Late in the summer, I took the boys to an old stomping ground.
In the course of all our camping, we got accosted by this guy. The wind was blowing the scent of our picnic right toward him and you could really see his nose dissecting the air as he approached us. He wasn't one bit afraid but I think the dogs barking finally sent him in the other direction.
Later in the summer of last year, we bought a small fishing boat and spent some time in it. We never caught any fish with it though and this year we hardly used it because it just didn’t seem to work with our trips.
Right after we got it, we took it for a spin on our pond 
So we loaded it up and headed out....
And then we took the new boat out on Fallen Leaf Lake
But after we didn't catch any fish we just hung out with the family.
Play hard, play hard. You know how it is...
I guess fatherhood got so good that I didn’t have time for writing in a blog during the last 18 months! This is certainly unfortunate, because I probably failed to record some great experiences.
Here are just a couple of experiences from the Spring of 2008 that I didn’t write about:
Colin shot a bullseye on the archery range at cub scout camp.
I don't know why I wore my uniform home. I must have been running late and wanted to come straight home without taking the time to change. When the kids saw me, you would have thought they never saw the uniform before. So we all took a picture together. They were wearing boxers because they were getting ready for bed.
Colin and his buddy William riding bikes in the Sly Park campground
It was little league night at the River Cats.... about 105 degrees and we were all dying!
We were studying "botany" and we called this meal the feast of the angiosperms because everything we ate came from an angiosperm.
Note: I wrote this as an email and sent it to a couple friends during the time my computer was down. Chronologically, it was written in about the first week of February…
I took Colin and CJ skiing yesterday. Since I am way too tight to pay for lessons when they cost about $100 each, I resolved to teach them myself. So we went skiing a week ago and then we went again yesterday, with me acting as instructor. The first time was a little rough, trying to teach two at one time, but we managed and it was good enough that they were dying to go again.
Yesterday, I set low goals. I told myself if CJ made it all the way down the mountain one time without falling, and Colin even dared to ski a little ways without me holding onto his harness, it would be a successful day.
CJ made it down without falling on the second run of the day and Colin was skiing completely alone all the way down by himself before lunch. He even made it all the way down a few times without falling.
I don’t think I would have been nearly as successful at teaching them if I wasn’t in such good shape from running. By being in shape, I was able stay on top of the game, keep it positive, and this made it go great.The only problem is now I have to figure out how to factor about one day per week of skiing into my American River 50 Mile Endurance Run training plan!
I figured out a few small “tricks” along the way that seemed to help a lot. If your teaching little kids to ski, let me know and I’ll send you my thoughts.
Back in the day, when I was a young twenty-something with no one but myself to spend money on, I took my vacations in the winter and went skiing somewhere in the world every year. With no idea of what parenthood would be like, I looked forward to skiing with my kids someday. Yesterday, as I stood at the top of the hill and watched them ski all the way down by themselves, I thought that I had arrived.
The plan had come together. It was my best fatherhood day ever.
Computer died… taking the LAST CLASS that I need to finish my degree… training for another 50 miler April 5th… skiing about oncer per week every week since the last post… it all adds up to very little time availabe for posting. But one good thing happened. I got a new camera from my mom for my bithday. It’s so small, smaller than my wallet and it takes pictures at 7+ megapixels!
Here is one:
That’s lake Tahoe in the background. We are on the porch at the lodge at the top of Sierra Ski Resort.
Here is another:
Getting these guys ready for skiing usually takes me about 30 minutes in the parking lot. But what is the trade-off? Them being old enough to get all that stuff on themselves? When that happens, they probably won’t want to ski with me anymore!
Here are a couple more photos from the new camera. I liked these a little larger so I couldn’t bring them into the blog without screwing up the whole page. You have to click to see them separately:
Pict 2 (This was the coldest day these two guys have ever seen….)
We went skiing for the every first time today! Grandma got Colin and CJ season passes to Sierra. It’s gonna be a ski filled year as long as we don’t get any pineapple express rainstorms that wipe out the 10′ of snow that has piled up in the last week.
I plucked the boys out of school at 11AM and we were in the lift line by 12:30. Luckily, there really wasn’t any lift line. We zipped right on. My goal was to get down the mountain three times. The first trip down, it kinda looked like I may not achieve my goal since it was two on one, me trying to teach them both to ski. It wasn’t going well.
