Hi there.
While I’d love for this blog to be the thing that pays the bills, it’s not. Which means that when the thing that does pay the bills—my day job—gets hectic, I need to deprioritize this blog for a bit.
Usually, I know when that’s going to happen, but not always. Like right now. I want to post and even have some fun things to post about, but right now I need to take care of my day job.
See you next week,
Someday, I’m going to learn to not procrastinate so much. Like, maybe I’ll put it on my calendar for 2016. Or possibly 2017. But right now, I don’t have time to think about any of that, because in 24ish hours, I am going to be giving a speech at the Annual Seminar for the Institute of Transportation Engineers, Utah Chapter.
No, I am not making this up. Nor am I kidding.
However, I do have twenty minutes to fill. Right now, here’s what I’ve got figured out on how I’ll use that time:
As you can see, I’ve got a pretty good plan here, except I’m not all that sure what to say during that third bullet point — you know, the part where I have to give a speech.
Now, I don’t want to waste this opportunity to talk to transportation engineers, because it’s not every day you get a chance to complain about the roads to the people who actually figure out how roads ought to be built. Hence, there are several highly topical issues I am considering talking about — ideas for the transportation engineers to get to work on.
Because they’re all top-notch ideas, I’m expecting them to be met with universal approval—and probably lots of funding—immediately.
That said, I believe it’s possible that there are more good ideas out there. Ideas that transportation engineers need to hear.
Post them here. I will pick the good ones (both the serious good ones and the ridiculous good ones) and include them in my speech.
Which I plan to record and post here, because you will not want to miss it.
Yesterday afternoon I got a highly-coveted email. It looks like this:
Yep, I’m in for my eighteenth Leadville. Nineteenth, if you count 2009, the year I crashed out of the race. By the way, you should not count that one. Nor should you count 2015, until late in the afternoon this August 15th, when—provided everything goes well that day—I’ll have actually finished my eighteenth Leadville 100.
In other words, while it’s really tempting for me to talk about this as my nineteenth Leadville Trail 100, the reality is I’ve finished it only seventeen times.
Still, that’s more finishes than most people. And it’s quite a few stories.
For those of you who want to start getting worked up about the Leadville 100 or are interested in what eighteen years of stories about the same race (yes, eighteen, because I definitely have a story for the year I didn’t complete), here’s a handy list: all of my Leadville 100 write-ups, linked from one place.
I hope you didn’t have any other plans for the weekend.
1997, 10:35:54 – Finish 1: My first racing of the Leadville 100 is worth reading primarily because it’s such a normal first-time story. If you’re planning on racing the Leadville 100 and are wondering if it’s weird that you’re already thinking about it all the time, read this.
Nowadays I read this installment both with fondness and with astonishment at how little I knew about racing.
1998, 11:27:05 – Finish 2: I like this story more because it’s a telling of how two of my best friends—Dug and Bob—and I did the race, from each of our points of view. It has a great ending.
1999, 9:13:09 – Finish 3: For a long time, my third attempt was my fastest. Just thirteen minutes shy of that big buckle. Far from it being an accomplishment of which I was proud, though, I remember getting away from the finish line as fast as I could, making my way to my car, and just sobbing for about five minutes. I had come so close to hitting my objective, which hurt a lot more than if I’d have missed it by an hour, somehow.
Unfortunately, I either did not write this story up, or can’t find it. Regardless, it’s gone now.
2000, 9:30:29 – Finish 4: I came to Leadville this year with the intention of getting that sub-9-hour finish, and then it rained. Hard. This is the year everyone talks about when they describe how difficult Leadville can be. I wrote my story for Active.com, so you’ll find it here.
As a bonus, this was the year The Hammer raced Leadville 100 for the first time. It just about killed her, and her story is definitely worth reading.
2001, 9:17:02 – Finish 5: This year starts establishing my pattern of not quite hitting my goal of finishing in under nine hours. This is back before I had a blog where I wrote everything that happens to me, and thus…I have no individual memory of this race.
2002, 10:20:37 – Finish 6: I learned the “non-contributing weight” axiom of the Leadville 100: Every non-contributing pound you carry costs you five minutes. I was riding a full suspension bike, had gained some weight, and had not trained like I should. I am going to cut my past self some slack, however, because I was the father of infant twins.
Oh, also, I took a 20 minute nap at the final aid station. Refreshing! (And no, I don’t have a story writeup for this year.)
2003, 9:20:04 – Finish 7: I learned that one can drink only so much Gatorade. About 3/4 of the way through the race I got nauseous and started barfing anytime I tried to eat or drink anything. I blame the Gatorade, probably without reason. If I hadn’t gotten sick toward the end of the race, this might’ve been the year I got that sub-9 I’d wanted so badly. No write-up on this year.
