Turning the corner

Seems things are about to turn the corner. Like everything. Weather, family, health, work, home.

Weather:
No surprise to anyone that the weather has been weird to crazy this year. From deep mud and floods to dry and red flag, from late season snows to 80 degree winter days. After a warm up last week before the senior Prom at school when the temps dropped back in to the upper 40's with a steep wind (at least the boys got to wear tux's, the poor gals with sleeveless and open shoulder dresses were not so lucky). Ethan got to take grandpa's 1970 Nova SS to prom, he was kind of stoked on that, but more he was stoked about turkey season. (He tagged a 2 year old 19.8 pound bird earlier that day). Today the forecast is sunny and 70 and gets warmer as the week goes. Just in time for the Lake Hope road race this Sunday. Though honestly I wish I was racing the Middle Mountain Momma, or even just wish I could.

Health:
My ankle injuring is about 99+%. The calf, is only about 80%. Apparently I have a pulled muscle. And just like sprains have degrees, so do strains. I have partially tore something in my right calf from the minor crash on my mountain bike. The worst part had to be waking at 2 am to cramps in the injured muscle. Why our bodies do this to its self is beyond my understanding. But it is getting better. I did a "log" run last night (3 miles) and only some minor discomfort. The foam roller caused all the real pain. Good thing I wasn't planning to road race this weekend. My legs are not in the racing shape. A side note though, I tuned 1000 miles last week on my second hand Tacx rollers. That is a lot of miles to roll in the basement.

Work:
I finished up a lot of documentation for a new product I have been working on for over a year. Still some work to go before they are rolling off the production line, but a major milestone none the less. Hope this means I can get to ride or run on a more regular basis.

Family:
May is the last month of school and Shelly's over the top busy time at work. Three weeks to two birthdays and one graduation. 4 weeks to the end of the school year.

Comments:
Do you watch Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown series? It is excellent. This weekend was a show about WVa. It reminded me a lot of our area. Athens county has the highest poverty rate in the state and most of that is in the rural areas. Our rural school districts have been caught by inadequate state funding and low tax bases for years. It is about to come to a head for Alexander after a couple failed levies and the threat of cut backs looms. Even with this, I am impressed by the talent I see: singers, actors, artists, athletes, academics, community service, etc. Seriously gifted and hard working individuals are not reserved for the high class areas with high dollar tax bases.

Photos:

Continued

By Thursday evening Brock was back to himself. Eating (some), running around, talking a bunch. Short lived bug that apparently has been making rounds at school with his teacher on the receiving end come Friday. Speaking of Friday, it was supposed to be in the low 80's in the afternoon and with lots of rain forecast over the weekend before temperatures dropping to near freezing with a snowflake possible I decided to take my d660 to work with me and take a couple hours of PTO to hit some dry trails.

After getting some drawings done and some orders made I headed out the door around 2p. I am tired. Like, I wonder if I have mono tired. So I knew I wasn't going to push it, but I needed the ride as much for the soul as the body. I rode down Hope drive to the Dow Lake Dam and up to Sundown Trail. Not far in from this end the trail climbs up and over some rocks. I have ridden this many, many times without issue. Today, taking it *easy* I spun the back tire over one of said rocks. This shifted me to the downhill side of the trail and over the edge. I got the right shoe unclipped but it was too late and head first I went sliding. No big deal. It was just a bunch of leaves, pretty steep, but I didn't hit anything. But wait, why does my calf hurt so badly? Ah, banged it pretty hard on the chainring. It will work itself out.

I kept riding. Met a kid and his dogs out loving the trails. Rode through some ramps. It wasn't working itself out. It became really painful to stand up and I felt every rough thing on the trail. I took the Scatter Ridge connector and connected with road to get back toward the dam dropping down the horse trail access back to Sundown and then back to the office.

Smells like Casa

I had to stop at my folks on the way home to fix their computer. Dad had somehow installed some Firefox add-in the was hijacking his searches. Home from there where I was supposed to get the boys before heading back out to meet my folks and my brothers family for some pizza. Got home to find E with a 103 fever. Shelly was gone for the evening so she dropped off Brock to my folks and I was going to get E to urgent care. He felt so bad he said he couldn't get in the truck. Ibuprofen and a nap then. After a while the vitamin I kicked in, dropped his temperature and he was ready to go. We just made it pulling in to Holzer at 7:57 (they close at 8). I really appreciate the staff seeing him, they could have turned us away. Interestingly they couldn't test him for flu because they have had so many people with the flu they ran out of tests. He had flu-like symptoms as well as suspected strep throat. Antibiotics and tamiflu. At CVS they could only partially fill the tamiflu. Again, so many people with the flu! Stopped at my folks again to get Brock, home at 10p and finally got to eat some dinner.

