Coast to Coast Race Report Part 2

Before the Race

If it’s not difficult, it’s not worth doing.

Read Part 1 Here 

               The Michigan Coast to Coast Gravel Grinder is a bicycle race from the tiny town of Au Grey along Michigan’s East coast on the shores of Lake Huron all the way across the state to Ludington on the West coast shores of Lake Michigan. The challenge? Cover 212 miles of primarily dirt and gravel roads in one day—twenty-one hours to be exact.

                For some reason, I decided to participate in the 2018 inaugural edition. For some even more inexplicable reason, my wife not only agreed to let me but encouraged me and offered her help as my support crew.

                Growing up and through my twenties, I was the postcard for the American obesity epidemic—overweight, out of shape, and convinced that I was not an athlete, and would never be able to consider myself one. Soon after my thirtieth birthday, a trip to the ER confirmed my worst fears: my weight and lifestyle had begun to cause health problems.

                I paid attention. I changed my diet and become more active. I began to go to the gym to lift weights, and in early 2011 I ran my first half marathon. The weight was coming off, and I continued running and training for more half marathons. In 2012, I bought a bike and took up cycling as well. I rode my first century (100 miles) in 2013, and then several more over the next few years.

                I was finally an athlete, and I began to believe it. Maybe not the fastest, or most impressive, but I was regularly doing things the average person couldn’t (at least without training). Once, while riding up Sierra Grade, a particularly difficult hill in the San Francisco Bay Area East Bay, my friend and frequent riding partner Jesse said, “The problem with conquering a hill like this is that the next one has to be harder. If it’s not difficult, it’s not worth doing.” That last thought stuck with me, and I embraced it as a mantra of sorts. I kept riding up hills and running half marathons and looking for the next challenge.

                When I moved out to the Chicago area in 2015, I began to hear about “gravel grinders.” The wide-open spaces of the Midwest are filled with dirt roads and unpaved rails-to-trails paths, and the bike industry had taken notice. To convince cyclists they needed to buy another bike (like we need an excuse), they began to come out with all-road and gravel models. I had a mountain bike and a fancy road bike, but I wanted a bike that could serve for touring, bikepacking, and commuting to work on gravel paths so my wife gifted me one of these for my 40^th birthday.

                Void of any real hills in the area, I turned my focus to distance. In 2017, I decided my challenge would be to ride 3000 total miles over the course of the year. Despite narrowly missing a shorter 2500-mile goal in 2016, I put away the miles and passed 3000 in early December before the weather turned bad (and the winter of 2017-18 had some bad weather).

                After finishing, I realized that the grind of having to get out and get miles in took away from the enjoyment of riding, so I decided not to have an overall mileage goal in 2018. Instead, I wanted to concentrate on better individual rides. Quality over quantity, I suppose.

                I’d been hearing about this race called the Dirty Kanza 200 for a couple of years, first from my family who live in Emporia, Kansas (the start and finish of the race) and then from other cyclists and cycling websites. It is the mother of all gravel grinders, the biggest race in the scene—207 miles through the Flint Hills of Kansas, and everyone said you had to ride it. My interest was piqued, and I thought very strongly about trying to do it, but the logistics of getting to and from a race in Kansas were difficult.

                Then I heard about the Michigan Coast to Coast, probably from a Facebook ad. It was the same type of race, a few extra miles, and much closer to home. I thought about it for a while, and the added perks of racing in the first version and being able to say I raced across an entire state helped convince me. After talking in depth with my wife (and eliciting her commitment as my support crew), I decided to commit. The only thing left to do was start training.

                Without going into too much detail about my training regimen, I focused on two main things: riding my bike a lot for long times, and preparing myself mentally for the long difficult times late in the race. As I told some friends, fitness level necessary to ride 200 miles isn’t that much different from 100 miles, but the mindset was much different.

