Good Days

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Good Days. Sometimes you just don’t know, just don’t know why it is worth it, why you bother, whether it will be a good day or not so good, why you got out of bed at all. Sometimes. Then sometimes you have those days where the world shines like polished chrome and the flowers seem to sing a song as you pass by.

Today was a good day, it was a bit of a rough start, couldn’t get out of bed, almost missed an amazing sunrise, the dogs were wild and unruly, wasn’t sure what I was going to do, what I should do…. But then I got on my bike and ahh. Now don’t get me wrong the world doesn’t always turn from black to rose when I hop a leg over my bike. But it sometimes does.

I rode up to Crested Butte, taking pavement, dirt road and a bit of trail. The flowers are still booming despite the lack of rain. I felt good pushing myself to get on up that pass, feeling the sweat and the blood pumping. Got up to CB and watched the 4th of July parade for a bit, the throngs of people milling about, felt the hot sun begin to melt me down. Then met up with one of my favorite bike riders and went for a good ride. Leaving from town up the Slate D’Heuz, over to the amazing and well named Paradise Divide and then up and down the famous 401 and back to CB. It was dry and dusty, cars kicked up dust so fine it blocked the view and clogged the nose. Going up the Slate switchbacks I felt horrible, weak, tired and had to eat something to get it done, while my riding partner dropped me like yesterday’s tired cold soggy pizza. Yet climbing out on Gothic Road I couldn’t stop smiling, because I just love riding my bike, after all the miles it still feels so good. Being with a great person, pedaling along through an amazing countryside, feeling the ache and effort to make it happen. There is so little that compares to this feeling of traveling under your own power, town to town, trail to trail with so much beauty in all directions. Great way to spend Independence Day!

After a snack break in CB I head on home. I start the climb up Kebler finding a discarded Stars and Stripes laying in the road. I pick it up and stick it into my seatbag, “Happy Fourth of July!” I proclaim to myself. I get back on the bike and start climbing back up and over Kebler to Ohio Pass the same way I came into CB this morning. My legs are a bit empty, my bike is a dusty creaky mess, my bottom is sore, but the riding is still pleasant and the traffic is mellow. Cresting the top of Ohio Pass I am again blown away at how amazing the view is, the rows and rows of aspens below rolling up towards the delicate Castles of Mill Creek and the seemingly far away silhouette of mighty Sawtooth Mountain to the south. All have attached memories, adventures, experiences, all pull me to come back for more. From here, in this moment it is hard to see the frustration that ruled me just days before, blinded me to the possibility of this day, the chance for this perspective.

I try and remind myself that life ain’t easy and that an easy life would be dull, boring and so not me. But I get frustrated, sad, bummed out with the crap that comes with everyday, in the moment it seems daunting, overwhelming, like total shit. It just ain’t easy. But then the days like today make it seem like maybe there is a balance somewhere, the key is to not lose heart and keep taking the chance to see the good days. To not numb yourself to the point where the good and bad all become shades of gray. See the colors, revel in them, also accept the fact that there will always be the dark and gloomy, but that will only make the positive that much brighter. Have faith, be strong, keep looking to the light!Image

Potential

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the flowers do not doubt themselves

the flowers do not doubt themselves

Ever wonder what humanity’s potential could be. It is something that I ponder on quite a lot, I just don’t think we have even glimpsed the possibilities. My heroes are the ones that push the limits of what we think is possible. Always loved reading about folks doing amazing things, but that was in books. Maybe I was naive and unexposed but ever since living here in Gunnison Colorado I have been blown away at what people can do. Run 100 miles through the mountains, I once said “No Fucking Way!” But ordinary people around here, do it all the time. Ride a bike 150+ miles a day for 16 days straight, “impossible!” Then I did it myself, so now I believe there is much more. I have surpassed my own limits and can’t help but wonder how much harder, farther I could go IF I could really focus. What if I was trained, or started earlier in life or truly stayed on target and didn’t get blindsided by life and the turmoils it brings along. What if folks were given the training and support and education from the get go, what could they become?

Instead I see humans gravitating towards comfort, convenience and constant entertainment. Sure there are a percentage of us that are pushing it, trying to exceed our limitations. But what about the species as whole? What about evolution, I want to be a better person, don’t you? Living where I do I have constant reminders that I could be better, faster, train harder and sometimes it helps me get up and out of bed. Makes me do a few extra push ups or lunges or what ever. Or that I could be reading more, writing more, sleeping more! But I also fall into the trap of drinking beer after work instead of going for a run or ride. Or staying up way too late wasting time on the internet and being so damn tired the next day and then missing a chance to train. Makes me wonder and no I don’t want to be so single-minded that all I do is push myself. Yet I know that I could be so much more, I just get distracted or think too much and forget to believe in myself.

