RIP King of Pop

Michael Jackson died today. We all know he became a freak show in later years, but Michael was the man when I was in Junior High. I had parachute pants and the zipper jacket. Thriller is still the top selling album of all time. Ee-hee. RIP, MJ.

If you haven't for a long time, check out this video...Thriller...back when MTV was actually Music Television and good.

Test of Endurance 50 Mile Mountain Bike Race

Finished and ready for a hose-down. Benjamin thought I was PRETTY muddy.

50 miles done and glad to be standing upright.

My first MTB race in 12 years and it was a blast. Muddy and more muddy. I've been on my bike a lot this spring because of an injury that has kept me from running full time and so I decided to enter some races. I entered High Cascade 100 MTB race in August, but felt like I needed a "refresher" course in racing my mountain bike again. Bart Bowen at Rebound Sports Performance put the bug in my ear about TOE 50 held in the Coastal Range 25 miles west of Corvallis, Oregon. It's a combo of singletrack and doubletrack logging roads. Most of the climbs are double track logging roads with most of the descents being singletrack.

I didn't know what category to enter, as I haven't raced in over a decade. I was on the fence on whether to enter Cat 1 or Cat 2. So, after consulting with a few mountain bike racers in town, I entered Cat 2. So, after not much warming up and a small drizzle at the start, we rolled out at 9am down a gravel road.

One thing I immediately remembered (albeit too late) about a bike race is to position yourself in the start pack strategically. I made the mistake of starting in the back half of the pack and got caught behind a bunch of slower folks early (and guys doinking their gear shifting on the first climb) and had to do a lot of surging the first half hour to get into a good position where I could settle into a comfortable pace. Exactly why I entered...refresher course.

I ended up riding near a few Pros and lots of Cat 1 riders all day and was wondering if I might be leading Cat 2, but wasn't sure. I asked a couple of guys and they said there might be one Cat 2 guy ahead of me. I kept looking for him. Turns out there wasn't. I crossed the finish 26 minutes in front of 2nd place Cat 2. Turns out I did better than anticipated and would have been only 1 minute off a podium finish in my age group for Cat 1 and 9th overall in Cat 1. Actually, to their credit, Bart Bowen and Paul Clarke told me I should probably enter Cat 1 due to fitness level, but my lack of racing was the question mark, which they turned out to be right. I had no idea though, due to my long hiatus from the sport, and took the conservative approach.

All in all, it was a blast. My son was a big help with filling gel flasks at the campsite the night before and was super pumped that Adam Craig showed up and got to stand next to him as we chatted after the race. He thinks it's a cool fact that both Adam and Chris (Horner) live in the same town as he does.

Giddyup!

Through the Looking Glass: The Parallel Careers of Scott Jurek and Lance Armstrong

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that." —Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

With my recent re-kindling of my bike geekdom (during injury rehab), I was thinking about the 2009 Western States 100 this coming weekend on my way to a mountain bike race and how Lance and Scott are oddly similar, career-wise.

Scott Jurek is the obvious favorite at Western States (he's dominated that race) and it's his race to lose. In comparision, Scott has been coined at times "the Lance Armstrong of ultrarunning." And, Lance has dominated the Tour and no matter how "over the hill" folks think he might be for the world's biggest cycling event, he's the man to beat come July. Now, I find the following facts interesting...

1) Scott Jurek won Western States 1999-2005 and chose to end with 7 wins...did not return until this year (2009).

2) Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France 1999-2005 and chose to end with 7 wins...AND, this is the year (2009) he has chosen to come back to the event he's dominated.

A weird parallel? Will Scott's performance at Western States be the foreshadowing of Lance's performance at the Tour? Hmm. Are these athletes leading parallel lives? An interesting tidbit no less. What do y'all think?

The Dirty Half: You can't fake it!

I was reminded today of a couple of things...

1) always be a little earlier to the start than you think you should be
2) if you want to run hard, you have to put in the time

In other words...you can't fake it, baby!

I decided to spin my cross commuter to the Dirty Half start this morning. I left my house at 6:47am and took it easy the 11.5 miles over to the 8am start. I stopped and stretched in the woods about a mile from the start, as I was cutting KGB trail to the old gravel road from Tethrow over to the start line.

I got there, checked my bike in and said hello to a few folks and was changing out of my cycling gear when Sean Meissner, who had run from town for a warm-up, mentioned something to the effect of "don't let anyone steal my stuff" or something like that. I misunderstood and thought he was saying to watch his stuff, as I assumed he needed to use the restroom real quick...we were 10 minutes from start time.

Well, I stand there, ready to go and no Sean, wait a few more minutes, no Sean. Then, I'm running out of time so I head out, as the start is about a half mile up a gravel road. I start jogging, still looking for him, no Sean. Come to find out, he was just making a joke about stealing his stuff and I TOTALLY misunderstood what he said. He had said it and headed for the start line. Mistake #1.