                The weather didn’t cooperate much with my training, but I still got over 1100 miles in (even if a good portion of them were done in temperatures below freezing) and put in the two highest mileage months of my life in March and April. The mental part? Well, that’s only theory until you put it into practice, but I’ve read a fair number of books by ultra-marathoners and other ultra-endurance athletes so I had a pretty good idea of where to start.

                It’s funny how the date seems to creep up so slowly at first, and then suddenly rushes up. The plans were made, accommodations arranged, bike set up and tested, and we loaded the car and set off towards Eastern Michigan. I was as ready as I was going to get; given the late winter conditions, I’d done as much training as I reasonably could accomplish.

                I trolled the weather forecast for the week leading up to the race and despite pouring down on the drive out, I was excited to see the rain finish before morning. The wind was a gentle north-east, at my back for most of the route. A little chilly, but much better than most of my training. It was a happy sacrifice to not face a headwind the entire race—one of my main prayers for the event.

                We arrived in time to check in for the race, pick up my race number, and sit-in on the pre-race meeting. The race organizers got up and talked about the race’s history, logistics, and rules before giving way to Mike “Kid” Riemer, a spokesperson for the primary sponsor, Salsa Bicycles.

                “Kid” Riemer, marketing manager and storyteller (he claims it’s officially part of his job title) at Salsa, talked about the adventure that was about to unfold. He talked about the story we would be telling, a story no one else would ever be able to tell—the first time anyone had undertaken this race. He warned us about the dark and negative thoughts we would have, “You’re going to have them out there, sometime, and you have to put them aside. Tell a different story.”

                After the meeting broke up, the only thing left to do was bring a pizza back to the hotel room, pack up the bike, and get some sleep. Not as much as I wanted—the 4:30am wake-up call was early, but if that was the hardest thing I had to deal with on race day, I would be a happy camper. It wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

Read Part 3 Here

Race Report - Part 1 - Michigan Coast to Coast Gravel Grinder May 12-13, 2018

Prelude—Mile 74.3

“You tried this race to find out if you could do it, and you found out. Today, you can’t.”

                The road isn’t on Google Maps. You have to pull up the satellite picture to see it, but Google still doesn’t acknowledge it’s a road. It doesn’t have a name—the race que sheet calls it “Two track road (0.25 miles after Rogers).” None of the roads nearby have been traveled by Google’s famous camera cars, either. No car, short of a military 4x4, could travel this road today. We are well and truly in the middle of nowhere.

                I wasn’t expecting a remote forest road this early in the ride (early? I’ve already logged over 70 miles). I knew they would be coming later as we venture into the heart of Manistee National Forest, but that’s another 70 miles away, give or take.

                There is still fallout from the previous night’s rain, and I’m frustrated by it. I’ve been slogging through a muddy, soft road for the past 20 miles, my heartrate is skyrocketing into the redline, and my overall pace is slowing, slowing, slowing. Potholes—if you can have potholes in a remote dirt road—have filled with water and graduated into ponds. I slow to a crawl as I try to follow the tire marks from the nearly 200 cyclists to already pass for the best line to route around them. My tires are slipping, first one and then the other trying to catch up, all despite the generous width and new tread. My bike is sturdy, reliable, but it is not nimble. This road, it’s made of sand and it’s growing soft. I have prepared for dirt, gravel, and even a little mud, but not sand. I’m not riding a fat tire bike.

                I’m way behind schedule, and I’m burning too much energy for so early in the race. My right knee has a sharp pain with every pedal stroke. It’s not bad right now, but it’s only going to get worse and I’ve barely crossed the one-third mark of the race.

                When the road finally clears up, I pull over to the side for a quick break. I take a couple of deep breaths, eat some food, and fill up my water bottle from my hydration bladder. When the bottle is three quarters filled, the flow of water sputters and comes to a stop. I’ve made a grave miscalculation—I didn’t fill my bladder with water at the last stop because I thought it was nearly full. Instead of getting two full bottles of water out of it, I’m not even going to get one. The sun is finally out, the temperature is at its apex, and I’ve got less than a bottle of water to last me for the next 35 miles.

