Shavawesome

How has the training for the Courage Classic been going, you ask?  Great, if climbing a 14er is appropriate training for a 200 mile bike ride.  If not, well, at least we ate a lot of cheese, so the weekend was still a success.

First an update on our fund-raising efforts:  Thanks to you all, Celeste and I have now raised $880 for Denver's Childrens Hospital!  Our goal is $2,000, so if you're still considering donating, please feel free to click one of our links below and give a little something to Children's Hospital on our behalf:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste 

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

In what is now pretty much an annual Summer tradition, Celeste and I packed up the car and met our cousins from Santa Fe, Tim and Michaela, for a jaunt up to the top of one of Colorado's many "14ers", or 14,000 foot peaks.  We've done trips to Handies, Elbert and Massive, Quandary and Democrat, and now this year, Shavano, Tabeguache (pronounced "tab-uh-wash," with the accent on the first syllable, I just found out, although I would prefer to pronounce it "ta-wash", so I could sing "ta-wash, ta-wash, ta-wash you want?"), and Antero.  In fact last year we were going to climb Democrat, Lincoln, and Bross (and don't forget Cameron!), but as is our style we got started too late and did not feel like we could summit all of those peaks early enough in the day to avoid the temperamental Colorado high-alpine Summer weather.  So the original plan this year was to take care of "unfinished business" and climb all of those aforementioned peaks.  But the Spring was snowy in and around that area this year, and reports indicated that some of the peaks further South, namely Shavano and Antero, were snow-free and rather more climb-able this particular year.  So we changed our plan at the last minute and agreed to meet at the Shavano trail head Friday night to camp.

Celeste and I rolled into the trail head just at dark, where Tim and Michaela had already set up camp near the trail head at the edge of a meadow ringed at all sides by a grove of aspen trees, and dotted with old-growth ponderosa pines, and sporting a close-up view of Shavano.  Rather lovely, all told.  The weather during the 4-hour drive to the trail head was choppy.  We drove through two major rainstorms, one just outside Fort Collins, and another on the way to Buena Vista.  The weather lately has been very unsettled, and we all knew that there was a pretty good chance of getting rained upon during our hike the next day, so we agreed that we should get up early and hit the trail before 6:00 am Saturday in order to minimize our risk of getting caught above timberline in a thunderstorm.

So we set our alarms for 5:00 am and settled into bed.  Since we were car-camping I brought pillows and our old coleman sleeping bag to sleep on for extra comfort.  It was all rather plush and I slept well, until just before 5:00 when I heard the unmistakable sound of ice sloshing violently against plastic; that sound made manifest by an unseen entity dragging our cooler around our campsite.  Oh yes, my friends, a bear was trying to abscond with our precious cheese and bud light!  First skunks, now this.  I'm just glad we decided to leave Ziggy at home this weekend.

I must be the lightest sleeper of the bunch, because I woke up first and said "bear", which although said softly by yours truly, instantly awoke the others into a state of wide-eyed alarm.  We all sat in the the tent in silent nervous expectancy (of what?  the bear cracking open a beer?  or cracking open our tent??) and listened to the sound of the cooler being dragged away.  Then the noise abruptly stopped.  Tim and I grabbed flashlights and headed out into the dim light of the early morning to assess the situation.  We found the cooler on its side, about 30 feet from where we had left it the night before.  We didn't see a bear or any other creature, human or otherwise, but we both figured that the cooler was probably too heavy to be dragged 30 feet by a raccoon or lynx or marmot.  It didn't appear as though the bear actually took anything, either, but later we did notice that our swiss cheese was missing, although the white cheddar was still intact.  So it must have been a Swiss bear.  And yes, I know, we made a very stupid mistake in leaving out the cooler, one we managed not to repeat for the rest of the trip.  And our tent was a good 25 feet away from the area where we ate and prepared our meals.  We actually do know the rules, we just don't always follow them.

Well that was better than any traditional wake-up call, and after a quick breakfast of coffee and cereal, we packed up and headed off towards Mount Shavano.  Shavano is the southern-most 14er in the Sawatch range, and is an impressive peak when viewed from the highway leading from Buena Vista to Poncha Springs.  And it was an impressive climb as well, featuring 4,400 feet of climbing from our campsite at 9,800 feet to the summit at 14,200 feet in a span of 4.5 miles.  The climb was fairly typical for most 14ers: a steep cool ascent through a forest of thin Lodgepole pine and Engelmann spruce, then breaking out of the forest at timberline to a wind-swept tundra of lichen-covered stones and traces of winter's snow, and finally a scramble up the final summit cone, guarded by sharp stones, and finally the summit, already populated by gore-tex laden hikers eating trail mix and enjoying the view.

The Angels of Shavano

Although Shavano was my 14th successful unique 14er summit (a nice bit of symmatry there!), I do not consider myself a "peak-bagger", obsessed with summitting all 50+ 14ers in the state.   Not that there's anything wrong with that; I admire the Will that drives people to want to accomplish such things.  I think I'm just a little too lazy to seek out all of the far-flung peaks, and find myself climbing the ones closer to home over and over again.  For example, I think I've climbed Mount Quandary four times, simply because it is so easy to get to from the highway!  But I do enjoy the novelty of each mountain, and I particularly enjoy the unique vistas provided by each mountain in turn.  The view from Shavano is similar to the view from Quandary, you know, lots of other mountains and what not, but at the same time the view is wholly unique and special in its own way.  For the views, I suppose, I would attempt to climb all of the 14ers.  We'll see if I get there.

