Backyard Blogging

New rites of spring: training on Susan, seeing what I can do to improve the quality of my backyard. Tonight, from work I rode out the jail trail, up into Oakland, across Squirrel Hill to Beechwood and then out Beechwood almost to the High Level Bridge, whereupon I started home, climbing up through Squirrel Hill (Moon's single; when choosing between any number of routes, only three factors come into play -- distance, climbing, and the concentration of pretty girls dressed for spring), then cutting across Forbes into Point Breeze, and taking the direct route home through East Liberty and over Stanton. A tidy 18 miles or so, which I rode at an average of 12.23 miles per hour.

And how I know that brings me to a bit of housekeeping. I've been largely silent lately, because I haven't been posting my rides. I didn't want this to become a site where I monitor my training, principally because it would give me yet another excuse to avoid writing novel material that speaks to the real stuff, whatever that may be. Fortunately, Moon's friend from college has started WeEndure, a site dedicated to tracking endurance athletes' training miles in a variety of sports. Now, I'm not endurance athlete, but I've been making a passable showing of late, and the site provides ample opportunity for me to document my travels. From now on, those of you interested in keeping an eye on what I'm up to on two wheels can monitor Moon's WeEndure page. I'll be setting up a WeEndure badge and a direct link to my page there shortly.

The nicest thing about today's ride is each climb seemed more manageable than the one that preceded it, hence I was positively sanguine about climbing Murray from Forward to the top, and when I crested Stanton on the way home my breathing wasn't ragged and I never even slowed, as has been my tendency, as I crested and began down the other side. Indeed, the whole thing was somewhat routine. That's not to say today's ride home didn't come with its share of pain; climbing Forbes from Oakland was no picnic, and climbing the hill on Shady between Monitor and Forward was a bastard. But right after that I was on Murray, and everything was okay.

I had so much energy that at home I filled a glass of water, changed into flip-flops, and watered the lawn (not that you asked, but if the pathetic limp nodding of the dandelions is any indication, the weedkiller's doing its thing). No muss, no fuss, no wheezing collapse.

I'm a bit backlogged on things I want to post here, but for now the battery weakens and the sky dims. I should head in and do something -- shower, eat, sit on the couch with the cool breeze from outside drifting through the house through windows that just days ago were shielded with plastic that crackled and pulled in drafts.

It's been a beautiful day, and the night that now falls like a gently lofted top sheet is brisk and bracing.