                “This is not fun anymore. I don’t even want to ride to the end of this stage. I have to, but that’s it, I’m done after that. I quit.  You wanted to do this race to find out if you could, and you found out. Today, you can’t.”

Read Part 2 Here

...and That.

I don't write in this blog much, at least anymore. Maybe I never did.

Here's a joke: What do you call a writer who's concentrating on his art?

UNEMPLOYED.

Hah hah.

Yeah, that's me. Although I didn't quit my job so I could focus on being a writer, I quit my job to move to the Chicago area to be near my fiance.

I will be looking for a new job once I get out there (next week), but in the meantime while I am unemployed, I need to keep myself busy and actually work. So my job will be to look for work and be a writer. So I'll need to spend specific "on the clock" time each day working on my writing.

So, in between packing, arranging for a cross-country move, and playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, I will be writing. I'll be ramping up and in a few days I'll get back into my novel, but day 1 is writing a blog post. I'll also do some work on the two short stories I have finished, minor work on one and a bit more on the second, get those finished and stamped.

Anyone else eat the crusts off of grilled cheese sandwiches first, and then the delicious gooey interior? You should. Also, little known fact, ice cream goes will with grilled cheese. as in, goes well on top of grilled cheese. Very nice mix of salty, sweet, and savory, crunch and cream.

Books I've read this year:

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.

What an odd little book. Of course, that statement is true of every Murakami book. Well, not always the "little" part. This one isn't especially little either, I guess. But it's not one of his mega spider-killer books, like 19Q4 or such. I've read quite a few Murakami books in the past one-plus years since I first read Wind Up Bird Chronicles, and I think the two best are Wind Up Bird Chronicles and Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. But boy howdy, the man sure likes to revisit his themes in his books. He's a good enough writer though that he can pull it off, at least if you're the sort who likes to read his books anyway. I love how much he doesn't answer in his books, but understand, to leave as much unsaid as he does, you've got to be good. He is.

Annhilation by Jeff Vandermeer

I loved this book. I picked it up at the suggest of my good friend Jesse who said I would like it. Also, I was intrigued to see if the author could pull off the feat described in the summary: none of the characters have names. A great combination of nature, survivalist, dystopian, bio-punk, horror, mystery, and surrealist story. He gives you just enough answers that you are satisfied with the ending, but leaves so much unknown and unexplored that leaves the perfect sense of disquiet and interest. There's two more books in the series: they rapidly moved up my to-read list. To, like, now. As in I'm reading the second one, Authority, right now. Well, right now as in right after I finish this blog post.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russel

I didn't know what to expect from this book, but I was impressed. Interviews and reviews I read suggested it was very surreal, Alice-in-Wonderland-ish, and the back cover summary implied something almost mythological. It wasn't as magical realism as I expected, but there was enough mystery and curiosity to keep me going. And, as I have grown to love in books recently, enough unknown and unanswered. The author pulls off a rare success, too, in writing a book that combines both first person perspective and third person limited perspective. The swamp is definitely magical, and the villain, when he/she appears, is not who you expected, but also is very sinister. There is a very unnerving scene at the climax of the book, very well done, but sensitive folks might not appreciate. It's executed appropriately, and without vulgarity, which is necessary to explore it. I can't really go into it any more, because, SPOILER WARNING. It certainly loses it's impact if you know what's coming.

Anyways, it's been a good year for books so far. Three isn't an extraordinary number, but it's better than I was doing the last half of last year. I'll keep it up. Hopefully, I'll try to be on here more often.

Training Day

Without tradition, our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof!

Yes, yes, I must share one of my traditions. I finished my second (relative to recent writing endeavors) short story last week. Last Wednesday, to be precise. On an airplane, which is sort of unusual because nearly the entirety of the story was written on a train. Which was appropriate because the majority of the story takes place on a train.

