SWim bIKe rUN

Great video that kind of sums up the festival.

The 2010 Tour de Fat Boise raised over $43,000 for local bicycle Non-Profits this year. 

Thanks to the New Belgium Brewery for helping organizations like SWIMBA, TVCA and Boise Bicycle Project.

Southwest Mountain Bike Association, SWIMBA, was able to build new trails like Mahalo Trail and fund the construction of Fat Tire Traverse and Watchman.  These funds also help to maintain the existing trail systems in Southwest Idaho.

Boise’s Treasure Valley Cycling Alliance, TVCA. Their mission is to raise awareness that bicycling is a healthful, economical, and practical mode of transportation; and ensure that people of all ages can ride bicycles competently, safely and lawfully. We are gathering the knowledge and experience of local bicyclists in order to help the Treasure Valley be a community whose citizens understand the importance of bicycling and whose elected and appointed officials recognize the rights and needs of bicyclists for the sake of community well being.

Boise Bicycle Project believes that everyone should have access to quality bicycles and bicycle education.  One of their great programs gives bicycles to kids 13 and under for free if they go through one of their bicycle safety programs.  If they are too young to go through the program they just need to be referred by another charitable organization.

This year the Tour de Fat hits 13 western cities to drive the message about the positive societal offerings of the bicycle.

Here are a few photos we took at the festival.

So, in true Paul Crane fashion I took another header last night on our mountain bike ride.  Great thing is Shane was there to return the favor of pulling the weeds out of my helmet.

We took off last night at 5:30 from Fort Boise and did one of our usual rides, Three Bears Loop.  We headed up Military Reserve Road and jumped on the trails at Trail #20, Ridge Crest.   Our route went up Bucktail,  connected with Shane’s Trail and dropped onto Shaw Mountain Road.  This part of the ride, all the way up Shaw Mountain Road to Three Bears was pretty uneventful except for Dan flirting with a boyfriend of his that we met at the beginning of Shaw Mountain Road. 

Once you hit Three Bears you have a pretty brutal climb for about 3/4 of a mile until we reached the top.  I was pretty proud of myself cleaning this climb for the second time in a row.  Most of the time I either spin out or my legs give out on this climb but this time I made it to the top again and this is where the fun begins.

We took off down Three Bears, down the stair cases through some winding single track and everything was fine.  Hit the turns no problem, stair case was a piece of cake passed Shane’s Trail and headed up to the next junction, Shane’s Trail.  Shane must have had a lot of input on the trails and their naming because you can’t avoid Shane’s Trail.  I’m always unsure about which way to go at this junction so I waited for Dan to help me out. 

Once Dan pointed me in the right direction I took off again and here is where the piece of cake turned into ride like sh… not cake.  Twice, on simple turns I road off the trail about 3 or 4 feet in the next 2 minutes.  I must have cracked under pressure now that I had a crowd of one, Dan, within view of my skill set or lack thereof.  Once we hit the junction at Central Ridge Trail we waited for the rest of the posse that consisted of Shane, Brent and Chris.  Here Dan took the lead and my following skills diminished.

Now of all the riding we just did, this part should be a breeze.  But even before we hit the fun bumps on the trail, yours truly decided to take another excursion off trail.  I glanced up ahead at Dan for less than a second and when I looked back at the trail I was taking the corner a little tight.  I adjusted and made it through only to miss the next corner and hit about a 6 to 10 inch edge going up on the trail.  This immediately chucked me off the bike and into the hill with the force of a mighty class 5 tornado.  The average man may not have survived.  On my way off the bike I believe I hit the outside of my right upper thigh on the handle bars and then got pummeled into the side of the hill.

Shane was right behind me to witness the sheer beauty of this dazzling dismount.  Brent was right behind him to check on me followed by Chris who got there as I’m on the ground and being attended to by Shane and Brent.  PAIN!!!!!  Dang that hurt.  Side of the leg where you smash right into the bone.

