“Well,” says the Internet, “it’s hard to say.”  

The Internet is correct. There are a lot of factors at play – your fitness level, the water conditions, how much time you have, and any prior experience you might have in standing on board-like objects and not showing up in “fail” compilation videos.  That sort of thing.  

Surf Tribe says that in 1-2 lessons you could be standing up.  Boardcave USA  keeps it awfully broad – it could take between one lesson and 1-2 months to surf like a beginner. 

So, optimistically, maybe I could learn to surf in an hour.  Or it could take a few months.  Either way, I’m in El Paredon, the Guatemalan version of “Surf Town USA” — I should try this, right?

But first, let us define surfing. For me.  I hereby declare that surfing shall be “standing up on a surfboard and riding an (ocean) wave for, say, 5 seconds or more”.  That seems reasonable.     

Let’s define me: I am a mid-50s guy in decent shape.  I have reasonable balance and fitness from loads of bike riding, weekly strength workouts, and regular yoga-ish stretching.  Although none of these activities involve balancing on a board.  Nor do I have much muscle and, unfortunately, at 6′ 4′, not a particularly low center of gravity.  My frame is the opposite of a compact, muscular body.  

I will relieve your tension, dear reader, and confess right now that the answer to the question – Can a mid-50s guy in decent shape (but tragically lanky) Learn to Surf in an Hour? The answer is no.  No, he cannot.    

Why not?  

It’s not my teacher’s fault.  I’ll call him Michel because, for the life of me, I can’t now recall his name but that seems close. 

Michel was from Belgium, blonde, maybe 5’10, broad shouldered, possessed of a good surfing body.¹  There was one other student with us, an athletic looking, young woman from Montreal who was still sore from her hour-long surf lesson the previous day.  Not a good sign. 

We were in the black sand beach town of El Paredon, Guatemala, and I had hired Michel from one of the hotels. On the stable sand we first went through the motions of holding the board, kneeling, then standing and various other rules and helpful hints. 

Here’s what I actually learned once I got in the water. Surfing is an incredibly physical activity. And I’m not talking about the riding the wave part (which I didn’t really do anyway).  Staggering around in the ocean wrestling with a 25 lb (or more?), 8 foot long flat object that wind and waves are constantly trying to wrench from your grasp is hard. Heck, I got tired just carrying the board from the hotel to the beach. As if that weren’t enough, if you’re not careful with that object, it can hurt you, especially the 3 narrow fins in the back. The board (and fins) can also seriously hurt other innocent people in the ocean. 

As if maneuvering the board in never-ending wave action weren’t enough, to do the thing (surfing) you’ve got to get yourself in position in front of a good wave (as defined by Michel), jump up and slide on the board on your chest very quickly and smoothly, then paddle really, really hard to catch the wave, then try to boost yourself up to your knees and, eventually, onto your feet. All while trying to remember a half dozen of Michel’s hints and tips.

I’m not ashamed to admit that just the initial jump/slide up on to the board tired me quickly. In fact, within the first half hour, I had already slightly pulled an oblique muscle that has always been susceptible to awkward tugs in a new or wrong direction.

Nevertheless, I was sort of succeeding. Maybe better than the other student who was getting more of Michel’s attention but also getting frustrated. I got some pretty great, pretty fun, long wave rides into the shore — kind of like a boogie board, but faster and more stable.  In the second half of the lesson, I was able to get up and kneel on the board a few times, though I did not stand.  Honestly, the idea of getting my feet under me and rising up on the smooth board moving in the waves seemed unreal to me.  Mentally, I wasn’t even close.  

I had thought about signing up for a 2 hour lesson, but I was actually glad when Michel ended the lesson as we hit the one hour mark. I suppose I could have persisted longer but I had already used up a ton of physical energy.  (Again, this from a guy who happily goes on 4-6 hour bike rides in the mountains).  It would have been better to come back the next day and put in another hour and then maybe an hour the next day.  And again and again until I could stand up and stay there for a few seconds. Hopefully.

Here’s the thing. I’m going to surmise that for a person over 50, many physical feats are no longer realistic.  In other words, the window for learning and excelling at new advanced and/or complex physical activities is, I’m not going to say shut, but it is barely open in many cases. 

