The Wiry Wire

Birthday Weekend

2008-08-01T18:54:00.000-06:00

The tradition of riding on my birthday continues. 28 years means I have to go 28 mph (or faster) for at least 28 seconds and go at least 28 miles; this is going to get tough when I'm n my 50's.

Friday was my birthday, so I met up with BT and we had Trail Ridge Road in Estes Park on the schedule. We started at 7:30 to hopefully avoid all the RVs that will be going up the road later in the day.

Plenty of wildflowers along the road at the end of July.

Overall, Trail Ridge wasn't as hard as I had built it up in my head. It only was about 6% grade the entire ride, but it's the 12,000+ feet above sea level that makes it a challenge.

Nice views of Longs Peak

This was the coolest looking section of the road, just beautiful

Day two was a ride up Devils gulch via drake. I rode with Chris and Derek and had a great time going on a ride with friends that I don't get to rid with often.Enthusiasm is always high when I'm out riding.

The descent into Drake was fast, fun and scenic.

Making our way over to Devil's Gulch.

At the bottom of the crux of the climb, Chris' computer was saying 11% grade in some parts.

A nice steep switchback

Making our way to the top

Yup.

2008 Silver Rush 50 Race Report

2008-07-22T20:36:00.004-06:00

July 19, 2008
John and I made the early morning trip to Leadville for the Silver Rush 50 Mile Mountain Bike Race. The start was crowded and the air was crisp, but the sun was shining and it was going to be a great day.

The start is the "Silver Rush"; we all run up the ski hill and the first guy and the first gal that make it up get a silver coin. It's madness, and a great way to start the race. I take it easy up the hill, but after getting going I realize that running hard up there is smart; everyone is jamming up on the singletrack.

I settle into my pace and when the climbs come I'm passing people, per my usual ways, us tall and skinny guys do better on the climbs than the flats. This course is pretty tough, no flats really, you're always going up or down.
The first half of the way out is pretty wet, there's no way my bike is going to stay clean through this race. After a seriously rough and rocky section we pop out on a road and the speed increases, it's all just fast miles and smiles to the first aid station, I go through at 1:27 and 54th place.
The race then dumps back onto singletrack and the roller coaster terrain continues. We go around Ball Mountain on a trail that the Marathon took as well so at least I knew what was coming up, and thankfully the snowfield had melted out. The descent down to the turn around point was treacherous, a lot of babyheads and steep terrain and a narrow trail. I was stuck behind a rider that was a bit timid so the going was a little slow as he smoked his brakes, nothing like the smell of hot disc brakes in the morning! Near the bottom the leaders were on their way up, looking strong and fast.
I get to the halfway point feeling okay, I top off my bottle and way hi to John and get back on the way. At that point I was 49th and turned around at 2:43. Maybe 1/2 a mile after turning around my stomach began growling, not good. I had been eating, but I guess not enough, lunch time was approaching. I slowed my pace a little and ate the rest of my food, I was passed by a few people, but I had to make sure I got food in or the end would hurt.
By the next aid station the food had perked my energy level up a bit and I was moving quickly again. John surprised me by cheering me on at this point too, that was unexpected and very cool, having friends cheer me on really helps me out. I came through with a head of steam ready to tackle the last climb and with a goal of catching the second place female that had passed me a little earlier.

The final climb was not the kind of climb that I excel at. I like the long steep climbs, the stuff that most people cringe over, this was my cringing climb, a long relentless false flat climb. The climb was always a middle ring affair, but man it sapped energy; the false flat energy made it seem like you should be able to go faster so you'd push harder. I passed a few riders during the climb, but I saw my target ahead and couldn't quite reach her, she was in a group of 6 people or so trading pulls up the climb, I was an island trying to chase them down, wasn't going to happen.
Finally, the climb ended and the technical descent began. I knew being on the hardtail would make me a little slower on the descent compared to the guys with the full-suspension rigs just behind me, this was all about damage control now. I went as fast as I could safely and was only passed by two riders and one was while I stopped at an intersection looking for the right way. A third rider caught me just as we were leveling out, the terrain was now rolling all the way to the finish. He was faster on the downhills, but as soon as it went up or flat he started cramping and I easily would pull away. Near the finish, while he was cramping, I went by and gave a cordial "Just spin it out man, almost there" and proceeded to create a gap he couldn't close on the last descent.
Once again I came flying towards the finish and then took a wrong turn! It's kinda becoming my signature move. Thankfully, this time the guy right behind me did the same thing so I didn't lose a spot like the last time.
Final Time - 5:13:29
Final Place - 38th out of 309
Place in class - 6th

Standing in the trough of the wave

2008-07-15T10:14:00.003-06:00

Sunflowers, 2000 Tour de France, by Graham Watson

I'm sitting here staring at the tsunami headed my way, it's my calendar.

I don't have a free weekend until September 13th (and yesterday I just stumbled across an event for this weekend). With work travel coming up the last week of July I'm really going to have it crazy (leave Sunday night, come back Thursday night, race Friday and Saturday).

I'm looking forward to August, the rest of July is going to be the tough part.

Some good news though, it looks like I've got a team started for the Adventure Xstream Expedition Race in September, I'm really looking forward to that.

At least I have the Tour de France and cute cats to distract me.

Mt. Evans, you're my Everest

2008-07-14T21:14:00.000-06:00

Evans, Everest; they're the same right?

I have a nemesis, Mt. Evans.

I have tried to roll my wheels atop it's summit on three separate occasions only to be denied each time.

June 24, 2006 - Attempt 1. Andie and I set out from Idaho Springs, by Echo Lake Andie had decided this ride was a little too much for her considering she had only been riding a few times that years so far, too much time running. We had some delicious pie and then descended.

July 17, 2007 - Attempt 2. I roll out from my house at 6:30 a.m.. I roll through Evergreen and pick up John and we head out to Evans via Squaw Pass. We get over Squaw and to Echo Lake where we're denied, the Mt Evans Hill Climb bike race is going on and the road is closed, drats!

Vietnam Memorial in downtown Morrison, CO

July 11, 2008 - Attempt 3. I checked the calendar, we're clear, roads open. BT and I roll out from my house and we start up.

Making our way up Bear Creek Canyon

We make it to Evergreen and everything is looking good, spirits are high.

The smiling didn't last too long after this

We began up Squaw Pass with energy high and beautiful skies.

Squaw Pass Road, not much traffic on a Friday.

Then Mt. Evans lashed out and said "Nay, not today Nick. I shall never give in." BT, while doing a little mock-attack about 2/3 of the way up Squaw Pass broke a spoke. Dang it.

After inspecting the spoke, classic fatigue failure at the bend.

We get the bike to a point that we think he can ride it down, but as soon as we start out two more spokes break. Now on an 18-spoke wheel this is significant, 3 spokes is almost 17% of your spokes. The wheel was totally unrideable, BT began pushing his now skidding wheel along as I rode down to get help.

More broken spokes, these looked more like tensile failures, the extra load they were carrying after the first spoke broke was just too much.

Three tries and zero successes, only makes me want it more. I'll be back real soon to get it. At least I climbed it on foot on 6/25/06, that makes these spouts of bad luck a little easier to take.

BT, trying out the 650c wheel solution to get down the mountain, we opted for the 700c even though it was 10-speed and he needed 9-speed. Brakes are good.

I don't know about you, but I'm staying away from low spoke count wheels.

Leadville Trail Marathon 2008 Race Report

2008-07-07T09:44:00.006-06:00

Yeeehaaaw. That was fun and by far the most difficult marathon I have ever done. Here's how it went down.

BT (left) and me (right) at the start, both still happy.

The weather was clear and the temperatures were in the 50's for the start. I chatted with BT while we were waiting for the start, he was running the Heavy Half and I was running the full marathon.

The two courses followed each other for the first 1.5 miles, but I lost sight of BT within 150 yards, dang he's fast. I eased into my pace and after watching all the ultra-runners around me I employed a walk strategy, walk most of the hills. I found that on the steeper hills when the walk strategy came into play my "walk" was faster than most and I made up time on everyone then. I kept chugging away through the first aid station and felt good. The aid stations were definitely not your typical marathon aid station, these were ultra-running aid stations, a lot of m&ms, PB&J, chips, coke, sprite, etc.

BT rolling through Aid Station B at the base of Mosquito Pass in third place (but really close to second).

My legs were feeling decent considering my effort 8 days earlier, then came the first downhill. Ahhh, this is where I screwed up. My effort on Grays Peak hadn't hurt my uphill performance much, but downhill I was much slower than usual. I descended at a 9:30/mile pace when I usually would've been around 7:00/mile. the course quickly got above treeline and we were going through some interesting historic mining areas. At 10 miles I reached the third aid station and was able to see my friends there. BT also had to go through there and I asked them how he was doing; BT was in second place and had just gone through about 5 minutes earlier on his way back to the start! I was excited for BT, but bummed that I wouldn't see him on my way up Mosquito Pass.BT coming down Mosquito Pass, now in second place, still no sign of me.

Mosquito Pass was tough, a little over 3 miles and 2000' of elevation up to 13,118'. I ran as far as I was comfortable and then began the power hike. I kept looking for marathoners descending, but only saw the heavy-halfers. Finally the marathoners started trickling down and I began counting. I reached the summit in 54th place, filled my bottle up and grabbed a few potato chips and started down. My descending was now atrocious. The powerade that I had started drinking at mile ten coupled with the the greasy potato chips meant I was having issues. My stomach was cramping a little, a bit nauseous and my legs weren't feeling to up to anything while my stomach hurt. I descended at a blazing 12-13 min/mile pace, pathetic, I was being passed on the downhill.

Late to the party, five minutes later I roll through having taken the longer scenic route.

I reached the next aid station and got rid of all the powerade in my bottle and only went with water. On the next climb I ate the last of my Jelly Belly Sport Beans and downed some water. I was still in a funk when I arrived at the next aid station at mile 19. I kept moving though knowing I was on the home stretch. Then at mile 20.5, after copious amount of plain water and electrolytes the light came on. Literally over a span of about 60 seconds I went from feeling lousy to absolutely fantastic.

BT crossing the finish line, second place in the bag.

I cranked up the pace and I could run decently again. I started to catch some people and kept going. I caught one guy at mile 22 at the end of the last major climb.
"That was the last big climb right?" I said
"Yeah I think so" he said
"Great, I'm going to rip off some sweet 12 minute miles from here on out" I said sarcastically
"Yeah, lay down the hammer man" he continued the sarcasm.

I entered the last aid station renewed, filled my bottle and was gone. I had a mission, I needed 11 minute miles to stay under 6 hours and I wanted to get as many places back as I could. The downhill began and I just let it go. Time to let it rip and see what I had. Well I had a pretty good amount apparently, I easily rapped up to 7 minutes/mile at times. I was passing people and feeling good.

Soon enough I was on the home stretch, BT came up the road to cheer me on and give me the high-five we missed out on at Mosquito Pass. I crossed the line at 5:48:42, not bad for a marathon entirely above 10,000'.

I call this picture, "300 lbs of Speed and Fury". Actually, I'm positive we weigh more than 300 lbs put together.

BT finished in second place, running with the fear of third place nearby the entire time. That was a huge accomplishment considering that he had just come to town from Hawaii a week before.

I showered at the hostel and then went to the dinner where I collected my finishers mug and BT's second place gold-panning pan. I was 65th out of 244 finishers.

Uhh yeah, that Gray's Peak run was a dumb move.

2008-07-03T11:28:00.003-06:00

So it's 6 days after running Gray's Peak and my IT bands are still a bit tight and sore and I only started walking normal yesterday. 2 more days until the marathon!

Oh well, I'm still gunning for a sub-6 hour finish time. Then I'll probably be pretty useless for a couple of days.

I've haven't done any running since Gray's to help with recovery, but I have biked about 9 hours. No more biking or running planned before the race so that my legs get themselves in order.

Maybe not such a smart move

2008-06-28T10:38:00.001-06:00

Ok, so I thought it was a good idea to run up Gray's Peak (14,270') 8 days before the Leadville Trail Marathon. Riiiiiggghhht.
Well it was fun, but I'm paying for it now, sore and tired legs for sure. At least I've established a time for me to later beat, 2 hours 7 minutes to the top and 3 hours 11 minutes round-trip. Stats are roughly 13.3 miles and 4500' of elevation, I started from I-70. I also power-hiked the last mile to the summit, so I can work on being able to run the whole thing too. The camera's battery died a little over 13,000' feet so no summit pic, but I swear I was there. I have a GPS track to prove it! This was the 4th time summiting Gray's Peak for me.
As an aside, if you want to feel good about yourself, run up a 14er. There were a lot of hikers out and every one of them was flabbergasted that I was running and they all were cheering me on. I had more people cheering for me than the Steamboat Half-Marathon did.

Gearing up to get on the trail

Typical section of the 3 mile road up to the other trailhead.

Still enjoying myself.

There's a couple of interesting old structures still left over from the mining days.

Getting close to the Gray's Peak TH and almost to treeline.

The bridge at the gray's Peak TH, only about 4 miles and 3000' elevation to the top.

It's almost July and there's still snow around, I crossed 4 snow fields. Gray's Peak (14,270') on the left and Torrey's Peak (14,267') on the right.

My favorite part of the trail, the water is crystal clear.

The trail gets rougher as you ascend. This was the last shot before the battery died.

Bike to work day 2008

2008-06-25T08:51:00.004-06:00

Wadsworth approaching work. Nice fat shoulder.

So it was amateur day today, Colorado's Bike-to-Work Day. With almost everyday being a bike commute for me this was a day to see how many others were going to give it a go. Before today, I had only seen a maximum of three other bike commuters on my commute. Today I saw nine...wait for it...teen! And that was from 5-6 a.m.; way to go Colorado.

The start is always a little on the dark side, even in June

I took advantage of all the people riding to work and left the commuter bike at home and took the road bike. After work I rode High Grade and the City View Loop with minimal other cyclists, they were all just pedaling home. Brilliant move.

Eventually the sun comes up and is in my eyes for part of the ride.

I know most of the people today are just 1 day a year commuters, but there's hope that a few will stick with it or at least do it more than once a year.

A section I call The Yellow Brick Road

The pictures are from a typical commute, sans all the commuters this morning.

A look towards my destination, work's on the other side of that ridge.

Good luck to the PQers

2008-06-24T13:10:00.002-06:00

I just want to say good luck to all the racers at Primal Quest, but especially Sara and Jim, whom I raced with last year. I'll be following you with jealous eyes.

Waterton Canyon

2008-06-10T09:31:00.006-06:00

I recently got out on a local ride at Waterton Canyon, a lovely place to ride.

The "boring " fire road up to the singletrack.The locals

Climbing up to Lenny's RestStill climbingWell into Roxborough Park now

A fun fast swoopy section

Approaching the last little climb.
I stopped to do a little trail work. Somebody beat me to the majority of it though.
Ahh, that's a little better.
Back on the fire road.

