Nick Brown

Yesterday I found a tri/bike shop in Corvallis.  “Northwest Multisport” had a surprisingly nice setup and a good selection of bikes and gear for this sleepy town.  I met the owner, Gordo, and he set me up with directions for a 2.5 hour trip.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/11213426

I loved the ride.  Rolling hills and then a flat section through Willimate Valley farmlands.  That’s right.  I live at the end of the Oregon Trail.  You are hard pressed to find light controlled intersections around here, and if it weren’t for the logging trucks, traffic would be non-existent.

Today, my Garmin 705 and www.mapmyride.com was a lifesaver.  I found a bunch of rides starting from Corvallis which random people have stored on line.  I figured out how to download the rides to the Garmin so that I had turn-by-turn directions., making it hard for direction challenged folks like me to get lost.  Score.

I picked the “80 mile” ride that somebody had called “weekend ride”, assuming that only a local staple of a route would deserve that name.  It started on the flat valley floor but started to roll through the first 20 miles.  At mile 22 I entered pine and moss forest and the first of two significant climbs.  2 miles of a 7 to 8 percent grade climbing about 900 feet.  I felt great, was digging the view, forest and switchbacks.  An organized ride was trickling past in the other direction and I had plenty of cyclists to wave and smile at.  Riders seem eager to greet and wave up here.

It took 15 miles to make the descent!  Sweetness!  The road narrowed and turned to one lane, but the pavement was great.  Forest canopy covered over head.  I snapped this pic on a “flatter” portion.

Yea, I’m diggin’ the trees. Corvallis smells like pinesol.

Two hours passed and I ended up in the town of Alsea.  Really its just an intersection and a “merchantile” store.  My bottles were empty so I stopped to buy some Gatorade and water.

I passed on the gizzards.

Any store with a picture of “The Duke” on the wall is alright in my book.

A big cat was guarding the beer.  I don’t need to run into one of these guys on my trail runs.

I left the store and continued on the valley floor.  After a couple miles this ominous view appeared:

It was alright though, I didn’t climb the big hill in the picture.  The road turned left and I got to crawl up a bigger one.  Over six miles I climbed about 1000 feet.  The road was straight and the grade pretty constant and not really very severe.  I could see the peak from a good distance away and I paced my effort up the hill accordingly.  I got the top and started to relax and descend when I noticed my Garmin squaking at me to turn left.  What left?

I doubled back, found the road, and was introduced to Mary’s peak.  This is where the climb really started.  I began the day looking for a steady ride over some moderate rollers, but the Garmin had laid out the challenge and I wasn’t going to back down.  IM or no IM.  The entire climb ended up being 8.6 miles and 1500 feet and included five miles at a 7% grade.  I turned around when the course I had downloaded doubled back on itself but get this….I wasn’t anywhere near the top.  I have found the Corvallis version of Palomar. Mary and I have some business to take care of after Louisville.

The decent?  Wow.  My knuckles haven’t been that white in a while.  Once I was back on the valley floor I kept it steady (I was pretty torched) until I arrived back at my place.  Sweet ride.  I was feeling pretty good about my 70 miles and 5K feet until I got home and saw a tweet from James Walsh claiming 96 miles and 8K+.  Somebody always has to bring it a step further.

Here is the whole ride:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/11270057

Quick run after the ride.  A bit hot for IM pace, but maybe I can hold 7’s or 7:10’s?

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/11273822

I get more and more excited about training out here every day.  If anybody down in San Diego wants to make a 1K mile trip to get some training in a different climate, let me know.  Just try to avoid dysentery on the way up, and don’t let anybody steal your oxen.

Just before memorial day this year I got notice that I would be taking a two week trip through Iraq, departing a mere ten days after I was notified.  The pictures in the blog entry below of my memorial day run through a Pennsylvania forest are from just before I left.

The two week trip in Iraq ended up lasting five.  Of course I was unable to ride and swim in Iraq, so I ran at every opportunity, trying to salvage all of the training I had done this winter and spring for Ironman Louisville on August 30th.  “Every opportunity” was at about 10 PM every night when the temperature cooled to around 100 and again at 0500 in the morning, when the sun was up but the temperatures hovering in the 90s.

