The Mt Wilson wins again

Pretty cool race t-shirt this year – a mule and all… Everything went about as smoothly as possible since the last post leading up to and through the race. Finished with personal second best out of five consecutive years. On the way up my mantra was “the mountain wins again…” (Blues Traveler) The way down is too fast and technical and side stitchy to have anything but emptiness of mind – partly the point of the race, I suppose, the sacred mountain path aspect. I’m about as sore as can be, but can’t wait ‘til next year. Good to recharge with all the mountain freaks!

trying to let go of pre-race anxiety

I don’t understand why this always happens. I mean, it’s just a run, race. I have zero chance of competing with the top placers. I’m only competing with myself. And this year I really shouldn’t be concerned at all with time given that I only found out I was running the race four days ago and so had no time to train. My time will be what it will be. But still all day today I’ve felt totally exhausted and worried about the race. I think I’m still recovering from the ride out to Glendora to watch the Tour of Cal last weekend. I’ve only done three short runs this week one including a hill on Thursday just to rehearse, rather than train. No training could happen this close to the race but I figured a little taste of what a hill feels like might be helpful. I’ve been trying to eat. Not too much, not too little. I’ve been trying to hydrate but after awhile it just gets to be like where the hell is all this water going. Finally now I’m starting to feel a little calmer. There’s really nothing left to do but have a horrible night’s sleep and drag myself out of bed in the morning and go up the side of a mountain. I had a beer this evening. That helped tremendously. It (and the Chinese poetry I’ve been reading) gave me the idea to make my own Gatorade by making some cold brewed mint tea mixed with maple syrup. I tried it and it’s delicious. I filled up a bottle of it ready for tomorrow. It’s the only thing that’s quenched my thirst all day. I’m not sure if I’ll like it during the race but that’s fine. At least it’ll give me some calories and there’s a couple water stops en route. Really all I want is to be present to the mountain and route and day and run the sacred mountain path with all the other mountain freaks. Praying for a safe and speedy passage.

some day in italy

last minute entry

This year’s Mt. Wilson Trail Race filled up rather quickly a couple/few months ago. Hil and I didn’t sign up soon enough and so were placed on the waiting list. It’s a fun race and growing in popularity so I figured I’d never get off the list. But, I got a call the other night from the race organizers telling me that I’ve been un-waitlisted – I’m in this year’s Mt. Wilson Trail Race! It’s this Saturday. I’m already halfway through my 4-day training period. Haven’t run anything steep in I can’t remember how long so the 2100 feet of elevation gain over 4.3 miles in the first half of the race followed by the exact return in descent may be painful but probably worth it. Hope to see some familiar faces and paces out on the course.

Tour of Cal Baldy Brunch Ride

Meet at Buster’s Coffee House up the street. Three riders. Me on “Totally Eighties.” Ride East to Rod’s classic diner for breakfast. Continue on to the Stage 7 route. Ride a few miles of it and wait for the racers to pass by so we can cheer them on to the top of Baldy. Ride back, tired into the sun and wind. Grab a few beers and a pizza and watch the coverage of the race on tv to find out the results. Good ride.

25 to 30 percent increase

The marathon was in town over the weekend. I had some friends in the race and The Half. So I set my trusty alarm cat to go off early – actually he goes off every morning when the sun comes up – who needs clocks? But it was raining – not rain-rain but just a little drizzle – perfect maybe for running but not great for going out and waiting for someone to show up at a halfway point when maybe they’ve already gone by. So I stayed home and ate blueberry pancakes.

But the marathon did affect my running over the last couple weeks. Two weekends in a row now I’ve done the double-run thing. Start out with a nice easy warm-up run with Hil and then go out to the Arroyo to get my fill. It’s a nice way to add on the mileage. I’m not sure how important it is for me to add on the mileage right now but since the marathon was in town I thought I’d do a little extra as unseen moral support – just get that running vibe out there in the air for everyone on race day.