This one is not as good as the previous. Maybe good isn't the appropriate word, but rather finished. While "What Lies Within" is mostly complete, with a few small rewrites, this new one (which is as of yet officially untitled, but uses the moniker "I was on a train the first time I saw her...") has at least one major rewrite ahead of it. At least three major changes have already been identified.

I'm okay with that, of course. I wanted to get the whole thing down before worrying about fine-tuning.

But, because it is what I do, here is an excerpt from my Train story...

"Like art, I suppose, these still life portraits in motion. Some are whimsical, serious, beautiful, absurd.

Let me paint the picture for you. The train is not colorful, but it is bright. Soft yellows, greens nearly like grey, and subdued blues speckled with the green-grey so as to mute it even further. The florescent lights are dull but many, and the shadows are few and hidden beneath the seats. The tint of the windows keeps the shine of the sun out, though the light still makes its way inside. The men wear darker, earthier, colors, the blues of their jeans and the blacks or browns or tans of their jackets. The colors in their hair do not stand out. The colors the women wear are more varied, accented. The darks are deeper, the lights are brighter, and the subdued tones matched in ensemble. The colors of their hair do not match the extreme differences between the whites, greys, and darks of the men, but they are more nuanced. They have depth, and texture, highlights. Among them, she is standing, feet set apart wide, holding on to the rail with one hand. In her other hand is her phone, its white headphones trailing their way up past her scrubs to her ears. You cannot see her eyes; it looks as though they are closed, but she is simply looking down, distracted from the world by her phone.

There is nothing special about her. She is spectacular.

I look for her often in this gallery."

 Before you all jump to conclusions, this is NOT based on a true story, and she is NOT based on a specific person!

Anyways, I have the Tierra Bella Century bike ride in Morgan Hill this weekend, so expect tradition #2 to make an appearance Sunday or so. Maybe I'll do that one in iambic pentameter. And by "maybe," what I really mean to say is "I will most definitely not write that post in iambic pentameter unless someone volunteers to pay a large sum of money for me to do so."

What Lies Within

I don't blog all that much, but there are a few traditions I should uphold when I do.

For those of you know are in the know, which may be very few, I am a writer. No, really, I'm a writer. Not a guy with talent who talks about it, but someone who is actually writing. A bit back, I was encouraged by a close friend to get off my ass and see where the writing thing takes me. maybe you would call it my new way of looking for a new job. and since my current job allots me nearly two hours of commute time as it is...

Well, I've been spending those two hours reading books, which I still hold to be a valuable use of that time. But at the urging of my friend, I went out and bought a tiny laptop (or notebook or netbook or whatever the term is these days) for the sole purpose of writing on the train during my commute.

So, here it is, six and a half thousand words later, the first fruits of my labor, a short story titled What Lies Within. I will be returning to my novel shortly, but I want to ramp myself up and get some practice in and some momentum from finishing some shorter works before I dive into the longer material (so probably one more short story after this).

I'm not actually going to put the story up on this blog, at least at this time, because posting it here can qualify as publishing it. For one, i've only finished the first draft. It will require some fine tuning and editing. For two, if I do decide to try to sell it, many markets won't accept material that's been previously published.

But I'm not going to leave you hanging. Here is the beginning. If you are interested in reading the full text, let me know, comment below or something. I'd love  for people to read it, at least after I tune it up a little bit, I just don't want to publish it here yet.

Without further adieu...

It was dark in my office before she turned the light switch; the only glow was from my fag, the burning ember at the tip of my cigarette, but it only extended a little ways before being swallowed up by the darkness. Sure, some leaked in through the windows, past the shades, extensions from street lamps and neon lights and the occasional high beams from cars reaching all the way up to my second floor suite, but they were just afterthoughts, framing the dim shadows at the edge of the room.

She was something else, though, like some sort of fire crafted into flesh, red and orange and white. I could see her shadow and silhouette when she opened the door from the bulbs in the other room, and the details filled in when the lights came on. I didn't know which one I liked better, but I liked them both.

