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Ok, about 20 years ago, I was an aspiring bike racer – training with the US National Team in Carlsbad, California – racing Category 1/2 on the Road and Track all over So. Cal while managing a bicycle shop in Escondido, California called North County Bicycles (now long gone…). 

It was an amazing experience – riding 500 miles a week.  Lifting weights every other day, massage daily, riding like a mad-man and loving every minute of it.  Unfortunately I had a nasty crash, blew out a knee along the way and although I continued to race, lost that caliber of racing forever.

While I was working at the shop, and racing I was introduced to this stuff called Kool ‘N Fit.  I always thought of it as this massage stuff that smelled like Eucalyptus, but it made me feel incredible.  I used it regularly but eventually I left the shop and couldn’t find it at my LBS, and moved on.

Recently I had found out the manufacturer is actually in San Diego, and I met the owner’s of the company.  What a fantastic couple!  They seem to have a true passion for their products as well as still going to races – whether a marathon or a criterium nearly every weekend. 

Turns out they wanted to have a few web-design things done, and I had the wonderful opportunity to do the work for them.  Of course I got some Kool’nFit and man – it was like old times!  You can literally feel the muscles warming up, feeling flush and loose…and my knee that’s been reconstructed twice feels better than ever. 

As I searched the internet I read many times that people had a hard time finding Kool’nFit, but you can get it online from Kool ‘N Fit themselves  HERE .  They also have a whole site full of testimonials you can check out at http://www.KoolnFitBlog.com. 

Do yourself a favor and go check it out!

What is ‘head clearing’? It’s when I do a download…a mind dump to get stuff off my mind.

Work – too much. I remember now why I didn’t like having a ‘job’ and a boss. It’s not either the job or the boss – I have two jobs now, and two bosses, and really like both. But it’s the loss of freedom. I’m an entrepreneur at heart. I like to be free to make my own path, my own decisions and work – at least mine – just doesn’t lend itself to that.

But, times are tough out there, and I need to feed my family, pay bills and take care of business – so I suck it up, shut up and go to work.

Kids – love ‘em. I have four kids. They’re all so unique and different and I love each of them for their own merits. My oldest son Cole is turning 18 today. Wow, feeling old right about now. My youngest, Jacob is 8. And I have two in the middle, Dylan 12 and Teddi my daughter is almost 16.

The older two live with their mom locally, and the younger two with me. The younger two keep me busy and unfortunately between their Baseball, Boy Scouts, School, and my two jobs, I don’t see my older two very often. Add to this that they’re teen agers..heck adults and they just don’t really want to hang out with Dad too much. It’s kind of a bummer – but life I guess.

Location – we’ve been trying to move to Big Bear, California for a few years now, but with the housing market stinking it up out here in California, it’s just not happening. We talked with a mortgage guy the other day about refinancing and that’s not going to happen either. So, the newest plan, save some money, pay off some debt and move to Big Bear and rent our home and hope and pray for the best renters in the world. Cross you fingers.

Racing – I haven’t done any Adventure Races in months. If you’ve known me for long, I did 4 two years ago I think, and 7 last year as I recall. Love them…but need to be fit and honestly it’s been tough…well if we’re being honest – I’ve been lazy. With my schedule, when I did have time to train I usually opted not too. But, I’m back at it. I have a snowshoe race coming up in 2 months. I got third last year so I’m going to start shooting for that. I’ve been running 5-6 miles 3 days a week – either road or trail runs, and riding my road or mtn. bike the days in between. I usually don’t do any workouts on the two days that I work my day job and then night job in the same day – my ‘double’ as we call it, pretty much zaps me. They’re 16 hour work days and they’re always back to back so I just can’t do it. But other than that I’ve been pretty disciplined lately. I wanted to get some kayaking in again and some high altitude hiking to get my legs and lungs strong for the snowshoe race as it’s up in Big Bear at over 6,000 feet to START and climbs around 1000 to 1500 feet from there.

Halloween came and went, before you know it Thanksgiving will be past and Christmas is just around the corner. Dang, it only reminds me we were hoping to be in Big Bear by now. Bummer. We booked a week up there at Christmas…keep the dream alive!

Ok, so you’re all caught up. I’m busy, but doing well. Hanging in there – you do the same!

So some of that weight loss I wrote about in my last post came from an extensive amount of exercise. Over the past 20 years I’ve raced bicycles, played semi-pro paintball, done triathlons, raced inline skates for RollerBlade around the country, swam, ran and rode all kinds of things. But this past year, after losing the bulk of my weight, I started doing more triathlons.

I completed 6 or 7 triathlons this season – mostly sprint distance and a few international distance. These races typically start with a swim of up to 1000 meters, followed immediately by a bicycle ride of up to 25 miles, followed by a run of up to 10k (6.2 miles). Some have different formats or distances, but that’s the typicaly scenario.

