal with them.

The guy I finally got to see, at least, was reasonably competent. We got done in 10 minutes. And I even managed to find out what needs to be done when someone dies, so it was not a total waste of time.

And things certainly could be worse. I mean, I could work there. :-)

C • SS Office? 3

From the gate on Mt. Toby, up the jeep road, across on the link, back the RF, except checked out the new bit of (bike?) trail. Not much.

Nice run, just chugging along but got up the hill without much distress.

Trying to decide if I should go do the KBF ride on Saturday in Middlebury (Kelly is a cousin), or go to Pawtuckaway, or since it looks like rain, stay home and maybe go to Pawtuckaway on Sunday. Would like to do all three….

C • KBF Ride 4

Standard loop up in Greenfield, good effort the last 20 minutes or so. Nicer day, less humid, so felt a little more zip.

Loop in town with Dave. He was feeling low self-esteem, so the result was he kept upping to pace to satisfy a psychic need to prove himself more worthy. Or something like that. I was never really suffering, but on a steamy morning, sure did sweat a lot.

And the daily run is done. :-)

And I figured the old shoes just trashed cost me about 10 cents a mile. No complaints about that.