Along the Littoral

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Al

Once upon a time, I suppose, only the Chumash Indians cared about the shoreline along South California. Now, the stretch from Santa Barbara to Chula Vista belongs to everyone’s imagination, brought there by personal visit, reports from friends, or the indigenous Hollywood culture industry.

The beach inspires artists, or at least a certain class of performers. My personal ethos was molded in the 60s by Annette, Frankie, Sandra Dee, et al in the endless Gidget and Beach Blanket movies. Then, Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys figured out how to amalgamate the sun, sand, and surf with mid century teenage lust, and we heard Surfin’ Safari, 409, I Get Around, Fun, Fun, Fun, Surfer Girl, and the iconic California Girls. The Endless Summer stamped the surfing/beach lifestyle as one of freedom and self-indulgence along the cloudless edge between land and sea.

I moved to Southern California in 1970, after loudly proclaiming I would never live in a big city like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. I was entranced by the idea of sun and warmth every day, and quickly learned about the sea spray and its soft embrace in Santa Monica Bay.

By 1975, I had moved to Venice, less than a block from the ocean, and was living with one of those California Girls, who’d grown up spending summers at the beaches from Malibu to Redondo. I had already fallen prey to the Beach Boys’ mysticism, making pilgrimages to all the beaches mentioned in Surfin’ USA, at least the ones in LA and Orange Counties. I was working hard, learning to be a doctor, spending 70-90 hours a week at the hospital. Once home, I would literally kick off my shoes, and walk down to the beach, where everything was quieter, there were no cars or buildings, and the Pacific stretched for half a planet out in front of me. I could watch the waves forever, it seemed. They’d cast a languid spell, softening the light, erasing the hours, and wrapping me in a cuddly cloak of warm salt air.

The next year, Cheryl and I went to see the movie, Lifeguard, starring a young Sam Elliot. His drawl was not as pronounced then, his skin smooth, hair all brown and fluffy. He was a lifeguard at Torrance Beach, holding fort in one of those light blue plywood towers which line the LA County beaches. His days were mostly spent watching surfers, smiling at bikini-clad sunbathers, and wondering how he got to be so old, yet getting by as a glorified surf-bum’s. He gets pulled into Real Life, though, attending his 15th high school reunion, where he falls back in with an old girl friend, who now has a 5-year-old daughter. Sensing he’s got to have some more tangible means of support if he wants to head a family, he is tempted by another old high school chum into work as a Porsche salesman. Much of the movie simply shows Sam looking out at the waves, pondering whether this wastrel life is actually better than selling out and moving in with the herd. It was a movie less dependent on its plot, or even its characterizations, than on the simple feeling of quiet contentment along the southern California littoral. I can’t remember how the movie ends, whether he stays on as a lifeguard or drops into the 9-5 life. All I do remember is it caught me at the very moment when I was yearning for a ski bum’s sojurn, but committed to a much more intense role as physician, all the while living amidst artists, drop outs and bums seaside in Venice. I had caught the pull the lifeguard felt, and understood the draw of the beach.

Fast forward to 1991, and Point Break, with Keanu Reeves as ex-college quarterback-turned-FBI-agent Johnny Utah. Patrick Swayze is leading a band of surfing adrenaline junkies who don masks of recent US president while robbing banks to support their lifestyle. Keanu’s boss, squirrely mouthed Gary Busey, pushes him into learning how to surf so he can infiltrate the gang and bring them to justice. Of course, Keanu gets enthralled in the surfing scene, falling for surfer girl Lori Petty, and getting Patty Heast’d into a bank job with the Ex President’s. Once again, the southern California beaches and their mesmerizing magnetic draw steal the show from three guys who admittedly can’t act that well anyway. The story ends with a now long-haired Reeves letting Swayze paddle out to certain death while attempting to surf in a 100 year Australian storm. Another movie which has stuck with me over the decades, simply because it relies on beach life for its main aura.

And now, Savages, the latest film from Oliver Stone. Over his 30+ year career as a  writer/director, he has often chosen large, historic subjects: Vietnam War (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July), Presidents (JFK [about the assassination], Nixon, W), 9-11 (World Trade Center), along with both Wall Street movies, the Jim Morrison bio-pick, 13, and the over-the-top story of serial killers in the 24 hour news cycle age, Natural Born Killers. He never does anything softly, or subtly; he dives in full force, always jiggling a bit with the conventions of story telling and movie arts. His movies are controversial, watchable, and intense.

Don Winslow’s 2010 novel, Savages, details the increasingly fraught lives of Ben, Chon, and and their shared girlfriend O, three 20 somethings washed up in luxury in Laguna Beach. Their cliffside house over the breakers is funded by Ben’s double major from Stanford in botany and business, which he has parlayed into the best cannabis in the state (THC levels reaching 30%). Chon, his best bud from high school, provides the muscle along with some seal team comrades from his tours in Iraq and ‘Stan. Their dreamy, breezy, beach-y life is roundly slashed apart by the Baja cartel, which wants their product and distribution network. Blood, intrigue, and dark hilarity ensue, all the while with that laid-back SoCal scene surrounding every move.

Stone makes full use of Winslow’s careening plot twists, and employs his many little tricks to suck us in to the story. Benicio del Toro and Selma Hayek as the drug kingpins can’t be beat, and for once, Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights, John Carter of Mars, Battleship) takes advantage of his deadly combination of sultry sex appeal and smoldering violence.

The biggest draw of Savages, though is not the blood or dope, but the scenery. Whether it’s Selma Hayek falling apart while dining outdoors under palm trees, or Ben and Chon planning strategy while wave-watching in their Laguna aerie, or driving 300 pounds of bud down I-5 in a beat up van @ 90 mph to meet a deadline at the border, the action is always softened by that barely perceptible but insistent call to “catch a wave, and you’re sitting’ on top of the world”.

Posted in Family, Reviews: Books, Movies, Music, TV, Venice Stories | Leave a comment

Mt. Rainier Duathlon

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Al

The Mt Rainier Duathlon is a little local race I’ve done 3 or 4 times in the past ten years, most recently 2007 and 08. The Long Course is a 5.18 mi run/ 28.8 mi bike/3.8 mi run. The first run has two short but steep hills around the end of mile 3; the bike is two loops, flat farmland for 6 miles, then a 600′ climb, followed by a 2 mile false flat (climbing another 100′), and a screaming four mile downhill. I’ve always used it as a test of early season fitness, but this year, I signed up about ten days ago thinking it would be a sharpening race for IM St. George next week.

It also happens to be a race where I can get all the admin mistakes out of my system. Once, leaving T1, I kept my running hat on, neglecting to switch to the bike helmet. I road back to T1 after about 0.5 mi. Another year, I forgot my watch. This year, I made two flubs. First, I got the wrong day, so I had a dry run of 40 minutes to the course Sat AM, and got to return again this morning. That was good practice at working on balancing the nervousness with the calmness needed for a good race – I got to do that twice! Then today, I found I’d left my Joule @ home. Luckily, I’ve got a Garmin 310XT I’m using for the first time this year, so that was helpful to ride off the power from that watch.

About 4 days ago, I got the pre-race email, and found out this race was declared the USAT National Long Course Duathlon Championship. That threw me for another loop. Being hyper-competitive, if something is a “Championship” or otherwise some kind of a big deal, I like to prepare myself mentally for it, which means working on self-talk for 2-3 months in advance. My self talk for this race was to try out my HIM pacing and running off a hard bike, not to go for some trophy. It took a couple of days to get out of the Big Deal headspace back into the training space, but I got there by race morning, and got to meet all the other folks in my AG, none of whom were local.

