Hawk too

On my run this evening I saw this hawk on the pole below a bridge outside of Schenley Park. It was a good day for wild birds in the city. My previous post was about turkeys I saw on my way to work in the AM. This bird was beautiful and my crappy cell phone camera did a poor job of capturing any of its splendor.

Oakland runabout

Silas and I went on a nice hour-long run around Oakland today. We parked by the Cathedral of Learning (on the University of Pittsburgh campus) and ran over to the Allegheny County Soldier's Memorial, also known as the Soldiers and Sailors National Memorial.

There, Silas found the propeller of a WWII torpedo highly fascinating.

Then we ran over the bridge over Panther Hollow and looked at the steam plant and the Carnegie Mellon University building in the background.

From the next bridge, we watched the sun start setting over the city.

We did some loops through Schenley Park and popped back out with a nice evening view of the building at CMU we looked at before, but this time, there is a handsome parking lot in the foreground.

Running behind the Carnegie Museum of Art, we spent a little time in their open-air art courtyard and gawked at the waterfall.


Opposite the waterfall are the stairs from the lobby up to the galleries.


Just after this point, Bethany called and said she was on her way home. We didn't beat her there, nor have dinner ready. That's really my fault for forgetting to buy rice noodles at one of the Asian stores in the Strip District during my lunch break at work. It was a beautiful night for a run and well worth the consequences of eating at Ritter's Diner instead of my home-cooking.

Evening run with the boys

Silas, Guthrie, and I went for a casual 5 mile run on the north side trail along the Allegheny River. Guthrie did some wading. The mother duck was very upset I let Guthrie into the river where she was paddling around with her two young ducklings. She quacked up a storm and put herself between him and the young ones. It was sweet, but I felt bad for causing her alarm. She didn't know Guthrie won't go any deeper than a half assed wade... We ran down past the stadiums (stadia?) and to the Science Center before turning around.


We had parked near the bridge to Washington's Landing (aka Herr's Island), so we jogged over to a nice vista point to look at the city. The sky was really nice and the city well lit.

First adventure race

Between our kid's blog and facebook, it's hard to keep up on this blog as well. Nonetheless, I wanted to document some of the fun I had in my first adventure race. It was the HVAC race put on by Grass Roots Racing, a group out of Pittsburgh that runs a series of entry-level adventure races that don't require the crazy levels of skill and dedication of the multi-day big events. Besides the 'orienteering' and whatnot, the race was about 15 miles on the mountain bike, 100-200 m swim, and about 5 miles of trail running.

It was my teammate, Arn's, first adventure race as well. We had a brilliantly fun time. We didn't intend on winning or coming close to being competetive. It was more about the exploration into this type of racing. I'd like to do the next in the series, but have a schedule conflict. Hopefully, I can do the August one in Pittsburgh with Bethany, and then the last two with Kevin or Arn. Kevin is by far the best runner I know, and I think we'd work as well as a team as Arn and I did. We've talked about doing this for more than a year now, without getting our schedules to work out.

I bought a very low-end, used mountain bike to get me through the race a week before. It's an ok ride for this, but can't put up with the beating for too long.

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.

Crappy GM part, but nice run

The brilliant engineers at GM designed the plastic thermostat housing to last past the warranty period and not much longer. I hear it's a known problem with the Aveo.

Guthrie and I were on our way to go running at the park. I know, we were driving the car to go running, so maybe it was a suitable penance. Bethany called in the disabled vehicle to the Better World Club, and Guthrie and I ran the 4 1/2 miles back to the house. The Better World Club has been good for the past 2 or so years we've had it. I'd been a gold member of AAA for 19 years (started under the parents), but they lost my patronage because of their anti-bike positions.

Anyway, the light was nice on the Cathedral of Learning on the Pitt Campus.


The light was nice for viewing the new Children's Hospital towering over Bloomfield and Lawrenceville.


This is the Gully. It was probably once a nice valley with some sort of stream at the bottom. The stream has been replaced with trash and car-fluid runoff from Bloomfield, Oakland, and Polish Hill. A dedicated busway, railway, and a road do use the bottom.

Hot dog dam

During our run at Frick Park, Guthrie and I stopped at 'Hot Dog Dam' for some wading. It's one of his favorite places. The second photo is looking down on the impounded area from the bridge on Forbes Ave.


Guthrie likes to blow bubbles...

