Triathlete Diva

Outside's Guide to Triathlon

2012-01-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

Why triathlon is booming, why you should do it, and how to get started. Outside Magazine's comprehensive guide, complete with celebrity endorsements, training plans, and a triathlon in Aspen. (Written by yours truly!) Find it in the February issue, on newsstands now. Look for the incredibly hot hurdler Lolo Jones on the cover. Also online here:

TRANSITION TIME

Photo of me on the Ultraman Canada 2011 run. Courtesy of Rick Kent.

Strange encounters of the Ironman kind: IMAZ 2011

2011-12-13T13:54:00.000-08:00

It’s somewhere around 5 p.m. on Nov. 20. The sun is low andit’s getting chilly in the shadow of a tall condo complex where coachubby and Istand. We’re next to the elevated dirt road that serves as miles four-ish, 13-ish, and 22-ish on the Ironman Arizona course, and we’re on the lookout for green calfsleeves, a blue tank top, a pink shirt, and a hot couple.

The blue tank top, covering a buff 27-year old blonde,should be approaching. Instead, a dude in his 50s wearing a baggy grey shirtruns straight at me. His face is contorted in either pain or anger or both, andalthough he’s surely tired, he looks like he still has enough energy to rip myface off.

He stops an inch from my nose, raises his left eyebrow, andstares into my brain with his big, sweaty, creepy left eye.

“Is there a bug in my eye?” he says. I can’t tell if there’sa right answer—he might punch me either way.

“No? I don’t see one?”

He blinks and rolls his eye around.

“There’s nothing there?”

A tiny black dot reveals itself when he looks up. “Oh yeah, there’s a speck. I see it.”

“Get it out!” he demands.

Get it out? I’m supposed to shove my finger into this angrystranger's eye? No way. “You get it, Jimmy!” I pass him on.

The guy blinks a few times in the trade to coachubby.

“Look up,” coachubby says.

The guy rolls his eyes up as the vein in his foreheadbulges.

“Mmm nope, don’t see it anymore,” coachubby says. I can’ttell if it’s true or if coachubby is saving his finger a trip into the guy’seyeball.

The guy grunts then runs away.

Cue Twilight Zone music.

This has been a presentation of strange encounters of theIronman kind.

Triathlon Swim Safety Reviewed and a Killer 10K Training Plan

2011-10-07T12:26:00.000-07:00

My latest for Outside Magazine online:
THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WATER

IMAZ '09

Last August, two athletes died during the swim leg of the New York City
Triathlon. Since then, articles on event safety have piled up—and two
more athletes have lost their lives. Is it time for USA Triathlon to
rethink its rules?

OFFICE CRUSH

Want to make next year memorable? Start training now and destroy

your office mates in a New Year’s Day 10K.

A Totally Tri Reading List

2011-09-06T11:41:00.000-07:00

Hi Trilovers! Because you like things in threes, here's a trio of new triathlon stories to read, written by yours truly:

1. Pro Dede Griesbauer gave up a lucrative career on Wall Street to race the Ironman circuit. Could you do that?
2. I raced Ultraman Canada at the end of July. WTF is UMC? Here's what you need to know.

Photo by Rachel Eads. I = Purple hat on left.

3. Pick up the latest issue of Triathlete Magazine (October) for a fun story on Kona hopeful and Biggest Loser graduate, Tara Costa, whose first Ironman was foiled by a fat suit.

Happy Tuesday!
-Erin

Coconut Chocolate Chip Clif Bars-Come and Get 'Em

2011-07-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

If you like sweet and coconutty things, this is the Clif Bar for you. Finally, after months of impatiently waiting, I've been alerted that the Coconut Chocolate Clif bar is available in stores. Note: May also be used as dessert. Double note: Clif Bar says they've changed their Apricot and Peanut Toffee Buzz recipes to include more of the namesake ingredients. If you're into fruity or toffee bars and were previously disappointed by a lack of frutiness or toffeeness, try them out to see how they stack up against the older versions.

Enjoy!

Living Apart Together: My 5 City, 8 Home Journey Back to My Husband (And Some Triathlon Stuff)

2011-07-14T21:26:00.000-07:00

Dearest Readers and TriGeeks,

My professional journalistic training, which began almost two years ago, has made me hesitant to discuss myself (unless, apparently, I’m discussing myself lying naked under plastic wrap on an ER gurney). Therefore, I apologize for the gaps in posting, but promise there are good reasons why I disappeared. One of them being that I did disappear. In the past two years, I have lived in eight different places in five different cities (including two adjacent cities that should really count as one). During that time, Coachubby, my uber-rad triathlete coach/husband, has lived in 3.5 of those places in three of those cities. Which, if you're doing the math, means I have lived in 4.5 different places in five cities without my husband in search of knowledge and a career. Both of which I attained, one of which I had to reinvent in order to finally, once again, live with Coachubby. Allow me to show my work:

In the fall of 2009, I enrolled at Stanford University, excited to be the dumbest person on a campus stuffed with the world’s geniuses. I filled my role perfectly. In nine months, I wrote stories for Pulitzer prize winners who were somewhat encouraging of my writing skills (perhaps because they were paid to be); took classes about sports branding and marketing at the business school with tomorrow’s leaders; stood up and made an ass of myself in front of those leaders and the CEO of the Atlanta Falcons…and the CEO of Mountain Hardwear; moved out of one house with two roommates and into a studio where I entertained a weekend lover (Coachubby); raced collegiate nationals on broken hamstrings with the triathlon team; and in general, became a respectable reporter. (If you’re counting, that makes three places I lived in so far: the one in Los Angeles before I moved and two at Stanford.)

But I did not graduate.

At least, not in the traditional sense. I did get a diploma, sent to my parents in the mail. I did not get a cap and robe. I did not walk or hear my name called out by someone s’habillé-ed in an even more ridiculous cap and robe. Instead, I headed for Oceanside to live in a minivan with strange men for two weeks. Oh, we had a reason to be driving the Dodge Caravan across the country: we were chasing cyclists. Not just any cyclists. Hallucinating, sunburned ultracyclists who were hell-bent on cycling across the United States in nine days or less. When you look at it that way, driving across our ginourmous country with strangers who were vetted for their photographic, videographic and beer-drinking capabilities is not an odd decision for a 26-year old woman to make. (No, I did not count the minivan as a place of residence; we’re still at three.)

During this scholastic and ultra nonsense, Coachubby moved into a tiny apartment across from a hardware store and above a small vacated space that was once, according to a decaying sign, called “The Gym.” You could call it “The Gym” or “That Place I Did Shrooms Once” as a friend of a friend referred to the rotting structure. I lived there whenever I wasn’t sleeping in minivans or in transition to city number three: Santa Fe, New Mexico. (That makes The Gym residence number 4.)

Après chasing the late Slovenian Jure Robic and his hounds for two weeks, I returned to The Gym where I met a Mexican named Vin who dragged my craigslist finds and fleet of bicycles down the stairs and into a nondescript white van that was supposed to—I hoped and prayed—end up in Santa Fe when Coachubby and I sent for it. Coachubby would move into a big house on a hill with our friends and we would live in a house the only place we could afford to live in a house of our own: New Mexico. I say we, because Coachubby would live there every other Wednesday through Wednesday. His boss was nice like that. So even though I was a lowly intern at the nation’s most magnificent adventure magazine, Outside, I had a house-husband to grill and sweep. Life was awesome. Except for the weeks Coachubby wasn’t there. And the week when Coachubby wasn’t there and a real-life murderer broke out of prison and headed through New Mexico where he burned a couple in their RV. Every scratch and creek was someone coming to get me. It’s quiet in New Mexico. Piercingly, hauntingly quiet.

At home in Santa Fe.

Come December 2010, I believed my dream job was an internship at Outside (or, you know, a job at Outside). But as Coachubby could not fly to New Mexico every other week for eternity and all internships must come to an end so editors don’t have to continuously take gabby, question-slinging interns to coffee at expensive railway cafés, I applied to the next best job I could find: Senior Editor at Competitor (an endurance sports!) magazine in San Diego. It was as close as Coachubby and I had lived in 1.5 years.

And it was a dream. We explored the hotbed of triathlon and decided San Diego would be a most wonderful place to live. If we raised kids here, we said to each other, they would have better values than if we raised them in LA. They would have nice friends because my cousin’s nice and he’s from San Diego. They might have a yard or even a house. Oh, to live together in San Diego! I had a small one-bedroom in Del Mar that I rented in my name alone. I had money! I had a job! I was going to have my dream career as an editor at a magazine whose subject matter I encapsulated to my very core! I flew to Tokyo to write a story about running with a funny British guy. I called coaches and race directors and athletes every day. I tightened up stories and flipped them around and when I wasn’t writing or editing or reporting I was training for Ultraman Canada and riding up Mount Palomar and swimming in the Solana Beach pool.

But Coachubby wasn’t there. Oh, he was there on the weekends. Or I was at the house in LA. (Residence number 6. The Del Mar apartment makes 7.) He rode from dawn to dusk with me, swam with me, test rode Cervélos and Pinarellos and downed Rubio’s burritos with me. It was like a whirlwind date every weekend. (Which, by the way, might be a great way to invigorate a sagging marriage. But I wouldn’t know. I went to Stanford approximately 1.5 years into our marriage, having just turned 26; nothing was sagging.) But the drive, though beautiful, became a chore. Life, with no one to go home to—but knowing I did, actually, have someone to go home to—became redundant. Sad. From the outside, I knew, our relationship was strange. Enviable to some, but strange. But for us, it was fun. Stressful, but fun. We got to check out Palo Alto, San Francisco, and the Santa Cruz Mountains. We got to explore Santa Fe and Taos. We got to meet and befriend all sorts of interesting characters. We trained for Ironman Arizona and the Tahoe-Sierra 100-mile mountain bike race on Santa Fe’s legendary Dale Ball trails, and did the bulk of my Ultraman training on the peaceful, rolling hills north of San Diego and the trails in Del Mar and Torrey Pines.

And now, we get to decorate a home together. And by home, I mean apartment—I did have to quit my job to move back to Los Angeles to live with Coachubby. Incidentally, writing and editing under a title like Senior Editor must be done from a cubicle facing a void in a repurposed warehouse. Not an antique desk in an apartment building built by the beach in 1937. (The building, not the desk. This, my friends, makes residence number 8.)

We have, after almost two years, been reunited. As several people, including people I’ve written about, have asked me (very seriously): How do you even know you like him?

What’s not to love about a guy who sacrificed everything so you could go back to school, then work for your favorite magazine, then try to make a name for yourself all while carrying extra Gu and cash for unexpected bonks on 14-hour weekend training rides--for your race, not his--up and down mountains named Palomar and Sangre de Cristo that are located in the middle of nowhere?

I was going to end this by saying it was my turn to make a sacrifice for Coachubby. And it was. And I did. However he will be my crew leader aka Erin’s Commander of Awesome, as he prefers to be called, at Ultraman. And for one more week, it will be all about me again. But when I’m done swimming, cycling and running 320 miles around British Columbia, we will return to Los Angeles together to one home. Our home.

So that’s enough about me for now. What have you been up to?

XOXO,

Erin

How I Got Hypothermia on a 50 Degree Day in Los Angeles or My First Road Marathon

2011-03-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

Ethiopian runner, Markos Geneti, shattered the Los Angeles Marathon course record by two minutes on Sunday. Joeseph D’Amico ate only McDonalds for 30 days before the race and set a personal record of 2:36:14. Heck, a 400-pound Sumo wrestler set the record for being the heaviest person to complete the LA Marathon—ever. It’s like no one cared it was the stormiest day in the city’s history with 2.54 inches of rain pummeling downtown L.A.—an inch more than the previous record set in 1943—and wind gusts of up to 40 miles per hour. Except the reported thousands of runners evaluated for hypothermia and the 26 runners taken to the hospital.
I was one of those 26 runners.

***
Oh my God. I’m going to pass out. I can’t feel my arms!

I’m walking down San Vicente Boulevard in the pouring rain, drenched and holding my arms up to my chest.

“Don’t slow down or you’ll freeze!” a runner yells to me as he passes by, chugging through the last two-and-a-half miles of the Los Angeles Marathon on Sunday.

Too late.

Another runner stops to walk with me. “You can do this!”

“I’m pretty frozen. Don’t walk because of me!” I say. He jogs off.

There’s no way in hell I’ll be able to walk two more miles. I’m going to pass out.

Just then a lady in scrubs signals for me to come over to her. I hobble across the newly formed river that was once the eastbound lane of San Vicente.

The lady takes one look at me, then opens up the back doors to an ambulance to reveal a teenage boy covered in blankets on a gurney and two pretty EMTs. One of them strips off my shirt, socks and shoes, puts a blanket around me then tries to take my temperature with a disposable thermometer. It doesn’t register.

“Can you get in the front seat? It’s a lot warmer up there,” she says.

I try to stand up but my legs don’t work. My quads have gone rogue. I drag myself into the driver’s seat with my arms, then rest my head on the steering wheel directly in front of the heater vent. I have company; a man who looks about my age sits in the passenger seat, contemplating running the final 2.2 miles. He looks at me, then jumps out of the ambulance. We’re at mile 24.

The EMTs hand me heat packs and more blankets. I’m not shivering. I’m trying to control my heart rate by breathing against pursed lips.

I’m going to pass out.

Another plastic thermometer gets shoved into my mouth. Again, nothing registers.

“We’re going to take you to the hospital to get you warmed up, OK?” someone says. I start to cry.

“It’s OK. You’ll run another marathon.”

I don’t care about the marathon—I’ve run four before. I can’t feel my arms.

A gorgeous man opens the ambulance door and puts me on a gurney. I wish I had put cover up on the giant forehead zit that my visor is no longer hiding.

I’m lifted into the back of another ambulance. Hottie EMT and his buddies say how crazy it is—how so many people are “dropping” at mile 24. The EMTs can’t keep up. They’ve already taken half a dozen people to the hospital and more are pouring in. Hottie EMT and the ambulance driver try to get my vitals. They can’t get my pulse. They ask for my social security number and I spit out nine numbers—I’m clearly coherent. Oh well, they’ll get my pulse at the hospital.

I begin to shake like a spaz.

The doors slam shut, the siren starts, and Hottie EMT stares at me, failed marathoner number seven. So embarrassing.

***

I wanted to run a 3:30. The only other marathons I had ever run were at the end of Ironmans or on Catalina Island and my only strategy was to not walk. That worked well. But for a stand-alone marathon, I wanted to run. I put my 10K time from February’s Redondo Beach 10K into an online calculator that told me I could run a 3:23 marathon. I decided 3:30 would be a good goal. I didn’t wear a Garmin and decided I’d rely on a pace group to get me to the finish. I was in the back of the chute with the masses at the start, not seeded, so when I finally crossed the start line, I was over two minutes behind the pace group. I ran to catch up.

I zig zagged around walkers and joggers, passing the 3:50 pace group early on. I ran a few more miles and saw a little flag up ahead. That had to be the 3:30 group. I got closer and read the sign: 3:40. It began to rain. I pressed on, concentrating on a man in a tutu up ahead. When I got closer, I realized it was my friend, Guillaume.

“Where the hell is the 3:30 pace group?” I said.

“They’re going way too fast,” said Guillaume.

I kept going. The wind blew. It rained harder. Then I saw Jason. Just the weekend before, Jason and I had decided we’d run together since we both had the same goal. I blew by him looking for the pacer.

I finally caught up around 10K. I thought I’d settle in with the 3:30 group, and I did for about another 10K. Then they started to slip away. I couldn’t let that happen. I wanted to run this race for my Grandpa—I spoke at his funeral six days ago. I wanted to qualify for Boston for him. For me. I kept the 3:30 group in my sights until about mile 18, then I started to slow down. The rain poured relentlessly. The wind picked up. My muscles screamed. I never paid any attention to the scenery, noting for a split second when we ran by Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. I noticed when we crossed under the 10. We were so close to Santa Monica. So close to the finish. Jason ran by me.

I slogged through Veteran’s Park, soaking my shoes in a stream I didn’t have the springiness to jump across. My orthotics absorbed the water like diapers. I got colder. The rain picked up. The wind blew. My muscles throbbed. I slowed down. I got colder.

As I passed under the 23 mile banner, I stopped running. My legs stopped running. I couldn’t move my legs to run. Guillaume ran by me. I began to walk along the grassy median. I got colder.

***

My watch is still running when I arrive at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. If I were crossing the finish line right now, instead of moving into a hospital bed, I’d clock a 4:15. Instead, I’m learning that Hottie EMT’s name is Robbie—right after the ER nurse takes off all of my clothes in front of him and asks when my last menstrual period was in front of him. Robbie leaves to rescue more waterlogged damsels in distress while the ER nurse covers me in human bubble wrap—a plastic, air-filled blanket that blows up full of hot air. I shiver. My heart rate shows on a screen, hovering around 100. My normal resting heart rate is around 40.

The ER nurse turns on March Madness and lets me hang in my cocoon. She comes back to take my temperature. It’s now an unshocking 96.9 degrees.

“Who’s going to pick you up?” she says.

“I only know two phone numbers by heart,” I say. Coachubby’s and my mom’s. My mom lives in Arizona and Coachubby is most likely waiting for me by the meet up letter Z, like we had planned, because how many people’s names start with Z? His phone is at home. I call mom.

“Hi mom. I got hypothermia.”

“What?!”

“I’m fine. I need you to go on Facebook and look up our housemate. Go to his Facebook page. In the upper right hand side it says ‘send message’. Tell him I’m at the hospital. He has a smartphone. He’ll get the message.”

Duke sinks several more baskets while Michigan tries to catch up. I call my mom back.

“I think I poked your friend Mo,” she says. “What’s a poke?”

“Oh my God.”

“Let me know when you get home.”

I try to sleep. Then the nurse comes in.

“Your husband is here to see you. Do you want to see him?”

Do I want to see him? Nah, I’ll just stay here naked in my bubble wrap all afternoon.

“Yes!”

Coachubby walks in. Our housemate got the message and dropped him off. Coachubby died late in the race too, he says. He wanted to run 2:50. He ran 3:05. He qualified for Boston. Jason ran a 3:30.

I am an idiot.

“Not fair,” I say. “Now I have to run another one so we can run Boston together.”

The nurse drops off a pair of hideous gray sweat pants for me to change into. My other clothes are wet and my favorite blue shirt with my race number didn’t make it into my “patient belongings” bag. I look like a homeless crackhead. Coachubby gives me a piggyback ride through the rain and puts me in the back seat of our housemate’s Prius.

Back at home, the rain still pours. The trees shake like the wind will uproot them. I imagine we’re in a hurricane. I lie on the couch and decide to check the race results for my splits. The Los Angeles Marathon website says I ran a 3:36.

Now I wonder who has my shirt.

Video: Fast Twitch/Slow Twitch Muscle People

2011-03-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

Endurance sports performance art.

This is what happens when I've been staring at my computer too long. Twitching. And videos about twitching.

--Erin

How to Legally Roll Through a Stop Sign

2011-03-12T09:44:00.000-08:00

photo courtesy of thecrazyfilmgirl on Flickr

The answer: You must live in Idaho. Or possibly New Mexico.

On Tuesday, New Mexico's House passed a bill that would allow cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs, almost 30 years after cyclists in Idaho won the privilege. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that the bill's sponsor, Rep. Miguel Garcia, said once Idaho passed their bike law, the bicycle injury rate fell 15 percent. He also argued that passing such a law would help to prevent cyclists from getting rear-ended at stop signs. (A problem I have never heard much about.)

