New Zealand 3-day bike trip
Ever think ‘This is a really bad idea. We shouldn’t do this. There is still time to back out.’? Usually, I would do so. A voice in the back of my head this time (which was slightly mumbled and maybe British) said, ‘Come on, it’s an adventure. What’s the worse that could happen?’. It was boxing day, a strange Kiwi holiday the day after chirstmas, and Matt Pro and I were suppose to leave the next day for a 3-day, 300-mile bike tour from Christchurch to Nelson (a beach town on the northside of the south island). The problem was, we had one road bike, one fixed gear (49×16, mind you) and a broken single-speed mountain bike. No racks. No panniers. Bonnie, one of Matt’s friends I had met, was planning the trip, but we did not know the other two guys. Neither had bike toured, one didn’t really ride bikes. Yeah. We managed to scrape together four panniers and a rack and Matt bought another rack. We decided to take the fixed instead of my broken bike.
(unfinished post!)
New Zealand X-mas
Matt Pro has an adoptive family here in Christchurch that has taken him in. They are friends of a friend and they say you can’t choose your family, but if he could of chose his adoptive family I don’t think he could of done any better. He is there for all the holidays and tends to go over quite a bit just to chill out. Also goes for the Kiwi tradition of getting the barbi (BBQ) going, which seems to happen every day in the summer. The picture on the right is of 13-month old Tahunuiarangi, Dave (grandfather) and Josie(mom).
We spent x-mas eve chilling out and watching a lot of tv including Sione’s Wedding and No 2 , both are choice and I’d recommend them, especially the former. Also watched Bro-town, a funny animated show from here in NZ about 5 kids growing up here in Morningside.
When we rolled up X-mas morning to go over to Pat’s (grandmother) brother’s place they had gifts not only for him, but for myself as well. Josie and her (american) husband regularly get chocolates for the family and they went out of their way to get Matt and I dark chocolate. There are these huge bars of Ghana chocolate that has been imported since 1896. Yum. They were happy that I had mine half-eaten before we even ate lunch.
For the x-mas meal they made us a huge plate of broiled vegetables that included pumpkin, potatoes and kumara. Kumara is sweet potato-esque, but much better. Not as sweet and has an entirely different texture than any potatoes I have eaten. Had some pasta and veggie sausages as well. I didn’t cook anything, which was nice, but odd. In the picture below you can see x-mas crackers (not the people), which apparently is a tradition as well. Is this so for anyone else? I’ve never seen it. 
I also never had cranberry sauce with Thanksgiving, so what do I know? There are toys and jokes inside which made the meal a bit more lively than otherwise may of been.
Another sort of tradition, since it is summer here over x-mas, is the ‘X-mas day water gun fight’. Matt and I stayed inside the best we could to the taunts that the americans are ‘weak’. The others managed to soak each other pretty well.
The house we were at for x-mas is in what I considered a normal suburb, but Matt informed me that it is not a regular suburb, but a ‘lifestyle bloc’. It is close enough to Christchurch that you can commute there for a regular job, but large enough that you can still have animals and maintain some of traditional rural Kiwi culture. Behind the house were some fenced off sheep (four of the 43 million on the two islands, more than 10 for every person) and some chickens in what I guess would be a coop. I’ve never seen a chicken coop, but I imagine a place where you keep chickens can be a chicken coop so that’s what it is in my mind.
It just dawned on me that I spent Christ’s birthday in a town called Christchurch. That is especially funny; this is the most secular country I have ever been in and well, I am obviously not religious. Apparently the city is named after one of the schools at Oxford one of the original settlers went to. Why don’t they change it? The place is so non-religious that I don’t think anyone cares. I am going to try to post some images of the city in a separate post. For now enjoy the sheep:
New Zealand Queenstown/Bungy Jump
New Zealand Kepler Track
New Zealand Christchurch
Philadelphia Marathon
Team PSU Alliance for Animal Rights 2000
After
running the half marathon with Brad last year
he made it clear that he wanted to do the full. I knew he was down for the training, but I couldn’t make any promises cause of school, the great divide and the 508. When I was in Philly in the Spring I mentioned this idea to Mary and Christian, both of whom go running occasionally, and they were done. That’s it. In late Sept I figured out that I could get away to fly to the east coast for the race, which was the wknd before Thanksgiving, and then stay and see family.