Sometimes you just got to get out there and put the money on the table. So today I went and time trialed one of my favorite rides. Basically I raced myself from my front door and back, trying to beat my past time. It was a good day, but I fussed around, had to mess with my bags, just had to stop and take a few pictures,(the flowers were awesome!) I didn’t feel all that fast, and for the most part didn’t feel like I was pushing it that hard, although at one point my legs wanted to quit. But I managed to beat my previous time and I wasn’t so sure that I could do that, and as I rolled into town I knew I could have gone even faster. Potential, so much potential and that is what keeps me going, trying, breathing, getting up in the morning. It is so hard to keep that focus, believe me I know, but we all can try and try harder. Help me out and do your part, dream, strive, love, encourage and live your life to it’s potential, we can all inspire each other to be our best.

Running, friend or foe?

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Run for Fun? I too scoff at the thought sometimes, I mean biking is just so much more fun, right? But I always come back to the simple desire to run. Just tie on some shoes and off you go. Simple, meditative, hard. I have run off and on for years and years at times doing an ok amount of miles. But I always over do it and injure myself and give it up. Anything that gets in the way of riding my bike has to get out of the way.

But I keep coming back, the desire is there to make running a part of my life. I really like to run, plain and simple. But I am also the type that when they want something it becomes possessive, overpowering. Instead of easing into things slowly and gradually I get too hungry for it and over do it, thus ending up injured and pissed off. Such has been the relationship between me and running, full on love, complete immersion, then pain, frustration and break up. Tough roller coaster to ride.

Truly I believe that I am getting better and better, smarter, wiser, with more self control. Maybe with these attributes taking over from my more impulsive, excitable side there is still hope for me and running. I dream of running without thought, without pain, just gliding along. I ran the past two days, short, flat easy, felt so good, like meeting up with an old friend you haven’t talked to in a while. Years may have gone by, but you still can talk, laugh and have fun. Have been missing you my friend, hope we can spend some quality time together from now on.

Sundays

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Sometimes I wonder if I really am weird or if I just absorb more of what goes on everyday. For I just can’t stop thinking, questioning, wondering. Leaving me in this thought trance, helplessly clinging to feeling the emotion of the previous moment, unable to walk on and be in the present. Things can be so good, so right, so damn perfect and then I mess it all up with my own head. And all I want is to let go of it and be free, to feel. I mean knowing you want something and being unable to actually let go and experience it makes you feel kind of powerless, sort of pathetic. Now disappointment hangs heavy on my head, when I could be flying up in the clouds, beyond.

Luckily the rest of the day is about bike riding. Riding bikes in the woods, up into the mountains along some sweet trails. Still distracted by my thoughts, regrets, the lingering sadness within myself, I am not all there on the bike. Railing corners, cleaning some climbs, feeling the sweat and ache of the body pedaling away, feels so good, so right, but still not as crisp and clean with my head stuck up my ass.

Sometimes I truly wonder if I am being challenged. I mean is it my calling to always be in doubt, stuck in thought, regretful about my actions and decisions. Why not simply revel in the joy, accept the good and bad and move on instead of this constant self critique. Perhaps it is my desire to try, to always do better, to seek the impossibility of perfection. Sounds like an ok idea, but living it sucks. Sometimes I simply wish to be happy and satisfied and drop this terribly insistent thinking, questioning, doubting and just be.

Still stuck in my head and hoping to cleanse myself I GO ride some more. Dirt roads, one trail, more dirt roads, some pavement. Solo, just me and the bike. The flowers are jumping out of the green hillsides, the mountains glow with summer growth and the remaining snow. It is trying to rain, almost but not quite. Smoke fills part of the sky from the raging wildfires not too far away. I am still stuck in my thoughts, but the ride feels good. I hammer the climbs pushing myself pretty hard. I stop and take pictures of the flowers. I think about how lucky I am. I think about the wildfires and the folks fleeing their homes and working hard to fight the flames. They are dealing with far more serious things than I. I feel silly dwelling on my shit, my petty personal shit. But I just can’t let go of my melancholy, what a dumb thing this is, somehow I simply can’t shake it off. Not sure how this could make me a better person, or improve my life, but I know I will get through it. Just got to keep getting out there, pushing, trying, sweating, for nothing heals like exercise. Plus it gets me out there seeing the life that grows, strives and persists around me, and that is not weird at allImage

24

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misc 24 hours 007misc 24 hours 009

so sorry bike, so sorry

so sorry bike, so sorry

“Why would anyone want to race their bike for 24 hours” Came the drunken slur from a rolled down jeep window, passing us in the we early hours of the morning some 15 hours into the 24 Hours In the Sage. At the time I was put off by the question, to me we were pushing ourselves, trying to find the limits of our endurance, of our mind’s. After doing several 24 solos over a 4 year period I eventually bottomed out and asked myself the same question, why? Maybe those kids had it right, screw the heartbreak of failing, the incredible cost to mind-body-bike and bank account. The time spent training, traveling. Just party and hang it out, sounds good for about a minute. Instead of taking on the slacker lifestyle completely, I switched to the self-supported multi-day bike racing thing. It suited my strengths and I learned loads about everything from nutrition, to bike riding to mind control ending up knowing much better what I was personally capable of. Now I was racing for days on end not just 24 hours….

