— Month of August workout totals: Swim-0; Bike-9; Run-0; Lift-2; Yoga-0
— When I first participated in the Pound & Pedal 20-miler, it started in downtown Danville and ended at Turtle in the Night Farm, the Morgan family homestead in Forkland. With a climb up Catholic Knob, plus its 30-to-40-mph descent, the course was tough and exciting. As we gathered this morning for the annual challenge, which now has a long-established course that extends into Mercer County and back, nobody remembered exactly how long a history the event has, but Ernst thought today might be the 20th anniversary. The current course is not as dramatic, but it’s still rigorous and far from flat. The best athletes took part in the traditional run-bike team competition, so I managed to win the bicycle-only division with a time of 1:05:41. Once again it fell short of the elusive 20-mph average, but only 19 seconds slower than my 2001 finish. Hey, I can live with three seconds a year. Dick B told me I was “aging gracefully.”
— If I could make a living doing what I did yesterday… Well, I don’t know how to complete that sentence. After spending the morning with graver tools, I pulled a crude proof to see if my block was nearly done. It was the best print I could produce at home, but it told me it was time to head to Larkspur. We made the trip to Monterey and I spent the rest of the day alternating proofs on the Vandercook with more clean-up and finishing touches. I wasn’t sure if Dana was getting bored, but it turned out to be an opportunity for her to spend some time with Gray and get a better sense of his rare individuality. I left the block in his capable hands with a sense of satisfaction, looking forward to his broadside composition of the Manning poem with my illustration.
— I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, but the Arts Across Kentucky article about me was published with a disappointing number of errors and poor visual decisions, but that seems to be somewhat typical of the magazine. Nevertheless, it’s good publicity and is apparently seen by many high-level people. They still haven’t updated the Website to reflect the current issue that contains my profile. It’s up to me to leverage this constructively, otherwise it may offer little on its own to enhance my situation.