Maui video

Here's the video from the Maui trip. Didn't do a short version for blog visitors so you get the full family archive edit which is a little long. The dolphins are at the end, around minute 16 or so if your wanting the main highlight. Very fortunate morning at La Perouse Bay where we stopped to find people with binoculars watching dolphins about 3/4 mile out. We grabbed our fins and masks and headed out, only to find nothing once we got to where we thought we needed to be. We'd started back when they popped back up - about 14 total that stayed in smaller groups of 3 or 4. It was pretty surreal being out in the open water with them, they stayed around for about 15 minutes without ever acting like they were very interested in our being there, but always keeping about a 10-15 foot space between us. We were mesmerized.

Our soundtrack while on the trip was Xavier Rudd, so his music naturally made it's way onto the video. You're welcome if you're not already familiar with his stuff - exceptional.

Some brief color commentary on a few highlights and the vid:

We got into Maui around 9:30 pm, and rather than drive over to Lahaina and then back the next morning, we just headed straight up to Haleakala to catch the sunrise. We went about 2/3rds the way up the volcano, pulled over next to some cattle, and dirtbagged it in the car to sleep for the night. In the a.m. we were fortunate to get the cloud carpet below the peak that makes for quite a spectacle when the sun makes it's way up the horizon - can't do it justice trying to describe it so won't, nor does the video capture it, but totally unique from anything we've ever seen.

Stopped for a quick hike/run through the Redwood forest on the way down - we were needing something invigorating after the flight out and the early morning, and this did the trick nicely. The Redwoods there were relatively young, so big, but not huge. Cool trail, several transitions from alpine, to rain forest, even some real dry, high desert type terrain on the northern edge.

We had dinner that night with Earl and Sandy. Got a table next to the ocean with a fortunate view of some whales jumping out of the water a ways out - that was a first for both Annie and I. Wasn't a close up view - but amazing none the less to a couple of kids from Utah.

We went pretty hard the rest of the trip - tried to put a little bit of most of it on the video. We rented some bikes and made an attempt at going from sea level to the 10,000 ft summit of Haleakala, but hit cold and weather a little past 6,500 ft' that we weren't prepared for, so abandoned and rode back down. Blow holes, snorkeling, swim approach bouldering, waterfalls, mountain/rain forest hikes, caves and lava tubes, Hana, paddleboarding and surfing, could have used one more day to relax - we came home tired. But truth be told, that's how we like it.

One of our favorite trips ever.



Huge thanks to a couple of our favorite friends - Earl and Sandy, who provided their sweet digs to serve as base camp, thank you again, we absolutely loved it!

Late summer through UTCX #3

You ever go a while without cleaning up and you end up with a pile of dirty clothes, etc... sitting in the corner of the room. That's what this post is, that pile - a quick and dirty clean up of the last month or so....

Annie raced and won the USCS Draper SuperXC - hot, hard day. She won her sport class, and collected another big check for fastest overall sport time. She also ended up winning the series for her class. Fantastic rookie year for her on the Mtn. Bike. She capped the summer off by taking a digger while out riding with her girlfriends, led with her face and head, smashed her lip open, chipped a tooth, and concussed herself pretty good. Took a while for her head to get back to feeling normal - but she came out pretty good for punching a rock with her face/head.

Next up was a Euro trip to Vegas to celebrate our anniversary. Swung through Valley of Fire on the way, where I stalked-ok, guess I can't call it stalked if he's looking right at me, we'll call it chased-this sheep to get within photo range. They grow em' big in the protected parks.

We also did our first hike in a sweat lodge, minus the lodge part - check out the temp. Little excursion to some little water hole out in the sandstone. We had visions of jumping into it until we saw it - putrid.

Here's the euro part of the trip - took a Fiat out for the long weekend - sweet, fun little cars. Think it paid for itself with the savings in gas - don't think we spent more than $100 bucks in gas down and back.
Kids started learning to fish a bit....

