Bicycling across America and Climbing Mt. Everest in 2011

Despite all of the athletic things I did as a young man, I end 2011 with the feeling that even though I am 62, I may be as physically fit and even more than I ever have been.  It's been eight years since a hip replacement and the end of smoking.  It's been two full years of bicycling with gusto and hiking with passion.  If the tale is in the tape, I covered 4,324.59 intentionally man-powered miles:

• 4,034.69 on my bike (Mom did 2,467.18)
• 40.19 swimming in the pool (Mom did an incredible 83.72)
• 249.59 hiking in the desert (we always hike together)

I started the year with a biking goal of 3,000 miles after doing 2,700 in 2010.  Once I knew I would get there, I wanted to knock of 3,500 so I could say I biked from Presque Isle, Maine to San Diego.  I'm pleased to have knocked that off and then some.  We hike with a Garmin Forerunner.  Over those 250 hiking miles, we climbed in elevation 35,189 feet, nearly 7 miles, some 6,000 feet higher than Mt. Everest, and we were on the trails for 73 hours in the process.

Mom turns 60 in January.  We're feeling pretty good about ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually.  Life is Grand, and it will get even better.

Presque Isle, Maine to San Diego, California

This morning your Mom and I rode into downtown Tucson with our friends Barb and Gerry.  The ride was exactly 27 miles from our house.  It was an easy ride by our standards.  The Urban Loop is relatively flat, very smooth and well maintained, and we don't seem to experience the wind we do in the open range.  When we got home, I re-calculated all of my numbers with MapQuest.  According to MapQuest, the distance from Presque Isle, Maine to San Diego, California is 3,311.99 miles.  The 27 miles I rode this morning moved me to 3,312.35; I've made it from coast to coast in 2011.  With two months left in 2011, I may make it to Hawaii!  Your Mom capped 1,800 miles, 1,803.67 to be exact, and she's only been tracking miles since May! We enjoy riding with our friends Barb and Gerry as much as we enjoy getting the exercise.  Life is Grand.  May you all be blessed and motivated to stay fit and enjoy life with a passion.  That's why God put us here!

1,000 miles

The 1993 film "Benny and Joon" featured the song "I'm Gonna Be (500 miles).  Occasionally, I'll be riding my bike and the chorus repeats itself over and over in my brain:


              But I would walk 500 miles
              And I would walk 500 more
              Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
              To fall down at your door

Well this week, your Mom hit that 1,000 mile mark.  On Thursday, she broke the 1,000-mile bike barrier and upped her annual total to 1,019.87[today it reached 1,035.02] NOT including the several hundred miles she accumulated before she started using the Forerunner.


WELL DONE, MARIE!

50

Okay, kids .... you'll remember when we used Mom as a "cone" when we played our physical games.  Let me tell you:  a LOT has changed over the years, particularly in 2011 when Mom as committed herself to riding her bike Monday through Friday [10 miles minimum, up to 20 and averaging 75 miles/week] and swimming 120 laps  [3/4 mile daily] AND power hiking with me on weekends.  This afternoon, Mom topped me two games to three in pool volley ball, and it took me three games to knock her and Grandpa off ... six games total for the weekend.  Miom is setting an example of commitment and determination.  Pick up the gauntlet!  By the way, up until today, my top bike ride was 47 miles.  I set out this morning at 0615.  Twenty miles in when I reached the Red Hills Visitor Center at the Saguaro National Park, I told myself I would get to 50 miles on this ride.  When I pulled into the garage, I logged 59.25 miles.  That puts me at 447.83 for the month of July; I've never topped 400 miles before.

The Vitruvian Man Project

If you've come across this, my personal blog, I invite you to visit a project I call The Vitruvian Man.

www.thevitruvianman.org

Forever Young

You may find this odd, but here it is.  Yesterday morning in the darkness of the church, I had this calm, but very clear vision/sensation/feeling -- and I even mentioned it to Mom in the evening -- that I was going to live to be a healthy and productive 100-years old.  Maybe it's because the narrator of my new manuscript is 100.  Regardless, when I got up this morning, Brad sent me an email with a quote from the book he's currently reading.

"...this 95 year old man came hiking twenty five miles over the mountain. Know why he could do it? Because no one ever told him he couldn't. No one ever told him he oughta be off dying somewhere in an old age home."

from Born to Run by Christopher McDougall