Taylor Seavey

Website...finally!

2010-12-10T23:24:00.000-08:00

Hello,
I have a new website up and running. Go to www.taylorseavey.com to check it out!
I will be blogging from there from now on.

Hope you enjoy it.

Taylor

TriLanai Off-road Triathlon, Lana'i

2010-11-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

We are on the ferry leaving Lahaina, Maui at 6 in the morning and heading approximately 15 miles to the island of Lana'i for the TriLanai triathlon. TriLanai was started just last year, and about 70 people including me participated in the race. This year 108 people raced!

It was such a beautiful morning today, deep blue ocean with the morning sunlight sparkling on the surface. I felt relaxed today and I was only doing this race for fun and my love for racing.

We're nearing the Small Boat Harbor on southern Lana'i. The island is mostly dry, they are experiencing one of the worst droughts this year. But on the race site near the Four Seasons Hotel they've been keeping it green and colorful by irrigating water from wells.

Prior to the start, we gathered on the beach and did a role call, then a group prayer with all of us holding hands in a circle. The swim was two laps of a 1/4 mile loop with a very long, almost 1/4 mile beach run in between laps. Here the swells were bigger and the currents were stronger than at XTERRA. The more challenging the better!

I was able to draft behind a good swimmer on the first lap, then took the lead on the second lap.

Out of the water and now a bit of a jog to T1. I attached a video at the bottom of this post that shows me being pushed by the wave into shore!

Fred also participated in the race today. After doing XTERRA last Sunday, this was a lot of fun for him too.

Dad couldn't take any pictures of me going out of T1 because its a long way up from the beach. But this is me coming back in after 16 miles. The bike course had about 4 miles of pavement at the start with a steep climb for 2.5 to 3 miles, then after that it's a fast and rolling course on dirt roads with a rocky descent back down to the pavement then T2. Today I pushed the swim harder than I usually do since it was shorter, and I felt like I still was recovering from XTERRA so on the climb today it took me a while to get my legs back. Also here it was very hot, but once I got most of my juice back I felt much better!

Fred had a good ride today, he didn't get held up by people on the trails like what happened with him at XTERRA.

The whole family gang enjoying the sunshine....or shade at the transition area watching the racers.

The run was 4 or a little over 4 miles on a hilly paved road. The heat didn't zap me as much as on the bike because some very little breezes picked up so I was able to run hard. I came in first place overall, and had the fastest swim, bike, and run splits, and took off 8 minutes from my record last year which is quite an improvement for me. Thanks Amber and Conrad! My total time was 1:50:18 and 6 minutes faster than 2nd place. This tough little race was a perfect way to end the season.

Post-finish picture with my grandparents from Alaska, Shirley and Dan Seavey.

Fred coming in! He finished in 2:30:52 and got 3rd in the 40-49 age group. It's his first podium finish, congratulations Fred!

The top 3 guys cooling off. 2nd place was my friend Juan Garcia-Neveu in the yellow shirt. He finished in 1:56:23. Behind us is Gerry Clark who got 3rd place in 2:05:41. All of us also did XTERRA. There were at least 10 people who did XTERRA then came over here to race.

TriLanai was on October 30. The next day we wigged up and went to a Thai restaurant for Halloween, just for the sake of embarrassing my sister! From right, just in case its hard to recognize us.....Dad, Mom, my mom's aunt Evelyn, and me.

Now, its time for a little surfing and tennis playing! I'm going to start working on my website now and have it up and running as soon as I can. Hope all of you had a great Halloween! Take care, I will write sometime in the future, but please understand that in the off-season not very many interesting things happen.

XTERRA World Championship. Makena, Maui

2010-10-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

Ah, it's a beautiful morning on October 24, 2010. The day of the XTERRA World Championship race! After a leisurely warm up on the bike it was time to go set my gear up in the transition area.

After setting up my transition, getting body marked, chatting with family and friends and before heading down to the beach for the start I met Michael Stone. Michael, in the sunglasses is a blind man who regularly wins his challenged division across the US... he is quite an inspiration!

A quick picture with my mom as we neared the start area.

Then, another picture with my coaches, Conrad Stoltz and Amber Monforte. Amber just did the Ironman World Championship triathlon two weeks ago on Kona, Hawaii. Then after this race she will be heading back to Kona for the Ultraman World Championship triathlon that will be held in November.

Over 550 athletes from all over the world have converged here at Makena, Maui to experience one of XTERRA's toughest off-road triathlons.

The cannon goes off and we're all madly scrambling for the first buoy to avoid being clogged up behind fast sprinters who start to run out of gas early into the swim. I even had to grab a couple of swimmers' shoulders and pull past them because they stood in front of me at the start and did not start out very fast.

The swim was two laps of a 750 meter loop in the beautiful waters off Maluaka beach. It was pretty cool to see the scuba divers with the underwater scooters taking video footage of the swimmers from underwater. The swim went great for me, I was out in 21 minutes and 49 seconds. I was able to draft off a few fast swimmers most of the time to save energy, because on the bike and run, I will definately need it!

Our friend Fred Farris who also came from Alaska and works his own job of shoeing horses has been training all summer to come here to Maui and participate in XTERRA's most famous race!

Conrad Stoltz who was 7th out of the water, came back on his bike in 1 hour and 23 minutes in 1st place and more than 6 minutes ahead of 2nd place!

With more than 6 minutes lead off the bike, Conrad had nothing to lose and cruised on the run. Later Conrad will credit his carbon S-Works 29er mountain bike for giving him the speed he needed on the course. But of course, it still takes a lot of training, skills and strength to ride this course as fast as he did. The bike course traverses up the slope of Haleakala with a total elevation gain of over 3,000 feet. The terrain is all jeep roads with some dust, rocks, lava, lava, and more lava. This course is infamous for eating up tires and breaking cranks, brakes, wheel rims, seatposts, and people!

For me, the course was a lot less scary than last year when I raced here for my first time. Last year this race was only the second XTERRA that I had raced in. I had a little mechanical issue with my gears today because my middle chainring was worn out and it was replaced with a slightly bent chainring. The chain wouldn't stay in the middle gear, it kept skipping so I decided to either keep the chain in the smallest ring or the biggest ring. It seemed to work pretty well! After 6 months of training and riding on different terrains and learning from Conrad, I was able to take a few minutes off my bike time from last year even though today the course was looser and more rocky than last year.

I'm off on the run and high-fived my mom and a couple other people...sorry I don't remember who because my mind was entirely on the task of running 6.8 miles as fast as I can!

My friend Hannah Rae is 14 years old and the youngest competitor today. She had a good swim and bike, now its time for her to cook on her best event, the run.

Fred is back, he survived mother nature's tough course and looks happy about it!

On the run, everyone has to endure the infamous 3 mile uphill stretch of road called the "death march" without any shade in the 90+ degrees F, then a long and harsh downhill run on rocky and loose lava that leaves your legs thrashed, but there's still the 3/4 mile run on the soft and deep sand of Big Beach, a trample through the "spooky forest" with logs to jump over and duck under, then another beach but this time it's soft black sand, with a rough lava shore (pictured above) that you have to run on before entering the finish chute!

The Caveman breaks the tape for the 4th time!

Amber digging deep! Today she was the first amateur woman to cross the finish line and also won the womens' amateur Doubles Award which is given to amateur men and women with the fastest combined Ironman and XTERRA times.

Another happy face from Alaska! Tim Lebling took off 40 minutes of his last year's overall time.

Fred finished just a little over his goal of 4 hours, and already is looking forward to coming back next year! This time he says his strategy will be to swim faster, bike faster, and run faster!

Conrad made history by being the first person to win XTERRA Worlds 4 times in the 15 years this race has been running. He dedicated this race to his dad in South Africa who is fighting cancer right now and he will be flying back there to spend time with his parents.

I finished with a total time of 3:18:19, and took 25 minutes off my time from last year! I took 4th place out of 12 guys in the 15-19 age group.

Also congratulations to Shonny Vanlandingham who won today in only her 3rd try at the XTERRA World Championship!

Hannah Rae won the 15-19 year old girls' division in her first try here. And props to Michael Keith, also from South Africa who won the boys' 15-19 race on a fractured foot!

XTERRA was very generous and awarded me the XTERRA Warrior Award of 2010 complete with a trophy, a Suunto watch and 2 Hawaiian Airline tickets. I am very honored and this means more to me than any place I could have gotten today! I had to go up on stage and give a little acceptance speech and my mom interpreted what I was signing. Here is a link to a nice video XTERRA made to go with the award and it describes what the Warrior award means. www.xterra.tv Watch the video under "2010 XTERRA Warrior"

Overall, the experience of XTERRA Worlds was surreal. I am very happy to be able to race at my ability today after having a cold all week. I feel like I have overcome challenges and enjoying this time with family and friends has been fun!

This coming Saturday, I have another little race called the TriLanai Off-road Triathlon. It's a 1/2 mile swim, 16 mile mountain bike, and 4 mile run triathlon on the beautiful little island of Lana'i. I will blog about that too.

After TriLanai its time for a little break! I will be staying active, play tennis, surf, run a little, bike a little, swim a little, but it will all be in fun.

I'll be writing again after Saturday.

Maui Livin'

2010-10-13T17:42:00.000-07:00

Aloha from Maui! With the XTERRA World Championships being less than two weeks away, training has wound down only a little bit. Quality is more important than quantity at this point. I've been paying close attention to my swimming, biking and running forms and making small adjustments to become more efficient.

I have been enjoying our stay here since day one! Hawaii is truly one of my favorite places in the United States. All of our soaking up of the sunshine and swimming in the ocean is refreshing to our souls as well as our bodies!

