Grippis. Revisited.

Saturday was AWESOME. I woke up very early to try out a new pair of kicks from VivoBarefoot that sort of remind you of a huarache sandal. My thought was that they wouldn't be too different from Vibrams and I would again have the ugliest running footwear on race day. I was horribly wrong. Not about the ugliness mind you; the split toe rubbed the webbing between my great and index toes so bad I blistered and bled in a mere two miles. The foot bed was amazing, however, so not being one to give up I'm going to see what modifications I can do to stop the rubbing. I'll keep you updated.

After that adventure it was breakfast and coffee with some friends at Green Harvest. Go there.

Saturday was also the day for the second annual stream sweep for the Juniata River. About 50 or so people showed up to walk the river and banks to clean up trash and debris dumped or washed down in the recent storms. There was a lot of debris. At our site, which was one of the cleanest, we carted out two 55 gallon drums, a grill, remnants of a couch from '72, tires, a television, tarps, some unidentified very large inflatable object as well as many, many other items of trash. It's slightly disheartening to see how people treat something that I personally love very much, there have been some awesome kayaking adventures on that river, and the extent to which they disrespect it and those who use it. At one location alone there were two and a half large flatbed trucks worth of junk pulled from the river and that was only a dent in the trash that was back there. We did manage to do some good though, and there are a few less beer cans for our efforts.

After our lunch of burgers and hotdogs we moseyed up to Hebrews Coffee for some very much needed sitting time. The waitress was a girl who I sold spikes to recently at an XC invitational, and it was cool to talk to a happy customer.

Then the real fun started. I got home, loaded up and headed out for Joel's place to work out a few kinks in the new bike. Grippis never fails to deliver. After two very public spills, I got readjusted to the bike (which I hadn't ridden any distance on in months) and was enjoying the Huntingdon mountainside. The trails are so smooth and fast it's easy to loose track of yourself in the woods. Then B stops in the middle of a hill and a rock to the knee brings you back to yourself. A little help from a frozen bag of broccoli is always good though, and I am fine today. Grippis is somewhere I could go every weekend and never get bored with it. I prefer the singletrack there to the technical monstrosity that is Blue Knob. For me, running is my challenge. Upping distances, speed and unruly terrain are things I like to do with my own two legs. Put two wheels and 20 lbs. of steel between those legs and I'm going to die. It's just a matter of what root/rock is going to cause my concussion that turns into a brain bleed that turns into death. Joel and B like that technical stuff with all the rock gardens and logs. No. I only see death at every rock.

The new bike performed very well. I may get some new handle bars and seat, but as far as the bike, brakes and gears go, it's much more than adequate. Contrary to my adventure cohorts, I don't believe in paying more for a bike than I would for a used car. I like to sprinkle my funds across the board a little more. For instance: it's race season! All left over funds are most likely going towards gas and race entry fees. I'm also married! Which means I really won't have much in the way of left over funds! The next large purchase is going to be a paddle board. Although it stripped me of my keys in South Carolina, I will not be deterred! It was fun for all ten minutes I was standing up! Then of course there's the saving for travel which Kel and I will be doing in the coming months, and the fact that I was recently asked to run the Ragnar Relay in Utah next year. Therefore, yes I'm VERY happy with the way my bike is treating me and I'll be happy with it for a long time to come!

Now get out and do something! I'm going to go eat pizza.

Grippiss - how awesome!

The three of us headed off to Allegrippiss on Saturday around 3:30pm. The day started out looking dark and dreary but the sun broke thru well before we even loaded up to go. I could tell just by that it was going to be a good day. Adam took his new hardtail disc brake bike. I think it worked well. Maybe he will blog about it sometime. Seems to me it was worth the money. It will do until he pulls the trigger and spend a few grand on one. So now about the ride. I felt really good. Have been going thru some tough times as far as my workouts and cardio level but today helped me feel good again and got me really excited to get back out there. I had good energy and was happy with that. I will say about 1.5 hrs into my legs were getting tired so I was slowing down on the climbs. Actually on this one small climb I decided to just slow down to an almost stop and take in the scenery around me. It was great. Adam didn't fair well on that climb. He stopped behind me and instead of balancing on his bike, then putting his right foot down, and enjoying the scenery with me, he went crashing over the hill in to stones and some bushes. Not so good for him. His knee swelled a little after we were done riding. Hope he is ok today. Did I mention I used my Hardtail 29er. That bike was make for Grippis. It was fast, fast, fast. I was actually out of control on the "dips". But it was a thrill. Over all we had a great time. Might have been the best time we ever had down there. Many more trips to come, hopefully.

24 hr. Mt. Bike Race

  The Seven Springs 24 hr. mt. bike race is in the books and it was a fun, exciting and different experience. I was a little nervous going into the weekend because I wasn't sure what to expect since I never did a mt. bike race, never been to a mt. bike race, just really started mt. biking this year and rode the course at Seven Springs last week for the first time. The 24 hr mt. bike race is just what it implies, 24 hrs of non stop mt. bike racing on a 12 mile loop. There are quite a few catagories but we had teams in the expert (4 man), sport (4 man) and corporate (8 man).

Rock Star Bus

  Brian and I packed up the car and pulled out of my driveway at about 6:30 am sat. morning excited about the experience that awaited us starting at noon at the Seven Spring Resort. We got into this mess because the guys at Spokes n Skis needed some extra guys on their corporate team and we were stupid enough to say yes. We were suppose to meet the team in the camping area where the Rock Star bus was set up. the rock star bus is a motor home owned by the fiores and is the only way to camp. Richard Fiore was one of our teammates along with Anna, Andrea, Jason and Rob. Our team was there to have fun, but we had an expert team with Zac, Brian, David and Kevin that was there to compete and compete they did. They were in second place most of the race till late on Sunday morning and then dropped to 3rd and thats where they finished (podium). Our team finished 12th out of 16 teams and did 14 laps. Our 3rd team was a sport team which included Matt, Jason, Jeff and Martin and they finished 4th in their division.
  To start the race theres a half mile run which helps stagger the field so everybody isn't getting to the singletrack at one time. Rob was our leadoff and he was really good on the run he was actually the 2nd on the bike and had a really good ride his 1st lap was 1:29.  Me, B.,Andrea, Richard, Jason L. and Anna G. finished out the riding order. As I got on the bike the course starts with about 2 miles of very fast downhill which is not my forte and a wide sweeping left turn which I almost over cooked that turns into singletrack some of which is very technical both decending and climbing. The hardest part of the course is probably from mile 4 to mile 7 alot of climbing but thats where I was able to make up time and pass some people. The best part is from miles 7 to 10 theres alot of fast rollers that was just really fun to bomb. They saved the big rock garden till the end at mile 10.5 when your about wore out and then along climb to the lake and a flat ride around the lake to a short climb to the finish. All in all a pretty good course. I got to do 2 laps the 1st one at 1:30 PM and then the 2nd was at 2:00 AM, riding at night is so much different the woods is so quiet and peaceful except for the crickets singing and the quiet hush is overtaken with heavy breathing mt. bikers with super bright lights crashing the silent darkness. My night lap went very well I took my time and just enjoyed the woods. Once I was done riding my night lap I was going to lay done and sleep in the tent, but I was so stoked from the ride I couldn't sleep so I just stayed up. We packed everything early and when noon time came and the race was over we helped Richard pack up the Rock Star bus and then took off about 12:30.

    I'm glad I did the race and will probably do it again if ask, but now its time to get the trail shoes out and start doing some trail running, Hyner is right around the corner!!