First Century

From the title of this post, "First Century", the reader may be expecting a missive about the death of Caeser Augustus and the succession of Tiberius, or perhaps something about the Han Dynasty. But no, it's about a bike ride.

The short version: Friday, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little bike ride. So I biked to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd bike to the end of the town. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd just bike all the way to Purcellville.

Yes, that's dialog from Forest Gump, edited to change running to biking, but it pretty well fits.

Really, here's how it went: Since last year's catastrophe I've been working to build up my cycling endurance (I would love to build up my speed too, but that seems to be a lost cause). A few weeks ago I hit a major milestone when I rode a metric century: 100 km, or roughly 62 miles. Shortly after that I was talking with a friend about cycling during a shiva (mourning ritual). He's a cyclist and opined that if you can ride sixty miles, you can do a hundred. I'm not sure I buy that argument, but I wasn't going to argue with a guy whose father had just passed away. But I did believe that, having done sixty miles I could do eighty, and that just maybe if I had some gas left in the tank at the end of eighty miles I could push on beyond that. So, I figured I would try an eighty mile ride with the possibility of an extension. As it happens, there's a wonderful almost exactly eighty mile bike ride pretty much right out my front door: the W&OD rail trail out to Purcellville and back.

Here's the thing: if you're going to be on your bike for umpteen hours you want the weather to be as perfect as possible. Not muggy. Not cold. Not windy. Certainly not rainy. So, here comes this forecast for perfect, perfect weather on a Friday, which is a day off for me and, being a weekday, a good day to ride the W&OD (which local cyclists pronounce "wad" rather than "Double You and Oh Dee"). The trail can get pretty busy on weekends. Friday, it was!

I wanted to do the ride solo, since I wanted to be able to choose my pace and my breaks without having to negotiate with anyone else. Plus, if I dissolved into a heap at mile 75, no one would know but me :) Fortunately, in this day and age of cell phones and Uber (plus the fact that a good bit of my ride would be along one Metro route or another), I knew that even with a mechanical or personal breakdown I wasn't going to wind up too stranded. So, Friday, solo it was!

Since the ride was going to be an all day affair and so my plan was to start riding at 6:30 AM. As it happened, Valerie had been having some issues at work - and so I decided to hang around for a bit so I we could chat in the morning. With that and the usual last minute this and that (slathering on sun screen, for example), Friday, solo at 7 AM it was!

A lot of weekend warriors buy into all sorts of "sports nutrition" that's sold by the sports-industrial complex: energy gels, Gatorade, anti-"bonk" bars and the like. I was having none of it. Knowing that there would be plenty of opportunity to buy stuff along my route I left home with a pretty minimal kit: one water bottle (if I ever ride a century again this is something I will change - I will add a second water bottle cage to my bike), a 100 calorie Kind bar as an emergency snack, my phone and external battery, headphones in case I got bored, arm sleeve thingees to keep the sun off, and basic tools to fix a flat tire and other minor issues. A lot of people wouldn't do such a ride without chamois creams, body glide, or whatever to prevent chafing. My skinny build means that generally nothing on me rubs together, so I rode with my shorts unbuttered. I did wear tight Spandex shorts rather than my usual baggies, making me look as much like the frou-frou cyclists I normally mock as I ever will.

I headed out. Mentally, I was carefully monitoring my condition, making sure I wasn't showing any signs of tiredness, making sure to keep hydrated. Yes, I was an endurance athlete in touch with my body's performance! Then I looked down and realized I had ridden only five miles. If I was going to obsess at this level it was going to be a long day. So I relaxed and rode on.

I rode all the way out to Purcellville (40ish miles) without any major stops. As is my wont, I took a lot of bathroom breaks along the way - an issue for me when I leave for a long period of exercise in the morning right after drinking my usual morning bucket of (decaf!) coffee. I did have to walk my bike for a bit at one point, as there was a crew repaving the trail, but with the reward of riding fresh, smooth pavement for a long stretch. Later on the trail was closed in another spot for maintenance work, but only for a short distance. Contrary to my usual experience, after a while I did start getting a little chafing in one spot as I rode. I found a way to tug my shorts into the right position after each time I stopped to minimize the issue, a little dance I wound up doing after every stop at a road crossing, water break, etc. I figured I might stop in at the bike shop that sits right at the end of the trail in Purcellville to get some of the body glide sort of stuff I had earlier eschewed.

Trail detour #1 

Trail detour #2

Surprise! The bike shop is no longer there. However, in its place is a nice little bakery. I went in and chatted with the young guy behind the counter who said he couldn't imagine doing a ride of the length I was on. After drooling over the carrot cake muffins and tasty looking scones, I opted for the relatively healthful yogurt/fruit/granola parfait and spent my first real break of the day on a park bench happily eating my yogurt. When I finished I spent a little stretching, during which time a group of guys rode up - retirees, by the looks of them. I chatted with them. They were from Maryland but had ridden only from Herndon. I, without an ounce of smugness, I swear! told them I had ridden all the way out from Arlington.