Then I finally took their poles away and it went WAY better from there. Skis and poles were just too much for them to worry about. Once the poles were out of the equation we only had to worry about skis. I ditched the poles by the lodge and we all three skied without. The first few trips down they both clung to me and I skied while they got the feel of it. It’s kinda hard to ski with a 53 pound weight on your right leg and a 63 pound weight on your left leg! This is what it looked like:
After awhile CJ got a little more confident and stopped clinging to me. He didn’t make it down the hill ever without a few good falls but he made some wonderful progress. I think we got about 9 runs in. I quit counting at 7 and I think we had two more after that. Colin hung on to me all day and that was fine. He says he isn’t going to try to ski by himself until he is six, but I have a feeling I will be skiing with just my own weight to worry about by the time we finish our next day… which is likely to be next Sunday.
I wonder if Walt Disney really anticipated the society that we now have when he created Autotopia in the Tomorrowland section of Disneyland decades ago?
At least Colin loved it. I asked him to smile at me so I could take his picture and he snapped angrily back that he was DRIVING!
I wonder where he got that from?
I highly recommend Disneyland at Christmas time.
Curtis brought his video camera along on my 50 mile run. I know what you will say, it looks more like a 50 mile walk! Well if you are saying that even when it looks like I am trying to run, you may be right! 
Anyway, the best part to me is the last minute. It was the minute that mattered the most!
The story is long. Find it here.
I fell off the blog a couple weeks ago when I had to go out of town for some training. When I got back, I was so far behind that I thought I would never catch up. Now that I have caught up, it is about time for me to go out of town again! In case I fall off the blog again, here is something to look at while I am gone… a picture of Upper Blue Lake, where Colin caught his first fish in September.
In July, while we were on vacation attending Cub Scout Day Camp, we camped next a bonfide trapper, a guy who makes his living dealing with problem animals. Well, he had trapped something that he didn’t have the heart to dispose of. Here it is:
Yes, that is a baby racoon and yes, it is sucking on a pacifier!
These ducks are two weeks old.
They think we are building a fort.
Colin was a stowaway at this years Cub Scout Day Camp. I was a problem parent. Who ever heard of a cub scout day camp where younger siblings weren’t allowed to attend when accompanied by a parent? Apparently, you are supposed to find day care for siblings now while you bring your cub scout aged kids to camp. Well, I didn’t follow the rules when I was in scouts and I’m not following them now!!!
This is Colin after a couple days as a stowaway at Cub Scout Day Camp. He had just finished shooting a bow and arrow and was waiting to shoot a BB Gun. Luckily, he’s big for his age, but man he got tired!
I still take a lot of pictures with my film camera and I finally took the film in from some of our escapades earlier this summer. Here is a picture I took of a bunch of gangsters at Cub Scout Day Camp:
Didn’t you hate getting your picture taken by your mom in front of your friends on the first day of school?
Since 2005, when we got our travel trailer and started going camping more often, we haven’t hatched any ducklings. Babies require constant attention. Baby ducklings require only a little bit less. But this past spring, something killed off almost all of the adult ducks in our flock. At one point we were down to three males and one female, all Buff Orpington breed.
The Buff Orpingtons are a really tame breed of duck, probably a little too tame for our area, which has a relatively high concentration of predators. So we are going back to the breed we started with several years ago; Indian Runners. They are much more flighty, so they will hold up better against hungry predators.
Don’t try to see how far you can ride your bike with your eyes closed, ever.
When 2007 started I made a list of goals. One of them was to run a 50K. Another one was to catch fish with my sons. Well, I did the 50K in March and started pushing for a 50Mile Run. Over the summer, we didn’t go fishing at all.
We went camping at Blue Lakes, near Kirkwood, over the Labor Day Weekend. Since I have been feeling so wiped out lately, and since Blue Lakes is at 8200′ elevation, I decided to leave my running shoes at home.
And look what happened:
This picture was taken on the first day. CJ caught those three fish. The next day, he caught two more and I caught one. On the third and final day of our campout, we decided to go to the lake to fish for 90 minutes before we broke camp and left. In that 90 minutes, Colin caught two fish!
