September 27, 2011, ~4:15pm:
I cycled to Dane’s today. The
triathlon wheels – the ‘Hed Jet’ wheels I bought from Brian back in the day –
were still on my bike from the race Mia and I did last fall. They are heavy,
and make a whooshing sound when I ride. They are unnecessary. I took these
wheels off the bike, but needed the tires. The tires on my lightweight wheels
are bald, some grey stringy stuff showing beneath the black rubber cover of the
front one. I recall needing to bum a spare back tire from the mechanics at the
last Livestrong Challenge ride I did a few years ago. It would never have made
those 100 miles. So I took the tires from the tri wheels and put them on the
light wheels. Done and done.
I felt strong riding to Dane’s.
Without music on, I thought. I thought I’d write about Dane’s Garage Strength,
turn it into a long-term project that I might sell to Outside or Men’s Journal,
one of those. And the Reading paper.
Since visiting last time with Mia
after (or before?) our wedding, the ‘garage’ (really the barn nowadays) has come
a long way. On my last visit, Dane was still training out of his parents garage
(hence the name) on Slater Rd (where we use to race his minivan against my Jeep
Wrangler). The barn is now complete, and huge. In it Dane has several climbing
ropes, monkey bars, kettlebells, weight sleds, Olympic bars, benches, dumbbells
and frozen chickens. And a large driving range bucket full of eggs that his
hens just laid. He showed me how he eats the yolks, raw. Ordinarily this is
supposed to sound disgusting in an article like this, but I see it otherwise. I
make soft-boiled eggs for breakfast regularly, and Dane assures me his freshly
laid eggs are as warm as the ones I’m eating from the stove. There are no
machines in Dane’s barn.
The walls are painted white, and he
has several white boards around the place with peoples names and various
strength and conditioning programs. Three young girls were working out
together. They each did several legitimate pull-ups, followed immediately by
rubber-band assisted bodyweight dips. Then they moved on to the sled. It has
three snowplane like feet on it, with space to fit weight plates on the top.
Attached at the front end is a natural hemp rope, about 30’ long and fatter
than my forearm (which is not all that fat). The girls took turns lying flat on
their backs on the floor at one end of the barn (on a rubberized indoor/outdoor
carpet that spans the center of the barn), and pulling the weighted sled across
the room towards them, hand over hand. The two not participating assisted when
the one on the floor struggled near the end. Later, they got into a pushup
position on the same floor, only their feet were on a 12x12 square wooden
platform (like those we played with in elementary school gym class) with office
chair wheels on the bottom. They walked across the room on their hands, while a
heavy chain hung around there necks. The girls are freshmen in high school.
They are swimmers.
“You should be here around 6:30,
this place gets nuts.”
Dane took me outside to see the
130 hens he has in the field out back, a flock (?) that has multiplied
substantially since I saw it last. The one lone rooster in the pen with the
hens strutted. Opposite the movable, outdoor chicken coop (happy chickens!),
Dane had set up a concrete throwing platform, two circles for shotput and one
for the discus. In the barn on the lower level were a few dozen baby chickens
that let me pick them up.
I told Dane of my inspiration,
and he is enthusiastic. Tomorrow I’ll start my month-long training and spend as
much time at the farm as I can until October 28, when I have to be in Virginia
for work.
“Cailtin’s dad had Lincoln
baptized while I was gone. I asked him if there was any way to un-baptize him.”
“Everyone thought I named him
after Abe. He’s named after a wrestler. Cailtin was unsure at first until we
drove through Gettysburg, with Lincoln shit everywhere. She said, ‘I guess I
kind of like that name.’ Lincoln’s not named after Abe though.”
