won't you be my neighbor?

i usually cycle to work a couple times a week.  with thunderclap, i'm wanting to spend as much time at home as possible, so i use my commute and lunches to accomplish my training goals.  this often turns into creative logistics with trying to stage gear, clothing and toiletries for consecutive days workouts.

for example, if i plan a pre work run on tuesday morning, a swim tuesday lunch and bike to and from work on wednesday, i'm looking at trail gear for the run including a hand held bottle and gatorade endurance, a towel for after the run, a towel for the gym and a dry shirt for the drive to the gym plus the days clothes.  for the swim: goggles, swim cap and towel.  for wednesdays ride, it's a full set of clothes, toiletries and a towel, along with bodyglide to apply for the ride home.  all of this gear must be gathered and staged on tuesday.  i often leave the house in the morning with a couple outfits on hangers and two full bags of gear.  the dance i walk through to ensure i've got everything is often humorous to smsmh.

the one thing i almost always forget to factor in, though, is that i need shoes and a belt for work.  on many occasions, i've made it to work, showered and changed only to realize that i'm going to have to wear just my socks for the day.  so, i've taken to adding a pair of sandals into my gear so that i can leave my shoes and belt at work the day before a ride into the office.

yesterday i rode to and from work.  i had successfully placed my shoes on wednesday, so i enjoyed a rare day of feeling comfortable walking around the office.  today, i wore my sandals into work since i left my shoes here when i biked home yesterday.  as i sat down to change out of my sandals and into my shoes, i realized that i have become mr. rodgers.

soundtrack for this post
	lick: hipsters: wax:	Home Foo Fighters Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace

salomon xt wings challenge - the cool down

it's funny.  usually after a big event like a marathon or an ultra that i have trained hard for, there's the post event doldrums.  it takes a couple weeks to pull myself out of it and that usually means putting another big event on the calendar to train for.

not this time.

i'm still in seventh heaven.  i'm still basking in the experience of running through yosemite.  i'm not tired.  i'm not beat up.  actually, i'm itching to do more.  but before i dive into more adventures, i need to tie up loose ends with this challenge.

first off, the rest of the story about yosemite.  after my soak in the river, i caught the shuttle over to yosemite village to get some much needed grub into my body.  i ordered up a huge multiple meat sandwich and gorged myself.  well, not really.  i found it hard to eat too much and i had to take it a little slow.  after eating, i bummed around the village a bit, walking slowly around and just soaking in the ambiance.  yeah, it was crowded with summer visitors, but still, it's yosemite.  everywhere you look there's something fantastic to just stare at.

my plan had been to try to thumb a ride up to tuolumne if i'd finished early enough, but i was in that grey area so i opted to just hang out and relax and take the YARTS back up to the trailhead.  for eight bucks, why not?  while i was hanging out at the bus stop, i listened to conversations of fellow park visitors and ended up talking to two guys who were just on their way through the park with no plans of staying.  they had this crazy story about how their travels had been going so far.

they had started out a couple days earlier in georgia, coming from berry college, flown into san francisco, bussed out of the city to the train, ridden the train to the end of the line, missed their next bus due to their luggage, caught a taxi to yosemite valley that happened to break down en-route and thumbed their way to the YARTS stop just in enough time to catch it to mammoth.

why mammoth, i asked.  well, turns out they're both runners and will be spending a month at an elevation training camp.  this is the same area that most of the us olympic marathon team trains.  so, they'll have to opportunity to run the same routes as [if not WITH] the likes of deena kastor, meb, ryan hall, josh cox, etc.

on the bus, we chatted quite a bit and i found out that david was planning a missions trip to prague later this year with athletes in motion.  what a cool way to get involved; living life as an example through the medium of sports.  i really hope he has a great experience over there.  when i found out that they were heading to mammoth and camping on the outskirts of town, it became apparent that they were going to arrive in the dark and be stuck putting up their tent with headlamps.  i figured that if i could cram them and all their gear into the mini, i'd be able to get them there an hour earlier and give them some sunset and dusk light to set up by.

when the bus dropped us off at the trail head, it was a gamble, but i figured at worst we could open up the sun roof and have one of the guys stand up and put his pack on the seat.  fortunately, with some tetris like activities, we were able to pack all of our gear into the car with just barely enough room for passengers.  off we went!

