Gorohoff

Holiday Road

2011-12-21T09:41:00.000-08:00

This year the week between Christmas and New Years will be spent in Southern California. When I started shopping for plane tickets for this trip months ago it quickly became apparent that plane tickets and rental car were going to cost a fortune. When I compared the cost of flying to driving it suddenly ~~made~~ seemed to make sense to just drive. So our family has decided to boycott the obscenely high cost of plane tickets and instead do our holiday travel by car.

However this morning, while listening to the radio, I was reminded that tomorrow, the day we depart, is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Tomorrow the family and I will be in the car for 11+ hours and there will only be around 9 hours between sunrise and sunset, and this is just the first of 3 days of driving.

We may be spending quite a few hours during this drip in the dark, but I think it will still be a fun family adventure...

Edit: Had to add one more video

First Rainier Ski Trip of the Season

2011-12-03T15:50:00.001-08:00

With the first days of December, a record setting high pressure system settled over the Pacific Northwest and promised up to a week or more of good weather (and smog in the lowlands). My brother Alex and I decided to take advantage of the good weather and get in our first ski trip of the season to Camp Muir.

On Saturday December 3, we started out at 6 AM, arriving at the mountain 9:30. When we got to the parking lot we realized there were quite a few other people with the same idea. From the parking lot to just below Panorama Point we set a pretty good pace. But as we looked up the climb to Panorama Point it was clear all the other skiers were struggling. At first the climb was easy. Alex stated that he was going to try and skin all the was up. A couple minutes later Alex, who was ahead of me, yelled back to me to put on my ski crampons. A minute later he was hiking with skis over his shoulder. As I approached the area where he had given up skinning I thought I might be able to make it with my ski crampons, and I probably could have, but it would have been a long way to slide down if the crampons didn't hold, so following my brothers example, I put the skis over my shoulder and headed up hill.

After the climb up to and above Panorama Point, the skinning went well up to about 8,000' where the travel required navigating patches of ice with strong gusts of wind coming from all different directions. A couple of the gusts were strong enough that I had to stop and make sure I was well balanced against the wind. Around 8,800' the wind was just too strong, and most of the downhill skiers had warned us that it was extremely icy higher up, and most all other uphill skiers had turned around. So at that point Alex and I decided to turn around. So with high winds, and on an inch of snow on top of blue ice we carefully transitioned and headed down.

Here our GPS tracks from the day's adventure.

Navigating Panorama Point on the downhill turned out to be not as bad as going up. The skiing down was not great, but overall it was a fun trip.

Making Long Term Memories

2011-11-06T19:40:00.000-08:00

I'm doing the usual Sunday things, putting clothes away, cleaning up, getting ready for another work week for me and my wife, and school week for my children. In the background KUOW FM 94.9 is playing; the show that is on is Studio 360. On the show they are talking about memories, and how memories are what define who we are; but there is now way we can remember everything, so there is a part of the brain called the hippocampus that transforms the short term memories into long term memories. The problem is we don't get to decide what become a long term memory and what doesn't. I don't think this is fair!

My answer is this blog. Although I can't say what the future of this blog will be, I would like to think of it as my artificial hippocampus. My brain does not get backed up, but I'm pretty sure Google is kindly backing this blog up all over the place. Normally this show on Studio 360 was something I was certain I would largely forget about within in a matter of minutes, and this really annoyed me because I really found this show facinating...and I wanted to remember it, I wanted to be able to discuss this concept again later. So upon hearing this show I ran downstairs, and started this blog post...my artificial hippocampus. I choose to make this a long term memory...if I can remember to read this blog post again.

Trying to impress 12 year olds

2011-10-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

Being the slave to social media that I am, I have a YouTube account. I really don’t do too much with that account; I created it out of curiosity more so than anything else. However, I do upload the occasional video that I put together.

In 2009 my brother and I went up to Alpental on opening day. I brought my helmet camera and captured some POV footage of us skiing and made a stupid little video with that footage. I really didn’t imagine anyone other than my brother and I watching this, but I did upload it to YouTube and make it publicly visible.

Well, nearly 2 years after putting together this video, it looks like someone else has watched my video. I guess he didn’t care for it, but his comment is pretty awesome!

Im 12 and i did that run when i was 11 so do somthing a little harder

Thank you, The Gocarter for your constructive criticism. I will make a point of trying to capture some footage of me hucking cliffs in the Alpental BC during the 2011/12 season, or maybe ski Mount Rainier or Baker. Either way, I will strive ski runs harder than what an 11 year old can easily ski.

Spoons

2011-10-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to my favorite coffee shop on the University of Washington campus: Parnassus. As I was waiting for my coffee I noticed this poster on the wall.

The poster states:

“It’s pretty amazing that our society has reached a point where the effort necessary to extract oil from the ground ship it to a refinery turn it into plastic shape it appropriately truck it to a store buy it and bring it home is considered to be less effort than what it takes to just wash the spoon when you’re done with it.”

I guess this has been out there a while and been going around for a while, and it took a bit of searching, but I believe I found the person who created the poster (if not perhaps the text for it too). It’s a guy by the name of Max Temkin, his site is Maxistentialism. Cool poster, and I would buy one, except it is currently sold out.

The poster did give me pause, and I reached for a wooden stir stick instead of a plastic one. Although I did use the wooden stir stick then throw it away rather than washing it with the goal of using it again, but I did throw it in the compost bin instead of the garbage bin.

The 2011 Portland Marathon

2011-10-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

Two minutes, and twenty four seconds. That’s how much time I missed my marathon goal time of sub-four hours by. In all fairness I was trying to cut 44 minutes off my previous marathon PR, but it should have been completely doable. I am pretty psyched that I ran so much faster of a marathon than my last marathon, but the fact that I failed to beat four hours, means I’m going to have to run another marathon. Darn this running addiction.

Overall, the Portland Marathon this year was a much more enjoyable experience than it was last year. The weather was mostly dry with mild temperatures, perfect for running. My strategy for running the marathon was just to come out as fast as I could maintain and then constantly adjust my speed based on how I was feeling, and constantly asking myself if I could run a bit faster. Other than noting the pacers, I really didn't use them at all, I just tried to keep as fast of a pace as I could maintain. My time at the half way point was 1:56:46, which would make it my 3rd fastest half marathon time! I did walk a bit on the climb up to the St John’s bridge. After the St John’s bridge I was dragging a bit, especially though miles 20 and 21 but then I really picked up the pace during the long hill leading down to the Broadway Bridge driven in part by the thought that around mile 23 there would be the beer aid station! After the Broadway Bridge my quads were really hurting, they almost felt like they were cramping. Between the leg pain and exhaustion of having just run 24 miles faster than I had ever run that distance before, I just couldn’t bring myself to push any harder and so I finished pretty slow.

So now nearly a week after the marathon, I’m feeling good enough to take a short run. I do need to get back into training since I have the Salty’s Half Marathon in a few weeks, followed by the Seattle Half Marathon a month after that. Right now I’m thinking about waiting until the packet pickup on the day before the marathon, and if the forecast is for dry weather on the day of the marathon I might just upgrade to the full Seattle Marathon. Other than that I have no other races planned for 2011, with the exception of participating as much as possible as my 8 year old daughter works on completing the Seattle Kids Marathon. However, for 2012 I would really like to run the Chicago Marathon!

Enjoying the Rain

2011-10-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

Today I took the bus in; no running, no biking, just fully tapering before Sunday's marathon. As I was walked to the bus in the typical Seattle Autumn drizzle, I was reminded of an incident many years ago, in a different life, when I was a traveling paper salesman. I was in Denver for a trade show, the show was over, and all the sales people were out to dinner together before heading back to their respective towns in the morning. One particular sales guy was trying to mock my hometown of Seattle by describing it as the town that was all about intermittent windshield wipers. His comment was largely ignored, but his point was taken. Seattle is a generally wet city. Not real heavy rain, but sort of an on and off drizzle. In his book Still Life with Woodpecker, Tom Robbins talks of using a canopy of blackberry bushes covering the city to protect us from the rain, but what can you expect, Tom Robbins is a transplant from back East. I don't think the wet bothers true natives, or at least those who were born and raised in Seattle. But it clearly bothers the transplants, which there are so many of. I enjoy the rain, in fact I actually enjoy being out in the rain. What gets me down is the incessant complaining by the transplant. For at least 9 months of the year you hear and read endlessly about how dreary the weather is. It's all the complaining about the weather does get me down; and ultimately it's hard not to get caught up in it and get down on the weather that I would otherwise enjoy. This year I've actively been trying to avoid any talk about weather, or reading anything negative about the weather. Generally my plan to stay positive about the weather seems to be working, although it is early, and summer just ended, but I seem to be happy spending time in the cool gray misty rain. And it's a good thing I enjoy this wet weather because on Sunday I'm likely to spend my second Portland marathon in the rain, feet sloshing, clothes soaked all the way though, running for hours in this, with a big smile on my face.

Ice Breaker Clothes...

2011-09-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

Ice Breaker makes awesome merino wool gear. I own a light weight short sleeve Ice Breaker t-shirt that I wore on my bike ride in today. What I didn't know about Ice Breaker was that they've got some of the most bizarre Ads, even the "Ice Breaker and Nature" picture on their web site is, um, different. But that's nothing compared to this commercial that I just found linked to on Backcounty.com's blog...

The daily bicyle commute

2011-09-29T11:33:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I decided to discontinue my work subsidized bus pass and rely on bicycle and running as my primary means of commuting to work. My place of work is only about 6-1/2 miles from where I live so the commute is short, and the majority of the commute isn’t in traffic, but rather along the Burke-Gilman trail. Besides, it takes longer to get to work by bus or car than it does to get there by bike.

The best part of commuting to work by bicycle is the other cyclists. Seattle is definitely a city of bicycle commuters, and one of the primary routes for commuters is the Burke-Gilman trail. So the daily commute along the Burke-Gilman trail is always an adventure. There are the cyclists who slowly plod along, as well as those who see their commute as their personal daily crit. As for me, I fall somewhere in between. I do tend to see my commute as a bit of a personal time trial (anything under 25 minutes is good), but I have my own rules for my ride:

I do actually stop at stop lights.
I keep my place at stop lights and don’t jockey for a better position in front of the other cyclists who were waiting before me. This might get me stuck behind some slower cyclists, but I can pass them later.
I don’t draft other cyclists during the commute (I might pace them, but there’s a good distance between us).
I don’t pass other cyclists then immediately slow my pace (that drives me crazy).
I don’t pass other cyclists unless it’s safe to do so (e.g. I’m not passing a cyclist with oncoming cyclists two abreast).

My commute can be interesting when I stick to these rules and try and beat my previous PR for getting home or getting to work. However, being a strict rule follower can lead to road rage and I do tend to get annoyed when others aren’t following the same set of rules. But I try and use that just to make the ride even more interesting; I might suddenly have someone I must catch and pass who is now way ahead of me because they flew through a traffic light while I was stopped.

Today I decided I would just take it easy and enjoy the ride in (I tend to tell myself that a lot, but rarely follow it). My ride started off with all of the lights in my favor as I ride down a mile of NW 24th Ave in Ballard, a hill long hill steep enough to easily keep pace with the cars. As soon as I got on to the Burke-Gilman trail, I knew the ride was going to be a bit more interesting. Everyone seemed to be moving at a pretty good pace, no slow riders. The pace was plenty fast enough so I just stuck ten or so feet behind the first person I came up behind. As I followed I was passed and then the person in front of me got passed by a faster cyclist. The person in front of me clearly frustrated that someone dared to pass them during their commute quickly picked up the pace, and passed the person that just passed them. I kept up with the pace behind the two cyclists following behind just close enough to see how it would end. In the end their were no violent acts of bicycle road rage, one of the riders turned off of the trail and headed in a different direction. However it was enough to keep todays commute interesting and get me to work a bit faster than what I had initially planned on; the daily Burke-Gilman bicycle commute is rarely dull.