Running in Iraq was even harder then I had imagined.  I don’t know if I should attribute it to the awkward training hours, the dry heat, the hassles of life in a “contingency area” (Iraq is no longer a “war zone”), but my perceived effort of the slowest and easiest runs was always way to intense. My efforts to get a decent amount of training “hours” solely by running was probably to much to soon.  What felt like tendinitis in my left Achilles developed and I abandoned running about halfway through my trip. (In hindsight, I probably could have ran through what was more of an irritation then injury, but I was afraid, tired and overworked.  Taking a break just seemed like the right thing to do.)

I returned after two and a half weeks of training goose eggs and five weeks of no cycling or swimming with  eight weeks to prepare for Louisville.  I was busy at work, turning my job over with my relief and preparing for my departure from San Diego to Corvallis Oregon.  Regardless, I put my head down and worked through the initial frustration that came from the illusion of “lost fitness” that came with my first weeks of resumed training.

My last week in San Diego (last week) was one of the biggest training weeks I have ever attempted.  It contained two century rides and a 22 mile run.  I was gambling, overreaching to try to make the best of my limited window to prepare.  The gamble paid off because I felt great all week.  For the first time ever, I successfully hung on to the famous “Swami’s” ride all the way to the church and then continued on to complete a 108 mile ride. On Sunday I had an epic run AROUND Mission Bay and La Jolla.  I stopped four miles away from completing a full marathon and was on pace to run sub 3:25!  The numbers posted and feats accomplished have raised my self confidence to an all time high.

By the time I was leaving San Diego on Tuesday I was ready for a few well deserved easy days of driving.

Which brings me to the present.  The Navy has sent me from San Diego to Oregon State University to pursue a graduate degree in Ocean Engineering.  School starts on the 28th of September and I’ll be here for 18 months.  Until classes start, I’ll be settling in, getting used to the area and continuing to prep for Louisville.  I’m looking forward to racing (its been awhile).  I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t vying for a Kona slot, but I really just want to see that my fitness has increased since my Ironman Debut in AZ last November.

You can probably expect more blog posts over the next few weeks.  This town is just like my old home town, dead quiet until students return in the fall.  What a great opportunity to focus.

Before I disappeared, (more on that later), I made a new investment.  I am now the proud owner of a loaded Lynskey R330.

I purchased my last road bike right when I moved to San Diego two years ago.  The Felt’s purpose at first was to get my rear end back and forth to work (up and down the “strand” from IB to Coronado).  The triathlon bug bit, we raced together, I bought my P2C, the Felt became a nice complement to my training.  The 2nd bike in my quiver of two was used for climbing Palomar, commuting to work or recovery rides.

The more time I spent riding and training, the more I came to appreciate the sport of cycling for what it is.  The more I learned about cycling, the more I learned about bicycles.  There was nothing wrong with my aluminum Felt, but it left me wanting.  It wasn’t a perfect fit to my body.  It wasn’t truly a racing frame.  Now that I had an “intermediate” understanding of cycling, my taste had become more selective (complemented by my inner-engineer-geekness).

I desired a road bike frame that I would be proud to race on, that was bombproof (I want any kids of mine to be fighting over it when I’m on my death bed), and most importantly, that fit.

The Navy, for some reason, decided to keep me around for another few years.  I must really have them fooled because they also paid me to stay!.  “Here - take this money for keeping your job”.  Regardless of how it came about, the cash would make my road frame acquisition possible.

I give you:  Emma Lee…

…so named after Old Sidecar Doobey’s “pretty round-eyed” wife in the novel Once a Runner. “Woman…we fixin’ to do some night ridin’!”

The R330 has the new Dura Ace 7900 groupset, except for the chainrings and crank.  I also invested in a pair of Quarq powermeters (one for the road and one for the TT - I figured I could by two for around the price of an SRM or for a Powertap and costs from rebuilding two or more wheels) and the Quarq dictated FSA chainrings and cranks.  I’m riding Dura-Ace wheels and Hutchinson tubless tires.  The front fork and the cranks are the only carbon, the seatpost and handlebars are aluminum Ritchey WCS.

