Riding and Going Nowhere

 Dreary and warm ride down to Jefferson Barracks park this morning..

 Sylvan, this park holds a special place in my heart.

 I rode around the skate park.  Love the berm action!

 My shit bike is positively light weight compared to this monster.

 Calm and very low, the Mississippi river.

 The start of the greenway.

 You can really see how low the river is here at Carondelet.

 A good read.

Fascinating bridge that ends at the overlook.

Trail Running. Or What To Do On Mountain Bike Trails without a Bike

A few months ago a running race caught my eye.  Running never usually catches my eye.  But this run was on the Beulah trail at Greensfelder, which is where I ride my mountain bike quite a bit.  What fun!  A caveat was that it was at night.  And a timed event, sort of like endurance mountain bike events.  You could run for 9 hours (what the hell??), 6 hours (you kidding me?), or 3 hours, everyone ending at midnight.  Ok, still sounded like fun.

I talked a few of my coworkers into doing the race.  Sometime in December I started running a bit so that I could do this thing.  I didn't really run enough but I did some strong runs and really thought I was solid.  I got a sinus infection two weeks ago and that made me fear the worst.  I did the race anyway.  I hadn't run much over 10 miles until last night, but it wasn't the distance.  I just suffered from the word go.  I muddled through and finished 3 laps, right at 13.1 miles.

 Strava was very impressed.

I did finish in the top ten.  Top five would have been nice.  But it really, really was all I had.  No more.  No mas.  Finished.  Done.  It was right around 20 degrees at race time.  My water froze.  I kicked a rock in the most technical section and yardsaled, full spread eagle, at about the 2/3 point. And the third lap saw quite a bit of freezing drizzle and snow, which made the last rocky section really treacherous.

I was the first old guy to finish, though.  And there was some 63 year old dude only a couple of places behind me!

Overall I would say that it was a great experience.

Hanna Turns 18 only Once in Her Life!

Hanna turned 18 last week.  Which means she can vote, go to war, and probably do a lot of other adult things.  Besides that other important stuff, we toured Webster University which offered her quite a scholarship.  Curiously, they even had her name on a parking space in front of the building!

After the tour, it was time to get down to business.  We went to lunch with the family and there was this cake.  Since cousin Max has his birthday only a few days from hers, quite often we celebrate them together.  This cake was quite cool, because he turned 20 and she turned 18...in 2018.  Get it??

The obligatory posing with the cake.  Someone made it a point to point out that although Hanna played soccer and Max played football, no one knows why there were basketballs on the cake.  Food for thought.

 And then my three kids posed together.  They are good kids.

And then I had this abnormally cute photo of Rex that I had to share and this is as good as any place I can think of to put it!