Father's Day

Ibuprofen was my friend today. Yesterday, I pushed myself at the Midnight Sun Run and today, my hips are sore. I think I need to learn how to run. Whenever I started taking longer steps, still maintaining roughly the same step rate, I naturally went faster (duh!). It didn't really seem to take much more effort but I was able to cover much more distance in the same number of step. I guess it is something else to learn or at least train for. As I've mentioned before, I walk a lot but rarely run. In fact, my running is really closer to jogging except I think I remember hearing that running was both feet off of the ground at some point in your stride. I do meet that definition but my steps are only a little longer than when walking.

It was still raining this morning so I rode the bike to church this morning. After church, for some reason, the bike turned right out of the parking lot and I managed to turn a one mile trip into a twenty mile trip. The rain had stopped by then and it was a wonderful trip. The asphalt was torn up in a couple places on Ballaine Road and Goldstream Road and I must admit that I still feel uneasy with the gravel. I guess I'm still a bit gun shy after my run in with gravel last month. No problems at all in fact it was kind of fun. Back a couple of years ago when I started to look for a bike, I was trying to find a nice used cruiser, specifically a 2004 or newer Harley Sportage (rubber mounted engine). I just like the way they looked and sounded. Here in Fairbanks, the Harley dealer is also the BMW dealer and that is where I found my '83 R100RT, I guess the salesman didn't think I was the HD type and asked whether I had considered a BMW. I had not at all since I didn't really like the "lean over the tank" feel of the sport bikes. I had classified BMWs as sport bikes sort of fitting the character of the cars. The '83 RT was there on consignment and it is a "standard" and a touring bike and came with a full complement of hard bags. Not a cruiser like I was originally looking for. When these bikes were new, way back when I was a graduate student, I really liked the way they looked. But if I were shopping for a bike now, I would be looking for a dual sport bike such as a F650GS. Quite a change from the Sportster that I was originally looking at. The top picture is a 1983 R100RT BMW (same color and model as mine but a much better picture). The middle picture is a 2005 Harley Davidson Sportster. The bottom is a BMW F650GS, year unknown. All off of the Internet from Google image search.

Tonight, my oldest son took everyone out to dinner to celebrate Fathers Day and I have to admit, I really appreciate it. My stepson also wished me a happy Fathers Day and that was really welcome as well. All in all, a nice Father's Day.