Ciclavia 10-10-10

The bookshelf of a Buddhist monk

Makes sense to me.

I read Living My Life (Emma Goldman biography) over my 2-day train
ride moving to California in early September 2001. Life changing.
About 9 years ago! Whoa.

Cycles

I've been in SF many times this year, but these last few days have
made me feel closer to it. Less of a visitor and more of a....part-
time resident? No, that's not it. Nowhere ever totally feels like home
for me, but the more time I spend in California all of it feels like
my home. Fuck a stupid north/south CA divide (everyone already knows
Northern CA is overrated), this whole place is my home.
On this trip I rode Paradise Loop, some roads from the Rough Riders
Rally and all around the city. I ate Chicago-style pizza and at a
vegan Mexican place. Visited a Buddhist monestary/farm where we swam
in a pond and played kickball. A sweet life it is.

Tomorrow I head south by bike with Jeff to LA, 450 miles in 3 days.
We're camping, but traveling very light- I've only a big seatbag and a
hydration pack. Laptop I needed here for work but didn't arrange to
mail? Check. Chocolate covered espresso beans? Check. Ready to start
teaching again Monday? Not quite.

Time

I was in a coffee shop in Costa Mesa and saw a kid with a 'vegan
power' tattoo. Made me reminisce on the mid-90's. He was young-ish
too, a nice reminder that the kids are still into it. I forget
sometimes.
Then later we saw this raw vegan donut at Mother's Market in HB.
Remember when vegan donuts were the holy grail?? I'm not saying this
was good, it wasn't worth the $4 to find out, but the fact it exists
kinda blows me away.
I did have chicken taquitos for lunch, also a novelty, and two
interesting snacks from the deli: shrimp cerviche and raw apple pie.
All vegan, of course.
Enjoyed at the beach with fond memories of HB being the first
California city I ever visited (1996) and the city I set off from on
my first bike tour- 3300 miles to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (2001).

Time: hard to comprehend.

Death and Dancing

My Google Reader is poppin this morning. First this post with a chart outlining that the number one killer of children is motor vehicles. Number one. Think about that. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration tells us that in 2007 over 41,000 total people were killed by automobiles. What makes it all the more tragic is that we take this as 'normal'. Well, life is dangerous and we have to drive, right? No, we don't have to. We've just spent the previous 60 years giving space and priority to moving automobiles as fast as possible. This has to change. And it is. Slowly.

Folks do what they can. For some in Oakland it's this dance for their friend who was killed in a car at this corner.



Here's a little news story about it and the Turf website.

What's your dance? Get out there and do it.

Vineman photos

Thanks Chris for 'screen-shooting' these! Photos from ASI Photography.

The one technical section. Picked up some time here. Ha.

I'm going faster than it looks. Er, probably not. Nevermind.

Sure, The Zapatistas and the 1968 Olympic Black Power salute are with left hands, but I am also left-handed.



1st place, beard division.

2010 Vineman

Vineman full-iron, yo. Pretty tight. Haven't done this multi-sport thing in two years. Appeals to the ADHD me. Also to the Zone-3, no jump in me. 8th/79 in age-group, 45th/527 overall. The 4-hour marathon deal at the end has me pretty amped. Put in some serious work there. Here's the breakdown:

Pre-race
Drove from Portland to Oakland two days before. Fun and beautiful. Stopped in Ashland, Oregon, recently voted best trail-running city in the country where, fortunately for me, hung out with a new trail-running friend I met at the Badwater Ultra-marathon when I was there as an official. Unfortunately, Lacy and I didn't have time to go running with her, so we did the next best thing which was hang out at the Ashland Food Co-op. Another city, another vegan donut.

Sonoma County hang- I've some family in Sonoma which was our base. Three kids under 11 to keep me busy. An important note: Don't try backflips on a trampoline if you can't do them well. Hurt my neck and it bothered me all day on the race.

Dinner in Oakland- Ate dinner at Manzanita, which another friend described as Food Not Bombs food for $20. I was into it. Quinoa, miso soup, delicious salad. Perfect pre-race.

