tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5845312093582939152024-02-20T17:52:15.636-08:00enduring beyond the limitWhat in the wild wild world of sports is John up to now? Read to find out more about John's world of ultracycling, ultrarunning and more...John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-31855130076617856522014-07-05T10:35:00.000-07:002014-07-05T11:08:08.696-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Eureka 1000k – A self-supported ride on Vancouver Island,
British Columbia (June 14-16, 2014)</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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There comes a time when you want to find solitude in your
life and get out and explore a new place and new experience. After completed four 1200k’s (Cascade,
PBP, Rocky Mtn and Endless Mtns), I am always eager in learning more how to
ride more independently. And the 1000k
distance is always a perfect opportunity to get broken into upcoming 1200k’s. After registering for the Colorado High
Country 1200k and Natchez Trace 1500k, I had the urge to find a 1000k that
would give me additional experience of riding long remote stretches and riding
as unsupported. I wanted to ride the
Vancouver Island 1200k in July, but was already registered for Colorado High
Country. So I thought it would be great to try a 1000k on Van Isle. The <a href="http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/1000km/1000km.html">BC Randonneurs take
pride in their unsupported 1000k’s</a> and considers them to be “randonneur
cycling's ugly duckling... the black sheep of the brevet family... neither fish
nor fowl.” So, upon looking at the BC Randonneurs
Vancouver Island region 2014 schedule’s website, I encountered the <a href="http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/1000km/routes/vi_eureka.html">Eureka 1000k</a>,
which route is listed as “Victoria, Gold River, Port Alberni and Lake Cowichan”
and a start time of “rider choice”. I
got in touch with Mike Croy, the organizer for the Vancouver Island region, and
Mike was very helpful in providing me helpful insight in my preparation for the
Eureka 1000k. I also got a lot of advice from Dave Campbell, who is a good
friend of mine. Dave and Holland also
allowed me to stay at their house in Victoria, and was only 5k from the start,
and about 10k from the finish. Dave and
I are also planning to ride the Colorado High Country 1200k, so it was good to
hang out and plan the 1200k ride.
Vancouver Island is full of excellent roads, beaches, mountains and
scenic views that I had never experienced before. The same reason that Ken Bonner named this
course Eureka, is about the same reasoning on riding this particular ride…I’ve
got an idea…<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_effect">EUREKA</a>! <o:p></o:p></div>
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I started this ride with Ken but we got separated only about
5k into the ride and was on my own the rest of the ride. Ken had to DNF at some point on the 1st day but he still went on to
finish the Cascade 1200k the following weekend.
I am very thankful Ken was there at the start of the ride who give me
some very helpful tips and encouragement.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I also found a 1000k on Vancouver Island to be very attractive
since I figured I could easily take the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria
with my bike without needing to drive into Canada. </div>
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I had never been to Vancouver Island, but knew
that terrain would be the biggest challenging element of the Eureka along with
cooler wet weather is also quite common in the interior mountains of the
island. Ken Bonner created the Eureka 1000k as one of 3 most “climby” 1000k’s
on Vancouver Island, which the Eureka as the 2<sup>nd</sup> most climbing
(32,000 ft of climbing). I didn’t
realize this factor until Ken told me at the start of the ride. Since I would be carrying my own gear for
each day (without any drop bag support), I just figured I wouldn’t be setting
any PR’s on this 1000k. But my main goal would be to finish each day at 18-20 kph
average speed (including stops during each day), in order to get to my hotels…hopefully
not more than 2 hours after dark.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Another big part of preparing for such unsupported ride is
to get appropriate bags on the bike in order to carry essential clothing, food
and tools, since I knew it was most likely I would be riding this 1000k solo
and carrying most all my gear. I rode the Seattle to Glacier 1000k last year
with Vinny Muoneke and Doug Migdon as an unsupported preride, but we sent all
of our clothing to our overnight hotels.
Where this Eureka 1000k, I planned to carry all my gear. Mark Thomas gave me good reviews on the new <a href="http://www.revelatedesigns.com/">Revelate Design</a> products, which I
already had purchased the frame bag for last year. But I also got the <a href="https://www.revelatedesigns.com/index.cfm/store.catalog/Seat-Bags/Pika">Pika</a>
seat bag which, holds as much as 12 L. This was a perfect bag for this
unsupported ride, where I could easily hold 2 extra days of clothing, rain gear
and extra long sleeve wool jersey and gloves. Although, with all the clothing
in the bag, it was almost maxed out, and was like having a long tail wagging
behind me<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span> <o:p></o:p></div>
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As any unsupported ride, it is essential to plot the course
onto a computer generated mapping program, regardless if you are using a GPS
unit during the ride. I typically use
Ride with GPS. This allowed me to
prepare myself on what the terrain was like on each segment of the Eureka route
and also understand distances between each control for each day. But, even though I had the course plotted on
my Garmin, I always have paper cue sheet on hand always checking to make sure I
am on course. Since this was completely
unsupported ride, it was up to me to choose my overnight cities and reserve my
own hotels. So I plotted the Eureka
1000k into Ride with GPS and figured out, the best place to overnight would be
Gold River the 1<sup>st</sup> night (396k first day) and Parksville the 2<sup>nd</sup>
night (322k second day) and third day 290k to finish in Victoria. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I booked a hotel at the Gold River Chalet, in Gold River
which the BC Randonneurs have used in previous Brevets, including the Van Isle
1200k. The Gold River Chalet has been
used in several previous brevets before and so the hotel attendant was very
familiar with the Randonneurs and very helpful to me in providing me with the
best service I could ever ask for. I had figured out since it would take me possibly
over 20 hours to get to Gold River, I needed to look into how I was going to
get food once I got there. The first day
has a considerable amount of elevation gain, about 10,000 ft in 396k and so, so
by leaving at 3am from Victoria, this would get me there sometime around 11pm
to midnight. I called the Chalet again and asked if I could possibly preorder
food from any local restaurant and they gladly took my credit card and I had
precooked Lasagna waiting in the my hotel fridge to be heated in the microwave
once I arrived. Now that’s called
service!! The Gold River Chalet was a perfect place to sleep as it was right
after a cool wet descent down from Strathcona Lodge.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I had also had already booked a hotel in Parksville at the
Arbutus Grove Motel (at the 718k overall mark or 322k on my own designed day 2),
which was conveniently located just off the course, just before the long 30k
plus stretch on the BC 19 freeway. Parksville
was also located about 30k after the 2<sup>nd</sup> double summit of the Port
Alberni out and back (mostly on Hwy 4, which is full of rumple strips and
narrow sections). Port Alberni summit is at 1400 ft (411 meters) above sea
level and was even steeper after turning around in the city of Port Alberni. I also
realized later in my preparation that the Eureka route goes right by the
Arbutus Grove Motel on the first day, which allowed me to plan on dropping off
my 3<sup>rd</sup> day clothing and some food for the 2<sup>nd</sup> night there
at the hotel. And this hotel was very
gracious and allowed me to hold my stuff until I got there the 2<sup>nd</sup>
night. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The first day had about 10,000 ft of climbing in just under
400k, with the 1,000 ft climb up the Malahat just outside of Victoria, some
steeper 300-400 ft climbs in a few places along the coast and the 1200 ft climb
up to Strathcona Lodge and 500 ft climb further south out of upper Campbell
River and 1200 ft descent to Gold River. </div>
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Even though I made it to the Strathcona
Lodge just before sunset (about 9:00pm), the final 44k to Gold River was in the
dark and was cool and wet on the descent. So having the extra rain gear was
essential. The view at the Strathcona
Lodge and all along the upper Campbell River was the most beautiful part of the
entire ride and my favorite too! <o:p></o:p></div>
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The second day had about 9,300 ft of climbing in 322k, with
the 1200 ft climb right out of Gold River and the 2<sup>nd</sup> 500 ft pitch
out of the upper Campbell River, so it was important to plan to leave before
the closing time. </div>
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Riding up the long
climb back up to the Strathcona Lodge could be tough to make up time. I left about 30 minutes before the cutoff
(about 4:50am) but felt good on this climb and made up over an hour and a half
in the bank by the time I got to Strathcona Lodge. Upon leaving, I realized it was Father’s Day
and so, I went back into my hotel room to hook back into my wifi and post a
quick note on my Dad’s facebook. Just
taking the extra couple minutes was worth it to me as I knew I probably wouldn’t
have a chance to send a note to my Dad later on. The lodge had a buffet that started at 7:30,
but since I got there a little earlier I decided to just have a warm scone and
get breakfast once I got to the Campbell River control. I also realized that even after climbing the
500 ft climb out of the upper Campbell River reservoir basin, there were still
a lot of small climbs that slowed my pace down significantly while descending
back down to town of Campbell River. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3E6awveb8VdtgD3VgKkSZ-5IJvfQxj_P99mzaSmd5WsybZrdBeRdQf8mq9WFP-Pdwmw6HJOduBM5gw-mfTihbH_SQ8PaXYObhaM81c7QiUpkqJfsxJxpXi6554-qJhWwAIzUmT_tBOEU/s1600/IMG_3049.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3E6awveb8VdtgD3VgKkSZ-5IJvfQxj_P99mzaSmd5WsybZrdBeRdQf8mq9WFP-Pdwmw6HJOduBM5gw-mfTihbH_SQ8PaXYObhaM81c7QiUpkqJfsxJxpXi6554-qJhWwAIzUmT_tBOEU/s1600/IMG_3049.JPG" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
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The long flat stretch along the beaches on the 19A (also on
Day 1) is also something to consider in planning to stop only where necessary at
the controls or sometimes taking up the info question option and not stopping
to eat every time there’s an info or store control. This was evident where there was an info
control in Comox and Cumberland but a lot more food options in Courtney. I wasn’t sure what store were in the smaller
town of Cumberland and it was starting to rain hard once I got to
Courtney. I am glad I got some extra
calories at Courtney since the climb up to Cumberland was bigger than I had
expected (about 500 feet climb).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_9HC8XZW0LytRZKAc_2wizgAkkTr9cghS7BlDzesXoOB9helUGoPqM2ZwaTZJKHuc6lRnvFrzANat8pP3_DJJKcSpqiRpxWLjyELkvVDlEI6Ymn9bbIFXPFAHkx0i-y_sDOEX5P54hc/s1600/IMG_3153.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_9HC8XZW0LytRZKAc_2wizgAkkTr9cghS7BlDzesXoOB9helUGoPqM2ZwaTZJKHuc6lRnvFrzANat8pP3_DJJKcSpqiRpxWLjyELkvVDlEI6Ymn9bbIFXPFAHkx0i-y_sDOEX5P54hc/s1600/IMG_3153.JPG" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
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But this climb was no match for the upcoming Port Alberni
double climb. The northern climb up to
Port Alberni is well over 1600 ft in 33k starting at the turn at Qualicum Beach,
and much steeper in the final 3k to the summit. Where climbing from the city
Port Alberni to the summit, climbed 1400 ft in only 11k. So planning to also have wool and rain gear for
the rain in the forecast was also important.
Ken Bonner also gave me a tip to leave gear that I might not need at the
Coop gas station store, just before climbing the final pitch up the first climb
over to Port Alberni. And sure enough,
the manager at the Coop Gas station was so generous and let me keep my stuff
there. But at the time of the ride, it was raining and quite cool at the Coop
station (base of the Port Alberni climb) and so I only left a small bag of
clothing and wore most everything else I had.
This made the bike much lighter when I went over the Port Alberni climb! The descent into Port Alberni was the most unpleasant part of this 1000k where
it rained hard and visibility was very limited with water sheeting over the
road and a lot of rocks to try and avoid on a steep descent. I was glad I had my new Specialized TriCross
with disc brakes especially during this stretch. But once I arrived into Port
Alberni, the rain stopped and it was quite warm back at sea level. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfbBe-jQuBnW88wpgogEuLCum5e9FceXEiwnASF3aMnIUgVPWrfaMxedqAz7ce9ekEanuUoGNNWXGqr_y7_zx2z_KhyRQ_1cqysebiz3mcWL11bx-gXX1WW1MtaorFbHuH6Os_g_pDbA/s1600/IMG_0695.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfbBe-jQuBnW88wpgogEuLCum5e9FceXEiwnASF3aMnIUgVPWrfaMxedqAz7ce9ekEanuUoGNNWXGqr_y7_zx2z_KhyRQ_1cqysebiz3mcWL11bx-gXX1WW1MtaorFbHuH6Os_g_pDbA/s1600/IMG_0695.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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I ate a quick bite to eat in town and then
started climbing back up the Port Alberni summit. This time, the rain shower
had passed and there was a stellar view of Mount Arrowsmith, all the way up the
south side of the Port Alberni pass summit. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuqGT3xFgNRtag2AjcPqfjwh7uJgXrSOOz1lVvB6E0ptdNQnRm27WqyiZmjfpr3r7u5ZlnyoVsPhJd1FwnB-QpLnDQ0rUrF8gg_i4mkeSZ5DexGn4SYXZbKip9-vR4-t4Zzy2zORCQdrw/s1600/IMG_3148.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuqGT3xFgNRtag2AjcPqfjwh7uJgXrSOOz1lVvB6E0ptdNQnRm27WqyiZmjfpr3r7u5ZlnyoVsPhJd1FwnB-QpLnDQ0rUrF8gg_i4mkeSZ5DexGn4SYXZbKip9-vR4-t4Zzy2zORCQdrw/s1600/IMG_3148.JPG" height="320" width="179" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw_4n4XT1dQS9Saez9UH2Th8ASUBObDMJUfW0niEdQ4LpjV8KhNOnjMNXWDEFrR_iMl3Rd79oYrVrlqKSA4pdrec8z8i8f2oFSmeYGRISMcZ2Pq-PWJf2trG3XseTXg10BjPYKObrEST0/s1600/IMG_3152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw_4n4XT1dQS9Saez9UH2Th8ASUBObDMJUfW0niEdQ4LpjV8KhNOnjMNXWDEFrR_iMl3Rd79oYrVrlqKSA4pdrec8z8i8f2oFSmeYGRISMcZ2Pq-PWJf2trG3XseTXg10BjPYKObrEST0/s1600/IMG_3152.JPG" height="320" width="179" /></a></div>
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After descending back down the north side of
Port Alberni, and arriving back to the Coop gas station store (just before
dark), I went to purchase a hot chocolate and the gas station manager saw how
cold I looked and spared me a free hot choco!
I also got my extra clothes I left behind and then headed the final 20k
to my hotel back to the Arbutus Grove Motel in Parksville. Although, I must say…if
I were to ride this again, I would probably avoid the 5k Highway 19 stretch,
just west of the 19A/19 interchange, which had a very narrow shoulder and the
bridge over the Englishman River was extremely narrow. And at night, this was kind of sketchy. Next time, I would probably get a hotel in
the center of Parksville along the 19A where there is more food options too and
avoid the Highway 19. I was glad I had
left some cup noodle and other non-perishable food with my clothing with the
hotel host on the first day. Eating
salty noodles and broth in my hotel was all my stomach wanted and was glad I
didn’t try and spend time waiting and eating at a restaurant…and also could
just roll over in my bed and fall right a sleep!</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfVpH35o-gRev2icWH_sHG3jiqvCtruYF0uZg1ZB8yaWvENvtZW-v3oHCr-WeVOEF0gkdWiiNzZ5ulnq2RS5hNwhi3LFjWNZDI0BTX43IbIn7LGaA1OYtCZgcJ_XGkYeumoed8c39mcZI/s1600/IMG_0706.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfVpH35o-gRev2icWH_sHG3jiqvCtruYF0uZg1ZB8yaWvENvtZW-v3oHCr-WeVOEF0gkdWiiNzZ5ulnq2RS5hNwhi3LFjWNZDI0BTX43IbIn7LGaA1OYtCZgcJ_XGkYeumoed8c39mcZI/s1600/IMG_0706.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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The third day had about 9,900 ft of climbing in 290k from
Parksville back to Victoria. Since
Parksville was not a control, it was imperative to leave with plenty of time in
the bank, in order to make the next control in the morning on the south side of
Nanaimo. Even though Nanaimo was at the 765k mark, with sleep time at the
overnight, and with steep terrain on the route that avoided the main city
streets of Nanaimo, it was important to leave by 6am, giving three and half
hours to go 47k. As I mentioned before,
the route would go on Highway 19 for 30k, instead of going through the heart of
Nanaimo. Although, this stretch of highway 19 had a wide shoulder, but I was still
desperate to get it done. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiLNFJEeVLWoqkLLaHcifbWoBGUKA8_UF4Cx65P9BBQxZKWXev27ku5_zPqRxCL4hJoxOUsans282od6jiuakbKtwW3UZ0wcxEDzcMaZcjQA_yZfgY1XYOFjt3qFAZIj9eBxjsUjlLh2Y/s1600/IMG_0709.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiLNFJEeVLWoqkLLaHcifbWoBGUKA8_UF4Cx65P9BBQxZKWXev27ku5_zPqRxCL4hJoxOUsans282od6jiuakbKtwW3UZ0wcxEDzcMaZcjQA_yZfgY1XYOFjt3qFAZIj9eBxjsUjlLh2Y/s1600/IMG_0709.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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Once I got to the control on the south side of
Nanaimo, I had still had over an hour before the closing time and saw I had
until 4pm to get to Lake Cowichan (about 76k further). Since I had passed the 600k mark, I gained about
5 additional hours in the bank, instead needing to keep the 15kph in the first
600k. After Nanaimo control, the route passed by familiar territory I rode on
the 1<sup>st</sup> day. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinJKwC3d2844W9NF48vrOY7IJCDkA1Ke_7IFgIFThstXEVlyj1Vttciu6UiEnKNdYOLQ_cuv7sW4yYpdU2pQeE8GfpC0OQkY5O9qJnlUbP-5qzfS8dP5e57OSHIiX8H5En4u8c1qTCZPk/s1600/IMG_0715.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinJKwC3d2844W9NF48vrOY7IJCDkA1Ke_7IFgIFThstXEVlyj1Vttciu6UiEnKNdYOLQ_cuv7sW4yYpdU2pQeE8GfpC0OQkY5O9qJnlUbP-5qzfS8dP5e57OSHIiX8H5En4u8c1qTCZPk/s1600/IMG_0715.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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But once I arrived
in Somenos, the route climbs up to Cowichan Lake on the older Cowichan Lake
Road, which was nice the route took us off the main highway. After getting to the Cowichan the route
descended back the same way to Somenos.
