Blowing & Drifting

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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Today was the perfect summer day: 70 to 80° all day, clear blue skies, brilliant sun, a gentle cool breeze, and – best of all – nothing much to do. The girls and I spent a huge part of the day outdoors. In the morning, we picked beans for an hour at our CSA farm then [...]

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A few weeks ago, my colleague Nancy Braker, the director of Carleton’s Cowling Arboretum, sent out a message seeking volunteers for the Arb’s yearly tree inventory. I’ve been waiting literally years for a chance like this, so I asked about the time commitment, which turned out to be quite manageable. Since my office work is [...]

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Belatedly, here a few photos from last week’s grand visit to Walla Walla, where I enjoyed a fantastic conference at Whitman College, great networking socializing, excellent food and drink, and some wonderful scenery. A view from our turboprop flight from Seattle to Walla Walla: circular fields irrigated by water drawn from some of the Columbia [...]

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This hill is short and not very steep, but I love the way it seems to just end, rather than start to descend - in my imagination, like some of the great summits in the Tour de France. This one’s about 99% shorter than those climbs, though…

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After finishing the Almanzo 100 in May, my thoughts turned – as they do – to writing something about it. My two-part race report was a start (May 16 and May 20), but I was lucky enough to be able to turn those blog posts into something more like a real essay, one that’s just [...]

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The U.P. in general and the Keweenaw in particular are full of amazing vistas. Here are a few of them plus a stray notable photo or two.

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In our three days in the Copper Country, I want more than anything else to soak up the atmosphere – warm days, cool nights, forests, the lake, lots of stars, surprisingly cool towns – and to hang out with my mom, my sister, and her two kids. But I also want to make sure that [...]

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Today was a Very Big Day for bike-riding at our house. After a week’s hard work, Julia mastered the ability of starting all by herself, meaning that she no longer needs a parent to help her start, go, or stop. She wins the day’s Overall Achievement Award. If anything, Vivi did even better. She’s been [...]

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