Day one

2011-09-28T22:14:00.001-07:00

I work at a large educational institution of higher learning. I work in IT for said institution. I write software for users of said institution. With all that said, day one of classes at said institution is never a fun day for me. I’m glad day one is over.

Everything I knew about hydrating was wrong!

2011-09-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

I remember my first real endurance event, the STP (Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic). It is a 200+ mile bike ride that people do over one or two days in the summer. The first time I did the STP I went to several training events, and I remember being told: “drink before you get thirsty, because by the time you’re thirsty it’s too late”. I took this to heart, since the person who was doing the training must clearly be an “expert”.

A few years ago while trying to complete a guided one day summit attempt of the 10,781 foot Mount Baker on skis I completely ran out of steam short of the summit. No matter how much water I drank I couldn’t quench my thirst. We only made it to the crater, several hundred vertical feet of the summit. Later my guide told me that my problem was likely that my body needed electrolytes, and that this could be done easily by using something like Nuun tablets. After that I started adding Nuun to my water for all my endurance events.

Someone I know told me about becoming dehydrated during a marathon and urinating blood. Stop at every single water stop they told me, you do NOT want to become dehydrated. This furthered my belief that I should be drinking constantly during physical activity.

Recently while trying to complete the 93 miles Wonderland Trail that circumnavigates Mount Rainier in three days I wore a 3 Liter Camel Bak bladder in my backpack. I never let it get below 1 liter, and my water always had several Nuun tablets in it.

Hydration and electrolytes have always been central to my physical activities. I’ve preached the importance of hydration and electrolytes to anyone who would listen. It was common knowledge, right? Then I read this article from Adventure Journal and it was like a slap across my face. According to the study, everything I thought I knew is wrong. There are a lot of “experts” out there when it comes to endurance activities, but expertise comes from personal experience, not science.

The article references a recent study by Dr James Winger of Loyola University Medical Center. The study looked at hydration and the performance of marathon runners. What the study found is that we are drinking way too much water. You should only be drinking when you get thirsty. Drinking too much water can be very dangerous; "there have been 12 documented and 8 suspected runners' deaths from hyponatremia". The Adventure Journal article also mentions that Dr Winger says it's unwise to take salt tablets to replace electrolytes. Electrolytes are taken away from the body by drinking too much water, and the only way they are going to be replaced artificially is through an intake of “highly concentrated IV fluids (not normal IV fluids)”.

The first question that popped into my head when reading the article is, "why do I feel so much better after I drink a sports drink?", the article answered that one too. You get that good feeling from the sports drink because you’re "being washed by endorphins when you stop an exercise".

When I find something that completely upsets my belief system citing some “study” but not linking to the actual study I need to do some more research. So I checked the web, and this story is of course all over the place: The Chicago Sun-Times, Science Daily, etc, etc.

I will definitely be looking for more on this study, and asking around anywhere I can get more information on this. Please read the Adventure Journal article as well as the original study yourself, then let me know what you think, will this change your behavior when it comes to hydrating? I've got a marathon in less than 2 weeks and I'm not sure how this news will effect my behavior.

Running in 2011 so far…

2011-09-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

At the start of 2011, I set a New Year’s resolution or goal for expanding my new found favorite activity of running. The goal was to run 1000 miles in 2011. At the time it seemed like a pretty lofty goal: average just less than 19.25 miles a week, every week for a year. Then I read about how other runners were shooting for 2011 miles in 2011 (over 38.5 miles a week) and my 1000 mile goal didn't seem like such a big deal. However I am new to running and I want to keep my goals realistic and not overtake my obligations to family and work.

Fast forward to the close of September 2011: I’m currently at 832.25 miles which puts me way ahead schedule, if I look at my total runs for the past 365 days I’m at 992 miles. My resolution that I made back in January should be attainable if I can just keep myself motivated though Autumn in the cold, wet, gray Pacific Northwest. Clearly the amount of running I am doing has dramatically increased since I took up the activity back at the start of 2010. The distances that I can run has also increased from 5K, to 10K, to 1/2 marathon, to full marathon, to 50K ultra-marathon, to 93 miles around Mount Rainier over 3 days.

What hasn’t improved as much is my pace; I did have a few faster paced races in 2011, but nothing close to my little brother Alex is capable of. Then when I get to the marathon distances my pace becomes really slow; the Boston Marathon is not anything that I see myself as ever qualifying for unless I can keep my current pace into my mid 60s. However, I think I’m okay with this. At 40 I know I’ll never be a fast runner, but I do like exploring how far and long I can run, and that exploration should make 2012 an interesting year for my runs.

As I look forward to the rest of 2012 here is what I have left on the agenda:

I have Portland Marathon in less than 2 weeks my goal for that is to complete it in under 4 hours. No big deal except that my only two marathon experiences were both over 4:45, and last year when I did the Portland Marathon I limped the last several miles.
Three weeks after that I have the Salty's Half Marathon. This should be a fun, flat, fast half that will be a super small group (it's limited to just 100 participants).
Then four weeks after that I have the Seattle Half Marathon. Last year I did this pretty much "off the couch". I was pretty apprehensive about this, since it's at the end of November (not a time known for nice dry warm weather in Seattle), and my physician had forbidden me from doing the full (his brother had ended up in the hospital with hypothermia while doing the Seattle Marathon). When I did it, it was a really fun half marathon. Depending on how I'm feeling as the date gets closer and depending on what the rules allow, I might upgrade to the full (just don't tell my doctor).

Then that's it for 2011. For 2012, I think I want to up the game a bit and do more ultras!

Father and Daughters Breakfast

2011-09-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

Last night my oldest daughter (7) requested breakfast at "the place where the let you put things on pancakes". I assumed this to mean Portage Bay Cafe. It's a great place for breakfast, but always requires a wait to get in, and as breakfast food goes it's not cheap. However this is a father and daughters only weekend (mommy is off on a girls weekend) so I want to make sure that the girls had a great weekend.

The girls of course ordered Mickey pancakes and loaded up with fruit and syrup at the toppings bar. After most of the fruit was cleared away from my oldest daughters pancake, all that remained was Mickey's smiling face.

Unfortunately, shortly after the picture was taken, Mickey's face was brutally ripped off. I am sorry to say, Mickey did not survive the event. My girls however, seem to be generally okay with it.

Wonderland Trail in 3 days (day 3)

2011-09-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

I woke up Monday around 6AM, and laid in bed until 6:30 AM before getting up and heading with the others down to breakfast. I was hoping we could order, eat and go in 30 minutes. But as 7:30 AM became 8 AM, and 8AM became 8:30 AM. We were loosing precious time, and we had 34 miles to go.

I looked at the map for any possible solutions. I had thought that day 3 would be the most isolated section of the trail, but then I noticed the West Side road. The road provided us with a way to skip the first two climbs of the day which covered roughly seven miles and instead trade it for 4 miles of hiking with much less vertical. We would just need Dave drive us up the West Side road to the point where it was closed to traffic and started hiking there. I pitched the idea to Tom S, but he told me at that point was feeling pretty ill, he still hadn't recovered from the previous day. The drive would be about 30 minutes, so it was decided that Tom S would join Tom M, Dave and me and he could decide at the last minute if he really wanted to take on another day with 31 more miles. With a lot of strong encouragement from the rest of us to skip day 3 if he didn’t fully feel up to it, Tom S utltimately decided to back out at the last minute. It was now just Tom M and me.

Dave dropped us off, wished us well, and we headed off hiked along the West Side road from the gate for a couple miles. Tom M and I were enjoying the easy hiking and taking as we hiked at a quick pace, eventually reaching Tahoma Vista. It was there that we realized we missed the trail head for Tahoma Creek trail by at least a mile. We had to backtracked and finally found the trail head hidden behind a barrel that I had previously told Tom M to ignore. The barrel was meant for climbers coming off of the high glaciers to leave their blue bags full of “human waste”.
Before we had started off on this path, Ben had promised the Tahoma Creek trail would be easy. However it didn’t take much hiking before we found the trail to be not in the best condition. As we continued on we moved slowly loosing and then re-finding the trail several times. Finally, 6 miles after leaving the car we caught up with the Wonderland Trail. It was suppose to be 4 miles, but missing our turn off by a mile, then having to hike a mile back had lead us to a bad start for the day. In the end we had given up 7 miles for 6, not really saving much distance.

suspension bridge over Tahoma Creek

Despite being way behind schedule we tracked a short distance just so we could walk the famous high suspension bridge over Tahoma Creek. Then it was back to the trail, only not nearly as quick as the past few days.

As we started our first climb up and over Emerald Ridge and then back down toward the South Puyallup River we were suprised to find far more hikers on this section of the trail than what we had seen on any other part of the trail. At one point we crossed paths with a Ranger who asked to see our backcountry pass. After explaining our plans to make it all the way to Mowich, and yes we realized we wouldn’t be arriving until well after dark, the Ranger told us what sections ahead would be good for running and which sections wouldn’t. He also told us to keep an eye open for the Salmon Berries as we headed down toward the North Puyallup River and make sure to grab a handful or two.

We dropped down to the South Puyallup River and headed back up again. The climb up from the South Puyallup River was pretty difficult, mostly because we had been going hard for so long. We passed a couple of older men who were really huffing and puffing. As I reached the high point before heading down to St. Andrew’s Park I decided to take a bit of a breather. The black flies were quickly finding me and Tom M an interesting target, but we hung out as one of the older men caught up with us there. He said he was 65, and that he started at Longmire. He was on his second day on the trail and was quickly realizing he signed up for a lot more than he was ready for. He said he was going to try and make his way eventually to Mowich, then hitch a ride to Enumclaw, then spend his life savings if necessary for a taxi to take him home. He looked totally defeated. He asked if we had an energy bar to spare saying his were too far in his pack to dig out right now. Tom M offered him one, and we wished him luck and headed on our way.

St Andrews Lake

As we reached St. Andrew’s Lake we found another older man happily swimming in the lake. This guy looked a lot happier. I really wished I could also go for a swim in the very inviting looking lake, but we had far too many miles to cover and far too few hours of daylight left. So we continued on towards the North Puyallup River. As we continued on I asked Tom M if he knew what salmon berries look like. He said he probably couldn’t identify them well enough to feel safe eating them.

view as we headed down to the N. Puyallup

The terrain heading down to the North Puyallup River was some of the most dramatic on the entire trail. Huge cliff faces, probably a thousand plus feet dropping from the Puyallup Glacier high above on the mountain, with waterfalls dropping many hundreds of feet off of the cliff faces. As we dropped lower and into thicker overgrowth I saw what must have been the salmon berries (looked like a black berry or raspberry only yellow to pink in color), either way it looked good and I was sick of energy food. I ate as many ripe ones as I could find, and they were good!

When we reached the North Puyallup River it was after 6PM. As we took a bit of a break I realized we still had a very long ways to go. I was getting anxious...this was going to be a lot of hours of hiking in the dark. We headed off again up towards Golden Lakes discussing how we would keep our sanity on the miles and hours of travel ahead in the dark. Tom M and I tried to tell stories and stretch them out, anything to keep minds off of the hours left to go. I tried to push for the goal of seeing the sunset from the last high point in the trail, but as we headed up I could occasionally see though the trees the sun getting really low in the sky.

sunset from Sunset Park

Finally as the last bit of the sun was setting, we reached the big open area known as Sunset Park. The setting sun was lighting up the Mowich Glacier on the mountain in a bright orange. Before long we were in complete dark, and this seriously slowed down our pace.