Brock finally paid a price for one of his stunts - gutted his arm just under his armpit jumping off a playset where a screw hooked it. Came in crying, didn't pay much attention to him until he pulled his shirt off and saw the hamburger hanging out - then out to the car pretty quick. He'd stopped crying on the way down when I began the pep talk about getting his first stitches. Spent the rest of the ride down listening to him insist he just needed a band aid, to turn around and take him home so he could get a band aid. I love his Rambo spirit.
Next up was Xterra - I had a comped entry for the triathlon, so did the short course. My swim was slow, but a success as I put an entire swim together without resorting to rolling onto my back or breaking form, that's a first for me, baby steps. Rode the bike well, than had the traditional melt down on the run, it was brutal. You probably won't want to watch the entire clip, but here's on board footage of the bike course from a slow swimmers perspective. They've widened the singletrack since I last did this race, so traffic, although it was there, was not the time penalty it used to be, plenty of room to ride around it all the way up. It's a really great course.

Annie raced the 10k trail run, and true to form, landed herself on the top of the podium.... she's ridiculous. This one was literally done with about 4 weeks of total inactivity after the concussion.

This was my favorite pic of from the Xterra weekend - amid the serious game faces prepping for the start, she's right in the middle being a total screwoff. The dude won it though, so she picked a winner.


CX season: Two races the first week at the state fairgrounds. First day was rough for both of us. We'd done some handling and skill practice in preparation, but no top end effort type work. That's never going to feel good, and it didn't.

Day two was more of the same for me. Annie came around a bit and put a better race together - seemed to be back near where she was at the tail end of last year, which bodes well. Decided over the next few days that we'd bump her up to the A flight the following week. UTCX #3 was at one of our favorite tracks, Ft. Buenaventura in Ogden. I raced dramatically better, had some rider error type things - dropped my chain twice and totally hacked the barriers the first lap through, but put in a good start and felt like I was able to ride hard the entire race. Wasn't sure that was going to happen all year after the first weekend.

Annie went out with the A's and got exactly what we were wanting to get from it. She rode hard, paid attention to how things transpired a little differently in that group, and held her own just fine. She also looks very good thanks to our friends over at DNA Cycling. Turns out their women's stuff goes perfectly with her fave helmet. I've got one of their skin suits on it's way, and can guarantee you I won't look as good in their stuff as Annie does, but looking forward to it nonetheless.

Pierre's Hole 100, or 50, race

Quick recap of the Pierre's Hole race the weekend before last.

Aside from plate #1, which signifies that either 1 - you've earned it and are the designated guy to beat, or 2 - you were more anxious to sign up for the race than anyone else at the start line, (only the former applies here), the most sought after plate number in the field is this one.

....and I was handed this number at the check in under the oath of representing it the way your supposed to - by riding with the strength and gumption of 3 men, a six pack of balls if you will. So how'd I carry the banner......

I cut it off half way through, had run plum out of fun and didn't have the head to keep grinding. That's not to say that the course and terrain aren't fun - they are, very much so. 100 miles on it was just more than I had the fitness or the gumption for. Annie had been warned earlier in the week about the high likelihood of that scenario, so her bike made the trip up as well, and despite the extra mojo bestowed by the race plate, I pulled the plug and we swapped pedaling and kid duty and let her go out for a lap that would be more enjoyable than had I gone out for another.

However - there were a few men who rode with six packs, and who made the fun and excitement build all afternoon as they kept knocking out mile after mile.... check it out below.... it was a pretty electric scene as they finished.

Congrats to Brandon and Gordon - huge respect for those rides!

Tushar is the Crusher

Will try to be brief in saying how great I thought this race was. Burke is on to something really, really good here, and I hope he ride's the wave he created into adding another date or two next year and putting together some kind of series of these (Moab/La Sals is first to come to mind but that may be hometown bias, regardless, plenty of mountain ranges in Utah or even just across the state borders in a few directions). And if he does do more, I hope he can bring the same crew of volunteers to them, they were the stars of a knock it out of the park production that Burke put together. Type of people you wanted to stop and get to know. I'm taking tips to hand them next year - they were better and more attentive than any waitress I've ever had. The pre race buzz was exceptional with all the puzzle solving going into bike choices. I think people loved the chess match that took place before we even toed the line. I was a little late being able to commit to the race so missed out on a lot of that, and had a quick process of elimination that landed me on the Mtn bike at the line. The big post race question has been did we choose the right bikes? In hindsight, the Mtn bike was exactly the bike I needed to be on that day. Were I to line up with a little more preparation both with bike set up and conditioning, I think I'd make a few tweaks to the CX bike and give it a run, but it would have been wrong for me at this years race - I think.... see that.... you seeing the magic in this puzzle of a race course Burke's created? It's rad.