Cyclists argue in favor of the law for several reasons, including that we have better awareness of our surroundings and can stop faster than vehicles. Other cyclists argue that the law establishes cyclists as something "other" than drivers and might set a precedent to limit cyclists' road use privileges. And that it's good for everyone on the road to be predictable.

In the meantime, New Mexican cyclists shouldn't party yet; Oregon's House passed a similar bill in 2003 that their Senate killed. Oregon's Bicycle Transportation Alliance tried again in 2009, to no avail. According to the now defunct cycling advocacy nonprofit, the Bicycle Civil Liberties Union, cyclists in California, Oregon, Arizona and Virginia have all tried to pass a similar law.

As someone who has received a $150ish ticket for rolling a T-stop on a rural road with nobody around except a cop who apparently liked to spend his Saturday mornings hiding in a bush, I'm all for the stop-as-yield law. And if you have the tenacity and connections to get it passed in CA, I'll buy you a beer. Or 20.

Enduro Word of the Week (WOW): Neapolitan

2011-03-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

Hi Tri peeps! I have so much to tell you! I've been AWOL because I finished up an internship with Outside Magazine in Santa Fe then moved to San Diego to work for Competitor Magazine. I'll be posting frequently on Competitor.com. More about me to come (I signed up for Ultraman Canada, so I'm sure most of it will be about that.) Party on.
-Erin

neapolitan (neapoli-tan) n. : the color an endurance athlete’s legs turn after riding a bike and running in shorts of different lengths. Like the italian ice cream, the quads become a delicious mix of never-exposed lightness, peek-a-boo shaded and sun-loving dark. Most often observed when triathletes run in tiny shorts.

My goodness, check out that guy’s neapolitan!

Can also be used as a verb, as in: I’m switching up my tri shorts today because I’m neapolitanning.

Sometimes seen as sexy, the neapolitan identifies the multisport athlete when he/she hits the pool. Men must wear speedos to observe this benefit.

Phoenix Fails

2011-01-04T14:16:00.000-08:00

Do you ever go home for the holidays and marvel at how your neighborhood has changed? Most of my neighbor's homes are gone (razed), my favorite backyard bike trail is fenced off (maximize that property line!), and the tree in front of my house is cut... strangely. Which brings us to our first Phoenix Fail:

Neighbor Fail

Yes, the branches overhanging the property on the left are chopped off at the property line.

And the lady in that house on the left wonders why nobody welcomed her to the neighborhood.

Cactus Fail
I knew something was off with the cactus down the street so I went to inspect and found a little door on its trunk. Turns out Phoenix was not overcome by saguaro-dwelling leprechauns (my first guess), but sneaky cell-phone tower builders. Maybe now I won't have to walk out of the house to answer the phone.

<-- This is not a cactus!

Christmas Light Fail

You know something is wrong when even your super-Christian relatives comment on the, um, interesting lighting situation down the street. (Palm trees by day...)

Happy New Year!
-Erin

I'm Training for an Ironman!

2010-12-11T09:09:00.000-08:00

If you're training for an Ironman, rest assured there's always someone more maniacal about his training than you. Like this guy. (Or maybe you'll find you're kindred spirits!)

-Erin

Jure Robic: Insomniac, Maniac, Miracle

2010-12-08T09:59:00.000-08:00

If there's a limit to what the human body can endure, the late Jure Robic was the one drawing the line.

My article on Jure Robic is out in the December issue of Outside (on newsstands now) and here online.

-Erin

Dear Arizona, WTF? Ironman AZ and other stuff

2010-11-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

Dear Arizona,

WTF? I thought we were friends. More than friends--lovers even. I know I left you nine years ago, but I always come back to see how you're doing. To hike and bike your trails. To go out to dinner. To just hang out.

I always defend you when people say you're too hot (there's no such thing!) or that there's no vegetation in the desert (there is, too!) or that you're flat (hello, Flagstaff!). I'm your biggest fan. I love you and will always love you.

So I am hurt that the only two times I have come to compete in Tempe's Ironman, you have raged against me with a tidal wave of dust storms, gale-force winds and now, random patches of torrential rain.

Let's review your misbehaving, shall we?

IMAZ, April 2007. My very first Ironman and my very first marathon. I saved myself for you. And how do you repay me? With a pre-race sand storm that colored my teeth brown and made my mom refuse to let my sandy bum in her car to take me home. Then, on race day, you blew so hard on the bike that if I didn't pedal for a few seconds, I'd stop completely, even on a downhill.

IMAZ, April 2008, November 2008 and 2009. You were gorgeous and seemed so happy. You caressed my friends with curls of sunshine, let the air hang in place and seemed to be a true Ironman fan. I rode my bike out to the Beeline to cheer, happily and without fear of retaliation on your part. Whatever pissed you off in 2007 seemed to have passed.

IMAZ 2010. Sunday. I arrived Wednesday night to a gorgeous Phoenician evening. For three days, you almost made it up to 80 degrees, my favorite temperature. No clouds in the sky. When I arrived, my sinuses were flaring and my lungs were burning, but you helped bring me back to un-couch-ridden life by Saturday, just in time.

Just in time for you to blow me backwards on the bike again. To pelt me with rain. To play mind tricks with my already fragile head. To rain so hard right before I finished the bike that instead of finishing to throngs of people admiring my hot-pink knee socks, I cycled into what looked like the aftermath of an explosion--a deserted intersection with a water bottle slowly rolling across the road.

I read in the paper yesterday that I should be making a list of what I'm thankful for right now. So instead of railing on you any further for Sunday's hissy-fit, I will now praise you for what you did right.

Despite the rain and wind, your temperature was absolute perfection. I was never hot or cold--even in Tempe Town Lake. For that, I cannot thank you enough. I didn't mind the rain because the bike course is not technical, and it was not cold. (The wind, however, was unforgivable. Particularly because you started blowing right at the swim turn around, creating a current that sucked me away from the swim finish.)

Because of your clouds, I did not get sunburned, despite not putting any sunscreen on, except for on my face during the run. Apparently I looked pretty funny. People laughed at me. But I will take un-rubbed in sunscreen any day for a 1:29 Ironman T2.

Monday you were gorgeous again, leading me to believe that you are hell-bent on keeping me from achieving an Ironman personal record here, but that you still love me because you know how much I like warmth and sunshine.

So, Arizona, even though you cried and huffed and puffed about on Sunday, I know you still love me because if there's anything I dislike more than a whomping headwind, it's being cold--and you didn't let me get cold.

It's OK. Don't be shy about it. I still love you, too. And I'll be back. And next time--the third time I do IMAZ--maybe we can work together to create the most spectacular race day ever.

Love your (still) biggest fan,
Erin

Badass Bike Handling Skills

2010-11-12T08:22:00.000-08:00

A friend forwarded this rad video. It's like pairs ice skating. Except with two girls, bikes and a bball court. From the 2009 European Junior Championships for Indoor Cycling, apparently.

Kunstrad EM 2009 Carla Und Henriette Hochdorfer - The most popular videos are here

The Sexy Hotness Sleeping Bag

2010-11-10T16:07:00.000-08:00

It's not everyday something inanimate like a sleeping bag can make me laugh, but the ALITE "sexy hotness" sleeping bag did just that.

I came across this puffy purple creation today. It lets you walk around in your sleeping bag, zip it to other bags to create one giant bag and is lined with Kama Sutra poses. Hotness is rated to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, so if you're going on a fun camping trip with buddies, it seems like a viable choice. As the company says, "Sexy Hotness is the perfect sleeping bag for making love in the woods."

Maybe I'll give it a try.

Distance Runners Are a Paradox for Insurers

2010-10-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

That's the title of my latest NY Times article. Check it out online now or in the paper tomorrow! (Monday, Oct. 25.)

Woo hoo!

Jure Robic Dies in Collision with Car

2010-09-24T15:57:00.000-07:00

I was shocked and upset when a friend from the Race Across America media crew sent me a link this morning to a Slovenian news site that said ultracyclist (and this year's RAAM champion) Jure Robic, was killed today.

I was on this year's RAAM media team, chasing far behind Jure and his crew. I had also just spoken with Jure's friend and crew chief, Matjaz Planinsek on Tuesday.

I didn't know Jure, but the one thing I will remember from our few encounters was his smile. He had a big, bright, child-like mischievous smile that popped up frequently--even a thousand miles into RAAM.

Here's the Outside post.

Photo of Jure at the beginning of RAAM 2010 courtesy of Jake North Photography.

The Tahoe Sierra 100 Mountain Bike Race-- So F'n Easy

2010-09-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

“This is gonna be so f*(#ing easy!” Jimmy says.

It’s just before 6:30 am and we are straddling our mountain bikes behind a couple hundred spandex-clad ultraracers. Me, my husband Jimmy, and our friend A-ron. (Thus named because I’m Erin and he’s Aaron and it gets confusing.)

The sun hasn’t come up over Soda Springs, CA, a tiny ski-town northeast of Lake Tahoe just off of the I-80. My numb hands ache as we wait for the countdown to the start of Tahoe Sierra, a 100-mile mountain bike race with a reported 13,000 feet of climbing that shares part of its route with the Western States 100 ultramarathon.

Somewhere up ahead is my friend Holly, the silent killer. She’s tiny. She’s unassuming. And she’ll kick your ass. If she weren’t so dedicated to performing surgery on mice as part of her graduate mechanical engineering research at Stanford, she’d probably be pro. I am not racing Holly.

The race director, Jimmyboy, mentions something about the race being hard. Something about bears and mountain lions. Then something about loggers and hunters.

“This is gonna be so so f*(#ing easy!” Jimmy repeats the motto he adopted from an adventure race he ran with his college buddies.

“Ha!” grunts the guy next to him.

“Five! Four! Three!” Jimmyboy counts down. “Two! One!” And we’re off, rolling down double track through the twilight. The dust glitters in a cloud that engulfs my face and immediately latches onto my nose.

I re-discovered pink zinc just before the race and thought it would be the perfect nose-cheek protector for an all-day adventure. It smells like a coconutty beach, just like it did in the ‘80s. But after 10 minutes of riding through “moon dust” in a fat-tired peloton, my coconutty pink nose has become a dirt trap.

This must be how healthy, non-smokers get lung cancer, I think as I look at the dude next to me. He’s wearing a surgical mask. The guy just ahead of me has a bandana covering his mouth. I try to hold my breath, but that doesn’t last very long.

We turn a corner to face a short, steep sandy section. People are falling left and right. A few men tiptoe their bikes around the carnage while I ski down on my feet. When I get to the bottom, A-ron and Jimmy are already out of sight.

I’ve only been riding 15 minutes and my legs are sore. I know the boys are infinitely better riders than I am, but I don’t want to be out there alone—something about bears, remember?

I don’t remember what possessed us to sign up for this race. The rationalization looked something like this: Each of us had, in the past, completed multiple Ironman triathlons. Each of us liked mountain biking. So each of us should be able to mountain bike 100 miles relatively easily. Right? It can take less than six hours to ride 100 miles on the road, so double that (to be safe) and this should only take around 12 hours, getting us back in time for a dip in Donner Lake, dinner, and bad reality TV.

The 14-hour cut-off seemed generous.

I turn a corner onto a rocky dirt road and see Jimmy waiting for me.

“This is so f*(#ing easy!” he says before bombing down the road on his new-used Ellsworth Truth. If he weren’t going to be useful for conversation, at least he’d be a good bear diversion.

The first 25 miles end with a rocky road climb to an aid station. Not too steep. Not too dusty. Riders all around—many of them peeing on the side of the trail, making no effort to conceal themselves behind a tree or rock.

Now the real race begins.

“Fill ‘er up here,” says the Red Star Ridge aid station guy. “This is the longest section without an aid station.”

Whatever, I think. I didn’t really drink anything yet—my Camelbak is full. I decide I won’t look at my watch for the entire race. I have no bike computer either. I am going to eat and drink based on feel, not time, and now is not really the time. A-ron was chilling for a while waiting for me, so I down an Oreo and a piece of watermelon and off we go.

The 50-mile racers peel off to the right and the hundos pedal up their first hard-core single track of the day. Within a few minutes, we reach a wilderness scene few people will ever experience—remote and beautiful and creepy at the same time. It seems like everyone decided to do the 50-mile race; Jimmy, A-ron and I are the only people on the trail as far as we can see.

The sun blazes through a cloudless sky and warms my core and I feel like I am in a Disney movie. If a butterfly lands on my shoulder, we will both burst out in song. I hear the musical intro. The violins hum, the piano crescendos and—

“Frickinshitballsfugginfreak.” I look up the hill just in time to see A-ron take his bike overhead and throw it into a bush. Apparently this is the exact the moment he begins to feel the altitude.

Jimmy and A-ron stay a few minutes ahead of me. It is better that they can’t see me ski-bike down the steep dirt sections. Breaking is useless. I let Qee (my ’08 Specialized Era) slide wherever she wants like a feisty horse. Somehow, she doesn’t buck me off.

Just when I think we are seriously and unconditionally as far out into the middle of nowhere we could possibly be, we pop out onto a paved road—a welcome respite from the pounding and mental punishment of sandy single-track.

Those five minutes of joint-sparing bliss are quickly replaced by rocktastic double track.

And gunshots.

BAM! BAM!

“Is someone shooting at us?” I ask as we trudge up steep, technical terrain.

“I wish someone would shoot me, then this would be over,” Aaron says.

BAM!

“That’s one less bear to worry about,” Jimmy says.

We climb in silence. When the road turns vertical, we dismount and shove our full-suspension rigs upward. Nobody wants to talk. This is our fate. We probably look like easy prey for the bear that got away. Or for the hunter that can’t tell the difference between black spandex and fur.

“This is so f*(#ing easy!” Jimmy says.

I kick dirt at him.

Just when the road becomes manageable to ride, POP! TSssss. A-ron rolls right over a thorn. I watch his back tire deflate instantly.

Brain-fried and pissed off, A-ron dumps his bike in front of Jimmy so Jimmy can work on the flat.

“You know the aid station is just around the corner?” Jimmy says in a miraculous return to the English language, saying something other than his favorite five-word phrase.

Flat fixed, we ride on. Then a sign pops up on the right side of the road.

“Got tacos?”

Then another one: “Smell the…” and another: “Bacon!”

“Shit. Bacon? That sounds disgusting,” A-ron says.

Turns out the bacon-taco aid station is a full-service pit stop. Upon arrival, volunteers grab our bikes, ask us if we want oil or wax lube, anything out of our drop bag, and food. I opt for part of a Pop-Tart. And a peanut butter cookie. And part of a pb&j. And peanut m&ms. And another part of a Pop-Tart.

The sandy single track ate one of my toe warmers, so I dump the other one along with my leg warmers and hat into A-ron’s drop bag, then start up a 5-mile dirt road climb with A-ron. Jimmy will catch up.

“How does Jimmy have so much energy?” A-ron asks.

“I dunno.”

After that heart-to-heart, A-ron takes off and Jimmy joins me.

“How’s A-ron doing?” Jimmy asks.

“He wants to know how you have so much energy.”

“I’m just trying to stay positive.”

“OK,” I say. We pedal up a steeper section. “You know that guy in the red kit that just passed us is on his second loop? That means he’s 25 miles ahead of us.”

“Not positive.”

“Sorry.”

Then, more single track. A lot more. Gnarly, sandy, steep, technical singletrack. I bounce down it without a thought. My brain glazes over and Qee and my body swoosh through ruts and fly over rocks. It is the best I’ve ever been at technical mountain biking—I’m too tired to second-guess myself or leap off the bike. Too bad it took a painful 45-mile warm-up to get here.

When we get to the next aid station—the head of a six-mile out-and-back section—the volunteers tell us something that makes me want to hurl:

“You know, you’re cutting it pretty close to the cut-off.”

Cut off? CUT OFF? What cut off? I don’t suck that bad do I? I’ve ridden most of the course. I’ve only stopped long enough to stuff my face full of sugary goodness or squat behind a rock. Now, in addition to worrying about becoming animal food—I am the weakest link in our clan—I also have to worry about not getting to wear the hoodie I got at sign-in? I can’t wear it if I don’t officially finish; I’ll look like a tool.

I down the last handful of peanut M&Ms in the bowl in protest. Just before I take off, I see Holly coming through the other way. That puts her 6 miles and at least an hour ahead of me. Holly is a cycling goddess. If she’s only an hour ahead of me, and I’m only an hour ahead of the cut-off, this course was not designed for weekend warriors.

A-ron takes off. I fix my Camelbak that is now soaking wet after an over-eager aid-station volunteer—who probably felt sorry for me—offered to fill it up, then screwed the cap on funky, letting the water dump all over my warm clothes.

Screw you, cut-off.

Jimmy and I fly down fun single track. Rolling, not too technical. Through the trees. There’s nobody out there.

By the time we get back to that aid station, I refuse to stop and start up a steep, dusty logging road climb. Then I hear cowbells.

People! The next aid station! I think. Yea! Someone’s cheering for us!

Five more minutes pass. I’m still alone. Then I realize something terrible: the cowbells are on cows. It’s just me and the cows out here. A-ron is up ahead. Jimmy is behind somewhere, probably eaten by a cow. And I’m alone.

Then, I see a sign: “Got Bacon?”

“Shit. That sounds disgusting.” A-ron mumbles ahead of me.

We’re back at the aid station red-spandex man scrambled through several hours ago. And this time, instead of being a bustling epicenter of clothing changes and athlete feeding, A-ron, Jimmy and I are the only bikers around. The aid station people ask the same questions. Lube? What can I get you? But this time, it seems like they’re doing it out of pity. Am I going nuts? Is that lady giving me salt pills because I look like I’m gonna die or because it’s the nice thing to do? We’re like 65 miles into this. We’re still an hour ahead of the aid-station cut off. We’re fine. Right? RIGHT?

I stuff two tender, barely-baked brownies into my mouth and shove off.

I have to make the cut off.

A-ron rides ahead, back up the climb we did some 20 miles earlier. Jimmy rides behind me, trying to look like the group straggler so animals will eat him, not me. Somehow, I don’t think it works that way. They can smell weakness, can’t they? Jimmy is the strongest link. A-ron is pissed off. I’m fine, just slow, apparently.

We continue on up a hill. At the next aid station, the volunteers tell us we must take our lights, because it’s going to get dark before we finish because it’s already 4:30 p.m.

That’s the first time I’ve heard the time all day: 4:30 p.m. We’ve been riding for 10 hours.

I tell A-ron and Jimmy I have to keep going. I’m not going back to work to tell everyone I didn’t officially finish. I can’t.

A-ron has a mental crisis. “I can’t do this anymore,” he says to Jimmy. “My stomach is jacked.”

Jimmy relays the information.

“I’m f^(#ing finishing,” I say.

We’re on a dirt road that rolls along a mountain crest. To the left are rocky cliff drop offs. To the right are vistas Ansel Adams would’ve loved—no sign of civilization for hundreds of miles. Except we’re not paying attention to the scenery anymore. Jimmy is convinced he’s sprained his wrist. My right kneecap hurts so bad I can only pedal with my left leg, until the knee cap goes numb.

Then A-ron comes up from behind. He decided it would take forever to get picked up out here and re-joins the battle.

We take a hard left into the second-to-last time station.

“How’re we doing?” Jimmy asks the time-station volunteer.

“Well, you’re pretty much dead last,” he says.

Now is not the time for honesty. My mind is fragile. Tell me I’m awesome. Tell me there’s somebody to chase up ahead. Tell me we’re still an hour ahead of the cut off. Tell me I’m super-cute with a dirty brown nose. Tell me anything but the truth.