Having finished stretching and humbly asserting my superiority as a cyclist, I started back. I was mid-morning by this point and I started to think about lunch. It would be nice to make it all the way back to the Whole Foods in Vienna, but by my estimation I wouldn't get back there until around 2 PM, and I wanted to eat before that. I rode on, figuring out I would eat at some point when the opportunity presented itself - plus, I had a magic power-up up my sleeve.

While the W&OD is rolling, in general it's uphill on the way out and so I got treated to some nice downhill sections as I rode back. Fortunately, one of the work crews had finished for the day and so had to contend with only one detour. I felt pretty good when I hit the fifty mile point until I realized that it might be only my halfway point for the day - man, a century is a lot of time on the bike! As I approached Herndon (about 60 miles of riding) I decided I wanted to eat but wanted to keep it on the light side. So, rather than look for a real lunch somewhere I decided to stop at The Green Lizard bike shop/coffee bar and picked up an energy bar of some kind, plus the aforementioned power-up in the form of a cup of regular coffee. It's a well-documented fact that caffeine can improve exercise performance. I assiduously avoid caffeine these days and so on the rare occasions when I consume it it feels like a super-energy pill, or like Popeye's spinach. Yes, I was caffeine "doping" :) Anyway, at the Green Lizard I ate a protein Clif Bar of some sort and had a small latte, though I didn't even finish the latte because I was worried about consuming too much caffeine. I hadn't brought extra sunscreen with me, and so at this point I put on my arm sun protector sleeves. And then off I went, soon crossing the 62 mile threshold, from which point every inch would be a new personal record.

I had brought headphones with me because I figured that by this point I might be bored out of my skull, but somehow I just kind of got into the zone and never felt the need for distraction. There's always something to look at, and the miles kept ticking away. On the climb into Vienna I found myself moving pretty slowly. A guy came by and encouraged me to draft behind him - but I wanted to earn my miles. Plus, I have never drafted another cyclist and figured that seventy miles into a ride was the wrong time to start experimenting. About this time I got a few weird pains in my left knee. I geared down a little bit and fortunately the pains didn't continue.

I found myself reaching home at the eighty mile point, as expected. This was the big decision point - call it a day, or keep going? I rode up to the house, a dangerous proposition - it would be easy to quit once I was already home - but to tell you the truth, I was still feeling pretty good. I made myself a snack of peanut butter and jelly on multi-grain bread. I texted Valerie to tell her what I was up to and coordinate our plans for the evening, which yielded a typically non-committal "let's figure it out later" response. I filled my water bottle with nice cold water and headed out to continue riding. With eighty one miles under my belt a ride around the "Arlington Loop" would get me just about the mileage I needed. However, I really didn't want to ride the up-and-down up-and-down rolling hills of the Custis Trail, so I took the Custis only as far as Glebe Road and from there took Fairfax Drive/Clarendon Blvd. down into Rosslyn, where I picked up the Mount Vernon trail. I always love riding down the river and so my spirits were buoyed.

I made a quick detour into the Columbia Island Marina to use the bathroom (I swear, I visited every bathroom and Porta-potty along the whole route). There was a band playing at the marina bar, but I soldiered on. From there it was the Four Mile Run trail across to Shirlington, and finally the little eastern bit of the W&OD (miles 0 to 4.5) that I had missed when I headed west in the morning. That last bit of the W&OD is a slow, steady uphill and I'm embarrassed to admit how slowly I was going by that point - maybe 10 MPH. I had started to get a stomach ache and while I wasn't mentally spent, my body was getting tired.

As I hit mile 99 I bumped into cycling friend Erin heading the other way (on her way to the Friday night Crystal City Happy Hour, I surmised - correctly, it turned out). We waved. She of course had no idea that she was seeing me as I reached the end of my century ride but was very excited when she later learned that was the case.

I had been watching the mileage on my Garmin bike computer. When I got back to the neighborhood I was a fraction of a mile short and so I did some loops around the neighborhood before heading up to the house. As I pulled into the driveway the Garmin read 100.3 miles. Strava, always a little more generous, gave me an extra mile. I was pretty hungry at this point and felt like eating despite still having a stomach ache. I made myself some lemonade to which I added salt, and ate more multi-grain toast, this time with hummus. Mindful of the cardiologist's admonition to always cool down at the end of exercising I paced back and forth in the kitchen while my toast toasted, which is how Valerie found me when she got home. I probably looked a little crazy, but fortunately Valerie was excited for me for having achieved my century goal rather than just thinking I was a madman pacing our kitchen watching bread toast.

Final Garmin results

So, success! Stomach ache went away later that evening. Not too sore the next day (except saddle sore). And we did go to Crystal City that evening, where I got a lot of kudos from my friends for having ridden my first century.

Victory!

Now I'm one of the cool kids :)

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1640702587

Bike to Work Day

Five days of buckets of rain. The Potomac is near flood stage. Creeks are jumping their banks. The ground is so saturated that water just pools on the surface of lawns.

And we're out biking.

