Blowing & Drifting

Friday morning, I was finishing up some work before heading to Julia’s field trip in the next town when Shannon texted me: Washer just stopped itself with a load of clothes and water in it and there is a burning smell! I had a few minutes of before I needed to be at the field [...]

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Saturday morning, I drove up to Elm Creek park in Champlin, Minnesota, for the second running of the Fatbike Frozen Forty race. I didn’t know what to expect, since I hadn’t trained much for the race and have done all my racing on gravel roads, but I was eager for the chance to ride my [...]

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Though I’m not quite sure what I’m getting myself into, I am doing this race on Saturday morning. I am severely undertrained, but adrenaline should compensate for at least 10% of my fitness shortfall. I hope my beard can make up the rest. If nothing else, I’ll have some painful fun on the Beast!

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I saw this graphic a bunch of times last week, when the snowpocalypse was about to crush the East Coast. I appreciate the information, and I know that falling on the ice is no effing joke, but at the same time I despair for a society that’s so divorced from nature that we need infographics to [...]

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Feeling a little unprepared for a fatbike race I’m planning to do on Saturday, I spent quite a bit of time on the Beast this last weekend – trying my winter gear, testing my legs, figuring out riding positions, feeling the wintry mix on my face, learning the best way to fly off my bike [...]

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On Saturday, I received a call from my pharmacy about a prescription that I hadn’t picked up. The pharmacist told me all about the drug, which I don’t remember being prescribed to me and which would treat a problem I don’t have. (Bronchial congestion: get your mind out of the gutter.) Then today my clinic [...]

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Saturday, I raced the Inspiration 100 in Garfield, Minnesota. The event was my third gravel century race of the summer, and maybe the most fun. The Almanzo in May was brutal and the Dirty Benjamin in June was fast, but the Inspiration was pretty much a blast from start to finish – except for a few [...]

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Politically, I sit at the liberal-progressive end of the spectrum, but I try to keep from shoving my political beliefs in everyones’ faces. I think this is common to many progressives in Northfield, which – despite perhaps more local political drama than we need – tends toward moderate views, both progressive and conservative. Where zealotry erupts, [...]

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I hardly ever use my work phone, an ugly 90s era chunk of gray plastic and buttons. After getting a weird cold-call from an IT vendor the other day, I decided to put the phone out of sight and mind. Into the drawer it went! I. Thankfully I could still hear it ring today. Wrong [...]

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This song appears on the mix played during the “boot camp” training sessions I do at Carleton. It’s a heinous piece of work, maybe the worst song I’ve ever heard. The video is just as bad. (FYI, Selena Gomez repeats “I love you like a love song, baby” just 18 times in this song. I [...]

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Like many localities, Northfield is currently a site of hard-fought political campaigning. Some local candidates have good ideas, while others have bad ones, but none have the sort of bold ideas that will lead the city through the challenge of a prime-numbered calendar year. Into this breach, I now step with a bold idea to [...]

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My ride on Sunday was notable in that I finally got my first dog bite. Riding down a stretch of road I’ve covered many times, a fairly large Lab-ish dog came barreling out of a farmyard, barking like a maniac. White Fang headed me off, then circled back as I slowed down, studied my legs, [...]

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So today I got up at 4:15 a.m. so that I could get ready for a long bike ride that was scheduled for 5. This was obviously a stupid thing to do, but the early rising paid big dividends. Along with two friends, I enjoyed a wonderful outing, maybe my easiest and most enjoyable long [...]

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After finishing my workout at the gym on Wednesday afternoon – one of the greaterrible cross-training sessions masterminded by Thad Caron, a pretty good personal trainer – I wondered why I was feeling so goddamn wasted. Every muscle group ached, and my arms and legs had that heavy overused feeling. So I tallied up the [...]

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At 8 a.m. tomorrow, I’ll start my second 100-mile gravel race of the year, the West Side Dirty Benjamin, which runs around Chaska, Minnesota. I’m looking forward to the race, but I’ve never entered an event with less serious preparation: I didn’t pay any attention to eating good carbs this week, I haven’t done much [...]

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