This picture was taken just before a training ride on the trails of Makawao Forest. In the center is Fred, our friend who came from Alaska to participate in the XTERRA also.

Practicing one of my "Conrad Stoltz" moves....

On one of our training rides, we started at over 5,000 feet up the slope of Haleakala and climbed to 8,000 feet and below us it's a cloudy day! In the distance you can see the Big Island, which is where the Hawaii Ironman World Championship is to take place the next day.

On October 9, 2010, all of us took a day off and watched the Ironman World Championship on the big screen TV hooked to the laptop via HDMI. The live webcam stream was good. Chris Lieto is pictured above, who got 11th place. My coach, Amber also raced there and finished in 10 hours and 50 minutes. And this was only "practice" for her Ultraman World Championship race also taking place on the Big Island in November!

Ah, the warm ocean! This beach is on the northern shore of Maui which is always very choppy but there's a coral reef blocking the big waves and creating a tide pool which makes it nice for little kids like my niece Setra to play in. It's a great natural swimming pool too, but if you're feeling wild you can always walk 50 meters down the beach to where the reef ends and swim in the choppy water and strong currents!

I'm doing one of my running speed workouts on my favorite soccer field with a great view of the ocean and lower slopes of the island below the town of Makawao where we are staying.

Earlier we went to the Maui County fair. (I know, seems like we go to fairs all the time) It was a good time, I went on a few rides! My first ride was the Inverter. I'm on the 2nd seat from the left. It's like the 1001 Nachts ride, except this time you're spinning upside down at its apex which is 8 stories above the ground. This ride is crazy because you feel comfortable when you see the shoulder restraints so you think that you won't be moving around or anything. But then when you're hanging upside down all of a sudden you're off your seat and you realize that those restraints are the only things holding you....

Another ride that I went in was the Scrambler with my aunt Elyssa, who also came over to Maui to visit for a week.

For all of you fans of the "Lost" TV show, this looks familiar doesn't it? You can just imagine Hurley driving through in the blue Dharma Initative VW bus.

This will probably be the only blog that I will be able to write until after the XTERRA race unless I come across some interesting material. Then after XTERRA, I will work on a website with my bio, race info and resumes, blog, the works etc. Till then, I will be training and preparing for the race. Physically, mentally, emotionally and of course spiritually I'm doing great. I'm so grateful for the great opportunity to be here on Maui, and I'm looking forward to the race. Thats when I can play, have fun, and see all of the benefits of a long (but adventurous) season of training and racing unfold!

XTERRA USA Championship. Snowbasin, Utah

2010-09-27T08:37:00.000-07:00

I have been training in Seattle for 3 weeks after we left Bend, Oregon and parked our RV for the winter. I apologize for not having blogged in awhile. I've been super busy with my biggest training block of the season and was waiting to have new material. And here it is........ the Xterra National Championship Race in Ogden, Utah! This is the biggest XTERRA in America and the last XTERRA championship before the World Championship in Maui. The pros have been racing all season long to stack up their scores in the points series according to their placing at the West, Southcentral, Mountain, Southeast, and East championship races. The reward for the racer with the highest points at the end of the season takes home an extra $10,000 dollars along with the winnings. It also is the last race that offers slots for age-groupers to race in Worlds.

Some family members came from Alaska to watch the XTERRA! From left is Janine, Mitch, (my dad's brother) dad, me, and Janine and Mitch's youngest of 4 sons, Conway. We stopped for pictures and stretching our legs out at the Snake River canyon just past Twin Falls, Idaho. We drove from Seattle in a ghetto rent-a-wreck van 840 miles to Ogden, Utah.

When we arrived to Ogden Thursday afternoon I had to get into my race gear and meet the XTERRA TV crew at the Snowbasin ski resort for a tv interview! This was a fun experience, the crew was very easy to work with. My mom is interpreting everything that I say in sign language.

Also for the tv I had to do a couple posing shots and some action shots on my mountain bike and running.

My parents were interviewed too. They also were doing a feature appearance on Scott, a blind man who will be racing on Saturday as well.

On Friday, my cousin Conway and I went for an easy pre-race run and spin through Huntsville. It was a beautiful, but chilly morning!

Then later that afternoon we all went to my race packet pick up in Ogden. We were showing Mitch, Janine, and Conway the full XTERRA experience.

Friday night was the Night of the Champions dinner. After eating a plate of salad and gluten-free pasta, they announced the regional champions in each age group from 15 to 70+ year old. All of the age-groupers that are region champs are the ones who got the most points in their region from the races that they have raced in this year. In the picture above are the Northwest region champs in each age group. That's me in the brown shirt and blue jeans!

Saturday morning! Getting my bike ready in T1. My running shoes are in T2 up at the Snowbasin resort about 3,000 feet up the mountain.

After warming up on the bike and in the swim, its already close to starting time! I'm in the orange cap. The male pros are in the blue caps, female pros in pink, and the age-groupers in the yellow. My orange cap is for the jet-ski to find me while I'm swimming so they can film me underwater for the Xterra tv show.

Conway is singing the National Anthem right before the start! Other than dog mushing, singing is his passion and he also would like to have a career doing what he loves to do.

Mere seconds before the cannon went off....

The swim start was a mass start so that made it more interesting! There were 3 different XTERRA races going on this morning, first was the XTERRA USA Championships, the XTERRA Utah (non-qualifier for Maui and open to anyone), then the Sport XTERRA which was half the distance of the USA and Utah races.

The swim was two half-mile laps and the jet ski found me when I was about to finish my first lap.

I have been working on my swimming technique ever since I had it scrutnized by Bob Bruce in Bend and I'm getting close! My swimming is starting to feel more powerful and not so much effort is being wasted being inefficient.

I'm swimming by the XTERRA Utah racers waiting for their mass start.

Out of the water! Its a long run to T1.

Now its time to put in some hard effort. This bike course is not the easiest in the circuit. It is about 19 miles long with about 3,000 total feet of climbing from the Pineview Reservoir to above Snowbasin. This is where the pure mountain goats stand out!

My coach Conrad says that he's not a good climber, but today was an exception. By the end of the bike Conrad was 5 minutes and 20 seconds ahead of 2nd place and he held it through the run! "I'm feeling strong!" was what he said to my parents when he passed by them on the last steep climb of the bike course.

After about 2,300 feet of climbing comes the steepest and hardest climb of the bike course!

Here's what the hill looks like! After this hill there's still about 3 miles of steady uphill singletrack.

Conrad running on his way to the win!

The trail run was 5.8 miles of rocky singletrack with some stretches of jeep roads and several brutal hills to climb! My overall time was 3 hours and 5 minutes.

Today was a good but challenging day for me. I went into this race a little more nervous than usual but then after the swim I felt better. On the bike I started to feel tired at mile 15 (which doesn't happen very often for me) so I slowed down to conserve energy for the run. But I didn't realize until later that this tired feeling was the effect of being close to 8,000 feet. My coaches Amber and Conrad prepared me really well for this race, my fitness was very good and I was as strong as I could be today. I still got 2nd place in my age group and I'm happy with that! Racing at altitude takes a different strategy and body awareness, and I learned today that I can dig even deeper. This is what it takes to do this sport that I love, and I love finding out new things about racing and myself and how far I can push!

Now its time for another little training block to prepare for the XTERRA World Championship in Maui on October 24th! In two days we will be flying from Seattle to Maui and staying with my sister to put in some quality training and quality living in Maui!

Bend, Oregon

2010-08-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

We have been in Bend, Oregon for about one week now and have been loving every day here! Bend has an abundance of trail systems for hiking, horseback riding, running, and mountain biking that I have not seen anywhere else. The weather here has been sunny the whole time, and a bit chilly at night because its a high desert terrain with pine forests and sagebrush.

On my birthday on August 17, I went to a masters swimming session to put in a workout before a videotaping and stroke analysis with head coach Bob Bruce.

I haven't swam the butterfly for over a year, and I forgot how much of a core workout it is!

Bob Bruce is on the pool deck with his videotaping camera attached to a rod that is submerged to tape me underwater. All it took was 75 yards of sprinting for him to get enough footage.

Now its stroke analyzing time! Bob played the video in slow motion and explained to me what I already had down, and what I had to work on. My stroke was already well developed, but I needed to enter my hands in the water deeper, and have my elbows higher before I started the pull phase to be able to displace more water. And to put my head down lower. I have been able to swim 3 times after this and for sure it feels awkward, I was more used to gliding and the new style feels like I'm swimming to the bottom of the pool! But now its getting more "normal" for me, and I can tell that it's much better!

Then that night we went to a free running clinic hosted by FootZone.

We had to run a few times with our shoes on, then barefoot. Teague Hatfield, the host of the clinic videotaped us then did form analyzing for us too. I liked how he taught the clinic, very simple and straightforward!

The next day my dad and I went for a 4 hour mountain bike ride with one of my coaches the "Caveman" Conrad Stoltz. Bend is one of Conrad's favorite training spots for the summer!

The waterfall in the picture is Tumalo Falls.

Taking a quick blog picture break at the Tumalo Falls overlook.