So the race started in Beaver, with Bruce setting the tone for one hell of a day with one hell of a countdown - never seen anything like it... not sure I will again without significant intoxication - it was great. I'll get brief with a few highlights from here. Felt great through the first 40 miles - the first climb went by quick, felt like I paced it right for what I had in me that day, and enjoying the heck out of racing on dirt roads up in the mountains. The day started to get long for me not far out of Circleville. Was by myself on that windy flat stretch of road, and that's where the fading started ever so slightly, then when we turned back on the dirt road, the fading began in earnest. Had felt good enough earlier in the day that I'd fueled maybe just a little light, but the time between stations had been quick enough that it was going just fine. That being said, I learned a serious lesson about bonking at last years Park City point to point, and have since been fairly attentive to catching it early if I get a little behind. By the time I got back to the intersection where we doubled back, I was needing to get some more fuel in me, not desperate, but in a less than ideal state, with nothing to correct it. I spent that stretch of pavement leading to that monster of a climb thinking about how best to approach it. By the time I hit the beginning of the dirt, I knew it needed to be a walk if it get's strenuous type of thing, I couldn't afford to rev it very high. So, about that strenuous thing.... between the pitch and the wind, I did a lot of walking, like damn near the entire thing. And it was slow walking.... I turned the music off for that section of the video to help give a good picture of what that was like... the signature climb of the race, and I was off the bike walking. Pathetic, but necessary to make sure my day extended beyond that climb. By the top I was getting a little more desperate - i'd done what was needed to keep the exertion in check, but the course had been exposed and hot for a while, and I had taken a long time to get up there. I felt some things similar to the park city lesson, and shut it down. Found the first shady spot I'd seen for a few hours, sat down, then lied down. Then I heard someone holler at me - Jon James rode by and shouted J-dub. I opened my eyes, sat up and said hi and told him he was looking strong, sat for another minute, then jumped on the bike and got moving again. Didn't think I'd been there for more than a few minutes, but John had probably saved me a lot of time by waking me from what was as best as I can tell from my race data, about a 15 minute nap. I was still in bad shape, and was fortunate that the roving support was bringing drinks back towards the KOM. Got a coke from them and proceeded to the last aid station before the home stretch.

I spent about ten minutes at the last aid, the first five piling in food, the second five catching up with Sam and Jamie, and then we were back off. Jamie made it 50 yards before he started puking. For me, the resting had worked, I'd gone from the brink of a point of no return bonk, to feeling as fresh as I had all day for that last 10 miles. Leg's were good, head was in a good place, rode with Sam whom I hadn't seen for a while so it was good to catch up with him... was just back into a real good place to enjoy the last stretch. Have never gone from so bad to so good in such a short period of time before - continuing to learn lesson's the hard way about staying ahead on the sustenance, but learning them none the less. Only hiccup of the day aside from the poor management was a random flat while rolling across those golf course like meadows - that's the origin of the tube ornament I'm wearing at for the finishing clips in the video. Shannon come by during the pit stop on her way to a 2nd place finish. A support truck also came by with Jamie sitting in front, I was heartbroken for him that he'd fought that far only to have to get in with just a few miles to go, then the truck pulled over to let him out for more hurling, and it was obvious he needed to not be trying to finish. Just as we were flipping the bike back over Joe came by. We jumped on with Joe and the three of us rode the rest of the way in. There's a little joking left in me at the end, but my favorite is Adam - you'll see him at the finish when I rolled through - I want you to pay attention to his expression when I say he's probably been there for two hours... turned out my two hour guess was within minutes of being correct, but he was too humble of a guy to affirm it. He rode a great race, along with numerous others. Also on the vid are the Zeph, Banks, and Gordon finishing up. Gordon rode the Crusher with a pretty serious shoulder separation, and get's my tough guy award for the day. Enjoy - and if you missed it, you need to make sure you don't miss the Crusher next year - it's absolutely a can't miss format and race.