3 Times a Loser

2008-06-06T10:39:00.002-06:00

Man, today I received news that I didn't get my spot in the ING NYC Marathon. I'm on a roll, 3 years in a row of not getting selected. Same story for Andie.

At least next year we'll be guaranteed entry, though I bet they crank the prices up even more.

Sorry, BT, you'll be running it without us. 2-a-days to catch Lance!

Hey Nick, Here's Your A$$

2008-06-05T13:37:00.002-06:00

The Tuesday night crit was brutal. Tired legs, forgetting my water bottle, wind and a loaded field meant I was hanging on for dear life the entire time. At least I didn't flat out this time.

2008 Steamboat Half-Marathon Race Report

2008-06-04T12:21:00.005-06:00

Yes, we tend to run in step when running together

Alright, 1 week after the Bolder Boulder we're back with another chance to pace my girlfriend Andie to a goal time. I'm really starting to like pacing, I take great pride in it.

The race is the Steamboat Half-Marathon. The course is a net downhill, but with rolling hills the entire way and a significant hill between miles 8 and 9.

We leave our hotel Sunday morning and go out into the 40°F crisp air and catch a bus to the race start. Luckily there's a bag drop and we can keep on some warmer clothes until about 20 minutes from the start. As we're milling around at the start we see some friends and chat and then Andie sees her arch-rival. Her name is Val, she always gives Andie a run for her money and in 2006 and 2007 they finished 1,2 at the Belleview Chiropractic 5K (this year Andie didn't race), Andie won the first year and Val won the second year, this was the tie-breaker. Upon Andie seeing Val I could tell her nerves went up and she said "Oh, I really wish I didn't see her." I don't know what tone I've set, but Val is great, very nice and really it is just a good little rivalry, kind of like my rivalry with the Ballerina, but that's another story and besides I always crush him.

Some quick math in my head and I figure we need to be running around 8:23 miles to make it under Andie's 1:50 goal, not completely trusting myself I earmark 8:20 as a good pace.

The temps are nice and we cruise through the first several miles, we're faster than we need to be, but I'm not worried because of the downhill trend. There were no crowds as we ran down with the Yampa River, but we saw great scenery and watched the cows and horses running through pastures (horses are fast!). We also saw some not so great wildlife, 1 dead skunk, 1 dead deer and several other small dead animals. We keep bouncing around between 8:05 and 8:27 miles until the 8th mile.

The 8th mile has the big hill, 150-200 feet, pretty constant and gradually gets steeper; to make it a little more fun we pop out into the sun for this mile and it's the warmest part of the course yet. We keep the effort pretty even, maybe up it a little, arms are swinging a little harder. People are dropping like flies all around us, we're now passing a lot of people. halfway through the climb who do we see but Val! Ooooh baby we're reeling her in pretty quickly. We pass her quickly and quietly and notice that she has her significant other supporting her from his bike on the side of the road, this would make it easy to keep track of Val.

We get to the top of the hill and it is followed by a big descent. Being a good descender I have to hold back a little to prevent an Andie blow up on the downhill, but we're still passing a lot of people. The course flattens out and gets hot the rest of the way into town. We cruise down the street to the finish and Andie threw in quite the kick at the end, I had no idea she had that much left. We cruised in at 1:48:32, about 1.5 minutes faster than goal pace and roughly 4 minutes faster than Val.

I finished 137th (of 961 total finishers) overall, 93rd male and 13th in my age group. Andie was 136th, 44th and 12th respectively.

Bolder Boulder 10k 2008 Race Report

2008-05-26T18:38:00.004-06:00

The Bolder Boulder, such a fun race. I've been doing this race for a while, this would be my seventh in a row. The goal this year was Andie's, under 45 minutes. Last year I didn't run more than three times prior to the race and it showed as I faded at 6k and watch BT and Andie cruise off on her first attempt at sub-45.

This year I was ready.

Andie and I were in the BB wave this year, she had qualified using her time from last year and I qualified on a treadmill at the Bolder Boulder store, though I later found out that my half-marathon time would've gotten me into the BB wave as well. I was pretty relaxed before the race, I think Andie was a little nervous. Her training didn't go quite to plan and the race pace run the week before did not go well, but here we were. My goal, sub-45 minutes or at least faster than BT paced Andie the year before.

To sum up the race, the weather was perfect for running, the garage bands were really good this year, and we didn't make sub-45 or even beat last year's time. Here are the splits (7:14 miles is a 45:00 10k):
Mile 1 - 7:21
Mile 2 - 7:23
Mile 3 - 7:51
Mile 4 - 7:52
Mile 5 - 7:19
Mile 6 - 7:41
10k - 47:09 (7:35 pace)

I finished feeling great and even hammed it up a bit for the cameras to try and get into the calendar next year (I don't think I'll make the cut).

Even though we didn't hit goal time Andie still was 24th out of 725 in her division and 476th out of 26364 women, great job Andie!

My placings were 83rd out of 482 in my division and 2435th out of 21942 men, whoo there's some stiff competition out there.

My first criterium!

2008-05-21T10:58:00.003-06:00

Well, on 5/20/2008 I participated in my first ever criterium, or any sort of a road bike race for that matter. First impression, intense, and fun. The crit was a laid back crit on top of South Table Mountain in Golden, CO at the Colorado State Patrol test track. Each lap was about 1.5 miles long and with some mild rolls throughout, the race would cover 12 laps total and every other lap would be a sprint lap with points rewarded 5 deep.

I arrive at the start line and it was obvious I was the outsider, everyone else had there conversations going and I stuck out with my lack of team kit, visor on my helmet, and hairy legs. After the explanation of the rules we were sent off, I was a bit timid about riding in a group at speed so I stuck to the left edge for the first two laps. The left edge was great for not feeling boxed in, but horrible for all the rocks on the track, I needed to move. Luckily at the end of the 2nd lap the sprint stretched the group out and I was easily able to move over to the right, much better. I was getting more comfortable and the pace of the pack was picking up. I looked around and I actually saw one other guy with unshaven legs, he looked at me and we both understood each other.
In my head I decided I would try for some points on the third sprint, but during the second sprint I found myself set up beautifully, if not a little far from the finish. I went
from the right side and two guys had already started off the front. I came by the front of the pack on the outside of a turn at about 33 mph and caught them by surprise. I quickly passed one of the away riders and then the other. I was all alone and wishing the line was near. The last 300 yards were torture, not able to let up and my only companion was the paranoia that I was being chased down. I wasn't going to look back, I had to keep going. Right at the line a guy appeared on my right and nicked me by half a length, but 2nd in the sprint was great.
I rode in the pack the next few laps and just when I was getting ready to contest the next sprint I flatted. Dang, at least it was near the finish. I pulled out and the race director said I could have $5 off the race next time because they didn't sweep the track before the race, sweet, I'll be back.

Battle the Bear XC Race Report

2008-05-20T10:37:00.002-06:00

My first-ever cross-country mountain bike race. Since I do mostly endurance training I usually don't look forward to the short intense efforts that much. The course was in Bear Creek Lake Park, so I just had to get up and hop on my bike and pedal to the start, that was a real plus of doing this race. I knew the course would be dry and fast; each lap was 10 miles and had 3 climbs totaling maybe 300 feet of elevation gain.

The race started and I was sticking to the back as I didn't know what the pace would be like or how I would feel. Well as soon as we got to the singletrack I regretted this, I was stuck behind a few slow people on the singletrack and passing was difficult at best. We reached the first climb and I was making up spots and since climbing is my forte I was ready to go, but passing was even more difficult, I think I got by two others and that was it. On the back side of the course people finally started to spread out and it was easier to spin away.

During lap 2 I was doing well and felt good, I knew I should've gone harder that first lap, but was new to this XC race business. I opened it up a bit on the second lap and did a lot of passing, most of that was slower traffic from the 50 mile race that was going on as well. Everything went well throughout the race, no mechanicals and the only snafu was turning to go on another lap at the very end instead of going to the finish, I quickly corrected it, but 1 guy(thankfully not in my category, got past me while I veered to the right. The end result....2nd place in my age group. Finish time was 1:26:54, about 1.5 minutes from 1st place. No podium pic as I missed the ceremony while I was eating lunch, oh well. I'm glad I didn't sign up for the one lap beginner race, I would've totally killed and felt like a sandbagging schmuck to boot, sport was much better.

Quick catch up

2008-05-19T16:01:00.006-06:00

Hey everyone has to have a myspace-esque photo right?

Today, my hips are sore, that's new. A pretty good weekend though I didn't do as much as I wanted (bailed out on the long road ride up Evans from my place).

Saturday:
Battle the Bear XC Race, 2nd place in my age group, a write up will follow.
Sunday:
17.5 mile trail run, this is what made me sore. The race the day before and standing around in the sun for hours after the race meant I started the run a little dehydrated and with tired legs. I ran up Waterton Canyon and then around the Indian Creek/Roxborough Park loop, it was the first time I ran this, but I have ridden it many times. I was a little beat up and stopped twice on the way back to soak my shirt in the river, it was in the mid 80's by the time I finished.

I also received my medal for second place in my age group for the Grizzly Man Adventure Race, I'll have to write a blurb about that race as well.

I'll now add a few pictures of recent things as well, I love spring.

View from a recent trail run at Deer Creek Canyon Park

Rockies game with friends

Carl re-fueling during a quick stop during a trail run

Even Steven!

2008-05-09T08:44:00.004-06:00

Days commuted by car in 2008: 31
Days commuted by bike in 2008: 31

Gallons of gas saved: 36

Today is the day that I evened up my commuting miles for 2008.
I had made it a resolution to commute by bike more days than car in 2008. I was doing well the first week of January, even though it was cold and snowy, but soon was far behind due to bad weather, rest days before 24 HOP, recovery days after 24 HOP, and general wussiness. I have since turned the tables and today I evened it up.

I've saved about $120 in gas, which means I am no longer upside down on my commuter bike purchase.

Bike cost: $50
Fenders: $25
Rear Rack: $10
Seat bag: $6
Spare tube: $3
New Shifters: $18

Total: $112

I'm $8 ahead and enjoy my commute much more. Plus, my insurance on my car lowered because now I'm driving it only 2-3 times a week and most of that is on the weekend. I'll keep this in mind and make sure I don't go very negative on my investment here as I shop for a longer stem and taller geared crankset.

14A, you win this time.

2008-05-01T13:57:00.014-06:00

Wednesday April 23rd, 9:30 a.m. 36 °F. I head out from my little motel room in Lovell, WY and turn onto US Route 14A.

The wind was slightly at my tail, it was my last day of vacation, the road was closed 20 miles ahead for the winter and I couldn't help but enjoy myself. I learned the previous day about the winter closure, but I still had the optimism that it would be clear and closed to cars only.

The miles were flying by, 25 minutes for the first 11 miles, tail winds make my legs feel good. The road was devoid of vehicles except for the occasional truck from the bentonite mine. The transition to the climb is gradual and sneaks up on you, before you realize it you're into a 5400+' climb. Around mile 16 my girlfriend caught me with the sag wagon as she wanted to see the route and wished she had brought her bike with as well. She drove next to me for 2 miles, it was nice having my own personal support car, I felt important. I was now having to work harder, but I didn't realize the incline because of how gradual it came on. Soon I was wondering, "Did I blow my legs in the race a few days ago?", "Did I not sleep well last night?" as my pace slowed and breathing rate increased. Soon the support car left to check out of the motel and I was left to finish up the ride. I still didn't know why I felt like I did on a slight incline, but I took a picture which later revealed what my "slight incline" really was.
Just after passing the 10% grade sign you come to this sign, I guess the climbing is about to actually start, sweet. It really is pretty out there and I would like to be back a little later in the spring when everything greens up, I've heard it's "...like riding through Ireland", at least until August when it browns up again. I was in a groove and remembered how much I love climbing; even though I promised my GF that I would turn around soon so we could drive 9 hours back to Denver, I really wanted to finish out the climb. The winter closure was fast approaching and before I knew it I was there. Hmmmm, nothing about no bikes, winter recreation? sure that can be me, keep on rolling.
I'd like to say there was less traffic, but after the closure was pretty much the same as before, nothing much, I did get passed by two truck hauling heavy equipment to clear the road up high, they must be getting ready to actually open the road to cars. Now the grade increased a little, maybe some shots up to 15% or so, a good time for sure.
Well I soon turned around and went back, my appetite wetted, I'll be back to finish it right soon.

A couple parting shots:

24 Hours in the Old Pueblo 2008 Race Report (finally)

2008-04-26T20:18:00.017-06:00

Race morning, I unzip the tent and survey the landscape; it’s white and cactus spines as far as the eye can see. This is the Arizona desert, it’s supposed to be my winter relief! It takes some motivation, but Andie and I to venture out of our warm sleeping bags. We spend the morning getting the bikes prepared for the race and getting camp organized. The bikes I brought to the race are my 2001 Specialized Stumpjumper FSR, heavily upgraded, as the primary and my Redline Monocog 29er as the back-up bike. I’m hoping I don’t actually have to ride the back-up bike as it is 3 pounds heavier, singlespeed and doesn’t have any suspension.

By late morning the rain had stopped and the snow had melted, but the desert was still very wet. All racers line up at the start, roughly a ¼ mile uphill from our bikes, I took my spot and the nerves kicked in; training had not gone the way I wanted it to the last few months with my work travel schedule, but I was here and had to make the best of it. At noon the gun goes off and all of us fools are running downhill in the mud, in our bike shoes. The running start helped spread out everyone at the start so that it was only mildly chaotic at the bike racks. I don’t see my bike where I left when I first get there, but then I see a spectator holding it along the sidelines, not sure why, but I snatched it, he said “Good luck” and I started out on my first lap. Two minutes after the gun the sun came out, finally.

The plan had been to pre-ride the course on Friday so I could be better prepared on Saturday, but the weather made me reverse that thnking so this first lap everything was new to me. It was a wide open doubletrack in the beginning that made the going fast and easy. Being patient and humble is a necessity for solo racers, it takes a lot not to go flying off the front with a bunch of riders on 4-person or corporate teams. Quickly the course turns onto “The Bitches”, from the name and the descriptions I thought I was going to hate them. It turns out that “The Bitches” aren’t so bad, I credit that to all of the climbing that is necessary for biking on Colorado’s Front Range; it would be strange to ride my mountain bike and not have to do some sort of climbing. So I offer up a more accurate description of ”The Bitches”.

The Bitches :

A series of 50 foot climbs on the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo race course, usually with 2 or 3 different lines to ascend by and 2 lines to descend by. Hated by singlespeeders and tired legs, and loved by those that are already through them.

I pace myself through the Bitches, being particularly careful to watch out for the one that could supposedly throw you and break your collar bone (it has happened many times in the history of the race), but I never found them to be too difficult or dangerous, this is still the first lap though.