Again, Conrad's biking skills never cease to amaze both me and my dad. He disappears within 30 seconds whenever he goes downhill without braking on the corners, and sometimes disappears even uphill too! As a coach, Conrad was very helpful, has a wealth of information and gave me many tips on how to become a faster mountain biker. But, I couldn't help feeling a little intimidated and like I have a lot of work to do to become even half as fast as Conrad. This is none of Conrad's fault, its my mind getting the best of me. Self-doubts are what I struggle with the most and it has gotten a grip on me sometimes (Okay I admit, more than sometimes!). So, after a couple of good eating-the-dirt crashes, I decided to just chill out and not focus on the negative and look at the positive. Some of the stuff I was riding I wouldn't have been able to ride a few months ago. When I overthink things, its never enough or those things hold no satisfication for me anymore. Its very important to me that I enjoy what I am doing, so I'm working on being in the moment as much as possible!

Dad and I went riding a couple days after our ride with Conrad and I made myself relax and ride the bike and direct it where I wanted it to go instead of a little habit of mine of going too fast to control which always ends up with me thundering down the rocky stretch, reacting at the last instant to brake hard at every turn, nearly missing the tree or the drop off....

I immersed myself in that training ride and enjoyed every moment of it! I even feel like I have improved a little more!

On one of our long runs, we went running on the Deschutes River trail besides the pristine Deschutes River with green trees all around and black lava on the river banks.

Currently we're still in Bend, we're gonna squeeze in a few more trail adventures in two more days before leaving for Portland where we'll be parking our RV before staying with relatives in Seattle for 3 weeks.

Snowbasin, Utah

2010-08-15T16:25:00.000-07:00

On our way to Bend, Oregon, then Portland and Seattle we stayed at Huntsville, an old and small town in Utah near Snowbasin Ski Resort. We wanted to ride and run the race course of the XTERRA USA Championship that will be held on September 25. We were here for 4 days and really enjoyed it here. Its a beautiful valley with the pristine Pineview Reservoir at the bottom, surrounded by green mountains. I'm on a solid 6 week training block so XTERRA USA will be my next race!

I went for a nice open-water swim in Pineview Reservoir. This reservoir is large enough for swimming, boating, jetskiing, windsurfing and other water activities.

The first part of the bike course went through a beautiful canyon called Wheeler Creek Canyon.

This course includes a lot of climbing as you go from the reservoir to the ski resort.

Behind me is the mountain of the Snowbasin ski resort where the bike course leads to and where T2 will be. T1 will be next to Pineview reservoir.

Dad and I went a couple miles off-course and did a bit more climbing than was needed, but we were rewarded for our mistake with this view of the valley.

I'm pretty sure that this part is a section of the race course!

The course had a couple of tricky sections, like this one in the picture and a bridge with stair steps that you have to go down at a sharp curve.

This is the very top of the bike leg and the top of the last long climb.

Without the bike and rider blocking your view, you can see Pineview Reservoir at the bottom of the valley where we started our ride!

I'm running on part of the run course. The run course is a very scenic one, it makes a loop on the side of the mountain and is mainly singletrack with short sections of snowcat roads.

I've been racing for every month of the spring and summer, although I'm not the least bit tired of racing I'm still happy to put in some good training hours to prepare for Snowbasin, and then the XTERRA World Championships in Maui.

My first Half-Ironman

2010-08-08T18:27:00.001-07:00

This morning at Boulder, Andy Potts of USA and Julie Dibens won the men and women overall titles at the inaugural Ironman 70.3 Boulder race! In 1.2 miles of swimming, 56 miles of biking and 13.1 miles of running, Andy Potts' overall time was 3:46:50, leading 2nd place Tyler Butterfield by over 2 minutes. Potts got 9th in the 2009 Ironman World Championship and won the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in 2007 too.

Andy Potts, kicking it up in the run.

Great Britain's Julie Dibens' (she also trains in Boulder part of the year) overall time was 4:19:49. This was enough to be in front of the 2nd place lady by almost 3 minutes. Julie is also an XTERRA pro, she has won the last 3 XTERRA World Championships in Maui in a row!

She is planning on going to Kona for her first Ironman World Championship this October.

We had to get up before the crack of dawn. 3 a.m. to be precise, to be able to drive to the race site and prepare before the 6:30 am race start.

A beautiful sunrise over the Boulder Reservoir just starting!

I'm in the green shirt, getting my transition area set up before heading out to the swim.

I'm spraying on a wetsuit lubricant called Suit Juice, to help my wetsuit to slip on and off easily.

Before the swim start, 4 skydivers jumped out of a plane and parachuted with flags and streamers behind them while a man sang the national anthem.

With 1,750 racers, the beach of the Boulder Reservoir was full!

The swim was started in waves about 5 minutes apart. The pro men and women were in the first wave, 50+ year old ladies age group in the 2nd, womens' 45-49 age group in the 3rd, and then the 4th wave was for the mens' 50-55 age group and men and womens' 18-24 age group.

Our wave getting ready for the swim!

The water temperature was around 75 degrees F, which is still wetsuit-legal until 78 degrees F. I wore my wetsuit even though it's a little warm just because its faster with the buoyancy of the wetsuit. Almost all of the age groupers wore their wetsuits. The pros aren't allowed to wear wetsuits when the water is over 68 degrees F.

The swim went well for me, a lot of zig-zagging though, because I had to pass a lot of people in the 2 groups that started ahead of me.

The start of a 56 mile bike ride.

Just to give you an idea of how many people were in this race, here's one of the long lines of bikers!

Finished my 1st lap with 28 more miles to go.

Done with the bike ride! In shorter distance races such as Olympic distance triathlons which consist of only 25 miles of biking, I'm usually able to push hard on the bike and then hold on during the run. But in this race, it was more than twice the distance of the bike and run of an olympic distance race, so I held back a little on the bike. I just didn't know what to expect because I had never run 13.1 miles before. As it turned out, my pacing was perfect for me and I was able to do my run well.

T2, ditching the bike and helmet and putting on my running shoes.

At this point I was thinking "This isn't too bad, only 13 miles and 900 feet to go..."

My sister got a new race suit for me and we had Deaf Athlete embroidered on the back. Much better than crude permanent marker scribbling!

This is the end of my 1st lap of two 6 and over a half mile laps. The first 10 miles weren't too mentally challenging, until after 10 and a half miles, then I had to put some willpower into the last 2.5 miles! No wonder why they say that a full Ironman is something like 10 percent physical and 90 percent mental!

The clock is recording time since the first wave start, I started 18 minutes later. It felt so good to be done!

I'm sitting in the shade and happy to finish my first half ironman in 4:54:59, accomplishing my goal of under 5 hours. I'm not sure that I want to do a full ironman anytime soon!

My ice bath after a tough day of racing.

I placed 4th in my 18-24 age group of 31 men!

This was one of the hardest races that I have done so far other than the XTERRA World Championship just because of the length of the race. Thanks to my coaches, Amber Monforte and Conrad Stoltz, I was able to go into this race well prepared and I was able to enjoy it! I'm happy to have this experience under my belt and now I know what to expect when I go into more 70.3 racing next year.

Boulder-Longmont, CO

2010-08-04T07:24:00.001-07:00

We have been in the Boulder and Longmont area for about 2 weeks now preparing for my first Half-Ironman triathlon called the Boulder 70.3 coming up this Sunday! This race will be my longest and biggest race so far. It will include 1.2 miles of swimming, 56 miles of biking, and 13.1 miles of running which adds up to a total of 70.3 miles, hence the name. And over 1,600 people have signed up including Andy Potts who got 9th place in the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii in 2009 and 2x Ironman World Champion Tim DeBoom. I have been enjoying our stay here near Boulder, it is a big cycling and triathlon community, with the benefits of living and training at altitude (5,430 feet) while living in a city with shops that have everything you need. We have not been able to do a lot of trail exploring because its a bit of a challenge to drive around in a 37 foot long RV since the good trails and our campsite are 20 miles apart. Because the Boulder 70.3 is a road triathlon, I have been doing most of my training here on pavement and so far it has been excellent with lots of choices of roads with plenty of shoulder space or bike lanes.

My dad and me before embarking on my longest bike ride yet, 97 miles. Then I swam 2 and a half miles afterwards, almost full Ironman distances!

I'm swimming in the Longmont Recreational Center pool, its a nice facility!

My dad and I went on a ride up Lefthand Canyon road to hammer out a hill workout. Then on the way back down, we stopped at this creek to take a picture.

Riding back down Lefthand Canyon.

This is our campsite at the state park in Longmont, about 20 miles from Boulder and about 15 miles away from the race venue at the Boulder Reservoir.

This pond is right next to our RV and its called....you guessed it, Pelican Pond.

This is our "ice bath" after a hard track run session on grass. Many people believe that ice baths help speed recovery after hard workouts by constricting the blood vessels and flushing out waste products such as lactic acid from the micro tears in the muscle fibers caused by the workout. Then it is thought to reduce swelling, soreness and pain, so you may go out and work out hard again the next day. But so far, scientific research on this has been inconclusive, same with using hot water to help recovery, or alternating both cold and hot water. I haven't tried the cold and hot water method before, but I have used a hot tub after a long run, and sat in a creek after a race and it seems to me that recovery is the same with both. But in cold water my legs don't feel as boneless as after a soak in a hot tub.

We were lucky to have these trails near to our RV! The trails loop throughout the state park and all connected make up about 5 miles of nice running trails.

We went to check out the Boulder County Fair. The county fair started yesterday and will go for about 5 days. It is the oldest county fair in Colorado and is running for its 141st year in a row. The big windmill ride you see in the picture can hold 4 people on freewheeling hubs on each end and it spins at 63 mph and has a pull of about 2 G's.

Here's one of the animals at the fair! Uh...good or bad hair day?

The fair is not as big as state fairs but it still has plenty of attractions, food booths, rides, horse shows, goat shows, pig (fattened up by being fed beer and cake mix) shows, and other performing acts.