Ride data - http://app.strava.com/rides/953455

2011 Teva Mountain Games

After leaving the Ironhorse Classic in Durango, we dillydallied our way towards Vail where Annie and I would partner up for some racing there the next weekend. In between, we hit up a few places that we hadn't been before, a few nights at the Pagosa Hot Springs resort, Great Sand Dune National Park, a few nights camping, and then wrapping it up with some R&R (racing and relaxing) at the Marriott Vail Mountain resort for the weekend's events at the Teva Mountain Games. Will detail the in between stuff in a later post. In the meantime, here's the detail and footage from the Teva Games. I suckered Annie into doing the trail run, making a solid case that it would be best for the team - she'd seen me running around without my shirt off at the hot springs resort the few days prior, and quickly agreed that yes, it would indeed be best for the team if I didn't do the run.

Kayak - This went smoother this year, in large part to having done one prep outing on the Green River with some of the guys a few weeks back and having to execute a few rolls in some fairly large rapids on that trip. Wasn't near as sketchy as a few years ago, and had some confidence that I could keep it upright, and even if not, could get back up right without having to bail out. The only problem with the kayak leg this year was fitness. I've mentioned on here before that unlike some of the endurance type stuff where you get some decent crossover of fitness from discipline to discipline, the only way I know of to get into decent paddling shape is to paddle, a lot. I paddled hard for about 5 minutes, and was blown, completely, shoulders and arms. It was to the point of being concerned near the bottom end of the course that I wouldn't have the strength to paddle away from holes/obstacles if something came up that needed to be avoided. You'll see the soft paddling at the bottom of the course in the video, my strength was reduced to the consistency of wet bread. Side note - the Stand up paddle boarding seems to be catching on fairly rapidly, lot's of them there this year. I have since entered my first paddle board race - coming up this weekend....

Mtn Bike - They had to keep us a little lower on the mountain this year due to snow, which cut out some sections of both the Mtn bike course and the run course. Among the sections cut out of the bike course was most of the more technical downhill stuff, and some climbing mileage that they seemed to consolidate into a nasty pitch that capped off the climbing each lap. The kind of pitch that required you to slide up and put your seat tip right where the sun don't shine, and try to keep momentum just high enough that you don't stall out and tip. Missing or hesitating for even half a pedal stroke on those steeps meant you were off the bike and walking. I was actually able to race hard that afternoon, and the race was short enough at 3 laps just under 5 miles each, that the lack of training and fitness didn't get a chance to manifest itself to the extent it had the week previous at the Iron Horse. Came away fairly pleased and a little surprised.

Trail Run - Despite this course also staying a little lower on the mountain, I'm fairly certain they had that same guy, you know him from last time... yep, that one, the bastard - set the course again. It went straight up real early, just like last time. As in redline walking efforts straight up. Annie nailed it though, ran a great race that included running across and down snow banks, mud, double track, singletrack, and no track - everything a trail race should be, and did so quickly. Her motivation? To hammer my time from a few years back, which she did easily. I told her it was because the race didn't go as high up the mountain this year, but just between you and me, I know better.

Hill climb TT - Very similar time to last time I was out there, which translates into being a little slower this year given my legs hadn't had to do that run a few hours previous. Rode the first 6.5 miles real well, but didn't have the gumption to keep going hard once on the upper section of the route and faded some. But again, was somewhat surprised and pleased that it hadn't been worse. I also enjoy TT's, at least once they're over. Really the truest measure of oneself on the bike, both physically and mentally.

So, once it was all tallied together, team Wasatch Pilates (sponsored by Annie's little Pilates biz) finished 4th of 10 in the coed division of the Ultimate Mountain Challenge. More importantly - it seemed to light a little bit of the spark that's been missing from the motivation this year. We'll see if we can parlay that into some better focus and effort going forward. We're hooked on the team racing - its' a blast to team up with Annie for this kind of stuff.

Spectating - this was the kids first year out there so we made sure to catch a little bit of everything. They didn't get near as excited about the climbing or the slopestyle riding as we did. They're fascination - the dog jumping..., they could have watched it for hours.

Overall it was a great trip - great to get away with the family and just screw off for a while, these kidlets just keep getting more fun every year.

Video hightlights:

1 - my buying a gopro camera, with the kayak race specifically in mind for it, only to reach up and turn it on, I mean off, just prior to going in the water - no on board race footage, notta, nil, zilch.

2 - Brock having a hard time getting going on the kids race. Kid's race was also brutal for the little tikes, hard course for their little legs to climb up, and they all grinded it out - proud of them.

