Off Season

The season is officially over for DART and myself. I'm letting the body rest a bit and not doing anything called training for a while...now its just called biking, trail running, orienteering, paddling and skiing. G, Aaron and I are going to do the Deception Pass Dash next weekend which should be fun and I am looking forward to some dawn patrol sessions up at Snoqualmie. Both Jen and I have been getting out and assaulting the Cougar Mt. trails, as they are now in our back yard.

Something new for multisport:

Last week I experienced a world record set at a multi sport endurance event surrounding bacon, that's right I said BACON and it was called the Bacathalon. Erik "the Red" Denmark set a record for the most bacon consumed in 10 minutes...out of this world. It turns out I know some his friends and they filled me in on some of his feats, secrets of success and inside tidbits. He ate over 30 Habeneros in one minute...need I say more? I think not. Here he is getting ready to devour bacon at the first ever bacatholon.

Out, but not down...

I'm addicted to fast paced team sports...its kind of funny that I ended up getting caught up in Adventure Racing as most of the time the fast part seems to elude me. Anyways, I can't get enough of my Basketball, Soccer and other high intensity team sports. After years of my team mates telling me that I was going to shoot my eye out, I mean injur myself, it finally happened. I partially tore some ligaments in my right ankle after coming down on someone's foot moving very fast. A big pop echoed in the gym and I hit the floor.

I got the plaster cast, was hoping JVG would draw a hart on it and sign it, then graduated to the plastic boot and I am again mobile but not moving fast. Since then I have officially retired from hoops and I've asked the Washington Athletic Club to hang my jersey from the rafters but they will most likely not honor my request, I might just throw an old dirty one up there for kicks.

In the mean time I am appreciating the finer things, like TV, college basketball games, my social life and lots of quality time with the family. Glenn likes to hear that I spend some time on helping with Trioba, that's happening as well.

Until the next time...I'll be icing and elevating.

Introducing DART's newest team mate...

I usually stick to Adventure Related topics on my little blog, here is my adventure of a lifetime. The newest member of our team...Jaden Skye VanGorder. Born on the 7th around 7:45ish..This is how endurance athletes roll: 40+ hours of labor, 25 without drugs and three hours of pushing...Even the longest expedition race pales incomparison to the bohemeth amount of effort JVG put into this. WOW. She actually came out wearing a pair of running shoes and some lycra...a bit odd but we are comfortable with it.

Sometimes when we are racing and we know what is ahead of us we will make the comment," just three hours of biking left, you can do anything for three hours." We'll I feel truly lucky to never have to say just 40 hours of Labor left...boys, we have it easy. Big ups to JVG and all the mom's out there.

Look for Jaden on a trail near you :-)

Ropes clinic and camera

Last week we had a small ropes clinic for some friends and teams getting into AR. It was great and the fact that we got each student to rappel off of the train trestle was a success in itself. I never would have guessed when my friends were shoving me off of the train trestle on exit 38 that I would be doing the same thing, in a more humane way...my guess is that the students will be just as hooked on AR as I have become, if they aren't already. You can read the DART-nuun news release for the clinic here.

I am still going through withdrawals for lack of a camera. I need to get back on the program and order a camera pronto...this will give me more things to write about or at least more content. The camera I prefer (a lot of racers have asked) is the Pentax Optio W30, mostly because it is waterproof, but it also takes a solid picture once you figure out how to utilize all of the functions and mine took a licking and kept on ticking. I think my old camera is still taking pictures at the bottom of the ocean, unless its batteries ran out.

On a side note a friend recomended this book entitled Fixing Your Feet...probably worth checking out with all of our treking exploits.

Top 10 of 2006

Stole this idea from AV...but it was too good to resist.

10-Ride around Hood Canal in 1 day
9-Circumnavigation of Mt. St. Helens
8-Costa Rica in May
7-Tahoe in September
6-Explore the West in Las Vegas/Lake Mead
5-Bend Big Fat
4-Primal Quest...what an endeavor
3-Mexico in October (Frenchy's Wedding)
2-Brazil and Ecomotion in November
1-Being alive to celebrate life and everything in 2007!!!

I hope everyone reading this has a happy new year and has their calendars out looking for the next adventure! :-)