Sunday,
March 11, 2018
I had spent most of the day
Saturday putting the doors on my cabinets and preparing the ‘Man Cave’ as I had
had my old office in Highland Heights.
All my personal effects, pictures and memorabilia came out of boxes and
landed on walls, shelved and counters I’d built. Once finished, I reclined in my favorite
chair for the first time and looked around.
It was like pulling on a warm, familiar blanket and for the first time
since moving to Peninsula I can honestly say it felt like my home.
With temperatures in the
mid-thirties, I decided against trying to ride.
Maybe I’m a sissy Mary, but I know Spring is just around the river bend
and I’m just getting a little soft in my old age. Dakota and I took a hike, though, pushing my
steps over 20,000. Once I got home, I decided
I wanted to know how many steps I’d averaged over the month of March, so I
tried synching my Fitbit watch with the app on my phone. Nothing happened. I tried several things, but could see
technology was going to beat me so I tried the Fitbit helpline on the
computer. I started a text-type
conversation with something or someone – but I’m pretty sure it was not a human
based on the vernacular. At a point,
it/she (Wendy) asked if I was willing to try a different approach. I typed, ‘you haven’t tried anything yet’. And she/it hadn’t. She/it typed back, ‘is that a yes?’
I could see where this was
going and typed ‘yes’ and received a response about warranty and having had the
Fitbit more than a year. I wrote back ‘goodbye’
and signed off. I quickly received an
email from Fitbit asking me about my experience and whether I’d take a
survey. I replied, ‘no thanks. You didn’t do anything and you suck’. They didn’t write back or check about my
dissatisfaction.
I was given the Fitbit by my
kids for Christmas, 2016. I’d been
wearing and enjoying it for the 15 months since then, but it came with a 1-year
warranty. It costs $150, but they will
only stand behind it for a year. After
that I guess it disposable or you buy an extended warranty because they built
them so poorly that you’ll need it. I
don’t like that approach. I was hoping
to just have a human walk me through whatever I needed to do to get it synching
again, but I think they knew my unit was fundamentally flawed and I was going
to need a new one. Well…I’m not buying
one. And I don’t recommend Fitbit to
anyone else. I don’t recommend anything
that lasts such as short period of time and with limited support from the
manufacturer. It’s a good tool and got
me taking hikes I might not have taken otherwise, but it needs to have a longer
shelf life. I miss the Craftsman ‘guaranteed
for life’ kind of stuff. What an old
fart I am.
Friday,
March 9, 2018
I knew we were supposed to get
some snow, so my alarm was set for 4:30 a.m. so I’d have enough time to get to
work, plow and clear all the pasture gates early. I was pleasantly surprised when I opened to
door to my house and saw only a dusting.
Still, I was up so I headed into work.
As I headed north on I271, I
began to realize that the farm likely had more snow than I’d gotten in
Peninsula. As I made my final approach
to the service drive on a road that hadn’t been plowed in the last couple of
hours, I noticed the mound blocking my entrance. I got out of my low-riding Toyota Camry and
realized I’d never make it through the foot that had fallen in Geauga County.
I followed one of the barn
staff into the main parking lot. She had
a truck and cut a nice swath for me to follow.
From there, it was all downhill.
I began shoveling out pasture gates of the heavy, wet snow that had
drifted to two feet in some places. I was
sweating at least, so the workout had begun.
It lasted five hours. Completely exhausted by noon, I looked for
something I could do from a chair with my brain. I made some calls to contractors I needed for
several projects we would be doing over the summer. Recovered after lunch, I did several more
outdoor chores before heading for Jason’s place where I would be helping him
pick up a new and heavy dining room table to move in and an old one to move
out. I got to his driveway ahead of him
and found the bottom plowed in and half the drive unshoveled. That just wouldn’t do so I spent thirty
minutes cleaning it out.
“I’ve got a snow blower, dad, so why did you shovel?” he asked when he arrived.
“I like to shovel,” I said.
He looked at me like I was
disturbed. Ah well…maybe I am.