Race day
Up at 445. Made a french press. Drank coffee on the way. Start was mad crowded, parking, blah blah blah. Set up my 'transition' with my bike stuff, which is always exciting. By the time I see it again, I'll be so fucking stoked to finally ride. Putting on my wetsuit: way less exciting. If I'm lighter than I've ever been (er, well, close) why is it tighter than it's ever been? Haven't worn it since this race in 2008.

Swim
In the water, ready to go, pre-whistle. A first. I started to get nervous which made me think tardiness is a response mechanism to nervousness.

Stay chill!

Harder than it sounds. Having breathing issues. Wetsuit felt SO TIGHT. Gnarly. Took 20 minutes for me to calm down. And for my dumb goggles to quit being foggy. This has never happened to me! The swim is two laps in a river with very little current. By the start of the second loop I was feeling a rhythm. Swimming is difficult to tell pace; I often didnt know if I was passing or being passed or if I was swimming straight. It's also very shallow, which means you can stand if you have to (which is why Jeff and Megan call this Styrofoam-man!).
Still I paced, slowly. Got out in 1hr22min, 10 min slower than past race. I'm cool with it. Arms are tired. Wonder why?

Bike
I passed my pink backpack and wetsuit over the fence to Lacy with a big smile on my face. Cycling. Hell yes. I go hard straight away. Stomach is weird so I don't eat for about an hour. That's 2.5hrs now on a small banana. It's fine. Passing hella people and being super polite and stoked, but others aren't being so! (No Meat Athlete just talked about ettiquete for these races).
The course is rolling hills and it's overcast and chilly for the first 50 miles. I love it. I'm feeling strong through the first 70 then I'm less stoked. I notice because I'm getting angry at dudes with Zips and discs passing me on the flats. 'I'm being passed, wtf?' Reconsidering the offer to borrow Zips from a friend. I hesitated cause they are tubulars, but that 8-10% speed improvement sure sounds nice about now.
I stop and pee. Eating more. Feeling good. My average speed is dropping below my goal of 21 MPH. Usually my strength is in the last half of the bike, but lack of recent long rides is showing.
Finish at 5hr30-something minutes. About 10 minutes faster than last time; making up the time lost in swimming..

Transition 2
Yeah, running. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I think cycling is the perfect warm-up for running. I feel great. It's getting warm so I slap on sunblock, drink some cold water, dump some on my head and run out with the goal of a 4-hour marathon.

RUN
Boom. Three out-and-backs loops with rolling hills, turns, spectators and aid every mile. I head out strong, I think, trying to figure out my pace. I've no watch and there are no time clocks. I ask some dude with a fancy watch his pace. 9min07sec miles. Perfect. He then says that's too fast for him and backs off. Then someone says, 'Yo Matt!' A dude who lives in Pasadena and has ridden Feel My Legs, I'm A Racer is on his first iron-distance. He's killing it. We chat awhile and then my pace is a bit faster so I split off. Straight away I'm chatting with a dude from Bogota who speaks no English. We talk about running, cities and Ciclovia. He says, 'this is hard' and then runs away from me. I see Lacy at the end of my eventful first lap. Stoked. Run through the transition/finish and see the clock and do the math. My goal is three 80-min loops to equal 4 hours. I did 76 minutes. Boom. Drink some tea (thanks girl!), head out for lap two.

Lap 2
This is the toughest part, mentally. My brain insists on tricking me to slow down. Stop to pee! Put on sunblock! Walk this hill to conserve energy. I do the first two, but not the last. I endure. Passing folks which feels odd and exciting. I'm using the Hydra pouch cup system; no paper cups. It holds 6 ounces of liquid that fills in one second. I'm eating only pretzels and clif blocks. I must have eaten $20 worth. Falling into that tunnel of only feeling my legs moving. I barely comprehend the people around me. Occasionally someone yells, 'Go Swarm!' and it feels like they've given me everything they have. A simple cheer feels like a lifetime of support. I see Lacy at the end of lap two and she runs along with me. I see people smile and that makes me smile. Ask for the rest of the tea and some ibuprofen. She quotes me later as saying, 'This is getting hard.' I do the math on the clock and it was an 84-minute lap. Shit. I blame peeing and sunblock, but really my feet are burning and quads aren't stoked.

