guest blogger hysteria

my friend mike (of the great and hilarious ogblay) proposed a blog swap, and i fell for it.

what follows is his contribution, (mine's on his site natch), and any and all complaints should be sent his way.

(thanks mike!)

this weekend x. and i climbed mt. everest, then y. and i ran to the
moon, and then since there were a few more minutes left before monday
morning, z. and i biked in circles. that's 1,260,365,035 of vertical
feet in one weekend.

the mt everest climb was pretty fierce. it's a 27-pitch, 92-star,
infinity.9, so i let x. lead the climb. i've lead infinity.8s before,
but never a .9. as you'd expect, the route was a typical knobby juggy
burly dihedral dodecahedron. i flailed on the rope for a bit, and we
ran out of oxygen near the top, but the view was beautiful. the 200
mph winds buried the ice shards into my skin in amazing patterns.

i was pretty amped from the climb, so y. and i got started right away
on our run to the moon. nasa was conducting a space elevator contest
this weekend, so it was the perfect time to maximize my vertical feet.
we ran out of oxygen near the top of the nanotubes, and the cold
vacuum of space was pretty dehydrating, but the view was incredible.

of course it wouldn't be a good weekend without a bike ride, and i was
anxious to try out the latest bike i'd built. it's made out of mud,
which is hilarious if you're familiar with japanese-based dirt bikes.
here's a picture of my latest baby:


my apartment is getting pretty crowded with bikes, but i think there's
still a little room on the right:


z. and i had a great ride. the views riding around in circles were awesome.

it was time for beer afterwards. a. told b. and b. told c., i'll meet
you at the top of the coconut tree. we had beers there. it was another
20 vertical feet.

265 feet per mile

that was the average elevation gain on my run today (the actual hill
profile looks more like what you'd see if you gave a kangaroo a bunch
of meth, tied a glowstick to his head, and set him loose in the desert
at night).

p. and i did the double dipsea again (have i mentioned i like that
trail?), with an extra 6 miles in the middle, for a total of 20. the
fog was thick when we started out, but we had climbed out of it by the
time we reached the turnoff for the ben johnson trail, and we could
see a blanket of fog for miles, with sutro tower rising above it to
the south.

we were in and out of the fog for the rest of the run, which was
great, especially when we were on the edges of it. the rays of
sunlight splintering through the redwoods and lighting up the little
floating droplets were really stunning.

p. and i kept talking about how beautiful everything was, to the point
that if anyone else had been there they likely would have wanted to
slap us.

this run was a little longer than the last time i was out (20.0 miles
vs. 18.6 miles) but had the same elevation gain. i was about 25
seconds per mile faster, my average heartbeat was 5 bpm lower, and i
FELT stronger.

i think i'm getting back into shape, and i'm pleased about it.

just don't

please don't write or say the following two things, they make me itch:
anyways
where i'm/it's/anything is at

thank you.

the relay, redux

199 miles, 36 legs, 10 2/3 runners, 26 hours of feet on the road (not all mine), 2 hours sleep (all mine), and crazy-fun.

details to follow. (last years post is here. [the post referenced appears to have asploded due to a weird css/blogger bug that i've forgotten how to fix and am too tired to look up. {mike, if you remember what the fix is, will you email me?}] [hooray for bracket-layering!]).*

*all fixed now

UPDTATED

ok, first of all, our team was called nerd.run() and our t-shirts (one of the team actually made a silkscreen, and we all printed our own one night) said:

10 nerd.run()
20 nerd.sleep()
30 goto 10

and if you think that's funny, you're right.

our team finished in 26:58:30, 34th out of 221 total teams, and 5th(!) out of 56 mixed-gender (6 or more women) teams.

the weather was almost perfect, clear but not hot (well, our start time was 1:00 p.m. and our first couple of runners had to run in the heat, but it got cooler as the race progressed), and i got to run across the golden gate bridge at about 2:00 a.m., the city shining across the bay and an almost-full moon bright enough to compete with the streetlights.

i was in van 1 this year, which was nice since i was in van 2 last year, and new territory is always good, but if i do it again i'll try to get into van 2, as there is less waiting around, and two real chances to sleep, as opposed to just one.

our team was down a runner from the start due to a (minor) car crash, and our van lost another 1/3 of a runner to injuries (she ran her first two legs, but couldn't do her third). i'd asked to pick up up one of the extra legs because i'm weird like that, and others jumped in to cover the other 3 that needed runners.

we had some really fast runners on our team this year; one averaged sub 6:30's, another sub 7:00's, two who went sub 7:30, and three who averaged sub 8:00's.