matt had never been through this part of california, so he was in for a treat as we came down tioga pass just before sunset.  as we wound down from the tioga pass gate, we all ooh'ed and aah'ed as the lakes, mountains and then mono unfolded below us.  a short while later, i had the guys in mammoth and there was still plenty of light for them to get things set up.  good luck at camp, guys.  run hard!

so, thus ends the salomon xt wings challenge for me.  i summed everything up in a video collection of clips and photos from the experience.  which leads me to my next bit of cool-down.

the nokia n82.  for those of you following along for a while now, you know that the whole point of the phone was to use it as a story telling device; take pictures, video, twitter, log workouts, etc.  well, i've been using it regularly for the past couple months to do just that and i've been thrilled with it's performance.

aside from battery life, the phone has surpassed what i thought it was capable of.  the gps workout tracking is brilliant [for shorter workouts - say up to 3 hours or so] and it's live tracking feature is a blast.  i use the phone to twitter when i'm starting a workout and people are able to hit the nokia sportstracker website and follow along.

the web and other standard features on the phone work as expected and having access to gmail and google maps is very handy.  but the biggest aspect of the phone that has blown me away is the quality of the lens on it.  all of the pictures from my training, video of trails and everything you saw in that video above were taken with the phone.  that 5mp carl zeiss lens is just brilliant.  the whole 365 days of thunderclap is being shot with the phone, too.  i'm daily impressed with it's quality.

of course, i wouldn't be able to take great pictures of the places i was going if i didn't have the gear to get me there.  the salomon xt wings have been, hands down, the best trail shoe i have ever owned.  i have put well over 200 miles on them so far and the best thing i can say about them is that i don't notice them.

when it comes to gear for the outdoors, if the gear performs as expected, doesn't cause you problems and enhances the experience, then you've got a winning piece of gak.  these shoes do that and more.  from fit to torsion stability to shedding of moisture to the uber cool red colour, i'm a fan.  i walked away from 26 miles of highly technical trail running with a net downhill of 9,700' with nary a mis-step or slip and amazingly, NO BLISTERS.  i was able to enjoy the enviable aspect of trail running...being able to ignore my feet.

so, the salomon xt challenge is done and it was a blazing success on all fronts; fitness, experience and gak.  my guess is, though, that i'll be using all of these tools again to do even more of the same.  after all, my mug is still full and i'm itchin' for it to overflow.

salomon xt wings challenge - the run

mmp, mmp, mmp.

meep, meep, meep.

beep, beep, beep.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.

i slowly emerged from my sleep coma to realize that my watch alarm was going off.  it took a few seconds to realize where i was as i silenced the watch.  i looked at the clock.

4:05am

i could only remember waking a handful of times during the night, and the last time i'd looked at the watch, it was 11pm.  wow.  i must have been out hard if the alarm took 5 min to wake me up.  and my arm wearing the watch was under my head. 

i quickly got up, packed the liner, bag and thermarest, got dressed and took down the tent.  within minutes, all my gear was packed back into the car.  i pulled out the trusty ol' pack stove and boiled some water and before much longer, i'm downing my oatmeal.  by 5am, everything was packed up, i was lubed up, coated in sunscreen and bug repellant and on the road.  it was a quick drive to the trail head, but i made an important stop at the visitors center [to drop the kids off at the pool] and that put me on the trail by 5:45ish.

the sun was just beginning to crest lambert dome as i set off on my challenge.  it was a brisk morning with the temperatures in the high 30's.  i was bundled up, but layered well so i could shed clothing as it got warmer.  the nokia was safely packed for shooting photos and video and the salomon xt wings were snug on my feet.  off i went.

the first couple miles were a challenging climb from tuolumne meadows at 8600' up to the cathedral lakes basin at 9500'.  the trail was brutally steep in some sections, so i ran when i could, power hiked when it got steep, and continued to remind myself not to go out too hard at the start.  the cool air kept me comfortable on the climb, but by the time i hit cathedral lakes, i was shedding clothing.  i stopped to shoot a couple photos at about 3.5 miles in, and was quickly swarmed by mosquitos.  swarmed is a mild term.  they were landing on exposed skin in waves and it was all i could do to keep them at bay.  i shot some quick footage and then was off again.