In the open area of Sunset Park the temperature quickly dropped. For the first time on this hike I was actually getting cold. However, as soon as we went back into the protection of the woods the temperature seemed to climb 15 degrees. After about an hour of traveling like this I saw what appeared to be a light in the woods; someone's campsite I thought. As we got closer it became clear that the light was coming from 3 square shaped windows; it was the rangers cabin.

The ranger came out to greet us, and probably question why we were hiking in the dark. We explained our trip to him and that we fully realized what we were in for over the next several hours. He mentioned that the other ranger we had met earlier in the day had radioed him to let him know we would be coming though. The ranger told us we had around 10 miles to go, and that soon the nearly full moon would be rising and possibly lighting up the trail a bit. He wished us luck, and we were off.

The trail went on, up and down, right and left, mostly down toward the Mowich River. Minutes seemed like hours. Everything was darkness. When the moon did rise the thick trees obscured most of the moon light. There were only occasional glimpses of the moon though the tree, but never enough light to help us see our surroundings. I was really hating this.

At 10:45 PM we finally reached the Mowich River. We needed one last refill of water before the last very long push up to Mowich Lake. For the first time since it became dark enough for us to use our headlamps, Tom M and I turned off our lights to sit beside the river lit only by the moonlight for a few minutes. It was almost (almost) enough light to hike by. We got our things together and started our final push of about 4 miles up hill. The crossing of the Mowich River was a bit confusing, because you need to cross 2 forks of the river. In daylight this definitely wouldn't be a problem, but in the middle of the night your entire world is only what is 10 feet in front of you and everything looks the same. I paused for more than a few moments thinking we had gone in a circle as we crossed the second fork of the Mowich River, but this had to be the right way. We continued on.

Those last miles up hill were pretty bad. I don't think Tom M and I spoke more than a dozen words. We had both been in that world of limited visibility for hours. With our cheap LED headlamps, there was almost no color and very little depth perception. We stopped around 12:30 AM for a break. We had probably been moving at less than a mile an hour. My ankles were really hurting at this point; unable to get any depth perception on the the trail I was constantly misplacing my steps and twisting my ankle, not enough to cause injury, but enough to cause pain when repeated for hours on end.

We decided to really push it until we got to the truck, so we picked up the pace. We were moving much faster than we had in the past 6 or more hours (which probably meant we were moving 2-1/2 miles an hour). Finally at 1:30 AM we reached the parking lot for the Mowich Lake campground. We went straight to the truck. Tom M took a sleeping pad and his sleeping bag and immediately crashed in the bed of the truck. Not wanting to deal with mosquitoes or setting up a tent, I climbed into the passenger seat, moved it back as far as it would go, leaned the seat back as far as it would go, and fell asleep.

early morning moonset on the way home

Five hours later we both got up, and drove back to Seattle. Only stopping once for a much needed Starbucks coffee. As we drove the dirt road heading away from Mowich Lake we saw our one and only bear of the trip. The bear was crossing the road, and he was there and gone too quickly for me to capture a picture. So that I could have one last picture from the trip we stopped on the side of the road so I could take a picture of the low lands around Mount Rainier covered in fog or a low cloud layer. The moon that had provided us so little light was now setting.

When I got home and looked at what my GPS had to report, it ended up shorting me about 10 miles over the entire trip. We had added at least a mile by going over Spray Park instead of Ipsut Pass on day one, then skipped maybe a mile on day two by avoiding Box Canyon and picking up the trail 1/4 mile down the road. Finally we skipped a mile on day three. All things considered I sure felt like I had just gone 93 miles. The trip was incredible, and I would definitely do some variation of it again.

Wonderland Trail in 3 Days?

Wonderland Trail in 3 days (day 1)

Wonderland Trail in 3 days (day 2)

All the pictures from the trip

Wonderland Trail in 3 days (day 2)

2011-09-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

trail up to Summerland

Our early alarm clock failed to wake us, so we weren’t awoken until 5AM, after which we didn’t get started until 6AM. Again tear down the camp, a breakfast of a hard boiled egg and a banana, and we were off. Today was the climb up to the highest elevation point on the entire trail, Panhandle Gap. However the climb was not too bad as much of the trail seemed to only climb 500 feet a mile. As we headed up toward Panhandle Gap we entered the beautiful open fields of wildflowers found in Summerland.

As we continued to climb fields of wildflowers gave way to fields of snow, making the travel fairly interesting. Tom S and Ben were moving along a ways ahead of Tom M and myself. Tom M and I couldn’t seem to get enough pictures up along this high point. As Tom M and I appraoched and crossed over Panhandle Gap I felt great. Panhandle Gap ws the highest point on the trip and it felt like everything would be down hill from here.

Eventually we reached Ben who had found some shade and was relaxing with his shoes off. As we spoke to him he said he had just started getting some pretty serious pain in his hip, but he felt that after taking a break he would be okay to continue and he would then catch up. A little further down the trail we found Tom S who was coming down the trail towards us. He had lost the trail in the snow. After a bit of looking at the map, we decided the trail headed nearly straight up. We ascended a fair ways before we were able to look back down and see where the trail had actually continued along well below us right after a large patch of snow. At that point Ben had caught up and we directed him which way to go, and Tom S, Tom M and I crossed the snow higher up then dropped down to meet Ben.

crossing fields of snow

Ben was moving pretty slowly at this point down the steeply descending trail. The trail heading down to Indian Bar is a seemingly endless series of steps and not a fun section if you are experiencing any leg pain. I swapped my two poles for Ben's single hiking pole hoping two poles would make it easier for him to continue on, then I headed on down. At the Ohanapecosh River Ben caught up and we all refilled water bottles and rested near the Indian Bar hut. As we soaked our sore feet in the ice cold Ohanapecosh River we discussed how to handle getting us all to Longmire with Ben’s leg problems. Ben decided he would head on at his own pace with his one pole and finish up the day at Box Canyon. At Box Canyon Ben would hitchhike to Longmire. We wished him luck and continued on towards Box Canyon.

down to Indian Bar

Reaching Box Canyon was a real boost to my spirits. The three of us took a short break and tried to figuring out where the trail continued on. After studying the map, we opted not to do the little 0.3 mile loop into Box Canyon, instead headed though a car tunnel at Box Canyon and catch the trail on the other side, continuing on from there.

At this point I really wanted us to make it to the National Park Inn at Longmire. We were staying there for the night, but I believed that the restaurant closed at 8PM, and I wanted a sit down dinner. I began to really encourage the others to move fast “pick up the pace guys, this one is about getting steak dinners or having 3 day old un-refrigerated hotdogs”.

We crossed Stevens Creek, but then right before the trail headed up from Stevens Creek to Reflection Lakes rather suddenly bonked hard. I realized I hadn’t eaten much in at least a couple hours or probably longer. I had to stop and eat. I downed a Cliff Shot Gel, a package of Gummy Bears and a Honey Stinger Waffle; I was getting pretty sick of energy food at this point so I had to force myself to eat everything other than the gummy bears (I love gummy bears).

From here the trail started up though thick overgrowth covering the trail. The travel was slow at this point as I tried to ease my way around nettles. Eventually the overgrowth disappeared as the trail went into the woods and headed on up to Reflection Lakes. After a 1/2 hour or so the food started doing its job I was starting to feel better. I picked up the pace and caught up with Tom S where the trail met the road near Louis Lake. I went ahead to get water, but found myself attacked by black flies at the first water stop so I continued on to another. I quickly filled up my Camel Back and an extra Nalgene for the guys, then waited, and waited. Where were they? I was really wanting to get going, I really wanted that sit down dinner at the lodge. Tom S and Tom M finally caught up, they split the extra liter of water and we were on our way.

Around this point the trail actually went along side the rode for about a half-mile. I was so desperate to get my dinner that I tried to hitchhike, but there were no takers. So I tried push the pace as much as I could once we hit the trail again. The trail dropped down to the Nisqually River, we crossed the river and had 1.7 miles to go. At this point Tom S had to stop and to deal with some painful foot blisters. Tom M and I offered to order him food if necessary. We pushed it as much as we could (but that wasn’t much).

Finally at 7:15 we rolled out of the woods to the sight of the National Park Inn. I was really hooting and hollering, and high-fiveing Tom M. Ben was at the entrance all cleaned up and shiny in fresh cotton clothes. Unfortunately Ben had bad news for us: The kitchen closed at 7PM. But with a little work, Ben was able to convince them to keep the kitchen open a little longer so we could get an order in.

my feet didn't look too bad after day two

The restaurant was still very full as we rolled in stinking and covered in sweat and dirt and sitting down with Ben and Dave. I found the fact that people throughout the restaurant were looking and pointing at us rather amusing. I ordered pot roast and devoured it. Then downed 2 beers. It was all so good. However Tom S and Tom M were having trouble eating. Tom M couldn’t handle the hot restaurant which was making him feel claustrophobic, and had to go sit outside. Tom S was bonking hard and not feeling much like eating. A little later on the both were feeling better and were able to eat. I pretty much crashed in a very comfortable bed after a shower and organizing my gear for the next day. I made the decision that for our last day we would sit down at the restaurant one more time for breakfast even though the restaurant didn’t open until 7AM (much later than we had started the previous days). We would eat and try and get going right after breakfast with the full knowledge that we wouldn’t finish the day until well after dark.

Wonderland Trail in 3 Days?

Wonderland Trail in 3 days (day 1)

Wonderland Trail in 3 days (day 3)

All the pictures from the trip

Wonderland Trail in 3 days (day 1)

2011-09-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

As the actual date of to do the Wonderland Trail in 3 day my original group of a dozen or so people became just three, then two: my friends Tom S and Tom M (this was going to be confusing). The week before the trip my friend Ben decided to join us "off the couch". We were now four, with a fifth friend Dave providing support.

Day 0 - Getting to the Trail Head

The trip started off with us all meeting early afternoon on Friday September 9th, and making our way to the to Mowich Lake on the secluded North end of Mount Rainier. After several discussions over the phone with park officials, I had a very real concern about our ability to find a campsite at Mowich Lake which doesn’t take reservations. Because of this I kind of rushed the group to get to the campsite, passing up on the traditional pre-trip big meal for quick sandwiches to go at Subway. When we arrived at Mowich there were in fact quite a few people camping there, but it was by no means full. However, as we set up the tent, it didn’t take long to realize that mosquitos were going to be a real problem, so we ended up eating our sandwhiches in the truck and having pre-trip celebratory Rainier Beer tallboys.

Day 1 - Mowich Lake to White River Campground

sunrise on Mt. Rainier from Spray Park

I didn’t sleep well in the small tent 4 man that all four of us were in (assume any tent size is at least 1/2 a person smaller than described). I was awake well before the first alarm went off at 4:30 AM. Then with the alarm, everyone got up pretty quick and we quietly went to work putting our gear away, taking down the tent, and moving everything we wouldn’t be taking with us to the truck.

For me breakfast was a hard boiled egg and a banana. I wasn’t hungry, but I knew I needed to get some starting calories in me. After we all choked down our breakfast we headed out at 5:25 AM (about 2 hours before the sun would come up).

The night before we had made the decision that rather than head over the quicker and easier route of Ipsut pass, we would go up and over Spray Park. About a mile longer, and much more vertical, but much more scenic, and besides, no one wanted to start off right away with over 5 miles of downhill running in the dark.

crossing the snow at Spray Park

Things were bad for me from the start, as my headlamps batteries were dieing, and I could barely see the trail in the dark woods. Not being able to see I was constantly tripping over roots and trying to keep up with the others who were trying to keep it at a fast hike or slow jog. The others headlamps eventually disappearing in the darkness up ahead. Luckily Tom S stopped to check up on me. He tried to get me some new batteries in the dark, but between fumbling with the batteries and being feasted on by mosquitoes, we gave up and Tom S ended up following right behind me with his much more adequate headlamp.

