Between meetings, prepping for meetings, and following up on meetings it has been a struggle to find energy and time to get the workouts in.
Scott Tinley’s Extreme Mountain Bike Tri is nearing a month from game time. If you haven’t signed up yet you should seriously consider it. There are a bunch of fun races for all of us (”King of the Hill”- Sprint & Extreme Mountain Bike Hill Climb On-Road Triathlons - International Distance* or Sprint Distance Off-Road Triathlons - Sprint Distance Tri-Cal Kids Triathlons) and the Tri-California crew - that brings us Wildflower is polished and able to provide a much more personal event. So I propose that those of us that won’t be at Incline Village, NV that first weekend in October meet-up in San Luis Obispo and have Tinley with the Eternal Timing System decide who is fastest.
Last year I went 2:01. A PR, being that it was my first race at that distance. This past week I have been slipping the training in and I’m mighty glad considering that I am now on for the Big Sur Half Marathon. My wife registered in the last two weeks with a bunch of her friends and has been trying to coax me into it. Tinley’s races are on October 4 and 5 and with Big Sur 1/2 on November 9 I have added another date onto my racing schedule.
Having gone to Cal Poly and spent hours driving miles across the coastal roads of the Central Coast looking for surf and camp spots I have added motivation for these races. I love being up there. Lake Lopez used by Tri-California for the race is where my Aunt windsurfs when the wind is up and where I fell back in love with triathlons last year. Big Sur has always been a place mentioned with reverence.
I started racing tri’s in junior high and had some good age group finishes throughout early high school before I burned out on it. Not sure if it was the speedo jokes from the guys I played beach volleyball with or the 30-year-old bike nerds that spent $6,000 on a bike and would fly past me age 14 after I had left them in the ocean. Either way, road tri’s weren’t for me. That has been the joy with mountain bike tri’s. A good swim, a challenging course requiring more than some training and a big budget, and a off-road run that takes everything.
Tomorrow we will be booking our hotel room in Pacific Grove for November 8 and 9 as the rooms must be almost gone. Everything I have heard pegs this as an amazing Fall race in Monterey. I am looking forward to running along Cannery Row and then staring off to sea and Monterey Bay. The 1/2 Marathon is nearing 70% capacity so don’t wait long to register.
My buddy Todd Saunders just reminded me that next weekend is the FLATWATER 200m sprints in Long Beach, CA. Joe Bark will be providing boards in the stock classes so feel free to come on down and checkout paddleboarding for the very first time.
FLATWATER 200m PaddleBoard Sprints
SEPT 7th, Long Beach Marine Stadium
DIVISIONS: Junior Lifeguard, Men, Women, and Stand Up divisions
BOARDS PROVIDED in stock classes, BYOBoards for Unlimited board divisions
$25 JG, $45 Adult
7AM check in, 8AM race start.
A few weeks ago I came across a Subaru parked in San Bernardino County with this Web site across the back: bigbearoutdooractivities.com/. Needless to say it covered the entire back window. Being a devoted Outback fan I asked the driver about the site. It’s a group of people that use the site to do outdoor activities together up in Big Bear. The site could use a more frequent update but it is a great resource to check before you head up the mountain. If it can be done in Big Bear before the snow comes - this group is on it.
Carter (pushing him in the jogger) and I will be defending our 3rd place age group title at the Rancho Santa Margarita 5k on Labor Day.
Date: September 1, 2008
Location: Rancho Santa Margarita Community Center
Start time: 7:30 am Click here fore more info.
I’m curious how I’ll do living on 4 hours of sleep a night for the last week. I’ve got a few people who’s names I won’t drop here to punish through weight loss bets and this little race will get me started very nicely. Watch out suckers!
Since October of last year thousands have taken part in the XTERRA U.S. Trail Run Series and through the trials of these 50 races, spanning 15 states from coast-to-coast, some of the country’s top trail runners have emerged and are headed to Bend to race for the XTERRA Trail Running National Championship.
Having been called “America’s Best Trail Running Town” by the editors of Outside Magazine, Bend is certainly worthy of hosting the nation’s top harriers.
