The Super Inspirational blog:

the excessively concise, overly simplified but 100% true (and possibly inspiring) story of how two middle-aged people who were really out of shape got in shape and stayed in shape.


"No man* has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."

-Socrates

*I'm quite certain when he made that statement he was speaking exclusively of the male gender. My how matters have changed even if the principle remains true.

In September of 2007 I was in sad-sad shape. It's distinctly important that you recognize that fact if anything wonderful is to come of the tale I'm about to relate...

I guess to say I was in sad shape would be to falsely lay claim to any shape at all, pear shaped maybe? I was overweight, overfed, and sedentary bordering on vegetative. To make matters, if not worse certainly more hypocritical, my days were (and still are) spent advising people on matters of their health while spending very little time focused on my own or following the suggestions I offered. I had just celebrated my 39th birthday and as I entered my 40th year I declared it 'The Year of Steve' then promptly resumed my former lifestyle of gluttony and inactivity. Oh I may have made a few, perhaps even several, attempts to begin a dedicated exercise program. I can recall rolling out of bed before dawn with the plan of going for a run, and even actually making it a few blocks before slowing to a jog, then a trot, then walking. When I would see other runners (the dedicated and uber-happy just to be taking in the morning air, Gary Hansen comes to mind) coming my way, pride would force me to actually start running again, at least till they had passed me by, then I'd be back to walking. Being a person of at least average intelligence and education I knew that what I was doing was having a minimal positive effect on my health. Not that it couldn't do so, at some point, if I could only sustain and build on it. But I was impatient and soon gave up, as I had so many times before (New Year's resolutions between 2000 and 2008, when we wrote them down and reviewed them later invariably included: lose weight, get in shape).

It wasn't until the spring of 2008 that things finally began to change. I was about to turn forty years old, was nearly fifty pounds overweight and gas was nearing the $4 a gallon mark (not to mention the earth was choking on carbon emissions from cars and growing ever hotter...). The solution to most, if not all, of these problems was as simple as it was elegant, in my opinion at least: get a bike! (Brilliant!). So I hit Craig's list, found an inexpensive used mountain bike for sale in North Salt Lake. The guy was switching from mtn to road biking for reasons he was happy to explain, but in which I had little interest (though in retrospect I should have let him talk me out of that sale and into a road bike from the get-go). My cycling friends would later make the same points: a mtn bike is a terribly inefficient way to get around on the road. But to my way of thinking, inefficiency was kind of the point, the more calories required to get from point A to B the quicker my midlife spare tire would be gone. So I rode, everywhere, as often as I could. I parked my car in the garage and commuted on two wheels using good old fashioned leg power. On the way home I would take the long if not always scenic (or safe) route. I stopped the late night snacking and began actually paying attention to what I was eating (and estimating the cost of what I ate in miles I would have to ride to burn it back off). Unlike failed efforts of the past, the bike took. It in fact, quite literally, saved my life. It didn't hurt that riding a bike is really and genuinely fun. Get on a bike right now (assuming it's not snowing where you are when you read this) and pedal it around the block and see if that simple activity doesn't stir childhood memories of carefree afternoons riding with friends, no place to go and all day to get there... I would actually look forward to both my early morning commute and the opportunity to shed the stress of the day with come saddle time meditation on the way home. I logged more than a thousand miles that first summer*, wore the trail tires to nubs, replaced them with road rubber and burned through that too. I dropped more than twenty five lbs in four months and when fall turned to winter we bought a family rec center membership and I kept exercising indoors through the long nights and frozen days from December to MArch, not wanting to the surrender the ground I had fought so hard to win. The hook was definitely set.

*That seemed like a lot at the time. Boy did I not know what I was getting into...

Come spring thaw I was back on the bike and wondering how difficult it would be, in a state known for its famous snow, to ride my bike year-round. That October my brother dregger (Greg) from St George, who had started riding his mtn bike like me but had since graduated to the road, told me about LOTOJA. He mentioned the word with an air of reverence, perhaps even awe. I had seen the vanity stickers on the rear windows of vehicles around town but had never bothered to suss out their meaning. When he told me it was a bike race, not just any bike race but the longest one day bike race in North America: 200 (+) miles from Logan Utah to Jackson Hole Wyoming, I was instantly intrigued and in a moment of stupendous bravado and naivete (let's call it braivete, it's a concept I, and to a lesser extent Jenn, have revisited time and again) I committed to doing it with him. I reported that I was up to 25 miles a day on my mtn bike and with the slick road tires I was pretty quick. He put a stop to that talk immediately and told me I would have to embrace a road bike purchase and soon, which I did. That spring I began training in earnest. When dregger upgraded his own road bike (their is nothing so constant in cycling than the quest for better, lighter, brighter and faster equipment) he sold us his old Carbon Fiber bike which Jenn instantly adopted and together we trained for my first big race.

