the city that never sleeps...

my brother's pilot premiere was on thursday night. my dear mother was kind enough to offer to watch the children while we attended. and since we were unable to go cruising and our tenth anniversary year ends in a matter of days we were excited to take a few days in a city we both love.

we left wednesday after amy stayed up late packing and i worked through the night. hannah took the girls to violin and we dropped michael at school and ella at co-op. we rushed to the airport and flew off.

on the flight i met my favorite mormon (post-mormon) director--richard dutcher. i'm not in the habit of meeting famous people, so i asked, 'is your name richard?' 'yes' 'richard dutcher?' 'yes' 'hi my name is paul frandsen and i am a big fan of your work. god's army 2? great.'

and that was that. he was nice and the encounter was brief.

stephen and hillary picked us up from the airport--very kind of them to brave the traffic. amy and i were beat after sleeping so little so we went out for pizza and crashed at stevie's. stephen did not crash as he had a night's work ahead of him. he and the director of the pilot worked through much of the night on finishing the color etc...

thursday was the premiere so while he finished final preparations we went directly from the subway in brooklyn to the natural history museum off central park. i had never been and thoroughly enjoyed it. below are the pictures from the museum.


the natural history museum is impressive fare. favorites? the big whale and most of the ocean exhibit. the exhibit on evolution. meteor rocks. and the dinosaur bones! lots and lots of real-life bones with impressive evolutionary trees showing their progression and time-line. the earthquake-meter.

after spending several hours in the bowels of the museum we surfaced for air and realized we hadn't yet seen the city skyline in the light of day (the museum has an underground subway entrance.)

i love the new york skyline. the enormity of the city is astounding. its scale is grand but old, dirty and dilapidated at the same time. after seeing the skyline from the window of the museum i got the itch to strike out on the town. we headed out on the subway to rockefeller square and did the very touristy tour of nbc studios. the highlight was seeing diddy dirty money during his photo shoot for snl. we also saw jimmy fallon and toured his set. at the end, amy and i did our own faux news broadcast. i captured a shot of amy in front of the green screen, but the final product was $30 for the footage. amy is an adorable weathergirl. i would tune in :)



we rushed from the rockefeller tree to fontana's bar in chinatown near where some of the scenes from the pilot were shot. we stopped in for chinese dumplings with stephen and hillary where we met some friends of theirs (liz and brian) and joined them in a quick bite to eat. brian is a creative executive for AMC and liz teaches at a charter school in harlem.

the premiere was great. it was a fun melding of personal and professional acquaintances of stephen and hadley. the different groups melded well and there were a lot of hugs and smiles. there was cheering and clapping through the closing credits. it was fun to see stephen and hadley's relief build as they carried off the project well. they both looked ready for a long nap and relaxing weekend after staying up most nights all week in preparation for the premiere.

stephen did all the music for the project and it was a shining element of the show. there were multiple comments about how great the music was. the color was beautiful, suspense held the group's attention, and the violence etc was tasteful :) my favorite part was hanging out after the premiere with friends and co-workers of stephen's lingering. it was fun to hear them speak highly of stephen--including his professionalism, work ethic, convivial nature etc. etc. my favorite moments of the trip were the random relaxed moments with stephen, hillary, and amy...

we took pictures together near the impressive photo/poster that stephen and hadley produced.

adam and kellyn posing with us...

brothers...

stephen and hillary were our perfect hosts on the weekend...

friday was a day for more culture. we started out at the 'frick' museum (the best named institution we visited on the weekend.) it was a cool example of a private art collectors gallery turned museum. a little renior...

we left the 'frick' for the apple store with the floating apple and the burger joint (hidden in the parker-meridian hotel.) notice stephen's signature 'i love apple' salute.

then it was off to free MOMA night presented by target. i love the MOMA. highlights? the eye. starry night. picasso. the line exhibit.

my impressionist impression of the painting...