The main event is an off-road half-marathon (13.1 mile/21km) that starts in the historic Old Mill District. While the Series best runners have already proven their worth in rollicking races around the nation, one-and-all are welcome to take them on and race for the championship as no qualification is necessary.
This is something to consider and its for a great cause. It starts in Huntington (the place I put the hurt on Old Man Sellers last time we rode) and ends in San Diego.
Formerly called the MS 150 or MS Bike Tour, the Bike MS event is a charity bike tour benefiting the National Multiple Sclerosis Society that offers three different route options:
- NEW IN 2008! a one-day 30-mile route starting and finishing in Carlsbad,
- or a two-day 100- or 150-mile route starting in Irvine, Ca. (Orange County) and finishing in San Diego, Ca. with an overnight stay and festival in Carlsbad.
Registration is limited and has sold out the last four years! You can bike to finish MS by registering today!
The guys over at Bonk Breaker make the best energy bar on the planet. These little bars have saved me countless times on the trial and work perfect as a pre-ride/run snack. I’m not kidding, I’ve never met anyone that doesn’t call it their favorite bar.
Recently they released a brand new website with the ability to buy the bars directly from them.
Please welcome to the Brazelton family, Landon Brooks Brazelton. I can already tell the boy was built to ride bikes. Jonathan Vaughters of Team Garmin/Chipotle and I have already been in talks about his contract for the 2022 Tour de France. It sounds like Rock Racing wants him really bad though so I’m working on a bidding war between the two teams.
The stats:
August 24, 2008
12:46 am
7 pounds 11 ounces
20 inches
Incredible VO2 Max and resting heart rate
*He comes from a lineage of elite athletes. Not me, my wife
To have Landon born on the 24th is a big deal for the Brazelton family. He is the 4th generation of Brazelton’s to be born in order.
Kim Brazelton (My Aunt) - August 21
Andy Brazelton (Me) - August 22
Grandpa Brazelton (Grandpa) - August 23
Landon Brazelton (My son) - August 24
Julie and I haven’t slept much and Carter already thinks Landon is one and wants to wrestle. Julie looks and feels incredible. She’s such a stud! Her first marathon is in June 2009 and I fully expect her to blow my first marathon’s time out of the water.
Got a great message from BM in OC asking for some more details as to how to go about a Sierra extended weekend hike. Here is my complete pack list to start off with. We make lots of subtractions at game time.
Share the weight with everyone. Bring less than I do. More posts to follow.
Backpack:
Lowe Alpine Kanga Himal 80+10L, Lowe day pack
Tent:
Sierra Designs Tiros Guide CD
Sleeping bag:
REI Kilo Plus
Sleeping pad:
Thermarest ProLite 3
Boots:
Ecco Xplorer Schreckhorn Mid GTX
Stove/fuel:
MSR Whisperlite, large and small bottle filled with white gas
Cooking gear:
small pot, metal insulated cup, titanium spork, scrub brush, folding knife
Water bottle:
Nalgene
Water filter:
SweetWater Purifier Water Filter
Toiletries:
roll of tp inside ziplock bag with hand sanitizer and orange shovel, advil, earplugs, cotton balls for ear aches when windy and wet, bio-soap, tooth-brush/paste, rei hand towel, mosquito repellant, vertra sunblock
Light:
Petzl Tikka Headlamp
Vices:
Cigars, Central Coast Cabernet (screwtop)
Documentation:
Moleskine squared notebook, Lamy pico, Canon Digital point-and-shoot
Wear:
Patagonia: capilene top, capilene bottoms, classic boxer, m’s synchilla vest, capilene top midweight, down jacket, standup shorts, beanie; Smartwool: mountaineering xhvy mid-calf, liners, prAna pants, hat, Polarized sunglasses, fleece gloves for sun protection
That’s right friends. The scientists over at Fluid Recovery Products have formulated their next perfect concoction, Berry Treasure. I can’t wait to get my hands on it!
