Feeling at Home on the Bike

Day 15 – 02/18/09

I just came up with my new phrase for training days like these. The uphill hustle. Cheesy I know, but that is what is seems like. On days like today when I don’t have very much time but want to get in a ride that I can call a work out, I have started just going biking strait for the hills. So the small amount of time that I am on the bike my legs are in over drive and getting a nice burn. My trip was to my friend Devon’s house, just off of Washington St. It was a nice ride, I was twisting and turning up the hill and then my cell phone alarm started going off and I really didn’t want to stop riding because I was so close to the top of the hill. But unfortunately I had to turn around and go back to my apartment. The time went by so fast…its nice having that feeling. That feeling that I don’t want to get off my bike, that I feel at home on it, that I feel as though I can ride for hours. I know when I did my 1.5 hour ride to Stoneham I felt as though I could continue to ride for hours more. Having this feeling has put into my head the idea of riding to Lowell. This ride should take me around 3 hours and I am going to be doing it on Monday the 23rd of February. This will be great. It is the first day that I have completely off (no rehearsals or work, just a day with my self and my bike!). I think that it will be a nice comfortable ride with plenty of things to see and do. Plus I will end up in Lowell with Lara, which is always nice. For the planning of the trip I have been watching the weather. So far it seems as though it will be a bit windy (hooray) and the temperature will be around 30-40 degrees (not bad if I do say so my self). I am going to be checking out the maps for the next couple of days so I can make sure to stay off highways and be able to have a safe enjoyable ride.
Saturday I am going to go on a medium length ride to….I don’t know where. I will figure it out when I get up that morning. I am sure that it will have lots of good things to see and write about.

All right so I would like to start opening my rides up to other’s ideas. So if you have an idea of a place that you would like me to ride to or have a suggestion on a type of destination that you think would be interesting to hear about, just make a comment on this blog and I will do that ride (if humanly possible). I want all sorts of ideas so let me have them. This is something that I want to incorporate in to my ride across the country also because I want you to let me know about places that you have been or would like to hear about all across the country and I will see if I can do them.

I have 26.24 miles to go before the end of Sunday and my 100 mile dead line.

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 2.23 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 20 min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 10 hrs 10 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 73.76 Miles

Assuming Pie = Pi

Day 14 – 2/17/09

“I’m going to make a pie!” Says the little kid with red and yellow blocks. “What kind of pie?” I asked. “The Greek letter pi!” the little kid says with a serious look on his face.

I had this conversation today during my layover on my bike ride. Of course the kid would make the Greek letter pi, isn’t that what every 4 year old means when he/she say Pie/pi? How silly of me to assume….

My ride today was quick and easy, to Allston and back to my apartment. I have gotten in the groove of riding on Harvard St. I just needed to build up some confidence and get my bike into the lane that I want to be in. (the intersection of Harvard and Brighten still gets me a bit though) I have had a conversation with another cross country biker veteran. His name is Sean (or Shawn) he talked to me about his ride across the northern part of the country with his friends working on AIDs awareness. He gave me some great tips on who to contact while traveling. He said that I should contact alumni from my college because they are probably scattered across the country and are usually willing and able to house someone for the night. I really had not thought about that but hey that’s why I am doing my research. I also got a great story from Sean. While he was in Wyoming he and his buddies had run out of water so they decided to go to this small town that they found on the map. When they arrived the town turned out to be a single bar that only had whisky! So as far as their problem water there was not a fix but hey they eventually got a coke out of it (which helped allot).
When I was riding back, after making my favorite pi, I was thinking about how people assume so much. Like my assumption with Oliver (the 4 year old) and things about everyday life. Assuming that one family’s rules for their house, are the same as yours, is a common one that I have run into. I grew up with a pretty open door policy with friends coming over. People would come over to watch movies, play games at really any time and it was great! Everybody was always welcome to get food or drinks from the fridge and they could have as much as they wanted. Now I’m not saying that when I go over to somebody’s house I just rummage through their cupboards looking for anything I want and taking it, I just simply expect when people come over to my place they know that they can take what ever they want and not have to worry about inconveniencing me. I have always felt as though people wont take advantage of that, but for some reason people do, I guess (I really haven’t met anyone that does do that but I hear they are out there) When ever I hear the word assume that silly phrase always runs through my head “assuming makes an ASS out of U and ME”. I guess I thought it was a funny way of learning how to spell the word, but I think that, to assume the worse out of people or things is what really applies to that phrase. I simply assume that people are trust worthy and that they mean no harm. Whether that makes me naïve, I don’t really care, it has worked well for me so far in my life. Now in the case of the assumption of the Pie vs. Pi, I don’t think there really was any negative assumption going on, but what assuming did cause was a narrow-minded thought process. Assuming that the only pie that Oliver could be talking about was a cherry pie, limited my possibility of thinking outside the box and seeing all the variations that could be there. I think that I simply need to assume that there are always going to be different ways of thinking about everything no matter which way you slice the pi.