William Finnegan, author of the ur-text of a life surfing, Barbarian Days, opines that anyone who didn’t start surfing as a teenager is not ever going to be very good.  That’s a bit harsh, and Finnegan’s definition of “good surfer” might be a high mark, but I think his sentiment is right.²

I’ve no doubt that people over 50 can learn to surf.  I think with sustained effort and work, and in good ocean conditions, I probably could get up on a board and actually surf.  

But the idea of being able to do that on any kind of consistent basis and enjoy it and feel comfortable doing it– well, I think that might be nearly outside the realm of possibility for me. Plus, I don’t live close enough to an ocean.

So, would I do it again? Unlikely. For me, the risk-reward balance isn’t great. Risk a chance of injury and/or strained muscles to try to do something that I can’t really do and therefore can’t enjoy? I’m better off going on a bike ride, hiking, kayaking, or some other physical activity that gives me pleasure and where I have less chance of getting hurt.

Yet I’m happy that I did it. I didn’t actually surf, at least according to my own definition, but I learned about and tried surfing. And I got to do it in a terrific location in the warm Pacific waters off of Central America.

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1. How would it be to exist as a young, blonde, French/English speaking Belgian national hanging out in the Central American sun, teaching tourists to surf?  You could do worse. I mean, Michel is not getting rich and I wouldn’t necessarily trade places with him, but I surmise he is living some version of his best life.  I doubt he ever has trouble finding social companionship.  Eventually, Michel will probably return to northern Europe, start a stable career, and smile as he looks back on his memories of being a surf teacher on the Pacific.  Enjoy it, buddy!
   ︎
2. By the way, this book cured me of any romantic notions I had about serious surfing. Finnegan’s lifetime of chasing waves, despite some terrific highlights, sounds borderline horrible to me. Most of the best waves apparently come during the winter months so surfing for him was often seeking out good waves in frigid ocean water. He suffers frequent injuries, his eyesight is comprised from accumulated sun reflection damage, etc. etc. And much of this takes place with a constant background chance of severe injury or death.  There are at least half a dozen incidents in the book where his life was in serious danger — and he was brutally aware of it — because of wave breaks on rocks and reefs, losing daylight, exhaustion, and whatever combination of other factors. And that’s just the instances he talks about in the book.  ︎

I was decent enough but not particularly talented at most sports – basketball, baseball, and tennis mostly. I quit soccer less than halfway into my first season. 

I wasn’t a super talented runner either but was good enough in high school to letter in cross country and track.  I broke 5 minutes in the mile a few times and I was proud of that. I could always run.

Meanwhile, an American, Greg LeMond, was winning the Tour de France in 1986 and in 1989LeMond's come from behind 1989 victory in the last stage to win the Tour by 7 seconds is all timer sporting moment. He even got an SI Sportsman of the Year win out of it. -90.   My Mom and I followed his victories.  Inspired, I asked for a road bike for my high school graduation to replace my old 10 speed bike I bought with my paper route money in 6th grade. Though I returned to running a few times in college and law school, I never stopped biking.  

I’ve commuted to work by bike a few times a week since 2001.  I did my first century ride in 2002 and even joined a local racing team for a few years.  I’ve been riding between 4 and 5K miles (almost 6K ! in pandemic year 2020) a year for a while and hope to keep riding as long as I can keep my balance.

Why Is Cycling So Great?

Low Impact.  I’ve been fortunate, but so far, I have never had a bicycle-related injury.  (Big caveat here, as I’ll note below, that this doesn’t include crashes.)   As a former runner, even as a teenage high schooler, there was nearly always something hurting. Some nagging injury that I could run through but annoyed me. Ankle, knee, shin splints, my hip once. 

That’s far less common with cycling. When I chat with other cyclists, there is much discussion about many topics, but very little about cycling-derived maladies. 

You can see so much.  At the risk of making this is a “why running stinks” article, another thing I immediately loved about cycling was how much farther you can go.  With running, you’re kind of limited to a range of a few miles from your house.  

