The beginning is near

This weekend, rain or shine, I will be biking 150 miles.

I enjoy the challenge, especially early in the summer, as it gives me incentive to bicycle early and often when it gets warm. I haven’t been out as often as I should have been this spring, so my bicycling won’t be as strong as it should be this weekend, but I’ll finish, that shouldn’t be a problem.

The weekend before the MS150 is typically a final tune up. It falls between my camping weekend and the MS150, and I rarely seem to have plans that weekend, so it’s a good weekend for bicycling. Despite occasional showers and regular threats of rain I biked 51 miles on Saturday and 50 miles on Sunday. I ran into mild sprinkles at the end of Sunday’s ride, but otherwise I was very fortunate in my travels.

I am tentatively heading to Stinktown the weekend of Friday, Aug. 3. The Phillies will be in town, so I’ll be able to catch National League baseball during my trip.

I don’t have a lot planned in July, but three weekends in August are tentatively booked. The only thing I have planned for July is a long weekend up north, and plenty of bicycling while I’m there. If everything goes according to plan in July I hope to bike 1,000 miles that month. Last July I biked 670 miles, so obviously I’m raising the bar quite a bit, but I hope to take more time off this July than I did last July.

I don’t typically take a lot of time off in the summer, and it’s stupid not to, since I have to burn off my vacation days by the end of the year. That’s typically what I do, but I hope not to be working for the company by the end of the year, so I’d better enjoy the summer as much as possible.