and for the grand finale that night? the new neil la bute play, 'the break of noon.' neil is a former mormon and renowned modern playwright. he attended byu with aaron eckhart.

the play was provocative. we went not knowing exactly what to expect. la bute is a former mormon who converted to mormonism at BYU and is known for his portrayals of evil/badly behaving men. his play in the late 90's of lds people doing violent things lead to him ultimately parting amicably with the church. he has developed into one of the more renowned modern american playwrights. his play, 'the break of noon' premiered off-broadway 2 weeks ago with david duchovny as the lead.

the play chronicles the story of 'john smith' who survives an office massacre where the gunman shoots 37 people and then himself. smith claims to have had a vision of god wherein he spared john's life. he then interacts with police, ex-wife, lover, stranger and detective. each interaction shows the duality of duchovny's nature as he is both good and evil in turn. mormon undertones include 'john smith' as modern day prophet (joseph smith), mutiple versions of his vision--each more elaborate than the last, and 'jesus wants me for a sunbeam' was played at one break between scenes. pretty veiled mormon ties i know. duchovny is on stage the entire play and acts opposite 3 other actors who play dual roles. the play had a lot of language and john smith is not a 'good guy' per se.

it was interesting watching the play with a presumably secular new york audience for whom it seemed very natural to laugh at the man's shortcomings and brush off his religious ministrations and manipulations. i also felt that as a believing mormon the play took on greater depth as i was asked to confront this man's shortcomings in the context of joseph's shortcomings. all the while asking me to maintain my belief in both.

the play ultimately asks the audience to accept an imperfect man as a prophet. the final scene ***plot spoiler***involves duchovny speaking in church before an audience in a sort of evangelist setting. he levitates in the final moments of his monologue and la bute asks the audience to accept that this man is what he claims.

we went for eggs benedict after the play (divine) and headed home for a movie at stephen's apartment.

oh, and on the way out of the play i met mr. michael moore and had my picture taken with him...

the next day was broadway day. we stood in line for cancellation tickets to lion king (while a scalper tried to hustle me into some 2nd row tickets that i turned down after he walked me around times square introducing me to his scalper buddies.)

amy loved the show. i thought it was so so. beautiful lighting, costumes, vocals, but still the same lion king plot-line i've seen 20+ times on tv. i would however love to take the kids someday...

times square from the minskoff theatre.



in between broadway shows amy speed shopped at H&M and we met stephen and hillary at the temple/stake center before his performance for the stake christmas concert
the final show of the evening was billy elliot. i loved it. the dancing was breathtaking, the musical numbers were powerful and the message of hardship, sacrifice and committing to yourself were motivating. the 11 year lead was an amazing dancer and brought incredible suspense at times.

that night we went 80's dancing. great times...

church was inspiring in stephen's brooklyn branch.

a relaxing sunday and waffles topped off the trip.

thank you so much stephen and hillary! congratulations on the successful premiere...

definitely NOT cruisin'...

yes, these are images of the boat we were to board yesterday for our dream cruise for our 10th anniversary to the mexican riviera. but it was not meant to be. we've had several moments of disappointment as we've passed dates and events that we were to have missed.

we had each picked out several books to read poolside, we'd booked glass bottom kayaking, snorkeling, canopy tours, rappelling, city tours, massages (just to list a few of the items we'd been looking forward to for months...) on tuesday morning when i started following the news and twitter feeds about a fire in the splendor's engine room the pit in my stomach started to grow...

while the pit in my stomach was growing, the uss ronald reagan was packaging spam and sending it to the stranded passengers aboard the cruise-liner.

tugboats took three days to get to the boat and pull it to san diego.


so yes, we'll live to cruise another day.

meanwhile, we are here in the snowy cold and loving it. the girls built this snowman on october 28th, but this morning we built another (mickey mouse style) and then headed over for the first sledding of the year before the snow melted and before they headed off to school. they loved it. (ella tried to come out in her dress and flip-flops but mom put a stop to that.)