2011 Teva Mountain Games from Jason White on Vimeo.

Moab Adventure Race Report - 2010

The years first big race/adventure took us to Moab for the AXS series Moab Adventure Race where Annie and I would be doing our first race as teammates, which I thought would double as a funny marriage/social experiment aside from the racing. Both of which went fantastic - no public or embarrasing shouting matches, and a pretty successful campaign on the racing side considering it was our virgin run at this type of race. Race report with more detail than you care for as follows:



Check in: We (Tyler, Jeff, Annie and I) walked into the hotel where check in was taking place, and the first thing we saw were groups of racers huddled around tables and over their race maps. For me, with this being our first rodeo in the adventure racing scene, this was exactly what I was most insecure about, 1- would we be able to plot the course correctly, and 2 - if we figured #1 out, would we be able to stay on course once out there. We got checked in and picked up our race packets, ran into Matt, Laura, and Jeremy, and decided to all meet back at the townhouse to do the mapping together, which I think I was both publicly and secretly grateful for. The plotting exercise was fairly simple relative to what I'd imagined it might be, and I think we were all happy to have the reassurance of concurring bearing points on each others maps to check our work. We had 7 checkpoints to hit the next day, we had them marked on our maps, and from what we could tell, the route followed fairly obvious roads and trails, so the fear of blowing the race due to lack of navigation skill was put to rest that night. Discussion among the group the rest of the evening revolved around how cold the paddle would be, what to wear on the water, transition from boat to bike, where we could ditch the heavy packs without getting penalized, and the climb we'd encounter on the first bike leg up Long Canyon. Then everyone took off and we were left to get the packs and gear ready to go. Race sequence would be paddle, bike, run/rappel, then back on the bike to the finish.


Annie getting tired of checking and rechecking packs and gear, and Brock wrestling with grandma Leslie. My tendency is to overthink the nutrition aspect of these longer races, and I didn't dissapoint - loaded a lot more food than we'd take in during the day.

This is Annie about midway through the paddle, there's a point in all races (if you're really racing) where the race itself transitions from fun to long, regardless of distance. The smile is the giveaway that we're still in the fun stage of the day. We were one of the last to get into the water, but got into a good rhythm pretty quickly. We found the boat to steer better from the front seat, so back seat either skipped a dig for minimal correction, or called out for a sequence change wtih big digs to keep the boat tracking straight.

This is me with my "I'm a bad ass adventure racer who stops paddling to take pictures of myself" look, with the standard Moab cliffs in the background. The river section was all flat water, which is great for a cold morning when getting wet is unappealing. But, the tradeoff of having a calm/dry river leg is having to do a lot of work paddling in lieu of having a good fast current to ride. In those tandem boats, the difference between paddling hard and not paddling hard is somewhat marginal - thinking it will take a few of these races to figure out just how to approach this part of the day. Would call our effort here moderate, and I think it was exactly right for us. It's hard to get in good paddling shape without doing a lot of paddling - and we haven't, so we stayed right where we needed to in regards to intensity. The solo racers with the long creek boats were the exception, they were much faster.

The transition went well, we hit the checkpoint, stripped out of the wet tops/pants, and were on the bikes fairly quickly. First annoyance and rookie moment of the day for me came right away on the bike. I ride a Specialized Epic, which has a fantastic rear suspension setup that can be set stiff enough to darn near replicate a hard tail - it's tuned based on rider weight, and I'd made sure to dial it in the night previous - minus my pack. The pack was enough to make the suspension tune insufficient, and I had that nice squishy sag action that's undesirable in all but downhill terrain going.

Annie as we approach the beginning of the climb, which started at the river and topped out up near dead horse point. It wasn't far from this point that I realized Annie was having a really, really good day on the bike. Should also mention as a side note that her bike is not high end, it's heavy, made from left over tank materials I think - which makes her ride up this section all the more impressive. Long Canyon Road is short for Long, Steep Canyon road - it's a stout climb, with most of the vert coming on steep switchbacks, the kind of stuff Annie's never ridden, for the sole reason of it seeming like a stupid thing to ride up that type of thing on a bike. We tried to get her paced correctly, in a low gear that she could spin without approaching her limit, and I'll be damned if she didn't pedal up the entire thing, at a decent clip, with the exception of one rocky/sandy section that we all walked. Here she is at the top of the hike a bike section, one of my all time favorite race pics of her.