After a 8 year hiatus from solo lap racing I jumped into doing the 12 Hours Of Mesa Verde. I was racing for Team Griggs Orthopedic this season and wanted to show my stuff and do some races close to home. Well the race was super fun, I did pretty well and ended up a bit excited. Now I had just got the internet at home and one day home for lunch I signed myself up for the 24 Hour National Championships at the 24 Hours Of Enchanted Forest. Excitable boy + internet + lunch break = what the hell have I done?

Done got myself in over my head, but what the hell. Plus I did some homework and if you look at results from most 24’s, including nationals only the top 4-6 guys are consistent.  Well what better place to test whether you got the moxie to race for a whole day than with the big boys and girls, so after a few more weeks of training it was off to Gallup, NM for some fun in the sun!

The fact is I went into the race worried about all sorts of stuff. The heat, food, hydration, my bike and last but not least the whole mystery of your own body holding up to so much pedaling. All this kept my eyes twitching, my dreams full of panic, my thoughts a twirling. But there is only so much you can do and at some point you got to just chill the fuck out and see what happens.

The race venue turns out to be sweet, tall pines, warm dry air, super fast trails. The vibe is chill and supportive, camping with fellow GO riders is simply great. It is easy to relax, sit and talk, slowly moving chairs and coolers in order to stay in the shade. All of us going about getting their respective ducks in a row. After some decent sleep among the pine needles it is time to wake up and eat and begin the prep, seems like a hundred sandwiches, even more water bottles and chews. Last minute fussing with the bike, number plate, trying to poop. Sooner than later the morning is gone and it is time to see how the cookie crumples…

The first two laps are hot, dusty and a bit crowded. Yet my fellow racers are cool and polite. The course is so fast, just so fast. It is looking like 24 hours could bring in some serious mileage. Each lap I hit the pit, grab fresh bottles, a sandwich, some sport legs. I am flying out there, it feels good, but by lap 6 I am also starting to feel it. My lower back is sore and there is so much sitting and pedaling that I am wearing out my butt.  Lots of Ouch. Can I truly hold this pace for the duration? Although it hurts I still want to see what I can do?

Despite all the anticipation, wondering and fuzzy math no one knew what was in the cards. At 10:20 the sky opens up, pounding us with thunder, lightening and wind driven rain. The trail goes from dusty and fast to a flowing stream in minutes. One section of the course known as the Burma Trail, which was so fast and fun the very lap before, is all clay. I know it when I drop in, soaked to the bone with teeth chattering, that the Burma Trail is doomed. It is a complete mess, folks falling down, dragging bikes, desperately picking mud out of their forks and stays. The trail is gone, now just ruts and footprints. I am clinging to my determination to finish the lap, to still race, although this means picking up my front tire and dragging the back. Trying not to stop, to not hear the screaming in my back and shoulders.

After an agonizing 2+ hours I complete the lap and am told the race is paused, more info coming forth. I roll back to the camp, it is very quiet, my brakes are grinding, my bike is a disaster. I am dazed, worked, a bit dumfounded. I eat and take nap. Not sure what happened, what is going on, if I will or even should race my bike some more. I am awoken to a megaphone telling us the race will be restarted at 4:AM, which then becomes 6:AM and ends up being 6:30 AM. Everyone seems a bit confused, I know I am.

I get up, I don’t want to eat. I try to get some of the mud off my bike, out of my brakes, off my poor drivetrain. After a couple gallons and some very dirty hands I get my bike sort of ready to ride. Still the brakes are grinding, the drivetrain sounds like a WWII tank. Not good. My head is off as well. Just not as stoked on the race, on putting in more laps. But I didn’t come here to sleep in the back of someone’s van. So Suck it up Buttercup and get out there and race damn it!

Well the morning laps go along fine despite my back being on fire and my legs feeling a little dead. Still I manged to crank out three more laps before the 11:AM cutoff. The course is tacky and smooth, although the now infamous Burma Trail has been taken out of the course. I roll into camp, I am done. I feel disconnected. The last two races I did left me feeling amazing, so stoked and excited. Today I just feel tired, not so sure what actually happened, where I placed, what laps were counted.

