Training Log Archive: Ari-o

This was a day. There was nowhere to stay near Yellowstone and nothing for 50 miles beyond it, so the plan was 126 miles. It was figured that since I haven't been biking much/at all, I'd join for the end bits, which meant I'd help break down camp in the morning and then meet up with them. I decided to do this 23 miles in, for no reason in particular.

So I rode the RV to a point with a lovely view, changed into my bike gear, and set off with the crew. We moved into Jackson, rode a nice-but-rolling bike path, then an annoying roadside path, and then gave up on paths (too soon, ones past downtown were flat and nice) and went through holiday traffic in the kitschy, national park-adjacent town (the only kind).

But then we got views of the Tetons. Jesse described the mountains four times for Shawn, and I just took it all in. A slight headwind, and lots of traffic, but nicely-maintained National Park roads and few trucks made it tolerable. Oh and the Teton views. Big Tits mountains!

Then we took a right turn and the traffic went way, and the day began. We'd seen elk and bison, and went by people looking at bear, and we had a 17 mile, 2600 foot climb (total for the day was nearly 4000) to the Continental Divide. As we went up Crystal and I took turns back-end guiding and catching our breath. I punctured a tire at one point so grabbed a new wheel off the truck (which was nice) and caught up, although the gearing wasn't perfect. Lots of snow, probably great skiing, but no skis. I was near a bonk but gobbled some sandwiches, and we crested the divide: 30 miles to go.

These were the hardest. You can't bomb the downhill with a blind rider. At a "road damage" sign I scouted out a washout and we had to take the uphill lane, luckily there was basically zero traffic. Down down down and then it was flat and we hit a headwind. This was rough for a while but eventually we dropped off of the plateau, the wind slackened off, and we rolled towards town, with Shawn just pounding after 120 miles. My helmet was dead so I was justing listening to the music. We rolled through town at/after dusk, past three or four RV parks, before finally finding our park, and collapsed.

First century, and I feel … fine?

Glove placement kept ending the activity at stops, so four separate activities.

Biking partway across the country with a blind lady is interesting! It's quite the crew: three vehicles, one an RV with a trailer, about a dozen people, a huge tent for those who don't fit in the RV, a film crew, and anywhere from three to six people on the road at a time.

Here's the way guiding a blind person works. First, everyone is on a radio feed together so they can talk to each other. This is important, because the wind makes it otherwise hard to hear. Yesterday with strong crosswinds they hadn't been able to use the helmet radios and it was apparently very difficult. It looks much less windy the rest of the trip.

There are usually two guides on the road with Shawn. The first has a speaker on the back of the bike playing peppy tunes, she uses these to echolocate and maintain a parallel line, usually about one bike length back and three feet to the right, but can go in a paceline although this is harder. She holds one of the straightest lines I've ever seen, and does it with her eyes closed, which I can't even imagine. The front guide usually calls out road obstructions, calling "lift" any time there is a crack requiring her to change her balance, and other issues. Behind her is another guide. This person constantly tells her her road placement and what the roadway looks like. For instance: "[you're] two feet to the rumble [strip], four feet to gravel, two inch drop to gravel, transition into grass." She then can change her position more finely based on this.

It works surprisingly well. The rear guide isn't necessary but often quite helpful. If I do guiding, it's probably what I'll be doing. The other two guides are generally Jesse and Crystal. Steve, a double-amputee, has had "leg issues" and pretty much unable to keep up on climbs. (As Jesse said: "I'm hanging out with a lot more guns and Trump votes than usual. Guns have come up. Politics haven't.)

Behind this caravan are any other "domestiques" and behind them a safety/support vehicle, which is in this case a truck driven by Mike, which has lots of flashing lights, spare gear, and our day supplies and food and water. It's very well-supported, which is quite nice. Mike is also on the radio, telling us things we need to know, trivia, and sometimes bad jokes. We usually wind up stopping every 5 to 15 miles, depending mostly on Shawn's needs, plus bathroom breaks and food from other riders. There is also the film crew, darting around for shots (sometimes on bikes, usually in another pickup, which was apparently much fun in the snow a few days back). The RV generally goes shopping and ahead to set up camp.

So today, we left Idaho Falls on some city streets, and then hit a four-lane highway east. The roads here are not designed for biking (at all) but the first 15 miles with the full lane were nice. Once we dropped it, we were off on the shoulder and dealing with the rumble strip. I'm sure rumble strips have road safety benefits, but they are especially terrible for blind bicyclists because moving across them is particularly difficult. We made do, had some climbs where Steve got in the truck, and paralleled the Snake River in beautiful country with snow-capped mountains in the distance. We had a gnarly downhill to the river, where I was able to go ahead and scout out and be helpful, and then a long day of mostly spinning gradually uphill. The last 15 miles were along a dammed lake, and tricky because it was hilly and harder for vehicles to pass. Shawn only yelled at us a couple of times (all of it understandable, what she's doing is extraordinarily difficult), we crossed the Wyoming line and picked up a state trooper (out of central casting, mustache and all) and rolled into camp. People were much nicer with Officer Friendly at the back of the paceline.