Our first lengthy break was at 10:35 when we encountered our first of many green, flowery meadows. We crossed a creek at 11:10 with crystal clear water and a fallen log bridge or a rock-to-rock alternative. At 12:05, we stopped for lunch just after another stream crossing. Beside the stream it was nicely shaded. Beef jerky, Odwalla bars, crackers, Velveeta “cheese”, peanut butter and trail mix. (We didn’t laugh at the cheese. It keeps well at high altitude and in the heat.) We lunched for about 45 minutes, then Mark said he wanted to take a nap since none of us really had slept on the six-hour drive. The nap was the best I ever had in the Sierra. We were on our way again, refreshed, after about an hour. We hiked another hour before a break at 1:45. Matt totally surprised us with a quarter each of a delicious fresh peach.
We left the national forest, entered the Golden Trout Wilderness Area, and after a while the John Muir Wilderness. We all seemed to be tiring, and Marvin seemed to know exactly when to stop, rest, and often to take in the beauty. We inspected the topo map many times to check our progress and where we had to go. Cirque Lake lost out as our destination when we heard there were three parties already camping there. Muir Lake was considered, but it was over 1,000 feet higher than we were. Finally we settled on South Fork Lake. We saw light at the top of a ridge which indicated a possible lake. It was indeed a lake at the head of a large meadow which eventually will replace the lake. We got there at 5:30 and we were at 10,300 feet, ready to crash. A small steam led out of the lake about 75 feet from our selected campsite. Water was filtered to refill our bottles and we began heating water for dinner.
Marvin’s menu included sweet and sour shrimp casserole, navy bean soup, dark chocolate, and trail mix, accompanied by another of Matt’s surprises, a nice Cabernet. Delicious!
After dinner, there was a cleaning-up period, more visiting, and appreciation of a moonless sky which made stargazing much more rewarding. It was a mild night, windless, and mostly free of mosquitoes. The forecast was for a minimum temperature of 50 degrees. We thought that was accurate. Marvin produced a bottle of brandy to induce or assist sleep.
As I was packing tonight for the longest race of my life, I am getting more and more excited for this race. Tomorrow I will be leaving for Portland, Oregon for the longest relay race in the United States. The Nike Hood-to Coast stretches 197 miles near the top of Oregon’s majestic Mt. Hood down to the beautiful Pacific Ocean beach in Seaside, Oregon. Our start time is Friday, August 22nd at 4:00pm. Wish us luck! I will post race results and pictures on Sunday. This is going to be so awesome!!!
Rummaging through my MTB gear bag at the trail head Thursday night my phone buzzed with a text message. I had awaken at 5:30 AM for an hour swim with the Slugs and Diane Graner-Gallas’ training program was leaving me tired. I was struggling to ready myself for my evening ride with Rob up Del Cerro. The text was from James and now I was going to run along the strand in Manhattan after the ride. By 9 PM Thursday I had put in 3 hours of workouts all before 9 and after 5. I’m glad that the day before Andy B had handed me Fluid Recovery - Tropical Escape. Before Wednesday I had used Endurox as a recovery drink in a number of exertions over the three hour mark. Being familiar with the protein/carbo replacement/recovery drink concept I was excited to try Fluid. Having grown up on Champion Nutrition’s Cytomax and moved on to GU20 I had already replaced them with MotorTabs. This week I replaced Endurox with Fluid. Fluid has a great taste and tastes good even after the water bottle warms up….unlike its Endurox friend. And being a Cal Poly alum makes it even easier to love Fluid.
With forty-six days until Scott Tinley’s Extreme Tri I got fitted on Monday to my Bianchi road bike (training bike) and Trek mountain bike (racing bike). Outside All Day loves Rock N’ Road Cyclery. I just happen to live almost an hour and a half from the closest one. So I met up with Brian, owner of Beach Cities Cycle in Hermosa Beach, and he fitted me up to the bikes. I worked for Brian back in high school and it was great to hang and get his help. I haven’t been comfortable on either bike and he made a bunch of changes. Both pairs of shoes were adjusted, seat post height went up, seat distance changed, MTB stem changed and he coached me on knee position. We would all be wise to get ourselves fitted to our bikes. Go see your bike shop and then head to Lake Lopez to race the Eternal Timing System.
Participants: Mark Bair, Doug Buckmaster, Matt Smart, and Marvin Sosna
Friday, 8/1 — Expecting to be picked up at 12:45, my alarm sounded at 12:20, so I was dressed when I went to the front door to turn on the porchlight. I was met by a powerful flashlight, held by Mark. We loaded my gear in Marvin’s 1997 Honda Prelude. His and Mark’s packs and gear were jammed into the “trunk”. Mark curled up in the back seat with my pack frame, I sat in the passenger seat, and we took off at 12:45 a.m., odometer reading 30.0. (Yes that was 45 minutes past midnight. Great way to see month’s end.)