Then headed north to Crofton, which I had been on the first day. However, it was interesting how there wasn’t
a control in Crofton, since the route continued further south of Semonos, but
the course went to Crofton that added on 20k with some steep hilly terrain. But I was still honest and it was great to
make it to Crofton and take a photo by the Crofton sign, as my own personal “secret”
control. It was rather warm at this
point so ice cream was greatly appreciated. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQpJ8TJL_USpeYpFfxs9JOGoXA5rq9lgtF8lQPbMttLHmQ7Q-j5Hc_JnHHMI7blhv_8_krpYBSzqi9UIizK_bTDaaFPO3isoL4JYbYewtviViLPIhmehly6bPWaTVWUxEIdI0PTEIIUiI/s1600/IMG_0727.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQpJ8TJL_USpeYpFfxs9JOGoXA5rq9lgtF8lQPbMttLHmQ7Q-j5Hc_JnHHMI7blhv_8_krpYBSzqi9UIizK_bTDaaFPO3isoL4JYbYewtviViLPIhmehly6bPWaTVWUxEIdI0PTEIIUiI/s1600/IMG_0727.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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The route continued south on more familiar territory from
the first day, all the way down to Cowichan Bay. Climbing out of the steep Cowichan Bay and
once I got back on Hwy 1, the route deviated from the first day and climbed up
to Shawnigan Lake, where the next control was since Cowichan. I was starting to feel all the extra gear I
had picked up from my overnight in Parksville, and my pace definitely showed
it. I stopped and had a quick bite to
eat at the local pizza place. The route
continues up the Shawnigan Lake road all the way to the south side of the Malahat
climb. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfNkwv5rJoGDBE8wo31tpo0HqOhd9eGww_I7MsgaWjLLuVCuYtQKQo4QX41CdmhSpaqEehJv4-lnup_Xr6DOZpJ1-cwFpWKHID1lmJVfkqEfd7yC5WY8Pj-la8CCUZl-_xUkP1GDzVK68/s1600/IMG_0731.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfNkwv5rJoGDBE8wo31tpo0HqOhd9eGww_I7MsgaWjLLuVCuYtQKQo4QX41CdmhSpaqEehJv4-lnup_Xr6DOZpJ1-cwFpWKHID1lmJVfkqEfd7yC5WY8Pj-la8CCUZl-_xUkP1GDzVK68/s1600/IMG_0731.JPG" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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Once I arrived to the summit at
the Shawnigan Lake Road/ Hwy 1 intersection, it was a nice descent all the way
down to Goldstream turnoff of Hwy 1.
When planning for this ride, I had looked at the cue sheet and upon plotting
into Ride with GPS, it was avoiding crossing Hwy 1 on Spencer Road. I looked at this intersection in Google
streetview when planning and noticed a traffic light and so programmed my GPS
route to cross Hwy 1. However, once I
arrived at this intersection on the ride, I was forced onto Hwy 1 and there was
no traffic light and barriers up, which didn’t allow me to cross Hwy 1. So I just got onto Hwy 1 and took the next
exit and eventually found the control in Millstream (a suburb of Victoria),
with not much trouble. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha24e7uumvzg-2hir75xwZJBgNrC_g_WbRaZHlOsM95wQkiLHSa_m0n5GGnNp110MIo1HNY5LKTVTvDmcF81Qv-H_1JHHXQlXSjhy32DRBCNBAEbIZeoy1JkVGlM6JaaqvD6T8M6_PGas/s1600/IMG_0738.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha24e7uumvzg-2hir75xwZJBgNrC_g_WbRaZHlOsM95wQkiLHSa_m0n5GGnNp110MIo1HNY5LKTVTvDmcF81Qv-H_1JHHXQlXSjhy32DRBCNBAEbIZeoy1JkVGlM6JaaqvD6T8M6_PGas/s1600/IMG_0738.JPG" height="200" width="200" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvXiqxD17X_R_QtAuMGxIgPmnHWL2Ggd1LRRwAeOPJkjysbvrR3wJmbuV6kdsWlqoMxhcbg7LmkuHJeAFqT_NS8V2oCzZk8bbkmmzs5gcbROf6rJqDEYJ_2o9FZMPJ0v86WJWtu8_MgtI/s1600/IMG_0742.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvXiqxD17X_R_QtAuMGxIgPmnHWL2Ggd1LRRwAeOPJkjysbvrR3wJmbuV6kdsWlqoMxhcbg7LmkuHJeAFqT_NS8V2oCzZk8bbkmmzs5gcbROf6rJqDEYJ_2o9FZMPJ0v86WJWtu8_MgtI/s1600/IMG_0742.JPG" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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The route then goes north to Sydney on Millstream Road and
Ross Durance Road and other back roads.
This section was the most enjoyable roads on the entire 1000k, with
smooth asphalt (about 1.5 lane) and steep rolling terrain in a dense forest. It was about an hour before sunset and so it
was good lighting and glad I hit this stretch before dark. It was a Monday evening so only a couple cars
and bicycles passed me. The Ross Durance
Road is a very popular route for riding and glad it was a part of the Eureka
1000k, even though it was 960k into the ride!
Once I descended into Sydney, it cooled off significantly. The sun had just set but I just had 20k to go
back to Victoria on relatively flat terrain.
It was cold enough that I put on my jacket and leg warmers and kept them
on all the way back to the finish. It
was great to finish back in Victoria (north Saanich) not long after dark at
22:09 (67 hours 9 minutes for the entire 1000k). My results and splits can be found here on Strava: <a href="http://www.strava.com/activities/154849556">http://www.strava.com/activities/154849556</a><o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNmxZbIp4K8VBu3dl3vF5v4Gm4qicPfgLAdbjhTQCblB5lPpZMceMJo64CNpxtgmMQiSCw50dJJXOcoFMyytMOTt7oaKThDc9bAKXY4cS3zIMD1XtGqX54E8a_KmXb6i4Zn1MezvcXsN0/s1600/IMG_0747.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNmxZbIp4K8VBu3dl3vF5v4Gm4qicPfgLAdbjhTQCblB5lPpZMceMJo64CNpxtgmMQiSCw50dJJXOcoFMyytMOTt7oaKThDc9bAKXY4cS3zIMD1XtGqX54E8a_KmXb6i4Zn1MezvcXsN0/s1600/IMG_0747.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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The Eureka 1000k was the best ride ever! I learned a lot
more about riding independently on this self-supported type ride. It definitely paid off to plan all the details
on my own, which made things a lot simpler and go much smoother on the
ride. Learning the course and planning
my own hotels and meals and bringing the appropriate gear made this 1000k ride
a fun journey on Vancouver Island. I am very excited to go back and ride more
on Vancouver Island. Thanks again to
Mike Croy and Ken Bonner for organizing a great ride. And also to Dave and Holland for all the
great hospitality in Victoria! It was so great of Dave, Holland and Mike (and
his son) to help me celebrate my finish over awesome homemade pizza and good
beer after I finished the next day. Thanks
for all the great times! A grand
adventure and well worth trip, which makes me feel ready for the upcoming 1200k’s. <o:p></o:p></div>
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John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-51585072469255982932013-12-30T16:52:00.002-08:002013-12-30T16:55:57.141-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh16CXfDJnQt_9BvD4MAC9ZEyu8yUIMNwoJe3ixGiinWT4GyHjEwlxSvxvIhTPyhnnZwPWxHooYEcGnz_VutyleWGlTqg00i2htE5qB_RXYc3ZYm-F_VKOlCJQ4Evumv56xn6AosUjo9Wc/s1600/2013RUSARIDES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh16CXfDJnQt_9BvD4MAC9ZEyu8yUIMNwoJe3ixGiinWT4GyHjEwlxSvxvIhTPyhnnZwPWxHooYEcGnz_VutyleWGlTqg00i2htE5qB_RXYc3ZYm-F_VKOlCJQ4Evumv56xn6AosUjo9Wc/s320/2013RUSARIDES.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Happy New Year everyone! </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Another big year of success! Thanks to everyone for all their support and encouragement! Especially all the excellent coaching from </span><a data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=1027281981&extragetparams=%7B%22directed_target_id%22%3A0%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/michelle.grainger.946" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">Michelle Grainger</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">, all the wonderful volunteers support on all the Brevets, huge encouragement from </span><a data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=1503497888&extragetparams=%7B%22directed_target_id%22%3A0%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/heidi.perry.33" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">Heidi Perry</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> and my parents </span><a data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=1016562875&extragetparams=%7B%22directed_target_id%22%3A0%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/bill.pearch.5" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">Bill Pearch</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> and of course all my fellow Randonneurs and followers for keeping me going through the tireless hours in the saddle! The <a href="http://www.rusa.org/award_khound.html" target="_blank">10,000k </a></span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.rusa.org/award_khound.html" target="_blank">(K-Hound)</a> was my ultimate goal, but also achieved other goals, such as: <a href="http://www.rusa.org/award_cup.html" target="_blank">RUSA Cup</a>(all the RUSA distances +5000k), <a href="http://www.rusa.org/award_r12.html" target="_blank">4-year in a row of 200k or more/mo (R48</a>), <a href="http://www.rusa.org/award_p12.html" target="_blank">P12 </a>(12 consecutive months of 100k), and completion of the <a href="http://www.rusa.org/award_sr.html" target="_blank">Super Randonnuer Series</a>. With <a href="http://users.rcn.com/trosenbauer/PA1200K.html" target="_blank">Endless Mtns 1240k</a> as my target 1200k, training on endless climbing courses also helped keep my climbing average up...notice a lot of 200k rides exceeded 10,000 ft! Attached is a chart I created from data I obtained from my Garmin Edge 705 (with a few adjustments in elevation from other websites or others blogs).</span>John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-78968247827606034292012-08-17T00:41:00.000-07:002012-08-17T00:43:51.905-07:00Help me fight Parkinson's and LeukemiaAs a part of racing in this years Furnace Creek 508 across the Mohave Desert this October 6, I have selected 2 charities as a fundraiser which include The Northwest Parkinson's Foundation and the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. Please help donate to either organization by clicking on the links below...they are great organizations that help my friends and family that are close to my heart.<br />
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<a href="http://www.nwpf.org/Members.aspx?member=832" target="_blank">The Northwest Parkinson's Foundation</a> for Brian<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Ka-Vctp_7iJmKaOtd4bCyNSIpi1Z4nlpdyF1RAeUfuI5PY4t15ExP6_2r1rHtOdcn5qSXYB8MBZMXDhgn6xiBUmiLuM5GNFk8KORD2pC3W1upREUbufOEsrh7lzGk2JHls5j5fs18kA/s1600/nwpfphoto4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Ka-Vctp_7iJmKaOtd4bCyNSIpi1Z4nlpdyF1RAeUfuI5PY4t15ExP6_2r1rHtOdcn5qSXYB8MBZMXDhgn6xiBUmiLuM5GNFk8KORD2pC3W1upREUbufOEsrh7lzGk2JHls5j5fs18kA/s320/nwpfphoto4.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://wa.dojiggy.com/pledge/index.cfm?585F22080E7E7E7B65060563777D677637525E3271077C00027B0E" target="_blank">Leukemia Lymphoma Society</a> for Judy and Sean!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib9wB9QW-E7aTIZgByG75orUngry4mkKwXUbswUT6IXmuV5jT5BF5pjdHFeuxcl_wxZ3glMhaTsN_vOm304QGFUnU86josaTb1qpH7ABEK6GheZCyLD83fWDVvuWMwx0-mEs3c3IPCx5U/s1600/llsphoto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib9wB9QW-E7aTIZgByG75orUngry4mkKwXUbswUT6IXmuV5jT5BF5pjdHFeuxcl_wxZ3glMhaTsN_vOm304QGFUnU86josaTb1qpH7ABEK6GheZCyLD83fWDVvuWMwx0-mEs3c3IPCx5U/s1600/llsphoto.jpg" /></a></div>
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Thank you for all your support!<br />
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John Pearch<br />
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<br />John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-86215428935055656552012-03-12T21:12:00.024-07:002012-03-14T00:33:49.454-07:00Hammer into shape at the Death Valley Double!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_4oIsjYVkM3I4hgmlboyClDf_xe6KOkncFbqEMrQmbsPwb0ILZpju6s1g7Cf5WZAhLTkMo8U-m8nvX0RN7qXF8vFhtuyoafVkHYmI1mcbWyPT7ZwzxFlVfCc2gqAOKWPTj6dLYxKwtGA/s1600/IMG_2251.JPG" style="font-size: 100%; "><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_4oIsjYVkM3I4hgmlboyClDf_xe6KOkncFbqEMrQmbsPwb0ILZpju6s1g7Cf5WZAhLTkMo8U-m8nvX0RN7qXF8vFhtuyoafVkHYmI1mcbWyPT7ZwzxFlVfCc2gqAOKWPTj6dLYxKwtGA/s200/IMG_2251.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719260985254685826" /></a>If you have any desire in riding 100 or 200 miles and you just don't want to wait until the summer time, sign up for one of AdventureCORPS many organized rides in Death Valley. AdventureCORPS (Chris Kostman and all the volunteers) did a great job in supporting the ride at various locations throughout the 200 mile ride. AdventureCORPS are the organizers for the<br />Furnace Creek 508 bike race and Badwater 135 mile Ultramarathon. I plan to apply for Furnace Creek 508 and thought riding the Death Valley Double Century would be a great time to see the Valley of Death during a more pleasant time of year. Because, if I am lucky and get into the 508, the time you pass through Death Valley is in the middle of the night where you can't see all the amazing views as you can in the Double Century!<br /><div><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwkRf_fHYUd6GHPHpzTKhQCD3SSMn7D2SkQk3VUz5bOfdqQo6fXtAhB4KiUCNmJzfj_B4wRD_02yXHJ9yTVzZxJHu4O94e0iYqfBkM44CNHR1rS4rRyaab0Qw4o_i1lfrsvzGwqd-q7q0/s200/IMG_2225.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719268297389562978" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); text-decoration: underline; float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 112px; " />AdventureCORPS also do a great job in supporting everyone at the aid stations with plenty of food, water and Hammer products. They provide more Hammer products than most races do and so it's a great opportunity to try out Hammer's</div><div> Perpetuem, Heed and Endurolytes. Thanks to Hammer for all their wonderful products! Hammer is also my sponsor and give me the essential fueling I need to successfully finish my races or events. If you a<span style="font-size: 100%; ">re interested and are a first time purchaser of Hammer, click on the website and save 15%:</span><div><a href="https://capitolpeakultras.com/HammerBeyond.html">https://capitolpeakultras.com/HammerBeyond.html</a><br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgacZbIrwa2MHCSDZOtD9RzCai1V94yRgYYYI8nHaraiQf0ww2GCW2Xzy9IG-AiMVFl20VkplRV7-defskA0scnL-CGEJUiMmYHjC45hfhUjfidJryYDfGj0eYOD5mxdzHklSoxht8MR00/s200/IMG_2226.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719272512841252050" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 112px; " />The Death Valley Double Century was an excellent training ride for me and several Olympia riding friends. Josh Morse and I both rode the Double Century. Where Sean Sexton, Brent Warner and Jim Szumila rode the 105 mile distance. Both rides started at the same location in Furnace Creek Ranch with differ<span style="font-size: 100%; ">ent starting waves, based on your predicted speed. I started with Josh in the 3rd wave at 6:30am. We were fully equipped as though it was another randonnuering brevet. We were asked many times by other riders, why the fenders or handlebar bag? But why not get some early training on </span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">mountain passes with the bike and gear that I'll be </span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">riding with in this years Rocky Mountain 1200k in British Columbia later in July.</span><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpDZ2h2wJ5XaLKtCO0fJTua4qnqkHQBGs1zmPSmHSc1i39JAMPMs7HksOPged-jHK44oCfDm1BlmN8RHkAm53Q5K3oUsl1iN6LRiC5L5MF9NDH6S_GHXGcp_saBcyX_vkqRzIPRUIQrDY/s200/IMG_2243.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719262417554407938" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px; " /><br />Both 100 mile and 200 mile rides start south from Furnace Creek and passes by Badwater, the lowest point in North America (-282 feet elevation) and rises over man<span style="font-size: 100%; ">y alluvial fans and the eastern mountain range of Death Valley. </span></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCGkXsKh0iJNGrDorv4I2-CP8078CdYE4_LcsP6z0ptwh_UQe9H3aXo1EhnjWI-nAwQZOAOPCtQwFGt2T1RKhSsCmEFo8vnMM2zsQL5glrC_t9Kyi5x5avEKE1n0lgO_kbyAG6T9k9zG8/s200/IMG_2244.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719262828468168994" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px; " /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8qm5NK_1KvfC6vy_CY7epQIh_eQq4Nt_KIWQy0URSGbrbkg_jt2yaenORAZLmx9qeTQj-YAZlXqOkwObYYpiUsNSuqs4pr5VPPaeLa71yjNj8kWkrauvRnPO5vlmbigZHtQOneUE2_bg/s200/IMG_2259.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719261557567190930" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px; " /><div>The 100 mile turnaround is at Jubilee Pass (elevation 1293 feet above sea level). The 200 mile continues up over Salsberry Pass (elevation 3315 ft above sea level), then descends to the town of Shoshone, where it then turns around at about mile 74.<br /><div><br /></div><br /><br /></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnHysjnkze-FmGNWo3bANWffdm764uYuEe-1Qbok2GPpNrUJ0AypLM2MIIMRWP-1TPADqMJFcNG1SJVqkC_8N66_Vc5Fx37TMyLHRnwzjDJF02AjaMiGXjG2ieXNjaBShe7oecG30W3uo/s200/IMG_2261.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719263392386191362" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px; " /></div></div><div>The descent into Shohone was a little windy on flatter stretches, but was not as bad as in previous years for this event. We heard from other riders that last year there was major headwinds for most of the ride and only 10 finished the Double Century. S<span style="font-size: 100%; ">o we were very lucky this year.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Shoeshone is where it felt the hottest all day and was where I stopped the longest, refueling before climbing back up over Salsberry Pass. The climb back up over Salsberry Pass was not as bad, since there was a good tailwind. The descent down the west side of Salberry was also rewarding, with the bonus 15% grade climb up the east side of Jubilee. Once you come back into Death Valley, it was in the mid 80's and there was then a nice tailwind (with some cross </div><div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; ">winds) most of the way back up to Furnace Creek. Once we got to Badwater the 2nd time (at about 133 miles) there were Subway sandwiches and cold sodas waiting for us.</span></div></div><div><br /><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY8BJEM5TG8VbKVCWU2CCV8K5vBrIcstPrVKfG5vlrQSSaiWPqtCsqZm-C09n0VFEwYVFxoOfe-TNjgHnW0ECp1Ou2DKvukrxdskhz7Uz09IVnXAN0qJmfKQCzcPeuWpW48xuiQaDpdlI/s200/IMG_2263.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719264583319405954" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px; " /></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; ">I pushed on without waiting around for anyone else since it appeared most of the people I was riding with were stopping at the 150 mile (at Furnace Creek). So I knew it would be best to get onward and focus on getting to Stovepipe Wells. Since I just had eaten at Badwater, I didn't have to stop long when passing</span></div><div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; "> through Furnace Creek. After leaving Furnace Creek, towards Stovepipe Wells, it was dark and so lights were required. This was another reason for taking my rando bike so I had a good light powered with my generator hub. Riding in Death Valley at night was amazing, seeing more stars than you ever get to see in March in the Pacific NW. There are only a few alluvial fans to climb over on the way to Stovepipe Wells. Once I turned around at Stovepipe Wells, I was glad I had a couple people to ride the final 25 miles back to Furnace Creek to the finish.</span></div></div><br /><div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwGK5HFa7JNbE8-iLlEgEfbDer2HhEC72OWLc-x0bQrrPGf7rhKZsUcHrtE1ALMOkDhLZvBTG0QWN0u3Id_zqNNnmbCKZe7rupXw79IhFc-xEP0b2xkro5AnSruH_5KpJSfGq1WABfR5g/s200/IMG_2265.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719265010100734130" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px; " /></div></div>I finished at about 21:20, with a time of 14:50 (20 minutes after my official start wave - giving me an actual time of 15:11). Josh also rode great finishing about 30 minutes ahead of me. It was great to ride with Josh in the early parts of the ride. My friend Sean, Brent and Jim all rode a great ride in the 105 mile. Jim rode a great time for his first Century ride in 20 years. And Brent and Sean also rode strong under the finish cutoff time.<br />Here are results and more stories about the 2012 Death Valley 100, 150 and 200 miles:<br /><a href="http://www.adventurecorps.com/deathvalley/2012/2012dvspring.html">http://www.adventurecorps.com/deathvalley/2012/2012dvspring.html</a><br /><br />Jim and I had drove down over snowy passes to get to this ride. Sean and Brent also joined us along the way. But on the way home Jim and I took our time and had a good time traveling through the north end of Death Valley, viewing Ubehebe Crater and taking the tour of Scotty's Castle. </div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2WUZ7W8bcCmMtn-w8_ZBWa0iL9Mks1nZQOpcphTTlV_DeaFxGtTyHJObG69VQ5kfjmcDyyeYDbk5Ceo9_KDDDtwHxay9mGgDlROfel2rrOtc_nYGUnnEkekGqqZnI347TN9JyFXrUiiE/s200/IMG_2288.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719265537078950834" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); text-decoration: underline; float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 112px; " /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCsTO2PF2JM7rXc5J0aT1nkNkfvWiZ7UD90Dr-7hw61Fwjxz6njVb9VU6HlS6isEGZaAguGk1l1fh2lBwvq5XamJv0HxCF06Wg1AQ3mwSYhiwUV3DIjdyTZ7of87Braf6zV_TMfuI_Llw/s1600/IMG_2300.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCsTO2PF2JM7rXc5J0aT1nkNkfvWiZ7UD90Dr-7hw61Fwjxz6njVb9VU6HlS6isEGZaAguGk1l1fh2lBwvq5XamJv0HxCF06Wg1AQ3mwSYhiwUV3DIjdyTZ7of87Braf6zV_TMfuI_Llw/s200/IMG_2300.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719265796792256738" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 112px; " /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Great to explore Death Valley for an incredible well organized bike ride! I'm looking forward to returning to Death Valley in July to crew Heidi at Badwater!