Recreation Through Endurance

Around the time I started my current job, I came across an article in an industry magazine to those that were just entering semiconductors (computer chips). It was more of a list of advice than an article saying things like "Always return your messages," "Learn what those you report to have to report to others," and "Learn to enjoy the trips around the world, for there will be many of them." One that stood out in my mind was "Read the books recommended to you by those you respect." Here's a list of books I recommend that I've read in the past 6 months or so:

Timequake, by the recently passed Kurt Vennegut
What if you had to relive the last 10 years watching your actions, unable to effect them?
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
Stranded at sea, in a lifeboat, with a Tiger and searching your soul.
The Incredible Voyage - A Personal Odyssey, by Tristan Jones
Sailing from the Red Sea (lowest sailable waters) to Lake Titikaka (highest sailable waters, though no one ever had) through warring navies, countries with corrupt and violent governments, rivers never sailed. Why? To prove it could be done. Autobiography.

Short other recommendations? Use the Literature Map I can't say I don't know what to read. Now, how about those trips around the world?

Here the video I put together for the race...

You can also download it here. Check that site back in a few days for a higher quality version or email me.

The Poor Farm cup races are a staple of local mountain biking. Spectator friendly, beautiful weather (with varying amounts of mud), lots of good friends, and a mxied terrain venue. The spring race was fit that mold perfectly.


We got to the park shortly after the 5k trail run was over and talked with Margaret Garyantes and Chris Peck who'd just finished. Margaret said she was glad to see the finish, but Chris said it came too early and wasn't able to get in his final kick that he's always so good at.

Liz lined up for the Beginner Women race and took off with the pack. Preriding the course is great for knowing when to push and when to rest during the race, but you also know the best spots to cheer on your racer. I dropped down to the creek crossing by the amphitheater to catch some video and watch the racers come through. By the time Liz came through, she'd made up several spots and was in 4th place. Shortly after that, she dropped back in from the other side looking strong when the other BWs were asking for the finish line. I caught her again coming into the flats.

At the finish there was some debate as to her placing, she ended up with 4th and a strong motivation for the Urban Assault.

After a disappointing finish of 9th place in the Fall Cup, I wanted to learn from my mistakes. I had ran around too much during the morning races, set the pace too hard getting into the woods first, and stressed myself out during my warmup. This time, my plan was just to walk (not ride) around cheering Liz on and scratch the warm-up-stress-fest. After several long rides, I was confident I could go for 18 miles, it was just a matter of how fast.

The horn sounded and I got a good LeMans start which put me 5th in the woods of the S1s and S3s. Not a bad place to be since it gave me a few people to chase down and love chasing people down. Second turn, wipeout! I replaced the skin on my knee with dirt and pine needles and lost about 10 spots. Cool, more people to chase down, but no warmup was the wrong way to go. I grabbed the wheel of the guy in front of my and just held on.

Starting to feel better about 2 miles in, the trail changed to doubletrack and I powered past a couple people, which felt good and I hoped it would keep up. The first lap is always the hardest. Harder to hold on, harder to stay on the trail, harder to pass, harder to race. I passed when I could, but not as much as I would've liked. ...such is mountain bike racing.

If I ever "made a move," it was the second lap. I had stopped falling off the bike and only ran head first into one tree. The pace was fast, more room to pass, started seeing fewer S1s. Mostly I was seeing S2s and SSs, which had started a few minutes earlier. Either I'd taken the lead by the end of the 2nd lap or had a long way to catch up. I pretended I was catching up.

The third lap I was alone at times. Other times, I'd pass an Enduro. Sometimes, I'd see an S2 or SS. Coming out of the woods, there was a pack of riders in the field. I picked it up, just in case, and finished with the type of exhaustion you get after a good sprint.

In the end, I made top 3 for the first time. I also finished 1st for the first time. Anyone that saw me jumping up and down at the timing tent was witness to how excited I was.

