Perhaps the perfect day?

I rode my mountain bike with Jesse in Upper Bidwell Park - yeah, dogs are allowed. Then Claire and I went to Butte Creek, and watched the swarms of Chinook Salmon. The fish are so exhausted from the 100 mile upstream journey we were able to simply pick them up out of the water with our bare hands! It's not something one can describe, picking up a 2 foot, 25 pound salmon from the stream... and of course we just put 'em back in the water! We then rode our bicycles downtown to the Thursday night market, and ate fresh tamales and had a local brew.

Run, Honey Run!

Holy salmon, has a week really slipped by, and I've not done a thing?! Terrible. My only lame excuse is that I've been so busy traveling for work-related activities that I've not had time. Today was great!

Activity: Road Bike
Area: beautiful Chico
Weather: Low 80s !
Distance: 27.2 miles
Avg spd.: 15.2 mph
How I felt: The bike felt great, no numbness, I rode like a billy goat! I think the bike is nearly dialed in now.
Thing to remember: I rode most of the Honey Run loop to the covered bridge, and started running out of daylight. The bridge was built in 1894 and is the only three-level covered bridge in the United States. I stopped to walk across the bridge, and peer out over the creek when what to my surprise, but OCEAN RUN SALMON as long as my legs! It's spawning season, and they're all showing up in droves. The photo is courtesy of my friend Grant

Microsoft fitness trails

There are approximately 7.5 miles of trails on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Wa.

Activity: Running
Area: Microsoft, Redmond, Washington
Weather: 50s
Distance: 40 minutes
Avg spd.: ?
How I felt: Some kinda left knee tweakage, spawned a new trail shoe purcahse. My last pair of Montrails had holes in the uppers, and I've never worn them anywhere but in the dirt.
Thing to remember: Running out the butterflies.

Siskiyou Century

For starters, I only did the 61k ride. Yeah, 61k. Read on.

Activity: Road Bike
Area: Shasta Valley: Yreka, Little Shasta, and Montague, California
Weather: Chilly, low 60's, big puffy clouds being broken up by the coastal range.
Distance: 37.9 miles
Avg spd.: 16.2 mph
How I felt: Great. At the end of the ride my legs were more or less wiped, I had itchy lungs, and just felt great. Still dealing with a little groin numbness, and big toe numbness... maybe time to try a different saddle? Otherwise, the bike fit felt great.
Thing to remember: Hmm... the course was absolutely beautiful - rolling hills through a giant valley surrounded by towering mountains on all sides. Lots of cattle ranches, one lumber mill, and humans were far and few. The first half of the ride I finished at a 17.5mph pace, and the headwind on the second half slowed me down quite a bit. What else... the general vibe at this century was lame. Lots of grumpy ass rodies, and the locals weren't exactly a bowl of cherries either. I can't count the number of times I said "HOWDY!!!" to someone on my bike, only to be met with silence, scowls, or both. The maps/directions/painted arrows on the road were all screwed up as well. Their distances were off, and one painted arrow was flat out wrong - it pointed to turn left, and the map said to go straight. That said, the folks that put on the race were personable, polite, and their post-ride food was good, down-home cookin' - beef, chicken, baked potatoes, pasta salads, all the fixins.

Overall a fun ride, but I don't think I'll be going back next year.

Taper. Ha!

For two days now I've been "tapering" for my half century tomorrow. I haven't fallen off the wagon already, I'm just getting ready to rumble through Siskiyou County on Saturday morning. (ahem)

I've been considering bringing the digital camera along for the ride, but I'm not certain that's a good idea yet.

In and around town

Activity: Road Bike
Area: All over town, all over Bidwell Park
Weather: Low 70's, clear, perfect
Distance: 17.4 miles
Avg spd.: 15.8 mph
How I felt: Good! Bike tweaks definitely made a difference in overall comfort. There are still some things to be done though. I took it easy today.
Thing to remember: A guy in one of those ugly candy apple red Dodge Magnum wagons nearly hit me as I was turning left from East Ave. onto Manzanita Ave. That thing had a HEMI. I know this because as he roared off (thus burning 4.6 gallons of gas in 1/4 mile) I read his license plate: HEMEEE. He also yelled for some reason, "What are you, out of your mind?!!!," as he sped off.