I got the following response via email from my caoch after yesterday’s post. I think it is relevant for more people to consider so I am sharing it:
Chris:
First of all, congratulations as you still had a successful day and it sounds like you may have found your answer to the knee issue. Secondly, there is no such thing as “FAILURE” in these situations only lessons learned for success on your next race. Given the realm of athleticism that you are venturing into with ultra-distance running, you should view every race, no matter what the outcome as success, since it will teach you something for the next race. These races, as you know are very long and the longer the race the more chances for the body to break down. So any lessons learned will help improve the success rate for future events. A success rate that I would venture to guess is not as high as any old 10k you may enter.
In addition, within these races you will have success and failures and it will be necessary over the course of time to understand your body, like you did in this last race, to know when a failure means to call it a day and when a failure means “a bad patch” and just keep going as your body will work though it.
I guess the short of it is that success is relative in these types of events since they are very grueling and punishing on the body no matter what your conditioning. Log your race, start the preparation for your next race, and review your log of this race prior to the next one and your lessons learned will come full circle. You will have success in your next race.
-John
I made my first attempt on a fifty mile run Saturday Night. I started at 7PM intending to run until 7AM in the 12 Hours At Cool Night Run. But I ended up calling it quits at 2AM after 7 hours and 27 miles. I was experiencing knee pain and I decided that the chances I could finish 20+ more miles in the five hours I had left were very low, and the chances of coming out with a long term injury from running on and on with knee pain were excessively high. Sometimes when I run long I feel tightness and know I can keep going, but this knee pain was worrisome.
Calling it quits was a very difficult thing to do. The worst part was that I had energy to keep going. I must be getting old because I never would have paid any attention to something like knee pain in the past!
My training run times showed me that it was going to require everything to be “perfect” in order for me to make 50+. Ultimately, only 6 people out of 75 runners actually went 50+ miles on that course Saturday night, so I had obviously set the bar for myself very high. I think making my first attempt a night run added significantly to the difficulty, but what else are you gonna do in the middle of August around here?
One good thing happened. I won a pair of Innov8 Trail shoes. I get to pick which style. This may be the answer to the problem because Sunday after the race, I determined the shoes I was wearing probably have 600+ miles on them, maybe even 800 miles…. I’m dumb dumb dumb. Those shoes should have been in the trash long ago.
Depending upon this knee thing, I am looking at one of these two races for my next attempt on fifty miles:
http://www.pctrailruns.com/SF_One_Day.htm
http://www.ultrarunner.net/hkmain.html
Chris
The Deer Lake hike was a success. We camped near the car Friday night. After a breakfast of pancakes, we hiked for almost 2.5 hours with a stop for the dog to swim in Horse Lake. When we went by the lodge on Upper Salmon lake, Jane just about abandoned our party for the thought of not sleeping in a tent.
After camping at Deer Lake Saturday night and having burritos & rice for dinner, the hike out was much quicker. Where else would we have eaten lunch, but at Sand Pond, of course! (No pictures of Sand Pond, but some others are below. Click to see the full picture.)
While the rest of you dream of the days when you rambled around the high sierra, loaded with enough gear to carry you through a fortnight. I am returning to the hollowed ground. Tomorrow, my family and I will be hiking into Dear Lake from Upper Salmon. When we return on Sunday we will be transformed.
I don’t realistically anticipate a rosey time by all. But hey, everyone is really excited. (Possibly, me the most!) The original plan was to have Emily and I go while Brian did a sleep over for a birthday party. When Brian heard about our plans he pleaded to go with us. Jane has decided to join us too. So, the three of them will sleep in our 2 man tent while Tandy (our 1 year old Border Collie/Australian Cattle dog mix) and I obtain peace under the stars.
Watch here for pictures and updates next week.
I got one of these:
It should complement the two handhelds that I carry already very well. I wore it on a 12 mile hill run Wednesday morning. I got a little bit of chaffing on my lower back from the big bottle in the rear but I don’t think it will be a problem. It will allow me to carry 67 ounces of water, plus a 10 ounce bottle and a gel flask. I haven’t quite figured out how I am going to use the 10 ounce bottle. I am thinking of either mixing a really heavy concentration of cytomax in it, or just filling it with dry cytomax powder that I would then add to the water bottles.
Suggestions?