“Your robot said you were still here, when I talked to him. I didn't expect you would still be, by now.”

“I make it a habit of waiting in the dark with a bottle for a pretty girl to walk through the door. First time it's actually happened.”

“I need your help, of course. I need to find someone; you're the only one looking who's actually person. They're all a robot, or a computer, or a plug, looking up credit card statements on their google. They don't actually find people, just footprints. I need to find someone, my moneyman. He's disappeared.”

 I have just discovered as I looked to see if there was a picture worthy of including in this post that my title, "What Lies Within," is also part of a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson. This is not where my title came from; it actually came from lyrics to a song by the Silversun Pickups, which played a strong part in the inspiration for the story.

Though the Emerson quote is somewhat appropriate, I'll leave you with The Pit...

The Jack Reacher Quandry

A year and a half ago, I went to the movies one evening and watched Jack Reacher, an action movie staring Tom Cruise. I don't know why I went to watch it, I'm generally not a big Tom Cruise fan, but I guess I had heard enough good things about the movie that I was willing to gamble twelve bucks on it.

I liked the movie. A lot more than I expected; I mean, it wasn't an instant classic or anything. You have to have certain expectations when viewing an action movie, and this one exceeded those expectations.

So I went home, and when I see a movie I like, I do a little research on it. Discovered that it was based on a novel byLee Childs called "One Shot," which was one of many in a series about title character Jack Reacher. Also turns out that the series is successful, and generally well-regarded.

The next time I was at Half Price Bookstore, I picked up the first novel in the series, "Killing Floor." And then I read it.

It was a very cliched action/adventure mystery (maybe I like crime novel better than mystery) that read exactly like a Hollywood action movie. The stoic, tough loner hero who is good at everything, smart, sarcastic, persuasive, always beats up the bad guys, and his plans always work (and if they don't, he's always lucky enough to get away with it). We're talking a real Mike Hammer here. The girls are always pretty and smart and capable (except when they need rescuing) and sleep with the hero. The villains were well-connected and arrogant and tough and sadistic. You've seen the movie a dozen times, and it had a different name and star in each one.

The funny thing was, I loved the book. The writing was crisp, the action well-told, and with just enough depth to keep it out of the kiddie pool.

So I picked up another one of the series (there's like fifteen total), "The Persuader," and tried it out. Same hero, same character archetypes, new situation, equally unrealistic. And I loved it, too. And "Bad Luck and Trouble," and finally "One Shot" (I waited to read "One Shot" because it was made into the movie so I already knew-ish the story). Loved them (side note, having read the novel, I was very impressed with the movie adaptation. They kept the main story with all the important parts, faithfully translated all of the characters [even when they combined a couple of them together], and only made changes to suite the new medium).

I don't understand it, because these are the type of books I should have enjoyed maybe one read and then quickly forgotten. I've read Mikey Spillane, Clive Cussler (unfortunately), I've read Ludlum's Jason Bourne novels, and they had their moments (good and bad). I've read a dozen Tom Clancey novels, and liked them well enough when I was a teenager (and have no interest in revisiting them as an adult with discerning taste).

Jack Reacher, in all of his absurd cliches, trumps all of them. Four out of four is a pretty good track record, randomly chosen through the series. I don't expect any of the rest of them to get better, but I'd imagine they don't get much worse, either. But I'll probably read them, at some point.

You don't have to think too hard when you read them, and it's a good refreshing read after something dense.

Jack Reacher, I am sold. Sign me up.

In other, related, news, this has been a good couple of months for me, literature-wise. It's been a stretch of good reading, including several phenomenal novels by authors I'd never read before, visiting a classic I'm surprised I never read in school, a wonderful new non-fiction by one of my top-two non-fiction authors, and the above-stated Jack Reacher novel.