I can’t begin to tell you how sweet it is to ride this.  I also can’t differentiate what comes from a good fitting or what comes from the components and frame.  All I know is that everything is smooth, I love how the road feels and I want to go  “strafe the golldanged pigeons” when I ride it.

More pics are below.  I love how clean the bike frame looks and the subtle design intricacies Lynskey included like the oval chain stays and twisted seat stays.

I must make Matt Simpson at Rivet Cyclesport for making this possible.  He put up with me and my persistent questions for weeks before I actually shelled out any money.  Thanks to him I feel good about every piece of the bike we selected.  I know why its there and why its what I want.  He can also take credit for the fact that the bike fits me so well that I feel like the bike is an extension of my body when I’m riding.

Memorial Day finds me at home.  Mom’s place, in the hills on the outskirts of State College Pennsylvania.  I’m glad to be home, as I really needed a chance to decompress and reload after hectic begging to Spring.

Its my favorite time of year in Pennsylvania.  The leaves just came out, and the woods are bright green.  Mom is happy to see me, and is doing everything she can to make me fat.

When I grew up out here, I never really appreciated the area for what it is.  I had mountain bikes when I was a kid, and I frequented the state game lands and state forests around my home.  But I never truley understood what I had in my backyard until now.  Excuse me for breaking out the overused california term, but the running here is epic.  Miles and miles and miles of hiking trails, fire roads, gravel roads, dirt roads, single track and ATV paths.  All interwoven around, up and over the rolling hills of Appalachians.  Sure the mountains aren’t as big as out west, but that doesn’t mean there isnt ascent (and descent) to be had.  The land ROLLS out here and the scenery is great.  I’m lucky if I see another human on a 10 mile run out here.

I’ve been home for three days now and I have four runs and a swim under my belt.  Here are some pics I took on my first run.  I was shrugging off fatigue from a red eye into town and just wanted to stretch my legs, so I took the old camera phone, a-la Dave Platfoot.  Be careful San Diegan’s.  There is a lot of green to follow and you may not be used to it.

Leaving the front porch….

Turned right at the logging trucks sign (none were to be seen)

and was greeted by an endless amount of this:

Passed the “Sand Mountain” trail head…made a mental note and ran this the next morning.

Turned left at the creek, but only for a mile…..

Here is the creek….

No Hunting!

The road was blocked just past a bridge over the creek…

…turned around, and ran back to my original road.  Continued out of the State Forest…..

…through more of this…

…and into the local scout camp…

where I was reintroduced to humans (fishing in the left of the image).

Central PA or Easter Island?  I like how the statue and Felipe have the same haircut.

So I ran out of the scout camp and passed some hunting cabin’s down the road.  One had a familiar name, but Quentin wasn’t home.

All good things come to an end, and soon enough I was next to the highway, about a mile and a half from mom’s house.  Note how the sign says the road ends well before that…

This is where directions to my mom’s place instruct you to “turn off the paved road” and the banjos que in…

….home sweet home.

The cycling out here also looks amazing.  If I only would have known when I was younger.  I’d love to have three weeks or so back home with nothing to do but run, ride and swim (which requires a trip to town).  Maybe next spring…

Before I dig into my race recap, let me first profess my love for Wildflower.  Last year was eye opening, and this year was just as much fun.  Camping with about 4,000 fellow triathletes/nuts in one of California’s most beautiful settings…what could be better?  What a great excuse to skip out of 1.5 days of work and blow a bunch of money at REI.

It was great to hang out with Marty Taylor (who came out of his hole in the the mid-west), meet his girlfriend Linda, and goof around with Denner (implants), Patrick, Bryan, Greg (the tree hugger), Damian, Carl (I’m invisible to chicks when standing next to him), Sandra, Paul, Carrie and everybody else at our TNT alumni campsite (of which I am an impostor).