But on a bike, I’ve explored the entire DC area on rides.  As one small example, I’ve done the first-rate 50 States ride route where you cycle into seemingly every corner of DC to visit all 50 streets named after US states.   

I’ve also done guided bike expeditions in or around Pureora Forest, New Zealand; Panajachel, Guatemala; Tblisi, Georgia; and Canyonlands NP, Utah.  What a fun way to explore a beautiful place, meet new people, and, most importantly, burn a ton of calories and then eat good food at the end of the day. 

Great tourist fun.  Related to “see lots of stuff on a bike” above, when visiting a new place, I often try to rent a bike.  The first thing I look for is a bikeshare program (Chicago, NYC, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, Frankfurt, Sydney, to name a few). If not, I might try to rent a bike for a day (Charleston, Pensacola, and Siem Reap).  In fact, if I can’t easily get around by bike in a city, that is a strike against the city to me.

On a bike, you can see a lot of city and area in less time. You don’t have to worry about parking, you get some exercise, and you get to feel more like a local than a tourist.  And you can bicycle almost anywhere in the world.

Health benefits.  Maybe this should be #1.  Any exercise is good and cycling is a great one.  A bicycle ride can be an intense anaerobic interval workout or a long, aerobic ride or anything in between.   For me, cycling is an exercise that I look forward to and enjoy doing.    

Smooth speed is fun. I love the feeling of speeding along a paved road on my bike.  On a road bike, most people can get up to 15 mph without much trouble on a flat road or trail.  Or just pedal along easily at 10 mph.  Whatever you want. 

Slower speed (or not so slow) on mountain bikes is also fun.  Or on gravel.  Or on a beach boardwalk.  It’s all fun. On the exercise trails near my house, cyclists are often smiling, calling out to their friends.  Runners are grimacing.

Group Rides. After several years of going fast by myself, I tried some century and group rides. It opened my eyes.  It’s exhilarating being in a group of experienced cyclists.  The aerodynamics of the group or paceline increase your speed without any extra effort. 

Saturday morning group rides are now an almost weekly highlight.  On these rides, we are easily moving among each other, wordlessly rotating through a paceline, maneuvering for position, and sometimes competing to be the quickest up the hill.  After the ride, pleasantly tired, we share stories, eat pizza, or pastries, or both, then slowly ride home. 

And there you have it.  Bicycling is awesome.  Healthy, fun, exhilarating, seeing new places.  

Case closed? 

Well, there are a few downsides.   

The Cons

Cyclists are jerks. Not me personally. Hopefully.  But many cyclists, especially in groups, can be inconsiderate.  Wearing their stupid, colorful, Lance Armstrong-wanna-be outfits while running stop signs and red lights.  Passing people too close and too fast on exercise trails.  Bullies! 

Crashing.  There is a danger element to cycling that is mostly absent from, say, running.  A cyclist can reduce their crash risk by not riding at night (or using lots of lights if they do), not doing stupid things on the road, and being situationally aware, especially when approaching intersections.   

But, the reality is you can do everything right and still get hit by a car. It can be a minor incident, but sometimes it’s devastating. You can even die. 

Fortunately, most crashes in cycling happen without any extra help from a car.  Again, even if you do everything right, you could accidentally get tangled up with another rider or, like me, blow out your front tire on a rock hidden in the shadows and go down.  You may not get seriously hurt and you won’t die, but when you hit the ground, your body is going to feel it– often some road rash and/or deeper cuts and bruises. Sometimes even broken bones.   

In 40-some years of riding, I’ve hit the ground at least a dozen times. Fortunately, only two incidents resulted in lasting trauma.  The first was a broken foot from an unlucky 1mph rolling-off-a-DC-curb incident.  And the other is the aforementioned tire blowout from a rock, which resulted in crashing into a ditch, slicing up my face (7 stitches total) and gouging the side of my knee so badly (8 staples from the ER) that I needed an ambulance. It looked like I’d taken a lathe to it. 

Expense.  Cycling can be a great value.  Get a bike, maybe even a used one from Facebook Marketplace, and ride it a lot.  You’re good to go.  Fun and healthy!   

