My new hero

We're great friends with Jim and Kathy Covaleski.  Jim decided to get in serious shape this year.  He's dropped a bunch of weight and done a lot of running, biking and swimming. I didn't have a photo of "new Jim", but here is one of Jim and Kathy at Mirror Lake from a few years ago.

Jim competed in his first triathlon this weekend.  Sort of ironic that even though he lives in Alexandria VA, the triathlon was in Raleigh, about 5 miles from our old house.  How did Jim do?  He won his age group!  By almost 10 minutes!  That would be a lot for any triathlon, but this was a sprint tri, with a 250 yard swim, 10 mile bike and 3.1 mile run.  You can find the results here.

How awesome is that?  Go Jim!

Jim and I are supposed to go for a 10 mile run together when we got to DC in October.  I guess I better get out and do more training.

Park City Half Marathon

I ran a half marathon yesterday.  I did OK, but not as well as I had hoped.  My thought was to run 8:00 minute miles, but I only managed to do 8:15's.  I can attribute my lack of performance to doing almost everything wrong:

• Ate a big, heavy dinner
• Drank too much wine, to assure restless sleep and dehydration
• No speed training, just long distance for the mountain run I did. Amazing how very long, slow runs don't make you faster.
• Went out too fast and got passed as I slowed down.  I normally start slow and speed up, passing people.
• Ran erratic paces from mile to mile.  No idea why.

I still managed 70th place out of 600 runners, so top 12% or so.  I was 6th in my age group.  I can't wait until next year when I am 50.  If I ran the same pace as I did this year, I would be 6th in my new age group.  Crap.  Don't these people slow down?

I have been amazed at how the women runners are getting more and more competitive.  In this race, they finished 4th, 5th, 10th and 11th overall.  It won't be long before they start winning.

For anyone who is considering running a half or full marathon, they should consider the Park City ones.  They are very well run. Timing, shirts, food, aid stations, road markings, traffic management and such were all excellent.  The marathon is a tough one with some hills (no mountains) and our traditional lack of oxygen. The winner did just over 3 hours and I think it is very rare for anyone to beat 2:45.

CrossFit fun

A few weeks ago our CrossFit WOD was a race outdoors. Teams were carrying, pushing and dragging heavy things back and forth. This is me doing the Farmer's Carry.

You just never know what to expect for the day's workout.

The times, they are a changin

As Bob Dylan sang, the times are changing.  Last night we went over to the Goo Goo Dolls concert at Deer Valley.  They put on a good show and I recognized more songs than I thought I would. I think of them as rock, but with a slant towards pop.  Seeing the music wasn't that different.  It was the dining experience that got me thinking.  I have gone through quite a few different concert eating and drinking phases over the years:

• The keg or cases of beer and Costco-sized chip bag phase:  Cheap. Simple to shop for.  Can be quite heavy for transport.  Too high in carbs for today's standards.
• The weed and pizza phase:  Unfortunately illegal in most places.  More expensive.  Tastier food but difficult to get to a concert while still hot.  Dominos hesitates to deliver to a concert.
• The tequila phase:  By far the ugliest and most destructive.  Can be expensive, depending on your taste in tequila.  You save money by forgetting to eat.

Now apparently I have wandered into the "older adult, Deer Valley" phase:.  Last night's spread, which was provided by Julie, the Benson's and Kathy Covaleski included:

• White wine
• Red wine
• Cheese on fancy crackers.  Yes, one of the two cheeses was a tasty Brie.
• Fruit salad
• Lavosh sandwichs
• Grapes
• Granola-based brownies

The food was excellent, as were the wines, but I see a part of my adventurous youth twinkling off into the distant past.  I can just imagine another decade or two from now:

• Nutritional meal replacement shake
• Soft bread
• Juice

I hope it doesn't come to that but I hate to chart out my general trend line over the last 30 years.  Time will tell.

The world's largest frequent diner's membership?

While in Oregon, we went to a nice restaurant in downtown Portland.  They also have several places out near Hillsboro, so Sue and Marty accepted their offer of a frequent diner's card.  I forget what the benfits were, but when we got the card I was simply astounded.  The membership number was:

6000012850003160536086xxx, where I have omitted the last three numbers (not sure why).

For those of you who want to see it a different way:  6,000,012,850,003,160,536,086,xxx

This means they can hand every one of the 6 billion people on earth, a billion unique cards each, and they still have room to grow their audience by a factor of 1,000,000. Is it just me or does that seem like a bit much?

A visit to Oregon

Julie and I went for a long weekend up to Hillsboro, Oregon, just west of Portland. We were visiting Julie's sister Sue and her clan.  It was quite the busy weekend, with no end of things to take pictures of.

On Friday, we decided to journey to Silver Falls State Park, just east of Salem. On the way there, we had to stop to buy some refreshments and we ran across this fine POS.  You always see crappy, beat up cars driving down the highway.  What makes this one special?