I stuff some more peanut M&Ms down my throat and look at a young man in a Cal Poly jersey who’s sitting in a folding chair behind the food.

“I really like that hoodie,” I say to Jimmy. “I want to wear it!”

“I guess I’ll only wear three-quarters of mine,” Cal Poly says, his head slumped.

“What’s next?” Jimmy asks the evil volunteer.

“Well, you got a 2-mile uphill, then an 8-mile downhill to the next aid station,” he says. Then he turns to another volunteer as we roll out, “Hey, I think we can shut down early!”

Evil scumbag, I think. Then I fantasize about the long downhill.

Immediately, the road turns down. But then we round a corner and begin a climb. A long, never-ending climb. Not only was second-to-last-aid-station man a mental tormentor, he was also a big fat liar.

“This is so f*(#ing easy!” Jimmy says.

My right knee screams at me. A-ron and Jimmy’s stomachs quit. They can’t eat food. We know there’s a long climb after the last aid station, and it’s nowhere in sight. The sun is also going down. It’s mountain lion hunting time. I can’t return a failure, but darkness is closing in on me, and time is vanishing with the scenery.

The final aid station. It exists. And people are still there. People including the race director’s daughter, Andrea.

“How much time do we got?” Jimmy asks.

“You’ve got about 10 miles left and about an hour and a half.”

“I’m going to sit here for 15 minutes,” Jimmy says, “to get my brain ready for the final climb.”

We mount our lights on our helmets. I stuff 5 cookies in my mouth.

“You want a towel to wipe off your face?” a cute boy who’s playing the movie game with Andrea asks. They’re on “E.”

“No. I don’t care. I don’t have to look at me,” I say.

“What’s a movie that starts with E?” Andrea asks.

“Erin Brockovitch!” I say. Then I go. We can’t hang out if we’re going to make the cut off.

We pedal in our lowest gears up a dirt road. Twilight surrounds us. Everything appears in double. It’s hard to see but I don’t want to turn on my light just yet. I swear I see paw prints in the dirt. Everywhere. Jimmy and A-ron ride up ahead.

Maybe it was just the heel of someone’s bike shoe, I think. But if I can ride this, who ahead of me would’ve walked? There are paw prints in the sand. For sure.

When I turn my light on, I realize I mounted it so it points way to the right.

“Want me to fix it?” Jimmy asks.

“We don’t have time!” I say.

“This is so f*(#ing easy!”

“Shut up!” A-ron and I reply. I point my face to the left and ride on with the help of A-ron and Jimmy’s lights.

When we get to the double track turnoff at the top of the road, A-ron consults his Garmin. We have two miles to go and 20 minutes to ride them.

We run up the sandy chute that took out so many riders almost 14 hours ago, then hammer the rollers the best we can. A-ron and Jimmy ride ahead, kicking up dust that looks like snow in my headlamp. Then, with a mile to go, we come upon another rider.

The three of us blow by him and continue on.

“We’re finishing together,” A-ron says.

We could see lights in the trees, but they were just homes—not the finish. It wasn’t coming. It’s not there.

Then I hear voices. Faintly through the trees.

Then I see the finish line.

“Sprint! Sprint!” people shout.

I spin out my smallest gear and we roll onto pavement and under the finish line banner—at 8:25pm. Seven minutes to spare.

We immediately fling our bikes to the ground and stand, dazed and dirty, in the middle of the finish chute. Maybe eight people are there cheering. The field full of bike-rack capped cars is empty, except for our rented gold minivan. It’s dark and cold and someone is cooking burgers under a lantern.

The race director tries to cut through our mental fog with easy conversation.

“So how was it?” he asks.

“Oh, that was so f*(#ing easy,” Jimmy says.

Me, post-race.

The Toughest Endurance MTB Race There Is?

2010-09-09T20:02:00.000-07:00

The race director for the Tahoe Sierra 100, a 100-mile (actually 92.7 miles this year) mountain bike race has officially freaked me and my crew out.

Coachubby, a friend from LA (A-ron) and a friend from Stanford (Holly) and I were all revved up to do the race this Saturday. We signed up months ago. We dreamed of the scenery, of the single-track, and in A-Ron's case, of the Pop-Tarts. It was going to be an epic day of awesome. Then the race updates started flowing in.

Here are tidbits from updates received on September 3, 4, 5, and 7:
Sept 3:
For all of you that may try to go out and try out the course this weekend. May be a few motos out there, hunters and crazy beer drinking 4 wheel drive people...There was a bit of Eco Terrorist action on the logging operation that was going on up there yesterday.

OK. Not bad. Nothing that's not usually on a mtb course. This is going to rock. It didn't hurt that the email closed with:

Don't forget that your here to have fun!! We all will be partying after the event at Ice Lakes Lodge so please come by and enjoy the full bar and food here at the lodge as it looks out over Serene lakes.

Party on.

Sept 4:
Saw a Nice big bear out on the trail today. Never saw one person or bike all day.

OK. Bear. Bears live in the forest. Chances are slim the bear will care about me when there will be several other meal options on the trail.

Great weather. 82 in the high country at 6700 ft.

Rock on. Warm weather is my best friend. Yogi can hibernate while we ride.

Sept 5:
Just to clear the air about this being a fast race course.
Mohican 100 fast times: 7:33 under 9,000ft of climbing
Lumberjack 100. Fast times 6:33 9,000ft of climbimg
Cream Puff 100 fast times 9:44.00 about 17,500 ft of climbing
High Cascades 100. Fast times about 8:37. 13,000ft of climbing 11,000ft of climbing ( single track)
Leadville 100 ( almost all fire road and out and back) 12,000ft of climbing ( record set by Levi this year 6:15.00) Roadie course
Break Epic. Fast times 8:31.00
I would say that the Tahoe Sierra 100 is a fast course with the fast time of 7:24.00 and about 13,800 ft of climbing depending on your GPS and the course only being 92.7 miles.

Cool. Good riders will finish fast. The climbing surely qualifies this ride for DA status. (Disappearing a**.)

Sept 7:
This is your last chance.

To what? To bail?

This is a hard 100 mile race. This is not a roadie course. There is rock, dirt, lots of dust in some places, bears, cows, hunters, mt. lions, Big trees, small trees, white torn, buck brush, loggers, miners and a few things I may have forgotten. Oh ya, Mary Jane growers!!

Praying I will not be shot by Elmer Fudd, eaten by Yogi Bear or Simba, or stomped on by Cow. At least if it gets really bad, we can all zen out with the help of the local farmers.

Combine this update with the one from Aug. 16:
Just another heads up there are some cattle in the high country free grazing in the forest. Some of them are very big bulls!! If you run across any of them just yell and they will move. I have seen a few bear moving around in the last two weeks. They're just black bear and will run before you get too close.

And now we have full-on bearanoia. Seriously? They'll run away? As a wise friend once said, you don't have to be fast, just faster than your group. The bear will eat the slacker. There's some motivation.

I never said that this was a easy MTB 100. I just said it was a fast one.

And with that, Coachubby and I will fly out to Tahoe tomorrow to embark on a bear-hunter-mtn. lion-miner-logger riddled race. I slapped a red rear tire on my bike to up the rad factor. Or mask the blood.

This should be epic.

Tiffany Carter's 22-Mile Swim for Africa

2010-08-20T08:54:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Tiffany swam 20.5 miles--18 of them without a wetsuit--before an upset stomach, crampy calves and sore lungs cut the swim short. She'll be finishing the last 1.5 miles on Tuesday, the 23rd. As of Friday, the 20th, she had raised $2750 for Kenyan children.

Yea, Tiffany! That's the width of the English Channel crossing at the Straight of Dover! (21 miles)

Tiffany (left) at the end of a 14-mile swim with sister, Michelle.

There must be some endurance obsession in the Beresini genes.

As I write this, my cousin, Tiffany Carter, is swimming across Lake Tahoe to raise money for children in Kenya.

Her longest swim before taking on the width (or length...depending on how you look at it) of Lake Tahoe was 14 miles and took her seven hours. Averaging two miles-per-hour and accounting for fatigue, Tiffany expects the swim to take about 12 hours. That's an entire Ironman-worth of just swimming.

I cry for her shoulders.

And get this: she's not wearing a wetsuit.

"I'll have my wetsuit (a long john suit) on the boat," Tiff told me yesterday, "just to make my mom happy, but I don't want to wear it." (Tiff said she hasn't looked at the water temperature the entire time she's been training. But I did. On the North side, temps on Wednesday ranged between 64 and 76 degrees. On the South side, they're between 65 and 67. Holy wetsuitless coldness.)

Tiffany got the idea for the swim after her older sister, Sophia, visited Kenya and came back with stories about the kids there living in poverty, but didn't have to; the kids could go to school and eat for an entire year for only $50-100 per child.

Tiffany wanted to help. She knew only one other native Lake Tahoe woman had ever completed the swim, and decided she'd go for it. She's been swimming since middle school and wanted to take on the Lake.

It was hard for her to find people to train with, though, as most people who came along would poop out around two miles. Her friend, Howie, got cold and bailed about that far into a 10-mile training swim. He found a nice family on shore who wrapped him up, gave him warm food, and drove him back to his car.

So Tiffany recruited her younger sister, Michelle, to kayak along with her on her training swims. But it hasn't been all sisterly love out on the lake.

"I thought, 'Oh yea, we're sisters, it's gonna be great! We're gonna giggle and laugh...' but we'll be in the middle of the lake and she'll get so crabby sometimes and threaten to leave me," Tiffany said.

So is it going to be different today? On the big day?

She'll have a large crew including both of her parents, her sister, and other kayakers to help out. The local radio station is keeping people up-to-date on Tiffany's whereabouts. You can listen to the live broadcast here.

Tiffany's most nervous about not making it. And of Tahoe Tessie, Lake Tahoe's version of the Loch Ness monster. She put glow sticks on the bottom of the kayaks for the dark start this morning and was worried they'd attract some kind of mythical Tiffany-eating fish.

She'll be slurping mashed-up sweet potatoes and noshing on Clif Bars to fuel the swim.

As of yesterday, Tiffany had raised $957 out of her goal of $2,000. Donate to her swim here--she'll be taking donations for at least another week. No amount is too small! (OK, try to make it at least a buck.)

Visit Tiffany's Swim for Africa site.
Listen to the Quick Time radio broadcast.

Go Tiffany!

Mountain Biking Mania-When Your Brain Turns to Mush

2010-08-15T16:06:00.000-07:00

I can't be the only person who does this.

Yesterday, about seven hours into a big-ass ride straight up and down and around the Santa Fe ski mountain, I had a conversation with myself. About table runners.

Maybe it was my brain's way of ignoring the cliff to one side of the loose single-track descent coachubby and I were pussyfooting down. Or about how that would be the perfect place for a mountain lion to take me out.

The conversation went something like this:
Me: What the f are table runners for?
Me: What do you mean what the f are table runners for? Watch your language.
Me: And why the f are they called table runners? They don't move.
Me: They tie the room together.
Me: Thank you, Erin Lebowski.
Me: It's just decoration. Why do people decorate? Because it gives their home a feeling of security and warmth.
Me: Table runners to do not give people a feeling of security and warmth. They're essentially pointless.
Me: Then why did you put one on the table when you had people over for dinner last night?
Me: I didn't, coachubby did. And it wasn't a table runner, it was a repurposed scarf. Why don't they call them table scarves? That's more appropriate. Scarves don't move.
Me: Why are you bashing household decorations?
Me: I'm not bashing, I'm asking an honest question.
Me: What?
Me: What the f are table runners for?

A few more rocky patches and near off-cliff endos, and I was back on the road.

Welcome to the Gym, Would You Like a Cigarette?

2010-08-10T19:12:00.000-07:00

I hauled my bum straight from work to the Santa Fe rec center to get my swim on, and parked next to this car:

One cigarette per rep?

Outside Magazine Is Pretty Freakin' Cool

2010-08-05T19:34:00.000-07:00

Yo! My blogging efforts have recently been hijacked by Outside Magazine's blog. This week, I got to speak with my fifth grade teacher, who happens to be one of the world's most inspirational people, Erik Weihenmayer, 19-year old professional surfer, Sage Erickson, and one of the stars of a new surf movie, Chris Christenson.

It's been rad.

And when I'm not at Outside, I'm outside, training for the Tahoe-Sierra 100-mile mountain bike race, and Ironman Arizona--with 2 bum hamstrings and a pissed-off rotator cuff. I met a spiritual healer while searching for a place in Santa Fe, but thought she was a little off her rocker. Maybe I should give her a shot...IM will be hard to finish with no run or swim training...

Getting To New Mexico: Apartment Armageddon

2010-07-14T16:26:00.000-07:00

Long time, no write! Sorry!

I've moved to Santa Fe to intern at Outside Magazine and am currently sitting on a kitchen table I found on Craigslist that is covered in crusty paint droplets that is sitting atop a concrete floor that echoes throughout the place I found that has nothing in it besides me, a bed, and Gally (cat) because the movers don't come until Monday and coachubby works in Los Angeles every other week.

But let's back that up.

Act 1: Hermosa Beach, 3 weeks ago

I return from covering RAAM. My flight gets in late at night. Let's say 10pm. I go to bed around midnight ready to make up for 2 weeks worth of a zombie-like existence living in the back of a minivan filled with 3 boys (make that 2 men and one grandpa) chasing cyclists across the back roads of the United States.

(Me and the Media 2 RAAM men: Photog Jake North, Videog Brenden Martin, and driver Chuck Anderson. Photo by Jake North...even though he's in it.)

At some ungodly hour--before 10am--I find myself in the middle of a demolition. People are pounding on the roof. They're jackhammering the floor. Apparently, the crap apartment coachubby lived in all year while I was at school was sold to a new owner who decided to completely renovate--with the renters still inside. This can't be legal.

I am pissed. I have a story to write. I can't think. Gally is petrified. I go for a bike ride.

When I return, the front door is wide open and some electricians are standing outside.

"This yer apartment?" they ask.

"No, but I'm staying here and I'm going to take a shower," I say.

"Well we're doing some electrical work..."

"You know we have a cat!?" I say, realizing the open door.

I slam the door shut and start the hunt for Gally. He's not under the couch--why would he be, they're drilling the ground where the couch is (2nd floor apt.). We have boxes everywhere for the move to Santa Fe. I look in and around all of them.

No Gally.

Craptastic!

"Coachubby!" I cry into the phone. "I went for a PV loop and came home and these men were outside and the door was open and I can't find Gaaaaallllllyyyyyyy wahhhhh!"

"I'll come home," says the best husband in the world.

Coachubby returns to the beach bungalow from hell and searches for the fuzzball. No fuzzball.

I indirectly cuss out the workers by telling my mom on the phone a few feet away from them how stupid they are and couldn't they have just waited one freaking day because we're moving T-O-M-O-R-R-O-W. (Insert a few choice vocab words here and there for accuracy.)

Coachubby goes down more calmly to speak with the electrical men. Meanwhile I go back inside knowing my Gally cat is the most scaredy cat in the world and wouldn't have run out the front door. He's hiding somewhere, I know it.

I look under the covers on the bed. I lift up the mattress. I look in the closet, behind the couch, in cupboards. Finally, I kneel down beneath the bed (which was elevated a good 3 feet off of the ground so all of our junk could live beneath it) and start patting the box springs.

By hand thuds against a warm bump. I find Gally.

Kitty was apparently planning for beach bungalow armageddon by clawing away at the box springs in secrecy, creating an entry point, so he could securely hang in privacy from whatever that thin fabric is that's on the bottom of box springs.

I must now face the workers outside who told me they didn't see a cat run out and they're right and I was wrong but I'm still angry and just want to freaking sleep and take a shower but I can't because the bathroom has a skylight and there are strange men on the roof looking in.

And tomorrow, we're supposed to pack up and move to Santa Fe. In a car. Another 800-mile road trip. I just drove 3,000 miles I don't want to be in a car ever again just kill me now.

To be continued...

Update on RAAM Cyclist Diego Ballesteros

2010-06-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

Spanish RAAM team Coanfi Desafio Aspanoa has maintained a blog updating the status of Diego Ballesteros, who was struck by a car outside of Wichita, Kansas during the race.

Yesterday's post stated that Ballesteros' girlfriend, Ana, had flown in to be with him and that his condition is improving day by day.

You can read the Spanish blog translated by Google here.

Michele Santilhano gets a RAAM finish line surprise!

2010-06-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

When 3rd-place female RAAM solo racer, Michele Santilhano, crossed the finish line at City Dock in Annapolis, MD on Monday, she might've been expecting a little celebration. Maybe George Thomas would announce her finish, get her up on stage and ask some questions. Maybe her crew would hug her. Bystanders would take photos and the finish line crew would cheer her through the chute.

But she wasn't expecting to see her sister, Wendy Santilhano, who flew in from South Africa to surprise Michele.

When Michele saw her sister, tears welled up in her eyes. She had her sister and her crew join her on stage to share the glory of her accomplishment. "It's an awesome nation," Michele said.

Crew member, Pia Christensen, said the crew laughed so much on this trip. Then she did what she dubbed the "Michele dance," showing the hand movements Michele would do on the bike to alert crew members to her needs and mental status.

As an added plus, Christensen and another of Michele's crew members, Chris States, are getting married on Saturday in the San Francisco area.

There was lots of love going around on the Santilhano team!

Michele at the finish line.

Michele and sister Wendy.

Pia, Michele and Wendy

Pia and Chris States

RAAM's Leading Lady: Barbara Buatois est Magnifique!

2010-06-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

And the women's solo winner is...Barbara Buatois!

Hailing from just outside of Paris, the bicycle world speed record holder added two new records to her name this morning. When Buatois rolled across the RAAM finish line in Annapolis, she became the first French woman and the first woman riding a recumbent to finish RAAM.

Buatois, 33, returned to the finish line early in the afternoon to peruse the RAAM store. She had a ready smile despite a red-hot, flaky sunburn.

She said yesterday was the hardest part of the race for her. The mountains coming in toward the finish were the most difficult with the heat and the ups and downs. And yesterday she got tendoinitis in her left ankle, but that was her only real injury.

"There's a great ambiance within my team," she said in French. Her team included her husband, and her mother-in-law. "We laugh a lot," she said, and her team is always there for her.

Next up for the ultra star? The 600 kilometer Bordeaux-Paris race is on her calendar in six days! (That's another 372 miles.)

(Buatois at the finish.)

RAAM Road Rules Episode 1: McLovin

2010-06-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

Is a McDonald's by any other name just as bad for you?

What happens when you put 4 perfect strangers in a minivan for 12 days straight and tell them to chase after cyclists?

Team Bandwidth.com's Rockstar Ride

2010-06-17T14:10:00.000-07:00

Team Bandwidth.com may be RAAM rookies, but they know a thing or two about traveling in style. "Three attorneys and a business guy" make up the team, said crewmember Lora Payne. They weren't taking any chances with their safety--or their comfort. Bandwidth.com's bus came with two professional drivers and a whole lot of leopard print! Check it out:

(Please excuse my extreme on-camera dorkiness.)

How Not to Buy a Car on eBay: The Dexmobile

2010-06-16T14:42:00.000-07:00

Figuring out RAAM transportation is a huge undertaking for riders and crew. Will they have an RV? How many support vehicles? Who will drive? Team Bandwidth.com hired a tour bus that looks like it was made over on "Pimp My Ride" with cheetah-print accents on the interior walls.

Dex Tooke took a different approach. Gearing up for RAAM last november, Tooke searched eBay for an official race RV. When he found one (for a rumored $9,500), it seemed like a smokin' deal. Turns out it was...literally.

