Saturday, September 29, 2007

Let's Go Mets

Run 7 miles

I'm not a huge sports fan by most standards. I generally could care less about the NBA, NFL, or NHL. Baseball though, that is a much different story. I have loved baseball since I was old enough to know it existed and I have been a Mets fan since day one. Yes those Mets. For much of my life they have been one of the worst teams in baseball, and they are destined to always be the 2nd most popular team in NY. They had a good team in the mid to late 80's, another good stretch from '99-'01 and last year they made it to within one game of the world series. And now, with one game to go this season they are on the verge of having one of the worst end of the season collapses of any team ever. 3 weeks ago they had their division more or less locked up but then they began playing like the Mets of 3 years ago, not like the Mets of this season. In a stretch of 17 games they blew a 7 game lead over the second place Phillies. And yet as bad as this past few weeks has been they still only need to win tomorrow to secure at least a chance at the playoffs (If both the Mets and Phillies win tomorrow they will play a one game playoff on Monday for the last spot in the playoffs). One of the odd things about living in Alaska is that a 1:00 game on the East coast starts at 9:00 here. It took some time getting used to listening to a Mets game on Internet Radio while eating my breakfast but come tomorrow morning there won't be anything I'd rather be doing.

Totals for the week: Run 44 miles; bike 60; 13 hours time.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Top Dogs Getting It Done

Today:
Bike Commute 3 miles

Yesterday:
Run 7 miles
Mt. Bike 15 miles

Wednesday:
Road bike 28 miles

Over in Greece Scott Jurek has won Spartathlon again! And up in Idaho Karl Meltzer currently leads the Bear 100 with just a couple hours to go before he should finish with his 4th 100 mile victory of the year and 10th in 2 years! Apparently they have both found a way to bounce back nicely from their disappointing races over in France last month. They're 2 of the best ultra runners in the world and it's nice to see them both showing it this weekend.

Runners like Scott and Karl who seem to just keep racing year round really amaze me. I feel like no matter how much more I get into endurance running and/or cycling in the next several years I will always need a large chunk of time at least once a year in which I take some time off from racing to let my mind and body rebuild and get ready for the next series of challenges.

Update to above post: Karl Meltzer has won the Bear 100 setting a course record by over 1 hour!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Soggy September

Today:
Run 2 miles
Bike 11 miles
Lift 16 lifts
-3 sets of 12 reps.

Yesterday:
Run 10 miles
Bike Commute 3 miles

It rains a lot in Juneau and in a typical year September is the wettest month. This September has not been any different. We have had 12.4" of rain so far this month. There have been 5 days with more than 1" of rain. It has currently rained some measurable amount for 12 straight days. In the past 3 days we have had 3.01" of rain. Good stuff.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Opposite Extremes

Run 18 miles

A few pictures from today's run:




St. George, Utah and Juneau, Alaska are about as different as two towns could possibly be. Juneau gets about 12 times as much rain per year as St. George and has about 12 times as many bars as St. George. The average age in Juneau is about half that of St. George and Juneau has one golf course compared to who knows how many in St. George. The temperature at any given moment is likely 50 degrees higher in St. George. Juneau has not grown much to speak of in decades and St. George is one of the fastest growing cities in North America. Juneau is politically very far to the left while St. George is even further to the right. Both are cities of extremes and where Juneau is on one end of the spectrum St. George is almost always on the other.

Jill called me last night from her Grandfather's house in St. George after hiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim with her Dad and she kept talking about how rainy and cool it was down there yesterday. It was Juneau weather she said. Then this morning I was reading about a fun little bike adventure that Dave Harris and Jeff Kerkove had down in St. George yesterday. This all got me interested to know just how wet was it in St. George on one of their wettest days in quite some time. Weather.com listed the precip. yesterday in St. George at .28" This time of year in Juneau we call that a dry day. So far this month we have had over 10" of rain including .63" so far today. The crazy thing is that not being used to much rain St. George becomes a flooded, sloppy mess at .28" and here in Juneau .63" is just another typical day.

Well, the question begging to be asked is of course, why would anyone want to live in either one of these places? Who could possibly want to deal with all the rain in Juneau or with all the heat in St. George? Well, the reality is that you work around these extremes to find what makes you happy. Rain after all is just water. Getting out for a run on a mountain trail is my favorite thing to do on a regular basis. Juneau has more trails close to town than anywhere I have ever been. When I go out for an 18 mile run in the mountains as I did today it doesn't ruin that experience just because it was raining most of the time. In a place like St. George you learn to deal with the heat in the same manner. If your passion is getting out on long, wilderness bike rides (i.e. Dave H.) there are few places in the world better to be based than St. George. The heat doesn't ruin that. You just have to learn to go in the early morning or late evening and/or carry massive amounts of extra water. And if these things make you happy all those other extremities don't seem to matter as much. Am I going to live in Juneau the rest of my life? Most certainly not. Am I going to move to St. George anytime soon? Very unlikely. I do however take comfort in knowing that I could be very happy in either one of these places, no matter how different they are from each other.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Something Old, Something New

Today:
Mt. Bike 25 miles

Yesterday:
Run 8 miles
Bike 11 miles
Lift 16 lifts
-3 sets of 12 reps.