Ah yes, the views.  And the clouds.

And in order to climb all of the 14ers, Shavano guards the approach to another 14er, Mount Tabeguache(-chu want!?!).  Tabeguache is only assessable (by normal people) via a high ridge that separates it from the summit of Shavano.  So in order to climb Tabeguache one has to summit Shavano, then hike the exposed ridge between Shavano and Tabeguache, climb Tabeguache, and then return via the same connecting ridge to Shavano.  It's fairly exposed, but not technically difficult, and the round-trip takes about 1.8 miles.  The general rule for 14ers is that one really should be off the summit before noon.  After noon, the weather on the peaks gets rather dicey, and there is literally no place to run or hide in the event of a thunderstorm.  We had decided that if we attained the summit of Shavano by 10:00 am, that we would allow ourselves to hike the ridge to Tabeguache and summit that peak as well.  An in fact we did summit Shavano by 10:00, but since the weather had been so unsettled, we noticed far more clouds than usual on the summit at this time of day.  We decided that even though we had made our time goal, that the weather was just too sketchy today, and decided not to try for Tabeguache.  In my opinion, a big part of being a good mountaineer is knowing when to turn around.  I'm as bad as anyone when it comes to contracting a case of "summit fever", but I know when it's time to pack it in and live to climb another day.  So we bid Tabeguache a farewell from afar, with a promise to return someday, and made our way back down the windy summit of Shavano, and back to camp.  Not one hour after we made it back we got hit by a short and fierce little rainstorm, which seemed to reinforce our decision.

After a dinner which consisted of an appetizer of cheddar cheese on triscuits,  another appetizer of cheddar cheese quesadillas, an entree of cheddar grilled cheese sandwiches, and for dessert, more cheddar cheese on triscuits, we thoroughly secured the campsite and went to bed.  The next morning we were originally going to climb either Mount Antero or Mount Princeton, or the high-13er Mount Ouray, but in the end we opted to sleep in and hike the Colorado Trail, which intersected the Mount Shavano trail very near our campsite.  Also the weather played a factor in our decision; we got another rainstorm at 2:00 am that night, and woke up to a sky filled with heavy clouds.  I'm sure we would have been fine, climbing another 14er on Sunday, but ultimately we decided on the easier and more convenient option of the Colorado trail, since it meant we would not have to drive anywhere or break camp.

That's how you ford a stream!

We enjoyed a delightful 11 mile hike on the famed trail, passing by several groups of people that were "through-hiking" the entire 470+ mile span of the trail from Denver to Durango.  We plotted and planned our own through-hike adventure (someday!) and enjoyed several vistas of my new favorite mountain, Mount Ouray.  Mount Ouray is not a 14er, but it's darn close (13,961 feet), and it enjoys a prominence that give it an impressive air that many of its taller and more-often-climbed neighbors lack.  It is, in short, a beautiful mountain and I intend to climb it; partly because it comes so close to being a 14er and I assume simply by dint of lacking a mere 39 feet of prestige, is almost completely ignored even though it is undeniably more impressive and beautiful than many other peaks that by some accident of commercial standards sit above a  completely arbitrary numerical threshold of elevation.  What if the length of a "foot" was only 0.3% shorter?  Then Ouray would also be a 14er, and would be undoubtedly be one of the more popular ones, to boot.  I understand the desire to climb the tallest peaks in the state, for the adventure and sense of accomplishment (and the views!), but I get the feeling there is a significant drop-off between the number of people who climb, say, the 10 least tall 14ers, and the number of people who climb the 10 tallest 13ers.  I'm guilty of that as well; I think I've summitted 3 or 4 13ers, and as mentioned, 14 14ers.  Maybe it's time to even the score.

Mount Ouray 

Well enough prattling on about mountains, I could go on all day.  As you can see we spent not a second on our bikes this weekend, but we did "scout out" Freemont pass via automobile, so I guess you could say we did some recon work for Courage Classic.  Today, we ride.  Hills.  I promise.

Many more pictures:

And if you're interested in donating, here are the links once again, thank you!

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste 

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Je t'aime, Ziggy, Je t'aime

Time for an update!  I am very pleased to report that we have raised just over $700 for our courage classic ride!   You all are most excellent and generous friends, and I will reward you with a story of grand excitement and odors.

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

OR:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Well the big plan for the 4^th of July was to volunteer at our local 5K race in the morning, the Firecracker 5, then ride Rist canyon, then take the dogs up into the mountains so as to avoid the noisy, scary fireworks display.  One out of three isn’t bad, right?

The 5K race was a lot of fun and we saw a bunch of our running friends volunteering and racing.  Our super hero Nicole won the women’s race and set a course record to boot!  Celeste and I were put in charge of the bike storage area, which seemed appropriate considering the courage classic.  The race was encouraging participants to ride to the event and provided a secure storage area for bikes, and even a special raffle prize drawing courtesy of REI for bikers only.