And that brings us back to the point of this blog. The reason I rode was to get in shape, the reason I continue to ride (and later to run) was for the sheer pleasure of doing it. What initially was an activity to erase evidence of the misspent midlife of an otherwise unremarkable forty year old white guy with a receding hairline, became something I not only enjoyed and did but rather who I was. Exercise became as much a part of my life as my job or my Faith. At first I told myself it was so I could eat whatever I want and not feel guilty or suffer the ill effects (that's still a motivator, I won't pretend it's not) but later it became more about how I felt when I exercised, that Zen-like moment when the world goes quiet and you feel perfect peace even as your heart is trip-hammering at 160 beats a minute or the floaty, euphoric buzz that stays with you, sometimes for hours, after a truly intense effort. Those were the things that kept me coming back for more. I mentioned LOTOJA, that was my first truly big Don't-know-if-I-can-do-it-but-I'm-gonna-try event. There have been many other similarly challenging tests since that time. We've taken to saving our bib numbers and posting them on the garage wall. They are souvenirs of the times, some trying, some triumphant we've had and the places we've been, mementos of the training we did and people with whom we shared the rigors of the road. They are also the closest thing to trophies* (besides the traditional finisher's award) that we ever get for our efforts. On that wall are bibs from seven Lotojas, 5 Rockwell Relays, three Tour of Utah Ulitmate Challenges, half a dozen marathons, and at least that many half-marathons, two half Ironman races a dozen turkey trots and several other miscellaneous century rides. Events and races, however, are not the end or even the means to the end, they are rewards for all the hard work you've put in over the previous months. Yes even as I write that I realize how perverse it is to reward yourself with a marathon or a hundred mile bike ride but they are exactly that. There has to be a reason to roll out of bed in the pre-dawn dark to get on a bike trainer,or to gear up with triple layers against the cold, don headlights and reflective vests to run while temps are still in the teens. Race day becomes more of a victory lap than a final exam of the the material you have been studying.

*speaking for myself only. Jenn has signed up for two half Ironmans and finished first in her category in both... yeah.

Jenn's story (and by rights it should be told by her and maybe one day it will be) is more complex.  In 2007 she had yet to be diagnosed with celiac disease and her days were full of foggy thoughts and frustrating physical efforts.  She was chronically tired, no matter how much she rested, she was chronically anemic, no matter how much she supplemented her diet with iron and chronically hungry no matter how much she ate.  Realizing that she, like her mother, could not absorb wheat and was in fact turning her GI tract inside out every time she did, was a revelation.  Following a gluten free diet was her 'buying* a bike' moment, everything changed after that.  She had energy, the daily headaches and chest pains were gone, she no longer had to take a nap every afternoon just to get through the evening.  It was probably the same year she was diagnosed that Jenn began running.  It started innocuously enough, an invitation by Emily Kestin (a running friend, one of what would eventually become many) to participate in a Turkey Trot 5k in Draper that Thanksgiving.  That race would eventually inspire the now traditional (8 years and running) Park Village Turkey Trot.  It would also lead Jenn to make running her avocation and eventually her passion. Eventually she would join me on the bike but initially it was running that made her truly happy.  One of her happiest/proudest moments post celiac was when she was invited as a last minute addition to the Redrock Relay team comprised of friends with whom she had run but still felt on the outside, community-wise.  I remember her saying "I guess I'm really a runner now, at least people who run think I am."

*though she has since bought several more bikes, still great moments but not necessarily as life changing.

Unlike me, Jenn's braivete comes on more slowly and deliberately.  She would hear about an event and start out with:  "I'll never do that. That's crazy-talk."  later "That would be hard, you would have to train a lot, and get really strong, and really fast..." and then at some point, perhaps even as those words were coming out of her mouth her brow would set in determination and she would get that glint in her eye that's equal parts steel and resolve and say "That's it, I'm going to do it!"  and then comes the 'All hands on deck,this is not a drill!' training.  If I give a passing nod of agreement to Socrates' dismissive of the the female gender musings on athletic endeavour, Jenn lives it.  She truly loves the mechanics of physical fitness, loves the way it feels, loves the way it looks, loves the way it focuses her mind and energizes her body.  She enjoys studying about nutrition and how it affects performance and proving those facts she reads about with real world experience. She is an organizer by nature and has a mind for details and planning, enjoys plotting data points and tracking progress, with results that speak for themselves.  There are those two Half Ironman competitions already mentioned and then there's Boston: the Holy Grail for runners.  Initially the dream of running Boston belonged to one of Jenn's friends.  She committed herself to helping realize that dream only to find that she too wanted to one day run it.  When the bombing of the Boston marathon occurred, in 2013 (while Jenn's friend Melissa was running it) what was once a dream was galvanized into a plan.  She'd never run a marathon before but she started training and was told (by more than one person) that there was no way she would be able to qualify on her first attempt.  On this occasion the naysayers were right, it took her two tries to run the 26.2 miles in under 3 hrs and 45 minutes, albeit only by twelve seconds.  Fast enough to fill your dance card but not fast enough to go to the dance. 

You almost have to run a marathon (and run it as fast as you possibly can) to fully understand
the look on Jenn's face.  That hurt, and not just a little.

Since that second Ogden Marathon Jennifer and I have run two more, one in St George and another in Phoenix, Arizona.  Both times with the intent of Boston Qualifying and not finishing close on either occasion.  But we're still chasing the dream.  Together.  