Here is a link to the training program my coach wrote for me for the 12 Hours At Cool Night Run.
We went to Dillon’s Beach over the Memorial Day weekend with a bunch of people from the kids little league team. It was beyond fun. It was so much fun that Colin cried himself to sleep last night after we got home because he didn’t want it to be over. Here is one photo of how much fun it was:
The guy who is driving the buggy carried it in the toy hauler they are parked in front of. After the sun went down every night, he showed movies by projecting DVD’s on an awesome makeshift screen, the back door of the toy hauler.
I managed to work a couple nice runs into the fun too, including one 20 miler with some coastal climbs mixed in. On my shorter run the next day, I found a guy from Point Reyes Oyster Company selling oysters out of ice chests on the back of his flat bed truck. We BBQ’d 50 medium oysters later that afternoon and I ate about 8 of them. Interestingly, I felt very well recovered the day after that. I haven’t looked up what’s in an oyster but I’m thinking I got some good protein!
This morning on my run, I figured something out about “my runner”. After writing yesterdays post, my brain must have been working on this all night because it hit me like a rock in the side of the head this morning when I woke up.
Mountain lion expert, Rich DeSimone wants one of these:
Notice the mountain lion in the center…..
Ok, check this out….
My coach wrote a training plan for me for the 12 Hours at Cool Night Run that will hopefully help me achieve six or more laps around the nine mile course. For the weekend of Western States (WS), he had me doing a 35 mile workout on Saturday and a 10 mile workout on Sunday. When I first saw it, I thought, “Those are going to be some lonely miles since I know where everyone else will be those days.” Then I thought, “How long will that 35 miler take me?” And suddenly I realized maybe those miles wouldn’t have to be so lonely after all.
I contacted my coach and asked if he thought pacing a “slower” WS runner through the night over the last 38 miles of the course was advisable… he gave the idea a thumbs up. So I went to ws100.com and looked at the list of people asking for a pacer. The very last one was a 55 year old guy from Montana named Rich DeSimone. His short bio said Western States will be his first 100 mile run, his time goal is to finish.
In life I have had some experience with Montanans. There is something about living half of every year below zero degrees that seems to have a profound psychological effect. Put another way: I have noticed that the average Montanan has a much higher pain threshold than the average Californian. I have also noticed that when you get a Montanan going at something physically difficult, they usually will be the last one in any group to give up. They start slow, but they go forever…. diesel engines. That’s what I’ve seen, anyway. It seemed like a reasonable gamble that I will be likely to get my mileage for the day if I offered to “pace” him from Foresthill to Auburn.
I sent Mr. DeSimone a brief email suggesting I might be an adequate pacer if his standards were low, and he jumped right on, willing to take me sight unseen… Because I already have plans to go out of town when he will be in town for the Western States Training Weekend over the Memorial Day weekend, we may not be able to meet each other until the moment we take off running together. In order to get an idea of who we each are, he sent me a link to a newspaper article that describes his work as a biologist for Montana Department of Fish and Game.
Of course, I had already noticed he was a biologist for Montana Department of Fish and Game from the automatic signature at the end of his first email. “That would be the life,” I thought. “Getting paid to go fishing or whatever… I bet he goes hiking in the woods all day for work!” I envisioned a guy wearing a big wool shirt, cutting open a massive trout to see what it had been eating, or laying on a ridge line counting elk through binoculars, you know, stuff like that.
Well, what I envisioned was just a little off the mark. What he actually does fits much more squarely with my preconceived stereotype for Montanans: He is the leader of a ten year study on mountain lions at the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station’s Wildlife Genetics Laboratory at the University of Montana. Hmmmm….. That didn’t quite sound like cutting open fish or counting big horn sheep. So I read the article. You can read it here.
When it explained how he hasn’t put collars on all 121 of the mountain lions he has caught during the study, I started to have second thoughts. I’m going to spend 12 hours running on a mountain trail in the dark with a guy who has been close enough to touch 121 mountain lions?
Hmmm… I’m not sure I want to go running… in the dark… on a trail where there is already a monument to a person who was killed by a mountain lion… with a guy who feels that comfortable with mountain lions.
There’s something about the idea that suddenly seemed… ill-advised.