Celeste and Lincoln, keeping out the riff-raff

Our plan was to get out of there by 8:30 so we could go on our own ride, but we were not able to escape until after 10:00 am!  By then it was getting pretty hot, and we had to drag ourselves out of the house to go for our Rist canyon ride.  About oh, two blocks into our ride we decided to scrap the Rist idea, and we rode out only to Bellvue and back, via Bingham Hill on the way out, and “the barrens” on the way back.  My local running peeps will know what I’m talking about.  It turned into a leisurely 14 mile ride in the heat instead of the 40+ mile epic suffer-fest we’d promised ourselves.  Well hey, it was hot, what do you want from us!  More suffering and blood, I know.  Just wait, you’ll get what you came for.

A leisurely ride to Bellvue and back.

We spent the bulk of the afternoon staying out of the heat and watching the neighborhood fill up with people and cars in anticipation of the fireworks display at city park.  We found it amusing that many of our neighbors were putting out chairs and sawhorses and large buckets in front of their houses in order to prevent strangers from parking there.  It reminded us both of the North End in Boston, where there are unofficial reserved parking spaces for local men of dubious repute.  Since we are new to this neighborhood we didn’t realize how crowded things were going to get, but we didn’t really care because we were planning on vacating the area for the evening.

For you see Ziggy, our newest dog and the namesake of our Courage Classic team, is terrified of loud noises, and we figured it would be smart for all of us if we were nowhere near city park for the thunderous fireworks display that evening.  So about 5:00 pm we bundled Ziggy and Duke into the pickup, and headed up the Poudre canyon with Cat and Sarah for a nice evening hike up Hewlett’s Gulch trail.

The trailhead was almost completely deserted by the time we got up there, which was great.  We were able to let both dogs off leash (it is allowed there) and let them roam up and down the trail without fear of confrontations with any other dogs.  The mosquitoes were rather voracious at that time of the evening, and none of us brought bug spray, but other than that it was a wonderful cool quiet hike up the gulch through cool green forests and meadows, and featuring numerous stream crossings. 

At one point some dark clouds rolled over and threatened to rain, and Ziggy got frightened and actually started to turn back to the trailhead.  I called for him to return but he was having none of that, so I had to chase him down the trail for a good half of a mile until I could convince him to let me leash him back up and return to the others.  After the clouds rolled past Ziggy seemed in good spirits once again so I let him off leash once more.  In retrospect that was a big error.

Hewlett’s Gulch trail opens up into a lovely meadow near it’s far point, and we were in the clearing and almost to the high point when we noticed that both Duke and Ziggy were rooting around quite enthusiastically at the base of a bush some 10 feet of the trail and 20 or so feet ahead of us.  I started calling the dogs back to us, and Duke came cruising back, licking his mouth like he just ate peanut butter.  But I don’t think there was a jar of Skippy under that bush, and anyway I then caught the unmistakable scent of skunk.  Crap.

Ziggy came running out of the bush, chasing a small and very irritated skunk.  At this point the skunk fluffed up its bushy tail, turned away from Ziggy, and we all got to witness a skunk spray.  Ziggy took a shot point-blank to his face.  Which deterred him not in the least.  Duke clearly had more common sense, having come back to us at the first attack.  Ziggy was either too stubborn or too stupid to stop harassing the skunk, for he continued to chase this poor animal across the trail onto the other side of the meadow, proceeding to get sprayed about 3 or 4 more times while we all screamed his name but kept our distance from the fray. 

Finally Ziggy decided he’d had enough, and disengaged from the fracas and headed towards us, his normally white head literally stained yellow by the skunk’s spray.  And the skunk was so enraged that it was actually chasing Ziggy towards us!  Luckily the skunk decided that it didn’t want to spray everyone in the vicinity.  Maybe it was bluffing; do skunks have an unlimited supply of spray?  We were not going to find out.  It was time to high-tail it back down the trail to the truck. 

The poor dogs spent a fair amount of time rolling in the dirt, trying desperately to rub that foul stinging odor off of their faces.  We tried splashing water on them at the stream crossings, but it was difficult for us to stop because as soon as we did, hoards of mosquitoes descended upon us and proceeded to turn our skin into a reasonable facsimile of bubble wrap.  We were concerned that they may have gotten sprayed in the eyes but they seemed ok from that perspective.  All we could really do was get them back to home so we could subject them to a tomato juice bath (yes, that actually works pretty well).

The crew, post-skunk-attack

There was no way we were going to let them sit in the cab of the truck so Celeste and I rode in the bed of the truck with the two dogs while Cat drove our truck back down the canyon.  I’m reasonably certain it was illegal and I know it was dangerous, but luckily for us the traffic was quite sparse, because everyone was heading to city park for the fireworks, a fact we discovered when we arrived back at our house, just in time for the fireworks display.  You know, the thing we were trying to avoid in the first place!

