I’m into the big miles of marathon training now. A week ago Friday, I’d planned to run 18 miles down there in Destin — but I knew the weather might not cooperate.  You see, I’m totally not a hot-weather guy.  I was therefore encouraged when we had rain and fairly cool temperatures most of the […]

I was vacationing on the beach in Florida last week, with a quick side trip to Memphis last weekend before returning home. The beach at Destin was great — no oil except for a few stray streaks on skin and suits, thank goodness.  We did battle the elements a bit thanks to the distant hurricane […]

Marathon, that is — I signed up for real a couple days ago.  Game on! Meanwhile, it was 4+ baking miles this afternoon.  Hot ‘n’ windy here in the upper Midwest.  Glad to have that one behind me.

Today I ran 12 miles almost exactly. It was 60 degrees out.  Amazing how warm that can feel when it’s also near 100% humidity.  I was drenched when I was done — and I had some weird chills once I cooled down.  But a quick nap under a blanket on the couch took care of […]

So because I’m in marathon training, I haven’t been biking much this year — and by extension, I’m late watching a boatload of recordings of the early season races. But last weekend I finally watched the Paris-Roubaix.  Fabian looked like Johann Museeuw, only let’s hope he wasn’t hopped up on goofballs.  Regardless, his performance was […]

Did I mention that I’m training for a marathon?  Yeah, the Paavo Nurmi — no doubt you’ve heard of it? — in August. So today I did my longest run ever:  10.1 miles.  It was painful, but not terribly so.  It was pretty cool out (70-ish) and spitting rain off and on, so very humid.  […]

A buddy of mine lent me his Garmin Forerunner 405 — training watch, heart rate moniter, GPS, and so on. Now, I’m an engineer.  I’ve singlehandedly repaired major packaging machinery. But the Garmin bested me.  I could get parts of it working from time to time.  The watch I figured out in a hurry.  The […]

No doubt you noticed in my post about my business contacts in Germany that my pal Detlef’s two colleagues both had the first name of a bicycle racing great — viz., Andreas Kloden and Karsten Kroon. Sure you did.

…was on the  “boardwalk” in Long Beach, California.  (Not complaining, but “concretewalk” would be more appropriate nowadays.)  Perfect temperature, sun, the Queen Mary — no, it didn’t suck.  I mean, I stretched against a palm tree, for Pete’s sake!  That picture alone could go on a “Life is Good” t-shirt.

My travels allowed me to run once again in a nice little town in middle-of-nowhere Michigan (which is not a criticism, since I grew up in a whole other middle-of-nowhere place in Michigan and love it) that I’ve run in many times. I always love running there, and today I ran a longer route than […]