Vancouver to Yosemite

Despite the fact that I've been in Yosemite for the best part of 2 weeks, I'm only just getting around to writing this.  The trip from Vancouver to Yosemite took about seven days, and was a total of about 2,500 km.  I left Mitch's place a bit after lunch on the 10th of October and rolled into the valley on the morning of the 17th.  I definitely should have taken more time to do the journey, but I did get to see Mt St Helens, some rugged Washington coastline, and the dunes in Oregon.  I also had an amazing day driving down the northern Californian coast and through the giant redwood forests, although I haven't uploaded the pics to Flickr yet.  I'll get around to it at some stage...

The Future

The Future
Originally uploaded by duncanmacinnis

Imagine you had a friend who was always saying something like: "Hurrr, remember that time you dropped our dinner while trying to strain the pasta?" To which you reply: "Yes I do Steve, because you HAVEN'T SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT SINCE IT HAPPENED!" Well, check this out - it's a pot lid with a built in strainer. We're through the looking glass here, people. I've seen the future, and it works.

Leaving Vancouver

I'm a few hours away from heading out of Vancouver and onwards into the US in my sweet new 1999 Ford Explorer (that I've dubbed Betty).  I'll do a more complete entry at some stage, but for now here's a summary: I've drank some good beer, eaten some great food and seen some nice stuff.  Vancouver is a pretty sweet city.  I also spent some time in a suburb called Hastings.  Hastings is not sweet.  The zombie apocalypse could happen in Hastings and no one would notice.  It may already have happened.  Seriously, the sheer volume of insane, smacked out, cracked out, weird people in that suburb is hard to describe.  They're so good at weird, that they spontaneously invent new craziness - crazy freestyling, as I like to call it.  My favourite was the guy in McDonalds who combined impressively good percussion skills, including foot stomping, with realistic duck noises.  I also liked the very wasted-looking dude in his mid-twenties getting around on a mobility scooter with an umbrella tied to it.  The picture was completed by his jacket: black, with large stylised marijuana leaves all over it, and in case that was too subtle, it was also covered in the word "weed".  Gotcha buddy, you like Mary Jane.
I've also discovered that there are no two taps in this entire goddamn country that are the same.  The array of levers, knobs and handles suggests that somewhere there's a guy whose sole purpose in life is to dream up new, ingenious, and incredibly complicated methods of dispensing water.  He probably lives in Hastings.

Departure

Here's a probably uninteresting update, mainly about flying from Sydney to Vancouver.  On Tuesday night, Mum, Dad, Angus and I went out for dinner at the Manly Pavilions restaurant.  I cleverly decided to end the meal with a short black which meant that I got about 3 hours of fitful sleep - never an excellent way to prepare for a 16 hour plane flight.  Anyway, everything went fine and I got on the plane for my flight to LAX.
QANTAS seem to have some kind of affirmative action thing going on, as all their flight attendants were, not too put too fine a point on it, quite old.  As my friend Seb said recently, it's good to see the airline keeping people out of retirement homes.  Entirely unsurprisingly, the food was terrible and I arrived at LAX feeling like shit.  Luckily, transit through customs at LAX was as quick and painless as could be reasonably expected, and most importantly it was a lot less, uh, invasive than I was dreading.
The flight from LAX to Vancouver was uneventful and I slept for most of it.  The pilot pointed out Yosemite and Mt St Helens as we flew over.  Both were huge and unmissable, and I look forward to checking them out from the ground.
Clearing customs and immigration at YVR was made more painful by the utterly inane conversation of two American businessmen behind me in the queue.  I managed not to beat them to death with a stanchion, in an amazing feat of self-control.  My mate Mitch had said that he'd try and meet me at the airport, but I couldn't see him, so I wandered out to the skytrain.  He'd told me to go to a station that was four blocks from his house, but I cleverly neglected to write down the name of the station.  I knew it had "house" in it's name, and managed to guess the right one.  Wandering out of the station, I realised that I'd also neglected to write down his phone number.  Genius.  Luckily I found a Starbucks and got me some free wi-fi, getting both his number and confirming that I'd gone to the correct station.  I called him and found that he was still at the airport, looking for me.  Oops.
After dropping my stuff at his place, we went for a short walk with his enormous but ridiculously well-behaved dog, Tona.  Last night we went out for dinner at a Lebanese place called Nuba with Kaila (Mitch's GF), Tim and Andrea.  Despite nary a Lebanese person in sight, it was good.  Tim and Andrea headed off to see the Kings of Leon, and Mitch and Kaila took me for a bit of a wander.  We had a sneaky drink, then, as I was barely able to keep my eyes open, headed home.  I crashed out and got an excellent night of sleep, and am feeling a lot more human now.
This afternoon I plan to take Tona out for a bit of a walk along the seawall.  I'll take my p&s and get some piccies.  As part of his course to become a personal trainer, Mitch needs to run a certain number of boot camp style things, so I'll head out to that this evening too.  Word.