Wednesday,
March 7, 2018
“This time we’re going to do
just what I say we’re going to do,” I announced to Lisa.
I was referring to the photo
shoot retake we were about to do since our last effort had ended when the
Christmas box prop had blown to pieces in the gale force winds last
Friday. I tried not to say ‘I told you
so’ when it happened, but the ladies organizing the photo shoot were sheepish
enough that it didn’t need to be said.
In the meantime, I’d built some
wooden supports to which I was planning to attach pieces of the prop in the
hopes that the wind would not repeat its devastation. My back up plan was a giant ribbon to attach
to the horse with Christmas ornaments on an evergreen tree behind him for
effect. The Christmas box in the
background would be a bonus.
We had everything set and when
Jackson was brought out, he immediately began to act up.
“He hears his pals in the
pasture and wants to go and play,” Lisa said.
Boy, was she ever right. He was pulling, biting, prancing and doing
everything except posing for the picture.
I shot fifty or more pictures before we gave it up and led him to the
pasture where he was so anxious to go.
I had a backup plan for the
Christmas card, though.
“I’m going to get on my tractor
and drive it in front of the manure pile.
I’ll wear my ‘John Deere’ hat and hold that beautiful ribbon. It’ll be the best Christmas card the farm’s
every sent out,” I said.
The ladies lined up to watch
while one took the picture. They really
got into it and were shouting suggestions.
I pretty sure they won’t use it, but I will.
It was too cold to ride and
besides, I owed Dakota a decent hike. We
headed out as the sun was setting on a windy, brisk evening. We made it to the covered bridge and back,
which is a good five-mile hike. I could
feel yesterday’s ride in my thighs as I climbed each hill and wondered about
aging and maybe losing a little.
Nah. I’m still just out of shape
and carrying too much weight. Those
things will change as the weather improves, though I’m not complaining about it
since I’ve ridden 7-8 times through February and March – a time of the year
when I should not be able to do so.
Dakota and I did a 5-mile hike
once I got home. It was brisk with some
sleet blowing in our faces and definitely not riding weather. Unless you’re Lance.
Hike:
90 minutes
Training
Heart Rate: 75 bpm.
Calories
Burned: 525
Bonus:
24,000 steps.
Tuesday,
March 6, 2018
While watching Lance Armstrong
on a six-hour training ride in a cold rain, a segment of the documentary ‘The Armstrong Lie’ Monday night, it occurred to me just how much punishment and pain
cyclists put themselves through. If it
is raining, I won’t even start a ride.
It’s too uncomfortable, not great for the bike, and unsafe for the
rider. Tires don’t grab well on slick
pavement and brakes aren’t as good as when they’re dry. But it’s that cold, wet rain penetrating to
every ounce of your skin on a sustained ride that makes it most miserable. On two recent rides I’ve started out dry, but
with rain in the forecast. Both times I
thought I’d get lucky…and I’m 0 for 2. I whined during and after. I
saw Lance saddling up and riding out into a rain storm, knowing he’d be going
for six hours. Hell…I’m not crazy about
riding six hours when it’s sunny and seventy.
Yesterday however, was a
different story. The forecast said mixed
rain and snow for the late afternoon and it was around 35 degrees and overcast when
I left the farm, so I had no intention of riding. I’m a real sissy Mary. As I drove into the valley though, the skies
began to clear. I checked my car
thermometer, which read ‘47’.
“No way,” I said out loud. “I think I’m gonna ride.”
I got home to an excited
Dakota. She had that ‘let’s go for a
walk, daddy’ thing going on, but I let her in on the secret.
“Dakota – I’m riding. Sorry, but your walk will have to wait,” I
said, with some guilt.
I headed up SR 303 east with
the intention of riding the paved bike/hike trail north. My goal was to follow it as it sloped
gradually back towards the valley and pick up Riverview Road for my ride back
home. After crossing several roads and
thinking I was far enough north to affect my plan, I stopped at one of those ‘you
are here’ kiosks to see exactly where I was.
