Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Miles Accumulation
One of my posts to this blog in March of this year was bemoaning the fact that it was my lowest mileage month since I began keeping track of such things on the Daily Mile social site last year. I resolved to change that puny pattern. And so I have. Each month since then has been higher than the one before it, and as I recall at least a couple of them have sequentially registered as the highest ever recorded by me. There is still a third of this month remaining, and I have already recorded the highest number of miles yet in any month. That is hugely helped along by the fact that I added back in cycling and the miles that come along with that. But I am pleased. And I am only about 15 miles away from my June goal of 100 total miles, biking, walking, and running. Yay!
Friday, June 17, 2011
3rd Month in a Row 5k Race
A few minutes ago I registered for next week's Jazz in the Woods 5K race, sticking to my plan of participating in a race every month through the summer-fall. So far, this means I will have done so in April, May & June. The route is in Corporate Woods and mostly pretty flat. I came within a fraction of a second or so on my last one of getting in under 30 minutes, so the goal this time is to finally get that officially accomplished. I came very close to registering for the 10K, It is probably still premature to do that in a race situation, but it is getting closer. One thing that I like about this process is that little thrill thing in the pit of my stomach right after I have completed the registration process.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Sometimes, You Can Go Home Again
This is actually just the commencement of post. Will add more and edit later.
My wife and I recently took a break from family deaths and illness to get away without much of an agenda. Saturday morning began with a visit to beautiful and historically interesting Fort Leavenworth, an hour or so away. This Army fort, founded in the 1820's or 30's, sits commandingly high above the mighty Missouri River on the Kansas side of the river and includes fascinating museums, well preserved and used buildings from the mid-1800s, a variety of memorials, and so on. It has been a tourist friendly facility during much of my life: When my children were little, for example, we would simply drive through the important stone gates with picnic baskets, bicycles, cameras, and leisure time to walk and look and lounge. We have some prized family photos from those forays.
Then 9/11 happened. Of course, access to this impressive facility has never been the same. Our most recent visit, unfortunately, commenced with our being stopped cold at the big entrance gate and promptly guided back out - once our identifications were checked. The gate guard at first attributed our exclusion to the "terrorists" assembled across the road from the Fort. As we gulped loudly, he softened his choice of language from "terrorists" to "protesters". His change of description, frankly, seemed a little reluctant. As we hung around the town of Leavenworth for the next couple of hours, we realized that a small group of rag-tag almost unnoticeable protesters had assembled from around the country to voice an opinion about the imprisonment of ______________ Manning, the young soldier alleged to have passed information on to Wikileaks. He had just been moved to the maximum security military prison at Fort Leavenworth from Guantonomo. I have no idea what the subject of the protests may have been. But, of course, I understood that the Army does not want to confront such activity on its on post. And for all the guard could have been able to tell, we might have been a surreptitious group of the same intending to make our way onto the facility. But, it was a disappointment.
My wife and I recently took a break from family deaths and illness to get away without much of an agenda. Saturday morning began with a visit to beautiful and historically interesting Fort Leavenworth, an hour or so away. This Army fort, founded in the 1820's or 30's, sits commandingly high above the mighty Missouri River on the Kansas side of the river and includes fascinating museums, well preserved and used buildings from the mid-1800s, a variety of memorials, and so on. It has been a tourist friendly facility during much of my life: When my children were little, for example, we would simply drive through the important stone gates with picnic baskets, bicycles, cameras, and leisure time to walk and look and lounge. We have some prized family photos from those forays.
Then 9/11 happened. Of course, access to this impressive facility has never been the same. Our most recent visit, unfortunately, commenced with our being stopped cold at the big entrance gate and promptly guided back out - once our identifications were checked. The gate guard at first attributed our exclusion to the "terrorists" assembled across the road from the Fort. As we gulped loudly, he softened his choice of language from "terrorists" to "protesters". His change of description, frankly, seemed a little reluctant. As we hung around the town of Leavenworth for the next couple of hours, we realized that a small group of rag-tag almost unnoticeable protesters had assembled from around the country to voice an opinion about the imprisonment of ______________ Manning, the young soldier alleged to have passed information on to Wikileaks. He had just been moved to the maximum security military prison at Fort Leavenworth from Guantonomo. I have no idea what the subject of the protests may have been. But, of course, I understood that the Army does not want to confront such activity on its on post. And for all the guard could have been able to tell, we might have been a surreptitious group of the same intending to make our way onto the facility. But, it was a disappointment.
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