A few miles of hiking uphill and we reached Spray Park as the first light of morning was making it so that headlamps were no longer needed. At that point we picked the pace up to a slow jog. Up around Spray Park we found quite a bit of snow, but the travel on it was quite easy as it was very consolidated and sun cupped. Crossing the snow that was side lit by the sunrise was pretty cool. Ben really picked up the pace the moment he hit the snow, he was in his element even if he wasn’t wearing skis.

crossing the Carbon River

As we cleared the high point, and started heading down to the Carbon River we were all pretty much moving at a good jogging pace. When we reached the Carbon River we stopped for our first real break of the day. I ate my second and last banana and second and last hard boiled egg. Nothing more for me that day other than energy food. As we headed out we encountered the first of two large foot suspension bridge, this being the one over the Carbon River.. It hangs quite some distance over the Carbon River and ominously warns hikers to only cross one at a time. The crossing provides a bit of a ride, bouncing and rocking.

We headed on up again, this time towards Mystic Lake, climbing along side the Carbon Glacier. An ominous sign told of the dangers of the glacier as we heard giant boulders previously frozen in the glacier breaking off of and falling over a hundred feet to the river below. Once past the the Carbon Glacier the trail weaved up amongst fields of very fragrant wild flowers filled with the constant sound of bees.

From Mystic Lake we headed down past the Winthrop Glacier, over the Winthrop River, then up to a high ridge near Skyscraper Mountain. I was a bit behind, and by the time I reached the high ridge the others were already relaxing a bit and taking a break. I was running low on water so I decided that rather than stopping, I would head on down the trail and take my break where ever I found water.

enjoying a beer at White River at the end of day one

I headed down towards a very unfrozen Frozen Lake to refilled my water at a small creek, then shortly after met Dave who had hiked in from White River to meet us. The others soon caught up, we all gathered in some of the sparse shade to say our hellos, and then took off jogging. Dave and I held back a bit and instead hiked on down towards Sunrise Camp then down to White River where the car that Dave had driven down that morning was located. That night he took over cooking and made us awesome carne asada steak quesadillas. After dinner and a Rainier Beer, it was early to bed, for another early start the next day.

Wonderland Trail in 3 Days?

Wonderland Trail in 3 days (day 2)

Wonderland Trail in 3 days (day 3)

All the pictures from the trip

Wonderland Trail in 3 Days?

2011-09-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

On July 27, 2010 around 8:45 AM, I completed a longtime goal of summiting Mount Rainier. Prior to that trip I had set far more grandiose plans for the "next trip"; things like climbing Denali or Aconcagua. However, the trip up Rainier was a big wake-up for me. Climbing Rainier was much more difficult than I had imagined it would be. So I decided to scale down plans for my "next trip", but I wasn't sure what would make a great adventure. It was not until late December of 2010 that I really started formulating an ideal of the "next trip", and my inspiration came from a post I found on the blog "Learning To Do". The post was all about running light and fast around the 93 mile Wonderland Trail that circumnavigates Mount Rainier. (Here is a PDF map of the trail and a PDF trail elevation profile from the National Park Service's web site).

I began talking to and emailing friends about my idea. I read the stories of others who had completed the Wonderland Trail in one, two or three days, and emailed some of them asking for advice. The stories definitely did not make it sound easy, but 93 miles split into 3 days, at an average pace of 3mph, that’s just an average of 11 hours a day. It seemed very reasonable. With a light pack I should easily be able to average 3mph. As time went on my enthusiasm for the trip grew and friends began to sign on to the the idea of joining me on this trip (although other, wiser, friends referred to the trip as tbe "Death March").

I sent a seemingly endless flood of emails to friends who would be interested in joining me on this, but as the time for a possible trip approached my wiser friends began to realize the true scope of what I had proposed. The unusually high snow levels on Mount Rainier in 2011 moved our trip back from the traditional time frame of late July/early August until the snow levels could make the trail passable. So the emails continued, and the trip got built up bigger and bigger.

My friend John suggested that everyone who plans on joining me on this trip should have to prove themselves by hiking or trail running 30 miles in one day. I took John's suggestion to heart and signed up for the Grand Ridge 50K in August. During the 50K trail run, I pretty easily managed 5mph over 31 miles with over 5K’ of elevation gain, so 3mph over that same distance during 3 days should be easy, right? Wrong! As I would later discover the Wonderland Trail is a very different path than a nice single track 50K trail run like Grand Ridge. Some of the climbs are far steeper, some of the descents are also steep traveling across loose rocks along a ledge, and crossing rivers (even though all the actual water is crossed on bridges) is not easy...river rocks do not lend themselves to fast travel. Then of course there is the issue of being more worn out each consecutive day, but of our group of four, two of us managed to finish it with a total time on the trail of just over 40 hours over a period of 3 days, that works out to be around 2-1/3 mph (but it sure felt like we were moving faster than that).

Wonderland Trail in 3 days (day 1)

Wonderland Trail in 3 days (day 2)

Wonderland Trail in 3 days (day 3)

All the pictures from the trip

My First Ultramarathon

2011-08-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I ran the Grand Ridge 50K trail race; my first ultramarathon. An ultramarathon is any running distance greater than the marathon distance of 26.2 miles or 42 kilometers. This was not something I had really planned on or particularly trained for two weeks ago I found the race listed online and thought I'd give it a go.

I had run the National Marathon in Washington DC back in March, and the weekend prior to signing up for the 50K I ran 22 miles, so I figured I could survive the 50K, but I had no idea how long it would take or how hard it would really be. In the back of my mind I thought it would take me at least 6 hours to complete, but I really didn't know.

Completely not knowing what to expect I showed up at the start of the race about 30 minutes early. I was told there were about 300 people running that day, but at different distances. There was a 5 miles trail run, a 1/2 marathon trail run, and a 50K trail run. Only about 30 or so people were running the 50K trail run which involved doing the 1/2 marathon course twice, then doing the 5 mile course. The 50K runners started 1/2 an hour before anyone else, and about 10 minutes prior to the start the race officials gave us a briefing of what to expect on the course and how the course would be marked so we could find our way. As we got ready to start, I moved myself to the back of the group not wanting to hold up the experienced runners, and found myself with a couple other first time 50K runners: Jerry and Stacy.

The race started and we took a very casual pace of about 11 or 12 minutes, then started up our first hill and dropped the pace to a fast hike. Jerry, Stacy and I stuck together for the first 8 miles, then at a turnaround we all took different paces. As the day progressed I would see Jerry and run with him again several times, and cross paths with Stacy. Through the first 10 miles or so of the race I had dreams of finishing in 6 hours, but as the day progressed 6 hours changed to 6-1/2 hours, then as I was completing my last 5 mile loop I realized it would take me at least 7 hours. In the end it took me 7 hours, 7 minutes, and 56.4 seconds. After the race when I looked at the results for the 50K I noticed there were only 2 people who finished in under 6 hours: the winner 4:39:59 and second place 5:18:17. In the end I was 12th place out of 25 finishers.

Running the race was very different that any other race I had done. There was the fact that this was all on trails, mostly single track, which required me to pay very close attention to the trail 5 to 10 feet ahead of me, so no zoning off listening to headphones. In fact everytime I gazed around I would trip, once even taking a big face plant on the trail. Next big difference was the attitude of the runners; all runs that I've done have a very positive attitude, but in this run you never crossed paths with another 50K runner without getting some kind of verbal encouragement. Many of the 50K runners stuck around at the finish to shout encouragement for people finishing up to an hour after them.

Despite being terribly sore the morning after, I think the event overall was a very positive experience and I look forward to having the opportunity to run another 50K!

The Family Roadtrip

2011-08-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

3,300 miles in a car with 2 small children and your wife is not what most people would consider fun, but some strange longing for past childhood memories of summer road trips in the 70s lead me to inflict this on my family. To be honest, my wife was totally on board with the general concept, although I was pretty certain neither of us knew what we were in for. I kept telling friends that this would either be a wonderful trip or the worst trip of my life.

We were going to drive from Seattle to New Mexico and back, camping and visiting family and friends along the way. The plan was to drive 10 hours from Seattle to Bozeman and spend some time with my brother-in-law, then 155 miles down to Yellowstone and camp with my family and my brother-in-law, then 8-1/2 hours down to Steam Boat Lake State Park in Colorado, followed by 8 hours down to New Mexico to spend several days with family in a cabin north of Taos, then 8-1/2 hours East to Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah, followed by 9 hours up to Boise, and finally 8-1/2 hours back home to Seattle.

Sunrise during our early morning start

All of our days on the road (with the exception of our first night in Bozeman and our time spent at the family cabin in New Mexico) would be spent camping. What were we thinking?

The days leading up to the trip were a chaotic mix of trying to get everything necessary done at work and home before the vacation, add to all this trying to make reservations at campsites during the week of Independence Day; one of the busiest camping weekends of the year. After I mentioned my planned trip to a few coworkers, they suggested that I should head out in the wee hours of the morning on the first day, allowing us to reach our first destination with time to enjoy it, and allowing the cars passengers to sleep as we put miles behind us. It seemed like a brilliant idea to me, but my wife wasn’t on board. After a bit of a fight between my wife she very reluctantly agreed to put up with the crazy idea, but was not happy with it at all. We left at 3:30 AM.

The coffee shops opened as we went thought Ellensburg, lunch was in Missoula, and we arrived in Bozeman around 4 PM (even with the change to Mountain Timezone). Bozeman was a great town, and I broke one of my cardinal rules about not having fish more than 300 miles from a coastline and ate dinner at the restaurant my brother-in-law works at, Dave’s Sushi. The next morning we headed out to Yellowstone with my brother-in-law following behind us several hours later. We got to the very busy Yellowstone campsite near Grant Village, and checked in. At check-in we were informed that every couple days a 550 pound grizzly had been wandering through the campsite. The grizzly hadn’t figured out how to get into cars, so it was suggested we store all of our food in our car. After setting up our campsite we headed off to see Old Faithful where we met up with my brother-in-law.

The girls at the entrance to Yellow Stone National Park

The next day we got a late start and headed off to Steamboat Lake State Park in Colorado (just North of Steamboat Springs). Google had routed us South though the Grand Teton National park, though Jackson Wyoming, and eventually meeting up with Interstate 80 for about 50 miles before heading South again into Colorado. Grand Teton National park was filled with a million different views of the same amazing scene of the Tetons. We arrived in Jackson just in time to have a great lunch at the Silver Dollar Bar & Grill. By 4:30 PM it became clear we would not be arriving at our Colorado campsite until fairly late, so we made a stop at the Rock Springs, Wyoming McDonalds to get some quick food for the girls (nothing worse than having hungry AND tired young passengers). Then it was onto I-80 for the only miles of interstate we would drive between Bozeman and Eagle Nest, New Mexico.

Grand Tetons

Unfortunately the desire to really open up our Mazda 5 and see what it could do was too much for Kathy as she got pulled over and ticketed less than 30 minutes before we were to get off the interstate. I think I confused the Wyoming State Patrol officer when I said to him “Oh good, maybe you can help us with some road closures we heard about”. We had seen a sign earlier when getting onto I-80 that said that Wyoming SR-70 was closed indefinitely due to a landslide. I knew our route had us on SR-70 for quite a few miles, but I wasn’t sure if it was before or after our turn off onto the little county road that would take us to Steam Boat Lake. I actually needed to know this, because other alternative plan was continue on I-80 to Laramie or Chyenne and just get a motel room for the night. Unfortunately the officer was no help in this department, but the limited cell service that I had and my iPhone managed to get me enough information to suggest that we would probably be okay. Probably.

view from Steamboat Lake campground

We continued on I-80 for a little longer then onto SR-70. We were listening to the radio and several miles off of I-80 the emergency broadcasting service broke in with a warning of tornadoes in SE Wyoming, “find shelter immediately”. We were in the middle of nowhere, with nothing resembling services anywhere behind or ahead of us. After re-confirming where we were, we decided that the tornadoes where likely quite a ways East of us and we (hopefully) wouldn’t be coming anywhere near them.
We got off or SR-70 in the tiny Wyoming town of Baggs, then proceded to visit increasingly smaller towns of Dixon (population 79) and Savery (population 25). Then the pavement ended. Kathy drove us on the next 2 hours on increasingly rougher dirt roads, up into the mountains, as we continued along the dirt road up into the mountains, we were greeted with views of deer running into the woods as the sun was setting. Eventually we reached the location of our campground, the beautiful Steam Boat Lake.

