Bike Ride Across The U.S.

I recently finished my first segment of my bicycle ride across the U.S. I left on June 24th departing from Anacortes Washington and finished in Muscatine Iowa on August 1. I rode 2,743 miles during those 39 days.

It was a week ago today that I rode down the driveway of my home to a well planned welcome home party. Next year I plan to finish my cross-country route from Muscatine to Bar Harbor Maine.

It was great to be back home with family and I have integrated well back into the mainstream. I hung up my bike this past week and re-acquainted myself with running.

I have three races coming up in the next two weeks and need to prepare my running legs for the change of pace. I started out slowly and after resting two days from my bike ride have ran the last four days doing 2 to 3 miles each time.

St. Malachy's Steeplechase Run

This is my second year doing this race. The distance is an in-betweener with 4.6 miles or roughly 7.5k. Most of it is on gravel and one of the roads had very large pieces of gravel and made running difficult. The weather was on the hot and sticky side even though the race started this morning at 8am.

Last year I finished 19th overall and 4th in my age group. The age groups for this race are in 10 yr. increments instead of the normal 5 yr. increments. So I was lumped together with the 50-54 younger set. This year I was 14th overall and 2nd in this age group. Due to lack of entries in the 60+ segment they just called our group 50+.

Last year my time was 37:35 and this year I improved almost two minutes with 35:37.

Since I spend most of my time on the bike, my running regimen is usually minimal and when I do get the chance to run it usually a 2 or 3 mile run. Last week in preparation for this ride I did 2 days of running at the 4-4.5 mile level. My first and only running at this long of distance for the year. Since I spent my high school track days doing sprints I have never been much into longer distances. So this race last year and again this year really strains my effort and all I can think about the last mile "is this race about over".

Cross Country Bike Ride-Northern Tier

After planning this ride for the last 6 months and working through all the details I am about 5 weeks away from my departure. The plan is to fly to Seattle on June 23 and make my way by shuttle to a friend's house in Bow, WA. Then I depart on June 24 and head east following the Northern Tier bike route and arrive back in Muscatine on August 1.

If you have pulled up my blog and aren't familiar with my upcoming bike ride here is how you can get to my journal: www.iowacyclist.crazyguyonabike.com

Hayes Hustle 5k

This past Saturday I ran my 2nd Hayes Hustle 5k in Muscatine. My running this year has been at a much reduced level compared to last year. I had 27 miles in since the first of the year compared to 50 miles in 2009. In late January I hurt my right knee and I reduced my cycling and running miles to let it heal.

I didn't think having half the training miles in would have a large impact on my time, but I ended up running a 22:52 compared to a 21:59 last year. It was still good enough for first place in my age group.

Most of the serious runners put in 25-35 miles per week of training, so my measly 27 miles for the first 15 months of the year seems rather insignificant. I guess the moral is; if I want to give up cycling and become a serious runner I might be a serious contender in all the area races.

Winter Is Still Here

This has to be the longest, coldest, snowiest winter that I can remember since 1978-1979. Living in the country has many benefits, but running outside with ice and snow on our trails and on the road out front is impossible. So this winter Patti and I have been enjoying snow shoeing. I try to get out almost every day and do 1.0 to 1.5 miles. In January I was also wearing a 40 pound pack while snow shoeing, but late last month I hurt my right knee and have been unable to do all the exercises I was doing before this happened.

My Sports Doctor couldn't find any damage to the meniscus or tendons and thinks I have patella tendinitis. I have had this for 4 weeks and it is getting annoying. I quit the Power To The Petals program on my bike and now am doing a moderate rate for 5.0 to 10.0 miles 3-4 times per week. Some days my knee hardly bothers me, while at other times it is a constant pain. I was taking Advil to help with the inflammation, but I went off it yesterday to prevent any problems with my ulcer. Wearing a leg brace has helped and icing after exercising also has been helpful.

Will get away to San Antonio for a few days and lay off the exercise and see if this might give some improvement. The weather will be better than here, but cool for southern Texas (highs in low to mid-60's during the day and lows in the low 40's at night).

New Granddaughter

There was some excitement in the Cook household this past week. We have a new granddaughter, Adaline Marie born on January 14th.

2009 In Review

Here it is January 20th and my last posting was October 19th. What have I been doing for the last 3 months? Or more correctly what have I been neglecting the last 3 months?

After returning from my elk hunt in Colorado I aged one year on Oct. 20th. Now I am a size 58. In late October and November I took a break from my exercise routines.

Finally in mid-November I returned to the bike and began the Power To The Pedals training program. This is the same program that I used last winter. It is broken into a twice a week routine over a 12-week period. Since I was starting this program early enough I decided to double each week and make this a 24-week program. This week I at week 6 of the program.

