I am the Krieger!

For those of you really close to me, I may have seemed to be a bit bleary eyed the last few days.  Well, if you don’t already know why, this post will explain it.

 You see, there has been a new, small addition to my routine.  Well, small in one way, huge in another.  The addition is about five pounds and about a foot long, and is named Krieger.  Krieger is a long haired miniature Dachshund which I brought home with me just four days ago, and has had my rapt attention ever since!  He is absolutely adorable, as the pictures show, and is at this moment snoozing away on a pillow in my lap.  Krieger has been very good thus far, although I need to work on his whining and his potty training a good bit.  I will spare everyone the stories about puppy’s pooping habits, although I will say that is one of the primary topics of conversation these days!

Happy Birthday To Me!

I am now officially a quarter of a century old. I wonder if my femur has rings in it now?

Actually, July 12th was my birthday, but I have been so busy and behind on posts that this may not get posted until August 12th. I got to see family, eat out a lot, and all of the usual. To everyone who fed me: an enormous Thank You! To everyone who sent me money to help out with college tuition: I will be able to continue to eat next semester thanks to you! The most blog-worthy part of my birthday is just how special Caroline made my birthday, which is what I am going to write about!

First, it is pretty difficult to buy things for my birthday. Put simply, I am either too frugal or too poor to be able to afford to dream about what I want. So I often convince myself that I don’t really need things, and move on, forgetting about them by the time a birthday rolls around. Also, adding to the difficulty, was the fact that Caroline and I have only been dating a short while. The really amazing part was how well she did at picking out things for me. Caroline’s family has a tradition of having ‘birthday-weeks’. I really do like the idea, especially for kids, since you can spread things out a little and really enjoy them. She had six ideas, so there was one each day.

Tuesday she sent me a little teaser e-mail. It had a link to a flash animation which kept replaying a poem she had written. Now Caro is thoroughly supportive of my training and racing, and the Pee Dee race was that Saturday, so the opening line of the poem was: “What does a triathlete need, besides (of course) water, wheels, and speed?” The rest of the poem contained little hints as to what each day was going to hold. Some hints were generally easy, such as food and a massage after the race, but did not mention specifics such as where she was taking me to eat. Others were pretty difficult. ‘A challenge with a reward at the end’, ‘A little Kitchen Aide’, ‘and, of course, lots of water…for drinking’.

So the next day comes and she is prodding me for guesses about where we might be going out to eat. Eventually something clicks in my head and my first guess is “Yamato’s Steakhouse”. Her jaw just about drops. We had had a conversation about a month before, when we went to a Japanese Steakhouse with another group of friends, about where our favorite one was. She remembered which one I had said, although they had moved locations, and tracked them down and made reservations. It was just as good as I remembered it, if not better! Yamato is one of those places where the chefs prepare the food in front of you, they play the crowd and toss shrimp for you to catch in your mouth, etc. Our chef was absolutely hilarious; the other seven people at our table were celebrating an anniversary, and one woman had come without her husband so the chef kept making references to her coming just to see him, and calling her ’sweetheart’. A few laughs were had at Caroline’s and my expense as well, and a great time was had by all!