<br /><br />Thanks AdventureCORP, Hammer and all the volunteers for all the support in making this a fun and successful event!<br /><br />John Pearch<br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div>John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-13724370027343311312012-02-26T11:57:00.010-08:002012-02-26T13:19:48.413-08:00February 2012 Brings on many new adventures!I recently just received sponsorship with Hammer. See my website to get a 15% discount (if it's your first order with Hammer): <a href="https://www.capitolpeakultras.com/HammerBeyond.html">https://www.capitolpeakultras.com/HammerBeyond.html</a><br /><br />This next weekend is the first big organazed ride of the year...the Death Valley Double Century: <a href="http://www.adventurecorps.com/dvspring/index.html">http://www.adventurecorps.com/dvspring/index.html</a><br />This will be a great way to see what I'm in for, if I am accepted into the Furnace Creek 508 (application period starts March 5!): <a href="http://www.the508.com/">http://www.the508.com/</a><br /><br />The last 3 weeks have had great training rides permanents<br />Sunday Feb 5: Lacey-Shelton-Gig Harbor 200K: <a href="http://connect.garmin.com/activity/151543708">http://connect.garmin.com/activity/151543708</a><br /><br />Saturday Feb 11: Olympia Spider 100k:<br /><a href="http://connect.garmin.com/activity/151543694">http://connect.garmin.com/activity/151543694</a><br /><br />Sunday Feb 12: Olympia Six Fingers 200k:<br /><a href="http://connect.garmin.com/activity/151543678">http://connect.garmin.com/activity/151543678</a><br /><br />Sunday Feb 20: Olympia Vader 300k:<br /><a href="http://connect.garmin.com/activity/151543647">http://connect.garmin.com/activity/151543647</a><br /><br />Other things John has been up to:<br />Being there for Heidi (not really crewing or supporting) at Arrowhead Ultra in MN<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5E2fZXA-LlxpSF0U5OC2n-_jsYjEA1-Vqy_KpeRTGe9JG_oU5IVJVhMYVHIXcQKZl-HiFWF3_MGlgMGXI8m0PlqDAHHLVMriKYUDQF82V8owW5hEpihch-bhDPJnkLJ2herzrplh_QCc/s1600/heidiatarrowhead.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5E2fZXA-LlxpSF0U5OC2n-_jsYjEA1-Vqy_KpeRTGe9JG_oU5IVJVhMYVHIXcQKZl-HiFWF3_MGlgMGXI8m0PlqDAHHLVMriKYUDQF82V8owW5hEpihch-bhDPJnkLJ2herzrplh_QCc/s200/heidiatarrowhead.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713542932322846818" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Celebrating with Heidi for getting into Badwater Ultra in Death Valley this July 16!<br /><br />Also all registered for the Rocky Mountain 1200k in British Columbia, CA this July 22!: <a href="http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/rockymountain1200/">http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/rockymountain1200/</a>John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-17832683283914885522011-08-28T13:31:00.000-07:002011-08-28T13:48:04.344-07:00My photo albums of PBP and France!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8iNevwFe7VBDGlF7MjjQXLeSsOIALKecTUw8tnGHdBXYXPHKTKXHCyq-K-2g4O9l47eTAqnL0lgzWManrXOdXjZ-84eS9xbQwx-yjYkKUuzRsXQfyGtE5RGBQCfQTB3CDLnuSJ30nVnc/s1600/90hrFreeStarters.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8iNevwFe7VBDGlF7MjjQXLeSsOIALKecTUw8tnGHdBXYXPHKTKXHCyq-K-2g4O9l47eTAqnL0lgzWManrXOdXjZ-84eS9xbQwx-yjYkKUuzRsXQfyGtE5RGBQCfQTB3CDLnuSJ30nVnc/s320/90hrFreeStarters.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646009022983291010" /></a>
<br />Here are photos from a 90 hr free starter's perspective. No crowds at the start or finish but a great time overall! Thanks Hugh Kimball, Susan Otcenas, Gary Prince, Andy Speier, Chris Heg, Rick Blacker, Mark Roberts, Mark Thomas, Joe Llona, Joe Platzner and many others for keeping me going! And great to start off and come into Brest together as "Free PBPers" Also, thanks to Barbara Blacker and many others for all the great food at the gite near Uzel.
<br />90hr Free Starter perspective:
<br /><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/PBP201102?authkey=Gv1sRgCNGJht-XnIH-Ig">https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/PBP201102?authkey=Gv1sRgCNGJht-XnIH-Ig</a>
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<br />I also have photos of prePBP, postPBP and Heidi, Elena and my camping trip at the following links...
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<br />PBP registration and some 80 hr start:
<br /><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/PBPRegAnd80hrStart2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCNmU8Pe0hpHg4QE">https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/PBPRegAnd80hrStart2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCNmU8Pe0hpHg4QE</a>
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<br />80 hr PBP start:
<br /><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/PBPRegAnd80hrStart201102?authkey=Gv1sRgCLiayLmLs8LZCQ">https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/PBPRegAnd80hrStart201102?authkey=Gv1sRgCLiayLmLs8LZCQ</a>
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<br />Pre PBP in Paris:
<br /><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/ParisFrance2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ7SwZ7X2cHMbg">https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/ParisFrance2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ7SwZ7X2cHMbg</a>
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<br />Post PBP in Paris: <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/ParisPostPBP?authkey=Gv1sRgCO7b5I6f8oSMtAE">https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/ParisPostPBP?authkey=Gv1sRgCO7b5I6f8oSMtAE</a>
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<br />Our camping trip to Frejus, Castellines, Canyon du Verdon, Alp d'Heuz, Chamonix/Mt Blanc: <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/FranceCampingTrip2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCKusgJeVl_iTuAE">https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/FranceCampingTrip2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCKusgJeVl_iTuAE</a>
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<br />Great to see all SIR and ORR out there supporting each other on a great PBP!
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<br />I hope to have a more detailed report soon!
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<br />à bientôt!
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<br />John
<br />John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-82083446863938560182011-08-17T14:30:00.000-07:002011-08-17T14:41:37.781-07:00Bonjour de France!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzZBKR0SY6HLJm8SihFp_j6ASPHwlGh6eKbFklhB8aN30sWPQ-Tluys69a7ichOC6J8re0tVwTeIoblr1dmtmgwGdM4N12rprJ4Aypaft9SCLzj-BTMs9pZY2KY1p3SLNakvsLDb6FTws/s1600/IMG_1114.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzZBKR0SY6HLJm8SihFp_j6ASPHwlGh6eKbFklhB8aN30sWPQ-Tluys69a7ichOC6J8re0tVwTeIoblr1dmtmgwGdM4N12rprJ4Aypaft9SCLzj-BTMs9pZY2KY1p3SLNakvsLDb6FTws/s320/IMG_1114.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641942967762539490" /></a>
<br />This is one of the best trips ever! Heidi, Elena and I are learning french language and culture and are seeing very fascinating landscapes and scenery in the Riviera, Provence and Rhone-Alps! Here is a few of photos of our journey so far! PBP starts this Sunday, so I might not get a chance to post until after...so see the blog link below for more about my PBP standings....
<br />And use this new link for photos from now on...
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<br />Au revoir!
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<br /><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/FrancePhotos?authkey=Gv1sRgCNX4_cXdlvGvJw">https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/FrancePhotos?authkey=Gv1sRgCNX4_cXdlvGvJw</a>
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<br />John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-67915155044585043342011-08-05T15:39:00.000-07:002011-08-05T16:07:00.102-07:00France nous voilà!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTMyrkZZ5HjetjXgiZZhHg0007PQOcyNW_Ckw6xNmy9hP-cksbdqXd9A1MmD3v3y1NuNLS2WJ9bTbhsUOHO7N8uMcWSexib0sOdey3LJfrewywZePrPJx7w8U2FdaZgZu1IygOOARMgW0/s1600/2011-05-20+France+773.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTMyrkZZ5HjetjXgiZZhHg0007PQOcyNW_Ckw6xNmy9hP-cksbdqXd9A1MmD3v3y1NuNLS2WJ9bTbhsUOHO7N8uMcWSexib0sOdey3LJfrewywZePrPJx7w8U2FdaZgZu1IygOOARMgW0/s320/2011-05-20+France+773.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637511899389766482" /></a><br />Photo courtesy of Jon Carignan photos from his France biking trip in May, 2011<br /><br /><br />Here is a link to the Paris-Brest-Paris 1200k that I will start riding on August 21, 2011 9:00PM(Paris time)...at 12:00PM PST. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.paris-brest-paris.org/pbp2011/index2.php?lang=en&cat=accueil&page=edito">http://www.paris-brest-paris.org/pbp2011/index2.php?lang=en&cat=accueil&page=edito</a><br /><br />You can track my progress at this website...my frame number (aka bib number: 6932)<br /><a href="http://www.paris-brest-paris.org/pbp2011/index2.php?lang=en&cat=randonnee&page=suivi_participants">http://www.paris-brest-paris.org/pbp2011/index2.php?lang=en&cat=randonnee&page=suivi_participants</a><br /><br />I will also be posting some photos of our camping trip around France here as well prior to the ride here: <br /><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/France2011Photos?authkey=Gv1sRgCLz3mv2l-uCutAE#">https://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/France2011Photos?authkey=Gv1sRgCLz3mv2l-uCutAE#</a><br /><br />Á bientôtJohn Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-70843112204997823662010-10-02T13:21:00.000-07:002010-10-04T00:43:39.380-07:00Crater Lake 400k+600k=VeryTough1000k My first 600k finish, not for the faint of heart!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg72tOtaPuTcACNE0qFGadKtkm4_CTHUgGm_TJbVVlyztX-oLXKSIXGu1ZZNcwHsI39WI8gIIJ_Ii5GCcrTTs3jZmY1GXDrxF7nYWurVSb5pEw7dd-S9tQQ4zwBv0vT5hKUNcY_d34hGQg/s1600/IMG_3184.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg72tOtaPuTcACNE0qFGadKtkm4_CTHUgGm_TJbVVlyztX-oLXKSIXGu1ZZNcwHsI39WI8gIIJ_Ii5GCcrTTs3jZmY1GXDrxF7nYWurVSb5pEw7dd-S9tQQ4zwBv0vT5hKUNcY_d34hGQg/s320/IMG_3184.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524085723598864818" /></a><br />It's been a while since I posted something here. This summer flew by so fast that I didn't have much time to sit down and write. Last January, I set out for new challenges in the biking world, more than I really knew what I was getting into. The main goal for the year was to finish my first 1200k brevet, which was Cascade 1240k the last week in June. As a result of training for Cascade and the drama that occurred during Cascade, I became very intrigued with more and more rando events as the summer progressed. Last January, Geoff and Vincent told me about this 1000k they were organizing to Crater Lake that is the last weekend of September. I thought at first, if I am alive by then after Cascade, than maybe I'll keep in mind. After 2 years of really intense Achilles pain from racing Race Across Oregon, I completely took the remaining summer and fall off from any serious long riding (in 2008 and 2009). I thought I would just keep the Crater Lake 1000k on the back burner and see how I survive Cascade first.<br /><br />This year, I found out more how riding long multi-day rando events are not like ultracycling race events, (e.g. not trying to ride all night for 48 hrs straight until you fall over and not competitive). But instead more reasonable cutoff times that allows you to sleep some hours at the overnight controls or wherever else that you might end up in the early morning. I really appreciate this transition to Randonneuring from ultracyling (and my earlier days of ultrarunning and running races).<br /><br />Riding the pre-ride of the Oregon Blue Mountains 1000k I learned a great amount of rando techniques from Vincent Muoneke, Kole Kanter and Vincent Sikorski. These guys got me focused and helped gain great confidence to finish Cascade. I thank these guys for all their support along this ride that is a turning point in my biking career. OBM taught me that regardless of how your fitness and focus might be at the start, you gain strength each day during the ride. OBM got hillier and hillier each day (mileage decreased/day but still was 12,000 ft of climbing/day), so it was a must to gain strenghth after each day. And keeping that focus of gaining strength after each day, this was a huge mental breakthrough for finishing the entire 780 miles of Cascade and many other multi-day rando events!<br /><br />During the tail end of the first day of Cascade, Vincent Muoneke and I were both suffering up White Pass in the heat. Vincent convinced me that by pushing on from Naches to Lodgepole would give us a chance to "beat the heat" into the 2nd day. This was not an easy task riding more tired and really wasn't planned. We are still indebted to those volunteers who provided us a sleeping bag at Lodgepole. The jumpstart up to Lodgepole seemed to be impromptu decision and we only got about 2 hours of sleep. But the next day, we managed to get most of the way to Quincy before it got too hot and arrived in Quincy with plenty of time to recover for the 3rd and 4th day. This Lodgepole jumpstart strategy kept with me for finishing other rides well ahead of the cutoff times. I gained so much from finishing Cascade and what this sport has to offer, most entirely self-supporting and a sense solitude in the backroads in the middle of the night.<br /><br />Fast forwarding to the Crater Lake 1000k, after the summer series that included Olympia 200k, Volcano 300k and the Border to Border (Bellingham) 1000k, I found myself more interested in the Crater Lake 1000k and was still on the radar. No pain in the Achilles still and feeling stronger and stronger after each ride. Late August and early September was not a big month of riding but it was a chance to ease back on the miles and still mentally prepare for Crater Lake. This was my chance to support Heidi who had recently got accepted an entry into the Cascade Crest 100, which was her first 100 mile ultramarathon finish. I’m glad I could be there to support Heidi during this very special time in her life.<br /><br />The Crater Lake 1000k was not something you could just jump back in the saddle without the help of all the multi-day rides and required a lot of pre-planning in order to ride. I went to sign up for Crater Lake 1000k and realized that I had not done a 600k yet this year. So the back-to-back 400k/600k option sounded intriguing since it would allow me to get a 600k credit and complete the Super Randonneur Series. But after looking at the time limits it would require some extra sleep deprivation in the last 200 miles of the ride. What really made this ride hard for everyone entering (including the 1000k riders) was the midnight start, which is something I figured would be good to get used to getting ready for Paris-Brest-Paris 1200k next year, which also has a late evening start. The 1st 400k was from Bremerton to Pacific City and most everyone would ride together. However, the 400k/600k option was different from the 1000k that required the 600k portion to start at 3:00am Saturday in Pacific City, which forced 600k riders to have to stick to the more stringent 40 hour (9.3 mph) time limit, where the other 1000k riders had an additional 8 hours to do the last 600k. Thus, I knew that I would have to determine my own pace and not get stuck riding too slow or stopping too much on the 2nd and 3rd days (600k portion).<br /><br />The nature of this ride was to be as unsupported as possible, with the exception that Geoff and Vincent would give us drop bags at the 2 overnight locations (Pacific City and Roseburg). We were required to book our own hotels and transportation home (i.e. Amtrak) in advance. As I looked at the time I would need to arrive at the finish in Klamath Falls (Sunday 7:00pm) for the 40 hr 600k time limit, I began to wonder if Roseburg would be an appropriate place to sleep in order for me to make the cutoff the next day. I decided to take the chance and thought I'd actually plan ahead this time, for pushing on like the Lodgepole strategy as Vincent and I did at Cascade. I booked a cabin up at the Umpqua Last Resort (48 miles up Hwy 138 from Roseburg), memorized the map on where my cabin would be and the caretaker said they would leave the cabin door unlocked ready for me to come in at any time in the middle of the night. I thought by reserving this cabin would mentally give me a reason to push on from Roseburg, no matter what other people were trying to convince me by the time I got to Roseburg. Besides, the Umpqua Last Resort was perfectly situated at the base of the steep part of the climb up to Diamond Lake and Crater Lake. If all goes well, this would allow me "beat the heat" once again as the forecast had a high in the 80's with lows in the 30s for the weekend of the ride. This cabin could also serve as a warming hut if the weather would turn grim.<br /><br />Fast forwarding to the hours before the ride… I had my Dad take me to my friend Karen and George Wiggins (some good ultrarunning friends of mine). Thank you Karen and George for feeding me the best salmon dinner ever!! With fruit and veges from their own garden, I couldn’t have gotten better fueled for this long ride. After dinner, I was thinking of sleeping a little, but after a while, I just couldn’t sleep. I just lay on the couch and watched a movie until it was time to head to the start. Thanks again to Karen for driving me down to the start as it was raining and my drop bag was really heavy!<br /><br />Arriving at the start just after 11pm, it was raining and so I had all my warmer rainy weather gear on or packed. We started at 12:01am and what a thrill it was to finally start this ride. Leaving Bremerton is sometimes tricky, and I missed a light and the lead group split ahead. So just outside of Bremerton I rode hard to catch everyone so I wouldn’t fall behind too much. I caught most everyone at Gorst and it was good to ride in a group through Belfair and down along Hwy 106/Hood Canal. After turning south off of hwy 101 towards Matlock, I dropped my electrolytes and figured I better stop and pick them up. When I went to try and get caught back up, I found my legs cramping and so I didn’t try to push too hard to catch back up. I hydrated and took the electrolytes that I was lacking and figured that it’s a long ride ahead and sooner or later I’d run into someone. But in the mean time, the remoteness from Matlock to Montesano with no tail lights to follow made it hard to stay awake. Caffeine was the best prescription at this dark rainy hour! I arrived into Purdy and got some coffee and a gas station Danish. Only a couple people stopped at this store where most pushed on to Montesano. I rode onto Montesano and saw the Rando party all outside the main gas station in town. I decided to not stop here as I figured they would catch me somewhere down the road. And sure enough, everyone caught me south of where we joined onto Hwy 101 on the way to Raymond.<br /><br />This section of Hwy 101 has some good 500 ft rollers and I did what I could to stay with the pack all the way to Raymond. Everyone stopped at McDonalds for breakfast but I left on my own. I caught back with Ian Shopland and Eric Ahlvin and we rode together until the Astoria bridge with a few others that joined us. It was good to ride with Eric as he and I were both agreed it was good to take a break from racing RAO this year. As we crossed the Astoria bridge, I hit a huge wall and couldn’t hang with either Ian or Eric. I stopped at the Dairy Queen in Astoria to refuel and Steve Davis and Chris Heg came in and joined me. I pushed on and eventually ran into Kevin Humphreys. We helped push each other over the Lewis and Clark Rd hill, into Seaside. Upon entering Seaside we ran into Gary Prince who convinced me and Kevin to stop and get a quick shake at McDonalds (I couldn’t get enough of this place no matter how bad I think this restaurant really is). We rode to Cannon Beach together and a there was a larger group was there having ice cream, sounds good to me!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9prmLPh29-4NXNi4FXActLxJ_CwSNbqTdBrpwEl0W8IHq_N6-yASEblB4YbYB1Z0rb03nja-9WLAb9FFjRFaW0myePgiRGi4eV0sMtJK7UPuTZTVq54PSZ-AAi8FDMyZ8U54ip7mVLU/s1600/cannonbeach.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9prmLPh29-4NXNi4FXActLxJ_CwSNbqTdBrpwEl0W8IHq_N6-yASEblB4YbYB1Z0rb03nja-9WLAb9FFjRFaW0myePgiRGi4eV0sMtJK7UPuTZTVq54PSZ-AAi8FDMyZ8U54ip7mVLU/s320/cannonbeach.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524085993036634386" /></a><br />From Cannon Beach, got some photos of the haystack and didn’t see anyone for a while. There were several 300-500 ft rollers to contend with…as many have said, just because your at sea level doesn’t mean it’s all flat! But with rollers makes great geology to observe along this stretch of the coast. It’s amazing that these rocks are apart of the 17 million year old Columbia River basalts which poured down the ancestral Columbia River and all along the Oregon Coast as far south as Pacific City. http://hugefloods.com/Basalt.html<br />Despite all the hills I kept my mind on the beautiful scenery how the Pacific Ocean carved pockets or coves into these Columbia River basalts.<br /><br />As I rode into Nehalam, I ran into Kevin and we rode together to Tillamook. Geoff and Vincent did an awesome job in finding side routes that would take us off the main hwy 101…as the Miami Folley Road was a good break from all the traffic along Hwy 101. We road into Tillamook and stopped to get food at the Safeway. I thought it was good to get some food and not go into Pacific City starving. Here I got me some cold chicken soup that hit the spot. Heidi called at the perfect time and it was good to hear from her and kept me focused to keep pushing on.