This picture is from Colorado National Monument near Grand Junction. I finally got to take a work break from Miami and was in CO for a couple of days working on a small project. Grand Junction is in a pretty awesome location. About 15 minutes from the monument and excellent climbing. Great proximity to fly-fishing and skiing, but it’s Colorado, there’s no surprises about that. On a side note, I’ve never met nicer people ANYWHERE IN AMERICA than in Grand Junction, CO. Those guys got it going on!
It doesn’t feel anything like winter for me… For several reasons:
1) I’ve been practically living in Miami for work. I’m pretty sure they don’t know the word ‘seasons’ down there. They just have ‘hot’ and ‘unable to wear clothing’.
2) It’s not even cold in Tennessee. I’m not asking for 30’s and powder every night, I know where I live… But I’m still running in short sleeves in late December.
3) As far as I know, I won’t be skiing or boarding this winter. Huge bummer…
I do, however have a pretty big trip coming up: I’m doing a 4-day ice climbing course with Southwest Adventure Guides in Ouray, CO north of Durango. I leave January 31 and return February 6. Since it’s about a month out, I’m starting to go through my gear to see what I may need.
Other than that, just been doing as much training: running and gym climbing as my body can handle, experimenting with different diets, just trying to get into marathon shape. Hope everyone has an excellent Christmas! More to come soon!
During the thanksgiving break, some of the family and I drove up to southern Illinois to Giant City State Park. There are a couple of fun top-roping spots and some good bouldering. All was well until the bouldering pad moved out from under me.
A shot from the finish of the Ragnar Relay. Already got some plans to run in next year’s TN Ragnar. Also, my brother Andrew and I have decided to run in next years Music City Marathon.
that was EPIC
Well after 196 miles and 1 hour of sleep, the Ragnar Relay is complete. Our 12-man team comprised off SSR employees finished 6th overall out of 211 teams and 1st in the corporate division with a time of 24 hours and 39 minutes. I’ll post more pictures as I collect some from the team.
Here are all the studs before the start looking well-rested:
RAGNAR RELAY APPROACHING!
This Friday it begins…
At 1pm I start off with the first leg of the 36 leg relay from Chattanooga to Nashville. We have a corporate team of 12 from the company where I work, SSR Inc. My legs include: 1) starting the race at 1pm friday with 7.8 miles, 2) at roughly 9pm friday, a 3.5 mile leg, and 3) at roughly 3:30 am saturday, a 5.2 mile leg. This, believe it or not, combined with 11 other runners doing similar distance will get us all the way from Chattanooga to Nashville in around 24 hours. Will post again after the race!
Chattanooga 7 Bridges Half-Marathon
The race was a complete success! Thanks to all the volunteers and organizers, everything went really well considering it was the first 7 Bridges. There have been some glitches with the results and times, though. Nothing official has been posted, which has led to some condemnation on the 7 Bridges facebook page, but I think there should be some understanding with the fact that these technical problems can happen on a first event.
First, some really positive things:
-All the swag is awesome, great shirt (some haters didn’t like the orange, but you’re in Tennessee, so you have to kind of expect that.)
-Lots of great volunteers.
-Plenty of hydration.
-Amazing course, but Chattanooga is beautiful so you can’t really go wrong here.
I can only think of a couple things I would suggest:
-Obviously, figure out the timing system so the results can be posted and there’s not a post-apocalyptic freak out a day later when people can’t find out what they ran.
-A large clock at the end wouldn’t hurt either.
-Let’s figure out what we’re naming this thing. It was called the “7 Bridges Marathon”. Ok, I’m cool with that, but then there was the “4 Bridges Half-Marathon” and the “2 Bridges 5k”. I understand it’s calling out the number of times you cross a bridge, but then my shirt says “4 Bridges Marathon”, which is a little odd. I don’t really see why the number of times you cross a bridge should change the entire name. The Marathon is the main event. Might as well just call it the “Chattanooga 7 Bridges Marathon and Half-Marathon”. Or “Marathonooga 7”. Ok, just keep it the way it is…
-I realize you can’t shut down the whole city for this, but going through more of downtown ‘nooga would be a little more scenic.
-This one will come in time, but as the number of participants is raised (supposedly it was sold out at the end) the marathon will gain more and more attention and bigger crowds.
Overall, it was a huge success, can’t wait for next year, and hopefully the full!
The next race I’m looking at is the Georgia Marathon on March 18, but before that, I’ve got the Ragnar Relay on November 4-5 (chattanooga to nashville) with Team SSR. Check it out! http://www.ragnarrelay.com/about
This picture was taken at the finish line of the Music City Marathon in April. I post it now since this is a race weekend. Sunday is the 7 Bridges 1/2 Marathon in Chattanooga. Originally I had intended to run the full, but after Music City I was exhausted and couldn’t bring myself to train for another full right now. I’ll post Sunday with updates from the race!
Welcome to Mountain Memoirs
It’s finally here! Mountain Memoirs was launched tonight as a way of cataloging outdoor adventures. Most likely, a host of other ideas and thoughts will end up here. My first blog experience was while I was in Poland, and a host of memorable stories found their way there.
First and foremost, I want to document my trips here. So many posts on Mountain Memoirs will read like a journal. I’d also like to post photography here and hopefully get some feedback. Also, there may be the occasional video or images that document climbing techniques or instruction, maybe even some gear reviews! I’m really excited about the project and hope that it gets a few views.
So as far as content for my first blog post, I suppose I can start with the background image. This one was taken on an early morning driving through south-eastern Idaho in the Summer of 2010 while on a cross-country trip. As I crested over a hill into a valley, the fog completely swallowed the road.