Got the Monkey out for 25 miles today. He runs like a champ. I knew it would climb more smoothly than my FS 26" Gary Fisher, but what I didn't expect was how smooth it felt coming down. Today was my first off road ride on a hardtail in about 3 years. I remember my first ride on my first Full Suspension bike about 4 years ago. I felt like I had discovered a new world of biking. And the funny thing is that I felt that way today about getting on a hardtail 29er. I'm riding it right now with a Reba fork but sometime soon I'll set it up with the rigid fork that came with the frame and see how I like that. And eventually I'll have to try it out as a singlespeed. It's so fun having such a versatile bike. Anyone interested in buying a full-suspension Gary Fisher Sugar? I don't think I'll be needing mine anymore.



Jill and I now have 7 bikes between us... doing laundry is becoming a pretty difficult task.

Totals for the week: Run 29 miles; Bike 73 miles; in 9.75 hours time.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Lemon Creek Trail

Run 8 miles
Bike Commute 3 miles

Today was my first day working at my new time of 1:00 pm. I think this will be nice once I get used to it but for most of this year I have been doing all of my training in the afternoon or evening. I will now have to do most of it in the morning. It takes me awhile to get up and get going in the morning and I most definitely felt that today. Luckily there was so much going on in my run that I didn't have much time to think about how weak and tired I was feeling. It was raining and windy and I was running through swaps and creeks and crossing countless downed logs and other obstacles. There are only a few trails around Juneau that I haven't run on in the year that I've lived here and today I checked out one of these trail, leaving just two that I know of that I haven't been on. Not bad considering that there are more than 40 trails in the area.

Like each of the past two days I thought I would go to the gym tonight and like each of the past two days I'm being lazy and blowing it off. Oh well. it's supposed to be fun and right now I'm having a great time when I'm out running but going to the gym for some weights just doesn't sound fun to me.

Here's some pictures from today's run:

This picture is looking directly down the trail. The creek was running higher than normal and for about a 1/4 mile I was in the creek continually.

This log was supposed to be a bridge, complete with ropes to hold it in place and chicken wire fencing stapled to it to provide traction. Now I consider myself to have pretty decent balance but there was no way I was about to try walking across this thing. Crossing the creek was much trickier than it looks but much better than getting to the middle of this log and losing my balance, ripping my leg across the chicken wire, and falling face first into the raging water below. no thanks.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Getting To Know My Monkey

Today:
Run 6 miles
Bike Commute 4 miles

Yesterday:
Bike Commute 3 miles


Took my Monkey out for a short little spin tonight. I'm still waiting for my front derailleur to arrive and it was about 45 degrees and raining when I went out so I only rode it around the block a couple times just to see how it felt. And wow, did it feel good! I'm going to spend a lot of time on this bike in the next 10 months and if this first little ride was any indication we're going to get along very well. Can't wait to get it off onto some trails sometime in the next couple days so I can really get a feel for how it handles.

I've been pretty lazy about my training for the past couple days. I was planning to go to the gym for some weightlifting yesterday and after I didn't go then I was certainly going to go today. Didn't happen either day. Getting into the gym as much as I know I should has always been hard for me. It's just not as easy to be excited about that as going outside for a run or ride. Only problem is the weather has been so awful most of the past week that getting outside as much as I'd like to has been hard also. Should get a good stretch of running and biking in these next several days. Jill's going to be out of town for a bit and I'll likely only be working a total of 10 hours in the next 4 days. That will be nice after working more than 30 hours in the previous 4 days (I know 30 hours in 4 days isn't really that much but I was only scheduled to work about 15 in that time so it was certainly a lot more than I was figuring on).

Monday, September 17, 2007

New Pet Monkey

Today:
Bike Commute 3 miles
Run 7 miles


Yesterday:
Road Bike 25 miles


My new bike is almost complete. I only need a front derailleur and a longer rear shift cable. Otherwise it is completely built and ready to roll. Hopefully I'll be riding it by Thursday. If it's not ready by then I'll just take Jill's new ride out for a spin on the beach... either way I win.