Welcome to the Dexmobile!

RAAM Racer Diego Ballesteros Struck by Car

2010-06-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

Diego Ballesteros of Spanish team Coanfi Desafio Aspanoa was struck by a car this morning near Maize, Kansas and is in critical condition, local news station KAKE reports. The 36-year old Spaniard is a part of a 4-man team. When he's not racing, he is a lawyer and teacher.

Teammate Cesar Velilla said in his racer bio that he found out about Race Across America four years ago and was excited to race as a team. "The reason that definitely pushed us to take part in this was the possibility to help other people and "give" our effort in the name of ASPANOA," wrote Velilla, "a local organization where parents of children with cancer join together and try to give them a solution and a better quality of life during the treatment."

This is a link to Ballesteros' blog.

(Ballesteros)

A Stanford Graduation in Kansas

2010-06-15T16:59:00.001-07:00

My grad school graduation was on Sunday, so the men of RAAM's Media 2 van (who kidnapped me from the Media HQ van) held a ceremony for me in Ulysses, Kansas. It might have been as awesome as the real thing...

I'm still blogging for RAAM here. The race ends on Monday!

I'm Covering Race Across America!

2010-06-08T15:12:00.000-07:00

Hi hot endurance athletes! It's been way too long.

I am currently a part of the media team at Race Across America. I'll be updating the RAAM website regularly on both the main page and the Headquarters blog. And you can follow me on RAAM's facebook/twitter updates.

It was a little bit of a rough start--my boss thought I was drunk on the first night (last night) because I was being me. Apparently I give off a drunken vibe.

It'll only get worse as the sleep deprivation goes on, so buckle up and get ready for some rad (drunken...not!) posts on the RAAM site.

I take off from Oceanside on Thursday to chase the cyclists to Annapolis, MD.

My grad school graduation is on Sunday. I brought a tassel and will pin it to my head for the day.

Rock on party people.

Bay 2 Breakers 2010--Happy 60th Birthday, Dad!

2010-05-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

What better way to celebrate dad's big 6-0 than by making him run 7 miles through San Francisco with me and a bunch of naked people while brother and coachubby drunkenly waddle behind and mom documents the experience--and the full-frontal nudity?

That's what I thought. There is no better way.

And so, here's Bay 2 Breakers (minus a lot of the full-frontal...you can thank me later).

Tour of California 2010--Stage 3 Photos & Video

2010-05-18T15:24:00.001-07:00

Tour organizers moved the Tour to May to avoid the craptastic weather February brought last year. But while it may have seemed like their idea panned out-- the California coast was reportedly sunny this morning--Tour riders met a freezing, wet cloud of evil as they rode up Tunitas Creek to the KOM this afternoon. And so were spectators. But we still went out in full force, climbing King's Mtn. then ditching our bikes and huddling in sweaty, misty-wet groups of bouncing body-heat generating spandexified cyclophiles.

Creepy wet descents!

Here are some photos from the KOM, and the intersection of 84 and Skyline in Woodside, CA. The first few KOM photos are of a smartypants who followed a lead vehicle over the line, earning his 10 seconds of fame.

And a little video.

The peloton:

Ironman St. George--Funky

2010-04-27T10:41:00.001-07:00

The inaugural Ironman St. George is this Saturday. The already brutal event currently has a weather forecast of possible rain.

Curious to see what my fit friends have gotten themselves into, I went to IM St. George's official site.

I was greeted by this interesting header:

The mesas of Utah have arms and legs! Run for your life before they run over to your general vicinity and sit on you!

It reminds me of Monty Python cartoons where things like clouds have arms and legs.

So, IM St. Georgers, when you need to dig deeper and run a little harder, imagine one of the mesas of Utah is running after you. Because, according to the WTC, it could happen. They have pictures to prove it.

Stanford Tri Does Collegiate Nationals: Foaming Crotch and Other Puketastic Stories

2010-04-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

(Note: All events below are subject to inaccuracy due to Lubbockian Water Illness. John K. did not provide access to his brain, therefore all John K. thoughts are assumptions. But probably true.)

Wednesday, April 14: John K. (full name will not be disclosed so prospective employers will not associate JK with this event) merrily packs up his brand new Cervelo tri bike for collegiate nationals. He tosses his bike assembly and cleaning supplies into his bike box with his tri uniform and other race items.

He is ready to kick butt.

Thursday, April 15: Stanford's tri team meets at 7am to fly to Lubbock, TX, where incontinent clouds have decided to gather, freezing over and flooding the place. After being held over in Las Vegas for an hour--where Stanford tri was not allowed to deplane, and therefore lost no money--the team finally arrived at what could possibly be called hell on earth. "It's never like this here!" exclaims one of the incredibly nice Lubbockians at the front desk of the hotel. "This just started right before you came!"

Fabulous.

John K. enters one of two "men's" rooms with other members of Stanford's tri team. He unpacks his bike bag, eager to see if anything has scratched his new baby in any way. Dawn dish soap has leaked all over his stuff.

It smells infinitely better than the water from the sink. He lets it slide.

Friday, April 16: John K. witnesses the land of a thousand lakes: Lubbock, TX. Except these lakes aren't in lake-ish locations. Instead, many of them have decided to take up residence in the middle of major roadways--roadways that each have at least 3 names, all of which are correct, only one of which is usually noted at a time on a street sign, and is usually not the name mapquest chose to indicate.

As he peers through a Dodge Caravan window--one of three Caravans in Stanford's very intimidating fleet--he tries to make out the bike course while the windshield wipers fight a loosing battle against the torrential rain.

"OK, so this is where you have a headwind," explains Coach Bruce. John K. looks at a lone tree, bent over in submission to the wicked wind. The Dodge slows to make its way through another lake. "This race could be made into just a swim!" thinks John K., a former collegiate swimmer. He is psyched.

John K. later finds out that night that race officials might force him to dismount his bike at lake crossings to wade through in his bike shoes. Should the lakes dissipate, competitors in later waves will also be forced to dismount, and walk to the other side of where the lake used to be.

John K. goes to bed, with visions of whooping Navy in his head, particularly after reading this article about what wussy, reclusive jerks the Navy team seems to be. "We really don't like interacting with the other teams," said Tyler Sharp, captain of the Navy's men's team. Well the other teams don't like you either, Mr. Sharp. John K. is going to whoop you.

Saturday, April 17: John K. wakes up just before the alarm goes off at 5:30am. He looks out the window. It is still raining. "Holy goodness, how did the clouds get so overhydrated?" he thinks. He puts on his Stanford Tri uniform, then 7 other layers, and heads out into the dark cold.

When he arrives at nationals, he realizes that he must wade through a lake to get his bike and gear to the transition area. Then he hears something horrible: the swim has been cut in 1/3! John K. is sad. He is a kick ass swimmer. As are several other men on Stanford's team. His teammate Erin is also sad. She has not been running at all and her only chance of getting ahead of her other teammates is to swim like she stole her wetsuit.

John K. can take the cold. The Stanford ladies decide it's freaking devilishly cold and outfit themselves with Wal-Mart bags. Coach Gina told them the bags would act as a wind-breaker and help keep the heat in on the bike. The ladies look classy with the plastic bags peeking out from under their tri-tops.

Coach Gina is a genius.

John K. finishes the 500 meter swim like he swatted at the water and it parted for him. Then he happily jumps on his new steed and heads out into the wind. It does not rain on him. He tucks in aero even though gale force winds try to toss him from the side. He is astonished to see Stanford's top woman walking her bike--2 flats! Oh no! John K. must win it for everyone now. He soldiers on.

He blasts through T2 and out onto the modified run course--2 laps of the sprint course instead of one out and back. The race director decided to do this to keep runners from having to run through one of the newly formed Lubbockian lakes. But in doing so, he added 1/2 a mile to the run.

John K.'s teammate Erin is pissed. "Is this a single out and back?" she asks Coach Bruce as she nears the end of the first out and back. It feels like she has been running forever. "No, double!" yells Bruce. Erin wants to smash something.

But John K. is having the run of his life. It feels great. And smells unusually clean. The smell seems to be wafting from his crotch. He looks down to see a mountain of foam forming in that region. "Oh my goodness!" he says to himself as he tries to inconspicuously wipe it off and toss it to his side. "I hope nobody saw that!"

Coach Gina saw that. She didn't want to think about what the white foam around John K.'s crotch could possibly be. "Just look at his face and cheer," she said to herself.

The foam will not stop. As soon as John K. wipes away some bubbles, new ones form, amusing his competitors and confusing spectators. John K. is relieved there is no race photographer. Nobody in Lubbock really wanted to go outside today--the only people outside are the crazy, spandex-clad, crotchal-foaming triathletes like John K.

John K. crosses the finish line and is elated. He kicked ass. He prevailed against the worst conditions known to triathletekind. He can now find his transition bag and take off the foaming pants before the rest of his team ever gets to see the foaming crotch phenomenon.

John K. later finds out that Stanford's top female double flatted. And that one of his teammates accidentally placed his bag--complete with ID--in a look-alike Dodge Caravan headed for AZ. And that that teammate must get interrogated by airport security to get on the plane back to San Jose. And that his female double-flatted teammate lost her plane ticket.

And that 1/2 of his team will come down with exploding puke within the next 24 hours, presumably from swimming through Lubbockian swamp water. Or from drinking it from the hotel tap.

But, John K. thinks to himself, it was the awesomest weekend ever. His team placed 8th overall in the nation despite the evil weather, his foaming crotch, and the loss of his team's top female competitor.

His Stanford teammates are the best he could ever have dreamed of, even though he knows they spent all of Saturday night betting how much meat he would consume at a TX bbq.

Plus, he got a supercool race t-shirt. (Ladies' shirt below.)

John K. goes back to the farm happy and fulfilled. And excited that collegiate nationals will never again be held in Lubbock, TX.

Stanford Tri Survives Collegiate Nationals

2010-04-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

It was freaking freezing, but we're all still alive and in various stages of thawing out.

Here are some photos, race report to come when my brain thaws:

All smiles before heading back to the hotel après race.

Jamie models the latest in post-race warming tri fashion.

An entire hallway full of disassembled bikes.

The people who somehow got a room between us all love us.

Photos from Collegiate National Triathlon Championship

2010-04-16T19:12:00.001-07:00

FLOODING!

Traveling in style.

Yeah pasta!

Team "whiskey tangos." Bike name on front.

Representin' on the back.

Collegiate National Triathlon: FREAKING RAIN

2010-04-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

It finally stopped raining in the Bay Area on Wednesday. Cyclists and triathletes were elated. Then 14 members of Stanford's Triathlon team jumped on a flight to Texas where it has nonstop poured since we arrived last evening. The only sunny-looking thing was the Clemson team who walked into the lobby in hot-orange overalls with nothing underneath (except sports bras for the girls). Hot.

(Trainers on a plane! It took a while to explain to TSA that they were not hot-green weapons.)

Lubbock does not have a drainage system which makes this rain adventure even more exciting. We drove through several lakes to get to the race start, which was originally the only lake nearby.

Columbia's tri-team is down the hall from us at the Overton Hotel--a fact I learned while doing a hallway warm-up run. The 10th floor is long enough to make a few laps count as a shake-out pre-race run.

We've also set up "dueling trainers"--2 Kinetic trainers facing each other--in the hall. It smells like bathroom out there. Despite the stench, sweat, and large amount of practically naked college kids milling in the hallway, the hotel manager didn't say a word while we did our trainer rides. In fact, Garrett walked out of his bedroom in his tightie-blackies, and asked the business suit-wearing manager if he had a master key so Garrett could get into the other boys' room.

Triathletes are awkward like that.

Dinner is at 6:30 tonight. Race starts at 9am tomorrow (I'll be going off around 9:30.) Do an anti-rain dance for us!

You can follow me on Twitter for more current Nationals weekend updates: eberesini

Links:

Lubbock weather forecast (right now: rain, high 54 tomorrow)

Race Updates from USAT

Course info

Dueling trainers!

Yep! We're in Texas!

AT&T Doesn't Want You to Marry Outside Your Area Code

2010-04-09T17:20:00.001-07:00

Maybe they're conspiring with your mother-in-law to get you to stay in the same city where your husband got his first cell phone at the age of 16. (OK, nowadays, 8?) AT&T is way behind the times when it comes to family plans.

A few months ago, coachubby and I decided to take that final step into coupledom: getting joint phone accounts. A family plan, if you will. (More accurate: couple plan.)

Being frugal, we tried T-Mobile. Within minutes, my AT&T number was "ported" over to T-Mobile. Ta-dah! Instant crappy coverage. I lasted through one week of having T-Mobile drop my important reporting calls before I convinced coachubby AT&T was the way to go. (That way, some day, when I'm not a student, I could easily switch over to a fancy schmancy iPhone.)

"Since you just left, we consider you a win-back!" said the sales lady while Coachubby and I watched Olympic cross country ski racing on the store's flatscreen.

Sweet. Activation fee deactivated.

"Would you like to keep your numbers?"

"Yes indeed," I said.

"Ok, write them down for me so I can port them over."

I begin to write: 480-

Coachubby begins to write: 765-

"Uh oh," says the lady.

"What-oh," says I.

"You have different area codes."

"That's right. Mine's from Phoenix, his is from Indiana. We don't want to change our numbers."

"That'll put you in two different billing categories. I can't put you on the same plan."

"Are you kidding? We're together on T-Mobile right now. They did it within minutes. AT&T is way better than T-Mobile, right?"

Lady vanishes.

Coachubby and I watch more olympics. Way better than watching it on my computer. Or on an iPhone. Not that I would know.

Lady returns.

"One of you would have to switch your number because you have to be in the same billing area."

"Not it," says I.

"Hey!" says coachubby.

"OK, then, it's off to Verizon!" says I, like one of those really annoying customers who thinks the salesperson cares whether I buy her plan or not--and who thinks she has any power to change AT&T's entire archaic billing structure while I sit and watch the Olympics for half an hour.

Coachubby and I go to a Verizon store, and 10 minutes later, have new phones and the numbers we've had since college. (Believe it or not, padre still has my cell phone from high school, which looks more like a fashionable defense mechanism than an electronic device. Remember clip-on phone covers that match your clothes? Padre has a butterfly phone.)

I'm going to guess that Verizon and T-Mobile bill according to the zipcode where the bill is sent, not according to phone number. Nobody changes their number when they move anymore. That is an ancient practice only remembered by a generation that I am not a part of.

So get a move on, AT&T! Because someday, when I decide I want to be able to scan barcodes with my phone and figure out what's playing on the radio in seconds, I might need to switch to your network.

Or get a Google phone.

That's right. That's a customer threat that you should listen to, because I'm not the only one making it--people have been ticked off about your anti-family plan since 2008. And 2009.

Don't Tell Sportswriter Joan Ryan She Can't

2010-04-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

...because she will. In fact, she became a sportswriter because people told her she shouldn't. Take that, haters!

In 1985, 25-year old Joan Ryan walked into the locker room of the Birmingham Stallions, a franchise in the now-defunct United States Football League. Ryan was not looking for a boyfriend. Or trouble. Or a peek at the male athlete anatomy. She was looking for answers from star-player Joe Cribbs so she could file a game story for the Orlando Sentinel on time.

Ryan pushed open the locker room door and walked in, focused on finding Cribbs. Everything stopped as all eyes turned to Ryan, just over 5-feet tall, standing in the entry in a skirt with her notebook in hand.

She turned to a player who was cutting tape off his ankle with a long-handled razor.

“Where’s Joe Cribbs’ locker?” Ryan asked, her face heating up with anxiety.

No response. All she could hear were players’ taunts and jokes made at her expense.

She turned to other players, asking the same question.

No response. Instead, Ryan felt something on her leg. She turned to see the handle of the razor making its way up her calf to the hem of her skirt.

Ryan yelled at the player, and whirled around to see several players—and a man in a red sweater—watching, laughing.

Still fuming about the incident the next day, Ryan went through the Stallions’ media guide and identified the man in the red sweater; he was the Stallions’ president, Jerry Sklar.

“I said to myself, ‘These people really don’t want me to be writing sports,’” Ryan said. “’Theyreally don’t want me here.’ And so that was the moment I decided I really wanted to be a sportswriter.”

***

The third of six kids—three boys, three girls—Ryan was born in the Bronx, New York, then lived in New Jersey until her family moved to South Florida when she was 12.

“I was introverted,” Ryan said, “but I was extremely competitive.”

Her mother worked at Entenmann’s Bakery as a cashier. Her father, Bob, was an air conditioning draftsman, and his daughters’ softball coach.

Bob remembers Ryan loved to read, but she was also “a great line-drive hitter.

When Ryan was about 13 years old, she played a softball game at a family reunion in New Jersey. The teams were Bob’s family versus his wife’s family.

“One of the guys there was a blowhard kind of guy who thought he was pretty good,” Bob said. “Joan was plying the field, and this guy hits a wicked line-drive to left field. Joan sticks up her glove and catches the ball, and this guy couldn’t believe it—his mouth dropped to the ground.”

Ryan said the best advice she ever got was from her father, when he was coaching her in softball.

“He always told my sisters and me, ‘When you step on that field, it doesn’t matter how good you are. You have to convince yourself that you’re the best player on the field,’” Ryan said.

She used this strategy when she began her job as the first woman in the Orlando Sentinel’s sports department in 1982. She would need the confidence—even if she were faking it—to help her overcome the “painful introversion,” Ryan said, that kept her behind the editing desk throughout college and the beginning of her career in journalism.

“I’d be sitting in the press box or ringside with the giants of sports journalism, and I could convince myself for that period of time during the game that I was as good as any of them,” Ryan said.

***

Ryan, one of only two members of her family to attend college, graduated from the University of Florida in 1981 and immediately went to work at the Orlando Sentinel as a copy editor.

“I loved it. It was like getting a window to the world in that I knew what was going on and was the first to find out all this stuff,” she said.

But she realized in order to move up at the Sentinel, she would have to become a reporter. She thought the sports section would be a fun place to work, and wasn’t aware that no other woman had worked there before.

Bit by bit, she said, the sports department gave her small stories while she worked as an editor. Bit by bit, she worked at overcoming her own introversion so she could report more effectively. “I found it’s way more fun outside the office,” she said. “I realized that the notebook was my passport—all of the sudden, with that notebook in my hand, I could ask anybody anything and they’d answer me.”

Jan McAdoo met Ryan while McAdoo was also working for the Sentinel, in the online news department. McAdoo was going through a break up with a boyfriend when a Sentinel colleague suggested she move in with Ryan, who was looking for a roommate.

On Dec. 1, 1983, McAdoo moved in with Ryan. They have remained friends to this day.

McAdoo remembered Ryan’s 1985 struggles with the Stallions, because the locker room episode was highly publicized after Ryan wrote a story about it for the Sentinel.

The publication of the locker room episode “was a turning point for women in sports reporting. She was becoming part of the players’ world, breaching that invisible line of ‘You don’t cross here if you’re a woman.’”

Ryan said that “99.9 percent of the reader responses, both men and women, were ‘You slut! What were you doing in the locker room anyway? If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen!’”

But, McAdoo said, Joan “didn’t get intimidated, she stuck with it.” The buzz surrounding Ryan’s article was “pretty exciting,” she said. The phone in their shared home was “ringing off the hook—she must’ve done 20-30 interviews for radio stations.”

Later that year, Ryan moved to San Francisco to become a full-time sports columnist for the San Francisco Examiner.

***

Barry Tompkins was covering Wimbledon in London as a sportscaster in the mid-1980s when he knew he was going to marry Ryan.