Aurora Road was directly in front of me and on the map it showed that it
crossed toe Towpath down in the valley. It
has a wide shoulder in good condition, so I elected to follow it down.
After a couple of miles and
very little descent, I started wondering about where I would be picking up the
Towpath. I could see a bridge just ahead
and as I rode out on it and looked down, I noticed the Towpath snaking its way
along the Cuyahoga River…200 yards below.
“Shit,” I said to no one.
I crossed into Brecksville
where I got my bearings and realized was at the intersection where Riverview
Road dropped into the valley. I raced
down the hill and picked up the Towpath.
I had my road tires on the bike
and riding on what is normally hard packed limestone screenings is not a
problem. Soft packed from a recent snow
however, is problematic. At two
different times, I nearly went down as my front tire sunk into mud and started
to slide. Maybe fifty years on a bike had
something to do with my staying upright, but I figured the sooner I got off the
Towpath and back on pavement, the better.
I rode four miles on this marginal surface before doing just that for
the return home.
It had cooled considerably as
the sun set with the temperature closer to 35 by the time I made it home. Still, I was thrilled with being able to
challenge the elements just a little and get in another winter ride. The next several days will likely not be so
favorable, but Dakota will be happy because we’ll be hiking instead.
Bike
duration: Two hours.
Training
Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories
Burned: 1,500.
Monday, March 5, 2018
I was just completing my
evening hike with Dakota when I saw Don pulling up for one of our spaghetti
dinner/baseball movie nights. He, John
and I get together once a month during the off-season to watch something –
anything – baseball, eat spaghetti and pontificate on how much we know about
whatever any one of us is discussing.
Except we weren’t going to be
eating spaghetti and we weren’t going to be watching baseball.
“I brought you here under false
pretenses,” I said. “If you want to sue
me, John will be here in a moment and I’m sure he’ll be happy to represent you.”
John knew what we were watching
and told Don as he closed the door behind him moments later.
“’The Armstrong Lie’,” he said.
I’d noticed…and watched – the fascinating
documentary a week ago and called John, the other huge fan and hugely
disappointed former supporter of Lance.
I explained that we’d be having Amish casserole since it wasn’t a
baseball night.
They loved it and after eating
and listening to Don tell us how he’d quit his pharmaceutical job after 30
years in the business because of the unrelenting hassling he’d been receiving
to get him to do just that, moved into the family room for the show.
“I’m gonna pick something
up. I was planning to retire next year
anyway – just like you, but the chicken shit was getting to be too much,” he
said. I know that feeling.
The documentary had been the
creation of Alex Gibney, the man that had started to create a documentary in
2009 based on Lance’s comeback to the Tour d France after a four year layoff
following his seven consecutive Tour victories.
His goal was to capture a totally clean Lance winning the Tour as an
almost forty-year old and thus vindicating his previous Tour accomplishments as
supposedly drug-free. But Lance’s
comeback sparked something in the people who knew the true story and as he
progressed, more and more came out and told their story. When it got to federal prosecutors and a
grand jury, no one was practicing ‘Omerta’ any longer and it all came up. His ‘clean’ comeback in 2009 was anything
but, as he told us in 2013 to Oprah Winfrey…and the world.
Gibney told Lance that he owed
it to him to do a documentary where he told the entire story of his doping,
which he turned into the program we were watching.
He is an amazing liar. He is also the best cyclist the world has
ever seen. In an era where all the best
riders in the sport were also using performance enhancing drugs and methods, he
beat the best for seven straight years.
I have no doubt that if everyone in the peloton had been clean –
including him and his teammates – he’d still have beaten them. He was a physiological anomaly, perfectly
designed to endure the demands of the world’s most difficult athletic
event. He had the work ethic of a maniacal
athlete that would push, and punish, his body to the limits of human endurance
to prepare himself for victory. He
investigated every aspect of cycling – the equipment, race strategy, team
support, and the psychological side of racing, to be sure that he would make ‘every
second count’.
