Oh by golly scouting can be a lot of fun

So going scouting for new race courses can be either a ton of fun or hell on wheels... sometimes you are out there for 24h straight, running or biking endless miles on fireroads, bushwhacking senselessly up a ridge, only to find out that it is all in vain because the course is dull, dangerous or whatever else monkey wrench to choose from......

And sometimes you get what we got today: Nice weather, a perfect course, and the green light from the rangers to go ahead. Yeehaaw!

Race location will be Salmon La Sac, racecourse is interesting to say the least, the snow is perfect right now, and the area is just gorgeous. No more words, just pictures.

Mt. Hamilton, my sanctuary

So as I have mentioned living/working in the bay area has taken its toll on my outdoorsy adventures, to put it lightly... all work and no fun makes Roger a big boy (plus 35lbs that is).

To get ready for the Trioba 24h Race I have finally started training again, not really enough motivation to go on long runs, i have done two 100 mile loops over Mt. Hamilton up to the wine country the last two weekends. Mt Hamilton is every Tour de France addicted's dream. 18 Miles, 4500ft of gain, a road in perfect condition (they need to move the satellite dishes up to the top, so trucks need to get up there). And the road, as winding and beautful sights like southern france... ok, NOW i am exaggerating... but its pretty dang nice out there!

The wildlife count was also not too shabby for one of the most populated region in the US. A bobcat, a 5 foot rattler, a bald eagle and a tarantula, wow!

Silicon Valley and the pact with the Devil

They say that Wendell and Sarah from PCT Running have made a pact with the devil.... years in a row now a randomly selected weekend in April chosen by them have made temperatures spike into the stratosphere.... take three to five weekends in the mid seventies, then one in the 100s, and you got the weekend of the Mt Diablo 50 Miler... not any different this year....
It was a slow train wreck, and i was there beginning to start... having moved to the Bay Area for a fancy new job, working 50-60h/week and not training enough i did not want to cut my racing too, so i signed up for the 50M Mt Diablo and the 100M Headlands Hundred... bring it on!
The weeks leading up to the run i actually trained a lot, maybe a little too much, and got into decent race shape, and even though i have had issues with very high temps before (mainly the Mountians to Sound solo race in 06) i should have known to go out slow.
Temps were supposed to be in the high 80s, but ended up in the mid 90s, not counting the sky-high ones in the slot canyons we crossed. I started off with a good group and got my rythm very fast, and found myself at the top of Mt Diablo the first time around in no problem and way ahead of schedule. By 10AM the temps rose sharply, and by Mile 20 i was feeling it. I had to start walking some of the unbearable sunny sections, and spent almost 10 minutes at the 23 mile aid station, and even longer the ones following.
So I called it a day expectation wise and just slugged it out... walking, sitting, cursing, grasping for air. Finally I met this nice Canadian Ultrarunner Leslie, she made fun of my taped nipples (by then i had to take off my shirt, ridiculed or not), and we spent the next 10 miles frog leaping (in a very slow-frog kinda way) onwards....
The last 10 miles were pure hell, felt like hours... oh, wait, it was! I was cooked and done for, but happy i finished in almost 13h.
Gorgeous course, great race organisation, would do it again in a heartbeat, though wouldnt mind doing it in Washington-like temperatures.

Wonderland Trail Run, close but no banana!

This past weekend Miles called me up and said he wanted to run around Mt. Rainer. Sure Miles, why not, or we could go down to the Snoqualmie falls and jump in at the top, would probably hurt a little less long and have a higher chance of survival... I havent run longer than 20 miles in a long time. Well we can just take it easy. Ok, sounds like a plan, a not so well thought out one at that, but a plan nontheless. Given that i had friends in town Sunday afternoon and needed to be back at lunch Sunday, and that Kimberly, Matt and Ruri decided to join as well chances dwindled to actually circumnavigate the dang thing, but we had a bail option since Matt's girlfriend came out later, and the weather was gorgeous.

We started at Mowich Lake at 8AM, clocking about 4-5Miles per hour including the climbs for the first few hours.

The scenery was out of this world, i could not remember ever having done a better trail run in my life, sure the current one alwasy sticks out, but i think this will go down as one of the top 10 in my final tally. The company was great, and we moved at similar speed until we night broke.

Then the speed dropped immensely, and we just could not get a rythm going, too many breaks, and general tiredness made it pretty clear I wont be able to make the 93 miles and make it back in time. As an endurance athlete with a wife that has a decent but limited range of acceptance of "lateness due to trainings taking longer than planned" i decided to go for the safe option, rather than the "ask forgiveness later" option. This option actually reduced pain both short and long term! Miles, Ruri and Kimberly joined me in cutting the course short at mile 68, while Matt and Erin who joined him at 68 finished up the 93. Nicely done Matt, I ll just have to do it again, GLADLY!

