The open road

With the wedding season in full swing, my presence was requested as a groomsman at a wedding in Anaheim. Not wanting to miss a chance to see old friends, I was on my way.

Generally one would drive this, but I had bigger and better plans. I stuffed two bikes, golf clubs, camping gear, a guitar and a bunch of other junk into my car and hit the road. Along the way I made stops in Glenwood Springs, CO to mountain bike with a friend. The next day I hit the road early and made a pitstop in Moab to ride Slickrock trail. Note to self, the desert is hot in mid August. After the ride I got back on the road and made it to Vegas for the night. My jalopy made it to Anaheim the next day and I spent the next week hanging out with friends, watching baseball, and biking around the roads and hills of southern California before heading north to the SF bay area to spend some time with my parents. A new dirt jump park popped up next to their house and I was launching my Yeti as much as I could, but still being upstaged by kids on BMX bikes.

I'm guilty of not taking out the camera until I saw this floating mountain in the Utah salt flats on the way home.


I really enjoy the open highways of the west. I've driven through most of the US states and a few other countries and there just aren't many stretches like this. Certainly the plains have longer/straighter shots of road, but those are just hypnotizing. I was so happy to have cruise control and play a game with myself called "how far away is that hill".



All of the riding and fun on the jump track took its toll on my bike. It's needed new shock seals for a while, but I finally got the time to take it into the shop and have them do it. The great question of "how to you bike to the bike shop then bike home" question was answered with some bungees and zip ties to my old SS.

1 year later.

A year or so since my last post and I'm sitting in my friends basement in Denver. A lot has happened.

In the last year I've quit my job, worked the south pole, toured New Zealand, worked in talkeetna, Alaska, had surgery, and in relation to this blog, gained about 12 pounds.

Last summer had some great mountain biking, a trip to moab, some more 14ers, and at the end of September a call from the Antarctic program informing me that I'd be needed there should I choose to accept the job. Over the following months I packed up my house, rented it out, and flew south. My original plan was to spend 12 months at the south pole, but just a few weeks into my stay an old medical issue came up and I was told I'd have to leave at the end of the season to get it fixed. Below is the geographic south pole around the solstice.



In Feb I left south pole and spend a month or so touring around new zealand in a bongo van. NZ is the most beautiful country I could imagine. I could spend years between the islands and not see everything I wanted. Below is a shot of Wanaka, NZ from the top of Mt. Roy.


After NZ I spent 2 months tapping birch trees in Alaska for Kahiltna Birchworks, working for the legendary Mike East. We were put up at a small B&B called "the eye of Denali" just outside Talkeetna, AK from April 1st to the end of May. This was a truly unforgettable experience. Below: Delani, Hunter, Foraker taken from talkeetna.

After Alaska, a bit of the fun came to a halt. I had surgery at the end of July and have been more or less shut down for the last 6 weeks. Only recently have I been able to get back on my bike and start working out again. I'm up to a hefty 206lbs. My house is still rented out, so I can't move back in there right now. I'm currently working through the physical qualification process to head back to Antarctica. Seems like it hasn't been that long, I'll try to keep up with this before I leave, and if things work out well maybe I'll actually be able to keep up while back on the ice. Cheers.

July Updates

I've been up in the mountains almost every weekend since my last post. With the exception of a long weekend on the Virginia shore to see my family. Despite all my marathon training, I'm still not faster than my sister, who was a college XC runner, but I was able to thump my 58 year old dad. While that statement doesn't sound impressive, a few years ago he ran a 3:48 marathon at Big Sur.

I've had some good car camping trips and started to pick up some better gear that makes things a little more comfortable. We spent a nice weekend up around Buena Vista, Colorado fishing and hiking the trails around Missouri Peak.

The weekend of the 10th a few friends and I met up in Crested Butte, the mountain bike capital of the world, and rode a really nice 20 mile trail called reno/deaddog if I remember correctly. Again, I have no pictures of these events.

Last weekend, my buddy who I did Quandary with earlier and I did an evening ascent of Torreys and Grays peak. This was incredible. We left work on Friday around 4, bolted up to the trail head and beat feet up the peaks. The round trip on this was ~8.25 miles and we did it in 3:12. The pace was about .25 miles/hour faster than the quandary trip and we were pretty happy.

The plan is to get a group together this weekend to do Longs peak and I have some 4 wheeling trips in the works. I'm pretty excited for this summer. As far as long run plans, I don't think I'll be doing a marathon any time again this year. I still don't feel like my feet are up to another run like that, and the training is just too much when it's 90+ degrees outside every day. I'm planning on picking up a nicer camera and I might start back with some more frequent updates. We'll see.

Another monthly update.

I finally started running again. 3 weeks after the marathon I ran 2 miles, everything felt great. I was a happy person, running was fun again. Since then I ran about 4 miles on the road twice, then started into fun runs. I ran about 7 miles around green mountain, a grueling loop where my average heart rate was 176. Then this weekend a friend and I tried to RUN up Quandary Peak. The running wasn't happening on the way up and we did our best to "power hike" which is essentially a fast paced hike. We ran almost the entire way down and it was a great workout. The trail is about 4 miles up and 4 back down. The way up was 1:40, the way down was 50 minutes. The peak was just over 14,200'. The pace might not sound fast, but we were passing people literally the entire way, all the way up to the final stretch, it was a fun time and a great "colorado" experience.


