Rock

Sunday I celebrated the one year anniversary of my career ending road biking crash. That rock is what did it. I should have put something else in the frame for scale, but the crushed rock in the picture is about 1/2" to 3/4" in diameter. I keep the rock to remind me why I quit cycling on the road. I figure if I ever get the itch again I will just have Amy beat me over the head with the rock until any desire to ride a bike on the road subsides. Think of the money it will save.

Fun Can Be Had........

.......... Anywhere! Saturday I started the demo for our bathroom remodel. I had to go to the dump since the city complains when I overload the garbage can. I removed the old window that you see standing up in the background. It had been walled over when I built the addition on the house. I figured I would let Philip have some unadulterated fun. How often can a kid destroy something, and have no ramifications? We were also dumping some concrete I had busted out of the backyard so he chose a few chunks to put the window out of it's misery. I figured he could get a couple of shots and break each pane separately. He took his first shot. It was a little high and right. It hit the corner of the frame and took out both panes. Short and sweet. Isn't that the way all good times are? They don't last nearly as long as the boring stuff.

Good News

We have some good news here at Broken, Beat & Scarred. First off congratulations to Mike Stevens on the birth of his man cub Charlie. That is a good boy name don't you think? Good job buddy, I am happy for you. The other good news this week comes from my friend Steve. Steve did a really good episode on the Dirtbag Diaries a few months ago. Fitz Cahal (the creator of the DBD) had such a good response to the episode that he started a new website for outdoor minded parents. He recruited Steve to be his partner and they created http://www.theoutdoorparent.com/?p=52. Steve has a featured article on the home page. Nice work Steve.

Celebrating Mediocrity

After a grueling few days in Disneyland that started with the alarm going off at 12:30 AM on Monday, Amy and I ran in the Catalina State Park trail run. Amy ran the 5.5 miler and I ran the 10.75. As you can see from this picture the weather was beautiful. We ran in rain, wind, and cold (well cold for Tucson). Perfect conditions for a trail run in my opinion. Here is Amy after her run. She finished in 0:49:54, and second in her age group. Not bad for her first trail race especially considering some of the hills she had to climb. There was also some traffic backups on the climbs in the 5.5. I think that some less experienced runners ran the shorter distance and held up some of the more experienced runners. In their defense these were some really tough climbs.

This is the start of the 10.75. I am in to the left of the frame in front of the girl in the white shirt. I am in a grey shirt with black sleeves, and of course my red Cascadias. I wore the sleeves the whole time. It was pretty cold.

Here I come toward the finish. I finished in 1:36:06, 6th in my age group, 46th overall and firmly in the middle of the pack. I averaged 8:56 miles. Supremely mediocre if I do say so myself. There were some real rabbits in the 10.75 miler, but I am more like a plow horse. It really was a good time even though I forgot my band aids. Go to http://www.nipguards.com/ if you are not sure what I'm talking about. I just can't bring myself to talk about it in polite company.

Trail Race

I will be running in a 10.75 mile trail race next Saturday. Amy is going to do the 5.5 mile version. Wish us luck after a sleep deprived four days in California. We will be spending three days at a combination of Disneyland and California Adventure, and one day driving home and visiting a beach possibly. I'm trying to work a day of climbing in on Friday so my performance should be really lackluster on Saturday. Here is the link if you are interested in the specifics. http://www.everyoneruns.net/

Climbing Part Deux

I know I just posted about climbing, but it has been a slow news week around here. Ryan and I went to Windy Point and climbed on the Lobo Wall and the Kennel Wall. Here I am at the top of "Dogmatic". I had just lead "Kennel Cough" and moved the rope so we could top rope the harder route. I hope to go back and lead it some time. It has a very cool hand jam start that has some scars around it where holds have broken off making it really hard.

Here I am rapping off of "Dogmatic". We didn't get any actual climbing pictures because there were only the two of us and neither one of us wanted the other taking pictures while trying to belay. Brett says he is going to start climbing so hopefully we will soon have someone else to belay and take better pictures. Then we went on a bush whack to the back side of this wall and I lead "Screwed the Pooch" (I don't name them people, I just climb them).