I skipped out of work early Thursday to drive up and meet Marty at the Wal-Mart in Paso Robles.  After stocking up on food (we bought beer but forgot dinner for two of our three nights), we headed towards Lake San Antonio to set up camp.  We showed up just in time to unload the vehicles before it got dark.  The campsite grew as a steady stream of various acquaintances streamed in.

Friday morning was devoted to race prep, which was smart because Friday afternoon brought rain.  A bunch of us were hoping it would hold out until race morning, hoping to feed off of everybody elses collective discomfort.  It didn’t, and race day ended up being pretty ideal.

My goals for the weekend were to 1) Have fun and relax (mission accomplished) and 2) race smart enough to run hard.  I have vivid memories of the horrors of miles four through six on the run left over from last year.  This year I had dreams of effortlessly bounding up the ranks as everybody else succumbed to the grade and the trails.  This was to be a “B” race for me (Oceanside was my early season priority, and my next major focus will be Ironman Louisville), so placing well wasn’t as important to me as the self confidence boost that would come from tearing up the run course.

The swim was realitively uneventful. I finished in just over 28 minutes (slower than last year, a bit concerning), continued my trend of slow and awkward T1s and started what was supposed to be a calm bike leg.  I did a pretty good job avoiding some early idiocy and settled into what I thought was a good tempo which would leave plenty of gas in the tank for the run.  Nasty grade would have its way with me though, and even when trying to hold back the last 15 miles or so of the course took a rough toll on my legs.

I finished the bike and moved quickly through T2.  I could tell I was in trouble as my “cruise” pace wasn’t so easy to maintain over the first four miles.  Sure enough, when the trail turned up and away from the lake things went south for me.  I ended up walking the same sections as last year and my moral plummeted.  As I emerged beaten into the meadows above, I was not a happy camper and plotted along the flats at about 7:30 minute miles.

The quiet thuds of a big approaching group snapped me out of my funk.  I looked back to see a bunch of female pros I recognized from the bike leg, approaching in a pack.  “Why not?” I thought as I tried to latch onto my overtakers.  Amazingly, after following for a few minutes I ended up in front, shoulder to shoulder with a shorter and seemingly floating woman.  We built off each other and soon enough we had dropped the group behind.  I had my rabbit and I didn’t want to let her go.

It is pretty common for me to end up mixing it up with the lead females, especially since I’m usually in one of the first age group waves to start the race.  Their race always seems more important than mine, and I get uneasy when I think I might be in the way.  So as we made our way along the course I was being very mindful of the line I was following and the line she was following.  I tried to stay unobtrusive through aid stations and shared the trail when we were side by side.

And the 7:30 pace dropped to 6:30.  We were hauling ass.

We exchanged names; I didn’t recognize hers.  “Gina”.  In my year and a half in this sport I’ve become familiar with the identities of some pros.  Since I didn’t know who my guide to the left was, I figured she was a mid-level pro.  Turns out she was also a 40 year old mother of two!  A fact made even more impressive as the miles wore on and she drove the pace harder and harder.  When the broken and labored conversation turned to past races she surprised me again.  She had finished 4th at Kona!  In under 9:30!  CRAZINESS!!!

Gina was awesome.  She was adamant about how thankful she was to have somebody to run with, even though I felt like I was just hanging on.  I guess some women pros have their own regular age group men to work with and she was happy to stumble into me.

Somewhere around mile 11 the course descends and then runners backtrack up the hill.  At the bottom we caught Rachel Challis (another mother of two) and Gina surged.  I guess she didn’t want Rachel to latch on.  I couldn’t match Gina’s effort and Rachel and I were left on our own.

Although Gina dropped me like a bad habbit, I fought through the last mile or so and salvaged a pretty decent run.  Gina greeted me in the finishing chute and I got a big ‘ol hug.  She had fought her way into 7th place and got to take home a bit of cash.

I finished in 4:49:49.  Seven minutes and four seconds faster than last year.  Improvment isn’t as easy or rapid as it used to be.  I’m not to worried though, since I was more “rested” than “tapered” for this race.  The big positive from race day was running alongside an American Ironman Champion, who, more importantly, turned out to also be a very kind and good human being.

