Colinoba 2010

One of my favorite underground Adventure Races, or birthday bashes went down on Saturday March 6th, in and around downtown Seattle. I think we ran between 8-10 miles throughout Seattle on an urban adventure of a lifetime. After climbing fences, dodging cars, getting our picture taken with a pink dildo and drinking a beer or three we were all smiles.

This was a fun way to hang with a lot of peeps from the local AR community, take a small break and see Seattle...all dressed up as mimes :-) That's right, this is how we do it:

2010 Colinoba

We are in training for the E-Fix in West Virginia in 3 weekends. We are looking forward to seeing a new part of the country and doing a new race. 2 guys and 2 girls toeing the line for DART; JVG, Hayes, Jenn Rinderle and myself. We probably wont do that race as mimes.

See you on the trails.

Cascade Cream Puff 2009

Wow, another whirlwind year at the Puff...this year the temperatures held off but the skies opened up with a light drizzle all day and we traded overheating with sloppy trails and nice comfortable mist. 11 hours and 49 minutes of from start to finish and I was happy to scrub almost all the poison oak off with Tecnu and get the race fee included massage at the end.


I raced this year with Aaron, JVG, Hayes and Brent from seattle and we had a blast. When it was all said and done I had 3 less spokes, a severely bent deraillure hanger, a snapped granny limit screw and a sliced front deraillure cable and housing...it was war out there. I was happy to cross the finish line with my 3 working gears and a smile on my face. No nap this year and an improvement on my time, I think the cooler temps helped out. Next year I hope to improve once again.


Here is a link to the CCP pictures...there are some good ones out there. As well as a link to the results.

Mt Stuart...4th of July 2009

This past 4th of July weekend had superb weather and was filled with all sorts of good times. We intended on running the PCT from Stevens pass to Snoqualmie pass...Glenn sent me this note on Thursday...

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Talked to the snoqualmie ranger station. still snow in some avalanche shoots. They went up to kendal catwalk and didn't go beyond because they didn't have their ice axes. the skykomish ranger said snow above 4k and there will be intermiten snow the whole way. If we do this we would need to bring ice axes and maybe katoolals and maybe my 6mm line that RVg has. Last weekend I met a guy up on stevens who had hiked down from canada and was continuing on south so there will have been at least one who has tried it.
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We opted out and chose to head East to Mt. Stuart on Friday and see if we could get up the mountain. Tell of the trail was 10 hours round trip from the car with 1.5 hours on the top. We traveled with crampons, Ice Axe, 30 meters of 6mm rope, helmets and the 10 essentials (lightweight version).

2009 July - Mt Stuart

Good times, Saturday I did a recover ride as my legs were hammered and Sunday JVG, Aaron and I rode Tiger and added on some bonus climbs as well as a new trail that punished me. My front brake went out while dropping into a very steep descent. I slid of the trail into the forest where I hit a downed tree and taco'ed my front wheel. After 20 minutes of Aaron and I jumping on my wheel to make it rideable we hiked back to the road and descended to the parking lot, with a mere flesh wound :-) We also paddled around Lake Samamish to round out the weekend and enjoy the sun. AWESOME weekend.

Training on the I-90 corridor

Top of Mt Washington...in between the clouds

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.

Pumping Iron

Early in the year we spend a lot of time adding base miles with bike rides, long runs and paddles. The gang paddled around Camano Island yesterday, nearly 40 miles. Along with adding base it's time to work on strength and core. It has been just about a year since I started working out seriously in the Gym and it has paid dividends. I've been spending a lot of time at the Washington Athletic Club lately...with bad snow conditions and bone chilling weather outside I have been driven inside a bit more than I would normally like, which isn't such a bad thing.

I generally add a bit of weight early in the year and then shed it as my aerobic workouts grow and intensity picks up. This year is not going to be much different, but I would like to focus on running a bit more. A couple more trail races and another ultra would be fun ;-)

and so it begins...2009

Well, I'm oficially off of my blogging hiatus and back into training. '08 was an incredible year and I experienced a blessing in the birth of Jaden and had fun out on the race course and exploring the world with my friends.

