Month: April 2019

McKenzie Pass

Okay, I’ll admit it. I like Instagram. I like following people and seeing their lives in pictures and videos. I like sharing my own that way too. And while I have exactly zero interest in Instagram influencers, I do follow a number of strangers who do cool outdoor things.

Instagram is how Paul and I discovered McKenzie Pass was unofficially open for the season. McKenzie Pass is down near Bend, OR and is closed in the winter for snow. Each spring it officially reopens to cyclists for about three weeks while crews finish final repairs to open it to … Continue reading

20 Tabor Laps

This is probably 19 Tabor laps too many, but that’s what I did today.

Five miles, 2,300ft of elevation gain, roughly climbing 5,500 stairs (it’s 282 to the tippy top, but I turn around before the final staircase).

Back when doing 8 laps made my calves cramp for several days straight, I would have laughed if you’d told me I’d be doing 20 laps in about 90min with just a couple quick breaks.

Is the definition of insanity and good training just the same thing… ?

Hard Bike, Happy Ski

I’ve biked up to Lost Lake twice before. The first was part of an 80mi, 80K day back in 2016 in the hot August sun. It was kind of brutal. The second time was just about a year ago and it was… fine. It’s not my favorite ride, even though it is objectively a good ride with great views.

But we knew we wanted to get some skiing in, so that necessitated a bike ride somewhere near Mount Hood. So the plan was two laps of biking from Dee to Lost Lake Resort, and then a skin from Timberline Lodge … Continue reading

Smile & Flow

This week I was putting on an event/conference for four days in Portland. Since I was still in town I was able to sneak in some training, but I was TIRED.

Working a 12 hour day, only to come home and do two hours of biking in the dark is hard (though, the bike ride itself was mostly good).

On Thursday I did my fastest set of Tabor laps yet (10 laps of stairs (1,200ft gain) in 46 minutes). I was pretty worn down, but it felt really good to sweat a bit. I was in a rush because I … Continue reading

Another Saturday, Another Double!

So, apparently Saturday’s are the day we DO THINGS now. Mostly because even though we’re both super lucky to have flexible jobs, I’m still pulling 50+ hour work weeks and it’s often easiest to do that during ‘regular business hours’.

This past week I got to catch up a bit on training after my Dad was in town last week. We’d been talking about doing a double Mount Defiance hike for a while, and this seemed like a promising week to do it.

Since we weren’t getting any biking in, we went for a training ride on Friday which we … Continue reading

10,000 Feet!

So I have to back up a bit to talk about our first 10,000ft day back on Saturday, March 30th. Mostly because I was so proud that we accomplished it, and it was a big deal for me!

We knew wanted to do a double sport day and combine both biking and hiking to start getting the feel of working through two sports. As previously mentioned I’d never done a double Dog Mountain day, so that seemed like a great place to start. Paul has always wanted to take me up 7mile hill in Mosier via bike as well, so … Continue reading