I was a little surprised by two things. Both the Arroyo runs, which immediately followed a warm-up run, were pretty fast. And I was a lot more tired after both extended days of running. In my mind it seems like about the same distance 10, 13, whatever. But I think that’s right around that distance/time when you hit a threshold where you really need to be more conscious of caloric intake and hydration.

I do like the Half distance a lot. I don’t think I’ll ever get around to running a marathon. It’s a lot harder than two halves somehow. But based on the speed I think my legs were ready for the half and I may try to throw more of those together down in the arroyo on a more regular basis.

Also, my current shoes are hanging on impressively. The farthest I’ve ever taken a pair of running shoes in lifetime mileage is 600 miles. “They” say shoes are expected to break down after 300 to 500 miles based on your weight and running style and surface and such. My current Adidas are at 760 which of course begs the challenge of 1000 miles. They feel pretty good so far so we’ll see. The extended mileage may be from more dirt-trail miles or my focus on shying away from heavy heel landings.

dove bars again

At this stage in the long progression of continual adjustment and change that goes along with bicycling (and life) I’ve put the Dove Bars back into the mix. I originally got these bars for the SSSSfixie but then decided I wanted to go with the original bars for that bike. Recently I’ve been changing the adjustment a lot on Mindful Mule’s bars. I just can’t quite nail the right set-up. The Dove bars have just been lying around in the shed so I figured, in a moment of spontaneous unplanned activity following long months of semi-conscious calculation that I’d swap bars. The idea is that this will give me approximately the same hammer-time positioning that the Mary bars provided “in the hoods” so to speak even though neither of these bars technically have hoods but at least a nice curvy area up front where your hands can push out forward a bit to pretend time trial. And provide some more upright positioning when I’m just tootling around or in traffic or whatnot because the bar ends come back at a tighter angle, almost straight back and closer to my body. Both bars, the Mary and the Dove were/are mounted upsidedown as is my preference because that seems to enhance the handling and reduce flex. We’ll see how long this lasts.

arroyo river dream

The other night I had a dream about running in the Arroyo where the plant Datura grows – a sacred place – Datura is the Queen. She brings visions and breaks down barriers between the underworld and surface world and past and present and dream and reality and vision. The dream was simple and real-like and showed the future-past – the creek-wash-stream-river was naturalized again. The walls of the channel were absent. The flow of the water was low, slow, but the streambed was wide and flat and sandy, suggesting recent surges of power, washing down the loose, steep mountains. Datura was growing in the sand near the river, just as it now grows in the sand near the river above the wall/channel. The river was telling a story, its dream of the future, its remembrance of the past. Datura was there as friend and orator, its large white and translucent light purple trumpet flowers perfect for broadcasting messages.

I went running in the Arroyo that day after the dream. And of course, the river was there, and Datura, and even a build up of sediment within the channel – looking almost back to normal, a real river within the walls – nothing prophetic, just presence, always presence:

Here I am, I am a river, always a river, Datura is my friend, run beside me, be my friend, run beside me, run beside me, run beside me…

Later that evening I was at my high school reunion and it was only the simple moments that made any sense. There was one conversation about home life and simple ways, and it sounded nice, even if it was made less true in my mind than the words were meant to imply, she wasn’t even in my class, but she told the best story, that I believed, and believe to be true, a story like a river…

tire profiles, the old and the new

the old tire


and the new Big Apple Tire

The Big Apple is here and mounted and really great, immediately noticeable difference in speed and handling. Greater than expected. Some of the speed may have come from adjusting the brakes, though, I think they’ve been dragging for a while but well… training. I actually thought the Big Apple would look a little wider, fatter. It seems skinnier than the rear XR of the same make and dimensions. Maybe I should have gotten the even bigger version at 2.2 width instead of 2.0. This should be fine and great, though. Maybe I’ll switch it up in another ten thousand miles – knock on wood…

the big apple, a tire tale

In the beginning of October of last year I blew-out the rear tire on the Mule. It was a bummer because it was a great tire and expensive and it was so almost reusable but the slash was just large and irregularly shaped (star-ish) enough that I couldn’t really trust it to ferry me along the outer ranges of my rides.

