So omegabeth and I rode from Boston to Provincetown on Saturday, on a tandem bike borrowed from moominmolly and dilletante.

What happened?

• Tandems are way cool. Everyone we rode with seemed to be cheered up just having a tandem on the road. We became known to the rest of the riders, and later, by apparently random people in Provincetown, as "those crazy tandem people."
• omegabeth did not keel over and die from biking on her broken ankle.
• omegabeth actually finished in way better shape than I did.  By the end of the ride, she was doing the bulk of the hard cranking.
• omegabeth is clearly a mutant who has supernormal healing powers and possibly an adamantium endoskeleton.
• Good bike fit is really important.  Really really important. Like, as important as you thought it was, and then more important than that.  I did an okay job of sizing the tandem to me, but "okay" is not good enough, especially for a trip like this.  I finished the ride with severe numbness in the ring and little fingers of both hands, and profoundly diminished gripping strength.  Right now I can barely turn a key in a lock, put on my socks, or write my name.  Calling the doctor first thing in the morning.
• As important as it is to wear sunscreen, for the love of god remember not to wear it on your face. Because then when you start sweating, it melts and trickles down your forehead into your eyes, and it stings and you can't see and THAT WILL MAKE YOU DIE.

I have many many heroes today, but especially keyne and kids for their love and ongoing support of my madness, moominmolly and dilletante for the loan of their contraption and for invaluable technical advice, soong and sandhawke for sharing their homes (sometimes unexpectedly), bubblebabble and bitty for sharing their home and for gamely going along with our insane plans, inseriatim for repaying the favor and registering me when I started acting lame, and omegabeth for being such an amazing, untiring, perpetually upbeat and inspiring ride partner.  This life is sometimes an amazing place to be.

MOVING DAY!

We are starting to move into Mosaic this week.  We will be moving junk from my parents' house and our storage unit all week long, but our biggest push will be on Saturday, April 25 (assuming we can get the Big Honkin' Truck for it). Sorry about announcing this on such short notice, but that is apparently the way we roll.  M starts at the new school on Monday, April 27, so our goal is to be sufficiently moved-in by the end of Saturday that we can sleep there and make breakfast on Sunday.

If you can help, and haven't already responded to keyne's call for volunteers, give me a shout-out here.  We will need hands and warm bodies most urgently on Saturday, but if you're available to pack boxes or tote some stuff during the week, ping keyne, who will be trying to get as much of this done during the day as she can.

Woo-hoo!  mOVING!

NASA is holding a contest to name the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, their newest astronomical observatory.

I helped out and suggested the obvious choice, of course, Mister Splashy Pants.  I trust that you all will do your part as well.

Go to http://glast.sonoma.edu:81/glastname/.  Vote early and often; it is, after all, for Science.

Readers of my "triathlon" filter may have noticed that I haven't posted to it much in the last month.  That's because there hasn't been much to post.  When we left for Maine in August, my training went down the drain and I never really got it back together.  I've still been biking to work, and that sure helps a lot, but I have been doing almost no swimming or running.

So I went into this morning's triathlon mostly unprepared.  My goal today was to finish without dying.  If I was really lucky, I might not get so discouraged that I wouldn't want to do it again.

And so?

( I had a blast. )

One of the most interesting things about this event were the other participants:

1.  They were all really collegial.  When we were all standing around at the start of the race, and at the finish line afterward, everyone was really friendly and cheerful.  I expected a very unfriendly elite-athlete vibe.  Not in the slightest.  It was possibly the most chummy athletic event I can recall ever having attended.  That was a really lovely thing and helped set the tone for the rest of the day.

2. A lot of them were not visibly athletic.  keyne took photographs which confirmed my hypothesis: no matter how out of shape you are, or how ridiculous you think you look in a Speedo, there is going to be someone else competing who is worse off than you.  I liked that a lot too.  It made me feel really good about the social dynamics of the event.

I am so grateful: to keyne for getting up at the ass-crack of dawn with me on this fool's errand and for taking such fantastic pictures of the day, to omegabeth for being an unfailing support all along and for being the awesomest running buddy ever, and to mort, kcatalyst, aroraborealis and everyone else who has been giving moral support along the way. So much rockage.

Overall it was an unqualified win for fun.  I have no doubt I'll be doing another one of these.  Maybe even before the end of the year!

!!!!

http://bbedit.sv.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?NoCache=1&Dato=20070708&Kategori=NEWS0107&Lopenr=707080434&Ref=AR

From my Carlisle-Cambridge-Natick ride today:

( Central Square, 5:01pm )
( Charles River, 5:13pm )
( Chestnut Hill Reservoir, 5:37pm )
( Wellesley, 6:34pm )
( Walden Pond, 8:02pm )