overall it was blast, and i'll most likely run it again. my personal stats are below. i'll post pics as i get them (i brought a camera, but didn't take a single picture. i'm dumb like that).

leg	rating	distance	ascent	start time	pace	total time
6	e	4.5	40	4:11 p.m.	07:01	00:31:47
12	h	4.8	520	9:33 p.m.	07:37	00:36:34
18	h	5.8	360	1:44 a.m.	07:31	00:43:36
30	vh	3.1	1020	10:03 a.m.	08:54	00:278:37
		18.2	1940		07:39	02:19:24

my favorite legs were 12 and 30 because they had the most climbing, and because they just felt good; i was in the groove, working hard but not killing myself, and i passed a lot of people. (i'm not competitive at ALL).

leg 30 was particularly fun because there were a ton of vans stopped along the way, all cheering like crazy as i (and all the other runners too) came by, making a noise like a steam engine and my tongue hanging out.

cooking

i've recently started cooking again, after not really bothering for a long time, and i'm pleased about how much fun it it still is, and how
much enjoyment i get out of it.

i'm not doing anything complicated, mostly asian-influenced stuff; stir-fried vegetables (although this seems like a misnomer to me as there's no frying, just getting the vegetables hot enough to make them sweet, while retaining their crispness. stir sauteing-maybe?) with lightlife chik'n strips (i hate the name) on short-grain brown rice is my current favorite.

(how's THAT for a punctuation-infested run-on?).

the rice has been a revelation; nutty, with a wonderful texture, and was something i got turned on to again when i went back east this summer (thanks dad!).

i usually saute the mushrooms separately to keep them from getting soggy, and then add them right before i eat.

(note: if you use oyster mushrooms sauteed with a little garlic and olive oil, don't taste them before adding them to the rest of the
vegetables or they'll very-likely not make it. i'm just sayin').

vertical mileage

i went on a great run with p. this morning up in marin.

i got up at 6:00 (despite having slept poorly due to a combination of
too much beer, and rage at whoever stole the parts off of my bike),
was out the door by 6:45, picked up p. at 7:00 and we were at the
bottom of the stairs for the dipsea trail, ready to run, at 7:30.

we ran the normal dipsea route, with a detour along the ben johnson >
bootjack > stapelveldt > tcc connector loop to add some miles.

the weather was perfect: cool and clear, with enough breeze to make
the sun feel good.

the trails were really beautiful; sections of them had yellow sycamore
and alder leaves scattered across them, giving a wonderful autumnal
feel to things, (which was added to by the chill in the air in the
canyons), others were covered with a soft, springy layer of redwood
needles that smelled great.

by the time we go back to the bottom of the dipsea stairs, 18+ miles
later, we'd climbed just under 5000 feet, so i turned around and went
back up all 3 flights to finish at just over 5300 feet, and the most
climbing i have ever done on a run.

jacked

my sweet baby peleton, my favorite bike, got stripped of bars, stem, saddle and seatpost while i was watching 'a sunday in hell' in the mission tonight.

i'm surprised at how sad i am about it.

weekend stuff

on saturday i drove to santa cruz to run a 35km trail race that
started at the beach, then did several loops through the forest of
nisene marks state park, and ended back at the beach.

the course was absolutely beautiful; winding through oaks and
redwoods, up and along ridges, and back down into the canyons. the
only sour note was running through a cloud of pissed-off yellowjackets
and collecting 5 stings. it had been quite a few years since i'd been
stung, and i forgot how much it freaking HURTS!

other than that the race was great. i took it easy for the first
28km,a nd then ran my guts out for the last 7km, i finished in just
under 3:30, which was good enough for 5th out of 19.

sunday was all about fun; started off the day going to the beach with
h., her dog, and a couple of other friends where we walked around,
threw logs for the dog, and the dog found a decomposing leatherback
turtle carcass to roll around in.

after the beach i went to see the last giants game of the season. i'm
not really a baseball fan, but i do like going to games. there's just
something about $7.00 beers and sunshine that i like.

after the game s. and i rode over to golden gate park to see dolly
parton play a free show. she was amazing and so was the show, despite
some problems with the sound.

the crowd that turned out to see her was huge and enthusiastic, and
everyone seemed to have a really good time.

it was a good weekend.

the right thing

i did something this weekend that i should have done a while ago ('m
not going to say what it was).

it was the right thing to do for everyone involved, it was the honest
thing to do, and it didn't cause any harm to anyone.

i feel pretty miserable about doing it.

blah.