After a few moments of self pity I was helped back onto my bike and made it the rest of the way down with crooked handle bars to the parking lot where an ice cold beer awaited me to start the healing process.

So the moral of the story is, when you’re riding too fast for your skill level, make sure there is beer in the parking lot waiting for you.  Thanks Shane.

The 2010 Top of Utah Marathon is on September 18, 2010.  The course drops around 1045 ft. starting at around 5560 ft and ending around 4515 ft.  The grade is only a 1% to 2% and shouldn’t beat up your legs too bad.  Of course it is a marathon so for me the grade matters but my legs are going to be beat up even if the grade is a slight downhill.  We are all signed up for this event.

The course  starts at Hardware Ranch Elk Refuge and runs through the Blacksmith Fork Canyon into Cache Valley and ends in downtown Logan.  The leaves on the trees should be changing color but the weather this time of the year in Logan is generally good for running except for in 2000 when they got some snow.  I’d be great with some cooler weather.  Cooler, DRY weather.

One thing to consider, if you sign up for the half marathon it is actually set for a different weekend.  It is on August 28, 2010.

I’ve heard about these races and I used to work with a Shane who told me he ran a mud race in San Diego but I’ve never seen one.  Ever since I looked at Shane’s pics I’ve wanted to try one out.  Unfortunately this year I have already signed up for the Top of Utah Marathon that is on the same day as The Dirty Dash.

The Dirty Dash is a 10K obstacle course race at Bogus Basin.  It includes obstacles such as Hog Wallow, Slop ‘n Slide, Hog Wash, Big Pig Climb and others.  The race can be run as an individual or as a team.  All members of the team run the entire race but you have to have the whole team cross the line together to finish.

At The Dirty Dash, costumes are encouraged and battle wounds are almost guaranteed. 

I wish I could tell you more about this race but I have yet to run one.  Hopefully it is around again next year so that I can work my race schedule around this fun run.

Three of us met up at Barber Park on a quest to knock out 20 miles.  Brent, Ryan and I set out going Southeasterly towards Lucky peak.  I was really hoping that Shane would be joining us this morning since I knew we both took about the same pace on these long runs.  Brent and Ryan I figured would kill me if I tried to keep up.

Heading towards Lucky Peak it was a great morning and we were commenting on how the 6 a.m. start time was perfect.  The run was going nicely and very peaceful until about mile  4.5 where we met some lunatic, I think it was Brent’s dad.  He was shouting out something about limp wristed gestures, I figured he had to be talking to Ryan and Brent, soldiers, killing babies and something about our mothers that I shouldn’t repeat.  As I caught back up to Brent and Ryan we all had a little chuckle and tried to piece together wtf this guy was saying.  This pic was pretty close to our buddy.

At the dam we did the small loop and headed back towards Barber Park where we were lucky enough to see our nut job at one of the shelters brushing his tooth.  Again the expletives flew.  Poor guy, I think he was an extra in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

I was doing well and keeping up with Brent and Ryan until about mile 15.  They decided that hanging back with me was over rated and picked up the pace a bit.  I started a run walk around mile 16 and stopped by the Warm Springs Golf Course to fill my water bottles. 

The great thing about this run was the last part is through the nicest section of the Green Belt.  It has and animal refuge and foot traffic only on dirt trails.  Of course you get the one guy on the bike who ignores the sign.  Felt sorry for the guy though.  The older gentlemen held nothing back and I saw him get chewed out pretty good by 4 of them that happened to be out for their Saturday morning walk.  Cracked me up.

I made it back to the bridge at about mile 19.3 and saw Brent crossing the road back to our cars.  I asked if they had finished the 20 or just called it at 19.3.  I was depressed to find out that they had finished the 20 and proceeded to head up Eckert Road for .35 miles to loop back and finish my 20.

