A fall classic
by Jon Worley

My favorite season is autumn. My favorite smell is dead leaf dust (allergies notwithstanding). My favorite month is October. You can imagine how I've felt spending the past three years in subtropical Florida, where the temperatures in October are high of 82, low of 62. Every single day. Rain or shine. The same thing, over and over again. When people asked me what I missed most about living in a temperate zone, I said I was having wet dreams about ice storms. They laughed along, figuring I was joking in my general crude manner.

I wasn't.

Since moving to Pennsylvania last April, I've been looking forward to this month. And even though we had a serious drought all summer and the leaves are mostly turning brown instead of showing off pretty colors, I really don't care. I like the crunch and scent of dead leaves. The ultimate aphrodisiac, in my book.

In celebration of the season, a group of folks from the newspaper where my wife Barbara works got together and planned a bike/camping trip for the weekend. We drove out Saturday, biked 35-40 miles, ate like pigs and drank ourselves to sleep at 10 p.m. Not a bad day.

While I have biked regularly the past 10 years (starting with biking to all my classes in college), I've never done one of these one-day long-haul bikes. When I lived in Battle Creek, I biked 30 miles a day during the summer. But that was four years ago, and it's been a while since I've tested myself like this. Last weekend, Barbara and I did a 25-mile jaunt on a local trail, and those last 5 uphill miles weren't pleasant. We were quite sore, but still satisfied that we could keep up with the folks on this trip.

So on Saturday we hauled down to Fort Frederick State Park in Maryland, set up our tents about 100 feet from the Potomac and took off on the ride. The upper Potomac was in fine form, a slow-moving mass of crystal clear water shimmering in the sun. It had rained the night before, and we were worried that Saturday would follow the same form, but we happily accepted the opposite. Sunny, high around 60. A very soft breeze. Perfect riding weather.

The trail itself runs along the old mule trail for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which follows Maryland banks of the Potomac from Georgetown (in D.C.) to Cumberland, Maryland. The stretch we took on was a bit more than halfway up to Cumberland. The only "major" town along our chosen path was Hancock.

I ended up doing 42 miles, the longest I've ever biked in one day in my life. It hurt. The last 10 miles I was constantly crashing through walls and consuming vast amounts of water (planning ahead, I had more than enough). But I managed to keep up a steady pace and finished the trip in a little under five hours (with about an hour of that taken out for eating lunch). And this result on a flood-damaged trail that had more than a few barely-passable stretches. On a real trail or road I probably could've done 50, 60 or more miles in the same amount of time.

Unlike a few years ago, despite my difficulties I knew I could finish this challenge. When I was growing up, my allergies affected my breathing, and I wasn't big into endurance events. I could win the all-around competition at my cub scout pack's olympics (two years in a row), but I couldn't run a mile. Or, at least, I thought I couldn't. When I went to boy scout camp for the first time, I failed to pass the 50-meter swim test, mostly because I was convinced I couldn't do it. In fact, the wheezing "I can't" noise I made with every breath attracted a huge amount of attention to my floundering.

My strong lungs should have told me something. And while I didn't pass the 50-meter test during that camp session, the next year I completed a more-stringent 100-meter test without any problem. I think that might be where I started to really get a sense of my physical capacity.

I was always a thin kid growing up, and most folks who see me consider me to be thin today. Since I graduated from high school, though, I've grown three inches, and since I graduated from college I've gained 20 pounds. Not large amounts, really, but enough to make me feel like a "regular" person. In fact, at a reunion for my college newspaper a couple years back, the advisor blurted out very loudly, "My God, you've gained weight". I happily agreed. I'm no longer stick-boy. And I can do things like bike 42 miles without completely dying.

Actually, I did feel like I was dying at the end of the ride, but the real difference in my conditioning showed up the next morning. While everyone else (except for two regular bikers who often knock off 100 miles or more in a weekend) acted like they had rigor mortis from stiffness, I felt pretty good. A bit saddle sore, and maybe a twinge in my shoulders, but otherwise pretty good.

This trip was another reason why I like fall. Great weather, where it feels nice to have some sleeves on. A grueling, but satisfying bike ride. A reason to warm up the mulled wine. And the eggs and bacon the next morning tasted better than anything I've eaten in ages. It's like that when you're truly hungry. Nothing like hitting the sweet spot during the best time of the year.

Jon Worley isn't paying much attention to baseball this year. On the subject of fall sports, he is happy to note that the Mizzou Tigers are resting above .500 at the latest point in a season since sometime in the last century (or at least 1982).

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