hanging in gunnison...

over the weekend was the frandsen family reunion in honor of grandma frandsen's 90th birthday...wow!

we loved seeing everyone. bekah has asked several times when we get to go to 'that place' again.

we took our camera, but only brought it out twice :(

so instead of a chronicle of the whole experience in photos, i thought i'd break out some video that is emblematic of all our gunnison reunions. this video could have been shot 10 years ago and we'd be doing the same things--but on a smaller scale.

enjoy!

a taste of the tour of utah...

so, this blog has been overtaken by biking. sorry.

in case you haven't heard...we have some world-class talent competing here in utah right now. most notably are levi leipheimer and george hincapie who've raced in the tour de france many, many times. so, the last two days we've made it a point to get out and see some of the tour (in large part because the rest of the week i'm either working or at a family reunion...)

amy and i celebrated our 10th anniversary this week!!!

she was kind and patient enough to allow me 30 minutes at the tour of utah during our anniversary date (not that she didn't enjoy it herself :)

we had some photos with us next to riders, but we looked super-imposed on the image and a bit silly. here are a few (sans us.)





i also have video of us there--proving that i didn't just pull these off the internet :) (warning, this video is a bit silly and may only be interesting to biking fans...)



the prologue was cool to watch with all the amazing bikes guys flying off capitol hill...

today, i took the kids to see the riders come into research park. it's a cool stage where they start in ogden and climb near snowbasin and then up big mountain before descending into SLC... we picked up wendy's on the way and ate our food in the sun for about 10 minutes before the riders arrived. kind race and team staff gave the kids swag. we therefore ended up with noise-makers and cow-bells to cheer the racers on. the kids loved it.


afterwards we looked all over for george and levi so michael could get his yellow jersey signed (when michael was 2-3 yrs old we bought him a yellow US postal jersey. since he was born, he and i have watched the tour de france every july together. george has ridden in every one of those races. michael was excited (and a little nervous to meet him.)

neither rider was in the parking lot after the stage, but i saw an official with BMC (mr. sweide) who was super-cool and told us to meet him at the marriott at 5:45pm for an autograph. true to his word we were able to meet brent bookwalter and george hincapie as they left for dinner. i asked michael before what he would say to george. he said he would say 'good luck on stage 2 tomorrow'. however, as george came out and shook michael's hand he was very quiet. i prompted michael if there was anything he wanted to say to george. he said, "you're lookin' good." george liked that. we took pictures and came home.



good times in utah.

below is a video that will probably only be interesting to those whose kids were there with me. it's 3 minutes of super-cute kids watching a bike race...

ultimate challenge 2010

the summer is coming to a close and so too should my biking season...but it's not. saturday was my 3rd of 4 events on the summer, but it was no cakewalk.

the ultimate challenge was formerly named the '300 warriors'. then the '1000 warriors'. however, last year there was a tragic accident and the race was revamped and the name changed. there was no official timing this year and starts were staggered to avoid a mass descent in AF canyon.

the course follows the same roads to be ridden by leipheimer, hincapie and bookwalter (among others pros) in next weeks Tour of Utah. it's a fun promotion for the tour and for us wannabe's we get to project ourselves into the queen stage next sunday...

michael and amy were able to shuttle us to park city at 5:45 am because amy's brother paul unexpectedly came into town and watched the girls while they drove.



originally, i'd planned to ride with two docs from work--jorgensen and oliver. jorgensen invited a friend along--shaun--and guenter volunteered as medical support (which really means swag, a free ride for the price of wearing a red fanny pack:) gratefully there were no serious incidents requiring his services!

here we are shivering at 45 degrees waiting for michael and shaun to arrive.



the ride took us out to kamas with a deceptive amount of small, steep pitches. we would stop briefly at each support station to replenish water and food. one of the joys when there's no official time (my garmin gps timer stopped when we stopped:) we dropped down past jordanelle into midway, wended our way across the valley, dropped off jackets and downed a PBJ before heading out past deer creek. i enjoyed talking with guys in the paceline i'd not met before and catching up with the guys from the group whom i usually only see in passing during a busy ER shift.

the descent into provo canyon began with construction and tight lanes, but widened just before the ascent into sundance canyon.

at the start of the sundance canyon i laid down a bit of a tempo increase which left our group at 4 for the rest of the ride. towards the top of the climb shaun put in a huge acceleration where brian and i followed him. unbeknownst to us he was climbing to talk with a friend he'd seen up ahead. he is a strong racer (finished 4th in his division at tour of park city) and the accelerations took a bit too much glycogen from my muscles' stores. brian and i reached the top together and ate at the top before regrouping with michael and shaun for the descent. in retrospect, this acceleration was one that took more out of my legs than i would have liked and made the climb to snowbird the brutal event that it became.

the canyon road had been swept with very few rocks but lots of cars parked near camping sites. it was a fast, safe, fun descent. we entered alpine near mile 73 where a surprise group was sitting with signs and cheering at the round about.

amy, paul (her brother) and the kids rode from here along the rest of the route cheering us on at different intervals. they were such good sports and it was a lot of fun to have them along. bekah was usually nearest the window as they would drive by her face would light up as she would wave and cheer from her car seat. ella probably enjoyed the process least as we found on arriving home that she had a fever. poor girl.