The next morning we casually prepared breakfast, packed the car back up and headed out. We stopped in Steamboat Springs to get Starbucks and wash the car (unlike 4x4s, Mazda 5s don't look cool when they are totally covered in dirt). As we continued on we decided to stop, for the novelty of it, in Leadville Colorado for lunch. At 10,152 feet Leadville is the highest incorporated municipality in the United States. Then on to Buena Vista Colorado where I was inspired to stop for ice cream by Colorado Twitter legend Steve Garufi.

As we left the mountains of Colorado the drive became increasing more boring was we drove to Questa New Mexico, then to Red River New Mexico, and finally arriving at the family cabin near the tiny town of Eagle Nest New Mexico. We had arrived, and had 3 days to relax, before starting the whole crazy road trip back. But that will have to be another post.

Blog Resurrection

2011-06-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

Sadly it's been 244 days since my last entry here. So what have I been up to all that blogless time? My last post dealt with running the Portland Marathon in October 2010. Since then I've done a fair bit of running. Shortly after my last post I ran the UW Dawg Dash 10K, followed by the Seattle 1/2 Marathon at the end of November (a terrible time to run a race in Seattle), then I kicked up my training though the Winter, in preparation to run another full marathon in March of this year, but before doing the marathon I ran the St Patrick's Day Dash, then it was off to Washington DC for the National Marathon on March 26, followed by the UW Bothell 5K, and my best run to date the Seattle's Best 15K.

So what's the point? I'm certainly not winning any of these races, I'm not even raising money for any of the causes supported by the races (at least not intentionally). All this running is entirely for my own selfish pleasure. But if you back a couple years to 2009, you probably couldn't get me to run more than a couple hundred yards to catch a bus (and in all reality, there will be another bus coming eventually, so why bother).

Originally I would have told you that the point of all this running was to get in shape for my climb up Mount Rainier at the end of July 2010, but as I found out when going up Rainier, running (alone) is an inadequate means of training for mountain climbing. At one point I might have told you that I run because of the health benefits: I went from quarterly visits to the doctor to a much more normal annual doctor visit, I might also try and quote that crazy popular book that is credited with reviving the current running trend (yah, I read it too). Lately one of the reasons I tell myself I do all this running is that it might help to inspire others to start running (I would like to think that it has). However if I'm going to be honest with myself, running has become something of an addiction for me. When I take a day or two off of running, I can feel the withdrawal symptoms kicking in as I see someone running from a car or bus that I might be in. I really want to go run.

So how am I going to feed this addiction? I figure I can just keep pushing myself a little further every year. Maybe next year I'll try an ultra-marathon, the 50K Mount Si Relay & Ultra seems like a good first utlra-marathon to try. Perhaps I'll try gaining membership in Marathon Maniacs. Also, I would also like to do one of the World Marathon Majors, the Chicago Marathon in 2012 might be a good one to do. Regardless, I'm certain that running is a good thing for me, and I want to stick with it. For this year the only big goal is to run 1000 miles or roughly just less than 20 miles a week. Right now I'm at 462 miles and I would really like to be over 500 miles by the July 1 half way mark, but that's just 38 miles in 2 weeks, shouldn't be a problem.

You ran a marathon? How long was it?

2010-10-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

Strangely the question that everyone who does a marathon gets asked by non-marathon runners is, "You ran a marathon? How long was it?".

For the record, a marathon is not less than 26.2 miles, or 26 miles and 365 feet, 42.195 kilometers, and it can not be more than 1% greater than that distance (or roughly more than 42 meters longer).

The mistake that most everyone makes, including many marathon runners is why the distance is 26.2 miles. Most people believe that that is the distance that Pheidippides, a Greek messenger, ran to announce that the Greeks had defeated the Persians in the Battle of Marathon. However, the Greek historian Herodotus mentions Pheidippides ran from Athens to Sparta asking for help, then ran back; 150 miles each way or 300 miles total.

However the distance of the modern marathon was not fixed until May 1921 by the International Amateur Athletic Foundation, prior to that the distance was approximately 25 miles or roughly the distance from Marathon to Athens by the long route. The reason for 26.2 miles: that was the distance set for the marathon in the 1908 Olympics with the dramatic finish by Dorando Pietri.

By the way, all of this was pulled from Wikipedia's article on marathon, if you want to read it all yourself.

Portand Marathon

2010-10-11T10:24:00.000-07:00

The Portland Marathon was hard, and it hurt a lot. I awoke at 4:45 AM on the day of the marathon and noted the pouring rain outside. It would continue to rain almost non-stop until after I had finished the race. By 6:45 AM I was wrapped in a plastic garbage bag and huddling under some available cover at the Convention Center with at least 150 other runners in my coral waiting for the 7:00 AM start time. I was in the light blue "D" group, so it was closer to 7:15 AM when we actually started moving.

The start of the race was great! The drum core, the shouts of the spectators! However a mere hour into the race I knew I was going to be in for some hurt. My left knee and hip were starting to bother me, and all I could think was that I pushed it too hard when I had done the Bellingham Bay 1/2 marathon 2 weeks prior to this. So I decided to take it slow and try and finish in under 4:30 rather than delude myself with any idea of a faster finish time. Originally I thought if everything was perfect I could conceivably finish in under 4:00, but just an hour into the run I knew that wasn't going to happen.

Around mile 17 or 18 both hips were really starting to hurt, which is something I had never experienced before when running. By mile 20 I was just trying to keep up with the 4:30 pacer, but by mile 22 the pacer was out of site and I was constantly stopping to stretch and walk. Walking really didn't ease the pain, and starting running again really hurt. I felt as though I had tons of energy, it's just that I hurt. Bad.

I vowed to run my last 3 miles in without taking any walking breaks, if for no reason other than it hurt so bad to start running after I had stopped to walk a bit. I even picked up the pace a bit around mile 25, however seeing mile 26 totally energized me and I gave it everything I had and ran as fast as I could, trying to not let anyone pass me that last 365 feet (one guy definitely did, but he finished only a second ahead of me). In the end I finished at 4:44:00. Despite the pain and cold, all I could think of is that I can't wait until my next marathon so that I can improve upon that time!

What's the Big Picture?

2010-10-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

So it's been over 8 months since I've sat down to write anything here. But I suppose that's because I've been busy working on some changes. Last year the big change was massively increase the amount I commuted by bike. This year I decided to kick it up a notch when I realized that it would be my last full year before I turned 40. So I created a kind of 1/2 bucket list (a list of things to do when you're around 1/2 way to the bucket kicking!?). The list went something like this:

I was not going to say "no" to any reasonable fun request of my time (my brother always goes on these amazing ski adventures, and I always say, "no, I probably shouldn't go").
I would get myself in shape (I've been saying that for over 10 years).
I would climb Mt. Rainier.

I kicked off the first item on my list by taking 2 amazing ski trips to Canada. First with a co-worker who invited me for several days of cat-skiing in the Monashee Mountains. Next was a week of skiing in the Selkirk Mountains with my brother; first at Revelstoke, then at Valhalla Mountain Touring.

The next two items on my list were sort of combined. In order to climb Mt. Rainier I would need to get in shape. I started running and hiking as much as my schedule allowed. In May I did my first running race since well before my daughters were born, the UW Bothell 5K. In June I did the Seattle Rock & Roll 1/2 Marathon. At the end of June I made an attempt at climbing Mt. Baker in one day, but fell short of the summit by 1,000 feet. When July rolled around, I thought I was ready for Mt Rainier; I summit-ed, but it kicked my butt. On Sunday I go for the next big step in getting in shape, and I run my first marathon in Portland Oregon. When all is said and done, a guy who couldn't run a mile to catch a bus a little over a year ago, will have run 2 full marathons and 3 1/2 marathons in the span of a year.

So what's this all about anyways? I'm in better shape than I've been in years (or ever), I've found a new activity that I enjoy (running), but now what? What does it all lead to? What does it all ultimately amount to? Running a marathon and climbing Mt Rainier were things that seemed well out my grasp a couple years ago, but I did it (or after Sunday I will have). I know it sounds corny, but I suppose what it all means is that I have proven to myself I can accomplish anything I set out to do. So maybe it's time to set the bar a bit higher...

Ride in the Rain

2009-12-01T11:59:00.000-08:00

I was feeling pretty good about myself having done 1000+ miles of my commute this past year by bike; that is, until November ended. November was "Ride in the Rain" month at the University of Washington; basically the University’s transportation services department challenges bicycle commuters to commute to and from work as much as possible during the month of November (one of the rainiest months of the year in Seattle). The thing is it’s not that much of a commitment to say you are going to bike every day in November since November is generally one the shorter work month of the year with Veteran’s day, Thanksgiving, and the day after Thanksgiving as holidays. I did manage to make it though the entire month of November and only missing one day of biking into work; so despite the short month I managed to rack up more miles than any other month in 2009.

Then I saw the stats of the other “Ride in the Rain” cyclists. One guy in particular racked up 828 miles in the month of November (granted his one way commute is 23 miles!). Another guy with a commute that is just as long as mine made 28 round trips in the month of November (granted this means that guy went into work every week day, weekend day, and one of the three holidays). Clearly I am not hard core. Consider that in my attempt to commute by bike as much as possible during 2009 it took me 3 months of biking to rack up as many days of biking as one guy did during the cold rainy month of November, and it took me 10 months to rack up as many miles as one guy did in a single rainy cold wet month.

I’ve still got the month of December to commute by bike before the year of 2009 is over. If I bike every single day in December that I intend to be at work that gives me another 20 days of biking, but with family coming into town for the holidays I’m likely to take a few days off. Despite the fact that I don’t stand up against the best of the bike commuters (or even place in the top 40 for my place of work), I do feel that my attempt to commute 1000 miles by bike in 2009 was successful and I kind of feel the need to outdo myself in 2010. Maybe for 2010 I’ll shoot for 2000 miles commuted by bicycle! ...but don't hold me to it, I've got other things to focus on now, like skiing!

My 1000 Mile Commute Winds Down

2009-10-29T23:04:00.000-07:00

This year I didn’t even pull out my bike out until February 12. However, back on February 19 I decided to challenge myself to travelling 1000 miles of my commute in 2009 by bicycle. My commute is roughly 12-1/2 miles round trip; so to commute 1000 miles by bike I needed 80 round trips. To keep track of the days, I recorded every day I biked here (6.25 miles for a one way only trip, 12.5 miles for a round trip).

Flash forward 8-1/2 months later and November is approaching, the year is starting to wind down, and I am within 3 days of complete my goal. I added up the days left for me to commute by bike, taking into account holidays and planned days off, and figured out I have 37 days in which I can commute by bike, so pulling off 3 days shouldn't be too difficult.

Though out the year of commuting I had setbacks; weeks I just didn’t get on my bike. However there were also weeks where I biked regardless of the conditions; I actually commuted by bike on the hottest day in Seattle history, or today which was probably the coldest and wettest ride in this year. I even videoed my commute for posterity. Regardless of how hot or wet it got, my bike ride was rarely more than 40 minutes long, which was usually quicker than taking the bus to work. I admit that in the larger scheme of things biking 12-1/2 miles to and from work is no big deal. Yet when its all said it done, it will feel kind of cool to say “I commuted 1000 miles by bike in 2009”.