“I love to win, but more
importantly, I hate to lose,” he stated during one interview. And you could see this in him. There was no doubt. But he also hated to lose his power he had
acquired by becoming the iconic, cancer-beating, cycling champion and was
willing to use any and all of it to discredit those who came out against him
and spoke the truth about his cheating. It
is this that disturbs the last of his supporters – like me – the most. It is the part of his legacy that I think
will be impossible for him to ever correct, though I hope he tries. As Spiderman’s uncle says to Toby McGuire in
the first creation of the Marvel comic story, “with great power comes great
responsibility.”
Bonus:
20,000 steps.
Sunday,
March 4, 2018
My sister-in-law had a
birthday, so I called to offer greetings.
“I just want you to know that I
always think how cool it is to have a birthdate like yours. March 4, 1956 – 3/4/56 – well…it’s just
cool. I can’t remember much, but I can
remember that date,” I said.
She thanked me, glad that her
date was easy for me to remember. I went
about working on my cabinets while Miggie prepared her daughter’s taxes. We had agreed that we’d go for a hike in the
afternoon since the sun was shining and the trails were reasonably dry. But when the taxes were done I noticed both
ladies sitting on the sofa and watching some brainless movie. I looked a Miggie and she returned my stare
with sheepish guilt.
“I thought we were going for a
hike? Dakota and I are headed out in any
event. You couch potatoes enjoy,” I
said.
It had the desired effect. Diana said, “I can go if it’s not muddy. I have my good boots on.” They were a brown suede of some kind.
“I’ll carry you over any mud,
princess. I could use the extra
workout,” I offered.
I assured her that we’d be
taking a hike that was all paved. “We’ll
do the Hale Farm and Village hike. A
little mud in the parking lot across the street, but not enough water to melt
anyone.”
Suspiciously, they
followed. They tried to walk off-path to
avoid the one puddle and then returned to the trail. Diana was inspecting her boots.
“It’s only MUD! It’ll brush off when it dries,” I said.
She didn’t look convinced. We hiked all the way to the Everett Road
covered bridge, which is 2.5 miles away where I turned them around for the
return trip. Diana looked puzzled.
“We have to go all the way back
the way we came?”
“Nope. We could just stay here and call Uber,” I
said.
Miggie thought it would be
quicker if we continued on but walked in the road to avoid the mud of the trail
that would take us back to our place via the towpath.
“Can’t walk in the road with
Dakota and the trail would soil those nice boots Diana has on, so turn around,”
I said.
I had loaded Miggie’s old bike
in Diana’s SUV when she’d arrived and I reminded her that if she lived here and
was willing to hike and bike, I’d have her down to 120 pounds by the end of the
summer. “I told your mama the same
thing, but I just can’t get her out the door.
I know what to do, but I can’t do it for anyone,” I said.
We finished the hike in about
two hours. Neither one of them had done
so much in a very long time and both were hurting. Dakota and I did it every day and didn’t give
it much thought. It’s just walking my
brain tells me, but for many people it is a whole lot more. In any event, I think it opened both their
eyes to what they needed to be doing more often.
Hike:
Two hours
Training
Heart Rate: 75 bpm.
Calories
Burned: 700
Friday,
March 2, 2018
I can’t be sure but I think
March is that ‘in like a lion and out like a lamb’ month, though it could be
April. In any event, it absolutely
roared its way in.
I’d been hearing reports of a
snowfall from co-workers and there was talk of doing the photo shoot for next
year’s farm Christmas card utilizing a prop I had in my shop. The prop was a huge 6’x’6’ box made out of
pink insulation board and painted and ribboned to look like a giant Christmas
present. It was to be placed in the
snow, which we were hoping to get before the end of the winter, and then have
one of the horses stand nearby as if there was another one in the box? Anyway, it was big enough for a horse to fit
in.
I’d talked to a couple of the
women planning this photo shoot…I was to be the photographer…and warned them
that if we did have a snow, the temperatures were mid-thirties, which meant the
ground would be mud underneath and that it likely wouldn’t stick long – or at
all.
“And remember…if there is a
snowstorm, I’m the guy who has to remove it from the parking lots, service
drives, pasture gates and sidewalks. It
takes me several hours,” I said.