The next day was the challenge with a reward at the end. Of course this was impossible to guess. I picked Caroline up from work, and she told me she had to go run some errands and would be back shortly. She calls about a half-hour later and tells me she had forgot something on her errands, I thought she was going to tell me she would be late and not to wait up for dinner or something. Well, she asks if I would run get something for her, which sounded a little fishy, but I bite anyway and say ‘Sure, whatever I can do.’ Now, I was actually comfortably snuggled into the couch at this moment, but I knew something was up so I decided to play along. She tells me that she left something at Stronghold, in the climbing room, at the top of route #7, and asks if I would go retrieve it. Now I realize what the challenge was, and I have o smile because it is wonderful! The back story to this is that I used to be a pretty good rock climber for a few years, but have not been climbing in about two years. I took Caro up to Stronghold one time and she used that for setting up the birthday surprise. I grabbed my climbing shoes, which I still had around and still fit (or, I should say, don’t fit. Climbing shoes fit so tight that a day in them tends to turn your toenails black.) I head down to Stronghold and borrow a harness, take a good long look at the route (thinking, “Man, this really will be a challenge”) and try to find the ‘flow’ to the route and memorize any tricky sections and how to climb them before I get there. I tie in and the climb begins with the first moves being severe and steady, I can tell from looking at it that it will not let up for the next 50 feet. I click off move after move, glad that this is a route which is well suited to my style of climbing. I enjoy routes which have moves based on excruciatingly exact balance and weight transfers over very small hand and foot holds, where flexibility and precision are key. I climb away, hearing a group of girls below me, “He’s so tall, he can reach anything, it’s not fair!” I let the statement pass over me, not spoiling my concentration, and climb on. I reach the first crux, (crux= a particularly difficult section of moves along a route) it is not reachy, but rather it is a position where quick and precise hand placement is required to maintain balance. I steady myself and eye the exact point on the hold which will provide the necessary purchase to allow me to remain adhered to the wall. I look at it, and let my world narrow to just those two inches of plastic; then a flash, the sound of my hand slapping the wall and the hold, I feel the connection is right and I squeeze myself back in to the wall with a weightlifter-style grunt. A few moves more, then a particular move which requires I bring my left foot up very high, above my hip even. I rotate slightly to make the move less demanding, and walk my foot up the bare wall. Again I hear a comment from below, “He’s a guy, he’s not supposed to be able to do that!” This time I smile just a bit, I am a little more comfortable and can relax some. I carry on and near the top. Two moves from finishing is another crux move. It is unusual along this route, as it will require a burs of power to stick the reach. I press myself up, higher and higher, mantling over my right hand hold, tenuously gripping my left below my left shoulder and a foot out from my side I look at the hold. I know it is a good hold, but I know the amount of weight that will come down on that arm when I make the move. Even if I stick it precisely, I am not certain my out of shape arms have that much power, much less after having climbed a solidly difficult route. I inform my belayer that I may fall here, so he can be ready to lock off my rope and catch my fall. I look at it for a few more seconds, until I don’t think about falling anymore, until I just want to give it my very best effort. And I go. Toes standing on little nubs no larger than a AAA battery, left hand splayed out into the air for balance, right hand pinching a piece of plastic roughly the shape of a 2×4 laid flat against the wall. I feel my weight too far out, my hips too far off the wall, I had come further off balance than I wanted to and I was falling outward from the wall. There was no possibility of moving to a better position, just one way to remain on the wall: brute strength. Without time to think (that had all been done before the move, now I was just executing my plan) I yard on this hold with all my might, squeezing and pulling on a long-since untrained arm, now filled to the brim with lactic acid and screaming in searing white agony. No time to think also means no time to doubt. I lock off the arm, arresting the wrongful motion and rebounding back to the wall. I look up and finish the route with one more move before I can think about how tired I am. Then I see my prize: a letter taped to the wall. I call to the belayer who takes my weight on the rope and I tear down the letter. Back on the ground I take out the enclosed note: “Pack your bags! As soon as you finish your race, we’re headed for a weekend of wet n’ wild fun! So bring a swimsuit, sandals, and an old t-shirt.”

The next day was the Friday before the race. We did everything as usual, plus I went swimming with Caroline in the pond where the race was, which did wonders to stretch my back out after the car ride. It was pretty much just a normal pre-race day, until we stopped at Target for something for Caroline and she bought a few particular items which clued me in to what she had gotten me for today. I normally have a pineapple, orange juice, and banana smoothie which I am addicted to after big workouts, great for cooling down and rehydrating. Caro had gotten me a little travel blender where the blender containers are the actually drinking cups! We put it to use that night, and it actually crushes ice exceptionally well!

The next day was the race, then we came back home to get some stuff, and Caroline told me we had to stop by and pick up a friend of ours, Jonathan. I like Jonathan, so this was fine by me, but really piqued my curiosity about what was up. Caro directed me to begin driving up I-26, and eventually had to tell me directions and I realized we were headed to Cherokee, North Carolina. Putting two and two together, I realized we were going white water rafting, which she confirmed, but said there was more of a surprise still to come! I had not been white water rafting in a decade or so, so I was pretty excited! It turns out that Jonathan is a bit of a gambler (and pretty good too, he usually ends up breaking even and often has a significant winning streak for a while) and had gotten a free hotel room which he decided he would donate to us while he was at the Casino. It was really awesome of him to do that, and I need to write a thank-you note or something still. That night Caro gave me a massage, and was quite adamant about me telling her precisely where hurt most. It went something like this “It is tighter around the IT band area.” “Where?!” “Um, the outside of my thigh.” “Oh, gotcha.”