Maybe in 2010 I should try for 2000...

2009 Hike on Mount Rainier to Camp Muir

2009-09-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

Mount Rainier is the highest peak in the state of Washington and a National Park. Every year thousands of people climb it. Although I have always wanted to climb the mountain, it is a fairly large commitment in time (conditioning for the trip) and money (guide service + equipment), so I set a goal that is a fair bit more attainable: hiking to Camp Muir. Camp Muir is the base camp for most climbers of Mount Rainier, and at just above 10,000’ it is the highest point you can hike on the mountain without a climbing permit.

Every year I say I’m going to hike Mount Rainier to Camp Muir, but in the past ten years I have only done this trip 3 times (2003, 2006 and again this year). This year I brought my wife, her sister and husband (who hiked it with me in 2006). In the past we would get up at 3 a.m. drive to Paradise on Mount Rainier at 5,400’, and start hiking hopefully by 7 a.m. but usually closer to 8 a.m.. This year to avoid the super early wake up, and hopefully get an earlier start we stayed at the National Park Inn; a lodge inside the park 8 miles from Paradise at Longmire.

Unfortunately a late wake up and the lure of a hot breakfast at the Longmire lodge pushed our start time on the hike to 8:30 a.m.. Lack of snow meant the path up the mountain was going to be very icy or very rocky. Finally the approach to Camp Muir involved negotiating numerous crevasses, further slowing us down. In the end the hike took us 8 ½ hours, combined with one hour spent at Camp Muir and a wrong turn on the way down, the 9+ mile round trip was 9 ½ hours.

The hike follows excellent trails for the first 2 ½ miles. Then the trails promptly ends at an area called the Muir Snow field. There you begin your travel on snow following a compass heading and other people’s tracks. Before long the snowfield ends and the glaciers begin. Our group lacked crampons so we opted to travel on the rock fields as much as possible rather than travel on the steep icy glaciers. (In 2003 I had a friend slip on the glaciers while coming down. He slid several hundred feet before coming to a stop. The rough ice ripped up his leg, and the bacteria on the glaciers caused him to get a rather nasty infection in the wound).

Despite the long day the trip was well worth it. Our long hike was rewarded with amazing views of Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens and in the distance Mount Hood in Oregon.

Family Vacation to Glacier National Park by Train

2009-08-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

As I previously mentioned, this last Christmas my wife gave me as a Christmas gift the freedom to plan a family train trip for 2009. The trip I planned: take the Empire Builder train from Seattle to Glacier National Park, 2 nights at the historic Glacier National Park lodge, and then return home by train.

I left work early on a Wednesday afternoon to catch a 4:45 p.m. train. My wife met me at the train station with my daughters. We boarded our train to find a very nice family bedroom on the train, our sleeping car attendant Donna greeted us with personal bottles of sparkling wine for my wife and I and sparkling cider for my daughters. Although our family bedroom was not big, it was far larger than anything we had ever shared on a plane or car. While we were at Dinner Donna changed our room from seats to beds. The room was made up of two kid sized bunks, and two adult sized bunks with a larger bottom bunk that was kind of like a small full sized bed. My oldest daughter slept on the top bunk with my younger daughter on the bottom. The top bunk had a strap that kept my daughter from falling out of the bed.

Unfortunately the train did not get the Sightseer lounge car until we met with the train from Portland in Spokane (around midnight), so after we finished dinner in the dining car there wasn't much to do other than hang out in our car. We let the girls got to watch about half a movie on my laptop before going to bed, then my wife and I went to the empty room next to ours and shared a bottle of wine we had brought from home. When I woke up the next morning I was in something of a daze, I wasn't certain what time it was with the time zone change, and for a while I was somewhat worried we had missed our stop and were zooming though Eastern Montana. Donna assured me we hadn't even reached Whitefish Montana yet, so we headed up for breakfast as the train made its Whitefish stop.

From Whitefish Montana it was another two hours of slowly snaking our way though the scenic Southern border of Glacier National Park before we reached our destination of East Glacier Park Village. From the train station it was about a 200 yard walk to the Glacier National Park Lodge where we stayed. I hauled our luggage to the lodge then hiked back to the other side of the train tracks to pick up our rental car.

With our own set of wheels, we headed north to Many Glacier Lodge for lunch. After giving the girls a chance to run around and play in Swift Current Lake (which Many Glacier Lodge sits on the shore of) we headed back to the lodge at East Glacier park. On the way back we saw a number of cars parked on the side of the road with their passengers all out with cameras and one park ranger vehicle with a nervous looking ranger, in Glacier National Park this can mean only one thing: BEAR! So being typical tourists I quickly stopped the car, told my wife and daughters not to get out of the car, then jumped out of the car with my camera. The bear was mostly oblivious to us as it feasted on huckleberries. The ranger, who I now noticed was carrying a shotgun was clearly VERY nervous as he tried to control little old ladies trying to wander across the street to get a better view, and cars stopping mere feet from the bear trying to get a closer picture. I decided that there was a fair chance that the ranger might fire off a shot just to scare off the bear, and I didn't want to deal with two little girls crying from a loud shot gun blast, so I decided it was time to continue back to our lodge.

Back at Glacier National Park Lodge we were finally able to check into our room. The room was basic and rustic; no phone, no TV, no internet, but we did have access to our 3rd floor balcony looking out towards the park. Based on the fact that I spent $175 a night to stay in that room, I have to admit I was a little disappointed the room wasn't a bit nicer, but then again, we didn't come for the room.

The next morning we got a quick continental breakfast with plans to drive up to Logan's Pass. Since it was a vacation I let my girls eat fruit loops for breakfast. With a friends story of getting to Logan's pass and finding the parking lot full I drove as fast as I could safely drive on the windy highway 49. Turns out this was a big mistake. My youngest daughter started whining in the back seat and wouldn't stop. By the time my wife figured out what the problem was my daughter had emptied the contents of her stomach all over the rental car. At that point I was convinced the day was a loss, but my wife cleaned up the mess, and insisted we continue on. A quick stop in the town of St. Mary to get my youngest daughter all new clothing and we were back on our way.

We had no problem finding parking at Logan's pass, and took the girls on an amazing 3 mile hike. My oldest daughter hiked the entire trail on her own, and my youngest daughter spent about 2/3rds of the hike on either my shoulders or my wife's. As we reached the highpoint on the hike mountain goats started appearing from every direction. As three mountain goats walked past me with my youngest daughter on my shoulders I pulled out my camera and told my daughter, "Look there's the 3 billy goats gruff". From my shoulders my daughter started banging my head and shouting "Dat my book daddy! Dat my book!". A little further along the trail and we saw a pair of big horn sheep. They were a bit more skittish of people, but we were still able to get close enough to get some great photos. As we continued on the trail we found a couple of big horn sheep. The big horn sheep were not as interested in getting close to the hikers as the mountain goats were, but they did get close enough for me to get a few great pictures.

For our final day in Glacier National Park we had decided to take it easy and rather than drive to some far corner of the park we went for a Red Bus tour. The bus took us to Two Medicine lake where we took a 45 minute boat trip across the lake and back. Then the bus took us to Running Eagle Falls (a.k.a. Trick Falls), and finally returned us home. We hung out around the lodge and the town of East Glacier before our train trip home.

I look forward to the next opportunity I can visit the park, either on my own or with my family. I feel like we didn't even begin to scratch the surface of what this park has to offer!

Planning a Family Train Trip

2009-08-17T10:05:00.001-07:00

I’m preparing for the last family trip of summer. It will be a short trip, but I am really looking forward to it. Last Christmas my wife gave me a train trip as a Christmas gift. My wife knows that I love to travel by train, so she told me I could plan a family train trip for sometime in 2009.

Here is the trip I planned: We leave on Wednesday afternoon from Seattle on the Amtrak Empire Builder route (Seattle to Chicago). The next morning we wake up in Montana and get off the train in East Glacier Park. We spend two nights at the historic Glacier National Park Lodge. Then return home by train, leaving East Glacier Park on Saturday afternoon and getting back to Seattle Sunday morning.

On the train, our family of 4 will be sharing what Amtrak calls a family bedroom. It has two large bunks for adults and two small bunks for the kids.

The goal in planning the trip was to make it long enough so that it was a true adventure, but keep it short enough so that we didn't all go stir crazy on the train. Before my wife and I had kids we took the Coast Starlight from LA to Seattle; that's a 36 hour train trip, a little bit much for my kids first real train trip. Traveling out of Seattle you only have 2 major train train routes: The Coast Starlight and the Empire builder. The scenery on the Coast Starlight is amazing South of Portland Oregon, but much of Washington doesn't ofter much in see. However the scenery on the Empire Builder is incredible from the moment you leave the station.

On the Empire builder you leave Seattle, cross the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, then head up to Everett Washington along the waterfront. In Everett the train turns East and heads into the Cascade mountains. Through most of Eastern Washington an Idaho it is night. Morning comes just as you are about to head into the Rocky mountains skirting the Southern border of Glacier National Park. Arriving at East Glacier Park late in the morning and right in front of the Glacier National Park Lodge!

We'll bring plenty of snacks and probably a laptop with us for the girls to watch movies on the train if they want. However there will be no wifi, and probably no cell service though much of Glacier National Park. Although there are numerous shuttles and buses to get you around the park, we chose to rent a car in East Glacier to give us a little more freedom to get around and be able to stay on track with my youngest daughters nap times.

I have described our planned vacation to anyone who would listen, and everyone has given me the same response, "Sounds like so much fun, but I am going to be very curious to hear how it goes". This could be an incredible adventure, or trapped in a train with two stir crazy little girls who can't sleep on a train.

Several years ago, before my youngest daughter was born, my wife, older daughter, and I did a short train trip from Seattle to Portland (a little over 3 hours). We stayed the night in Portland and returned the next day. The thing that made that train trip so great was that my daughter and I could get up and walk around and explore the train, we look out the windows at the scenery going by, or go get a snack whenever we wanted. And the seats on the train were plenty big enough for us to stretch out for a nap. When you are travelling by car or plane you stuck in your seat, you eat only when you are served or when you stop. When you travel by pane you have to deal with the craziness of getting though security and having to show up 2 hours early (20 minutes is fine for the train). The downside to train travel in the USA is that it is often more expensive than flying or driving and takes longer to get to your destination than flying (and often takes longer than driving). However when you travel by train, the trip is part of the joy of the vacation!

Sometime next week I hope to have a report on how the trip when.

My Commute Continues...

2009-02-25T13:10:00.000-08:00

Work has an event going on called "Ride In The Rain" (which I didn't sign up for). The idea is you compete for the most miles commuted by bike, the most days commuted by bike and the most day of commuting by bike in the rain. The 2009 event started on Sunday February 15 and goes for 4 weeks; the top rider is at 288 miles! If I only count the miles I've ridden starting February 15 I was at 104 miles, but now I'm down to 100 miles. The reason I say that is because the Ride In The Rain site referenced an online tool GMaps Peodometer that lets you calculate the distance of your route by bike or foot or whatever. GMaps wouldn't let me be completely accurate with my route, but it looked more accurate than my previous calculations and it brought the round trip down to just over 12.5 miles (so I lost 1/2 a mile on my round trip). The good news for me is that I still need to bike the same 80 days to get to 1000 miles of bike commuting in 2009.

Here's what my ride home looks like

My 1000 Mile Commute in 2009

2009-02-19T11:59:00.000-08:00

I’ve always been a bit of a fair-weather bike commuter, but with each successive job I’ve had over the past 12 years (there has been 4 of them), I’ve moved a little closer to home. With each new job, I’ve added a few more days of commuting by bike. At my current job at the University of Washington, the route I take when I commute by bicycle is just over 13 miles round trip (a little more according to Google Maps, a little more still according to my bikes odometer).