climbing out a draper there are some very steep descents and i thought i lost the guys ahead of me (that's why the pros use radios?) i guess just brian was ahead of me and shaun and michael were behind me. regardless, when i reached the final support station at the base of little cottonwood i didn't see the guys at the tent and decided to go on without stopping. this was a mistake. i only had two half water bottles left in 95 degree weather. i thought, 'it's only 6 miles, how hard could it be?' i've ridden little cottonwood before at good tempo with a high cadence. that was my vision of how i would finish this race. however, the climb starts at mile 94 and rarely drops below 8-11% grade. my cadence fell as my muscles cried and burned. at mile 97 i was out of water and downed my last two hammer goo packets. amy had been leap frogging me as i climbed and i figured i couldn't stop with the kids watching! i stopped at the car and paul thankfully filled my water bottle. she had purchased cafe rio so i wolfed down several bites.

you can see me making my wobbly way to the car here...

i was wolfing down pork barbacoa burrito when michael, shaun and brian came up from behind me. i then realized they had stopped at the final support tent and had been behind me.

i hopped back on my bike for the final 3 miles. the food seemed to have lifted my reserve as my garmin says i lifted a full 1 mph thereafter.

regardless, it felt good to reach the top. i'd hung with the guys from work and had enjoyed a great day with them in the saddle.



good times.

i worked 9p-3a that night (a shift i picked up last minute in trade for gma's birthday next week.) as i waited for a VQ scan to finalize disposition last night and the hour drew near 5 am i realized i'd been up 24 hours. i couldn't decide if the aching in my muscles was myalgias from a virus contracted from ella or from the ride. regardless i was glad to collapse into bed this morning...

and last but not least (can you tell we just purchased a macbook with imovie?) in video format..:

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...

Jones Family Reunion

Yup... me catching up again. This is from the end of April/beginning of May...

Every three years my mom's family has a family reunion. We always have fun together, and there are always legendary stories to be told afterward. (It can be a rowdy bunch.) That never changes. But my grandpa's death at the beginning of the year meant a big change, and we missed having him there.

Some pictures from 3 years ago at the reunion in Branson, Missouri:


Grandpa Joe's favorite trick to show the grandkids: "blowing up" his muscle with the "hole" in his thumb. Always a crowd-pleaser. That and his "broken nose" trick.


We definitely missed our Grandpa Joe... no one was there to tell us any good jokes! But we know we'll see him again.

So this year it was my Grandma who brought us all together, and my aunt Sarah and who made all the arrangements to stay at a group of condos right on the beach in Oceanside, California.


My mom (top middle) and her two sisters, Alison (left) and Sarah (right) with Grandma Hazel:


I love how this family works. We don't see each other that often, and don't have a whole lot of contact between reunions. But when we're all together, it is a whole lot of fun. It is nice to just be accepted and cared about because you belong.

It was an amazing place to stay... so perfect. We were right on the beach. Four luxury condos, all interconnected within the same building, tons of room, and right on the beach. Did I mention it was right on the beach?? I loved being right on the beach. Nothing like going to bed with the sound of waves, waking up to the sound of waves, and being able to stare out into the waves whenever you want. Because, as I mentioned... we were right on the beach. This was the view from the rooftop:

Time on the beach was so enjoyable. The kids soaked it all in, and loved being around the other kids. I enjoyed being around my cousins and brothers. Great company.

Abby LOVED the freedom of sun and surf...



Her favorite part was probably being buried by dad, Uncle AJ, and the other kiddos...



Bekah was busy creating and collecting...



So did I...



Michael loved being around Garrett. They spent a majority of the time throwing things into the ocean and finding ways to turn it into a score-able sport...


Paul enjoyed his time with the boys...


Ella, however, was not such a fan of the free-flowing water.


She did dip her head in the free-standing water when it was safe enough, though. It didn't take long for us to learn that we should spend most of our time on the beach when she was napping. :)


It was just fun to spend time with everyone.

Mary Ann... a Kentucky friend (not a born-into-the-family member, we adopted her, though!) who is like a mom to me...


This was one of my favorite moments... Garrett and the girls walking from the pier. He was so cute with them, and it was a sweet scene...



With Uncle Paul... aka "Uncle Squalldude"...




Our California friends, the Rowleys, came up to spend some time with us...


And I think we surpassed some kind of record for number of children in a hot tub. Several times. In each of the condo's 5 hot tubs...


And they loved it...


Each reunion we have a "No Talent Show"...

Which always involves some kind of lip-sync production from the three sisters...




Which always provokes quite a lot of laughter...

This time it was the Cake song, "I want a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket." They felt they each embodied different parts of the character of the short-skirted girl. And we felt very entertained...



Michael and I taught everyone a musical puppet show. Not nearly as entertaining...


Some of my favorite parts of this long weekend... long talks with my dad, a night walk on the beach with my hubby, Apples to Apples with my aunts and uncles, murder in the dark with my cousins, seal watching at the cove, talking with my cousins and brothers, eating breakfast on the porch with my kiddos, playing "Don't Eat Pete" with all the kiddos, watching Sam and Jan try to fly a kite, a girl's only lunch on the town.

It was the perfect place, and great company. Our family enjoyed ourselves immensely...


So thanks to Grandma, Aunt Sarah, Christine (because even though you said you didn't do anything, I know you did...) and everyone who came!!


Until next time... we'll pick up where we left off!

And I'd be thrilled if it happens to be right on the beach again!

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!