06.6.2018 | 1:42 pm
A Note From Fatty: If you have ever carbo-loaded before a race, you should listen to the latest episode of The Leadville Podcast…even if you aren’t racing Leadville. If you have ever bonked during a race, you should listen to the latest episode of The Leadville Podcast…even if you aren’t racing Leadville. If you have ever wondered how much to eat every hour during a race, regardless of your size, you should listen to the latest episode of The Leadville Podcast…even if you aren’t racing Leadville. It’s the best show I’ve ever put together, by a lot.
The Phone Call
I should begin this story with a disclaimer: everything works out OK in the end. I didn’t expect it to. Lisa didn’t either. The cops didn’t, the search and rescue people didn’t. But it did.
I’m not telling you this as a storytelling trick or to lure you into the story. I’m telling you this because, frankly, I don’t want you thinking I’d be writing this story at all if things had turned out the way I expected them to.
This happened three Thursdays ago. Everything here is true.
It’s Thursday, 4:30pm, and I’m at work. Lisa is out with her 86yo father — Dee — and his 89yo brother, Keith. These are two tough old birds, and a walk around the block doesn’t scratch their itch. They want to go up a 4mi steep singletrack trail.
Keith’s on the left here, Dee’s on the right.
Along with these two, Lisa had brought her niece, Kylie.
They made the trek to the top of the mountain without trouble. Which is pretty amazing when you think about it.
Then they turned around and started back.
A few minutes later, Lisa called me. “My father’s gone! he’s completely gone. He’s not on the trail, he’s not around the trail, he’s nowhere!”
When i say this, you have to understand: it took me several tries to understand her because she was screaming. Crying. Completely distressed. In the eight years we’ve been married, I’ve never heard her sound even remotely like this. Not once.
“I’ll call you back from the car,” I said. “I’m on my way there.”
Getting Clarification
I was on the freeway between Lehi and Provo, where the trailhead was. I called Lisa back. She told me that she had already called 911 and police were on their way. ”Explain to me what happened,” I said.
“The four of us got to the top of the mountain together,” Lisa explained. “We had just turned around and were headed back down the trail when my dad needed to pee. The rest of us continued on for a minute, because Keith a little slower than my dad.”
“When he didn’t catch up to us after a minute or so,” Lisa continued, “I sent Kylie back to look for him. He wasn’t where we left him, so she continued to the end of the trail at the summit, and he wasn’t there either! He was just gone.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said, for the first time of probably hundreds of times that day. But each time I said it, there was a little part of me that said, “But it kind of does make sense.”
See, back last October, Dee had a stroke. It’s affected his eyesight, his memory, and his ability to think. So I could imagine too well that he’d had another stroke, had fallen, had walked off without any sense of what was going on, had fallen down the steep face of the mountain.
Anyway, when Kylie didn’t see Dee, she ran back to Lisa.
At which point lost it. Well and truly lost it.
She ran off trail, screaming her father’s name, running everywhere, yelling, yelling. Not looking where she was going, not caring.
Until, a mile or so later, she realized that now she was lost too.
Which is where I’ll pick up next time.
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06.5.2018 | 7:32 am
Every Tuesday (through August) is Leadville Podcast day, though frankly this show is about a lot more than just the Leadville 100. If you ride a lot and are interested in being able to ride better, faster, or happier, this is the episode for you.
In this episode we go to the buffet — it’s almost all about food.
Dr Kevin Sprouse — Medical Director for the EF Education First / Drapac presented by Cannondale Pro Cycling Team — has a practical prescription for your race nutrition, including changes you need to start making right now. I have to say, it was a huge honor to talk with Dr. Sprouse. He brought an incredible amount of knowledge about what works and what doesn’t and made it incredibly accessible. Having a pro cycling doctor lay out — clearly and simply — do’s and don’ts for race-day nutrition gave me some ideas on how I’m going to refine my endurance food plans — and I’ve been doing this for decades!
Rebecca Rusch will reveal what’s in her feed bag in Our Questions for the Queen segment, then Fatty and Hottie talk about their respective Leadville menus (they’re miles apart).
