Finding Fall

Those of us here in Phoenix don't get the autumn season the same way that the majority of the country gets it. We don't get changing leaves, harvesting of crops, toasting marshmallows over a big bonfire, or huddling together at football games in your favorite hoodie to keep you warm. For us, fall means that monsoon season is over and you will no longer get scorched or drenched when you walk outside. Nice, yes, but I really do miss the Midwest this time of year. So, in an attempt to enjoy the fall, we went looking for it.

The closest place to find the fall around here is Sedona, and that is exactly where Jack, Hannah, Angel and I headed over the weekend for some mountain biking adventures. We woke up far too early on Saturday morning after a fun night of carving pumpkins with some fellow grad students and headed north on I-17. We arrived at the Bike and Bean shortly before 9, got some advice on a good day's worth of trails, and then headed over to the Bell Rock Trailhead. Out of the 2.5 years that I've lived in Arizona, I've only ever been to Sedona twice, and have never even begun to explore it. The amount of people that flock there has deterred me in the past, but in the lull between seasons, we were hoping that it wouldn't be as crowded. It turned out to be absolutely perfect: mostly sunny with a few clouds scattered about and the crisp cool air being moved about by a light breeze. We started off on a long uphill stretch on a wide multi-use trail to Bell Rock and then took off to the singletrack Templeton Trail headed to Cathedral Rock. The scenery was to die for, and I couldn't get enough of it. At one point, as we were going down a small gravely hill, I couldn't help put take my eyes from the trail to marvel at the red rock and blue sky around us. I was talking to Hannah about just how awes... Crash! I skidded out mid-sentence and rode the rest of the day with a scraped and bloody right leg and elbow, but I just laughed it off and kept going. As we made our way to Cathedral Rock, I got my first taste of riding on slickrock, and I have to say that I am well and truly addicted. The stuff grips like crazy, and is just a blast to ride on. We wound our way around the rock formations and down into a small wooded valley where we found fall nestled in Oak Creek. The leaves were changing brilliant colors and we even found a rope swing and played like kids the big kids that we are in the beautiful area. As we made our way along the creek, Hannah had an amazing catch to what could have been a really dangerous crash over several big boulder steps. Her bouncing over her handlebars and catching herself upright and dodging the next drop was spectacular. We rode several more incredible miles around in a loop until it brought us back to the creek and around Cathedral once again. I can't begin to describe how fun, beautiful, and relaxing it was to be riding up there. Maybe those people who talk about vortexes are on to something... or maybe just that it's an incredible place, but either way, I was in heaven.

We continued back towards the highway for a bit until we found the H.D. Trail that would put us back on the northerly part of the Bell Rock Trail. From there, we took off on Little Horse Trail that offered some more slickrock, wonderfully technical bits, and lots more fun as we explored the northeast part of the trails around several red rock formations. Eventually, we came out to a Jeep tour area where the trail/Jeep road was made up almost entirely of slickrock. It was a blast to gain experience on the stuff, and makes me really want to go up to places like Moab and Fruita. We had been biking for about four hours when we all became ravenously hungry and found our way to Broken Arrow Road that led us to town. After a short stint on the dangerously busy, shoulderless Hwy 179, we turned into a little shopping center to find a Mexican restaurant, where we downed multiple Cokes and big juicy burgers. Hannah and Angel had to rush back to Phoenix, but Jack and I took it easy back to the truck (by necessity, as Jack's tubeless tire had a not-so-slow leak). We wanted to stay off of the busy roads as much as possible, so we tried to find an aptly named Mystic Trail that was supposed to start just outside of town. We finally found it at the end of a maze of new construction and multiple Lutheran churches and took it back to where it met up again with Bell Rock Trail. The last mile or so was incredible, with a very impressive view of the red rock and ALL downhill. Poor Jack had to limp down the beautiful doubletrack, but I fairly flew down, smiling from ear to ear as I jumped small waterbars and ate up the wonderful speed.