The weather and the road surface were the biggest factors here. In years past, the flatland portion and hill climb were chip seal, which is maybe one gear slower for me, as well as being chattery. But! the road has been newly paved, smooth asphalt all the way, a dream surface. Plus one for the home team. On the negative side, the weather, which was perfectly clear and sunny when I left home near Puget Sound, was all cloudy and threatening to spritzle rain. This ride is at (and goes into) the base of the foothills of the Cascades. So the wet air from the Pacific hits the mountains, forms clouds and rain, when things are sunny in the cities of Tacoma and Seattle 15 miles to the west. The false flat and downhill on the first bike loop were quite wet, and the 50F temps didn’t help. Luckily, I’d chosen to wear EN arm warmers, and my EN full length zip jersey over my suit, so I was OK. Then I took off the shirt and pulled down the arm warmers for the second run.

I was most interested in two things: comparison to previous years, and my power/pace/HR/cadence numbers for the various legs.

Year                     Run #1 Time/HR                    Bike Time/HR                    Run # 2 Time/HR

2007                     37:33/147                              1:37:45/124                       28:03/142

2008                     38:07/145                              1:33:26/132                       27:13/141

2013                     38:33/142/96                         1:37:55/119                       29:25/136/94

Comparing the two loops of the bike, I was a minute faster on the second, almost all of that in thde first 5.5 miles.The IFs for the various bike segments were right where I wanted them: first 5.5 miles: 0.72/0.77, Hill 0.826/0.82, downhills 0.67/64, a. Just about the way I plan to ride in the HIM next week. Overall VI was 1.06, with 1.0-1.02 when the downhills were taken out. Lotta turns on this course – 16/29 miles. 1400′ total elevation gain.

Comparing the run paces on the final leg from year to year, 2007/2008: 7:25/8:08, 7:49/8:11, 7:31/7:23, 7:12. 2007 was about 0.1 mi shorter, so the comparable overall times were 28:03/28:50, or a 2.7% drop, compared to a 2.4% drop in the first run.

I find it interesting that my bike times now and six years ago are the same, but with a 4% lower HR – better aero position, helmet, disc cover, and better road surface are probably the key, not improved fitness or speed! And my first run shows a 3.4% drop in HR, with a 2.4% drop in speed. That is probably the effects of age, my friends, 0.5% per year. I can tell you all the runs *felt* the same year to year, meaning I was working just as hard, except for the last run this year, when I started out 30″/mi off pace, and then finish hard the last two, trying to imitate an HIM run.28:50,

Oh,yeah, almost forgot … I got 3rd place in the US National LC Du Championships. Luckily, the winner beat me by nearly 15 minutes (my time was 2:50), so I have no illusions about actually being able to compete in this crowd, no matter how I had approached the race. But nobody older than me went faster than me!

Posted in Races, Training Diary, Triathlon Central | Leave a comment

Boston Redux

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Al

The maudlin media got to me.

“Boston’s a tough town, a resilient town.”

“You picked on the wrong group of people – marathoners. They run faster than you, and they don’t quit.”

The Boston Marathon is unique in the running world in its longevity and its spectators. On the third Monday in April, the race which started in 1897 winds its way from Hopkinton to Back Bay. In the final 13 miles, at least half a million people line the streets, exhorting the runners to the finish line.

A group of runners gathered on the beach at Santa Monica two days after the marathon bombing. Their convener, Blue Benadum, had this to say after he’d run 26.2 miles to Dockweiler State Beach in the Marina, and back:

“A marathon is so intense anyway,” Benadum says afterward, thinking of the chaos at Boston. “You’re stripped down emotionally. You’re very fragile when you cross the finish line.” At 20 miles, your body is out of fuel. Your brain is out of fuel. “So you can’t talk yourself into why you should keep going. If you’re going to finish, you have to find something deep down inside, even when there’s nothing left.”

Spectators matter. Benadum ran the Los Angeles Marathon on March 17. Two miles from the end, he wanted to quit so bad. Everything hurt.

Then a stranger appeared on the sidelines, cheering. He was an older man, probably in his 60s. Someone who knew marathons. “You’re within the 2-hour, 30-minute mark,” the stranger said. “It’s there, but you’ve got to want it bad. Pick it up.”

Benadum played the man’s words over and over again in his head like a mantra for the rest of the race. He finished in 13th place overall. [From the LA Weekly]

I’ve done over 100 races around the world, some of them Big Deal “helicopter” races, thousands of people gathered with a chopper flying overhead, to get the best photos, some of them little home town affairs with less than fifty entrants. But every one of them had people watching, people who weren’t racing, but were there to support, to exhort, and to maybe gain some reflective health off our efforts.

Endurance racers sometimes make fun of the comments that get thrown our way, our favorite being, “Keep going, you’re almost there!” said any time more than 200 meters from the finish. But we’d really rather have an audience, someone to give us strength, than do it all in silence. It’s the one thing which defines a race as something other than just a glorified workout.

Which is why I have to go back to Boston next year.

It’s been seven years since I last raced there. But it remains one of my deepest, most fulfilling memories. Not my performance, which was middling at best, 2o minutes slower than my best marathon time. And not the camaraderie out on the course with the other runners; we all suffer in the same place, but each in our own unique way.

It’s the massive, over-the-top numbers and enthusiasm of those at the side of the road which got to me. This is not just a few thousand local town folks plus friends and relatives of participants. This is something unique in all the world, an entire metro region descending en masse to celebrate the birth of our country (it’s Patriot’s Day, the holiday which honors Paul Revere and his cohorts who lit the spark of the American revolt against the British at Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775.

The noise really starts about mile 13, near Wellesley College, where the girls come out and screech for hours. In Newton, suburban yuppies line the five hills (the middle one is called Heartbreak) which come at the absolute worst time of the race, miles 16-20. Then, as the road winds down towards the heart of the city, there is six miles of the largest group of people I’ve even seen in one place at one time, all of them clapping, or hollering, or exhorting like that guy in LA.

It’s the original Wall of Sound, and it doesn’t stop, it just feeds love and energy when the runners need it most. And next year, it’s sure to be double in size. Runners and Bostonians will want to demonstrate,  emphatically, that tradition, speech and assembly can not be daunted.

After that 2006 race, I vowed never to do another marathon. I’d checked the Big Daddy off my life list, and saw no reason to test myself that way again. The training is too hard, the race is too much effort for too long a time, I don’t have anything to prove, I told myself. Besides, I was getting pulled into Ironman triathlon, and needed all my head space and physical talents in that arena. Granted, each Ironman ends with a marathon, but it’s not the same thing. The exhaustion from swimming 2.4 miles and biking 112 ensures that it’s not a really a race at that point, it’s a war of attrition, of survival. I just don’t like to *run* that much, I told myself.

But, I got swayed by a couple of Sirens this week. First, the anticipation that the 2014 Boston Marathon would be something special in our endurance world. Something getting twice the media attention, twice the veneration from runners and spectators. And, I’ll turn 65 a week before the race.

To run in Boston, you have to qualify under a specific time to get in. Times vary with your age, and the age groups change at -0 and -5. The difference between 64 and 65 is 15 minutes.

So, how hard would it be for me to qualify? As long as I do the training, and race smart, it should be a slam dunk. Here are the facts: Last time, I qualified @ 18 minutes faster than my AG standard. Recently, I just missed by 1 minute the standard while running a marathon at then end of an Ironman. The pace required to qualify is a minute per mile *slower* than the easiest pace I usual run at. A walk in the park, right?