P.S. Yes the color planks used to create pi were symmetrical also....what a kid, right?

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 3.4 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 15 min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 9 hrs 50 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 71.53 Miles

SLACKER

Day 13 - 2/15/09

So for the last couple of days I have not been getting on the bike as often as I hoped. I haven’t yet been able to balance going into tech for my play, work at Eureka, and getting my riding done (along with you know…living in general). So I slacked off on the one thing that seemed to be the easiest thing to slack off on, biking… but NO MORE! This next week is going to be one of my busiest I have had in a while. I am going to be working way more than I am used to at Eureka and then we have tech for “Dark Play…” (which opens on Friday, everybody should go! http://www.apollinairetheatre.com/) , and my new goal is to get to 100 miles in total by Sunday the 22nd of February. On February the 22nd I will rejoice and then watch the Oscars (and see MILK and Slumdog Millionaire win all the awards). I will provide pictures of my trips and keep the blog updated with the latest adventures.

The little riding that I have done in the last couple of days (which has been 5 minutes rides to grocery stores) there has been lots of wind!!! Nature must have read my last post and wanted to play a cruel joke.

Quick question:
I would love to hear something from all of you.
What time of day do you find yourself checking my blog? (This is so I can make sure to keep it updated so you aren’t reading multiple entries at a time.)

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 1 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 5 min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 9 hrs 35 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 68.13 Miles

Smooth Sailing - My Encounters with No Wind

Day 12 – 2/10/09
As far as riding today I did very little, just into Allston and back. It did not have any crazy adventure but it allowed me enough time to think about a question that was ask of me. I was told by my friend David Lawson that he liked my blog but he hasn’t read anything about wind yet…it pulled me back…I mean my freakin blog is called Bike Against the Wind so shouldn’t there be some wind? To explain this I should go back to why I gave that title to my project in the first place. When I first started talking about doing a bike trip, one of the questions was, which way do I ride, east to west or west to east? To my understanding the majority of the people that bike across the country go from west to east. I live in the east so I figured the most logical way to bike would be to go from my home to the west. The only thing with that is that the natural wind pattern across the country is west to east, so my trip would be Against the Wind. Thus the name. So, for the people that are asking the same question that David asked, I have not encountered that much wind, just a bit riding west on beacon st. but other than that it has been pretty smooth sailing.

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 3.4 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 15 min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 9 hrs 30 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 67.13 Miles