The tire that blew was a Schwalbe XR. Really a super tire that is nearly indestructible. But no tire is without its Achilles Heel. So kablamo it went with several thousand unused miles of tread.

But I didn’t want to replace it. I was feeling cheap. Actually, I tried to find another one for a while but they apparently don’t make them anymore. And they’re become increasingly rare. So I took the healthy XR from the front and moved it to the rear and found an old spare in the shed and threw it on the front. Thinking to myself, This will just be a temporary fix until I figure something out.

Well, temporary turned into permanent as it often will and I’ve been riding that mediocre tire for half a year. I guess it couldn’t really be called mediocre as it’s performed okay, almost well. I’ve had a ton of great rides with it but it’s just not quite rad enough for me. The primary problem being that it’s got sort of a sharp edge on it. It’s like squared off in its profile rather than rounded so that when I’m bombing around corners it’s a little unstable and potentially unsafe. Plus it’s a little narrower and shorter and, well, I gave it its fair temporary-into-permanent re-useful life but now I’m finally excited to report that I’ve ordered a new tire.

The new tire on the way is another Schwalbe – the model they call the Big Apple. That should restore proper geometry and awesomeness to the Mule. Why do they call it the Big Apple? I guess because it’s big and round (profile) and has a lot of air volume in it so it sorta cushes along and absorbs a lot of shock and vibration. And it should take abuse from all manner of urban road debris (as well as the XR anyway). An appropriate tire to ride the streets of New York.

I spend so much time on that Mule that I figure I might as well make it just right for full enjoyment as well as functionality – it really is a race mule after all. It’s funny though – this is such a big deal (a big apple) to me and I want to go out and tell it on the mountain but somehow the world I live in seems not to understand how a kid (1973) could be so excited about “a new tire!” So it gets repressed except for this blog with its few readers that might understand. So, thanks for being there for me to tell my tale. I might even take a picture…

currently reading

A Way to Measure Time: Contemporary Finnish Literature
by (multiple)

Mountain Home: The wilderness poetry of ancient China
Translated by David Hinton

the slow bicycle movement and what it can do for you

I keep hearing about The Slow Bicycle Movement. The phrase seems to have been coined by the creator of Copenhagenize and Cycle Chic, also, two very catchy phrases/movements/sites. Copenhagen is a city where every body bikes. Not everyone, but something like almost half of the people ride bikes a lot. But it’s not like a bunch of Lance Armstrongs (sorry, he’s getting a little overused in this context but whatever). It’s like a bunch of grandmas and bakers and candlestick makers and whatnot and so such. Copenhagen is like the bicycle friendly streets advocate’s Mecca. They’re the role model for the world.

And the Slow Bicycle Movement is spreading the concept of what riding there is like and applying it to individuals and cities around the globe. It’s basically a big Whoa, Nellie! What’s everybody in such a freakin’ panic about out there on the streets. And, in our lives, too.

I assume the Slow Food Movement was first. And that’s where the name came from. Slow Food being the opposite of Fast Food. Words like local, quality, real, wholesome, organic, and community might be applied to the Slow Food Movement. Not the same words most people would apply to Fast Food.

On some level the same applies to the bicycle movement. There’s no such thing as Fast Bicycle or the Fast Bicycle Movement but there is the Roadie crowd that pretend to be pro cyclists and dress up in Team Kits and ride 16 pound bicycles. And that’s great. That’s fine. I wore my tights just yesterday. It was a nice ride. I don’t choose to wear clothing with unpaid sponsorship or advertisements on them but to each his own. I’m not against the Roadies. And I don’t think, at it’s core, The Slow Bicycle Movement is either, although it tends to sort of pivot off and away from the idea of lycra and carbon fiber as the devil’s realm. If anything, the Roadie Movement, we’ll call it, is something separate and irrelevant.

