The Residual Sugar

Let me describe the the Oregon 24 course to you.

It takes place on an 11 mile loop. You start up a short hill, hang a left, then go down a bumpy, rutted connector trail. This short stretch of trail turned out to be incredibly handy. More on that later. After that, you  swing on to a stretch of beautiful single track that weaves through the woods in a gentle down grade. A couple of little climbs and you hit a short rock garden. Some more pretty single track and then the trail turns uphill for about a mile or so. Mile 4 you top out and start a fantastic downhill on a trail called Dinah Moe Humm, named after a Frank Zappa song I can't stand, which is a shame because it was all I could hear in my head for much of the race.  Maybe 7 miles in the trail turns uphill again for a half mile. Mile 9 you turn on to a straight fire road you ride for 1 1/2 miles before a sharp left turn that takes you up a hateful little climb before a short downhill back to the start. You go th…

We got home from France July 2nd. July 10th I packed up the Subaru and headed over to Bend to do the Oregon 24 again. Committing to a 24 hour race after a three week break in training was probably a stupid idea. Actually, committing to a 24 hour race under any circumstances would be considered a stupid idea by most people.

Carolyn, to her great credit, just smiled and said she knew I was going to do it and understood how important it was to me. Thanks to her keen situational awareness, she also said I was on my own. She had to work. She also had to be someplace with flush toilets, hot water and basic hygiene. When we were in Antibes, we attended a Swedish solstice party. After many drinks, someone opened up a tin of fermented herring. The smell of that rotten fish took us all the way back to the pit toilet at last year's race. No, it was a relief really. Once I started making lists and packing she knew I was on top of things. She cooked up rice bars and boiled eggs and potatoes fo…

So, I've been in the south of France for the last few weeks. Carolyn, Anne, Chris (Anne's boyfriend), and I have vacationed the heck out of those weeks. I can say with confidence, no vacation stones were left unturned. Just as an example, last Sunday was an easy day, but in that day I was mountain biking in St-Tropez, wine tasting, had lunch by the beach, and a quick swim too. We didn't go to a lot of sights. We took in the Chagall museum in Nice and in the realm of guide book high points you might pay to see, that was about it.  This trip wasn't about seeing. Don't get me wrong, there was a LOT to see along the way. The picture below was from our lunch stop in Éze. How do you even eat when you're looking at that? But really, it was about being in a place. And it was about the people in that place.

The daily intensity has made it difficult to write anything about it, at least in any kind of narrative way.  That said, I do want to note a few things that have b…