In order to get a better perspective of his expertise, I googled “Rich DeSimone Lions”. The search returned eleven pages worth of hits. About the time I was starting to realize that maybe running with him at night is actually a good idea, I mean, he’s still around to tell the story of 121 mountain lion contacts, I found a great article about what to do if you ever encounter a lion face to face. Check it out here.
And now I am really eager to run with him. We need a friend who works for Montana Fish and Game….
This is me mailing my entry for 12 Hours at Cool Night Run. It is a 12 hour run around the 9 mile Olmstead Loop equestrian trail in Cool. It starts at 7pm on Saturday, August 12th and ends at 7am on Sunday, August 13th. My goal of goals is 54 miles, which will be 6 laps. Each lap has 900′ of climbing though, so really, I will be happy with 40 miles or more.
Ha, it wasn’t that long ago that I couldn’t even think of going nine miles, much less six times around a nine mile loop with 900′ on each lap!!!!!
I finally started writing my Way Too Cool race report. It’s gonna be long. Hopefully, it will be enjoyable reading though…. I’ll probably have it finished in a couple days.
I haven’t been able to get any posts up lately… I like to use Windows Live Writer to compose and post. I have a couple things composed and ready for posting in my live writer program, but they can’t seem to successfully publish to the blog.
I bet that somewhere in the chain, there has been a recent upgrade to something that has effectively locked out my live writer posts. I tried several things but nothing seems to help. So I will have to manually enter my posts until I get it figured out. Stay tuned.
I realize I have never given a full account of my Way Too Cool 50K race, and I swear, it isn’t because I am trying to block it from my memory. I have just been sort of savoring it, like a tasty piece of hard candy that you don’t want to swallow until you have eeked all the flavor out of it. I’m still not ready to swallow it, so it will be awhile longer before I tell you all about it.
This past weeked, Erin and I went shopping. We went big shopping, for our tenth anniversary. We went shopping for a family campsite, a piece of property that we might build into a family campsite for years too come. But such properties are not easy to find, both figuratively and literally. We drove about 850 miles, and I am not sure we actually put our foot down on any of the properties we had fliers for. As an example, we searched high and low for a ten acre parcel located on US Forest Service Road #44N30Y. It was described as being one mile from Orr Lake, which is about 25 miles east of Weed. We found Orr Lake, and we found US Forrest Service Road #44N30X, but never did we find US Forrest Service Road #44N30Y. We probably drove arund Orr Lake for two solid hours, and it isn’t that big!
Very early on in the process, we found something that I think most of you will like. The view from Orr Lake, looking toward Mt Shasta:
Today was my day. The local running club sponsored a half marathon in which I was a participant. In the overall standings I finished third (from last). And, I have a fight for it over the last 20 yards. On a brighter note, I had run 21km and some change exactly 14 days before and had a time of 2:39, today I completed at 2:22:28. While not earth shattering, it does make a person record. Not every pachyderm is quite so quick.
While not trying to take away from Chris’ most recent and incredible accomplishment I would like to describe this little event. It was held at the sports club at the next village over. To the “way-to-cool’ Chris, this would be the equivalent of the Rescue Half Marathon. I think there were like 100 participants in the half marathon. It was very different from the MCM. Numbers were issued from 0900 until 1025 with the starters pistol at 1040. AT 1030 I went outside. It was cold and threatening rain. By 1040 the threat had abated and there was a nice drizzle. In no hurry what so ever I found myself at the back of the pack. I had decided earlier to wear running tights (stretchy pants) and my old RED jacket that my wife has taken to calling Pinky. I am glad I had pinky, my other jacket was way to warm. In fact if this jacket did not have a significant emotional attachment to me I would have probably would have ditched it. That would have been a big mistake as it was only thing providing me with warmth as we turned into the wind over the last 2 km. Oh yes, thank you Chris, the tip on the gloves worked out wonderful. The drizzle was constant. While not making me think specifically of the Marines per se, it did make me think of many PFTs in a driving snowstorm. By the end, I was soaked through. There was nothing dry on my body. The last two KM were over open farm lands with a driving wind in our face. Did I mention the rain too? Almost the entirety of the rest of the run was through the woods. Pleasing in a way; but with limited crowd support.