The next day were up early and going. After a continental breakfast at the hotel we began our wonderful day. Now, I had been up in this area before while hiking along the Appalachian Trail a few years ago, and I knew the NOC (Nantahala Outdoor Center) was one of the biggest rafting places around, but Caroline was giving me directions to some place else. “OK,” I thought to myself “she probably found a great deal, just like with the hotel room, since we are both still students.” Well we get to this small, beautiful, mountain town where she has me park the car. We then walk over and Caro picks up our tickets for a train ride! A few weeks before this we had had a conversation about trains and I had mentioned that I had never ridden on a train before. So we board the train and get rolling. I am just watching everything pass by, which is an interesting feeling. It really is not like riding in a car at all, since there are no turns, you are doing no work at all, you can walk around and do whatever you want. It is just very difficult to describe the sensation if you have never been on a train before. The train conductor gives us some information about the historic and beautiful sites we are passing, and after about two hours we arrive at our destination, the Nantahala Outdoor Center! There we get our life vests, a safety briefing, and a bus ride up to our put-in where we meet our guides for the trip. The Nantahala is a dam fed river, and the water comes off the bottom of the lake, so it averages 45-55 degrees (Fahrenheit) all year, so when we hit rapids and got splashed it was a very chilling experience!

We put in well upstream from the major rapids, so we would have a little time to learn the ropes before getting started.  We did a little bit of work learning how to paddle smoothly and evenly together, all six of us in the boat.  Down the river a short ways we were put to our first test as we encountered a rock which must be missed, seeing how it is rather tooth shaped, that has earned the nickname “Jaws”.  We got into some flat water and floated along, enjoying the scenery, and building up to taking on more and more difficult rapids.  Our guide called out when to row on which side, keeping us moving in the right direction.  I was having a great time observing how he brought us down the river, which parts of the current we were supposed to be in and which parts we were trying to avoid, which rapids we got set up for and how.  Our guide informed us about one rapid which was taken in a very unique manner, by bouncing the raft off of the first rock as hard as possible to set up for the next rapid.  The rock you bounce off of is shaped a bit like a ramp, so you slide up and back down it, and we managed to get about 1/3 of the boat out of the water and up onto the rock!  The first dozen or so rapids we approached pretty loosely, without a whole lot of preparation.  Then we started to hit rapids where our guide would  explain what we were going to do, how we would position the boat to catch the current just right and which side of the rapids we had to be on to avoid unseen rocks.  The last three rapids in particular required the most prep work, with Nantahala Falls, a category 3 rapid, to finish the ride off.  We passed through ‘Little Z’ and then got set up for our first category 3 rapid, our guide said we were set up perfectly.  We made the first drop, then started picking up speed through the following series of drops.  The guide called for us to paddle and with just a few strokes we were through the last of the rapid.  We were settling down in some quick moving but calm water, and the guide had just finished saying that we may have just had the cleanest run through Nantahala Falls with a newbie crew he had ever been with, when we hit a rock!  I was on the left side of the boat, and we were cruising downstream sideways, when the right rear of the boat caught on a rock.  The force of the water lifted my side of the boat up, tossing the two back left occupants off of their seats.  Now, the far back left was the guide, and just in front of him was Caroline, so imagine my situation here: I am still securely attached to the raft, I see Caroline’s back with her arms reaching out precariously overbalanced and hanging on by having her feet tucked under a portion of the raft, and I see the guide on his side with one leg tucked under the raft as his only means of remaining secured and the other waving around in the air saying “someone pull me back in the boat.”  Who would you grab?  One one hand is the girlfriend, on the other is the guy that can assuredly get you to safety.  I decided quickly that if I did not grab Caroline, the next month of my life (or more) would probably be unbearable, so I would rather risk getting to shore without the guide than going home with a soaked and freezing Caro!  I grabbed Caroline by the vest and yanked her back into the boat, then realized that the guide was still in his strange predicament, on his side with one leg tucked and one waving around, so I grabbed the flailing foot and sort of slid him back to a more balanced place on the raft.  We all had a quick laugh, then paddled our way up to shore at the pull out.

The day, the weekend, and the week of my birthday were pretty much over.   I was rather exhausted, so we headed back into Cherokee and picked up Jonathan, who had again managed to mostly break even, and headed back home.  We detoured through Greenville for dinner with my mother, then back to Columbia where the final great gift was coming.  That’s right, I went to sleep.