The other difference between Jenn's quest to stay in shape and mine is her motivation. While I'm happy to exercise in order to eat injudiciously and not feel like I'm talking out of the side of my mouth when I tell patients their cholesterol numbers would go down and their diabetes would be much better controlled if they would just work on diet and exercise; Jenn really, no joke wants to inspire people.  Mostly our kids but friends too, she wants them to know that they can do hard things because she has.  She wants to share her hard won knowledge from books and field research.  She wants to inspire them to get off the couch and move, whether it's to train for a triathlon or run a 5k.  She wants them to not just feel comfortable in their skin but to be energized.  Jenn knows how bleeeehhhh, feels and she also knows how heroic feels.  Jenn wishes everybody could feel like a hero.  But unlike other people, myself included, Jenn is not a passive wisher.  She is a do-er.  Be careful what you wish for around Jenn because she has a... charming? Way of not allowing dreams to die.  She's not a life coach, but if you've lost your get up and go and want it back?  She's the woman for the job.

Kelly's goal is to not run anymore... Jenn will
have to work on being more inspiring.

And it's working (at long last).  In May of this year she and Mathis signed up for and ran the Ogden half marathon.  Both boys woke up early for the first half of the summer and ran with the Cross country team.  Elaine joined Mathis nathan and Jenn to run a 10k in August and our good friend Kelly DeHaan trained for, ran (and won [!]) the Park Village Turkey trot last month.  

So (with apologies to Langston Hughes) What happens to a dream deferred?  Don't ask Jenn, she doesn't accept the premise of your argument.  If it's something you really want and if you're willing to do the work, there's no reason you can't achieve your goals.  She's living, breathing proof of that fact.

"Ahhh, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." -Bob Dylan

Looking back at that last paragraph it feels like this is devolving into a Tony Robbins-esque power of positive thinking message.  And while staying positive is important, it's just one small piece of the puzzle.  You've got to work but more importantly, you've got to love the work.  Not always, obviously there are days when you would just rather stay in a warm bed but we've managed to weave exercise into not just our schedule but our relationship.  We celebrate Anniversaries with bike rides over mountain passes, plan trips to locations that offer scenic places to run and hike, we find races in National Parks and places of interest and make it part of our family vacations.  We make staying in shape not just enjoyable but an integral part of our relationship, not solely as entertainment but as work on keeping our marriage close.  And it's been wonderful.  I feel a decade younger than I did 10 years ago. 

We often see older athletes at events and wonder 'At what point do you slow down?  At What point do you stop?'  It was during one such bike race (the Rockwell Relay, an incredibly challenging endurance event) as I climbed one of the many hills you encounter over the five hundred miles of riding, that I came up on a rider who had to be in his late sixties, maybe early seventies hard to say with older athletes, having found their personal fountain of youth, they age gracefully.  I told him that my wife and I admired his strength, stamina and dedication.  "We hope to still doing this when we're your age."  Is what I told him.  He sat up a little in his saddle, gave me a sideways grin and said.  "I hope to still be doing this when you're my age."  And then he jumped out of the saddle and powered his way to the crest of the hill.   

I chuckled to myself and thought.  'Yep. That.  What he said.' 

Rockwell Relay's Last Stand: Race Day 1

One of the major changes in this year's race, aside from the gaudy prize purse, was the fact that all non-competitive race teams would start at 7 and all competitive teams would start at 9.  Seems a small thing but it settled I don't know how many lengthy discussions between Cap'n Engar and I about the merits (or lack thereof) of each race strategy.  I was always for starting earlier for purely selfish reasons.  One, it's cooler.  In fact most years I'm off the bike in Monticello before the mercury hits the eighty degree mark and I get to watch everybody else sweat and suffer.  Two, an earlier start (theoretically) keeps me riding my second leg through Capitol Reef in daylight.  In actuality that has only happened once (last year) and a 9am start virtually assured that I would be riding the entire Hanksville to Torrey run with only a helmet light and whatever the moon could muster, to illuminate the road.

I'm a ritual kinda guy, even when it doesn't necessarily work
but this works

Upside to the later start was the extra hours of sleep and prep time.  I was out of bed just in time to see the non-competitive cyclists rolling their neutral start past the Riverside Inn.  The number in the group was disconcerting, hard to estimate exactly the size of a peloton, even one moving slowly, but I figured about 45 wheels, subtract that from the total of less than 100 teams and you get... well not nearly as many riders to help whittle away the next 500 miles of wind and hills as we had hoped.  I set my chagrin aside and reveled in the ample prep time, actually had a real breakfast, oatmeal with blueberries and honey, which may or may not have been the X factor in my recent PR shattering canyon climbs in the preceding weeks.  It's also possible that Thad's well studied and proven training methods had a hand in it, or a combination of the two, regardless I had found a ritual that worked and on race day I was't about to mess with it.  So I suited up and rolled down for some warm up reps, only to find that I was plenty warm as was the ambient temperature.  It was in fact, hot. Not in the 'check out that dope new bib kit Josh Bro-coded for him, that's hot!' hot, but the 'this is pretty miserable, maybe we should go for a swim in the river instead', hot. I quickly gave up the ride prep and retreated to the shade of Swanney park.  When the rest of team Honey Mooners joined me I told them, when you catch me, soak me down, it is hot.  Hotter than it's ever been for a relay weekend.  They agreed to do so though I was wondering how we would have enough water to stay orally hydrated and evaporatively cooled.  We left Salt Lake with a single 5 gallon container of water (1/2 of what we normally had) and that seemed a paltry amount for 4 cyclists over 36 hours of hard riding.  Nothing I could do about that though, but it was the thought front and center in my mind as I roasted in the middle of 50 or so other cyclist 1s as the the starting clock wound down.

