This isn’t Stipps Hill Road, but it’s not far off. We ride Vanetta Hollow and Sanes Creek, tracing a familiar route having hills that test our legs and our will. Along the way we pass roads with names made familiar during our years of covering Fayette and Franklin counties. There’s Elm Tree, Quarry, and Johnson [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Indiana’
Murder on a nearby road
Posted in road bike, tagged bicycle, bike, Cycling, Indiana, Murder on October 5, 2011 |
A knee to the gut
Posted in road bike, Running, tagged bicycle, Cycling, Indiana, Marathon, road bike, running on October 2, 2011 |
The postcard lies on a counter in my office. Purchased as inspiration, it’s now a reminder of something lost. I didn’t run the Wabash Heritage Trail Marathon today. Pain and instability in my left knee — proof that no good deed goes unpunished — made running that distance impractical. Then again, for the past several [...]
Of snowdrifts and rooster tails
Posted in road bike, tagged bicycle, Cycling, Indiana on February 16, 2011 |
It’s not spring. Far from it. But for a day we ride as if a season has turned. In fact, we are somewhere between seasons — between the trainer and the road. Finding ourselves on dry pavement and in snow melt, throwing grit into our gears and rooster tails onto our backs. Keeping wheels on [...]
There’s blue lettering on the pavement, just after the turn onto Brown Street. Boxed into a myriad of broken lines is a single word. Dig. I’m five miles into the run when I discover that instruction on the blacktop, like a message for someone in need. But there is no reason for me to dig [...]
The art of survival
Posted in Haiku, Running, tagged Haiku, Indiana, Nature, running, Westwood Park on January 23, 2011 |
Wingtips and talons leave messages on fresh snow, like Asian brush strokes. Passing over a myriad of footprints left by man and deer and raccoons, I outrun the hikers and move away from the tracks of forest dwellers, until I’m breaking trail through ankle-deep snow. There’s a stillness here, a cleanness, as if the last [...]
A proper medicine
Posted in Running, tagged Indiana, Nature, running, Trail running, Westwood Park on January 9, 2011 |
The geese talk, conversations like popcorn. Five hundred kernels. Maybe a thousand. I’ve covered more than eight miles of trails, running in snow marked by half a dozen hikers and a single set of mountain bike tracks. The wind is calm, yet the chill deepens slightly as silhouetted treetops begin to dissect the sun. In [...]
Winter’s mark
Posted in Running, tagged Indiana, Nature, running, Trail running, Westwood Park on January 2, 2011 |
The lake speaks, the language of early January. Extraterrestrial chatter rises beyond the trees to my left. It’s a voice seldom heard, and today I am not in a hurry. Working my way through the brush, I duck under branches and past spindly arms that snag my jacket with sharp, triangular-shaped claws. Once out of [...]
As Friday fades
Posted in Running, tagged Big Blue River, Indiana, running on December 31, 2010 |
Dusk approaches, painting the afternoon in monochromes. Everything grays. Teasel, clustering on the far side of the Big Blue River, rising to the sky while pointing to the ground. A sycamore tree, standing with hunched shoulders over the bank, recalling an iron bridge that once stood in this place. Water, scurrying past, understanding nothing but the [...]
Riding again
Posted in road bike, tagged bicycle, Cycling, Indiana on December 29, 2010 |
More like April than December. We return to the bikes, to the roads and to our thoughts. Although the temperature is unseasonably warm, the cold still penetrates layers of clothing, and we ride with our heads down, our focus six feet away, on the pavement directly ahead. I dreamed of Coach Decker last night. We [...]
Tecumseh Trail Marathon 2010
Posted in Running, tagged Indiana, Marathon, running, Tecumseh Trail Marathon, Trail running on December 4, 2010 |
She runs. We return to the woods one final time, five kilometers from the finish. By now the trail through nearly half a foot of snow is worn into a trough, packed hard in some places, precarious mud in others. Regardless, the terrain keeps rolling. The path we follow scampers a rampant course, like a [...]