She walked into a London restaurant to meet him, after they had dated on and off for several months whenever he was in San Francisco.

“It was just one of those magic moments,” Tompkins said. “She’s independent and really smart. I just love the way she handles people and treats people—she’s just a really good person.”

It’s this goodness, friends and colleagues say, that makes her an effective reporter.

Ann Killion met Ryan while Killion was working at a public relations firm in San Francisco. Killion, now an award-winning sportswriter herself, counts Ryan as one of her inspirations for getting into the business.

Ryan is “very personable, she’s super-smart. She’s the way all good reporters should be: very detail-oriented. She gets to know people and they like her and that’s why they end up telling her what she wants to know. She has a very personable style,” Killion said.

McAdoo described Ryan’s reporting style a little differently.

“She’s a pain in the ass,” said McAdoo. “She asks the same question 14 different ways. She’s intense, and that’s why she’s so good. She makes people comfortable and is a good listener.”

When Ryan and Tompkins adopted a son in 1990, Ryan knew it was time to plan her exit from the full-time newspaper business.

“I always knew I wanted to be a mom,” Ryan said. “I knew I was giving up something, but I was happy to.”

Ryan traded daily newspaper work for motherhood, and soon found herself reluctantly thrown into the world of book writing.

***

“If I ever decide to write a book again, lock me in a room until I get over it,” Ryan said to Tompkins in the early 1990s, while she was working on a book about women in Olympic figure skating and gymnastics.

A literary agent had approached Ryan following the publication of a series of articles Ryan wrote for the Examiner about young women in Olympic sports.

Ryan said she was coerced into writing a book proposal—she did not really want to write a book. Once she started getting rejections, however, she decided she really wanted to write the book.

The book, Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters, came out in 2005 to critical acclaim. Sports Illustrated named it one of the Top 100 Sports Books of All Time.

“I lived in fear that I had made some factual error” in the book, Ryan said, since she had not played either sport. One of her proudest accomplishments as a journalist, Ryan said, is there weren’t any factual errors in the book.

When Ryan covered gymnastics at the 1996 Olympics for the San Francisco Chronicle, she found out people on the gymnastics circuit referred to her exposé of elite gymnastics as “the book.”

“I was like the devil in gymnastics circles,” Ryan said. But she knew she was right to publish the book, because former gymnasts would come up to her during her book tour and say, “Finally, somebody told our story.”

***

“I haven’t written sports for over 10 years,” Ryan says while she sips a cappuccino in a quiet back room at Perry’s on Union Street in San Francisco, one of her and Tompkin’s favorite restaurants. Her hot pink nails and cropped red hair blaze against her black ensemble.

It has been 15 years since she published Little Girls, and 12 years since she published Shooting from the Outside, a book she co-authored with Stanford women’s basketball coach, Tara VanDerveer.

But Ryan never stopped writing. She recently published a book about her family’s struggles after her son suffered massive head trauma from a skateboarding accident.

And sports have never been cut completely out of her life.

“Somehow we always go back to what we’re good at, and what we’re comfortable with,” said McAdoo. For Ryan, that is sports.

Ryan currently works for the San Francisco Giants as a media consultant, and if the rumors are true, she will soon start working on a book about baseball.

“I always consider her a sportswriter first,” said McAdoo. “When I think of Joan, I think of sports.”

Gunshot Detection Technology Triggers Controversy

2010-04-01T19:36:00.001-07:00

Everything you ever wanted to know about Big Brother watching you...or at least your discharges...

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

A computer screen lights up with red dots showing where shots were just fired in East Palo Alto, Calif. A police dispatcher sees where the incident occurred and listens to the sound of the shots to rule out false alarms, like backfiring motorcycles or firecrackers. Then the dispatcher calls squad cars to the scene.

This is ShotSpotter’s acoustic gunshot detection and location technology in action. ShotSpotter’s main competitor, Safety Dynamics, invented a system that works differently, but with the same goal: to alert public safety officials to the location of a crime involving firearms within seconds of the discharge.

The systems themselves, however, have created political and cultural controversy among law enforcement officials and members of the public, who believe the cost of the systems outweighs the benefit, that the systems’ existence raises privacy concerns, and that the systems’ accuracy is questionable.

COST

Founded in 1995 in Mountain View, Calif., ShotSpotter bases its technology on acoustic data similar to that used by geologists to locate earthquakes. A minimum of three acoustic sensors is placed on poles and rooftops in a high-crime area. When a shot goes off, the sensors send data to a computer that determines through triangulation, or how loud the shot sounded to each sensor, where the shot came from. The ShotSpotter system costs $300,000 per square mile covered, plus a flat annual maintenance, update, and retraining fee of 15 percent of the purchase price.

“That kind of money could be better spent on hiring more police officers,” said Dr. Tom Nolan, associate professor of criminal justice at Boston University, and 27-year veteran of the Boston Police Department.

CLICK HERE to read more.

WCCTC Regionals in San Louis Obispo: Bodily War

2010-03-30T13:48:00.000-07:00

When going through your mental checklist of how you've prepared for an olympic-distance race and are ready to kick butt, you probably don't want the following items to cross your mind:

1. I haven't run 6 miles in the past 4 months.

2. My hamstring might rip back out of my bum if I try to run fast.

3. My bike seat is way lower than it should be to accommodate the demanding hamstring.

Some of the things you do want to think:

1. I have over 30 teammates racing with me.

2. This course is freaking gorgeous.

3. If you make it out alive, you can chill at Avila or Pismo Beach with sweet teammates.

My brain was divided going into the West Coast Collegiate Triathlon Conference (what a mouthful) regional championship race, put on by Cal Poly in beautiful San Louis Obispo.

I ditched coachubby to drive up the 101 from LA at the end of spring break to race my first collegiate triathlon. Coachubby drove south to race Oceanside so he could burn 2x the calories that I did then fly up to meet me and proceed to eat the largest frozen yogurt concoction mankind has ever seen.

My hammie decided it no longer wanted to be fully attached to my bum early last November, so I spent November arguing with her, then almost 4 months trying to coax her back into position. Because of lefthammie, I had missed nearly the entire collegiate racing season--my one and only collegiate racing season--and that, I told lefthammie, was totally unacceptable. We were going to run on Saturday whether she liked it or not.

Turns out hammie had quite the masterful battle plan.

About a month earlier, she consulted with a physical therapist who believed lowering Pinkie's (tri bike) saddle would help alleviate what was then diagnosed as sciatic nerve pain. The move angered my quads, a consequence of which I was aware. But I never imagined just how badly the change could demolish them.

Until the race in SLO.

Saturday at Lake Lopez was gorgeous. And so were all of the fit undergrads crowding the transition area.

The swim went off in one giant counterclockwise circle that led us out of the mountain shadows and into the sun (yes!) then straight back toward the sun, into the shadows (no!). A quick run up sand and steps led to T1.

The rubber band holding a shoe up on my bike broke before I started riding. I jumped on Pinky only to come to a dead stop in front of tons of cheering trifans. One shoe whacked the ground because my foot wasn't on or in it. D'oh. So much for the shoe-on-the-bike start being faster.

A quick hill revealed the first crash of the day--and it looked bad. Very bad. The short, steep downhill knocked off a male racer whom EMTs were already tending to.

The rest of the bike was brutally beautiful: gorgeous scenery of the lake, and green hills. A nasty headwind. And lots of...hills. And a wooden bridge that claimed my bike bag as one of its victims for the day. Doubtless it caused a flat or two. At least my extra tube and co2 and tire levers were out there to help if it did.

Coming back up that nasty hill to drop into T2, my quads seized up. Total crampage. Racing hard on a seat that low destroyed my quads. I busted out of T2 to run about 100 yards before I couldn't move. I stopped to stretch, then ran the rest of the race with the most ridiculous amount of inner quad pain I have ever experienced. Quads seized up at even the sight of an up or downhill slope.

And the race ended with a nice little hill.

But I wouldn't have changed it for anything.

Evil quad crampage took my mind off of evil lefthammie, who, until that day, had not let me run 6 miles, or run any faster than a 10 minute mile for more than 30 seconds at a time.

And being on a college team--having dinner the night before, sharing a hotel room, having 30+ other people out there doing the race with me--that was super cool.

And so it's (hopefully) off to Texas in 3 weeks to finally see what collegiate nationals is all about. And to (definitely) get my bum kicked by wicked fast students.

Stanford Degree + RAAM + Outside = Best Year Ever

2010-03-11T20:54:00.000-08:00

Two phone conversations:

Wed, the 10th.

RAAM Media Guy: Erin?

Me: Woah, I just picked up my phone to turn it off of silent and realized I was getting a call.

RMG: Um, ok.

Me: Sorry. Hi!

RMG: Hi, this is the RAAM Media Guy.

Me: It's great to hear from you!

RMG: So I want to get an idea of what kind of equipment you have.

Me: I have a Canon mini-DV camera that I got for my 16th birthday. It's cool.

RMG: Um, ok.

Me: And I have a sweet Canon DSLR.

RMG: Ok, so let me go over this. I think you would make a great writer for our team.

Me: Ok!

Moral of the story: Old camcorders do not impress real videographers. And I'm going to be covering RAAM as a writer in June. Woo hoo! (Unfortunately, I will have to miss my graduation to do so. Uber bummer.)

Conversation #2:

Today, 3:15 pm

I dial Outside Magazine for the 9th time in one day, trying to return a call before I go into a 3-hour class. Finally, someone answers. I have already left 2 messages on Outside Guy's machine, and surely his modern phone told him I'd called the other 7 times. I should probably be more embarrassed about that than I am.

Me: Outside Guy! It's Erin!

OG: Hi!

Me: So I thought I'd try to catch you before going to class.

OG: So, are you still interested in the internship?

Me: Hell yes.

OG: We'd like to have you.

Me: AHHHHHHHHH! WOO HOO!!!!!! You just made my month. I have to go to class now. Bye.

OG: Bye.

And so, after becoming a sleep-deprived non-racing RAAM participant, I will move to Santa Fe for 6 months--hopefully the warm, pretty months--to do whatever it is Outside interns do. And sleep outside. Because that is the only place I can afford. My dad and coachubby are super thrilled that I will be an intern...again...5 years after I finished being an undergrad.

Woo hoo!!!!!!

Chris O’Riordan’s Triple Play

2010-03-05T19:50:00.000-08:00

College baseball. Minor leagues. Then what?

Click here to read the latest sports story from yours truly.

And a video, too!

Dang it's Dangerous to be a Wife

2010-03-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

So I'm going through crime stats on the FBI's website for a story, and I come upon this little graph:

In 2008, ladies were the biggest losers.

When it comes to being offed by someone you know, it appears wives and girlfriends are in the greatest peril.

So to all of the husbands and boyfriends out there with uxoricidal and girlfriendicidal tendencies, here's some advice: Don't do it.

Let's make 2010 the year women are our friends.

Ladyfriends in 2010!

RIP Baked in Telluride

2010-03-01T16:59:00.000-08:00

Telluride is my happy place.

So says a sticker I bought there last year. And it's true. There's something about Telluride that makes me supremely happy.

But what?

I thought about it for a while, and came up with this: Telluride doesn't change.

Much.

OK, let me restate that: many things about Telluride haven't changed over my lifetime. And there's a certain sense of peace that comes with returning to a place where my childhood memories were formed--and it's always just how I remembered it.

Baked in Telluride, the quintessential hippie bakery with delicious everything, was an important part of the Telluride time capsule. It had been there my entire life and then some.

When I was probably 6 years old, Baked in Telluride gave me my first taste of freedom. My parents would give me a buck to buy a few bagels in the morning--all alone. It was a huge responsibility. I got to run to the store by myself, pick the flavors, and pay.

I always slipped on the carpeted incline into the store--every year of my life--but never thought that the entrance should be changed. Sure, it took some technical skill to enter, but once I was in, I'd be greeted with cases of beautiful baked goods, like ginormous macaroons. And pizza. It always smelled like pizza. Delicious.

So imagine my grief when madre called to announce that Baked in Telluride burned to the ground on Feb. 10.

(Image from the Durango Herald.)

This is what's left:

(Photo from Telluride Daily Photo.)

Conspiracy theories already abound in the tiny box canyon town. According to madre and padre, self-proclaimed professional sleuths, one such theory is:

The owner of the grocery store next door owned the BIT building. He's wanted to expand his store to compete with the store in Lulu City for some time, and now he can collect the insurance money to help expand into the lot that was once Baked in Telluride.

Nice theory. But I'm rooting for BIT to come back. Big time.

The Telluride Daily Planet reports that the fire was sparked by BIT's giant oven. The last line of the article says owner Jerry Greene "hopes to build a new bakery in the space as soon as possible."

You can do it, Jerry!

In other news, apparently the rice crispies and other baked goods on the ski mountain are not nearly as homemadeishly delicious as they were before BIT burned. Which leads madre and padre to believe BIT supplied the mountain with the delicious baked goods that fueled my multiple Gold Hill escapades.

All of Telluride suffers.

Bring BIT back soon!

Rant on Rating Journalism

2010-02-28T18:43:00.000-08:00

In what seemed like a thinly veiled effort to boost user numbers for start-up site Newstrust.net, my classmates and I were asked to sign up for an account at this site, then rate three news stories on the same topic. (I chose the earthquake in Chile.)

I believe rating news is one activity where the truth will not necessarily emerge from the collective knowledge of average citizens, which seems to be the point of Newstrust. Also, I don't think this knowledge could even be gleaned, as I don't believe each story reviewed will ever get more than a handful of reviews, because, as it always is with news, what was news yesterday and worthy of rating is old news today, and not as interesting a read.

This inherent news problem makes the goal of having the cream rise to the top, or however the saying goes, impossible as the average rating of a certain story will only reflect the polarized, subjective views of a few people.

Even as a person going through training to be a better journalist, I wouldn't suggest my ratings of certain stories as particularly helpful or even necessarily reflective of an unobtainable "true" rating determined by mashing together ratings of several people.

A few problems I had with the site:

1. If you're rating a story that has already been rated, it's not too far fetched to imagine you might be influenced by the rating presented when determining your own.

2. Search results for stories rated on the site are terrible--it'll be difficult to find a story on a topic you'd like to know more about by searching for it on NewsTrust.

3. The banner that allows users to rate stories only appears on the page where the original rater posted the URL. If you click to "read more," and the story opens on another page, the NewsTrust banner disappears and you can't rate the story from there.

It's a noble goal to want to make people more media literate. And forcing people to think about what they've read and why they feel it was or was not informative is a good way to do that. But I think the people that are going to take the time to do that are probably not the people who most need to be taught about media literacy.

It's a great idea--the act of rating a news story should help a reader become more media savvy. However I do not think anything of great significance will be revealed in the collective ratings themselves, as the stories being rated are constantly shifting according to the daily news cycle, and will therefore never have enough ratings to reflect some kind of collective knowledge about what is good or bad journalism.

And thus, I end my journalism rant.

Brought to you by Dead Tired, an after effect of competing in your first triathlon of the season...even if you only did 2/3 of it...and it was a sprint...

Mourning Athleticism Lost

2010-02-24T21:11:00.000-08:00

I just received an email from Planet Ultra informing me that the Camino Real Double Century went well this year.

And it made me a little sad.

OK, a lot sad.

That means it's been over a year since I did my first double century with my favorite ultracycling buddies Robyn and coachubby. That means that at this time last year, I could swing my right leg over the Silver Bullet, clip in, and ride for 18 hours straight. Up mountains, down mountains, up mountains again. Just out there, enjoying my buddies' company. Or, you know, huddling together in a ditch on the side of the road in the freezing rain. That's fun, too.

And so, this evening, I mourn for my long lost ultrafitness, which has been obliterated by training weeks so short they don't even count as training, revenge of the hambutt, and a fondness for frosted bite-size chocolate mini wheats.

At least my brain is getting toned.

Proof? It hurts.

Teenage Socialization Hits a Speed Bump

2010-02-23T11:25:00.000-08:00

"Wi-Fi Turns Rowdy Bus Into Rolling Study Hall" proclaimed this article from the NY Times on Feb. 11th.

Using the example of a school bus in Arizona, the Times went on to show how wi-fi enabled school buses are allowing kids to settle down and get their work done. Or play video games.

Does this make any body else a little sad?

I imagine teenagers (and younger kids) already engrossed themselves in some pseudo social activity like texting while riding the school bus. But isn't part of becoming an adult--an adult who can deal with all types of people--learning how to handle the fat bully in the back of the bus?

I realize to someone only 5 years younger, I must sound like a grandma reminiscing about the days when 16 year olds did not have cell phones and if they did, it was only to dial 911 when they wrecked the family Volvo.

But with all of this technology invading every aspect of our lives--including, apparently, the school bus--aren't we missing out on some part of the human experience? You know, the one when you talk to other people, face to face? Or tie the shoelaces together of the girl you have a crush on? Or get punched in the gut by a bully?

Having kids play video games is "a whole lot better than having them bugging each other,” said the bus driver in the article. But is it? Is it really? Isn't it kind of better for "stir-crazy teenagers" to be "teasing, texting, flirting, shouting, climbing (over seats) and sometimes punching (seats or seatmates)." It's part of social development.

I'd argue it's worth a few spit wads in the driver's hair now and again to give teenagers a half-hour of non-virtual social interaction.

That way, the driver and the teenagers will have something fun to put on their Facebook updates when the ride is over.

Info Management for Type-A Triathletes: A Free Stanford Education

2010-02-16T09:23:00.000-08:00

Between training, work, family and stuff, it's easy for a Type-A triathlete to go into a panic trying to manage everything.

A class assignment led me to create a netvibes page. It's like iGoogle, but fancier. You can put everything you spend hours trolling the internet for in one handy-dandy place.

Want to pretend you're in my Digital Journalism class with Howard Rheingold? Well, you can. For real. Here's our class syllabus. Do the assignment for class #6 and you, too, can have a nifty netvibes page in no time.

Ahhh. Now doesn't that feel better?

Here's a screenshot of mine:

For my reading pleasure, I have feeds of the following things:

NYT most-emailed list (did anyone find something fun to read?)
winter olympics news feed from google (who's kicking ass?)
Stanford's weather forecast (should I ride my trainer or outside today?)
Outside's blog (what crazy stuff did Colton Harris-Moore get himself into recently?)
Bicycling magazine features (should my next bike have electronic shifters?)
Slowtwitch (how fast do I have to get to be featured on Slowtwitch?)
Le Monde--a la une (because I like to think I'm French. And I need to practice la langue. La une is the front page feed)
Media Shift's blog (will there be any journalism jobs in June?)
all things paris from Twitter (see Le Monde)
Funny or Die blog (I like funny)
TMZ (I like funny)
my Twitter feed (journalists are e-stalkers. twitter is an essential stalking tool. now I and 2.4 million other people know what Lance had dinner with his girlfriend Anna Hansen last night)

France Issues Arrest Warrant for Floyd Landis--No More French Riviera Vacations

2010-02-15T18:36:00.001-08:00

If you're one of those people who takes comfort in knowing someone else has screwed up far worse than you ever will, look no further for this week's pick-me-up than Floyd Landis.

The French have issued an arrest warrant for the cyclist. They claim he hacked into the French Anti-Doping Agency's computer in 2006. That was the year Landis won the Tour de France, then had his victory taken away because he was charged with doping.

And now the French believe in order to prove his innocence, Landis hacked their computers.

But the warrant can only be served in France.

Landis hasn't twittered (@TheRealFloydL) since the 6th, and on January 27th he was in San Diego. Looks like we won't be seeing any tweet from TheRealFloydL saying, "Enjoying a glass of wine after a ride through Aix-en-Provence" any time soon.