2004, 10:56:33 – Finish 8: I learned that just finishing can be a victory. This was while my life was pretty much completely insane and I had not trained at all. So I went to Leadville just to have fun and see my friends. And you know what? It was a great ride/race. I talked with a lot of people who — like me — just wanted to finish. The support and cameraderie at the back of the pack is much stronger than at the front. These racers are the heart of mountain biking.
2005, 9:41:20 – Finish 9: I had just begun doing some freelancing for Cyclingnews.com, so asked them if they’d be interested in a story where I interview folks as I rode alongside them on the course. This turned out to be a great idea; I had a terrific race. My story is here, and you can find the two-part story I wrote for CyclingNews here: Part 1, and Part 2.
2006, 10:06:45 – Finish 10: This was my tenth year racing the Leadville 100. I had a grand plan to finish it in under nine hours. Wouldn’t that be dramatic, to hit my goal the same year I got my coveted 1000-mile buckle?
Yes, it would have been dramatic. Unfortunately, I finished this race in over ten hours.
This is a telling of how you can delude yourself into thinking you’re really fast…only to find out the reality at game time.
2007, 9:14:13 – Finish 11: I call this story, “Sort of Close, but No Cigar.” By the time I raced in 2007 I was doing almost everything right. But not quite everything. This year also marks the year I started getting really verbose with my race stories and writing them as multi-parters. So:
2008, 10:06:42 (singlespeed) – Finish 12: 2008 was the first year I tried racing on a singlespeed. Since I knew I wasn’t going to finish in under nine hours on a single, I was released from the stress of a goal that seemed—at the time—unattainable, and was able to just enjoy the race.
This was also the year I nearly got crashed out of the race ten seconds into it.
2009, DNF (singlespeed): Susan had died just before this race. My head wasn’t in the race. I was riding angry and stupid. The fast downhill pavement turned; I didn’t. Honestly, I do not understand how I managed to not be seriously injured.
2010, 9:17:27 (singlespeed) - Finish 13: With a 9:17 on a singlespeed, this was the year where it occurred to me that the sub-nine-hour finish might not be an impossible dream for me after all. This is the year I appeared (starred, really) in Race Across The Sky, by the way. I was brilliant, by all accounts.
2011, 8:18:19 – Finish 14: To date, this is my high-water mark for racing the Leadville 100. This is the year I kind of figured everything out: the training, the right kind of bike, how much (and whe
n) to eat, how long of breaks to take…everything. I finished well under my goal of nine hours, and Specialized rewarded me by letting me keep what had been, up to that point, a long-term test bike. Wow.
2012, 8:49:47 (singlespeed, first place) – Finish 15: If you train really hard and all the right people fail to show up, it’s possible to win the men’s singlespeed division at Leadville with a time of 8:49. The fact is, though, I’m really proud of this finish time, because following this race (literally the next day) I was racing The Breck Epic for six days.
2013, 8:23:54 (singlespeed) – Finish 16: I took a different tack in this report. Instead of talking about my race (my fastest singlespeed finish, but not fast enough to get me on the podium), I talked about why I love this race.
2014, 8:39:38 (singlespeed) - Finish 17: My race report from last year is worth reading, but the real star of 2014 is The Hammer and her adventure racing with MTB Legend Rebecca Rusch. Here are the links to both stories.
My Story
The Hammer’s Story: Racing with The Queen of Pain
2015: My Fastest Year Ever
I’m just going to be lazy here and post the links.
PS: So this is a weird idea, but would it be interesting to have these stories available as a podcast series? Something to listen to as you’re driving to work or putting time in on the rollers?
I want to tell you about the “ride” I had on New Year’s Day, and about an idea I had during that “ride.” Cuz I think it’s a good idea, but it’s only a good idea if enough of you also think it’s a good idea. So I need to know whether you think the idea I think is a good idea is a good idea.
I apologize for the previous sentence, by the way.
New Year’s Ride
My friend Jared Eborn puts together an annual event called the “New Year’s Revolution Run & Ride.” The idea of it is pretty ridiculous: he reserves the Utah Olympic Oval, gives people timing chips, and lets them essentially do a Marathon of Nowhere (95.5 laps to do a marathon) from 8am to 1pm on New Year’s Day.
Off in the corner, he also allows cyclists to come join in the “fun” by riding their trainers or rollers for five hours. The Hammer and I chose this option, mostly because I have been promising Jared I’d come do one of his events for the past five years or so.
So: we set up—The Hammer on her old trainer, me on my rollers (we didn’t want to disassemble our Wahoo Kickr setups we have so nicely arranged in the basement), and we began our five-hour-long ride.
The Hammer is on the far left in this photo. My rollers are to her left.