As a little treat for all of our hard work, we indulged in a funnel cake. The apple cinnamon flavor was yummy. Now, all we would need is beer and we'd be as fat as those pigs!
I'll be posting after the race this Sunday. I'm feeling good, ready to jump into the unknown and no matter what, I'll do my best!

Leadville, Colorado

2010-07-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

Right now we are in Longmont, near Boulder, Colorado. We're based out here for a couple weeks until after the Boulder 70.3 race that I will be participating in on August 8th. I wanted to write a post about Leadville because we spent a few days and nights there before going to Beaver Creek. This old silver mining town is the highest incorporated city in the United States at 10,200 feet above sea level. It also has some other interesting facts worth mentioning...

Dad took this picture just as we left our campground in Leadville before we went on one of our bike rides. The air was a little thin, but you hardly notice it until you start exercising.

A hiker and his mule walk up one of the roads that leads to some of the old mining shafts, buildings, and sites from the late 1800s.

You can't see much here but there is a 12 mile long paved multi-use trail (called the Mineral Belt) that circles the town and goes through the old mining sites and scenic spots. The trail also has signs with history facts and stories placed at those sites to read along the way.

Situated in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, Leadville was founded in 1877 after miners found silver lodes, which set off the Colorado Silver Boom. At one time, as one of the world's largest silver camps Leadville's population rivaled Denver, totaling around 40,000 people. There were a few different mining sites in Leadville and they often competed with each other to try to produce the most silver. One of the signs along the Mineral Belt trail told a story of a group of miners from one mine smoking out another mine and its miners with boots filled with sulfur, gunpowder and dynamite. As with any mining camps, life was rough and rowdy as ever here. As told by Oscar Wilde, a writer and poet who toured there in 1882 on one of his lectures after a visit to a local saloon, "where I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was a notice printed-"Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best."

Other than Oscar Wilde, other celebrities and well-known people have visited Leadville, including the American Old West outlaw, Doc Holliday. In 1883, Holliday moved to Leadville. He was forced to flee Tombstone, Arizona shortly after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral where he fought alongside Virgil, Morgan, and Wyatt Earp. It was also here that Doc shot Leadville ex-policeman Billy Allen after Allen threatened Doc for not paying a $5 debt. Somehow afterwards, Doc was found not guilty of the action.

Harry Houdini the magician, performed at the Tabor Opera House, which still stands.

Margaret Brown, the famous human rights activist and survivor of the sinking of the Titanic also moved here when she was 18 years old.

This is a hydaulic front end loader on narrow gauge tracks that was used to help dig out the mine shafts.

After the Silver Boom most of the mines closed down or started mining for lead and zinc. The population went down to just under 3,000 as determined in 2005. Now most of the income to the town is from tourism. The town's main street is lined with big buildings of victorian architecture and many smaller shops. There are museums that also tell the tales of the mining town's heydays.

In the picture above is a cut-out of Dave Weins standing beside his actual mountain bike. Dave is the six time winner of the famous Leadville Trail 100 mile mountain bike race. The Leadville Trail 100 bike race is held mid-August every year. The race course is a 50 mile out and back course and is above 9,000 feet and climbs to almost 13,000 feet in some places. About 1,000 racers participate and it attracts about 20,000 spectators. Every mountain biker must complete the race under 12 hours before the final cutoff to receive a silver buckle award, and anyone who completes it under 9 hours receives a gold and silver trophy buckle. Last year, Lance Armstrong won the race in 6 hours and 28 minutes, and on a flat tire.

The Leadville Trail 100 mile run is also another race that is held on August 21 which runners run 50 miles out and 50 miles back on forest trails and mountain roads, the lowest point of the course is at 9,200 feet and the highest point is at 12,600 feet. Every runner must complete the race under 30 hours before the race cut-off to receive a silver buckle. Under 25 hours will earn you a large gold and silver trophy buckle. The course record was set by Matt Carpenter, who completed the race in a blistering 15 hours and 42 minutes.

For more info or just out of curiosity, check out the "Race Across the Sky" DVD about the Leadville Trail 100!

_____________________

Just randomness....does this sign mean No People Swimming, No Aliens Swimming, or No Swimming Because Of Aliens In The Water??? This picture was taken in the town of Wheatridge on our way to Boulder.

Another random picture, also in Wheatridge! Any idea how this could have happened?

XTERRA Mountain Cup. Beaver Creek, CO

2010-07-19T10:57:00.000-07:00

On a beautiful and sunny Saturday morning almost 500 athletes came to Avon's Nottingham Lake to participate in the XTERRA Mountain Cup race consisting of a one mile (2 lap) swim with wetsuits in the lake, 15.5 mile mountain bike with over 3,000 total feet of climbing from 7, 400 to 9,500 feet elevation, then an approximately 6 mile trail run with 1,200 total feet of climbing.

Just hanging out after setting up my transition areas which are in two different places. T1 is just next to the lake, thats where I'll transition from swim to bike, and T2 is up at Beaver Creek Resort on the mountain where the bike-to-run transiton will take place. Right now the people in front of me are the Sport (a shorter distance, about half of the full XTERRA distance) racers who are getting ready for their race which started 45 minutes before my race.

The swim start was broken up in waves, the pros went one minute before my wave which consisted of men 15 through 39 years old.

The water temperature was about 68 degrees which is close to non-wetsuit temperatures. It did feel a little warm in my wetsuit!

I pushed on the swim, but took it a bit easy to save energy for the bike and run because I knew that I'd need it! The swim went smoothly for me without any incidents.

T1- In all of the white garbage bags are the athletes' wetsuits, goggles, and caps which we had to stuff in those bags to be taken up to T2 at Beaver Creek by the race officials so that we could pick them up after the race.

Off on the bike, I was feeling good, the altitude wasn't bothering me very much and I knew it was going to be a good day!

15.5 miles later, I'm coming down from 9,500 feet back to Beaver Creek Resort at around 8,200 feet elevation.

Now the run. I just told myself that I'm going to enjoy this run no matter what! The run course consisted of a 600 foot climb from T2 then a long descent back to Beaver Creek, then another 600 foot climb before descending back to the finish! It was tough going, breathing was a little hard since there's 25% less oxygen than at sea level.

I'm running by Beaver Creek Resort at 8,200 feet elevation, where T2 and the finish are.

The finish at last! My total time was 2:43.49. The clock above me records the time when the pros started their swim one minute before my wave.

(photo taken by XTERRA)
Nico Lebrun of France pictured above in green won the men's race in 2:13:51. This is his second win at Beaver Creek in a row. He had just won the XTERRA France championship last Saturday too.

Shonny Vanlandingham of Durango, CO won the women's race in 2:31:58. This is her 3rd victory at Beaver Creek in a row!

Hannah Rae Finchamp (14) of California is one of the fastest young girls I've seen. She trooped it throughout today's race in 3 hours and 26 minutes! Hannah Rae races mostly in road triathlons as a youth elite throughout the nation, but also loves off-triathlon and is an ambassador for XTERRA to help bring more awareness and encourage more young people to participate in the sport.

Another friend of mine, Brittany Clawson, who goes to college in Hawaii, just started racing in triathlons one year ago and is already working towards qualifying for the XTERRA World Championship in Makena Maui! She has been in 3 of the same XTERRAs as me so far this season and is doing great.

It was a great day, great race, great volunteers and organization. I enjoyed seeing how my training has been helping me to get faster than even a few months ago. Racing just makes me more excited for training and for the benefits that it will reap. I'm already looking forward to my next race in 3 weeks in Boulder. It will be a half-ironman, 1.2 mile open water swim, 56 mile bike on road, and a 13.1 mile run. This will be the longest race I've ever done, so it will be interesting!

Vail and Avon, Colorado

2010-07-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to give an idea of what's been going on this week. We drove back from Leadville to Vail to the only campground we could find (Gore Creek Campground). Which is only 15 miles from the XTERRA Mountain Cup race site in Beaver Creek. So far over 400 athletes have signed up for both the full XTERRA distance ( .9 mile swim in Avon Nottingham Lake, 15 mile mountain bike on the mountainside of Beaver Creek, then a 5.7 mile grueling trail run with a bunch of climbing) and a shorter Sport distance XTERRA. The weather has been nice and its supposed to be hot and sunny on Saturday!
We found a sweet camping spot! Here's our clothes drying after hand washing in buckets of water from a nearby creek (I know, very pioneer-ish). We've cooked corn on the cob, veggie burgers, and sweet potatoes on the grill over the fire and its very enjoyable being outside most of the time even when we're not out on a bike ride or on a training run.

On Wednesday, my mom who was a massage therapist for 7 years, gave me a massage to help me loosen up for the upcoming race. The professional athletes, and age groupers alike try to get massages at least once every week as part of their training and recovery program. I don't usually get massages because I used to have a hard time staying still for a while, but now since I'm spending so much of my energy in my training, I may give regular massage a try.

The tiny buildings down below is Beaver Creek Village where the bike-to-run transition and finish of the XTERRA is. Beaver Creek is a ski and snowboarding resort, there are lots of hidden vacation cabins scattered up the mountainside. They have a chair lift running from the village daily for people who don't want to ride or hike up the mountain. The lift takes you approximately halfway up the mountain, then you can pick your own way down on bike or foot.

I'm on part of the bike course, about a mile of climbing on pavement, 4 miles into the bike leg of the race. The dark clouds behind me are the thunderstorms that occurred almost every afternoon the first few days we came here.

As always, I'm feeling ready, almost itching to race! Legs are feeling fresh, lungs are acclimated to the altitude, just feeling good! Will post after the race.