<br /><br />Outside of Tillamook, there was construction but not too bad as was described on the cue sheet. The turnoff towards Pacific City was a relief, to know we were almost done with this first 400k. We arrived on the overlook on Sand Lake Road in time for a beautiful sunset over the Pacific and Cape Lookout. I arrived into Pacific City at about 7:46pm. This was just in time before the Mexican restaurant closed…chicken enchiladas hit the spot.<br /><br />The Pacific City Inn wouldn’t let us keep our bikes in our room so I left it outside my room as the care takers watched over our bikes for us. I shared a room with Steve Barnes and Joey Korkames who eventually came in later that evening. I found out later that morning from Steve that he had to drop due to mechanical breakdown. Thanks to Vincent for going to pick up Steve! That’s always a drag to have that kind of mechanical that late in the ride. After eating some breakfast and coming out to pack my bike, the caretaker moved our bikes into the hotel office. At 3:00am about 7 of us started the 600k. I couldn’t keep up with Charlie White and Ken Carter or Robin Pieper and figured I wouldn’t see them until Klamath Falls. I was riding on my own here and it was a so cool to listen to the ocean pounding on the bluff below. Later that morning I ran into Eric Ahlvin, Doug Kirby and Bill Boggess and eventually David Strong. The Otter Creek loop section had awesome views of the moon glow on the huge waves on the Pacific. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIX7s5WnA2mYFzUrIMNahUn6O2TENRLcgENO_rVh_XBMgIAJJXHxVRjNfLdMo0YPohTwMwwpw3s4FoCECFAsy6DxBHhRwvmG8cqOwPObkTgLL3MNQmU2sl5hWeOVpWTVZOEWouwZcCdUI/s1600/IMG_3171.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIX7s5WnA2mYFzUrIMNahUn6O2TENRLcgENO_rVh_XBMgIAJJXHxVRjNfLdMo0YPohTwMwwpw3s4FoCECFAsy6DxBHhRwvmG8cqOwPObkTgLL3MNQmU2sl5hWeOVpWTVZOEWouwZcCdUI/s320/IMG_3171.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524088373725621154" /></a><br />We all stopped at a nice little bakery in Newport that we had to wait a few minutes before they opened…but it was worth the wait to get yogurt/granola and a huge cinnamon roll with coffee.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT2SjgYRIo9kIblbM5sceagquPAjyT3PjV7O5f5ik5L09JTPQC14GPNIlpzeqrRPsJeUk5Q2Pr0QeuiYL2O2qsyUoWX6irKLCHLozc9iq4SXeZhqGUxC0QEA6f8kObDF3gGX7LpYDqYhE/s1600/IMG_3162.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT2SjgYRIo9kIblbM5sceagquPAjyT3PjV7O5f5ik5L09JTPQC14GPNIlpzeqrRPsJeUk5Q2Pr0QeuiYL2O2qsyUoWX6irKLCHLozc9iq4SXeZhqGUxC0QEA6f8kObDF3gGX7LpYDqYhE/s320/IMG_3162.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524086532804995938" /></a><br />It was good to see Yaquina River Bridge at Newport as this is where I worked one summer for the EPA before starting my career in Olympia. It was good to think of all these times that I had in Oregon that got me where I am today. As we rode south of Newport, we realize we missed the turn off of Beaver Ck Road, but only missed it by a ¼ mile. Beaver Ck Road had some nice rollers but it was again good to get off the main drag of Hwy 101. We ate at another McDonalds in Florence. But I figured this would need to be my last long stop for the day, since I knew I needed to push on to get to my cabin in a reasonable time later that night. At Reedsport, there was a large number of 1000k riders we caught up to or who caught us. Eric and I left on our own to head inland and didn’t see anyone else until Roseburg. It was starting to warm up as we headed towards Roseburg. We kept a good pace along the Umpqua River as it is all nice flat terrain along Hwy 38. We stopped briefly in Elkton for a refill on water and ice cream. Upon leaving Elkton, Hwy 138 climbs up several rollers in between the sinuous Umpqua River. I once roamed these lands as where I started in my career in geology and hydrology, while working for BLM in Roseburg. But back then I was not into biking and never rode on any of these roads.<br /><br />As we arrived in Roseburg about 8:15pm, the sun was already set and Eric offered the extra bed in his room. Even though it sounded intriguing at the time, I knew I had to push on. I knew there was something that drove me to get to the cabin I had already reserved. Geoff reminded me that it is only 48 more miles on gentle rolling terrain and that it was a good idea to get this jumpstart as I had already planned. Geoff also helped me to realize that I should leave Last Resort by 5am to give me 14 hours to do the last 200k. Geoff and Vincent did this last 200k in about 12 hours in the July pre-ride, so I knew giving myself 2 additional hours would be a good idea. Others that had already arrived in Roseburg were showered and hitting the sack for a few hours. I called Heidi and told her I was feeling good to push on and thought I might be able to convince someone to ride with me. Eric and I ate at the Denny’s across the street. Eric had the brilliant idea to buy breakfast to go, which I did the same. I ate a big meal (chicken sandwich) then also got me some hot cakes and bacon that I would take with me. By the time I restocked all my gear I left Roseburg at 9:53pm. The downtime in Roseburg was sufficient that gave me a chance to catch my breath, restock and gain the confidence to push on. Ian was the only other person that pushed on who was camping somewhere up the road but left about a half hour before me. Even though it had been nice to ride with everyone the 2 days prior to arriving in Roseburg, I was ecstatic about riding on my own into the night. I figured I would eventually meet up with other people after I slept for a couple hours at the cabin.<br /><br />Anyways, Hwy 138 up the North Umpqua River brings back many memories of working stream surveys for the BLM, which was my first job here in the NW, that launched my career in geology and hydrology. I couldn’t help to think of all the good times I had, moving from Ohio straight out of college and seeking new places to explore, either backpacking, trail running or mtn climbing. The North Umpqua is a very scenic river that has been in several movies (Fire in the Sky, The River Wild and probably more) but the River kept me from feeling alone and brought me to appreciate the beauty of the solitude that lied before me. It brought to realize why I ride long distances… to capture solitary moments in the wilderness that enhances our understanding of our surroundings. A few times a grip of reality would come to light, when some animal would jump out in front of me but luckily it was just a smaller critter that was probably more scared of me.<br /><br />I finally arrived up at the Umpqua Last Resort about 2am. It was relief to get to the cabin and find the light on, heater on and door unlocked waiting for me. I set my alarm for 4am and fell right to sleep. I easily woke up at 4am without hesitation of falling back asleep. I grabbed my pancakes and bacon and glad I had some real food to start me up the road. I left Umpqua Last Resort at 4:50am and headed up towards Diamond Lake. There was actually some good downhill to start off but soon enough the climb up to Diamond Lake would be evident. Riding 6 to 7 mph was common and just kept moving forward (as Geoff described in his pre-ride report…Relentless Forward Motion). <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1rTH5pBBFeoRXWm8lYLrlhGxu8GzBHcBIF4_-ENFBxLLvmyHdbXSM-x8bDjaPoFnRx0bWPSmnT1sl-HF1fMnRcfzM1-8O-_llXA2YIhFybTv4_B1T53rRQEjU5C_U5YJ4pmjPt-teRg0/s1600/IMG_3177.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;"src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1rTH5pBBFeoRXWm8lYLrlhGxu8GzBHcBIF4_-ENFBxLLvmyHdbXSM-x8bDjaPoFnRx0bWPSmnT1sl-HF1fMnRcfzM1-8O-_llXA2YIhFybTv4_B1T53rRQEjU5C_U5YJ4pmjPt-teRg0/s320/IMG_3177.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524091078033075218" /></a><br /><br />A "Blur" of what Relentless Forward Motion looks like, an ugly site INDEED!<br /><br /><br />I only ate caffeinated hammer gels on this steeper portion of the climb. I was getting nervous that I was only able to keep an 8.5 mph pace since the cabin, and knew that I would need to keep pushing in order to make the cutoff by 7pm later tonight.<br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFatEiuA51M2HTJZxni75E97bvE8LoS4-6kiaVoS9dP79gfO0BYLH7yiOqgr2TJUwsKloq3Pf-1qvM6fIw-NsXYOblMo8mHZMqT4YJ3IL6Jb-B3avEPI7_4NxdCg37OCwvWpKGQbYlj9I/s1600/IMG_3178.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFatEiuA51M2HTJZxni75E97bvE8LoS4-6kiaVoS9dP79gfO0BYLH7yiOqgr2TJUwsKloq3Pf-1qvM6fIw-NsXYOblMo8mHZMqT4YJ3IL6Jb-B3avEPI7_4NxdCg37OCwvWpKGQbYlj9I/s320/IMG_3178.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524089099841599474" /></a><br /><br /><br />I arrived at Stump Lake where the Clearwater River crosses the highway and saw a beautiful sunrise over Mt Theilsen that is over 9,000 ft in elevation, sticking as a lightning rod above the Diamond Lake area. But it was still a distance off and knew I still had a lot of climbing, since the road goes near the base Mt Theilsen about 5400 ft.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYaF-RPPwvXX2XohQo6wa43EU5vdE3uyXkp9C42zBjdjKis-CLro58NXIG0T2zIz44n7Y7zJj_DhF2KUmNOFH7CqBsw8odtx6yMLnX4oy3Aoy8ZSsr8CpqqX8V3EZwVvqXpmtJjsOIznM/s1600/IMG_3179.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYaF-RPPwvXX2XohQo6wa43EU5vdE3uyXkp9C42zBjdjKis-CLro58NXIG0T2zIz44n7Y7zJj_DhF2KUmNOFH7CqBsw8odtx6yMLnX4oy3Aoy8ZSsr8CpqqX8V3EZwVvqXpmtJjsOIznM/s320/IMG_3179.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524086195738336242" /></a><br />Another couple hours of climbing, Mt Theilsen finally appears above the trees, this time straight ahead! I had the urge to get some coffee at the Diamond Lake resort. But once I got to the turn off to Diamond Lake, I noticed it was a 0.7k down off the course. So I decided to push on and just eat and drink my own. I had my bladder bag still full of water and my bottles were still relatively full.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9ymzKpeAGfBBioLDmL6qiQuQ2mAfoEtci98A7zK4XG_N-nKT28nkxp3YG-VjrKpyCXM6KgRhuIUw9wAemILrolYtyLD_b3Fum_LGt3XDLj9u_cgE0CRurO4HpycxemE4IpGlDFK1zpPs/s1600/IMG_3180.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9ymzKpeAGfBBioLDmL6qiQuQ2mAfoEtci98A7zK4XG_N-nKT28nkxp3YG-VjrKpyCXM6KgRhuIUw9wAemILrolYtyLD_b3Fum_LGt3XDLj9u_cgE0CRurO4HpycxemE4IpGlDFK1zpPs/s320/IMG_3180.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524089584646640370" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRl2-6_gMc_jBJzo5Y3dT7Y-s_TNYYrPJ7I_ytJ8DqrYX0DED21Xwacy75y2Q5DkbuMff7Qu91uaPt0Ye4D_LxB2he4mW8uxLxgtdLGLi673S8MWTjwwV1mm4BC0JVX4aAV-_bIPlwEH4/s1600/IMG_3182.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRl2-6_gMc_jBJzo5Y3dT7Y-s_TNYYrPJ7I_ytJ8DqrYX0DED21Xwacy75y2Q5DkbuMff7Qu91uaPt0Ye4D_LxB2he4mW8uxLxgtdLGLi673S8MWTjwwV1mm4BC0JVX4aAV-_bIPlwEH4/s320/IMG_3182.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524089237111682482" /></a><br />After entering Crater Lake National Park, I stopped and ate a clif bar and stripped down out of my leg and arm warmers. It was just after 9am and was feeling good that I would possibly make it to the rim before noon. But I still felt the need to keep pushing to stay ahead of the cutoff time. The climb from the Park entrance to Crater Lake Rim was just as beautiful as I remember. There is a slight downhill into the pumice desert which has an awesome panoramic view of the Rim. Climbing up to the Rim was slow as predicted and once you get to the Rim it still climbs several hundred feet until you get to the lodge. But the view looking into Crater Lake is worth the 7,000 ft of climbing in the last 100 miles and worth riding 600 miles just to get to see the most magnificent volcanic caldera feature on this Earth!! Crater Lake also brings back memories to me of either running the Crater Lake half or full marathons, cross-country skiing on the National Park ski patrol or just hiking endlessly around the area. And now I can add…riding to the top of Crater Lake Rim as one of the memorable moments in my life!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtV6A3qjlTcHRzGXfF3mWLEL5uDYX6rAQFAIK1VeL7b1tZs9OnmFqqbB45Ej5YhEZq68Jf1r4RScKNFNSc2HnlPyKeaKOVaHhVAMOJPuGjmkUsk8JaoBczzkCmgtr_tLrrdSEmbGu9M44/s1600/IMG_3185.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtV6A3qjlTcHRzGXfF3mWLEL5uDYX6rAQFAIK1VeL7b1tZs9OnmFqqbB45Ej5YhEZq68Jf1r4RScKNFNSc2HnlPyKeaKOVaHhVAMOJPuGjmkUsk8JaoBczzkCmgtr_tLrrdSEmbGu9M44/s320/IMG_3185.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524089165783821170" /></a><br />I arrived at the Rim Lodge about 11am and greeted by Geoff. I ate some food just at the cafeteria as I didn’t want to wait at the lodge diner. Vincent arrived in his car and he kept me from lingering around too long. Doug Kirby and Bill Boggess had to drop on the climb and I appreciated how supportive they were for me. I left the Rim Village lodge a little before noon and descended to Klamath Falls. The first 40k to Fort Klamath was nice and fast descent without too much effort. However, once we reached Fort Klamath, we were routed on the west side of Klamath Lake to avoid busy Hwy 97. It was really hot by the time I got to Hwy 140, but at least I stocked enough water to make most the way to Klamath Falls. There were a few climbs that felt really hot along Hwy 140, but not as bad as the 1000k riders experienced who hit the long Crater Lake climb in the heat of the day. There was a one stretch where there was no shoulder on a climb and a truck was not very forgiving and I rode off into the soft shoulder but luckily I didn’t fall over. Other riders also experienced this stretch to be not very pleasant with some locals hassling by not giving enough room. As I entered into Klamath Falls, I followed the tcx file on my Garmin and went up an extremely steep 25% hill. Got to the top and there was a gate. I looked at the cue sheet hard copy and realized that they had skipped this…oh well got some bonus climbing in!<br /><br />I arrived into Klamath Falls Olympic Hotel at 4:55pm (37:55 for the 600k and 64:55 for the 1000k total time), with just over 2 hours before the cutoff for the 600k. I guess all that worrying about making the cutoff paid off. My Lodgepole cabin strategy also paid off and somehow beat the heat on most of the Crater Lake climb. And I am so thrilled to finish a tough 400k/600k back to back, on a course that provided so many awesome views from the Pacific to the Crater Lake! What a way to finish a 600k and the Super Randonneur Series. Thanks Geoff and Vincent for organizing a fabulous ride. Thanks also to Geoff, Vincent, Kole Kanter and Mark Thomas for pre-riding this course in the pouring rain and on some rugged road conditions that forced a reroute making it more pleasant for us during the brevet. Thanks also to Vincent for driving me home, with the help of Bill and Doug who carpooled to Albany. And thanks to Heidi, my family, friends and fellow Randonneurs for all their support for giving me confidence to finish this ride!<br /><br />See you all next year on the road to PBP!<br /><br />John PearchJohn Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-41106492556654636432010-07-01T10:00:00.000-07:002010-07-01T10:26:49.526-07:00Cascade 1240k - Journey around the beautiful Washington Cascades in 4 long daysHere are my Garmin files with a breif description (with highlights) on each day of my journey on the Cascade 1240K. Thanks to all the volunteers, organizers for being out on the course at all the controls and especially to my girlfriend Heidi Perry for being there at Quincy. A great ride with so many great views and memories that will last a life time! And congratulations to all who finished or who gave it their best out there!<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://connect.garmin.com/activity/38764451">Day 1 </a><br /><br /><a href="http://connect.garmin.com/activity/38764448">Day 2</a><br /><br /><a href="http://connect.garmin.com/activity/38764438">Day 3</a><br /><br /><a href="http://connect.garmin.com/activity/38764426">Day 4</a><br /><br />John Pearch<br />“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”<br />Albert EinsteinJohn Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-18669922291102917122010-06-11T16:31:00.000-07:002010-06-11T16:36:02.613-07:00Alplet Plus with bonus miles! by jpearch at Garmin Connect - Details<a href="http://connect.garmin.com/activity/36436412">Alplet Plus with bonus miles! by jpearch at Garmin Connect - Details</a><br />This is what I did yesterday as my final training before the Cascade 1200k. 11,000 ft in 100 miles all around the Issaquah Alps in pouring rain and no time to spare, I made the cutoff time by 9 minutes! That was one tough ride with very little time in the saddle, with a whole lot of 15-20% grades.John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-36594528711500876362010-06-09T00:28:00.001-07:002010-07-15T09:28:27.328-07:00Day 3 Oregon Blue Mountains 1000k by jpearch at Garmin Connect - Details<a href="http://connect.garmin.com/activity/36002039">Day 3 Oregon Blue Mountains 1000k by jpearch at Garmin Connect - Details</a>John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-88140280096434909392010-06-09T00:28:00.000-07:002010-07-15T09:28:27.331-07:00Day 2 - Oregon Blue Mtns 1000k by jpearch at Garmin Connect - Details<a href="http://connect.garmin.com/activity/36002048">Day 2 - Oregon Blue Mtns 1000k by jpearch at Garmin Connect - Details</a>John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-39032676374329151882010-06-09T00:23:00.000-07:002010-07-15T09:28:27.335-07:00Day 1 Oregon Blue Mtns 1000k by jpearch at Garmin Connect - Details<a href="http://connect.garmin.com/activity/36237911">Day 1 Oregon Blue Mtns 1000k by jpearch at Garmin Connect - Details</a>John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-42334740698324376412010-06-01T22:52:00.000-07:002010-06-05T18:35:48.202-07:00Oregon Blue Mtns 1000k -- Full of Surprises!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghC0RTyjCryuRzFFfovzKEzaRnUYktjzImA6nf47Yu8Dmffr-_H2evkPL2QJSFNe6aqqzGAZfjdff2I6xyUOp0hiqcZ6A_dCm38Omq1c5hFsIG0Q4aXu_EPvAjQBJHKSuNuy9s7h89-Kw/s1600/IMG_2947.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghC0RTyjCryuRzFFfovzKEzaRnUYktjzImA6nf47Yu8Dmffr-_H2evkPL2QJSFNe6aqqzGAZfjdff2I6xyUOp0hiqcZ6A_dCm38Omq1c5hFsIG0Q4aXu_EPvAjQBJHKSuNuy9s7h89-Kw/s320/IMG_2947.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479461796445827970" /></a><br />The Oregon Blue Mtns 1000k has officially been "broken in" (if you will) and has many surprises that will keep you "out of the saddle" in many occasions. This was my first 1000k brevet, and even though I've done Race Across Oregon 500 the past two years, I still learned a great deal while riding this course that John Kramer did such a great job putting together and organizing. Thanks to my fellow pre-riders: Kole Kanter, <a href="http://spokesong.blogspot.com/2010/06/man-who-danced-too-slowly.html">Vincent Muoneke </a>and <a href="http://randobiker.blogspot.com/2010/06/preride-report-by-vince-sikorski.html">Vincent Sikorski </a>for pulling me through. And special thanks to John Kramer and Eric Ahlvin for supporting us at the controls!<br /><br />Purchasing the Garmin Edge 705 was the best thing I could have done for this ride. On several occasions, it was difficult to look down and read the paper cue sheet while descending, which was good to let the GPS lead the way. Thanks to Kole for giving me an adaptor to plug my Garmin into my generator hub that allowed me to charge my Garmin and my Busch Muller Cyo light the entire ride! <br /><br />After hearing about all the cold temps and rain predicted for the passes, I decided not to bring my carbon bike but I still managed ok with my Specialized TriCross. Just was hard to keep up with the 3 other guys on the descents since I also had my 28 mm tires and a seat post rack and pack. If you have a carbon fiber bike with thinner tires, I would definitely have it ready for this ride. Just make sure the tires are relatively new as there is a lot of gravel on some of these descents. Also, be prepared for cooler temps on the passes (especially at night) and warm or hot in the valleys/canyons during the day. <br /><br />The ride covered a lot of new territory for me on the 1st and 2nd days and was delighted to finally get up in the heart of the Blue Mountains. Kramer did a great job in setting up a great course, with plenty of climbing and with great valley stretches to break up the climbs, at least in the 1st and 2nd days. The 3rd day was nothing but climbing or descending and had more familiar territory to me since it covered much of the 2009 Race Across Oregon course from Fossil to Dufur. <br /><br />Here are some notes from my perspective:<br />Day 1 Saturday (Departed 07:00) <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Dalles to Umatilla</span><br />The 1st day we had a strong tailwind the entire stretch along the Columbia Gorge. I think we averaged about 19 mph to Umatilla. We met a guy riding across the country at Roosevelt. There was a bicycle journal at the Riverview Market to sign in. There was also a family with their kids, riding with a double and triple. We took advantage of this tail wind and didn’t stay long at the controls. We only hope that the actual ride will have similar tailwind conditions on this first day. When we got to Plymouth, there was glass in the I-82 bike tunnel. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Umatilla to Tollgate</span><br />Along with the gradual climbing to the base of Tollgate climb, we discovered some big rolling hills before you get to the base of Tollgate. I think there was 2,000 ft more elevation gain between Umatilla and Weston than originally predicted. This stretch before Athena is a really good place to eat and hydrate before the big Tollgate climb. Thanks to Kole for hanging back with me as I had to go a little slower to work out some minor stomach problems. But it was also great to work with Kole on the long climb up Tollgate. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Tollgate to North Powder </span><br />The Tamarack Inn (bed and breakfast) at Tollgate is quite the warm and cozy place. I will be there volunteering on the actual ride next week. It was quite cold at the Tollgate Pass with some snow patches, so expect cold conditions if you get there after 18:00. We had to bundle up in our rain gear as it rained on us most of the descent to Elgin. Descending down from Tollgate the road has a creek running along the side that is cutting into the shoulder so use extreme caution, especially if you are descending at night. In other words, don't ride the shoulder unless you absolutely have to or you are able to slow way down!<br />Between Elgin and LaGrande is mostly flat and typical wind patterns are out of the NE (Wallawa Mtns) so you might have a tailwind here. <br />If you are among the faster that is expected to get a room in North Powder, The Flying J truck stop in LaGrande is worth stocking up on some food, since the smaller 750’ climb actually seems to go on forever after Union. Kole and I arrived at North Powder at 0:15, just about 30 minutes behind Vinnie and Vince.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhoPnpLC3j7iansjUvqeE_EhoEgbHG9VHbbIGMJwC8LJHUzZSp6s378ewcflx7NNeAC6efzLWBsBq709ORWwZHoby43WWYlvYTzvkAOU5FttPdcHpI4mfelFAXi4BzldHZVLWE50bUi3o/s1600/IMG_2941.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhoPnpLC3j7iansjUvqeE_EhoEgbHG9VHbbIGMJwC8LJHUzZSp6s378ewcflx7NNeAC6efzLWBsBq709ORWwZHoby43WWYlvYTzvkAOU5FttPdcHpI4mfelFAXi4BzldHZVLWE50bUi3o/s320/IMG_2941.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479462708994487522" /></a><br /><br />Day 2 Sunday (Departed 6:09 a.m.)<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">North Powder to Prairie City</span> (I nickname "The Cardiac Needles" section), which includes the Austin House control. <br />The 1st 20 miles was a nice flat and easy spinning that helped get our breakfast digested. However, we encountered there was no stores or even gas stations open when we got to Baker City, at about 7:30 am, Sunday morning. So perhaps if you leave early out of North Powder, take some extra food with you so you have something to get ready for the big Cardiac Needles. After Baker City, you climb up to a plateau that approaches the Cardiac Needles (which are the three 1000 ft spikes that show up on the elevation profile). These are substantial climbs that all are above 5,000 feet in elevation and it was chilly at the top of each of these passes. The valleys between each needle had beautiful snow capped peaks rising above them. Austin House is perfectly located at the base of the 3rd needle (actual name is Dixie Pass). Austin House has great food...Vinnie, Vince and Kole got buffalo burgers while I got toast and cheese/ham sandwich that was great to get those calories for all the climbing that remained this day. The climb up to Dixie Pass seemed to be not as steep as the other two needles, but the descent into Prairie City has a great view of north face of Strawberry Mtn, which was a highlight view point of the ride. <br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvdlkrYdpK6M4wu88qiStQSBhZy8E_b1qhnsMfAzflwVDXweTQu7UMt80JLOtE_EkPNTsZh5d_18Rn40moe78zq_QwFLJMPfMj-IryxC7oNk1fN-qvOR_HqfWLHX4YHUc1bMXvxA5QB4Q/s1600/IMG_2960.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvdlkrYdpK6M4wu88qiStQSBhZy8E_b1qhnsMfAzflwVDXweTQu7UMt80JLOtE_EkPNTsZh5d_18Rn40moe78zq_QwFLJMPfMj-IryxC7oNk1fN-qvOR_HqfWLHX4YHUc1bMXvxA5QB4Q/s320/IMG_2960.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479463926922363762" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEJ3DrmnnjrYTttxSHtltZ9ipTElQ1gXWz712lhLpKQRCG7-o_jFoDlwmJxX-9V4_vMnoeDY5wcTEPHHcf7s-HbNOENWueHwLBK191-dfw7O4NBTDvR8OCUgxaHnxQ0vdji2lMqW9GoZU/s1600/IMG_2950.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEJ3DrmnnjrYTttxSHtltZ9ipTElQ1gXWz712lhLpKQRCG7-o_jFoDlwmJxX-9V4_vMnoeDY5wcTEPHHcf7s-HbNOENWueHwLBK191-dfw7O4NBTDvR8OCUgxaHnxQ0vdji2lMqW9GoZU/s320/IMG_2950.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479463026727083874" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Prairie City to Parish Cabin control</span><br />The climb up and around Strawberry Mtn was a thrill. We topped our bottles off with the good spring water at the campground about 2/3 up the 2500 ft climb. It was very cool to cross the John Day River that was just a small tributary, compared to the larger river we would eventually see downstream later in the ride. After you reach the top on this Logan Valley Road, the descent has a large amount of gravel. After the turn right onto Forest Road 16, there are a few smaller climbs along with the stellar Logan Valley that is above 5,000 feet in elevation, with the south face of Strawberry Mtn rising above. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoMAqaHQGoJgzxBir3mabfmMiB29S8Q2tuwmXVss0AylwN1ZO_JEBbN_HOdU3qO3cvNlRG104k4mog3Q9vpncZnmodV1SygbezYNI7fdzQ2zWpKadFo_T8ikoVYRxRweYsFv7ct9_ocd0/s1600/IMG_2963.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoMAqaHQGoJgzxBir3mabfmMiB29S8Q2tuwmXVss0AylwN1ZO_JEBbN_HOdU3qO3cvNlRG104k4mog3Q9vpncZnmodV1SygbezYNI7fdzQ2zWpKadFo_T8ikoVYRxRweYsFv7ct9_ocd0/s320/IMG_2963.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479464329135022994" /></a><br />Parish Cabin Control to Dayville<br />The descent off of Forest Road 15 is spectacular, although, this is one place I couldn’t keep up with the other three guys. But I managed to keep plugging away after the town of John Day and rode strong with a tail wind all the way into Dayville. I thought that they would be long gone by the time I got there, but they had only been waiting for 10 minutes. I was pretty worked over and so it was good of everyone to have patience with me despite the pouring down rain while standing around the Dayville city park. <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Dayville to Mitchell </span>(arrived at 23:55 )<br />The next section was important to get bundled back up since we would climb about 2500 ft up Keystone Pass at night and in some heavy rain to start off. This is a long steady climb that is about 26 miles long and has a couple small downhills that are a nice treat. <br />But once we got to the top, the descent into Mitchell was so cold, that I thought I was going to shiver right off the bike. Thanks to my Garmin for directing me towards the hotel in the pitch black and rain, otherwise I might have missed the turn. We all decided to sleep in an extra hour to let the it warm up a little before heading out in the morning. The bedrooms in the Oregon Motel in Mitchell was quite pleasant and the apartments that John rented out for dinner and breakfast was nice too. John and Eric did a marvelous job cooking us up hot pasta for dinner and then omelets for breakfast.<br /><br />Day 3 Monday (Departed 7:17 a.m.)<br />As I mentioned before, the third day is full of climbing and descending with very little valley riding between the climbs. I think we discovered there was about 12,000 ft of climbing total for the day. The climb out of Mitchell is quite pleasant and once you descend there is a sharp left turn onto Girds Creek Road that eventually turns into Twickenham Rd. This road is full of gravel and full of surprises as Vince will attest to… <a href="http://randobiker.blogspot.com/2010/06/preride-report-by-vince-sikorski.html">Read Vince’s blog comment and find out all about his near miss deer incident!</a> The climb up the Rowe Creek Road had big strips of gravel that weren’t bad on the climb but it was tricky in places descending down to Hwy 19. Once we arrived into Fossil, Kole was waiting there for us for 15 minutes who decided he wanted to ride ahead so he would get an additional 5 miles in, to get his personal goal of 13,000 miles for the year so far, by the end of May. The store in Fossil was a perfect place to stock up on ice cream and burritos. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Fossil to Antelope</span><br />The 1000 ft climb out of Fossil was on familiar ground for me, that covers the last section of the RAO course. But this time, the fields were greener than ever! The descent into the John Day River/Clarno is one of the nicest descents on the ride. Once you past the Clarno Fossil Bed park, there is a 200 ft warmup climb before you actually climb the big climb. Immediately after you cross the John Day River, the climb out of the John Day (Clarno Climb), is one of the biggest of the entire ride (about 2500 ft in 8 miles). Once you reach the top, there is another nice descent into Antelope. If you’re at Antelope while the store is open, make sure you get some pie or cobbler (a la mode). The ice cream actually helped relieved my gassy stomach! <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Antelope to Maupin</span><br />There is another 1000 ft climb up to the town of Shaneko. After the first 4 miles you’ll top off out of the valley and you’ll be in headwinds for while, all the way down to Maupin, especially on the Bakeoven Road. The Bakeoven can be really bad with headwinds but for us, it wasn’t as bad as other times I’ve been on this road. And drafting made a huge difference. Once we arrived in Maupin it felt really hot, as it usually is one of the hottest places on the ride. The Deschutes Pizza Co. was a great place to stock up on food one last time before the final push to the finish. The service was great and the food was fantastic. I think Kole and Vinnie ate more ice cream on this trip than all the Randonneurs combined. By the time we left Maupin, it was already cooling off.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Maupin to the Dalles</span><br />The final push to the finish was not as bad as it could have been. Last year the XTR climbed up the Tygh Ridge in blazing heat. But we were fortunate we left an hour later on this day since we arrived at the toe of the Tygh Ridge climb in the shade. We reached the top of Tygh Ridge just in time for a beautiful sunset. Descending to Dufur and only 20 miles to our final destination was a relief to know we were almost there! The turn onto the 8 mile Road has a lot of gravel, so use extreme caution when turning!! And be glad you are not taking 197 since 8 mile Road mostly descends all the way back down into the Columbia River and the Dalles. The lights of the Dalles was a so great to finally see! It was a pleasure to ride with Vinnie, Vince and Kole on this fantastic 1000k journey around eastern Oregon. We made it in at 22:07, giving us a total time of 63 hours and 7 minutes, with about 13 hours layover in the overnight!<br /><br />Good luck to everyone riding next week! See you all at Tollgate!<br /><br />John PearchJohn Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-46776199756442664302010-03-11T23:01:00.000-08:002010-03-11T23:03:14.317-08:00Trail Work and Trail Running Clinic<span style="font-weight:bold;">Capitol Peak Ultras presents:</span><br /><br />Give back to the trails and come join us for trail work on the Capitol Peak 50 mile/55km course.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Trail Work and Trail Running Clinic</span><br /><br />Sunday March 21, 2010<br /><br />and<br /><br />Sunday April 11, 2010<br /><br /> <br /><br />8:30am meet at Starbucks/TopFoods in West Olympia on both dates. We will drive to designated trail work projects in Capitol Forest.<br /><br />Bring clothes to work on trails, water and food.<br /><br />Trail work tools and equipment will be provided.<br /><br />Bring running clothes for after the trail work.<br /><br />Run will be 8-10 miles.<br /><br />Pizza following the trail work and run!<br /><br />Trail Running Clinic includes:<br /><br /> * Update on new modified Capitol Peak 50mi/55k course.<br /> * ·Even if you’re not running an ultramarathon or Capitol Peak 50/55k, come anyways and learn the latest and greatest on trail running gear, running efficiency on different terrain/surfaces and sufficient fueling and hydration while running long on trails.<br /><br />See you on the trails soon!<br /><br /><br />John Pearch<br />RD-Capitol Peak Ultras<br /><a href="www.capitolpeakultras.com/cp50mile.htm">www.capitolpeakultras.com/cp50mile.htm</a>John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-1300050494366949682010-02-05T09:01:00.000-08:002010-02-05T09:02:27.611-08:00NEW START FINISH FOR 50 mile and 55KmTo make it easier driving we changed the start/finish for Capitol Peak 50<br />mile and 55Km. I also modified the course map accordingly. However, stay<br />tuned for more updates on trail conditions or potential small changes<br />to the course.<br />See website: <a href="http://www.capitolpeakultras.com/CP50mile.htm">http://www.capitolpeakultras.com/CP50mile.htm</a>John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-3792113215363345072009-09-22T00:19:00.000-07:002009-09-22T01:20:24.653-07:00A Finish is all that matters, Race Across Oregon, 2009<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBGpgqtheg8T8-RfkQZwKEHesAeibJ8X5cmUXtflLyr4F3xdrjcNB0g5H2nhOAqHxrtzK8hGYAwQDJI584Q1QnZaoZSXaLUd_klNY2DFhCeCgJxRtCywNk0D0KyiKwmMJU_Q-5LMiTRnk/s1600-h/RAO2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBGpgqtheg8T8-RfkQZwKEHesAeibJ8X5cmUXtflLyr4F3xdrjcNB0g5H2nhOAqHxrtzK8hGYAwQDJI584Q1QnZaoZSXaLUd_klNY2DFhCeCgJxRtCywNk0D0KyiKwmMJU_Q-5LMiTRnk/s320/RAO2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5384198953259930562" border="0" /></a>
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<br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Huge Thanks to my Crew<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> realize July and Race Across Oregon 2009 was several months ago. <span style=""> </span>This is probably too long for you to read through every last detail,…so grab some coffee first;^). Here are my most important thoughts before you get the gory details. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> am so thankful to my crew…crew means everything in a race like this. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> couldn’t and wouldn’t have finished this race without all their support! Thank you Cris Matthews, <st1:personname st="on">Dave Sax</st1:personname>, Lee Mitchell, Heidi Perry and Linda Huyck!! You all are so awesome!! </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">After finishing with my crew last year Cris Matthews was still enthusiastic about coming back to help crew again this year. <span style=""> </span>Lee Mitchell and <st1:personname st="on">Dave Sax</st1:personname> were also recruited to work with Cris the first day. Lee “Fuzzy” Mitchel, a veteran of all veterans in the sport of ultracycling was willing to come up to be my crew chief, even after finishing RAAM in the 75 year old team division! <span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">Dave Sax</st1:personname>, a long time good friend and track buddy from <st1:placename st="on">Muskingum</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">College</st1:placetype> days also came up from <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">California</st1:state></st1:place>.<span style=""> </span>The second day, Heidi Perry and Linda Huyck joined the crew which turned out to be perfect timing for many MANY reasons. (As some of you know, Heidi and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> became an item last year because of RAO.) This year it has been great to have Heidi behind me every step of the way, in training and race prep, and everything else! Heidi and Linda drove from <st1:city st="on">Portland</st1:city> late Saturday to the far reaches of eastern <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Oregon</st1:state></st1:place> in the middle of the night. Thank you Heidi, Linda and everyone in my crew for being there for me. <span style=""> </span>You are all what got me to that finish!! And thanks to James Varner for working communicating to my crew where the hell <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was based on the website. Also thanks to Jim Szumila for crewing me during a training ride out to Condon in June. And thanks to all my wonderful family and friends for cheering for me, it was so good to here from you all!</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Another huge thanks goes to <st1:personname st="on">Dave Terry</st1:personname> (a friend and ultrarunner) who just recently passed away. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> rode with Dave last year from <st1:placename st="on">Hood</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">River</st1:placetype>, to <st1:city st="on">the Dalles</st1:city> and up the <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Dufur Valley Road</st1:address></st1:street> hill to Cooper Spur and back down to <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Hood</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">River</st1:placetype></st1:place>. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was about a 100 mile ride, but it was the day after a long 140 mile ride <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> did elsewhere out on the course. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was great to have Dave show me this section of course, since this part of this loop ride had the final climb in the new RAO course (up Dufur Valley Road hill to Cooper Spur). <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> didn’t get the chance to ride this section of course this year, so thanks to Dave for showing me this and inspiring me to achieve the goal of finishing and not worry about a goal of a time! Dave will be missed dearly, and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> will never forget how great it was to ride with a legendary ultrarunner!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Why RAO AGA<st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>N?</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This type of race comes in many forms, more <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could ever experience during my adventures in ultrarunning. But <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> have found a niche in this sport and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>’m happy to say that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> still enjoy being out there, experiencing the elements on the pavement. <span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> felt more than ready this year. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was feeling up to the challenge of the new course. There are many things that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> experienced out there that a lot of other riders also went through. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> also faced the close cutoff time, which was really difficult.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> want to share my toughest times in this year’s race, <span style=""> </span>to give you some idea how <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> got to that point and then what <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> did to get out of it…</p><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQXrKMEf-2OOLvwO5Y1-ME7o14yM3wE5V-t6_ry4WcVEtbpPbPpaI5nuqIDysNhOrYDPiXUsfbz5nNgK5WGV4hjSDGxQ3xVosuxIfy74gcIc5MVMCXP-alvVACSrl26r8B9kKkLVD3vg/s1600-h/IMG_2325.JPG">
<br /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">When was the toughest time?<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Have you ever been in a pinch in time? Last year at RAO when <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was riding so slowly. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> thought <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> wouldn’t make the cutoff. But at that time, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> only had 40 miles to go and 7 hours on the clock. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> managed to beat that time by a long shot with a couple hours to spare. However, time was NOT on my side this year. So let’s fast forward to the part in the race that was so desperate…</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The time is <st1:time hour="0" minute="0" st="on">12 midnight</st1:time> <st1:date month="7" day="13" year="2009" st="on">Monday July 13, 2009</st1:date> and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> have ridden my bike for 460 miles since beginning Saturday at <st1:time hour="5" minute="0" st="on">5:00am</st1:time>. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had just crested the climb out of Maupin, AND faced the huge climb up to Mt Hood that stood in the darkness ahead of me. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> am still 56 miles from the finish, but <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> have less than 5 hours to finish before the 48 hour cutoff. That means averaging almost 11 mph on a major climb to Mt Hood. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> have endured many levels of pain by now, fighting 50 mph headwinds, blazing heated canyons, and aching Achilles tendinitis pain since about 130 miles into the ride. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> am beyond exhausted and the will to keep trying. <span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> am feeling there is no way in hell <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> am going to make the cutoff by <st1:time hour="5" minute="0" st="on">5:00am</st1:time> and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> feel it's not worth fighting the pain anymore. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was leaning over my handlebars ready to quit. <span style=""> </span>That is when other people kept me keep going, and what this story is really all about.
