Thursday, May 10, 2012
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Thursday april 26th 2012. The next 12 hrs of our day would be focused on one thing...running across the grand canyon on and then back. Simple right?...its just running. As the three of us woke up at 4am we ate some quick breakfast and coffee at camp and did some last minute prep and decided what gear to wear before we took off on our 44mile run of the grand canyon well known as the "rim to rim to rim" run. It's one of those real deal bucket list adventures and fairly well known in the ultra endurance circles. Here was our rundown: Start at south rim and run down bright angel trail to the Colorado river then proceed 13.5 miles up to the top of the north rim via the kaibab trail then turnaround and run back to the river and climb up the south kaibab trail back to the top of the south rim (roughly 44 miles).
The 3 dude crew: Casey hill recently moved to Ashland Oregon and also handcrafts amazing bags from race numbers. He raced roadbikes in Europe a few years ago and is a great mountain biker. He took 3rd place at marathon MTB nationals last season and in his college days was a very fast duathlete. Jason Michalak (hairy jason) is always down for adventure and is a pro XTERRA triathlete. He grew up swimming and running and is fast at everything. We race most adventure races together. He lives in Crested Butte now and is pretty much a mountain man...even though he can't ski very good. Then myself...some Xterra, some adventure racing, running, cx, mtb. I'm up for anything that sounds fun and challenging. We all decided running the whole grand canyon would be a cool epic trip..it was.
The views on the descent into the canyon where amazing...the sun was coming up and we were all alone on the trail. I won't even try to describe the level of awesome. The 9 mile descent went crazy fast and before we knew it we where at the Colorado river. It was roughly 6:45am and we had been running since 5am. We started to see a few backpackers coming back up from phantom camp...most asked us our plans or route...shock was the normal reaction, a few seemed impressed. Which is the only reason we do this stuff, just to impress people. I'm not sure how long some of these hikers would take to get back up the canyon (9miles) as many of them did not look anything close to fit or prepared. There are signs all over the place in the Grand Canyon warning people not to attempt to hike to river and back in one day...after seeing some of these folks at the top parts of the trails it is probably a really great idea to have these signs. Of course "elite" people like us can ignore these signs...it's cool.
We filled up our packs with water at Phantom Camp and started up the gradual climb. We see a sign stating 13.4 miles to north rim (that is were we are going if you are slow)...Jason says "Wow, next time we see this sign we will have done a long marathon" Its basically 13 miles up, then 13 down....Pretty rad and pretty daunting at the same time since we have been going for 9-10 miles, plus we would have another 6-7 back up when we did pass this little sign again much later in the day. One of our goals with this little adventure was to have fun and truly enjoy the trip and hopefully all 3 of us complete the whole darn thing.
The next 13 miles up to the north rim was both harder and easier than I thought it would be...confused? We all kept eating and drinking and seemed to be in good shape after 6hrs and 24 miles. It was cold and sleeting on us at the top of North rim...we saw 3 other runners coming down so we weren't the only "elite people" out here..its ok. The steep upper descent went fast and when we filled up with water we only had 7 miles left to get to phantom camp. These 7 miles of slight downhill were brutal, and we all were feeling the real affects of 8hrs and 20+ miles of pounding on the legs...strange right? The last 1.5 miles to Phantom felt like 5. 37 miles in we refilled with water at Phantom and ate some more calories...the people mingling around the camp just looked at us like we worked at a mall kiosk. We each brought about 2000 calories of food (chews, nuun, gu, bars, rice chips, even some jerky) we knew we would need to consume 120-200 calories each hour throughout the day to keep things rolling. Obviously we would burn way more (about 8-9000 colories burned) but you can only process so much when your running or fast hiking. We felt somewhat refreshed and ready to attack the last section of our day. Simple right?...only 7 miles of climbing (mostly hiking) up to the top....brutal? Yes. It was a death march and we all had spaced out at our own paces to suffer in a solo silence of torture. Timed dragged and legs burned but we still made ok time and hit the top at 12hrs exactly. It was slightly anti-climatic since it was windy, freezing cold, and no tourists to impress with our amazing feats of strength.
We hopped on the bus and rode the few miles back to our car, lets just say the level of satisfaction was high. We made it, we laughed, we suffered, we cried (not really). We got to experience the entire Grand Canyon like few people can. It was totally worth the 3 days of soreness and limping that followed.
The 3 dude crew: Casey hill recently moved to Ashland Oregon and also handcrafts amazing bags from race numbers. He raced roadbikes in Europe a few years ago and is a great mountain biker. He took 3rd place at marathon MTB nationals last season and in his college days was a very fast duathlete. Jason Michalak (hairy jason) is always down for adventure and is a pro XTERRA triathlete. He grew up swimming and running and is fast at everything. We race most adventure races together. He lives in Crested Butte now and is pretty much a mountain man...even though he can't ski very good. Then myself...some Xterra, some adventure racing, running, cx, mtb. I'm up for anything that sounds fun and challenging. We all decided running the whole grand canyon would be a cool epic trip..it was.
