Blowing & Drifting

Note: I’m going to try to write at least one biographical essay each month this year. The Hunting Camp When my family lived in Ironwood, in the early 1980s, we owned (or, I think, shared, with my dad’s brother) a tiny cabin way out in the woods north of town, about halfway between the farm [...]

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Today, I was supposed to compete in the first of two ski races this winter, the 26k classic race at the City of Lakes Loppet in Minneapolis. I was scheduled to ski the 42k classic race at the Mora Vasaloppet next weekend. When I registered for these races last summer, I was very, very excited [...]

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The pathetic “winter” of 2011-2012 has given me a case of un-seasonal affective disorder. I can hardly overstate how much I look forward to winter – the snow above all, but also the cold, the storms, the crisp blue-sky days… This year, we’ve had almost none of that. With only a few brief exceptions, temperatures [...]

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If Mother Nature respected my wishes, She would have blanketed southern Minnesota in snow six weeks ago. In fact, I would have been happy with snow six days ago. But we’re still snowless here, so I figured that a solid gravel-road ride could stand in for my three-year streak of skiing on Christmas Day. It [...]

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Exactly one year ago – on December 23, 2010 – I skied for 45 minutes in the Carleton Arb. According to last winter’s training log, I’d skied a total of 12:27:48 by then, beginning on November 14. So far this winter, I’ve skied one hour, a couple weeks ago, just after we received our only [...]

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As the girls get bigger, sledding becomes easier and more fun. Already this winter, we’ve twice made the short drive to a relatively big and steep hill near Julia’s school – a hill they found too scary even last winter. They’ve loved it both times this winter, which I find exciting. And I’ve also been [...]

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The girls were outside this morning by 7:30, having a blast sledding in the half-inch of snow.

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Friday afternoon, I rode home through the Arb, which wasn’t unpleasant:

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Wednesday, I took the day off to do a long gravel ride, my first substantial bike outing after the Almanzo way back in May. I had initially intended to do an all-day century, but then I decided that my legs probably couldn’t handle a hundred miles of gravel cycling. Luckily, the guys down at my [...]

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Yesterday, Carleton dedicated its second wind turbine, a gift from two alums that will significantly cut the College’s energy costs and reduce its carbon footprint. In true Carleton fashion, the dedication ceremony was neither too formal nor too casual – a low-key gathering at the turbine (a mile or so east of campus); some remarks [...]

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At 9:00 a.m. today, I started the Big Woods Run half-marathon, the longest running race I’ve done to date. I trained pretty hard for the race, and that training paid off in a good effort that wound up being a few minutes behind my target. But I had a lot of fun, and certainly feel [...]

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I’ve been training pretty seriously since July for the Big Woods Run half marathon on October 15 – “seriously” meaning that I’ve been getting coaching advice from an Internet friend who’s a pretty fast runner/cyclist/triathlete. The regimen she’s worked out for me has been pretty tough – some two-a-day workouts, long runs that are longer [...]

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I have never in my life been apple picking, except I suppose when I was a little kid and we lived on a farm with a big apple orchard behind the house. But today, we four went to Fireside Orchard, just west of town, and had a fantastic time. The weather was perfect – cloudless, [...]

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Sunday morning, I ran the 15km road race that’s a perennial part of Northfield’s huge Defeat of Jesse James Days festival. I ran the 5km event a few times a few years ago, and I’ve long wanted to step up to the “big race.” This spring, after finishing the Almanzo cycling race, I figured I [...]

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The very best sound a bike can make is the crunchy sizzle of tires going fast over gravel. The second-best sound a bike can make is the crisp crackle of going through dry leaves, like these early fallers on my route home from work.

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