My lap continues and the evidence of the recent moisture is everywhere, mud, puddles, ruts, etc are all obstacles for me. Each lap is 15.2 miles long, and with the new trail additions this year is probably ~70% singletrack. The course is crowded and often we are jammed up on the singletrack because there are so many riders, at times I felt like I was on a Critical Mass ride in middle of the desert. Not wanting to overexert myself on the first lap I took the opportunity to tuck in behind every slow rider I caught. I would stick with them so that I didn’t go too fast. I thought this was a brilliant move until I started to realize why these riders were going so slow. I thought that they were like me, solo riders that were trying to make sure they didn’t get caught up in the excitement, not always the case. I quickly learned to identify the people that were slow to conserve energy and the people that were slow because of poor bike handling skills, I would bail on the poor bike handlers because there was no way I wanted my momentum killed by someone else’s mistake. Keeping momentum became pretty important to me throughout the race.

Just before finishing my first lap I reached my camp and Andie was waiting. I had told her to expect me in 1:30 but it took me closer to 1:42, the new singletrack was slower than I had expected. I did a quick bottle change and headed out for another lap.

On this lap I tried to count how many Bitches there were, but I found that I lost track easily “5, wait is that I’m on number five, or I’ve completed five, dammit!” I didn’t get an accurate count until my 6^th lap, there are 7 Bitches on the course.

The course was faster as it was starting to dry out. My pacing continued on track and I finished in similar time to my previous lap.

Lap 3 meant the course was considerably faster, and now I’ve found the Bitch that breaks collar bones. Off the descent of the 6^th Bitch you get up to 30+ mph and as you’re shooting up the 7^th Bitch there’s a berm that really can launch you, my advice, pull up on your bars if you don’t want to kiss the dirt.

When I get back to Andie I now put on my lights as it will be getting dark during my next lap. My lights were a bit of a concern, I had some halogen back-ups, but my primary was a high-powered LED light that I had yet to test; I had literally finished building it that morning and the JB weld didn’t get the full cure time on the mount.

During lap 4 I enjoyed the sunset and made sure to not dawdle as I wanted to get as far into the lap before I needed to use my lights. A little past halfway, I turn on the LED light, I didn’t bring a back-up this lap, that sounds stupid now that I write it out. Cue the sun! Wow that light has got some brightness to it! I’m loving my light and cruising along at a good clip, though the battery connector is not wanting to stay connected too easily.

All of a sudden everything is dark, except under my bike. I quickly stop before I careen off into the cactus and assess. The JB weld on my mount failed, it was fine until the light warmed it up and made it soft, crap. Now my only choice is to hold the light in my hand, while also trying to hold the connector together as the new position puts more strain on the connector and it more easily disconnects. The rest of the lap seems to take forever, my light keeps coming disconnected, I’m steering with one hand, but only have braking with one. When the trail gets bumpy, I'm constantly hitting the On/Off button. Finally after 2 hours I roll into camp.

I show Andie the light and she starts to move to get me out again with other llghts. I explain to Andie that I have an idea and that I’m hungry so I stop and start to fix things up. After 45 minutes I have some soup in me and my LED light is now my helmet light, courtesy of a lot of duct tape. I also have to duct tape the battery to my back as the cord isn’t long enough for a helmet mount, I’m glad I brought that tape.

My ghetto light gets me through another few laps in the dark. It keeps getting colder and Andie has my illness full-blown back at camp, staying up all night in the cold is not good to speed up recovery. At around 2:15 a.m. I roll through the "Golf" checkpoint, my favorite checkpoint by far. The Golf volunteers always welcome you with a resounding yell of welcome, the most memorable night exchange went something like this.

“HELLO AND WELCOME TO CHECKPOINT GOLF!”

“Nice to see you guys you’re always so enthusiastic” I said

“Well feel free to stop and chat if you like.’

“Nope, you don’t even have a fire I’ll freeze” I said

“Oh we have a fire over there, and heaters, and hot chocolate.”

“Damn you! Quit trying to make me stop!” I said

“I KNOW, I’M AN ASSHOLE!”

It was 28 degrees at checkpoint golf at that point, I had four layers on my torso, two on my head, three on my legs and a pair of thick socks and my winter boots on my feet, I still wished I had one more layer on my torso.

Shortly after the Golf checkpoint I rounded a bend and was startled to see a 6 foot tall alien giving me the peace sign. 50 feet later a cowboy was just off the trail ready to draw his gun. These cardboard stand-ups somebody had placed really made me chuckle. Later that lap a team rider went past me and said ‘I’m not embarrassed to say that that alien back that scared the crap out of me.”

I finished my 7^th lap at 3 a.m., it was a good lap, my second fastest yet, but a pattern had formed. Throughout the night I kept having a great lap, then a bad lap, so next up would be a bad lap. To break the cycle and to let Andie get some rest (nice excuse eh?) I ate some soup and took a nap until morning.

In the morning I woke up, ate, drank and got back on the bike. The feeling had returned to my previously numb butt and it didn’t like my saddle anymore. I wasn’t racing anymore, I was just there to learn, my first 24 hour mountain bike race, I wanted it to be a good time.

I was planning at least 2 more laps in the morning, but the Bitches saw it differently, somewhere through them my water bottle cage broke and I lost my only source of hydration and nutrition 15 minutes into my lap, I had taken exactly 2 sips from it. Well, this means I would spend a little more time back at camp getting caught back up before my next lap. This lap was fun as I talked to some other racers and was astounded to come across some team racers that were out for there 2^nd or even 1^st lap while I was on my 8^th.

Camp was comfortable and I quickly decided that I had enough riding, I would just hang out until noon and then turn in my baton. I didn’t want to make bringing the singlespeed a total waste so I would ride that to the finish. I helped pack up camp and changed to jeans and then I rolled into the timing tent at noon to finish my race. It was a lot of fun and I think I will do more of these races, but I’m not going to let myself get consumed with going in circles for hours and hours. In total I rode 121.6 miles. I’ll finish this post with some pictures of the end of the race and of the drive home.

No way!

2008-04-07T16:21:00.007-06:00

Dewey Bridge, burnt.

I can't believe that Dewey Bridge in Utah has burned down. It happened last night, details here

Dewey was the halfway point for the Kokopelli Trail, I wonder if they will rebuild it?

Drying Out

2008-03-19T08:57:00.004-06:00

I took the Gary Fisher out for a ride around BCLP to check out trail conditions and was pleasantly surprised to see that the trail was quite dry. More dirt riding coming up!

It was also a nice little mental exercise, embracing the wind once again. 15-20 mph sustained winds with gusts to 35. the head and crosswinds were challenging, but turning around and going home was absolutely effortless.

On another note, this last weekend I officially began my Leadville Marathon Training with fun 6 mile run at Green Mountain.

New Bike and Back on the Commute

2008-03-13T10:25:00.001-06:00

It's nice be commuting again, it's requiring less motivation to get out of bed each day. I'm also liking the Niterider Trail Rat 2.0 I picked up for commuting, just-about-right run-times, bright enough to overpower the oncoming headlights on C-470, bright enough that I don't out-ride it, heavy enough that I don't feel like I'm wearing down my race setup.

I also bought a new bike just before going to Puerto Rico, it'll be the race hardtail for me. It's a 2004 Gary Fisher Team 29er, I bought it used off a member of the Tokyo Joes cycling team, he just got a new Superfly and didn't need this anymore. I'll post more details in a dedicated post later. Here's a picture to wet the appetite.

Can you pass the test?

2008-03-11T07:40:00.001-06:00

Do you pass the test?
http://www.dothetest.co.uk/

I thought I was going to pass the test, then it turns out I failed. Let me know if you pass.

Bad Blogger!

2008-03-10T15:21:00.003-06:00

I swear I have some posts coming about the previous month and the 24 HOP race. I've slept in my Colorado-based bed 3 times in the last 3 weeks so things are crazy. I'm back for at least this week so I'll try to get caught up.

Mississippi was not much fun, Puerto Rico was a great time.

The picture is Cody and his sweet Toyota United team bike, I've really got to get up to Montana and convince him to let me take it for a spin.

Leadville or Bust!

2008-02-06T07:53:00.000-07:00

Sweet, I just checked out the preliminary list of Leadville 100 MTB race entrants and I'm in! After getting snubbed last year I will spending a lot of time up in Leadville this year.
July 5: Leadville Trail Marathon
July 19: Silver Rush MTB Race
August 9: Leadville 100 MTB Race
August 16: Leadville 100 Foot Race (volunteering, not racing)

I hope I didn't waste all of my lottery luck on this as I still want to get into the ING NYC Marathon too this year, application for that begins Feb 25th.

Business Trippin'

2008-02-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

I've been traveling a lot for work lately, two trips in two weeks and another coming pretty soon. I have been able to keep up some level of riding during my trips, but it's not easy.

On my first trip I decided I would take a bike with. It was pretty easy to choose the Lotus as the bike that gets the nod, I was going to sell it this spring anyways, but now I'm going to just leave it down at the Stennis Space Center for me to use when I travel there. I'm happy that I have a bike to ride down there now and Andie's happy that there's one less bike milling around the house.
Riding along in the dark, a few minutes before my crash. Thankfully my crash happened 50 yards from my car as I was going out for another out-and-back to get my time in.

This is the culprit of the crash. I was looking to make sure traffic was clear at the approaching intersection and when I looked back down, BAM! My left foot slammed into the pole, I fish-tailed out, for a fleeting moment I thought I could recover from it all and then I went down hard. I was surprised that I didn't break my left foot or the pedal. The damage? Rear wheel out of true, handlebars scraped, stem twisted, brake hoods twisted and me...
I think this is from my mini pump jamming into me when I hit the deck. I also had a huge swollen bump on my right shin, a bruised right palm and the worst was a bruised left hip/groin area (no pics of that). The hip/groin area is still a little sore after two weeks, but getting better, I must've hit a bar pretty hard as the bruise looked like I had been caned, a few millimeters to the right and I would've been really hurting.

I wonder how many of these tweeks were caused by the bike hitting the ground or some body part slamming into the bike (the front wheel is facing straight forward).
The ghetto hotel room bike stand, it was sufficient to get me rolling again. MacGyver out!
Some of the sites from riding at the Stennis Space Center. The Navy's submersible Alvin.

Saturn V's F1 engine, an absolute beast. This is the engine that sent us to the moon, well 5 of them did. That must've been a spectacle to see those things light up.
Space Shuttle Main Engine, the shuttle uses 3 of these.
A Redstone Jupiter C from the 50's, and my bike from the 90's.

Solid rocket booster for the space shuttle

A street sign with no street intersecting, remnants of a ghost town.

A Rolls Royce jet engine on their test stand, that would be fun to see spin up.

1 day after the crash, it pretty much looks the same two weeks afterwards as well.

You can start to see the bruise at the heel of my hand, that's an Andie-esque type injury there.

The grand finale, a space shuttle main engine test, this shook our building and caused it to rain a little a few minutes after the test.

Mardi Gras Parades! Some of those floats are amazing, I believe this was one of the floats from the Krewe of Hermes.

The view from the 39th floor in my hotel room in New Orleans. The bridge you see goes over the Mississippi River.

The parade was still going on on the streets below as I went to bed.

The fixie fad is going strong in New Orleans as well.
First class is the way to fly. I have a cheesecake on my plate, but it's whited out. This was the first time I flew first class this nice, it was all because I was bumped from my original flight.

I'm really in for it tomorrow!

2008-01-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

They say that you're sorest after 2 days, just when you think "it's not so bad" on the day-after day 2 comes and gets you. Well, at least they say that for muscle soreness due to hard exertion, from crashes we'll see.

Today, was interesting as lifting my left thigh above a 45° angle meant pretty sizable amounts of pain, I hope tomorrow isn't worse. Despite the pain I did get my long ride in, though not quite a full 5 hours. During my ride I took it a little easy and my spin was defintely messed up, I did more pedal mashing than spinning today, but at the end of it I could lift my leg to about 55° before I couldn't ignore the pain....ahhh progress.

Tomorrow's ride will be difficult to get in as I had to change my flight home and will now be spending all day at work and then flying home in the evening, it might be a late night for me. I land at 8, get home and ride until 2 a.m., man that sucks I need a better solution.

CRASH! In a battle between

2008-01-22T17:57:00.001-07:00

CRASH! In a battle between Nick on a bike and a metal pole, the pole wins. Details and some pictures to follow.

Wind, the Evil Element

2008-01-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

I have long disliked the wind, it never is a good thing for a tall skinny guy; I'm light and have a lot of surface area as well, basically it pushes me around and steals my lunch money.

Lately, if my long rides are snow free they are windy, today was no exception as it took me 3 hours on a normal 2 hr 10 min course and at times I was in the drops and only going 6 mph. It's all about attitude though and it doesn't bother me like it used to just because I embrace the adversity. I broke a spoke 4 miles from home so I finished up the loop and then went inside and did another 2 hours on the trainer to get my 5 hours. "Off Road to Athens" is a great dvd to cycle to, my cadence started out around 85 rpm and was up to 105 by the end of the ride, just inspiration from the movie I guess.

Another 5 hour ride in store for tomorrow.

Good Luck to Jenny, she's running the Walt Disney World Marathon this weekend, kick butt and eat some Girl Scout cookies afterwards.

Back on Track

2008-01-10T12:46:00.000-07:00

After a screwed up December, my training is finally back on track; stay away from my weekends snow!
I've got the new commuter bike outfitted with studs and fenders and so far have commuted in 4 times by bike and 3 times by car for 2008, off to a decent start. One of those commutes was on the Pugsley in 8 inches of snow, that took almost twice as long as usual and the shoulder on Wadsworth got down to only 2 foot wide at times. I might reconsider my route or even driving the next time it snows a significant amount, I prefer not to have cars flying by me on snow/ice at 45+ mph with only 2 feet of room in the dark.
I parked the bike outside, and even though the snow stopped I still got a little bit of drifting due to the wind.

Riding at 35 mph with that much snow on the rims is interesting, next time I'll knock it off to give the wheel better balance.

The new commuter bike as I bought it, not bad for $50. This is what I believe is a 1988 Trek 830, smooth steel throughout. The bike has previously been upgraded as it seems to have a sealed cartridge bottom bracket and cranks from 1994ish and an LX drivetrain. It's also a 6 speed so I've got a spare set of wheels (sweet, I'm glad I didn't get rid of those ancient wheels) that I can set up with a second set of tires, smoothies and studs all at with a quick wheel swap.
I haven't done much to it, I'm actually completely surprised at how clean it is and the condition it is in. I've installed fenders, mounted studs and put on a new seat. I didn't get too far into checking out all the internals, I'm saving that to do with Andie as it will be a crash course in advanced bike maintenance before she crews for me at 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo.

Today was the shakedown ride for the Trek 830, it did ok, but it's about 20 minutes slower on the way in with studs on, not bad, but I need to account for this. Now that it has been ridden I do have some things on the wishlist for it, new shifters (gripshift all the way for this bike) and pogies. I have to run to the local fabric stores to see if I can get cordura nylon there and then go over to the parents place to use mom's sewing machine to make those pogies.