So Celeste took the dogs inside while I drove around my neighborhood looking for a parking spot, and considered that some well-placed chairs in front of my house may not have been such a stupid idea after all.  So the dogs got subjected to a triple-horror of skunk, bath, and loud noises.  They really haven’t been the same since!  In fact Ziggy didn’t even want to leave the house this morning, four days after the fact.  It’s a dangerous world out there, isn’t it.  And even after the tomato juice bath, which stained their white fur the color of Thai iced tea, I can still detect a hint of skunk in the air.  It will just take time to fully dissipate.  But the dogs will be fine, and hopefully they will think twice before taking on another skunk.  And I will most certainly think three times before letting them off leash in the forest again, particularly at that time of the evening.  What a mess.

But this blog is supposed to be about training for the courage classic, is it not?  Well you know, a skunk attack is far more entertaining then more accounts of me riding my bicycle.  But I will fill you in on my progress nonetheless.  It’s Friday today, and the 4^th was Monday, which featured 14 miles of riding between the 5K race volunteering and the skunk incident.  On Tuesday I managed my normal 10 miles of commuting, and the same on Wednesday.  I was able to ride more miles on Thursday (yesterday), to the sum of 20 or so miles, 5 of which were done in a torrential rainstorm.  What is it with getting soaked on Thursdays?  So quite frankly I’m not putting in the biking miles I’d like, but I’m probably doing enough to get by.  I’m thankful that I got to ride Vail pass last weekend, that gives me some measure of confidence as I approach two weeks until the start of my ride.

Once again, thank you for your continued support, and here are the links you can click to donate to our ride:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

OR:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Je t'aime, Ziggy, Je t'aime

Doble-Vail

My training for the Courage Classic in 2+ weeks continues, with many detours along the way.  First of all, let’s review our progress towards our goal of raising $2,000 dollars for Childrens Hospital:

Celeste and I have raised $580 so far, thank you all so very much!  We are over one quarter of the way there!  If you are considering making a tax-deductible donation to Childrens Hospital on our behalf, I encourage you to do so by clicking one of the links below:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

And for those of you who have donated, a heart-felt thank you!  Your support means a lot to me.

So how has the training been going, you ask?  Well, you know, some good, some bad.  Last we left off last Thursday I had decided to bike to Towers and then run towers through a dangerous storm, and then bike home through the rain.

Friday was far more sedate, probably too sedate, as I only logged about 13 miles of city riding, much of that during my normal work commute.  And Saturday was even worse; housework beckoned so I spent no time on the bike at all, and did fun things like trim the trees and drain the hot tub.

But I made up for my slothfulness on Sunday.  Sunday I got up very early and drove to beautiful Vail, Colorado, for the 300^th annual La Sportiva Vail Hill Climb race.  Or 30^th annual, I don’t remember.  Point being, people have been lacing up their running shoes and climbing the cat trails up the side of Vail mountain long before I even contemplated doing something this nutty.  Yes this was not a biking event, so I’m still not really on the ball here.  Regardless, it is a good workout; the race climbs over 2,000 feet from the covered bridge in Vail Village to the top of the Lionshead gondola at Eagle’s Nest.  There were about 400 competitors lined up at the start, including me and my friends Sarah and Ellen.  Thankfully for all involved, the course did not go straight up the ski slopes, but rather chose a twisty route up the service roads, which double in the winter as the “easiest way down” trails with such names as “Cub’s Way”, and “Getalong Road”, and “Eternal Peril” Wait, I must have misread that last one, that doesn't sound right. 

No matter, I like to climb hills, and I thought I would be relatively competitive in this event, so I lined up right at the front of the pack like a big boy.  I realized quite quickly that I would not be winning this event right after the race started and the leaders blasted out to a 5-minute mile in the first, flat mile through town.  I knew what effort felt good for me and let them go, and tried to maintain a hard but sustainable pace.  Happily I was able to reel in quite a few runners who may have been a little over-eager at the start, and by about mile 4 or 5 everyone was pretty much settled in to their slots.  The road kept climbing up the side of the ski hill, and we crossed under numerous chairlifts, and across bare ski slopes, and through shady groves of trees as the views of the surrounding mountains got more and more impressive.  But the more impressive the view got, the less interested I was in enjoying it, as the climb, as climbs are want to do, got more and more difficult.  By mile 6 (out of 7.3 miles total) my legs and lungs were at the breaking point.  My only thought was not to let those people whom I passed pass me back.  A point of pride, I suppose.  There were two racers just ahead of me but I could not close the gap on them, no matter my effort.

Ellen cranking it out on the final climb

Sarah looking strong in a picture that is in no way staged whatsoever

I was trying to climb the hill in under one hour, and as I rounded the final switchback and the finish line came in to view, I saw the race clock at the side of the finishing arch, and it read ”59:59”, and quickly rolled over to “1:00:00” before I could muster the strength to cross under the banner.  Alas, I came in just over one hour at 1:00:04, finishing a gentleman’s 19^th place overall, and a, uh, gentleman’s 4^th place in my age group.

The weather was beautiful at the top of the mountain, and we enjoyed a nice cool down run on the trails and then took the gondola back down to Vail.  Then I ate lunch at the Red Lion bar in Vail Village with Sarah’s family, and then started part two of my Vail adventure.