I have also continued to do some running, but the snow that we have had on the ground for the past 4+ weeks has prevented me from running on our trails behind our house. So I have jogged on the treadmill some and yesterday our gravel road was melted enough for me to began running again outside.

With all the snow I have been enjoying snowshoeing in our woods. Last fall I expanded our trail system. I built upon the 1/2 mile trail that all ready existed and added another 1/2 mile of new trails. This makes for a great work-out on the snowshoes. Patti also enjoys snowshoeing. We wanted to be able to snoweshoe together so last week I purchased a 2nd set of snowshoes. When I go snowshoeing I carry a backpack with around 40 pounds of sand in it. This gives me a much better work-out and helps build-up my leg strength.

So now for a review of 2009:
Last year marked the 40th anniversary of my running career in high school. I graduated in 1969 from North Harrison High School in Eagleville Missouri. That spring I participated in my last track and field events: 100 yard high hurdles, 180 yard low hurdles, 4x100 relay and 4x220 relay. I participated 3 out of my 4 years in high school in track and field and all 4 years in basketball. One year I was unable to compete due to having my appendix out. You would think with that background that I would have included running or some form of exercise, but I entered college and then the workforce and left exercise out of my daily routine.

In 2000 Patti and I purchased a pair of mountain bikes and I biked 289 miles that year. Slowly over the next several years I began to re-sculpt my dormant muscles and get my aged body back into shape. I finally took up running again in July 2008 on a dare from a friend. Mark Lofgren and I had planned to do the team division of the Du State Du, which is a duathlon. Mark was going to do the running and I was to do the biking section. A few weeks before the event Mark informed me that he couldn't participate and said I needed to find another runner or do the running part myself. A day or two later I decided to go out and try running. I did one mile and it about killed me. I had forgotten what all of my biking friends had told me: the muscles you use for cycling are not the same muscles you use for running. Slowly over the next few weeks I built up my legs to handle a 2-3 mile run. I finished the Du State Du that year and finished 2nd and my performance on the running sections was better than the biking portions. So since then I have included running in my exercise regiment.

In 2009 I entered two duathlons and six running events. On the two duathlons I finished 2nd and 5th. Five of the running events were 5K's (3 miles) and I finished 1st twice, 2nd once and 3rd twice. The last running event was a 4.5 mile run and I finished 4th.

Elk Hunting-2009

After returning from California I unpacked and began packing for my next adventure-elk hunting in Colorado.

This year I asked a friend, Ralph to join me. Ralph enjoys the Colorado mountains, but due to knee joint issues is unable to hunt anymore. This turned out to be a real benefit for us as Ralph was our cook and what a great cook he was.

Ralph and I left the Cedar Rapids airport on Thursday afternoon and touched down in Montrose later that night.

Friday was spent getting acquainted with my sister and her family and sighting in our rifles. After lunch on the ranch we headed up to our home for the next 5 days, a cabin at 8,700 feet. On this trip, my brother-in-law, Robert and his sons, Jason and Nathan would join us. Nathan would stay back in the cabin with Ralph to keep him company, while Jason, Robert and I would hunt.

The next 5 days our routine never deviated much from this template: up at 4:00-4:30 with Ralph getting up first to start breakfast. At 5:45 we made our way out to where we would sit for our hunt that day. Usually we would sit for 3 hours in one spot to watch for any elk in that park (meadow) or at a watering hole. Then we would "still hunt", walking slowly for the next few hours. Robert and Jason would return to the cabin each day for lunch and then go back out hunting in the afternoon. I packed a lunch and stayed out hunting each day except for one day. Then we hunted until dark (7:00) and returned to the cabin for a late supper. After supper it we spent time reading or playing cards for 30-60 minutes and then it was time for lights out at 9:00.

The weather was unseasonably warm for this area in early October. The 7,000+ acre ranch had several sightings of elk in the weeks leading up to the 1st season, but during our 5 days hunting we never saw any elk and didn't really see any fresh sign.

On the next to the last day of the hunt the three of us made it up to BLM ground southeast of Buckhorn Lake and found an area that looked promising. I returned to this area on the last day and saw a lot of fresh sign and sighted (1) bull elk. It was perhaps an accidental sighting as I had a sage hen burst up in front of me and land in a tree nearby. After I stopped to get over the scare and watch the sage hen in the tree, I noticed something that caught my eye off to my left perhaps 200 yards away. I used my binoculars and discovered that an elk's 'butt" was sticking out from a clump of trees. Because of the dense cover I couldn't see the rest of the elk and I waited for about 5 minutes hoping it would move a little, but it didn't. So I decided to move slowly to my right about 5 feet so I could perhaps see the rest of the elk-body. When I did that the elk took off running and I could see it had antlers, but couldn't see how many points.
I waited another 5 minutes for the elk to settle down and blew my elk-cow call. Thinking the elk had left the immediate area I then slowly started walking ahead to see if I could make contact again with the elk. After about 5 steps I saw the butt of the elk running away from me in the distance and that was the last time I would see that elk.