Afterwards, Liz and I hosted a cookout where we had good friends over for food, beer, and bike talk. What a great day!

Photos of the race:

Jay's Page 1 Page 2
Blake's
Some guy named Rick

The Poor Farm Spring Cup is tomorrow! Get on your feet, boy...

To get a good understanding of a certain something, it's good to talk to lots of people and see what trends or themes develop. Dragon's Back, I concluded, was going to be brutal, since everyone used that word when I talked to them.

Dragon's Back is a figure-8 course where the climb a middle trail to the ridge, turn right and ride the ridge, then down. Head back up the middle to the ridge, turn left along the ridge and down for 20 miles. Then, there's the XXC (Extreame Cross Country) course which doesn't look like any number, but includes a lot more ridge riding, a lot more climbing, and no extra downhills for about 37 miles. We were signed up for XXC. The race briefing described the course we were about to take. Once on top of the ridge, we were to stay on it until we went under the power lines then go another 2.5 miles. Before the power lines, the trail would disappear then reappear. All we had to do was stay on the ridge.

My good friend Steve, who has about as much sense as I do, decided to call off our camping trip since it was pouring rain. Instead, we left Richmond at 5:00am when it was pouring. We got to the venue just past Roanoke which was stationed on the muddiest fire road I've seen since the last time I went to the forest with Steve. With the mud and rain not letting up, I decided this was no longer a race, but to just try to finish the ride well. Still raining, we were lined up and ready to go shortly after the gun went off for the XXC. The two of us decided to stick together since the conditions were misable and we weren't any compitiion for the locals.

About halfway up the first climb, I had a slight mechanical which delayed me a few minutes. I caught up with Steve pretty quick since he was feeling a painful headache coming on. He decided continuing would only make things worse, so we seperated. Between the late start, the mechanical, and figuring out our plan, I was pretty far behind the pack. Now, I changed my plan to just finishing this brutal course.

The ridge was much more rideable than I imagined but still tough since all the rocks were slick. I followed the signs for XXC past the normal course turnoff and followed the ridge. The trail disappeared, as described in the race briefing. Unfortunantly, it never reappeared. I called Steve with my cell (which somehow worked), who got someone from the race to help me out with my appearant inability to follow the course. He said to follow the ridge and the trail would pick back up. This "ridge" was completely unridable, as it had thick underbrush, tons of logs, and no trail. I stayed the course hoping I would find this "barely used hiking trail." When that didn't work out, I pushed my bike up the next ridge to the left, which also didn't have a trail. I was lost in the woods.

...at least it had quit raining.

Man Vs. Wild is my new show on Discovery Channel. The last episode I caught said that when you're lost in the woods to find a stream and follow it down until it reaches a road. I had a stream, so I followed it. A couple times, I climbed a couple ridges searching for a trail or those power lines I'd heard about. With no progress on the race course, the stream was my answer. I waded, I pushed, I scratched my shins on mountain laurel, and finally, I came out on a trail which turned into a jeep road, which turned into a forest road. I turned left (most likely the way back) thinking my only reasonable goal now was just to find the car.

No such luck, since shortly after I found a XXC arrow pointing me back on the course. DAMN. A couple miles later, I found the race director. After talking with him for a minute about what had happened and finding that I'd somehow cut 10 miles off the course, we decided I would keep going and we'd figure out what to do about my finish time at the end.

I stopped at the car briefly to shed my jacket and change gloves since it didn't look like there was going to be any more rain. More forest road, then a long but tolerable singletrack climb to the top of the same ridge. At the top, the temperture had dropped enough to notice, the wind started gusting hard, and the hail started to fall. (Not kidding) My sleeveless jersey and I hid behind a tree until it slowed to a cold hard rain, then pushed on along the ridge again. Heading back down the mountain, I thought about whether there was any point to doing the final loop called "Ring of Fire," or just to head back. At that point, there was no reason to call it quits.