As a fair weather biker my bike usually doesn’t get pulled out until late May and gets put away in early October. During a normal year I will commute to work by bike a couple days here, a couple days there. Eventually I find a good book to read and start taking the bus so I can read my book, and my bike gets put away. However, this year will be different; I have set a goal of using my bike to commute 1000 miles in 2009. That’s roughly 80 days of round trip commuting by bike if I take my usual route. There are 261 work days in 2009. However, if I exclude most of January, and half of February (I started on February 12), exclude planned vacation days (2009 is already totally planned out) and only count work days based on my alternative work schedule (9-9s, or 9 hour days with every other Friday off), I am left 191 days to complete my task. So I will need to bike a bit less than half of my scheduled work days in 2009.

The rules are I have set for myself are as follows: Regardless of the route I take I can only count a maximum of 13 miles round trip (6.5 miles each way). If I put my bike on the bus for any part of a trip in either direction, that half of the commute does not count. I can only count miles biked in the commute to and from work (no going on a long bike ride on the weekend and counting that). I have to publicly post how I am doing here.

So to most bike commuters, this is nothing (the guy I share an office with bikes every day that there isn’t snow on the ground), but for a fair-weather cyclist like myself with a delicate posterior this is a bit of an undertaking.

To the non-bike commuter who asks “why bother?” Sadly the reason is cycling and skiing is the only real exercise I get. I really don’t have time to go to the gym on a regular basis, and wouldn’t go even if I did have time (don’t really like gyms). I need to get some kind of exercise and taking care of it during my commute seems like the easiest way.

EDIT: I fully admit that biking 6.5 miles at a time can hardly be considered "exercise", but I gotta start somewhere.

Death of Kevin Black

2009-02-05T10:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday it was reported in Seattle area news papers that a cyclist was hit and killed by a van in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. As more information became available we learned that the man was a 39 year old father of two and researcher at the University of Washington.

I admit that I don't know the guy, but this story really got to me. As a father of two little girls myself and employee of the University of Washington I have also often commuted to work by bike, probably taking almost the exact same route as Kevin Black; this guy could have been me.

I am definitely a fair-weather bike commuter; last fall my bike got put away in the shed waiting for longer warmer days. I imagine my normal bike commute is likely very similar to this Kevin Black’s: The majority of the ride is on the relatively safe Burke-Gilman trail, but between my house in Ballard and the start of the Burke-Gilman trail I have maybe a mile on the streets of Ballard. I am by no means a hard core cyclist, I often choose the least busy roads to slowly make my way though Ballard, the reason is that I’m the kind of person who is hyper-aware of cars around me…often just short of terrified to ride on the streets, but I wasn’t always like this.

The reason for my current attitude about biking around cars comes primarily from an incident a couple years ago. It was a summer day when I was commuting home from work, sometimes on nice days I would make my way from the Burke-Gilman trail West all the way to 34th Ave NW and bike casually up that hill to my house maybe going all the way up to sunset hill park to catch a little of the sunset. While biking West down Market Street in Ballard West of 24th street (this was before 24th had its current bike lane) I had a car pull out of its parking spot on my side of the street right in front of me. I was prepared for someone to pull out of their parking spot into traffic, but NOT prepared for what this guy did, which was to pull out of his spot to do a full U-turn in front of me. Luckily the guy saw me half way though his U-turn, but not before I had to swerve into the two lanes of oncoming traffic on the opposite side of the street. I managed to avoid the guy making the U-turn and avoid running head on into oncoming traffic, but I was pretty shaken up. Things could have gone different in so many ways.

Even thought the days are a bit longer and warmer, right now I’m a lot less enthusiastic about pulling out my bike out of the shed than I was a couple days ago.

My 25 List

2009-01-28T15:33:00.000-08:00

I'm a little behind in this but here is my list of 25 things about me that you might not know, or might find interesting, might not care about at all.

I deeply wish I could travel more.
Photography is my favorite hobby.
I love getting to take a nap on the weekends.
I have climbed to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,330 ft), Wheeler Peak in New Mexico (13,161), Mt. Hood (11,249 ft), Mt. Eleanor (5,944 ft), and Mt. Si (4,167 ft).
I hope to one day get to take my family to visit Africa.
I love being outside but so often have a hard time of leaving the comfort of my chair inside.
I have an abnormal fear of spiders.
I have flown over the North Pole twice.
New Mexico is my favorite state.
I have seen the northern lights twice from Washington State.
I met my wife in Paris.
I have a scar bellow my lower lip where as a baby my tooth pierced my skin when had a major wreck on one of those now outlawed baby walkers with wheels.
I once taught a basic riflery course.
I have a photograph I took hanging on a wall at the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington DC.
I recently fell in love with chewing gum.
I am the proud father of 2 beautiful daughters.
I once spent a summer in the Texas panhandle mending barb wire fences and "working the cattle".
My favorite beer is Pabst.
I once ran around a track twice with no shirt on, when it was -20 F while in Moscow Russia.
My fondest food memory was from a back alley restaurant in Lisbon, Portugal.
I once spent a summer working in a fish processing plan.
My first cassette tape was The Police - Synchronicity.
I absolutely love traveling by train.
I once drove 900 miles to get to a Grateful Dead concert, and then didn't even see the concert.
I have ridden my bike the 200 miles from Seattle, Washington to Portland Oregon on at least 3 occasions.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

2008-12-05T13:19:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

New Neighborhood Restaurant

2008-10-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

I finally got something that I have been wanting for a VERY long time: A neighborhood restaurant that I can easily walk to from my house. Yes, I know, living in Ballard, I have tons of options for restaurants that I can walk to in 20 minutes. This place, however, is just a few blocks down the street from my house!

After seemingly endless remodeling (seriously it seemed to go on for YEARS), Picolinos finally opened this last Tuesday. So in a move that was driven more by blind eagerness to try something new than intelligence, Kathy and I took the girls to the new restaurant yesterday (Friday). Although Picolinos was pretty kid friendly, my daughters (at least the little one) are not always restaurant friendly.

The menu has pizza, pasta, and a few Italian entrees and a nice beer and wine list. We got there shortly after they opened for the day at 5PM, and quickly ordered the girls some pasta with the idea that they would be occupied eating right away, then a little later we ordered our food and a bottle of Chianti. By the time the food arrived Nadia was pretty much covered in butter and pasta and had made the decision that she was not at a restaurant but instead a playground. Siena was only slightly better, but that had to do with me making desperate empty promises of candy when she got home.

Kathy and I made the decision to have our meals boxed, but unfortunately that wasn’t going to work for the bottle of wine. So in true Gorohoff fashion, we pounded the bottle of Chianti (something that I highly discourage ever trying if you have never done it), and returned home to enjoy our meal where our girls could run free.

The boxed food was very good, and while we were there the service was great. The reason for me writing all this up: I want everyone to try this place out. I want it to succeed, I really want a neighborhood restaurant that stays the test of time.

So if you’re in Ballard for dinner, check out Picolinos!
http://www.ristorantepicolinos.com/

VOTE!

2008-10-02T12:29:00.000-07:00

I like shiny new things

2008-07-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

I did it, I went out and got an iPhone. I couldn't help myself; it's what all the cool kids were doing! So I had to have one too! The funny thing is that everyone else was just talking about getting an iPhone (my boss had actually ordered one from AT&T), but I end up being the first one to actually own one. All Apple stores appeared to be either hopelessly sold out, so I opted for ordering one from AT&T and I had the phone 2 days later.

I had always said I would never get an iPhone. My cellphone plan was obscenely cheap and I was getting a free Windows Mobile device with free data plan from work. The problem was I had a cellphone, a Windows Mobile device, and an iPod that Iwas carrying around everwhere, and I was usally forgetting one of the 3 devices either at home or at work.

Now everthing will be handled in one device. Granted, the iPhone plan will be more expensive, but because of where I work I do get a nice discount. Most important, it's shiny and new (until the next shiny new thing comes out...)

Family Vacations and Southwest Airlines

2008-07-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

Southwest Airlines had always been my favorite airlines to fly with my kids. They are often the most affordable airlines, they allowed people with small children board first, they are always friendly, and the fact that they didn’t feed you didn’t matter because you always bring tons of food when travelling with small children. For all these reasons I told everyone, the only airlines to fly with kids is Southwest. However, since my last family vacation Southwest had changed their policy about families with small children getting to board first. The new policy was that if you were travelling with small children you board between group A and group B. This might mean 50+ people boarding before you.

So why does this matter? Why should people with small children be entitled to early boarding? The reason is that it takes us a lot longer to get settled with squirming kids, and our maximum allowed number of carry-on bags, a stroller, and multiple car seats to set up on the plane. This completely blocks everyone else from getting past you until you’re settled. Also, since Southwest has a first come first serve seating policy you might have to break a large family group up rather than having them all together (yes, I admit that getting to go between group A and group B you will almost always find 3 seats together, but you won’t necessarily find 3 rows of 3 seats together which is nice when you are traveling with a family group of 8 or more people).

I just finished a family vacation where we flew Southwest (mostly because it was the only airlines that flew direct to our location). So while I was waiting for boarding to begin I asked someone from Southwest why the change in policy? Her response was that she wasn’t entirely sure, but she did know that a lot of people were abusing the family-with-small-children-board-first thing, and a lot more people without kids were complaining about family-with-small-children-board-first thing. I know that I for one definitely did abuse the policy: I would use my then 2 year old daughter as a first class board first ticket for me and 8 or 9 other adult family members. I had also seen other people trying to convince the airlines that they needed extra time to board with their 13 year old son. As for people complaining, one of the most vocal critics was my own father, he would rant and rave about how unfair it was that family with small kids was boarding before. He would cause a scene loudly asking why he showed up 2 hours early so he could be up front in the line and still these families are boarding before him (my dad has never traveled with either of my young daughters). Seriously, my father gets more flustered talking about the Southwest family boarding policy than he does talking about politics.

Although the old policy seemed very unfair, what ultimately would happen is all the people traveling with small crying noisy children would all group together at the front of the plane and everyone else toward the back. Ultimately the families with the yelling noisy bothersome kids would be somewhat separated from the rest of the adult business traveler passengers. With the new policy we were forced in amongst a number of business travelers who didn’t seem delighted about my screaming 18 month old daughter of my chair kicking 4 year old daughter (if it wasn’t a 7 AM flight I would have offered to buy everyone around us drinks).

We all survived the flight, and we all got to sit together. However I no longer recommend Southwest as the only airlines to fly when traveling with children, and I will definitely investigate other options for flying with children in the future. Southwest falls to the position of all other airlines for me now, whoever has the cheapest ticket or the only direct flight gets my business.

The Legend of Blue Ribbon Expeditions (Part 3)

2008-05-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

Yah, I know, I skipped part 2. I'm working on it. There seems to be some gaps in my memory of that particular trip.

However, to avoid the same problem for part 3, I decided to just video tape the event...

The Last Ski Day

2008-04-26T16:38:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we decided to take my daughter up for one last day of skiing in 2008 (for her at least). We were going to visit our regular ski area Alpental but as we exited the freeway we were greated by a "parking lot all full" sign for Alpental; the parking lot was all full for a ski area on April 19th!??!!

So instead we headed down the road to Ski Acres (a.k.a. Summit Central) and enjoyed a ski day there. Here is our day...

The Legend of Blue Ribbon Expeditions (Part 1)

2008-04-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

Twelve years ago my good buddy Doug and I were at Northwest Folklife festival sitting in a beer garden contemplating our larger plans for the weekend. As fun as the folk life festival can be, we decided we needed to kick things up a notch. It was Friday after a long work week, and another weekend drinking beer just wouldn’t cut it. In those days Doug and I would often embark on ill-planned unsafe crazy adventures with the single goal of having stories to tell people on Monday (Doug still does this). Our plan: see if we could drive to the California border and still be back in time for work on Monday. ROAD TRIP! (Gas prices weren’t so high in 1996).