The Slow Bicycle Movement is about getting around with ease and simplicity and awareness. It doesn’t matter what kind of bike you ride but it should be capable of allowing you to carry some extra weight around on it. Maybe it has a basket or some panniers. It should be durable and functional. It can be heavy. It can be light. You don’t need special clothes. You don’t need a helmet. You’ll probably want a sweater at night though. The SBM is a guiding reminder that a bicycle works pretty darn well for more than you think.

But in addition to all that, I found that the philosophy of the SBM also gets into your head and makes you a safer rider. When you’re in the SBM mindset you’re not competing with cars or trying to get through that yellow traffic light. You’re just moving along and merging with other people in various other forms of transportation that they’ve deemed appropriate for their tasks for that day. It’s very mellow.

And a mellow rider is a safe rider. Mellow creates a force field. A mellow bubble. Try it and I think you’ll see what I mean.

On the SBM website they’ve got a bunch of video links of people riding really slow. Slow racing I suppose it is. They, the SBM, seem to be a little stuck on this theme. I see how it could be sort of fun, once or twice to race real slow. I think the idea is whoever crossed the finish line last, of like a hundred foot race, wins – and probably you can’t touch the ground. These slow races are not, in my view, the SBM. They’re more like a promotional tool. An event. Or maybe like practice. A group of people getting together occasionally to strengthen the community. Afterwards the individual cyclists ride away with renewed hope and calm. As if they’d just been to a meditation circle and were now out in the world with a little clearer mind.

The SBM is something. It is something remarkably powerful. If it spreads. Or if it doesn’t. I was in the grocery store this morning and those places can be an excellent place to observe the need in our society for slowing down. And an excellent place to practice slowing down. There was a moment when I was coming to a corner of an isle and there were a couple other people kind of freaking out and changing direction and grabbing things off the shelf and trying to pass each other and I found myself walking very very slowly as I read all that was happening in front of me. I noticed each foot placement and the rocking forward down over the arch of the foot and the slow lift up again of the heel and lingering stretch of the toes. I had entered the slow life movement while searching for slow food because of my practice on a slow bicycle. It all slowly adds up to a lot of time and space and calm.

currently reading

The Mindful Hiker: On the trail to find the path
by Stephen Altschuler

so much beauty before the grey
by robert galbraith

arroyo ghost running

I’ve been sick a lot lately so the running has been a little crazy. I’m this close to being recovered but I just can’t quite kick it. It doesn’t even seem to be tied to anything in particular but just comes in waves of randomness. I’m still getting some good distance in and even some great timing but also every other run seems to fall flat. Alternating super fast and inspired with super slow and dragging.

Yesterday was both. It started out slow and horrible. I had a headache, I thought I was going to vomit and pass out. I had no reason to be out running. But once you start it becomes very difficult to disengage yourself from the path, the route, the rut, the ritual. You don’t even want to take one more step but you do. Your legs just want it and they’re not listening to the head. All the head can do is pour water constantly down the throat hoping to avoid a dehydrative crash.

Once you’re at the top, the turnaround, the halfway point, well then there’s nothing left to worry about because you’re out of options. You can either run home or you can lie down and die. I guess that’s an option but generally a last resort. Not one I was quite ready for. And besides by that point, my brain having given up it’s fight, having nothing left to fight for, wasn’t hassling me any more so the legs just ran and ran faster.