We continue our mile-by-mile (or is that minute-by-minute?) analysis of the course, including pinpointing the first places you should get out something to eat.
Finally, Jonathan Lee’s training advice for this show is going to have you outside on a long ride, putting everything you learned about eating in this show into practice.
Since we talk about rice cakes very frequently during this episode, here’s a recipe for rice cakes from Dr. Allen Lim (of Feed Zone Cookbook fame), originally posted in FatCyclist.com:
Ingredients:
- 2 cups uncooked calrose or other medium-grain “sticky” or sushi rice (never use Basmati as it won’t stick.)
- 3 cups water (Fatty swaps chicken broth out for this)
- 8 ounces of bacon (prosciutto or sausage or even roasted chicken also works great)
- 4 eggs
- 4 tablespoons (or flavor to taste) of Braggs liquid Aminos (all natural soy sauce) or a low-sodium soy sauce
- 4 tablespoons (or flavor to taste) of brown sugar
- Ground sea salt and grated Parmesan (optional)
Directions:
- Combine rice and water in a rice cooker. Start rice cooker. If using a standard pot, combine rice and water, bring to a boil, then let simmer on low for about 20 minutes.
- While rice is cooking, chop up bacon before frying, then fry in a medium sauté pan. When crispy, drain off fat and soak up excess fat with paper towels.
- Beat the eggs in a small bowl and tehn scramble on high heat in the sauté pan. Don’t worry about overcooking the eggs as they’ll break up easily when mixed with the rice.
- In a large bowl or in the rice cooker bowl, combine the cooked rice, bacon, and scrambled eggs. Add liquid aminos or soy sauce and sugar to taste. After mixing, press into an 8- or 9-inch square baking pan to about 1 ½ inch thickness. Top with more sugar, salt, and grated Parmesan if desired.
- Cut and wrap individual cakes in a paper foil like Martha Wrap™. Makes about 10 cakes.
Thanks to Our Sponsors
We went out of our way, for this podcast, to reach out exclusively to companies we actually love and buy stuff from ourselves. Which is to say, you won’t find ads here for life insurance companies or mattresses or cooking kits that come to you in a box.
- Shimano: Shimano XT Di2 is glorious anywhere, but its magnificence really comes into play when you’re 78 miles into a high-altitude race and are now at a part of the race where it would be really nice to shift pretty much constantly, precisely, and perfectly, without much effort. That’s Shimano XT Di2.
- The Feed: The Leadville Trail 100 MTB Race is an eating contest disguised as a bike race, and you need to train for that eating contest. Get to know the good folks at The Feed and start using your race food plan now, before it’s too late. Get yourself a Leadville race pack or training pack, and use the code LEADVILLE15 for a 15% discount!
- Banjo Brothers: A simple, sturdy, well-designed, time-tested saddle bag is a must during this race. Fatty’s trusted Banjo Brothers bags on his LT100 bike race for more than a decade.
- ENVE: Whether you’re thinking about your cockpit or your wheels, the Leadville 100 is the very definition of an ENVE dream scenario. I’ve got an M5 bar and M525 wheels on his bike and rides without fear of broken components or pinch flats.
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06.4.2018 | 8:21 am
The Hammer and I have a few beloved rides. No, “beloved” isn’t quite the right word, because we invariably hate each and every one of these routes at some point during the day.
Still, we go back and do them again. Over and over.
The most important of these rides is what she and I call “The Guardsman Loop,” or — when I’m feeling clever — “The Snow Cone Loop” (because we usually stop and get a shaved ice at one of those corner shave ice places on the way back): 75+ miles, 10K+ feet of climbing, a mix of dirt and road.
It’s as perfect a training ride for the Crusher in the Tushar as there could be. You should come ride it with us; it’s super fun.
No, I’m just kidding. Don’t come ride it with us, because you’d hate us afterward and that would make me sad.
The thing about this ride is it’s absolutely 100% non-technical. There is no riding during the entire day that takes any skill whatsover. It’s just about turning the pedals over and over. And over.
Which gives you quite a bit of time to think, and to look around. And then think about the things you’re looking at while you’re looking around.