The views on the descent into the canyon where amazing...the sun was coming up and we were all alone on the trail. I won't even try to describe the level of awesome. The 9 mile descent went crazy fast and before we knew it we where at the Colorado river. It was roughly 6:45am and we had been running since 5am. We started to see a few backpackers coming back up from phantom camp...most asked us our plans or route...shock was the normal reaction, a few seemed impressed. Which is the only reason we do this stuff, just to impress people. I'm not sure how long some of these hikers would take to get back up the canyon (9miles) as many of them did not look anything close to fit or prepared. There are signs all over the place in the Grand Canyon warning people not to attempt to hike to river and back in one day...after seeing some of these folks at the top parts of the trails it is probably a really great idea to have these signs. Of course "elite" people like us can ignore these signs...it's cool.
We filled up our packs with water at Phantom Camp and started up the gradual climb. We see a sign stating 13.4 miles to north rim (that is were we are going if you are slow)...Jason says "Wow, next time we see this sign we will have done a long marathon" Its basically 13 miles up, then 13 down....Pretty rad and pretty daunting at the same time since we have been going for 9-10 miles, plus we would have another 6-7 back up when we did pass this little sign again much later in the day. One of our goals with this little adventure was to have fun and truly enjoy the trip and hopefully all 3 of us complete the whole darn thing.
The next 13 miles up to the north rim was both harder and easier than I thought it would be...confused? We all kept eating and drinking and seemed to be in good shape after 6hrs and 24 miles. It was cold and sleeting on us at the top of North rim...we saw 3 other runners coming down so we weren't the only "elite people" out here..its ok. The steep upper descent went fast and when we filled up with water we only had 7 miles left to get to phantom camp. These 7 miles of slight downhill were brutal, and we all were feeling the real affects of 8hrs and 20+ miles of pounding on the legs...strange right? The last 1.5 miles to Phantom felt like 5. 37 miles in we refilled with water at Phantom and ate some more calories...the people mingling around the camp just looked at us like we worked at a mall kiosk. We each brought about 2000 calories of food (chews, nuun, gu, bars, rice chips, even some jerky) we knew we would need to consume 120-200 calories each hour throughout the day to keep things rolling. Obviously we would burn way more (about 8-9000 colories burned) but you can only process so much when your running or fast hiking. We felt somewhat refreshed and ready to attack the last section of our day. Simple right?...only 7 miles of climbing (mostly hiking) up to the top....brutal? Yes. It was a death march and we all had spaced out at our own paces to suffer in a solo silence of torture. Timed dragged and legs burned but we still made ok time and hit the top at 12hrs exactly. It was slightly anti-climatic since it was windy, freezing cold, and no tourists to impress with our amazing feats of strength.
We hopped on the bus and rode the few miles back to our car, lets just say the level of satisfaction was high. We made it, we laughed, we suffered, we cried (not really). We got to experience the entire Grand Canyon like few people can. It was totally worth the 3 days of soreness and limping that followed.
coming up north rim (about 20miles in)
Descending bright angel trail (south rim)
View from overlook...we ran to the other end and back.
Colorado river
almost done but suffering
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Moab Adventure Race
Just a tiny bit of rain as we woke up on saturday...the weather was looking questionable and rain is in the forecast. Coffee, donut, and oatmeal for breakfast. We staged the bike/run/trek/climb gear at take out the previous night with most of the other teams. We drove to the start about 14miles up the colorado river at red cliffs put in. Jason Michalak and myself made up our 2 person team (LIFEQUEST). We knew we could win this thing if we didn't f-up (which isn't hard in a 6-10hr race with navigation). We had all our coordinates at check in and mapped out the night before and the course seemed pretty straight foward with only one checkpoint (CP5) that might be tricky.