after the pass at cathedral lakes, the trail moved out of the wet areas and the mosquitos seemed to take a little longer to catch up when i'd break for food or to refill a bottle, but their numbers still necessitated my continual movement.  the trail continued to climb and i finally topped out at 9900'.  by mile 6, a slight decent started and i new i was finally dropping into sunrise meadow.  about this time, i saw my first backpacker.  it was a welcome sight.  i enjoy running solo in these types of places, but it's always reassuring to know that there are other people out and about.

i cruised through sunrise meadow without stopping.  i knew the bugs would be bad and i didn't need to refill any bottles.  the trail climbed back up around 9700' and i cruised along at that elevation for a while before rounding the big bend in the trail and popping out on the ridge that looked down into little yosemite valley.  running along the ridge, i caught my first view of half dome off in the distance.  i had hit a pretty good groove over the last few miles as the elevation had leveled out after dropping over 1000'.  i continued to run along as the trail wound down through some thick forest of fir, pine and cedar.

i was feeling quite well and had been religiously sticking to my fuel plan.  i was carrying my osprey pack with 100oz of water and one handheld with 20oz of gatorade endurance.  i was going through the handheld roughly every five miles and re-mixing a fresh one.  my fuel consisted of the normal gu and i had brought along some clif bars and home made chocolate chip brownies.  i had completely spaced and placed my matisse & jack's order late, so i was somewhat stuck with off the shelf products.  i'll tell you what, though, nothing taste better than a mooshy chocolate chip brownie mid way into a run like this.  mmmm.

the trail continued to drop elevation as i neared the trail intersect for half dome.  i began to see more and more backpackers out on the trail and passed several groups that were breaking camp and getting ready to head out for the day.  by mile 16 i was at the half dome intersect and began the steep two mile climb up to the saddle.  virginia tech had a couple of people on the trail performing a survey of hikers to evaluate fitness, preparation and climb times.  apparently there is a push to have the half dome trail permitted in order to limit the number of people on it at any given time. 

i did my best to billy goat up the trail and keep from walking, which i did until i hit the rock stair section.  the footing was too iffy to risk running it and it was lung-busting steep anyway.  at this point on the run, the backpackers had completely vanished and were replaced with day hikers.  since it was still early in the day, most of them were moving at a decent pace and seemed mostly fit.  before too long, i was up on the half dome saddle and decided to take a quick break for some chow and to take in the view.

 i chatted with the vt volunteer about the survey and recounted my experiences with the trail and just how crowded it can be at times.  fortunately, there were hardly any people on the cables today, so it would be a quick ascent without having to wait for people descending or freaking out over vertigo.  i finished up my clif bar, put on a pair of manky gloves and headed up the cables.

the climb up the cables went quickly and without incident.  within a couple minutes i was up on the summit and taking in the picture perfect day.  holy wow.  the sky was clear, it had warmed up to the mid 60's and i was just soaking in the experience.  i flipped the nokia into online mode and checked for a signal.  i was getting full bars from an antenna in the valley, so i gave smsmh a ring.  i gave her a status report and her response was, "take a picture and flickr it right now so we can see what you're doing!".  so, i did. 

it was 11am and i really wanted to finish up well before 2pm, so i hopped back on the cables and headed down to the saddle.  the return took a little longer than the climb, as the cables were starting to get some more traffic and about half of the people coming up were having issues with the vertigo.  i kept patient and gave words of encouragement where i could.  back on the saddle i began the cruise back down to the main trail.  i went to mix a bottle and realized that i only had enough water left in the camelbak to mix about 2/3rd's of a bottle.  the next water was at little yosemite valley and the merced river.  i guestimated that it was about 3-4 miles away.  not a concern, really, so i headed off.

the trail really began to drop elevation like it was on fire.  i watched the garmin read out 8000', 7000', 6000'...and before i knew it, i was running past the little yosemite campground and popping out of the woods onto the bank of the merced.  thankfully, the mosquitos had vanished and i was able to filter a full camelbak without being bothered by bugs.  as i pumped water, i noticed a tiny frog sitting on the rock by my foot.  i had the distinct urge to prod it a bit and make it jump.  but then i thought to myself, "self?  you're about 20 miles into a challenging run.  would you like it if someone came and prodded you and and made YOU jump?"  so, i left mr. froggy alone and enjoyed his company instead.