I set my alarm for 4:30 a.m.
since a heavy snow had started to fall before I’d gone to bed. Good thing.
I woke to 8 inches of the wet, heavy stuff on the ground in the valley,
which meant probably more at the farm. I
made it there by six and began moving the biggest mess of snow of the
year. Around nine, I ran into one of my
photo shoot organizers.
“Looks like this is the day!”
she said gleefully.
I frowned and said, “I’ve got a
couple of more hours of snow removal and the wind is gusting quite hard. If I take that box built like a kite outside,
it is going to blow all to hell. It’s
only glued together,” I reminded her.
“This may be our only chance,”
she said.
“Well…if you want the box in
the picture, you’ll really need to wait for a calmer day,” I repeated.
She looked disappointed and I
headed outside to do some work on our electric fence line. The wind was howling, making my job almost
impossible and as I tried I realized there was absolutely no way to bring the
prop out intact. If we did and it blew
to pieces as I was sure it would, it might also scare the hell out of the horse
and that’s never a good thing. We did
have a huge ribbon on top of the box though and it occurred to me that maybe we
could take it off, put it on the horse and take a picture that way saving the
box for another day. I was sure there
would be more snow and better conditions before the end of the season.
“We’re going for it now, John,”
my photo organizer said as I walked back in the building.
Now I was annoyed. Not only was she ignoring any advice I had on
the conditions and what they would do to the prop, she wasn’t allowing me time
to finish snow removal. Normally I go
along with anything they want, but this was ridiculous. But I was outvoted.
I went back to the shop and
began shoveling away the two-foot drift blocking my garage door – the only way
to take the box out. When the committee
gathered and saw what I was doing and felt the wind whistling, they began to
worry. Full steam ahead at this point
though.
I placed boards under the box
so that we could lift it and went over the spot where we hoped to take it about
50 feet away onto some snow covered grass across the service drive I’d plowed
already. Six people began the process of
carrying it out of the garage, but as soon as we cleared the door, the wind
caught it and in three minutes it was no longer a box, but instead five pieces.
The ladies stood in horror,
trying to hold their pieces as they attempted to move airborne as a kite
might. Exasperated, I managed to get end
up with two pieces they held while we walked the horse, laughing hysterically
at our antics, near enough so that I could take some pictures, which I did.
We returned the pieces back to
the shop after the shoot and the photo organizer and the CEO both said to me, “you
were right. We should have waited.”
Ya think?
My workout for the day was the
snow removal. My joy for the day was
acknowledgement that I could actually be right about something in the face of
the farm community’s collective thinking.
Wednesday,
February 28, 2018
It only takes a half day off in
the middle of the week for me to start really fantasizing about
retirement. I was feeling so good about
the day before that I decided on the spur to take the next day off, too. The farm could handle my absence and I needed
the mental break after several weeks of dealing with ice, snow and now mud.
I slept in a little since I’d
had trouble sleeping the night before, but once I was moving, I didn’t
stop. I managed several more coats on
the cabinet doors, made some breakfast and got ready for a ride. The forecast was for more rain and for the next
several days, so I was anxious to ride my third day in a row. It wasn’t quite as warm as the previous day,
but it was still dry as I rode off.
I picked a different route,
choosing to ride up SR303 and then following it into Hudson and beyond,
depending on how I felt and how much time I had. Jason is off on Wednesdays and so I’d asked
him to come over with my granddaughter Josie, for a visit. We agreed that he’d call when he was ready
and since he was forty minutes away, I figured that would allow me enough time
to turn and head for home when he did.
I crossed under SR8 heading
east for Hudson on a wide shoulder designated as a bike path. It took me almost the entire way into town
before narrowing once on the town streets.
It remained that way heading out of town, but the bike path returned and
appeared to continue into Streetsboro.
As I reached Stow Road and noticed that it too had a bike lane and ran
north/south, it began to rain. I was an
hour from home and decided to turn back, finding quickly that I would be facing
a strong head wind for the return.
