Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Making Up For Lost Time

Summer school finished up last Monday though the various adminstrative details dribbled on into the week as I had to get grades computed and turned in, emails to responded to, papers filed and the like. For the most part however, I have had my time to myself. While each day has had its own challenges the constants seem to have been kudzu and a return to cycling form. Each morning I've gotten up and spent between 45 minutes and an hour renewing my jihad on the vile vine (like the "Letterman" single letter replacement there?). My work from last summer and May and June of this year have held up well with the northern and western fronts still mostly clean. The eastern front continues to pose enormous challenges as the neighbor in that direction seems to do more to encourage the enemy's growth than retard it. I've seen his childrens' swingset swallowed up in the last two weeks and an old shed is likely to disappear within the next two at this pace. To my good fortune, the family seems to have gone on vacation for the present and I've been able to use the time to create a buffer zone of sorts around parts of my backyard. Unfortunately, I can't do the same for the property line between us on the frontyard.

My other constant has been trying to get back into strong riding shape. I've finished six 50+ mile days in a row since Monday and hope to go another 4 more or so. I'm somewhat surprised that my body has taken this as well as it has as a similar attempt made in May didn't go as well. I think that my body really wants to come around in July and August as this has been historically one of my strongest times of the year. I did a 43 mile ride outdoors this morning. It was only the second outdoor ride since the crash on my road bike due to the need to protect my new skin from the sun. The clouds meant that I could go out but they also spawnede serious storms late in the ride. Still, the rain felt good and I had a real sense of accomplishment in persevering through less than optimal conditions.

On a final note, I have joined the world of podcasting. So far it has mainly consisted of downloading and listening to rebroadcasts of the previous evening's Nightline. As Nightline has generally been one of my favorite news programs, Iwas genuinely happy to be able to access it without having to stay up until 11:30 pm to do so. One of the episodes was about a woman who has one leg who is training to do the Ironman. The thing that I took away from the episode was:

"This woman has one leg and will compete in the world's most difficult one day sporting event. So, what's your excuse again?"

I think I'd like to find a picture of her and put that on it and hang it in my office.

Anyways, as always, thanks for reading.

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