After an incredible day biking and soaking up the fall weather, we headed up Hwy 89 to Flagstaff. Jack's nephew, TJ, is a freshman at NAU and it was going to be his first game dressing for the Ice Jacks hockey team. After chilling with him pregame at one of the bars near campus, we headed to the rink. It's been awhile since I watched Chris play hockey in Chicago, and I found that I really do miss it. There's just something hardcore about the game that I really enjoy. TJ got several minutes of playing time each period, and the Ice Jacks whooped up on Santa Clara 13-0. TJ didn't score, but he had a lot of good looks, and Jack and I had a great time watching.

It was a late night up in Flag, so I slept in on Sunday and then spent the afternoon working on the Fire most of the day and just hanging out. All in all, a fun, relaxing weekend, and gave me plenty of energy to tackle the busy week ahead.

The Call of the Ocean...

It's been just over a year ago since the Unfinished Business team came together to complete our dreams of rowing across the Atlantic. Since we finished at the end of January until just about two months ago, I had taken a complete hiatus from the sport that I had grown to love since my first timid strokes on the Wabash. After taking several million strokes over the course of 51 days, I was in need of a different kind of adventure and a break from the past seven years in which rowing had been my number one priority. As the saying goes, if you love something, let it go... And like the truest form of old love, even after months away from the oars, the passion is definitely still there. I really can't live without rowing, and it was only a matter of time before I got back into it. As a testimate to this passion, I've done the one thing that I never ever thought I would do... joined an erg class. Yes, erging... for fun... by choice. My friend Kelly teaches an erg class down at the lake, and Jack and I have joined once a week. It's modeled after a bike spinning class, and we row at different stroke rates with accompanying music, and I have to admit, that it really is.... (gasp) fun. I don't think that I've ever thought erging 10k was fun. Satisfying and competitive? Yes, but fun? Never until now. Maybe I've matured since the days down in Lambert Fieldhouse, or maybe the stakes in our little competitions are much lower when the outcome won't decide whether you get kicked out of the varsity boat or not, but either way, the hour-long workouts are very refreshing. Strokes at high ratings remind me of every single piece that I ever pulled out in the musty basement of Lambert, the collective power of the few dozen girls sweating beside me rising above any pain that we experienced, knowing that we would turn that power into gold medals in the spring. Strokes at low ratings with the resistance set high and a good chill song take me right back to the ocean. Looking out over the dark rippled reflections of Tempe Town Lake could almost be the vast expanse of the Atlantic, and an unexplainable calm that just feels like home washes over me. There is no doubt that rowing is in my blood, and will be for the rest of my life.

On the adventure side of things, it also feels incredibly good to be involved in another ocean rowing project. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love all of the smaller adventures that my friends and I find ourselves involved in on the weekends, but for the past five years of my life, I have been involved in one ocean rowing adventure or another. Although finishing the '07 race brought so much incredible pride and joy into my life, now that it's over, I've had to fill a void in my life, and the '09 project suits that spot perfectly for this point in my life.

Anne came in from Colorado for the weekend, and she, Mia, and I worked on the Fire most of Saturday. It was a long, productive day epoxying, sanding, cleaning out the cabin and hatches, removing old sponsorship stickers (and reminicsing about the stories behind each of them), and pouring over equipment lists and the plans on how to procure all of it. I gave them a tour of the West Marine store, and I think that they felt exactly how Kohl and I felt when we first started looking for equipment: like kids in a candy store, oogling over everything from bilge pumps to electrical panels to lifejackets. The sun set on us while we were still working on removing old stickers, so we called it a day having achieved quite a bit. I'm definitely enjoying the project manager part of ocean rowing, and watching Anne and Mia learn and grow is an incredible feeling to have, knowing that they're following in Kohl and my footsteps.

