Ran Ridgeline from Blanton to Willamette again yesterday for the first time in a while. What's scary is how consistent my times are for that run. Yesterday was 32.5 minutes, and pretty much every run I've done there this year, or at least this season, has been within a minute of that, or less. Was raining, and got pretty dark by the end (4:45pm). But, was great to get out again. Felt quite good. Overdressed with a jacket.
Today I revisited a run I did last year in the cold. It was 1 degree warmer this time (at 28 degrees). At 7 miles, over quite hilly terrain, this was pretty big for me. But, it went better than last year when I had intense knee pain - this time none. I am also really appreciating now that I could go back and look at my prior blog entry, and see what I wore last time in those temps. I'm still figuring out clothing on runs, as I tend to start off really cold, but then of course get quite warm after about 20 mins.
21 Apr 2009 - Eugene
Did my fourth road ride in a row, and pretty stoked. It's a rarity that I'm riding that much, although somehow over the last couple weeks that's getting more consistent! Awesome.
Intended to go out for a fairly mellow paced ride, since I'd had 3 hard days, and knew Wednesday night's mtb night ride is usually pretty solid (last few have been 3 hours at a hard pace). Did a solid pace, not full hammer, but solid. 1.5 Hours, 24 miles, 2300' of climbing, in pretty warm conditions (80+F). Enjoyable ride for sure.
Also, upon arriving home, UPS was delivering a box from Trek. I thought it was the new 29-3 rear tire from Bontrager, but to my absolutely delight, I found new 29er FR-3 tires (camera phone pic above), which are even bigger, at 29x2.35 (60/58), with aggressive tread and definitely some nice volume. Stoked! I'll be taking some real pics, comparing them to the 29-3's and also to the WeirWolf 2.55 LT's (should compare size wise), etc. Watch for my next post on that.
13 Apr 2009 - Eugene For the last few months, I've been riding Look's Quartz Pedals on my Niner. This past week I removed them and put my Crank Bros Mallet's back on. So what's the story? First off, the Quartz pedals are really quite a beautiful design, are extremely light, and shed mud amazingly well. The feel clicking in and out of them is nice. But you are wondering, if that's all good, why swap them out? The simple reality is, I was inadvertently releasing from them too often. Basically, what I found to happen with these, often enough to make me switch back, was that I'd be in a dicey situation, or some real hard cornering state, and apparently have enough force sideways on my pedal that _my foot would release - in fact, it'd pretty much come flying out!_ This was not even close to acceptable. Twice it nearly caused me to crash. I've been riding clipless pedals (SPD, Time, Look, Crank Bros, etc.) since SPD's first came out, and this behavior is a first. It's simply not acceptable. Maybe for XC racing this type of situation simply wouldn't come up, or come up enough, to have this be an issue, but for trail riding, this was a deal killer. The other thing, and this is just my own issue really, is that I couldn't get clipped into them quite as fast as with my Mallets. I believe this to be 100% due to the Mallet's having the big platform that you can slam you foot into and have your shoe pretty much instantly in the right place and click right in. With the Quartz, or probably regular Crank Bros Eggbeaters, you need to be more precise, and a bit slower I think. I had in part tried these pedals to shed some weight (these are nearly half the weight of my Mallets (250g vs. 490g), shedding half a pound), and to work a bit better in mud. Overall, I tried to make the Quartz work, but after enough unexpected releases, that finally killed it. So for now I'm back on my trusty Mallets. If I feel the need to spend some money on another pair of pedals, I will likely go for the Crank Bros Acid's - that should give me a platform to smack into for fast entry, but drop a bit less than 1/4 pound. The weight isn't really that big a deal, not something I tend to dwell on, but hey, if I can get essentially the same features I need, and drop 100g, great. I should note, I ride Look Keo pedals on my road bike and wouldn't trade them for anything, they rock.