Everybody slept in on Saturday. The weather was still warm and sunny but it was going to be raining by the end of the day. I figured I better try to ride and work out my calf. Did a loop of back roads with a few big climbs. It felt OK until I hit a pothole or a washboard and it felt like I had a full on calf cramp. And the roads were not exactly in good shape. You could tell where the floods had been over the roadway in places of where it just washed out. One such road would have required a 4WD rock crawler to get through.

Hard to see, but it got a lot worse from here.

Back home and we tripped in to Athens to pick up Athens Marathon race packets. OVRC was packed! Shelly and E were supposed to run. But with E still recovering he just didn't have it in him. He missed his track meet on Saturday too. Felt bad since he had been working hard to be ready. Proud of Shelly though. A half marathon is no joke. Time and motivation to prepare is hard, especially when you are our age, job, kids, home. She stuck through it though.

And a smile.

Per Sonya Looney, 'Be Brave, Do Epic Shit" Epic is indeed relative.

Hold on

I shoveled out the ditch last night that the flooding rains filled up with parts of my driveway. While shoveling, a neighbor boy rode up on his bicycle. Ball cap, jeans, boots, riding his too small for him Mongoose. Made me happy.

Me this morning: Let's see, Brock has soccer practice this evening and I will just be meeting Shelly there and taking over so she can get her workout in for the Athens half this weekend. Oh, and the weather is going to be warm. Oh, and the trails are really dry. I have been working hard lately, I'll leave early for work so I can leave a little early, I'll take my bike and ride around the lake before meeting up with Shelly. Cool.

Life: Hold on

Brock: I don't feel very good... blows chunks.

Life: Boom.

Coming apart at the seams.

So. Much. Water. Heavy storms early in the week have left the Hocking River overwhelmed. East State St is closed due to high water this morning. Our parking lot at work is a lake. Sewer lift station pumps are still off. 

 

I still had a day left on my trial of Rouvy, I got set last night for a quick ride, shooting for a little more than a half an hour. Three miles in to my 13 mile ride, I can't seem to put any power in to the trainer without just slipping the tire.

Yes, the tube actually came apart at one of the mold seams. Seems to sum up my 2018 pretty well.

Random Things

Just a post of random things while I have the chance to jot them down.

What's spinning? I have been enjoying some county music recently. Not the trivial lyrics, over produced, dog-beer-and truck, hip-pop-country stuff. I am not a fan (and every genre has that kind of music out there). What I like about country music is the instrumentation. A steel guitar, maybe some banjo or mando. I also seem to gravitate towards music and artists that are songwriters and that write about meaningful things. I have enjoyed Margo Price's first two albums. Been spinning Beck's "Sea Change" in the car. Most recently though it has been Kacey Musgraves' "Golden Hour". Similar to Beck's swings toward country from the alt-hip-hop or whatever you categorize him as, Musgraves swings from the other side blending more modern sounds in with more traditional instruments.  Favorite tracks would include "Slow Burn", "Golden Hour", "Oh What A World". Her effortless singing sits right in with songs. Take a listen.



A small amount of progress on the stone surround for the new hearth. The walls will be framed with some heavy weathered timbers. I cut them down from some 4x10 hemlock. Still need to poly them.

It's what's for lunch. Wonder why we have epidemic levels of diabetes, heart disease, obesity.

The Ohio State Road Race is coming up on May 6. Turns out to be the same day as the new 6 hour race in WV that I was kind of planning to do. Instead, I will be working the registration table at Lake Hope. Want to volunteer? They need drivers and corner marshals. Find Team Athens on the Facebook for details.

Easter was another busy holiday while trying to get over being sick. Nice to live so close to so much family. Hard to live so close to so much family. Up at 5:30 am to get rolls rolled so they can rise and bake before I head to soundchecks at 8. Church at 10:30. Lunch with Shelly's grandparents and fam. Grab some coffee on the way to my folks for another meal. Home by 8. Lot of food. Lot of sitting. Good but long day.

Ankle update: about 90%. Most of the pain and swelling are gone. Still limited range of motion and discomfort. Maybe run again for the first time this week. Or maybe go for a swim?

The parking lot is once again filled with flood water. It gets better... the city just informed us that the sewer pumps are being turned off. So please hold it. 

On second thought a swim seems like a bad idea.