Guys, it's hot, like really hot.  Like I want to stay right here
in the shade hot.  I should probably wear a cooling coloured bib kit
on a day like today.  Black maybe, you think?

9 am (sharp) they cut us loose, I managed to avoid any potholes and attendant mechanical issues as we rolled toward Main Street, Moab.  I spotted Nebo cycling, a team that finished in just over 30 hours (our goal) last year and a group Thad had ear marked as a bellwether; stay with them and you will be on schedule.  Just as we turned onto the main drag, team DRG Texas, formerly a co-ed team, now a 4 woman, competitive, 4 man domestique, two team group, about crossed wheels with Team Fatty Family (Eldon 'Fat Cyclist' Nelson)'s team, the one who maintained a strangle hold on the co-ed competitive category for, well every year this race has been a race.  They were currently involved in a blood feud with Zone 5 (formerly Team Infinite) cycling.  Zone Five had brought 3 teams to settle take down Fatty after losing to them on the final leg of Rockwell 2015.  Watching the near miss with DRG I was reminded how quickly and capriciously months (team cumulatively, years) of training and plans could be put asunder.  The two rubbed rubber momentarily then righted themselves and charged on.  And charging is exactly what was happening even the neutral start felt like a workout as the wind (which Weather Underground promised would be ~10 mph right in our faces all 55 miles to Monticello) kicked up and the mercury rose. When we were cut loose the lead pack ramped up the cadence and revved up the watts.  Soon there were about 25 teams out in front which I tried desperately to hang with.  I had lost sight of Nebo but could still see Fatty and Zone 5.  From my left a few cyclist started calling out their (well founded) complaints 'Come on guys, it's 500 miles, back it off!.'  I looked down at my power meter and saw that we were pushing 400 watts and knew (again, thanks to Thad's meticulous preparation and training) that I could hold that power for about 2 minutes before I would have to scale way back and recover for several minutes before pushing again.  In fact, Golden Cheetah told me (by way of Jenn, who like Thad can look at the squiggles, figures and cryptic acronyms from the myriad GC training screens and translate them into real world workout numbers) that I could average about 215 watts for three hours if I wanted to be able to ride my bike again for any distance or time in the 24 hour period after I got out of the saddle.  So with that in mind and with corroborating testimony from my legs and lungs I dialed it down a notch... several actually and let the pack move into the wind swept horizon.

About five miles out of Moab I saw the first Zone 5 cyclist (Mary, one of the strongest amateur female cyclists in the state) stopped roadside, an apparent mechanical issue.  Two miles further on, Marci (another Zone 5-er and QOM champ) was similarly sidelined.  I settled in with four cyclists, only one of whom was willing (or able) to hold a paceline,  a guy named Gregg from Brigham city a Rockwell (and Cyclist 1) veteran broke away and we worked together for about 30 miles.

Cap'n Engar putting it all on the line for Team Honey Mooners, 

nearly pulling a hammy' but nailing the hose down

Team Honey Mooners support was on point, always the case for the first couple of legs before, one by one, you take your turn in the saddle, burn your pent up energy and race nerves and settle into resignation and shock at the reality of what you just did and what you still have left.  They soaked me down and kept me plied with fresh bottles and the occasional potato, though I had lots of food in my pockets which I was eating regularly (as instructed).  Around mile thirty the Zone 5 caravan caught us.  First Marci and Billy, then Mary and half a dozen other Zone 5 riders, making me wonder how many team they actually brought.  Turns out the emptied the support vehicles in the first 15 miles and fought (in vain as it turned out) to get back in the competition.  At the moment Mary was struggling and at the breaking point.  You can be strong and well trained but if you push too hard you flame out, no matter who you are or how well conditioned you've become, a point I've proven to myself more times than a sentient individual should  have to before he/she learns the lesson. These conditions were not helping as we were battling more wind and more heat than I ever did on this leg in five previous efforts.  I joined the group and worked with them, pushing my watts higher than may have been prudent but getting help too.  Gregg dropped off, and eventually I dropped off.  The group pulled away just before the last climb and eventually a couple of big, strong looking riders (Team Wolfpack) also dropped off and worked with me for a few miles before they too got cracked by the wind.

Top of the last climb I told Cap'n Engar, politely, that I had everything I needed and to please leave me to the last ten miles of my ride and go get Jenn ready to start leg two in Monticello.  This they did and I soldiered on through the mounting headwinds and heat. I rolled into the first exchange in 3 hrs and 41 minutes.  A PR* for most time** spent pedaling the 55 miles from Moab to Monticello!   If we were hoping to compete, even if it was just with ourselves, I had just dug us a thirty nine minute hole, but felt completely satisfied with the effort.  I had averaged 225 Watts for the three hours (15 more than Golden Cheetah told me I should have) but rode within myself, working with riders when I could and never blowing up.  I cut Jenn loose, knowing she was about to get her 45 year old, lycra ensconced butt handed to her by the 46 miles and 2600 feet of climb between Monticello and the Mule Canyon Wilderness trailhead, miles that would cook like a swirling convection oven and hurt far worse than the they did on that temperate June morning in 2015, a day that seemed a world away now.  I gave her the traditional smack on the spandex and sent her on her way.  Thad immediately began handing me food and drink and telling me to eat it, now.  And I immediately began not eating or drinking as much as I should have.  Honestly, what I need is a feed bag and a time frame (noted on our growing list of things to do differently next year).

