Enjoying the Journey

7+ hours in a car is a long time. I've done it a few times. Usually I hurry to get from point A to point B. When I found out I would be driving from Indiana to Georgia, I had an idea. What if I stopped in each state and ran a 1 mile along the way?

I pulled up the map and noticed that there were a number of state parks near the interstate. What a great country! Well, why not? I looked for the biggest patches of green on the map. In Indiana, I saw Clark State Forest. In Kentucky, I saw Knob State Forest. Tennessee gave me a few choices, but Chattanooga happens to be a beautiful place so I knew that was going to be one of my stops. I picked Point Park as I had never been there before. In Georgia, I planned to run a mile on the sidewalks of Atlanta to recon the route from my hotel to my work spot the next day.

After about an hour into my journey, I was at my first stop. That first hour flew by because I was more interested in where I would be running than getting to Atlanta. As I was driving down some back roads after leaving the interstate, I saw a little parking area and a sign. It was so little that I almost missed it. The thing about parks on Google maps is that you never really know where the entrances are, where the trail heads are, or what you are getting yourself into. Since I didn't want to spend a lot of time driving in circles, I stopped.

The first small section of the trail was on grass along the road, but that soon turned into some single track going up a hill. The trail was narrowing as I continued to run, and as the different plants were slapping my legs, I was praying that last plant that just got me wasn't poison ivy. It was just me, a trail I had never run on before, and an uphill. My little heart was pounding, and I felt great.

Before I knew it, I was half a mile out, and it was time to turn around. I headed back to the car, took some time to stretch, and continued on my journey.

The next stop was another hour or so that went by like it was nothing. I found myself on some gravel back roads in Kentucky. This time I saw signs for Knob Forest State Park so I was hopeful. I saw a small parking area that had no real trails from what I could tell so I kept driving. After a few miles, I turned around to head back to the parking area because I felt like I was going to circle the forest. On my way back, a couple of dogs started chasing the car. Ugh. I checked my mileage to make sure if I had to run along that gravel road, it would be far enough away from them. Over a mile later, I was back to the parking area.

I saw a small opening to what might have been a trail at one point. I decided to head that way to see what I could find. A short time later, I realized there wasn't enough of a trail to make it work. Still, it had pretty yellow flowers.

I ran back toward the car and opted to head down the dirt road. It was shaded, and there were no cars.

A short time later, I rounded a corner, and I'll be darned if I didn't see those same two dogs coming down the road. Geeze! They weren't too friendly when I drove by the first time so I turned around and hightailed it back to the car. I had pepper spray, but I wasn't really looking for a fight. I made it back to the car safely and out of breath. It was a close call, but I knew Chattanooga was next. I was really looking forward to Chattanooga.

Since I had 4 hours before the next run, I took the time to relax and get some breakfast. As I approached Chattanooga, I was getting pretty excited. I was anything but disappointed.

Before I knew it, my half a mile was done, and it was time to head back to the car. I really didn't want to, but I also didn't want to get caught in Atlanta traffic after 5pm. I decided that on my return trip I would stop and do some miles on one of the many trails on Lookout Mountain. I managed to get into Atlanta shortly before 5pm, and luckily I managed to get to the hotel without any major traffic issues. It took more courage to get myself to go out and run on city streets than deserted trails. It was .6 miles from my hotel to the building I would be going to the next morning and so I completed my final mile for the day. 

What could have been a very long day in a car turned into a mini-adventure. Why hadn't I done this before?!

On my way home, I stopped in Chattanooga once again and this time parked at Craven's House since Point Park did not open until 9am. I left Atlanta at o-dark 30 to miss traffic and get to the trail early. I started along Bluff Trail at 7:30am, and I had the trail completely to myself. The only unfortunate side to this was that I became a spiderweb slayer. 

I had managed to get my miles in for the day on some beautiful trails. I'd love to go back to Lookout Mountain and do some more exploring on the awesome trails in the area. Road trip anyone?

Next time I find myself on a long journey in a car, you bet I will be doing this again. You never can tell what you will find off of the beaten path. 

A Great Ride Along the Little Miami Scenic Trail

It only took 6 years for me to finally do this bike ride. It was there, stored away, in the back of my brain. Simmering. This year was the year.