soon after realizing our hopes had been dashed by the fiery fiasco i sent a plea for shifts and my colleagues graciously offered me some work this week.

my mom offered to give us a night in SLC over the weekend at the gateway and crystal inn where we luxuriated for one night rather than seven.

we were here to see byu clobber csu and notre dame decimate utah.

we were here to see michael's 'great to be eight' program at the church. when one of the leaders announced that when a boy turns eight he can start cub scouts michael called out an audible, 'yesssss.' people laughed and we were proud of our eager soon to be eight-year-old.

michael's thanksgiving choir concert will be tuesday night as is the evening in excellence amy is in charge of. the first thing michael said when i told him our cruise was cancelled was, 'now you can come to my christmas concert!'

plans began to emerge for the week as we will be here for the byu vs. utah state basketball game.

i had been lamenting missing the opening of harry potter while floating somewhere off the coast of mexico and since stevie's coming into town we purchased tickets to see it with hillary and him!

the biggest event of the week by far (in close running with the wedding of andrew wright) is the birth by melinda of baby jared scheduled for friday morning!

so in reality. we are excited to be around and will certainly find our way back into the day to day. all the while wistfully thinking of what might have been...

camping with cuties...

we live near an amazing alpine canyon but it took me a year to get up there in a tent. luckily i had two great reasons to head up--my girls.

we have a tradition of 'special days' with the kids. a special day can be with mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, an aunt or uncle. a few years back i had an experience with michael in joshua tree that remains a highlight of my relationship with him. i figured it was time to get out one on one with the girls and get to know them a little better.

we loved it.

the trips were two weeks apart. abby went first. it was mid-week and the we almost had the canyon to ourselves. we started at walmart and wendys. she loved picking out the items we would eat on the trip and directing me to the different items. with drinks and food in hand we headed up the canyon. out first stop was the scout/church campground where we ate by the river to eat our food and she played on the slide. there were young men/ young women events planned for the evening so i figured life would be peaceful further up the canyon.

you can see abby here after her wendy's...

after that we headed up the road to one of my favorite spots in the canyon. the lookout point here makes me feel like i'm on a european alpine slope. as you can tell from my dancing abby, this is a spot she enjoyed as well.


after the look-out point we headed up to salamander flat, went hiking (which i mostly just have video of) and then set up our camp. my dad would have been proud of how interested abby was in helping set up the camp. i put our bags in the tent and went back to the car. when i returned, abby had unpacked our foam mattresses. when she heard me returning she announced that my shoes needed to stay out at the 'shoe spot'.

she loved the headlamp (as all my kids have so far.) one sweet moment of the trip was after we were ready for bed and turned out all the lights. we were about to lie down for the night and abby looked out the tent plastic and said, 'the stars!' i couldn't help but pull open the tent flap and lie under the stars with her. she was in awe. she looked and looked and even starting singing for a while. it was probably 45 minutes later before we went to sleep--45 minutes very well spent...

the next morning, my battery went dead, so i have no proof of our ramen noodle breakfast, our hiking expedition through the creek. both were lots of fun with my sweet abby.

after the trip i feel like our relationship is better. she is more verbal with me and i feel like we connect better when i speak with her. what a great time.

in the following weeks, bekah alluded often to her upcoming 'special day' in the mountains. it hadn't been officially planned that i would take them both camping separately, but with bekah referring to her coming camping trip i knew i'd better get it planned and done before snowfall (so i'm a cold wimp...)

when the day came bekah was excited. she was definitely anxious to prove she was a good hiker, climber and camper. we stopped by walmart, roxberry and little caesars for our pre-camping meal. we headed directly to the reservoir and headed out on a hike. unlike with abby, the leaves had turned and were colors everywhere. both my girls love to run along the trail (but that has been the case since the moment we took them out in public together--they like to run everywhere.)