Well, not really. Nothing’s ever that easy. First, bear in mind that it took me three tries before I was able to qualify the first time, mostly because I didn’t really know how to race. Second, the popularity of Boston has led them to a tiered registration process. On a day – yet to be announced – in September, those who are 20 minutes under their AG standard can sign up. The next try goes to the sub 10 minute folks, and a third group at 5 minutes faster than standard then get a chance. Finally, if there’s any room left over, those who just snuck in under the time get to sign up. Last year, pretty much every one who met the AG standard got in. But next year? I think not.

I’m probably not the only one who wants to do this because of the bombings in this year’s race. Who knows how many people will get the bug? But they better get it soon. And even then, trying a qualifying race in the summer is a problem, mainly due to high temps in most locales.

So, I have a dilemma, or series of dilemmas, if I want to do this. First, I have to consider my current fitness status. Right now, I’m very well trained for a half Ironman I’m doing in a week. So I could easily knock off a half marathon in a fast time right now. But I’ve got to get that fitness a bit more durable, for the whole distance. Second, I’ve got other races I’m looking at: a duathlon May 19th, then Ironman races on Sept 22, and Nov 17, each of which presents its own unique training requirements. I don’t want to be doing a marathon soon after my May races, nor in August or early September. And I think I need a minimum of eight weeks to get myself race ready to go 20 minutes under my AG qualifying standard, which would be at my long run pace.

So, pretty much mid July for the race. Thank goodness for MarathonGuide.com, which lists ALL the marathons available on the continent, with reviews by actual runners. I browsed there, and discovered, on July 14, the Missoula Marathon. The right time, nearby, worth a look. So, details? Well, it’s only been in existence for 6 years, but two years ago was voted best in the country by Runner’s World magazine. Except for a smallish rise in the middle, it’s flat (actually, a slight uphill), as it follows the river into town. It’s not too big, 1500 runners max, and it finishes in downtown Missoula, with good crowds in the final six miles through the neighborhoods. AND, it starts at 6 AM, so it will be a bit cooler than you might expect that time of year.

I signed up yesterday, and plowed into making a training plan today. I’m going to be juggling things a little bit, but luckily, I now have world class coaching in Endurance Nation, and they’ve got this figured out. The only thing I’m not looking forward to is the very reason I stopped doing marathons to begin with – I don’t want to do the weekly Long Runs you need to go the distance. I’m looking at three runs of 16, 18, and 21 miles. That last one I’ll be doing at elevation in Colorado. If I survive that, and can run it at an average 8:47 min/mile pace, I’ll know I can do the qualifying run in at least 3:50, which is what I need for that sub-20 minute goal.

 

Posted in Training Diary | Leave a comment

What a Week

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Al

This has been a sobering week in America. News procurers rushed from Boston, to DC, to the US mail, and to the cryptically named West, Texas. Although few people actually died, the sudden and random nature of events brought out a current of existential fears that are usually well managed in the most civilized of modern cultures.

With all the blaring over bombs in Boston, exploding fertilizer in Texas, poison pen letters to Senators, and the defeat of any form of increased oversight of gun use and purchases, it pays to remember that over the past four days, over 200 people killed themselves with firearms, another 100 were done in by someone else using a gun, and over 500 died in auto accidents, all rather sudden and often random events about which most of us heard nothing.

Even comparing the bombings in Boston with the fertilizer factory fire and explosion in West, Texas, the marathon mayhem seems to get a more emotional and pervasive reaction. It can’t be due to the saturation video of the smoke and concussive effects; both were caught in full flower for endless replay on your favorite news source. If anything, the direct human carnage seems worse in Texas – more dead, more injured, even some first responders died. But will President Obama attend funeral services in Texas – we’ll have to wait and see.

The choice of the Boston Marathon finish line for a sneak attack was fairly unique in its ability to produce worldwide attention and impact. People come to Boston from around the world, certainly from all corners of the country to participate in the race. What many don’t know (I presume most readers of this blog are aware), one can’t simply sign up to do the Boston Marathon. You have to run a previous race under a certain time. So a runner’s presence there takes a year or more to prepare for, and a certain level of public commitment. I bet that far fewer than six degrees separate more than half of all Americans from someone who either raced there this year or has recently. Papers all across the country carried names of local runners who went, and quotes from them on their reaction.

And the marathon is pretty much unique in the numbers involved. Probably half a million people are lining the route from Wellesley to Copley Square, all there without an admission price. Not the Indianapolis 500, not the Kentucky Derby, not the Masters, not the Super Bowl, no other long-running iconic American event attracts so many in one place at one time. Add to that the connection that many people will have, however tangential – “I know Daniel, or Dorothy, who ran there this year, or ten years ago” – and the impact is nearly as great as that engendered by four airplanes, two buildings and 3,000 people lost on Sept 11, 2001. Certainly the death to attention ratio is higher.

But every death is highly personal. Having raced there in 2005 and 6, and knowing at least 10 folks who were running there this year, as well as Boston being literally my hometown, I certainly felt the impact through a very immediate groove into my psyche. I was numbed; I didn’t know what to think or feel.

But the next day, a small article in the local paper caught me even more off guard, and did manage to bring out my tears. Over the weekend, two separate avalanches killed a local naturopath and a dentist. Now, I pay close attention to avalanche deaths when I am in Colorado, as I often find myself skiing in deep snow, and want to make sure I stay as safe as possible. Apparently, last weekend was a set-up for frequent spontaneous catastrophic snow slides in the Cascade Mountains.

The dentist, Mitch Hungate, age 61, was out snowshoeing with two companions in their 30s. At least one of them had a GPS device that revealed that they got caught by a big slide, which carried them down 1200 vertical feet in less than a minute. The two younger men popped out of the snow, bruised and busted a bit in their shoulders, but pretty much intact. Mitch has not been found, and the search was stopped after about 36 hours.

I’ve known Mitch for about 10 years, and his wife Marilynn as well. I can’t say they are friends, but I competed with him in local triathlons often enough to be glad he is 3 years younger than I. He’s a little bit faster swimmer, a lot faster biker, and just a little slower runner. In 2005, I convinced him he should give long-course (Ironman) triathlon a try, when he told me he would only do shorter races, and maybe an occasional half-ironman. He said he’d rather spend his time and mental energy getting ready for rock climbing and camping in the summer, and well as winter sports such as ice climbing and snowshoeing.

But he’d gone 4:57 in a half, and I knew that, if he simply did the training, he could easily qualify to go to the Hawaii Ironman World Championship, which he promptly did the next year in Coeur d’Alene, the same year I won my first age group title (he was 50-54, I was 55-59).

That fall, when I walked down the steps onto Dig Me Beach, I saw Mitch’s distinctive blond mop and stocky short build up ahead. He turned around, and I threw my arms up calling out his name (the moment is actually captured in the 2006 NBC video for that race). We gave each other a comradely hug to counter our fears, and he told me what he always did before any race,

“Well, I think I’ll swim wide to the left. I just don’t like swimming in a crowd. Then I’ll take it easy on the bike, and see what I have left for the run.”

Yeah, right. The next time I saw him was along Ali’i drive, about a mile ahead of me as I came up to the turn around. He went back again the next year, easily winning the CDA race when he aged up. Five years later, there he was again in Coeur d’Alene, this time breaking my course record in the 60-64 age group by three minutes.

You always hear, “Well, at least he died doing what he loved.” That might be true, but it’s no solace to his loved ones or friends. Mitch did live his life on his terms, still drilling away on his loyal patient’s teeth, still taking every chance to be outside in his beloved Cascades. But now he’s gone, and those he leaves behind are the poorer for it.