Thad: "Maybe start eating some food, you know to replace the
3000 calories you just spent?"

Me: "Orrrr maybe snap some selfies and post them on Instagram
to keep our social media presence fresh and current.
I mean, they are both important, right?  Right?"

*I should give up on Family Medicine and be a spin doctor instead

**looking at stats after the fact, this leg did a number on every single cyclist 1.  Fatty, for instance, did this leg last year in 2:35. This year?  3:16.  Forty one minutes slower, almost identical to the thirty nine I had just donated.  Even the pros (Cameran Hoffman and the Livewell  automatons) took 3:06 to finish leg 1 this year.  It was an ominous harbinger of what what the roads ahead held for us.



We took enough time for me to shed my shoes and put on a T-shirt and we were off to find Jenn.  At these temperatures and under these conditions, leaving your rider for even more than a few miles or minutes was unwise.  We took our (now traditional) lunch break at the laundromat in Blanding, where I ate but clearly not enough, and then chased her down, not hard to do on a day like today.  We tracked team(s) TRG and team Chimera (co-ed competitive and our closest competition 70 miles into the 500+ mile race) losing ground to the former and putting serious time into the latter.  A feat Jenn would do time and time again.  Team Chorizo/Chupacabra/Chimera's cyclist 1 would put the hurtin' on me and then Jenn would jump in the saddle and administer the payback, with interest. Despite her valiant efforts, it was clear, to me at least, that our dreams of a sub 30 hour finish were going to remain just that, but this race would still challenge us.  Shaving time from last year's effort wasn't out of the question but the constant and unyielding southwest wind was going to make us work for every mile and every minute.  In fact, Jenn, despite heroically pushing into the earth baking, soul crushing heat, was currently adding to rather than chipping away at our time deficit compared to 2015.  I knew once Thad got on the bike the route would turn obliquely to the wind and by the time Kim was turning the cranks the wind (if weatherunderground's predictions could be trusted and so far the wind and warm were exactly as advertised) it should be squarely at her back. The thing we were losing (and had lost to the by no less than 40 % compared to last year) were wheels to work with and bodies to block the heat storm.  Jenn had been caught and dropped by the pair of Wolfpack riders that started 5 minutes in arrears, but on the final climb, the one we incorrectly assumed Jenn had enough fluids to cover, she caught them again, and found them floundering.

Jenn thought bubble:  "That water bottle soaking isn't going to cut it. 

Too late to sign up for the ice bucket challenge?"

This heat was CRIPPLING.  Team Wolfpack support offered her some water but she waved them off and told them to attend to their beta males who were currently withering in the desert.  Probably she should have accepted the handout since we unwittingly left her to dry up like a raisin in the sun.   In the end (even as she finished thoroughly parched and internally cooked) she would increase her power output on this leg by  more than 10% compared to 2015 and would still drop a full twenty minutes, maddening given the excitement and optimism our three months of intense and focused training had generated. Maddening, but predictable given the conditions.

Going in to the second exchange we were a full hour in the red but the Rockwell Road is a winding one and eventually the constant blow back would be negated and even help us. At least that's what I told myself as Thad, Kim and I simmered roadside, waiting for Jenn to crest the eternal climb that marks the end of leg 2.

"OK, so if I give this bottle to you will you fill it up and give it back?
Promise?  Cause I don't want to be out here without any water..."

The effort Jenn made to reach exchange 2 before the hapless Beta Wolves from Team 'pack paid off hugely though as Thad pedaled out of the Mule Canyon Wilderness exchange flanked by a pair of Gama males from their team.  This I knew would be a serious boon to the pack as, having ridden behind the cap'n, I know that he leaves a jet stream similar to that of a 747 luxury liner in his wake.  Jenn dismounted, totally physically spent but with an unbroken but thoroughly cooked spirit.  She would spend the next 6 hours trying, mostly in vain, to bring down her core body temperature before she would have to ride again.



Body heat/hydration, as it turns out, is a lot like nutrition.  Once you are past a certain deficit point you are done until you can be someplace cool and maybe wet (like a water theme park?) for several hours. Unfortunately there were no waterslides or wading pools handy at the moment.

Crewin' for the Cap'n

Thad on the other hand was cookin' but in a good way.  The trio of Thad and the wolves were barreling through the miles of cheesebox shaped bluffs, redrocks named for Biblical prophets and their furniture, sand and sagebrush between the second exchange and Lake Powell.  The three worked together, tried to pick up a fourth, dropped him and powered on.  The trending splits that put us in the red broke as Thad shaved a full fifteen minutes from his 2015 effort on this desolate stretch of pavement.