The rappell was just cool, nothing more needs be said. Annie stepped right over the edge just a week after a bout of height reservations on the Angels Landing hike down in Zion.

The run was where the day started to get long, we were fortunate to find out within 5 minutes of starting to look for it that checkpoint 4 hadn't been set out, this information came largely at the expense of a few mens team racers who had gone a mile down the trail before backtracking, thinking they'd missed it. We ran most of it, but true to my running form, I whimpered on a few of the bigger hills and had to slow Annie to a walk a few times. We also ditched off into the trees during this leg, for our one pee break of the day - our first ever tandem pee break.

Once back on the bike, we felt like we were dragging a bit climbing back up to the highway, but tried to push the pace knowing we had a huge downhill run with just a few miles of paved road left back to the finish. Annie saved a huge mistake by calling me back when I'd missed a turn on the paved road, and we climbed the last roller before the gradient plunged back down to the river. The descent went smooth and we spent the last few miles on the pavement recapping the highs and lows of the day, and how remarkably smooth it had gone for a couple of first timers.

In the end, we finished in 7 hours and 9 minutes - or 5th in our 2 person coed team field. We weren't close to the 4th place spot, so no second guessing certain strategies or sections thinking we could have improved our standing, just that cool satisfaction that comes from doing something hard and feeling like you didn't shortchange yourself/each other in the effort.

Post race, flying the Carborocket flag. Brad, that stuff got better and better the further into the race we got. Two bottles of highly concentrated pink lemonade combined with about 60 oz. of water in the pack worked for the entire day without a glitch. Annie loved it too, and looks even better in the jersey.

Takeaways from this one are:

1 - I dig these adventure races, will do more of them for sure.

2 - Would recommend doing your first adventure race with a teammate - can't say for sure, but I think it would have seemed like a lot longer day doing it solo. Although I think I know another who might differ on this opinion.

3 - Annie completely blew me away in regards to her performance. Funny that we're in our 11th year married, and she shed an entirely new light on her physical determination and capacity. It was not an easy day, and she lit it up.

New convert to Cyclocross

There's a new convert to cyclocross in the White house. Annie rode her first race today and ripped it. Rode a clean race to finish 2nd in the Women's C, passing several B racers and waving to the kids on the way. Check her out....

One of my favorite things about Annie is her desire to squeeze quite a bit out of her life, which is inclusive of trying just about anything. This race made her almost as nervous as her first Mtn Bike race in Vail this year - The course was the scary thing for her in Vail. Here, it was more the bike, which feels a little more squirly on the dirt than her mountain bike. She took her first spill over the bars earlier in the week trying to get used to it. She got settled in quickly during the race, and never looked back. It was cool to see her confidence growing each time she hit the barriers, remounted, and gunned it up the woodchip hill. I'm a proud and lucky guy.

It was fun to be back on the cross scene and see friends I hadn't seen since last season - it's a cool crowd.

I went out with the B group later in the afternoon, and it went as anticipated, I got shelled. The hand was a non-issue, in fact, it was great. But, have lot's of work to do to get back some form in all other areas. No better way to try and race yourself into shape than on the cross course though, and as much as it hurt, it was still a riot. And the new bike - it's awesome! Have a few tweaks to make, but it may be my most favorite bike.

Already looking forward to Wheeler next weekend - and giving the legs another shock session - they had no idea what the hell was hitting them today.

Disaster

P.S. Just took some snapshots of the computer screen to get these on here. Makes the video a little more tense knowing what I'm trying to wrench back into place. I'm an idiot.

P.S.S - yes, I'm aware my left pinkie may look as bad as the ring finger in the video. It's just fine. It was a dislocation, and also a field repair during a high school football game. First time I've seen an x-ray picture of it and will now admit maybe my alignment might have been a little off.

