The Dawners

As the earth continues to rotate and travel its orbital path, we are slowly leaving summer in our wake. In California, Santa Barbara in particular, we are very fortunate a very very very very very very long warm season. However, just like the rest of the world we are also starting to loose a couple minutes of daylight every day. In fact, because of the time I work, the last few rides have been almost exclusively in the dark.

I was talking with a friend the other day about winter as a bike commuter. There was a period of a couple weeks last year where I left the house in the dark and got to work before the sun had rose and then left after it had already set... that's right... about 1.5 hours of commuter mileage with out one ray of sunlight.

I am sure it will start to bother me in another month or so but right now I am really enjoying the change in pace.

I see the same few people on my morning commute out and about exercising... We wave to one another and have sort of developed a report. The faces tend to change with the light and the fair weather morning joggers and commuters tend to dwindle out leaving only the dedicated. I call these breed the Dawners. The ones who's schedules do not allow for coffee at 9:30 and then a ride around 10. The ones who have two kids, a full time jab and still manage to make time for their daily meditation. The ones who understand that cycling and running are not just exercise but a lifestyle...

This is the running club

I got my hands on SBCC's x country teams work out from the 2008 season... I think I am going to give one of their weeks worth of training a whirl... man do those guys run a lot!