It was a ponderous ride. The temperature was dropping into the low
forties as I reached the top of the four-mile hill descent into Peninsula. That meant pelting, cold rain with tire spray
covering my face. At least I’d be going
fast.
After two hours of riding, I
pulled into my drive waterlogged and shivering.
I spent the next ten minutes wiping down ‘Locke’ since I’d pledged not
to let him get dirty, but was chilled to the bone by the time I made it to the
shower.
And then my son and granddaughter
arrived followed by Heidi on her scooter and I got to really find out one of
the great values of retirement. We sat
and talked and laughed at that precious little girl for the next two hours. I’d worked on cabinets, ridden my bike, and
enjoyed my children and grandchild. Life
is too good and I’m a lucky man.
Bike
duration: Two hours.
Training
Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories
Burned: 1,500.
Tuesday,
February 27, 2018
It was sunny and with
temperatures in the low fifties by late morning, I knew I’d be taking half a
day off…and I did.
I headed home knowing that I
had to do some work on the cabinets before riding and so laid out five doors,
sanded them and applied a first coat of urethane. I knew Kathy was home since I’d passed her
place and seen her car on my drive in and sent her a text asking about
riding. She ignored this and a phone
call and so I walked over with Dakota to confront her. I found her on a ladder working on her
cabinets.
“I’m so disgusted. My bathroom door won’t close correctly and
I’ve had those hinges off and tried different things several times,” she said.
I put the ride on hold and went
at the door. Thirty minutes later it was
marginally better and she was caving into my requests to ride. “It’ll all be here when you get back and it’s
58 degrees in February. We have to go!” I
said.
Her road bike was out of
commission so she would have to ride her heavier, trail bike as a result.
“You’ve got road tires on and
you’re in much better shape. You’re
going to kill me,”
she said.
“Well…maybe…but that’s no
reason not to ride,” I reasoned.
We suited up and after making
an adjustment to my seat height, were ready to go. I described the course I was taking, which
included two major climbs.
“I haven’t ridden since last
October,” she reminded me.
“We’ll take it slow, but you’re
a beast and you’ve got great climbing gears on that bike,” I said.
I was a little worried
though. I didn’t want to discourage her,
though she really is tough and pushes herself through the pain. We reached the bottom of Everett Road hill
and with no complaints or whining, she began to climb.
Frankly, I was a little worried
myself after having climbed hard the day before. I’d done a hard two hours and allowed for
little recovery for a guy who really was out of shape, too. Still, I shifted to a harder gear and began
the push.
She stayed right with me to the
halfway point, but the conditioning and heavier bike began to tell and she fell
behind…but never stopped pedaling. When
she finally reached the gate blocking the road at the top of the steepest
section, she was breathing heavily and not looking too happy.
“Are we having fun?” I asked.
She raised her middle
finger. Then she high-fived me.
“You’re trying to kill me!”
I wasn’t, but I could see why
she might think so. We continued on
Everett Road before turning north on Cleveland-Massillon for the ride to SR
303. She liked the wide shoulders, but
not what I was telling her about the remainder of the ride. It was approaching 5 p.m. and that meant
heavier traffic on 303.
“There’s one big hill and on
that hill – no shoulder,” I warned as we rode east on 303, as if there was some
alternative we could take. There wasn’t
and she knew it.
Cars were careful about passing
us and we separated again as the climbing was beginning to tell. Again though, she did it without stopping and
made the peak with an accomplished smile.
The remainder of the ride was
pleasant. A wide, smooth shoulder took
us back to Major Road in Peninsula, a sparsely traveled, country road that
descended back into the valley. In all,
we were out for about ninety minutes.
“I actually feel pretty good,”
she admitted once home. I was very
impressed. I don’t think I could have
handled that course after a five-month layoff quite so well. “You’re a good riding buddy and I’m glad you
moved here.”
Day one as Kathy’s hill trainer
complete without regrets. And I’m
feeling stronger with every ride.
Bike
duration: One hour and 30 minutes.
Training
Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories
Burned: 1,125.
Bonus:
21,000 steps.