You may be wondering why all this running, and writing about the same, when I should actually be riding in preparation for the Courage Classic.  Fair enough.  That’s why I packed my road bike with me on my trip to Vail.  I decided that after the run, if I felt up to it, I would ride my bike from Vail Village to the top of Vail Pass and back down.  What was I thinking?  And of course I had to open my big mouth and tell everyone I was doing that so now here I was, at 1 pm, clipped into my bike and trying to navigate the Vail Village parking garage in order to strike out for mountain adventure number two for the day.  Finally, some biking to write about!

Vail pass is a lovely mountain climb that is made even better by the fact that it is a car-free climb.  The route uses what I must assume is the old Vail pass road, and then a purpose-built bike trail that parallels the interstate up to the top of the pass.  It is also the centerpiece climb of the first day of the Courage Classic ride, so I figured it would be good to know if I could handle this climb on tired legs.  I changed from running to biking gear and washed my face of salt and trail grime in the public restroom of the Vail parking garage (how glamorous is my life!), applied another round of sunscreen and thought that any day that required multiple applications of sunscreen is a good day, and as mentioned, wound my way out of the parking structure and pointed my bike towards the hill.

I'll be back here in a few weeks!

And you know what, ultimately it really wasn’t that bad.  Indeed I took my time, I think it took me about 1 hour and 45 minutes to reach the top of the pass, but other than being fairly stiff at the beginning of the ride I felt better than I thought I would feel.  Of course a large part of this may have been do to the fact that there was a spectacular tail-wind pushing me up the pass, but let us not obsess over minute atmospheric details, shall we?  Also I must mention that although Vail pass is significantly higher than Rist canyon in Fort Collins, I think Rist is more difficult.

Having successfully attained summit number two on the day I pointed the bike back down to Vail, and then drove back to the Fort for a well-earned dinner at Enzio’s with the Speights, where we were expertly-waited-upon by super-nice Nicole, runner-extraordinaire and apparent inspiration for many dashed adjectives.

For the 4^th of July the plan was to ride Rist canyon with Celeste, after we volunteered at the local Firecracker 5k.  And then take the dogs up into the mountains so they would be out of earshot from the loud and scary city fireworks display, which happens to be staged right in our neighborhood.  But nothing went to plan and everything fell apart.  But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to read about that because I have to go to work!

Again, thanks for donating, and once more here are the links:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Dumb and Dumber

Celeste and I are still soliciting donations for our Courage Classic Ride in July.  We're trying to raise $1,000 each, $2,000 total.  Any amount you can contribute would be just wonderful, thanks!  Donate here:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or here:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

And I'm blogging about my attempts to train for this ride.  Follow along with my misadventures!  And donate!!

Well things got a little crazy today, and probably not in a good way.  Today was a Towers day, which means all the crazy trail runners in town congregate at Horsetooth Mountain Park west of town to run up Towers road.  It's a beast of a workout, and we do it every other Thursday, rain or shine.  I had the hair-brained idea to ride my bike to towers, run towers, and then bike back home.  And believe it or not, Alex had the same idea!  Hey if another person wants to do it, how crazy can it be?  And our friend Jonathan Z does this all the time, so it really wasn't that special of a plan.

So after work I rode to Alex's house, and we biked up to Towers together.  The Fort was pounded with a furious rainstorm earlier in the afternoon but things seemed to be clearing up, and our bike ride was dry and uneventful.  We got to towers, changed from biking shoes to running shoes, and ran a little one mile warm up.  Oh I hate how my legs feel trying to run after a ride, all wobbly and such.  Best to work out of that before tackling towers.

Towers is about 3.4 miles one way, and sports about 1,650 feet of climbing.  It's a beast, don't kid yourself!  I was planning on giving it a nice easy effort today, knowing that I still had to ride my bike home after the attempt, but two things happened that caused me to end up pushing the pace.  One, well, hey, it's towers, baby, and I just get excited chugging up that hill!  I can't help it, somehow I think this is fun.  But second, the relatively nice weather we were enjoying started to turn naughty.  First a brisk wind picked up, usually in our faces.  Then low ominous clouds started to roll in from the south.  We were going to get hit with another storm.  I picked up the pace, thinking I could literally outrun the worst of the storm.  In hindsight I really should have just turned around.  Summit fever, catch it like the plague.  Thankfully nothing bad happened to me or any of our group but I don't think we were being very safe out there today.  I got to the top of towers and immediately turned around and headed back down.

By the time I got to the bottom the rain had started to come down.  Alex and I thought about throwing our bikes into one of the other runners' cars, but ultimately ego took over and we decided we'd ride home through the rain.  Last year at the Courage Classic Celeste and I got caught in a tremendous downpour so I figured I could use a little wet riding.  Oh what fun it was.  I was a little timid on my skinny tires, but Alex and I made it back to town without incident, unless you consider my feet getting soaked and my bike getting filthy incidents.  But it was yet another dumb thing to add to the rapidly growing list of dumb things I did today.

So when you add it all up, I got 26 miles of riding with probably 1,500 feet of climbing, and 8 miles of running with about 1,700 feet of climbing, all told.  A pretty good day's work.  A dumb day's work, but it's a good dumb.

