History of the High Trestle Trail When I let my friend Kim know that my husband and I would be traveling through Iowa and would love to stop by for a visit, she and I both understood that a visit would indeed have to include a bike ride together. I let Kim do the […]
Fall in New England First, then Virginia We arrived home from our New England trip where we enjoyed spectacular fall colors to a mostly green northern Virginia. Leaves are starting to turn, but it will be another couple of weeks before we see full color here. As with the past two years, we’ve set ourselves […]
Enjoying Fall Foliage This October marks the third fall my husband and I have traveled to New England to enjoy the fall foliage. We love riding on Vermont’s gravel and the focus of this year’s trip was a bike event in Peru, Vermont. Cycling along the rural gravel roads as the leaves reach peak color […]
Bike Race Number 2: GRUSK (Gravel Ride Up Spruce Knob) With the blink of an eye, our much anticipated second bike race of the season was upon us. This adventure-cycling event is called GRUSK which is an acronym for Gravel Ride Up Spruce Knob, West Virginia’s highest point. What once was a race is […]
Depressing Weather We saw the sun last Saturday at the farm… It was bright and beautiful, shining from a blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds. By the time we got home from the farm, it was nighttime and rain had moved in. We woke up last Sunday to a cloudy day with a few […]
Working Out Around the Rain I got pretty lucky with the tropical storm passing through during the middle part of the week. Our area has been very dry this summer and we definitely need rain, but as tropical storms go, this one didn’t bring the typical amount of rain to our area. The heaviest of […]
Unwanted Ads I really don’t know what happened to my blog about two months ago when unwanted ads took over. I’d changed nothing, nothing that I was aware of anyway. I finally had time to dig deeper into what might be going on this week. I deactivated two plugins and Amazon ads on the sidebar, […]
Wrapping Up a Huge Chapter of My Life I don’t want to jinx myself, but I feel great! I rarely get that sudden grabbing sensation in my lower left back area that I got all spring, and my right foot hasn’t been numb in months which was a common occurrence for years. Why this sudden […]
It’s time to sit down once again with a beverage of your choice and chat – I’ll remind you that I don’t like coffee or tea so my drink of choice today will be water. Let’s chat about things other than just running, cycling, strength training, yoga, and complaining about our most recent injuries. […]
Scheduling Workouts Each Sunday I look ahead to my upcoming week and plan out my workouts. For the most part, my workout days are pretty set. Strength training on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday Cycling on Tuesday, Thursday, and one or both weekend days Walking on Monday, Wednesday, and maybe Friday; and one weekend day if […]
A Mini Road Trip As if a 21-day road trip wasn’t enough time in the car, my husband and I took a whirlwind trip to the farm to see my mom. It rained most of the time we were there so I was happy to get out for at least one walk. Overview of […]
Four New States, 6,100 Miles Driven, and 410 Miles Ridden Our 21-day road trip took us to four new states: Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana, North Dakota, and Nebraska. My husband planned every detail of the trip, made all of the hotel reservations, and drove every single mile. Yes, I’m married to an incredible man and […]
Road Trips Aren’t New to Us During the early years of our marriage my husband and I took several road trips across the USA. Our first one, just a few short weeks after we got married took us from Virginia to Utah for grad school. While living in Utah, we took a few shorter road […]
Staying Cool It was quite a week, weather wise… The DMV’s (the DC, Maryland, Virginia metro area) three airports (DCA, BWI, and IAD) reported 4 consecutive days of 100° or higher. That’s hot for us for this early in the summer and for that many days. I pretty much hunkered down inside for my workouts […]
Resting up for the Big Race With a race coming up on Saturday, my plan was to rest my legs just enough to to have a strong ride, but not as if I’d be seriously racing the event. At 66 years old, I’d be in the 50 and over age group and that leaves a […]
A Ride Around the Gettysburg Battlefield Back in the good ole days, I’d run in the Firecracker 5K on Independence Day morning with my running friends. But since 2020 I’ve traded in my red, white, and blue running outfit for a patriotic jersey and joined my husband and Dawn Patrol friends for a covered bridges […]
A Likely Story I had invited two new-to-gravel-grinding friends to join my husband and me for an introductory ride on a relatively easy gravel route (20 miles with only 1,019 feet of climbing). Neither were able to make, but we wanted a chill ride so we decided to ride the course anyway. After driving about […]
A Trip of a Lifetime In 1993 my husband received the Circle of Excellence award for his company which included a week-long trip to Maui, Hawaii for the two of us. With the help of my in-laws, we were able to spend our first vacation without children since becoming parents while knowing our little boys […]
Summer Came in Hot, Hot, Hot Thursday was the first day of summer and it’s already time to start complaining about the heat. Check out the the screenshot from my phone when I finished my bike ride yesterday. And it got a little hotter after that – the highest I saw was 101, but forgot […]
If I Can’t Run… If I can’t run, I might as well ride, right? And that’s exactly what I did, totaling 132.3 miles over four rides for the week. Broken down, they included one event, one hill workout, and two chill rides. Would I rather be running? Of course. Am I glad I love cycling […]