It Was a Delicious Weekend

2008-01-07T12:05:00.000-07:00

On a long ride this weekend I discovered a new and wonderful thing, Mint-Chocolate holiday GU. Some of these popped up in Andie's stocking and I got an extra box for me as well, I'm glad I did, these things are like liquid Thin Mints!

If anyone is looking for me this week, I'll be scouring all the local stores hunting down the remaining packages before they are gone.

It's only a week into the year and I'm already declaring this the Best Energy Food Flavor of 2008.
Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Holiday Photo Dump

2008-01-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

Here's some photo's from a couple of days over the holiday break.Making Fresh Tracks

Finally, a picture to do the tires justice

I'm sure the golf course appreciates this one.

This is the Monocog's 2.35 Weirwolfs inside of an Endomorph track.

The snow is always good if you go hike a little

This is what I wore when I went out for a ride at -1°F, lots of layers. Total added clothes weight is 4.75 pounds. Dare I say that I was actually a little too warm in the sun.

The winter wears on

2008-01-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

With the holidays over and life returning to "normal" expect to see some more pictures from winter activities. I'll update the blog more comprehensively when I have more time, which will be soon.

Spreading Christmas Cheer

2007-12-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

I decorated the commuter bike with some lights for the holiday season. I think I actually have some cold weather gear figured out for my commute, I was too hot on the way home with temperatures in the 40's.

More from the Snow Front

2007-12-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

A quick weekend recap:

I went for a ride up Mt. Falcon on Saturday. I love this ride and it usually takes 30-44 minutes for the main climb (about 3 miles and 2000' of elevation) during the summer depending on how much I want it to hurt. This day with the Pugsley and some pretty difficult conditions it took me 90 minutes and was quite the butt kicker.Going up Castle Trail, the snow in the sun was nice

In the rock garden near the top. I know, what rock garden?

I'm finally in a picture with the Pugs on a trail!...sort of.

Sunday I went for a run with Jenny. Earlier in the week she said "Hey do you want to run my 20-miler with me?" and for some reason I thought it was a good idea. We ran on the Big Dry Creek trail and the first 5 miles had some pretty treacherous conditions. John was on the Pugsley in support mode and was having a hard time keeping up with us it was so bad. Needless to say, when we got to the 10 mile turn around I felt like I had already run 17 or 18 miles. So on the way back we took inventory and realized that both of us had sore knees, ankles, hips and I also had a sore right shoulder (what!?) so we called Andie and had her meet us at a bail out point. We still got in 16.5 miles and that took us as long as the 20 should have and left us a little more beat up. The pizza following the cold snowy pummeling was so incredibly delicious.
I wish I had taken pictures as we were quite the odd bunch with Jenny and I out running 20 miles in the snow and John on the snow tank.

Miles is Brilliant

2007-12-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

Miles, my cat, wanted to help me and Andie with our Christmas wrapping activities and this gem was created.

Just Puggin' Away

2007-12-12T09:29:00.000-07:00

Last night I went for my first real ride on the Pugsley, tons of fun. I rode up Waterton Canyon to the dam and back, ~13 miles, 20 °F. The main road was pretty packed down, but I made sure to try out some of the deeper stuff on some little side jaunts. I was the only one out there around sunset and finished after dark. 15 psi in both tires worked good for the conditions, but I think I would try the 10-12 range for a climb in similar snow.

Those Endomorphs certainly have a bigger footprint than me.

At the intermediate dam 3 miles up.

I guess I should have drank just a little more on the ride.

Paralyzed by Choices

2007-12-10T12:13:00.000-07:00

Per my usual, I am paralyzed by choices. I always do this. I need something, so I research the crap out of it and I'm usually paralyzed by the fact that I have many choices and different compromises with each.

The latest is an "insignificant" mini pump for the Pugsley. I know I want something other than I already have, the requirements are to not be a rigid connection to the pump and high volume (I don't want to be pumping those massive tires for 30 minutes).

The candidates:
Canondale Airspeed Maximum
Axiom Enforce Air XL
GT Mini Typhoon 1800 Deluxe
Cyclaire (the most intriguing design of the bunch)
Lezyne Alloy Drive XL
Serfas Grifter
Serfas 2n1
Planet Bike Mini Versair
Topeak Mountain Morph

I will continue to spend too much time researching a $25 accessory and finally breakdown and get something, though I might just get the GT pump to try right off the bat as it is only $10 at Pricepoint right now.

2008 is going to be good!

2007-12-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

So here's a look at possible events for me next year. Several things aren't on there yet, like Primal Quest, Winter Park MTB Series, Mountain States Cup MTB Series, BC Vert. Challenge, Vail Trail Running Series. These are all just possibilities though.

16-Feb			24 Hours in the Old Pueblo
15-Mar			America's Uphill
29-Mar			Rim Ride
5-Apr			Moab 12 hour AR
18-Apr			AZT 300
19-Apr			Grizzly Man Sprint AR
2-May			18 Hours of Fruita
10-May			Buena Vista 12 Hour AR
17-May			USARA Sprint Nationals - Boulder, CO
4-Jun to 8-Jun			Teva Mountain Games
14-Jun			Durango 24 Hour AR
4-Jul			Firecracker 50
19-Jul			Breck 100
19-Jul			Silver Rush 50
26-Jul			Laramie Enduro (date tentative)
9-Aug			Leadville 100 MTB
16-Aug			24 Hours in the Sage
16-Aug to 17-Aug			LT100 Run (probably just volunteering)
6-Sep			Vail 12 hour AR
6-Sep			Imogene Pass Run
25-Sep to 28-Sep			Moab Expedition AR
11-Oct			24 Hours of Moab

Spinervals Virgin No More.

2007-12-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

So last night I set up the new (to me) trainer and did a quick Spinervals workout.

It was just a short 30 minute technique workout, but it was nice with me still needing another day to recover from the Vegas Half.

It was a quality workout and I'm glad I've got a variety of them.

Las Vegas Half Marathon Race Report

2007-12-04T11:21:00.000-07:00

Vegas Baby! (is there any other way to open this post?)

Andie and I flew to Vegas for the Marathon and Half Marathon this last weekend. I was running the half, she was running the full. That'll be the last time that happens, you wouldn't believe the amount of crap I got for it.

I wasn't expecting much since this was a B race for me and I was only running twice a week in training. I figured about a 1:40. My time, 1:40:06, hows that for guessing. I was 272nd out of 8172 finishers.

Andie ran the full in 3:53 and change, her fist time under 4 and only 13 minutes from boston qualifying.

Andie has now bested my best time from Vegas 2 years ago by 5 minutes, I guess I need to do another full and set a new PR.

New Member in the Family

2007-11-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

Some people buy a snowblower after the 4 weeks of blizzards we had last year, I bought the Surly Pugsley. I've been eying it for about 18 months now, and this weekend I found a deal that I deemed good enough. Alpha Bicycle Company was having an end of the season sale so I went to check it out. I knew they had a few Pugsleys (very rare for a shop to carry them) and I told myself that if they had my size and it was a certain price I would do it (new they run about $2200 built up).

100mm wide Bottom bracket to clear the 4 inch tires, oof!

I test rode the Puglsey around the lot and it fit well, it even had grip shift, what I had wanted to try out on a snow bike and possibly for a winter commuter. I asked him how much it was going for and they hit my "buy it" price right on the head. I got them to throw in a shimano freewheel for the front tire and I was out the door.

I really like that shop and was tempted by some good deals on Mary bars and Fleegle bars (to try out), but didn;t pull the trigger. They really have a lot more of the niche stuff in biking, 29ers, Pugsleys, non-standard bars, a sweet geared Spot, Danger Boy levers and much more.

Standard bike pose, for you Cody.

I can't wait for it to snow!

USARA 24 hr Nationals Race Report

2007-11-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

Missouri is just not my place for good luck I guess. Here's the quick and sweet, about halfway into the course we were disqualified because I lost our passport. Bummer, out on a technicality and it was my fault too. Long version below.

The race was in Potosi, MO; a very pretty area. We arrived and checked in the night before, there were a lot of big guns out there and Robyn Benincasa was there as a USARA rep and was cheering on the teams, cool, she's a lot smaller than I thought she would be.

The race start was at 7 a.m. at the Trout Lodge, it was cold, temps were in the 20's. We had to split up for the first section of the course, Jim ran up the road to get our passport and then back down to the lake and Sara and I would paddle the canoe across the lake and pick up Jim.

The gun goes off and we quickly split, Sara and I reach the canoes and the madness ensues; canoes falling everywhere (they were stacked three high), people arguing and yelling at each other over who had right to that canoe. Somehow in the madness I ended up snagging a canoe and Sara and I were in the water in 6th place, out of 80. Not bad.

We paddled into the fog on the lake, visually this made for great photos, but it was sooooooo cold out there. Any water that splashed onto the canoe quickly froze. We reached the meeting area just as the front runners were arriving. Jim took a little longer than anticipated, but we still were in the top 20 when we gathered him in and left. This is where the race organizers could've done a better job, we had a two seat canoe for a three person team.

We paddled to the island and quickly nabbed the next CP and continued on. Jim was having trouble getting comfortable without a seat and was constantly changing positions. My hands were starting to feel warm, finally, though I still had ice on the outside of my gloves. We reach the next CP just as the bottleneck started, we were third inline to punch the CP and the line was at least 10 boats long when we left. We finished the paddle and we were in 15th place coming out of the water, doing ok.

Now we implemented our strategy for the start of the race; look at the map, but basically follow the front runners for a while to keep them in our sights. I was a little slow at the start of the orienteering section because my hands were thawing (the previous warming sensation was completely false) and were so painful that I couldn't run fast. Our strategy was working great for teh first 3 CPs, in fact we were catching more and more people. Then we made a small snafu going off trail and lost a few minutes. Then we encountered a trail map with a "You Are Here" on it, that cost us 15 more minutes; who'd have figured that knowing our exact location would throw us off so bad.

Soon we were settled in and one of the teams near us was very familiar, Team Monster Energy was Team Pain Syndicate at the MAR; we were faster then and I knew we could be faster now. We flew through the last few check points and reached the bike transition placed somewhere in the teens. The best exchange of the day was when Robyn Benincasa came over while we transitioned and said,
"What team are you guys?"
"Team Seek Adventure"
"Do you guys have a sponsor?"
"No, not really."
"Man, you guys are scrappy!"

On to the bike, awesome, time to reel in some more teams. We were cruising as usually and within 10 minutes we've already passed a team. We are hitting checkpoints without hesitation and everything is going great. Next thing I know we're passing Team Yoga Slackers, they were quite fast at the MAR and this means we were now cracking into the top 10. The 4th bike CP had a twist, we get there and there's a sign giving us coordinates to the real CP, interesting. We don't pick the best route to get there, but we lose only about 5 minutes. CP 5 is quick and we're blazing towards CP6, right on the heels of another team. We reach and intersection and the other team is there talking to a hiker. He says he came from the right and he started at the campground, that was all we needed, we headed right towards the campground. Well it was the wrong campground and we were then lost for 1.5 hours. Talk about a bummer. We get to the CP in 33rd place (it was only 100 yards to the left when we made the wrong turn).

We keep our pace steady and methodical, we didn't want to blow through any intersections we needed. We were clawing our way back up through the field. The biking was very nice here, mostly singletrack, but it made it difficult to pass. We arrive at the next transition area and we're in 30th place, with several teams there as well. We change over to our trekking stuff and head out, hoping to get to the canoes before it gets dark (and really cold on the water). I was carrying the passport and I switched it over to a pocket in my pack, because carrying it in my short legs didn't seem secure enough for a trek.

Three miles into the trek we're tangled up with the teams in front of us and I decide to do a sanity check on the passport. I reach in the pocket, it's not there. I try some other pockets, still not there. I quickly tell the team to stop (seconds before we were about to splash across a 20 foot stream crossing) and let them know. we check my pockets again and then realize we have to backtrack.

Reluctantly and disappointingly we retrace our steps looking for the passport. We make it all the way back to the previous CP without a trace. We ask if anyone turned one in and the said no, and then they said without it we were DQed. We theorized that some other team might have picked it up or that it blew away with some wind, either way we were out.

The only highlights of this part of the race were when we got back to the transition area the other racers were dumbfounded, they though we had finished the trek and canoe already. The other thing that made us feel ok was that at the same time Team Nike Beaver Creek was pulling out (due to one team mate hurting himself), they were only minutes ahead of us.

So we rode back to the lodge, had a great meal and went to bed early. We heard the next day that everyone was coming off the water freezing and borderline hypothermic, I was glad to miss out on that.

A disappointing end to the season, but it'll serve as good motivation for next year.

I want to thank my teammates Jim and Sara for not making me feel like a schmuck for losing the passport, thanks for understanding.

Colorado Dreaming

2007-10-23T12:15:00.000-06:00

I've been in Mississippi for 8 days now for work, man I miss Colorado. That's why this post is just some pictures from some Colorado this year.

BT trucking up Maroon Creek Rd on our warm-up ride.

The road bike posing in front of the Maroon Bells after the climb.

Hanging uot in the cold wind waiting for Andie's leg to start in the Colorado Outward Bound Relay.

My belly button's view of my rides.

Out on a local ride, good old High Grade.

Boom Baby!

2007-10-19T13:34:00.000-06:00

My team and I (Team Seek Adventure) just received an invitation to compete in the GoLite USARA Adventure Racing National Championships.

Time to saddle up and redeem myself!

Nov. 2 -3 near Potosi, Missouri

Follow the action on race day with live updates on the USARA Website

The Buildup Is On

2007-10-10T07:33:00.000-06:00

After being out of commission Monday with a 1 day cold (that's happened 3 times in the last 6 months now) it was nice to get out and ride again.

I hopped on the non-commuter road bike for the first time in a while. Wow, that's a fast bike, even with me running Andie's heavier wheels right now. Just an hour spin around Bear Creek Lake Park, just me and the cyclocross guys out there.

One of my teammates recently reminded us to "keep training in case we get into nationals.", like I would stop anyways. If I'm not training for AR, it's something else; right now it's a two-headed monster, the Las Vegas Half-Marathon and 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo, which actually combine to be pretty nice AR training.

The LV half is one of the best HM courses I've seen, this should just plain be fun, maybe I should do it as one of the Running Elvi.

24 HOP I will be doing solo, this will be the A race for me and I'm sure I will have a lot of fun prepping for it. Hopefully this year will be more winter riding and less indoor trainer riding. though Andie found me a super sweet Kurt Kinetic Road Machine at the REI garage sale while I was out racing in Missouri.

An interesting thing about the 24 HOP is the running LeMans style start. A lot of 24 hour races start this way to thin out the crowd, I wonder if I can get the hole shot for the run. Time to do a few strides in my biking shoes.

Berryman Adventure Race

2007-10-09T12:27:00.001-06:00

Here it is, Team Seek Adventure's attempt at qualifying for the National Championships.

