Obree, Boardman, and Faster is Faster

Still under mandatory evacuation around here due to the fires and whatnot. Actually had to go into work and do an 9 "solid" today...

In my idleness of the past few days I did a bit of thinkin' (dangerous!), anybody care to venture a guess at which is faster:



or this one:



Just checkin' to see if y'all is payin' attention to where it's really at: ya'know: "faster is faster" and all.

Some Fire Reflections

FWIW, it's a valuable exercise to consider the reality of what "really matters" when packing up your vehicles with a wildfire bearin' down on you. I went through this same situation in 2003 - the difference in 2003 was I was on foot when I had go through the house and decide what to evacuate. At that time, the simplicity and time pressure of that situation was liberating and envigorating (strange to reflect on this now) - truth is, when it was boiled down to the simple question in 2003 of "what can I carry that truly matters" I immediately sprang into action...

In '03 I was forced to park my truck 1 kilometer (sorry imperial system folks - sooner or later the US'ians will embrace base 10! :-) ) or so away from the house, as no one was being allowed to enter our community with vehicles. I literally sprinted the 1k to the house, broke the front door (it was deadbolted/chained from the inside and even though I remembered the keys, I forgot the garage door opener to get in that way...) - took five minutes filling a mountaineering backpack with photo albums, crated our only dog (Lucho) at the time and ran back to the truck. It may seem silly that I reacted that way, but damn, the simplicity of the situation was quite revealing.

This time around, we had lots of time (and two vehicles) to get things squared away. We filmed the entire house to document contents (highly recommended, BTW) and put what we thought was important in the vehicles. This time around we got some clothes, important documents, the BTR PC ;-) , a couple bikes, and some more junk in addition to what was grabbed in '03 (plus we have another dog now - Lea). And really, the additional time to consider the situation was a wee-bit painful for me - there was too much time to analyze things, I reckon. Lots of mental fun tickets were wasted on unimportant decisions about trivial crap...

There's a lesson in all of this for me, and one that I was fully aware of even before this day:

Keeping things simple has its advantages.

Another pic I took of the socal fires:



I live in the community at the bottom of that pic.

Disaster averted

All ok. House still there.

Flames march nearer

Fire is less than a kilometer away. We've been evacuated. Selene and I are ok right now as are the dogs - but we will probably be watching the house burn within the next couple of hours.

Then again, maybe not! ;-)

Wind shift

Fire is on both sides of the 15, but progress towards the house has slowed due to shifting winds. Evacuations have occurred for homes within a stones throw of us. Basically, we are at the mercy of the santa ana's it appears

The view out the back door...

Fire seems to be travelling our direction.

A bit of altitude to get a better view

Fixed wing aircraft are on scene trying to protect structures. Looks to be 3k or so away from the house now.

San diego fires

This is the Mission/Rice Canyon fire... About 4 or 5 kilometers North of our house.

San diego fires

This is smoke in Carlsbad from the fires in san elijo/rancho bernardo (I took this pic on my way home from work this morning).

Large scale evacuations have taken place because of this particular fire.

Ironman Thoughts

Wow!

I am totally intrigued by the whole ironman thing. I've gotten my feet wet in the scene, having done a couple half ironmans - all you google freaks out there can probably google my results and have a good laugh at how slow I am! LOL! :-) But, the difference between a half ironman and the real deal is like the difference between a half-pull and a full-pull -> fer all you non tractor-ites out there, this here is a full-pull:


Tractor Pull Full Pull - The best bloopers are a click away

;-)

Anyway, yeah, an ironman is just about like that - ya know, a bunch of Miller Lite drinkin' rabid fans hootin' and a hollerin' on the sidelines watchin' their favorites rip it up on Ali'i drive at 10pm, eh?

Seriously, though - whaddya reckon Macca's favorite brew of choice is? I reckon it ain't Miller Lite - or Foster's for that matter. But, damn, after a performance like that, you gotta believe that that fella was hoist'n his favorite after he ran his way into the top spot on the podium, eh?

Nice job, Macca!

I caught the first bit of the swim online on Saturday morning before goin' out on a nice ride with fellow BTR forum contributor, Neal for a nice ride down to the pacific ocean and back - thanks for the ride, Neal!

When I got back from that ride, Torbjorn had Lieto in his sights - just a matter of time before Sindballe overhauled Lieto, I reckoned. When I saw Torbjorn at interbike a few weeks ago, that dude looked like a completely different person compared to the last time I had seen him at the wind tunnel (http://www.lswt.com/):



That's Torbjorn on the trainer outside the tunnel test section - bonus points if you can identify the guys to my right and left in the image above!

Yeah, so, Torbjorn looked really lean when we chatted with him at Interbike - this pretty much tipped me off to the idea that he was taking his running pretty damn seriously... Overall body mass is a pretty big contributor to running power, I reckon - I've modeled that in the past and body mass is definitely in Pareto's 20% of the variables that effect 80% of the results.

Torbjorn seems to be a smart guy - methodical in his approach, and diligent in his application of what he has learned to the task at hand. Got a problem with heat and running speed? Take a cue from the big guy Torbjorn - drop some kg's and figure out how to keep the core temp down. Nice, disciplined, pacing by Sindballe this year, eh? Damn straight - totally cool to see him grab a spot on the podium.

It also seems as if some of the ideas that the folks at Argon-18 have are producing better results on the run for the "Thunder-Bear" - Torbjorn. From what I recall during my chat with the folks at Argon-18 at Interbike this year, a major change in saddle position was implemented some time ago. They moved him backwards relative to the BB - and guess what, the big guy ran 2:57:XX at the big show.

Nice work fellas!

As a last little nugget, it's worthwhile to note that of the top 6 men's overall finishers at Kona this year, 4 of them have worked with the crew at lswt.com.

On the women's side, yours truly, has worked with one of the top three at lswt.com.

On a personal note, one of these days, I'd like to complete an iron-distance event - why? I think one learns a bunch about themselves when they are forced to test their limits. Whether it be during a 20 minute "au bloq" effort up couser canyon road, or an all day effort climbing the highest point in the lower 48:



so, get out there and run what you brung - you'll learn something about yourself along the way! :-)

BTR Contributors Wanted

I just posted this on the main BTR site, and figured I'd give it a go over here. My overall goal with this idea is to help spread the BTR love, so to speak. I've worked really hard to carve out a space on the web that is continually bringing in new site visitors - so I've kind of got this platform developed where a cycling related author can plug right in to this technology oriented audience.

Anyway, here's the deal:

"In a continuing effort to help out the cycling community, BTR would like to expand its base of influential and meaningful articles. BTR is continually growing and gets considerable traffic to it's review and educational style articles such as those illustrated below:





If you are interested in contributing an article, or series of articles, to the overall BTR cause (your efforts will be compensated such that it is a "win" for BTR readers, a "win" for the author, and a "win" for BTR), drop me a note for more info."