Tri the Pee Dee Race Report

Last weekend, July 14th specifically, was the Tri the Pee Dee sprint race just outside of Florence, SC.  It is a neat little race to do for fun, but it is certainly one that I will not try to really compete in next year.  It is held at Emerald Lake, which is a tiny ski pond just west of Florence.  The lake is very shallow, being about fifteen feet at it’s deepest, and the deepest part along the swim course is only about seven feet.  With that in mind, and the fact that the race occurs in the middle of the summer, the water temps are quite comfortable!  The lake actually has a very blue-green appearance, and the day before the race Caroline and I went for quick swim, which was great for getting the kinks out from driving.  The bike course is pretty much pancake flat, really you could sit on your trainer for an hour and get a perfect workout to do this race.  The bike course does have one unique aspect, however: the first and last mile are on dirt road.  They had it scraped just before the race, so a lot of the loose stuff was pushed off to the side, but that only helped the first few bikes through.  By the time I got onto the bike course (not too far behind everybody) there were loose sand ruts where the narrow bicycle tires had gouged through the sand.  It actually forced me off my bike one time, and I actually passed two people while running my bike along the sand!  The run is certainly the place to make up time on this course, as it is a three loop course which runs along the perimeter of the lake.  This made the race very enjoyable for spectators, which was good since it was Caroline’s first time going to a race with me.

I had a good swim, doing the 700 meters in 12:55, which is an acceptable pace for me.  I had been avoiding the pool for a while before this race as my back had been bothering me a bit.  It still irritates me some, just inside my right shoulder blade, and I can’t figure out what is causing it.  Fortunately it seems that swimming does NOT cause this pain, as I have been doing some consistent pool swims since the race with no ill effects.  I got out of the water and then had a really slow T1, spending 1:47 getting the big stuff knocked off my feet to avoid blisters and getting all of my gear on.  I swear I don’t wear that much!

The bike was, of course, horrible for the first mile.  I turned my computer on after the first half-mile, which was the worst section, and for the paved portion I averaged about 22 mph.  Including the dirt, however, brought my average pace down to 19.4 mph for a total time of 47:53 for the 15 mile bike.  All through the course I was riding up to people who had dirt and road rash down their sides where they had fallen on the dirt portion of the road.  I did not fall, but it took me a bit to get my head back into racing before I started really hammering again, I can only imagine how much falling must mess with your mental focus.  A friend actually had to lay his bike down to avoid running over a girl who fell right in front of him, and he ended up losing a chunk of skin out of his achilles area.  Somebody should tell Jeromy that that first mile is a dirt road.  Next year, I am bringing the mountain bike, lol!  No, seriously.

T2 took me 1:00 flat, which is about my average.  Actually both of my transitions were about my average, which I am fine with for now.  I have other places that I can make up much more than the minute and a half I lose in transition.  I came out of the run flying, ready to make up some time.  I heard that my friend Anthony was just finishing his first lap when I came out of the TA and he tried to catch up to run with me, but I was in full burst mode and he could not catch up!  My first mile was a 6:30, then I held about a 7 minute pace after that for a total time of 21:28 in the 3.1 mile run.  The average mile pace was a 6:55.

Total time was 1:25:00, which was enough for third place in my age group at this event!  It was nice to get to stand up on the podium, finally!  I know that a lot of the really stiff competition was not there, given the nature of this race, but it was definitely a confidence boost to place in the top three.  I feel really solid in my run, although I am looking forward to doing some run specific training this winter.  I cut more than a minute per mile off of my time over last winter, and had the injury which slowed me down a little.  I would love to chop my sprint run time down to under a 6 minute mile, my olympic time down to a 7 minute mile, and my half iron down to an 8 minute mile.  That would be pulling one minute per mile off of each average over this year.  If I could do that, my sprint run would be on par with the top runners, my olympic run would be 1 minute per mile short, and my half-iron would be just less than two minutes from the top runners at last year’s event.  I have not yet run a 6 minute mile, but I feel that I could.

Forty seven years later….

I spend most of my training time on Fort Jackson.  It’s a great place to bike, and if you are really creative you can get fifty miles in without a whole lot of doubling back.  It is always inspirational to be on a long ride and pass the troops training with the jousting poles, or on the rifle range, or getting way out in the back of the fort and hearing the artillery fire and watching the tank range.

There is also a pretty inspirational hill, where the new recruits are sent to run for discipline or fun.  From the bottom of Tank Hill to Hilton Field is a mile and a half in one direction, so running it as a loop is three miles.  A full mile of that is sustained and fairly difficult hill.  Of course, this is also where many of the barracks are located, just to provide easy access to the hill.