Riding to Vernal, Utah.

2010-07-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

Last week we celebrated the 4th of July with a long 73 mile bike ride on the backcountry roads from Duchesne, Utah to Vernal, Utah.

The ride was pretty rolling with some long hills, there wasn't a lot to see for scenery on this route. Just mostly farm land with ghetto buildings and road kill animals. Also, the weather was unpredictable, raining heavily for a few minutes and then sunny the next.

After the bike ride we went for a 3 mile brick run. (Running straight off the bike without any breaks or rest). Our legs were pretty stiff!

Then that same night we rode our mountain bikes from our campground to the city park in Vernal to watch their 4th of July firework show! There were about 5,000 people sitting or standing around in the park to watch the show too.

I've written another post below. We went to the Unitah House of Natural History the next day.

After Vernal we drove to Avon, Colorado where the XTERRA Mountain Cup race on July 17 is held to check out the course. Then we spent a few days at 10,200 feet elevation in Leadville, Colorado. I will write about that shortly.

Unitah House of Natural History. Vernal, Utah

2010-07-10T17:26:00.001-07:00

In Vernal, Utah before leaving for Colorado, we visited the Unitah House of Natural History. It was a museum with dinosaur, rock, plant, and other prehistoric fossils.

Here is a replica of one of the most complete fossils of a camrasaurus, a sauropod (long-necked, long tailed dinosaur) found in the world. I don't remember where the original piece is, but it was discovered in 1919 near Vernal.

This is a real allosaurus fossil (more explained about this species later) found in 1990. The rock that this fossil is embedded in weighs about 6,000 pounds and was air lifted by helicopter out of the excavation site in 1994.

The museum had a couple fun projects to do, like learning how to identify fossils and brushing them out of basins filled with "authentic" rubber dirt.

This section of the museum that we were in had a few exhibits of how an excavation site looks, and what tools they used, etc. Also another exhibit wall, with the guidance of a sign showed us how to identify what are actually fossils and what are just petrified wood, or a simple rock. In the picture above I'm sitting next to an actual sauropod's femur bone. Its so big I would have thought it was just a rock.

Here is another skeleton of an allosaurus. These are thought of as the bad boys of the late Jurassic Period. They were theropods, carnivores with powerful hind legs that could chase down prey very easily. By measuring their fossilized tracks, the strides turned out to be 6 and a half feet long.

This is what an allosaurus looked like in the flesh.

Here is more reason to be glad that you weren't alive during the Jurassic period. In this glass case, the top claw is the allosaurus's back claw, and at the bottom is the tiny but dangerous ripping teeth, and the middle is a front claw measuring at least 4 or 5 inches long. I wonder which I would rather be chased by, this monster or an Alaskan grizzly bear? Fortunately, neither has ever happened to me!

This case contained the skulls of animals that came after the Jurassic Period. Contained within was a fossil of a 1/4 inch long jaw of a primitive horse that was perhaps only a foot tall at that time.

At last, a saber toothed cat! This fossilized skull was found in the La Brea tar pits in California. The saber toothed cats went extinct 11,000 years ago.

These glowing rocks are called Flourescent Minerals. Inside the minerals are chemicals that react to invisible (to humans at least) ultraviolet rays that causes the minerals to emit light. Inside the room was a switch so when the room is lighted, you're looking at what seems like ordinary rocks, then you flip the switch and the room is pitch-black and now you're looking at glowing rocks! Very cool.

The famous Woolly Mammoth! They can be 14 feet tall at the shoulder, simply huge animals. And to think that back then, humans used to hunt them with puny spears! Most woolly mammoth bones and carcasses have been found in North America, northern Eurasia, and Siberia. They went extinct about 10,000 BC, while some smaller versions of the woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until 1700 BC. I have read somewhere else that the longest woolly mammoth tusk found was 16 feet long and weighed 208 pounds.

Idaho again

2010-07-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Riding alongside the Boise River.
We drove through southern Idaho again on our way from Oregon to Colorado. Here we stopped at Boise for a night and went for a bike ride and a run. We rode on the Boise River Greenbelt paved trail. This was a nice network of paved trails, they seem to go all over town, which would make commuting by bicycle easier and more enjoyable!

Part of the Greenbelt went past this diversion dam built in the late 1800s that irrigates water from the Boise river via canals to Boise Valley. The Valley would have been only a sagebrush desert if this project was not built. Now Boise Valley has sprawling green farmlands.

The building behind me is part of the hydroelectric plant that was added to the dam in 1912 to provide electricity to the Arrowrock Dam 17 miles upriver.

After the bike ride, Dad and I went for a nice 45 minute run on the Greenbelt. It was over 95 degrees and humid.

When the run was finished, I had a little fun! There was this dirt jumping park next to the Greenbelt.

For the next couple nights we parked at Indian Springs again. We were here in late May, but it was rainy and muddy. Now its nearing the middle of summer and everything was dry and like a real sagebrush desert! I had a hill run workout that the "Torturer" had me do. The strap around my chest is my heart rate monitor which senses my heart rate and shows the number of beats per minute on my wristwatch. This can be a valuable training tool because it allows you to know how hard you're working, so you don't put in too little or too much effort than what you're supposed to do.

Then at the bottom I had to run a few minutes at my anaerobic threshold, which is when you're working harder than you can get enough oxygen for. As a rough example, if you sprint about 100 or more yards and at the end you're bent over and a panting mess, you have passed your anaerobic threshold.

Then a little while later into the day Dad and I went for a fun mountain bike ride. And by fun, I mean tackling the hardest parts of the trails. Indian Springs has plenty of hard lines and easier lines of the trails so you can choose whichever one you want to go on.

Right now we're driving out of Twin Falls, on our way into Utah. We're kind of in a hurry to get into Colorado and go high up into the mountains for altitude training before Beaver Creek. The XTERRA race will start at approximately 6000 feet elevation and peaks above 9400 feet, so I had better go build some red blood cells!

Family time

2010-06-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

For this week Mom, Dad and I have been having some great family time with my sister, her husband and their 2 year old daughter!

It's Setra's 2nd birthday and this is the first time she swam on her own, without any of us holding her up. She really enjoys it!

Now, I'm about to share with you my training secret to my racing success.....

This water park is it! This was a fun-filled day at an

Aquatic Center in Pendleton, Oregon. Its about an hour's drive from La Grande.

Its a bit of a strength workout riding this see-saw with a 30 pound kid on the other end.

They had two nice water slides, an open tube and a closed tube slide.

Oregon Trail:

We also drove to visit the historical Oregon Trail site. During the 1800's, over a 20 year span, about 50,000 emigrants traveled from Missouri to Oregon in wagons like this pulled by mules and oxen. It took them from 4 to 6 months to traverse the length of the trail.

There also was an interpretive site building that we were planning on visiting, but it was closed because the power went out due to lightning and thunder storms.

These wagon ruts are part of the original Oregon Trail created by thousands of wagons passing through the lands searching for an ideal place to start new lives. The original trail was about 2,000 miles long, but now only 300 miles of the original trail remains.

Setra, my sister Tarah, and me.

XTERRA Solstice triathlon

2010-06-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

XTERRA Solstice was held in La Grande, Oregon. It was a 1000 meter swim in a lake, 16 mile mountain bike, and 6.2 mile trail run race. This is the last race for me for 4 weeks until XTERRA Beaver Creek in Avon, Colorado on July 17.

At the race venue before setting up my equipment I was attending to some very important matters when dad took this picture.

My sister, Tarah, her husband A.J, and their 2 year old daughter Setra came from Maui to visit us here in Oregon for a week. Quite chilly here compared to the Hawaiian islands.

This is how I usually set up my equipment in the transition area. This is the place where you can get free speed if you can get out of your wetsuit and put on your helmet and bike shoes and then get moving in less than 1 minute. The swim to bike transition is called T1 and the bike to run transition is called T2.
The swim leg was held in Morgan Lake. Due to the cold weather, no one was wanting to get into the water any sooner than they absolutely had to.

I had a nice swim, its like a bit of an intense warm up for the bike and run.

On to the bike! This course had some long climbs, narrow singletrack, and rock gardens plus long stretches of deep mud. It was a challenging, fun 16 mile ride.

Off the bike! The clock behind me is keeping track of total time, starting when the swim began.

Going out for the run. I paced myself much better than last week at XTERRA Farragut. I held back more on the bike on this course because I knew that it would be worth it to feel fresher on the run. And you can gain or lose a lot of time in 6 miles.

On the last half mile of the run. I felt good like I was able to run at the best of my ability for this kind of course that had us running downhill through elk country, around a loop, then back up the long, long hill. There was also foot-deep patches of mud throughout the run and I almost lost my shoes more than once!

The beautiful Morgan Lake behind me.

Finished in a total time of 2:33:34. Got 7th place overall out of 81 racers. It was a fun race!

My Niner mountain bike got pretty muddy and my chain got bent from a branch or rock hitting it so it was slipping a lot for the last half of the bike leg.

Giving my faithful steed a bath! Then we packed up and went for a nice big after-race lunch at an all you can eat chinese buffet. It was delicious by the way!

Amber Monforte

2010-06-17T14:45:00.000-07:00

Most people already know that Conrad Stoltz and Amber Monforte are my coaches. However, there is a lot of information out there about Conrad, anyone who has been involved with triathlons has heard of him or knows a thing or two about him. I just wanted to write a little something about Conrad's fiancee, Amber, who has been primarily responsible for my training schedules and strategy since December 2009.

Amber and her dog, Kona whom she rescued from the pound.