This is for brave little Ziggy, who toughed out the thunder and lightning with Celeste on Towers today.  Yes this is pretty much the best painting ever.  I'm getting a tattoo of it on my shoulder.  Maybe the malamute on one shoulder and the lightning on the other.

Eddie Vedder Opera

So I'm at the health club this morning taking Jeanie's group strength and cardio class, which is awesome, and not riding my bike; in fact I jogged over to the club (about 1.5 miles) instead of riding even that distance.  After work I went to the track for Jane's equally awesome track workout (running).  Apparently I'm training for the courage classic by doing a whole bunch of stuff that isn't actually riding a bike.  Well scratch that, I did commute to work on the bike so that's 10 flat miles for the day.  Incidentally not going to get it done.  Whatever.

Actually that's not what I wanted to write about today.  First, the pitch:  Celeste and I are still soliciting donations for our Courage Classic Ride in July.  We're trying to raise $1,000 each, $2,000 total.  Any amount you can contribute would be just wonderful, thanks!  Donate here:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

or here:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

Anyway, while I was at the health club I heard a song I've not heard in some time:  "Black" by Pearl Jam.  It was fairly faint in the speakers so I didn't recognize it until they got to the end bit, where Eddie Vedder sings:

"I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be the sun in somebody else's sky, but why, why, why can't it be, can't it be mine?"

Except of course as you know, he doesn't sing "mine" like that, he sings it like:

"Muhhhhhhhhhh-aaa-aaaah-ahhhh-hiiiii-ja-jaaa, whooo!"

(I had to look up the lyric on line b/c I wasn't completely sure that the word was, indeed "mine", incidentally)

Yeah, you know the part, everyone does!  In fact, as I'm listening along I realize that this is a live version of the song, and when he gets to the word "mine", the entire crowd sings along with each and every heartfelt inflection and vocalization of the word, in a grotesque echo of the original.  And I would do exactly the same thing if I was there, oh yes.  And how that must annoy Mr. Vedder!  Actually he's probably come to grips with the fact that every time he sings "black", this totally sincere, passionate, sad, intense, wonderful song, a bunch of idiot frat boys in the front row are going to bellow it right back in his face.  I'm certain he's simultaneously touched and appalled!  "Black" is one of those songs for me that I really liked, then I hated because I heard it too much, but now it is ok for me to like it again.  There's probably 4,000 other songs like that for me, all in various stages of that likability U-shaped continuum. 

But I actually had a good reason for hating that song.  I was in college when "Black" came out, and suddenly every girl on campus was in love with Eddie Vedder, which was bad news for the rest of us very non-Eddie Vedder types.  I heard the song and was impressed with the soulful intense vocal, but the girls heard that song and were instantly smitten with what appeared to be our generation's Van Morrison.  Overflowing with smit, I tell you.  Believe me, us normal guys had no chance to compete.  Oh, I grew my hair our and tried to look grunge, or at least tie a long sleeved shirt around my waist, and write poetry, and say deep things, and look both hurt and angry and cool all at once, but I was a fraud and all the girls knew it.  Damn you Eddie Vedder for being so perfect!  So I turned up my nose on Pearl Jam and went right to, uh, INXS apparently.  Hopeless.

But now I can like it again as I have come to grips with my own inadequacies in comparison to Eddie Vedder.  It's tough to be angry with him for stretching out the word "mine" into a 5 second aria, I applaud his verve.  Which brings me to my final observation about "black".  I've decided that the song is all rather operatic in nature.  You may scoff, but the overwhelming sense of sadness and lack of any redemption, lyrically or musically, rather strongly reminds me of some of Puccini's best work.  I'm thinking Tosca, but I always think Tosca.  Well, here.  Compare Placido Domingo with Eddie Vedder for yourself.  It's rock vs. opera, but they share the same intensity and passion, and in this case, the same ability to really milk a word for all it's worth.

First, Placido Domingo:



And here is Eddie Vedder:



Maybe I'm the only one seeing the similarities here? Well, it sounds like opera to me. And that's a good thing!

Ok tomorrow I will ride.  More than 10 miles.  Should be all rather exciting.  Hopefully not operatic though.

Oh and one more thing, congratulations to Ft. Collins' own Nick Clark for finishing in 3rd place in last weekend's Western States 100 miles race!  Jolly good Nick.  See you at Towers on Thursday.  I might ride my bike to the bi-weekly suffer-fest on the hill!

How to Train for the Courage Classic Without Really Trying: Part 1

Don't lean on me man, 'cause you can't afford the ticket, back from Suffragette City!

As you may know, Celeste and I signed up to ride in the Childrens' Hospital Courage Classic charity ride again this summer.  We did it for the first time last summer and had a really good time, even though the weekend ultimately entailed about 200 miles of bike riding over several high mountain passes in its three days of road biking mayhem. 

Well in spite/because of that, we're back again this year to ride once again.  Now, mind you, this is a charity ride and not a competitive ride, so quite frankly I don't feel too terribly stressed out about being in top riding shape when the event starts.  Which is a good thing, because I can safely tell you all that I am not in any way in top riding shape right now.  I'm in pretty good running shape right now, and I'm sure some of that fitness translates, but running and biking are not the same thing.  So I think I'd better train a bit before the event.  Now I don't need to be in Jan Ulrich shape in 4 weeks, but I don't want to be miserable out there on those mountain climbs either, so some riding is in store. 