So if you're feeling down today, men, look no further than Floyd Landis to make you happy; at least you didn't self-induce a second round of puberty only to find that you can't vacation in France ever again because of it.

How to Look Thinner in Your Race Photos

2010-02-14T15:50:00.000-08:00

Forget dieting, the glycemic index, and all the other painful stuff you do to try to look like Michael Lovato in your race photos.

On my way to a practice Treeathlon (Stanford's triathlon) yesterday, I picked up a fellow triathlete and aerospace engineer who let me in on a little secret:

The faster you run, the thinner you'll look in your race photos.

OK, so he didn't say it like that. But that's what I got out of our conversation about the principle of length contraction.

The faster an object goes, the shorter it will appear in the direction parallel to the direction it's traveling.

So say the race photographer is off to the side of the course. If you go really, really fast straight down the course, you'll look thinner to the photographer who's observing you from the side.

And by really, really fast, I mean close to the speed of light.

According to my genius triathlete passenger, if you ran at half the speed of light (150,000km/second), you would look 13.4% thinner from the side of the course.

So keep up those track workouts and don't worry about grabbing that extra doughnut in the break room. Because when you get even half-way close to running at the speed of light, you'll look fantastic in your photos!

Happy Valentine's Day!

The Winter Olympics: Get Your Game Face On (Or turn on your TV)

2010-02-12T11:18:00.001-08:00

The Winter Olympics start today in Vancouver!

To get you excited, here are some things to check out:

The New York Times has some fun videos of snowboard tricks you might see soon. Watch them here. Men's halfpipe events start on February 17 at 1:05pm PST.

For the full olympic schedule, click here.

NBC will be covering the olympics on TV and online. Check out their olympics site here.

National Geographic reports that this will be the warmest winter olympics ever. Vancouver has been trucking in snow to Cypress Mountain, home of the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events. And athletes have been experimenting with new, super wax to make their gear perform better in wet snow. Read all about it here. (Skip down to the heading Vancouver 2010 Snow: Good News, Bad News, unless you want to read about El Nino.)

Woo hoo!

The Mysterious Pain in the Butt and the Athletic Identity

2010-02-10T19:10:00.000-08:00

I broke my butt in November. At least I thought I had.

Uh oh! I thought. This feels exactly like the hambutt episode that occurred in late August 2008 that turned me into an ultracyclist in early 2009 because I couldn't run. But a doctor thought differently.

It's piriformis syndrome! he said. Get thee to a physical therapist. That I did. And the thumb in the bum therapist didn't help.

So I went to another physical therapist. It's your sciatic nerve! he said. We must improve your posture and core strength. (Those two things would've been good to work on anyway.) But it didn't improve after 5 weeks of physical therapy.

And so, today, I saw another doctor. It's your hambutt! he said. (Well, hamstring, if we're being professional here.) Get thee an MRI.

And that's where it stops. I'd rather have a new bike. And for the price of an MRI, I probably could.

So far, I haven't run for over two months. I haven't been on my bike in an effort to not irritate my maybe/maybe not pissed off sciatic nerve. (Sit up straight! Don't arch your back!) I even stopped flip turning in the pool so I wouldn't curl up in the fetal position and put tension on the nerve.

But now I am confused. Maybe I have a pissed off hambutt AND a pissed off sciatic nerve. Throw in athletic disillusionment derived from this lethal combination and I have developed an athlete triad never before defined.

This all got me thinking about the athletic identity.

I'm just an amateur athlete. Nobody pays me to do this. But training structures my day, and gives me a steady stream of goals. Racing lets me show off what I've done in training--and keeps me on schedule. Even if I'm just attempting to kick the butts of other 25-29 year old female weekend warriors.

What about athletes who are paid to show us what they've got? They have a lot more riding on their physical form. What happens to them when they're knocked out for a season or more because of an injury? Do they have an identity crisis? Do they get sad? Can they see a bigger picture?

I'm currently working on an article about Chris O'Riordan, a former Stanford baseball payer who was drafted by the Texas Rangers organization in 2002. He had a knee surgery that sat him out two entire seasons (2004-2005), and that played a factor in his leaving professional baseball. He seems at peace with it all now, about 4 years after leaving, but I wonder what 23-year old Chris was feeling after surgery and during those two seasons off.

...damn nervy hambutt...

Chew on This, Wrigley's

2010-02-08T20:29:00.000-08:00

Dear Wrigley's,

The paper-like material you now wrap individual pieces of Extra gum in is ineffective in humid places--like the entire coastal region of southern California.

It makes your gum appear and taste like it is pre-chewed.

That's gross.

Please bring back the foil wrappers.

And the Extra bubble gum formula that lasts more than 10 minutes.

Thank you.

Love,

Erin

P.S. Your mansion in Phoenix is rad.

Politically Active Triathletes: Tempe's Prop 400

2010-02-01T13:07:00.000-08:00

I got an email from Red Rock Co. a few days ago, and in the midst of the usual "Sign up for this race now!" reminders, something caught my eye: A request that Tempe, AZ residents vote yes on Tempe's Prop. 400.

Proposition 400 proposes to raise Tempe's hospitality tax, charged on hotel rooms only, from 3% to 5%.

So what does that have to do with triathlon? I remembered talking to Xterra last year about their moving Xterra nationals from Incline Village, NV to Ogden, UT. One of the main reasons for the move? A lack of the usual support from Nevada's financially-sucking tourism board.

But what does that mean? Does a tourism board pay race production companies to put a race on in their town? Between the SOMA Half, IMAZ, and the gazillion other races put on in and around Tempe Town Lake, Tempe is reaping financial rewards from being triathlete friendly.

(Tempe Town Lake)

In an email, Red Rock Co.'s Event Director, Mike Melley, helped me understand the delicate relationship between event producers and city tourism boards. Or, in this specific case, between Tempe-based Red Rock Co. and the Tempe Convention and Visitor's Bureau. (CVB)

Erin: Does the city's tourism board help produce sporting events?

Melley: The tourism board does not help produce events. The City/CVB has a vested interest in events that bring in tourism, patrons, and out of state visitors as this increases revenue, sales and hotel stays. Take an event like PF Changs Rock n Roll Marathon (AZ) they bring in 35,000 athletes and impact the revenue of the surrounding communities positively. As an event promoter this may enable them to leverage lower costs to shut down roads, pay police and other expenses necessary to produce an event of that magnitude.

Erin: How much of an event's budget depends on money received from the city's tourism board?

Melley: This is dependent on the city, their budget and the impact of the event. I can only speak to those events for which we are fortunate enough to get some support from the City/CVB. No event should ever DEPEND on the city to succeed. We don’t depend on it, but it certainly allows us to help improve the quality of the event for the athlete while ensuring we keep the course safe and fun.

Erin: How would the passage (or not) of Prop 400 directly affect Red Rock Co.?

Melley: Prop 400 stands the chance of eliminating CVB/City sponsorship of the event (Soma in particular) and would force us to re-evaluate our costs across the board and the event as a whole. Prop 400 is not just about events, actually it is likely a very small part of the prop that is an effort by the city to help increase revenue (to be in line with the other surrounding cities) in a time of a severe budget crisis.

So if you're living in Tempe, go vote March 9th to help keep events like SOMA healthy and rockin'. I have a special place in my heart for it; it was my 2nd half ever.

Sorry, SOMA, Big Kahuna will always be my first.

A Letter to My Sciatic Nerve

2010-01-31T15:03:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Nerve,

I know I pissed you off.

Too much, too soon! you said.

For a month at you I scoffed

Believing you were hambutt, instead.

But that was three months ago

And still you are irritated

I can't even run slow

Without being berated

Can we please work this out

before the season starts?

That gives you one more week to shout

Then we must stop falling apart.

I've iced, and ibuprofened

but you still protest all motion

Even sitting makes you mad

and you make me very sad

You've even called upon immune

so you two can work in tune

to keep me from training at all

but still you won't hear my call

For all of us to work together

despite Stanford's crappy weather

To run, to play, to get my training on

so I can kick ass at collegiate triathlon.

This is the only year we can compete

so I'm begging you to be happy

and drop this mad rage that you're on

so we can race the Treeathlon!

Thank you, and I look forward to your positive response.

Best,

Erin

Hilly Stanford Run Directions (10+ Miles)

2010-01-30T21:17:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time, when I could run freely without protest from my sciatic nerve, I used to do this run all of the time, throwing in multiple dish loops to make it take 2 hours. If you're ever around Stanford, you must at least do the dish loop part--it's a rite of passage. On a clear day, you can see from San Francisco, across the bay, and to the mountains south of San Jose. Pretty sweet stuff.

View Xtreme Dish Run in a larger map

P.S. If you've ever beaten an unruly and genuinely pissed-off sciatic nerve, please let me know how, without actually beating it. Or ripping it out with your bare hands. I'm told it's a required body part, unlike an appendix.

Ironman Arizona 2009-The Photos

2010-01-25T18:34:00.000-08:00

While I was running around shooting video, I shot a bunch of photos, too. Here are some of my favorites from IMAZ '09.

Beat the Rain with an Animal Bike Saddle Cover

2010-01-24T19:18:00.000-08:00

I was locking my bike up outside my apartment when I looked over at the bike next to mine and saw this:

I immediately came down with a case of bike-saddle-cover envy. Big time. I was entirely wrong to attach a plastic grocery bag to my pants before hopping on my rainy Raleigh.

And not only because grocery bags aren't stylish.

I spent an entire hour in the gym on Thursday night with a Vons bag stuck to my butt; I forgot to pull it off before jumping on the elliptical and lifting weights. I have clearly not learned proper rain-commuting etiquette.

For only about 10 euros, I could've avoided the gym gaffe by dressing my bike up with a funny plastic animal.

Vinçon, a design firm based in Barcelona, sells the cover above (also in black, see below), along with this dog cover on their website.

And for riders who think these shouldn't be used by anyone over the age of 10, check out this saddle cover at REI. Not nearly as cute, but it'll get the job done.

Now please, rain, go away!

Ironman Arizona 2009--Spousal Competition

2010-01-17T20:16:00.001-08:00

When Iron-couple Jim and Meredith Davidson take on IMAZ together, competition takes a back seat to love.

Or does it?

Social Networking Etiquette--Digital PDA

2010-01-17T11:44:00.001-08:00

Facebook updates are a fabulous waste of time.

But with the new technology comes new boundary issues that too many people overstep, athletes included.

For example: It is completely unnecessary and a majorly strange for someone who is engaged or married to somebody else to constantly write sweet nothings on their significant other's wall.

If your fiancé / husband has to look at his Facebook page to read you say, "I love you," something is amiss. It's a new era of digital PDA, and yes, it makes your friends want to gag or even vomit just as much as real, in-person PDA. Maybe even more.

Athletes are not immune to overstepping personal boundaries on the internet, either. Frequent daily updates of all of the "awesome" workouts you have accomplished are unnecessary. In fact, how can you sneak in a win over your buddies when you've been posting splits from every track workout and time trial you've been doing leading up to your A race?

If you're not concerned about bombarding your friends with your athleticism, at least consider it from this angle: it's self sabotage.

UNLESS you're a pro. Then please do post absolutely everything you've been doing, eating, etc...throughout the day. We'd all like to be as fast as you are.

In conclusion, it's easy to overstep social boundaries using Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking tools. Posting a love note on your significant other's wall or updating everyone on a rad workout is not an inherently bad thing to do--in moderation.

It's all about the frequency with which you post this stuff.

So before you get your panties in a twist, because you've done one or both of these things, do this little self-test to see if your friends are secretly plotting the demise of your friend/twitter feeds:

Look at your wall. Is almost every update from you, about a workout? If you answer yes, cool it. If not, give yourself a pat on the back an go for a ride.

Now look at your significant other's wall. Is almost every wall post from you? If yes, work on having more face/phone time. If not, give yourself a pat on the back for not needing your friends and family to validate your e-relationship.

Now look at your wall again. If you passed tests #1 and #2, but your wall is covered in posts from your significant other, it's time to have a talk. Yeah, one of those talks. Even in the digital era, if your sig. other has trouble verbally expressing him/herself, cards--real, physical cards--are a far more romantic way to go.

Capisce? Va bene.

P.S. Want to read about a major digital boundary violation committed by thousands of people getting divorced? Check out this Salon.com article.

Competitor Group, Owner of Triathlete Magazine, Gets a Personnel Overhaul

2010-01-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

As Slowtwitch.com reported, Competitor Group Inc., owners of Triathlete, Inside Triathlon, VeloNews,and Competitor magazines, got a new head honcho.

Competitor Group nabbed Andrew Hersam, former publisher for Runner's World Media Group, as Competitor Group's new Executive VP of Media, overseeing the four magazines.

Which is cool.

But his coming seemed to be perfectly timed with the goings of several long-time Triathlete Magazine staffers, including publisher, John Duke, editor Jay Prasuhn, who will be starting his own triathlon magazine called TRI, photographer John Segesta, and VP of Sales and Marketing Sean Watkins.

Slowtwitch hinted at the oddity of this phemenon at the end of this article, but no one seems to be talking about it, as Slowtwitch hasn't posted any news since the 11th.

So, in the interest of juicy tri-related gossip, what happened!?

It can't be a BO problem. Competitor is a company made up of sweaty endurance athletes. BO cannot bother such people.

UPDATE (1/15/10): Slowtwitch's Timothy Carlson spoke with Duke. In this interview, Duke explains how he nurtured Triathlete Mag into the success that it is today. It also explains that Duke's leadership style clashed with the new corporate configuration of Triathlete et al. as Competitor Group, Inc.

I only met Duke briefly a year ago, but I'd agree with Carlson's assessment of Duke's personality: Duke comes on strong and intimidating, but it's clear from talking with him for a few minutes (or anyone who knows him) that he's a sweetie on the inside.

Using Denture Cleaner to Rid Cycling Bottles of Nasty Mold

2010-01-13T11:32:00.000-08:00

I admit it. I once had a water bottle that looked like it could've spawned mutant sea-life inside, but I couldn't see the creatures through all of the mold.

That's what happens if you leave Gatorade or (especially) CarboPro in your bottle post-ride. But if your ride was 18 hours long (or, you know, spinning at the gym), sometimes you just don't feel like cleaning when you get home. Cue the spawning of mutant bottlefish.

However, there is a cure for your disgusting piece of plastic other than being wasteful, throwing it out, and buying a new one. Or waiting for the next race that hands out water bottles in their goody bag.

The answer to all of your problems is in this little pill:

If you ever had retainers, you probably encountered the miracle that is denture cleaner. Drop one pill in, let it fizz. In the case of Efferdent, it'll turn clear when its done cleaning. (At least its supposed to...in my experiment, the water still looked blue...maybe the bottle was just that bad.)

(Turns blue. Nasty stuff rises to top.)

Then dump the stuff out and rinse. All the algae and grime and fuzz and stuff in your bottle will scrub off easily now, if

it didn't already jump ship at the sight of the Efferdent tablet.

Voilà. Like-new bottle.

So the next time your spouse or training partner gets on your case for your inability to rinse your bottles after every ride, whip out your denture cleaner and tell him/her you've got it covered.

Then laugh when they start staring curiously at your teeth.

Doctor who Assaulted Cyclists with his Car gets 5 Years in Prison

2010-01-08T16:36:00.000-08:00

Finally, some justice in the highly publicize d case of Christopher Thompson, a former ER doctor who slammed on his brakes in front of two cyclists in July, 2008.

He gets 5 years in prison.

There are many cyclists who think he should be put on a bike, shoved down a hill, then have a car screech to a halt in front of him. Or have his nose and teeth shattered, like Ron Peterson did. (Don't look at that link if you're sensitive, or just ate.)

But as the bumper sticker says, "A nose for a nose makes the whole world stuffy."

Wait, that's not it...

The verdict is a semi-win for bike advocates in Los Angeles. According to the LA Times Blog, LA Now, "Judge Scott T. Millington called the case a 'wake-up call' to motorists and cyclists and urged local government to provide riders with more bike lanes."

Will local government listen?

Triathlon Terms / Jargon For the Uninitiated

2010-01-08T15:22:00.000-08:00

If you are new to the sport, or want to make it through this blog with your head on straight, there are some terms you need to know. And you should want to know them, because letting them slip at random in front of your non-tri-knowledgable buddies will make you seem infinitely cool.

(Note: There are a gazillion tri-terms to choose from. These are the fun ones.)

Let's start off easy. There are a lot of terms that describe the extent to which a triathlete feels like crud.

A brick (n.) is a bike-then-run workout. It is named thusly because that's what your legs feel like when you run after you bike. Triathletes love bricks.

ex: You: I just went swimming easy this morning 'cuz I have a huge brick planned tomorrow.

Your friend: Woah.

You hit the wall (v.t./n.) when you have nothing left. You gave it everything and you can't make yourself go any harder. Like running into a wall. There's nowhere left

to go. And it hurts.

ex: You: Man, I hit the wall at the end and Carlos kicked it in to the finish ahead of me.

Your friend: Carlos beat you? You wuss.

Maybe you hit the wall because you were about to bonk. You bonk (v.i.) when you screw up your nutrition and your body is eating itself to try to keep you going. Or it will start eating you if you don't eat something, like pure sugar. Avoid the bonk (n.).

ex: You: Man, I just totally bonked and limped home.

Your friend: I know, you were sucking my wheel all the way back and never took a pull. You jerk.

Time for some cycling terminology:

Wheel sucking (n/v) the art of riding with only centimeters between you and the person in front of you.

To take a pull (v.) to ride at the front of the peloton so the people behind you can draft off of you.

To draft (v.) to follow closely behind another cyclist(s) so they block the wind and do all of the work for you. The faster you go, the more you energy you save by making someone else pull you. That's why drafting is illegal in most amateur triathlons. Every triathlete for his/herself!

Peloton (n.) a large group of cyclists.

Tri-ton (n.) a large group of cyclists with aero bars.

Aero bars (n.) those funny things that stick out of some people's bikes where normal handlebars used to be so the rider can (comfortably) crouch down in a more aerodynamic position, thereby looking mean and fierce and letting the rider go all aggro if s/he wants.

Aggro (adv/adj) aggressive. You can go aggro. Or you can be aggro. Or some jerk in your

peloton can go all aggro on you and push you till you puke. In which case, if you can keep up for a few seconds an get alongside him, you can snot on him.

To snot (v.) the art of snot rocketing while on the bike. Cycling makes everyone have a runny nose. It's physics. Place your hand on nostril opposite the snot-loaded one, and blow.

ex: You: Dang it! I just snot on myself!

Your friend: Gross! You gotta work on that.

Your friend then proceeds to snot on you, and in trying to avoid the gelatinous projectile, you swerve and hit something, tacoing your wheel.

To taco a wheel (v/adj.) to whack something in such a manner that you bend your wheel in the shape of a taco. Your wheel is now tacoed.

Neapolitan tan (n.) what happens when you wear 2-3 different length bike shorts on separate rides and wind up with a progressive tan up your thigh. Like the shade gradation of Neapolitan ice cream.

T1 (n.) transition #1. Where you go to switch from swim to bike.

T2 (n.) transition #2. Where you go to switch from bike to run.

T3 (n.) transition #3. Where you go to switch from run to massage or food. This term is not as well-knwn as T1 and T2, but is equally as important.

Transition area (n.) where your stuff hangs out and waits for you while you're doing other things. Sometimes, they're in two places. At an Ironman, your stuff is in bags and thousands of volunteers grab it for you, help you change, put sunscreen on you and hand you your bike. It's like being a tri-celibrity.

