Memorial Weekend Activities

Well, after a beautiful week of sunshine up in Squaw Valley, reality has set back in as the Bay Area weather has once again returned to it's shitty self. After a pretty lousy 45mi rain-and-cold encrusted bike ride, albeit shrouded in some great company of my friends Monique, Katie and Tori, the weekend has turned into a thoroughly uninspiring mess of laziness and couch-potatoe behaviour. I have managed to catch up on last weekends motorcycle racing, including the latest round of World Superbikes that returned to Kyalami, South Africa after a 7 year absence, which is great! It was really cool to watch some good 2-wheeled action as Nitro Nori continued to solidify his standing in the Championship.

Alas, I can only sit on the couch for so long before becoming bored and so once the motorcycle action ran out I have decided to embrace my feminine side and do some baking. Yes, you read correctly; it's time to make some first-class oatmeal raisin post-run recovery cookies and some chocolate brownies for the work-mates, who are always bringing sweets to the office. It's time to return that favor. I'll let you know how that one works out because it's been quite a while since I shocked the world with my snickerdoodle excellence at the Boulder Running Company. Damn that was a while ago.

Speaking of things happening a while ago; I picked up my fly-rod again while up in Squaw and realized that I haven't done so in almost 4 years. Ridiculous. I had the very pleasurable company of two of my friends from the East Coast, Helen and Alison, who are the first two girls that I've ever fished with and arguably a lot more talented and certainly good-looking than I. Helen was the first to show us up with the only decent fish of the morning. I was glad that she yelled at me from across the dam to take a picture because it was a realy beautiful rainbow, and while the action was fast and frantic, Helen and I only managed to play with the little guys. That changed on the second morning when I managed to figure out the correct pattern to keep the riff-raff off the hook, and landed 3 really solid fish. Taking pictures while trying to hand-land, remove the fly, and return exhausted roe-laden female trout to the water ASAP is a challenge at best and so the only shot I got is featured below. I was pretty stoked to get back on the water and can't wait to do so again at our next Sales Meeting in October. I'll hopefully be tapering for NYC Marathon and will welcome some more fishing into the schedule...

The cookies are almost done, the brownies are going into the oven, and after a brief feminine-moment I'm moving from one sticky mess to another because I need to change the fork oil on the racebike this weekend before I head back to the track. Cheers for now...

S10 Sales Meeting

It's that time of year again. Time to wrap up with S10, hand the work over to the sales team, and then write some solid briefs for S11. This season I have some particularly exciting and potentially rewarding briefs to write; way more up my alley and could bring some exciting technologies to market! However, before this happens I have to endure the painful reality of 75 deg. sunny days, time to train at altitude, and ice cream for dinner. Tough, I know, but someone has to do it. Yesterday I had a pretty solid 15miler on my usual hilly route, and it felt good to move again after a bunch of slower base-mile days. I followed this up with an easy hour up in Squaw today at 7000ft, where I'll be for the next 5 days. I was going to run again tonight, but we went to get Sushi instead. Good choice.

I got a random call from my friend Tera on Friday which made me very happy! It's so easy to lose touch with people, but getting calls out of the blue from some people really makes my day. She's potentially going to come out and run the SF Half Marathon at the end of July, which was going to be part of my training for Portland last year before I got my stress fracture. Knock on wood I'll be able to get after it this year. Things are starting to fall into place nicely with training, and it's nice to be up in the mountains with some great running right out of the hotel doors. I'm really going to have to be better about getting up on the trails in the East Bay hills... my daily routine in Oaktown is getting very boring.

I'm going to thake the opportunity for an early night, and a late morning, to get some solid sleep. Good night all

Back in one piece

My first day on the racetrack went about as well as planned considering I've been away for 10 months now. Last weekend I decided to take advantage of a Sunday trackday, which is very rare around here because of the demand for racing over the weekends and was at two minds with what to do with the opportunities of staying Monday and making it a double-header. The choices were to:

a) call it good with one day
b) do another regular trackday Monday
c) get my AFM racing licence Monday.

Although I'm not going to do much racing this year due to limited funds, I decided on to take the opportunity to get my license anyways. While more expensive than a regular trackday, getting your club racing license is actually a pretty easy affair. After 2 hours of basic classroom time where we learned the differences in safety rules, flags, bike setup, racetrack etiquette and daily procedures, the afternoon was dedicated to working with the instructors to make sure we'd be "welcome" on the track with other racers. Riders are basically judged on how well you understand consistency, handle being passed as well as making safe passes, and general riding skill. Having already riden the day before, I was perfectly comfortable hitting the track with one of the instructors, whom I know fairly well, and had no problem meeting their criteria.