bekah has several favorite colors--chief of which is orange. she was in heaven with the colorful leaves and much of our discussion revolved around that. i would point out mount timpanogos every time it came into view. several times after pointing out mount timp she would say, 'it's too bad she died.' apparently the story of princess timpanogos made an impression on her...

we found a log that crossed the creek en route to our hike. bekah loved it. she crossed it over and over. at one point she was instructing me how to start, how to walk across etc. our last trip across as the sun was setting she lost her balance and as she fell she took the initiative, jumped in feet first, landed on her bum and hopped back up and scampered up the rocks to safety. very proficient. she was tearful and shocked by the cold.


however, she loved hanging out near the fire in her blanket after the fact. we cooked on the new grill, ate oreos, warmed up and talked. bekah was in a silly mood and was glad to be on her special day.

i worked earlier in the day the next day and the gear was wet so we broke camp early and headed home to set it out in the sun.

overall, it was great times all around. i would love to make trips like this at least a yearly event with each kiddo. it means a lot to them and it means a lot to me.

saints to sinners 2010

this past weekend we rode in the inaugural saints to sinners bike relay. it was a riot. over the past many months as i organized and cajoled to get a team together i've gone back and forth with excitement and concern for whether my teammates would enjoy the experience. we went from a team of 12 at one point to a team of 3 men at the beginning of july. jonny, ryan and myself. jonny and ryan were with us from the start and when we thought we might not get a team together they were still with us. luckily, two friends from high school with whom i've biked for years came through to round out the team--jared and brent.

my uncertainty stemmed mainly from the safety of the roads and whether the race would be engaging enough in-between legs. we had 5 riders so it meant a greater challenge and longer miles. i knew this would be a cool aspect of the ride. i was worried enough that i went to great lengths to get a good mix of movies and TV shows that we could play in the car while others were biking. 'pacific', 'generation kill', 'karate kid' and 'green zone' among others. however, even with all that good entertainment at our fingertips, we didn't crack a dvd case once...

as a warning. before i launch into my thoughts and the play-by-play of the race. you may want to just skip to the 10 minute video at the end of the post that contains all the photos and video we took while out on the course. your call.

i worked till 1 am the night before and was up at 5:45 am the morning of the race friday, july 30th. four of us converged on the public park in south jordan where the race would start. the day before i painted the car windows and put on jared's hitch rack.

on arrival we signed wavers, ate pancakes and cheered brent as he began the race for us. from the moment brent began the race there was this ever-present tug on my mind. an inexorable march towards vegas that pulled us forward. at any point we could not stay for too long or we would miss our compatriot at the next transition point. it was this tug and excitement regarding the next leg of the race that led to constant attention and enjoyment.

we raced past brent in the car overlooking the gorgeous sunrise from the west side of utah lake. in retrospect we are really glad we started at 7am. it would be nice to start even earlier next year. as we headed south i began to feel excitement and anxious about my first leg of the race. this was the constant enjoyment of the event. that you had your part to do and you didn't want to let the team down. that constant concern for doing your part led to a variety of interesting emotions.

my leg started in goshen. brent paced with a team from vegas 'chupacabra' during his leg and this definitely helped the two teams time! the goshen post office graciously lent its bathroom to participants and was rewarded by the loss of all its toilet paper.

my mom, amy and our kids arrived in goshen to cheer me on just before i started. they made some great signs and it was a great send-off.

my climb up through goshen canyon was beautiful but with a headwind. i'd hoped to pace with another team, but left him behind with concern that i would get caught out in the wind and neither of us would move that quickly along the route. that concern was unfounded.

i passed through nephi quickly where i waved fleetingly to my kids who'd come south to one more transition to wave and cheer.

beyond nephi was the busiest section of the road. a road i've traveled for years en-route to grandma and grandpa's. a few semi-trucks passed and with them the wind at your back or face, but i didn't feel as nervous on the road as i thought i might. however, i wouldn't complain if the race started earlier next year and we could fly over that road in the dark with less cars to the prettier areas of the race.