Another long run down on the quest to conquer The Top of Utah.  Route

This is the same day different perspective on the event.  No animals were harmed in the riding of this course.  The same cannot be promised for Shane.

http://runningnriding.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/stack-rock-ride-sunday-july-11-2010/

So what do you do the day after a Triathlon?

Sunday morning I met up with the Baker Boys, Shane and Dan, for a little morning excursion on the mountain bikes.  These are trails that we are not with so Shane got a disclaimer signed by Dan and I before the ride that we may run into some trouble, that the mileage scheduled may differ from the planned mileage and that he was not to be held accountable.  We agreed and we were off.

The first 5 miles of this trail were awesome.  Nice little technical ride with a steady climb and very nice scenery, and I’m not just saying that because the Baker Boys were riding in front of me.  There was a lot of trees and shade for most of this climb and the wilderness looked nice .

We hit mile 6 and started a little steeper climb.  By this time many of our participants were bleeding from a tree limb that was straying into the course with some nice thorns on it.  Shane and Dan had a couple of pretty good cuts.  Being the guy in the back I learned from their experience and was able to maneuver through with a minor scratch.

We missed the trail that we were looking for and ended up at a dead end.  We doubled back and headed up another trail to another dead end.  This is where the fun part for any mountain biker began, hike a bike.

We headed straight up the hill with no trail trying to reach the ridge that somehow kept getting further and further away.  We used our stealth ability to avoid poison oak and ticks, I hope.  We got er done with bikes on backs and finally reached the ridge where we were able to hook up to another trail.  Surprisingly there were very few words from the “athletes?” on this hike that rhymed with truck.  It was a brutal climb.  We knew that we were out on an unfamiliar trail and that the odds of a hike a bike were pretty good, so it didn’t phase us too much mentally when it happened.  The hill, however, was steep so the thighs were burning pretty good.

Finally, we reached Stack Rock and stood by a tree hoping to get a higher concentration of oxygen.  We toured around the rock for a bit and then climbed up it to get a better view and eat some Powerbars, a couple Swedish Fish and maybe some GU.  We also took a break and reminisced about the hike a bike that just occurred and how trails are so overrated.  Even with the hike-a-bike we were all still having a good time.  However, we all knew we were going to be home later than we had told the wives, oops   love you dear.

We spent a little time trying to find the correct trail to travel down to get us back to Avimor without having to make the same hike downhill.  We finally reached a turn off that took us straight down the hill, I mean straight down the hill.  This hill had you puckered so tight the seat was going to be there for a week.  The only thing that stopped this was the milk duds going the opposite direction which equaled things out.

About a quarter of the way down I felt as if I was going to endo.  Somehow I laid the bike down fairly softly, got my feet out of the clips and took a 30 yard run down hill trying to stop.  I could hear Dan behind me laughing pretty good.  As I was climbing back up the hill to retrieve my bike I saw Shane about 10 feet off the trail on his bike.  This was his strategy as apposed to the bail and run I implemented.  The rest of the ride down was sketchy but I made it.  I managed to stretch the new rear break cable pretty good laying on it for the majority of the downhill.  There were two paths running side by side.  One had a runoff ravine in the middle of it that made staying on the trail a good challenge.  The other one had the Grand Friggin Canyon down the middle of it.  For this reason we chose the ravine side.

As I got to the bottom I looked uphill to make sure that Shane was making it ok.  I couldn’t see him.  I looked forward for a moment and then looked back and there he was, standing there beside his bike.  Shane had decided to take a nap behind a sage brush bush.  He made this involuntary decision rather abruptly.  Shane walked the bike the rest of the way down the hill and as he got closer he said, “I ate shit hard”.  I could tell when he got there that he was not joking.  His helmet had a few weeds in it.  I refrained from laughing until I knew he was ok, he did bite it pretty hard but he looked the Billy the kid on Peyote.  His helmet was full of weeds, dirty and kind of a dazed look on his face.