Lap 3
Almost done. Well, 8 miles til done. My mantra is 'run to the next aid'. Head down. Trying to keep pace, have no idea. I see people heading back on their last lap running a pace that seems impossible. I get to one of the two bigger hills and push. Everyone I see is walking, but I refuse to. I crave the change in muscle use. At the turn around I think, 'Just run back. That's all you have to do.' My feet are destroyed. I stop to drink two cupfulls and have to hold on to the pop-tent cause the motion of putting my head back makes me a little dizzy. A volunteer says she thinks I should sit. 'No way I'm sitting down, sorry!'

On a downhill about 2 miles from the finish someone catches me. Straightaway she says, 'I'm on the relay, don't worry.' I try and hold her pace. We chat. She's super supportive. I can barely talk. I think we're doing 9 minute miles but it feels like a sprint. We both jog through the last aid and I refuse to give up her pace. We start to catch someone I've seen ahead of me at every turn around. I push. Drop her. Catch him.
The last half mile is painful. Did I go too hard too soon?
Cross the finish with the same Black Power salute I did in 2008, but this time the clock is one hour earlier.
Results.

Post-race
Try to keep moving. Head cloudy. Feet burning. STARVED. Lacy finds me wandering in circles. I sit. Stretch. Snack. Get bike. Get food! Yay veggie burger with pasta salad on it. Whatevs. Tons a fruit. See the Pasadena dude and someone I randomly met at a wedding last year. Congratulations all around.
We hear about a local, sustainable, vegan restaurant in the tiny town of Graton and head there. Ends up they are promoters of the first two, but haters of the latter. 'We put cheese in the polenta because it tastes better.' I knew it was too good to be true. Damn 'local' restaurants and their total disregard for animals. We eat at the Mexican place next store that gets it. Yum. See some folks who were at the race and my hobble gives away that I was there.

So. Yeah. Was high on this for a few days. No photos, unfortunately. There are the official ones, but I couldn't figure out how to pull them.

Soon, the fall: More mountain bike racing and then Furnace Creek 508, again. See you out there. Keep at it, whatever it is you do. Here are some applicable Buddhist quotes I stole from famous artist, Lacy J. Davis.

Don't depend on how the rest of the world is.
In this life, concentrate on achieving what is most meaningful.
Stay focused.
Don't expect any applause.

35 ounces of vegan burrito

The Oliver's Market burrito I mentioned in a previous post. Yum!

Grande with
mexican rice
refried beans
fried tofu
guacamole
jalapeño salsa
lettuce
cilantro
whole-wheat tortilla

It's novel to get refried beans or fried tofu; together is a special
occasion. I took it over to the deli for proof of its grande-ness.

Blisteringly fast?

The gnarliest blister I've ever had. Or seen, really.
Anyway, Vineman went really well! Thx for the love, folks. More
details soon, still whirling from Sonoma-Oakland-LA-to work post-race,
but my time was 11hrs 19min with a 4-hour marathon in there at the
end. Elated.

pre Vineman 2010

I love to swim.
I love to bike.
I love to run.
I love to do things for a really long time.

This is the answer I give when folks ask me about triathlon. I am most definitely not a triathlete and I'm going to shy away from trying to convince anyone that triathlon is 'cool'. It's like arguing that Korn is a seminal punk band or that Del Taco really has Mexican food down. I'm glad people enjoy these things, but they will always just be what they are. And that's fine! I've been known to deviate outside of the norm (norm, as always, is relative here. It's normal in my world to not know anyone with health insurance or who eats at McDonalds. Or anyone who isn't pro-choice or who hasn't hung out with their favorite band). Like listening to Downset, paying for a mattress and working a job where I have to wear a button-up shirt (occasionally).
That's the long intro to say that tomorrow is the Vineman, full-iron (fuck you Ironman-TM for trademarking both 'ironman' and 'iron-distance' you money-hungry fuckers) triathlon.

2.4 mile swim
112 mile bike
26.2 mile run

I've watched two bloggers I follow each race their first this year- Punk Rock Tri Guy and Vegan Heart Doc. Their rightful sense of accomplishment is very motivating.