The "Mary Kay enriching women's lives" sticker in the rear window.  Somehow I think the economy has hit Mary Kay pretty hard if this is the type of car you get now.  I think the pink Cadillac were nicer.

The park was gorgeous.  We did a seven mile hike and got to see waterfall after waterfall. The most interesting thing was how lots of the falls were out away from the rock face, which allowed you to walk around behind the falls.



Here's a view looking from behind one, down the valley into the dense forest.



And the forests themselves are so different than what we have in Utah or in NC.  The trees were hundreds of feet tall and draped in a fragile green moss.

It felt like something out of Jurassic Park.  When there was no one around, it felt kind of creepy.

Here we have the girls.  From right to left, Julie, Kelly (oldest daughter, attending Gonzaga), Laura (senior in high school), Jacky (just entering high school) and Julie's sister Sue, who appears to be licking Laura's hand.

Julie, looking stunning with a waterfall in the background.

Yet another waterfall.  They were everywhere and very impressive.  I could easily kill a day there with a camera, tripod, and several lenses.  The background and lighting changed as you moved from fall to fall.

I was impressed with how well everyone did one the hike.  Of course, you just can't beat a nice ride home in a sunny warm car. Naps are a good thing.




The next day we had to find something equally interesting to do, and we did.  We went into Portland for the PDX Adult Soap Box Derby.  Since 1997, they have gathered on the steep hill at Mt Tabor and raced their cars down.  Not surprisingly, most of the event sponsors are bars or brew pubs, and thousands of people come to watch.

The variety of vehicles is stunning.  In this one heat, we have a sod covered race car, a head-first death mobile, and a whacky LeMans car with four riders.

God knows what this was supposed to be.

We didn't see this one go down the hill (we got there late), but it is a rolling basketball court.  There were several ball players who rode it down, apparently while playing.

You are allowed to have one team member give you a running push start, but after that it was just you, gravity, and a lot of winding curves.

This car was a transformer.  In race-mode, it looks more like a stock car.  When they weren't driving, it folds flat to become a full sized ping pong table.



By far, the most involved crew we saw was for the Mario Cart.  If you double-click to see the picture up close, you will notice that almost all of the Super Mario characters are represented in costume.



Another one in the "not sure what it is" category, but the rear driver was armed with a super-soaker.

Julie and Kelly, enjoying the day.

Another day, another adventure.  On Sunday, we ironically went to the Portland Saturday Market.  Seems like there might be some naming issues there.  Portland has a really eclectic mix of humans.  These guys were doing the frequently seen "dancing for donations" act, but they weren't really very good at dancing.  Rightfully so, they weren't collecting a lot in the way of donations.



Four guys with a fairly nice video camera were wandering around Pioneer Square interviewing people with a stupid hand puppet.  No idea why or what they planned to do with the results.  Looked like a Junior High film project, but they seemed a bit old for that.

There was a group of guys playing speed chess.  They seemed to be fairly good and quite serious about it.

And if interviews and chess weren't your thing, you could always wander over to the large tent offering "Messages from Heaven".  We didn't investigate how they were getting these messages, but there were definitely some interested recipients visiting the tent.

It's great to see how the girls have grown up.  When the adults planned to stay in Portland for dinner, the girls hopped the MAX (mass transit) for home.  They handle themselves quite well.



One last bit from the market.  We all split up to see different things.  When we gathered back together, Sue has this tattoo (temporary) on her leg.

and Julie had a little black cat.  Very cute.

Awesome trip.  It was nice being able to catch the entire Smale family on a weekend when the girls were all home and their normally packed schedules were very flexible.  We've been to Oregon a number of times, but got to see and do some interesting new things this trip.

Tour of Utah

I went to the Utah Olympic Park this afternoon to watch the Prologue stage of the Tour of Utah bike race. This first stage was a very short time trial, about 1.2 miles up a steep hill. The finish times ranged from 4:05 to 5:22.

The bikes they were riding looked nothing like what I have in my garage. Carbon fiber everywhere. Funky shaped tubing.  These bikes were so light that I have to guess this rack was just keeping them from floating off like balloons.

It was a drop dead gorgeous day, sunny, around 80 degrees and 20% humidity.  This poor rider had his coach riding behind him, screaming something in Spanish similar to "go, go, go, pedal your ass off".  I can't imagine that really helps.

Photographing this kind of event is pretty boring.  One racer at a time, moving fairly slowly up the steep hill.  I apologize for the repetition.

This is the very last turn, up a steep hill, with about 250 yards to go.

There weren't that many of the big stars, but lots of the Tour de France teams were there.  This is George Hincapie, who has completed more Tour de France's than anyone in history.

Right behind him came Christian Vandevelde.  He was looking very comfortable and ended up 7th out of 116 racers.

Also from Garmin-Cervelo was Tom Danielson.  If you watched the 2011 Tour de France, Tom was the highest finishing American.

This guy was really pumping up the hill, but I wonder about having his weight that far forward.