after 40 miles, ryan spelled me and headed south towards salina. ryan kept up a very quick tempo as our team was averaging over 20mph on each leg to this point.

south of salina jonny and i rode together. it was fun to pace with jonny. the winning team of ten ('we abuse crack') paced each other throughout the race (each rider rode double the legs.) we did this to a degree as a 5-man team and it definitely helped.. brent, ryan and i each found other legs to double up on so that we could increase our overall speed. over 500 miles, 1 mph will decrease your overall time by nearly an hour... the winning 10-man team averaged 20.1 mph and we averaged 19.3 mph as the winning 5-man team.

our first mishap came in richfield when i was hit by a car. some middle aged woman pulled past jonny and me and then made a sharp right hand turn immediately in front of me. i bruised my shin on her bumper and landed on my left backside. i held the bike up and sustained one small scratch on the quick release and an almost imperceptible brushing on the paint of the top-tube. i was furious and looked my bike over for a few minutes while jonny talked with the woman who'd hit me. we hopped back on the bikes and minus the pain in my leg we were as good as new. we finished our 40 mile leg on an uphill to big-rock candy mountain. who knew there was a big-rock candy mountain south of salina? the whole river and canyon area around big rock candy mountain was beautiful.

our second mishap came with jared's first of two punctures. luckily we weren't too far ahead and as soon as his pacing partner came by without him we raced back to help him. we had the tire changed and him back on the road within 8 minutes. ryan jumped from his seat and offered to pace jared back into the race. this was good of ryan as he and jared had the longest combined solo mileage.

in panguitch we saw quite a few teams as this was the second major transition after gunnison. in gunnison, we'd seen kelly, kathy and kayli. it was fun to talk with them before we headed south. in panguitch we saw the 'death star' team. amy and mel were at this transition as they had been at gunnison. it was fun to follow them down the course. what a sacrifice for them to volunteer those 24 hours with very little sleep. thank you!! luckily they claim that volunteering was a lot of fun...

in panguitch, brent started the climb up cedar breaks. the climb up cedar breaks is about 32 miles and we ascended from 6632 to 10,581 feet above sea level. brent took half the mileage and 1500 vertical feet on his climb and i took the rest. his climb began with some very steep grades early on as a warm-up.

i've never climbed to an elevation on the road above 8700 feet (little cottonwood.) the two things that stuck out was that we climbed from 80+ degree weather in panguitch to 55 degrees at the top. i also noticed that if i took too long drinking from my water bottle (breath holding) that i would become nauseated and air hungry.

the views at the top were gorgeous. it was one of the best parts of the course. the views were idyllic as we rode past farmland, lush meadows, a breezy lake and stunning views of the redrock at sunset.

ryan descended into cedar city at impressive speeds and while we were all worried for him on the way down, he was careful and said the descent was a lot of fun. other teams i spoke with said the ride down the canyon was a riot even though it was in the dark. we took a 30 minute nap in cedar city and headed out west of cedar en-route to saint george. jonny rode solo past amy and melinda's next volunteer transition point.

then jared and brent took us down another big descent and up another big climb through saint george and just shy of mesquite.

another great aspect of the ride was all the other riders and teams. we rode most of the course in tandem with 'the wookies', 'one for the money', 'chupacabra' and 'we abuse crack'. each had different vehicles ranging from RV's to mini-vans. the other teams varied in biking experience and life experience. along with meeting the volunteers along the route, riding with and getting to know the other teams was one of the very cool aspects of the event. you bond with people when you're all pushing as hard as you can to achieve a goal. there was always friendly competition, but also camaraderie as it was common to have other teams drive by and cheer you on and we would do the same for their riders.

another impressive aspect of the race were steven and jill (the race organizers.) with very little sleep they were always smiling and calm. steven was unflappable as the teams barreled down the state of utah with (and sometimes without) the volunteer stations being assembled just in time to catch them. he was impressive in his calm as two volunteer teams dropped out the week before the race. there were also teams much slower than their projected times making the logistics delightful. they were calm in the midst of a good time...