with fresh (and oh, my, soooo tasty) water in the bladder, another gu in the belly and a quick stretch, i was ready to tackle the remaining trail.  from where i was at, i had about 4-5 miles left to go, but it was going to be very steep descending and lots of technical sections.  i'd be lucky if i could run even half of it.

back on the trail, the route wound down the caynon wall, following the merced as it dropped over nevada falls and made it's way toward vernal falls and then the valley floor.  at this point of the run, it was a little past noon and the number of people on the trail had significantly increased.  not only had the number increased, but trail etiquette was completely out the window and people were very slow in reacting to someone on the trail moving quickly.

i ran when i could, but it was mostly a controlled fall as i bounced down the rock stairs and rocky trail.  by the time i hit vernal falls, i had entered into a mass of humanity.  it was a stark contrast to the previous six hours of running where not only were the encounters with people few and far between, but they had been social, encouraging and on a couple occasions, comical.  now, it was like navigating coagulated bodies, moving in slow, congested blobs up and down the trail.

the further i descended down the trail, the more alive and better i began to feel.  it was a combination of the drop in elevation and that whole "horse to the stable" phenomenon.  no, i didn't want the challenge to end, but i knew i had plenty of juice to use, so why not use it.  each step down i made, i began to pick up speed.  each step down i made i encountered more people.

the faster that i wanted to run, the more difficult it became to keep pace.  i had the distinct feeling of descending into "thickness".  almost like a salmon swimming against the flow of water.  i finally hit the paved section of the mist trail and was off of the rock steps and could really open up my stride.  for the last mile of the run, i really let it fly.  i was zipping in and out of people, calling out, "on your left" every couple of seconds and often times going of trail and into the rocks to avoid the wandering masses.

before i knew it, i was down.  done.  on the flat.  i continued to run along, not knowing really how much further i should run.  should i run all the way to the visitor center?  to the tram stop?  where?  eventually, i came to the bridge that heads over the merced river.  the tram stop was right ahead.  i looked down at the river and the thought went through my head of just how good that water must feel.  that was it.  i ran over the bridge and down the far embankment.  i tore off the pack, my shoes, socks and immediately sat down in the ice cold flow.

i was done.  i had done it!  i felt great!  well, my bits were freezing in the water, but aside from that, i felt wonderful.  the garmin said something in the realm of 23+ miles, so i guestimated that the total distance was right around 26 miles.  the wonderful thing was that i had plenty of energy left.  i could have easily done another 10+ miles.  as i sat in the water, i looked at the map and kicked myself a little for not adding clouds rest to the run, but there's always next time.  being in the park at elevation, running some of my favorite trails and just having the opportunity to take part in this challenge was reward enough.  the run had energized me and left me with a mug filled to the brim of awesome.  one that i'll be able to drink from for quite some time to come.

*edit*

thanks to mr.k, i was able to load the data from the garmin to the salomon website and the run profile is here.  thanks again, mr.k, for letting me borrow the garmin, even if it did autopause on all of the steep stuff.

soundtrack for this post
	lick: hipsters: wax:	Let The Bells Ring (Lausanne) Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds The Abattoir Blues Tour

salomon xt wings challenge - the warm up

executing my challenge was going to be a logistical challenge even before the event began.  running the route that i had picked meant a swift drive up to yosemite, quickly finding a campsite and bedding down for the night.  rather than leave at the crack of dawn on saturday, i opted to get a good night sleep and help out with thunderclap duties first thing in the morning.

that meant heading out across the california desert around noon.  ack.

since smsmh needed the xterra while i was gone, i packed all my gak in the mini and was ready to pull out of dodge at 9am.  i took a quick detour by the ymca where mr.k had a garmin 305 to loan me for the event.  by 10am i was on my way and headed out of town.  by 11am i was heading through the victorville/adelanto area and onto the 395.  i had a couple hundred miles of hot driving to do before i hit bishop.  i knew the temperature would drop off once i was there, so i set that as my target city.  i was anxious to turn off the ac and drive with the windows/sunroof open!

i took a quick pit-stop in lone pine and had lunch at a small mexican diner.  out of the big pane glass window, i could see mt. whitney.  there were two areas of concern that caused me to cancel the whitney run and change the route.  the first was 99 switchbacks which is a steep section of trail with, you guessed it, 99 switchbacks.  that whole section was under snow/ice so there was no trail to follow.  the other was the chute.  the chute is an incredibly steep area of scree and talus that even when dry is challenging.  i was reassured of my decision when i could see with the naked eye that the entire chute was full of snow/ice.  there was no way i'd be able to descend that without ice gear.