As luck would have it, I have a friend who also wanted to do this ride. Her goals were a little loftier. Since I think just about any ride on the Little Miami Scenic Trail should include Peaches, I was easily persuaded to do a few more miles starting at Yellow Springs. She also convinced me to go to the very end of the trail in Newtown. Like I had any clue where that was.

I mapped out the distance, planned a few stops, and figured out that there was a Hilton Garden Inn near the trail which meant a free room with Hilton Honors points. Luckily the weekend we chose was perfect in the weather department so everything was set. Well, everything but my bike rack was set. The new bike didn't have eyelets for a rear rack. That meant some creative attaching using a Tubus QR adapter set and some rubber clamps I picked up at Home Depot.

The Beginning

Xenia

This Little Miami Scenic Trail actually starts a little more north than our starting point. We opted to start in Yellow Springs mostly because, well, it is Yellow Springs. There is plenty to see and do there, and it would be a festive finish upon our return. It also helped that I really enjoy Peaches which is right beside the bike path.


Our first landmark town on our journey was Xenia. It is roughly 8 miles from Peaches to the McDonald's in Xenia. That wasn't so hard.

This fellow was riding from
Cincy to Yellow Springs

Xenia Station

Our next planned stop 16 miles from Yellow Springs was a new place along the path called Treana's Folks and Spokes Cafe in Spring Valley. All I can say is wow! This place awesome. Carolyn had Broccoli and Cheese Quiche, and I had a ham and cheese croissant. Darcie took good care of us and told us a little about the place. It is very nicely decorated, and they have bike parts for sale as well. They also have a nice outdoor seating area. This place was definitely going to be a stop on our return trip.

Bicycles hanging from the ceiling. How cool
is that?

Spring Valley

Treana's Spokes and Folks

The next place of note along the path was Fort Ancient. I have yet to actually see Fort Ancient other than passing by on the bike path. One of these days.

Morrow was our next stop and the farthest I have ever been on the Little Miami Scenic Trail. We stopped at Miranda's Ice Cream shop and had some lunch. Morrow is a pretty small town, and there aren't a lot of options close to the path. This is where it would have paid to know about Loveland. I had heard that the path traffic would pick up as we approached Loveland (which is 13 miles from Morrow), and it did. As Carolyn and I cruised into Loveland, we were amazed at all the fun everyone was having. People were out and about. Plenty of folks were on bicycles, and there were also a lot of folks smiling, eating, and drinking outside at the Trailside Cafe.

And I hear...."In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, There's a land that's fair and bright...." A band at the Trailside Cafe was playing this song which transported me right back to Tennessee. This song always reminds me of the Smoky Mountains. I can only think I must have heard it there when I visited as a child.

This song was fitting as Loveland seemed like a fairy tale in the middle of our journey. I was so interested in what was going on around me that I actually forgot to take pictures. Since we had committed to going to the end of the trail, we continued on our journey. In order to get to the end, we had to pass the road leading to the hotel. A bit later we arrived in Milford which touts itself as Trail Town, USA. There was a lot less path traffic in this section.

Hmmmm, which trail do we next? How about
Cincy to Cleveland! :-)

65 miles later, we arrived at the end of the trail in Newtown. There was no finish line or even an end of LMST sign. There was just a golf course sign ordering us to dismount bikes.

This section had little shade, and it was getting pretty warm out. We still had 10 miles to go to get back to the hotel. We considered heading back to the Trailside Cafe but decided to go the hotel instead since it would have added quite a few more miles to the journey.  Little did we know what awaited us on Wards Corner Road. It was only about 1 and half miles to the hotel from the path, but what a tough 1.5 miles it was!

My Lightspeed doesn't have a granny gear. I was carrying plenty of gear. I had just ridden 70+ miles. This road had cars on it. This was no time for a hill! Unfortunately no one informed the hill. I would have stopped and walked the bike, but I didn't think I could unclip from my pedals without falling over. By the time I got to the top, my legs were shaking and my heart was about to jump out of my chest. If we hadn't gotten our money's worth in the first 73 miles, we certainly got it in the last 1.5.  I was very happy to arrive at the hotel.