Today is Bike to Work Day. As a promotional thing, the Crystal City part of Arlington turns it into a week-long event, with a gathering every morning at the Crystal City Water Park. Best of all, if you show up all five days, you get a free bike jersey! Most of my morning coffee bike friends have collections of CC jerseys, so I was determined to get one this year. And then it rained. And rained, and rained. Every morning Monday through Thursday I bundled up in my rain gear and headed out the door before 6:30 AM to give myself time to bike to Crystal City, hang out and schmooze, and then still get to work at a reasonable time (detouring to Crystal City about doubles my commute from 6 to 12 miles). Thursday was the worst - drenching rain that eventually soaked my rain gear.

Friday I decided to embrace the wet. I donned a Hydroskin (sort of like a thin neoprene) kayaking top, high vis vest, bike shorts, and wateproof socks - gear intended to keep me warm, but not really dry - and headed out. It was so much more comfortable than stuffy rain gear! The fact that I didn't have to ultimately get to work helped - somehow I really didn't mind getting wet when I knew I didn't have any goal other than playing in the rain.

This guy has been out in the rain for too long (Falls Church)

First stop: Falls Church. I headed west from my house for about a mile to hit the Falls Church pit stop, hosted by the fun folks from Bikenetic, a popular local bike shop. Saw a number of friends from that crowd (people who race on bikenetic teams, participate in their shop rides, etc.): Cyndi, Casey, Dane, Liz, ... Not too much in the way of give-aways there; I turned down the offer of a industrial quality bagel, but did take a chocolate chip cookie for later. After hanging for a bit I turned around and headed east down the W&OD for 6-7 miles to ...

Shirlington

Second stop: Shirlington. The always sunny Kathy L was volunteering there, brightening up a rainy day. There were free baked goods from Best Buns, a favorite bakery of mine and the Wednesday gathering spot for the local cyclist morning coffee club. I grabbed a bran muffin (my usual order) and, at the urging of the staff, a slice of apple monkey bread (I think they figured they weren't going to get too big a crowd, given the weather, so they were eager to give out what they had brought). In fact, there weren't many people and not much swag other than the baked goods (I did get a water bottle). I chatted with (I don't know this woman's name) about how frustrating it is that all these stops have regular coffee but no decaf. I have been largely off caffeine since my surgery; she is recovering from a concussion and also has to avoid caffeine. I bid farewell and continued to ...

Crystal City Water Park

Third Stop: Crystal City. The girl with the concussion? She left Shirlington after I did, took the same route, never passed me, but was somehow already in line to check in at Crystal City when I got there. I know I'm a slow rider, but I can't figure out how she did it - unless the bump on the head gave her some sort of mutant teleportation powers. Josephine and Cassie were doing the check-ins. I got my Crystal City jersey!!! I also got the free BTWD t-shirt. Crystal City is one of the big pit stops, and there were lots of people there. I hung out for a while, chatted and picked up some small swag items (granola bar, banana) before continuing on to ...

Theodore Roosevelt Island parking lot, which wasn't supposed to be a stop but is where my rear tire went flat. Fortunately, TRI is really close both to the Rosslyn pit stop and my office. I walked my bike up into Rosslyn, figuring there might be bike mechanics at the Rosslyn pit stop willing to fix my flat and if not, I would duck into my office building to fix my flat out of the rain.

The Conte's mechanic both fixing and breaking my bike

Rosslyn

Fourth Stop: Rosslyn. This is a super big stop with lots of booths. Sure enough, there were some bike shops there offering free mechanic services. The Conte's bike shop mechanic fixed my flat for free, which was nice. Unfortunately, he also put my wheel back on crooked. When I took my bike back I realized that the brakes were rubbing. He grabbed it back and rather than straighten the wheel he adjusted the brakes, leaving me with an off-center wheel and misaligned brakes (though I didn't realize this at the time). I strolled the booths and availed myself of the great swagathon that is the Rosslyn pit stop: another water bottle, CO2 cartridge, patch kit, energy bars, another BTWD t-shirt (for Valerie), bike socks - gosh, I lost track of it all. I have to admit, I had left home with an empty back pack to make sure I had ample swag carrying capacity, and I made use of it at Rosslyn! I bumped into Henry, Chris W., Chris R., Erin, Robyne, Rimas and Ken. By this point it was getting on 9 AM, the end-time for most of the pit stops. Some people were planning to head on into DC to the Wharf area, where there was a pit stop that stayed open until 10 AM, but I decided to head towards home, figuring I'd make one more stop, since I would pass by the Ballston pit stop along the way. Ken asked if he could ride with me, since he wanted to visit the Ballston stop but didn't know where it was. So I continued on to ...

Ballston with Ken and SteveO

Fifth stop: Ballston. Since I was riding with Ken, I hustled up the hill out of Rosslyn at a faster than usual, heart-pumping pace so as not to be too much of a slowpoke. Ken and I got to Ballston to find that, as expected, they were packing up. There we ran into SteveO, who had been volunteering but was getting ready to leave. SteveO lives right near me and so the three of us continued on together. The trails were populated with familiar faces - we saw Kurt up ahead of us, easily recognizable by his recumbent bike, and then Cynthia (a tiny little woman who rides like a demon) caught us, exchanged greetings and then passed us by.