F'ing dillweed.

Bike fit update

After posting yesterday about my poor bike fit, I did some research and made some adjustments.

I read some of these articles: http://del.icio.us/gzahnd/cycling

and then I:

1) Put my saddle back to center
2) Kept lowering my seat post click by click until I could pedal backwards using my heels with no hip wobble
3) Asked Claire to measure my leg angles with a plumb (yo-yo from Profile Design), and an angle finder

And guess what?! My bike got a hell of a lot more comfortable, and my leg angles were textbook as a result of the adjustments. This then allowed me to rotate my handlebars back to a sane position, which also is giving me better braking leverage and handling abillity. My Calfee Tetra Pro suddenly felt like a cockpit rather than a strain on my nether regions, back, and neck. The problem now is that I need to rewrap my bars and move the levers to accomodate my new riding position.

I took her for a quick spin and it's a whole different feeling - sprint power where I'd not felt it before, no hot spots (or dull spots) in my back, neck, or groin. This is all undoubtedly due to riding a triathlon bike for several years, and not understanding how a classic geometry road bike should be set up. Tri bikes have an entirely different setup than classic road bikes, and it's taking me a while to get the idea into my thick skull.

Keefer Road loop

After a few days of driving in search of rare fish, I needed to stretch my legs on the bike - especially in light of the fact I'm riding a 37 mile ride next weekend.

Activity: Road Bike
Area: Keefer Road loop. From my house it cuts the mileage down though.
Weather: Low 70's, clear, perfect
Distance: 16.1 miles
Avg spd.: 16.1mph
How I felt: Good! I'm starting to wonder if my top tube is too long though. Occasionally I experience some numbness downstairs due to saddle pressure, and my saddle is as far forward as it can go. Before I sell the Calfee I'll work on core body strength first - to make sure it's the bike, and not my weak computer geek torso being too weak to hold itself up at the proper angle and distance...
Thing to remember: I found the property I want to buy some day out on, of all road names, Hicks Lane. A beautiful home on 60 acres right outside Chico, horse barns, a nice horse arena, and country roads in every direction with a perfect view of the Sierra foothills.

Dismal Swamp, et al.

I'll let the photos tell the story on this one. Just keep clicking 'Next' in my photostream until you get to 'Pine Creek Brown'.



Activity: Flyfishing
Area: Far northern California
Weather: Killer - warm days, cool nights. A touch windy.
Distance: umm... 2 full days (Sep 3-4, 2005)
Avg spd.: slow and painful (ha)
How I felt: Like I drove too much and fished too little.
Thing to remember: Catching one of the rarest fish in the state, from what I hear.

Run

Activity: Running
Area: my hood, North/East Chico
Weather: 88ish
Distance: An hour, on and off...
Avg spd.: slow and painful
How I felt: Some kinda left knee tweakage
Thing to remember: I saw three toads. Claire and I did some window shopping on the run. Ha. We're hardcore!

Wind: the invisible hill

Activity: Road Bike
Area: Sprint to the Chico airport and back
Weather: Low 70's, clear, and WIND
Distance: 10.5 miles
Avg spd.: 15mph
How I felt: good!
Thing to remember: 20mph headwind gusts kept me below 10mph at points! Insane wind today. Much of the ride home was 30mph+ !! I was going 9mph on a dead flat road at the Chico Airport into a massive headwind, and a guy laughed out loud at me.

Sunday morning ride

On my ride today, I decided today that I'm going to do my first century ride ever next spring. And why not make it the Chico Wildflower Century, which is hosted in my home town? I have a long way to go training-wise, but the ride isn't until the end of April. If I can run a marathon, I can ride a century. Right?