I booked my ticket and started training five weeks before the race. Everyone says, ‘ You’ve done it before, it’ll be fine.’ But long distance does not work that way, if you have done the time you’ll suffer for it. I ran two or three times a week, got my long run in and just didn’t have time to taper (it’s recommended to do your longest training run 3 weeks before the race, I did mine 6 days before).
After some bib difficulties, we were chowing down on a great dinner Saturday night. Mary insisted on arguing with me about nutrition, but I let it go because I know that she’s an engineer and they think they know
everything (ha ha). I spent the night on Brad’s couch, which was the best night sleep I had gotten in days. My flight out was super early on Fri morning and then on Sat I went to NYC real early to see my good friend Tom Hooper before he went back to London.
When running a marathon, I think it helps a lot of people to have a routine. Brad, Mary and Christian all had there little things they did every morning before running or certain things they had to wear. I imagine it helps somewhere in your brain to recognize some commonalities to ease the stress of race day. Brad and I rode bikes down to the famous art museum for the start, but we were early and were trying to stay warm and not stress about not seeing Mary and Christian. Finally they show up, we strip down and lock our extra clothes with our bikes and head towards the corral.
We agreed to stay together the best we could as we were all shooting for around 4.5 hours. Mary was stoked on the Clif bar pace team and we followed them for quite awhile. The picture above was snapped pretty early on, just beyond the museum heading towards City Hall. The pace was a little quicker than I was used to, but it was so fun to be running with some great friends. The route wound through old town, south philly, south st and then into some back parts of Fairmount park before looping back past the art museum before the final out-and-back to Manayunk.
Notice that Brad is not in the picture here, around the half-way point. He took off and sprint finished for a time of 4 hours and 22 minutes. Congrats Brad! Christian took off not long after this photo and then I ran just a bit behind Mary for a couple of miles.
Somewhere in Manayunk, when the out-and-back section was only separated by orange cones, I heard someone yell my name. Who would know me here or know that I was running this? It was my old friend Steph Surch. She was running it and recognized me! I have not seen her in at least 3 years. She used to race pro bmx and her and her family use to take me to races all over the country. Now she is an ultra-runner and has done a 24-hour mountain bike race. How rad!
The last six miles were kind of brutal. Mary’s knees were really bothering her and the back end of a marathon is a gritty sight as people struggle along well past their last bit of motivation. Mary kept running though! We were even passing people. She had run this section a bunch in training, but was frustrated with how much longer it took to get any where at our slow pace. So far at this 
point we had all been diligently eating our gels, but that was the only food we had. I had talked about how much I wanted a soft pretzel; Mary thought that eating a soft pretzel while running was the most revolting thing ever (and told me so whenever I brought it up). But then this guy had some! They were a little old, but hey, I got almost half of one and was elated to munch on it while I ran. Mary didn’t look at me once.
Then were at the end. Just like that. Crowds lined the streets, cheered us on, etc and we ran across the finish with a time of 4 hours and 49 minutes. Christian had finished strong about 10 minutes earlier. Nice.
Thank you Mary, Christian and Brad for everything. It was so good to take this on with all of you. Much congratulations are in order. Yeah vegan team!
Brad has a report and some more tiny, blurry pics (cause that’s all they’ll let you see) on his myspace page.
Fall Potluck at the A-partment
Winter in Los Angeles
Maybe us bike kids do spend too much time together.
Thus Climbed Zarathustra
Stephen Krchmer, the infamous journalist, put on a benefit race that was half alley-cat, half cyclo-cross. After a run-to-the-bike start you had to follow the route slip to a set of stairs, where you would hoist your bike up on your shoulder, run to the top, hop back on your bike and then race to the next set. Ten sets total throughout Echo Park and Silverlake. The race was really well run (thanks Stephen!) and about 30 people started it. There was even a prim and at the top of the last set the route sheet just said, ‘Now find your way back to the start.’ That’s a little tougher than it sounds when you are oxygen deprived and disoriented. Nonetheless, fresh off the 508, Team Bonobo ruled it 1-2-3, all on fixed. Alec came up fourth on the tall bike. Yeah, he carried the tall bike up all those stairs.
Thanks Stephen, all the people/companies that donated prizes and everyone who raced and helped to raise money for Orlando. It is some fucked up irony that someone who was pictured in double-paged ads (as a courier) for an insurance company, can’t afford health insurance.
Wire Donkey covered the race if you scroll down from here you can see it.
Alec: The cap is rad and all, but I bet you thought Jack was going to win, eh? He might be the only person who can pull off a cap with a 1st place ribbon on it. I am seriously stoked on the number of Alec caps I have now!