I've been mountain biking a lot (~2x/week) and I got a new bike. A yeti 575. This thing is great. I actually got it just before the marathon but didn't get to ride it much. A group of friends rides MTBs every wednesday and then I try to get in one other ride per week, either downhill or with friends on the same old local trails. Some of these are real lung burners and I feel like I'm gaining strength in a different kind of conditioning. Mountain biking requires a lot of short sprints and the ability to catch your breath while still keeping a decent pace. The training is totally different from marathon training. I've actually found myself saying "I need to get back in shape" a few times. It's amazing to me that such a one track focus on running long distances can really leave me out of shape in other aspects. On a positive note, I must have been holding lots of extra water weight or something, because I dropped literally 5 pounds within 3 weeks of the marathon, that was nice to see. Perhaps more updates, but also likely not. Cheers.

Done!

Man, I suck at this. It's been almost 2 weeks since the marathon. The final 20 miler 3 weeks prior to that went well and I was excited for the marathon.

About a week before the marathon I came down with a really bad cough and was a sick mess the week leading up to the marathon. The day before the marathon I stepped on a nail and it went through my shoe and into my food. The day of the marathon my alarm didn't go off and I woke up 45 minutes before the race. I made it on time and had good splits (1:58 1/2 high point of race) through about 20 miles. At 20 I hit a wall and slowed off pace by about 3 minutes/mile. I trotted into the finish at 4:13. I'm happy I finished, not excited about my time, but I was hacking up green mucus throughout the run, so given the circumstances I think I did well. I believe that I developed a stress fracture on my left food sometime around mile 23, the pain really messed up my gait until I found a way to run where I wasn't landing on my foot in a painful way. Almost two weeks later I feel like I can run again, and I'm excited about that. The muscles were ok 2-3 days later, but my foot/feet hurt for almost a week, and the one I think I messed up continued, it's still a little sore but I could run now if I had to. My cough is finally going away almost completely, but it has sure been a pain in the ass.

Future plans for the summer include a lot of not training for stuff. Climbing mountains, mountain biking, trail runs, and possibly another marathon in October with my friend Matt. We will see! Weight the day after race day was 191. I've been really good about eating the last two weeks and while I haven't been too active, I haven't gained any weight. Good times.

A whole month!

Ok, so I blew it and got sick of daily updates, then I got sick of every few days, then I didn't want to come back to it. So here's an update for the last 4 weeks of running.

Two 20 mile runs. First was tough, second wasn't as bad and I picked a different route. After the first 20 I felt good and picked up more aggressively with the speed work.

One 10 mile "long" run. This was awesome, this distance is a great run and it doesn't take all day and it doesn't take a ton of prep. I think after my marathon 10-15 will be my max distance.

One 22 mile run. This was hell, I felt great up through about 16 miles then I felt crappier every step. I've gone one 20 miler left and I'm going to shoot for goal pace on it.

Weekday training has been up and down. I've been hitting the trails, skiing, and mountain biking a bit. It really changes things up and makes me feel happier in general about working out. The training has been long and hard. After this Sunday I start tapering and it couldn't come at a better time. I'm worried and excited for the marathon, I know I can finish, but my time is worrying me. Lots of indicators suggest I can make my goal 4hr, but I'm not sure my legs care what the VO2Max test says or my 1/2 time or anything else. I'll try and keep up with this as the time gets closer.

I've really broken in my new shoes and find they're about the same as other shoes. I've switched gels to clif, I've been using my belt a lot more and storing water alone the route. This whole experience really has been unique and I'm happy I've done it.

Week Update: Training and 18 mile long run.

The marathon training is in sort of a phase where the weekday runs don't seem as long anymore, in fact some are shorter, and the weekend runs are really stepping up the distance.

After the 1/2 marathon the only pain was some sort of weird foot soreness. I chalked it up to 8 month old running shoes and sprung for a pair of Asics Gel Kayano runners. These things are awesome. My Wednesday run was the first on these and being st. Patrick's day I knocked out a few miles quickly and then biked to the restaurant/bar.

Thursdays run was 6 miles, and most of my pains were pretty minor by now. I snowboarded on Saturday and had a pretty hard crash that seems to have messed up my shoulder a bit as well as given me some random knee and hip soreness. This didn't keep me from running 18 miles on Sunday. This was the longest run of my life. By the end I felt ok but my feet were pretty sore. The rest of the day I felt fine, but by bed time I was noticing a pretty continuous pain at the base of my left toe. This hasn't gone away. I can't isolate it either, I can push all over with my thumbs and now increase the soreness. I'm hoping it's just some pressure or muscle pain and not something worse. Tomorrow and Wednesday are supposed to be crappy days in Denver so I'll probably just work out on the bike trainer. That will give me 4 days of recovery without further impact training.

So far I'm happy with my shoes, the other random foot pains have gone away. I ate 4 gels during my 18 miles and felt good on energy, my belt worked well and didn't rub or bother me much, I stashed extra water on the route and ended up using about 32 ounces. My weight post run was 191.5.
The 20 miles next week will tell me a lot and I'm looking forward to it in a sick way, I just hope this pain/soreness in my feet goes away.