30 Mar 2009 - Ridgeline @ Blanton, Eugene I spent the first part of today gathering data for taxes, and so I suspect that's what led to my rather glum mood by the afternoon. I don't expect taxes to be too bad this year, but it is always just a pain to gather up all the data and so on, and I hate spending my time doing that. So, once I was done, and ready to FedEx the non-digital docs to my CPA, I threw on my running gear and headed out. First to send the tax docs, then to run Blanton. Today is a really gorgeous day - sunny, decent temp at 52F, no wind. I started out the run, and as seems to be a trend these days, felt pretty slow and slothy. But, by a bit before the halfway mark, I was warm and feeling fairly good. Hit the turnaround point on track for a decent time, which surprised me, as I thought I was a couple minutes slow, but I guess that last stretch from the sort of lookout area to the turnaround on Willamette goes quicker than I thought. Stopped to tighten up my shoes, and then headed back. The first half of the trail back is the toughest part of the run, it has all the steepest sections, and is the longest sustained ascending. On the last two times, I've been walking the steepest chunks of it, and I think that has been a really good idea. Interestingly enough, it hasn't seemed to slow me down, in fact, today was my fastest time ever at Blanton, and last week's was my second fastest. Maybe the walking is significantly less hard on me and allows me to then go faster on the other sections. By the end of the run, probably also helped out by my fastest time at 32.5 minutes, I was on a high. The great weather, and all the endorphins and natural high that I always get from a good workout contributed to a massively improved mood! I love being outside around lots of trees, a nice day, having done a workout, etc. I've said it over and over to myself (and others), that exercise is so critical for me (really it should be for everyone) - it's not just about staying fit and healthy physically, but it is probably one of the biggest mental health things for me as well. Feeling good!
25 Mar 2009 - Ridgeline trail @Blanton; Eugene Had a really stellar run today on Blanton. It is the first time I've been back running there in a while, as I had suspected it's steep ups and downs were much more stressful on my knee. It's been raining a lot, and it is probably the trail that fares the best in the Ridgeline system - least mud. So, with that, I just told myself to walk the really steep sections, and I was off. I'm still kind of amazed, but I set the fastest time I've recorded there! And that was with walking some parts. Time was only about 20 seconds faster, but again, with some walking, and so on, I'm quite surprised. I took no pee break, so that helps a bit, and didn't spend much time at the turn around point. I did stop to mess with both shoes. I felt slow on some sections, but I felt like I was flying on one of the last sections towards the end. This section of speed was I fully believe made possible by the song playing on my iPhone "_Just Say It_ by Sleepthief with Kyoko Baertsoen":http://www.last.fm/music/Sleepthief/_/Just+Say+It+featuring+Kyoko+Baertsoen. It starts off pretty mellow, but about 1/3rd of the way in it's reached this state where it sounds like it's constantly on the verge of climax, and gives you the feeling you are just about at the finish line. It was pretty wild I have to say. Really cool, and I was bummed when the song ended and I wasn't done! It was about 50 degrees today, cloudy, couple rain drops here and there. I wound up wearing Nike DryFit tights, Icebreaker GT 180 zip top, and even my gloves. Gloves were probably overkill (and they were pretty soggy at the end), but my hands get cold easily. All that was ideal as it turned out. All in all, very very happy to have had such a good run here, as this really is my favorite trail in Ridgeline. I will have to see how my knee feels tomorrow, but so far, pretty much nothing - just some mild muscle ache in both legs, and just feels like regular soreness from harder effort. Nice.
12 Mar 2009 - Eugene Did a short road ride today (1 hr 20 mins), up Blanton and then up McBeth (or McDeath as I recently heard someone call it - not warranted though, decent hill, but certainly no death, McLean, Chambers, and certainly Blanton the hard way, and others put it to shame). I felt pretty rusty, ouch! Ride was quite nice though, amazing weather today! Gorgeous sunny conditions, and cool at about 48-50 degrees (got away with knickers, long sleeves (Icebreaker GT 180 + thin Pearli long sleeve), and a vest). Overall rode pretty well, but again, a bit rusty feeling. Also felt a bit of tightness in my calves and some of that same strain/weakness in my right quad. Doesn't bode well for doing an epic ride on Saturday. But, I may just wind up doing Brice Creek, as somewhat itching to ride the mtb again. Hey, maybe the secret new prototype types will arrive tomorrow so I can ride them Saturday, that'd be cool!
11 Mar 2009 - Eugene, Ridgeline Trails at Fox Hollow Quite a good run for me today at Fox Hollow. Another "longest" since starting to run again. Not by much, but completed two loops (one in each direction) of Fox Hollow today, for what should be about 5k (it's 3.2 miles (1.6 miles per lap) according to their map). It was pretty darn muddy and squishy, temp was about 45 degrees. I covered that start to finish, including warm up walk, pee stop :), and short break halfway in 30 minutes, and some seconds. Legs feel pretty good, some slight maybe soreness or strain around right knee, and very mild sensation in my right quad like a cramp could be coming. Today was also my first run in tights. Some simple Nike Dry-Fit ones. They worked fine, and were pretty nice. I do wish they had the sort of support liner thing in them like the Pearl knickers though. Usual other stuff, Icebreaker GT 220 top, gloves, wool socks, etc. Also, used my iPhone and RunKeeper. RunKeeper did a pretty good job today, no errant data points, and pretty close on the mileage (you'll see one small gap, but pretty close otherwise). I continue to really dig running to DJ Brad Miller's Push the Night podcast/tracks, great for running.