This year there are a lot of things in the hopper... Here is what comes to mind:

-Cascade Cream Puff, just sent JVG and my registration in for the '09 race in Oakridge

-Costa Rica AR in April

-Production of Trioba races

-PQ

-Worlds in Portugal

-Desert Winds

-Adventure Week in Courdelaine(sp?)

-Trip to Norway

Skies the limit! So in the near term look for me and my trusty companions on a body of water, field of snow, gym bench, bike seat or running trail near you :-)

Garfield Circumnavigation

This was Saturdays run, it consisted of 7 hours 45 minutes (25.5 miles) of amazing running, bushwhacking and snow stomping. JVG, Glenn Hayes and myself connected the Taylor creek drainage to the Dingford Creek drainage, which we have done before, just not in these conditions or traveling clockwise. Love the terrain and old growth in the Middle Fork region....get up there if you haven't yet.

It rained the entire time, and we chose the clockwise route to avoid downclimbing one steep section in the snow. Instead we froze our hands off and played it safe. The plan worked and we connected two of the dreamiest trail runs in the valley. We are also getting used to traveling with a gps and plotted a handful of UTM coordinates along the way, to let technology do the dirty work. There is something to be said about the purity of navigating with the map and compass, but the GPS is a marvelous thing.

We only had 3 headlamps and got to the dingford creek parking lot at dark so we opted to run the dirt road instead of the trail to make sure we could all see and share light. Probably only missed out on a half mile of the route and we were ready for that after work out burrito at Tacos Guaymas! mmm..

Abu Dhabi

The hard work is all done, now its time to taper and prepare the logistics for the Abu Dhabi adventure challenge.This weekend we hit it hard and heavy starting on Thanksgiving for me. I wanted to get 4 days in a row of intense work outs, mission accomplished.

Thursday/Thanksgiving- was a 2 hour fast paced run and a 1 hour hike up to Rattlesnake

Friday- Hoops marathon

Saturday- 7:45 trail run around Garfield

Sunday- 6:11 (moving time) paddle around bainbridge Island...28.6 miles.

We are working on finalizing our gaitor set up for the desert trek (110k)...there will be lots of sand. I saw this post on Sari Anderson's blog about her gaitor set up...We are leaning towards using the lycra booties that road cyclists use to keep their feet semi warm. I tested a pair the other day on a run down at Alki and they seemed to do the job.

These pictures are actually from two weekend ago's training where we paddled around Maruy Island, portaged, and ran Dockton State Park trails where they hold the Vashon X-Terra each year. Great trails.

Falling into place

Well summer has come and gone, not so fast. We are still hanging on to summer here in Seattle and are getting out for a lot of play time in the mountains before they get covered in snow.

Last weekend Seegs and Norm cruised down and joined myself, JVG and Rinn for a couple of good sessions in the Cascades and foothills. We ran up Taylor creek into the Alpine Lakes region on Saturday, were also able to get up to Galbraith in Bellingham and follow that up with a small hike/run up Suak mountain off of highway 20 to cap the weekend off.


Galbraith is as good as it gets right now and was dry as a bone. If you are not from the pacific NW then you probably don't hold dry trails in as much high regard as I do...they were great. In the picture you can see Mt. Baker in the back ground behind Aaron and Jen.


We got news on Sunday from Glenn that DART-nuun pulled another victory off this weekend at the Tahoe big blue 24 hour race. One more Checkpoint Tracker race to go in Moab, there is going to be some good competition and we are looking forward to see how this unfolds.

I noticed this picture of in Velonews of Kloser and Armstrong having a discussion at the 12 hours of Snowmass...perhaps the king of AR trying to get Lance on Nike for 2009? Probably not, but it would be fun to be a fly on the handlebars to hear that conversation.

Dimitri + Russia, he is back at it

Well he is back at it and has been for a little less than 2 weeks. Dimitri and his endeavors in the Nexus Expedition have begun where he left off after crossing the Bering Straight a couple of years ago...looks like he just keeps on going. His pictures and tales are truly amazing and it is easy to get lost in his adventures.



I'm running the Capitol Peak Ultra this weekend with Glenn and Maybe Aaron for training. I guess it is the in thing to do lately...so many runners out there crushing it on the trails. I will be running the 55k and then hopefully doing some mountain biking with Glenn after the race. My goal for the race is to be consistent ...skimming out the volatility and looking for something close to 11-12 minute miles from start to finish.



