Quick Grouse Gap overnighter with the fam - snowcamping at its easiest

 

Fun, quick mission out to grouse gap for an overnighter.  2 miles in, flat, easy.

Strava - 

Day 1 - https://www.strava.com/activities/8980643853

Day 2 - https://www.strava.com/activities/8980650027

Pine to Palm 2022! My Second 100!

 

Was quite nervous about this as I hadn't been training much for it.  But I relied on my base and the fact that I did quite well at SOB 100k and the mental fortitude in watching Sam suffer at WS100.  Smokey, hot, epic day!  My stretch goal was to finish under 24, so I'm super stoked!

Ended up  12th O/A and 10th for males.  

Timewarp Pedal from WR with the boys and Shasta

 

Most vert for the kids and longest run for Shasta... He's dead.  

Inaugural Mt. Ashland SkiMo Summit! - in the books

 

Despite the challenging conditions we had for our inaugural Mt. Ashland SkiMo Summit, we pulled it off.  

Check out these awesome pics from Kevin Jantzer! - https://photos.kevinjantzer.com/Events/Mt-Ashland-Skimo-2022/

Results here - https://ultrasignup.com/register.aspx?did=89280

We made a webpage - https://www.mtashlandskimo.com/

And a facebook and an instagram account.  

SOB 100k

 

Given I haven't put up more than 40 mile weeks this year, this race went really well.  I knew it was going to be hot and my strategy was to put my vest on at Potlicker and have 4 bottles with me from that point on.  Also quite nice to run the first section with just a handheld.  I did start cramping up about halfway and had to put down a lot of Gu and water to overcome my body seizing... 

https://www.strava.com/activities/5607929268/overview

Boys be Timewarpin'

 

Finally got the boys down Timewarp!  That was a great day.  Nikko said his hands were tired... ha.  

He did score a slurpee at the end... so it was all worth it.  

Next day, I went back up to get the car.

Ashland Enduro!

Leading up to this race, I was a bit worried as my clavicle wasn't healed 100% yet, but was really excited to ride these trails again.  It hadn't rained for 100+ days so needless to say, the trails were dry.  I dropped down to Sport (was signed up for Expert) and so Metres, John, Andy and I were all riding sport 40-49.  Jack (the young un) was riding Sport 30-39.  John killed it and came up first, Andy 3rd, and I came in 4th.  Results here.  

The week leading up to the race, the FriDaddy crew did a practice ride on Tues.  Jack, John, Andy and I caught the AMA shuttle up and rode the course.  Then Metres came up on Thurs to pre-ride the course on Fri with Alex Do, who came down to meet us from Eugene.  On Sunday, I had to finish up the 100 miles for the virtual Pine to Palm run and logged 24 miles and watched Dr. Adams ride on his way to 3rd place.  Good weekend!

Getting ready at the start of stage 1

Jack had some issues and flatted on stage 1.  He would've won otherwise...

Check out this crew with a husband towing his 7 mo pregnant wife!  Mad respect.

Sunrise next mornig

 

Everesting?? more like K2-ing.

Everesting was another 2020 thing... something you'd never do unless you ran out of options for adventure.  Basically, the rules are... you gotta do it in one ride (no more than 2 hr break), you have to pick one hill, and you have to climb the height of Everest (8848m).  

So I did the calculations HERE, and for this segment it said I have to do 25.4 laps.  So I figured I'd start at 5 in the morning and be done by midnight or so.  Spoiler... I did 27 laps, just in case, and my Garmin stopped working around halfway through.  The elevation stopped, so on my Garmin it said I had done like 5k ft, and stopped.  By my calculation, I did 30,800 ft of vert.  Well over the 29k required.  But whatever.  I guess I'll have to do it again sometime. 

Just for next time... this segment had some flat sections.  So the total gradient was only 6.29%, it got up to 14% in sections, but most of the faster rides are done in steeper gradient sections.  I should look... Dead Indian Memorial might be a good option.  Although it's only 6%.  But it's a consistent 6%.  But there is quite a bit of traffic on it, which is a bummer.  

This one would be good for a dirt everest.  

https://www.strava.com/segments/24943067

Here's my segment, fly.  

https://everesting.cc/hall-of-fame/#/hill/3581432350

I had baked two pizzas and drove up to the start as I'd need a basecamp for this attempt.  

Here are the boys wonder WTF is daddy up to now?

Anyway... I picked a horrible day.  Well, the weather just turned out to be bad on the day that made the most sense to do this challenge.  It rained quite a bit, I got plenty of hail, and yeah, it was quite cold.  But I've learned from experiences like Orr Springs that I can ride through mostly anything.  

Kimbo got me some take out Thai food from House of Thai, which hit the spot!!!

see hail

Quite soaked

We did get a lovely sunset.  

Road ride up Mt. A

Had a fun ride up to Mt. A with Jace and Niko.  T'was quite cold on the way down and they put on trash bags that we got from the campsite for our descent down. 

First BC day for the boys!

Kai on modified Naxos and Nikko just went up with his boots unbuckles.  Inspired by Casey.



We also cruised up a few days later with the Segers for the boys last day of skiing.  They logged 16 days of skiing this year.  I managed to squeeze in 53 days!  The most days I've got in probably since I last lived in Ashland.  Maybe ever.

Kai crushing

Kai and Nikko have been riding their bikes a LOT since COVID.  Kai is on his 24" mtn bike... that I need to upgrade.  But for the record, as an 8 year old, he's ridden 2k ft of vert (see below), up Morton St., up Tolman Creek, etc...  he's kind of a crusher.


Here's the boy's tracks on their first shuttle lap!

Ashland Hill Climb - Sept 29, 2019

The Ashland Hill Climb bike race pits mtn bikers vs road bikers.  It's a pretty unique race as the mtn bikers go up a different, shorter but steeper route and the road bikers take the longer road up.  This isn't to be confused with the Ashland Hill Climb run, which is in Aug.  I'd like to do that too.

It took me 1:54 to get up there, and this year's course was a bit shorter due to snow.  The record is 1:26, which is a whole lot faster than I can go, and quite impressive. Even though I hadn't been riding much prior to this race, my HR was pegged for 75 min, and there's no way I could come close that in the best conditions.

It snowed quite a bit the night before, so they had to move the finish line down to Bull Gap.  Thank god they had drop bags, as it was coooooold up there.  

Had to ride up to the top for the sake of it

Rode down to Callahan's where my fam met me.  I was bonking.  On the way down... 

Later that day we went to the circus.  

Ashland for Thanxgiving!

A few weeks after getting KOed on my bike.  My parents flew into town!  Boy were they surprised to see me.  We got an AirBnB in town and spent 6 days in Ashland over Thanksgiving.  We got to see a lot of old friends, feast on a lot of meals, go up to the snow, and I got to do a lot of trail running. 

Lot's of morning runs:

• Wed - easy Lithia loop
• Thurs - 8 mi flat pace
• Fri - Another quick Lithia Loop
• Sat - red queen
• Sunday - quick Lithia loop