The sun came out as we started at 8:30...we gunned it from the start and made sure we were first "open team" in the water (solo and coed teams started 30&15min in front of us) We started the 14mile kayak in the lead and actually came out 2+hrs later still in the lead. We arrived at boatramp and made a quick transition to dry bike gear...it was windy and fairly cold at this point. We needed everything with us for rest of race so we had running gear, climbing gear, and food/water for next 4-6 hrs in our packs (camelback octane18). We made quick work of the road and started the next section (CP4-CP5) which was poison spider trail (and part of goldspike i think) CP5 wasn't to hard and we hit that and then straight back down poison spider. Jason was riding the tech sections really well on his new 29er FS and was setting a great pace. Roughly 2hrs later we are hammering on the road to corona arch off potash road. A quick change into running shoes and we are off running up the trail for a couple miles. Under corona arch and we hit the next checkpoint (CP8). Put on the harnesses and clip in to a fixed rope for a rad climb and traverse over some pretty exposed areas above the arch...pretty awesome. We had about 20+min of hard running/scrambling up and down steep slickrock to big rappel. Once we got down from rappel it was a short run back to the bikes and CP9. A number 2 pit stop for Jason since we had time (good thing)...and then a 10mile road ride to the finish. We had a good cushion by then so we just cruised it in for the overall team win. These races are super fun and killer training. My buddy Adam came and we did some killer rides on sunday (amasaback, jackson, and a stop in fruita to ride horsethief bench)
http://gravityplay.com/adventureracing/Results/moab12.pdf
The sun came out as we started at 8:30...we gunned it from the start and made sure we were first "open team" in the water (solo and coed teams started 30&15min in front of us) We started the 14mile kayak in the lead and actually came out 2+hrs later still in the lead. We arrived at boatramp and made a quick transition to dry bike gear...it was windy and fairly cold at this point. We needed everything with us for rest of race so we had running gear, climbing gear, and food/water for next 4-6 hrs in our packs (camelback octane18). We made quick work of the road and started the next section (CP4-CP5) which was poison spider trail (and part of goldspike i think) CP5 wasn't to hard and we hit that and then straight back down poison spider. Jason was riding the tech sections really well on his new 29er FS and was setting a great pace. Roughly 2hrs later we are hammering on the road to corona arch off potash road. A quick change into running shoes and we are off running up the trail for a couple miles. Under corona arch and we hit the next checkpoint (CP8). Put on the harnesses and clip in to a fixed rope for a rad climb and traverse over some pretty exposed areas above the arch...pretty awesome. We had about 20+min of hard running/scrambling up and down steep slickrock to big rappel. Once we got down from rappel it was a short run back to the bikes and CP9. A number 2 pit stop for Jason since we had time (good thing)...and then a 10mile road ride to the finish. We had a good cushion by then so we just cruised it in for the overall team win. These races are super fun and killer training. My buddy Adam came and we did some killer rides on sunday (amasaback, jackson, and a stop in fruita to ride horsethief bench)
http://gravityplay.com/adventureracing/Results/moab12.pdf
Monday, April 9, 2012
Fun Run
So a few days ago i wanted to get in a hard long run in prep for our Grand Canyon (rim-rim-rim) run at the end of this month. Loaded up the camelback similar to how it will be for the 10+hrs at Grand Canyon...and headed up Mt Falcon. My goal was to run 3.5-4 hrs with some fast powerhiking and tons of climbing. Hit top of falcon in 30min without hurting to much. Cruised down steep road towards kittredge and ran Lair the bear trail (almost to bottom) till my watch said 1hr 50min...then turnaround and start the long run back. I probably only hiked about 10% of the 4hrs but i felt good...at least i think i felt good...as good as you can running 25miles. Some killer singletrack, good tunes, rad views of redrocks, and some sore legs. Total was 4hrs, 24+ miles, and about 6k of climbing.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
recycled ritchey bits
So I was pulling my old bar off my MTB and putting a new one on....Ryders bike is great but he sits super high...Solution & Upgrade===The little dudes bike gets some rad carbon and we drop some serious weight. Chopped the bars down and now his weight is more even on the wheels and his bmx bike looks like a mini single speed mtb. He was so so hyped to get new bars. Here was our little project in pictures. Watch for Ryder at the BMX track this summer!
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
ebay gem of the day
thanks to my bro for tipping me off to some magic on ebay...http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-LOT-2-MENS-TINLEY-BRIGHT-GREEN-CYCLING-TRIATHLON-JERSEYS-SZ-MEDIUM-/370595383671
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
pumped to be stoked
So we have had killer weather lately and i have been able to get some great training in. Both running and cycling. I have upped my running a fair amount since we are going to attemp a grand canyon run in late april (rim to rim to rim=42 miles) and hopefully do a 50k in may...I have been just taking off and running trails with no real time limit or workout planned, just time on the legs mostly going up and down steep trails. Yesterday it was 70degrees so i headed to green mountain, and zorro trail to knockout a nice long run. Ran for 2hr 15min with a 1min rest to gel-water at the car before lapping green mountain a 2nd time. Felt good...gotta love Colorado.
Also picked up this kayak last week. One of my A-races this year is the Ultimate Mountain challenge at Teva Games. I know how to kayak, but i wouldn't even claim "intermediate" at this point. So i'll be in the river getting my skills up to par for the 20+ minute portion of the race. The race includes the kayak, MTB race, 10k trail run, and Road bike TT all in 2 days. Should be fun!
Also picked up this kayak last week. One of my A-races this year is the Ultimate Mountain challenge at Teva Games. I know how to kayak, but i wouldn't even claim "intermediate" at this point. So i'll be in the river getting my skills up to par for the 20+ minute portion of the race. The race includes the kayak, MTB race, 10k trail run, and Road bike TT all in 2 days. Should be fun!
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