Booo we´re in Colombia

And we are finally on the road again!
Yumay and I flew to Bogota beginning of January, and sure enough, Yumay´s bag flew to Lima, a little ahead of schedule for us..... After dealing with all that missing bag stuff and having to change pesos we did not get to the hostel until way after midnight, and sure enough it was full, but finally we crashed dead tired in a dumpy place not too far, waiting for our travel luck to improve a bit.

"The before picture"

Next morning we checked in to our backpacker hostel, found mail from Andres, a guy we met at a Christmas party in Seattle, who actually was from Bogota and had lots of friends there. Armed with tons of local what-to-do info (thanks Andres!) we explored the city, climbed to the local mountain to overview the gigantic city... totally out of breath (Bogota lies at 8800 feet and the top of the ¨little hill¨is at over 10´000 feet!).

Sundays the city of Bogota has what is called a ciclovia, they shut down half of the city´s major streets and tens of thousands of people from the age of 2-100 walk, run, inlineskate and cycle about the city.... incredible! Yumay and I ran for over 3.5h and close to 20miles that day, it was certainly the best way to see the outskirts of Bogota. Hopefully the US cities will pick that up sometime soon... traffic is decreased significantly as its tough to drive on half the streets, and people there seem much fitter too!

Through Andres we met Santiago, Carolina, Tono and Mimi, and they showed us around the city, and since Monday was a holiday, we got to drive out of the city north and enjoy the beautiful countryside, and had a phantastic barbecue, something of a barbecue i have not had since argentina, boy do they like their meat here, and do they know how to prepare it well!


Santi, Carolina, Tono, Mimi and Yumay enjoying the grilled meat and the view

Anyhow, after a few enjoyable days in Bogota we were ready to explore more of the county, so we headed north to Cartagena, a nice colonial town, hot and humid right by the ocean, and a good stopover to the even nicer northern towns.

Funky christmas displays and Cartagena old town

We pretty soon headed up to Taganga Beach, a stone´s throw from our main goal, parque tayrona, one of the most beautiful, unspoiled parks i have ever seen. Its a Jungle park by the ocean, filled with hiking paths and pristine beaches. There we spent 3 days hiking and camping within the park.

Yumay relaxing....

Wannabe Tarzan....

Playa brava.. we had the whole beach to ourselves

One of our main hikes, 6h to one of the beaches, we did not see a single soul, but lots of great bugs, huge spiders, snakes and butterflies... it was simply incredible and left us breathless and alone on a white sand beach. Certainly the best place to visit in Colombia. After the few days of trekking we spend a few days in a really nice hostal in Taganga, and then headed out to Ecuador.
We were beind schedule so we decided to fly, as we had a boat to catch on Galapagos islands, and almost did not make it. After we flew fine and safely to Bogota, our next flight to Quito looked fine. They announced about 5 times that they were cleaning the plane, thats why we could not board yet... nice... a very clean plane.. so clean that it apparently could not fly no more.. eventually they took the plain away with no announcement, and hours later brought a new one... now apparently Quito had too much fog and no planes could land anymore, so aound midnight they shoved us off to a 5 star hotel somewhere in Bogota, nice, but not really, as we only got like 3h of sleep and then needed to get back to the airport... unfortunately the game of fly cant fly continued on way into the day and with 13 delay we finally took off.. phew! So we immediately flew off to Galapagos and made it finally on time!
On the Galapagos islands we met Mike and Anna, they have been on a 6 months honeymoon and we were super excited to see that our paths will cross and booked the Galapagos trip together.
Thing was Galapagos is expensive, so we decided to go for the cheapest Boat (out of like 50 boats available), the Yolita. Originally designed for 12 passengers (and even then too small), they upped it to 16 a few years ago... its tiny, super old (actyally its 28 years old and in 2 months will be taken out of service), and full of termites (no joke), but hey, you get the see the same animals, eat the same great food and have the same guides, for less than half the price of a medium class boat, so we endured the painful heat and sound from the engines at night, and had quite the amazing 8 day trip. 8 day trips are designed such that you see a major part (about 50%) of the islands and the wildlife...

The trip was totally worth it, and I want to go back one day, from a friend we heard it may be able to be done in a kayak (sure, quided, but think of doing a multiday kayaking trip, WOW!)...

Huge tourtouse and relaxing sealion....

Birds in action...

Almost comic-like....

Curious Iguana

Us in Galapagos...

Blue footed boobie mating dance...

Snorkeling was great!

White tip reef shark...

Swam with turtles quite a bit...

And played with sealions...

Rogaine for Men with Hair

So Yumay and I are organizing a Rogaine on June 9th, and last weekend, after having been out there once before and numerous hours studying maps and creating the course on paper, it was time to set up the monster portion of the race. Rogaine stands for Rugged Outdoor Group Activity Involving Navigation and Endurance... so much for the longest acronym known to men...

This one is different from the conventional 6/12/24h rogaine races... they are usually only on foot. Creating a bike and foot course took a lot of studying the possibilities of how to deal with people doing the 4h bike 4h foot vs the 6h foot race.... phew....