the worst part of the event for me was the hours surrounding my 5 am ride. i'd slept 3 1/2 hours the night before the event and only 30 minutes during the event. i was physically spent and definitely felt more like hopping into bed than hopping on a bike. the ride through mesquite was not sexy with black dirty rain covering my bike and me and these rollers on the road that required climb after climb with seemingly no end in sight. for a moment at the start of this leg i thought i'd be able to pace the leg with stu segura (a friend from highland--whom i met at loma linda during his pediatric dentristry fellowship.) however, it was not to be as his compatriot was 10-15 minutes behind ours and so i soldiered on alone.

ryan and brent then conquered 18 miles of I-15. they said it was surprisingly smooth and they flew in their paceline of two.

jonny and i rode his next leg together. the terrain of this ride was something i'd never seen. pure rocky desert bordering lake mead. there were strong headwinds and climb after climb. it was great to ride that section with jonny. we neared the end of that leg and could see the tent at the end of a distant climb. jonny turned and said, 'i've always wanted to race in a mountaintop finish.' we pushed hard to the top of the climb and we both felt like we'd given our all to the team as jared began the final leg. nick and kelly (sp?) were at this transition point and nick cheered us up in our BYU kits. hopefully we did the school proud?

due to some problems with tent/support placement, the final leg was 5 miles longer than we'd bargained for. jared got beat down by the extra five miles and the heat. he soldiered on with great strength as he had another tire puncture and was forced to ride brent's bike with the wrong clips for the pedals. he held it together as we switched out water bottles for him and poured water over his back. he rode brent's bike for at least a mile by the time we brought him the other bike with the repaired tire. brent and ryan both paced for a period during this final leg.

reaching the finish was a definite relief. we enjoyed some post-ride food. and headed to the golden spike for swimming and a nap before the awards ceremony. i haven't felt that good in a swimming pool for a long time.

that night we went to the wold buffet at the rio and ate as many calories as we could possibly stuff down. what a great place. we collapsed in the hotel and slept for 12 hours after dinner. 12 hours of sleep was heavenly after what we'd been through.

we were excited to win the 5-man division at the awards ceremony and to get jerseys! we did not enter to win the race but to do our best and have fun. i'm sure we'll have trouble defending our division title with many more participants next year, but either way there will be a ton of fun waiting for us at next year's event...

the california death ride...

the california death ride. 129 miles. 15,000 feet of climbing. 5 passes. what a great day!

over the weekend i completed a feat i've been training for all spring. the death ride had 3500 riders this year and the registration filled up in 7 hours back in december. joseph lee and i registered within 1 hour of the registration opening. since registering the race has weighted on my mind. my training began with a few rides in feb/march. april was consumed with study for my oral boards (which i passed--and became board certified!) may and june were filled with 100 mile training weeks--often with over 10,000 feet of climbing each week. the staple of my training was the alpine loop.

key in all of this was the support of amy and the kids. thank you so much for allowing me to ride my bike 10 hours a week these last two months!

the event began with travel to markleeville, california to pick up registration packets on friday. i slept 3 hours on thursday evening and left my house at 1 am and drove 9 hours straight to turtle rock park. i met a couple from upstate new york in line who traveled together to participate in the ride. after registration we headed to south lake tahoe where we rode ten miles, slept on the beach (while joseph swam) and loaded up on pasta and calzones...

we awoke at 4am and loaded the bikes.

during my ACLS training i found an internal medicine physician whom i'd met during medical school, charlie ayers. we found then that both of us happened to be riding the tour of california. we decided to carpool to the start of the race. with 3500 riders there were cars stretched along the highway for miles. we found a spot about 1 mile from the start line to park and climb onto the bikes. below you see a photo of charlie and myself.