after lunch, i continued on with the drive.  when i reached bishop, the air finally cooled off and i was able to drop all the windows and let in all the mountain air.  climbing elevation up to mammoth and june lake with the smell of pine pouring through the car was such a welcome change to the artificially cooled air.  i rolled into lee vining by 4:30, made a quick pit stop before climbing the 120 to tioga pass and then was off again.

the plan was to stop at the camp sites along the 120 outside of the park and find a vacant spot to set up camp.  if they were all full, i'd head back down the 120 to the blm land adjacent to mono lake and just pitch at the first turn off i could find.  as i headed up the 120, i thought, "heck, i might as well go ahead and enter the park and get the entry fee paid and save a couple minutes in the morning."  through the gate, the thought occurred to me that i should probably check the camp ground at tuolomne meadows and see if they had any vacancies.

sure enough, my curiosity paid off and within minutes i was parked at spot b48 in the tuolumne meadows campground.  i was really excited for two reasons.  first, this meant that i'd be able to cook dinner with the sun still in the sky and not have to fumble in the dark to set up the tent.  second, and most important, was that instead of getting up at 3am to break camp and head to the trail-head, now a 4am wake-up would be sufficient.

i set up camp, moved all my gear and food into the bear locker and set to the task of preparing my gourmet dinner.  i had loaded heavily in the carb department at lunch and opted for something a little lighter for dinner.  i cracked a can of chicken noodle soup and tossed that on the trusty ol' pack stove.  with that in my belly, i realized i was still quite hungry.  i rummaged through my gear and pulled out a standby package of ramen and cooked that up as well.  at least my sodium levels would be topped off.  haha.

with dinner done, i prepped everything for the morning.  sorted all the gear, staged fluids and fuels, organized clothing and last but not least, tested the alarm on my watch.  with everything set and ready to go, i crawled into my sleeping bag and drifted off to sleep well before 8pm.

soundtrack for this post
	lick: hipsters: wax:	Car Catherine Wheel Like Cats and Dogs

whitney = fail; yosemite = prevail

my salomon xt wings challenge has seen some interesting developments over the last few months.  initially, when i agreed to the challenge and came up with my event (portal to peak), i had planned on running sometime in august/september.  trying to summit the mountain in late spring/early summer in just running shoes is ridiculous.  the snow still covers the trail above the tree line and not only is it snow, but it's ice as well.  after agreeing to the challenge, i was informed that i'd need to have the challenge done by sometime in july at the latest.  eep.

over the past month, i was closely watching the conditions on the mountain and reading people's summit reports.  the general consensus was that above 12k, ice gear was required.  in some cases, teams had even roped up because of the conditions.  well, ice gear i have and i wouldn't mind going up on the mountain with axes and crampons, but that would mean no salomon xt's and definitely no running.

i made a command decision and scrapped the whitney run.  sure, i'll try for it again some other time, but again, spring/summer is not the time to try to run the mountain.  i spent some time evaluating my options.  after all the training i'd put in and the simple fact that i was doing the event to specifically promote the salomon xt wings, i needed to find a replacement challenge that was worthy.

i finally settled on something that has me quite excited.  the route i picked has epic qualities along with easily recognizable features.  saturday morning, i'll be driving up to yosemite.  specifically, tuolume meadows.  the route will take the cathedral lakes trail down to sunrise meadow, toward upper yosemite valley, but with a quick detour to the top of half dome before dropping into the main valley by way of the mist trail.

i've seen several estimates of the distance, and it looks like the route could be anywhere between 20-30 miles.  i'd like it if the route were closer to the 30mi side, but i'll take what i can get.  the best thing, though, is the fantastic scenery that i'll be running through.  i should be able to come away with brilliant photos of half dome, yosemite valley, vernal and nevada falls, cathedral pass, etc.  i am SO pumped!  i can't wait to get started.

so, like i said, i'm off tomorrow to head up to tioga pass to camp and then i'll get running at the butt crack of dawn on sunday.  keep an eye on my twitter and flickr feeds for photos and status updates.

soundtrack for this post
	lick: hipsters: wax:	Allegro con fuoco Antonin Dvorak Symphony No. 5 "From the New World"