I discovered Haruki Murakami, a spectacular import from Japan. His "Windup Bird Chronicle" was spectacular, unlike anything I'd ever read before. I also went through "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World," which wasn't as good but was still quality. Ann Patchett's "Bel Canto" was breath-taking. It seemed so light, like it was floating on air. Despite the completely mundane (and by that, I mean not supernatural) story, it had an ethereal quality that I can't quite explain. It breathed. Not many books can do that. "The Lord of the Flies" is iconic, and there is a reason for that. "Cooked" by Michael Pollan is good stuff; I like every word that man said, because it's exactly what I wanted to hear.

Now I'm going to go re-watch that Jack Reacher movie, and then maybe an episode of "Eureka," the greatest tv show ever.

Your Bi-Annual Post-Race Tradition

a race report

I ran a half-marathon this weekend; it's turned into something of a tradition. Two a year, at least for the past 3 years. This was a new one, the Quarry Lakes Turkey Half Marathon here in Fremont, organized by Brazen Racing. I'm going to try to keep this short, of course, I say that every time.

This was a bittersweet race for me. Okay, you can 86 the sweet, sub extra bitter. We had originally decided to do this race as an event with our church youth group. We, as leaders, would run and encourage the students to join in with us. It's a great lesson for young people; you commit to a difficult task, prepare for it, and then complete it. The accomplishment you feel is genuine, and that's basically what you do every day in real life. In the spirit of camaraderie, I also invited several other friends to join in with me, and many declared that they would run as well.

Every single one of them dropped out, bailed out, or quit. And when race day finally came along, no one in the youth group, no one from church, and none of my friends even bothered to come by and support me and cheer along the course or at the start or finish line.

It was a very lonely race.

There was a cool moment, about a quarter-mile from the finish that a group of teenagers (who I think had already finished the race) were standing by the course. As I came around the corner, they all started whooping and cheering "Nathan! Go Nathan! You're almost there! Great job!" That I was glad for.

It was also wonderful to run into my old friend Jared at the starting line, and at the finish line. We were able to catch up a little bit after the race; I need to go running with that guy more often.

As for the race itself, it was so-so. I didn't run well, which I attribute to two main factors:

1. My training wasn't sufficient. I started over a month late (due to a century bicycle ride I did), and then I was beset by minor injuries and setbacks which reduced the number of training runs I was able to get in.
2. Three-quarters of the course was over gravel and rocky dirt trails. For most runners, not a big deal. For me with my super-thin Vibram Five Finger shoes, it meant shooting pain through my foot every time I stepped on a rock or uneven surface (which was nearly every step). In addition to the pain, my pace slowed down while I was stared down the path looking for the best spots to land without pain. This stopped me from being able to get into a zone, and was mentally exhausting as well.

I ran a 2:02:07, which is not a great time for me. According to the MapMyRun record of the race, my final distance was actually 13.58 miles (a half marathon course is 13.1). My pace with that distance was nearly identical to my last race, though still not a personal best.

Things I liked about this race:

• It was local! I was so happy that it was so close and I didn't have to wake up super early and drive all the way out to San Francisco or San Jose or somewhere far.
• Parking was simple and close. And free.
• Participant size was small enough to be personal, but large enough that I was never alone on the course.
• Very frequent aid stations.
• The post-race food selection was superb. Pie (seriously), Its-It gourmet ice cream sandwiches, plus all of the normal fixins. And lots of it. More than enough.
• Your race bib has your name on it, so 
• The race announcer saluted everyone by name as the crossed the finish line.

All-in-all, I was very impressed with the race organizer, Brazen Racing. I would definitely do more races by them.

Things I didn't like about this race:

• The course was mostly gravel paths. Already noted above.
• At the finish line, they had water, but in coolers and paper cups. I would have liked to have had a bottle of water (or sports beverage).

Anyways, it was what it was. I sure didn't think I was ready, and I wasn't, but I haven't backed out of a race yet. I don't plan to start. At least I showed myself that even unprepared, I've still got enough mojo.