Day: July 1, 2023

Swim Notes

lpaulriddle

We certainly had weird weather this past spring. Early on, it was wet, and then we had drought conditions for a couple of months. Now, the pattern has changed again, and early summer has alternated between cloudy, humid, stormy days and hazy, smoky days, depending on the wind direction. As a result, the sun hasn’t been really strong at all this summer, so the pool water has stayed pretty cool. Today, I swam in 78°F water, which is almost unheard of on July 1. It’s an almost perfect swimming temperature, though.

I’ve finally decided to try to swim backstroke regularly on the tether. It’s the only Olympic swimming stroke I haven’t really spent much time with. My first attempts a few days ago were pretty awkward. I was flailing all over the place, getting winded, and ending up at all kinds of crazy angles to the pool wall. Today, I was able to get straightened out a bit and complete a full set of 60 strokes without gasping for air at the end. I’ll keep working on my coordination, and hopefully, I’ll continue to improve. My goal is eventually to split my swimming equally between freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly, and backstroke.

A tale of 2 brews

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: Lost Dog Coffee “La Esparanza” medium/medium-dark
  • Grind: “Finer end of medium” – 1.5 turns on the JX minus 3 clicks, or 42 total clicks
  • 90°C water
  • 15 grams coffee / “around” 200 grams water
  • James Hoffmann’s Ultimate Aeropress Recipe

I’ve been using a different recipe with these beans, and while the first cup was great, I’ve had mixed results with subsequent cups. After a slightly bitter cup this morning, I decided to try the James Hoffmann recipe this afternoon. Two days ago, it gave me great results with medium roast Starbucks beans. However, my brain must have been somewhere else this afternoon. I used the same grind setting and water temperature, which I guess you can argue are the two most important parameters. However, I forgot to zero my scale before adding the water to the brewer, so I’m not sure how much I used. I just filled it up to what looked like 200 grams. It might have been a little less. Then, I turned my kettle off while the coffee was brewing, forgetting that I was using the stopwatch to time it. So, I guesstimated the initial steep time as well. I think it was around 2 minutes (per the recipe). The swirl, secondary steep, and plunge went off without a hitch, though.

As I was winging this, I was betting myself that it was going to end up being the best cup of coffee I ever tasted. Well, I’m not sure I’d go that far, but it was pretty darned good — definitely better than any other recipe I’ve used with these beans — and who knows if I’ll be able to reproduce it. Go figure. 😀 I guess it goes to show that you don’t always have to be 100% precise to brew a great cup of coffee with the Aeropress. Doing it consistently is still a work in progress, though!

Saturday Ride

lpaulriddle

Super soupy weather for my bike ride this morning. I rode to Odenton and back, with a quick detour into PVSP, for a total of just over 30 miles. The weather was mostly cloudy and in the 70s, with a dewpoint around 72. I tried out one of my new Sweathawg helmet liners, and it worked great!! I bought two of these, one regular and one ‘X2’ (with a thicker absorbent brow pad). I first tried the X2 in my road bike helmet with the fabric visor also in place, and it was a tiny bit too tight, so I put the regular in and rode with that. I was out for right around 3 hours, and didn’t get a single drop of sweat in my eyes. I’ll use the X2 in my mountain bike helmet, where I expect it’ll fit fine. I tend to sweat more on my MTB, so the extra thickness will come in handy there. I also may end up ditching the visor on the road bike helmet, as it blocks more of my upper field of vision than I would like, and I found my neck getting a little stiff today because I likely was tilting my head upward to compensate. The next time I ride on a sunny day, I’ll try the helmet without the visor and see how it works. Without the visor, I think the X2 liner would fit fine, although based on today’s experience, I may not need it for road riding. Once I’m set on which type I’ll be using more, I may end up buying another of these. They’re well worth the money if they can keep my eyes from burning on warm/humid days.