Saturday, September 15, 2007

There's Something In The Air

Today: Run 11 miles
Yesterday: Bike Commute 3 miles


Fall is here for certain. It still felt like summer just a few days ago but the past two days have felt, looked, and smelled not like summer anymore, but rather like the midst of autumn. Seasons move quick here in Alaska. I'm trying to decide if I'm glad that fall is here or not. One minute I'm cursing the rain and wind and the next minute I'm elated to have the most popular trail in town all to myself on a Saturday afternoon. And then the wind died down and the sun split through the walls of clouds that had made up the entire day. And at that point I knew that I was happy for the new season to be here.

I spent much of today working on a project of Jill's that she will no doubt be unveiling on her blog very soon. Tomorrow I hope to have more time to work on a project of my own and will post some pictures as soon as my new bike is built. I did discover last night though that I bought the wrong front derailleur. Guess I'll be riding it as a single chainring while I'm waiting for the new derailleur to show up in the mail.

Totals for the week: Bike 22 miles; Run 40 miles; in 9:15 time including time weightlifting

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Third Time's a Charm

Bike Commute 3 miles
Run 20 miles

Finally completed Mt. Roberts to Sheep Mountain to Sheep Creek Trail on my third attempt this year. Took off from work around 2:30 and headed up the trail which starts about 2 blocks away. The first 7 miles has about 7,000 feet of total climbing and then you drop back down this amount in about 7 more miles before several flat miles back into town.

I got lucky on the top of Sheep Mountain. Clouds had been building throughout my run and I was thinking that I was going to have to turn back again since I couldn't see ahead of me to see where I had to go. I sat and ate a piece of pizza (roasted red pepper and basil... yum) and almost instantly the clouds broke away and I could see exactly where I needed to go. Only problem was there was another series of clouds moving in. So I busted out from there and tried to cover as much ground as possible while I could still see. As the next wave of clouds began to envelope the mountain I came to a faint trail that I was able to follow until I was low enough to be below the clouds. From there it was just several miles of following trails that I was already familiar with. And the worst part: 4 miles back to town on the road. First time I've run that far on pavement since sometime in April.

Here's some pictures:










Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Hittin' The Weights

Bike 11 miles
Run 2 miles
Lift 16 lifts

-3 sets of 12 reps.
-upper and lower body


Tomorrow I am going to attempt the Mt. Roberts to Sheep Creek traverse for the third time this summer. I have a good feeling about this one. The weather is supposed to be perfect and I should be able to be out of work by 2 o'clock which gives me almost 6 hours before dark. I'll carry a light just in case. Should have some nice pictures to post tomorrow.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Back At It

Bike Commute 5 miles
Run 7 miles

I'm back in Alaska and ready to start training more consistently again. I need to try to be good about getting in the gym to lift some weights at least every 3rd or 4th day and I need to try to not over do the amount of time spent running in the next 2 months. Just gotta be sure to work up slowly and try to mix in a lot of biking.

Should be easy to get out on the bike a lot as long as the weather stays ok. I finally have all the parts to put together my Karate Monkey, now I just need to find the time to do it... hopefully by the weekend. This will be the first bike I've ridden that I built from the frame up. It's going to be so nice to ride a bike that has everything just the way I want it.

Here's a couple pictures from my time in Ontario last week:


It might not look like that awful of a bike but trust me, it was a total piece of @#&*


My view from where I woke each morning

Saturday, September 8, 2007

O' Canada

Back online after several days in Central Ontario on vacation with my family. In Northern New York now for a couple days and then back to Alaska.

Got in some pretty nice mellow 6-9 mile runs this week and one interesting bike ride. The ad for the bike rental place said that they carry "high quality, very well maintained bikes." I guess that statement has a different meaning in middle of nowhere in Ontario than it would have in most places. The first bike had a bottom bracket just about to fall out of the shell. When I took that one back they gave me a second bike which I rode for about a mile before I discovered that one of the pedals was about to separate into several different pieces. Finally the third bike was "rideable" but it turned into one of those rides in which you just want to get back so you don't have to deal with such a crappy piece of equipment anymore. The trail was actually pretty fun and the weather was great but as soon as I got back to the trailhead I took the bike back to the shop with 19 hours still remaining on my 24 hour rental. I didn't even want to keep the bike until the next day because I knew that I might be tempted to ride it again and it was only a matter of time before I got so frustrated with the damn thing that I threw it in a swamp and ran away.

After that I stuck to fishing, running, and relaxing the rest of the week and am pleasantly surprised with how my body is feeling after taking the past month very mellow. I kind of wish that I had a race to focus on sometime in November or December because my body and mind are both ready to get back at serious training but I have nothing lined up until February. The hard part is going to be taking my training slow enough to peak more than 5 months from now and not sometime before that. If I get it right though and trail conditions fall into place things could go very well for me in the ITI.