Yay! But I'm nervous. More than usual. I've swam 5 times this year. Maybe 2.4 miles total, but probably less! Since reading Total Immersion I'm confident in my theory that swimming is way, way more skill than fitness, but still! I haven't practiced that skill very much in the last two years (the last triathlon I did was Vineman 2008, which is also the last time I've worn my wetsuit).

Whoa. Deep breath. I won't drown. I just don't want it to slow my bike down! Running that half marathon July 4th was awesome, but I haven't run much since. Oops.

You know what is fucking awesome though? Vineman recycles everything-including a special process for energy bar wrappers-and composts fruit scraps. The finish is powered by solar panels. New this year- paper cup-free run! They are using Hydra-pouch refillable cups that each runner carries. So fucking awesome. When we rode through the SF marathon on Sunday on our way to Rough Riders there was litter EVERYWHERE. It was disgusting. So this rules.


Well, goal time....I'd love to beat 12hrs20min from last time, but I'm not sure how the swim will pan out and slow the rest of my day. Also haven't ridden my road bike much at all and I just put my aerobars on and haven't ridden them yet. Is a four-hour marathon possible? I'd love it, but we'll have to see. Holding back on the bike is near impossible for me.

Thanks to everyone who helped get me here and make this happen!

Mt. Tamalpais

As part of the Rough Riders AdventureCORPS event we rode from the
Mission in SF to Mill Valley and then to the summit of Mt. Tamalpais
on dirt. Well, you have to hike the last 0.3 miles.
Team Swarm! and others made up the late group each day but we still
rode with some great folks. At the Saturday night bike show Megan Dean
of Moth Attack! bikes won second best bike. Rad.

More info with links and photos later in the week, hopefully.

Boggs 24 hour mountain bike race

"People should learn endurance; they should learn to endure the
discomforts of heat and cold, hunger and thirst: they should learn to
be patient when receiving abuse and scorn; for it is the practice of
endurance that quenches the fire of worldly passion which is burning
up their bodies." -Buddha

I love mountain biking. Most non-cyclists fixate on time and/or
distance with these events, but really, Im just stoked to be out there
jumping off rocks, railing turns and bombing hills. Sure, the
endurance athletic stuff comes into play and I do enjoy that as well,
but man o man riding bikes is fun.

So. It was hot as shit. 100+.
The dude who won single speed (and overall!) lapped me when I was on
my 5th lap. Wtf?
I rested at 130am, changed kits and rubbed my feet. Did a few laps
then chilled at sun up. Some stomach weirdness! Maybe from the old gel
flask I took from the fridge.
I ate bananas, apples, clif bars, lara bars and peanut chews. Plus
MaxoMax, the Swarm! homemade electrolyte drink courtesy of Max.
New bike is nimble, fast and responsive. Rode the whole course, no
pushing, on my last 2 laps.
Lap times and other numbers below.

Now heading to the Bay area for Rough Riders Multi-surface Cycling
Festival. Vineman next weekend! Shit, I've only swam 4 times this
year. Should I be nervous?

17 laps, 2nd/4 in SS, 6th/22 overall.
0:54:45
0:58:04
1:04:39
1:06:56
1:04:35
1:04:26
1:13:28
1:02:45
1:08:40
1:28:49
1:09:24
1:26:51
2:01:32
1:37:20
2:26:47
1:31:29
1:21:47

Oliver's market

I've come to look fwd to this place as much as the races I go to
Sonoma County for! This bin was empty; hopefully next week they've
some. They also have a taqueria and I ate possibly the largest burrito
in my life. And I've eaten thousands of large burritos! Next time I'll
weigh it and take photos. It may approach two pounds.

The 24hr race went well! Fell short of the 200 mile mark, did 17 laps
on a tough, hour-long-ish 9.3-mile course. Second in single-speed, but
there were only four of us. This fireman dude from Santa Rosa has won
every race I've been to up there and this one he won overall! Beat
pros on geared bikes. I'll have to check my overall. Bike is DOPE. And
now I have 100 packets of Hammer Espresso gel.

