The Jericho Mile and My Miles

Rachel has been doing some travel in her position as an admissions representative for the University of Minnesota at their Rochester campus. She visits high schools to meet face to face with students to make them aware of UMR's program and to generate interest in it. Typically, her stops are within a few hours of Rochester and they will often include overnight stays but last weekend found her in Tempe, Arizona where she was attending a CIVSA seminar. She enjoys the travel, especially when it takes her to much warmer climes in the dead of winter.

Our Spectrum Cable bill is well over $200 per month and we're not even getting any premium channels. Part of what's driving it is the cost of renting the boxes that serve each television. We currently rent 6 boxes, down from 8. I think we can get by with 6 sets. I know—embarrassing. There are few other options for us other than Spectrum. I've heard such horrible things about Comcast's support that I won't even consider them. Spectrum has been very attentive to any of our needs especially when it comes to connectivity issues that we'll occasionally experience and so we remain with them.

We still have a VCR but it had been offline for a few years until last week. There's a video I'd been wanting to watch with Tammy for the longest time since buying the tape online several years ago but I lacked the motivation to climb behind the cabinetry that surrounds our TV in the basement and do the necessary contortions to get at the wiring—until now. The movie Jericho Mile is one of my favorites. It was a 1979 made-for-TV movie starring Peter Strauss who played the part of Larry Murphy, a man serving a life sentence for killing his father in what he felt was a justified act. He serves his time by keeping mostly to himself, running laps on a dirt track around the prison yard in worn-out basketball shoes. But he's fast and he catches the eye of one of the staff who recognizes his raw talent. The movie is filmed among the inmates at Folsom State Prison and delves into the dynamics of the prison population.

Here's a trailer for the film and here's a link to the full version on YouTube. I highly recommend it!

I used last week to log more miles on my feet in one week than I ever have, mostly at Mall of America where I walk laps switching between levels with each trip around the mall. In another lifetime when I was a runner I'd typically run 50 to 60 miles each week with occasional peaks of more than 70 miles. Those were no slouch miles as I pounded them out trying to keep my pace at 7 minutes per mile or better. I sucked at holding back and salting my workouts with easy days. I know my knees would've been thankful had I not been so demanding of them.

I couldn't seem to get enough of my time walking last week and before I was done I had amassed 87.81 miles (141 km) of walking at a pace of between 14 and 15 minutes per mile. And my knees never complained. Hey, I'm retired and can guiltlessly engage in such ridiculous endeavors. It was fun.

My fat-bike has been idle for a month but I hope to be on it again soon. For now, I'm content to ride my indoor trainer using an online program called Zwift where I ride with others who are also hammering out miles on their indoor trainers. It's very motivational and has some quite cool graphics to add to the experience. I had my first ride with the program this afternoon and had a blast!

Time to head over to the Zwift FAQ page and learn more about the program and what it can do.