Posted in Hawaii Stories, Injuries and Recovery, Races, Triathlon Central | Leave a comment

Game of Thrones II

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Al

Sprawling is too confining a word to apply to the character mélange of Game of Thrones. Wikipedia lists 32 “Main Characters” and nearly twice that many other named players, and this is just in the first 20 shows. Lord knows what the five books would reveal, if I had the stomach to read them. And, of course, it doesn’t count other key groups, such as the dragons and zombies, without whom there really is no reason to be interested in this mess.

Tyrion Lannister and his scheming sister Cersei (mother of the insipid yet sadistic King Joffery) are probably considered the leads. And they do occupy the central space in the capital city of Kings’ Landing, where all those who aspire to play the game of thrones wish to sit on the Iron Throne. Joffery slouches there now, far too short and reedy to fully cover the hundreds of swords which were melted (by dragon fire?) to make this charming seat, which looks a lot like an Adirondack chair, the kind you see crafted from old style skis. You can buy one online, or at least see it, here. (Isn’t HBO rich enough already?)

Scheming to get into power, or at least seeking revenge for someone’s death, are Robb Stark (of Winterfell, self-proclaimed “King in the North”) and Stannis Baratheon, of Dragonstone, and pretender to the Iron Throne. Robb’s dad Ned was, for a short time, Hand of King Robert Baratheon (wed to Cersei, presumptive father of Joffery). But lusty Robert, who loved drink and fathering bastards, but was too dumb to see that Cersei’s blond haired children weren’t his (after all, no blonds in his family for generations) was gored by a boar while out on a hunt (having been fed too much wine by a Lannister cousin), and passed away. Ned, who was honest and naïve to a fault, got wind of the true nature of Joffery’s parentage. The Lannisters, naturally, didn’t want this to come out, and schemed to have him repent, bend a knee, and vow fealty to Joffery. But the little runt would have none of it, and, going against his mother’s express wishes, had Ned’s head summarily chopped off. Which was a tragedy, as Sean Bean was billed as the lead character for the first season.

While all this silliness is going on in the capital, real worries are brewing elsewhere. North of Winterfell (Stark country) is The Wall. Not something dreamed up on the dark side of the moon, rather, it spans the continental isthmus, protecting the thriving Seven Kingdoms from the unspeakable horrors beyond. Something about White Walkers, Wildings, and worse. The only line of defense between civilization and its total destruction, apparently, are the Night’s Watch. This rag tag group reminds me of a bunch of original Aussies. They are basically the dregs of society, criminals, orphans, and bastards, press ganged into lifelong service and celibacy in defense of Westeros. But since The Wall hasn’t been breached for thousands of years, no one gives them much respect, or funding. Sort of like Tyrion Lannister, the dwarf.

Here it’s important to talk a bit about the climatology of this fantasyland. Apparently, summers last for a constantly changing number of years, followed by prolonged times of Winter. Living in the North, the Stark’s motto actually is “Winter is Coming”. As we start the story, it’s been summer for more than a decade, and many have forgotten the privations they may face once the seasons turn. But harbingers arrive with alarming regularity to tell us to be wary. My theory: they just have very fast ice ages in this world.

Ned Stark strayed just once in his marriage, but got a son (and a very good looking one at that) out of the deal – Jon Snow. Whenever he introduces himself to strangers, they immediately somehow know from that moniker that he’s a bastard, and so he gets little to no respect. But he has learned how to handle a sword, and be polite at a dinner table, so when he gets shuttled off to the Night’s Watch, he’s placed on a fast track to leadership, serving first as steward to the Commander of the Watch.

He learns fast, and swiftly becomes a double agent in the company of the King Beyond the Wall, a renegade Watchman who is organizing the Wildings, and not a few Giants, in preparation for an assault under cover of the oncoming blizzard. He’s called Mance Rayder, played by the menacingly crusty Cieran Hinds. As season three opens, Jon Snow is in the ideal position to begin pincher movements when needed to aid in toppling Joffery and securing the Stark revenge we all so desparately want after losing the gruff, but naïve and charming Ned Stark to the chopping block.

Besides, Ned’s daughter Arya is also very cool, a tween who wants only to be a swordswoman, and who lives best by her wits, surviving not only a journey North with the latest Night’s Watch “recruits”, but also service as Tywin Lannister’s cup bearer. Tywin, btw, is the patriarch of that family, the most devious, richest, and successful man in the entire kingdom. As the current Hand of the King, he basically is running the whole show at this point, and deserves every bit of blame for the mess his children and their heirs have become, as well as the hatred they encounter from the populace in general. In short, the perfect villain. And Arya is spying, right under his nose!

So Jon Snow and Arya seem destined to link up in the North, sometime in the future, and merge their powers to wrest back control of their lands, if not the entire kingdom.

But overseas, another savior is building her forces. Daenerys Targaryen (let’s just call her Dany) is the daughter of Aerys, the “Mad King”. Twenty years earlier, when she and brother Viserys (get the naming protocol in this family?) were still quite young clothes, the Mad King finally went off the deep end, and started channeling the Red Queen – saying “Off with ‘is head” left and right one day in court. A member of his guard, Jaime Lannister (yep, the twin brother of Cersei, and the real father of Bad King Joffery) sliced him from behind, earning the nickname “Kingslayer”. Not a bad sobriquet to be known by. Because everyone was pleased to still be alive, and because he was a Lannister, he kept his job on the King’s Guard, after Robert Baratheon was installed as the new King. The reasons for this are obscure, but the upshot is that Viserys feels his crown was stolen, and he’s bound and determined to get his rightful place back on the Iron Throne.

GoT opens with Viserys basically selling Dany to the king (or Khal) of the Dothraki Horde (think: Genghis Khan and the Mongols), Kahl Drogo. Drogo and Dany, appear mismatched from the start: they don’t share a common language, he’s a giant Samoan appearing due and she’s a diminutive Viking type, but they hit it off almost from the start. She gets pregnant, learns the language and the ways of her new people, and comes to see, she doesn’t really need her brother anymore. Maybe it’s time to point out that Viserys is the one person in this whole collection who’s even more unlikeable than Joffery. So when he persists in insulting Drogo, insisting he be given the purchase price for his sister – his “crown of gold” by right – well, Drogo simply takes his belt made up of gold medallions, melts them in a pot over a blazing fire, and pours the soup onto Viserys’ head. The gold solidifies, and V. drops over, literally stone dead.

Dany discovers the dragon eggs which she and her brother snuck out of Kings’ Landing, and finds that she can tolerate the fire in which they are kept without getting burnt. Hmm. Dragons have been extinct in this world for “hundreds of years”, but her family has kept the presumably petrified eggs as heirlooms all that time. After  Drogo dies (that simple phrase actually takes a couple of GoT episodes to play out, involving an unsuccessful challenge to his leadership which leaves him with a small chest wound, a witch, the sacrifice of Dany’s unborn child, and finally a smothering by pillow) Dany determines she will follow Dothraki tradition, and follow her husband onto the funeral pyre. But, remember she is fireproof? So, the next morning, among the embers, she arises (naked, this IS HBO after all), from the embers, along with three cute little baby dragons, all cuddly and clinging to her like a litter of kittens. Watch out for this woman.

Next season, she leads the remaining loyal rump of her horde (about two dozen strong) across the Red Waste, to the City of Qarth, where she outwits an entire Council of Thirteen, including the devilish Warlocks, who have captured her babies. But she taught them to breath fire on command, and apparently their breath simply turns iron chains to dust, and melts the shape shifting warlocks to butter. So at the end of season two, all she needs is a ship and an army, and she’s ready to aim for King’s Landing from the South.

