Archive for the 'Adventure' Category

I spent today riding The Ronde with Preston.  It’s inspired by a ride in Belgium.  It’s a tough (~50 miles and 7k+ climbing/ascent) and fun (beautiful views and tour of Portland) ride.  I also met a couple people along the way that were extremely nice – they gave out bars, Gatorade and even Widmer beer (GO PIXIE PROJECT!)!  The weather was pretty good except one downpour/hail storm that lasted about 10 minutes.  Here is my Polar watch chart with stats (note the start time is off by an hour – i.e. I started around 1040am) – click on it to see the details.

Constraints: 10 days
Pros: have Starwood and Marriott points
Current leaders:

1. Kayaking Options: Loreto, Mexico; Vancouver Island, Victoria, Canada; Lake Powell, NV; Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Munising, MI
2. Golf: Victoria, Canada
3. Mountaineering/Skiing: Climb Mt. Olympus, WA
4. Surf Camp: Panama or Costa Rica
5. some combination of the above
6. others?

This weekend I decided to enter my first ultra race. It all stemmed from Monica emailing me about races in the Tahoe area this weekend as we were going to be there for a wedding on Saturday anyway. I put off registering for anything, but eventually decided to register for the Tahoe Rim Trail 50k. Turns out that the race is pretty popular and they were at capacity for the race. I emailed the race director requesting to be put on the wait list… lucky me, eventually I got the email – a spot was open. After filling out the entry and getting a confirmation that I was officially entered I decided to do a bit more research on how the day would play out.

The wedding started at 430pm sharp and the race started at 6am. Given that the race site was about one hour from the wedding site, taking into account shower time, and getting seated time that meant I had about 8 hours to finish the race. I initially figured that I should finish the race in about 6 hours… but after looking at the prior year’s results I changed that estimated to around 8-9 hours. Nine hours would be cutting making the wedding too close. After looking at the course in more detail Monica and I agreed that there was a mid-way aid station where I could cut out of the race if it looked like the timing would be too close regarding the wedding.

Monica and I left Vacaville around 630pm and got to Tahoe (thanks for the place to stay, Shannan!!) around 9p (stopped to get groceries). Unfortunately we only got about 6 hours of sleep since we had to unpack and eat. When we arrived at the race site I had enough time to go the bathroom and put on sunscreen. As I was standing in the mega-long bathroom line I spoke to a guy that did the race last year. When I mentioned this was my first ultra he was surprised I picked this one. I didn’t get into the fact that it was more of a convenience thing. This guy gave me what turned out to be an awesome piece of advice – “walk the hills.” It may seem obvious, but last year he didn’t do that, and he didn’t finish. Point taken – walk the hills.

The trails were a mix of soft pine needles and technical rocky sections with plenty of climbing and descents (my Polar showed ~5100 ft. of gain for the total run). The views were phenomenal and with aid stations being every six miles I chose not to carry any water, downing about 1-2 bottles of water per aid station (along with salt tablets and Skittles). When I reached the halfway point I didn’t see Monica so I continued down to the “Red House loop” (toughest section of the course IMO). When I got back from that portion of the course I didn’t see Monica either (we were going to try to meet up to see if I should continue). I decided to clean my shoes out (note: bring gaiters next time – some sections were pretty sandy) to see if she would eventually make it there. After waiting a short bit I thought I should get a move on and was very excited to see that it was only 10am (I still have 4 hours to finish!!!). With that much time I could keep a very slow pace and we’d still make the wedding. I decided to move on and knock the rest of the course out (despite my legs feeling some serious pain at this point).

The next part of the race was pretty tough in terms of staying mentally strong. It involved a lot of elevation gain and my legs still weren’t feeling much better. After stopping in at the “Irish Bar” aid station (they had a keg of Guinness with shots of Jameson on hand) and taking in a lot of water, salt, and some Gu I felt a little better. As I headed out on the last major climb (Snow Valley area) before a 5 mile downhill my legs started feeling much better. I stuck by the “walk the hills” rec. and once I got to the top kicked things up a notch – running the 5 mile downhill feeling pretty good. As the downhill ended I saw another aid station which I thought would be the finish. It wasn’t – the volunteers said that they thought we knew it was slightly longer than 50k – RE: there was still another 2 miles to go. Ugh. As I ran the last 2 miles I kept a careful eye out behind me as I passed a fair amount of people on the downhill and didn’t want them catching up. Just before the finish I came out of the woods into a more open field and saw a man in front of me. He became the rabbit – I pushed with what I had left in the tank and managed to pass him before the finish line. A good way to end a surprisingly good day. I had some more water and a burrito on the way to the wedding. We made it in time and I was still able to dance. There may be more ultras in the future for me… (love the fact they are on trails and have much more of an elevation profile than traditional “tar” marathons). Thanks to Monica for the great support and encouragement along the way!  I ended up 47th/165 with a 7:58:49 finish time.  My Polar watch/foot pod results are in the chart below (33.1 miles, 5420ft. gain) and the pictures are in my photo album.

This is part 2 for me as I did it back in my early NW days (1998).  This is a 202 mile bike ride from U of Washington to downtown Portland.  This year was good weather, albeit a bit hot.  This time I rode the course with Trent and Justin – both very strong riders.  We took a train up to Seattle on Fri night and got in late (bridge issue) – ended up getting to bed at 1am and alarm went of at 330am.  Ugh.  We pacelined most of the race save near the end when I suggested they move fwd. as they had more energy left than me.  The climbing was a bit surprising.  It was a bit more climbing (~5000 ft. in gain) than when I last did it in 1998 on the good ole Centurion – see:Cascade Bicycle Club Message Boards – but still fun nonetheless.  Race info: http://www.cascade.org/EandR/stp/STP_Details.cfm

Oregon Velo � Blog Archive » Photos: Cross Crusade’s Hillsboro Stadium  It was a muddy and cold weekend in Portland… so why not join in on a bike race!  After looking at the photos at the link above I am not quite sure why I do this (I acutally pay people to enter these things), other than it begets the worst and best feelings  I have each week… more so the latter.  Cyclocross racing in the mud, rain, and even snow in the fall is similar to what the winter’s snow is to me, fun (although there is no comparison to snow).  The other cool part is it’s a chance to meet more crazy and fun people.