The Lone Wolf or Relay's past finds a pack to work with.
Impromptu roadside tune up of poorly shifting bikes is just one of the valuable services
(along with the wind tunnel-like draft shadow) that the Cap'n rpovides

I've said it before and it remains true, Thad knows his business on the bike and, like a consummate captain, is capable of directing the crew to maximize the efficiency.  Empty a bottle of product, hose down with a bottle of water, grab refills keep pedaling, repeat until you finish your allotted miles.  It's like watching a finely tuned Swiss watch, albeit one that pushes 240 watts for hours on end.  And, like I've said before, what Thad's rides lack in drama they more than makes up for in results. Having entered the world of power meter training I've watched Thad's number's with interest and growing respect as he would post rides of an hour at 290 watts and ninety minutes at 285. Trust me when I tell you these are huge numbers and a bit mystifying.  How do you maintain that level of effort in city riding, where stop signs, descents, traffic and crappy roads all combine to thwart your power output?  I wasn't doubtful I was just intrigued.  Did he simply have a power meter setting that negates any half pedaling?  The answer came on our Memorial Day Big mtn climb, a ride we did as a team and during which he averaged 263 watts for more than four hours.  I sat in his draft (for as long as I could hold on) and watched as he pushed the pedals at constant cadence of about a 100 and never soft pedaled anything.  The man does not turn an ambivalent crank... ever.  All business, all the time.  That's our leader.

We arrived at the Lake Powell exchange just after six in the evening, about the same time we arrived in Hanksville the first time we signed up for this protracted and extremely intense double date.  Kim left the exchange just as support vehicles for the open category teams (the pros who started two hours after us) were arriving.  Thad pointed out Cameron Hoffman, a local cyclist with multiple LOTOJA Cat 1 victories under his belt and captain of the only team that was a serious contender to unseat the IHC/LiveWell cycling juggernaut.   We talked to him for a few minutes (they were currently out in front of LiveWell by several minutes-probably they should have just stayed with them and tried to work together and maybe out sprint them at the end-I say as if I know more about bike racing than Hoffman but as it turned out they totally should have... I digress). About the time we stopped chatting with the underdog team in the hunt for thousands in prizes, I noticed Thad was still kitted up.  Odd. Completely.  If Thad on the bike is like a Swiss watch, Thad off the bike is that same watch that was over wound to the bursting point.  He quite literally falls apart when he's done, at least equipment wise.  It's like he was balloon cyclist that finally met its fated needle and all that remains is the blast shadow of cycling gear: helmet, gloves, shoes, head band, lederhosen... (you think we would have noticed that when he was on the bike, we didn't) that stand as evidence of the max effort Cap'n Engar put into every mile and every minute.  On this occasion he kept it together, and he did it to help Kim. I don't remember if he mentioned his intention to do this or not but it's probably something we should have anticipated.  Last year this leg was Kim's introduction to the Relay and probably the most difficult leg (race condition-wise) of the entire race.

I wonder if it could possibly get any hotter?  No?
Oh good, I would hate to think we were missing out

The forty five miles took her 3hrs and 15min to complete but more than that it demoralized and scared her (like this race has done to every rider who has ever signed on for it, without exception) and left its mark on her cycling soul.  Those wounds heal over time but the scar they leave remains.  Trust me,  I know.

I'm certain it was with this in mind that Thad, having just swallowed his own jagged Rockwell Relay pill of misery, jumped back on his bike, just as Kim exited the relatively protected confines of the Lake Powell grotto and began the arduous twenty mile climb that occupies the middle of Kim's first leg.  It was the courageous and strategically savvy move of a shrewd Team Captain and the act of genuine kindness and compassion of a loving husband.  One of the most indelible images I hold in my mind from the the last ever Rockwell Relay is that of Thad, who is a big guy (not big in the gentle Teddy bear way but big in the, 'if you need a protection detail, somebody to stand between you and a person or persons who mean you harm call this man, he will get the job done' big) and Kim who is a petite woman (though even Jenn at 5'9" looks petite next to the Cap'n) pedaling into Utah desert, the sun setting on the horizon, Thad's arm fully extending, pushing Kim toward the summit.  It was an oddly tender tableau.  I wish I had a photo but then again it was somehow intimate in a way that belongs to the moment itself.  It reminded me that we were doing this race, not just with people we loved to ride with, but with people we loved: our wives, the mothers of our children and the women we asked to spend the rest of their lives with us. Bonus when that time is spent in activities like this one. Huge bonus.  The moment passed and soon we were again telling each other how sexy their current wattage numbers made them look and joking about how much more interesting this race would be if our current teammates came with as casual an attitude about wearing clothes in public as our former teammate Josh had.  But it was a real moment and one that has stuck with me.

Both Thad and I have been beaten down by this ride.  A certain amount of that comes with the price of admission and while it may have felt theoretical after last year's relative pillow fight it was a painful reality now.  Just because we'd warned our wives and teammates how bad it could be didn't mean we wanted them to suffer unnecessarily, so Cap'n Engar did what he could, for the team's sake and for Kim's.  And it worked, she managed to shave a full 35 minutes (!) off her time from 2015. So if you're keeping score at home: the Larsen duo (Cyclists 1&2) have given away an hour and the Engars (Cyclists 3&4) have take back 50 minutes.  That math needs to change, and soon.  Even with Kim's heroic effort, and Thad's team leader assist, she was still east of Hanksville at 8:30, the hour at which the race bible told us we had to have a safety vest on our rider's back and light, fore and aft, burning on her bike.  Anticipating a full dark, near three hour ride from Hanksville to Torrey, I requested dual lights, helmet and handle bar, using the mtn biker's bike light arithmetic: 2 lights = 1 light and 1 light = 0.  Cap'n Engar had me set up accordingly but Kim's late evening ride necessitated a quick adjustment (handlebar light off my bike and onto Kim's).  As he made the change he assured me the light on my helmet had more than enough juice and lumens to get me safely to Torrey, and I believed him.  No reason not to.


