It's a Wild Ride

It's 4:49 a.m. My alarm goes off and I hop off of the couch, where I have been sitting and reading. I wash my breakfast dishes, grab my lunch and use the bathroom one last time and then I put on my helmet and grab my bike and my backpack and walk out the door.

It's about 2 miles from my house to the train station. Luckily, in the morning, it's mostly downhill. I put on my bike light, hike up one leg of my pants and start pedaling. You never know what you are going to see on the streets of Oakland at 5 a.m. There are not too many cars, which is good because that means I can buzz through most of the intersections without slowing down too much. There are sometimes people, but they are mostly like me, heading to work in the dark of the night.

Except for one corner which is near the train station. This corner is a bit different that the others. Women hang around in short skirts; men in trucks slow to a crawl as they pass. It's usually pretty quiet though; I pedal through with no problems.

I reach the train station in about 7 minutes. I constantly try to break the 7 minute time and have only done it once. It all depends on how I hit the traffic lights and how many cars there are that I have to avoid. I get there around 5:07, lock up my bike and hop on the train to work.

In the afternoon, the same journey takes about 12 minutes. From the station, I have to ride uphill and generally its around 4 or 5 pm. I have to stop at every intersection, sometimes for 2 or 3 minutes. There are cars to avoid, as well as people, broken glass, a lone shoe and a condom. It's hot and the traffic is busy and I swerve around old ladies and kids on skateboards. It's a whole different world. I can see everything.

I get home, hop off my bike and push it into my living room, where it lives. I do everything in reverse: walk in the door, backpack off, helmet off, put my lunch in the sink and use the bathroom one more time.

Note: I have been commuting by bike to the train station for a few months now and am really loving the view I am getting of the world this way. Plus a little extra exercise using different muscles never hurts!

How do you get to work? Do you ever walk or ride a bike? What interesting things have you seen while cycling? 

Looking Back: September

September! Back to school days and leaf raking days; new pencils and old friend days; putting on pants and jelly making days. Early sunset nights and late sunrise days. Soup days and boot days. Crisp air and fog days.... What does September mean to you?

Running: I clocked just over 100 miles this month, which is better than last month! However, I did not get the same amount of hiking in, so the total "time on feet" was less. Instead, I have been focusing more on my strength training, and am doing a twice a week strength training regime rather than so much running. This month's totals were 45 miles of hiking, 53 miles of biking and 9 strength training sessions.

Reading: This was a good reading month quantity-wise, but only so/so quality-wise. I ended up reading 9 books and two half books (couldn't finish/had to put down)! My favorites were these four:

Farewell to the East End: The Last Days of the East End Midwives
Americanah
Station Eleven
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage

Travel: My vacation spanned two separate months, so September marked the end of my trip to Europe. The first week of the month included a relaxing soak in a thermal bath, some hiking in the Alps of Switzerland, more cheese and bread and wine, and a trip to see a very old friend of mine, who had been an exchange student in my tiny high school when I was growing up. She lives near Geneva and so I not only got to see her house and to meet her husband and children, but I also traveled with her to her parents house in the mountains, where I got to meet the whole family, hike in the snow and drink Schnapps. It was a fun time all around!

Swiss cows are friendly!

After I returned, I spent a bit of Hobbit time doing things around the house, visiting local friends, going out for drinks with the work mates, cooking, shopping and eating and generally just catching up on life. I still have a mountain of items on my To Do list, but I am checking them off little by little! Unfortunately, new ones keep popping up!

And....Beer: New category! You know how you try things, such as beer, or wine or a new recipe, and then when you go to get another or make another, you can't remember the name or the website? Well, to prevent that, I am trying to remember to log things better and to write them down. So, the new beer I tried in September that I liked was: Fieldwork's Torrential Double IPA (website here).

What do you have on your To Do List? What new beer have you tried lately? What happened in your September worth mentioning? 

Looking Back: August

From here on out, this space will be called the "looking back" space. Before I go on, I am looking forward to Fall! Okay, now I am not just all about looking back. August is always a busy month: Last year I studied for and passed a licensing exam, took a vacation and still managed to run 189 miles (phew). This year was a lot less study, but was still packed solid every weekend of the month!

Running: For the first time in a long time, in August I dropped below 100 miles. My heart (brain/legs, etc) is just is not in it. My total for the month was about 85 miles of running. However, I am still loving the outdoors! August also brought 40 miles of cycling, 109 miles of hiking, 21 miles of walking, 1 open water swim, 1 kayak trip and 1 hour of strength training. All in all, this equals about 256 miles of "activity." I will take what I can get!

Reading: I read 4 books, and none of them really knocked my socks off.... The best two were probably The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant and Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng.