Havin Fun

Spring is here...

Someone tipped off the chipmunk (on top) and it knows all the CP locations now!!

Tamarack Springs Campsite

Anyhow, Yumay and I packed the car Friday night and started nice and early at 5am to get out there and get going.... and the going was tough. Every checkpoint has to be checked, double checked, measured with GPS, and then vetted (by Glen next weekend). So needless to say my plan of getting it all done (30cps) went out the door in a jiffy.... after roughly 10h of riding and running, and lots of breaks readjusting CP locations it was time to go to sleep at the beautiful Tamarack Sprints Campground. Its free camping at a gorgeous campsite, what wonderful place we live in! Saw probably about 30-40 deer and elk while up there too...

Killer Views

The next day we did a combination of ride/run/drive to get more done, and now the course is almost done! Still lots of work to do figuring out CP values and all that fun suff... but that s why I decided to do the race to begin with... lots of learing, lots of fun!

Sun, Fun on the Peninsula...

Wednesday night sometime past midnight, buried in emails from work and sponsorship, permit and course planning projects for 4th Dimension, Yumay and I decided we needed a break, and looking at our schedules we figured that would be sometime in mid-august, unless we left this weekend... so two very last minute but very determined emails to our bosses and the next morning we were getting ready for our three day weekend on the olympic peninsula. Woohoo! Havent been there but once, and just a drive by anyways, this time we wanted to do some good runs and rides... so off we were to Sequim after our regular MerGeo.com team ride on Thursdays at Tiger... we caught a late ferry and found a nice little motel.. and were not more than 20 minute drive away from one of the best mountain bike rides washington has to offer... Dungeness/Gold Creek... about 20 miles with 4500 feet of climb, this ride offeres some of the best singletrack there is.. and all that surprisingly dry... it was a great day of riding, about 5h of constant technical but not too technical riding, and top views of the olympic mountains.


First mountain flowers after a long winter...




Having fun!



River crossing balance...


The next day we were off to run the Lake Ozette triangle... after a beautiful drive along the north coast of the peninsula we got there, beautiful sunshine, just a little wet from the days before.. unfortunately 6 out of the 9 miles are running on wood planks, and about 1.5 miles into the run i slipped on a slighly slanted piece of wood that was as slippery as a banana peel, and fell, and hurt my ankle, AGAIN for the 2nd time this year. Not as bad as last time, but no running for a few days.. we still made it to the wild coast but with my swollen and tender ankle I decided to just stay out there and enjoy the weather and then hike back the way we came... so we skipped day three and went home... a bike ride on sunday will be better and still doable with a tender ankle.... two out of three aint that bad!





Saw Bambi along the way...


WoW!


Assessing ankle situation...




On the north coast...

The gloves are off...

Getting ready for a grueling 1000 mile race with 100'000 feet of elevation gain I am convinced I need to simulate the race a bit more to not get annihilated during the race.... so I need to do climb, lots of it.... and there is not really too much nearby... at least not uninterrupted 3000-5000 feet... hurricane ridge is the best on the bike at the moment, but one has to drive 2h and take a ferry.... mad lake and devils gulch are still snowed in... so I did L'alp d'Issaquah.... named after L'alp d'Huez its barely a homeopathic version of that in terms of total climb, but its 2.7 miles and 1400 feet of climb, not that bad for out here ey?

So I drove there and climbed it.. once, twice, (as riders looked at me, wait, did he not just... why?) four times plus once from the back side... got in just under 6'000 feet of climb by 10am, when I had another job to do... Eric was organizing one of his Northwest Trail Runs and I agreed to go pick up all the flags and markers from the half marathon course.... so it was another 13ish mile run with 4000 feet of elevation gain... great training doing 10'000 feet of gain that morning, something I need to do lots from now on... and we certainly have the hills to train on....

Photo by Murray Maitland, who did aid station...

The best commute in the world.....

I have the best commute in the world and I challenge anyone that reads this... its 22.2 miles of uninterrupted bicycling path going from Redmond over the noth end of the lake down to Seattle. Very few roads to cross (5-6) and only one major one with a red light... the trail is in excellent (Redmond) to good (Bothell, Seattle) condition, and I there is enough dirt/gravel shoulder for running as well. Over the years I have usually biked to/from work anywhere from 1-4 times a week, and recently to get ready for my Gigathlon I have started also inline skating and running... Roadbike takes me 1h-1h20, MTB 1h10-1h30, Inline 1h45-2h, and running about 3h30... a little on the long side for a morning commute but when I make it out of bed at 4.30 (like today) I can make it... and running almost a marathon before work gives you a good sense of achievement (as well as seriously tired/achy legs throughout the day).... a picture of the Burke Gilman Trail below:

While the trail is completely flat there is also plenty of opportunities to veer off and add some distance and serious hills (Puget Power, Tolt Pipeline, Swedish Hill, etc)..... a blessing of a commute I am very very greatful for!