However, most cyclists end up going deeper.  Way deeper. Somebody is buying those $10K+ magical carbon fiber bicycles.   

Besides the bike, good cycling equipment – the clothes, the pedals, helmets, computers and HR monitors, tires, water bottles, gloves, pumps, and more and more –  is not cheap.  Much of it is foreign made and the recent, pointless tariffs have made it worse.  I bought a $110 German made tire a few months ago (I had a 50% discount from the shop, but still . . .$110?)        

I will say that you usually get good value in cycling equipment. I’ve got clothes from 10-12 years ago that remain in good condition and I still wear them.  My single favorite article of cycling clothing is an Italian-made winter jacket. It was pricy, even on sale, but when the temperature drops into the 30s and below, this jacket is worth every dollar. 

I love how the jacket is tight in the wrong places when I stand, but as soon as I mount my bike and lean over the handlebars, it settles in just right. Just like bicycling and me.

I wrote an article for Inside Hook about a four day mountain biking adventure with half a dozen friends in Utah.  We hired Escape Adventures to provide support and guides.  It was a great trip:

The “God of Moab” in the headline refers to our head guide, Roy.  Roy is one of those people that when the apocalypse arrives, you’d want to be in his tribe.  He has that quiet easy confidence of someone who is comfortable surviving in hard conditions and even kind of likes it.  He knows What. To. Do. 

I don’t recall the moment I thought of “god of Moab”, but I’ve spent time in both Israel and southern UT and the two landscapes have similarities.  The land of Moab also gets several Bible mentions.  And Moab is the spiritual center of southern UT mountain biking (and kayaking and RZR’ing and various other adventuring diversions).  And Roy seemed to know everything about those things and all the other guides looked up to him, so yeah, “god of Moab”, why not?   But not this guy. Or this:

When I sent the finished article and headline link to Escape Adventures, they posted it on their internal group chat. Gleeful chaos ensued as the chat blew up. Roy sent me a few screenshots of his fellow co-guides’ mocking adorations.  Here’s one:

To be clear, Roy was not the God, just a god.  But, always remember, Ray Roy, if someone asks you if you’re a god you say yes!

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If you ride your bike a lot, like I do, you learn to keep an eye on dogs and sometimes their owners as you pass on the bike trailThis is another reason why riding on roads instead of a trail can be an advantage.  If I’m out on the roads, I rarely have issues with dogs. They occasionally bark at me from behind fences, but that’s about it. Not so on the trails where there are tons of dogs in close proximity to me..  I’d say at least 90% of dogs don’t seem to pay much attention to me on my bike.  But there is a small percentage of dogs that lock on me as I approach.  Maybe they think I am a threat, or that I am prey, or they just hate cyclists. I don’t know. 

A handful of those dogs that track me as I roll on by will then actually lunge at me and it is only the owner’s firm grasp of their leash that keeps them from pursuing me.  

Attack!  Well, one of those leash-holders didn’t have a firm enough grasp of their girlfriend’s pitbull-lab mix.  I was riding on a paved multi-use trail, approaching Ashburn Metro station.  He was standing just off the trail, gazing at his phoneOf course he was.  And it’s a good thing he had his phone, because when plant and animal life and the simple beauty of nature and the outdoors starts to bore you, you need a handy distraction.  /s/ .   In a few minutes, I’d hop on the Metro with my bike and then ride to my last day of mediation training.  

As I rolled closer, the dog walking boyfriend didn’t notice me but his dog, not distracted by a phone, sure did.  I saw the dog focus in on me – uh-oh.  As I passed, focused dog lunged against the leash, escaped it, and then maybe for the first time in his simple dog life, was free to pursue and bring down his target.   

He didn’t waste the chance.  

In a second he was alongside my bike, boyfriend now running after him. I’ve actually had a dog come after me before a time or two as I’m pedaling and they have always peeled off after a few seconds.  Not this dog.  He bit into my lower leg and almost brought me down.  