04 Mar 2009 - Eugene, Rexius Trail On Wednesday I did a nice run in the rain at Rexius. I had felt a bit of pain in my knee from Monday's run, so decided to go back to something flat and "safe". I knew two laps was a bit too short, so I did 3 laps, but the first two laps used the earlier circle, which I believe probably cuts out about 1/4 mile, so my guess is it was about 2.5 miles. Took 19 minutes I think. Felt pretty good, and was actually feeling a bit tired towards the end, but also it seemed like I was getting into that zone, and had good focus, so was a bit sad to stop. I felt this was the right thing to do though. I came home, lingered a bit, and then tried to do week 5 day 1 of Hundred Pushups. FAIL. Big time fail. Strangely, I was cramping in my quads, I guess from the run. This is odd, as I haven't had this happen, and, well, just seemed strange. This didn't really contribute to failing at the pushups, but it definitely didn't help. I was only about to do 3 sets of the 5, and failed on the third. I've been a bit under the weather, and also just feeling kind of weak, so this didn't surprise me. I almost didn't even try, but am glad I at least made an attempt. I had debated whether to do a week "4.5" instead, but I think what I'll do is just keep trying week 5 day 1 until I can do that well. If I can do that either Friday, or Monday, that'll work out well. If I can't do it by Monday, then I'm going to be behind and in a bit of trouble/danger for ability to succeed, so hopefully it works. Another clothing report, which worked perfectly in today's conditions. As said, it was raining, pretty solidly much of the time, and temps were around 46 degrees: * Icebreaker GT 220 top * Pearli running knickers * Smartwool heavier wool socks * my usual Brooks Cascadia shoes * Pearli running gloves This was darn near ideal. If I'd gotten into running too much longer, the top might have gotten warm, but then again I had it zipped up the entire time, so probably could have simply unzipped and handled 20 minutes more. The gloves were key and I'm glad I had them. My hands get cold easily, and these were quite welcome. Knickers were good. I recently picked up some tights, but I'm starting to wonder if I'll really ever wear them. I'd meant to get another pair of knickers, but they didn't have them, and I haven't gotten around to ordering them online, figured the tights would work. However, even on the coldest of days (like the 27 degree day at Spencer Butte a month ago), I haven't really felt like tights would be any more advantage, but we'll see.
06 Mar 2009 - Eugene, Fox Hollow trail in Ridgeline Just before lunch today I ran Fox Hollow. It is a gorgeous day visually, but still actually fairly cool at 43 degrees. I felt fairly decent today and was pretty excited to go run. Did a longer time today too, longest since starting back up at about 29 minutes. Roughly 3 miles. RunKeeper was way off, so I don't really know. This run felt quite good, similar to Wed in that I was getting tired at the end, but felt like I could have kept going for a while. Now that I'm home, have stretched and showered, I have a bit of strain in the outside-right tendon behind my knee, where it meets the fibula, which is what my chiropractor started addressing yesterday. This is the same spot as got really bad before I think, so hopefully I can keep the running in check and he can do some magic on that area. I will say that today, it is less of a "pain" than a "strain". By that I mean it's more like I did a hard workout, and less like it's hurt. I sure hope that's the case anyway, and I'm hopeful. Attire wise, same thing as Wed, Pearl Izumi knickers, Icebreaker GT 220 top, gloves, etc. Last night Icebreaker sent an email promo for their new stuff, and low and behold, they now have [running] knickers! I ordered the "Strider":http://www.icebreaker.com/site/icebreaker_man_icebreakergt180_strider.html?thumb_value=Black this morning: !http://cache.icebreaker.com/icebreaker/new/images/large_product_image/ss09/ss09_m_ibw555001_cwh.jpg! Can't wait to try these out. I've really been liking the Pearli ones, and of course having the Icebreaker fetish I do, glad I found these before I ordered another pair of Pearls.
I'm a cyclist (mountain biker at heart, but spend a lot of time on the road as well), trail runner (no pavement for me!), skier, hiker, like to camp, romp in rivers, and generally spend as much time as I can in the mountains. I also love to surf and hang at the beach, but I don't get to do that much these days. I moved to Eugene, OR a few years ago, and am continuing to explore my local outdoor opportunities. The Lake Tahoe area of Northern CA is probably my favorite place to mountain bike (love the rocky trails!), but I love to ride any new trail I can get my hands on.
I also post trip reports from friends here; guys like Matt who is based in Silverton and skiing as much backcountry as he can year round (he goes to Las Lenas every summer), Rich, another backcountry skier as well as kayaker, and so on. Good times.