We had a good night out on Mill Ave with a few of my grad school friends before Anne left early Sunday morning. I had planned on going out to join some friends up on the Verde River where they had been camping all weekend, but as I've said before, ocean rowing is addictive, and I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon looking up equipment and trying to figure out potential sponsors. Then, in the evening, I joined Hannah and several of my other mountain biking buddies including Scooby, Chris, Ryan, and Josh for the first team meeting of ZumBala. Although I enjoyed my year with Missing Link, they're more of a social team than a racing team, and if I want to get better at biking, I'd like to be with people who can teach me, so ZumBala was a natural choice. All the guys are incredible people, and excellent riders. We already have some great sponsors set up, are planning on having support at all the races, and foster a family-like atmosphere that promotes both racing and the comradarie that is so special to me in the community of mountain bikers. And, one of our guys, Bruce is head of a company called 360 Adventures that does guiding for mountain bike, climbing, and hiking tours throughout the Valley, and as members of the team, we have the option to become guides for them (ie. get paid to do the adventures that we would normally do anyways). All in all, a great meeting and I'm looking forward to racing and riding with the new team.

Beer, Bikes, and Boilers

After another long week and another presentation for lab meeting (this time explaining all of the nitty-gritty details of our plant expression system), I headed home and looked forward to an enjoyable, non-competitive weekend.

My original plans were to go to Tour de Fat on Saturday, volunteer with the recycling group on campus to get free beer, and then go hiking somewhere on Sunday. You know what they say about the best laid plans...

Since most of my crazy ultimate friends (with whom we had dressed up last year) were in Colorado for a tournament and my grad school friends were being lame, I was just about to head out the door in normal street clothes for a full day of debauchery involving bikes and beer in Tempe Beach Park when Hannah called and changed my entire weekend plan. Rick from Sierra Adventure Sports had e-mailed us (Team ODP), and asked us if we wanted to defend our Extreme Heat victories in the last race of the series. After the Gilmore AR disaster, we had decided not to enter any more adventure races until we got some more training under our belt, but we couldn't refuse a free race. It was SAS's first night adventure race, and we were excited to say the least.

I still had until 3 p.m. to enjoy Tour de Fat, so I headed out on my bike towards Tempe, tried to adjust my seat while I was still riding (not recommended), and promptly rammed myself into a parked car, bruising my right thigh and crumpling to the pavement not 100 ft. from our house. I returned to the house, cleaned up the new gash on my left knee, and headed out again. Tour de Fat is one of my favorite events of the year, and this year was no exception. Although I had missed the bike parade, there were still thousands of people at the festival enjoying the lovely combination of New Belgium's finest beers, the comradarie of fellow bikers, and several really fun bands. I met up with several of my grad student friends, some ultimate frisbee buddies, the Missing Links guys, and some STP racers that are part of my new mountain biking team, Zumbala (more details to come). Even though I was no longer going to be able to volunteer with the recycling group, I had friends that had taken a morning shift and had been given too many (!) beer tokens, which they kindly donated to me. With a race that evening, I couldn't enjoy more than a few of New Belgium's fine brews, but that didn't stop me from trying out all of their amazing bikes. We all had a good laugh attempting to ride unicycles, shoe tire bikes, miniature bikes, bikes that had springs for their frames, and all sorts of other very unique cycles. All in all, it was an incredible event with lots of good bikes, beer, and friends.

I rode home without incident, and made it back to the house to get ready to head out to the McDowells. Hannah and I got to the Pemberton Trailhead shortly before the pre-race meeting and joined the 15 other teams as the sun sank lower in the horizon and the cold started to settle on the desert. The race started like an Easter-egg hunt with all of the teams scrambling for 5 points positioned near the staging area, and then performing a somewhat chaotic frisbee-throwing mystery event before turning on our lights, jumping on our bikes, and heading off into the last glow of the sun. The trail is gently inclining, and we started picking off teams one by one until we were leading the pack. The checkpoints were all on the trail, and though my knee and thigh were sore from my run-in with the parked car earlier, we were both feeling great and had only one team pass us. After a few checkpoints, we turned off of Pemberton to an amazingly smooth, winding downhill trail filled with perfectly spaced and elevated waterbars. I was completely in heaven, jumping down the waterbars with my headlights shooting into the darkness ahead and a full sky of stars above. Before we knew it (and after only one minor wrong turn), we were back at the TA, where we performed another mystery event involving transporting ourselves around the TA on blocks of wood. Then it was on to the trekking part of the race. We started out good enough, hitting the first checkpoint right out of the TA, and finding the second one after a little bit of searching before heading down a wash to the third point. Unfortunately for us, we couldn't see in the dark that the wash split into two, and we took the wrong fork of it. We only realized this when we found ourselves back on the main road, but it didn't take us long to find our way back to the trails where we found the next point, although our mistake cost us a few race places. The next section took us along the technical loop of the competitive track, which we followed out to the Pemberton Wash and the next few points. Finally, we found our last point while hiking along with another team, and began to make the last push for the finish line. We got back to the TA 3 hours and 21 minutes after the race had begun, very satisfied with our 4th place overall and 1st place women's team placing. As all of the teams starting coming in, we kicked back with some Coke and enjoyed each other's company in the warmth of the mystery event's wood fire. It was a great comradarie of all the teams that had gone through our first night race, and it seemed that everyone had enjoyed themselves out on the course. We stayed and talked to Rick for awhile after the race to thank him for inviting us out and then headed home, with our 1st place finishing dog tags around our necks.