Travel: Not a lot of running; not a lot of reading...but there was a lot of travel. There were 5 weekends in August and I spent them in 5 different places: Yosemite, Humboldt County (redwoods), Taylorsville (Dad's first half marathon), Milan and Chamonix (UTMB). Due to all of this, I have added a new category, which I will move on to now...

Family, Friends and Food: August really is "family, friends and food" month. The first weekend was a great trip to the lesser known regions of Yosemite park, aka, not the valley, where I spent some time camping and running with friends. The next weekend was another camping trip, but this time it was in the opposite direction, north along the coast, into the redwoods. It was great hanging out with the "in-laws" and my brother while swimming, playing catchphrase and drinking plenty of cold beer.

View of Half Dome from North Dome

The next weekend was ANOTHER camping trip, this time with the whole fam damily, and when I say whole, I mean three (or four?) generations of crazy, dirty, active, fun and loud family members. It was a side of the family that I don't see as often, and it was a lot of fun! My dad ran his first half marathon and kicked some major butt in the process (first in his age group and 7th overall)!!

Dad after his "Running of the Bears" win

After that, it was off to Europe for my annual vacation, where I ate baguettes and cheese, drank wine, hiked in the Alps, cheered on my friend at UTMB and in general had a lot of fun and time exploring the outdoors. I tired myself out so much, that I never even had time to read the 10 books (or even 4!) that I brought with me on my Kindle. Every night was a good night's sleep and I woke up each day ready for another adventure. Now I am busy resting from my vacation....just kidding! It's been straight back to the old grind with no easing in!

So...how was your August? What annual summer traditions do you have? Are you ready for Fall yet? 

TGIT

There is nothing special about today, but I thought I would do a midweek TGIF regarding the past 7 days!

The high of my week was a trip north to the redwoods with my brother and his girlfriend's family. We had a good time hiking, playing games and hanging out, and on the way home we stopped and took a nice dip in the Russian river to top off the weekend.

The low of my week was a bit of a crazy busy workweek last week along with some ongoing work drama.

A book I am reading is The Boys in the Boat, except that I got the hardback from the library and then left it at home since I have been riding my bike to work and it is actually due today, so I am not going to finish it until I check it out again.

A podcast I am listening to is the Freakonomics issue of "how to create suspense". It is interesting, as they talk about how there is a perfect number of plot twists or surprises in a book or movie in order to keep people interested.

A workout I did was this Fitness Blender workout. They have a TON of different workouts on YouTube and you can also go to their site and search by workout length, calorie burn or intensity. I have been doing one to two of the 30 - 40 minute HIIT workouts per week and I have been enjoying them!

The best money I spent was probably my mortgage. I know, it's not exciting, but it sure is no joke!

My plans for the weekend include going up to my parent's neck of the woods for some camping and to see my dad run his first half marathon!

Happy Tuesday! What was the high point of your last 7 days? 

Looking Back: July

Looking back at this blog, I noticed that I am generally posting only a couple times a month, one of them being the "looking back" theme. Ah, well, such is life!! Just like everything, blogging and/or writing comes and goes and right now, I am happy with life and feel that I am getting things done, even if it doesn't include keeping up with this space! I do miss the connection that I have with many other bloggers, but I am keeping an eye on many of your blogs, even if I am not commenting!!

And now, welcome August; goodbye July.

Running: July was supposed to be a bit of a higher month for me. However, it ended up being one of my lowest months in a very long time. Lack of training, an injury and an unfinished race (sad recap to follow) meant that in July I ended up running only about 106 miles. On a good note, I started riding my bike to the BART each morning and afternoon. It's only about 1.8 miles each way, but it adds up to about 15 - 20 miles a week of biking. In addition, I am starting a 2 x per week HIIT class, which are about 30 - 45 minutes each.

The TRT

Reading: You can see the skew and maybe the reason my mileage was low when I tell you that this month I read 11 books. Okay, really I read 10 and a half. I started the Bone Clocks and just could not get into it, so I set it down half way. Some of my favorites were:

Still Alice by Lisa Genova
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy
The Last Letter From Your Lover by Jojo Moyes

Travel: I started the month off in central Oregon, on our annual "girls trip", which includes my friend, her two daughters and her Mom, except this year it was also her dad, her brother and her sister's family, which included three kids and a husband. It was a loud, crazy houseful but it was a lot of fun. I even took the boys trail running with me twice and they enjoyed the change of scenery (they are road runners and cyclists). I also went to Tahoe for TRT.

Otherwise: My other two weekends were spent painting and sorting and organizing around the house and then finally having a housewarming party, which was a hit. It was fun to finally get all the friends together, especially since there were some friends I haven't seen in a while, due to all the running and working and home stuff. I ended up having a lot of extra beer, but I am sure I can find a home for it!

If you came to my housewarming party, what kind of drink would you bring? What book should I put on the library wait list?