Therefore please join me on a little blogging adventure as I try to get myself in biking shape for the Courage Classic.  I hope that you will also consider donating to the Children's Hospital on my or Celeste's behalf by clicking on either or both of the links below, and giving generously:

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/srslush

http://www.couragetours.com/2011/celeste

We're trying to raise $1,000 each -- $2,000 total, and I think as of today we have raised about $270 between the two of us.  Not too shabby to start, but we have a ways to go.  We're riding as part of the "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" team, whose members number six:  Celeste and I, our cousins Tim and Brian, and our friends Tony and Chryss.  We named out team after our new dog, Ziggy.  We rescued him back in December and we named him after David Bowie because he had one brown and one blue eye.  Come to find out that neither of David Bowie's eyes are Brown or Blue, they're both Hazel, and they only look like they're different colors because one eye is permanently dilated due to an old injury.  This is David Bowie I'm referring to, not our dog Ziggy.

Regardless, I'm a bit off topic here, which is just as well because I'm not sure exactly how much time I can spend telling you about how badly I'm riding right now, but once and finally I'll get to that bit now.

The training:

So I figure, this Courage Classic features 200 miles of riding and bunches of hill climbs.  I've been riding my bike to work most days, to the tune of 10 miles per day, but my commute is rather flat.  So today after work I decided to go ride the biggest nastiest local hill climb I could think of.  That's right, Rist canyon.  I've only successfully climbed this crucible of pain one time ever.  In fact it was last summer, when I was once again cramming for the courage classic.  So here we go again.  Rist canyon is about 2,500 feet of climbing in 10 miles of road.  A pretty mellow climb for a run, actually, but nasty stuff on a bike.  I've been doing a lot of hill climbing on foot lately so I thought I could breeze up Rist without too much trauma tonight on the bike.  I thought wrong.  Dang, biking is totally different than running.  Maybe I went out too hard, but I fell apart about half way up the canyon.  I didn't get started on my ride until about 6:45 pm, so I was actually running out of daylight in the narrow mountain canyon, but I was not able to make it to the top tonight.  Heck, I think I only made it about 1/3 of the way up the canyon before I turned around into the calm cool evening. 

It was a pretty ride, and I didn't see too many other riders up there tonight.  I ended up with about 23 miles of riding and about 1,500 feet of climbing all told.  This on top of my 10 commuting miles today makes for a fairly respectable 33 mile day.  I'll take another crack at Rist next Monday on the 4th of July, and this time I may drag Celeste and Tony and Chryss along with me so we can all curse Ziggy together.  It will be a team-building experience. 

So I must admit that I was humbled by Rist tonight.  Again, I may be in good running shape, but I am not in really good riding shape.  At least not where I want to be.  I'll keep you all updated on my training and fund raising progress over the next 4 weeks though, hopefully I'll be able to report good news on both fronts!  And yes I'll continue to run as well, I can't give up my true love!  I have a Bighorn 50 mile race report (I ran that jewel of a race the weekend before last) that I'll post in due time as well.

But for now let me remind you that while Ziggy played guitar, he never rode Rist.

aaaaaah, Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am (for donating)!

The Ghanaian Rockies

A few weeks ago I posted a thorough deconstruction of the “Please Visit Ghana” Post Card #7.  So as promised in that post, I present today the “Please Visit Ghana” Post Card #10. 

This time we will mix it up a little and present the back of the card first.  Please read carefully the post card description:

And I thought I had problems with run-on sentences.  But you know what, through all the poor grammar and ramblings, I think Mr. Boateng does a pretty good job of selling Ghana as a tourist destination.  We learn from here that Ghana has chiefs, who presumably have some measure of control of the people, who themselves are nice, and religious, and therefore tourists are encouraged to visit the palaces and learn about Ghanaian culture, and don't forget the rich mineral resources, and I think I have fallen into the same run-in sentence trap as Mr. Boateng.  This post card business is trickier than it looks.

I know that the grammar is not correct, and it’s easy to scoff and laugh at that, but on the other hand I’m not sure I’d fare much better trying to create a post card of Colorado in Twi for Ghanaian tourists.  What I can’t really understand, however, is the front of the card:

I’m no expert at mountains, but I’m no slouch either.  Call me crazy, but my Messner-sense tells me I’m looking at St. Mary Lake in Glacier National Park; not Ghana.  And once again, I must state that for the record that I did not see all that much of Ghana while I was there.  So the possibility does exist that the background scene on “Please Visit Ghana” Post Card #10 is actually located somewhere in Ghana.  But I'm guessing this is copied from a post card of Glacier National Park in the USA.  This should take no leap of faith from anyone reading this, but I presume Mr. Boateng started with a post card someone mailed to Ghana from the USA.  Then he pasted pictures of a Ghanaian soldier, Ghanaian drummers, and an Ashanti throne on to the original card, thus creating a whole new card.  At best, it’s almost like the visual equivalent of a rap song that uses samples of other songs to create something wholly unique and fresh.  At worst, it is a curiosity, something to be celebrated only with hipster irony and smug condescension.