At the Bluemont caboose Ken broke off for home (Alexandria) while SteveO and I finished our last bit of the W&OD trail. As we were getting off the trail my bike started feeling squishy again. Sure enough, my rear brake was rubbing again and in addition, I was getting another flat tire - this time, the front wheel. I managed to limp the last few blocks home, where I set aside my bike to dry (to be cleaned and fixed later) spread out and admired my swag collection, and finished off the thermos of decaf I had been toting around and sipping all morning, along with the monkey bread from Shirlington.

Swag!

Did I bike to work? Not exactly - I'm not even working today. Did I bike to my workplace? Absolutely! Did I have fun? Absolutely, again!

Metric Century!

Since my surgery I have changed my exercise habits. I used to do some form of intense exercise (running, rowing, etc.) every other day, with recovery days in between. Now I exercise almost every day, and generally for a longer duration, but the exercise is less intense. But sometimes I still push it.

I am not a fast cyclist, nor will I ever be one, but I have been curious about what kind of distance I can bike if I put myself to the test. Last month I had a 43 mile day when I participated in the VASA ride. Yesterday I decided to see if I could push that a little bit: to 50 miles, and maybe to a "metric century" (100 km, or 62 miles). I started from home and planned a 25 mile ride west, which would get me back home with a round trip distance of 50 miles (plus had ways to get home by Metro if I pooped out early). Then, if I felt like I still had some gas in the tank when I got home, I'd head east down to the bottom of the W&OD trail, and that extra round-trip would take me to 62 miles.

I have to say, I was inspired by two cyclists I chatted with at a happy hour on Weds night: one a breast cancer survivor, and the other a 30-something (or thereabouts) woman with a jaw-dropping history of serious medical conditions who is a healthy and powerful mountain bike racer. The two of them have said "F*ck you" to their diseases and have gotten on with life.

Here's how my ride went:

7:00 AM - Planned start time. Busy emailing - I just can't seem to get out the door on time if I don't have a hard deadline.

7:30 - Still puttering around the house.

8:00 - Actual start time.

9:20 - Bathroom break at Bready Park in Herndon. Also take time to adjust the seat on my bike to try and dial in the fit a little (this is the first long ride on a new bike)

9:30 - The seat is really uncomfortable. Stop again to re-adjust. Much better.

10:25 Reach my turn-around point, cleverly timed so my turning point is also where I take my first real break - to dial into a 10:30 conference call for work. Use the five minutes I have left before the call to turn around and bike back a little to a spot where I had seen a covered park bench - a good place to take the call.

10:30 - Dial into the call.

10:40 - See an older guy walking along the trail a few hundred feet away suddenly keel over and disappear into the small gully alongside the trail. Should I drop the call and run over to help!? Two other cyclists closer to him have seen it too and stop to offer aid. They help the guy up. He seems alright.

10:50 - The guy continues his walk and when he gets to where I am, sits down on the bench where I'm talking. When my call finishes I talk to him for a bit. He's OK - just lost his balance while leaning over to look at a a turtle alongside the trail. He was very concerned that the turtle was going to try and cross the trail and get smushed.

10:55 - He continues east. I bike west to where the turtle is to have a look. The poor thing is all up in its shell. I turn around and as I pass the guy I tell him the turtle is OK, just apparently frightened. He's still concerned about the turtle crossing the trail. We part ways and I start my ride back in earnest.

11:30 - I stop at Green Lizard Cycling / Coffee shop alongside the trail in Herndon and have an iced non-fat decaf latte (such is my life - no caffeine, no fat, no fun) and a Stroopwafel (after checking the packages of all the flavors to see which one has the least fat).

12:15 PM - Lunch break at the Whole Foods alongside the trail in Vienna (salad, Asian noodles, iced green tea - which might have had some caffeine). Continue riding east ...

1:30 - Back at my starting point. 50 miles done. Continue? Yes!! Carefully watching the trip odometer on my bike computer, I ride just far enough down the trail to ensure a round trip of 62 miles.

1:55 - Reach final turnaround point.

2:00 - Another coffee break. Decaf double espresso and a chocolate chip cookie (a real indulgence!). Continue onto the final leg. It's a hot afternoon and I tell the barista my grandfather's theory that you should drink hot drinks on hot days to cool yourself off (drinking a hot drink makes you perspire more, and perspiration cools you off).

2:48 - Arrive home. As I pull into the driveway my mileage reads 62.2, which means I have ridden 100.1 km.

Talking business

3:00 - Valerie arrives home and I when I tell her about my ride I get that "I'm so happy you're this healthy again" / "You're a lunatic" combination look I know all too well.

3:30 - I am in the bath, soaking my sore muscles (and something else I won't elaborate on here).

4:00 - Nap

4:30- I begin calculating how to step up my mileage on subsequent rides to get me to a full "century" (100 miles).

The next morning: I awaken feeling fine. Not really sore, except for the previously unmentioned problem. Spend a few hours doing yard work without any ill effect. F*ck you, heart disease - I'm charting a path to a century ride.