There was a helicopter filming almost constantly.  Throughout the race it was swooping back and forth, popping up from below, and following the more famous racers.  It looked like it would be a blast to ride in but damn it was loud.

I would be quite happy bike shopping on the top of the BMC car.  Quite the selection and probably $15k each.

David Zabriskie is a local Utah favorite. With his time trialing strength, he should have rocked. He even dressed as Captain America.  Unfortunately he wasn't riding in that persona.  By the time he got to the last 500 meters, he was slowing down.  He finished in the middle of the pack.

Levi Leipheimer was the last one to go and finished in 6th. You can tell from the look on his face that he isn't saving much.

I won't catch any of the other five stages, but it should be interesting.  The course is tough, with lots of mountains along the way.  The only disappointment is they won't have a criterium in Park City.  Last year I really enjoyed photographing it.

Now we are off to Hillsboro, OR to visit with Julie's sister and her family.

Another Jupiter Peak runner

I drug my tired butt to CrossFit this morning and ran across another person who had run the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase.  This guy is much younger and stronger than I am, but he finished an hour behind me.  Do I feel better about my time?  No.  He decided that to make it more interesting he would do the whole thing with a 50 pound pack.  Now imagine running down steep hills. No, I was not able to get a good explanation of why he did what he did.

He mentioned having met a woman at the top of Jupiter who was asking whether it was normal to have chest pains.  He said no, and saw she was wearing a heart rate strap that talks to her GPS training watch.  He checked and her heart was beating at about 215-220. It turns out she was on a heart medication.  He ran to the next aid station and apparently they took her off by road to the hospital. 

My run was more boring than I thought.

Race day at Jupiter Peak

I finished the race, came home, showered and had some lunch.  Now I feel fresh as a daisy!  Of course I mean a daisy that was sprayed with Round-Up, left in the sun, and then tilled under.  That was brutal.  You know things are bad when the only four pieces of information on your race bib are your race number, name, emergency contact, and their phone number.

The good news is that I had never fully explored the race.When you have run about 6.5 miles, up 2500 feet, you come out of the trees and see Jupiter Peak..I knew we had to run up there, but had no idea what the path would be.  You basically run straight up the ridge line.  To hell with all the normal mountain path zig-zagging.

And this is what you are running on.  That is until you make a left, and there is no road or path, just scree and steep.  Notice in the upper left corner of the picture where the hill turns abruptly up. You leave the road there.

But you can stop at the top, for a few seconds, and enjoy the nice view. The valley, in the center of the picture, is where we started.

So how did I do? I finished in 3:08 and some odd seconds. That put me in about the middle of the pack and beat my goal of 3:12. I am quite happy with the result.

The bad news is that I was on track for just under 3:00. I was running well and feeling about as good as you could expect. Then at 13 miles, I tripped on a rock or a root. I stumbled fast for a few steps before catching my fall. That sudden harsh movement and strain turned out to be more than my thighs wanted. The right leg cramped hard and the left was a few seconds behind. I hobbled to the water station, sat and slammed Powerade and bananas, and massaged the crap out of the spasming muscles.

The last three miles were slower and much more painful.  I would be good for a half mile or more, and then the thighs would remind me that they were not pleased with this form of exertion.  The steep pounding downhills didn't help.

All is well.  I can check Jupiter Peak off my to-do list. I made my goals and other than the fear of instant charlie horses for the next 24 hours, I am ok. 

They will eventually post the race results to the web, but I saw that the winner did the 16 miles of steep mountain trails in under 1:52.  I thought that was insane, until I noticed that La Sportiva had brought their professional "mountain trail racing team".  Who the hell has a full time job of "mountain trail racing"?  Incredible.

A big thanks to my driver and care giver, Julie, and her assistant Jasper.

Saturday is race time

Finally time to stop whining and go run the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase.  I can't complain.  The weather is supposed to be nice, my training has gone well, and I haven't had any injuries. Sure wish I had started earlier in the year.  In the first five months I ran a total of 46 miles.  In June and July, I ran just under 200.  Another month would have been nice.  Here are my goals, in order of success:

1. Get past the turnaround point before the time limit.  There is a point on the course, that if you get there too late, they make you turn around and go home.  That would be very sad.
2. Finish the race and walk away under my own power.
3. Finish something other than last place.
4. Finish something other than last place for the men.
5. Finish in less than 3 hours and 12 minutes.  This is my fairly realistic goal.
6. Finish in less than 3 hours.  This is my highly unlikely, unrealistic goal, but it is always nice to have one.

The guy who wins will run 7 minute miles and finish in under 2 hours.  For me, this is about as relevant as the guys who run marathons at under a 5 minute per mile pace. Impressive, but I am fairly certain they are not humans.

The big pisser is that everyone expects running and walking up long, steep hills would be slow, but I have discovered that I can actually run a good bit faster on flat ground than I can coming down a steep hill.  I was hoping the downhill would balance out more.  Nope.

I'll post how it all works out.