Ironman (n.) a triathlon of this exact distance: 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run. AKA an event that you do so you can brag for the rest of your life, and develop an entire wardrobe based on a corporate symbol: the M-Dot. Maybe even get some tattoos. (See below.)

70.3 or Half Ironman (n.) exactly half the distance of an Ironman (140.6). The World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) owns the Ironman and 70.3 names, so if you see a race that's called an Iron-distance triathlon, or a half-iron distance triathlon, it's 'cuz they'd get sued to call it an Ironman. Only official Ironman-distance races can qualify a triathlete for Kona.

Kona. (You know, the city in Hawaii?) The place every triathlete dreams of going. The holy grail of Ironman racing. It's where the Ironman started, and where you can't race unless you qualify by finishing another Ironman at the very tipity top of your age group. (Or you get a media slot, or win in a lottery.)

Olympic distance triathlon: the distance that was used in this year's olympics. This is the exact distance for any triathlon labeled "olympic distance": 1500 meter swim, 40K bike, 10K run.

Sprint triathlon: any combo of swim-bike-run at a shorter distance than an olympic distance tri.

Xterra: an off-road triathlon. They can be all different distances, but most championship races have a 1500 meter swim, about a 20 mile bike, and a 10K run. Just like the Ironman World Championship are in Kona, the Xterra World Championship is in Maui. Unlike Ironman, if you commit a long time in advance to the Maui race, you can race it without having to be the best in the world. ALthough the best in the world will be there, and they will crush you.

USAT: USA Triathlon. The governing body of triathlon racing in the United States.

So now the next time someone says to you: "Dude, I did a brick yesterday morning but I still did the 70.3 today and I went all aggro and hit the wall." You can nod your head in understanding. And not in an eyebrow-raising way as if to say, "Riiiiight. Sure you did."

I think that's enough for now. Let me know if I missed anything! More terms to come: dolphining, chain suck, DNF, mashing, and lube.

Collegiate Triathlon Begins

2010-01-05T17:44:00.000-08:00

This quarter marks the beginning of the collegiate triathlon season. I will be covering sports and outdoor adventures from the collegiate angle.

Get ready for some (mostly) non-varsity action, where athletes don't get scholarships to train like pros, but they do it anyway. Sort of.

Just like age-groupers.

Coming up: Injuries that survived the off-season despite great effort to heal, and what to do about them. The self-pity party can only last so long. Look! It's over!

Becoming a Trekkie

2010-01-05T10:16:00.000-08:00

A few days after Christmas, I watched the new Star Trek movie with coachubby and our parents. Inspired by J.J. Abrams' camera shaking and directing techniques, we created our own short films.

Et voici, les films:

Heavenly Earthquake

Starring: Me & Coachubby's Mom & Dad

Lurch

Starring: Me, Little Bro, Mom, Dad, Coachubby's Dad

The Original Pain in the Ass

2010-01-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

"Turns out this lady was freaky-deaky and hurt her back on a sex swing," says the 5'6", 32-year old, short brown-haired dude who pulled my pants down and was jabbing his thumbs into my butt.

Let's back this up a bit.

I went to physical therapy every day before Christmas with one goal in mind: to fix the pain in my ass.

My left butt started hurting November 6th. By mid-December it still hurt, and stopped me from running the California International Marathon. I was not pleased. The pain in my ass was becoming a true pain in the ass. Something had to be done.

And so for four days straight, I walked over to PT to have my pants pulled down by a brown-haired, lawyer-wannabe-turned physical therapist/bar mitzvah DJ, then have my left bum manipulated, stretched, stimulated with tingly pads, and iced.

Merry Christmas to my butt.

In order to decrease the awkwardness of the situation that broken butt syndrome (aka piriformis syndrome) creates, I tried to chat up Dr. DJ. Maybe it would keep his eyes off of the, um, prize.

"What's the most common injury that you see here?" I asked.
"Oh, usually a lot of lower back pain."
"Do you get a lot of older people with that problem?" It seemed like a logical question. One that would conjure up images of his grandma and keep his eyes off of my left butt cheek.
"Well, this one woman came in when I was an intern."
"Uh huh." Good. Grandma stories. It's working.
"And she told me she was having intense back pain."
"Uh huh." Maybe she hurt it picking up the dog or something.
"So I had to ask her how she did it to get an idea of what I'd do to treat it."

"That makes sense."

"Then she blushed and got all embarrassed."

"Oh God!" I scream.

"You don't even know what happens next!"

"No! Freaking-A! That hurts!" He found the evil spot.

"Oh. Well, it's supposed to hurt."

"OK, continue."

"She tells me she did it having sex."

Holy Lord this is awkward.

"So I go to tell my attending, since I have to ask permission before doing anything since I'm just an intern. He says I have to get more detail so we know how to treat her."

He squeezes out more lotion and jabs his thumbs into my butt. Coachubby is gonna love this story.

"Uh huh."

"So I have her write it down on the treatment form. Turns out this lady was freaky-deaky and hurt her back on a sex swing."

"No way!" I start fiddling with my wedding ring.

"So after she left, we took her name off of the form, and framed it and put it up on the wall."

"Ha. That's...funny," I say.

Dr. DJ pulls my my pants back up over my left butt and begins to stretch my hamstring. That innocent stretch never seemed so awkward. It was a relief when he had his young, blond sidekick take me to the "stim machine", where he wiped my bum down with alcohol and stuck pads onto it.

Maybe it was all done in that order to make "bum stimulation" not seem as embarassing.

Either way, lesson learned: Do not injure your bum. Fixing it is awkward. And a pain in the ass.

A Crashy Christmas Century

2009-12-27T11:43:00.000-08:00

What better day than Christmas to ride 100 miles on Pacific Coast Highway? Everyone would be at home, leaving the often creepy road all to me and coachubby and our friend Aaron. I somehow talked them into riding with me.

Little did we know that this Christmas, the battle wouldn't be against cars, but against each other.

Coachubby and I rolled out from our tiny apartment (whose 1920s wiring got so upset the day before when coachubby put oatmeal in the microwave while I blow-dried my hair that it cut the power altogether) at 6:20am to meet up with Aaron at 6:30 by the Hermosa Beach pier.

The only other people awake were the under-10 crowd, who couldn't wait to rip open wrapping paper, and cops. Lots of cops.

To avoid going straight down Pier Avenue as usual, where the cops are most likely to be hiding, I suggested we take 8th street. We didn't want to ride with lights since the sun would be up in 20 minutes anyway, and twilight had already begun.

Coachubby and I turned left onto 8th street. Then, at the next stop sign, with no warning, coachubby turned straight into me and went down. We had been riding for all of 30 seconds.

The next 5 hours of the ride were a battle royale between me and my brain. I didn't sleep the night before because I was congested, but there was no way I was missing my own Christmas Century. I hadn't ridden 100 miles since RAO (Race Across Oregon--in early July) and I would never see such beautiful riding conditions for months to come--50s and perfectly sunny. Add that to the likeliness that very few people would be driving down PCH and I had to make it to Big Rock. (A big rock on PCH just past Point Mugu, exactly 50 miles from Hermosa Beach. See below.)

But my body was pissed. A return to Beefcake spinning on the 24th at Hermosa's 24 Hour Fitness left my legs feeling like jelly, and my sinuses infected. Gyms are gross like that.

It was all I could do to hold on to Aaron's or coachubby's wheel. Yes, I was that guy--I couldn't take a pull if I wanted to, unless the dudes felt like riding 12 mph. But Aaron had a family to get to in Orange County, and my parents were driving to Hermosa from Phoenix and would be at my place in the afternoon. Slow was not an option.

I was elated when we made it back to the strand in Santa Monica. This is where you know you've made it. You're off PCH, you haven't been squished, and most of the ride home is on a designated bike path where the only obstacles are rollerbladers and oblivious powerwalkers--not to be discounted, but still not as scary as 4,000 lbs of rolling metal.

Then it happened.

Coachubby and Aaron stopped at a stop sign in Venice Beach while I was daydreaming in my stuffy head.

I ran smack into coachubby.

It was my first crash ever. (If you don't count when I fell over going uphill.) And a lame one at that. And of course, I had an audience--a young couple on the corner stared in confusion. And yes, I was wearing a Stanford jersey. Way to represent.

I popped my right foot out of the pedal and stepped it down before rolling onto my right side. The Silver Bullet and I were unscathed. The F-Bomb (Coachubby's tri bike) was not. I bent his rear wheel, and his fancy-schmancy aero-positioned brakes wouldn't open up enough so he could ride home without major rubbage. But he still pulled me back to Hermosa. What a perfect husband!

We made it back in 5 hours and 45 minutes. Not too shabby. Aaron made it back without getting run into by coachubby or me. And I made it back just in time to eat all of the appetizers I had set out for my parents' arrival. D'oh!

But there were consequences to be paid for riding sick--even it it was Christmas. Even if it was the most beautiful day ever. Even if I had a fabulous little squad to ride with.

Come time for Christmas dinner, I felt like my brain was trying to pop my eyes out of my head. And so, I write this now from the slopes of Heavenly, while the rest of my family--and coachubby's--tears it up.

Of course, I'll be out there tomorrow. No matter what.

Coming up: The Origins of the Phrase "Pain in the Butt"

Merry Christmas! Holiday Speedo Run

2009-12-21T20:21:00.000-08:00

Twas the Saturday before Christmas, when all through the mall
Hundreds of people were shopping, and taking phone calls
Gift receipts were printed with care
And that's when people started to stare.

'Cuz out on the Promenade there rose such a clatter
People sprung from J. Crew to see what was the matter

The children hid all snug behind moms
While Speedo-clad runners ran along

30 triathletes so lively and quick
Ran singing carols with bodies so sick
People whistled and shouted and whipped out their iPhones
To send pictures to friends and family at home

The triathletes jumped and they sang with glee
Shaking their booties and posing merrily
Their abs- how they twinkled! Their cheeks-how Merry!
(Maybe because they drank all that Sherry.)

Then away they all flew down Santa Monica Boulevard
To Ye Ol' King's Head Bar where this all start (ed)
But as they ran past, shoppers heard them all shout,
"Merry Christmas to all, now let's pour some more Stout!"

Merry Christmas!

The Peril of Having Bangs

2009-12-07T20:46:00.000-08:00

Total Injustice: Tiger Woods and Cops who Kill Christmas

2009-12-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

Only in America could a man drive an SUV into a tree while being attacked by a golf-club wielding wife and get fined a measly $14 more than a cyclist who rolled through a stop sign alongside a car on a country road.

Tiger Woods was fined $164 for careless driving. Coachubby and I were charged $150--each--for rolling the stop sign at a T intersection (going from the left of the T top to the right) along with a car. Apparently we cyclists were more of a threat to the public than Tiger Woods was behind the wheel of a massive SUV. (In his case, he got 4 points vs. his driver's license, we got none.)

There are several conclusions we can draw from this:

1. I need to be a celebrity to keep my momentum without paying for it.

2. Cops in Orlando are nicer than cops in Woodside.

3. My Silver Bullet frankenbike is more intimidating than an Escalade.

4. Woodside cops discriminate against pink spandex.

5. Santa decided coachubby and I deserve coal for Xmas and has appeared in the uniform of a Woodside cop to tell us so because his suit was getting dry cleaned.

Happy Holidays!

And Now for Something Completely Different- Day Laborers

2009-12-04T06:57:00.000-08:00

I've been in school for a few months now, learning how to become a kick-ass journalist. In my (and my 15 classmates) quest to do so, I had to cover a "beat," old school.

What is a beat (n.) when it's not violence (v.) or a vegetable (beet)?

When reporters are assigned a beat, they cover a certain issue or organization over time. That way, they get to know a lot about it and write more in-depth about that thing. (They also get stuck never writing anything too negative about anything on the beat so they don't burn their sources. The beat-o-sphere is small.) Triathlon could be a beat, but not for school. (Darn.)

So, I was on the immigration beat in Mountain View this quarter. I spent a lot of time at the Day Worker Center getting to know people as best I could with a mashup of Fritalian (I learned French and Italian, but not Spanish. Not good for covering CA's immigration.) and English.

On Monday, I spent time with Isaias, one of a million immigrants trying to find work in CA.

Here is his story:

And for extra credit, here's a story on the Day Worker Center's Director, Maria Marroquin.

I haven't just been riding my bike in the Santa Cruz mountains, although I can see how a girl could make a quarter of doing only that.

The Anatomy of a Triathlete's Dorm Room

2009-12-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

A short video because my computer can do that now.

And yes, Blogger chose an embarrassing thumbnail.

Stanford Cycling Makes the Big Time

2009-11-28T19:59:00.000-08:00

No, not the team. The random cyclists on campus.

The NY Times has decided that perhaps your everyday campus cyclist was meant to walk. At least that's what I got out of it.

Check it out here.

As someone with 4 bikes and ambitions of owning an entire 3-car garage-sized fleet of bicycles, I wholeheartedly disagree. Seeing people who are not "cyclists" and who will never wear spandex in any color let alone black riding bikes makes me happy. Even if they wobble and I have to do ninja tricks to get to class without being taken out by an iPhone-wielding, cruiser-riding, 18-year old hipster.

At least his tight pants won't get caught in the chain.

The Cure for Iron(man) Deficiency: Covering Ironman

2009-11-28T18:07:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, I put my multimedia skills to the test.

Armed with my dad's Canon EOS Digital Rebel, my Canon ZR10 (yes it's old...and awesome), my dad's tripod, and one spare Lithium Ion battery (yes, all of my equipment magically took the same exact type of battery), I entered Tempe Beach Park around 6am and got crackin' on what would become the greatest of all Ironman tales.

I flashed my media wristband (see below), and entered transition, voyeuristically filming people bodygliding it up, yanking on wetsuits, and doing other strange things that aspiring Ironmen do just before they are herded in to dark, cold water at 6:45am on a Sunday.

I had one goal in mind: to tell a story about normal people doing Ironman. If that sounds ridiculously boring, let me explain. Typical Ironman media involves pro coverage, and coverage of the most inspiring story of overcoming all odds to complete an Ironman. Not to disregard the importance of these stories, because they must be told and deserve to be told, but there are over 2,000 other people competing who aren't pro and have never lost a limb. Or had a sex change and done Ironman both as Sam and as Samantha. (Although if that were to occur, and I don't think it has, I would gladly tell that story.)

Perhaps the predictable coverage has something to do with the fact that although our sport is a huge part of our (triathletes) lives, it isn't a huge part of the general population's life. Therefore, there aren't enough media people to tell the bazillion rad stories that come packaged with an event of this magnitude. So they stick to the pros and the stories of inspiration that always make me cry.

Enter the unpaid grad student.

I don't know if my story of fat boy becomes triathlete, meets girl, trains with girl, marries girl, then does IMAZ with girl will make anyone cry. But who said the amount of tears shed is directly proportional to the informational or entertainment value of a story?

So while the other media people were scrambling to catch the pros coming out of the water, I flashed my wristband and strolled on into the wetsuit stripping area to film my couple getting stripped. Unfortunately, I missed the middle-aged guy who sat down with a poo-eating grin on his face then had his wetsuit torn off to reveal, to the horror of his strippers and glee of the spectators, his shiny tiny thong.

Eventually, my assistant, coachubby, and I worked out a system where he would stand on the lookout for my couple, call me when they were approaching, and then I'd turn on my video camera and chase them around in transition.

Being in the action did something to me. It reignited the Ironman flame. I strayed with ultracycling this year after becoming a little triathletically disillusioned (sports psychology term), but the excitement of the racers, the enthusiasm of the volunteers, and the fun of being at home did something to my brain. I want to go back. And I want to kick ass.

Coachubby and I signed up for 2010 the next day.

See you out there!

And my Ironlove story will come just in time for xmas. I'm taking my computer's death while working on that project as a sign that I should be studying for finals right now instead.

Plus my video camera hooked up to my computer via firewire. My new computer does not have a firewire port. Thank you, Mac. Suggestions on how to resolve this issue are greatly appreciated.

Rotten Apple

2009-11-25T14:48:00.000-08:00

Of all the things that can't handle Ironman, I did not think my computer would be one of them.

I spent 3 days reporting from IMAZ, working on a kick ass multimedia project that I would then use to wow the editors of Outside Magazine who would then pick me as their kick ass online intern, only to have my computer decide it was too much to handle and blow up.

When I woke up this morning, all it would give me was the spool of death. No Final Cut awesomeness. No dragging in of rad photos from Ironman. No copying of rad video clips. Just a rainbow-colored spool of death. It should be a spinning skull and crossbones, not a rainbow. That's just rubbing it in, Mac people.

The Mac geniuses erased my entire hard drive. It was the only way, they said.

The cold I got from staying up for several days straight to report IMAZ came in handy--when my eyes welled up with tears, I had an excuse other than being really, really attached to the virtual world of me that I'd built up on my hard drive over the past 4.5 years.

So now my computer works, but it's like it has Alzheimer's. It looks the same, but it's completely lost its personality. It's like looking at a cold, hard piece of silver metal instead of a reflection of the last 4 years of my life.

It looks like it did in 2005.

Photos- gone. Music-gone. Every file from this quarter of school- gone. Most of the programs I use- gone. Some of it is backed up, but not all.

I have finals in a week.

If I didn't have to complete this quarter with this computer, I would bunny hop on it with all 4 of my bikes until it became a pile of computer mush that I would then feed to a metal grinder. Then I would scatter its computer ashes somewhere computers hate to be. Like in water. Deep, cold water.

But for now, my rotten Apple is letting me write this blog. So for that, I must be thankful.

It is Thanksgiving, after all.

I am also thankful that all of the photos and video from IMAZ still live on a backup hard drive and tapes, respectively.

It's strange to become so attached to a machine. I saw my computer as something with a unique personality--as a reflection of me. I suppose this is a weird thing only the generations that grew up with computers experience.

So thank you, rotten Apple, for dying today so I'd realize that I am not the sum of my virtual components.

But I'd still like them back. Just 'cuz.

Xterra Budget Bonks--Regional Champs Must Pay for Prizes

2009-11-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

In all the news about triathlon's growth--even during the recession!--it's hard to believe that maybe, just maybe, some of the race production companies, even the big ones, are actually hurting.

Earlier this year, Xterra announced it was moving the USA Championship, which was held in Incline Village, NV the past 8 years, to Ogden, UT. It was a slap in the face to SoCal Xterra lovers who also lost every race within a 5 hour radius of Los Angeles, including Xterra Temecula, a Worlds and Nationals qualifier.

The reason for the move: The Nevada Commission on Tourism cut their budget, and couldn't help out with Xterra. They previously helped fund the event, the marketing, and the 1-hour tv show of the event.

Recently, Regional Champions have become aware of Xterra's financial woes. If you were a regional champ this year, you might have gotten an email that looks like this:

Aloha Regional Champ! Congratulations on spending all of your money on racing the Xterra circuit this year, pouring your all into training, and kicking ass. (I'm paraphrasing...or something like that...) You've joined an exclusive club, and earned the right to wear an Xterra Regional Champ jersey. You want it? 60 bucks and its yours.

OK, so it wasn't written exactly like that, but that's the gist of it. Xterra couldn't secure sponsorship for the prize this year.

Before getting ticked at Xterra for doing this, we must remember that many other races do the same thing. You must earn the jersey, of course, but if you want it, you must pay. A lot of ultracycling events are like this (like Planet Ultra's Triple Crown jersey).

Xterra, however, raised the bar on itself, providing world-class events all over the place over the past several years, with excellent (free!) prizes. So we expect more from them.