After a good breakfast on Sunday, we headed back toward Yellow Springs. Our timing was a little later than we had preferred, but it was out of necessity to avoid the Little Miami Half Marathon on the path. We did manage to go through the race finish line in Morrow. It was another day of absolutely perfect weather, and we once again stopped at Treana's on the way home. This time we met Treana and had some fajitas and good conversation with others who had stopped to "fuel up" along the path. After 55 miles for the day, we arrived back where we had begun. We enjoyed a celebratory drink at Peaches and walked around Yellow Springs which was bustling with people out enjoying a beautiful day. Our Little Miami Scenic Trail adventure was complete!

July!

My favorite month!

July and I have had our moments. I remember back in my KinderCare days (which means I was probably 4 or so), I had a book with facts about popular shows / movies. I used to love Knight Rider so when I saw David Hasselhoff and I had the same July birthday, I thought that was pretty awesome. In high school, I learned that my favorite teacher, Mr. Gray, also had the birthday of July 17th. More on that a little later. In any case, I loved birthdays.

The first time I remember not being happy on my birthday was during Camp Buckner at West Point. I was far from home spending a humid summer in New York. I was miserable. I was hot, sweaty, tired, and running around in the woods. (Strangely, I now do something very similar for fun.) Later in life, I had people forget my birthdays. When you've been dating someone for a while, that feels less than good.  That happened two different times over the years during two different relationships. No joy there. Worse yet, I could never recall my dad ever calling to say happy birthday. As a kiddo, I didn't think about that much. As an young adult, it made me a little mad.

My final straw occurred on my 30th birthday. I had always thought I would be married by 27 and have children by 30.  I was turning 30, and neither of those things had occurred. Instead, I was in a very negative relationship, in a brand new job as an IT project manager (ugh), out of shape, and trying to figure out where things had gone so wrong. I felt the black hole pulling me in, and it was a terrible feeling. Logically I realized that it was ridiculous for a number to have such real impact on my emotions, but it was more than the number. The issue was my life the way it was at that moment. The number just made me focus on my reality.  A month after our birthday, Mr. Gray passed away.

Later I would joke and say I had my mid-life crisis 10 years early.  At the time it felt like anything but a joke.I knew I could not continue in this direction so I decided to begin celebrating my birthday again.

Not only would I celebrate my birthday on my birthday, but I would begin my celebration on July 1st. To heck with that darkness trying to pull me down, I was going to fight back. Everyday between July 1st and the 17th, I would have a birthday celebration. That celebration could consist of a stop at the coffee shop, a new jacket, a bike ride with a friend, or anything a little different really. The point was to focus on the joy and goodness of one thing for that day. I also began my tradition of the red sock run one year later to celebrate and remember Mr. Gray.

The first time I came across Mr. Gray, he scared the hell out of me. Mrs. Wuthrich sent me up to his classroom to look for Nathan who she had sent up that way earlier to get something.  I was in 8th grade and sent up to talk to a teacher I didn't know in front of a bunch of high school students. I asked him if he knew where Nathan was, and he said something ridiculous. All the older kids laughed.  I took his algebra 1 class that next year, and somewhere during that time he decided I was pretty smart. Over the next four years, Mr. Gray became the dad I never had. The summer after my sophomore year, I spent every morning beginning at 7am with him, Jonathan (his nephew) and Angie (a woman studying for her PhD) doing math problems under the big pecan tree in his huge garden for about 3 hours. Afterwards, we would pick black-eyes peas, watermelons, cucumbers, garlic, or whatever was ready to be harvested. One day during a math lesson, I asked him when his birthday was, and he said, "July 17th!" I didn't believe him so he showed me his driver's license.  Lo and behold (as he would always say), it was July 17th!  From that day forward, he often referred to me as his twin.

Mr. Gray was retired Army; field artillery to be exact. Every day he wore red socks, "field artillery red" as he called it. So the first birthday after his passing, I ran my first red sock run and have continued the tradition ever since.

This year I took some pictures of my daily birthday celebrations at the request of a friend so I thought I'd go ahead and post them on the blog.  Without further ado....