Marvin encountered deer on Cambria’s streets in both directions.
Saturday, 8/2 — Back on Hwy 1, we headed south to Hwy 46 in moonless darkness and almost no traffic.
Mark tried to sleep as Marvin and I got more acquainted, discovering he knew my father-in-law, Vern Gilbert, when both worked at the Ventura County Star-Free-Press, Marvin as Editor; Vern, in the pressroom, in 1964. We reminisced about the county in the Fifties and Sixties. Our first stop this morning was 2:30 a.m. at a huge gas station in Lost Hills where premium gas was $4.45 (4.524 gal and 27.4 mpg. - Marvin had been driving a little like Mario Andretti). He turned the driving over to Mark, assuming the “sleeping” position in the back seat in deference to my long legs. It was very warm in Lost Hills.
We continued east on Hwy 46, then south on Hwy 99 to Bakersfield, and east again on Hwy 58 to Tehachapi.
We met very few cars, but a lot of 18-wheelers. The next stop was east of Tehachapi when I needed a pit stop and took over the driving from Mark. We bypassed Mojave, merged with Hwy 14, then 50 miles or so later, merged with Hwy 395. We stopped at Coso Hot Springs (it used to be called Oasis) at the rest stop, then drove on to Lone Pine.
We reached the Sierra Visitor Center at 7:00 AM, about five minutes after Matt arrived from his 3:00 a.m. departure in El Segundo. Marvin picked up his reservation from the locked box. It covered him and Mark. Matt and I had to take a chance on a permit from the first come, first served category, but that had to wait for the Center to open at 8:00. We decided to drive into Lone Pine to find a place to eat. None of the restaurants is an all-nighter, so we drove into Jack in the Box or Carl’s Jr. (Does it make a difference?)
We got a breakfast burrito or breakfast croissant and a beverage. Back to the Visitor Center, we had to wait only 15 minutes for the gates to open. A ranger announced to the 25 or 30 people there that he would hold a lottery. He needed a driver’s license from each selected hiking leader.
Matt told me to draw a number. I drew #10 out of 25. That was scary because so many people were there and so few permits available. It turned out there was no #3, 5, 7, or 9, so #10 was not too bad. Matt and I got a permit. The next party in line was turned away.
We took both cars back down the highway to Lubken Rd, parallel to the entrance to Owens Dry Lake. (It is now being re-watered by the L.A.’s Dept. of Water and Power (DWP) by court order in order to reduce the windblown toxic dust caused by DWP’s taking all the water out of the lake since the early 1900s.)
We went up Lubken Rd., past Tuttle Creek Rd., to a frontage road from the Alabama Hills. We turned left and began climbing the prominent switchbacks leading to the Cottonwood Lakes trailhead, 9,580 feet; odometer 369.3. We hoped the relatively high start would make the hiking easier. (It didn’t.) We gathered our gear and started up the trail at 9:50 in an area of a lot of sand, rock steps, and scattered pine trees. Our initial choice for a destination perhaps was Cirque Lake. Marvin took the lead on a dry and dusty trail which was used by hikers, pack animals, and horses as the morning was starting to heat up.
In this month’s issue of Outside Magazine there’s a great article on my favorite non-profit Project Rwanda. The article is about a trip the author took with Tom Ritchey in the fall of 07′ to Rwanda and highlights my good buddy Doug Grant (co-founder of 50 Mile Ride). The article revolves around the Wooden Bike Classic that Tom hosts. The magazine is worth picking up for this article alone.
Another great article on their website called “The World’s Toughest Bike Race Is Not in France”. I read it in the July issue and loved it, great read. Click here to check it out.
It was more of a little walkabout than a hike. The sort you take when the falling sun is cooling the air and making the hills a shade of gold not available to the jeweler. It was on a little uphill trail in San Clemente which neatly divides that city’s suburban sprawl and the neighboring Rancho Mission Viejo Land Conservancy. I had the dog, a few waters, plus Miles Davis, who, even through the headphones makes me think of polar bears and dolphins sliding around a deep, ancient blue cave.