nutrition plays a key part in a day long endurance event. the difficult issues are fluids--to prevent dehyration, electrolytes--to prevent muscle cramps and hyponatremia, carbohydrates--to prevent 'bonking' where your glycogen stores are depleted and you muscles are unable to contract anymore...

i'm still working on my pre-race carb loading plan. the main issue for me is that ingestion of large amounts of simple carbs induces GI upset. i won't give details, but this required me to visit the loo at every mountain peak, lunch and other various rest-stops...

joseph and i were off (after visiting the loo at the start) at 5:55 am. this placed us starting 25 minutes after the bunch start. the event was not officially timed and the emphasis was on finishing each climb. regardless, starting late like this had us passing riders all day. the first climb was up 'monitor pass' the climb was 3,000 feet of climbing and about 10 miles.

climbing in an event like this was fascinating. joseph and i had trained very similar and amazingly on the day there were rare occasions where either of us felt we had to pull the other along. we ended up passing riders all day. one of the coolest aspects of this event was its scale. there were 3500 riders and it was amazing to climb past hundreds of riders up the 1st climb. riders of all body types, from all over the country with jerseys often stamped with monikers from their home towns. i'd like to say i enjoyed the gorgeous sunrise during this climb, but i spent most of the time ticking away on the pedals and keeping track of the riders we passed ahead.

at the top of the first climb my father would have been proud of all the boy scouts who helped staff the first support station. another defining aspect of this ride was the phenomenal support. rumor is there were 700 volunteers...all of whom seemed to be smiling and happy. every support station had pbjs, chips, gu, oranges, bananas, cytomax, water, toilets and lots and lots of riders...

getting past the first climb felt good. it felt like the ride had definitely begun and we could settle in. the descent down the backside of monitor was amazing. we claimed a photo at the top before the quick descent...


this was probably one of my favorite sights from the perspective of human scale. we probably passed 250 riders up monitor, but on the way down monitor we saw over a 1000 riders coming up as we descended...

i thought the site was so cool that i couldn't help but pull out my camera and shoot a short video of the scene.

the second climb was 3000 feet over 8 miles--meaning that the grade was more relentless often sitting between 8-10%. it was fairly hot up this climb with no trees and the sun beating down...

after arriving at the base of the monitor descent we turned immediately to climb up what we had just come down. this was another climb of human scale as we passed 100's of riders. i caught part of this climb as well on video. you can see the tempo that allowed us to see so many riders from the race as we rode up the climbs...

and a photo op.


the third climb of the day was the toughest for me. this 3,000 foot 14 mile climb kicked up the last 8 miles with a unique profile where you would undulate from 5% to 14-15% steep sections. this was the most beautiful section of the ride though and while this was the only time on the day that i thought i might not be able to stay with joseph's pace, i turned inward and suffered up past gorgeous views.

before the final kick up to the top we captured this shot on a beautiful section of the course.

you can see a hint of relief in this photo below as we'd finished 3 of the 5 climbs.



at the top of the descent down the backside of ebbetts joseph noticed a bulge in his rear tire. he made his way slowly and safely down the descent and luckily there was technical support at the bottom where we purchased a tire and replaced it. 30 minutes later we were happy to be back on the road.

the climb up the back of ebbetts was 1800 feet and 5 miles. a hot climb but manageable. (for perspective, the climb up the utah county side of suncrest is 4.5 miles and 1200 feet of climbing.)

we descended the gorgeous ebbetts hillside with a few stupid riders passing us and taking big risks and crossing well over midline at high speeds.

lunch was at the bottom of ebbetts (mile 77 or so.) we met a guy from the bay area who was riding his 4th death ride in a row. so many really nice people (and so many really nice bikes...) it seemed anytime you would greet someone on a climb they would smile and give you a kind answer. a lunch of potato chips, chocolate chips, turkey wrap, ramen and water before heading out for the final monster climb of the day. we were done with 4 of the climbs by 75 miles, but still had 50+ miles and 4000+ feet of climbing to ride.