St. Mary Lake.  Just. Sayin.

And yet this crazy mash-up IS Ghana.  It’s so Ghana.  So my question is this; is the juxtaposition of Ghanaian cultural vignettes and the Rockies art, commerce, silliness, or perhaps some combination of the three?  And more broadly speaking, are post cards art?  Can art be accidental?  What is this thing, exactly?  Let’s get our over-analysis on, shall we?

First let’s start with the premise that post cards are indeed art.  Although they are produced for commercial purposes, they are designed to be visually appealing and their intent is to give the purchaser and recipient pleasure.  I realize that not all art is created solely to provide pleasure, but that is one function of art.  A designer of postcards wants to make their product visually appealing so that it will sell.  So I propose that the creation of a post card is an artistic act, and it is intentional art, and not accidental art.  Art for commerce, but art nonetheless.  But what sort of art is this?

Let’s see if we can categorize this post card as something called “naïve art”.  Naïve art is an actual defined art form in painting.  In its most correct definition, naïve art is characterized by painters who have formal training, but willfully choose to reject rules of “classic” painting, most notably the use of perspective and proper color.  Sort of like punk rock painters, I guess.  Of course naïve artists generally continue to paint actual recognizable images, unlike abstract art.  I’d argue that our post card satisfies some of the criteria of naïve art.  Lack of perspective, rejection of realistic color, yes.  Recognizable images, well, sort of.  I mean, I recognize everything in the post card, but we’re getting closer to Salvador Dali absurdest juxtaposition than Henri Rousseau bucolic exotica here.  So I’m not convinced that naïve art is the best term for this particular work of art.

And I think serious “naïve artists” would take offense at this post card being described as naïve art, since Mr. Boateng probably did not make this post card with the intent of making naïve art and rejecting this or that artistic convention and sticking it to the (I assume) stuffy "post card" art establishment.  He wasn’t making a statement; he was simply creating a post card.  The fact that it looks like naïve art does not necessarily mean that it is naïve art.  Intent is important.  Artists can be so picky with labels…

So is there another term that fits better?  May I present the term “Outsider Art” for your consideration?  Outsider art is art created by people who have no formal art training.  There are no rules to break for Outside Artists, simply because they don’t know what the rules are.  Some people also will interchange this term with “Art Brut”, which is French for “Rough Art”, and also the name of a wonderfully silly English punk band.  I am told that the term Art Brut was originally reserved for art created by people in insane asylums, so, you know, it’s probably best if we stick with Outsider Art for the purposes of this discussion.

Note that the definition of Outsider Art really has nothing to do with perspective, or colors, or subject matter, or intent, or any of that stuff.  The term is reserved simply for people who make art, but have had no training at how to make it.  Perfect.  I’m going to assume that no one explained to Mr. Boateng the nuances and traditions of formal post card art.   Therefore his wonderfully weird and, yes, naïve creations as less a willful rejection of that stuffy post card establishment, and more an unintentional outsider’s perspective on the form, done without any knowledge that rules were being broken.

By the way, I think I'm going to categorize this post as absurdest art.

Since I seem to think of things in musical terms, I am reminded of a song that provides a perfect musical analogy to my completely over-analyzed post card.

May I present to you the fountainhead of “outside” indie music.  Not the Velvet Underground; The Shaggs.  The Shaggs were a band from New Hampshire in the 60s.  The band consisted of three sisters, who were managed by their father.  They had no musical training whatsoever, and not to put too fine a point on it, one can get a sense of their lack of formal training on their 1969 release, called “Philosophy of the World”.  I found a delightfully strange you tube animation for the song “My Pal Foot Foot” from this album, which you can peruse at your leisure here:

Listening to the song I am of course struck by the, uh, unconventional song structure and musicianship.  Man, that’s weird stuff.  But nonetheless it is a willful attempt at writing a song.  This didn’t happen by accident, believe it or not.  Furthermore, this is not the same as, say, the Rolling Stones writing a song that rejects the rules of rock music.  It’s not even punk music in that regard, since part of ethos of punk was a rejection of the “rules” that bands such as the Rolling Stones followed.  But even punk understands that there were rules to be broken.  Quite frankly it was part of the fun.  And even punk music didn't reject all the rules.  The Shaggs don’t appear to even understand that there are rules at all.  That’s what makes their music so fascinating, albeit difficult to listen to.  It's what differentiates the Shaggs from the Velvet Underground, for example.  Both bands broke the rules, but the Velvet Underground knew that they were breaking rules.  The Shaggs were just making art.  And quite frankly, the members of VU were better musicians.  But that's beside my point.

So yes, I’m stating that Mr. Boateng’s post cards are the post card art equivalent of “The Shaggs”.  Furthermore I’m stating that although it’s easy to mock Mr. Boateng’s post cards (and the Shaggs for that matter), and that it’s quite a lot of fun to do so incidentally, his post cards and the Shaggs music are actually unintentional and unique artistic statements in and of themselves.  More for the outsider’s perspectives that they represent than for their beauty or formal quality of course, but art, nonetheless.