My body was definitely worn out, and I woke up early Sunday morning with my knee and thigh sore from the day before's injury and my entire body begging me to just stay in bed. I had plans to go on some sort of adventure, but the sleep monster won again, and I slept in until mid-morning. I took the day to relax, read (for fun!), and just hang out. I didn't have the heart to watch football, as Tiller's really having it rough in his last season. I still do and always will love Purdue, though, so it was nice to hang out with some fellow Boilers in the evening. D, one of Kohl and my old friends from our crazy college days, was in town for the weekend, so I fixed dinner and the three of us hung out in the evening, sharing new stories and reminiscing about our wonderful days in West Lafayette.

So long, sweet summer

It was a long week in the lab, made longer by the fact that I didn't have any good pictures of adventures on the weekend to keep me going coupled with the fact that I had exams to proctor in the middle of the week and a lab meeting to prepare for on Friday. It was the first lab meeting I have given this year, and now that I am a third year grad student, I felt amazingly confident giving the presentation. It was a great feeling to have, and gave me promise as I start preparing for my comprehensive exams this spring. As soon as the meeting was over, I rushed happily out of the lab, loaded up the Jeep, and headed east. Pierre and Evelyn beat me out of the Valley (as I couldn't exactly leave before I was done presenting as they had), but I followed soon after, driving into the sunset-glowing Superstitions that I had looked so longingly at on Sunday. We were all headed up to Show Low for Epic Rides' Tour of the White Mountains, which promised to be an incredible 60 miles of beautiful singletrack in the heart of the mountains. There are two ways to get to Show Low, and since I had been through Payson many times before and was in dire need of an adventure, I decided to stay on Hwy 60 and travel through Globe. On the map, the route appeared shorter than the Hwy 87 route, but I came to the realization as to why it wasn't "the way" quite quickly. Construction and the long winding hills for 100 miles kept my speed under 50 the majority of the way, and I didn't make it to the Show Low Bluff until Todd had finished the pre-race meeting.

No matter, I checked in, and followed the sound of Bill's voice to the Missing Links area of the campground, which ended up being a field of large volcanic rocks. That, coupled with the fact that the temperatures were below 50, finalized my decision against setting up the tent. I hung out with the guys before Pierre and Evelyn returned from dinner in town, and then curled up in the back of the Jeep for a bit of rest before the big ride.