Amber Monforte grew up around the Reno, Nevada and Truckee, California area and has done many different sports but tried triathlon in 2003 and loved it. She is also an avid XTERRA racer and raced pro in XTERRA for a few seasons before she chose to focus on a full-time job as a nurse in Reno. She still does some races whenever she can take time off her job. Just recently she won the women's 30-34 age group at the Honu 70.3 in Hawaii and received her slot to the Hawaii Ironman this October! But the Ironman will just be practice for the Ultraman in Hawaii which Amber is planning on doing this November. Hawaii will be her second Ultraman. Her first Ultraman was in Canada in August, 2009 which covered 320 miles total of swimming, biking and running.

Ultraman Canada was a tough 3 day race with 6.2 miles of swimming then a 90 mile bike ride on the first day, a 170 mile bike ride on the second, then a 52.4 mile (double marathon) run on the third and last day. Amber finished 4th place overall including the men, and won the women's race. Not only did she win the women's race with a total time of 25 hours, 36 minutes, and 49 seconds, she also broke the women's Ultraman Canada record by almost 4 hours and beat the women's world best time at the Ultraman distance set in 1989 by Tina Bischoff by about 9 minutes. I have no idea how she does it, but I can tell that she enjoys it. I once asked her what motivated her to do all the training and race Ultraman. She said that she likes to challenge herself and see what her limits are.

Conrad running with Amber during Ultraman Canada. Ultramans are usually invitation only events and you bring your own crew for support to provide entertainment, food, and fluids. There are no aid stations like in "normal" triathlon races. I hope to be in Hawaii in November to cheer Amber on at the Ultraman!

Her coaching skills are very good, as she seems to know exactly how I am going to feel before and after a workout. Conrad and Amber know my goals for this year, and they're doing their best to give me the most effective training path to my goals and still make it enjoyable and fun. Since Amber is based in Reno and we're roving across the western states, we communicate by email and she writes up my workouts weekly which makes it exciting to see what I'll be doing. Sometimes scary too, as my dad calls her the "Torturer".

XTERRA Farragut

2010-06-13T18:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I raced at Farragut State Park in northern Idaho. The day had perfect racing conditions. Beautiful and sunny weather, the trails were almost dry after all the rain showers. Everything was feeling good and I was just going in to have a fun day! About 60 people did the XTERRA race, which made it a bit low-key, but the competition was still high nonetheless!

The XTERRA race was hosted by Adventure Sports Week which was a full week of races such as swimming, running, mountain biking, and "Adventure Racing" which usually consists of kayaking, running, biking, rappelling and navigation.

This is the beach where we started the swim. Even though it was sunny outside they cut the 1 mile swim in half because the water was cold, about 53 degrees F due to 4 weeks of unusually cold, rainy weather and they were worried about health/safety issues for the people in the race.

The swim start was a mass start. I was on the far right, already swimming in this picture.

The swim was one 750 meter triangular loop from the beach, around two large orange buoys then back to the beach.

I was the 3rd swimmer out of the water.

It was a long run back up to transition from the beach, and all uphill!

Out of T1 (transition: getting out of my wetsuit then putting on my bike gear) and on to the bike.

This is one of the major hills on the beautiful 23 mile mountain bike race course of singletrack and doubletrack through meadows and pine and fir forests.

I was hammering it pretty good on the bike which left my legs a little cooked for the run.

Dad took all of the pictures of the race, he even got creative and climbed up a tree for this shot.

Off the bike and into T2 putting on my running shoes which isn't an overly easy task after riding hard for 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Out of T2 and heading out on my 10k run, the last leg of the race.

This gradual hill back to the finish seemed like it was about 20 miles long!

At the finish..... hungry, tired, thirsty, and happy to have put in an solid race effort. I finished in 10th place overall and I know that I did the best I could and am still improving!

I had a great family greeting at the end of my race, my great aunts and grandma from my mom's side came over from Seattle to watch and take in the triathlon racing atmosphere!

From left: Evelyn (great aunt), me, Elaina (grandma), and Eloise (great aunt).

Farragut State Park

2010-06-09T11:54:00.000-07:00

We've been parked at Farragut State Park for 3 days now and will be here until Sunday, after the XTERRA race that is held right here on Saturday at noon. My Niner Air 9 29er mountain bike has been cleaned, tuned up and I switched my tires to a lighter and faster rolling tread for the singletrack and doubletrack course. The distances of this race are a one mile swim (which will be two laps of a half mile loop with a beach run in between) , 22 mile mountain bike (2 laps of a 11 mile loop) , and a 6.2 mile run on a technical course strewn with rocks and roots.

During World War II, this area that the State Park is on, used to be the Farragut Naval Training Station, a major training base for the U.S. Navy. Over 293,000 sailors received basic training at this facility throughout its 30 months of operation. It was also used as a POW camp for 900 Germans working as gardeners and maintenance men. Then in 1946 the facility was decommissioned and turned into a college until it closed down in 1949 because of financial problems. In 1964 it became a park and has been the site of several Boy and Girl Scout outings and Jamborees. This park is large, about 4,000 acres and has over 220 individual campsites and 45 miles of hiking, biking, horse and llama trails. However large and famous this park used to be, its pretty quiet here, we rarely saw other people out on the trails.

It has been raining on and off here for a few days, even occasionally small marble sized hail as shown above.

Behind me is Lake Pend Oreille, where the swim will be on Saturday.

We went exploring Farragut's trails and attempted to pre-ride the race course even though it has not been marked yet. It took us 3 hours and a lot of map studying on mom's part, to get some idea of what the course will be like. It'll be a fast ride on race day, a few hills but mostly rolling, a lot of twists and turns and a few mud patches because of the rain.

Mom and me riding through one of the meadows of Farragut! So far we have seen a couple deer and hundreds (not quite, but you get the idea) of squirrels and gophers.

Lake Pend Oreille, at 65 miles long, is Idaho's largest lake. It is also known as the 5th deepest lake in the U.S. In some places the bottom reaches 1,150 feet deep.

Even on a sunny day the lake water temperature hit 53 degrees F.

Idaho and Montana

2010-06-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

After about 10 tries, we're successful in finding a solid internet connection! We were in southern Idaho in the Twin Falls area since my last blog post, so I will pick up where I left off. As our adventures progressed, we drove from Twin Falls through the Sawtooth Recreational Area, going alongside the Salmon river and visiting some Lewis and Clark historic sites before going into southwest Montana.

A beautiful sunset at Indian Springs trail area southeast of Twin Falls.

This is what happens when you live in an RV and you ride in some wet weather, then you need the clothes again for another ride. The stove is a multipurpose miracle, it heats up the RV, drys out our cycling shoes, shirts, shorts, pants, and mom is cooking our dinner!

Dad and I went for a long trail run at Indian Springs, mom biked along and took pictures. It had been raining with thunderstorms scattered across the sky, and now it finally cleared up!

Southern Idaho's bean, potato and hay fields are behind me as I run down the trail back to the RV.

The weather stayed excellent for Dad and me when we went on an 80 mile road bike ride last Sunday. Even though I enjoy mountain biking more, road biking is still useful for training and I also will be doing some road triathlons this year mixed in with my off-road triathlons. I use a "triathlon bike" which is a different version of a road bike built purely for triathlons. Both triathlon and road bikes are light with thinner tires and wheels so you can cover many more miles faster and easier. But a triathlon bike can be faster because of the steeper positioning of the body on the bike for aerodynamics (as shown in picture above). Triathlon bikes can easily reach 25 to 30 mph on a flat road. This ride was for endurance with some harder effort intervals thrown in for good measure. I probably won't be racing any races that long anytime soon, but without endurance, speed doesn't do any good because I wouldn't be able to go fast for very far. We were very lucky to find a nice 20 mile bike path between Bellevue and Ketchum in Idaho. The area is very pretty, just north of Sun Valley where lots of celebrities and pro athletes own vacation homes.

After our bike ride we drove on. This is the top of Galena Pass at just over 8000 feet.

Crossing Galena Pass and going down the other side of the mountain we saw the famous Sawtooth mountains mentioned a lot of times in Louis L'amour's books.

Now we crossed the state border into Montana. I'm swimming in the Bitterroot Aquatic Center pool in Hamilton, Montana. This is only the second time that I have swam in an outdoor pool since Maui. Most other outdoor pools are closed, but the locals say that summer is supposed to start next week.

I'm swimming with a pull buoy between my legs and paddles on my hands, which helps to build shoulder strength without kicking. In my races its not really necessary to kick while in the swim leg of the race because its a good idea to save my legs for the bike and run.

Yesterday we went riding in the Rattlesnake trail area in Missoula, Montana. They have very nice and smooth singletrack and beautiful meadows. Some really steep and long climbs too!

Montana is a nice place, as far as the places I've seen. Lots of hills, but not quite so high, with green forests and pastures all over.

After over a month of being in the hot desert which is awesome because it is very different from Alaska, I must admit it is nice to get back into the forests and mountains just for a change!

My next race is in 8 days in Farragut State Park in northern Idaho, its an XTERRA off-road race and I'm super excited to get to race on my mountain bike again since XTERRA Las Vegas.

Internet Problems

2010-06-04T09:53:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the long delay since my last blog update. I have been encountering internet problems that would not let me upload pictures onto this blog. I'll update the blog as soon as I can! We have recently traveled north from Utah, through beautiful Idaho, and currently we are in Missoula, Montana. Then in a few days we will travel back into Idaho to Farragut State Park, just north of Coeur d' Alene, Idaho. My next race is XTERRA Farragut on June 12, the mountain biking has been great so far here in Montana so I am getting good practice before the race! Please check back, and I will have the blog back up and running properly as soon as possible.