This is the last big training weekend before Desert winds, next weekend will be chill, which is primarily a treking/paddling race so time on my feet will be very beneficial. We finally locked down the team as Karen injured her leg and Lina A will be jumping on board. Lina kicked some serious booty in Baja with the Yoga Slackers and we are all looking forward to her dragging us around the desert :-)

Whidbey Island

I decided to join Glenn and Aaron on what I would later hear Aaron call their toughest weekend of training before Baja Travesia. Well, I bagged out of the run on Saturday (thank goodness) and they tired themselves before I joined them for a ride from Mukilteo up North through LaConnor, over Deception Pass and then south the entire length of Whidbey Island, click here for a map of the ride on Glenn's blog. I never knew that Whidbey was the second largest marine Island in the lower 48 states. What is the first? We speculated it is Long Island, but will have to wikipedia it to figure it out.

We left Rinn's place at 8am with Glenn, Aaron, Ken and myself. 33 miles later on the Tulalip reservation a friend of Ken's picked up with us and began to drop the hammer. His wife dropped him off on marine View where we were and he quickly pulled us up to LaConnor. Time was flying.

My problem was that I am mjust starting my training, my first race will be in Vegas at the Desert Winds, and these guys are crushing it in their prime for Baja. Needless to say I held on for dear life. Ride Stats: 130.25 Miles, 5770 feet of climbing and 1 soar ass. The ride was beautiful and the terrain was out of this world. I will let the map and pictures do the talking...

Vashon Island Circumnavigation Completed!

Sunday January 20th, Aaron Rinn, Frenchy and I met up with Glenn at the North tip of Vashon Island. We took the Fauntleroy Ferry over from West Seattle and Glenn came from the Southworth station. In our quest to paddle around each of the Islands in the San Juans, Vashon would be our next target. We chose to cut off Maury Island with the portage and save it for another day.

Saturday called for partly cloudy skies, cold temperatures and heavy winds. The forecast was right on.

We were on the water by 10:20 and paddled clockwise around the Island. Glenn paddled with his GPS so we could get exact mileage and track our pace as we paddled. The heavy tailwind pushed up to 9+ miles per hour towards the portage (Labeled 'Portage' on the map). The waves also helped and we had a wild paddle down, only hoping the wind would die for our paddle North on the West side of the Island...wishful thinking.

Once through the portage the wind was blocked by the Island and we had a glassy paddle to the South side as we approached Tacoma and Mt. Rainier. Wish I would have brought the camera but it did not make this trip. The paddle North was a slog to say the least. We hugged the shore and tried to use the coves as shelter from the wind, probably blowing at 30mph, and the waves. At time we were paddling at 2.4 miles per hour and getting really wet.

Throughout the paddle we switched paddling partners and stretched out our legs. This helped ease the discomfort a bit. Although the wind was hindering our pace we did have the tide in our favor and this helped.

At about 4:45 pm we approached theNorth tip of the Island and we were treated to an unbelievable sunset. This is part of the reason we were out there...unbelievable nature sights all day. Another that stood out was a young bald eagle stalking a Grey Heron that was in the water...quite a sight. As we round the corner the waves from the open sound hit the sand bar and wer 6-8 feet...WOW. Frenchy asked Glenn a question in front of me and I heard som F bombs dropped and a statement we had heard before, "Dont stop paddling now!" We hammered up and down these short steep waves and right into the beach next to the ferry terminal.

Margaritas and burritos were on deck next and some revelry over our cold conquest...see you on the trails.

Orienteering, Biking and Skiing...the adventurers winter diet

This weekend was comprised of some good fun in the mud, rain and snow. Saturday started off with Cascade Orienteering's O' Series #5 event at Bridle Trails state park in Kirkland, WA. This was a real runners course (very spread out) and there were a lot of local adventure racers out tuning up there navigation skills and getting in a good workout. As it turns out I happened to get a slightly better workout than most of them as the field crushed me... and I speant about 10 minutes more on the course that everyone else ;-) One wrong turn between 5 and 6 and going to checkpoint #3 instead of #13 did not help me any. I think Alex might have had the fastest time out of the AR heads, with Glenn up there in contention as well.