The next morning dawned cold and a bit cloudy, but we were all excited about the day ahead of us. The ML guys were all riding the 30 miler, and Pierre, Ev, and I were going to tackle the 60. We met a few of Landis guys at the starting line, said good luck to everyone, and were off. On the map, the first 30 miles were to be up and the second 30 down, so I was mentally prepared for a tough start. After a short ride on a Jeep road, we started climbing. Ev and I stayed together for the first few miles, but her triathlete fitness soon prevailed and she passed me before the 1st aid station. At Mile 7, I grabbed a few orange slices and some HEED, and set out to catch Ev. A mix of rolling single and doubletrack made up the next 8 miles, and though I could definitely feel the effects of elevation, I was feeling pretty good when I rolled up to the 2nd aid station for some Oreos and some more HEED after 1/4 of the race was completed. The next 12 miles were mostly up on a Jeep road, and I just cranked it up the many hills, passing slower riders and really getting into a good cadence. The miles flew by, and before I knew it, I was at the third aid station, downing pickles and pretzels and feeling on top of the world. Unfortunately, I wasn't at the top of the world yet, and the next 3 miles or so were very steeply inclined. The loose forest soil made it impossible to ride up the slopes, so for two long, steep mountains, I pushed my bike to the top. But, at the top of the 2nd peak, the race was supposed to be all downhill, and I couldn't have been happier. The descents were fairly technical (sharply curving switchbacks and lots of roots), but very fast, and I flew down. For several miles, I rolled along the singletrack, on top of the world. It wasn't all down, however, and there were still plenty of smaller hills to tackle. I was mostly on my own for this part of the ride, and I got to enjoy the serenity of the tall dark pines coupled with the bright contrast of white shaking aspen displaying their radiant yellow foliage as I rode along. It was 17 miles along this stretch until we got to the next aid station, and after about 13, I was ready to see some people again. In the last 4 or so, one rider began to have bike problems, and he and I leapfrogged each other, wondering aloud to each other where the aid station was supposed to be. Eventually, though, we found it around 2 p.m. It couldn't have come sooner, and we began devouring goldfish crackers and gulps of HEED as the clouds that had threatened rain all day began to become more ominous. I began to feel the effects of the long ride about 50 miles in. I had mentally prepared myself for a nice, fast descent on the back side of the course, but it couldn't have been more different. The mountains are essentially a volcanic graveyard, and for what seemed like miles on end, the trail consisted of washes filled with oddly shaped baby heads (large annoying rocks about the size of a baby's head). My physical state was completely in tune with my mental one, and as long as I kept myself fed and watered, my mind could tackle the torturous rocks. But the more miles I put on, the more tired my body became, and turning a corner on a rare smooth spot on the trail only to reveal an uphill battle with the baby heads almost made me want to cry. The fact that I hadn't seen anyone since the aid station wasn't positive either, though I didn't feel much better when a pro-looking girl passed me as I was bumbling up a particular tricky part of trail. I sucked it up though, and just kept rolling/bouncing along for the next 5 miles. Just as the boulder forest ended, the skies opened up. It had been sprinkling for the last hour or so, but it began to pour with about 4 miles to go to the aid station. By this time it was already 3 p.m., the race cut-off time, and my spirits were pretty low as I wasn't sure if they were even going to let me finish the race. The next four miles were tough and... well, heavy. I almost wished for the boulder fields to return as the trail became a ribbon of peanut butter which stuck to my wheels, brakes, gearing, and all parts of my body. Every few minutes, I had to stop to scrape everything down just to continue. By the time I reached the aid station, I had resorted to pushing my bike up the hills as it was too heavy/caked to even try to ride. The guys manning the checkpoint were lot letting people continue, and several riders who had arrived before me were busy wiping mud off of their hands to cram some Oreos down before the rain got to them. Although I was disappointed that I wasn't able to finish, I still ended up riding about 59 miles, as the course was actually 68 miles long (much to the chagrin of those with bike computers). I got sagged back to the finish line just as the last of the ML guys were leaving (as they had only ridden 30 miles and had gotten done before the rain). I found Pierre curled up in his car, but Evelyn hadn't arrived yet. The course was a complete mess, and riders in varying states of mud and exhaustion were scattered all over the place, with several completely caked with their bikes draped over their shoulders marching numbly into the finish. When we realized that Ev wasn't being sagged in, we went out to go find her and set out marching ourselves into the muck. We met her about two miles from the finish, carrying her broken bike (she broke her back derailleur in the mud) across her back like Jesus carrying His cross. She kindly refused our offer to help, and was determined to make it across the finish line. She was one of the more ambitious ones: frustrated racers were ditching their bikes off the trail, just wanting to get to somewhere warm and dry. We walked along with her and gave her company and encouragement during the long, rainy trek to the mucky finish line. Once we all stopped hiking, it got really cold, and we headed to Epic Ride's tent to warm up. Even though I don't normally drink coffee, the warm, black liquid that they were serving from the camp stove was incredible. The majority of the race fleet that had returned to the starting area packed camp and headed home, leaving only a few dozen supporters and weary racers huddled in the tent and scattered about the camp area. The Epic Ride staff scurried around trying to get a handle on the situation, the first-aid and rescue workers bandaged and blanketed injured riders, the bands that were supposed to play the post race party were long gone, the New Belgium guys watched their kegs of Fat Tire collect rain water, and the poor barbecue cooks huddled miserably under their tarp, graciously feeding those of us who remained. Even though we hadn't paid for the meal, they served us up with massive helpings of pulled pork, beans, and potato salad that warmed our bellies and lifted our spirits. A change of clothes made all the difference in the world, and after sun set and the last mud-coated rider limped his muddy frame across the finish line to our cheers, the New Belgium guys dragged a keg over to Epic Ride's tent and Pierre, Evelyn, and the Epic staff hung out for a post-race "party." It wasn't quite the way it was supposed to go, and Todd was visibly stressed to the max, but once everyone had some hot coffee or cold beer, the blood starting to flow again in our tired bodies, and the stories started flowing from the long day. We talked and laughed until the three of us could no longer stand in our exhaustion, and then wearily left the warmth of the camp stove and made the long trek across the cold, soggy volcano field back to our cars where we crashed immediately.