Cheers,
Taylor

Northern Utah and southern Idaho

2010-05-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

After our stay at Gooseberry Mesa we drove north to Provo then Ogden, Utah. Up north the weather is a little colder and moist, like summer in my hometown Seward!

You can tell that Buffett is enjoying the trip as much as we are!

In Ogden we found a couple good trails to spend 2 and a half hours on. This section was pretty steep and tricky, it took me 5 or 6 tries to ride through it without stopping. We'll be back in this town in September for the Xterra USA Championship race held in Snowbasin.

Behind me if you look close enough, you can see the trail climbing up along the mountain.
On a 60 mile road bike ride we got to see a historic site! This is the Golden Spike Historic Site in Promontory, Utah. In 1869 on May 10, a golden spike was driven into the railroad and completed the first transcontinental railroad that was built by Union Pacific from the east and Central Pacific from the west. This was the first direct transportation route from the east coast to the Pacific ocean and China trade.

Still on our bike ride we stopped by a rocket display at the ATK Aerospace Facility.

This particularly massive rocket behind me is a Reusable Solid Rocket Motor which is used to carry the space shuttle into space. It is 149 feet long, 12 feet in diameter, and weighs 1,255,978 lbs. When attached to the space shuttle, this rocket burns for only 122 seconds and has 2.6 million pounds of thrust, enough punch to zoom at 3,094 mph. When the burn time ends, at 24 nautical miles above the earth the rocket separates from the shuttle and falls back a bit then parachutes into the Atlantic Ocean. Then boats find it broken up into segments and take the segments back to the mainland U.S. where it is reassembled for reuse.

When we're not riding and looking at old trains and rockets, this is where we are! (At least some of the time.)
This is the Crystal Spring, a mineral water hot spring. A great reward for a cold swim in a funky 20 foot long outdoor pool filled with 64 degree water. And by the way, in northern Utah there's still snow on the mountains behind us.

After the hot springs we crossed the state border into Idaho. Dad and I went for a bike ride again through the hay fields with cows scattered here and there.

Gooseberry Mesa

2010-05-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

We visited Gooseberry Mesa for a couple days after the St. George Triathlon to put in some fun rides. Gooseberry Mesa sits southwest of Zion National Park and from there you can see the ominous Zion mountains. This place had lots of amazing riding for different levels, beginner, intermediate, and expert and was somewhat well marked with green, blue, and black diamond signs for their respective difficulty. We took lots of pictures to show the scenery and how fun this place is!

The windmill at the head of the windmill trail that is part of the trail network of Gooseberry Mesa.

The cool thing about the windmill trail is that it edges alongside the cliff edge of the mesa so you get a vast view of everything below.

The cliff wall behind dad and me goes all the way around the mesa for a long way.

By the way, we're at about 5000 feet elevation.

One of the narrow turns on the cliff edge with rocks to hop over to keep it tricky!

Incidentally, however pretty these plants are my dad and I have had to pull out their needles out of ourselves at different occasions. I suggest you view them when standing still, and not on a moving bike.

The Bowls and Ledges trail is a black diamond ranked trail with great obstacle course riding!

The famous slickrock. I have never ridden anything like it before because there isn't any in Alaska. The mesa is built of this rock and most of it is covered in sand and shrubs but there are some bare areas that allow you to ride and climb at angles that are impossible to even try on any other kind of terrain.

More great technical mountain bike handling practice. This is why I don't ride road bikes more than I need to!

There is not much that I can say, but hopefully the pictures were able to show what I could not. Gooseberry is a real gem, and when I can, I'll be back!

SG Tri

2010-05-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

The SG Tri had over 300 people signed up for the olympic distance race, including about 7 elites which are considered as professionals. There were many more entered in the sprint race happening at the same time so that made it a little interesting with the endless lines of bikers and runners! I'm guessing there were maybe 800 people racing all together today. The winner of the olympic distance race in 1:58 was Dan Springborn, a 30-34 age grouper. 2nd place was Weston Woodward an elite, in 1:59. And 3rd place was me in 2:02. I got some cool prizes, a heavy stone plaque that will make our RV lose one mpg, a medal for finishing that also serves as a beer bottle opener (much use that'll be since I don't drink beer or soda). And finally a 50 dollar gift card for Tri Sports which will help me to get a new race suit! Here's some more pictures of the day. Sorry for the blurry pictures, the camera wasn't working properly.

Me on my way to set up my gear in the transition area. The day was sunny and beautiful, perfect racing conditions!

The swim course was two laps of a 1/2 mile loop with people starting in waves 10 minutes apart. I was in the 2nd wave, after the male and female elites.

The 33k or 20.5 mile bike course wasn't too easy, there was a big hill climb 3 miles into the bike.

The aid stations and the famous volunteers who help to make the race happen!

On the run I didn't feel my strongest, but it still felt smooth. Could be my fastest 10k in a triathlon so far though!

In the transition area behind me, there are at least 800 or even a thousand bikes.

Awards ceremony, overall males.

St. George Tri

2010-05-15T13:21:00.000-07:00

The St. George olympic distance triathlon was fun! I got 3rd place overall in 2 hours and 2 minutes. The bike leg was a little shorter, 33k instead of the official 40k distance so that would add a few minutes to my official olympic distance finish time. Still was a blast though! Due to internet connection problems I'll have to upload more pictures with more details shortly.

J.E.M Trail

2010-05-12T15:16:00.000-07:00

On our long run last Sunday, we decided to take a picture and show how teamwork works...Find someone who doesn't have anything else to do but carry 15 pounds of water and fuel in a backpack and ride alongside the runners. Sure beats lugging camelbaks (which we use for runs over 10 miles) full of water when you're supposed to have a nice long sunday run.

A few days ago we parked at the J.E.M trailhead east of the small town of Hurricane, Utah. This area is just southwest of Zion National Park in Southern Utah. It was a beautiful and hot afternoon on the desert.

Then an abrupt change of weather came without warning the next morning....snow! It went from being 80 degrees yesterday to 36 degrees and snowing for a couple hours in the morning.

After the sky cleared up we went riding for about 14 miles on the J.E.M trail. Such beautiful scenery awaited us! The trail itself was well designed for the adventurous soul with smooth and winding singletrack across the mesa with some fun technical stretches great for practicing bike handling skills.

The J.E.M trail also edges alongside a canyon with the Virgin River approx. 60 feet below.

I will be posting some more pictures after the St. George Tri this Saturday.
After 3 weeks of training and no races, I'm ready to have some extra fun!

St. George, Utah

2010-05-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago we rolled into St. George, Utah. This is the town that my next race, the St. George Olympic Distance Triathlon will be held in on Saturday the 15th. Utah sure is a beautiful state, with lots of canyons and slickrock formations that make for great biking and running trails.

We found a great hill to ride yesterday, steady climbing with technical slickrock steps. (Slickrock feels like sandpaper which helps for better grip on steeper climbs.)

Today we went running in Snow Canyon. Its an amazing place with sand and shrubbery meadows. Then the cliff walls loom over you the farther you go into the canyon.

Mom and Buffett jogging along for the adventure!

These rock walls used to be sand dunes, some 2,500 feet thick that eventually cemented into stone. Then water carved through the stones to make the canyons which left behind the rippling patterns on the wall behind me.

Another cool fact, this place was the filming site for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, among other movies.

Vegas Baby!

2010-05-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we got to play tourists! We left Lake Mead and parked in Vegas near the Strip then walked for 2 miles to find the Cheesecake Factory. Then after eating we explored the enormous casinos with their endless maze of slot machines and poker tables, watched a street show of pirates taking over a ship (with a cheesy story, dancing, and music) witnessed statues moving and coming to life, an indoor theme park, and a volcano erupting. Funny that we walked for about 6 miles total and I felt much more tired than after my 12 mile run that morning.

On our search for the Cheesecake Factory, we stopped at one of the ships where they stage their nightly outside street show.

The Cheesecake Factory is one of my favorite restaurants! We haven't eaten out for over a month, so this was a real treat. We filled up on a dinner of 5 appetizers: Popcorn shrimp, crab wontons, nachos with salsa and guacamole, sweet corn tamales, and onion rings. Just enough fuel for the next 4 miles of walking!

This is one of the moving statues. They were 7 feet tall and rose out of the pedestal next to our table at the Cheesecake Factory in Caesar's Palace. Those statues had voices and told the story of the fall of Atlantis, complete with spitting fire, steam, and light effects. Then after their story they would disappear back inside the pedestal. Pretty cool.

The Treasure Island Casino and Hotel.

This is the Palazzo Casino and Hotel.

Vegas gets even busier at night. This is my first time to be right in the middle of a large city and it was entertaining!

This is the Venetian Casino. Amongst the others, this was noticeably fancier. Inside there were high ceilings with paintings on them like you would find in Rome or Venice or some other ancient city.

This was our last stop before footing it back to the RV. The Mirage Volcano erupts hourly every night. Very cool effects with water and colored lighting and fire.

Bootleg Canyon

2010-04-29T10:55:00.001-07:00

Today we visited Bootleg Canyon in Boulder City, Nevada. Bootleg Canyon is famous for its extremely fast and wild downhill mountain bike trails. Even world champion downhillers have said that their trails are one of the hardest trails in the world to ride.
However, to avoid being one of the blood donors to Bootleg Canyon, we skipped the downhill trails and instead rode the thin singletrack cross-country bike trails that snaked alongside the canyon.