Jon Snow (a bastard traitor), Arya Stark (a pre-pubertal girl), Tyrion Lannister (a dwarf with a disfiguring facial scar), and Daenerys Targaryen ( the product of three hundred years of inbreeding to keep the bloodline pure) are without question the coolest people in this show, and had damn well better join forces and dump the scheming Lannisters into the sea, later rather than sooner, as I’d like this show to go on for about five more years.

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Game of Thrones

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Al

All right, I got sucked in; one of 4.4 million Americans, apparently, who watched the Season 3 premiere of Game of Thrones (200,000 more than tuned into last year’s finale – I’m in that group.)

Right after New Year’s, I started hearing about this awesome new HBO show, a 21st century version of Sex and the City, told from a 20 something’s perspective as she drifted from friends to beaus, slathered in irony, poverty, and excess education. Girls. So when my TV provider offered HBO for six months at a bargain price, I thought I might snap it for the six months available half off. I could find out what all the fuss over Lena Dunham was about; I could re-watch Deadwood with Cheryl; I could use my iPad to view anything at all from HBO’s library while on labor watch.

I waited until mid-March to sign up, figuring I’d have the content all through spring and summer, prime vacation and time wasting season for me.  Two days in, after figuring out how to stream it all through my Roku to the TV, Cheryl and I started in on Deadwood and Girls, just as planned. I took a peek at Bill Maher, just to see if he was still as snotty as ever. And I clicked by Game of Thrones, which of course I’d heard reference to, just to make sure it needn’t be on my radar screen.

I am NOT a fantasy fan. Dragons, warlocks, white walkers, endless intrigue among pretenders to a pretend kingdom on some planet in another universe … uh, no. I like my unreal narrative more in line with Thomas Pynchon’s psychoses, or Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Trilogy – historical fiction with a twist of modernity. But, but…I did manage to finish The Hobbit, and even though I could not stomach the cycling prose of Tolkien’s trilogy, I did get a BIG kick out of the three movies. Seeing the elves and dwarves and Ents, and giant flaming eyeballs on the widescreen made it all somehow more palatable, even enjoyable and – dare I say – entertaining.

So I should have known that, after watching what I though was the first episode of GoT (actually, the second) for about ten minutes, I realized – hey, this is really LUSH. A real Peter Jackson experience. Oddities everywhere: crippled boy, medieval courtyards, mud and snow, blazing sun and driving sands, platinum blonde brother and sister duos – even a Dwarf!

Since I was starting part way in, I was TOTALLY confused, and thus paid a bit more attention than I might otherwise have. Once I corrected my mistake, and found the actual premiere episode, I couldn’t stop. At first, I was just watching one episode every day or three. But when I realized the season 3 premiere was March 31st, and there were a total of 20 episodes to get me caught up, I knew I needed to do some binge viewing, my first ever such effort. I finished the first year in two weeks, then started in daily on the second. At that rate, I’d be a week behind at the start of the third year, and I wanted to be Up to Date with all the online commentators, so I just swallowed my pride, and finished the final 7 episodes over the weekend.

Meaning, I could see S3.1 tonight.

So what makes this fantasy spectacle so enthralling? First off, it’s not junk. The producers have gone to the effort of filming in Ireland, Croatia, Iceland, and Morocco. So the settings – the heat, the snow, the rain – are all real. No sound stages for the outside scenes. Second, this is HBO, so you get all the nudity, sex, blood, and swearing you can stomach. And for me, it’s sometimes over the edge. Third, the cast is sprawling, At any given moment, there may be two dozen or more significant characters to keep track of, intertwining with each other and bouncing off the plot like an overloaded billiard table. Fourth, they all speak with an accent. Mostly British Isles, but some folks are foreigners to the main land of Westeros, and so they get either their own language (check out the TED talk on Dothraki), or some exotic twist on English (is she from Croatia, you think? Maybe Finland? No, that’s gotta be Irish.) Fifth, the complexities of monarchic succession in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros are Byzantine enough to enthrall the most hierarchical among us.

But finally, the people and their concerns are at the heart of any story, and what ultimately makes or breaks an entertainment. So what to do we have? For starters, no one is an angel, and no one is purely a bad guy. Everyone does have a specific role to play, but except for the nominal king (a 17 year old product of incestuous twins) who is simply a sadistic teenager who’s had no limits set on his behavior, the bad guys have enough good in them to be attractive, and the good guys have enough flaws to keep us from hero worship. And sometimes people get to actually GROW in their characters.

Peter Dinklage, the much-honored diminutive actor who plays Tyrion Lannister, starts out as a simple pint-size Falstaff, whoring and joking and using his roles as the son of the richest man in the land and brother of the Queen to abuse everyone he meets. But when his uncle the King dies, and Joffrey, the teen-age sadist ascends to the throne, Tyrion gets placed in a position of power as his Hand (read: Regent). While keeping his old drinking and womanizing and joking, he persists in planning for the defense of the crown against usurpers who deny Joffrey’s royal birth. Ultimately, using his wits and ability to buy excellent help, as well as play the various Council members with and against each other smartly, he saves the city and the throne, buts gets tossed aside anyway. For this he gets a well-deserved Emmy.

Besides this shrewd and tragic imp, there are almost uncountable other small stories to follow and be awed by.  Next post, I’ll start in on the two who seem able, if not destined, to bring order to the chaos. Each has been cast out, but is determined to return, one from the far north, the other from the sands of the SouthEast.

Oh, and did I mention there are Zombies in this show?

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Heart and Soul

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Al

My absolute most pleasurable moment in triathlon came at 6:25:02 PM on November 20, 2011. It was at that moment I crossed the finish line of Ironman Arizona, just after sunset. I raised my arms and face to sky and howled in pleasure and release. I had just won my age group for the second time in Tempe (my fifth Ironman win), after running down and staying ahead of someone two years my junior, who actually ran a faster marathon than I did. All this 14 months after nearly killing myself (and almost becoming paralyzed) against the back end of a pick-up truck at Ft. Lewis, Washington.

I had no right to be there, to be racing, much less to win, but somehow, it all happened and put me floating on top of the world. My bubble was very short lived, though. About two hours later, after showering, dressing, and walking to a local pub to meet with my coach and teammates, I got the word that, hours earlier a continent away, another of our teammates, running towards a similar joyous finish line in the Philadephia Marathon, had collapsed and died, leaving behind his wife and young children, and a lot of friends across the world in the online endurance communities.

Another guy I know, more of an average Joe type of athlete, stopped all serious exercising last summer/fall when he was diagnosed with “Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy” – presumably the same diagnosis which fell Chris G.

What’s going on here? We know that 1-2/100,000 citizen marathoners die during a race, usually near the finish, from cardiac events. And triathlon more frequently encounters deaths during the first segment of a race, the swim. Maybe 2-4/100,000 participants don’t make it out of the water. Just three days ago, another man was lost during the iconic Escape From Alcatraz Tri in San Francisco Bay. Renowned triathlon pioneer Dan Empfield has written recently about this phenomenom.

