Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Rock y Road Race New Website

When: October 20th, 2007
Where: Tucson, Arizona

The website for the race is still under construction. I managed to crank this out fairly quickly since wordpress seems to be easier than blogger in some aspects.

Click here to see the new web page for the Rock y Road.

Rock y Road 50/50 Race

Mike and I are working out the details of our race idea, but for now, we are aiming to do the race on October 20th, 2007 at Agua Caliente at 6:00am.

The mountain bike course will be 50 miles of dirt road and single track through Reddington, Italian Trap Tank, AZT, La Milagrosa, approximately 5500 feet of climbing, which will take 4-7 hours. This is a technical ride.

The road bike course is going to be an out-in-back up to Mt Lemon, also 50 miles. Not sure about the turn-around point right now, but it is going to be a sweet climb, probably 5k-7k of climbing.

We are going to have a few aid stations, so we will be looking for volunteers. Also, the idea of making a shirt is out there. So I might be asking family and friends for ideas and help :) Let me know if you are interested in volunteering or helping out the cause.

The elevation profile for the mountain bike 50-mile ride


Map of mtb profile

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Moab Speed

Another interesting graph for this weekend. This is the distance vs speed graph, along with the elevation in the background.

Canyoneering in Arches National Park

Dave and I went canyoneering inside Arches National Park the day after our mountain bike adventure up to Burro Pass. The route up to E.B. requires a little scrambling, climbing, and rappelling, and has a rating of 3A III. After about 1.5 hours of doing the aforementioned, we got to the top of the highest point in the park, ate the one cliff bar that we had (split in two), and signed the guest book. Dave showed me a few pages of his many ascents up to the special high point.

Dave setting the first rappell up


A nice shot of rain dumping on the La Sal Mountains

La Sal Mountains

Dave and I drove up to Moab for a weekend of fun. We arrived at Fred's house at midnight on Friday and quickly headed to bed.

The next morning, Fred, Craig, Dave and I started off at Fred's house at about 6:20 and headed on the Flat Pass road near his house on the outside of Moab. We exited the Flat Pass at around 9ish.

We jumped on the La Sal Pass Road for a bit before jumping on a dirt road to access the Trans La Sal road to Geyser Pass. There were a few sections when I got to chat with Fred, mostly small talk, but nevertheless it made those long sections uphill go by quicker.

We had a bit of a lunch on the dirt road before heading up to Burro Pass (a little under 11,000 feet). Here is a nice shot from Fred and I on the way to Burro Pass (picture taken by Dave C.)



On the top of Burro Pass, the gang waited for me as I was hiking my bike up and sucking wind. We stopped for a few Dark Chocolate M&M's courtesy of Dave, before heading down a steep set of switchbacks. The trail passed the green, lush area around the Mill Creek and the Dry Fork, which was running.



We continued on to Hazard, an area that has seen some major improvements from trail volunteers, according to Craig and Fred. We popped out of Hazard to Kokopelli and continued on to Porcupine. I managed to fall twice in Porcupine, both of which were what I would like to call a "smart" fall where the body is not hurt to bad since you either land or your legs or tuck and roll. Anyway, I was glad I pushed the limit in a few technical sections enough to fall.

Nice shot of Castle Valley (where Craig lives) from Porcupine Rim (picture from Dave C.)

Craig and Fred blasted down most of the sections of Porcupine, graciously waiting every few miles to make sure I was chugging along. We dropped out of Porcupine to Negro Bill just as the sun was setting. I did have a flat tire about 1 mile away from Craig's car, good timing since Craig

The ride back on Highway 191 was a little hard due to the wind gusts. Dave opted to stop for some gatorade, since he was the only one to money.

The profile view of the trip to Moab that we did.


The Google view of the loop

The stats from the trip:

13907 feet of climbing
70.59 miles
15 hours out on the trail

In case you wanted the GPX format from the trip, or see more information about the trip, click here to see the route via Motion Based and Google.

Thanks again to F&S Crew for allowing us to crash at their house.

Also, a few more pictures and Dave's write-up can been seen on the MTBR Forum website.

Monday, September 10, 2007

La Jolla Rough Water Swim


Start of the Men's Masters Group at La Jolla

Petter, Kathy, Andy and I drove to San Diego this weekend to do the La Jolla Rough Water Swim. I had originally planned on doing the 1-mile race but things changed when I got to San Diego. While standing in the 2 hour registration, we all were chatting about doing the 3-mile Gatorman race.

No amount of cold water showering in the months prior to this race or pre-race Vaseline on my body could have prepared me for this race. On a side note, lathering up in vaseline was one of the most unusual things I have ever done for a race. Anyway, I did both and it was still a very, very cold race, this of course coming from a zoni.

There was one heat of 500 people that started the race in the cove. I felt like I was doing very well up into the first turn-around section at the pier (around 50 minutes to reach there). When I turned around to return to the cove, the waves were higher due to the 10 mph wind. My feet started to get really cold about one hour into the race, cold enough to the point where I could barely feel them.

When I did finish the race, I was so cold that I was a little dizzy and my calf seized up. Upon hearing Kathy and my Dad yell at me, I managed to hop across the finish line at the beach on one leg. I almost fell over a few times while I was fumbling around the cove. I am not sure how to explain how I felt after I finished the race. It was not pain, more like pain from the cold water.



After chugging down some electrolytes, I headed up to where my Dad and Kathy were standing. We headed back to the cove where our stuff was, called Cousin Aunt Penny, and she and her bf Phil found us. I had to put on my sweater to get warm.

A few hours later, my Dad and the crew ate at Rubio's on the way out of San Diego since we were pressed on time.

Click here to the the results of the Gatorman Race.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Runners' Odyssey 195-Mile Race



The Arizona Odyssey is not your traditional relay race. Sure, there are hand-offs and a race against the clock, but the Odyssey takes the concept much farther — literally.
The Arizona Odyssey is a 195-mile relay race around Tucson. Teams of 12 will take anywhere from 22 to 34 hours to complete the event, which will begin Oct. 12 and end in a Finish Line Festival the following day.

I am trying to find some other racers that want to do this race with me. So far I have one other person.

3-Mile Rough Water Swim

Insert yourself into the following chaotic start of the La Jolla Rough Water 3-Mile Swim. It is an out-and-back race, 1.5 miles away from the shore is the turn around buoy.






We are leaving in Saturday to drive out to San Diego to do the La Jolla Rough Water Swim. As it stands right now, I am doing the 3-mile race and I am hoping to do it in 1.5 hours.

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