These trails were designed well, looked like they made an effort not to cut too much into the mountain to make trails, but followed the contours of the ridges and canyon walls. This is a fun area to ride, with lots of trails to choose from.

This trail had everything, ups and downs and loose gravel and rocks, and the constant fear of falling down the canyon side.

Dad took these pictures of the plants that often dotted Bootleg Canyon amongst the usual desert shrubbery.

Sometimes, riding a section of singletrack was out of the question.

Race pictures

2010-04-25T18:01:00.000-07:00

My first Xterra of the season went better than expected! It was fun to get out there and race again, all went great! I was feeling much stronger coming off the bike on this race than at Lavaman 4 weeks ago.Dad and I before the race start. Dad was doing his own race too, a duathlon that was about half of the length of my race, but with another run instead of a swim.

Dad took off about 30 minutes before my race started.

I was in the 2nd wave start consisting of men's age groups 15 thru 49.

This is me coming out of the water. The start was a little hectic at first, but everything went good.
Coming out of the water and on to the bike.

Dad coming off his 9 mile bike after a 1.8 mile run.

Dad back on to his next run. 3.1 miles.

Dad finishing strong! He got 2nd place overall in the Duathlon.

Me after my 2nd lap of the 18.6 mile bike course consisting of two 9 mile loops.

Off the bike and on to the 6.2 mile run and feeling great!

This is the first race that was not a sprint that I have finished feeling strong and I was really happy with that.

From left: Mom, Melanie McQuaid (2nd place women's overall), me and Conrad Stoltz.

Mom and I talking to Shonny Vanlandingham, the women's overall winner. She's a really cool person!I'm qualified to race in the Xterra World Championship in Maui because I finished first in my age group. I know there wasn't any other kids, but first is still first! Top overall pros. Conrad Stoltz and Shonny Vanlandingham. Conrad destroyed the race today!

Race day tomorrow!

2010-04-24T17:27:00.000-07:00

I pre-rode the bike course today one more time just to give it a good look over. Everything was looking good, couple of gnarly descents but good otherwise. I also felt strong on my run after the bike. I'm feeling prepared and ready to race!

My front tire blew out on one of the nasty descents behind me because of too low of air pressure. I just found out that my pump gauge wasn't accurate.

Conrad gave me a pre race pep talk and it helped a lot! He's had many years of experience and racing and any advice of his is to be valued.

He's ready to race too, as you can see he's rockin' his sweet Avia sponsored outfit.

Photo Shoot

2010-04-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

Today I pre-rode the bike course for the Xterra Las Vegas race on Sunday to familiarize myself with the terrain. Its quite the Xterra type course, there are a few steep hills that you have to walk, also some rough patches that I did not expect on the downhills and I have the scrapes to prove it! So my plan for the race, since I'm a better climber than a downhiller right now, is to climb fast and hard, then go easy on the descents. 2 days till race day!

I also had a photo shoot with photo editor of Triathlete magazine Nils Nilsen to go with the interview I did with them for the July off-road issue. Nils is a cool and fun guy to work with. I enjoyed doing this photo shoot.

Our campsite!

2010-04-20T19:01:00.001-07:00

Here's a look at our campsite at Boulder Beach on Lake Mead! We're parked here till after the Xterra Las Vegas race, so we're officially camping...

I'm sleeping in the tent because its so warm here and I take the tent cover off at night. It doesn't rain much here and that way I can see the stars and feel the breezes.

This is our beautiful view of the lake and the mountains right from our RV door.

This was a picture we took entirely by accident, from riding through the tunnels on our way to Hoover Dam. We thought it was cool so we decided to share it. Don't worry, when the real thing happens I'm definately heading for the light...bike or not!

Swim in Lake Mead

2010-04-20T18:49:00.001-07:00

I swam in Lake Mead today for the 2nd time and this time we took pictures. The water is very nice, a little less muddy than the lakes back in Alaska. The water temperature is still around 57 degrees so a wetsuit was necessary to get a good workout in. I'm feelin' pretty good even though the water was choppy because of the high wind that just picked up here. With the race just less than a week away I'm in my taper week now and I'm just now feeling stronger! Its gonna be interesting to see what I create on race day.

Hoover Dam

2010-04-19T16:19:00.001-07:00

Today I only had a leisure recovery ride to do. So my parents and I went cruisin' around Lake Mead, over a little hill, through several tunnels, then down another hill to pay the Hoover Dam a visit. This thing is just simply huge, 726.4 feet tall, the base is 660 feet thick and tapers to 45 feet thick at the top. In 1931 5,000 men started working on building up this structure to tame the Colorado river (which also runs through the Grand Canyon) and turn it into a lake. It took them 5 years to complete.

Death Valley Adventure

2010-04-16T16:33:00.000-07:00

We drove into Death Valley yesterday morning! Its a cool place, still plenty of tourists going through before the summer, because it can hit over 120 degrees F there. We got as low as about 200 feet below sea level and the temperature was 95 degrees F in the shade and 105 degrees F in the sun. It didn't cool down much at night either, the inside of our RV was 84 degrees F at 10 p.m.

While we drove into Death Valley we took a picture of this tree standing as a lone sentry out on the desert.

The Mesquite sand dunes, a very cool sight.

It was so hot and dry when we went out running that the sweat evaporated right off my skin and I was as dry as paper afterwards. The Badwater Ultramarathon is a race where runners and other endurance machines run 135 miles nonstop from Badwater at 285 feet below sea level to Mt. Whitney at 8360 feet above sea level...in July! The temperature can hit 130 F during the race. People have said that I'm crazy for doing what I'm doing, but those guys are tough and nuts.

29 inch wheels ride great in the sand!

Who said that we need a Jeep? We've got this.

Interesting history fact: This wagon train was called the 20 Mule Team Wagon Train. In 1885 when they were mining Borax in Death Valley, 20 mules would haul 36 1/2 tons worth of water and Borax from Death Valley to the Mojave. They would cover 165 miles in 10 days.

2010-04-14T18:15:00.000-07:00

This morning Dad, Mom, Buffett and I set out for a 3 hour mountain bike ride to explore the trails just south of Bishop. There was no singletrack, but the jeep trails were sufficient to get a good workout. We saw a herd of 80-something mule deer, but they were moving too far away to get a clear picture. We did climb from 4000 ft above sea level to 6500 ft and were able to take a good picture of the valley below.

At the top of our long 2 hour climb! The majestic Sierra Nevada Mountains stand behind me.

Whatever lack the area had in singletrack, it made up for in being abundant with deep sand and plenty of jutting rocks that made good trails for practicing technical bike handling. Perfect for my preparation for the Xterra West Championship race in Las Vegas.

April 13, 2010

2010-04-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago we drove alongside the Sierra Nevada mountains and parked just north of Bishop, California. Not much to say about this town...they do have a Kmart and a Vons which looks exactly like Safeway to me. Yesterday we went for a mountain bike ride and run around the campground where we were parked. Its finally starting to get warm, and more desert-like. Quite pleasant, even the cows agreed as they watched Dad and I run by while they were laying down amongst the bushes.

Reno then Carson City

2010-04-11T23:10:00.000-07:00

Saturday I went on a 4 hour mountain bike ride at Reno. The singletrack trails and jeep roads snake all over the mountains next to town. You could ride all day there and still have plenty of more trails left to explore.

By driving south we thought that we would be experiencing sunny and pleasantly warm weather. But due to it being early spring and riding around at 5000 feet above sea level we ran into this cold and white stuff...

Carson City:

This morning we drove from Reno to Carson City and went for a 9 mile run through a canyon. This area is high desert with lots of shrubs, sage brush, and sand. Very different from Alaska where we came from. I ran 4.5 miles in my Vibram Five Fingers until my feet got tired and then switched to my Newtons for the rest of the run. I already am seeing that barefoot running is helping me to become a much more efficient runner.

Mountain bike ride with my coaches

2010-04-09T17:42:00.000-07:00

From left: Dad, me, Amber, and Conrad

Today my Dad and I went on a mountain bike training ride with my two awesome coaches, Amber Monforte and Conrad Stoltz. The trails of Reno are sweet! Smooth singletrack with some good rocky and technical stretches. And Conrad (3x Xterra World Champion) pretty much rides them like he's on a dirt bike instead of a regular mountain bike. I learned quite a lot of technical skills from his tips and also from just watching while riding behind him. Tomorrow I have a 4 hour scheduled bike ride and I'm stoked to try those new skills out!

RV Trip

2010-04-07T20:18:00.001-07:00

Our RV trip begins! After picking up our giant 37 foot 1998 Pace Arrow Vision in Portland. We left Seattle 2 days ago and stopped at Salem and then last night we stayed at Mt. Shasta! I was able to put in some good running, biking and swim workouts there. The beauty here is amazing, these pictures do no justice. Currently we are at Susanville, southwest of Mt. Shasta on our way to Las Vegas.

Top picture is our RV, Mom, Dad, and Buffett just before heading into Shasta.
2nd and 3rd are Dad and me at Castle Lake at 5000 ft. elevation. Very pretty views of Shasta and the area below from there.

Vibram Five Fingers

2010-02-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

Those "shoes" are awesome. I've found an enthusiasm for barefoot running and those allow me to run without worrying about glass, sharp rocks, etc.

I bought the KSO model of those VFF's and have ran approximately 15 miles in them.

If you are new at barefoot running, and have been wearing shoes all your life, I would recommend slowly letting your feet adapt to them. Wear them around the house, walk in them for a week before attempting to run. But I definately reccommend giving those kicks a shot! Click here to check out their official website:

Vibram Five Fingers

Enjoy!