Now, I’m not a cardiologist, or even much of a scientist. But I do speak the language a bit. In the midst of all this attention being paid to sudden cardiac events in endurance races, I found myself doing a little bit of research. I’ve learned that some runners, as they age, have more of a problem with atrial fibrillation (heart flutter), which, coupled with  other aspects of the athlete’s heart (slow rate, big stroke pumps) may be a source of dysfunction as well as health. But the most recent theory goes something like this, drawing on a number of threads which have appeared in the past 10-15 years. First of all, we know that many runners show signs of cardiac muscle damage after a marathon. Enzymes which appear after cardiac muscle damage are elevated. Second, we know that the right ventricle, the part of the heart which sends blood to the lungs, can show signs of abnormal function immediately after a race. In some triathletes, more so among those  who are older, with a longer time in the sport, and who have a higher maximum VO2 (oxygen uptake and use capacity, a sign of superior fitness), that dysfunction does not disappear, and may even be associated with signs of fibrosis in the septum, the wall between the ventricles through which runs the major conduction chain controlling heart beats.

So my pet theory is: the right ventricle gets overworked, leading to muscle damage there in the septum.  In the process of repairing the damage, muscle bundles are reduced to fibrous tissue, which neigher contracts nor carries the electric impulses required for the heart to beat in a coordinated fashion. When increased stress is put on the heart, such as at the start of a swim, jumping into cold water with no warm-up surrounded by 100s or 1000s of intense hyperactive racers, or at the end of a marathon, when there is a sudden uptick in effort to “finish strong”, the right ventricle can[t do its thing properly. Whether that’s beat strongly enough, or carry the conduction impulse properly, it doesn’t matter. The heart stops working properly, even though the body, and indeed the heart itself, has proven to be strong during months and years of training and racing – sudden cardiac death.

I went to my primary care doctor with this theory, and we agreed I would get an EKG and an Echocardiogram to at least start looking to this. I shared with my MD an article from Australia an Belgium (European Heart Journal, Dec 6, 2011, by La Gerche, Burns, Mooney, et al.)It's specific to long-course triathletes, studied pre and post [immediate and 1 week later] races that showed an increased risk [relative to other IM ers] for evidence of cardiac fibrosis who met the following criteria: competing for longer (20 yrs vs 8 years), had greater predicted VO2 max for age, and were older (50+). So that’s me!

What did I hope to find? The EKG might show if I had any hidden conduction abnormalities. The Echocardiogram (an ultrasound of the heart)was because those with evidence of fibrosis (determined by delayed gadolinium enhancement, whatever that is) had a LOWER right ventricular ejection fraction (like I said, I’m not a cardiologist, so you’ll just have to accept that as a measure of cardiac function) than those without. So the Echo + and EKG (never had one before) seemed like good initial non-invasive screening tests to get which might actually produce some valuable information as far as my risk stratification. The article suggests the gold standard for determining if there is right ventricular injury is a cardiac MRI, which doubt I’m gonna get unless I hoot and holler a lot.

The results came back (as filtered by my MD):

“1. Sinus bradycardia.
2. Normal left ventricular size with mild septal hypertrophy and normal
systolic function with EF of 60%, with grade 1 diastolic
dysfunction.
3. Minimal left atrial enlargement.
4. Normal cardiac valves.
5. Possible PFO. [This may be a typo on his part; don’t know what it means]
6. Normal pulmonary artery pressure.

The ekg is a little more problematic but I expect the changes are most likely related to the bradycardia due to your level of fitness. I’ll check with cardiology and see if they’d like to see you.”

Notice nothing at all is said about RIGHT ventricular function, which is what I wanted to find out about. Although the “normal pulmonary artery pressure” may give a clue as to right ventricular function. So that’s where I leave the story for now, with further updates “as they become available”. For now, I continue to live my life as I always have, pushing just a little bit against the fabric of my limitations to see just what is possible, without killing myself in the process.

 

Posted in Injuries and Recovery, Triathlon Central | 1 Comment

The Princess

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Al

I sent my sister Leigh – short for Shirley – a link to the most recent column from one of my favorite Aspen columnists. Aspen, despite having a population of just under 7,000 (17,000 in the whole county) has two daily newspapers. Each of which apparently makes enough money to keep a stable of weekly columnists on board. The Daily News features Johnny Boyd, who wrote for the Snowmass Sun (an even smaller town) for over a decade, chronicling his continuing interest in the intersection of resort town economics and the plight of its worker class. His insistence that people actually both live and work in Snowmass (his home town) and Aspen, and should be therefore accorded more rights than the itinerant billionaires who see our high mountain valley as a private playground they have purchased, often gets him into rhetorical hot water.

Roger Marolt, a fourth generation valley resident who now lives in deed restricted (ie, affordable) housing in Snowmass Village, has TWO weekly gigs, one with the Sun, the other with the Times. He uses his Sun column to document his deep love for powder skiing and mountain biking, and all things outdoors. The fact that he can actually write coherently endears him to me all the more. For the “big city” paper, he keeps up a continual needling of the pretensions of locals and visitors alike.

Lately, though, I find myself drawn more to The Princess – Allison Berkley Margo. She is a befuddled observer of her own maturation, with periodic stops to climb the Ridge at Highland Bowl, and shred the bejezzus out of that cornucopia of avalanche chutes high above Castle Creek.

Apparently, last week was her father’s 72nd birthday, and she went to Steamboat Springs to visit and celebrate. Turns out, the guy, in her view, is an exercise nut: “His thing is going further, longer and sometimes faster. If you are not half dead and out of food by the time you get home, you haven’t gone far enough.” She then fills out the portrait with his exploits as an ex-marathoner, current road cyclist, and recent skate skiing convert. She includes enough references to gels, electrolytes, his CompuTrainer, and Hawaii to make me sit up and take notice. And best of all, she does not display to mix of disdain and confusion that mark most encounters between endorphin junkies and the more rational members of society: “…nothing makes me happier than seeing my dad pushing himself along that grueling, snow-covered track with a steady stride, his arms and legs working to keep that big heart of his full and strong. Whether it’s his steel will or his tiny, muscular body or both, he’s 72 years old and still skating through life. Forget about over the hill — for Dad, it’s all about the climb.”

So I sent that link to Leigh, and she comes back with what at first seemed a non-sequiter: “[That] reminds me, why are you not so excited about having us come to Tahoe for the Ironman?  Do you not want us to come?  We have a free place to stay, people to see besides you, and we thought you might like a peanut gallery.”

I have no memory of her enthusing about going to Tahoe, with Craig, t watch me race the inaugural Ironman there on September 22nd. But she seem a bit miffed that I had rebuffed her, so I quickly tried to make amends.

“I am excited anytime you want to hang out where I am. I just didn’t see the race itself as much of a draw. I didn’t get your view of it as a vacation for yourself. I didn’t want to have to be the center of attention. That’s cool and sufficient for Hawaii, I guess, but not elsewhere. I can be a part of the party in Hawaii, but before a qualifying IM, I’m all business, so can’t be a host. So as long as I don’t have to worry about you, and you can deal with me being focused on my thing, sure, come watch.”

She and Craig have twice come out to Kona to be a part of my posse there, and I was concerned she might think the same rules apply for a regular IM. In Hawaii, it’s party mode, celebrating the end of a journey. In the other IMs I do, I am totally self-centered, worrying only about the minutiae of getting ready for race day, and precisely how I am going to make it through 140.6 miles of swimming, biking, and running faster than anyone else my age. That doesn’t make for a very friendly or talkative brother.

