2009 YTD GPS map

Just for kicks, here is an image of the 2009 GPS data overlaid onto the map of the greater Pittsburgh area in GoogleEarth. Cycling routes are in yellow, running in red, hiking in green, and canoeing in blue. The icons sort of overlap when coincident, so frequently traveled areas come out sort of jumbled.

There are runs, rides, and hikes in West Virginia, New York, Indiana, Nevada, and other parts of Pennsylvania that are not shown. It is pretty addictive to get to track where you've been with the GPS. When I miss logging an event due to a variety of reasons, I always curse myself because it feels like the ride/run/etc wasn't really validated without the GPS data. I know, it sounds like I need to get a life.

2009 mileage through the end of May

Ok, I haven't posted in forever. Much has happened. I'll try to catch up. In the meantime, I was working on this tonight, so I figured I'd share. Here are my mileage totals (measured by GPS) for each month for several activities.

	January	February	March	April	May
Cycling	0	70.0	136.0	231.4	252.6
Running	0	27.0	26.6	49.8	60.1
Canoeing	0	3.4	9.4	3.2	4.7
Hiking	4.4	14.3	8.9	3.1	15.1

Training is going well. Running has been really, really good for me...physically and mentally. I like the time on the bike, but running clears my head so much more, and I have less likelihood of negativity resulting from intolerant drivers on the roads. Plus, in general, when you're running and smile or say 'hi' to someone, they respond positively. That's much less common on the bike. Mostly because on the road, you're in you own little bubble of reality and nobody seems to like to be yanked out from behind the veil of anonymity that being in a car gives you (and by extrapolation, all other vehicle types).

My general overall leg strength is much more balanced now that I have a significant running component to my training. My knees hurt less from the bike and running is no longer feeling like I'm killing myself through joint pain every time I go out. I think all the time on the bike has made some muscles too strong for their own good in relation to the other leg and joint connective muscles that aren't being exercised on the bike. That's just my unscientific hypothesis, though... Don't go reporting it as truth just because you read it on some blog.

My May mileage on the bike would have been more, but my bike is disintegrating under me. As my friend, Dave, mentioned, the Shimano engineers did a killer job on value engineering the drivetrain parts. Two months after the 2-year warranty on all of the Shimano parts ran out, the damn thing fell apart. I replaced the cassette early in the month (and the chain). Now, the bottom bracket bearings are failing rapidly. I'm looking to buy tools to tear it apart, so I can overhaul the bottom bracket with the parts from the bike I got hit on (with about 50 miles on it). Like I've mentioned before, I'm not convinced that a 10-speed rear cassette and associated skinny parts are worth it. My mountain bike with 7-speed system (3 front x 7 rear, 21 total gear ratios) rode through rain, snow, and whatnot for 10 years before I got the fancy idea to make it a single speed bike.

2009 Q1 mileage update

Nobody really cares, but at least I can watch my own progress as the year goes by... The image is just of the Pittsburgh area. There are runs, hikes, and canoe trips not shown on the map above. First quarter of 2009 logged distances:

Biking:
* January - 0 miles (surgery recovery)
* February - 70 miles
* March - 136 miles

Running:
* January - 0 miles (surgery recovery)
* February - 27 miles
* March - 27 miles

Hiking:
* January - 4 miles
* February - 14 miles
* March - 9 miles

Canoeing:
* January - 0 miles
* February - 3 miles
* March - 9 miles

While we were paddling...

Alongside the Youghiogheny River is the Great Allegheny Passage trail. The trail goes from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC. Maybe the latter part is called the C&O Towpath. Bethany, Silas, and Guthrie had a nice hike while Kevin and I were on the water.

Guthrie was actually pretty upset he wasn't in the canoe. Normally, he'd rather be out of the boat running on shore. This time, when he wasn't invited into the canoe, he wanted to be in it really badly. The first picture is at the put-in in Dawson. The second shot is of Guthrie sprinting back and forth on shore when we caught up to the three of them near the take-out.

Spring hike

After Tim and I got turned back by the ice on the lake, the ladies (and Silas) were kind enough to wait up for us and go on a nice, short hike with the dogs.

Urban hike to Oakland

As I can't really do much exercise yet because of the surgery and recovery, I went for a nice urban hike. I wandered from Bloomfield into Oakland and back. Total of 4.4 miles, not including inside distance walking inside of the buildings. I stopped into a lot of businesses I'd never been in. I also went inside a big old catholic cathedral. I made it to the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History a bit under an hour before closing. I'll post pictures in following posts.

The GPS got pretty confused a couple of times. For instance, on Craig St. below. I promise you that I didn't run around in circles in the middle of the street.

The GPS unit doesn't really like urban areas so much with all the buildings and whatnot. I did go into a few shops here. I perused some great antique books at the Caliban Book Shop and Townsend Booksellers. Both had some wonderful old texts. Caliban has a small corner devoted to music, which they call Desolation Row CDs. Perhaps it's a separate business that rents the little nook. In any case, I got the new Animal Collective and Blitzen Trapper CD's. Jury's still out on both. I've only gotten one quick sort of background listen in. There is a nice little Indian grocery and a Middle Eastern grocery and food counter along the route.

Leaving Bloomfield heading toward Oakland, one must cross 'the Gully.' It's where the water once ran out of the hills toward the rivers before this place was fucked over by having a city put on it. I get really sad sometimes when I imagine how beautiful this area was before it was concreted over with Pittsburgh. It makes for a nice city, but damn it, I'd much prefer the original hills and the spectacular confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers without taming from the dams. I bet the gully was a wonderful wetland and riparian area.


From the second floor of the building that houses Dreaming Ant, the sun paints a nice glow on the buildings of Oakland.

Camping trip

Oh the happy view from a car with a canoe on top heading out into the wilderness.

I'm going to break up the camping and canoeing trip into several posts to keep it from getting too long.

New car, old canoe, covering new ground

We camped at Trough Creek State Park on the far side of Raystown Lake, about 3 hours from Pittsburgh.
Raystown Lake is an impounded river (the Juniata) and looks like a swollen snake, or maybe a biliopancreatic limb. You can choose.

The blue GPS coordinates are our canoe route on Monday. The green points are a short hike we did after breaking camp that morning.

Western PA is gorgeous this time of year.

Guthrie was such a nutcase on the way out, that going home, Bethany sat in back to keep him quiet and to attend to Silas.

Highland Park hike with Guthrie

Highland Park has been sort of a knot of roads and trails that I happen across from time to time, but have no clue how they all connect and intertwine. Guthrie and I hiked around for an hour and half the other day, helping to figure some of the park out in my mind. It's a nice park with some very well taken care of areas and some that aren't so. We came across some nice stone staircases that dead end into bushes and trees, or sometimes just nothing. Artifacts of the park's past. Pittsburgh should really be proud of its parks. There are some great parks here.

Besides the mental and physical health of me on these outings this week with Guthrie, I view it as being an emotional reinforcement for him. I want him to know he's still Supremo Dog #1 in my book, and that Silas won't get in between us. There's enough love to share, but he's not really bought into that idea yet. So, I'm trying to keep him engaged and happy.