Ryan Denner had an awsome race.  Like breakthrough awsome.  He finished a scant minute and change behind me.  When we passed on the out and back on the hill, he looked VERY strong.  I’m sure if we would have started together, I would have been in his sites and he may have run me down.  If his calves weren’t so damn huge he may have had the power to weight ratio to overtake me in the hills.  I can only hope that this is the beggining of a very, very competitive relationship (in the most healthy of ways).

I stumbled around for the rest of Saturday (consuming several “Wildflower Burritos”) and splurged on a few beers that night.  Sunday I watched the Olympic Distance Race with the friends who were left before heading home.

A Solid Weekend.

I rode into work today.  Its a 15.8 mile trip, and most mornings I’m in no mood to rush things.  Today was no different.  I cruised in at 121bpm as the world woke up around me.

Arriving in Coronado, I swam before heading into the office.  3200 meters, main set consisted of 10×50s on a fifty second interval.  I’d rather swim long than fast, so this was uncomfortable.

Work sucked, which is to be expected on Mondays.  Everybody was complaining about A/C.  Why don’t people let me know their shit is broke before the temperature gets into the 90s? After I told a bunch of our Nation’s most deadly warriors to suck it up and use a fan, I got to turn my attention to more important issues.  Like trying to make buildings appear instantly, for no cost whatsoever.  As you can imagine, I had little luck

In the afternoon I try to leave the office at 20 after to catch the ferry at Naval Air Station North Island at 40 after (It takes me from 11 to 13 minutes to get from Naval Amphibious Base Coronado to NASNI).  I desperately wanted to leave at 1620 today, the 20th of April.  Not that I would partake in any festivities.  (Its not the frequent urinalysis I get at work, Its the fact that I’m already ALWAYS hungry and I don ‘t need to add to my persistent munchies)  Work kept me from making the early boat, and instead I escaped at 1720.

The ride home was a bit breezy and warm.  My legs were tired from a good weekend.  Oddly enough, when I got in the door I felt the urge to run.  I changed into running gear (which is almost naked) and bounded down the street.  The fatigue I felt on the bike was instantly gone.  The late afternoon/early evening warmth felt great, almost cleansing.  As I descended into rose canyon, I turned east and ran a trail which only exists because the terraine on either side is to steep to develop.   I made a solid effort to run w/o looking at the Garmin, gauging my effort by feel (I would call it an “easy fast” pace).  The evening was cooling off, the air was quiet and I was happy.  Eventually my trail ended and I was back amidst the hustle and bustle of Genesse and Nobel at peak traffic hours.  I kept my focus on mainting my intensity and finished the 4.5 mile run feeling very good about life and all that it entails.  I’m also now convinced that moving north to the middle of nowhere will not be all that bad come September.

A few minutes ago, I looked into what the Garmin had to say about my run.  I’ve never seen HR data so steady.  The Garmin shows an almost a straight line, gradually increasing from 145 bpm to 165 bpm, regardless of grade or footing (my LT or AT or whatever is 174 bpm, I think…).  The run started by running down into the canyon, and ended by running up out of it.  I think its neat how my internal governor slowly lifted as the run progressed.

I know.  I’m a dork.

Time to turn in….tomorrow is another day.

Work keeps messing with my training plans.  First Tuesday;I ended up at work until 6PM and had to kick my own ass on my trainer late at night, alone.  Then today.  Again at the office until 6PM and I had to improvise a fartlek run instead of hitting the track w/ my buddies.

I ran my hour course at a slightly moderate pace and did 8 45 second pickups at what I gauged to be my mile pace.  The pace for the surges varied from 5:40 (one of the first ones up a slight grade) to 5:06 (perfectly flat section after I was well warmed up).  It was fun to run that fast, as even at the track I rarely dip down into the low 5’s.  Students on campus were looking at me like I was mad as I screamed by them.

Even though work keeps pushing my workouts into the evening, I haven’t missed anything yet.  (knock on wood).