So, I'm jogging up to the start and I'm about 50 yards out from the very back of the first wave group of people when the gun goes off...AHHHHH! I take off, 50 yards behind last place. I quickly surge along the shoulder passing everyone to get up to the front and within 1/2 a mile I'm tucking in to the back of the front group at WAY too hard a sprint effort...lots of matches burned out of the gates. Mistake #2.

I ran the first mile in 5:30ish and by the climb up Phil's canyon was toast and couldn't hang with the lead pack anymore. In hindsight, I should have just settled down and started to pick folks off up the climb. 20/20 right?

I settled in and did what I could and by the top at Road 300, I was feeling okay. That first mile effort had really taken it out of me. I just tried to maintain consistent pace down Ben's Trail and by 10 miles to go, Katie Caba (the women's winner) was right behind me. Last year, I had to hold off Lisa Nye (08 female winner) at the end too. I'm honored to push the ladies to a good finish, as we have some tough local ladies for sure. However, I'm not giving up a slot either...I'm no softie in a race, no gifts. Plus, if AT ALL possible, as a competitive male runner, we have a rule, you must try, if at ALL possible, not to get "chick'd." No disrespect ladies!

Runner Sixth Sense? When you run a lot and see the same folks at race locally, you get a "sense" at times by just listening. I didn't even look to see if it was Katie behind me. I figured it out over a mile or so by listening to her footsteps and breathing. I guess Lisa wasn't in it this year, but I thought she was and I knew it was either Katie or Lisa. After listening to the light footsteps and the breathing, which was coming from someone shorter than me (Lisa is tall), I deducted that it was Katie. Kinda weird.

So, after burning books of matches early, I didn't have much left for surges or finish kicks. I tried a few small surges to drop Katie in the last mile (as I didn't want to have to duke it out at the finish), but she was on me like glue. So be it. She was running strong and I could feel her energy...she was not backing down. I got to the last little downhill and let it fly, but on the last little flat, Katie surged and I got a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye coming up hard on my right as I was almost to the line. I did one last surge to hold her off by a half stride in 1:25:27. Phew! Nice work Katie, way to bring it!

All in all, great day, beautiful weather. The special Dirty Half IPA was great and I had a blast as usual. That race is a staple and really is a great community event. FootZone, Super Dave and Teague and all the volunteers really have created a stellar home town event. Brook Gardner and I were talking about how this event has evolved into the same type of community thing that the Friday Night Crit for the Cascade Cycling Classic is. You can't miss it. If you're a runner and don't run it, you are missing out...missing out!

This brings me back to my "you can't fake it" lesson. Here are some Deep Thoughts By Bronco Billy...

The past 4 years at the Dirty Half, I've been peaking for an upcoming 100 mile race (Bighorn in 05 and 06, Hardrock in 07, and Bighorn in 08). So, when June rolls around, I've been really fit, and the Dirty Half is just a fun, long tempo run for me. No matter how hard the effort, just a blip on the radar.

This year, however, with the SI Joint injury, I've been logging 25-35 miles a week running, and a lot of cycling. Today I was reminded that you can't substitute cycling fully for running. To run strong, you have to run...a lot. I've been running 3 days a week, but no real volume, just quality. The past 4 seasons, I've been running 70-90 miles a week by June and cycling 8-10 hours on top of that. Volume.

As I reflect on that level of fitness, it's a nice place to be come Dirty Half race day and you begin to feel a bit invencible and think you can just jump in a race and run hard and be fine. I guess coming from an ultrarunner mindset, you think you can do it all the time. Today, I was remindered otherwise. After I pedaled the 11.5 miles back home...I was shot and had to take a nap.

Good wake up call. No substitutes, fakes, or quick fix pills y'all. Giddyup!

Duathlon Ride & a Broken Frame

The shocked laughing "Oh man, I can't believe I broke my frame" moment. Note the hairline on the lower swingarm, 2 inches in front of the back drop out.

Today was an interesting day. I went off to meet Paul Clark at Phil's trailhead, as we were going to ride a 40 mile mountain bike loop. We took off and were chatting as we cruised up Ben's Trail to the double track that takes you to the top of whoops. Plan was to go down Skyliner Trail up Swede Ridge, down South Fork and up Farewell Trail and catch Mrazek back to down. We arrived at the top of Whoops and took a break to stretch.

There is a funky log bench there and you can ride it and hop on it. Well, before stretching, I started to hop up on the bench (got to try to keep my trials skills in action). I heard a creak which either sounded like my bottom bracket or my chain slapping my chainstay. I even said something about the sound to Paul.

Anyway, not thinking to deeply about it, we stretched, then started to cruise down Skyliner trail. I was leading and the curves felt squirrely and my break was rubbing. I stopped and said to Paul, "I think my back brake pads are dragging." Paul is a bike mechanic at Bend Bike N Sport and also works for Bart Bowen at Rebound Sports Performance, and he hops off his bike and then exclaims, "Your frame is cracked!" Sure enough, the lower swing arm on the disc brake side of my bike, about 2 inches in front of the dropout, was broken in two. We wiggled it and it appeared to have some carbon fiber strands still attached. Maybe I could gingerly ride it out??!!

