Grease-ified

Grease-ified

We flew into Reno en route to Sacramento, and hunger struck at the
exact moment we rolled up to an In-and-Out Burger on the side of I-80.
Delicious.
Uploaded 21 Oct ‘07, 12.12am EDT PST

Back in the Saddle

I’ve paid my registration and I am set to compete in the 2008 ING Georgia Half Marathon. My hope is to shave at least twenty minutes off my finish from last time, but maybe three hours works as a nice, round goal.

That said, the training effort is back. I’m making another attempt at daily exercise, but doubling the timeline from last year. Instead of 12 weeks, I’m doing 24+ weeks, which should help with the overall level of fitness. I’m starting with a mix of walking/jogging, which is really a lot easier now that the temperature is approaching that which we would expect from fall weather. I’ve had enough of this 85-degrees-in-October business; I’m ready for it to actually get cold. I’ve added my workout log (wlog?) to the blog, but suppressed it from my RSS feed so that I don’t clog up your tubes. (Thanks, Category Visibility plugin!)

I’m also back in the saddle in another sense. In college, my favorite mode of transport was my 1987 Honda Elite CH250 scooter. I bought it for $900 and sold it for $800 two years later, so you can’t beat the value. It got 50 mpg and would get me around campus comfortably. Plus, I could park it at the bike racks around campus, subverting the wholly infuriating parking situation on campus that I understand has only gotten worse. At any rate, I definitely got a lot of enjoyment out of tooling around campus on the step-through beast, and I jumped at the opportunity to do so again. Living in midtown, I’ve never been convinced that we needed two vehicles, but Heather’s lease and my loan still had some time left on them. Finally, her lease was up and my vehicle had enough equity that we could both get into new rides.

Yes, I’m back on the scooter. I’m now commuting on a 2006 Yamaha Majesty from home to the office (about 2.9 miles). It’s a whole lot of fun, and between parking for free much of the time and getting 75 miles to the gallon, I’m really having a blast on my second scooter. We are now a 1.5 car family. There are a few logistical issues having only one proper car, but it’s absolutely worth commuting on two wheels and being able to fit in tiny, non-existent parking spaces at work. And despite what the photo below might indicate, I do wear a full motorcycle jacket with pads, long pants, and a helmet each and every time I ride, and I recommend that everyone else do the same. Dress for the crash, not the ride.