Idleness and dissipation breed apathy

24 hours of Boggs today! 11am to 11am. With new bike, awesome. Without
any crew or friends racing, less awesome. It was a great course last
year and suuposedly there's even more single track. As my first 24hr
race last year I got 4th out of 8 single speed, but something like 9th
out of 45 overall. I like the time and the looped course rarely feels
repetitive, but it's hard mentally to push when there's no 'end'. It
got me at Cool 24 this year when I stopped cause I was cold (haha) and
fell asleep...

Maybe I'll shoot for a distance to keep me going? 200 miles? A double
century on my mountain bike would be a first.

I'll try to update the Swarm! Twitter occasionally. Also, a prize if
you can name the album the title of this post is from. Hint: I had the
t-shirt in high school.

Vegan Peruvian, Portland, Oregon

busy...

Yes, I'm posting more often! Very stoked too. Now that it's summer I'm still busy, but in ways that are more interesting to post. After I finish up here with Badwater, I'm home for 36 hours or so before heading up to 24 hours of Boggs. Can I get a road ride and mountain bike ride in before? Then back to LA for a few days of work before the Rough Riders Multisurface Cycling Festival in Marin County. The week after? Vineman (The People's Ironman!) in Sonoma County. Getting nervous! I really need to swim a few times. What a month.
See you out there on the trail, on the road, in the water or on foot.

Badwater Ultra-marathon

I'm here helping with the Badwater 135-mile Ultra-marathon and the top runners are finishing- just over 24 hours after they started. I'm updating regularly on the Swarm! twittersphere and there's always the AdventureCORPS webcast (run from where I'm sitting right now).


The distances these runners cover and the landscape they cross...there really are few words to describe it. Driving the course at 4am and seeing folks running up hill, so touching! I get all choked up seeing people look confident and smiling after running 100 plus miles. In Death Valley. In the summer.

Yep, a pink tutu. He rules. Pennsylvania native and past finisher!

Los Angeles native and past champion Jorge Pacheco running up Townes Pass

Last years champion Farinazzo getting the full pit crew treatment on Townes Pass

Jorge descending Townes pass

A top five racer gets an ice bath before taking on the last 13 miles to Whitney Portal

Sauvie Island half marathon

I can't remember the last time I did a running event! At least two years. When I was mapping out my training for Vineman I thought it'd be a good idea to run a half marathon in late June or early July. And what better place than near Portland, Oregon? The Foot Traffic Flat takes place on Sauvie Island (Sauvie means delicious berries) 15 miles north of Portland.


So we, as in famous artist Lacy J. Davis and I, decided to ride our bikes there, duh. Yes, I love to ride bikes and I'm an environmentalist blah blah blah...but there's only one bridge onto the island. Lots of cars. It just made sense to ride! The last 3 miles we rolled past bumper to bumper traffic. AND it was a great ride and a good way to warm up. I suggested this to the race organizer but he didn't think it likely anyone else would ride...

The blue behind us is part of the un-ironic background but the blue behind that is real sky blue.

After locking our bikes to a barn and eating some fruit, the half was ready to start. I started with my friend Eben, who works at the 7th Friendliest Store in Portland, who just ran a fast half the weekend before. Needless to say I let him go after the first mile. By mile two I realized that the majority of my running races have been the LA marathon and this race is the exact opposite, in a good way! Since I don't have a watch and only recently began pacing at a track I was nervous about my time. Was I going too fast? Too slow? I set the timer on my iPhone and checked it at mile 3 and mile 6. Turns out I was running just about 7.5 minute miles, as I hoped.

St. John's bridge, looking south.

There's no coasting in running! I'd find myself lost in my thoughts and my pace slowing...and I'd have to catch myself and see where I was. Runners may be worse than cyclists in avoiding hills, but the monotony of the flat course was getting to me. I like hills! I felt good at mile 10 so I picked it up and finished in the punk rock time of 1hr 38min. Eben finished about 4 minutes ahead for 107th place overall. If he knew, he probably would of let that one person pass so his time could be punk and 108. Lacy finished the 5k, her first running race, in 28min30sec, not to mention the 30+ miles of riding. Awesome!