we hopped in a paceline for the traverse to the bottom of carson pass. at one point joseph blew up the paceline with a blistering pace up a 400 vertical foot ascent of 8%. we hung with him and moved to the base of the final climb.

in our paceline (a nod to aj if he even reads this far), there was a strong rider with an oregon ducks jersey and shorts on. i yelled go ducks when he first jumped in the paceline and he said, "that's right go ducks." he said he'd already had an oregon state beaver fan yell, "f*** the ducks" during the ride. i let him know while i was a BYU fan i could appreciate duck fans because of my brother in law's loyalty to the school. we rode together together at a fast pace for 10-15 miles before we hit the base of carson pass.

at the carson pass support tent there was a water shower, a man dressed as a grim reaper, lots of food, and port-a-pottys (my 5th visit on the day to the loo?) for the final climb i knew i would need extra motivation, so i played muse and weezer on my phone speaker in my back jersey pocket coming up that final 16 mile 3000+ foot climb. how can you not tap out a fast tempo when listening to the likes of 'i am the greatest man who ever lived' and 'love is our resistance'..?

regardless, we powered up that final climb (i definitely felt better than i had on ebbetts.)

the final 1/4 mile of our ascent a guy crashed on the descent just ahead of us and i pulled over to look him over. he had no spinal column pain but had road rash over his hip. however his pain in the pelvic region was too great and he stayed on the ground till the ambulance came. we soldiered on. in all there were 4-5 ambulances and 2 helicopters called out for various crashes--amounting to .2% of the riders experiencing physical mishap...the three riders i saw looked like they had no limb or life threatening injuries luckily.

at the top we held our hands above our heads together across the summitt. what a feeling of accomplishment as we two had paced each other over climb after climb that day. we pushed each other and pulled each other in ways we couldn't have done alone. we were a great team.

we then headed to the support tent for ice cream and to sign the 5-pass finisher's poster...

after some ice-cream and a coke we shot these photos capturing the beautiful scenery to be found at the top of carson pass.



we then descended and made the final small climb to our car.

the finish line included live music, chicken fajitas and relief/relaxation. we drove back to tahoe to soak in the lake and the hot-tub.

we watched the tour stage replay at a bar in harvey's casino (a bit boring with chavanel taking back the yellow jersey.)

i locked my keys in car the next morning and delayed my drive home by nearly 2 hours. oh well.

all in all it was an epic day. sadly i erased my garmin gps data the evening of the ride, but not before reviewing it mentally. our spinning time on the bike was 8 hours and 21 minutes with total time including rest stops, photos and tire change somewhere in the 10 hour range.

below is the race profile i created on mapmyride...

and if you read to the end of the post you deserve some award for endurance as well!

friends and mice...

after our family reunion in so cal with amy's family we headed to...disneyland. where else?

my big regret of the trip is that we never obtained a picture of all of us together. we went with my cousin and amy's cousin. jill and steven and jan and christene...

despite not getting a group shot I did catch this great shot on space mountain with jan and christene's kids. bekah is one brave girl, but as you can guess from this photo she's decided not to ride space mountain for a very, very long time..:(

you see definite evidence here that kids loved being with their second cousins! in the lead up to the trip the kids talked about each of the second cousins who would be with us at disneyland. they were definitely excited to meet up.

jill and steven's kids LOVE the teacups. i am traditionally not a tea cup lover (mostly because of the headache and nausea it induces.) lucky I didn't ride as I was able to get a few shots of the party people in their cups...



it had been a long weekend and ALL of us were tired after our first day at disneyland.

however, that didn't keep the kids from getting up early for morning cartoons before heading off for another disney day...

after each disneyland trip my father likes to ask if the magic has worn off. while we're never quite sure what he means, these pictures stand as evidence that the magic has definitely not worn off.



thank you to the family that met us there! and thank you to the kids for making it such a great time...