Thursday September 27th, evening. We all meet at my house before departing for Missouri. Jim there's with a nice surprise, our first sponsorship! Jim had been in contact with Crocs and had worked out a gear sponsorship through them. So, with our new footwear on (their socks are uber-comfy BTW, but if you're borderline on the sizing go with the larger) we loaded all of our gear in/on to Joe's suburban.

Joe, like he was possessed, drove entirely through the night and got maybe an hour of car sleep in the morning while I drove, maybe he didn't trust any of us to drive. ;) the drive to Missouri is long and pretty uneventful, 16 hours. I got to catch up on some movies I had never seen, but nobody would let me put in Deliverance until we were on the way out of Missouri, now I know why.

Of course we were short on time after we arrived and we scrambled to get our gear in order and then get some sleep before the race, too bad we couldn't have arrived a few hours earlier.

The race started at 5 a.m. on Friday with an orienteering leg. The race was all bunched up through the first 3 checkpoints. We had one glitch in going for the 4th CP that cost us about 15 minutes, but everything else went smoothly. We came out of the morning mist and into the first transition area in 18th place.

We quickly changed over to our bikes and headed out. We climbed up a hill and then bombed down the other side, that's when Sara told us we missed the turn at the top of the hill, dang. Back up we went and then shortly after getting back on course Sara's pedal fell off, we put it back on. Two minutes later, it comes off again. We investigate a little more and it seems as though her pedal bearings are seizing and her crankarm is starting to strip. We get some lube in there and swith out a pedal from Jim's bike and we're going again. 30 minutes later Jim flats, man, these delays come in bunches. Luckily, biking is our forte and we are passing teams all the time now. We arrive at the next manned CP in 14th place. Most of the route is on the Ozark Trail, an extremely beautiful singletrack that is actually hardly discernible at times, at least it was daylight.

We get to the TA in 9th place, heck yeah, we're in a groove. We fill up our bladders at a clear and cool natural spring and get going. It turns out we took the long way, but we still maintained our position and got to the canoes in 9th place, 1 hour before sunset.

Canoing is wonderful, I'm so used to paddling ridiculous inflatables that these feel extremely nimble. Jim and I are in one boat, while Sara and Joe are in another. I'm in the back, controlling the direction and Jim's just adding horsepower up front. We get into a rhythm and are making great time. We hit the first CP right at sunset, the next three would be done in the dark. This is when it gets fun. Jim and I come around a bend in the river and there is a local there running a generator and big lights on a section of the river. this is nice because we can see the rapids, what isn't nice is his advice. I was going to go straight down the middle, but he wasw frantically yelling "Go left!", now this might've been "Don't go left!", but none of us heard it that way. By the time we realized we shouldn't be on the left it was too late; we hit a tree and then quickly dumped the boat. Swimming at night sucks, we lost our high powered headlamp and about 50% of our food (the biggest problem). Soaking wet we finish out the river leg, very slowly though as our light situation was less than ideal.

We pulled out at 11 p.m. and I quickly changed into some dry clothes so I wouldn't freeze. The next leg was trekking so off we went. The first two CP's were in the middle of nowhere and were a challenge to find, but we got them. On the way to the next one I fell apart. I had a detached head feeling, I was stumbling a bit and I was going pee every 10-15 minutes. I was going through what it could be in my head and things like hyponatremia, caffeine overdose and just plain bonking kept coming up. Finally, I had to make the team stop and try to sleep for 1.5 hours, this only got me to a point where I could be towed. 5 or 6 teams passed us during this.

We get to the end of the trekking leg and by then I think I had figured out that it was the caffeine that screwed me up, I had taken the equivalent of 3 cups of coffee in 2.5 hours, but since I stay away from caffeine at all other times that was enough to do it for me. No more caffeine during races!

We transistion to the final bike leg in 14th place, ugh. Shortly after starting the bike I felt fully recovered, it only took 11 hours, and we were back to chasing down teams. We passed 2 teams during this last leg and finished in 35.5 hours. It looks like we were 15 minutes too slow to qualify for the National Championships, but we'll get the official word later.

~35 miles of Trekking
20 miles of Canoing
83 miles of Biking

Even if we don't qualify it was a good race and I learned even more about what my body will do when pushed in different ways, though I would really like a chance at redemption in Missouri at the USARA National Champs.

Fall is so lovely

2007-10-06T21:36:00.000-06:00

I love riding in the fall. Less crowds and more of this:50+ miles and 17 of it was on singletrack just like this. I did see a few people out, but once I got to the Indian Creek trail it was pretty solitary other than the group of three on Blacksheep bikes I saw (one of the guys was the actual builder for Blacksheep bikes), a lot of titanium in that group.

I'm back

2007-10-01T20:43:00.000-06:00

Just got back from the Berryman Adventure Race in Missouri. It was a good time, I'll add more details later. A few things slowed us down, but we might have still qualified for the national championships, we'll find out shortly.

Possible Beyond Clothing Sponsorship

2007-09-27T07:58:00.000-06:00

So I heard through the grapevine about a possible sponsorship opportunity with Beyond Clothing out of Seattle (http://beyondclothing.com/).

I went to check them out, I remember hearing of them when I wanted a custom jacket, but my money was diverted elsewhere then. Nobody makes stuff for the tall skinny people, I can get the torso to fit, then the arms are too short; or the arms fit and the torso is the size of a gymnasium... not all of America is trending towards obese. Don't even get me started on pants (I actually own a XXL in child's for one pair of waterproof pants to fit my 30x34 legs, the fit isn't ideal).

So it would be pretty exciting if I can get some race wear that fits me well, and their layering system looks like it would be great for those Colorado days that start out freezing and are beautiful a few hours into a workout or race. It would be great to see what the rest of the team and I can throw at some new digs and see how it fares, half the fun is seeing how ridiculous the conditions can become and you still can push through.

Action shots!

2007-09-25T13:54:00.000-06:00

I love our little digital camera. Here's a few "action" shots while messing around with it in the van during the Colorado Outward Bound Relay.

i need to work on my van dancing skills.

Bound to be Relaying

2007-09-24T12:44:00.000-06:00

Colorado Outward Bound Relay

170 miles, 10 people, 27+ hours of fun.

What a ride the Colorado Outward Bound Relay is. Andie and I joined our friend Alana’s corporate team for the race, they weren’t really shooting to be competitive, which was fine by me, but it is still a race.

I got recruited for the second hardest combination of legs, containing the single most difficult leg of the relay, Georgia Pass. Andie, while initially was assigned the easiest combo of legs was quickly upgraded to the third most difficult as some of the teammates weren’t feeling there Wheaties in the weeks prior to the race.

I started us off, 5:40 a.m. on Friday morning in Idaho Springs. The gun goes off and I try to get in my groove. After a few minutes I’m feeling good and settle in with the group I’m around. About a mile from the end of the first leg a guy surged and I went with him, we left everyone else and cruised to the exchange together. 4.7 miles in 39:20, not quite racing speed, but I really wasn’t wanting to start my next leg tired.

The wind was pretty harsh in the morning, by the time we got to Georgetown to start Andie’s leg it was crazy, porta-potties were blowing over and tumbling around, gross. Luckily for Andie, the wind died after she got out of Georgetown and had nice conditions for her run up the majority of Guanella Pass.

My van was then the “resting” van so we went to the next van trade-off and waited. Finally, at 2:40 I received the baton (a bracelet really) and started out on the hardest leg of the race Georgia Pass. The leg started at Jefferson Creek, climbed 2k+ feet and then descended 2k+ feet to Tiger Road.

I started out and was quickly joined by another runner. We passed another runner within a few minutes. We began talking and she asked if I had done the Leadville 100 run, she thought I looked like a racer she saw there (he was also using poles as well), right then I knew that hanging onto this woman’s pace was going to be intense. Being a little timid on how my Achilles would hold up I eased up and let her go, enough that I couldn’t see her and be tempted to chase. I kept chugging, striving to stay in the positive column of people I’ve passed vs. people passing me. I summit Georgia Pass at 3:58 p.m.; 7 people passed, 6 people passed me (some of those guys were smoking fast!), 6 miles in, doing good.

I don’t consider myself a great descender, probably just above average, but now that the worries about my Achilles were over I picked it up. I kept telling myself “This IS a race” so that I wouldn’t ease up. I had someone tailing me for a while and soon I was pushing hard after every switchback to form a gap and discourage him when he came around the switchback. It didn’t take long before I dropped the tailgater and was in a groove, a fast groove at that. I caught several more racers on the upper slopes, 11 passed, 6 passed me. Next, I caught a guy that had passed me earlier, oh yeah payback, 11 passed, 5 passed me; I went by him in a blur, he might’ve been cracked. I probably looked a little funny to everyone; I was running with my tongue hanging out to get air in my lungs as quickly as possible, once again I wondered if I didn't have enormous tonsils would I perform better. When all was said and done I felt good, 14 people passed 5 passed me, 2:18 for 13.2 miles on the Colorado Trail with 2000+’ of elevation gain/loss and a top elevation over 12,000’. I finished 2 minutes before 5 p.m., another mini-goal of mine.

Andie’s leg came up shortly thereafter and she kicked total butt, running an uphill 10k at elevation in 50 minutes, after having run 7 miles up Guanella Pass earlier in the day. Most importantly she passed the Yellow Highlighter Team that we had been chasing for a while. I was waiting with a Double Chocolate Chip Frappucino as a reward, yummy.

Once we became the resting van again we slept for 3 hours and then met up with the other van again. Some bad info was passed along to us from the other van and when I walked over to the exchange area, at 1 in the morning, our runner had been there for 5 minutes! I headed out with a head of steam trying to make up some time. Being that it was my last leg I was going pretty hard, knowing I didn’t have to save it for anything else. I ran 4.5 miles in 34:47, not bad. It was great to be done and just cheer on my teammates to the finish.

At the finish we all crossed the line together and the team was over 2 hours faster than last year (Andie and I were new to the team this year, coincidence? ;) ) 170 miles in 27 hours 42 minutes and 33 seconds, and we finished in the top 100. The finish line festival was fun and I got free socks from Thorlo and a free USB data stick from Gore Tex for putting on some gear and dancing around in the virtual rain storm booth they had set up.

I had a lot of fun and wouldn’t mind doing more relays, in fact, the “Ultra” option of this relay sounds pretty intriguing, 5 runners instead of 10.

2007-09-23T20:37:00.000-06:00

And so it begins.

Mountain Adventure Race Recap Part 4

2007-08-21T11:08:00.001-06:00

Part 4: The Calm Before the Storm Before the Calm. Sorry, this is taking longer than the Harry Potter series to finish up.

Evening 3: The weather is perfect, it helps calm the nerves about the next trekking section, 45 miles with at least 30 miles of it at some of the race’s highest elevations of 9-10k feet. The last hour of the previous biking leg the team talked almost exclusively about pizza. We had all hoped that when we went through the outskirts of Big Sky that we would hit a fast food joint, but we only encountered farm land and were disappointed for it. When we arrived at the TA we immediately placed a pizza order with Andie, two large pizzas, ham with pineapple and chicken with mushrooms and basil. We confirmed our pizza order and headed out on the next leg.

We check out with the race directors and we see that another 4-person team is sleeping at the transition, it’s confirmed, we are in second place. Thankfully, we were allowed to ride our bikes the first 5 miles to the trailhead where we would start our trek at, but eggbeater pedals with trail running shoes on tore up feet isn’t exactly pleasurable. I pedaled along with my heaviest pack yet; awkwardly trying to pedal with the arches of my feet to save the balls of my feet for the trek. I thought I would’ve been able to streamline my gear and my pack would get lighter throughout the race, but it’s getting heavier with each new leg, I’m up to around 30 lbs. We get to the trailhead and see that the CP is not manned. We were under the impression that it would be and we could leave our bikes for our support crew to pick up later, wrong. We leave our bikes leaning up against the TH sign and say a little prayer that our bikes won’t be stolen and then head out.

Once again the mood is light. We know that we’ve got a long way to go so we ease into things, not pushing the pace. 2 miles in we make a stop to adjust some footwear and a two person team flies by us, we talk briefly, they are moving like their feet don’t hurt at all, I’m jealous. The trail is absolutely gorgeous, the most beautiful scenery yet. In the five mile approach to Hyalite lake we pass by seven waterfalls, not your typical “Colorado” waterfalls, these were at least 30 ft tall, some were triple falls, one was a thirty foot falls followed by a 200 foot natural water slide that went right under the bridge. When we reach the lake our pace has reached full speed, we’re really cruising; we filter water and eat food. Sundown is about 10 minutes away and we decide to take a 2-hour sleep prior to getting onto the ridge, we’d rather sleep in the trees. We bed down on some grass, the most comfortable grass I’ve ever laid on by the way, in a small group of trees just off the trail. I put on every piece of clothing I am carrying, I then remember the race directors advising us not to sleep in this section of the course because of the bear danger, I move my bear spray to by my head and then quickly fall asleep. An hour in I wake up to a light rain, it’s dark and we watch a 4 person team pass us before forming ourselves into a puppy pile and going to sleep for another hour; we will chase when we’re more rested.

We wake up from our slumber, in which I apparently snored, and start our chase. We knew one team had passed us, did both nearby teams pass us? We were unsure. We climb to the top of Hyalite Peak, the rain is now a drizzle and I wish I had my gloves, we can see at least three other teams scattered across the ridge. With no moon visible because of the clouds it is hard to tell who is closest. We continue on and soon I have an idea of which headlamps are in front of us. Every once in a while I would see a headlamp look back at us, I’d glance at my watch and then time how long it took to get to that point. We were 45 minutes behind the team in front of us at the first time check, within 30 minutes we’re only thirty minutes behind. We’re catching them fast, but I’m not realizing how fast we’re catching them in my condition. Finally, around 1:40 I see a headlamp looking our way, it’s not a short glance this time though, they’re staring. At 1:46 the headlamp disappears and I figure they turned around and continued on, 7 minutes later we come across the team in front of us sleeping on the ridge. They were snoring and sleeping out in the drizzle on the ridge, totally exposed. I give a fist pump and short celebratory dance as we go by, now we’re in 2^nd or 3^rd, not completely sure. We’re making good time, we talk about how stupid that team will feel when they walk 10 minutes down the trail and see a nice area to sleep protected from the wind and rain. Everything is going great and we’re moving fast, after racing for three days at least. Then we reach Crater Lake.

We come down to a saddle and the trail disappears. We look around and see one trail, going the wrong way. We follow the trail anyways and it descends, and descends, and follows the wrong ridge. It’s 2 in the morning and we are not liking this trail, which is not on the map, so we turn around and go back up to the saddle. We search more, and search some more. Finally, we agree to bushwhack back up to the ridge and follow the ridge until the trail regained the ridge 1.5 kilometers later. There’s a reason that the trail doesn’t follow the ridge at this point. Progress is slow, and for the first time I start to get short with one of my teammates. Jim, who obviously is convinced that we don’t know where we are, keeps asking where the lake is for a reference; during one of his episodes in which he left us standing on the ridge in the middle of a storm of wind and rain/ice and walked back a ¼ mile to see the lake I lose patience and Angrily yell “Jim!”. Obviously sensing my patience is thin, he replies with a courteous “Yeah?”. I give another slightly irritated “Let’s get going!”, he quickly agrees and we continue. Soon we’re cliffed out on the ridge, we have to down climb and go around and then get back to the ridge. At sunrise we finally meet up with the trail again and we see that the trail had been re-routed and if we had stayed on the first trail we would’ve been fine, frustrating, 3.5 hours to go 1.5 kilometers.