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<br />What drove me beyond this moment to finish this race! Many of you know that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> finished Race Across Oregon in 48:06, just 6 minutes past the cutoff for an official finish. Why not just quit? What was the point of finishing when <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> knew the cutoff was practically gone? How did <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> get to beyond this point after all what <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> been through!</p> <p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><b style="">The Training<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As you are aware, this year was a good year of training for me. Joining the Randonneurs was a huge benefit that got me mega mileage on the weekends. This year’s training was much much greater than last year ever was. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>n May, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> completed two 250 mile Randonneur Brevets, that were 1 week apart, and the following weekend did the Lewis and Clark 24 hour race (getting in as many as 323 miles and placing 2nd). <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> decided after all those miles in May to get in shorter and heavy duty climbing miles in June, which would replicate the RAO course. Biking new parts of the course, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> saw for myself the huge 2500 ft climbs that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> would face in the race after 400 miles, that made last year’s course look like Kansas. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> didn't have a chance to scope out the portion of the course which may have aggravated my problems. <span style=""> </span>But regardless, no matter how much <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> studied the course, unpredictable things came down on race day that made the event so much harder, in spite of all my good training.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As you can see from the results only 10 solo riders (including upright, recupright and recumbent) finished officially, and 2 unofficially (one of them was me), and out of all of us, 10 dnf's. This makes a 54% finish rate, consistent with previous year’s results,. However, the course still proved to be extremely tough, in my opinion and in the estimation of others with much greater experience...
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<br /><!--[endif]--></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There was over 40,000 ft of elevation gain and major climbs after riding 400 miles. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>n particular, the climb that stood out for me was the Clarno climb (<st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">John Day</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Canyon</st1:placetype></st1:place>), about 2200 feet in 8 miles. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was set to eat me alive on race day. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">
<br />Anyways, feeling great and with all that training under my belt, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> felt certain of a strong finish, perhaps sub 42 hours! But who knew what the new course would throw at its riders. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was so relieved to have finished the training and felt ready for the new course. The only thing that stood in my way now was <u>just</u> 40,000+ elevation gain in 516 miles and whatever else that would brew up on race day.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">The Start to Moro (121 miles)</b><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6T347Sn0156PwW1dG0if_eIioZfUDOEf37abhXOGbv5mJ80W-Rr8a16S_VW_DnCbBXs05TI6uaPz6NrKMM1wdvX3BaqNVeZ-BuydQx7lWCkqWemvoqO0xcqyH_R02G106CvbhQXEoCt4/s1600-h/IMG_2315.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6T347Sn0156PwW1dG0if_eIioZfUDOEf37abhXOGbv5mJ80W-Rr8a16S_VW_DnCbBXs05TI6uaPz6NrKMM1wdvX3BaqNVeZ-BuydQx7lWCkqWemvoqO0xcqyH_R02G106CvbhQXEoCt4/s320/IMG_2315.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5384193892579103106" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Us solo riders were fortunate to start at 5:00am, which allowed the first climb up Hwy 35 on the north flank of Mt Hood to be cooler ,.
<br />We all started off in the usual parade for the first 9 miles. They even let us take a quick pee break before we broke off onto Hwy 35. As the leaders broke away up Hwy 35, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> kept as calm as <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could, keeping my heart rate reasonable, eating and drinking responsibly. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> looked up and wondered to myself how many people in that lead pack would drop. My guess was that half of the field wouldn't finish, and just <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> thought; hopefully <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>'m not one of them!
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<br />Rooky, Mike Maughan and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> were leapfrogging somewhat on this climb, but before <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> knew it, Mike sped ahead and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> wouldn’t see him until later in the race. The descent down Forest Road 48 was not as fast as it could have been, with chipseal, potholes, a few 100+ feet rollers and a 10 mile stretch with frost heaves! Those frost heaves were couple inches wide/deep and spread out about every 200 feet for 10 miles. We were warned in the pre-race meeting not to hold your tongue between your teeth or you might accidentally bite it off. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> finally got down to the bottom of the descent to <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Tygh</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Valley</st1:placetype></st1:place> and Time Station 1. Lead woman Karen Armstrong caught up to me and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was glad she could show me the way, since my crew was somewhere behind me. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had arrived only 20 minutes behind my target time and was still feeling good. <span style=""> </span>My crew finally caught up to me a few miles down the road and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> stopped briefly to prepare for the very steep <st1:placename st="on">Sherar</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Falls</st1:placetype> climb out of the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Deschutes</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">River</st1:placetype></st1:place> canyon. Crew could not support during this climb, so <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had to get myself whatever <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> needed for the 4 mile climb. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> felt pretty good even on the steeper 20% grade switchback, and got to the top without too much trouble. However, as <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> approached the summit, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> faced severe headwinds, which felt like 40-50 mph! We would face headwind for the next 50+ miles with only a few breaks. And the Race Directors said this would be a tail wind stretch!
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQXrKMEf-2OOLvwO5Y1-ME7o14yM3wE5V-t6_ry4WcVEtbpPbPpaI5nuqIDysNhOrYDPiXUsfbz5nNgK5WGV4hjSDGxQ3xVosuxIfy74gcIc5MVMCXP-alvVACSrl26r8B9kKkLVD3vg/s1600-h/IMG_2325.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQXrKMEf-2OOLvwO5Y1-ME7o14yM3wE5V-t6_ry4WcVEtbpPbPpaI5nuqIDysNhOrYDPiXUsfbz5nNgK5WGV4hjSDGxQ3xVosuxIfy74gcIc5MVMCXP-alvVACSrl26r8B9kKkLVD3vg/s320/IMG_2325.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5384196791875904114" border="0" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> fought hard, doing everything <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could to stay on the bike, not waste too much energy and keep eating and drinking. This part of the course was off the beaten highway, which added maybe 10 miles or more. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was distracted by this since <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>'m used to riding with the Randonneurs who ride the shortest distance possible between each control station. And the ungodly headwinds were still with us. However at <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Lonerock Road</st1:address></st1:street> the road turned slightly to the NW so a tailwind sailed us into Moro, time station 2. There <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> needed to fuel up and rest from battling the headwinds. Joan Grant was also there recovering , so <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> didn’t feel alone. <span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> couldn’t find a restroom to take a dump and ended up going into the town tavern.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t had “no public restroom” signs which <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> ignored; no one was in the bar and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname><i style=""> </i>left without being seen, but who knows, there might be “Wanted” signs now posted for my arrest!
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Moro to Condon (121-164 miles)</b></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo9qI0zfibzg-SkHkTOpO6yeycEHmg-EYekxGXkk5ST7LHTFWA5lNUnB-cl5tw2Kzsy5Z1R8tfTK5U32YLvxxfst17-NHvoxncDAVE6D1Oa871KZsQgzZR-qMgYxNLUyRM_Va7Ksu7CmQ/s1600-h/IMG_2327.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo9qI0zfibzg-SkHkTOpO6yeycEHmg-EYekxGXkk5ST7LHTFWA5lNUnB-cl5tw2Kzsy5Z1R8tfTK5U32YLvxxfst17-NHvoxncDAVE6D1Oa871KZsQgzZR-qMgYxNLUyRM_Va7Ksu7CmQ/s320/IMG_2327.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5384197279561210082" border="0" /></a><p class="MsoNormal">Moving slowly out of Moro on <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Monkland Road</st1:address></st1:street>, heading east, the course led towards the windfarms and the infamous <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">John Day</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">River</st1:placetype></st1:place> canyon. As we approached the wind farms you could see that the winds were truly whipping from the east, compared to my mid-June training day when they had come from the west...<span style=""> </span>Along <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Monkland Road</st1:address></st1:street>, my left Achilles started to ache. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> hoped it was a minor pain that would just go away. But on Hwy 206 approaching <st1:place st="on">John Day</st1:place> canyon <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> opted for some ibuprofen, since the pain was getting worse.<span style=""> </span>And it started to get really hot. The headwinds had masked the heat, but descending into <st1:place st="on">John Day</st1:place> canyon, the heat really intensified... <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> heard from other people that their bike computers read 106 degrees.<b style=""><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had only taken 400 mg of ibuprofen to see if that would diminish the pain, and it seemed to work. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> felt strong on the climb out of <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">John Day</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Canyon</st1:placetype></st1:place>. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> passed a couple solo riders and felt <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was back in the game. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> tried to take it easy on the steeper climbs to protect my Achilles. Then <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> noticed a huge salt ring on my shorts and jersey, so knew <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> must have had a shortfall in salt during the headwinds stretch. And, on the final steep climb up to Devils Butte, my hamstrings and quads completely cramped up badly. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was so bad <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had to get off my bike and stretch out. Dave ran from the car down to me and stretched me out on the side of the road. Several teams passed at this point and checked if <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> needed help. But within minutes, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was back on the bike impressing several teams that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> pulled it together as fast as <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> did. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Once you crest the summit Devils Butte, if you look west over your shoulder, you can see Mt Rainier and most of the Oregon Cascades, but <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was too much in a daze by now to worry about the view<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was still pretty windy leading down into Condon. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> caught up with Mike and Joan and we played leapfrog into Condon together. Mike and Joan’s crew were so supportive of me out there! Mike’s crew chief, Glenn Johnson, was on the loud speaker with Mike, playing some rock ‘n roll.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t gave me an extra lift, too.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was so good to be back in the game again, but the pain in my Achilles kept reminding me that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> should slow down. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> maintained contact with Mike (that is eye contact of course, not drafting contact). Then, Mike let me pass him somewhere outside of Condon and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> wouldn’t see him until later that evening. Now <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> entered a section of the course where <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> hadn’t trained.<span style=""> </span>Since the descents and climbs were an unknown, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> would have to consult with my crew.
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<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Condon to Heppner (164-207 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My memory is not good in this stretch, since <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was more focused on eating, drinking or just pedaling. With some major climbs ahead, (“speed bumps” the race directors call them) and the day still quite warm, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> slowed my pace slightly. <span style=""> </span>Just a few miles before Heppner <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> put lights on. Descending into Heppner it concerned me that Lee was driving close on my tail, but <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> soon got used to it.…”Well,” <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> thought, <span style=""> </span>“if he hits me, it will be over really quick!” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> arrived in Heppner feeling somewhat optimistic and in good spirits to continue.<span style=""> </span>There were so many solo and team people hanging around, it felt like the race was finished, but we were only 207 miles into the race! Many people had dropped at this point, or at Moro, which and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> didn’t know at the time….thank God for that because <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> might have decided to drop myself. A lot of carnage out there from the headwinds! <span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> felt <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> should push on and then Heidi called in and gave me some positive motivation. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> didn’t tell her about my Achilles pain, since <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> needed her to feel confident that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could get to Spray (mile 358)…but also my own motivation if times got rougher.…and let me tell you, times got more than rough out there!!</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Heppner to Dale (207-285 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Leaving Heppner, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could see several teams flying ahead of me and knew that there was no way to catch them. <span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was all on my own and riding into the dark. There were 3 climbs that gradually would steepen as we got towards Hwy 395. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could feel myself fading and a short nap was urgent. So only a mile or two on Hwy 395, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> decided to get some rest. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> knew there was a 12 mile climb ahead of me over Battle Mtn and then several more climbs before dawn. So we all stopped and got a good 20 minutes sleep. <span style=""> </span>Then it was back on the bike, but <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was having trouble getting enough calories in me. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was slow going to crest Battle Mtn, and for the first time <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> started to feel out of touch with the rest of the race. Despite stomach issues, the most appealing food throughout the night and previous day was yogurt smoothies, although Ensure Plus and mashed potatoes seemed to work later on. There were a bunch of other food items out there that worked but these were the most memorable.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The new course was supposed to travel the FS 53 road/Willow Creek Road, but due to major road damage, we were routed south on Hwy 395. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was very thankful that we avoided Willow Creek road, since it climbed over 5,000 feet in elevation would have been incredibly tough. Dawn arrived, and the descent into Camus Creek canyon.<span style=""> </span>The race directors had said, “<st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t’s too bad you won’t see Camus Creek canyon since it will be dark when you go down through it”…Well guess what, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> did get to see how beautiful the canyon was. But despite the great view, my stomach really started took a nose dive and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> couldn’t take down any food for a while. Sandy Earl passed me during this point as well looking really strong.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was feeling exhausted beyond belief, looked at the time and saw that we were 24 hours into the race and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had only gone 276 miles!. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had expected to cover at least 300 miles in 24 hours…where did all the time go? <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> became very disappointed, thinking how many miles <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had to go (which is a big NO NO to do in any long distance event like this). <span style=""> </span>Doing the math in my head, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> knew <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> would need to keep about a 10 mph average pace for the remaining 24 hours, and how could <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> do that with my ongoing Achilles pain! </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Arriving in Dale time station, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was ready for a break... <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> sat in my car, unwilling to go further. John Henry Maurice was there still working the time station, even though it was<span style=""> </span>6am and he was told he could stop working at 3 am. He’s a fellow Randonneur, and how great it was to see him out there. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was ready to drop, but <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> knew Heidi and Linda would be waiting for me in Spray. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> tried to get my crew to call Heidi but the pay phones were out of service and there was no cell service down in the canyon.<span style=""> </span>After maybe 30 minutes, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> told Lee <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> wanted to drop, and he said “Dropping is not an option at this point.” So <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> immediately got on my bike to get to Spray and Heidi, and to try to get out of this “low” <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was in.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Dale to Spray (285-358 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> rode out of Dale very slowly. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t started to rain and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> stopped to get some rain gear on, which was kind of useless, since the storm quickly passed and the temperature warmed up just minutes later.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> finally got in a groove on one of the climbs south of Dale. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was now warm but not hot yet. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> crossed over the Middle Fork of the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">John Day</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">River</st1:placetype></st1:place>, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> noticed a racer ahead. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was Mike and he didn’t look too good... <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> gave his crew some advice on what worked for my stomach issues. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> felt bad <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> couldn’t hang out to encourage Mike but that might draw me under mentally, and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had already used up my 15 minute “social time”.<span style=""> </span>Even though it might have been disappointing for Mike, it made me realize that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> am still in this race, competing and willing to keep going the distance.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> pushed on thinking that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> might start catching other riders ahead. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> crested the climb out of the Middle Fork, Dave yelled from the car that Heidi and Linda were on their way and only minutes from reaching us! <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was thrilled to hear this! As <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> kept my strong pace going, the crew stopped for awhile to get familiar with each other and update Heidi and Linda on my status. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> arrived in Long Creek and saw another RAO crew car, which provided more inspiration continue. As <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> climbed up out of Long Creek on Hwy 402, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> passed <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Sandy</st1:city></st1:place> and gave her encouragement... Just beyond <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Sandy</st1:city></st1:place>, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> saw Joan Grant on the road side not looking so good. There again, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> really wished <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could stop awhile and support her, but knew <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had to keep pushing myself along. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> got to the top of the <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Hamilton</st1:city></st1:place> climb feeling great. Ecstatic: that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was still in this race and that a finish was now within reach.<span style=""> </span>Would <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> be able to make the 48 hour cutoff? <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was beyond caring; <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> just wanted to keep pushing and not worry about time. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> descended down into Monument and somewhere on the descent Mike’s crew car (Glenn) yelled at me on his loud speaker “way to get back into the game John!” Mike had dropped and they were heading home.<span style=""> </span>Mike rode a great race and he should definitely come back and get his revenge. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> arrived in Monument, the day began to heat up, so <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> briefly stopped and lathered up with sunscreen... While doing so, <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Sandy</st1:city></st1:place> passed me. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> tried to catch her, but never succeeded.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was gradually fading, even taking close to 400-500 calories per hour--mashed potatoes and Ensure Plus. When <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> arrived at the Hwy 19 turn and still hadn’t caught <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Sandy</st1:place></st1:city>. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> knew <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was on my own again.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> figured, no sense in trying to push too hard and get my Achilles aching again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Linda and Cris were in the second car and they drove ahead to Spray to get some ice and other supplies.<span style=""> </span>Just a mile before Spray <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> saw a pit toilet at a roadside stop. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> figured <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>’d better stop and take a dump before getting to Spray. At this point it was approaching 100 degrees. Heidi and Dave both jumped into the river and Heidi gave me a nice wet hug to cool me down.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> wished <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could jump in the river myself.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> arrived into Spray feeling very hot and there was my crew, waiting in the shade. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> just ate one quick bite, feeling very sluggish, and slowly got going again.