Forty seven years ago, in June of 1960, my father finished basic training at Fort Jackson.  He came to the base unable to run this hill; by the time he had finished in June, Tank Hill posed no problem.  It is a very visual reminder that, with effort and determination, anything, no matter how impossible it may seem, can be achieved.

Even forty seven years later.  3 Miles of Tank Hill in 48 minutes.  Proud of you Dad!

Activity Partner

So, I was out of town this past weekend with Caroline. We went up to Table Rock state park where we camped then hiked the 3.5 miles up to the overlook and back.

We have been doing quite a bit together recently, and I must say it has been a learning experience. Generally, whatever one of us has always wanted to do, the other has done. I want to see another country, she’s been to most of them. She wants to learn to sail, I’ve done it. So exploring each other’s interests and pursuing them further has been quite enjoyable, and has produced a couple of interesting stories to tell.

One day we were upstairs in the small gym which is on the ’spa level’ of my apartment building. Caroline had tagged along while I worked on my physical therapy workouts to keep everything nicely in shape. I was showing her the workouts that I do for the hip injury and she was learning and copying them. We were just working out when three other residents came up. First they turned on the sauna, then started killing some time while it warmed up. They were obviously foreign, and the language sounded Slavic in origin.

Now imagine how this looked. Three 20-something year olds, two girls and a guy, wander into a gym and turn on the sauna. They proceed to workout in a very playful manner, laughing and joking in a distinctly foreign language. Then they pull their clothes off down to their swim suits and step into the sauna.

Caroline looks over at me and says, “Does that look like the start of a bad porn movie to you?” This cracks me up and makes me loose count of what rep I am on, but things get even better! We finish the workout and Caroline looks at me and informs me that “we have done something you like to do, now we will try something I like to do.” After an comment about the inappropriateness of the location, Caroline starts teaching me how to dance. We were going over the basic steps of the Waltz when the young man comes out of the sauna and asks, in a thick accent, “Excuse me, but are you two dancers?” We explain that we are just having fun and that neither of us are good dancers, and he says “I was a professional dancer in Russia, and was wondering if you might know of any place which hosts ballroom dances.”

We chat a bit about it, and are ultimately unable to be of any help, but promise to let him know if we do find a place. About this time he realizes that he is standing there in his speedo and seems to get a little bit self conscious as he wraps up in a towel and excuses himself. Shortly after we have nearly the exact same conversation with the two girls who were there, at least one of whom was the young man’s sister.

We have told this story many times over, as it was quite the uniquely unexpected discovery after the initial impression.

Last weekend, however, was pretty much just fun. We camped out friday night, which was quite miserable since the heat and humidity combined for a ‘don’t touch me, you’re too warm’ night! The next morning we met a guy who was from Chapin, just up the road from Columbia, and was cycling all the way up to Virginia. We talked a bit about bike riding and planning multi-day cycling trips, since I have been wanting to do one for a while. We also talked a bit about climbing, as he was originally from New York and had done a lot of climbing at the Shawangunks up there, which is a pretty famous place.

That day was pretty warm for a good bit, but as we climbed the mountain the approaching storm fronts were cooling things quite a bit. When we reached the summit, 2,000 feet above where we started, we relaxed and watched a thunderstorm build up, let loose it’s fury, and then diminish over Greenville; all while sharing peanut butter and banana sandwiches on oat bran pitas. We relaxed and talked a bit with another group, a father and his three sons (ages 2, 3 and a half, and 5 and a half). They were from nearby Easley, and could actually see where their home was (the nearby water tower was the closest visible landmark). Caroline and I had stopped at a roadside stand and bought some peaches on the drive up, and we shared these with the other group, which the kids seemed to really enjoy.

Eventually we hiked back down, and who should we meet but Zachary Sutton, fellow age-grouper! Of all the places to be, at all the times, we were all out enjoying that particular park! We laughed and joked about getting ready for all the rough hill climbs the course in Florence will have (it’s gonna be pancake flat), and parted with a “See you in two weeks!”

We got back to the car, drove into Greenville and met my mother for dinner, which we both consumed quite heartily after a full day on the trail. Now here I sit the next day, at nine o’clock, tired and ready to call it a night! Nothing gets my day back on schedule like hiking!

I also will be going for a nice long bike ride one of these days with my friend Anthony, who I wrote about in one of my latest entries, so that will be quite fun!