Started the video camera thinking I may get footage of a cool "in the field" repair of a dislocation. Ended up getting a four/five minute documentary of leadville hopes and ambitions dying on my last hard effort training ride before the race next week. Desperate wrenching on that hand, trying to stay positive in believing I could work it back to being right. Was still thinking it was 50/50 going into the hospital that it would just be a quick jerk on it by the doc to fix it. He knew the second he looked at it, and I was crushed when I saw the x-ray (tried to post it but can't get it off the cd they sent with me). Doc threw a temp. cast on and told me to see a hand guy to get it fixed right, so going to try and get into the TOSH folks first thing in the morning. Think it's more desperation than reality, but holding onto a sliver of hope that they can put some hardware in that would make it stable enough to race saturday. I still can't believe this happened. It's the bone that goes from my ring finger knuckle to the wrist, sheared in half on probably the least violent crash I've ever had.

Scenes from the Teva Mountain Games - Vail, Co

Annie flashing a smile at the camera on her way out on the TT.

Typical view of the garage/hotel condo in Vail. That pink foam roller is the amateur age group racers version of an on staff masseuse. It can hurt me almost as bad as the real thing.

Other half of the garage.

Me wrapping up day 1's races with the mountain bike XC race.

Typical view of Vail Village during the games.

Annie hitting a tight downhill switchback.

Me starting my TT hill climb. Will touch on the guy working on his bike in the race report post later....

Cycling Great Basin National Park & visit to Papa and Grandma's

Made a late week decision to ditch the rain forcast here at home along with the race plans at five mile pass, and head for the rain forcast out in the west desert, where we could be hero's for taking the kids to visit a few of their favorite people and all the animals, eat a few loaves of homemade bread, watch some basketball with my dad, and maybe get a few rides in if the weather cooperated.

The ride down - Chesney held out longer than Brock, primarily so she could decorate him with stickers. Once her task was over she crashed too.

Heading up Snake Creek on the mountain bikes - you can see the storm brewing up the canyon.

May have to throw some hiking shoes and the climbing gear in a backpack next time up - those walls look like there's a couple weekends worth of exploring on them.
12.5 miles up, steady climbing, start in the desert sage brush and end in the quakie's at the snowline. Longest mountain bike ride Annie's done, and she still has the 12.5 mile descent. She could have done more.

At the snowline - climbed as far as we could go on this day.

The video below is probably the highlight of the post - 1-because Annie's in it. 2 - because Annie didn't get clipped out - and we all know what happens next, and I got it on the video clip. 3 - because it's also got Annie bombing her first real fast downhill - she likes to go fast.

Day two was on the road bikes, with the intention of riding to the top of the park, or as far as the snowline would allow. Annie went out on the town with Leslie for the Garrison Girls night out when we rolled in Friday night and met Chandra - a local happened to be an avid cyclist along with her husband Ben. Worked out that they were able to join us for the ride which was great, they were strong and good company to boot.

Ben, Chandra, and Annie finishing up the approach to the park...

View of Wheeler Peak from a pull off a little further up the mountain....

View of the road winding up the mountain and the base of the valley where the ride started.


Ben at the end of the line, climbed as far as we could go again, only to be turned back by the snowline before getting a taste of the top.
Guess it means we'll have to go do it again.....

The descent was good, did have some gravel on the road that kept your attention and the corners are sharp enough to make you scrub speed, or at least make me scrub speed - so maybe not quite as good as AF canyon, but still, it's something like 13-14 miles without so much as a flat or little roller to pedal up, it's straight down hill, the whole way - and a very worthy reward after the effort of the climb. Finished with some good flat road to spin the legs out on the ride back across the valley to Garrison (dad's house) - tried one good sprint effort at the end and there was nothing left in the legs, they lasted about 3 rotations before officially quiting for the day - they were cooked. Good weekend of riding and company - thanks to Ben and Chandra for the company on the ride, and Grandma and Grandpa White for letting the rats of the rug rule the roost for the weekend. More on the kids weekend later...

Scenes from a west desert weekend

Friday night we loaded up the Honda Pilot and made the three hour trek to Garrison, Utah - home of my dad, Leslie (step mom), some cows, horses, and a few other folks. It's one of my favorite places to go for some unwind time - and it sounded like a nice place to go to celebrate my 33rd birthday and watch the Superbowl. Two dangers in driving across the west desert at night:

1 - breaking down, you may spend a night before potential help arrives via another vehicle coming by.

2 - Hitting a cow or antelope at night

We managed to dodge the black cow standing in the road about 20 miles outside of Delta - were fortunate enough to be watching and saw it with some room to make a Nascar pass around it. But as we pulled into my dad's driveway, we noticed right away that someone else hadn't been as lucky - and they were sitting at the kitchen table when we pulled in. My dad is the local constable so his place was where these locals came after hitting a bovine at about 55 mph. Yep - cows will leave a mark.