After some lounging and watching the fast marathoners come in we headed back toward Portland, but took a detour over the St. John's bridge to eat at Proper Eats, which is basically a restaurant in a health food store. The service and smell are like you'd expect from a restaurant inside a health food store, but the food was terrific. Tempeh breakfast scramble!

French fry salad

Inagural ride on the new mountain bike! Shocks. Something else. Also amazing? Four pounds lighter. A smooth, fast bike that fits. Wow!




Aidan is still in town post-Tour Divide, all 4th place finish, 1st single-speed (10 hours off the course record?!), 1st rookie. Took him for a spin in the Verdugos. June gloom (still) in effect on this side, but the climb up from La Tuna was HOT. The opposite of his next adventure, which is the 1100-mile Alaska Iditarod Invitational early next year. Nothing like perspective on what is possible.



Post-ride Indian buffet. Duh. A spot I had heard about in Pasadena near Lake and Colorado. The food was good, weren't a ton of vegan options, but there was this:



We thought maybe it was compost. Delicious compost. Beans, curried broccoli and.....french fry....salad? Whaaa? We asked what was up with it and our server just told us it was a mixed-vegetable salad. Okay. I'm down no matter what you call it.

Books!

Recently I was in Powell's 'City of Books' in Portland and while perusing the Food/Sustainability section I finally got to see in person, my good friend Temra Costa's book about women in the sustainable food movement. Temra rules. We met, obviously enough, at a conference on food justice. She lived in Davis at the time I was traveling for work to Sacramento every few months or so and we'd hang out. She's a super hard worker and very busy, so that often meant I was tagging along in what she was already doing- like scavengering the city for figs. Have you ever ate a fresh fig straight from the tree? She'd climb the tree, pick one and eat it, pass one down, which I would eat and then every third one would actually make it into the bike basket.


Also in this section was my friend Erik Knutzen's book that he co-wrote with his wife, The Urban Homestead.


I ran into him last at the Echo Park Farmers Market (duh, right?) and they are working on a new book right now. I've been on a tour of his house during the 2009 Big Parade Staircase Walk and it is super amazing. A small farm right in the city!

Now any of you vegans out there know that the sustainable food movement not only includes animal products, but actively promotes them and are often anti-vegetarian. It's very frustrating. Sustainability aside, it is still an ethical issue. As if eating local makes a difference to the animals raised and killed! I don't want to be the militant vegan that no doubt has fueled the fire for localvores, in fact, I want to do the opposite. Vegans need to be more in touch with these folks and understand this movement, because it is a very important part of the puzzle.

The book I was looking for was On A Dollar A Day. I knew about the blog and hadn't realized it was a book until a friend in Portland recommended it. Turns out that the authors are not only vegan, but old hardcore kids! (Out of context 'hardcore' kids sounds funny, it's a sub-genre of punk rock that was very influential to me as a youth, and today).


Can someone eat on a dollar a day? What about on Food Stamp allocations? I love books where the authors are actively figuring something out as they write. You feel their struggle in trying to not only create meals from the resources they are limited to, but also to vegan-ize them. I'm most of the way through it and I highly recommend it.

The next day I was in the Powell's that's in the airport (Portland, I love you!) and what do I see? My friend Kalee Thompson's book Deadliest Sea. Full circle, as she's the partner of the guy who organizes the Big Parade Staircase Walk! On last year's walk I had just started the book I am working on and I bugged her with a million questions about the process. I haven't read this yet, but she's a former editor of National Geographic Adventure (RIP!) and an awesome person so I know it'll be good.




So stoked on my friends! And I can't write a post about books and not mention Born To Run. I could not put this book down, except to go running. It's about more than running and ultra-running, it's anthropological in his look at the Tarahumara, but also about us, Western Culture. The author looks at the shoe industry and is not afraid to name names. It all comes together when a mysterious desert dweller organizes an ultra-run in Copper Canyon. So rad.


This book takes running out of the athletic realm. I see it now like back-packing or bike touring. We are born to run and to move, so get out and do it. I can't wait to run an ultra-marathon, which I guess is obvious to anyone who knows me...