Next up:  Moonlight riding in the National Park, Taking in the Torrey nightlife, Boulder Mountain revisited, Cap'n Engar takes down the Grand Staircase Escalante but nobody sees it (again).

Rockwell Relay's Last Stand: Prologue

When last we spoke of Relays (Rockwell) and our participation in them our plans for 2016's version of the race were far from firm.  In 2015 we had a good time, a really good time, but didn't finish in a 'good time'.  Cap'n Engar and I have participated in several 'kicks & giggles' Relays, some featuring less giggles than others, and we both agreed we wanted one race where all four participants trained for the event and were ready to ride.  We had that last year for the most part and our PR finish time (by twenty minutes) reflected that.  We were however, blessed with ideal riding conditions, and that finish time, while none too shabby, was far from competitive compared to similarly staffed (co-ed competitive) teams.  Before he would commit Thad (aka Pickle Juice, aka Cap'n Engar) had some caveats which he spelled out (literally) in an email.

 Actually the Email could have been titled 'I'm not committing to anything, not even committing to commit, but if we do this again this is what needs to happen...'  Followed by a detailed, itemized list of things we could do better and ways to improve.  We came to the 2015 race trained but not... honed I guess would be the best way to put it.  Kim was just finishing her third year of dental school and mixing training with studying (and being a mom and wife), Jenn had just run the Ogden marathon three weeks prior and her training reflected the fact that she ran it with a goal of Boston Qualifying,  a goal she achieved but one that limited her saddle time.  Aerobically she was more than ready; running and riding are hardly mutually exclusive activities training-wise, but they are distinct. Different muscles are recruited, different techniques are employed for conditioning; there's a different mindset and different goals.  As for me, I did what I always do: pushed the miles, upped the cycling hours (commuting mostly), spent lots of time in tempo rides, reaching a plateau and staying there (even as I write this I can picture Thad reading it and repeatedly pounding his forehead with a closed fist) but never escaping the Tempo Trap.  Only Thad came to the race if not in top form, at least trained to compete, regardless of race conditions, which history has taught us can be Brutal (yes, with a capital 'B') and our results if you compare splits reflected that.  Thad above or in the top third of Cyclist 3 competitors and the rest of us all over the map but generally below the mean or in the bottom third.

So there was an itemized list of must have/must do's authored by the captain himself:

1) Everybody gets a power meter
2) Everybody has a trainer
3) Sufferfest Videos (to coordinate and customize workouts)
4) Saddle time in the fall
5) Trainer in the winter with building workouts geared to peak by race day
6) Only one (or preferably none) marathon or 1/2 Ironman for the year and preferably post-Rockwell


So of course, the first thing Jennifer and I did was find a marathon to run, albeit one that we would finish 4 months before Rockwell...






(cue cap'n Engar face palm number two).  That's actually not completely true, but without splitting hairs, it's essentially true and the end result was we didn't get on the bike until the end of February. Again, training, and training to be fast, but not training to be fast on the bike.


"If you want to be fast on the bike, you've got to train on the bike." -Thad 'pickle juice' Engar



Doesn't seem like the most penetrating syllogism ever proposed, seems like it should go without saying, seems like... OK, now I'm face palming.  So about two weeks before we ran the Phoenix marathon, Thad showed up on our front porch with something that looked like a terry-cloth athletic supporter for a grossly deformed individual (turned out to be a sweat guard to strap to our bike to protect the top tube while we did our trainer workouts) and an old school, paper printout calendar with specific workouts (again, literally) spelled out for us.

He then confirmed, everybody has trainer?  Everybody has a power meter?  To which I responded:


"We have one trainer we can both use.  I get up long before Jenn.  As for the power meter, Jenn has the Quarq on her Cannondale Synapse, but we aren't using that bike on the trainer... but she's pretty sure she knows her zones and her efforts and can adjust accordingly.  I can probably do the wattage workouts on the stationary bikes at the gy..."  I don't think I finished that sentence because at some point I saw (may have imagined it, but I'm not convinced of that) actual steam coming out of Cap'n Engar's ears.  Within days (again the how and when are unclear and in the end unimportant) we had Thad's old Power meter and wheel set in our basement, mounted on the 6/13 and ready to go.  And soon after I was converted completely and utterly to training with a Power Meter.  That's all I'm going to say about that, if I provoke even one more face-palm/closed fist blow to the head, Cap'n Engar may spend Rockwell 2017 re-habbing in the Traumatic Brain Injury clinic.

So we ran our marathon, recovered for a week and then started our training sessions with a threshold test (reference Rockwell blog from 2013 for further description of this diabolical debacle) to see where we were.  Jenn did pretty well.  Her Watts/Kg ratio (using this overly generous chart that Cap'n Engar tells us is bogus but which we used to settle our marital training wagers) had her at a low Cat Five (with a bullet) female cyclist.  My results from the same test had me at... well it doesn't actually show up on that chart.  It was somewhere between 'untrained' and 'feel free to use the motorized cart at the grocery store'.  When I gave the numbers to Thad (via chat, glad I didn't have to look him in the eye) I told him it's possible I have cancer.  I mean that's possible, right?  He found the entire scenario really entertaining.  He has done the math, done the work and knows what works and what does not.  Follow the process, trust the training and the numbers and get results.  I wasn't so sure.  I finished last season watching everybody else race Lotoja and spent the winter running.  Clearly it had affected my ability to perform, but we had 14 weeks to change that, So we got to it.  Started with Hell Hath No Fury (referencing the pro female cyclists in the videos but could also be applied to Cap'n Engar and we were feeling that fury now)

which (repeatedly) danced on our collective chamois, while increasing our endurance and twenty minute power.  Then we graduated to the Hunted, which had us Time Trialing up mountains.  That was followed up by a bludgeoning by the 9 Hammers, to increase VO2 max and Critical Power...










and finally the Downward Spiral which was designed to decrease recovery time between maximum efforts and, as Cap'n Engar so aptly described it, felt like drowning on a bike.