Frick Park outing

I'm a little behind on this outing, but Guthrie and I enjoyed a good 4-mile run through Frick Park on Saturday. On one trail was a cat. When we jogged around the corner, it stopped in the middle of the trail and proceeded to swell to about twice its normal size. Once it saw Guthrie defer to it, its fur relaxed, and it came over to me to be pet.

When Guthrie was a puppy, we got a mature cat with claws from the Humane Society. Buck had lived with dogs before, so he was confident and calm with Guthrie. Of course, he set the limits quickly. Guthrie has an incredible respect for cats still.

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

Boys running video

Here is a brief video of how much Silas enjoyed running with me and Guthrie in Schenley Park yesterday. I can't believe he decides to try to put his foot in his mouth while he's bouncing down the trail in the jogger.

Running with Silas and Guthrie

Guthrie, Silas, and I went for an evening run in Schenley Park today. The weather and temperature were great. Bethany was teaching yoga, so the boys got to go outside and play. I'm still getting used to running with the jogger and dog leash. It was better than last time, in that I didn't get the leash wrapped up in the wheels and didn't almost topple the whole thing over.

Our route is shown below. The outer loop, all on trails, was 2.0 miles exactly, per my GPS watch. So we ran up the hill to do two loops of the running course around the track and tennis courts, as well as a couple of detours into other areas to bump it up to 3.8 miles. We're still building mileage, because of my poor old sore joints can't take much more yet. Plus, I can't keep myself from sprinting up the hill from work home, so my thighs are trashed. :)


There is a nice vista of the city, including a disc-golf course that Guthrie was eyeing.


The prenatal yoga class that Bethany teaches is longer than it takes to get to the park, run, and get back, so we hung out for a bit and played in the grass.



Silas found a dried tree seed pod, the name of which I can't remember right now. I looked up what I thought it was, but I was wrong. I'll add the name when/if it ocurrs to me.

Mon Wharf trail work starts

The city has started work on the riverfront trail along the Mon Wharf parking area. This project is very exciting, as currently, there is no non-traffic connection between the Eliza Furnace Trail (lovingly called the Jail Trail locally) and Point State Park. The Eliza Furnace Trail (more info on the Three Rivers Heritage Trails) runs on the north side of the Monongahela River between Oakland and Downtown and connects via the Hot Metal Bridge to the Southside Works and the South Side Trail (Station Square to the Glenwood Bridge area).

The Mon Wharf is parking lot for the folks that work and visit downtown. It's a dodgy place to park in that the Monongahela River floods the outer edge of it when the river crests 18 feet, which is about any time it rains more than a drizzle. The work will remove some parking, but create a promenade that will allow bike and pedestrian use and green space.

I'm very excited about this, in that I frequently ride from work through Point State Park and then navigate my way through traffic up to the Eliza Furnace Trail to head back home. I'm comfortable riding in traffic, but there are many weekend riders of the Eliza Furnace Trail that would be well served with a safer route to the point. Many times, I've seen parents with small children on bikes fearfully making their way along Boulevard of the Allies (busy, arterial road) to get between the trails.

The Post Gazette article about the start of the work can be found here. Here is a picture I took of the Mon Wharf looking up the Monongahela River.

This last image, courtesy of the Post Gazette. Note that this is looking the opposite direction from my picture above and shows a different bridge.

February 2009 human-powered transportation wrap up

I recovered from the surgery enough to have gotten back on the bike and back in the running shoes in February. Here are the monthly totals:

Biking (95%+ commuting/errands) = 70.0 miles
Running (0% commuting) = 27.0 miles
Canoeing (0% commuting) = 3.4 miles

The photos are from my daily commute on a frontage road parallel to the busy street that my office is on.

Family hike and run

I wanted to go for a run today, but also wanted to spend time with everyone. So, we all went over to Millvale across the Allegheny River to enjoy the nice snowy day. Well, at least those of use that like to go that far. Max (our cat) stayed at home. Guthrie and I took off and ran while Bethany and Silas strolled around and enjoyed the scenery at a slower pace.

The picture above is looking upstream at the 40th Street Bridge. Below is looking south across at Lawrenceville.


Guthrie was so happy to get out. The city looked pretty in the misty distance.


Yes, wet and muddy.

Guthrie got wet and cold, but much of the mud came off. Not a bad trade off, as we were heading to the car.

And, we eventually caught back up with Bethany and Silas on their way back from Mr. Small's Skate Park.