Living the dream

It's on.  For a while I've had this idea that I'd like to do an extended road trip around North America (mostly the US), climbing and whatnot.  Since finishing my PhD, I haven't been super successful finding a job that I want to do.  I have, however, been working - earning the monies.  So, I have the cash, I have no (real) responsibilities and no excuses.  Tickets booked, I'm heading to Vancouver to meet my mate Mitch and watch him do a sub three hour marathon, then onwards to Yosemite, Bishop, Hueco and a multitude of places in between.  My address as of September 28 will be "No fixed abode", and I'll go where my fancy (and my van) takes me.  I can't wait.

Six Foot Track Marathon

Well, I haven't used this thing for more than a year, but it seems a good place to set down some thoughts about my first ultramaraton, the Six Foot Track. A year ago, I bummed around while my good mates Mitch and Brendon did this race. When Brendon finished, he told me it was the hardest thing he'd ever done. This, I thought, sounded like something I should try. So, six months later I ran the Sydney Marathon, finishing in 3:25, comfortably inside the qualifying time of 4:20. Two months or so after that, I won in the F5 lotto that was the registering process this year (the race was full in about 12 minutes), and I was good to go. Dream, believe, achieve. Yeah.

Brendon, being a scholar and a gentleman, agreed to doing support team duties. Driving to UNSW from Hornsby to pick me up was way beyond the call of duty, and very much appreciated. We then battled back across the inner west, through some pretty bad traffic. Once we got to about Penrith things improved a little, but it was still an epic driving effort from the B Man. About half way up the mountains the heavens opened and it started to piss down. Not just light drizzle, but a proper torrential kind of deal. I told Brendon it was just night rain that would go away once it got properly dark. Neither he nor I was really convinced though. Finally we arrived in Katoomba, picked up my race pack and headed for food. It's amazing how different it was up there. Just out of Sydney and it was proper cold - about 12C or so, and foggy as hell. I had a glass of Six Foot Track shiraz with dinner - how could I not?

I slept terribly. I was in bed a bit before 10 and woke up just about every hour. Brendon got a message on his phone at about 11 and I thought it was the alarm going off telling me to get up. When morning did roll around, I forced down an energy gel with some water and an Up'n'Go and we headed off. The weather forecast said 14-21C, so I decided to wear a t-shirt rather than a singlet, which wasn't the best decision, as it turned out (and not just because the t-shirt doesn't show off my massive guns). We saw the guy who won last year on the shuttle bus. Dude makes me look huge, but hell, I'll never win the Six Foot Track.

The starting area was the biggest congregation of blokes wearing short shorts and enormous watches you're ever likely to see. The organisers had made a special request that people not go to the toilet in the bushes this year, so the lines for the port-a-loos were massive. I had some water, buttered bread and a final energy gel before the start, with a further seven Gu's in my pockets. Carrying Gu's turned out to be a mistake, but I'll talk about that later.

The race starts with a steep, treacherous, difficult downhill section called Nelly's Glen. I've never been quick going downhill, so my plan was to just start in the middle of the pack and take it as it came. The rain the night before had soaked this section and it was particularly treacherous and everyone took it very easy. The first kilometer took fifteen minutes, which gives an idea of the pace.

Going down Nelly's Glen. Taking it easy, not that I really had a choice.

Once down Nelly's Glen, my plan was to haul arse to the Cox's River at about 15km. After a quick toilet stop (one bloke joked that there was no need to stop, you could just wash off in the river - at least I think he was joking), I picked up the pace. This section was easily the most enjoyable, with a good mix of fire trail, unsealed road and single track.

