Month: December 2010

The Worst Day at Wolf Creek Still Beats Most Every Other ‘Best Episode Ever’

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Gang-banged tracked-out crud did not dissuade us!

20 hours of driving for a 40 hour blitz in Colorado did not dissuade us!

Wobbly first-day legs did not dissuade us!

Wolf Creek overrun by Texans and Okies who wander like cows on the slopes did not dissuade us!

Almost smashing into an elk did not dissuade us! But it came close.   James is driving the last 30 min into Pagosa Springs, when i shout out “DEER! DEER! DEER!” He screeches to a stop about 4 feet from it, when it finally decides to get off the road.   James through his mountain-man beard, and Ray through his steady hunter’s eyes, both flatly say “That was an elk“.   ‘Scuse the fuck outta me for saving our lives…

and the Texan who took couldn’t figure out the point-and-click camera. Thanks again Hoss!

were the writing on the back of the Ska Brewing truck at all legible, it would say ‘Responsible for more strikes than 19th century labor conditions’. We had the red for dinner at Homeslice in Durango.

James stampedes the Glory Hole

G’s First Race

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Rancid – Fall Back Down

G’s motor gets in the way of her thinking. She’s a play-past-the-whistle player, not a sniper. 20 years of team sports makes it easy for me to recognize. Handling it appropriately is another challenge. She’s not even 5; they are all bouncy-bouncy-ding-dong-dell retards at that age.   and you can never go full retard.

She wants to improve, she doesn’t want to work on it, i want her to improve, i don’t want to work on her. An agonizing responsibility and chore – my kid WILL appreciate athletics, i WILL not be DooshBagDad. I’ve tried to give her guidance and structure, up to not ever ruining her stoke. Agonizing. last month i caved and shelled out $120 Lifetime Bucks to get someone else to teach her to swim, the elusivs break-through on stroke mechanics so threatened to piss us both off. She’s like this with the Wii, she’s like this with reading, her teachers said it in her conference, she’s like this with Candyland. Shoot first, apologize later.

So when do you push your kid and when do you drift?

G is the fastest kid in her school. I’ve never run with her for more than about 200 yards before she gets bored or lazy. Maybe all the other kids in her school are scatteredbrained athletes too?

Anywho…

There was this Kids 1k at Tempe Town Lake that Beckie had sorta been talking up. G was non-commital, as were we, registration being at 7:30 and the run not being til 9:30.

This article pushed me over the edge. Good thing too, cause Beckie came home with 5 lbs of potato salad and 5lbs of chips from her company xmas party. Details, grouchy morning, cold registration, bathroom lines, way too early to get G excited, and hours to fill making sure she didn’t blow up. Though the sunrise was nice.

How To Care For A tinyRunner:

  1. use all that preRace time to potty, over and over again, while…
  2. reaping the rewards of forcing water on her for the last 12 hrs
    1. see above about 5lbs of chips
    2. who would suffer if G crashed and burned in her first race?
  3. feed tinyRunner apples and bananas and get used to the weather
  4. build stoke

Meanwhile Beckie ran a 23 min 5k, leaving us 37 additional minutes to stall a hopping G! Getting her to sit still, to relax and save her energy, was archetypal of her coaching challenges.

For the last few days I tried to get G to think about pace, reminding her how sometimes on the 2-bike we go superfast and sometimes we go steady. That was pointless, her idea of steady is goofing off and letting me pedal. Beckie said we should just let her do her thing – sprint out til she almost pukes, then pick up the shattered pieces and try to guide her home.

Which is pretty much exactly what happened. Parents get to run with their kids so I kept in her ear, like i do on the 2-bike and did in Ouray. After the initial wall she mostly settled into a steady run, and didn’t walk a bit. It got ugly, not like when its just us and she’ll throw a tantrum when faced with some suffering; she tried really hard to be strong, the effort was hurting her. We rarely put in her places with structure, so she rarely deals with adversity. I’m impressed she was so strong, mentally and physically. There were a few small hills, and she’d try to sprint only to blowup, then want to compensate on the downhill. By the end she was starting to get it about pace, at least for those ~7 minutes. She wobbled in a few spots on the back half of the lap, paced herself up the last climb while dodging potential-concussions running at her from the other directions, and rallied hard for the finish.

Hard to say if any lessons stuck with her, but she was ready to get on the 2-bike and ride to the park for sunset.

shitty cell phone pics

and the shwag. not bad for $10. Kids are the loss leader, it got Beckie to pony up $25, more than a $1\minuite

the master of ghetto spunk and his pre-xmas post-chanukia miracle

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There is one thing in the mtb world of which I am the undisputed champion: riding in Rocky Point. I think I deserve honorable mention in the art of tubeless.

the Hei Hei was getting a spoke and nipple fixed at the shop for several days, the last 2 days due to epic failures to seat the WTB Exiwolf i supplied. Twas not for lack of effort. The tire had a bend in the kevlar bead, and poor Mike had a wad of stan’s on his pants. I was neither upset nor disheartened. I have my potions.

