Working on a few things

I am working towards a few goals right now that are taking up a lot of my attention, which is why I haven’t posted to the blog in 20 days. Here is a list of things that I should be blogging about, but haven’t put forth the effort.

Training

This has been at the front of my mind for a while. My last post was about the 3 State 3 Mountain challenge, and the very aggressive training schedule I put in front of myself in order to get ready for it. Between weather, changing bikes, work, and life in general, I haven’t been able to deliver 100% to that training. As such, I am far enough behind to require scrapping that schedule and starting again. Or not.

Instead of designing a new schedule that I won’t follow, I may just build in 2-3 days of high intensity shorter rides (hill climbs, or a fast loop) with 2 days of longer endurance rides and a day of rest. As long as I try to keep upping my total mileage by around 10% per week for the next three weeks I should be able to make some progress.

Review

I took delivery of my Serotta last week, and over the first few rides I have been thinking about how to properly write a review of it. I’m working on this. I need better pictures of it.

Nashville blog series

Cory mentioned a few weeks ago that I should write a book about all of the little “hole-in-the-wall” places I know about in Nashville. This is unlikely, but it got me thinking about a blog series covering some of these great places. If only for my own amusement. What to start with? Maybe the beef soup at Las Americas? Maybe seeing Fanboys at Belcourt? Maybe the next cool thing I do in Nashville.

Moleskine drawing challenge

All but abandoned. I still carry the moleskin around with me, but I haven’t put anything in it for weeks. I did realize that I still know how to render with a pen, but a lot of my finer skills of observation have lapsed. Things like knowing what works in ink vs pencil, how to capture something with a minimum of time and unnecessary lines. All of that takes too much upkeep for me to recapture it without a lot of effort.

Smoking

…Meats. So far this spring, 3 chickens and two pork shoulders have fallen prey to a long slow death by smoking. The chickens have proven to be easy fodder, requiring only 2-3 hours on the smoker and minimal preparation. Pork Butts are a weekend only thing. 12 hour brine times, 14 hour smoke times, an entire bag of lump charcoal and constant tending. Not something to tackle during the week. Mmmm. Pork.

Makes me want a big green egg.