To close out the day, the final test was practising race starts which was certainly the most tricky part of the day. Let me tell you something, it sounds easy to launch a bike at speed because you do it all the time getting in and out of the hot-pit entering the track, but when they introduce this little thing called a green flag and 20 other riders around you it's a tad more difficult. My first of 3 starts was an absolute disaster because I basically shut my brain off when the green flag dropped, promptly dropped the clutch, launched the front wheel sky-high and got zero drive off the line. Oh, and it didn't help that I was on the front row of the grid. But hey, I provided some first-class entertainment to the experienced racers and instructors on the side line! The second two were much smoother though and I managed to hold my own with most of the quicker guys, and pass a few more into turn one. My bike may be heavy, but the low-down torque makes it pretty fast if you get it right.

I now have my club racing license, and I actually feel very relieved to have taken the bike out on the track for the first time this season. I think I've been pretty stressed the last few weeks having not been able to test-ride it on the street beforehand, because I've had no idea whether I have actually addressed all the problems and put everything back together properly. Anticipation is one thing and adds the appropriate amount of focus to keep you thinking straight. Having self doubt that your machine will stay in one piece is another story, and is not something you want to have to worry about. Apart from the fact that RC51's don't like nuts and bolts and like to spit them out at every possible opportunity, she held up great and rides much better after going on a roughly 30lb diet of excess parts removal. I'm also now free to focus on my running more, because I have been spending a lot of energy in the garage getting everything prepped which will now be drastically reduced. The ironic thing is that now I have committed to this route as opposed to continuing to debate whether it would be better to remain riding on the street, I'm much more relaxed. It's tough enough to run at a high level without throwing motorcycle racing into the picture, but as long as I don't crash and break shit on both me and the bike, I think I can do both. Running will still remain the priority though until I feel that I'm no longer able to run fast, because no matter how much fun it is dragging your knee at 100mph, it just doesn't compare to the achievement you feel from training your ass of and running quick.

Until later...

Limping around

Team TNF at the finish

It's been quite a while since my legs have been so sore that I've struggled to walk. I'd forgotten how rewarding it feels! Usually it takes racing a marathon, or an extremely fast long run, to really damage your legs to a serious extent. The Relay managed to take me to this point.

Over this past weekend I joined eleven other teammates in running 199mi from Calistoga to Santa Cruz. With 36 legs being split among a dozen of us, we gradually wound our way down the coast one leg at a time. Since most have us, including myself, have never done anything like this before it was bound to be an interesting experience. None of us were disappointed. My first leg was an absolute bitch, so much so that I would almost not call it running. The first 3mi encompassed 1300ft of climbing straight to the top of a beautiful country road, after which time I got to scramble down 5inches of steep, mud soaked trails for the next 4mi and it was only after 7mi that I really got to stride out and run comfortably at a solid pace until the handoff at 9mi. Having estimated what would usually have been a comfortable 6:30 pace, I was having to push harder than expected right out of the gates, which pretty much set the tone for the rest of the event.

I have to admit that the idea of spending 28hrs, cooped up in a van with 5 other runners, little to no sleep, and a lot of running left me not really knowing what to expect. However, our team could not possible have gelled any better! Every single photo that I took displays a huge grin of contentment, joy, and and pride on the face of every single individual. Sometimes serious, often goofy, but always optimistic, the six of us proceeded to take over, run, and hand off to our teammates throughout the night until the other half-dozen runners in Van 1 came in to relieve us for a while with their 6 legs. Not even the persistent rain could dampen our spirits.

Despite the after-pain, sleep-deprived and thoroughly basket-case Monday we had, there was not one of us who was not planning on running again next year. It is amazing how events like this can create bonding experiences like no other and it seems like the tougher the challenge, the closer you get. Once I can run again, I'll get back to the business of marathon training, but in the interim I plan on thoroughly enjoying the pain-induced satisfaction that only comes from giving everything you have to give.

My new friend Sara handing off on my final leg. I really wasn't sure if I was going to make this one, but somehow your body always remembers how to run at the right pace and I stayed right on track despite the pain in my calves and two vicous final miles.

Home for 30+ hours...