As we continue over progressively higher peaks I am feeling stronger and stronger, the cooler weather and my ability to eat large quantities of food have given me strength, but my teammates are deteriorating around me. We reached the billionth summit of this trek and Rod and Jim need a sleep. They sleep, face down in the dirt, for thirty minutes while Sara and I tend to our feet; the sun is up and my solar power is working. The pass for the next CP is near and we’re excited. We get to the pass and decide to take our chance on a trail not on the map. It goes to an old cabin, and a stream. We soak our feet in the stream for 10 minutes while we filter more water. It is here I have my first encounter with a leech, the tiny little blood sucker latched onto my foot when I wasn’t looking, great now I’ll probably get some weird leech disease. I’m leading us along now and Sara is navigating. I don’t realize how out of it Sara is, after a while I stop and she just hands me the map and says, “Here, I can’t do this anymore.” I look it over and immediately conclude we are near the CP and send us off in the wrong direction. We quickly end up 2.5 miles past the CP, my bad. We turn around and march back. Now Rod and I are feeling stronger and Sara and Jim decide to stay at the trail while we look for the CP. We didn’t know this and soon we were separated. Great, now we’re in middle of bear country looking for two teammates that don’t have a map and are extremely sleep deprived. After an hour of yelling “Marco” and finally get a “Polo!” response we get back together and find the CP.

The CP is deserted, we see clothes and chairs, but no people, hmmmm, this is bear country. A cry comes from our left, we look, two girls are running towards us with bear spray and satellite phone in hand. They run up and ask us if we are ok, of course we were. They were worried about us as we were expected to be in 6 hours earlier (we spent about 6 hours being lost, coincidence). We looked at the check-in list and realized that we were indeed in 2^nd place, yippee, we had been convinced that our lost wanderings had cost us placement. Our wanderings had not cost us a ranking, but it did cost us money. While we were on this leg the race directors started instituting previously unknown time cutoffs throughout the course and we had missed the cutoff to continue on the full course here and ended our run at being in the money at the end of the race. We were to be shuttled to the next transition area and finish on a short course. We were pretty happy that we had second place pretty well locked up and we didn’t have to do the 9 mile downhill trod to the TA. We chatted a little with the CP girls as they asked us questions like “What do you guys talk about out there?” and told us “The last guys were eating a lot of Pringles, weird” to which I eagerly replied “What? You have Pringles! Where?” Before we left, they gave us one of the biggest compliments that we had received because apparently we were much more jovial than any other team so far “If I ever do one of these races, I want to race with you guys!” We then slowly and painfully hiked 45 minutes down to a parking lot to await the arrival of our shuttle.

We get to the parking lot and nobody is there yet, just two cars, the CP girls’ truck and a white Subaru. We lay down and eat a lot of the remaining food we were carrying. Then hallucinations round 2 began, my first moving one too. I looked at a pine tree and in the branches I could see an ogre playing a flute, not moving, I had a staring contest off and on with him for 15 minutes, he was good, better than me. Then out of the corner of my eye I see a guy about a hundred yards away walk a Weimaraner to a spot in the forest. The Weimaraner sat down and eagerly looked up at his master, and they stayed frozen like that for 20 minutes. I would’ve investigated the Weimaraner and man if my feet didn’t hurt so much, instead I fell asleep in middle of the dirt parking lot, the most comfortable dirt parking lot I’ve ever encountered by the way, and so did the rest of the team. When we woke up the Subaru was gone, we wondered what the person thought when they returned and saw us passed out in the dirt, it made us chuckle. It had now been 2 hours since our ride left the TA, which is 20-30 minutes away. The rain starts to come down and we are cursing things and we decide if it opens up any more we will get our stuff and crawl under the Toyota truck for shelter. Before the rain could get worse our ride shows up, he had been lost for the last 90 minutes or so. When he opened up his car doors he presented us with gifts, 2 pizzas and Gatorade for everyone, courtesy of Andie. I hadn’t been that excited about cold pizza since, well ever.

Jim, thinking he was giving some sort of a compliment said “Wow, your car really smells like a bowling alley!” Whether the car smelled like a bowling alley or not is irrelevant, we all stunk and a confined space made it obvious. We rode with the windows down and cranked up the radio when Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” came on as it tied into our earlier reciting of the More Cowbell skit from SNL. Somewhere along the way back to the TA we passed one of the race directors going the other way and stopped to ask him what our course was going to be. He informed us we were done, but gave us the option of doing the final biking leg. I sarcastically said that I would actually prefer another trek and he replied, oh well there’s plenty of that on the biking leg. That’s what sealed the deal for us, we weren’t doing the biking leg! It was a good decision because the other teams said it was about 50/50 hike/bike and there were countless trees fallen across the trail.

We finally met up with Andie and Barb shortly thereafter and we all returned to the finish line. We enjoyed a nice cold shower and some food and then went to sleep. Surprisingly we only slept about 9 hours before we woke up and started packing everything away. In the afternoon we went to the post-race bbq and talked to the rest of the teams, it was nice to hear that a lot of other people ran into problems at Crater Lake. I found out how small a world it was when I talked to two other people from the CU aerospace program, on two other teams, and one of which I had already worked with on the MaCH-SR1 project (my senior project). Stupid rocket scientists, what do they think they are doing entering races like this.

Some stats:

Mileage: 200-225 miles

Elevation gain: ~37,000’

Jelly Belly Sport Beans Consumed: ~720 (about 4800 calories in Jelly Bellies alone)

Time racing: ~80 hours

Time sleeping: 4 hours 20 min

Time spent lost: ~12 hours (ouch! wish that was sleeping)

Caffeine pills consumed: 3 (all in the 2^nd night)

Dangerous wildlife seen: Leech (Timberland saw a mt. lion and 3 bears though)

Weight purposefully gained prior to the race: 5 lbs (ate like I was at peak training all through my taper)

Weight lost during the race: 4 lbs

Water consumed: ~3000 oz (21 gallons in 3.5 days!)

Thanks for following me on Checkpoint Tracker everyone and for reading my report, I had fun racing it, telling people about it and writing it out for everyone as well.

-Nick

p.s. I would like to thank my sponsors: Andie, she did the best support crew job ever and all for a free pedicure.

p.p.s. I should seriously try to get some sponsorship from Jelly Belly, I eat enough of their stuff.

Mountain Adventure Race Recap Part 3

2007-08-21T11:08:00.000-06:00

Part 3: Hallucinations, Blisters and Other Delicious Treats

We all leave the TA in a great mood; we haven’t been this chatty and elated in a while. 37 hours without sleep and counting. Rod has taken over the navigation duties to give Sara a break, we wanted to make some good progress in the 3 hours of sunlight we had left. Rod convinces us to bushwhack to cut out roughly ½ a mile to get to the trail we want. Even though our feet were screaming at us to take the trail, we began to bushwhack. Rod had showed us all the map and what we were shooting for, it looked straight forward. We were to go until we hit the drainage and then the trail should be on the other side of the drainage. We get to the drainage, it’s stuffed full of dead fall. The other side of the drainage has a lot of deadfall too, but we see a faint trail. We assume the trail hasn’t been used in a long time and continue up the drainage, very slow going. We get further and further along, the trail is no longer there, but we’ve convinced ourselves that we are getting close to the saddle that we want and then hopefully the trail will be there. Climbing over logs, under logs, on top of logs, logs crumbling as we put weight on them. Finally, we decide the best way is to go up, we had to get out of this dead fall, on more than one occasion somebody said something to the effect of “Somebody just needs to throw a match in this damn tinder box”. Rod and I top out first, we take some compass bearings to nearby peaks and it seems to match up well, we even see a trail on the saddle below us, but the saddle is like 40 feet below us instead of 300 feet, and the trail was actually a rock band faking us out. Sara and Jim join us and we investigate things and we discuss things. The light bulb goes off and we realize that the slope we came up was running East-West, not North-South like we wanted. We all had missed it, we were on top of the wrong mountain. Lesson learned, trust the topography on the map, it doesn’t change. Using the last of the daylight we hurried back down the mountain and quickly found the beautiful wide highway of a trail that we should have been on. 3 hours blown because none of use realized we were looking for the 2^nd drainage, not the first.

We made it to the top of the saddle a little after sunset. It was getting dark fast, our conversation had died down and I was realizing how solar-powered I really am. At 9:45 I’m starting to get the “blinkies”, I’m fighting to stay awake and it’s only been dark for 15 minutes! I abruptly start a loud conversation with the rest of the team, I don’t really remember about what, but I burned up the only joke I could remember, “How many A.D.D. kids does it take to screw in a light bulb?” Nobody is being very chatty back to me, this makes it difficult to stay awake via conversation. Finally, at 10:30 I give in, time to grab the hammer and break the glass in case of emergency; I opened up the caffeine pills. Each pill is equal to 1 cup of coffee and since I don’t ever have any caffeine I take one. The sleep monsters are tugging on my eyelids pretty heavily now and the hallucinations are beginning. Every white rock I see is either a discarded Styrofoam coffee cup or a baggie full of electrolyte drink mix, I test them all with my trekking poles. Look! A giant lizard! Nope just a stick, wait that’s a lizard! Nope, damn sticks. Then the oddest hallucination yet, in the leaves of a plant I see, plain as day, the face of my white cat, sticking his tongue out at me. When will this caffeine ever kick in! Jim needs to fill his water bladder, he lost half of it to a leak earlier in the trek, so we stop to fill it at a stream and I take the opportunity to try and rest a little. I didn’t fall asleep, but I think lying on the ground for 5 minutes, on the most comfortable decomposing log I’ve ever encountered by the way, helped the caffeine work into my system. We continue and I’m now awake and chatty as ever, it’s my goal to get everyone as awake as I am. I ask questions to each individual, not allowing a one or two word answer to suffice. Soon, we’re to the first CP of the leg, sweet. We continue on and my caffeine is wearing off, now whenever anyone has to take a nature break the other three of us take the chance to lie down. Pop another pill, it has been 3 hours since the last one. This pill doesn’t perk me up as much as the other, the trail keeps climbing and we’re all fighting to stay awake, Jim and Rod both give in too “Fine, give me a damn evil caffeine pill.” About 2/3^rd of the way to the next CP Jim has to “build a cairn” (nature was calling), the other three of us lay down in middle of the trail , the most comfortable trail I’ve ever encountered by the way, and I’m out instantly. I don’t remember it but apparently Jim came back and said he wanted a little rest and I said “You better set an alarm if you want any rest.” Jim set his watch alarm and ten minutes later we were all up and going again after a weird 15-20 minute pseudo sleep.

Trudging along, dodging downed trees, and then the trail disappears, we look all over and a two person team catches us while we’re looking. With all of us looking we find it again after about 45 mintues. The two person team is feeling stronger and they go ahead, we trod along eventually topping out a little over 10,000’ a little before sunrise. We descend and this is when our feet begin to really hurt, but the foot pain cannot help me stay awake, where’s the sun!? The sun mercifully rises and after about 45 minutes of sunlight in my face I’m back awake. We roll into the TA at 7 something in the morning. We all drink and eat a little and decide to take a nap. I took care of my feet before going to sleep and had my “pro” moment; I was draining my left little toe (80% of the toe was a blister) and when I punctured it, it squirted out several feet, jut like on TV! I lay down, wide awake, it takes at least 15 minutes for me to fall asleep, ridiculous. It was our first real sleep in 51 hours. I wake up after 45 minutes of sleep in an incredible sweat, the sun is blazing and the tent is an oven; Andie hands me a cold wet towel and I go outside to sleep. A little over an hour later Andie wakes me up, the team is up, the other 4-person team is in, we have to get going. I’m in bad shape the hot sweaty sleep has left me low on water and electrolytes. I hop on the bike, I’m now belching once or twice every minute, my stomach is complaining about something. Andie would later tell me that she was just about crying when she saw me leave; I looked like I was in really bad shape.

The start of the bike was 7 kilometers of downhill, just what I needed. I had warned the team that I may need a tow during this leg, but by the time the descent was done I had cooled back down, and had taken in a lot of food, water and electrolytes, though the belching persisted for another hour or so. We climbed up a small hill and a few people exclaimed at how hard the climb was, I thought it wasn’t bad, a good sign that I had recovered from my funk, though I wasn’t going to press my luck by towing someone just yet. The first CP was a little tricky, but we figured that we got it in the average time of the other teams, as we were approaching it we saw the 4 person team that had passed us leaving it, we were closing. I had familiarized myself with the map and I felt like I was a General directing an army on the move, giving loud commands to the rest of the team and descriptions detailed enough that nobody had questions. A little more climbing and then a beautiful fast singletrack descent. This descent was loose so once again Jim was a little slow, nobody cared though. I let Sara pass as she was following closely and I didn’t want the crasher to crash because of something I do, big mistake. Sara shoots off ahead and I wait to see Rod and Jim and then continue. I descend past a few people that were hiking up and meet Sara at the bottom at the next CP. “Did that woman back there have her top on when you went by? she asked. “Yeah, why?” I said, slightly confused. “She was topless when I went by, and she asked if there were any guys coming down behind me.” Missed opportunity, I knew I should’ve stayed in the lead.

Now we were on the road, a quick ride through some farm country and then we turned up the canyon again. Sara was feeling fine, but couldn’t keep up with the pace we were all cranking out so I hooked up a tow. Rod and I traded off on towing Sara while Jim stayed at the front of the paceline. Soon we were passing a campground and I suggested that we go in and soak our legs in the river, the heat was picking up now. Reluctantly they all agreed and we took a 10 minute siesta in the river. BT, I thank you for teaching me the benefits of cold river water on tired legs. I was the only one to sit fully in the river, everyone else were just feet soakers, but everybody loved it. We considered a soaking at every stream crossing from then on. This was the best TA yet, we roll in and Andie is dumbfounded. We told her it would be 7 hours, 4 hours later we show up! She’s really excited for us, the other 4 person team is nowhere to be seen yet. I love it when she’s this excited, it happened before in the Moab race when I rolled by her in 3^rd place with 2^nd just seconds in front of me, her excitement really pumps me up. Everyone was stunned at how fast we did it, we were 2 hours faster than Team Timberland, the pro team that was in the lead; we were the fastest team through that segment, even with our river leg soak.

We transitioned while the other team’s support crew talked to us and fed us lies about there teams whereabouts (those guys were always trying to slow us down, trickery). Sometime during the transistion, I heard that our next leg was 45 miles of trekking. I was secretly panicking, not wanting to show it to my team though. 45 miles, that would be the longest trek I’ve ever done, and my feet hurt already. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure Sara would make it, I had seen her feet, they were the worst of the bunch. Jim now had both ankles hurting, he had them both taped and was wearing three braces between the 2 ankles.