I managed to squeal to a stop and the boyfriend caught up and pulled the dog back. I think I yelled “what the hell?” and then pulled up my pants legUsually if I’m on my bike, I’m wearing shorts, but since I was headed to training, I happened to be wearing some pretty good polyester pants and I think they prevented worse damage  hoping to maybe see a few marks, but nothing too serious.  Nope.  Blood was already streaming from several puncture wounds. 

Feel free to scroll past this next photo . . .

Still a bit dazed, my first thoughts – and isn’t it sometimes silly the first things we think about when trauma or an unexpected, stressful situation strikes? – were “I can save some expenses if I ride to an urgent care facility instead of going to the ER.”  

I then actually sat down on the trail next to my bike and started searching for nearby urgent care facilities!  Meanwhile, boyfriend was standing about 15 feet away trying to hold the dog back while on the phone with, I assume, his girlfriend. 

Seeing no nearby urgent care facilities on my phone, I looked down at my wounds.  Blood was now oozing into and soaking my socks.  It was becoming clear that I wasn’t going to ride my bike anywhere at that point and would need transportation.  Time to go big.  I dialed “911.” 

The ER. That was absolutely the right thing to do as Loudoun County’s finest soon swung into action.  I can now tell you that 7:30am on a Friday morning is an excellent time to request emergency assistance.  Within a few minutes, an ambulance pulled into the adjacent parking lot, multiple police cruisers showed up, and then a separate team of animal control officers rolled in.  

For the second time in less than a year, and after avoiding this scenario for the first 53 years of my life, I was helped into the back of an ambulance to get treated for injuries.  This time my injuries were rather less severe than the great bike accident of November 2024.  

The paramedic wrapped my leg and then offered me a ride to the closest emergency room.  I hesitated, thinking again about costs and also what to do with my bike, but then the head paramedic offered to squeeze my bike into the ambulance and drop it off at the ER with me and that sealed the deal.  

Thanks to my unwanted ambulance experiences, I’ve also learned that if you want to get to the head of the ER line, arrive in an ambulance.  However, this morning the ER was pretty much empty anyway.  I did not see any other suffering patients as I walked into treatment room 12.  

“Where is everybody?”, I asked the attending nurse.  She looked at her watch, “Give it another half hour.  People are just starting to wake up.”  

Concluding that my puncture wounds would heal fine without stitches, they cleaned and then bandaged my lower leg.  As I took a few pain pills from the nurse, I got a call from one of the animal control officers telling me that the dog, now identified as “Zack”, was up to date on his rabies vaccine but would still go into a seven day quarantine.

He asked if I had any photos they could use to pursue a “dangerous dog” designation against Zack.  You want photos?  Oh yeah, I have photos. I happily texted him the bloody leg photo and another one of the nurses treating my wounds.

Dogs – Why?  Don’t hate me, but I have some negative thoughts about dogs, influenced by this latest incident of course.  (And just to add insult to injury, I stepped in uncollected dog poop twice – twice! — in the next week after my dog bite.) 

I’ll just say up front that I am a cat guy.  I grew up with a series of cats in my childhood home, so that’s part of it, but also because cats are superior pets in so many ways.  Cleaner, cheaper, much quieter, require less care and attention, less annoying, and so forth. I so enjoy having a warm cat snooze next to me or on on my lap. Cats also have fascinating and amusing personalities. (Yes, I know dogs do also. I just like the fascinating and amusing aspects of cat personalities more than dogs’.) 

From an ecological view, cats have evolved into the perfect hunting machine and routinely perform amazing physical feats.  Unfortunately, not so good for local wildlife –don’t let your cat roam outside! — but impressive nonetheless. 

All that said, I see you, dog lovers.  I understand the appeal of the unconditional love and loyalty from a dog.  You’re unlikely to get that from a cat.  Or almost any other pet.  I also understand people, especially women, who want dogs for a sense of protection.  I get angry at people who mistreat dogs. Or any animal, really.  I could even see myself owing and loving a dog someday in the right circumstances.  

“We don’t deserve dogs” I’ve heard it said– and that is probably true. For many dogs.  

But.  Many dogs, while not intending to attack you, still like to jump on you and try to lick you or smell parts of your body and otherwise love you in a dog way.  Or they will bark furiously at you and you’re not sure if they want to play with you or kill you.  