We woke to a surprisingly clear, sunny, albeit 40 degree cold morning. After a breakfast of freeze-dry noodles and Oreo cookies, we did our best to brush the pounds of mud off of our bikes and packed up. It wasn't the end of the adventure by any means, though. I bought the Jeep specifically for times like these and wasn't worried about getting out of there, but Pierre and Ev's Ford Taurus wasn't exactly built for the "road" ahead. In between our camp and the paved road lay a mile of super-thick sticky mud and deep puddles bordered by a fortress of volcanic rocks that were strategically hidden in the tall pasture grass. We made it about halfway there, when a 4WD vehicle heading the opposite way stopped Pierre and warned him of the carnage that lay around the next bend in the road. We parked off of the muddy tracks and walked down the hill to see several cars stranded in the middle of the road and off in the marshy field. The mud and rocks had stopped several 2WD cars in their tracks, and a towing service was charging over $500 to get them out. We scouted out a safe path for Pierre to drive and rolled rocks out of the way before heading back to the cars and trying it out. He gunned it across the field and made it across the sloppy drainage culvert without problems, and I followed behind, immensely happy with my 4WD's performance.

The temperature wasn't breaking 50 in Show Low, and the skies had turned gray and were leaking once more. The cold and wet had seeped into my bones, and my mind could not fathom that it was warm anywhere in the world, much less in the state of Arizona. None-the-less, I headed down to Tonto Creek anyways to join Hannah and Angel for one last summer hike through the water. When I arrived, it was like I had traveled to a different planet. It was in the 80s when I pulled into the dusty parking area at the trailhead and pulled off my fleece and changed into some boardshorts. I squished back into my muddy Solomon's and headed down the trail to find my friends, carefully peeling prickly pears as I went for an early lunch. I passed only two other groups before I found them crawling along the edge of the granite banks.

The warm sun and beautiful surroundings warmed my psyche, and before long, all three of us were scrambling up the smooth cliffs to my favorite jumping cliff at Tonto. Since the water level was a bit low, we picked a shorter cliff to test the depth before shedding our packs and swimming around the cool, deep pool. I climbed back up to the top again and jumped off a few times, reveling in what I knew were going to be some of the last jumps of the season. Even though my body was still very tired from the day before, I couldn't have been happier. We continued upstream to our slide rock and the waterfall, and then scrambled up and over it to explore a bit further into the canyon as I had only once before. There are miles of pink granite canyon beyond the waterfall, but alas, Hannah had to get back to town in the evening, and we cut our exploring a bit short as the sun began to throw longer shadows on the towering walls and a brisk wind cut through the canyon, signaling that summer was over and we should probably get back to the Valley for the rest of the season.

I got back to Tempe in no time, washed down all of my gear, made a big pot of macaroni and cheese, and relaxed a bit after an incredible weekend of adventure.