Stay tuned for the finale Part 4: The Calm Before the Storm Before the Calm.

Mountain Adventure Race Recap Part 2

2007-08-13T11:07:00.000-06:00

Part 2: Biking and Hiking and Bears, oh my!

Sunset 1 (My new race time telling method, it’s too tiring to look at my watch) Transition Area – We arrived at the TA and were elated; the death march was over, and there were two other teams at the TA with us. We go over to our support crew, and I’m completely stunned; Andie must’ve been on Pimp my TA or something, because we were definitely hooked up. Andie had been taking notes from some pro-team TA’s and had set us up a tarp with a chair in every corner and each of us had our 2 gear boxes next to our chairs. The stove was going and before we even got our shoes off we heard “Who wants pasta?”, four enthusiastic “I do” replies quickly followed. Andie and Barb hurried around filling our water bottles and hydration bladders, asking us questions and keeping us excited about the race. We were all checking out the condition of our feet, nobody was doing exceptionally well, but nobody was too bad off either. I drained the blister on the side of my heel and then re-taped my feet. I went to put on my bike shoes, and they weren’t even close to fitting. I had heard of this happening before, I just expected it days into the race, not hours. My feet had swollen a full size larger, they weren’t so much longer as they were wider. Luckily, I had a second pair of bike shoes with me that were larger, my normal bike shoes were just dead weight in my gear box, there was no way my feet were going to get smaller during the race.

We left the TA after about an hour, not exactly competitive-pro pace, but the comforts of the TA and our support crew were tough to leave. It was now completely dark and we all departed wearing multiple layers and bike lights blazing. The start of the ride was wonderful; it was a climb, of course, but it was the perfect gradient that our weary legs never forced us to walk, we just kept on grinding away and enjoyed not having to walk or run. As we got deeper into the trees and further away from the low lying areas with water the temperature rose, so we stripped off our extra layers pretty quickly. While taking our layers off I statused everyone, all felt good, though we were all sucking down large amounts of water, we think the pasta was making us thirsty. We kept up our charge along the course, knowing that there were two teams within 30 minutes of us, and Andie had let us know that the 4-person right in front of us were having girl problems. The Yoga Slackers’ girl teammate had been sick, only being able to eat half a power bar all day long, and I don’t think that even stayed down very long. We topped out on the climb and even though the 25 year old race maps weren’t showing all the details of the trail (hello switchbacks!), we were confident in our position on the map and our direction. After a short fast descent we came around a bend and went past the 4 person team immediately in front of us while they were studying the map. We were excited and then quickly after that we passed two other teams consulting maps. We were on fire!, no wait, we were lost and just didn’t know it yet.

We reach what looked like the road we should intersect, hang a left and then start looking for our next turn, it’s not there. That’s ok, 25 year old maps, let’s go a little further, the trail turns North, definitely wrong. We go back to where we think the trail should be, nothing there, except now there are about 4 teams riding all around the area trying to figure this out. We ride down a fast little descent and then a sound comes from my rear tire at about 20 mph, BANG, Hisssssssss, BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGABANG. We stop to check out what that was all about, obviously I had a flat. I flip my bike over and spin the wheel, clang clang clang, sounds like a broken spoke hitting my frame, crap. I get out my headlamp and we are relieved to see that I had hit a 4 inch rusty nail that was protruding out of my tire and hitting my frame. A quick change out of the tube and pump up from a CO2 cartridge and we’re going again; I’ve heard that Team Nike (current AR World Champs) can change a tube out in 1.5 minutes flat, I was a bit slower at around 5 minutes. Back at the turn where we think we should see the trail, Sara and Rod look over the map and I take the opportunity to answer the call of nature. As I go through about 10 feet of brush I pop out onto a road, eureka! I quickly tell the others and we investigate after I take care of business. We think we hit the jackpot as no other team has found this and we are currently out of sight of the others. We descend on the road and it gets rougher as we go, then about ¾ of a mile into it the road dies. We slog our bikes back up the hill as this is not rideable in the up direction. Time to go back further.

We backtrack to a place were we were certain of our location, coincidentally it is the same location were we passed several teams looking at maps. While Rod and Sara look over the map again Jim and I lay in the dirt to try and rest a little. No sleep came, but lying down felt nice. Finally, after ten minutes we all get up and go off in a new direction, woohoo the trail we want, we think. We go along for a while and then finally see a sign, yes we were in fact on the correct trail now, just three hours lost, that’s all. When you’re lost and it’s in that 1-4 a.m. time block you definitely start thinking about how stupid it is to not be sleeping if you’re not making progress anyways. The trail is very fun through this part, small climbs, smooth swooping descents, we’re making good time. At one point I was leading and noticing that we had all been quiet for a while and all of our bikes were running pretty silent so I yelled out a “Hey Bear” to let any wildlife know that we are there and we’re coming; of course, yelling “Hey Bear!” at 3 a.m. without any warnings to your team mates will freak them out a little bit. Lesson learned, don’t yell any phrase with “bear” in it while traveling in bear country, I changed over to “Hidey-Ho” and “Marco”, no bear ever replied with “Polo”.

At some point I started to smell smoke, a little odd I thought the fires were far away. The smoke kept getting thicker, we could see it in our light beams, and soon I had to pull over to eat and drink something as the smoke was making me a little nauseous. We weren’t near the fires, but the lack of winds made the smoke from the Yellowstone fires settle right upon us. The rest of the night time was filled with nice smooth riding through the smoke and the cursing of map inaccuracies.

Sunrise 2 – We stop to double check the map, we’re on course, and I force the team to not dawdle as a cow near us had a case of diarrhea and I swear if I had to stand there any longer I’m puking. We roll into the next CP while the sun was still low in the sky, there are other teams there, we’re all still clumped together. We dawdle a bit on purpose as some of the teams left in a direction we thought stupid, and we did not want to encourage anyone to follow us to the better route. We were going to take a risk and assume that the road that the map said wasn’t complete in 1983 would be complete by now. We head out with only one team at the CP with us, and they evidently did not want to follow the only team that went the other way. We go down and we want to try and cut across some country to catch some descending switchbacks. We dive off onto a cow trail that might take us there, after riding along that for a while it’s obvious that cows are dumb and don’t know the fastest way to get down from this mountain. Lesson learned, you’ll get nowhere following a cow trail, and don’t ride with your mouth open when on them. We haul our bikes back up to the road and just follow it. The jumble of roads the map shows is non-existent, it’s a beautiful road that goes right where we want it too. On the descent we encountered the genius cow trail builders hanging out on the road, I found out that they can easily run 20 mph when they want and with four people you can use mountain bikes to herd cattle. Soon enough we found out that the road was complete, good, that’ll help make up for being lost for 3 hours.

The next CP came and the two guys there were stunned to see us, they expected there own team to be there, we whooped them by taking the fast way, they left the last CP 3 minutes ahead of us, but got to this CP 1 hour 23 minutes behind us. We all used the toilet there, which was pleasantly stocked with TP , wet wipes and hand sanitizer; a luxury outhouse if I’ve ever seen one. We left the CP after a short chat with the guys there, it turns out they were trying to distract us to slow us down and let their team catch up, trickery! We were now in 4^th place and spirits were high. We rode the roads over to the next CP where we caught Yoga Slackers as they were just leaving, their girl had just had to throw in the towel and the guys were now continuing as a three person team; we had just moved up to 3^rd in our division, podium baby!

The next stretch was awful, a hike-a-bike that was relentless and we were in the midday heat. When we finally reached the top we were relieved, we continued on to find the next trail, it was worse. It took us 1.5 hours to go ¾ of a mile, oh yeah and gained about 1200’ in elevation and the trail was only about 8 inches wide, had some serious exposure on one side and had trees fallen across the trail all over the place, hardest “biking” of the race by far. Rod and I were both nearly out of water, again (we were drinking like we were in college again), so we stop at a stream and fill up, cold water is yummy. We keep on rolling through some nice flowing meadows and then the crashes begin. Sara was the first to go, standard over the bars for her, really it wouldn’t be racing if she didn’t crash a couple of times. Next crash, Sara again, not sure how, just heard it. Third crash, Jim, the roadie was getting a quick lesson on descending on tight steep loose terrain. 4^th crash, Sara again, this time I was laughing, she was still clipped in and landed in a creek, painful, but funny. 5^th crash (pseudo), Rod was trying to get through a short mud hole and didn’t notice the giant wheel sucking mud hole beyond it, came to a dead halt, managed to clip out, but placed his right foot directly into the stinky mud up to mid-calf, I laughed again. 6^th crash, Jim again. 7^th crash, Sara. 8^th crash, Jim again and the swearing has begun, words were flowing for a minute or two. I don’t know how I came through the Bermuda Triangle of bike crashes that we just went through unscathed, but I was glad for it. Last route decision for this section and I convinced everyone to go a different way than we had planned (I think not crashing gave me a little trail cred there), smooth sailing to the TA, and the race director told us that the route we took was about 30 minutes faster than the other, hooray me, I’ll make up for that time savings later though. About 80 miles covered, 9000’ of vertical, and another 400 oz of water or so.

The TA was once again beautiful, this time we were on waterfront property. We took our time, nobody really wanting to put on their running shoes again. We had some food, talked to Andie and the race director, cleaned up in the lake. Finally, after Andie had fed and watered all of us, we headed out on the course again, we had about 3.5 hours of sunlight left and we wanted to make good use of it. As were were leaving we saw that the 2^nd place team had just finished the trekking leg and were heading out on their bikes again, 3 strong. The Mergeo.com team lost their female to illness as well, we were in 2^nd if we finished this leg and left on the bikes as a foursome.

Stay tuned for Part 3: Hallucinations, Blisters and Other Delicious Treats

Mountain Adventure Race Recap Part 1

2007-08-09T10:50:00.000-06:00

I wake up. I’m cold and I brush my hands against my pants and feel that they are wet, the sounds of rain hitting my waterproof jacket and pants then register in my head. “Hey guys, wake up, it’s raining” I say in a loud whisper. Immediately Sara shoots up and starts to get ready to leave, but then stops, “What do you guys want to do?” Before any of us could answer we see a headlamp pop up over the horizon, then another, then two more; the four-person team behind us has caught us while we were sleeping. “Cover everything reflective, don’t let them see you.” I say in a firm whisper. Jim, wearing the most reflective, brightest yellow jacket ever known to man immediately flops onto the ground on his back, hoping he’s covered enough. We watch them go by like walking zombies, no conversations between them, just silent marching; I think we could’ve been having a kegger 30 feet off the trail and they wouldn’t have noticed us. After they pass we agree to huddle together for more warmth and sleep another hour in the cold rain, as I fall asleep I’m amazed at how much has happened in such a short time to get me here.

6 a.m. July 29^th, I wake up to pack for my first ever expedition-length adventure race. I really should’ve done this much sooner, but 60-70 hour work weeks and a bachelor party that lasted until 3 a.m. made for barely enough time to get some sleep, let alone pack gear. I frantically pack things, making sure I have all of the “required” gear and my nutritional stuff. I haven’t really figured out what clothes I’m going to need and I know that the weather can fluctuate wildly so I just decided to throw all of the technical clothing I own in my gear box. At 8 a.m. Rod and Sara (team mates) show up to my place and we load my bike and two gear boxes into the truck/trailer rig and head out. We go pick up Rod’s mom, Barb, she’s going to be helping Andie with support crew. We then make one more stop on our way out to Montana; we stop in Ft. Collins to pick up our 4^th teammate, Jim. Jim was the x-factor, we had no idea if his personality would work with us and if he was at the same fitness level as us, on paper it looked like a good match. Jim and Barb rode with Andie and me; 12 hours in a car together is a good time to find out how personalities match up.

We arrive at the race start late and set up camp and get some rest. The next morning is running around getting the rest of the required gear, the most important of which is the bear spray, basically a super-sized pepper spray. The afternoon is filled with check-in, gear checks, and trying to stay out of the sun, the upper 90-degree temperatures were not welcome. We’re all in high spirits and there doesn’t seem like we will have any personality conflicts in the team, thank goodness, the nightmares of Jim being some former military die-hard are gone, he’s just a former triathlete that doesn’t like running on pavement anymore.

4:30 a.m. Tuesday July 31^st, I wake up to a watch alarm; little did I know that this would be the last time in several days in which I would be sure about the day of the week and time. We all rustle out of bed and eat a breakfast burrito, delicious and bland all at the same time. Somewhere around 6:30 we all get into the cars and caravan down with the rest of the teams (10 total) and the race directors to the start of the race. As we wait for the start we discuss a few things and decide that we should go hard at the start to try and get out of the hustle and bustle of the pack and get into a groove. At 7 a.m. the race officially begins and we start racing, uphill, trekking is our first leg. We quickly gain the ridge and can see that we are in 4^th place, we wanted to be on a lower trail that we missed, but the ridge will also work for us. We continue along, a cold front has moved in so we have clouds and a high in the upper-80’s so we all feel good. We eventually come to Saddle Peak and are faced with a decision, climb the peak(s) for another 1000’ of elevation gain or traverse a scree field over to a saddle where the lower trail is. We decide to traverse the scree field, first lesson learned, traversing a scree field is slow and tears up your feet. At the end of the 1 kilometer traverse I have to stop to address a few hot-spots on my feet before they become blisters, duct tape to the rescue. We start up again, realizing we’ve lost at least one place during our traverse, we pick up the pace and are running on the flats and downhills. At one point we missed a turn and ended up in Turner Gulch. After talking to a local who I believe had a GPS implanted in her brain we shot up a drainage and were once again back on the correct trail. Another 4-person team was hot on our heels so we kept up the pace, but we definitely wanted to start implementing a “Smarter, Not Harder” strategy, our Turner Gulch detour had lost us about 45 minutes in time, and who knows what in energy. We arrive at the Ross Pass checkpoint (CP) at 1:20 p.m. and find out we’re in seventh place. We’re a little disappointed, but we know we’re moving faster than the people in front of us, we just have to stop making mistakes; easier said than done.

After another 10 kilometers on the same trail we reach a trail junction that marks our launching point for the next CP. The race instructions state that we have to go within ½ a mile of the summit of Hardscrabble Peak and the race director said that the north drainages are easily passable, which is nice, but we are approaching from the south. With a name like Hardscrabble I wasn’t expecting an easy little jaunt, but kilometer after kilometer of side-hilling in loose slate scree fields takes its toll. We checked out the drainages as we went, all were only passable if you had a death wish (which apparently Team Timberland did because they took one and were knocking rocks down the gully the entire way), until we got to the north side. We descended down a drainage and checked in at the CP, 6^th place now, we had passed a 2 person team since the last CP. The lake that was on the map was dried up, so we filtered water out of the only source available, a 10-foot wide muddy puddle. Mmmmmm silty.