The mind freed from worry but still in it’s fever induced state set upon creating morbid and hallucinatory entertainments. The morbid thought being like: death – the miracle tonic – it cures what ails you – and realizing that really that’s not a bad deal – we pick up all these quirks and aches and diseases and blocks throughout our lives and we do our best to live with them even if they’re ain’t no cure – we run through them – and then one day – all of us – set free from all of it – reset…

The hallucinatory thoughts being like: when I got back to the pedestrian/equestrian underpass under the “Historic Arroyo Seco Parkway” as they’re calling it now (don’t go thinking it’s still a freeway!), the place where on the way up/out I’d nearly passed out from the ill I was feeling, now seeing my dead grandfather standing there waiting for me. Waiting for something anyway, not me maybe, just standing there, really. But it was surely him. Unmistakable. He couldn’t see me though or hear me. I just ran right by him, right through him maybe. I didn’t dare to look back. Well, the Arroyo seems like as good a place as any for him to hang around – I know it’s where I’ll be spending a lot of time when I’m gone. Not to mention while I’m here.

currently reading

A Moveable Feast
by Ernest Hemingway

Tropic of Cancer
by Henry Miller

Both books are centered around life in Paris in the 20’s and 30’s respectively. Both are biographical (or at least semi.) I think there will be some similarities in theme (life lived well) but widely different approaches to relating them – in particular what is left out in Ernest’s case and what is left in in Henry’s.

I didn’t have any books on my reading list (any suggestions?) yesterday at the library but I do like reading about California and I do like Big Sur and anything coastal and so Henry Miller popped up. I’ve been to his library/book store in Big Sur but never read any of his books. At least now I can, this book being banned in the USA from 1934 to 1961.

So two books of Paris. One Mindful. One Mule. The first few pages have already seeped into my dreams of last night so they must be dangerous...

spatial relations of a grocery ballet

There was a time when, back in the seventies and probably long before, grocery baggers were an incredibly talented lot. They took great pride in presenting the customer with perfectly organized groceries packed into crisp brown paper bags. Some of them took it to a level of performance art – adding some flair, maybe a spinning of a loaf of bread through the air with one hand as they were loading the previous item with the other hand, catching the bread and placing it softly in place at just the last moment – a grocery ballet. I’m thinking one of these guys went on to create Tetris.

These days, well I don’t have to tell you, two plastic bags per item, cans on top of tomatoes!

I’ve been grocery shopping by bicycle now for several years. At this point I know pretty much exactly how much will fit in my basket and that’s how much I arrive at the checker with because I like to maximize my trip and I like to eat – amazingly, it’s pretty close to one full grocery basket. But, you have to pack it well. Unfortunately, today’s baggers don’t get this. And they can’t seem to understand that I can’t take an extra bag – it’s a car culture thing – even a Miyata will fit several grocery bags.

So it is that I find myself out on the sidewalk taking all (or most) of my groceries out of my bag so that I can reorganize them so they’ll fit in the bike basket and not get squished. I found that the key to packing groceries well is verticality. I don’t quite understand the spatial relations of why this is the case, but it seems as though you can fit about 20% more into a space of equal size when packing groceries in a vertical manner.

It’s not a big deal, of course, but I dream of one day walking out of the grocery store with a perfectly cubical bag that slides right into my basket and away we’ll ride, me and mindful mule…

ostriches and tigers and peacocks, oh my!

Here in our little hometown we seem to consider the ostrich as our unofficial mascot. That’s not just random, there’s a historical link in that there used to be a place called the Cawston Ostrich Farm over near the Arroyo about a century ago. There’s a life size stuffed ostrich (of the Teddy Bear toy doll variety, not taxidermied, thank god, although, maybe that would be better, but super creepy) in the local library.

Wouldn’t that be the way to roll into Old Town in style for the evening! More photos here.


For some reason the mascot for the school sports teams is the Tiger. Go Tigers! That seems a little boring to me. I’d rather root for an Ostrich. Go Ostriches!

I finally went out for another long run in the Arroyo the other day (after about three weeks missed. It went well, thanks, and fast) and just as I was approaching the old Cawston Farm area what should appear but… a peacock! Are they encroaching on the ostrijes (it’s in the dictionary, although I’m not sure about the plural)? Well, yes, they are. Actually, the last ostrij is long gone. And the peacock is a surprisingly common sight – but always fresh and fun.