And as the Captain predicted (and our training software Golden Cheetah tracked and quantified) we improved slowly at first but eventually dramatically.  We signed up for and raced the Bear Lake Classic.  A fifty mile criterium style race around the lake with a Suncrest-style climb at the finish. We crossed the line in a respectable time, but more importantly our wattage (the only statistic I worried about... the student had become... well still the student but I was learning and applying the lessons) was right where it needed to be, in fact right where Thad predicted it would be. Again, so many things I want to say*, all of them would put Thad's melon in jeopardy, so I shan't.   You were right though.  What can I say, You were right.

*"My boy ['Juice] predicted this exactly.  More [watts], more [power]... Where's the love?" -Jay Z





All the while we were receiving... not concerning but odd updates from the Rockwell Relay website: New Sponsor Charity Vision (cool, part of our registration will be used to treat blindness in under developed countries),  different weekend for the race, third Fri/Sat in June instead of the customary second weekend (double cool, extra weekend to train), huge cash purse, eight grand to be split between male and female Open (at least one cat 1/pro rider on the squad) category teams (weird, this has historically been the ultimate amateur event, the Cat 1 teams have essentially just raced themselves, an academic more than a physical exercise for them, wonder how many open category teams will take the bait).  And finally new (well, shifted) management of the race from the Stewart family to Tyler Servoss (sad but maybe Cort and Dan will finally get a chance to ride rather than just watch the Relay).  If we were worried about it, even when the total teams signed up were decreased by almost forty percent at the cut off date (Memorial Weekend) we didn't say anything (or more to the point text/chat anything about it).

We teamed up for the traditional Memorial Day Rockwell team (Honey Mooners this year) ride and blew it up.  It was the last in a series of big rides:  BCC with Kim, Jenn and me, Alpine Loop with Jenn and Emigration/Big Mtn with the entire roster that featured PR after PR for everybody.  Watts were up, weight was down and spirits were high going into the June taper.

Which takes us to race weekend.  We got out of town on time, early even but things were a bit weird. There was the last minute equipment swap that always seems to happen (this time a tire for Jenn's bike, no big whoop and picked up the pro tip: tire brand over the stem so it's easily spotted, noted, thanks Cap') but nutrition was a last minute throw together for Thad & Kim (very un-cap'n Engar-like) and kinda slim for us, mostly potatoes.  I should say for me, Jenn was meticulously prepared and had every meal, every exchange, every calorie planned out and prepped.  She's a bit of a freak (take that as a compliment honey) that way.

When we arrived at Swanney park we found it... subdued.  Not a ton of people.  Fatty had his tent set up and Brats, brat-ing, but no fatty and no team Fatty-family.  We talked to Tyler and he told us the total number of teams was down, less than a hundred total (compared to 150 last year) and they didn't even have three female open category teams.  So every female open category racer, assuming they finished, would get paid.  Kind of a head-scratcher.  Also, as I suspected, the Relay would no longer carry the name Rockwell (for obvious reasons) but would rather go by the handle:  Charity Vision Relay (same delicious taste, different packaging) but sad, just the same.  Felt like the end of an era and the loss of the 'family project/reunion' vibe that made this race feel like a homecoming every year.

We left the park and went to our hotel (not Bowen, rates were twice as much as last year so we got... pods, or rooms that felt like pods but were at the appropriate price point, at the Riverside Inn) and if things were odd before, they became surreal as we watched the Asian Abbot and Costello team of Man and Shut up Man argue about... I don't even know, for a full fifteen minutes while the only employee with a solid command of the King's English was busy helping a couple from Iowa who, now one month later, may or may not still be checked in to the Riverside, depending on whether or not they remember to check out before 11 am and or they get charged for an extra day if they don't. At least I think that's what happened... as a team we went through a total of 5 bladder cycles and the better part of a Rodzilla BM interval waiting to check in, so we didn't catch everything that went down.  We did find a better place to eat, had some gelato for desert and went back to the pods.

The night did end on a high note as we invited Cap'n Engar over to our pod so he could check out our training stats on Golden Cheetah (we really need to invest in online software, it's like getting your kid a bike for Christmas, even though it seems exorbitant given your budget, but the look on his face?  Would totally be worth it) and watched (and grinned) and he read the charts and made happy noises, occasionally letting slip a 'giggety'.   We were ready, more than we ever had been.  And while race conditions promised to be less than ideal we were more than prepared to handle it.

Next up:  Race Day, It's gonna be Hot! (and windy).

"Did you really just post that we are Team Honey Nooners?" -Jenn
(PS that's a solid team name, maybe next year)