When I passed the 11km marker I turned off the Ipod and did some quick math. I can normally run a consistent 7 min KM, slow but effective. My time at 11 KM was 1:08; Nearly a full KM faster than normal. I was running too fast. Where was my pace man Leroy! So, I struggled at slowing down until the last 5 KM where I struggled to keep up. The finish was fun. One of the ladies that at the back with me slowed down inexplicably at the 100m mark. I had been walking a lot do I was rested. I just kept rinning at that point. No sense in slowing down when the barn is in sight. At the end I heard her friends cheering and heard her coming up from behind. In a fit of competitiveness I picked up the pace and finished about 1 foot in front of her. Not very chivalrous, I know.
We had a bit of problem with logistics too. I told my wife that I would shoot for 2:30. So, after waving me off, her and the kids took off to do wife things. They came back 2:20 later. I saw the car pulling in as I battled for my third to last finishing position. Since we had no plan for meeting we walked around the building several times afterwards looking for each other. I was also a little miffed at the aid stations. They had no water! Just warm sweet tea that gave me a stomach ach. Even at the finish they had no water, just more nasty tea or bubbly water that you buy. I did not want to make a Jacuzzi, I was parched. Next time I will carry a bottle of water in my ‘kit bag’ just in case and create a proper extraction plan. Thank god that I had my own water bottle during the race.
Driving rain and all, it was a great day to be alive. Nothing like a little liquid sunshine!
–
Buford
AKA “The Pachyderm”
Last weekend while I was spelunking the web looking for information on Chris’ latest event I ran across this web site. Please note, I googled ‘way to cool’. I do have some experience with this. Once I froze several bottle of beer this way after making some Ice cream at my kids birthday. I can only assume it will work in a similar way for Iced Tea, soda, and spring water. So, the idea would be to keep a small bag of rock salt and a bucket in the garage in case emergency cooling is required during the next family BBQ.
http://berserk.org/2006/09/16/fastest-way-to-cool-a-six-pack/
Recipe listed above.
Initial measurements:
* Ice
* Ice water: 33 degrees
* Ice water salt (salt melts ice and lowers the freezing point): 24 degrees
Results (after 5 minutes):
* ice: 57 degrees
* ice water: 44 degrees
* salt water: 35.9 degrees
* freezer: 55 degrees
* fridge: 60 degrees
Final results:
* Ice water salt: 5 minutes
* Ice water: 15 minutes
* Freezer: 25 minutes
* Ice: 30 minutes
* Fridge: 40 minutes
Be sure to remember this if you’ve run out of beer at your next BBQ and need fast cooling.
By now, many of you may have heard the rumor that I came from behind and won the Way Too Cool 50K in dramatic fashion with a 7 minute per mile pace over the entire 31 mile course, winning an automatic entry into this year’s Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run in June.
Those of you who have only known me for a little while probably dismissed it because you think I am way to slow to ever pull it off. And those who have known me for a long time may have raised an eyebrow because you know there was once a day when I could probably run a hilly mountain course faster than a lot of people, but then you remembered that I am not above starting an audacious rumor about myself in order to increase my popularity. So you dismissed it as well.
With many rumors, you often find upon further investigation that there is an interesting bit of information even in the midst of all the falsehood. So it is in this case.
You see, the winner of the Way Too Cool 50K has the same last name as me and his number was only one digit from mine. So that is probably how the rumor got started…. you can all relax now. I won’t be running the Western States 100 in June.
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Details later this week when I have more time.
We had a great ride to Santa Rosa the Sunday the Tour of California started in San Francisco. On the ride back Tues, we hung out with a Pro from the French Credit Agricole team who is still recovering from a serious injury last season. He’s a very big deal who some believe could win the Tour de France as soon as he’s recovered. Riding next to him I was not only caught on his sponor’s camera but also on someone’s camcorder coming up to the back side of Cardiac Hill.
Read this: 30 Miles with Saul
Steve’s prespective: From Sacramento to Santa Rosa
Watch this: Top of Cardiac Video
See the pics: Sauls pics
Scott McKinney and I collaborated to do the “30 miles with Saul” write-up at cyclefolsom.com. I believe you will find it inspirational in the last days before your next event.
BTW: Happy 39 to Chris.
I swear he told me his goal was to do the Western States 100 before he turned 50, but he claims I miss understood…
=- Curt