Still days later I am a bit fuzzy about how I feel about this race, this experience. I have had plenty of races were I blow up, do something stupid, get sick. But to have it come down to something uncontrollable like the weather just leaves you guessing, wondering, for me unsatisfied. I mean we only did one night lap and that ended up thrown out due to the chaos of the mud and some folks taking a road instead of the muddy trail. Yet no one imagined that it would rain that hard, on that night. I rode a pretty good and smart race, I did fairly well, but I just don’t feel like it was a success. So now I have to wonder, do I really want to race for 24 hours again? Well, I think I might…

Animals Should Live Forever

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I adopted my first dog, Wiley in 1998, my good friend JT adopted Tucker T at the same time. We were roommates at the time and throughout the dog’s lives they were never apart more than a few weeks. We hiked the CT together with our dogs in 2000, spending 40 days and nights together. We did so many hiking, camping, skiing trips together it is not countable. I spent more time in more serious situations with my dog and T as well, than any other person, creature, ever.

Wiley died in 2011, two weeks before the start of the Tour Divide. It brutalized me, It took weeks and months to not start crying at the thought of her gone, no longer here on this earth. Every time I turned around I expected to see her eyes and face looking at me, wondering what we were going to do next. I think back and it was the TD that made it possible to get over her loss and move on. I still cry when I think of her and the way she approached life, Full On.

Now two years later her crazy ornery brother is starting to fade, it seems to scratch at the wound that Wiley left. I just can’t get it in my head that they will be all gone, the tenacity, the go for it that no human can match, gone. Nothing like watching your best friend die, die of old age when you are still relatively young.

I suppose I don’t have as many human connections that go as deep as I did with my dog and her brother. I mean I love my family, my friends, but that dog was something else. She stood by me when I was a struggling to find myself, my place, through snow storms, thunder storms, mental storms, drunken nights, so many girlfriends, rentals, jobs, still always there. Always ready for anything. Her brave smile, the loving way she approached life, will never leave me completely.  Now it turns the knife in my chest thinking of her brother leaving us as well.

Few people have done what Wiley did in 13 years or what Tucker has in 15 years, most would just be getting their drivers permit. T’s hiked the CT, the CO section of the CTD, skiied countless mountains, cross country loops than he could shake a stick at, plus countless backpacking trips, runs, bike rides and frisbee sessions. It is just so painful to watch a being with so much energy and love of life fade away. I think us humans could take a cue from the way dogs take things on, not with doubt and fear, but jump in with a big smile and figure it out. My friend Erin Roberts wrote a song, Animals Should Live Forever.  I love that song and I am borrowing the title. Perhaps if we humans lived life like so many dogs do, the world would be a better place. For all the wonderful dogs out there that brightened our lives, accompany our adventures and eventually slip away from us, we miss you beyond words.

So long as memories of you exist, we will think of you and love you. Wiley Jean, Tucker T, Sparky and countless others not so sure where you may end up, may you rest in peace.

Sunday Wonder

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This may seem a shock but this morning I slept in. Milling about not trying to accomplish much, but simply hang out. Still walked the dogs a bit, ate breakfast, drank a coffee. But mostly chilled, it was nice.

Finally get my shit together and out for a ride shortly after 1:PM, it is already hot and windy. I don’t know for sure where I am going, what the target is for the ride. Just point my front tire up Gold Basin Road, turn it into the Hartman’s parking lot and up Jack’s Trail. By the top of Jack’s I have a plan, Aberdeen. Haven’t been out there yet due to my Growler obsession and I love that loop.

I took it real easy yesterday on the bike and that meant today could be a good, long hard ride. So I keep the pedals cranking, the handlebars pumping, the wheels rolling and hopping along. I can not pass up the opportunity to take some pictures as the flowers are going off.  So many kinds and colors popping up all over, visually vibrant and deliciously distracting, I just can’t help myself.

I don’t fully open it up, but keep the pace flowing. My legs feel great, with a little shout here and there of complaint, but mostly they are as happy to be cranking as I. My mistakes were leaving the house a bit dehydrated and only taking two bottles. Maybe I thought this would keep me from riding too far? It is hot, dry and windy and soon bottle one is gone. I try to only sip from bottle two, but soon it too is gone and I am out there! Luckily it starts to cloud up a touch, yet when a fork in the road comes up, I decide to ride more not less, it’s not that hot? Still the legs obey and keep up a good pace, just singing along answering every climbing call with their duet response. And the flowers stay strong and gorgeous keeping my smile company.

Sketchily surfing some cattle driven moon dust, I hit pavement and head home. I put my nose down and grind out the last ten or so miles with almost all the legs have left. I feel like I am flying and it feels so good. My mouth is dry and stuck shut, but everything else is humming along. I stop at the Gunnison White Water Park and dive under. I hop out and dive back in. The cold fresh water energizes me and it feels so good! Once again I am amazed and grateful to be able to ride my bicycle the way I do and where I am able to do it. Big Thanks to all, now get out and ride!ImageImageImageImageImageImageImage