Later the next day (the day after the season was over), we took a drive down to Telluride and on the way back we saw one group of (5) elk and later a large herd of around (50) elk. In the larger herd there were several bulls and (1) very large herd bull in the center of the cows. It looked like this herd bull was a 7x7.

Ralph and I had a great time and on our flight back home Thursday afternoon we recalled the last 6 days of our adventure and the experiences we lived.

California Wine Country Bike Trip

I am a little late in updating my blog, but I have been busy. Patti and I joined friends, Deb & Keith for an 8 day trip to California in mid September.

We signed up with Bicycle Adventures, www.bicycleadventures.com for a 6-day cycling trip through the wine country of northern California. We visited Napa Valley, Sonoma Valley, Anderson Valley and Dry Creek Valley regions.

We were sag supported and our luggage was carried by vans to our next destination each day. Our cycling mileage was in the 35-50 mile range each day. The terrain was rolling hills with a couple of steeper climbs later in the trip. We usually would stop at 4 or 5 wineries each day and do a tasting.

This was new country for the four of us and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We were joined by 11 other couples and 3 guides. Our tour started in Santa Rosa and we made a big loop through Napa, Sonoma, Healdsburg, Calistoga and some other towns in that area. We also biked on the last day through a redwood forest and were able to see for our first time the majestic trees.

After our tour was completed we headed down to San Francisco and spent 2 days touring Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street and other sites in the area.

This was a great vacation and we would like to do another biking tour similar to this to a different region, perhaps the Tuscan region of Italy.

California Here We Come

Patti and I have been getting ready for our trip to California. Our packing is almost done. We shipped out our tandem by Fed-Ex on Monday. It should arrive at The Hotel La Rosa in Santa Rosa sometime Friday. Our flight leaves Moline at 8:30 on Saturday and arrives in Oakland around 1:30. Then we have a 2 hour shuttle ride to Santa Rosa.

We had a good training ride on our tandem this past week-end from Moline to Savanna and back. This two day ride was our second annual Muscatine Cycling Club ride. in total we logged about 107 miles. Our overnight at the Granny O'Neal's B & B turned out to be an interesting experience and we will have to stay there again next year.

I am kneeling beside Evan and Patti is to the left of Evan

We have been out 3 times on our mountain bikes since we shipped out our tandem. Monday night we took Evan on our club's ride and put in about 13 miles. Evan was on a trailer bike behind my bike. Then last night I went running with Mark Lofgren at Wildcat Den State Park and ran about 3.5 miles, while Patti bike 9 or 10 miles. Then this evening we road our bikes up to Stockton and back for another 11 miles. We are hoping to get out on the bikes one more time on Friday before we leave on our trip.

The biking portion of our California trip is 6 days and tours through the California Napa and Sonoma Valleys. Then we do some sight seeing in San Francisco for a couple of days. We are going with our good friends Deb & Keith Elliott, who are celebrating their 30'th wedding anniversary.

Wildcat Den 5k Trail Run

This past Saturday I ran the 5k trail run down at Wildcat Den State Park. This was my second year for doing this race. The park is about 3 miles from our house and I often go down to run or walk the trails.

My very first 5k race was ran here last year with a time of 24:55, which was 21st overall and good enough for 1st place in the 50-59 age group. This year I improved on my time and clocked in at 24:22, which was 17th overall, but only good enough for 3rd place. Two faster runners that didn't participate last year, decided to run this year.

This was my 8th race this year and by far the hardest. The uneven terrain and the steep hills back in the park, make for a very challenging run. Out of the 8 races I have 2-1st's, 2-2nd's, 2-3rd's, 1-4th and 1-5th.

Training For Trail Run This Week-end

This Saturday I will be doing the Wildcat Den 5k trail run at the park 2 1/2 miles from my house. This morning and yesterday morning I went down and ran on the trails in the park to get accustomed to the terrain and the inclines. The hill climbing training-both going up and down has given me a good workout.

This will be my 2nd year to do this run. Last year's run was my very first 5k of my racing career. My time last year was 24:55. Compare this time to my last race 3 weeks ago, the Hon 5k, of 21:01, which was my fastest time this year. Trail runs tend to be a good bit slower than runs on pavement, due to the slight amount of sinking your foot does in the ground and less rebound from your foot-step hitting dirt vs. pavement. I would like to get my time down to 24:00 this year. We'll see if I have made this much improvement in 12 months.