We have called the dog Plato since he was just over eight weeks old, which I suppose makes him a philosopher in name only. Though I often look at him and think of Emerson:
“For all our soul-destroying slavery to habit, it is not to be doubted, that all men have sublime thoughts; that all men value the few real hours of life”
Perhaps he meant all creatures. Looking out over the land I missed the tall, yellow tipped weeds that filled the hills in the first flush of spring. Long and thin, whole masses of them would sway in the wind giving the landscape a shifting emerald shimmer. Now it was just chaff. I saw a coyote on this trail once. It was at dawn, foggy, the coyote held my eyes for a long beat until scampering off into the bush. I always look for him here, remembering fondly that unexpected intrusion of the sublime into an otherwise mundane morning. Plato has forgotten the incident, or so it seems. Stink bugs, the scientific name of which escapes me, spotted the dirt every few strides, their bodies giving off a perfect black sheen like the wet fin of an orca. A great oak is stuck nearly horizontally to the hillside that slopes down on my right. To the eye whose day is starved of nature there seems to be a whole forest in its fragrant, gnarled branches.
An irregular beat begins to punctuate the slow strains of jazz trumpet, which swirl around like rings of smoke in my ears. I remove my headphones to hear big booms and staccato machine gun fire in the air. There’s a marine base just south of these hills. They must be conducting exercises with a great range of weaponry, so varied are the sonic traces of explosions, of metal striking metal. With the headphones back on I could only hear the low bass of artillery fire, the thump of which made Plato jerk just slightly on his leash.
The path to the summit, as we amuse ourselves by calling it, winds around a water tower and brings me eye level with the sun. I keep my eyes down, both to protect my retinas and to watch the ground, making sure its dead twigs do not suddenly become animated, for more than a few times I have spotted rattlesnakes on this section. We kick up dust and gravel, tiny components of which hang in wisps and spirals in the amber air, suspended by these last minutes of direct light.
The top of this hill is cold, even in summer; I put my back to suburbia and look out at this small stretch of wilderness, fenced in barb wire. Little yellow signs appear everywhere warning of mountain lions. The setting sun has drained a lot of the detail visible just minutes ago, but still the view is worth a deep sigh, a smiling glance at the dog. I ask him, the dog, if he’s thirsty. He licks his jowls and takes a step towards my backpack, which I have slipped off my shoulder. I uncap a bottle, and hold it just loose enough so that the laps of his tongue can seesaw it up and down, sending little splashes into, and all over, his mouth. I adjust the angle as the bottle grows empty, and he satisfied.
With some alarm I notice the horizon is now empty of its fiery ball; it will be dark before I return to the trailhead. Indeed it is not long before the sky begins to glow a purple blue, like candlelit amethyst. Trees just twenty and thirty yards away, where before I could make out bough-hopping birds, have begun to assume indistinguishable forms in the descending gloom. We quicken our pace. The dog’s fatigue has made his face into a permanent, panting smile. Soon it would grow dark enough to see visible traces of the growing orchestra of detonations beyond these hills. From time to time, I caught the flash of rabbit eyes aside the trail, followed always by their hasty, crunchy retreat through the underbrush.
We were only just a hundred yards or so to the trailhead when I saw the owl silhouetted atop the fencepost. I thought at once that it was a large bird, though it stood frozen as I moved closer, shedding doubt upon this hypothesis. It was backlit by the hidden explosions, which sent irregular pulsations into the dark above, a kind of flickering, militaristic aurora borealis. Time passed and it seemed as though we were looking at a statue, like mice fooled by plastic bird figurines put up by farmers. At last I saw its inimitable clock face swivel and wheel around towards us, the fire of its eyes catching a little light, its body and wings still immobile. I had imagined the great bird and I to be face to face, and yet it had been like us, watching the war games play out against the sky. Man must seem so absurd to the animals, blowing things apart in the deep twilight. The dog and I watched the owl watching us for a long time that night, staying as still as we could until at last he spooked and flew away. Over the clatter of guns in the distance you could just hear the beat of its white feathered wings.
