Balloon Runners...Weee!

Sunmart 50 miler

Julie and I just got back from the 50 mile Sunmart Trail run in Huntsville, TX which is north of Houston. We had a great time and are both still walking pretty well. The run is in Huntsville State Park which was very pretty. We did 4 12.5 mile loops. At first that sounded kind of crappy but the loops ended up not being too bad. After the second loop you pretty much knew where you were and how far to next rest stop etc. The overall support for the race was great, had a big breakfast tent set up before the race and had lots of food afterwards. We got a crap load of 'goodies' before the race, big duffle bag two hats, polo shirt..pretty cool. We got a tyvek finishers jacket (which I will wear with pride) and and the requisite finishers medal at the end. The rest stops on the course were every 2-3 miles and had all kinds of food and stuff to drink..best were the boiled potatos. I had pretty good luck eating taters and bananas and drinking whatever they had..gatorade, mt. dew, dr. pepper all worked pretty good. I started taking ibuprofen and tums after second lap and that seemed to work out pretty good for me. The trails were nice, quite a few tree roots but not too bad, was nice and rolling not pancake flat but no huge climbs..lot's of big pine trees and even had palm trees in the woods which don't see much of in Oklahoma. had a whole bunch of wooden bridges over the swampy sections..some over 50 yards long seemed like.very good place to do first 50 miler. There were about 200 in the 50 miler and 800 in 50k. The 50k and 50 mile shared the same trail for part of the course but on most of it was just 50 milers and was pretty spread out...some crazy old guy who sorta looked like Chuck I ran with for a while said this was his 30th race of 26 miles or more this year he had been to China and raced on the Great Wall and was planning on going to Himalayas for run next year...hmmm maybe know what will do in retirement now....Julie and I both felt pretty good when we finished, tired but not too beat up. Julie ended up finishing in 8:46 (4th in age group and 10th female...not bad for first 50 miler and considering there were people from all over the country) and I finished in 9:12 which I was happy with..Results are at http://www.doitsports.com/results/page.tcl?id=14723

Visit To the Joffes

Nice Digs!!





















Nice Front Yard...Those are Elk running off...We didn't get a shot off.














Tim on death defying crossing of creek..









Perty waterfall..




















All lign up for another death defying creek crossing..All survived..Nice form by Mike...maybe Raton was problem before as Mike didn't fall in once.
























Happy Hikers..














Nice view...Pikes Peak looming in background just out of view to the right...

















"We should probably turn around since we haven't been shot by an Elk hunter yet"

Wicked Fast

HEY LOOK!! THE BIKE ACTUALLY WORKS!

TURKEY AND TATURS 50K

TWAS A DARK AND STORMY DAY AT TURKEY
Mountain as a few fools tromped around in the mud at Turkey for 30 miles...Tatur group in Tulsa www.tatur.org put on an awesome race at Turkey.. Julie managed to win the womens race and Raton finished 2nd ...The two Tims managed to finish almost together due to the fact that Tim W. got lost...what else is new...Fools lost in the woods....Our chatty buddy Mary finished and did awesome as well..

Davis, a 25 maxxis and a 26 soma everwear fit, but I wouldn't ride on a freshly tarred road. A 28? dunno.

Dirty Lager leaves 'mark' all over Robbers Cave.

Above is the world famous Dirk T. Lager posing as he prepares to rappel off his first lead climb.

At left, Dirty works his way meticulously up the ubiquitious 'Beginners Crack'. His gear placments where shite but at least he didn't fall off the thing.

After the climb, DL was asked what his secret was an he replied, 'Bacon, and lots of it.'




Here, DL turns the roof. Below, DL poses on a fun toprope and declares, 'look at me, I'm so cool I wear sunglasses when I climb!'

Next trip, I hope DL can learn the meaning of 'don't yank on my nuts' and 'go for it buddy!'. I also will go over basic use of a digital camera.



















Actually we had a grand time. Camped fri night and it cooled down enough to make sleeping without sweating possible. Drank a couple of beers and hung out. Saturday we did a lot of climbing and Tim did indeed lead a couple of climbs and did pretty well. It wasn't too bad in the shade but pretty dam hot regardless. Got back into Tulsa Sat. night, leaving plenty of time for serious training.