The Community on Top the Hill

Day 11 – 02/09/09
I don’t know if any of you have been to chestnut hill but…whoa. For those of you who don’t know the area that I am talking about, Chestnut Hill is a beautiful hill that is near Boston College. It is populated by large amounts of New England trees along with the largest freakin mansions you have ever seen. And these mansions are not just big houses they have an elegance and image to them that gives off the feeling that there is no other word but mansion to describe.
I started my ride just thinking that I would go for a nice relaxing 40 min ride through some forested area. Little did I know that I would be climbing a 60 degree incline road leading to a community of luxury and history. Once I got to the top of the hill (which I did without stopping once, Hooray!) I took a picture to prove that I did it. In the picture the road just drops off in the background, that drop off is the vertical drop of a road. Looking at all these mansions amazed me. The beauty of the artwork in the layout of the building and then on top of that the landscaping and statues that were in the front yards were just breathtaking. I felt as though I had wondered into the early 1900’s and was expecting someone to appear dressed in “Gone with the Wind” garb. I turned around at Chestnut Hill Academy which had a beautiful campus that looked like a section of Hogwarts (Go Harry Potter reference). While I went back down the road I was thinking about what type of community the people that own these mansions must live in. They have created a secluded place where they would not need to leave except to go to work. They have an academy for the young kids and then they live right next to Boston College, then there are grocery stores and everything else they need within a short distance to their homes. With all this convenience and seclusion, do they talk to each other? Do these people have a community where their kids can run next door and play in the basement or go trick or treating without worry? Is there a social atmosphere in this community on a hilltop that is not achievable in the city or even in my apartment complex? I’ve started reading a book called Outliers by Malcom Gladwell, This book is the study of what makes successful people in our society so successful. It is very interesting so far and the one thing that has really intrigued me is, in the intro Gladwell talks about this town in Pennsylvania call Roseto. Southern Italians that migrated to the United States back in the 1800’s inhabit Roseto. There was a study done on these people and their health in relation to their social environment. In this town everybody knew everybody and they all talked to everybody everyday. Life was lived with each other instead of separated from each other. A doctor could not figure out why these perfectly average people who had the same exercise, and eating habits as everybody else would have a 80% higher life expectancy. The majority of the people in Roseto would die of old age instead of some desieas or heart attach. The only thing that this doctor could come up with was the fact that these people lived low stress highly social lives. This type of community is something that I am very interested in learning more about. I would like to think that the people up in Chestnut Hill live the same way that the people in Roseto do but I have a feeling that our society being the way it is those inhabitants of those mansions probably don’t even talk to each other. I hope some one proves me wrong.

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 5.6 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 55 min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 9 hrs 15 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 63.99 Miles

Past the Reaches of the T

Day 10 – 2/7/09

My first “long trip”…. comparatively. Living in the city with everything so close together and not having a car, it makes anything that is not accessible by the T (subway for you non Bostonians) just way to far to get to. I mean who would go anywhere where the T doesn’t go…right? A couple of years ago I had heard of this far off place that one of my professors used to live, this far off place was called Stoneham. It was a mystical land that I thought I would never venture near because; well it wasn’t in the 5-mile radius of the city. The mention of this mystical town came into my life recently when Lara Fox was visiting a friend, Ashley, there and I decide to go and visit. But wait, how could I, a lonely city folk, get way far out to Stoneham…a feakin bike! Looking at the map on Google, Stoneham did look pretty far and it was 2 times farther away than any bike ride I have done so far, so I prepped for a great adventure. I wore extra cloths, I packed food, and water, and I printed out directions (walking directions that I altered to make sure I wasn’t biking down a busy one way). And I set out…After taking the wrong turn in Cambridge and ending up at the alewife T stop (which is way to far east of where I was going) I had to sacrifice some time and energy to find my way back to the trail that I had originally planed on taking. Once on track it was smooth sailing. I was going to ride through Middlesex Fells Reservation, which looked like an enjoyable ride, and then I would get to hang out with some grand people. I was cruising along College ave. past tufts university then getting on Main st. in Medford which was a nice calming ride then…. I came to the turning point in my ride. To get to 28, which goes right through the reservation, I had to get through a ROTARY!!! (For those of you that don’t know what a rotary is, let me explain. It is a death trap, where cars drive very fast in a circle till they feel like getting off, then they cut through the two lanes of traffic and jet off in a direction that could or could not be the right one. Supposedly it helps the flow of traffic, but I see it as a minnie NASCAR track that people can enjoy on their way to work.) So this circle of death lay in front of me and I thought to my self “this cant be safe, there has to be another way around”. I asked a local (man in a pickup truck) and he said that the only way that he knew how to get to 28 was to get on the rotary… so I checked in with myself and took a deep breath, came to peace with the universe and started pedaling. I got to the rotary entrance and started pedaling faster to catch up to the speed that the cars were going. My senses were on high alert, I felt as though I could see every movement of every driver of every car, I pulled into the outer lane then signaled with my hand to move to the center lane, the cars coming up behind me were your average oversized SUV and of course the HUGE SEMI truck. This made me sooo calm… I just focused ahead of me and realized that I needed to get to the outside lane because my exit was next so I signaled again with my hands and shot out of the rotary like a freaking bullet onto 28. The whole experience was probably 45 seconds but HOLY CRAP it felt like an eternity to me. After that I stopped in front of this nice little pizza place and had to breathe for a bit. After making a call to Lara telling her that I am alive I pedaled on. The cool thing about riding on 28 is that no body else is on that road. I had a 2-lane road to my self and I got to admire the gorgeous land that surrounded me. I passed by the entrance to the actual reservation and am going to definitely come back and ride in there. When I was about 3/4th through the reservation where 28 crosses over highway 93, I had to stop and take a picture because it amazed me how this huge highway literally cuts through this amazing land, and the people on the road probably don’t get to look out and enjoy all the beauty of what they are bypassing. It made me sad and angry. I know that man and nature have not gotten along to well but to see this highway as a scar on this land affected me. I am sure that on my travels across the country I will run into this sort of example everywhere. And I know that without these highways the country would not be the free and open travel country that it is but man we could have made the highways more attractive couldn’t we? Getting to Stoneham was very nice. It was a beautiful little new England town. I wanted to look around some more but it was getting dark and I had a play date with Lara and Ashley.
Looking back on the ride, the most enjoyable parts where when I was in the middle of the reservation, I felt apart of something, the land (maybe)? I will be exploring this feeling in the future but until I have another day where I can venture off into he woods of Massachusetts, I will bike in my little cement world of Boston and try and stay connected with that bit of my world. At least now I know that there is more out there past where the T lines end.