There was food at camp. We eat well.

C • Awesome endeavor! 4

This went not so great with some minor mistakes and bobbles until I got a bug in my eye at 15 and had to walk a couple of controls blinking furiously to get it out. I did go around the hill to 19 which was most definitely the correct route choice.

Long - Splits

So … a few months ago my friend Jesse said he was going to be guiding his friend Shawn on a bike trip. He's guided her on the Birkie before (and I did a podcast) and a Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim and she's gone to the Paralympics, so, yeah, a bike ride across the country.

Originally she was going to ride a tandem bike. But she decided to ride her own. Because she is blind. Completely. Website here.

Anyway, Jesse said if I wanted to bike with them for a week I could, and the timing worked pretty well from Idaho Falls to Denver (rather than, say, the plains or Kentucky in mid-summer) and they have spare bikes and I bought a ticket.

I leave Friday. My butt will be sore.

C • Choosing to see 3

Ride up to fetch all my bike stuff in Melrose. Hot. And part of the Northern Strand closed, but soon to be extended, so that's okay. Not much signage, though.

And home, into the wind. Still hot.

Need more solar. Need more windmills.

Walked to Cambridge with Mel, then ran home with a tailwind.

Strava time, which basically discounts the time we spent not really moving going down the slide, seems short. Will split the difference.

Weather was not great, with storms, so we stayed off the ridges. How about Owl's Head? I'd never run the trail from the south. Mostly runnable to the ascent, two big rivers and two littler ones. I chose to keep my feet dry for the big ones with my shoes off on the way out. Then we went up the bushwhack (new-ish, I think) to the summit, down the slide which was super steep, and then run back. Rain and wind on the slide, too, but not too heavy, and fun to watch sweep through. Decided not to go north through some boggy areas.

Jog back, bugs not bad if you were moving (stopping, on the other hand, was basically impossible, I do not miss mosquitos in winter) and fording the rivers like Oregon Trail. No oxen were lost.

C • New orienteer in Boston? 6

So there's this thing. It's called "November Project." And it is back!

It was back last week but I was at the airport. But this week, at Prospect and Summit. Prospect is closer, but the hills were still real. I also ran there and back so got >10 miles in. After track and O, this was not easy to go fast.

But it was great to be with so many people who I haven't seen in more than a year. It felt so … normal. Just with a few more buffs of faces and fewer hugs. Thank you vaccines.

C • NP 1

Track! 3200, which is way shorter than CSU, but then harder.

400: 1:23 (warm up, as I was a bit lake biking)
800: 2:50
400: 1:13
400: 1:19
800: 2:52
400: 1:14

Didn't feel perfect and the times and positive splits sort of show this, but no real complaints.

Cool down

Traffic to Russo's took longer than expected (my route choice wasn't superb) so I was later to O, which meant no warm up. So I warmed up the first couple of controls, plus heavy legs from track.

Ran clean, though, no real mistakes, other than make from 4 to 5 where I ran to the right when the trail across the out-of-bounds was overprinted and I could have taken it. Around 9 my shoe came untied so that didn't help, and my ankle is still a bit janky from a couple of weeks ago. At least I won the last control (tied), but well behind the two winners of the week overall (also tied).

Pick up sticks, no waiting!

Long - Splits

Longer jogaroo, also to park cars for street sweeping and check out the bus lane on North Washington Street.

Parking was a success, I found a spot, parked back against a silly car (a huge land rover probably 18" wider than my vehicle, which should be banned on pavement) and then when I got back it was gone and I was able to pull back a bit to "save" a spot for Mel later.

Jogaroo to get home for a meeting I thought started at 1800.

It started at 1830.

Hot, though. But not humid.

Hiking down the Reef Bay trail. Wound up with a big crew, so this was not a trail run, but it would have been. I had a backpack full of water, and snorkel gear, but apparently the snorkeling was not worth getting sandy and salty for. I also found a good map on the beach, but it was too late to make extra hikings. The beach was nice, though.

We decided the known known of a shaded trail was a good idea, and went back up. Everyone trooped up pretty well and we had plenty of time to catch the open-air taxi back to the ferry.

Snorkeling!

I did this twice, but only found satellites once. This was sea turtles! The other one was coral reef. I have never been good at this but was able to get the breathing down. Very cool. Nice flotation in salt water with flippers. Got sunburned.

So running was tough, because it was hot. Every day hot. 70s early, then 80s, but dewpoints in the 70s, so 90s. Not a running kind of place.

Alas, we still went to try to run, on a nearby trail. It was hilly! The trail was nice. We went to a beach and then back.

I drank a liter of water and got back dehydrated, chafing and sweaty.