Activity: Road Bike
Area: In town, Lower Bidwell, Chico Canyon Rd.
Weather: 80-88 degrees. Sunny and clear.
Distance: 22.5 miles
Avg spd.: 16.5mph
How I felt: like cobwebs are falling outta my lungs
Thing to remember: Got pulled by two old guys (mid 50s?), one riding a squeaky tank sporting old school platform/clip/strap pedals, for about 5 miles. They blew my doors off up Chico Canyon. Try harder.

Bidwell Park Centennial 5k

Claire and I ran a fun little 5k race this morning in Bidwell Park. It was sponsored by the Chico Running Club, and there were about 250 entrants.

Activity: Running
Area: Lower Bidwell Park
Weather: 65-70 degrees and clear! Perfect early morning!
Distance: 5k (3.1 miles)
Avg spd.: 8:10 pace - awful.
How I felt: Good and outta shape.
Thing to remember: Two pugs walked the race with their owner. The pugs had race numbers, the owner didn't. There was also a Chihuahua sporting a pink miniskirt. Oh, and Bidwell Park is soooo beautiful.

Pre-race vogue (of course I ran with it):

Another August day in Chico

Activity: Mountain Biking
Area: Upper Bidwell Park
Weather: 96 awful degrees when I started, below 90 post sunset
Distance: Who knows? (1.5 hours)
Avg spd.: Slow! Rocky and technical terrain.
How I felt: Good, albeit like frying bacon due to the heat.
Thing to remember: Stopped in a shady area to avoid blistering sun and watched four deer munch some shit on the ground. Mid-ride I jumped into Big Chico creek with all my shoes/clothes/gloves on. Ride home was cool, damp and excellent.

Is someone getting the best of you?

Or are you getting the best of you?

As the description of this blog says, I decided to do this out on my ride today. We'll see how it goes.

I've been in an amazing exerciseless rut for about a year now. For several years of my life at the end of my twenties, I was a full on triathlete and runner. I raced in dozens of tris, several half marathons, a marathon (Boulder Backroads Marathon), and countless shorter distance trail races. Since I came back out to California on January 1, 2003, I have slowly declined my exercise amount to a level that is unacceptable to me.

I know that most people would think I'm insane. I'm 5'9" and weigh between 138 and 142 pounds depending on the day, and I can still run a 10k with zero training. It'll hurt, and I'll be a winded sack of shit, but I can get through it.

This morning I got up and hopped on my road bike for the first time in about two months, and two months ago was also probably the first time in two months. I guess I like to keep things nice and even. Anyway, as I was riding out Cohassett Rd., sucking wind and suffering from the mounting heat of the oncoming Chico August day, it hit me. I thought to myself, DUDE, you're out of shape, chewing air like a fat bastard who's been eating fried chicken and biscuits and watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the past ten years.

I hit the beautiful downhill that is the left hand turn at Keefer Road, and I started thinking about ways to get stoked again about riding, swimming, racing, and just leading a healthier lifestyle again. It's not that I do anything that is anti-healthy, I just tend to sit in front of my computer way too much (hey, I have to make a living, and it so happens that I run a design business). Claire and I are outside a lot, but we've spent more time lately on gardening, laying hardwood floors, and playing with dogs and horses than we have on running around on trails like maniacs.

I don't intend for this blog to be a training log perhaps as much as a way to look back on what I've done to connect my hands, feet and soul with the earth a little each day. I might run, ride, swim, flyfish, dig in the dirt in my garden, ride horses, or take my wife and dogs to the mountains. If I happen to bring a camera with me, I'll post photos over on Flickr. In all liklihood, I'll be the only person who reads this thing. I'm ok with that.

So without further adieu, I post my first record, mostly for myself, about what I did today outside.

Activity: Road Bike
Area: North Chico
Weather: 90 degrees, hawt! Sunny and clear, headwind on half the ride.
Distance: 18.7 miles
Avg spd.: 15.1 mph
How I felt: like shitski
Thing to remember: Stopped on Elite Dr. and bummed some water from a construction crew's orange cooler. When I first showed up, Foo Fighters 'Best of You' was on the radio; as I rode off, 'Fly By Night' by Rush came on.