Encountering peacocks often reminds me of an explanation of a Zen realization moment by one of my teachers back when: You’re walking along through town thinking about the things one thinks about and you round a corner and… it’s a pig! That snaps you right into reality. AKA Zen. The Now. The Moment.

Another good example is: you’re in the kitchen getting a dish out of the cupboard and you notice a little piece of something, let’s say broccoli, on the floor, mid-dish-task you bend over to pick up the broccoli and upon standing up again slam your head into the left-open cupboard door. Bam! Back in the moment.

I see peacocks probably about several times a year. I think they once escaped from the nearby botanical gardens or somewhere but they seem to be rather well established in the mini-wilds around the hillsides. Seems rather unbelievable. Maybe they come and go.

Since there are no more ostriches and never were any tigers I’m starting the campaign to change the schools mascot to the peacock. Go Peacocks!

Though, the footballers might get embarrassed.

currently reading

Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: over thirty years of conversations with Robert Irwin
by Lawrence Weschler

Raven’s Exile: a season on the green river
by Ellen Meloy

un-weight-ed

In the cycling world there are a lot of people that are very concerned about shaving weight off of their bikes – so much so that they’ll spend hundreds of dollars on new, better parts to drop a few ounces.

I’ve gotten into that a little in the past, too, it can be fun, but more and more lately I seem to be following the Rivendell philosophy of: who cares how fast you’re riding? You’re [37] and you’re not going to get picked up by Euskaltel-Euskadi for this year’s spring classic season. And even if you were to live out that fantasy, they’d give you a free 16lb bike to ride and all that training on your 20-35 pounder would serve you well.

There’s also the idea swimming around out there that for a lot of us it might be wiser to not spend extra money on dropping our bikes weight, but to just drop a little weight off our own bodies. This seems somewhat logical but I don’t think it’s a direct equation. If you loose 3 pounds of fat it probably won’t do as much as losing 3 pounds of bike weight. That’s my belief.

I can never really get a good study going on this. There are so many variables to include that it’s pretty much impossible. I like the idea of someday doing some time trials on each of my two road bikes, one being a few pounds heavier than the other – maybe loops around the Rose Bowl – but I doubt I’ll ever get around to it.

I’ve lost a little weight recently, mostly by intent. It seems like a natural cycle to be a little leaner at the end of winter when, in the old days at least, food was a little scarcer. I think I can feel I slight difference in my climbing speed and ease but I’ve also been riding alone a lot lately and so maybe I’m just riding slower and therefore the hill feels easier without the competition. Incidentally: Desperately Seeking bicycle freaks who enjoy long winding rides…

My recently developing trend has been to ride Mindful Mule (the heaviest of all my bikes and most often used) on longer pleasure routes that were previously reserved for the road bikes. This makes it easier to bring along extra clothes in the basket and locks and encourages more of an exploratory feel to the ride. And I’ve really enjoyed these rides. Sure it’s slower going up over the hills on the Mule but who cares? The coffee shop will still be there when I get there a few minutes slower. And, actually, on the downhills, the Mule is a champ – a rattletrap bomber, of sorts – we hit 37mph the other day descending Lida (our super duper in town mini mountain), not much slower than the road bikes and just as fun (the importantist factor).

Over the weekend I rode Lida three times on Totally 80’s (the heavier road bike but still a lot lighter than the Mule) I’m not sure how to filter out all this data (heavy bike training, been sick, lost weight, lighter T80, ate heartily the day before, inspired by watching Paris Nice, etc.) but I know I didn’t want to stop riding. I’d get to the bottom and just go again. I don’t think I’ve ever done Lida more than twice before. It felt good to let it ride and ride and ride…

The funny catch to that Triple Lida ride was that it started off with a Devil’s Gate Dam Trail run (5K), twice crossing the knee-deep, shoe-and-sock-soaking, mucky, silty, creek so I did the whole ride with soggy feets. Freak!

currently reading

A Palpable Elysium: Portraits of Genius and Solitude
by Jonathan Williams