Strava link: https://www.strava.com/activities/1549534371

SK102

Ahhh, SK102, a tradition in my life (on and off) since 2001. I took a long break after my first few visits, but have been a regular attendee as an instructor since 2013 - except, of course, for last year which I had to skip for health-related reasons. This was the 20th SK102 and over the years it had grown from a handful of people to a rather large event before being intentionally scaled back in size last year. While the raw numbers aren't that different (maybe 10% reduction), the smaller size did feel more intimate. Also, with the passage of time there's been some turnover of the volunteer crew and it to me it seemed a little strange strange to not see some of the old familiar faces there: Greg and Jenny, Rich and Sue, Dave I., Rob, Tom, Frank, and so on. Another thing that seems to have fallen by the wayside is what I call the CPA letterman jacket. In years past, CPA would give out little kayak-shaped patches known as "rockers" to people for various kinds of volunteering. People would sew these rockers onto jackets  and the instructors walking around SK102 would look very impressive, like senior military officers festooned with medals (or Eagle Scouts - take your pick). In any case, I brought my jacket this year but didn't see a single other old-school CPA jacket.

My CPA jacket, with one unique patch

I arrived at about 2 PM on Friday, having gotten a later start than anticipated and having hit some traffic. I bring lunch and usually stop along the way to eat, but on this trip I felt I was running behind and so to save time I did something I usually hate to do: I ate my sandwich while I drove. There are a number of reasons why I don't like eating meals while driving: I think it takes away from the mindfulness of eating, it's dangerous, it's sloppy, and in an all too frenzied world it's a step beyond the level of multi-tasking I find acceptable. Needless to say, drive-through windows don't get a lot of my business.

Upon arrival I found the property set up slightly different than in the past - a new owner (a gay couple, if I understand correctly!) is building a house next door and so we couldn't expand into the adjacent property as in past years. Plus, the Porta-potties were situated in one spot near the top of the property rather than being split up in the middle of the property. The combination of the two (less space plus people not wanting to be too far from the bathrooms) led to everyone squeezing their tents together in a fairly tight area. The morning was cool and damp and so I deliberately chose a shadeless spot to pitch my tent, figuring any sun which came along later would help keep me warm. To prevent David and Theresa's yard from getting chewed up by vehicular traffic (as has happened many times over the years), you weren't allowed to drive down to drop off your camping gear. I had anticipated this and had purchased a very cool folding beach wagon, which made moving my gear from the car to my campsite relatively painless, at least compared with my past approach of multiple trips schlepping big blue Ikea bags filled with gear. Over the course of the afternoon the instructors and then the students trickled in. Soon the place was filled with tents, with all of us cheek to jowl. Some folks set up a pop-up canopy pretty much right in front of my tent, which proved to be a bit of an issue (more on this later).

Friday night at SK102 several things happen in rapid succession: the instructors' pot-luck dinner, the instructors' briefing and then the evening paddle. Dinner was quite yummy - a large selection of salads, vegetarian pasta and quinoa dishes, plus various meat-based dishes and desserts which I avoided. The instructors' briefing was the same as always - maybe a little more detailed than usual since planning for the event fell behind this year and so there was more to cover last-minute - but we each got two thank-you gifts for instructing rather than the usual one! Woo hoo! The two gifts were a headlamp and a mesh duffle bag (good for carrying wet gear). I volunteered to be one of the leaders for the evening paddle. It was a beautiful evening and my group (the medium speed group) got a nice four mile paddle in, returning just as it got dark.

Oh, I almost forgot - just before the evening outing I stopped to do a quick Friday night Shabbos kiddush with Ron K. Ron, perhaps the only other Jew there, is observant enough that he wears a kippah and does Friday night kiddush on all the trips I've been on with him (plus he brought kosher chili for the pot luck), but doesn't seem to have a problem with kayaking on Shabbos. While this seems a little inconsistent, I guess that most Jews except the ultra-Orthodox pick and choose from among the religion's zillions of rules (like the rule prohibiting wearing of garments that contain both wool and linen), so who am I to question if his subset is different than mine?

Returning from the evening paddle

Once back from the paddle I could finally dip into the alcohol. I enjoyed a beer and shot the breeze with various folks before heading for my tent a little after 10 PM. I mentioned the problematic pop-up shelter earlier - it turned out that it served as a gathering and evening party point for a group of people who I think all knew each other from one of the kayak meetups. They hung out and talked loudly until well after 11, but fortunately my childhood experience of having to sleep through the noise of subway trains going by all night long serves me well to this day and I fell asleep quickly despite the conversation (the 9.2% ABV beer I was drinking might have helped as well). I slept pretty well - waking once to use the restroom, which got me outside to experience the gorgeous bright light of the almost full moon.

Saturday morning I made my usually camping breakfast of instant hot cereal, plus was able to have a yogurt thanks to the cold-keeping ability of my awesome Yeti cooler. The event provides morning coffee; however, they understandably don't brew decaf and so to get my usual morning hot and barely caffeinated beverage (I've been almost totally off of caffeine since my surgery) I mixed up a Starbucks decaf Via brew and added a splash of the provided coffee. We watched the mist on the lake and had those half-awake sorts of early morning conversations.