Dog lovers and owners often excuse the above behavior and frequently think it is sweet.  I can assure them that non-dog people find it unpleasant and sometimes traumatic.  For some dog owners, especially in rural areas, I think causing discomfort in other humans is the point.  

Either way, I’ve never had a cat try to jump on me. Or threaten me.  

Back to my story:  

Doggy Court.  Commonwealth of Virginia v. S.V. will not be appearing in any law school case studies.  But I’ll probably remember it.  

This case was the county’s action against Zack’s owner, Ms. V.  As mentioned earlier, the county wanted to designate Zack a “dangerous dog” which I supported.  They asked me to appear as a witness in Virginia’s General District Court three weeks later.  It was pretty quick.  The judge did not need much convincing and my only testimony was telling the judge about my $450 in medical expenses which he ruled that Ms. V. would have to pay me via the court within 90 days.¹        

The judge further ordered that Zack Attack be on a two year “dangerous dog” probation and, among other things, have to wear a muzzle when he is outside. 

The nicest part was that Ms. V. apologized to me as we walked out to the court room.  I told her I appreciated that.  Her boyfriend was also there and nodded with kind of an embarrassed smile. 

Later, I wondered if the bite incident sparked a fight between them.  “Ms. V.: “This never would have happened if you had held the leash tighter!” And she’d be kind of right. 

OTOH, I’m glad that Zack has been identified as a dangerous dog and maybe it is now less likely he will harm someone else, especially a child.  That gives my bite experience a little meaning.  Maybe my wounds will make the world just a slightly better, or at least a safer, place?     

I’ve still got some tiny marks where the teeth got me and some swelling.  I assume it will gradually fade and a year from now almost nothing will be visible.  I’m lucky that way.

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1. $350 for the emergency room co-pay and $100 for the ambulance ride.  I should have also included another $50 for the follow up care appointment. Drat. ︎

I plan to do a post for most of these past articles and probably future ones. And perhaps some posts about how to freelance. Or at least how to freelance from my perspective.   

Anyway, this blog post is about my first freelance article, so it has some sentimental meaning for me. 

My first ever freelance pitch resulted in my first freelance article.  This is very unusual. But I had an “in” at Arlington Magazine, a regional publication where I live, and was not ashamed to use it. Mrs. Anysecondnow was, at the time, the practice manager for a mental health practice. A mental health practice that advertised regularly in Arlington Magazine on full page spreads and regularly contacted Mrs. A about future advertising. Bingo.  

I e-mailed the publisher with my pitch, dropping my connection to Mrs. Anysecondnow and the mental health practice in my first sentence. I got a reply in less than 48 hours from their editor expressing interestBig BreakI'll never know if there was a separate communication between the publisher and editor along the lines of, “just publish something of his online.  If it stinks, edit it as much as you can', and I don't mind either way. .  I was too ignorant back then to know that freelancers might be fortunate to get any response to your pitch — most editors don’t even respond. And if they do, the reply can take several weeks or more.

I pitched an article about the longest and steepest hills in Arlington. As a cyclist, I rode those hills often to train for events and I thought it’d be fun to evaluate and rate them for other cyclists and runners.

But before giving me a final “yes”, Arlington Magazine’s editor asked me for any recent articles. Uh-oh. My only recent writing samples were legal briefs from my day job as a government attorney. Pretty different from a breezy article on riding bikes on hills. Not to mention they were classified.

Thinking quickly, I decided to just write the article right then. I knew all I needed to know about the hills, I’d ridden them dozens of times, so there wasn’t much research. I knocked it out in a few hours, got Mrs. Anysecondnow’s grammar and style suggestions, and sent it to the editor with a note kind of skipping over the idea of writing samples and saying, hey, here you go.

It worked. She liked the article, made a few edits, and posted it on their website a few days later. A few weeks later I got a check for $300. And now I had a relevant writing sample for future pitches.

Pretty easy, I thought. Maybe I could make a career of this instead of the law! Not so easy as I soon learned, but getting paid for writing about my travels and experiences has still been fun.

And that’s the story of my first freelance article.

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