7 birds

The best thing about getting outside for training is seeing the world on two wheels moving at 20mph. Ride enough, and you'll witness alot of crazy stuff. Yesterday, while crusing back on the Diagonal Hwy after a short morning ride, seven military helicopters cruised overhead heading North towards Fort Collins. This exercise was well rehearsed as "the birds" appeared no more than 50 meters from one another and within two minutes had zoomed out into the distance. This might be a common occurance in San Diego or Colorado Springs, but we don't see much military action taking place in the liberal bubble that is Boulder. Seeing "the birds" got me thinking of some of the other cool or crazy stuff I've witnessed while training for tri. Here's a top 10 list for your viewing pleasure!

10) 2005 early morning swim at Lake Excelsior, MN with my former coach Jarod Berg. I had my head down swimming hard when PLOP, I smacked head first into a stationary fishing boat. I think the two old fisherman in the boat were more shocked than I was.

9) Cycling through the small unincorporated town of Ward up Lefthand Canyon is sensory overload but witnessing the General Store owner sword fighting in the middle of the street wins out even over his long boarding and pogo stick jumping exploits.

8) On a business trip to the Bay Area in '07, I took an early morning ride up Cardiac Hill outside of Davis, California. On the return ride back towards town I nearly ran over a white and orange snake that was stretched out across the entire four foot shoulder with the rest of it's body still in the ditch. I was so spooked I veered into the opposite traffic lane to avoid it.

7) While we're on the subject of snakes...while running with Thor on the Eagle Trail here in Boulder, Thor ran off into the bushes for a quick #2. Being the responsible owner I am, I followed to clean up after him. When I bent over to pick it up, I heard the unmistakable shake of a rattler. I reacted by jumping straight backwards, dropping the poop bag and sprinting down the trail. Thor had amazingly pooped within a foot of the snake and did not get bit!

6) On a century ride (100+ miles) out to Idaho Springs in the summer of '06, I was cycling back towards Evergreen up Floyd Hill. Halfway up the three-mile hill, I looked over the ravine to see a black bear running at full speed up the ravine towards me! Luckily, it was just trying to find flat ground after a dip in the river below because it was moving much faster than it's potential dinner was.

5) Like it or not, crashing is a fact of nature in cycling. While racing the Tour of the Gila in New Mexico last May, I was working together with another cyclist on a steep descending portion of the course, trying to stay ahead of a small group of racers who were trying to catch up to us. One rider from the group behind was descending very fast and went flying by us on a sharp turn that happened to have a sand spread across the road. He went flying off the road - think Superman - and directly into a huge bush off to the side of the road. Luckily, he escaped with only a few scrapes and bruises and finished the race.

4) While on the subject of crashing, one of the most hilarious sights I've witnessed was at the expense of my good friend Fred Dreier. When I was still single, Fred and I used to be partners-in-crime on some insane 6-8 hour rides regardless of the season or the outside temperature. On this occassion, we had been caught in a blizzard up on the Peak to Peak Hwy and sought refuge at our former boss's house outside of Nederland. After drying out our clothes at Pete's house, we were back on the road and riding back off the iced over roads back to the highway. That's when Fred, who had been riding behind me, squeezed on his brakes a bit too hard, wiped out, and went sliding down the road past me still clipped into his pedals and attached to his bike. I can laugh at Fred, because he was OK after the fall, and we were complete boners for getting stuck in those conditions and living to tell about it!

3) A bunch of riding buddies from my old work at VeloNews were out riding mountain bikes at Walker Ranch outside of Boulder. While riding behind my old boss, Nick Ramey, up one of the uphill sections, Nick's chain broke in half. Always competitive, Nick hurled his high-end Trek into the woods, retrieved it, and repassed me and Jon Stierwalt while RUNNING his mountain bike up the mountain.

2) YIKES, I have lots of crashes and misfortune in my top 10! This one also involves Nick and another colleague, Mark Gouge. We were on our first annual Ad Pit retreat in Fruita riding mountain bikes and racing each other. Gouge had just passed us and was flying through the course with me and Nick right on his tail. Around a blind corner, he took a ledge jump too quick and flew head first into a rock slap. Nick and I braked hard and stopped before the ledge, threw down our bikes, and went to check Gouge's status (we thought he was dead). When he started moaning, we were relieved but knew he had broken something. It turned out, he had severly fractured his collarbone. It didn't break his pride though - he is still the toughest S.O.B. I know.

1) Anxiety and imagination are the reason for my #1 pick. Emmy and I were doing our daily swim from our condo out to the turnaround buoy on the Ironman Hawaii swim course in Kona, Hawaii in Oct '07. We were nearing the buoy when I saw a huge grey mass zoom directly underneath us. My heart froze and I saw my life flash in front of me. I was convinced we were about to be part of a feeding freenzy as Tiger Sharks were not an uncommon occurance around the Kona shorelines. A VERY LONG two or three seconds later, 10 - 15 dolphins dove out of the water and continued cruising out to sea. We swam directly back to shore!

Now it's your turn...what have you seen out on the training roads??

Train hard,
Lars