Instructors and students assembled at 8:30 to begin the day's activities. Brian gave his introductory talk, which I have heard often enough that I can almost recite it by heart by now - including the Porta-potty instructions (put the lid down after using) and accompanying joke ("Ladies, please remain seated for the entire performance. Gentlemen, please stand close; it's shorter than you think") though this year Dubside ad-libbed an additional joke ("Hey Brian, why are the sinks in the porta-potties so low down? I had to really bend over to wash my face"). Who knew Dubside has a sense of humor?

Instructors on Saturday morning

I assisted teaching Kayak Design, Basic Strokes, and Wet Exits (the most basic class) with Jim Z. Jim is a very skilled and knowledgeable kayaker but in the on land part of the class he was whizzing through material at what I thought was too rapid a pace and advanced a level for our beginner students. While Jim would have preferred that we divvy up the topics, instead I let him lead and interjected where I thought appropriate to clarify what he was teaching. Once we got on the water Jim did an excellent job of teaching the basic strokes while I demonstrated and talked through what I was doing. We finished the class with wet exits - making everyone dump out of their kayaks so they know how to do that safely (to lessen the risk of getting stuck upside down in the boat should they ever capsize). Every other time I've ever taught this class the students have had to do one wet exit. Jim makes everyone do three!

After morning class came lunch break, then everyone headed back out for the afternoon session. In previous years I found teaching morning and afternoon, then hauling music gear, then playing music, then packing and loading the music gear to make for an exhausting day and so requested relief from teaching in the afternoon (one of the reasons I volunteered for the Friday evening paddle was because I felt I needed to make up for teaching only half the day). I had before never been ashore while classes were out on the water. It's amazing - when it's time for afternoon classes all of a sudden the place goes from the hustle and bustle of lunchtime to being a ghost town. I used the time by myself in camp to rummage through everyone's tents for valuables.

Kidding!

I used the time to take a brief siesta in what was at that point a rather sweltering tent (remember, I pitched my tent in a shadeless location and Saturday afternoon was sunny and warm). Then I slowly (using my cool new cart) hauled my music gear down. Finally, I went out for a brief paddle on the lake, returning at around 4 PM - the same time as the afternoon classes.

The time between the afternoon session and dinner is an unstructured time of schmoozing, playing around in boats, Dubside's rolling demo and in my case, drinking bourbon with Cat and Bill W (in this case, being a friend of Bill W lead to increased drinking). Eventually I staggered down to the waterfront and got dinner - a veggie burger, couscous, veggies and fruit. Once again I showed self control and ignored the chips and home baked sheet cakes. As folks finished dinner, presentations were made honoring our hosts (who have been putting up with us for 20 years) and Cat (who has been organizing the event for the last five years). Then the bonfire was lit and the music started. Unfortunately, the good lord does not like me playing music at SK102. Last year he made that fairly emphatically clear by smiting me just weeks before the event. This year he delivered the message in a still-dramatic if less life-threatening way via a rogue thunderstorm cell. Just a few songs into our set we got word that a brief but intense thunderstorm was headed our way. The day had been clear and sunny. The night and the following day would prove dry. But out of nowhere popped up one little rain cell - maybe 45 minutes of intense downpour - to break up the party. As the breeze abruptly picked up we hustled to pack away our instruments. One trip up the hill with amplifier and accessories. Another, with the first raindrops falling, to retrieve my keyboard and stand. By the time I made my third trip back down the hill to retrieve my camp chair from around the fire pit, it was pouring and everyone was gone; mine was the last chair left. I returned to my campsite, quickly threw everything under cover, and retreated to my tent. After the rain stopped I came out and walked around, but no one was out. The rain had ended the evening's socializing, except of course for my noisy neighbors who had a raucous party involving Almaden wine, gummy bears and some sort of card game. I had just enough cell phone connectivity to stream Netflix, so I put in my earphones and tuned out the noise. Fortunately they broke up fairly early (maybe 10:15?). By the time I finished an episode of House of Cards, they had quieted down for the night. Y'know, if they had invited me (sitting an arms length away) to join them I would have been more tolerant of them, but no, I didn't get so much as a hello.

Performing for the crowd

Sunday at SK102 is a mixed bag. There are classes, but they're a little more informal. For example, Brian gave people an introduction to using a wing paddle, Paula taught how to deal with emergency incidents,  and a class on packing a kayak for camping was taught. For a lot of people, it's more time for schmoozing, messing around in boats and slowly packing out. I was in the latter category.