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Spray to Maupin (358-457 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKcGKJyxQTw6bWhtIO_C1EjHsUGGvpsrCeuyvlHGSNtB9kVeG4vpWXjafBhwGEziZvRgYVW4-15XenBaOSlRD3UeakXxtV7HBKfyYodZ7MA1u3lUxDBfHevg0G1nqxRBiJDZAp5i6kLhQ/s1600-h/clarnoclimb.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKcGKJyxQTw6bWhtIO_C1EjHsUGGvpsrCeuyvlHGSNtB9kVeG4vpWXjafBhwGEziZvRgYVW4-15XenBaOSlRD3UeakXxtV7HBKfyYodZ7MA1u3lUxDBfHevg0G1nqxRBiJDZAp5i6kLhQ/s320/clarnoclimb.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5384197912827529186" border="0" /></a>The headwinds were back as <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> left Spray and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was really fading.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> approached the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Butte</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Creek</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype st="on">Pass</st1:placetype></st1:place> climb and long this climb was. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had not climbed <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Butte</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Creek</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype st="on">Pass</st1:placetype></st1:place>, only descended it. <span style=""> </span>Heidi fed me a cold milk shake and popsicle, which gave me a boost, but it seemed this climb just wouldn’t stop, nor would the wind! <span style=""> </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Butte</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Creek</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype st="on">Pass</st1:placetype></st1:place> climb was 2100 feet of gain in 10 miles. Finally, getting to the top, Heidi and Dave had some soup waiting for me. <span style=""> </span>While stopped to eat briefly, Joan passed looking a lot better than when <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> saw her on the <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Hamilton</st1:city></st1:place> climb.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Descending to Fossil, Dave played some music on the PA system. One song <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> will never forget was the “Cookie Monster” song.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t put a smile on my face and a little humorous touch in the midst of all this madness.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> arrived into Fossil feeling optimistic that a finish was still reachable, but <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> knew what was just ahead on the course. <span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had trained on it--it was a major climbing section.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/JOHNPE%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8_CQKdqDjIV6mGWcmKTxuXd3WDFIoR6QdroM3nsNTxpHn5OvQtahH0Oga6pQ5m5xA41eRGa4h_0s5xoF71na6lTGQyh0NMREapqmPsQbaABCR5WxH5ipYzBWgHqVMnWxSWE9orKI-RhI/s1600-h/triangleandme.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8_CQKdqDjIV6mGWcmKTxuXd3WDFIoR6QdroM3nsNTxpHn5OvQtahH0Oga6pQ5m5xA41eRGa4h_0s5xoF71na6lTGQyh0NMREapqmPsQbaABCR5WxH5ipYzBWgHqVMnWxSWE9orKI-RhI/s320/triangleandme.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5384198277668946706" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Climbing from Fossil <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could see a thunderhead looming above <span style=""> </span>The closer <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> got to the pass, the worse it looked, and my crew still hadn’t caught up to me. But they caught me just before the summit and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> stopped to put some rain gear on.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t poured and hailed on the descent into <st1:place st="on">John Day</st1:place> canyon. But at the bottom of the canyon the sun came out and warmed us up again. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> shed my layers and kept them off as <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> prepared for the infamous Clarno climb, out of the canyon. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> got to the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">John Day</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">River</st1:placetype></st1:place> feeling ready, and saw Joan just ahead. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had to make a quick pit stop, and then was able to catch her.<span style=""> </span>Although there is no such thing as drafting in this race, it is good to work and leapfrog with. Passing Joan on the climb <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> said, “Let’s work together for the finish!” She was stronger on the descents than <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was, so eventually, after this monster of a climb, passed me just before the town of <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Antelope</st1:city></st1:place>. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> stayed behind her on the climb out of Antelope and kept her in sight. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was still windy and warm on the climbs but the descents were brisk. So <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had to change in and out of clothes.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTIOCwyFohJgHMcOJ1yE1aisKXdQKIRsS5E_mr_JjFlkncFywISxo0YuYLLyCO6zzU0qu4dfq2wpgu9BHZRuQcf-iK9o-9YnNaIjuBp1Cr6wz6-_USYeaTX9nPeOZtPCgtO-sDPPOTIck/s1600-h/clarnoclimb2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 238px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTIOCwyFohJgHMcOJ1yE1aisKXdQKIRsS5E_mr_JjFlkncFywISxo0YuYLLyCO6zzU0qu4dfq2wpgu9BHZRuQcf-iK9o-9YnNaIjuBp1Cr6wz6-_USYeaTX9nPeOZtPCgtO-sDPPOTIck/s320/clarnoclimb2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5384199067515595474" border="0" /></a>As we crested the climb out of Antelope the winds really picked up. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was 30 miles to Maupin and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> calculated how much time this descent into Maupin usually took. <span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> thought it would be about one and a half hours, even with a headwind--but then <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was practically fresh during a 140 mile training ride! When <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> arrived into the town of <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Shaniko</st1:city></st1:place>, my crew told me to turn right onto Hwy 97. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> said, NO WAY!…The course description must be WRONG!! <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> knew the course well enough to turn left, as <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had in training. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t paid to really know the course in this circumstance! </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Leaving Shaniko, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> raced to catch Joan, but now <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could see a huge thunder storm just north of <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Bakeoven Road</st1:address></st1:street>. This road is 25 mile, and a 3,000 feet descent, into Maupin (in the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Deschutes</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">River</st1:placetype></st1:place> canyon). When <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> rode this section in training, it had been windy with major headwinds but <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had not ridden at night with a major thunderstorm nearby. Bakeoven was deceptive, providing a nice tailwind at first, which felt like being launched into outer space.<span style=""> </span>The lightning show was awesome too--something to keep my mind off the pain of my Achilles. But then the road turned ever so slightly west and right smack into an unbearable headwind! The first part of Bakeoven is steep, but all <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could manage was 25 mph and a slower 12-15 mph on a gradual descent, all the time getting whipped around like a wind sock. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> eventually caught Joan again and we passed quickly since there was very little shoulder. We would leapfrog back and forth on this stretch since <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had to constantly stop to pee.<span style=""> </span>Peeing off the bike was not an option, since it was just too windy! This was by far the toughest part of the course. <span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> thought <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> would get to Maupin by <st1:time hour="22" minute="0" st="on">10pm</st1:time>, but instead the section took about 3 hours, which put Joan and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> into Maupin at <st1:time hour="23" minute="25" st="on">11:25pm</st1:time>. This put both of us in a major time bind but <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> felt ready to continue on.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was going to be close to get to the finish in less than 6 hours. As <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was about to leave <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> saw Joan laying down. She said she was dropping and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> congratulated her for all her efforts and had been really glad to have her out there closeby. Her crew told her that it would have been really tough for her to finish by <st1:time hour="5" minute="0" st="on">5am</st1:time>. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> find out later that she was saving herself for another 500 miler later on this summer. Joan just recently finished Hoodoo 500 and broke the womens course record!<span style=""> </span>Way to go Joan!!
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Maupin to the Finish!<span style=""> </span>(457-516 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> slowly moved forward across the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Deschutes</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">River</st1:placetype></st1:place> bridge, slowly into the center of Maupin and extremely slow to the upper terrace of Maupin. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was convinced there was no way in hell <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could go any faster, creeping only 3-4 mph out of the steep canyon. <span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> kept thinking about Joan dropping; <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> kept thinking how my Achilles hurt; <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> kept thinking about the damn headwinds; <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> kept thinking that my time would put me in after the cutoff; <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> kept thinking about what my crew was willing to do to keep me going.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> felt ridiculous in continuing on and kept focusing on all the reasons to drop.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had reached the point <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> wrote about in the beginning. Leaning over my handlebars, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> felt completely shattered, believing that dropping was my only option. But was <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> going to let the course get the best of me? Was <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> going to just drop because <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> didn’t want to be humiliated finishing “so close” to the cutoff? My crew huddled around me. They were all so supportive, feeding me positive thoughts.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> remember saying to them that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>’d never dropped before in a race. And they immediately responded, “Who said anything about dropping?” <span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> told Heidi that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could ride until <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> got to the 48 hour time limit, judge my distance from the finish, and then just ride into the finish for the hell of it! Heidi told me that was a very noble goal and that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> should go for it. The crew was all willing to stay with me all the way to the finish, even without much sleep. They would make sure they could see me finish no matter what the time was. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was inspired by this, but also kind of torn because the problems still had not gone away. Lee said, “Let’s just get down the road a little bit.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t’s that simple.<span style=""> </span>Just get going again and see how much further <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> can ride; like the game <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was playing earlier in this race but lost along the way!! <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was off again, and now way WAY faster than 4 mph, more like 18-20 mph on a flat. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> found my second wind, and the headwinds died down. Ahead was the 1500 ft, 7 mile climb to Tygh Ridge summit and the final climb up Mt Hood. But with no winds, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could ride up Tygh Ridge at 10-12 mph and still feel very strong. Stronger than <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had the entire ride! <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> stopped thinking about how far behind <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was and focused on increasing the pace. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was so thrilled to have a crew willing to be there for me all the way to the finish.<span style=""> </span>That really inspired me to dig in and move! <span style=""> </span>Now having a second car really paid off (thanks to Cris and Linda)…as <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could watch the tail lights and look ahead and move forward towards them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> crested Tygh Ridge summit and it felt so good to know <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had only one more climb, even if it was one of the biggest. There was a slight uphill off Hw</p><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8_CQKdqDjIV6mGWcmKTxuXd3WDFIoR6QdroM3nsNTxpHn5OvQtahH0Oga6pQ5m5xA41eRGa4h_0s5xoF71na6lTGQyh0NMREapqmPsQbaABCR5WxH5ipYzBWgHqVMnWxSWE9orKI-RhI/s1600-h/triangleandme.jpg">
<br /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">y 97 that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could coast up and over into the town of <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Dufur</st1:city></st1:place>.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> realized it was 34 miles to the finish and mostly all uphill (about 3500 feet of climbing) with 3 hours left on the clock. On the flats of <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Dufur</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Valley</st1:placetype></st1:place> road <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> kept pushing at a respectable 17 mph pace. My crew gave me about 600 mg of ibuprofen that would hopefully endure the pain in my Achilles all the way to the finish. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The road towards Hood eventually steepens a great deal, slowing me to an 8-10 mph pace. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was going all out and still had about 30 miles to go. As <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> wondered how much longer <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> could keep this pace, my crew played music to keep me motivated. Lee’s PA s</p> <p class="MsoNormal">ystem came in handy with Crystal Method and some Michael Jackson Heidi through in, for the fun of it.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was biking uphill like a machine.<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> finally reached the point where the road turns to Hwy 44. A few more climbs followed, just enough to keep me from coasting at a faster pace. And then <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> finally reached Hwy 35.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> had to drop down Hwy 35 for 3 miles and then climb 4 miles to the finish. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> got to the Cooper Spur cutoff road turnoff around <st1:time hour="4" minute="30" st="on">4:30am</st1:time> and knew it was going to be tough to do 8 mph up to the finish. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> just couldn’t go fast anymore. The birds were starting to chirp; not the most pleasant thing to hear as <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> tried to hold back dawn and the tick of the clock. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> might be able to pull this off, but on this last climb <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> just could not push any faster. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> finally got to the Cooper Spur resort with 1.8 miles left up the Cloudcap road to the finish and 10 minutes on the clock. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> gave up; it was too tough to push anymore. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> figured, what the hell, <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>’ve been out here to finish and that’s what <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>’m about to do!</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqGLmN8Dd0Y9fP4Br0wuhoIFWyXSAJsIgIvtrEWK_XnsXamoGHvSSOnAawEfqZwc-ltV8h8eKvSpaoabmAnrgnBUdr621T5OaJzLFsh6_b9bzzKM0YH52IJ008Xqt16RLr9PhvyjrlTqc/s1600-h/finishwithmeandcrew2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqGLmN8Dd0Y9fP4Br0wuhoIFWyXSAJsIgIvtrEWK_XnsXamoGHvSSOnAawEfqZwc-ltV8h8eKvSpaoabmAnrgnBUdr621T5OaJzLFsh6_b9bzzKM0YH52IJ008Xqt16RLr9PhvyjrlTqc/s320/finishwithmeandcrew2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5384196426766101410" border="0" /></a><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> finished the race in 48:06, just 6 minutes past the cutoff. George, the RD, was there waiting and happy that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> finished. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was so thrilled <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> told him that a finish was good enough for me today! George still gave me an official finishers medal even though I had missed the cutoff. My crew all came over and gave me a huge hug. We were all in tears and it felt so good to finally be done! </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> realized that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> wouldn’t have finished without my magnificent crew. They all worked together to keep me going and <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> am forever indebted to them. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And despite missing the cutoff by 6 minutes, had <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> kept the same slow pace when <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> left Maupin, it might have been 50 hours and 6 minutes. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> actually feel pretty damn good that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> was able to push the last 59 miles in the time that <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> did (in 5 hours, 41 minutes). <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> kno</p><p class="MsoNormal">w for certain that all the training <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> did out there really did pay off. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> also know that it took a lot of courage to finish this race, no matter how much it hurt or no matter how close to the cutoff time <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> really was. <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>’ll take a finish any day!<span style=""> </span><st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname>t was great to hear that Brian Martin finished as well, even after a tough night, way more courageous than me by finishing 5 hours and 45 minutes after the cutoff!!
<br /><!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">I was later awarded, all for the fun of it, at he awards banquet 1.) a box of tissues, 2.) a calculator for my crew chief 3.) and a kids baseball playset that said "first base" on it, since I was caught kissing Heidi and they presented jokingly that even though I didn't make the cutoff, at least I made it to first base with Heidi. This is definitely the funnest awards banquet I've ever been to!!</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Once again <st1:personname st="on">I</st1:personname> learned many things along the way that will help me greatly in future ultracycling events. I'm already looking forward to next year Randonneurs Cascade 1200!
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">
<br />Thank you again, crew, and thanks to everyone else who has helped me realize that finishing is so much more!