In the country you make do with the cards you've got in hand - so instead of calling AAA or a tow truck, the wife, who was sitting in the passenger seat (these folks must have been late 60's/early 70's) does her best to pick the glass off of her face after getting decked by the airbag, grabs the quilt she was knitting when the accident happened, and uses it to hold up the windshield as best she can while her husband, who was also rattled and had been decked by an airbag, drives the 40 miles to get to the next village - Garrison - where my dad lives. While desert climates can get toasty when the sun is up - they get brutal cold within a few minutes of the sun going down. I know my kids last about 5 seconds when I yell freeze out and row down the windows in high teen/low 20's temps - and their young with good circulation. Not sure what it might feel like to go 40 miles in said freezeout, i.e. no windshield, but am pretty sure it could not have been much better than miserable. Maybe the adreneline from the wreck helped, but probably not enough. This all happened Friday night - the photo was taken the following morning. A short follow up to this in a moment.

Annie and I took the road bikes down - so that I'd have something to distract myself from the homemade bread and other goodies in Leslie's kitchen - on the topic of cows, I tend to eat like one when I go to Garrison. Grazing begins just after hello hugs, and doesn't end until just prior to goodbye hugs. We got out Saturday morning for a couple of hours and rode up into Great Basin National Park until ice/snow on the road turned us back. All in all it was about 30 miles with about 2500 ft of steady climbing between miles 8 and 15. A solid workout where your burning up on the climb up, and bone cold on the decent. Am thinking this may be one of my best little training destinations this year as I try to get in shape for leadville - once the snow melts and the roads are clear all the way up, that mountain will be a stout ride.

One of the cons of being out in Utah's west desert - if you hit a cow, your not going to have much traffic come by to help. One of the pros of being out in Utah's west desert - if you feel like riding your road bike, for the most part, you've got two full lanes of prime road/highway pretty much to yourself - with some really fantastic climbing if you want it. Just don't hit the cow.


As we're descending from the park, the van pictured above that had been run over by the cow, comes cruising by with our new friend from the night before driving at about 35 mph - apparently taking his trusty steed home to be put out to pasture.

As much as I love a weekend in Garrison - the rats of the rug get even more excited about a trip to Grandma and Grandpa's. Horse riding, chores (feeding the animals), climbing haystacks, chasing cats, the nearby playground, the novelty of different toys, etc... and adoring grandparents all are things that they look forward to a lot.
Annie riding "Chief" - the girls favorite horse.
Queens of the haystack
Evening bull riding contest before bed. Chesney won this night.

Heck of a game Sunday night to cap it all off.

Utah Cyclocross State Championships

Jumping the double log barrier at the cyclocross race this weekend. Lucky for me, unlucky for you readers, Annie didn't get a photo sequence of the previous lap here. If you look closely in the first photo, you'll see what's become my trademark layer of dirt up my left leg. Coming into these logs I'd stepped my right leg over the seat and was ready to step off into a run with the left foot, only it didn't come unclipped. I've gained some confidence dismounting so had not slowed down much, and the gut reaction when I didn't come unclipped was to hit the deck instead of run head on into the logs - so I layed it down. While Annie didn't get it on camera - the CyclingUtah photographer was right there dialed in, so am hoping he had a glare on the lens or some other mishap.
I'd qualify my riding as average on Saturday, did some things well, still lot's to work on, including riding a clean race with limited self inflicted damage/time wasting mistakes. Thanks to Annie who is cool enough to let me race at the end of an overdue anniversary get away. Although I think I had earned some marriage capital by going to the Twilight movie with her the day before (ok movie, but it drew out some kooks!! there was a chick sitting next to Annie who seriously curled up into these creepy giggles every time Edward came on screen - full on Psyhco!) I told Annie I didn't feel like I was running on a full tank and she accepted full responsibility for it - despite the performance at the race, it was a pretty good weekend to be Jason.

Below is some brief footage from the C race, more footage from the B race including some carnage at the log and a really good finish with a late pass, and the A groups first pass over the log... the guys put on another great race and Fox was even out showing some love to the C's and B's handing out some cash and blasting his techno.