10 or 12 degrees below average

As reported elsewhere on the internet we are currently receiving about the same amount of sun light per day as we will be receiving in late August.  Even six inches of new snow doesn't stand much of a chance against that much sun.

The average high for the day now exceeds 60 which would be really nice but about noon today it was sunny and nearly 50.  The weather channel said 70 percent chance of rain turning to snow but a check of the radar showed that the first wave of all of that had passed through already (although it WAS snowing in Brainerd) and the second wave looked to be an evening arrival.  Well, 50.  I have gear for that.  I had to roll through a bit of unmelted snow in the shadow of the garage and a trickle of water at the end of the driveway but I was rolling.

And it turns out to be a good thing I did.  I rolled through the Fairgrounds to discover that the rent a fence is already in place for the first big event of the season.  Jeez, I would have hated to miss the first deployment of the fence.

It's the Minnesota Horse Expo.
 
One thing about the season kicking off this late into the calendar is that the sun is a factor.  I don't usually have to find the SPF 40 for the first rides of the year.  Today I went looking for it.  So, there I suddenly was, out there riding around with sun screen on my face.  Pretty much all of the rest of my epidermis was concealed by at least one and often two or three layers of cloth.

Really, really keen and hyper aware observers may note from this photo that the chamber orchestra musician strike seems to have been settled.  At least the last time I was at this location there was a sign in the yard supporting the musicians.

Anyone who knows me at all well knows where I line up in each and every dispute between labor and management (Kevin Garnett famously said when some complained about his $116 million contract, "If the man is willing to pay me that much money, how much money must the man have?").  I don't much follow the chamber orchestra but up with labor.

But the interesting bit for me there today (other than the presence of still quite a bit of snow) was that the photo location is the turn back point on what I refer to (when talking to myself, not a single other person cares about this) as the out and back Library 3 miler.

That makes it pretty darn close to one and a half miles from my house as the crow flies.  Today I paused for the photo with just over 10 miles on the odometer.

So the second ride of the year.  How did it feel?  Almost exactly the same as the first one, to tell the truth.  Of course, a fifteen day lay off between first and second ride is quite likely to dull the fitness benefits, whatever they might be, of the first ride.

Most years I have average goals in each month that on a short hand basis works out to I try to keep my average miles per day for the month up to 20 or as near to that as I can manage.  With today's ride I am now averaging over 1 mile per day for the month.  If I can manage to maintain this pace I can reach, indeed, somewhere over 30 miles this month.

4,000 miles for the year is officially, undoubtedly, off the books.  It's OK, 4,000 was starting to be a bit of burden.  3,000 this year.

And maybe, just maybe, I have finally gotten started.