The Ring of Fire would've been a great loop with fast singletrack and creek crossings. This day, though, it was muddy and water was flowing so hard down the trail I was riding upstream. Back on the forest road, I finished...

10 miles short and in last place. Brutal! Oh well... I learned my lesson. I'm never doing it again, until next time.

Since the camping portion of my weekend was cancelled due to rain, Liz and I stayed home saturday to work on our house projects. She found some ceiling tiles designed to look like old stamped tin, which we cut up and used on the risers for our stairs. Very Cool!
Before and after

A month or two ago, I ran into Lee Graves, who writes the outdoors articles for the Richmond Paper, while I was biking in Forest Hill. He stopped me and we chatted for a while about the trails and he took a couple pictures. Today, his follow up article on the Forest Hill trails appeared in the Times Dispatch. The online article doesn't show the picture with it though.

Brightroom Photos are out. Yes, I took a picture of the photographers. No, it didn't turn out.

The guy behind me is in the Downtown Y shirt is Som Sombati (scroll to VA) who taught me everything I know about swimming, who beat me by 4 seconds chip-time, and has a few accomplishments behind him:

"Som enjoys watching people transform from struggling through the water to swimming well. In addition to his day job as a faculty member at MCV-VCU, he is the head coach of the Downtown Richmond YMCA masters swim program and a swim clinic coach at the Country Club of Virginia (CCV) and Robious Fitness Center. He also coaches at Total Immersion weekend workshops frequently. Som teaches and coaches swimming privately and for Maramarc Fitness and TriGirl triathletes. He holds American Red Cross certificates of Lifeguard, CPR, AED Essentials and Oxygen Administration for the Professional Rescuer. In addition, Som is a certified USA Triathlon coach (level 1) and he is the head coach of the DT Richmond YMCA Tri Club. His athletic accomplishments include 41 marathons (including 6 Boston marathons) and 18 Ironman triathlons (2 The Great Floridian, IM Lake Placid, 3 IM Switzerland, IM Austria, IM Brazil, IM Wisconsin, IM CDA, IM Hawaii, Quelle Challenge Roth in Germany, Chesapeakeman, IM Arizona, IM France, IM Canada, IM Florida and IM UK). Som is training for IM CDA, IM Wisconsin and IM Florida in 2007."

Monday was the first trip out to Sherando this year. Any trip out to the mountains is bound to throw something unexpected at you, and it's probably not going to be the expected unexpected. Travis and I had great weather, all the time we wanted, and plenty of food and water. The climbs were painful and tiring, but that's why you go to Sherando. Well, for that and for the amazing, long, fast, technical descents.

The second climb up the jeep road always gets me with how long it is. Once you get to the top of the switchbacks (not "The Switchbacks"), the ridge just keeps going up regardless of how far you think you've gone. Near the top with some of the fastest, rockiest sections left, I noticed a knob was torn off my front tire showing the casing. Shortly after that, I noticed another knob torn to the casing on the same tire. I was sure I was going to have to walk off this mountain, it was just a matter of time. (Ironically, I had just replaced my rear tire for the same issue when replacing my drivetrain on saturday.)

From the top, you can see forever. Cascading ridgelines, a ski resort, rocky cliffs, and the deep valley we were about to drop into. We were on the horizon, but not for long. We pushed off the tore down some of the steepest sustained trail I've ever seen at a speed only limited by our courage and sensibilities.



Back on Mill Creek, going the fast direction, we rode until a tire flatted. Thinking "it wouldn't be a trip out here without a flat," it was Travis that had to fix one and not my balding rubber patchwork. But these things come in twos, and shortly afterwards, a stick that could better be described as an airborn log found a home in my still-shiny drivetrain and tore my hanger off. I've been here before and knew my options. Tired and newly demoralized, I decided on the quick way out. The last four miles are a mostly gradual downhill and I skateboarded back to the car with a limp chain.

42 miles from the morning, it was just another day in the mountains.