What do you think. Should Xterra have found a way to give Region Champs their jersey's free of charge, or is charging totally OK?

All Systems Pissed

2009-11-12T15:35:00.000-08:00

Perhaps it was my decision to do an Ironman-style workout weekend last Saturday and Sunday--without any buildup--that led to my demise.

3 people joined me on a grand cycling loop from Stanford to the ocean and back last Saturday, totaling 70ish miles. I sent out an email to the Stanford Tri Team, and got lucky--the people who came were all excellent cyclists who proceeded to kick my bum.

In my mind, of course, I had excuses for my sluggishness: I just ran my first track workout of the last half a year on Friday, after doing a 1000 meter time trial in the pool, my first swim in a month.

Sufficiently fried Saturday night, I did not sleep. I'm not sure why. You'd think a few days like that would knock a girl out. I then woke up Sunday morning to go with two highly esteemed tri-team members to Castro Valley to run a 17-mile trail run.

Yes, I was prepared to do that--I'm training for the California International Marathon on Dec. 6. No, I wasn't prepared to do that within several hours of leg bashing in the pool, on the track, and all over the South Bay.

I'm in debt to the creators of Red Bull.

Here's the kicker: My legs are still pissed. In normal Ironman-training mode, this would not happen. I would recover. But in sleep-must-go-because-I'm-doing-super-cool-stuff-for-school-that-is-more-important-than-anything-else-but-I-will-not-cut-out-training-anyway mode, my body has imposed a 10-minute mile minimum on my legs.

This speed will not get me to Boston.

I now, however, have a much greater respect for the corporate bigwigs who do Ironman--fast. They are far more important and busy than I ever was while I was training for an Ironman, yet somehow manage to get their training in, then run a Boston-worthy marathon time to cap of their IM.

Amazing.

The Javelina Jundred

2009-11-05T20:19:00.000-08:00

What better way to celebrate Jalloween than by running 100 miles...straight.
In circles.
In the desert.

Check it:

P.S. It's supposed to be black to start. It's art.

Reporting, Plastic Fish, and Neglecting Workouts

2009-10-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

I had a midterm today. I'm 26. Something about that is wrong.
I also have roommates. I'm married. My husband is not one of them. Something about that is so wrong.
I didn't exercise for 3 days this week. I'm a triathlete. Something about that is so so wrong.

Welcome to the suck. The Stanford suck, that is.
(I watched Jarhead for the first time on FX last weekend, when coachubby and I escaped to a Best Western so he wouldn't have to sleep on the floor of my tiny campus housing room, or try to fit in my single bed, or wait in line while one of my roommates took a 30 minute shower. It happens every day. Sometimes twice a day. Disgusting.)

The reason I've been absent: I've been reporting!
Reporting is fun.
Without the excuse that I'm reporting, I would not have met Sue, an 81-year old Japanese American who lives in Mountain View.

I knocked on her door to get her reaction to having the Day Worker Center of MV move in across the street. She told me it might cause parking problems, then invited me to see her garden. Her ginormous, hidden garden. She made me eat her persimmons. I've never had a persimmon before. They were delicious. Then she made me eat a chocolate persimmon. I could not believe that a naturally occuring chocolate fruit exists. That made me very happy.

Then she told me that I was going to laugh at her because of how she's been keeping the animals from eating the food in her garden. She led me over to where some snow peas were growing and when we walked by, familiarly annoying music started to play.

Rock the boat, don't rock the boat, baby!

Billy the Big Mouthed Bass guards Sue's vegetables. He's set off by motion. He'd scare the crap out of any person creeping around in Sue's yard, too. Billy is a creepy fish.

Then she brought me inside to show me the pumpkin she'd been decorating. It had Chiquita Banana sticker eyes, a hat, and drawn on red lips. "Do you think it needs earrings?" she asked, before taking my armload of persimmons and peppers, putting them in a plastic bag for me and sending me on my way.

It had nothing to do with my story.

But I'm happy to have met Sue. And to have been introduced to persimmons.

Now to figure out how to squeeze in a 4 hour ride in addition to sleeping...

Collegiate Cycling Guilt

2009-09-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

One hour ago, I was presented with boxes full of Stanford cycling gear to rummage through.

I was in spandexified heaven.

Now I'm mired in guilt. Money was not required to partake in the spandex binge--immediately. When I am slammed with the request to pay for the fun things I took with the school's name splashed all over it, as well as with cycling team dues, the party's over. (And then add, in a few weeks, triathlon spandex temptations, and triathlon team dues...oy ve.)

And thus I am faced with a paradox: I miss making money, but I wouldn't be in spandex-induced guilt if I weren't here, not making money.

But no self-respecting triathlete would miss the chance to fly her respective school's colors whenever mounting her noble, two-wheeled steeds, would she? WOULD SHE?

I didn't think so.

Comments that justify outrageous purchases for which I don't have the funds are warmly welcomed.

Being the White, Blonde Minority

2009-09-21T19:10:00.001-07:00

I moved onto Stanford University's campus two weeks before classes started (today), and over a week before the undergrads overran the place.

In the spirit of "back to school", I went to "speed friending", an activity set up by grad student activity coordinators. Hundreds of new grad students met in a room filled with chairs in rows facing each other. Every three minutes, a whistle was blown, the person in front of me moved over, and was replaced with the person to his left.

I met about 10 people before the session came to a close, then we all met in a less formal social environment in the quad outside, where alcohol was being served to lessen the pain of smiling for hours on end, and repeating "core facts" about ourselves over and over again: Where do you live on campus? What are you studying? How long is your program?

I made two very important social observations early on: I was in probably a 3% white minority, a 1% female minority, and I was the only blonde.

What conclusions can I draw from these observations? Almost everyone I met was an engineer. That was to be expected as it's the largest graduate division on campus. But only one of them was a female, only a handful were white, and none of them were blonde.

The only other white females I met, actually (save for one), were in my communications program.

Does this mean that white people suck at engineering? Or that they all simply weren't brilliant enough to get into a top engineering grad school? Or does it simply mean that of all of the new engineers, a group of people stereotyped as socially awkward, the Indian and Asians and dudes are the most social? Is it true that bleach kills brain cells, and therefore a statistically insignificant number of blondes have been admitted to any Stanford graduate program this year?

It was an interesting phenomenon to be the minority for once. I didn't mind, but I did feel like I stuck out, particularly having just moved from Southern California, where 99% of the beachfront population is blond and white. (All percentages in this observational post have been entirely made up by the author.)

Having just read Schrag's Paradise Lost, about how California's social infrastructure had gotten so immensely clusterf***ed by the time he published the book in 1998, I was accutely aware that at some point, whites are going to be the minority, not just in California, but in the entire United States. I didn't think the change would manifest itself while I was still in my twenties. Is Stanford a forward-thinking microcosm of what California is to become?

By the time the undergrads arrived on campus, my status as an endangered species as a white blonde chick were annhilated. And what does that imply? That the majority of smart kids worthy of full-scholarship PhD study are not white, but the majority of paying students at this private university are?

Oh, what a social experiment University is!

How to Make Athletes Dislike Your Race Before Even Participating: The Santa Cruz Triathlon

2009-09-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

I am a fan of race-morning packet pick-up. In fact, I believe it should be an immutable truth of racing for all races that don't involve ridiculous planning logistics (like an Ironman). No Olympic distance race should be without this option.

What if your car breaks down? What if you get there late the night before, because you're coming from some other family/work obligation? What if you simply can't afford to spend the night in your race's location, but are willing to get up at the butt crack of dawn to enthusiastically participate?

Santa Cruz Triathlon, I hope you're listening. This race ironically opened itself up as a collegiate race, offering a student discount, hoping to draw competition, while at the same time making packet pick-up available only until 3pm the day BEFORE the race. I say ironically, because a student discount will not cover the price of a hotel in Santa Cruz, where the cheapest, crappiest motels start at $130/night in September. To cover that, you'd have to offer entirely free entries.

That is how to make athletes dislike your organization before they have even participated in your race.

It is clear that you've made a promise to bring revenue into the city of Santa Cruz, as giving back to the community is your non-profit race's primary goal, but by making packet pick-up available only until 3pm the day before the race, and making it mandatory, you are grossly alienating the one faction of athletes you were so enthusiastically courting: college students. And, for that matter, you're ticking off anyone else who loves triathlon, and lives close enough to make the trek to participate in your race--but not twice in two days. The cost in gas alone to make the double trek is ridiculous.

We will still spend money in Santa Cruz. We will eat at Saturn Café. And we will be glad to pay the entry fee, knowing that it will help the local community. And we might have even gladly shelled out the cash to spend the night, but being forced to do so only embitters what would have been an otherwise enjoyable decision. Let us decide if we'd like to stay or not.

So, Santa Cruz Triathlon, your race looks fabulous. It is sure to be a ton of fun, and to do a lot of good for Santa Cruz, as was originally intended. But do not force your athletes into difficult financial decisions beyond deciding whether or not to pay your entry fee. The only difficult thing you should be forcing us to do is jump into the freezing ocean at 8am on Sunday.

Xterra Lake Tahoe- The Report

2009-09-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

I had one goal going into Big Blue Adventure's Xterra Lake Tahoe: to beat my friend Aaron. He's a fabulous mountain biker and runner. I'm a faster swimmer, and have a little more endurance for climbing.

The plan: beat him out of the water, hold him off on the bike, then run scared.

Part one went off OK. Aaron's bike was still hanging out when I got into T1. However, my brand spanking new Adidas Spezials had given me horrendous heel blisters a few days earlier, so I spent what felt like an eternity trying to put mole skin on my raw bits. Then I spent another small eternity trying to pull the middle finger of my left glove right-side out. How did that happen?

Still ahead of Aaron by some minuscule margin, I jumped on Qeee (my mtn bike) and headed out and up Tunnel Creek. And here is where the beauty of racing Tahoe as a points race instead of Nationals came into play.

Hundreds of people did not pass me on the climb, since hundreds of people weren't competing. And the people who did were very nice about it, since they weren't competing for a national title. This was the first year in three where I haven't had to yell, "Swim faster!" when some jerk came up on me and told me to get out of his way. It just didn't happen. Much more civilized calls of, "On your left, when you have a chance!" were the norm.

Two girls in my age group passed me toward the end of Tunnel Creek. It was game time. I tried to stay on girl #2's wheel through the Flume Trail, and when she stopped after the mandatory dismount, I took off ahead of her. Girl #1 had disappeared. Bah!

Riding around Marlette Lake, a Team Type 1 triathlete passed me, and that was about all. It was the most peaceful climb out of Martlette Lake I have ever done, which is a strange revelation to have during a race.

Then came my favorite part: the gnarly switchback descent. I saw girl #1 ahead of me, and noticed she was a very strong climber, but a cautious technical rider. I would use the switchbacks as my chance to get ahead. I bounced down them as best I could, but when I stuck my foot out to corner one switchback, I felt my left arch rip. Ohhh crap. But I was too elated that Aaron had not yet blasted by me that I flew back down Tunnel Creek and into T2 without giving my evil arch a second thought.

I shoved my new racing flats on and ran for it. Toward the end of the first loop, a ridiculously tall man and I were running together at exactly the same pace. I forged ahead so I wouldn't step on his heels, and he stayed on mine throughout the entire run. I passed Mr. Team Type 1, and one other woman, and ran into the finish line feeling rad--I beat my time from 2007 by about 10 whole seconds. Ha! But most importantly, I beat Aaron. I hadn't had more than a sip of water before he came through the chute 3 minutes behind me. It was a tight race, but we hadn't seen each other the entire time!

My time, which placed me 3rd in 2007's 20-24 age group, placed me first in this race's 25-29 age group. Coachubby had finished before I started my second run loop, and was out cheering for me. He had won the male 25-29 age group, making him the 2009 West Region Champion! Woo hoo!

While the fierce competition of Xterra USA (now at Ogden) is fabulous as it pushes an athlete to her max potential--to race harder than she ever thought she could--I had no qualms with Xterra Lake Tahoe and its totally "Xterra" laid-back atmosphere. I don't need the big flashy expo, or the fancy banquet. I do need the Lake Tahoe course, and so to Big Blue Adventure, I am grateful.

They kept my favorite race course of all time alive--it's the only race I've done 4 years in a row and there's a reason. (And that reason is certainly not the people of Incline Village.) It's the camaraderie of Xterra triathletes, which is sometimes forgotten in the heat of nationals competition, and the beauty of the Xterra course.

Oh yes, and having the race at the end of August instead of the beginning of October, when it has been known to snow--yes, snow!--before and/or during the race: PRICELESS.

(The only downside is the evil foot. I have not been able to run since, keeping my streak of destroying some body part at every single Xterra event I've ever done alive...but it was worth it! Photos courtesy of Rosalie, Aaron's girl.)

I Have Found Cycling Mecca

2009-09-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

If you told me there was a place where bike lanes were abundant, cyclists were out at all hours of the day, in all shapes and sizes, and on all kinds of bikes, cars were scarce, and roads were closed to cars on Sundays for my cycling pleasure, I would have laughed and asked what kind of happy medicine the doctor put you on.

But this place exists!

It is Stanford and the surrounding hills.

I might say I miss the 30 miles I had to ride in LA to get to some monster climbs, as it allowed for an enforced warm-up/ cool down period, but I might be lying. Big time. I kind of liked the sadistic 7.5 mile Page Mill Rd. climb that began a measly 10 minutes into my ride on Saturday.

To add to the weekend heart-rate spike, I met up with some of Stanford's rad triathlon team on Sunday for a swim around the wharf in Santa Cruz. WHAT!? You're thinking. You, Erin, who stopped swimming in the ocean very much at all after that dude got eaten by a shark near San Diego, are now swimming in the ocean where Great White sharks are known to be lurking?

Yes, I did. And I ripped a ginormous hole in my 3.5 year old wetsuit in the process. I figured having my torso slightly sticking out helped distinguish my rubbery body from that of the hundreds of blubbery sea lions playing around the wharf and drafting off of us.

I also sprinted the entire way.

Last one out is a rotten carcass.

:)

Xterra Lake Tahoe coming up! There are a lot of differences to be noted now that the race is no longer the USA Championships, but most of them are good.

Also coming up: Collegiate triathlon. Did you know there's an age limit on Grad student triathletes? USAT has capped the age of competition in collegiate nationals at 28. What do you think about this? (And praise the Lord I'm not there yet for a while!)

Moving Today!

2009-09-03T11:57:00.001-07:00

I'm moving up to school this afternoon. Not sure when I'll have internet access next.

Wish me cool roommates and easy bike storage solutions!

Being a Girl Sucks Big Time Sometimes: Xterra Lake Tahoe, From the Beginning

2009-09-03T08:03:00.000-07:00

A while back, I had thought of writing an article on athletes who, for some reason, were either forced into early retirement, forced to significantly reduce their training, or forced to cease training completely for a long period of time. What does it mean to pros and to amateurs, exactly, to be an athlete? How much do we let the fact that we are athletes (or specifically triathletes) define ourselves, and what do we do and feel when it's taken away from us?

I thought of Greg Welch, Chris O'Riordan, a Stanford walk-on baseball player who was drafted into the Major League, and was quickly forced to retire due to (I believe) a shoulder injury. I thought of the week when my doctor called me and told me not to move when he realized my heart skipped a beat. That news didn't help the situation.

A few weeks ago, my beachy best friend, and ultracycling/endurance sports buddy in crime started having trouble breathing. I thought maybe she'd developed sports-induced asthma. On August 22nd, she had planned on running a torturous 50K in the Santa Monica Mountains.

She began having trouble breathing on a steep, 4-mile climb named Bulldog in Malibu Creek State Park. She ran/walked the entire first loop. Race officials at the aid stations made her drink salt water, claiming it would relieve her symptoms. I can only guess they thought she was dehydrated...or that somehow, salt water would coat her lungs and calm them down...

When she came walking toward coachubby and me at the end of the 25K loop, she was upset and frustrated. She considered running again, but bowed out.

She went to see a doctor a few days later, who quickly diagnosed her with pleuritis, told her to take anti-inflammatory drugs and she'd be fine.

So last Thursday (a week ago) she came spinning with me, believing it would all clear up eventually. She stayed through the entire class, even though she was struggling. At the end of class, after several minutes off of the bike, she was still having trouble catching her breath, and had a sharp pain in her left side. A school nurse in class told her she should get it checked out at an ER. I told her I'd pick her up in half an hour.

Off we went to Kaiser Permanente, where she was admitted immediately. They took a chest xray and blood. Both were completely normal--except for her d-dimer, an indicator of possible blood clots. Just to be safe, the doctor said, perhaps they should take a CT scan.

You might as well do it while we're here, I said. So we sat, watching her heart beat in a beautiful, uninterrupted (and slightly boring, I must say, particularly compared to mine) rhythm, for 2 hours. When they took her back for the scan, I went outside to continue hacking away at a ginormous history book.

An hour later, I got a text: "I have blood clots, will you come inside?"

Robyn was devastated. She had pulmonary embolisms on both sides. She would have to be started on blood thinners immediately, and most likely would be on them for an entire year, during which time riding a bike outside, and trail running are out of the question. All exercise, at least for the first 1-2 months is not allowed, except for a nice walk here and there.

Just like that, she had gone from kicking my ass at everything I ever set out to do (double centuries, distance running) to being placed on a year long round of rat poison and enough pain killers to sedate a small army.

Just like that, she had gone from being in shape enough to run a very difficult 50K in under 6 hours to having to rethink what role exercise is going to take in her life for a year.

Around 7:30pm, her boyfriend JZ arrived, and I left to shovel food down my face, and get ready to go to Tahoe the next morning with coachubby. I felt terrible leaving her like that. I could never understand how she felt upon hearing that news, but I like to think I can sympathize just a little from my week of sincerely believing my days as an endurance athlete were over.

31 and totally healthy, Robyn had no reason to believe this could happen to her. And neither did anybody else--until they found out she'd started a birth control regimen in May. YAZ should officially change its name to NOZ and be taken off of the market. The mix of that drug and Robyn's chemistry proved almost fatal. And I had encouraged the use of birth control as a way to avoid unwanted visitors during race days and long training weekends.

Coachubby and I left on Friday to drive to Tahoe with heavy hearts, but excited to race for Robyn. After all, she had raced without full use of her lungs--it was the least we could do to push it at altitude!

Xterra Lake Tahoe, Pulmonary Embolisms, And People with Sticks Up Their Butts: A Race Report, Backwards

2009-09-01T07:06:00.001-07:00

My mom taught me to take the "high road" whenever other people stoop low, insinuating that they are somehow better than I am for whatever incomprehensible reason. And I always do.

Not because I think about "being the better person", but because my brain has a 2-10 minute witty comeback delay. The incident is always over before the comeback is fully formed.

So, to the man lying on a beach chair on the beach in Incline Village next to his fat, bejeweled wife, and bratty kids, who was appalled that coachubby and I should rinse off in his lake post-race, telling us to get a room and oh, by the way, you put your stuff on my beach chair, that was rude, I have something to say other than, "OK, maybe we'll do that next year" or, "It's all yours!" after removing our bags from the chair-in-question:

Maybe if you did an Xterra, it would help loosen up that stick in your ass.
And maybe if your wife did an Xterra, you'd see that you have an extra beach chair; she's currently using one for each cheek.

Is Your College Douche-y?

2009-08-26T11:23:00.001-07:00

Mine made it onto GQ's "America's 25 Douchiest Colleges" list. Did yours?

It should no longer perplex anyone why no straight girl attending Vassar College ever had a boyfriend during her undergrad years.