The rest of the ride was uneventful for the most part.  I hugged the right side of one turn and let my leg go through a bush that happened to be a bush with a giant rock inside of it.  It left a pretty good mark on the right leg and knocked my foot out of the clips for a little bit of an adventure ride with one foot in the pedals trying to navigate some rocks.  This scene also led to a little chuckle from Dan.  He said my bike was still riding pretty smooth, it was just me doing convulsions on it trying to get my foot back in the pedal that was funny.

So it was a highly eventful and blood drawing event but a great time and a great ride.  18 miles in about 4 hours.  Not bad considering the stops we made for injuries, pics, map reading, break time at the top with a tour and bush whacking.

Today’s swim bike run event was the Boise Spudman Triathlon.  I PR’d but I was hoping to do a little better on the run portion.  Over all I was happy with my time for the amount of Training I’ve been able to put in since the Boise 70.3.  I’ve still felt a little fatigued since that event.  I’m not sure why but I’m guessing I’m a head case.

It was a beautiful day for the race, a little breezy at the swim start but I didn’t really notice it during the race.  Andrew and I kept each other company by passing each other on the bike.  We laughed that out of all of the racers we just happened to be riding with each other the entire bike.  We got to T2 about 30 seconds apart, trailing Ryan by quite a ways.  Ryan finished with a 2:13, myself, 2:43.

The bike course starts with a 1.7 mile out and back for the first 3.2 miles.  After this you head to Highway 21 up and over Hilltop and down past lucky peak.  Brutal 3ish mile climb and then a great decent down past lucky peak.  After this you make your way through Columbia Village to Amity, left on Warm Springs then onto Park Center to T2.

The run was a bit warm.  It probably wasn’t as hot as it felt but since we’ve had cooler weather this year about the only times I’ve run in hot weather has been during races, Robie Creek, Boise 70.3 and Boise Spudman Tri.  I saw the leader around mile .7 which means he was at around mile 5.5.  I yelled out, “I’m comin after you”.  I think it took a second for him to digest the B.S that I’d just thrown out but then he managed a courtesy chuckle as we passed by each other.  The run is mostly along the Boise Greenbelt and Park Center Blvd with a sub division in between. 

The support was great, traffic was considerate, and the weather was good for us.  Couldn’t ask for much better of a race.  Thanks Treasure Valley YMCA.

Andrew and I headed up to Barclay Bay in Boise last night to meet up with Ryan and Todd for an open water swim. We got out of the office a little late but headed up to meet the other two anyway. When we got there the road across the dam was closed. We decided that rather than going to Spring Shores we’d head over to Veteran’s Memorial Park in the Boise Cascade Lake. Spring Shores was a closer destination but I’ve never been swimming there and wasn’t sure where the best route was to avoid the boats.

On the way back to Veteran’s we hit traffic due to a one car rollover on the freeway. We turned around as soon as there was a crossing through the median and headed down Gowen Road. We hit the office again to pick up Andrew’s rig that he’d left there since Veteran’s was on the way home for both of us.

We finally arrived at around 6:40 p.m. to start our swim. First Danger, wife is at home with 2 kids ages 3 and 7 months and I’m not getting started until 6:40 let alone getting home.

We started our first lap around the lake and made our first turn towards the dock. I was feeling pretty good and noticed that I was in front of Andrew who is a faster swimmer than I am. Then I found out why.

Danger number 2: one of the fisherman, if you can call him that with his forked stick, lawn chair and cooler, had his line out a little further than normal caught a 163 pound Andrew. Luckily it was just the line and not the hook that got Andrew. Both parties were civil about the encounter and after a few minutes Andrew was out of the line and passed me up.

I have yet to see anyone catch anything out of this lake/pond except for today when Andrew was snagged. However, it must be a great spot because the poles and coolers were lined up on the banks.

So, our new route is swim from the side to the middle, swim to the dock, swim back and then across to the start. This will enable us to stay as far away from the shore as possible. Now let’s just hope we never get a cramp