Like this.
The Turning of Tables
The Hammer’s daughter is named Melisa. I used to call her “The Swimmer,” but I don’t even know the last time she went swimming. Then I called her “The Monster,” but that had a (very intentional) double meaning, which was kind of mean of me. David Houston wanted to give her the nickname “Nails,” but a nail is a pretty passive thing — it’s acted upon, it doesn’t do anything itself — so I reject that nickname too.
Melisa herself would like to be called “Mel,” which would be a perfectly good nickname if she were a sixty-year-old man who owned a diner in a long-running sitcom in the seventies and eighties.
So let’s go with “Melisa.”
Anyway, Melisa is entered to do the LeadWoman this year, which is like doing the Leadville Trail 100 MTB race but you also have to do more riding and a little running too. It’s no big deal, really.
The important thing here is that she’s doing a bunch of running, which of course means she’s getting repetitive use injuries all the time and no longer has any fun doing anything that is actually fun (e.g., riding her bike).
She had — as part of her training for the LeadWoman — recently done a trail marathon and had clobbered both the course and her own self. One of her legs hurt so bad she could barely walk.
Still, she had chosen to come with us on a seven-hour ride, bringing her boyfriend — a super friendly and fast guy named Jeff — along.
Within fifteen minutes, it was clear to the Hammer and me that Melisa was not going to have a good day. Within half an hour, it was obvious to us that she wasn’t going to finish the ride. Within ninety minutes (only three times as long, which is progress), those things became clear to Melisa too and she pulled the plug. She came to a stop and said, “I’m calling it.”
It was the right thing to do. Luckily she could essentially coast back home.
We said our goodbyes and got ready to continue, when I realized: Jeff had a decision to make: keep going, or stay back with Melisa?
On one hand, he had planned a long day in the saddle. On the other hand, he had a girlfriend who was literally pouting (her bottom lip was sticking out probably half an inch) on the side of the road.
I made things easier for him: “She doesn’t need you; she needs to go home and put her leg up. Come ride with us,” I said.
Jeff looked at Melisa, hopefully. Melisa stuck her lip out a little further.
“OK, sounds good,” said Jeff, surprising at least three of us. “Let’s go.”
Then, doing some quick relationship math, he said, “I’ll catch you two in a minute.”
Knowing that Jeff could actually do this, The Hammer and I continued. And we had a discussion.
“Do you think Jeff will actually be rejoining us?” I asked.
“If he does, it will be to tell us to go on without him, that he’s going to go back with Mel,” The Hammer replied (The Hammer is going along with this “Mel” nonsense for some reason).
“So we agree there is no chance at all he’ll finish the ride with us,” I said.
“None whatsoever,” she agreed.
“What if it were the other way around?” I asked, because I’m interested in human nature and psychology and stuff, and also because I know that if I can get The Hammer engaged in conversation she’ll slow down a little. “What if it were Jeff who was hurt — would Melisa turn around for him?”
“No,” The Hammer replied. “If it were the other way around, Jeff would be urging her to go on and have fun, and she’d go on and have fun.”
“Is that right?” I asked, by which I did not mean “is that true,” but “is that ethically OK?”
“That’s just how it is,” The Hammer said. “That’s how it is for us, too.”
“It is?” I asked, astounded. Then I thought about it. If The Hammer called the day early and turned around, I wouldn’t even ask. I’d go back with her. When (not “if,” because this has happened) I were hurting and wanted to call the day early, The Hammer would definitely keep going.
“Why is it this way?”
“Because we’re the bosses of you.”
I thought about this some more (for hours actually), but that pretty much summed things up.
The Obvious Conclusion
A quarter mile before we reached the summit of Pole Line Pass, Jeff caught up to us, just flying. “I just came to let you know that I’m going to go back,” he said.
“Shocking,” I replied.
“You should keep going,” The Hammer said. “As fast as you got here, you might be on track for a KOM.”
“That’s OK,” Jeff said, and turned around.
“I’d have at least finished the climb to the top,” I told The Hammer.
“Sure you would’ve,” she said.
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