salt lake city and famous people

Last week, work paid for me to fly to Salt Lake City, Utah to attend the Outdoor Retailers Show. Now, I really do not work for an "outdoor" retailer but I do deal with a few vendors who show there and I wanted to learn how I can maybe bring a little of that business to our stores.

The show is basically a huge convention hall filled with all of the coolest camping, hiking, kayaking, rock climbing, biking, mountaineering, etc equipment, clothing and anything else you may or may not need for those activities. There were about 1000 vendors. This is the main purchasing time for all of the mom and pop outdoors stores as well as a big show for the big box places we all shop. i did get to play with a lot of cool stuff although I did not take advantage of the climbing wall or the giant pool where you could test kayaks. Now, why might you ask am I posting anything about this show?? Cuz of two reasons.

1. I scheduled three days for the show but really only needed two. On the third day I "tested product". In other words, I rented a mountain bike and rode up into the mountains above salt lake city. I have never ridden hills so big. mountains really. I have never ridden at altitude. I have not ridden on hardcore mountain trails in a long time. This all made for a really tough but awesome ride. I wish I had my camera to take pictures.

2. I saw lots of famous people. Well, most were only famous in the outdoors world. I do not have the energy tonight to go throw all of the stories but here is the abridged version. People I saw

Bob Roll - I went to watch the Tour of Utah on Friday night. He was there watching and commentating. We both sat on the curb and ate a burrito. He is wackier in person that on TV!!!

Conrad Anker - mountain climber extraordinaire. He was at the North Face party. Cool regular guy who just happens to climb Everest every once in a while.

David Beckham - just so happens the Real Madrid was playing an exhibition against Real Salt Lake. Him and the other dudes from Real Madrid were hanging out at the mall.

I can remember his name but the dude who had to cut off his own arm to survive when a rock landed on his arm. He was promoting locator beacons.

Scott Jurek - Brooks athlete and winner of almost every ultramarathon around.

Brian Leech (?) - cool mountain bike trials specialist.

I swear there were a few more but I cannot remember right now.

Salt Lake City is probably a good place to go ski and hike and mountain bike but other than that, I have no need to go back..

N

A Hot Lazy Summer

So, apparently no one has been up to much since Meghan ran her race in mid July...I know that's not true since I just finished the Pittsburgh race and I hear via email that Chris has been promoted [had a huge blow out party this past weekend] and is getting a dog...wonder how he's doing on his quest to swim 10,000 meters by the end of summer.

Here's my brief race report for Pitt:

A reluctant participant in the first place, had to wade through the presidential decisions about how to compensate members for their effort to get to and from Pitt, a 4+ hr drive without traffic, and then hassle with making sure my aging car [218k miles on the Accord Wagon] would make the drive. Finally left for the race at 11 a.m. on Saturday morning with Emily Jacobs [on several occasions called her "Jen" totally by accident] and had an uneventful drive up. Stopped at Sheets in Frederick for gas and an MTO meatball sub. Not something you can eat while driving. Arrived in Pitt at about 4 p.m. and did packet pick up and bike safety check [these guys were pretty thorough] without a hassle, and went over to the pre race meal, pasta, cream sauce and maranara sauce, bread, cafateria salad and drinks...no water. They ran out of food.

Heard from other club members that the bike course was on an HOV lane of a nearby freeway...how fun...and that it was about a 6 mi up hill. Two laps of this insanity and then the run crossed the Alleghaney River 2x. The swim was up stream for a short bit and then with the current down to the Heinz stadum. The distance between the swim exit and transition entry was several hundred yards.

Em and I went to the hotel after the lack luster dinner and checked in, got situated [numbers on helmet and bike, number on race belt] and then went down to the bar area for one beer and lots of water. We sat apart from the crowd of DC Tri folk [them thinking we were aloof or snooty] for the sake of sanity and sipped our Yuenglings.

Placed a 4:30 a.m. wake up call with the front desk, determined to leave the hotel for the race venue by 5:15 a.m. Watched a bit of "Legally Blonde" and went to bed by 10 p.m.

Woke up and had breakfast [Kashi Go-Lean, nf plain yogurt and unsweetened apple sauce] and a bit of coffee and headed down to get the car, pack up and head out. Due to our short sightedness, we valet parked and didn't realize they didn't open until 5:30 a.m....so we waited a bit for the car. Still made it to the race site with plenty of time and beat the rush [Meghan would have been proud]. Set up transition, realizing I'd forgotten a towel [thanks to Em for the towel and hair tie, and to Rebecca for the extra goggles] but improvised with a plastic bag...meandered around, trying to stay calm, remembered that I was supposed to be nervous before a race but dreaded the swim start.

It was great to see the swarm of DC Tri Club participants both in the race and spectating. Had to stop spotting competitors and focus on racing during the bike...on the run, I saw more people headed back in that I cheered on...since I was towards the back of the pack.

The Swim: The start of the swim was with ALL the women in one wave and the race director on the shore shouting through a rolled up piece of paper "GO"....we swam up stream to a bridge, took a right at the first yellow buoy and another right at the next one and then downstream to the Heinz field exit. Tough to sight...not really into the whole thing so I had mental gremlins floating around in there...thought I couldn't really DNF as president so I kept going. Swim time: 41:11 due in part to the long transition and the fact that the timing matt was closer to the transition area than to the water.

The bike: Dropped my chain the minute I was able to mount my bike so got frustrated and greasy. Long up hill [with a tail wind] with a devil a la Tour de France by the side of the road. Slow on the up hill, fast on the downhill, HOV lanes of a freeway...there's a first. First lap was in about 42 min [not my best]. Total time: 1:29:15 avg 16.7mph

The run: One more thing to do before I can collapse into a sweaty heap...go run. Saw Dave Mills [the hey dave] in transition about the same time as me and told him I was going to catch him, which I did. We paced each other in our quest to finish and managed to push each other along to reach the finish line. Run time: 1:05:03 pace: 10:28

Total time: 3:20:20 not my best time but not my worst either...

So its off to run for me tonight to try to get an improvement on the run....