The broken lower swing arm. Bummer dude.

We unhooked the back brake, took out the pads and slid up the brake pad housing and re-tightened to get it away from the rotor. So, I only had a front brake to use. Since we were only 1/4 of the way into our ride, I urged Paul to continue his ride, as there wasn't much he could do.

So, I began the slow ride down going really easy. Within 3/4 of mile the frame was completely separated. So, I got off and ran the remaining 2.2 miles with my bike down to Skyliner Trailhead to see if I could flag a ride back to my car. To top it off, I start getting pelted with hail! Then heavy thunder, puddles running down the trail. But thankfully, the storm passed quickly.

When I arrived at the trailhead, only 3 empty cars were there. So, I continued jogging my bike down Skyliner Road to get to my car. About a mile or two down the road, I watched 3 teenage punks drive by laughing, then back by going back toward town, laughing again and pointing. Thanks for the lift dorks! When I was in high school, I had enough manners to stop and ask someone if they needed help. I don't mean to sound old, but what are parents doing today...not training up a child, that's for sure. No respect for adults. Sad. But I digress...

I continued jogging...and let me say SPD shoes are not made for jogging very long in! I was nearing 6 miles running with my bike, when I got to FS Rd 300 and a nice older couple from Washington, who own a 2nd home in Bend, were loading up their mini van with one bike and had an extra slot on their rack. Sure enough, they kindly gave me a lift to my car the final 5 miles to Phil's trailhead.

I took the bike straight to Bend Bike N Sport and Sean left a message with the Scott Rep. I hope Scott will step up to the plate and get me the replacement swing arm this week so I'll be ready to race at TOE 50 next Sunday. We'll see. Otherwise, I may be riding my singlespeed hardtail for 50 miles. Giddyup!

Local Ultrarunning article

The Bend Bulletin just ran a story last Friday on ultrarunning. Rod, Kami, Sean and I were quoted in the article. Check out their website for the piece called Pleasure and Pain.

Fresh Veggies and 65 miles in the saddle

Halfway up the climb on Farewell trail above Tumalo Falls (Broken Top in the background).

Tomorrow is 2 weeks out from TOE 50 Mile MTB race. So, I thought I should go do a really long ride on Friday. I got up early and ended up spending nearly 6 hours in the saddle—64.8 miles with only 12 miles paved...10 miles double track...the rest sweet Central Oregon singletrack. We just got 3 days of rain, some of which was pretty hard. The trails were primo. Tacky, hard packed.

What a stellar ride. It was my first time up to Swede Ridge this season (only a handful of small snow piles left), down South Fork and up Farewell to Mrazek and back to town. The weather was in the 70s and sunny. Perfect. I felt pretty good all day. Ran out of water about 20 minutes from town, stopped into FootZone, refilled, downed two gels, grabbed a turkey wrap from Strictly Organic drive-thru and pedaled home for the 8-mile cooldown to my house. What's that have to do with veggies? Recovery.

Well, my recovery meal today consisted of my own home-grown veggies out of the garden, first harvest of the season. The kids and I harvested fresh spinach and radishes from the garden this evening.

Side Note: After fighting my first really large outside garden last season and losing a bunch of stuff to our climate's anytime-frost-potential, I decided early this year to invest in a 12'x 20' commercial hoop house for my garden. It has 8-4'x 4' raised beds, utilizing the highly-intensive square foot gardening method. It's been awesome (picture below). If you've never grown a garden, I highly recommend this method and start with one 4'x 4' raised bed—easy and low-maintenance.

We had organic steak on the grill, fresh home-grown organic spinach salad with fresh broccoli, mung bean, lentil, and alfalfa sprouts on the top (my wife has really got into sprouting stuff lately). If you haven't tried sprouting, you should try it. Great article in Mother Earth News on sprouting.

It's a great way to add some serious nutritional variety to salads, as sprouts are highly digestible and once something sprouts, the nutritional value goes through the roof. Sprouts also contain an abundance of highly active antioxidants that prevent DNA destruction and protect us from free radicals. If you're an endurance athlete...that means you recover faster...better than some highly processed powder concoction. Money, y'all.

And, as any of you out there that grow a garden...there is nothing mo'betta than eating something 5 minutes after its cut. Mmmm, it was tasty and I had two large salads. Giddyup!

View into my greenhouse (the only way to grow properly in Central Oregon's 61-day growing season). We live at almost 4,000 feet, lots of cold nights. So, most of my veggies are in here. The cat loves the "micro-climate" of the greenhouse, she hangs in here a lot. The spinach (after cutting a bowl full), is the largest green patch on the far right of the frame. I have 16+ varieties of veggies growing in there right now. I also grow squash, zucchini, and wax bean outside in another garden area...but those are cold tolerant and do okay outside in our climate.