  • 1 honest effort at seating with soap bubbles, no sealant applied
  • 1 more honest effort to soak everything in bubbles
  • paint a thin line of mold builder along the bead and mix it all bubbly
  • blast with the compressor

muthafuggin clockwork. and primarily cause i am a cheap bastard. After mixing my homebrew, I had the little dental dam from the jar of mold builder still covered with mold builder. Forewarning was met with counteraction. and a dog-ride ensued. My only gripe that I had to subsequently remove the valve core to inject the new sealant, the bead held so well.

this cavalier attitude should disabuse you of the notion i’m concerned

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So said Alana, on her gnarest hike to date, trotting across flows of shale and river rock that i don’t even particularly enjoy biking upon. I have hardly walked her out in the desert, but like most things she seems to have figured them out with little classroom assistance. She didn’t even fall as the rocks wobbled under her, didn’t need much instruction to go around all the twisted patches of deadfall and desert weeds, didn’t hardly care when i told her to be careful careful careful, didn’t show much angst when dealing with a pricker in her sock and waiting for me to pull it out.

The progress is not exactly surprising, predictable even, except i’ve no idea where it all came from since it certainly wasn’t from any focused efforts on my part. No arrogance, no fear, just quiet concentration. Little kids getting tossed in with the bigger ones.

At least we are of the same mind. I did a big underground race in the McDs the day before, a comparable sufferfest to the Quad Bypass. Other than limiting myself to half a glass of wine the night before and getting almost 6 hrs of sleep, I made no special efforts or variations to my normal training. Literally rolled out my front door and into the 7 hr ride. Amazingly I finished roughly mid-pack. Hardly spectacular, but along with The Flight, rather rewarding to handle such rides in stride. No arrogance, no fear, just quiet concentration. Little kids getting tossed in with the bigger ones.

almost 50 people launched from the Bashas, about half completed the course. Fun to have my moments descending all the tight switchbacks, that many of the strong fast racers walked down (after smoking me to the top)
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I don’t want to die on this on-ramp after we prepaid for tickets

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Hindsight would show this could have been avoided, especially with better foresight. But some things you can only learn from experience, like the sound of a tire shredding off your rim.

tire

Apparently when the can of Fix-A-Flat says take your tire for professional repair, they mean it. However, it had been holding for a week, and showed no ill-effects driving around town the night before. When we first heard a rumble, Beckie pulled off the 101 and I checked the pressure, inspected the tire — all seemed good. 3 miles later the rumble got much much worse, and just as we entered the merge ramp from the 101 to the 202 it felt like we were rolling on a cinder block and Kenga ground to a halt.

Stuck at the apex of the turn of the merge lane form the 101 to the 202. Changing a tire on a truck is non-trivial, but not significant. In a parking lot. All I thought about were the stories every few months of someone creamed on the side of the highway, and unloading my children and my parents next to the jersey barrier while cars flew by at 75. Not. We shit bricks in the car with our seatbelts on waiting for help. 911 was barely worth my taxes, but after almost an hour AAA came through. Private enterprise trumps public services once again .

The tow-driver’s experience and a pneumatic jack had us off in about 10 min, I gave the guy a $20 for gratitude, and we still made it to Zoolights before 8. After about 30 minutes I got real tired and finally got a hit from the flask full of kahlua.

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G was in awe of the mechanical giraffe talking with her, funnies thing since Zombieland
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Oratoricalizationalismism

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it went like this:

1 day Alana was babbling and tossing out an occasional ‘mama‘ or ‘Yayo‘ or ‘aggggggggggggggggh [my ass is ass-deep in shit]‘. Then i sneezed and she went ‘bez yu daddy‘.

I think i remember G as a good talker, but i think its that more people were listening more intently. Maybe that is why more people hear Alana’s qualities now. She has to work much harder to get people to listen. All of us but her.

definitely it is from listening to a tinyTeacher. Maybe watching G, maybe watching any another kid cuz she is conditioned to be around other kids and fighting for her space. Learned to learn. and now she can ask for cheese.

There is this awesome 6-pod pushcart complete with seatbelts at Kinder Care called ‘The Baby Buggy‘. *want*. is it weird to say that? *want**want*. Every other day for the past 2 weeks I’ve had to lure\tempt\drag Alana out of school cause she sprints down the hall and ascends the BabyBuggy. yesterday G said Alana sure likes the BabyBuggy and Alana said the same in her mutant-tongue. I know i understood it, cuz today she said crystal-diamond-rainbow-rose clear: ‘i want popsikle‘. amazing. not just the words, but the person and conjugation.

amazing.