Nice rolling singletrack through fields. About 7km in, I think.

I got stuck behind some clown in avaiators with an iPod for a while. He couldn't hear me asking to pass, so I had to sprint past near a stile. I'm not a fan of running with music at the best of times, but during a race where there is a lot of singletrack, it's downright anti-social. Anyway, having got past the guy, I spent the next 4 or 5km unable to see anyone in front or behind me. It was a tad spooky, and the only people I saw were a couple who looked to be struggling already and a guy who started from wave three. He absolutely zoomed past, but when I got to the Cox's River, he'd just stopped there and was chatting to the RFS volunteers.

Fording the Cox's River. About 15km in and still smiling. Shit is about to get serious though.

After the river crossing is where things get serious. The 6FT is renowned for it's hills, but you genuinely cannot appreciate how big, serious, long and steep they are until you're actually on them. They just keep on going and going. I broke them down into running and walking - "I'll run to that tree up there", "I'll walk to the top of this pinch, then run for a few minutes". Most of the training I did was on the Spit to Manly Walk, where the hills are all steps. There aren't steps in the 6FT. Next year I'll do a lot more running up hills and less running up steps.

I was finding it hard to get fuel into my body. Unlike a road marathon, where aid stations are at predictable regular intervals, the aid stations in this race have to be in spots where it's easy to get a car in to. Given that I was carrying Gu's that have to be eaten with water, I was finding it hard co-ordinate the gel-eating and water drinking. This resulted in a retching episode at the top of one of the mini-hills. The solution is easy - next time I'll carry water in my fuel belt.

I actually made pretty good time up the pluviometer, getting to the top in a touch over 3 hours. The problem is that once you get to the top of the pluvi, there's another ~10km of uphill. It's not steep or sustained, but it's still hard. And you've got another ~10km to go after that. It becomes a matter of gritting your teeth and grinding it out. By this stage I was drinking coke, High 5 energy drink and water at each aid station. Coke is surprisingly awesome in this situation.

The entire hill climb and a lot of the 26km - 35km section was in hot sun. Around about 35/36km however, the sky started to look ominous and grey, and not long after that, the thunder started. The grey skies were certainly a welcome relief from the heat, and the rain from the night before meant that it was incredibly humid. Having chosen to wear a dark t-shirt, I think the sun had a particularly strong effect on me. I'll be wearing a singlet next year, regardless of the weather forecast.

From Caves Rd, it became even harder. I knew my optimistic dream of doing sub 4:30 was long gone, and I watched my average time/km slowly blow out to the point where I knew sub 5 was no longer possible either. I'd been doing the maths in my head the whole way and knew that something between 5:15 and 5:20 was likely, so I made it my goal to go sub 5:20. The last few kilometers are fairly steep downhill, and I was certainly feeling it in my quads by that stage. A lot of runners were blasting past me, but as I was starting to stitch up as well, I just took it pretty easy. By this stage I could hear the cheers at the finish line, even if I couldn't see it yet. From last year I knew what the finish looked like, and hearing the bell at the top of the last descent was great. By this stage the rain was hammering down so I was taking it pretty easy.

Almost there. Feeling pretty sore and keen to be done.

I eventually finished in 5:17. It was a slow year, with the winner this year finishing 15 minutes slower than the winner in 2010, but I was still a bit disappointed in my time. To some extent a niggling injury in my foot is to blame, but whatever the reason, the fact is that I didn't do enough training. It's a hard time of year to be out running, and at least two of my planned major runs got canned due to ridiculous heat. This, along with a few tactical errors resulted in a slower time than I hoped for. Still, qualifying is an achievement, finishing is an achievement, doing a fast time would have been icing on the cake.

In comparison to a road marathon, this race is an order of magnitude harder. Of the 3:25 of the Sydney Marathon, maybe half an hour was really, genuinely hard. Of the 5:17 of the 6FT, about three and a half hours hurt. I was totally, absolutely adamant after the race that I'd never do it again. As with the road run though, the pain fades very quickly, and I think I'll be back next year, better prepared and better trained.Finishing in the rain, with a smile for the camera.