After a cold but restful Saturday night I dragged myself out of my sleeping back and went down for morning coffee (my decaf Via brew with a splash of regular concoction again) and chatted with the assembled folks - including getting an update from Bill W. on the Washington Canoe Club's endless struggles with DC and the Park Service. I felt a little bad about having left Valerie for the weekend (she had had a bad day Thursday) and I wanted to get home, so I decided to skip any Sunday activities and head home on the early side. Still, it's hard to get out of SK102 quickly. After extricating myself from the coffee group and eating breakfast I broke camp and loaded the car, however that was interspersed with lots more conversation as I ran into this and that person. I talked with Ed S. for a while (including heart ailment talk), spoke with Cat some more, said my farewells to Susan and to my band mate Manuel, and so on, loading gear in between conversations. It was pushing towards noon by the time I got on the road, happy from another good SK102 weekend.

Geocaching trip with Ted

I just looked at when I joined Geocaching.com: Christmas Eve of 2006. That seems about right - I started doing it as a way to get outside with Teddy and David way back when. I've been away from it for a while; other than picking up one or two while traveling, I haven't really cached since 2015. Ted has persisted more with it, including finding some really ingenious geocaches out in West Virginia. He's been saying for a long time that he'd like to show me some of these clever caches, and we finally found the time to make a trip out to West Virginia.

I picked Ted up at around 7 AM. I figured I should drive - riding as a passenger with Ted on Friday the 13th would have been tempting fate a little too much! It was one of those anomalously warm 80 degree days in April, and the sun was shining as we headed for Martinsburg, where our first stop was the Visitor's Center, located in the historic home of famed Confederate femme fatale and spy Belle Boyd. The center wasn't open yet and so we walked through the town to find some other nearby geocaches. Let me tell you, the people walking around downtown Martinsburg are the ones who had no place else to go - the kind of folks who would have been rejected from "People of Walmart" for being to odd and rednecky. This was a good thing, actually, since it meant that the things we did as we searched for geocaches - crawling around on all fours, rummaging through bushes, and sticking our fingers inside birdhouses - didn't stand out as odd in any way. As an example of the people we ran into, while walking down the main street we saw a guy - maybe late 20's, with shoulder-length bright pink hair, walking with an elementary school-aged girl. His daughter? His child bride? His abductee? All of the above? We weren't sure.

I mentioned birdhouses; let me explain. Most of the caches we found were created by a geocacher named "WVTim". Usually, the challenge is just in finding the geocache - they're often very cleverly hidden in odd places. In contrast, many of Tim's caches are out in the open, often disguised as birdhouses. The fun of his geocaches is that you have to interact with them in some way to solve them. Heck, he's got his own Youtube channel about his geocaches. There were electronic caches - like the one where flipping up the false front of the birdhouse revealed a custom electronic trivia game - computer screen and all. Only once you answered all ten questions correctly would the logbook pop out of the cache. There was one that was a game like Simon, one where you had to stick a balloon into a hole on the side and inflate it to release the latch, and so on. All very cool and extremely clever. Apparently, geocaching is a form of tourism the area encourages - many of these caches are located at local businesses rather than the usual in-the-woods sorts of locales. I have to admit, as a form of economic boost for the local area, it works - we ate lunch at a local restaurant, and spent money at two of the local farm markets the caches took us to.

Of course, along the way we saw the evidence of all sorts of redneck West Virginia stereotypes. The "gentlemen's club" advertising midget tossing. The young woman heading into the quick mart open carrying a pistol in a cute pink holster. A pickup truck with the license plate "RDNKLIFE". The Confederate flags - which, incidentally, make no sense, since West Virginia was part of the Union. In fact, West Virginia was a part of Virginia that broke off to stay in the Union when the rest of Virginia seceded.

However, let me interrupt my snooty comments about about West Virginia to admit that in Virginia - even NOVA - we're not that distant from our "cousins" in West Virginia. The day after this trip, Valerie and I were drinking coffee outside our local Starbucks, right in downtown Falls Church. While Valerie talked to me about how nice a day it was - the warm sun, the breeze, the birds chirping - behind her I watched a guy, pistol protruding from the waistband of his shorts - cross the parking lot and go into the Starbucks. I bet he and the pink holster girl would have gotten along just fine.

Hanging with Ted

Anyway, Ted and I had a good day. Most impressive was how well he had organized the whole outing. Ted can be a little bit of a space cadet, but he says nursing has really taught him how to prioritize and be efficient - and it really showed in how he had planned out this outing. A good day!

VASA Ride

The Vasaloppet is a famous ski race in Sweden. It has absolutely nothing to do with bicycles, and so naturally every spring since 2007 the Swedish embassy in conjunction with the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) has hosted the VASA bike ride in tribute to the Vasaloppet and the coming of spring.

Yes, it makes no sense.

Unfortunately, it's a tradition that's coming to an end. After last year the Swedes decided they could no longer host the event (no reason given - perhaps diplomatic ties have frayed). This year REI stepped in to host one final VASA ride, so my first VASA ride will almost certainly also be my last VASA ride. I had registered for the ride last year, but it was held the day I was released from the hospital, a day when I was in no condition for a long bike ride.

With the change of hosts came a change of venue - the ride started and ended at the flagship REI in Northeast DC rather than at Sweden House. Rather than bike the ten miles from home to REI I lazed out and took Metro to Capitol South which left just a mile and a half of biking to the start. I could have lazed out even further and taken the red line almost to REI's front door, but I decided a little riding was better than dealing with switching trains.