She goes on to say, in reference to The Princess’ father, “…I love her obvious affection for her father, and she’s smart and quick, but, really, you may be exercise obsessed, and to the rest of us it sometimes looks crazy, but you have a GOAL – her father just seems crazy, or, okay, obsessed. Or, maybe your races just make it appear not to be crazy and obsessive?  Hm …”

I suppose when someone has know you literally all your life, they might be expected to have a bit of insight into what makes you tick. That might be why siblings have such a wary relationship. It’s all about Ends and Means, I realized. Back in the 90s, when I was Medical Director, trying to guide a multi million (billion) dollar enterprise, I certainly spent way more time doing obsessive, difficult things in support of that goal, than I have ever done as an athlete. I’m sure I seemed over the top to those not engaged as I was in the end result, but I didn’t focus on how hard I was working, only on whether Group Health and its medical staff would continue to be a going concern. Same thing with training for an Ironman. While I get some enjoyment out of biking for, say three hours followed by a steady run of 5 miles, there is really no reason to do that much unless it is getting me ready for a race which means something to me. All those hours and hours of training – maybe 2-300 for an Ironman – end up being lasered onto a relatively brief and unmoving time and place, The Race.

As I concluded to Leigh, “See, what I’m obsessed about is not beating myself up thru excessive “exercise” per se, but the end result, the race.” It’s another twist on the second most common question I get asked as a triathlete, “Which one is your favorite sport?” My answer: to me they are not three separate sports, but one, called Triathlon, and my favorite part of that is when I’m racing. Not getting ready, not after it’s done, but while it’s happening. That’s when I feel most alive, and that’s why I do all the stupid “exercising” – training – to get ready for it.

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Bumps

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Al

After two days, the powder at Snowmass has started to succumb to the sun, and skiers, and nighttime chill. I haven’t been able to hit even all of the stashes that are available, much less those still closed off in this third driest Roaring Fork winter of my lifetime.

So I have to turn to the next skiing challenge, one I thought I would have given up by now.

Bumps.

Bumps – moguls – seem inaptly named, given the dilemma they present. “Bumps” is  a benign sounding term, and “moguls” is simply too exotic. Actually, we’re talking about huge mounds of snow, relentlessly strewn across the slope by the snow riders who have gone before. The first guy carves a path, wherever he wants. Eventually, the fresh-cheeked surface gets all pock-marked and more timid souls have begun seeking the grooved paths that have appeared. Each turn throws up a little cloud of snow, piling up downhill. As more and more skiers and snowboarders seek the easier route blazed by their predecessors, those small sprays build up, peaks and valleys forming.

Bumps.

At first, the snow, while chopped up a bit, is still soft, and thus forgiving. After a day or two, though, the valleys become firmer, and the mounds coalesce, firming up into harder hillocks.

Both powder and bumps seem to rattle many skiers and boarders. Both environments tend to throw one about, breaking up the efforts at a smooth unbroken set of turns. To handle either one, strength, skill, experience, and confidence are all required. Soft snow wants to hold your feet in a fluffy embrace, disrupting momentum, mimicking mushy concrete overshoes throwing off the graceful timing possible on a perfectly smooth, groomed slope. Bumps also place a chain of gauntlets in the riders’ path. The constant up and down quickly throws a novice skyward, and ignominy swiftly follows.

But an accomplished skier has learned not only how to handle both powder and bumps, but also revel in them, enjoy the challenge, and find power in overcoming what seems a gruesome obstacle to others. Of the two, powder is easier as one ages. I call the new stuff  “old man snow”. In powder, all the action is slowed down; one reaches a terminal speed from increased friction, and turns happen at a more leisurely pace. Once the sense of pressure at the ankles and calves is learned, and harnessed, a skier in deeper powder becomes more graceful, without really exercising much more effort. Still, to perform well requires both constant attention, and continued use of thigh muscles to maintain the stability required to stay upright. There is no point of relaxation, as there is when one is cruising between turns. This extra diligence and strength is off putting to many skiers, who thus tend to avoid powder. That’s OK for the rest of us, who prefer to keep the secret feeling of floating effortlessly, which is the endpoint of mature powder skiing, to ourselves. It’s why we are always the first ones up the lift on a powder day, why we don’t reveal our secret stashes, nor tell others precisely where we’ve found the good snow that day.

Bump skiers are not so possessive about their favorite lines. Hell, let everyone come and chop it up, it only enhances the value of a well-skied bump run. The tougher, the better. Only problem is, as the bumps get bigger, the work gets harder, and the shocks more rattling.

As I turned 60, three years back, we were in the midst of a two year cycle of heavy snow dump winters at Snowmass. The bumps, such as they were, tended to be routinely covered with fresh snow. Skiing Bumps ‘n Powder is the epitome of a good time – all the fun of a powder day, with none of the work. The bumps actually do all the heavy lifting; all I have to do is let my feet flow up and down by letting the bumps bend my legs for me. As long as I don’t try to ski with a stiff lower body, as long as I remain vertically flexible, the mountain and the slope do the skiing for me.

But last year, the snow cycle turned. Less snow = more bumps, more bouncing, more compression, more need to buffer the upward pressure of the moguls. At some point, the equation between the steepness of the slope and the size of the bumps requires one either turn faster, or get thrown up and around by the constant terrain changes. “Old men” don’t like to get thrown around so much – it tends to rip stiffened knee ligaments, challenge our slower reaction times, and wreck havoc on lumbar vertebrae starting to de-calcify from incipient osteoporosis. We stand down, and say, “I guess I’m getting too old to ski the bumps anymore,” and just avoid them.

Last year, at a very specific place and time, I thought I had reached that point. On my favorite patch of bumps somewhere in the middle of Raider’s, I felt a searing pain behind my right kneecap. I was testing some skis Cody thought I’d love, Salomon Sentinels or Lords, or some Volkls, I can’t really remember. All I remember is thinking, “ if it’s gonna hurt like this, I guess I just can’t do this any more.”

I went through all sorts of mental contortions, thinking my right knee and thigh muscles were just not up to the task, that I would have to stop the pounding to save my ability to walk in the future. But the next day, it snowed a little, maybe 2” or so, and I went back to a set of skis which Cody had provided, which were billed as powder skis, but I thought might be more versatile than advertised.

These skis actually look like something a cartoonist would draw up as a caricature of a ski. Pastel blue, very wide up front, far wider than any ski on the hill, they are often described as water skis or surfboard. They’re from Salomon, and called BBR. I no longer follow the technology of skis, camber, width, rocker, materials, whatever; I don’t know a thing about those details. All I know is, these skis rock. They can handle ANYTHING I want to ski. Heavier than normal, due to the oversized shovel, they nonetheless turn whippet quick like a slalom racing ski. Built for soft snow and crud, they have a wide sweet spot, a forgiving center of gravity allowing easy turns in a mogul field. As I get older, and less strong, the skis get better, and thus I don’t deteriorate.

So I‘m back this year, on my BBRs, wondering if they can handle the moguls as well as I remember. And if I can ski more than 2 or 3 runs a day on the bumps, ski them basically all day, like I used to 20-30 years ago.

Yes. And Yes.

All my running, and indoor cycling on the trainer, and religious addiction to one-legged knee bends, has paid off in better balance and persistent leg strength. I hop from Powderhorn to Campground Liftline to Wildcat to Zugspitze to Promenade, then, leaving Sam’s Knob, try out AMF, Timberline, Power Line, Can o’ Corn, and West Face on the Burn. Reidar’s, Showcase, old Alpine Springs liftline, Tom’s Trace, the Wall, Grey Wolf, Elk Camp liftline, Long Shot … over two days, I hit them all, the Snowmass panoply of bumps. Even KT gully and the Dikes get a scrapping from my BBRs.

I don’t get tired, I don’t get sore, and all I get is more and more confident. Another opportunity to keep doin’ it till I can’t.

Wait till next year.

