Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!

Harder Week to "Test" My Injury: Decent News!

>> Monday, February 16, 2026

I decided about 10 days ago to "test" my sore butt. About 10 days ago, I had a treadmill 5K in 17:32 as I posted about last week. And then I kicked off this past week with with a pretty normal long run (also written about in that last link).

Here's what last week looked like:

• MON: long run and PT legs. Very normal! (Except that I pooped myself a little...)

• TUES: long trainer workout and decent upper body. This was a solid day! I had a good upper body workout of 8x everything (except shoulders as my right shoulder is still sore), and then the stars aligned with kids' activities and class schedule to allow me to get time for a long trainer ride. After a nice warm-up, I did efforts on the trainer of 10 minutes, 9 minutes, 8 minutes, etc, etc. with 50% of each "effort" as easy spinning (so a 10 min effort was followed by 5 mins easy, a 9 min effort was followed by 4:30 easy, etc.). Here's what I did for each effort:

10 hard
9 standing
8 alternating standing and seated every 2 mins
7 shifting to an easier gear every 1 min (standing for 2nd to last minute)
6 hard
5 standing
4 shifting to a harder gear every min
3 of standing and seated every 45 sec
2 of an easier gear spinning fast
1 hard

Easy to see the workout in my heart rate graph.

• WED: easy run, PT legs, and core. Normal. Good.

• THURS: decent upper body and easy trainer ride. Again, a nice 8x upper body like on Tuesday, and just an easier 80 min spin with 1 "effort" of 10 mins to get the blood flowing in the middle.

• FRI: 2x2 mile intervals, PT legs, and core. The legs and core were normal. And I hit the paved trail along River Road for some normal 2 mile efforts. It was a BIT icy here-and-there, but that just slowed me up a LITTLE... I was watching my form to make sure it didn't throw me off and make me hurt something more in my leg/butt.

The workout was a bit slow, as to be expected coming off this injury and with the not-quite-ideal conditions. My half-mile splits looked like this:

2:56, 3:03, 2:56, 3:01 = 11:58.8

3:00 walking rest

2:53, 3:01, 2:55, 2:57 = 11:47.1

Half-mile splits: started at the lower-right, running 1 mile
to the upper left, and then back to the lower-right.

Interesting that I immediately sped up after turning around in the middle of each interval.

• SAT: normal trainer workout and another decent upper body workout. We were gone from 8:45 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. at a birthday party in WI all day, so I got up early to get in 2 decent workouts. First a THIRD upper body workout of 8x everything on the week! (Saturdays I usually do them as circuits, so that's what I did: push-ups, back rows, pull-ups, bicep curls, tricep presses, and then repeat 8 times.) Then, even through it was 50 degrees out in the heat of the day, I had to get in an early workout, so I did 95 mins on the trainer with a basic 3x10 min effort workout.

• SUN: core and an easy spin on the bike trails. It's usually NO biking or running, but it was too nice and I needed to escape my boys for a moment. So I got out on my mountain bike for 40 minutes along River Road. I was scoping it out for my long run the following day (today) to see if there'd be a lot of melting that would re-freeze in the morning. I was hopeful this wouldn't be TOO nasty at 32 degrees 14 hours from this ride:

Mostly damp, with a few puddles here-and-there.

So it was a decent week of training! Nearly 6 hours in the saddle is a NICE week for me. I had 1706 "intensity minute" on the week to put me a little above average:

Last week on the far right.

And 158K steps too.

Alex Pretti Memorial Bike Ride

>> Saturday, February 14, 2026

I had been saying that I was going to get out for a bike ride on January 31st so I could keep my streak of having outdoor bike miles logged every month since March 2023 (when I started commuting more by bike). It turns out that a memorial ride for Alex Pretti was scheduled that day, so I biked out to find it. Here's what I posted later that day on social media:

I had to taxi my boys around midday, so I couldn’t start the Alex Pretti memorial ride with everyone else. I took off about 40 minutes late down the Greenway Trail as fast as I could go on my old mountain bike. I was hoping to find the group ride, but they didn’t share their route ahead of time for safety reasons.
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Right as I was giving up hope, I saw a bridge in front of me full of cyclists. I found them just before I-35W. I worked my way up on top of the bridge and joined the ride.
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It started and ended with tears in my eyes.
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As I joined the ride (maybe one block in), there were four kids holding a Guatemalan flag while waving at all of us going by (2nd pic). A cyclist just in front of me shouted “WE LOVE YOU, NEIGHBORS!” Tears.
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We rolled past where Renee Good was shot in the head (3rd pic).
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After going down Minnehaha and Nokomis Parkway for a few miles, I peeled off to head for home as the ride turned toward the VA where Alex worked. As I finished taking the last video of this post, I heard a tiny voice behind me. It was an old woman wearing a long old winter jacket with a small “old lady” dog on a leash standing next to her. She quietly said “all of this moves me... it makes me want to cry...” Her words made me tear up again. We chatted for a moment, and I wished her well and headed for home.
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There were thousands of people out there. No idea how many, as it was impossible to see them all at the same time. Very moving. I would like to go make “art” of these issues, but these are just snapshots of the day - too heavy for me to make art right now.

And here were the pics and video:

Shortly after meeting up with the ride.

Four kids holding the Guatemalan flag.

People stopping around Renee Good's memorial.

Just a sea of riders.

Carrie and Charlie. Charlie and I chatted for a while.

On Minnehaha near Cedar. The organizer made 1000 of
those vests, and suspects 5000+ people were there.

Riding on Minnehaha.

Headed over Hiawatha near Minnehaha Falls.

Direct link: youtu.be/lcg6wGuvTpk?si=Dy-N27ua9DhxEl4K

It's still not good here in the metro. One of my oldest son's classmates (and soccer teammates) had their Dad and older brother taken from work - I don't know his immigration details (I guess I've never thought to think "Oh, they're latino... I wonder if they're legal?"), but he's been here for at least 9 years as a member of our parish earning money to send his kids to private school. Our class instantly raised $1,100 for the family for at least immediate bills, food, etc. A friend's Spanish tutor was taken, hauled to Texas, and then released IN TEXAS because they are a US citizen. They have to find their way the 1,000 miles back (luckily, they have a good church where people are pooling together). A former directly-next-door neighbor had her nanny taken and hauled away for days. Another professor friend is helping to raise money for a family friend of 25+ years who's employer was taken in December who hasn't been paid since October.

We went out to eat last weekend down Lake Street in a very Hispanic neighborhood, and 2 of the 3 places we tried to stop weren't open. People are scared. US CITIZENS are scared. We ended up eating at a taco place where someone was manning the door to only unlock the door to let families in to eat - not ICE. My wife has multiple co-workers who have been stopped and told that their IDs weren't enough but would be let off "this time, but not next time." What paperwork are they supposed to carry? (They've asked, and never gotten an answer.) A family on my boys' fencing team makes sure to carry their passports on them at all times. (Oh, and their fencing gym is now locked 24/7 and you need to be let in by someone who knows you.) Sacred Heart Church in the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood here in St. Paul has had ICE agents sitting in the parking lot ready to grab parishioners after a number of their Spanish-speaking masses. Sure, come after the criminals, whether they are immigrants or not. But this "we're coming for the worst of the worst" is a line of crap. We are being terrorized, and if you're living around the area and don't feel that way, then you have a small, privileged, (white) circle. This is not OK.

I wanted to "make art" at the bike ride, but found myself unable to. But I've been out a few times since then to add to my "4 a.m. series," and here are a few fresh images from my Photo Blog.