After that a group of 5 of us set out for a ride from Bridle Trails to Mercer Island and Ballard, I made it about .5 mile when my hub (Freewheel) broke and I lost my ability to pedal forward. Boohoo, I called emergency support (family) to pick me up and the gang continued on what Aaron said was a great ride. While I waited for my pickup I propped my handlebars on the side wall at the busy intersection I was at and proceeded to have my own spin class to stay warm, I'm not sure if I had ever had so many strange looks before....it was pretty funny.

Back country skiing - Kendall Knob

Sunday Matt, Ruaraidh, Eric, Mike and I headed to Kendall Knob up at Snoqualmie Pass for some fun in the snow...check out the pics here. It turned out to be a great day and the snow stability was good all around.

Happy New Year! What will 2008 have in store for Adventure racing?

Now that we have set foot into 2008 we can all start planning out our life and race calendars. What exciting things will you fill your calendar with...with a child on the way my priorities will shift, however both JVG(the wifey) and I are ambitious about keeping adventure racing and adventure in general as a part of our lives. I guess it will always be part of our lifestyle, but kids tend to shift priorities a bit.

DART-nuun will again focus on international expedition, however I will personally focus on local racing this year and perhaps one international race. A couple of series we have highlighted to participate in locally:

-BEAST (Lottery)

-Big Blue

-Wicked (hopefully back to life in 2008...see Gorge Games comment on CP Tracker series)

-Momar

-Checkpoint tracker Series (National Series)

and internationally:

-Baja Travesia (Baja, Mex)

-EcomotionPro (Brazil)

-Bull lof Africa (South Africa)

-XPD Portugal

In the mean time I'll be sticking to weight training and some long slow distance on my feet and in the saddle. Winter has hit here in the Pacific Northwest and the skiing has been great! Here is a shot of JVG snowshoeing on Christmas day at Steven's Pass. See you in the hills.

Wednesday night Mt. bike rides

We aren't bringing back bell bottoms or the casserole...simply put we are bringing back the wednesday night ride, in style.

DART-nuun and Light and Motion are bringing back the wednesday night ride! The last three or four weeks we have had stellar turn outs. It has been great to see so many people from the local adventure racing community out to tune up the handling skills and get their butts back in the saddle.

Hart, Dan and Rinn with supporting crew in the background...

The crew post ride...getting pumped for a brew at the Ale House!

Kayak training with Outdoor Adventure Center

Our adventure racing team spends an awful lot of time working on our fitness, but this time of year we spend a bit more time honing our technical skills, whether it be on a mountain bike, running, climbing or kayaking. Friday night we hooked up with our good friends from the Outdoor Adventure Center in the Juanita high School Pool and went over bracing techniques, wet exits and most importantly rescue techniques in a kayak.

We have been in some pretty hairy conditions in our sea kayaks and are all pretty confident with our open water rescue skills with the exception of an eskimo roll. Glenn, Rinn and I set out to master this skill and be able to teach all the members of our team what they need to know about assisted and non assisted recovery techniques. We got teamed up with Buckey who has been river and sea kayaking since the beginning of time and has a very large cache of tricks and tips.


So what are we in for? This Friday was 1.5 hours of bracing and assisted rescue. Next Friday will be class time and some pool time and then the following friday we will graduate with some unassisted eskimo rolls. Can we roll a double? I think so. Has anyone ever heard of a triple kayak eskimo roll? Bucky is sure he could get it with some practice and the right people in the boat.



We Finished off class with 20 minutes of kayak water polo...lots of fun and skill building at the same time.

Winter is here...Mt. Biking, Back Country Skiing, Base Training

Rest and recovery is officially over. I was able to take 2 full months off of competitive adventure racing, specific training and any competition for that matter. Recharging the batteries and most importantly the body. Thanksgiving has come and gone, got my turkey and now am laying out my 2008 fitness plan, adventure racing calendar and recreation.

My plan is to emphasize running and incorporate that into my early season plan of Long Slow Distance...the legal LSD. What does this mean? Lots of variety and not just running, not too much intensity to build in the muscle memory and get my body ready for long races by being out for a good amount of time.