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 13 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 2 hr 25 min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 8 hrs 20 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 58.39 Miles

Mind vs. Mood (don't let the voices win)

Day 9 – 2/5/09
Sore throats suck…they just plain do. I woke up and there it was, that great pain in the back of my throat just daring me to swallow so it can inflict its wrath upon my esophagus. After attempting to not move my throat in anyway I got some water and vitamin C and Zinc and all the vitamins that are supposed to kick the crap out of that little twit and I downed them in one gulp. After that was taken care of I looked at the clock and I had a half hour to do a ride…but I’m sick…don’t get on the bike Mark you’ll just get sicker…the excuses just started rolling in, there isn’t enough time, you’ll be late for work, David(my boss and Eureka puzzles and games) will fire you, you’ll lose your job, you’ll loose your apartment, you’ll have to live off the streets and eat gravel for brunch…you know the normal non motivating voices that are in every bodies head (right?). Well I put that all aside and put on my long johns and my four layers of sweatshirts and got on the bike even if it meant I had to eat gravel for brunch. The ride was short, about 20 min. and I am glad I did it just to keep the habit up but man was my mood a downer. Everything seemed to make things worse, the wind, the cars on the road, the people in the cars, everything just made me want to go home and sleep. After the ride I started focusing on better things, on happy thoughts and that made my mood change. One of those happy thoughts was, I received a message on my Facebook wall from my best friend Cody Fitch saying and I quote, “My ass and my legs hate you for inspiring me to get on a bike again.” This made me overjoyed!! Me inspiring Cody to start riding a bike…me. I later found out that he has set a goal to ride to his work (which is across town) by the end of the summer. He hasn’t touched a bike in 9 years and he is starting to peddle again. I am so excited for him and I know that in the future we will be doing some bike trips together. GO, CODY, GO! As the vitamins started kicking ass and my joy for Cody filled my body, my day became another beautiful day of excitement and adventure. Ohhh how the mind affects the mood sooo much.

P.S. Saturday i am doing a day trip ride to Stoneham Mass to meet up will Lara Fox and her friend Ashley. It will be a ride though Middlesex Fells Reservation. I'll take photos and update my blog as soon as I can.

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 2.67 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 20 min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 5 hrs 55 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 45.39 Miles