By 10 PM we had packed Doug’s tiny 88 Subaru hatchback, filled it up with gas, and we were off.

Sixty miles later as we were passing though Olympia and becoming terribly aware of how unrealistic our original goal was. Mid trip we changed our plans to something that seemed much more sensible: climb Mount Hood. A slight change in route and we were headed to Mount Hood.

By 2 AM we were hopeless lost on a very foggy road somewhere on what we believed to be the side of Mount Hood. The fog was so thick that Doug and I had the car doors open so that we could confirm where the stripes were on the road. We were also quickly getting to the point of not-awake-enough-to-be-driving head bob. Before something really bad happened Doug found a place that looked safe to pull off of the road, he pulled over to sleep (did I mention how small his Subaru was?). I opted to sleep in a sleeping bag inside a bivvy sack near the car. Doug was happy sleeping in the car (or just too tired to get out of it).

At 8 AM the next morning I awoke to find that it had rained a fair bit and I was now sleeping in a large puddle; while Doug on the other hand was in severe pain from managing to sleep in positions that would make any yoga master impressed. The spot we had picked to stop was not more than 100 yards from the Timberline Lodge parking lot. Despite wetness and extreme bodily discomfort the need for food was our highest priority so we headed off and eventually found a small convenience store where we loaded up on junk food. Then it was off to Timberline lodge (the starting point for our climb up the south route up Mount Hood). At 9 AM, with no crampons, no rope, no safety gear, and completely neglecting to register our summit attempt, we start up the mountain along Palmer glacier. As we headed up we notice that the only other climbers we see are coming down; actually they’re all just about down at the bottom of the hill. This would be a quick climb we thought; it didn’t dawn on us that most climbers had started up at 4 AM!

Mount Hood is known for very unpredictable weather, but we were lucky. The sun was shining, it was warm and so we hiked on. The hiking trail took us along the perimeter of the ski area and it was depressing watching all the people taking the chair lift up half the distance that we had to hike; but we opted not to use the chairlift. It wasn’t that Doug and I were trying to be purist and avoid mechanical aid in climbing the mountain; rather we were too cheap to buy a lift ticket for just one ride.

Half way up the ski area is the Silcox Hut which was a nice stopping point for lunch. We pathetically hiked across the ski area into the hut and got a couple of bowls of chili and continued on. After a long slog we reached Crater Rock and eventually found ourselves crossing Hogsback; the ridge that must be crossed to reach the summit. Hogsback is verry narrow and stretches a fair distance dropping on either side into two of the volcanoes fumaroles. At the end of Hogsback is the infamous bergschrund that swallowed up and killed three climbers on May 30, 2002 (and led to a dramatic televised crash of the rescue helicopter). The real danger of the bergschrund was unknown to us, since it was snow covered. But to be safe I had Doug go first. (I remember back to my mocking of the climbers we had seen earlier in the day who had been roped up).

We eventually reached the summit around 3 PM, enjoyed the view. We were completely spent nothing left to give, and we still had to go back down the mountain. Then suddenly Doug thought it necessary to get naked, something about being on top of a mountain and the feeling of freedom. The view suddenly became a lot less attractive; enough so to get me back on to my feet and begin my descent.

As I headed down I could see Timberline Lodge was off in the distance, the size of a pin point. I started to realize the first reason that everyone else had started up at 4 AM. All the other climbers we had seen returning were able to gently glissade down the mountain in still frozen snow. The retuning climbers had formed a toboggan like path. However, by the time we were got around to descending the snow was complete mush from the day’s warm sun. Attempting to use the glissade path only succeeded in getting by butt wet. I tried to use my arms to get my body to slide, but it didn't help, so I walked. With most every step, my legs sunk knee deep in soft wet snow. Post holing our way down the slope we reached the top of the chair lift only to witness it get shut down for the day.

Eventually Doug and I did reach the car at about 8 PM. We packed up and began the drive home. We made it all of 15 minutes out of the parking lot before we decide we needed to find a place to sleep for the night and there was no way I was going to sleep on the ground or in Doug’s car again (ever!).

We found relatively affordable lodging in the nearby town of Government camp. After dinner, and a good night of sleeping on an actual bed I awoke to find the other reason that hikers start up the mountain at 4 AM. My face was stuck to my pillow. It turns out that a single application of SPF 8 suntan lotion is not enough sun protection when you spend 11 hours in the sun hiking on glacier, between 6,000 and 11,245 feet elevation. My face was beyond burnt, it was actually purple and oozing something.

Despite a week of suffering from painful radiation burns, we did have fun on that trip, but it would be nearly eight years before an attempt was made to repeat the trip…

The Push-Up

2008-03-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

On Friday I was sitting at work listening to the National Public Radio show Day to Day, and they were talking about an article in the New York Times, "An Enduring Measure of Fitness: The Simple Push-Up". The idea behind the article is that the ability to do a push-up is actual a good test of overall fitness. The idea is that the pushup doesn't just test arm strength, but the back, chest, hips, legs. The article goes on to say that a 40 year old man should be able to do 27 push-ups.

"Twenty seven push-ups for a 40 year old", I thought, "I'm not quite 40 yet, so my number should be more like 30 push-ups. I should be able to easily do that". However I resisted the urge to drop to the floor in my office and start doing push-ups beside my new office mate (she's pretty easy going, but that might have been a bit much). Besides, for the past several years my test of fitness has been the ability to survive a guided back country ski trip that my brother arranges for me annually. Every year that I live through the trip, I figure I am at least somewhat fit, so 30 push-ups should be easy.

I didn't think about the article again until this morning. As I told my wife about the article she said that she did 25 push-ups just the other day (turns out she did the push-ups where she was on her knees and not toes). So I got down on the floor and started to prove to myself I could do 30 push-ups. One, two, three..., four... (ugh) ... five...(gasp)...eight...(err)...ten. Sadly I was only able to do (um) ten push ups. In all fairness to me, I did have two little girls that thought daddy was playing a fun game and immediately jumped on my back. So for the time being I am giving up on push-ups (at least while my daughters are around), and instead I grabbed my 15 month old (who is surprisingly heavy) and did a few curls with her.

Ski Lessons

2008-03-03T11:30:00.000-08:00

This year is my four year old daughter's first year of ski lessons and it didn’t start off too well. During the first 3 weeks of lessons she got more and more apprehensive about lessons (“I don’t want to go skiing daddy! Can we just sit in the car daddy?”). With my love of skiing, this was really breaking my heart to hear her say this. However, it was easy to understand my daughter's attitude; her classes were made up of six of more 4 year olds who had never been on skis and one 16 year old instructor. The instructor was doing her very best, but ultimately the kids spent most of their time sitting in the snow interrupted by an occasional horrific few moments that involved grabbing onto a fast moving rope, ultimately falling over then being dragged up the hill as a lift operator ran behind yelling “Let go! Let go of the rope tow!”

When the scheduled date of the fourth week of lessons rolled around, a huge snow storm hit Cascades. Due to too much snow(!!!), lessons were canceled for several weeks. When the ski area was finally reopened for lessons I wasn’t tooWhen the scheduled date of the fourth week of lessons rolled around, a huge snow storm hit the optimistic about what would happen with my daughter in her lessons; she did not want to go. So I spent the first half of that fourth week of lessons skiing with just her, and the second half skiing with her and her class. It took a lot of bribing with gummy bears, but by the end of that fourth week of classes she was skiing down the chair on her own (even as I write this a tear comes to my eye due to my extreme pride in my daughter right now who now tells me, “Can we go skiing every day daddy?”).

At the end of that fourth day of lessons I had two thoughts: 1)the words of my supervisor back when I was a ski instructor, “No matter how terrible your kids are in classes, the fourth week is a magic week and everyone skis on the chair lift.” 2) I really wish I had brought my camera.

For week number five I did bring my camera, and I wanted to share one of the images of what wife says put the biggest smile she has ever seen on my face. Enjoy!

The grease incident

2008-02-20T21:18:00.001-08:00

As a student at Washington State University I worked several different part time jobs. One regular job I held around 1992/93 was for the student union building (the CUB) shipping and receiving. The job mostly involved making sure that the kitchen had everything it needed. For the most part, the daily work required putting away the fresh produce that arrived every morning. This meant that I had to be at work around 5:30 AM (I drank a lot of coffee). However there would occasionally be odd jobs that needed to be run.

There were a few others who worked there and we all traded off on different shifts and various jobs. However the most dreaded job was to deal with the grease from the kitchen.

The kitchen would produce large amounts of grease from cooking. That grease would be kept in large 5 gallon plastic buckets. Once a week the grease needed to be dumped in a recycling bin (yes they recycle grease and make things with it...seriously those bins behind your favorite fast food restaurant that are full of grease are recycling bins...as in will be used again). After a week of sitting around the grease (which contained bits of meat, french fries and other food matter) became rather rancid. Luckily a loose lid on the plastic bucket and and a couple inches of coagulated grease held in the worst of it down.

One particular Friday, my boss told me I had to go dump the grease. We had all managed to avoiding the job for almost a month, so the collection of grease buckets had grown very large and extremely nasty. I made a hopeless attempt a protesting, but I knew there was no getting out of it.

Because the bin where the grease was recycled was not near the CUB, we would load the buckets of grease into an old panel van we used. The van was not in the best of shape; the back didn't close, the passenger door wouldn't open, and the driver door wouldn't close. It was a rather pathetic vehicle.

From past experience with dumping grease I knew enough to where a tyvek suit. We each had our own suit for this job, because the grease had a tendency to splatter when you dumped it and you did not want to get that stuff on your clothes. On this particular run I was the more senior person dumping the grease, so I got to claim the job of driving the van. My coworker got the job of sitting in back and making sure none of the grease fell out the back of then van.

The drive to the grease dumpster was short, maybe a half mile, but it looped through part of WSU's greek row. I tried to drive the van as slowly and carefully as I could get away with, because I didn't want to be responsible for a spill in the middle of the road. This was of special concern because (as you remember) the back of the van wouldn't close.

Unfortunately the time we had chosen for the dumping was between classes and so people were walking everywhere. A mere block from the dumpster, a group of girls steped out right in front of the van (and not at a cross walk mind you). I slammed on the brakes as hard as I could to avoid hitting them. Despite my slow speed there was enough momentum in the unsecured grease buckets to send them all flying to the front of the van. The grease had been stacked two and three buckets tall and this fact allowed the grease to be launched over the entirety of the front of the panel van. I was soaked, the dash board was soaked, and the inside of the the van's windshield was dripping. However, my coworker in back had managed to completely avoid the spill, only rolling forward slightly.

We continued on and made our way to the dumpster, with the 5 remaining full buckets. It was a challenge keeping my foot from slipping off of the grease soaked gas and break. Eventually we managed to dump the remaining grease and return to the CUB. As I walked into my bosses office he was barely able to stop laughing long enough to choke out the words "Go home, and please change your clothes and shower". Turns out Tyvek doesn't do well when completely soaked in grease.

After bathing in dish washing detergent and putting on clean clothes I returned to work to help clean out the van. We took the van to one of those coin operated car wash locations and began hosing out the inside of the van with the hose and dish washing detergent. I can only imagine what people were thinking as they saw this van with the a hose going into it and suds pouring out of the back and the doors.

2008-02-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

Tonight is a full moon and a full eclipse of that moon. So I thought I would start this tonight.

I've got a few stories, nothing spectacular, just some stories about some of the crazy things that have happened to me in my life so far. Everyone has stories like this, but I think most people either choose to forget them or not to tell them; maybe because these stories are generally embarrassing.

For me these are the stories that get told during lunch when no one else has anything to talk about. For some reason the people I have lunch with think these stories are particularly funny and a friend at work told me to write them down.

So here goes...