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Powder Day

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Al

Thirty years ago, on powder days, my father would drive me over to the lift. I’d have to haul out the monstrous 18” snow blower and clear the driveway, curving 400’ downhill. We’d leave about 8:05, exactly the right amount of time to go three miles across the valley. He’d drop meat the end of the Stonebridge alley, where I’d haul out my powder skis (Haute Routes at that time), walk ten feet, and buckle in for the short slide down to the base lift.

Since then, it seems 70% of the time when I arrive for my ski vacation, my first day on the slopes is a mandatory powder day. Meaning there’s at least 4” of new snow down at our house, promising at least that much up top. Which is a great way to start a vacation, of course, but it does have its drawbacks. I mean, I’d really rather have a day or two to ease into the skiing. No matter how much dry land work I do, weight lifting, stretching, core exercise, whatever, if I start out with a powder day, I know the next morning I’ll be sore, a little tired, and risk my legs just not keeping up for the length of the trip. I’d rather pace myself, not slam full force into a sprint right out of the gate.

But I rarely get that opportunity. Even in this, the “third driest year in the last half century” here in central Colorado, I get stuck with knowing that the only fresh snow I’m going to get this week will be now, on my first day, when I haven’t even made sure my boots or ski clothes fit.

So now it’s not my father, but my son who is driving me at 8:05. Cody is here, working on or house, modernizing the heating system, laundry, closets, and other utilities for our increasing number of rental guests. He’s not skiing this winter. The snow’s been lousy anyway. Only two real storms by the end of January, then finally a couple of feet over the last five days. And none on the horizon after that, meaning it’s now or never.

So how does one approach the only powder day of the year? Luckily, this is a Thursday in late January. The X-Games have left town, and no one has come in to replace them; the slopes are pretty bare of even the regular powder hounds, the meanest of who are probably prowling the Highlands and Ajax in search of a fix.

I arrive at the base of the Village Express, along with about thirty others. We’ll be waiting for another 15 minutes, but already I’m starting to sweat a bit, down here below the wind and snow. Up top, it’s probably about 15F, and there is still snow swirling everywhere. Supposedly, 5″ fell in the last 24 hours. At home on the other side of the valley, the proch and driveway testify to this. I’m hoping the usual multiplying effect of higher altitude and north facing slopes will make that even deeper.

The lift starts right on time @ 8:30. Because the crowd is so sparse, I figure there’s no harm in taking my first run of the year down Campground, which has been groomed. No sense in plunging right in before all the synapses have been re-wired to ski mode. After a couple of minutes of double fall line grinding – meaning I have to stay twice as long on my right foot as my left – I turn right onto the short snatch of Howler, and bumpy little short cut to the base of the Sam’s Knob lift. Here, I discover that while I may lack a little endurance for skiing, probably due to the 10,000′ altitude, I can still make turns in a half-foot of new snow over some chopped up powdery moguls. This always amazes me every year, that I still know how to ski.

From the top of the lift, I shoot down Sunnyside, taking the straight shot towards the Burn lifts. The first one is closed, this being a weekday, and I head over the trestle to one of my favorite little spots on the mountain, the Sidehill. This is a two story, 35 degree side slope on the right, which I ALWAYS turn up into, make a 180 at the top, and try to get at least two more turns in on the way back down. Good for pumping up the core muscles, so necessary for graceful skiing. Besides, it looks cool.

On the 8 minute ride up the Sheer Bliss lift, I have time to consider my options for a first run. Normally, I just shoot straight down the open ace of the Burn, trying my best to link perfectly symmetrical turns all the way under the lift. But I notice something odd – the open spaces been either mashed flat by the snow groomers, or wind scoured free of fluff. So I figurfe Garret Gulch may be the repository of the with snow drifted in over the ridges.

Garret’s is a stream in the summer, coursing between the two broad shelfs which comprise the Big Burn. Usually, snow being blown over the Burn will fill up the Gulch, giving its large rounded moguls the appearance of a slanted parking lot full of Volkswagen Beetles.

The top seems promising, there in the trees. There is a bit less snow than I’d hoped for, but it’s fresh and soft, and feel just right. But the Gulch seems devoid of anything new. The snow is soft, from the storms over the past three days, and qualifies – bare – as a powder-y experience.

From there, I head back up, to the other side of the burn. Slashing though the trees angling left towards the Power Line, I’m aiming for a run down Powderhorn. This will give me 3600′ total vertical drop. Powderhorn always has soft snow, as very few people like this rambling, rolling expert run, which finishes with something called “Belly Grabber Pitch”. while the mid portion has enough new snow to satisfy, the bottom drops are low enough and steep enough to have bushes and even a few stumps showing thru.

Back up Sam’s Knob, I try a couple of bumpers in the snow – Zugspitze and Promenade. I like Promenade the best. It’s a little longer, more even in its slope, wider, and right under the lift. All this makes for a more even collection of bumps, more widely spaced which always seem to hold the snow better.

Then down the artificial snow surface of Banzai Ridge. Cruising quickly back acrfoss the trestle, it’s up to the top of the Burn again. The Cirque lift, which goes another 700′ above timberline, has not yet been open this year, and all the Cirque runs have been closed, except for AMF, which can be approached by a short uphill hike. The lift is rolling, but no platters are heading up. I’m guessing they are testing the motors and lubrication getting ready to open up tomorrow. That would be sweet.

I walk over to the AMF gate, and notice the steeper, narrower chute to the left is closed, and the cornice on the right is barely 18′ high – no snow here either! I roll into the easy trough which leads to the main face. There, I take a nearly perfect run in soft, but not fresh, fluff. No avalanche detritus, no scraped and wind-blown ice, just slightly raised mounds to turn over and around. I make it all the way down in one foop. Arriving at the base, I see there is only one route out – the options for the KT gully, or the Cirque Dikes are both roped off, and I can only meander thru the trees on a well-used track. After a bit, the Gully opens up, but I stay along the top of the little ridge, in the trees, until I hit the bottleneck where one can go left to Rock Island, right to Lower Dikes, or straight to a very steep face which dumps out into the final swoop of the gully into Skateboard Alley. The bumps here are ragged, steep, and might hide some rocks. I make it through unscathed.

I’ve gone nearly 18,000 vertical feet by this point, but I’m still looking for the powder. Over past Elk Camp, the SkiCorp cleared out the understory amidst the sparse trees at the crown of Burnt Mountain, opening up another 230 acres of off-piste hidden away from the public at large by a steep five minute hike. To get there, I spend ten minutes in the gondola, eating my lunch along the way. Then, of course, I stop in at the Ski Patrol Hut/Wildlife Center at the top of Elk Camp for some free hot chocolate and a pit stop.

After the hike (easier now that I’ve learned how to pace myself!) I aim right through the gate for the Burnt Mountain glades. They are as advertised, with fun, soft snow on an intermediate grade slope. But the exit is something else. The SkiCorp was going to clear out the trees for a steep catwalk onto lower Long Shot. But some environmental nag – really, the guy spends his life sitting at a computer somewhere in California, and throwing wrenches into any Forest Serve application for activity he sees which might be anywhere near a wilderness area, without knowing any of the specifics of the situation – petitioned the courts for an injunctions against the clearing, and so we have to pick out way through the trees and rocks and roots following the tagged trunks. Ragged, and not really worth a second trip. This year.

But it makes for a good end to the day, 23K altogether, and a reminder that, even in one of the worst snow years in memory (though not as bad as last year), one can still find a few fleeting softer turns. WHich is really all skiing is. The mountain is a constant, but the snow surface is ephemeral, and I have to grab at it while I can. This is getting to be a broken record, but as the Brooklyn Dodgers fans said in the early 50s, Wait Till Next Year.

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