Where is that damm soapbox of mine?? Ahh, there it is.
I’m healthy again.
That’s kinda a misnomer if you know anything about my past. I have wrecked my body through climbing and mtb biking in more ways then I have time to list today. And after coming off a broken foot, I have been training again to get back to climbing hard. I’ve been feeling pretty good, actually taking some good climbs again, and then a friend I work with sent me a blog link.
It was to a friend who had a liver transplant from his brother. His brother had given 60% of his liver so that my friend could live. Then his brother died…
Suddenly my stupid, petty little climbing thing didn’t seem that big a deal.
His faith really impressed me. This is a man who knows his brother died because he loved him. He was willing to pay the ultimate price to help his brother, and he did. It reminded me of a story I read often in the Bible. The one about this guy names Jesus who died for people who He didn’t know, but was still willing to pay the ultimate price for.
I am not a religious nut.
I am a man who has seen what God can do in your life when everything falls apart because God was there walking with me through every part of my accident and recovery.
I am just like every other climber I know. I am a dirtbag at heart. And I know that God made me that way for a reason.
Stories like this always put my drive in check for a moment in time; I will stop and look around at things with great clarity.
I remember laying on the hospital bed waiting to go into surgery to cut my leg off, and being able to hear the wind blow in a window down the hall, I could hear the drips in my IV, and the curtains around me moved and rubbed back and forth so loud, I could tell when someone was approaching. That clarity comes very few times in life, and I’ve learned to appreciate the calm before the storm. The one thing I know for absolute is that there will be storms, and the better I have a grasp on the fact that I have no control, the better I do.
I’ll always be driven when I climb, God made me in such a way, that when I am climbing I am happy.
But today, I’ll take one less lap on the boulder, one less lap on the trail, to be at home and spend the time with the people that really do matter.
One of the other things that being so banged up teaches you is that the things I accomplish on rocks pale in comparison to the relationship I have with God and my family.
Those things are the things I want to be remembered for.
And those are the things I think about when I’m outside doing what I love.
On Sunday my buddy Jobe and I tackled Longs Peaks. I picked him up from the Group Publishing parking lot at 1:50 am and we were running the trail by 2:50 am (I didn’t sleep that night), in pitch black, with our head lamps on. We hiked/ran as much as we could.
We summitted in just over 4 hours and spent 20 minutes on the top, I think we were the 3rd team to summit that morning. It’s the most amazing view I’ve ever seen. 14,240 ft reeks havoc on your lungs and we were burning on the way up. On the way down we were moving fast, even running a lot of the sections until Jobe took a fall onto his knee and popped his right ankle. Jobe’s the man though and kept moving fast while suffering.
The GPS info below is missing 1 hour of data. Our total time was 8:40. For some reason the watch turned off. The actual hike 14.7 miles long.
We celebrated the day with taco’s for Taco Bell in Estes Park.
The hike was perfect prep for the Steamboat 50. I needed to have that much time and effort put on my legs and feet. Thanks again to Emergent Fitness for forcing me to do all of the back squats, the legs felt really good. After being up for 36 hours, the Sunday afternoon nap and epsom salt bath felt really good!
Cyclocross at New Belgium in Fort Collins is right around the corner. The first race in the series starts on September 7. Click here to check out the 2010 American Cycling Association cyclocross calendar.
I get this in an email today, “PS, don’t get the Angry Birds game. It will suck your life away.”
So, I am beginning to see a trend. A friend gets an iPhone and they disappear.
Surf sessions are missed because they stay up late uploading apps. They spend hours playing ‘angry birds.’ At a dinner party with cool music they keep on yelling out the band, song and album name because they are obsessed with ‘shazam.’ I get it. Technology has captured us. And I kind of dig it.
Think of it this way. The next time you paddle out at trestles it might be empty. Because everyone is playing with their iPad. You are out for a trail run and the single track is in great shape because no one biked it during the rain tearing it apart. They weren’t biking in the rain because they were playing with their new apple product.
What do you think?
Last mental picture, you train for months to prepare for a half-marathon. On race day you find yourself passing dozens of people on a small climb. As you pass them you look over and see that everyone is playing with their iPhone. They didn’t do the training because they were playing with their iPhone4 32G. So now they are hunting for a song to pump them up and get them over the hill.
Tell your friends about the new phone and then join a club to keep yourself motivated so you can beat said friend at the next 10K.
I decided on this race because I wanted to get some intense/fast training miles in at elevation (9,200 ft to 9,600 ft). To date, I’ve done ZERO speed work in my training which I knew would be a big factor in my overall time. The race started at the base of Eldora and took us thru some beautiful single track and forested areas. None of the climbs were to bad, but at elevation, you feel everything. At mile 2.5 I re-rolled my right ankle which forced me to stop for a minute to recover. I was able to run thru it but it took a lot of needed energy away. Bummer. There were 2 VERY large water crossings at mile 5. You couldn’t avoid either of them forcing you to run with soaked feet and legs. Because of water on the course, they couldn’t get a full 11k in, leaving us with 5.79 miles total.
Details:
206 total racers
00:54:48 (62 overall)
During the race I learned 5 things…
1. I’m not fast running up hill
2. I’m “ok” fast running on flats
3. I’m really fast running downhill (don’t laugh, some people aren’t)
4. There was a LOT fast woman trail runners
5. Rolling your ankle in a race sucks
With Julie and the boys being out of town I came up with the bright idea of hiking Long’s Peak next weekend…as I research more I’m not sure why. My buddy Jobe and I will be giving it a shot this Sunday with a goal time of 10 – 12 hours. I’d like to see how fast I can go but I know I’ll be suffering before it’s over.
I’ve been training at Emergent Fitness for the last 7 months. We do a lot of pull-ups while we train but I’ve always had to use the bands to be able to do even one. Last week I knocked out my first official totally real, no band, strict pull-up. Sweet!
Thanks to coach Jeff, Brad, Chris and John for their incredible coaching. I know it takes a lot of effort to whip this pizza loving boy into shape.
Last week Julie gave me a pass to come home late so I could get a long mid-week training run in. I heard from my buddy Mike that Round Mountain up Big Thompson Canyon was a great one.
It rained for the 20 minute drive up to the trail head but when I parked it stopped. This run has a TON of lose rock on it and the rain didn’t help make it any more stable. The run offers everything, step climbs, beautiful scenery, amazing summer flowers, lot’s of trees and an overall a good time. If you look at the GPS profile, it goes straight up, and then straight back down making for a lot of hiking on the way up. The summit is a little disappointing but the rest of the run makes up for it.
If you live in Northern Colorado, I’d highly recommend checking out this run/hike.
To make a long story short, today’s run destroyed me to the point where I wanted to stop. I just wasn’t feeling it. This was the closest I’ve been to bonking in a really long time. Overall I had a strong training week, I think I may have overdone it a little however.