I expected it to drag on and on and on. To be a brutal test of my mental endurance. I was therefore astonished to have the time just fly by.
Why?
Because I was completely absorbed by what I was listening to: The Serial Podcast: twelve well-written and narrated episodes of a journalist’s struggle to find the truth about the guilt or innocence of a man convicted for murder back in 1999.
I know it’s an incredibly popular show and I know that I’m probably the last person in America to have listened to it, but we have not finished it yet (I’m on episode 9, The Hammer is on episode 5), so: no spoilers please.
And this got me thinking about why I enjoyed this podcast so much. Part of it had to do with the mystery, part of it had to do with how it happened in the real world, part of it had to do with the narrator’s fantastic voice.
And a lot of it had to do with the feeling that I was part of a fantastic conversation. Yes, I know: a one-sided conversation (usually). But still, the narrator’s gift is in sounding like she’s chatting with you.
And the thing is, this isn’t the only podcast I’ve been enjoying lately. I really like Open Mic with Mike Creed, too. His style is different than mine (i.e., he doesn’t shy away from four-letter language at all), but he asks his guests fantastic, disarming questions that are at times hilarious, at other times provocative. Mike has a gift for pulling stories out of people.
The Idea
So, as I rode (in place), I started thinking, “I need to start a FatCyclist podcast.” By which I do not mean that I should start doing an audio version of my blog.
No, I mean I want to hear people’s cycling stories. I want to talk about interesting books and movies. And I want, in every instance, for you—my readers—to be a part of it.
For example, let me know what you think of:
So, a few final questions:
Thanks.
PS: I still don’t want to do any more 5-hour roller rides for a while.
I’ve been thinking about 2015, for a bunch of reasons. This will be the year this blog turns ten, for one thing. It’s the last year I’ll spend entirely in my forties, for another. And The Hammer and I will celebrate our five-year anniversary, for a third.
This feels like it’s going to be a special year. An important year. And I’ve got a lot of things I want to do.
So is this a “resolutions” post? Maybe. Kind of. Mostly. But it’s also a teaser post of things I’m thinking about doing. Things that aren’t quite resolutions, and maybe not even quite at the point of being announcements, but they’re on my mind enough that I want to at least annoy you with a vague hint or two.
The Fast Year
I recently posted about working with TrainerRoad to catapult me into a fast early season, with the plan of having momentum into the race season.
I expect to race a lot this year. Short races. Long races. Time trials. Everything I can get my hands on.
Furthermore, I plan to train smarter than I have in prior years, and I’ve asked the guys at TrainerRoad to support me in this. They’re on board, and said they’d be OK with doing online chats and answering questions you might have, too, whatever your goals are.
So while I’d never position myself as someone who is smart about how to train, I’m pairing up with some people who are. For the first time ever, instead of stunt diets and weight loss competitions that don’t stick, I’m hoping to have some actual valuable and useful information on this site.
Weird, I know.
Strange Things are Afoot at the Circle K
I love this blog, so anytime I’ve ever considered stopping it, I’ve reconsidered pretty much immediately.
So this blog will not go away in 2015.
But it will change. In a big way. In an awesome way. In a way that will let me still do what I love doing (writing about whatever bike thing I want to). But moreso.
If things work out the way I want them to, by the end of 2015 you’ll be wasting more of your time here than ever before.
You’re welcome?
Big and Important Project. Or Projects. Or Something.
I don’t know how many “Best of FatCyclist.com” books this blog will eventually wind up making, but I do know there will be at least one more—the only one that matters, really. This will be the year I tell Susan’s story, by combining the posts I wrote during her sickness with the parts of her story I didn’t write.
So that’s one book I’m going to commit to finishing this year.
But I’ve got another one in the works. One that I haven’t told you about. Haven’t told anyone about it, publicly. But there’s some interest in it, and it will require a lot of effort to write, since it will be from scratch. But it could be the book that actually moves me closer to being able to write about bikes full-time.
Sorry to be vague. You’ll hear more about it soon. I hope.
Fundraising
It’s important to me to do something good with this accidental soapbox. For the past couple years, I’ve focused on World Bicycle Relief and Camp Kesem. And I’m going to continue to focus on these two wonderful charities. I’d also like to help out NICA, which is doing outrageously good work.
But it’s been nagging at me that I have dropped the ball in the fight against cancer. I don’t like that. When it became difficult to tell the LiveStrong story without hearing a lot of pushback, I did the easy thing and stopped telling it.
I don’t know yet if I’ll go back to raising money for LiveStrong. They’re a good charity and do good work in the fight against cancer. But the Huntsman Cancer Institute is close to home, helps individuals in their fights, and does important research.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
What About You?
I have a big year ahead of me. I’m excited for it, and I’m nervous for it. In good ways.
So: what are you excited / nervous for in 2015?
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