<br /></p>John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-75187023782326328182009-06-26T11:30:00.000-07:002009-06-26T12:37:00.360-07:00Two weeks until the start!I must say, after 5 weeks of intense hill climbing, I feel much better prepared for Race Across Oregon. Way more prepared then I ever was last year at this time! How?<br />Well, after getting my long LONG miles under my belt in April and May, I began my June rides to focus more on climbing...as much vertical I could in the shorter distances. Here's what I did on rides in June:<br /><br />May 30: Climb up Baker Hwy - with 3500 feet 22 miles (total of 44 miles w/ descent)<br />May 31: Tacoma to Lacey (via Rainier) - 95 miles (w/ smaller hills)<br /><br />June 6: Maupin to Fossil out and back - 12,000 ft climbing in 136 miles! "Out was 7,000 ft in first 63 miles at Fossil Pass. "Back" was 5,000 ft in first 43 miles to Shaniko.<br />This ride is got to be the tougest ride that's out in Eastern Oregon!! Where else can you get that much climbing in the dryer part of the state! It's going to be tough when I hit the Clarno climb out of the John Day Canyon after 400+ miles into RAO...but I am NOT worried!!<br /><br />June 7: Hood River to Forest Road 44 and Cooper Spur - 7,000 ft climb in 72 miles. Most elevation gain was in first 30 miles!! This was a relaxed ride after such a tough ride the day before. Easy long descent up Hwy 35 and then steeper climb on FS 44 road. Was a cold descent coming down FS44. Climbed up to the potential finish of RAO at Cooper Spur, and event went to the end of pavement on Cloudcap Rd but not sure if this is the finish or just at the Cooper Spur lodge. Who knows. The website is still vague on a lot of the course, but oh well, we'll know soon enough and it will be that much more of a surprise!!<br /><br />June 13: Centralia- Winlock Vader area loop - about 2,100 ft climbing in 68 miles<br />Had to bail on riding up in the high country, due to thunderstorms. So I chose riding as many steep hills in Centralia area to get what I could in. Rode this with English Steve so he could get familiar with the hills for Twin County double metric. I rode a few of the side hills off the direct route course and found myself climbing some hills that were 20% or greater--Johnson Rd, just north of Vader to be specific. After the ride, Jim picked me up in Centralia and we drove down to Maupin later that eve.<br /><br />June 14: Maupin to Condon, Oregon - about 7,000 ft of climbing in 91 miles- with climb up Deschute River and John Day canyons! This ride had a nice easy tune up along the Deschutes River. After passing the Sherar's Falls, you climb up the Sherar's Bridge Hwy and there's like 2,000 ft in only 4 miles!! Then there are all these turns on the RAO course to learn from Grass Valley to Moro and Monkland, that was good to identify. Jim accidentally missed Lone Rock Rd (which is EASY to miss) and he ended up driving to where the road turned to gravel and then ended because of the John Day Canyon wall! But he got my attention on the cell phone (yes very sparse cell phone coverage here in bforegon) early and I took the turn where I needed to and he caught back up to me. Moro to Monkland and 207 was also really neat with all the wind farms that you rode right by. Then the climb up out of the John Day canyon to the top of Devils Butte was one long climb 2500 ft in 10 miles - but on race day will be great to finally see the views of the entire Cascade Range. No view on this day. Felt good overall and ate lots of caleries without a problem. This was good to get this stretch figured out. Condon to Long Creek will have to wait to see on race day but this will be early enough in the race and a lot at night. Hopefully the late afternnon heat won't completely destroy me in the exposed dry section east of Heppner!! <br /><br />June 20: Hurrican Ridge +Black Diamond +Olympic Hotsprings x 2 - total 9,700 ft of climbing in 72 miles. Hurricane Ridge was 5200 ft in 1st 17 miles!!<br />What a blast of a ride- where else in the state can you climb a vertical mile in just 17 miles!! Was a cold descent and had to where my winter gear. The climb up the Olympic Hot Springs road is also plagued with +20% switchbacks, and the descent on this road is rough with gravel and potholes to deal with. But overall a great ride and highly recommend for getting a whole lot of vertical in relatively short distance!<br /><br />So long story short, a lot of good climbing training in the past several weekends. Now just working on heat training, spinning on my trainer in my living room with all my winter gear on:)<br />Fun Fun stuff!<br /><br />If you're interested in following me on Race Across Oregon, check out their blog and twitter at the following website: <a href="http://www.raceacrossoregon.com/blog">http://www.raceacrossoregon.com/blog</a><br /><br />Thanks for everone's support!John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-70024199546002858402009-05-27T22:49:00.000-07:002009-05-28T00:41:50.889-07:00Sleepless in Hockinson at the Lewis and Clark 24 hourAs you all might have heard, I battled out 323 miles at the Lewis and Clark 24 hour. It's not usual though that I would show up so unprepared but without a doubt I must say that things just kinda work themselves out over the course of 24 hours. What a great ride this was with so many fast ultracycling crowd and great camaraderie! I knew it was going to be tough but this was a certain new kind of tough that this race had. Well, for one thing, only 10 miles into the race, climbing up the steep Livingston Mtn Road, my front derailleur broke! From then on I found myself getting off the bike several times on the bigger 140 mile loop, changing the chain with my bare hands from the high gear to low gear or visa verse. Well, after awhile I just kept it in the low gear with the exception of the long descent down from Old Mans Pass. The climb up to Old Mans Pass, along the Wind River valley was beautiful! Then the big long descent down into the Lewis River was also a nice treat with a great view St Helens. But once I got to Cougar I just left the gear in low in the front and just used my rear derailleur from then on. Getting back to the start/finish staging area was also no slouch with good steep climbs in and around Yacolt. But once I got to Hockinson (at the start/finish) the race was not even half over!<br /><br />Sandy Earl came up to me to tell me that if I needed any crew assistance that Adrienne Johnson was there crewing her and could help me if needed. Adrienne has also crewed at RAAM several years and we all would be in good hands with her around. Well, I guess at this point in the race I was very in need of someone just going and buying me a few extra sandwiches or whatever else that I didn't have a crew to get for me. So Adrienne approached me immediately as I arrived at the Pit in Hockingson Middle School and I gave her some cash and she was willing to help me out and get me some food. She asked me how much solid food had I had eaten and I hadn't eaten as much, instead was fixed on this Spiz sports drink. But I had eaten some pb&J and some bars, but not really enough to keep going all night. So Adrienne saved me from stopping me from "Spizzing" out and said she'd have me some food for me after the first 9 mile loop.<br /><br />It was relatively warm out by then and knew I needed to keep drinking a lot too by then. I wasn't worried at all who my competition was. I knew about Chris Ragsdale and Hugh Gapay being way out in front of me but just didn't worry about them or anyone else and focused on the goal of finishing at least 300 miles or better. Once finishing the 140 mile, 9.6 mile loop was what we would then do continuously for the remaining hours...for me just over 15 hours remaining! Actually in hind sight, looking at the results, I see that I was in 6th place when I finished the 140 mile loop...but didn't know that at all since there were so many teams and 12 hour racers out there as well and just blended right into the fun of continuing on into the night. I actually was 2 hours behind Chris and about an hour behind Hugh, but like I said before, didn't know and didn't care about these details at that moment.<br /><br />The lovely 9.6 mile loop was filled with flats, steep hills and rolling sections. One hill had nearly 18% grade but it wasn't more than a couple hundred yards. But each 9.6 mile loop consisted of about 420 feet of climbing so after awhile you can see how this would start to wear on you.<br /><br />As I got back to Hockinson, Adrienne was there ready for me and gave me a ham and cheese sandwich and some water. I was so happy and hungry! I ate the entire sandwich on the next loop. She gave me some chicken the next loop and I ate that too. I began to think strategy for this. Eat on the flat first 3 miles of the loop, before the steep climb and stay steady on the hills. My front derailleur was not an issue anymore since I was in high spinning mode on flats anyways and was more about just staying steady and not trying to go too hard. Trying not to think too far ahead I wanted to go, I thought about just getting 4 loops done at a time. I'd shoot for the first 4 loops before the 12 hour time period, and I did that with 19 minutes to spair, which gave me about a 300k in 12 hours. So by getting about 180 miles in the first half, I felt well, 360 is probably out of the question, but that gives me some wiggle room when I slow down later on...and yes I would slow down but not as bad as I thought I would.<br /><br />On with the next 4 loops (9-12) still eating strong I still felt good, but this time it was getting dark and the hours grew on me and the loops and scenery became more and more grim. But I still looked forward to the dreadful steep hill, believe it or not. I figured if I could keep at the pace like I did in the 1st 4 loops, I could definitely get in well over my 300 mile goal. I average about 45 min per loop and about 3 hours per 4 loops. Somewhere along this part I asked Adrienne if 320 miles was a realistic finishing goal. She said yes you did 180 miles in the 1st half, and so yes 320 is very realistic. So I then continued on and reached my 217 mile mark at just shy of 15 hours.<br /><br />At this point I was still eating and feeling good. But the monotonous looping made me very overwhelming when trying to do simple math in my head. I had only done 8 friggin loops and I got how many more to go to get 300 miles? Yep, still 9 more loops to go to reach over 300 miles and 11 more loops to reach the 320 mile goal...ughhh!! Stop thinking long term...back to the 4 loop strategy me! So where was I, oh yeah, onto the next 4 loops (13-16) to hit 256 miles at the 18 hours...no faster, no slower, just right on 18 hours. And that's what I did, hit 18 hours right on at about 45 min per loop.<br /><br />Somewhere in here is where I started to see more and more people hanging out in the Pit. Stopping to sit and eat, trying to get warm. But I did my best to not get sucked into the Pit and keep riding. Adrienne was very good about getting me back onto the bike within a matter of minutes. I admit there were a couple times I needed go to my car for a few things (warmer jacket) or go take a dump in the gym etc...but for the most part, no rest for the weary for me!<br /><br />So 6 more hours of this, I know I can do this. I've done it before at RAO, just need to see what I can do without blowing up completely. But this next 4 loops (13-16) was tough since it was starting to really get cold. I new I had to keep eating to stay warm. Warm soup, warmed up frappacinos, and buttered graham crackers would do me just right. However, even though I was eating and drinking, my pace slowed up substantially to 53 minutes per loop. I was on survival mode just trying to keep alive and not even think of how tired I really was. So this 4 loops I was definitely slower by about 20 minutes but I just kept going and didn't care. I'd done 16 loops already and needed just 3 loops to do in 2 hrs and 40 mins to go. So I kept at the pace I had been going. However, after leaving the 304 mile mark, just couldn't really eat any more and almost puked, but luckily held it in and said ok, this is my last loop...I don't care. I just want to get through this without blowing up. I don't care what they say, I'm not going on.<br /><br />Well, I got back in just in time for the RD Glenn and Adrienne to say, you can do this, you've got 40 minutes to go. Adrienne knew I just needed to go 7 more miles to get 320 miles. I wolfed a banana down and off I went. Glenn said I'll have Adrienne come out and pick you up so I didn't have to come backwards on the loop. I was so frickin cold and didn't want to do that godawful flat cold 3 mile stretch again. But I pushed through it and got to the steep hill. I got to the top of the hill and realized, well, you know I think I might be able to get to 7 miles after all. I pushed up the second hill and was like wow, I think I can do this. But then feeling even more excited I reached the 7 mile mark with 7 and a half minutes to go on the clock. Shoot, I might get this loop done within the time after all. I pushed onto 8 and then screamed down to the 9 mile mark. I coasted into the Pit just right under the 24 hour mark...getting me 323.1 miles with NO time to spare! And I never did lay down or sit down once! Somehow, I managed to slip in 2nd place, and so glad I was encouraged to continue on that last lap after all...Thanks Glenn, I needed that kick in the ass!<br /><br />That is my fastest effort on a bike in that distance by a long shot! Thank you Adrienne for crewing me completely last minute. And to Sandy and everyone else out there for all the support. Thanks Glenn for putting on a fabulous race. And thanks to all the volunteers who stuck it out throughout the night! What a great trainer this was for RAO!John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-2425888115037482232009-05-15T11:19:00.000-07:002009-05-15T11:32:55.351-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhagYRHqWgkNQedCLHmXSfXQajBUp7HB_zgwNUEnoyVoqXRbudmxkHc5ZWDAJQUaINY3LjjZVmYcfvwLmaOfv9l5yf6LP39D_2ZH4z9w-XXhdNTbhL5Ld15C9tx8bxKy_yuX_LncQTAA/s1600-h/coveredbridge400k.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhagYRHqWgkNQedCLHmXSfXQajBUp7HB_zgwNUEnoyVoqXRbudmxkHc5ZWDAJQUaINY3LjjZVmYcfvwLmaOfv9l5yf6LP39D_2ZH4z9w-XXhdNTbhL5Ld15C9tx8bxKy_yuX_LncQTAA/s320/coveredbridge400k.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5336120171965427442" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.orrandonneurs.org/rba/2009/CoveredBridges/CoveredBridges_Info.html">Covered Bridge 400K</a><br />This past weekend was just awesome! 400k in 18 hours 50 minutes and was all in the beautiful sunny day. It was nice to have so many people to ride with and meet up new rando's from Oregon. It was nice to noodling all over areas that I had once explored during my grad school days, but it was a very twisty course that made you feel you were in a maze...but in a good way. We saw 5 or more covered bridges and the climbs just south of Sweet Home were a treat as well. We rode River Rd straight into Salem about 10-11pm . There's a bike lane, on this road, but unfortunately a guy riding his bike without a light towards us, came only centimetes from hitting me and my fellow rando riders behind me. Luckily I moved out of the way just in time. That expereience and riding all the way through Salem stopping at almost all the lights, made it less appealing but we got through it and finished off to Newberg without any problems.<br /><br />Anyways, this weekend will be a another test, riding a 400k on Saturday and then a 200K on Sunday (w/ minimal sleep inbetween). I've updated my events on the right column for those interested. If you are interested in riding with me on the Race Across Oregon course, I plan to go pre-ride the RAO course the first 3 weekends in June!<br />Let me know if you want to go on any of these and I'll send you the course description...it's a pdf so I can't post it on this blog, or I don't think I can.John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-69647372439644973652009-05-04T23:09:00.000-07:002009-05-05T00:37:52.731-07:00Fleche 24 hour - the start of a new training regime!Well, 10 Wheels North did it! We finished the Fleche 24 hour journey from Corvallis to Olympia right on target. Fleche meaning in french "arrow" was actually for 10 Wheels North more defined as "straight as an arrow" where we rode the most direct route ending in Olympia than all other 10 teams that started at a different location, that also ended up in Olympia. We were the closest to 360k than all other teams (I got about 388K...aka 238 miles). And we met all the target times including the 360k requirment in 24 hours, actually way under. Our total time was about 23:30 or something like that...but really who cares about time, what a great ride it was!! And we picked the best time to do it, where all other teams that rode it in the rain the day before! See the <a href="http://www.seattlerandonneur.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=270&Itemid=28">Fleche website </a>for more details, since I might not make complete sense since I'm not all rando literate quite yet. This ride traced back good old times, since it was retracing my journey from Corvallis to Olympia back in 2000 that I took when I migrated after finishing graduate school at OSU and started working for the State of WA. It's been 9 years since I came to Olympia and so much has happened in my life since that time. But doing all these miles kinda helped reflect on all those years, especially the physical part of it all:) And the 10 Wheels North team that included Ian Shopland, Corey Thompson, Josh Morse, Alan Woods and myself all helped me have a great time in the process. It was fun to ride with 4 other great people, riding all night and all day long!<br />It was great of Alan to let us use his house as our 2 hour layover in Portland as well as his house in Corvallis as our starting point. My team and me included are in debted to my Dad for driving me and all the bikes down to Corvallis while everyone else commuted by train to Corvallis. Thank you Dad for all the help! <br />It was truely an learning experience in riding throughout the night and feeling like I should be rushed but really we made all of our targeted points along the way...right on, or even several minutes to spare. Nothing like eating McDonalds drivethrough at 3am or a nice French bakery in downtown Portland to recharge the batteries to head north towards Oly! I could go on about the trip blow by blow, but that would just be silly! More importantly, this experience was REAL as it has helped me gain a lot of strength and training in the upcoming Race Across Oregon.<br /><br />I got NO miles in the following week after the Fleche due to some serious prep work for Capitol Peak 50! However, I did get some long rides in this past weekend. I rode up to the Lena Lake trail head, meeting up with Heidi who was running up the trail. It was raining most the way there up along Hood Canal, and had a good time finding all these side roads that avoided Hwy 101 and then finally getting up to Hoodsport and the Hamma Hamma and confronting some good hill climbage (>12% grade). That was a good way to end a 7 hour ride, despite some faulty rear <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">derailleurs</span> starting off on the ride. But at least the derailleur worked for most the way.<br />Anyways, here's what's next coming 4 weekends look like:<br />May 9 - <a href="http://www.orrandonneurs.org/rba/2009/CoveredBridges/CoveredBridges_Info.html">Oregon Covered Bridges 400K</a> (Tour of Central Willamette Valley)<br />May 16 - <a href="http://www.seattlerandonneur.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=274&Itemid=28">Seattle 600K </a>(<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Ephrata</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Twisp</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Okanogan</span> and East central Washington)<br />May 23-24- <a href="http://www.lacultra.com/">Lewis and Clark 24 hour bike race </a><br />May 30-31 <a href="http://randobiker.blogspot.com/2000/02/oregon-600-xtr.html">Oregon <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">XTR</span> 600K</a> (eastern Oregon)<br /><br />Yes, May is a serious training month, more than ever!<br /><br />Stay tuned for updates about each ride!John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-42524594714538696862009-04-16T01:10:00.000-07:002009-04-16T09:35:14.467-07:0010 Wheels North - here we come!This Friday at 9pm we will depart on the Flesche 24 hour Randonneuring ride. Find out more about a <a href="http://www.seattlerando.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=270&Itemid=28">Flesche </a><a href="http://www.seattlerando.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=270&Itemid=28">here</a>. I am riding with Team 10 Wheels North which is a variation on the book "2 Wheels North", a story about 2 teenagers who bike from the Sacramento valley to Seattle in 1909. Ian appropriately named our team since we are going to be following a portion of their route 100 years later.<br /><br />Our Team: Ian Shopland, John Pearch, <span class="gI">Corey Thompson, <span class="ik"></span>Josh Morse</span> and Alan Woods<br />Our Route: Corvallis to Portland to Olympia (via STP backwards).<br />Est mileage: 239 miles in hopefully 24 hours!<br />Anyone that want to cheer us into the finish, our finish line is at the <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=red+lion,+olympia,+wa&sll=47.030252,-122.915232&sspn=0.014099,0.013733&gl=us&ie=UTF8&z=14&iwloc=A">Red Lion </a>near the County courthouse in Olympia (at 2300 Evergreen Park Dr). Our ETA is approximatly 9:00 pm this Saturday night!<br /><br />I will update this epic journey when I return.John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-73666278064752492242009-03-27T00:16:00.000-07:002009-03-29T14:15:53.301-07:00April is serious business!It's been awhile since I posted, but now have finally been inspired to write. So you all know that Capitol Peak 50 miler and 55K is coming up! April 25th is Capitol Peak and everyone is encouraged to come out for a good run on muddy trails or just coming out to volunteer! I've updated the website and with some major course changes:<br /><a href="http://www.capitolpeakultras.com/CP50mile.htm">http://www.capitolpeakultras.com/CP50mile.htm</a><br /><br />The biking program for me is on a roll so far this year as well. Last weekend was a good brake in for what is yet to come. I rode about 130 miles with about 6,000 ft of climbing out to Hartstene Island, Arcadia Pt, Steamboat Is, and Hwy 8 climb. My good biking partner Brent Warner rode with me out to Hartstene and he did a good job, regardless of some bike troubles. We then diverted off in Shelton (second passing) and I rode out to Arcadia Pt and found out how many more hills climbing I've been missing all these years of riding! Then getting out to Steamboat, I had to stop and see my buddy Jim, who always offers me some good HOT soup! After leaving Jim's it was already 5pm and was hopeful to get up around Summit Lake. However, as I approached the Summit Lake turnoff on Hwy 8, I decided to just turnaround, since I figure I'd have about 12 hours for the day afterall. And I just witnessed an almost major T-bone accident that I might have been apart of. So it was good to head back to my house in the light. Here's the route for more details:<br /><a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/view_route?r=449123801420975421">http://www.mapmyride.com/view_route?r=449123801420975421</a><br /><br />This weekend (March 28) is planned to ride with the Oregon Randonneurs on one of their early season 200K rides from Forest Grove into the Coast Range. More info at:<br /><a href="http://www.orrandonneurs.org/rba/2009/BirkieBrevet/BirkieBrevet_Info.html">http://www.orrandonneurs.org/rba/2009/BirkieBrevet/BirkieBrevet_Info.html</a><br /><br />Next weekend (April 4) is planned for a 300K ride up near Whidbey Island with the Seattle Randenneurs. Here's moer details on that ride, it's gonna be a good one:<br /><a href="http://www.seattlerandonneur.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=273&Itemid=28">http://www.seattlerandonneur.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=273&Itemid=28<br /></a><br />That will be a good ass kicker for the following week (April 17-18) which will be a 230 miler (376K) in about 24 hours, from Corvallis to Olympia (Randonneurs Flesche).<br /><a href="http://www.seattlerandonneur.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=270&Itemid=28">http://www.seattlerandonneur.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=270&Itemid=28</a><br /><br />All these rides will be great training for my bigger quest for another Race Across Oregon this July 11-12!<br />Here's the website and map for that in case your interested:<br /><a href="http://www.raceacrossoregon.com/rao_main/dates">http://www.raceacrossoregon.com</a><a href="http://www.raceacrossoregon.com/rao_main/dates">/rao_main/dates</a>John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-584531209358293915.post-31584404052006190082008-08-25T22:15:00.000-07:002008-08-25T23:04:47.712-07:00I had a lot of fun as co-volunteer coordinator at CCC100 this past weekend, assisting Charlie where he needed me most. It was fun to get out on parts of the course I haven't been to in a while. What fantastic views there were, especially up at French Cabin and No Name! I apologize for some blurry photos but I guess it must have been all the caffeine to keep me going throughout the night:) The last 20 are what I took with my blackberry, while wondering around in the night, hanging glow sticks or delivering goods to aid stations.<br /> Great job to everyone who finished or gave it their best shot out there! You all are an inspiration to me and I always am so pleased to be apart of this race! I am very pleased to see Kris and Herb finish strong in their first 100. They've been training so hard just like everyone else, and it was so great to see them having fun with everyone else out there, no matter how bad it might have been at times! Thanks to all the wonderful volunteers who we couldn't have done it with out all your support!<br /><br />See ya all next year!<br /><br />John Pearch<br /><br />Here are all the photos I took of CCC this past weekend.<br />http://picasaweb.google.com/johnpearch/CCC1002008John Pearchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099875071471850513noreply@blogger.com0