Upon my arrival I immediately bumped into lots of people I knew: Judd and Josephine were volunteering at registration. Yvonne and Jay (who I think of as paddlers, not cyclists) were marshaling the 15 mile ride. Lots of my coffee club cyclist friends were getting ready to head out for the 60 mile ride, which started first, so I said a quick hello then they headed out.

Gina, Ken, young Chris and I had arranged in advance to do the 30 mile route together. Gina's "significant other" Peter was supposed to show up on a tandem with his 12 year old daughter Sophie as well, but he was late in arriving so the rest of us minus Gina headed out, picking up some other riders (people we didn't know) as part of our group - eight people in all, joined midway by a ninth. I was using the "follow route" function of my bike computer for the first time. Chris was running two different computers, which seemed appropriate on his space age specially imported German pinion gear, belt- drive Rose bike, and so between the two of us and our three computers we managed not to make any wrong turns. The route took us across DC into Georgetown, and then up to Bethesda via the Capital Crescent Trail and MacArthur Boulevard. One could actually have taken the Cap Crescent trail the whole way to Bethesda rather than dealing with traffic on MacArthur, but we opted to keep to the official route and take the road from Fletcher's Cove onward. I think they routed it that way to get the route to be exactly 30 miles.

Bethesda offered a halfway pit stop - bathrooms at Panera, bananas, granola bars and pretzels. Ken is another Jewish rider and, being Conservative, observes eight days of Passover. I observe seven and so it was still Passover for him but not for me - so unfortunately he couldn't take advantage of the free granola bars (he wouldn't even take possession of chametz on Passover). While we were chomping our snacks Gina, Peter and Sophie caught up with us. Also, a few of our group took off ahead of us, so when we started the ride back we were a reconfigured group of Ken, Chris, Gina, Peter, Sophie and me - which was kind of nice, since we all knew each other.

The ride back from Bethesda was pleasant: mostly downhill, and a lot of it was through the closed roads of Rock Creek Park. When we got back to REI we were served the traditional blueberry soup and Swedish meatballs (yes, they had meatless Swedish meatballs!). I hung around for a bit but didn't opt to wait until 2 PM for the after-party at Wunder Garden, since I needed to get home, change, rest and then head back to Northeast DC for an evening out with friends. Feeling like I still had some gas left in the tank I decided to bike home rather than taking the train. I will say that I started to feel tired about half-way through the ten mile ride home, but I made it, completing my longest day of riding (about 43 miles) since my surgery. I love every new milestone like this, so it was a really good day - good riding, good friends, and a new distance accomplishment. I am glad, though, that I didn't try the 60 mile ride. That would have been too much.

Bethesda pit stop

Strava track of the VASA ride

Strava track of the ride home

Cherry Blossom Paddle

First they said the cherry blossoms would peak really early, around St. Patrick's Day. Then March was cold and they pushed the forecast peak to late March. Then early April. Then later in April. Admittedly, the peak bloom forecast always moves around, but this year's particularly unsettled weather made it really hard to pin down a date for a cherry blossom kayak trip. I suggested to the PoG regulars that we do a cherry blossom paddle the last Thursday in March, but after the peak bloom was pushed into April I opted to delay a week to April 5th.  In all the confusion I lost some of my original group, but the PoG stalwarts showed up: Tom, Rob and Larry.

The best place to see the blossoms from the water happens to be the little Tidal Basin inlet directly across the river from Columbia lsland, so we started our paddle by crossing the river to the blossoms. Cherry blossom season always yields interesting sights, in this case some Asian women doing a fashion photo shoot and what looked to be a couple posing for wedding photos. For the record, my wedding was this first week in April (29 years ago!) and our wedding was less than a mile from the water but we didn't take waterfront photos. No, instead of beautiful pictures looking out over the controversially named Negro Bar Channel, we just posed outside the synagogue. I wasn't as much of a water person back then so detouring on our wedding day to take waterfront pictures didn't even occur to me. In addition, for various reasons our wedding took on an out of control freight train sort of life of its own, and so I doubt we would have risked having things go off the rails by heading to an additional location for pictures even if we had thought of it.

It had been quite windy and so the blossoms were less puffy than usual. I think the wind had blown off some of the blossoms. And it wasn't that we were off peak: the park service declared April 5th, the day we paddled to have been the peak bloom day.

Still, we had a nice outing - after blossom peeping we headed upriver, marveling at the features revealed by the unusually low tide. We continued on our usual route around Roosevelt Island then headed back to the marina.

As we were landing Gina (an ur PoG-ger from the Georgetown days) showed up on her bike and joined Rob and me for dinner. Tom had planned to come to dinner too but took a wrong turn and headed into the Bermuda triangle of roads that inter-tangle around the Pentagon. Or so he says ... perhaps he just abruptly reached his limit of being sociable and blew us off. Whatever the case, the three of us had a good time, discussing travels, relationships, interesting work projects and boat building over Nando chicken and sangria.

Heading out from the marina

Wsdding photos?

Rob, Tom and Larry

Me