The rest of the trek was uneventful other than our feet slowly turning into instruments of torture. At one point I made the mistake of singing the song “This is the trek that never ends…”; I had this stuck in my head for the next 72 hours. Finally after 14 hours, around 35 miles, and over 10,000’ of elevation gain we awkwardly shuffled into the transition area where Andie and Barb were waiting with the most professional looking TA I’ve ever seen and hot pasta! I had drank 360 oz of fluid during this leg of the race, yet I was still thirsty upon arriving; it was time to refuel.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Biking, Hiking and Bears, Oh My!

Adventure Xstream Durango 24-hour Adventure Race

2007-06-19T09:58:00.000-06:00

Andie and I left Morrison at noon on Friday and drove down to Durango, we got to racer check-in at the Durango Mountain resort at 6:30 or so. Shortly afterwards the rest of the team showed up, it was my first time racing with them, I was excited but nervous too. I was the young gun of the group as everyone else was in their early to mid-30’s, the pressure was on.

At midnight the race began with one team member needing to sprint off into the dark and pick up our first 9 checkpoint (CP) coordinates. We quickly plotted the coordinates and determined a rough route and headed out. Straight up was the only way to go from the base of the resort so that’s what we did, teams were scattered all over the mountain. We were having difficulty locating CP1 so once we were sure of where we were on the map and saw that we over-shot it we moved on to CP2. CP2 was easy, just 200 meters off the main road up a drainage, we then moved on to CP4. CP4 was a little more difiicult having to go about .5 kilometer off the road to find it. I was one of two people doing some pace counting for us, but I wasn’t feeling so hot and was quickly getting irritated with the task of counting, so I stopped that business. I was surprised how easy it is to lose track of counting when it’s late at night, I had to force myself to try and not count more than 20 paces at a time and use my fingers to keep track of the higher numbers. Difficulty counting over 20 and having 20 fingers and toes, coincidence? We returned to the road for a little longer and then reached our attack point and went into the woods; it was about 2:30 a.m. and the pesto chicken I had for dinner had finally settled in my stomach enough that I could eat more than a few nibbles, jelly bellies can really perk you up!

The bushwhacking wasn’t so bad, except that we were side-hilling the entire time and had to lose about 3000’ in elevation in about 4 km; this is where I learned that I want a brighter light for these overnight races, especially when there is no moon out, if I didn’t keep up with my teammates and their lights I was screwed; my little Petzl Zipka with old batteries wasn’t cutting it. The side-hilling was wearing on me and I developed a blister on the inside of my heel on my left foot, though it wasn’t crippling. We got to the bottom of the bush whack to the road that we were headed towards, except where we popped out the creek had crossed over to our side of the road. There was no hesitation, one-by-one we went across Hermosa Creek the water came up to just below the knee. There’s nothing like really cold water at 4:45 in the morning to get you going. The water actually felt pretty good on my blister.

We then ran down the road for about a kilometer before we had to cross the creek again, a sign of things to come. This crossing was shallower, but about 3 times as long, at the end of it our feet were almost cramping because they were so cold. We made our way to the first manned CP of the race after crossing the creek yet again. This CP had the first ever gear-check I’ve encountered in this race series, we had to show that each of us had a space blanket and an emergency strobe. We hadn’t seen any other teams for about 3 hours until this CP. As we were leaving, Team Crested Butte (read: super-strong team, they beat Nike (the world champs) at Moab) were just getting there and only had 3 CPs so far; we had 3 as well, but should’ve had 4 if we hadn’t overshot CP1.

We left CP8 and had a very steep 1400’ off-trail climb to CP9; very steep, we had to use your hands at times. CP7 was down a gully from CP9, it seemed straight forward, but it was 1200’ of elevation loss and more side-hilling, man I was starting to really hate that! We made our way back to the last creek crossing of the trekking leg and refilled our water bladders. We had three CP’s left and 2 hours to get back to the transition area (TA) before we received time penalties. One of the CPs was way out there, we decided we would just take the 1 hour penalty in missing it, the other two were on the way back.

We cranked up the pace and then the 4^th on our team (though not our 4^th for the Montana race) cracked and we slowed a bit. We hooked up a bungee line and towed him, Sara and I did most of the towing as we were feeling the strongest. The race against cutoffs then began for us. Towing Mark slowed us enough that we had to forget the dream of getting CP3 even though we could see it attached to a ski lift 500 meters from the road we were on. We came back over the top of the mountain, located CP1 (much easier in the daylight) and then began flying down the mountain. We had 12 minutes to make it all the way down the mountain without any time penalties. As we descended more and more teams were popping out of the woods and running downhill with us. We all converged on the alpine slide and the next thing you know there are about 30 adventure racers running down the alpine slide tracks. About halfway down Sara twisted her ankle and we had to slow down a lot. We got to the TA at 9:05, 50 minutes of penalties for the 5 minutes over, ouch.

Andie was waiting for us at the TA and had everything laid out nicely. We didn’t have the quickest transition as I used the restroom, Sara took some pain meds, Mark tried to recover some sort of energy and Rod wolfed down some food. At 9:40 we finally left the TA, the bike was pretty good at the beginning, we towed Mark up the climb and then began the fun Hermosa Creek trail, Mark was eating and starting to come back to life, thank goodness. We were doing pretty well here as we were catching and passing teams again. After some initial chain skipping I got my bike dialed in and it hasn’t felt this smooth since I bought it. The trail crossed/went into the creek about 8 or 9 times, the smooth/quiet drive train was quickly replaced with a moaning and groaning chain covered in mud and dust. The trail had some good exposure with a steep drop off to the right, twice, Sara fell off her bike and into the ravine; it was a bad day for her. After the Hermosa Creek funness (if that’s a word) we began an impressive hike-a-bike, about 5 miles and 2-2.5k of elevation gain. I think on fresh legs it’s 85% rideable, maybe 95%, it was more like 50/50 on Saturday though. The last mile of the hike-a-bike we ran into a plague of caterpillars; they were everywhere, trail, bushes, rocks, my shoes, stuck dead on my tires. As we swept through the last bike checkpoints we were now racing to beat the 6 p.m. ropes cutoff, Rod and I were feeling pretty strong, Sara was starting to fade a little and Mark was hurting pretty bad again.

We beat the ropes cut-off by 14 minutes, my first ever tyrolean traverse, pretty fun. A quick ride down to the river and a long transition just to make sure we were ready for a long paddle. We had until 8 to get on the water and we were in no hurry. We all were running short on food at the end of the bike so we pigged out a bit in the TA, I guess 2700 calories for the bike leg wasn’t enough for me.

We finally got on the water at 7:40 and enjoyed the first rapids, though the water was cold. Shortly after getting to the flat water section, darkness set in; paddling in the dark is interesting. We paddled forever, taking our time and even stopping on the shore twice to go to the bathroom; it was obvious we weren’t racing anymore, just finishing the course. We had some big fish jump out of the water near us a couple of times and one of the trees on the shore dropped a huge branch into the river as we went by, interesting stuff. We were under the impression that there was just flat water after the beginning of the course, so the last .5 mile scared the crap out of us. The river was dark, the rapids sounded huge! We made our way through 3 rapids (class II/II- stuff) before we were pretty convinced something was wrong and we had overshot the pull-out. We had just pulled over to the shore, the sounds of the upcoming rapid was even bigger than the three we just went through and it was pitch black ahead, then we heard some cheering from the next bridge and saw the take-out just down river. I’ve never been so glad for the end of a paddle section.

11 p.m. we finally finish and proceed to strip off the wet clothes, shiver uncontrollably and try to put down some food and warm drinks. We packed up the car, with a lot of help from Andie here, and hopped in for the 20-30 minute ride back to the hotel, we were all zonked out within 5 minutes of getting in the car, I almost fell asleep while holding some Doritos in my hand, it was amazing that I finished that bag without falling asleep. It was really hard trying to stay awake for my turn in the shower, thank goodness Andie handed me my toothbrush so that I didn’t fall asleep at the table. Woowee, I was tuckered out, after 43 hours of awake-time and 23 hours of racing, I finally got to go to sleep.

It was a good race and definitely a challenging course. It was a little frustrating that most of the teams that we passed on the Hermosa Creek section bailed out to the short-course option so we felt like we were always racing near the bottom of the pack after the trekking section. We had 2 hours 50 minutes of time penalties (2 missed CPs’ and 5 minutes late after the trekking section). I just hope we get ranked above all of the short-course teams, that long course was way harder! I felt pretty strong throughout, except 1-2 a.m when the pesto chicken dinner just wouldn’t allow my stomach to feel right. More lessons learned and now I am going to get some ultra-light trekking poles and a brighter headlamp for the Montana race. This was also the first AR I’ve been in that I had to treat water between transitions, a 9 hour trek and 9.5 hour bike will do that I guess.

Somewhere along the way I totally screwed up my rear derailleur, making it difficult to shift properly, it might be a bent hanger or even more seriously a bent derailleur. I don’t know how, but I only damage my bike when I am doing ARs, I can ride for hundreds of hours in training and as soon as I race an AR that 5-9 hours of biking is almost guaranteed to break something on my bike.

-Nick

Andie,

Thanks again for running support crew for us and not getting mad at the cranky/whiney racers after we finished, I owe you a nice dinner.

Kokopelli Trail Race 2007

2007-05-21T21:02:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone,

So I thought I would put together a summary of my experience during the Kokopelli Trail Race this last weekend.

Andie and I arrived at the Loma trailhead at 10:50 p.m., ten minutes before the pre-race meeting. The parking lot was full and someone came over and greeted and briefed us, the BLM was there and wasn’t too happy. After some discussion, threats of arresting all the riders and a ticket being issued to the “organizer” of KTR, I saddled up and departed at 11:30, I wasn’t about to wait to see if we got arrested or if there was going to be an actual start at midnight.

The beginning was just plain hot out, around 70 degrees through all of the single track. I made it to Rabbit Valley about an hour quicker than I was anticipating and was feeling great. Somewhere on the way to Westwater Ranger station I crested a small rise and the temperature plummeted pretty quickly into the 40’s. I had on my leg warmers, arm warmers, beanie, and long-fingered gloves, but was still cold.

I stopped at Westwater to water up and use the restrooms; the restrooms were warm so I might have hung out there a little too long. As I was leaving Westwater I was starting to shiver. I upped the pace and scarfed down a milky way to try and warm up, no go. I then put on my plastic rain jacket to keep the wind off me, I still wasn’t warming up. I became a slow moving shivering mess out on the trail. I knew that I was in the first stages of hypothermia when no matter what I did all I wanted to do was nap (not a good idea at all). Oh yeah, and my high-powered light had run out of juice around 3:30, so I couldn’t push too hard as I would out ride my light from my small led light. Luckily, Dewey Bridge wasn’t near me yet because that is where Andie was going to see me and I would’ve probably quit just to warm up and get a nap. If you were wondering, yelling “Dammit sun, get over the mountains already!” doesn’t really make the sun rise any faster.

By the time I got to the Yellow Jacket Canyon entrance I had improved enough to not give up and take 128 to Dewey Bridge . I went through YJC, it was quite sandy, I did my own personal audition for Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift through much of it; there’s nothing like having your front and back wheels start drifting around at 25 mph. Hooray Hopey damper (http://www.hopey.org), it probably saved my butt once or twice in this section.

Dewey Bridge, 9:05 a.m. I told Andie I would be there between 9 and 10 and since my good pace early on was thwarted with a hypothermia fit I was right on the money. I refilled some of my convenient food containers from my pack and at 9:10 Andie pulled in just as I was going to leave. She reminded me that I had left my 2 Ensures in the cooler, it felt good to say, oh well too late now, this is unsupported I can’t take it from you now. I told Andie that if she wanted to see me again she should either go to Castle Valley or Slickrock, if she was at Onion Creek Rd. it might have been too tempting to bail out.

I left Dewey and was catching people on the long hot climb, it was nice to pass back the people that passed me during my bad spot. This climb just wouldn’t end and I was cooking. The short descent into Cottonwood Canyon was nice and I treated water at the small creek. Then I started an even longer climb. Once I finally topped out I looked down at my legs and the quad muscle that is on the inside just above my knee was about 3 times its normal size. My legs were pumped. I descended through the technical Rose Garden hill and at some point I noticed a drop off in my sweat rate. Thinking my body wasn’t absorbing water quickly enough to keep up with sweating I decided to bail at Onion Creek Rd. I waited at the top of a small climb for the guy behind me to tell him to pass the word on to Andie at Castle Valley . He then asked me how long it would be to Castle Valley and how long to finish, he was pretty stunned when I said 4 hours with another big climb to Castle Valley and some more gentler climbing after that, still 7 hours till the end. He decided to bail out with me.

We descended Onion Creek Rd , a fun 13 mile almost entirely-downhill ride with 22 very-welcome stream crossings. We arrived at 128 roughly 14 hours into the ride for me. We saw three other mountain bikers in a paceline just a little behind us and I was anxious for them to catch us so we could trade pulls with them back to Moab . Greg (the other guy that bailed with me) and I traded pulls, neither of us being able to muster much more than 20 seconds into the headwind. We pulled over so Greg could eat something and I looked back and the paceline was nowhere to be seen, had they gone up Onion Creek? Nope, they showed up a few minutes later, they were three singlespeeders and were moving at a breakneck pace line speed of 4 mph! Greg busted out his secret weapon, Starbucks Doubleshot espresso and we split it, ready to do the 30-35 miles into Moab. On a whim I checked to see if my phone had reception, it did, I called in the cavalry and Andie came and got me and Greg. The single speeders got a ride from a truck about a mile down the road too.

I was really surprised at my lack of disappointment in pulling the plug early, even with the early quit it was a monster day/night, all I really wanted. Here are some of the stats for my ride:

Actual Time: 14 hours 35 minutes

Ride Time: 13 hours 4 minutes

Distance: 107.12 miles

Temperatures: Low 40’s to Low 90’s

Elevation: I estimate 10-11k in climbing with about 7k to go to finish out the course

H2O Drank: About 230 oz (probably needed to do more, but I didn’t drink or eat much when I was freezing cold)

Calories Consumed: About 3000, I still had about 1500 calories in my pack to finish the ride out.

# of Jelly Belly Sport Beans Eaten: ~175 individual beans, Fruit Punch is the best.

# of guys that had my same bike and we were the same jersey as me: 1… dang doppelgangers! His name was Frank and he was from Arizona.

No flats, no mechanicals and only one minor crash. Good time.

I’m feeling good today and actually rode my singlespeed bike to work today too. I’m in a good mood and have lots of energy considering I got up at 4:30 am on Friday, no sleep Friday night, 8.5 hours of tent camping on Saturday night and coming in to work and staying until 2:30 am last night after getting back from Moab and getting only 5 hours of sleep before I rode in to work this morning.

Hope you all had a good weekend!

-Nick

Rod,

Thanks for letting me borrow your light; I’ll charge up the battery and get it back to you. Maybe we’ll go for a ride on Wednesday?