C • Magens Bay 2

The house had glass-bottomed kayaks (not much to see locally other than the sea turtle, which was cool) so we went across the bay. It was windy, and the paddling was very rough on what someone called a "divorce boat."

Which it was until I realized I could push my seat back a couple of feet and would no longer be right next to Mel trying to paddle and steer. Also the boats had long since lost their skegs so they had no means to go straight and were basically impossible to steer. But with us a few feet apart, at least I could try.

We also scoped out a big yacht that rents for $180,000 per week.

Jogaroo

Mel's ankle was pretty swollen but we said "let's see how far up Passaconaway we can get."

Answer: all the way up, and then down via the Walden Trail, plus some running on the way down. Weather ranged from sunny to graupel showers. Trail was mostly dry.

Lazy day, eventual evening run on the Hall's Ledge-Hutmen's loop. Felt pretty good except for feeling a bit crampy up top. And taking the Orchard Trail when I didn't mean to. The run down the Hutmen's Trail was nicer without being covered in loose leaves.

"Trail Run" thanks Attackpoint that's kind I guess we did run a bit at the end.

Type 2 adventure over the Westside Trail. Ammy was wet and then snowy up to Lakes, good hiking on the snowy bits. The Crawford Path and Westside and Gulfside were snowy in places and except for the steep snowfields fine, not too cold or windy. One stray snow shower came through and a bit of sun. Caps Ridge was very slow with some snow and the ankle (see below), but the run down the road was nice.

I smashed my ankle into a rock on the Westside and it bled a bit and hurt some but seems fine. MPG < 2 which is good.

Moats were dry and pretty runnable. Cloudy, but not wet, which was nice, because it meant we didn't get baked. Perfect temperature for being out, not too sweaty, not too cold. Not too many people, either.

So, it's May 6, and I should reflect on April:

200 miles was easy once I ran a 96 mile week, even with a quiet last week of the month. I did not fly to Anchorage, and it got warm. I made it to 40h, barely. And I did some core, some planks, some yoga.

May?

More of the same, I guess. 200 miles + 40 hours + some core sounds good.

Some complicating factors … we're taking a "vacation" next week, 4 days in NH running mountains (as much as we can), then St Thomas for her friend's birthday party (just had to pay the airfare) so maybe I'll sneak out to the National Park which has some trails but is on a different island.

I should ask Nick from NP what his ab workout is. It's hard enough that I can't remember what it is after we've done it. Or maybe I just don't want to know.

C • Virgin Islands 3

Some NP folks are doing a track workout on Thursdays and I was up and like track (well, felt slow) so showed up.

4-4-8-8-4-4, 3200m for someone's 32nd birthday. That seems smarter than 32 miles. The last one, they gave us all a head start and he tried to chase us down. Which was a good way for me to get a negative split.

Attackpoint got very confused with splits and mile splits, there's negative time there, IDK.

72
76
2:49
2:45
75
74 <-- Strava said this was my fastest time off the NW corner ever, although the first 400 may have been just as fast but Strava caught some extra stuff at the end because I didn't run through.

(ish)

Warm up cool down

Then we did abs and it was hard as it is.

Warmed up around the parking lots that are empty.

Job sprawl is terrible.

Fun race out in Burlington at Mary Cummings. The runnable woods were really quite nice runnable woods, and there was some fun terrain navigating and good features.

1. Some mud, rock found.
2. Field
3. Navigated well, but could have gone faster
4. Went too far south hit the trail, then good from there
5. Terrain to lake
6. Terrain so swamp rock
7. Terrain to rock
8. Terrain to nubble
9. How bad can the green be? A: very, very bad. I went for a green swim (so did Keegan) and dropped 2-3m when I should have gone around either way. Scratched up my legs through pants, arms (one tick flicked) and face. The green was really quite impassable.
10. Probably should have gone left.
11. Raced someone to the finish.

Felt good about this, other than the running through the green.

Long - Splits

Jogaroo around the river, a couple of sprints for traffic lights. Waited out the heaviest of the rain and it was nice and cool for the run, in a jacket, eventually zipped part way down with gloves off.

Got home and realized no buff! It had come off my wrist, somehow, somewhere. Goodbye, red Birkie Buff from 2012.

(I found it the next morning about 500m from home. Clean from the rain.)

Jogarooing between meetings … made it home in time to make tofu.

This is an incredible recipe:

Quarter and broil two pears until slightly brown.

Blend (all ish)

Pears
4T soy
3T honey
2 cl garlic
1" ginger
4T ses oil
1T gojuchang

Fry 1 lb (or more) tofu in olive/canola/whatever

Pour off extra oil, add pear sauce blend, cook 5 min.

Garnish with scallions, serve over rice.

Jogarooing making an upside-down moose, apparently. With the piers I could probably make antlers!

Felt decidedly meh at the start, a bit better as it went along.