July 1 Blueberry Bagel at Panera	July 2 While cleaning my garage, I found $40 someone had left behind
July 3 Free Iced Latte at Panera!	July 4 Freedom 50K Ride with Carolyn
July 5 Sold my old bike on craigslist in less than 4 hours and made $100 more than I thought I would	July 6 Diet Cherry Lime Dr. Pepper
July 7 $85 running jacket for 32 bucks!	July 8 Dartfish running gait analysis at PT. Very neat.
July 9 In New Jersey for work. Birthday dinner with my friend Dave (far right). Thanks Dave!	July 10 Mom bought me a beautiful sunflower. Thanks Mom!
July 11 Breakfast with the ladies. Blueberry pancakes! (No powdered sugar, sugar-free syrup ;-)	July 12 $20 at a time, Mom and I gave away the extra $100 I got for the bicycle.
July 13 Peanut Paradise Smoothie sans sugar	July 14 Wright Museum and Bike Tour. Very cool :-)
July 15 Birthday beer and free dinner	July 16 Massage!

July 17th
 Red Sock Run and Bike

c

This post could be about physics, but it isn't. It's about a bicycle, sort of. 

 

Old School Dyno Compe

Back when I was a lot shorter, I used to love bicycles. I would ride my bike all over a little Texas town for hours on end. I read BMX magazines. I would sit around and draw different frame designs. My mom once told me that a bike made out of titanium would fly. She was an enabler of the best kind.

I made a calendar and charted out when I would have enough money for the bike. My mom would give me an $1 for every A I made on my report card and pay me for helping out at the office. I plotted and saved and eventually bought a chrome Dyno Compe freestyle bike. When it came time to assemble it, I did fine until it came to the rotor. I had never actually seen a rotor in action so mom drove me to a bike shop in the big ol' town of Wichita Falls, Texas. We got it figured out. For a kid who loved bicycles, it was awesome.

Usually once a year I think about getting a new bike. I bought my current bike in 2007, and it's been good to me. That titanium bike has always been there stuck in the back of my brain, though. Those things cost $4000 brand new so there was no way that was ever going to happen. I could be richer than a king, and I doubt I would spend that much money on a bicycle. Two weeks ago, however, I looked around and found a used titanium Litespeed Tuscany on sale within a 2 hour driving distance. It also happened to be just my size. The wheels began to turn... :-)

I contacted the seller, and a meeting was set. I began thinking about what I would do to fix it up and researching online, and I had a plan as to what I needed to look at once I was there to make sure it was a good purchase.  I showed up at his house, went to ring the doorbell, and jumped a mile high as he unexpectedly rounded the corner of the garage. It was at this point all logic left my poor brain. Pure rational thought was gone anyway because I was way too excited about this bike. The bike went out of my brain when I saw the guy selling the bike. Let's call him B. I think it was his smile that put me over the edge. 

My mom had insisted on going with me since there have been more than few cases of people pretending to sell things on craigslist and doing terrible things. While Mom isn't scary, she does know how to shoot a gun, and I happen to own one. None of that was necessary because it turned out that B is a police officer. He also lives alone and had a road ID that matched mine, as he pointed out. I was smiling. He was smiling. Mom thought the entire thing was pretty funny, and it was. So anyway, I wound up with a good story and a new (to me) bike. Luckily when I got home and had a good look at it, the bike was in perfect shape.

So over the past few weeks I've been learning a lot about bicycles. I've been figuring out to remove decals from titanium (acetone works great), ordering new decals and installing them, replacing tires, figuring out I know almost nothing about derailleurs, cleaning gears and a chain, putting on new handlebar tape, bike fitting and adjusting blah blah blah. I have plenty of knowledgeable internet folks to thank for the tips. Between message boards and YouTube videos, I've learned a lot.

    Litespeed Logo before...                                                                    Litespeed Logo after...

Before...

After...

(waiting on a different water bottle holder to arrive, though)

Before...

After...

Is it blue?

Is it green?

Yep!

It's been a fun project, and used or not, I am beyond happy with my new bike. The other great thing about this project is that it has made it completely clear just how much my mom has always been there for me. When I needed to learn how to put together a rotor, she was there. When I needed backup while going to pick up a bike, she was there. That titanium bike in the corner of my mind was there partly due to her influence. A lot of who I am was greatly influenced by what she said and did while I was growing and learning. My mom is caring and always there when I need some help. Thanks for being awesome, Mom!