I usually focus on keeping my training fun in the winter and include a variety of activities while taking advantage of the snow in the Cascades and Olympics. It is starting to snow here...look for me in the mountians this weekend!

In an effort to keep my Mt. bike handling skills up I usually ride more technical biking trails that are shorter in duration during the weekdays. We started our night rides last night and had a big group of 10 peeps out on the trails and had them outfitted with Light and Motion lights. I got a chance to ride with the new Stella LED and loved it...check it out. Matt wrote it up and has some good pics here on his blog.

rEco Challenge 2007 - Washington Edition

That's right the Rico Challenge made its presence known as the 2007 edition was held in Washington at the Samamish State Park. In our backyard!

I fielded a powerhouse team for this event, as I knew it was going to be November's biggest production and have the largest cash purse in all of Samamish State Park, at $0 and a cool medal. The team was comprised of the 6.5 month pregnant JVG, my father in law (also known as Captain Dew Over) and stranger Miles...he's fast. Lets get it on!

The race started with a 4.5 mile paddle out of Samamish State Park. At CP2 the teams were forced to search a large area of the lake with stumps coming out of the water for a piece of ribbon with your teams name on it. Rico was out to get us...since we were soo stacked I am convinced the trick was on us, needless to say we spent some good time out on the water cleaning the course. We headed into the technical river section and paddled up stream in class 3 rapids, maybe it was a lake looking like a river but whats the difference.?. A quick portage and we were right back in the thick of it in last place.

There was more about this race than we knew. As we transitioned, off of the clock Raid Style, Rico called a racer meeting to announce that, starting with the 2nd place team each team had to select one member from the team in front of them to compete on their team for the staggered restart. The first place team would have to select from the last place team. Hmmm, I went from DFL to first in the drop of a hat when Andrea and Connie (Double trouble) picked me. We were out of there like a bolt of lightning. To the time trial where we blasted through 3 quick loops of kick biking and a penalty run for being first. Back on our bikes and a bit of a climb later we were cargo netting our way through the ropes course...epic!

We arrived at the next transition near the top of Cougar Mountain, team swap number 2. Now you had to vote a member off...we ro-sham-boed and I lost. Evicted from our second place team to first again! The gods were looking down on me this fine day. Roger, Reed, Max and I were off on the 7 mile trail run at Cougar. We crushed it...then got the mixer again for team swap number three...we waited a couple of minutes for teh second place team of Miles, AV and Connie to roll in.

Soon enough we were bombing down to civilization and Lake Samamish where the finish line and race production were located. Mega-Props to Robin and Eric for a killer race and Cliff for the sweet eats post race. It was good to race with peeps I would not normally get a chance to and to hang out with the PAc NW race crew for a fun filled day. Check out the offical race photo's here.

As rumor has it 2008 is going to be the year of the "Free Race" or perhaps the year of the tightly organized traning competitions. By my estimates there could be 4 underground races in the Pac NW next year with the following races:

-Lava Quest (Aug)

-Primal Smith (???)

-Death Talus (May)

-Rico Challenge. (Nov)

Rest and Recovery

The 2007 season has come to an end for me...what a year! I have been looking forward to putting the chill on for quite some time. What does this mean?

I am going to let the body rest for a month or two, or at least participate in sports that I don't do during the heart of the season...basketball for for the time being and then its off to the mountains. I'll probably focus on re-establishing the social life a bit as training for AR takes its toll on ones ability to 'hang out', which is OK but it's nice to see friends and catch up too. Maybe focus on the house a bit. JVG and I will be getting ready for the newest member of the VG family and DART member to make his/her introduction :-)

DART still has one race on the calendar, the USARA national champs. Glenn is heading up the team and hopefully we will be able to get out to Missouri and race hard. I wanted to race but the timing was not soo good for me. Go gettum Glenn, Mari and ???

In the AR world there was some sad news as some AR heads in Vancouver had some bad luck on a training and paid dearly for playing with Mother Nature. See Seegs write up here. To see a truly incredible interview with Bob Faulkner, one of the surviving members of the party click here.

I got a couple of things out of this interview:

• It is OK to yield to mother nature, she usually wins.


• Be Prepared


• Safety in numbers

Play safe and we'll see you on the trails!