I also competed in several swimming events including a 5k open water swim…that’s a 3.1 mile Ocean swim for you metrically challenged folks. )

Well after having done the triathlons, bicycle racing, swimming…everything else I was of course looking for the ‘next thing’ – the evolution of my sports.

Let me shift gears a bit and come back to this. About a year ago – or more, I started planning a move for my family. We’re moving to Big Bear, California. It’s a small mountain town of around 5,000 people (at the most), East of San Bernardio/Los Angeles, California. It’s gorgeous up there at almost 7,000 feet. We spend nearly all our vacation time there hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding and kayaking and boating on Big Bear Lake. Nic and I work at home full-time and we can do our work anywhere…so why not Big Bear? Oh yes, I almost forgt to tell you… I can buy a house for around 200,000 dollars less than where I live now! Anyway, with the mountain aspects coming into play I thought Adventure Racing was the natural progression for me…

Ok, back to the ‘evolution of my sports’. Along the way I heard about Adventure Racing. It’s a triathlon “plus” if you will. Like a triathon the distances and disciplines vary, but essentially here’s what they’re about. You will Run/Trek/Hike, Swim/Paddle, Bike/Mountain Bike, Climb/Rappel, as well as normally do some other tasks requiring teamwork or using your brain – like a mental type puzzle or riddle – oh yeh, and you do all this while navigating using a compass, topographic map and coordinates – no GPS. You can do them solo, but typically you’re on a team of 2-4 people. They’re a team event with everyone having to stay within 100 yards of one another at all times. They last anywhere from 6 hours to 6 days…yes nearly a week!

Well I got my first taste this summer with an Urban Adventure Race in San Diego. My buddy Josh and I finished 2nd place overall. This was essentially just a bike race with some fun events thrown in the middle. At approximately 5 mile intervals we had to walk on stilts, ride a big wheel through an obstacle course, jump on a giant hippity-hop, do a bean-bag toss, and do a wheel barrow race with a teammate in the wheelbarrow. It was fun and got me thinking about a ‘real’ adventure race doing the things I like and excel at – Mtn. Biking, trail running, kayaking…

I got my first chance last month in the Lake Hodges Adventure Race. It was billed as a 12-hour

race. Here’s what the race entailed: First we kayaked 1.5 miles across the lake and back to retrieve a small foam ball (again – the checkpoints are not given – just the coordinates and you have to navigate using a map/compass to find them). Upon returning you carry the small foam ball on a golf tee around a short course without it falling off. Seems easy enough unless you just kayaked for 1/2 hour and your arms are shaking and you’re out of breath. My two teammates Louis and Cory and I all did fine and soon we were off to cover around 20 miles of terrain on our Mtn. Bikes. We used the coordinates of checkpoints and a map to follow trails to the 6 checkpoints we needed. The checkpoints took us to the top of the tallest hill in the area – no small feat on the bikes and negotiating the course with the other 75 competitors. Cory got a flat on the way back, but that only set us back about 3-4 minutes.

At this point we were instructed to build a small waterfall out of pvc tubing – 20 pieces max that had been provided. There was a funnel at one end and a bucket at the other. Our goal – fill the bucket with 3 dixie cups with water from the lake 50 yards away. So for 10 minutes we ran to the lake, and back with our 6 oz. of water – pouring them in the funnel, having it run down our version of the waterfall we constructed and into the bucket. When the bucket overflowed we got our next set of 3 checkpoints to navigate. They were on the water…

Back in the ‘yaks for another 5 miles of kayaking. By the end of this leg of the race my arms were ready to fall off! But we made good time and passed several teams on the water. This leg was nearly 2 hours on the water…

Along the way you have to remember to eat and drink or you’ll simply run out of gas in a 12 hour race of non-stop exertion. We all did well at this with an alarm we set to chime every hour to remind us to eat drink.

When we got out of the boats we got our next 5 checkpoints to navigate. They had to be done on foot. Trail running/hiking only. According to the map it would be around 6-8 miles of ground to cover. And off we went. We found the first two checkpoints right away. The next two proved to be challenging as they were each at the very top of two large peaks of at least 1000 feet of climbing each…ouch! Eventually we found them and hit the last checkpoint on the way back to the Start/Finish line.

What a great feeling it was to be jogging down that last bit of trail and see the finish. I was seriously pooped out. It took us 7 hours to complete the entire course and we finished 1st place for the “Masters” group – which means our teams averag age was over 40. ) We finished 2nd for 3-4 person teams and 6th overall. Not bad at all.

This truly was an adventure, and I can’t wait for my next AR!