Past and Future

The AR season was reaching the mid point when Team MountainZone.com completed the X-Raid in Bend, OR. That is when things began to change. The first change, which was not a major surprise was that Chris was not going to be doing many if any races the rest of the year. This is because Chris had recently been accepted to medical school, which meant that available cash and time was going to be at a premium. That was not too big of a deal, since there were still three of us on the team and we could always pick up a fourth.

A few weeks before the Raid, Trea got a new job. This was good news because now she would not be shipped off to Korea for the summer as originally planned by her previous employer. This meant that I was going to have a female teammate for the rest of the summer. Well this turned out not to be the case. Trea started working 14 hour days and working weekends. That tended to cut into training and ablity to do races. She would compete in the third BEAST race, but not any other races.

Another event that took place around this same time was that Lee purchased a new house. A floating house to be exact. Lee got a great deal on his new house boat, but it needed some major work. Major work on a house, job, more bills and more work all added up too lack of training time and racing funds for Lee. Lee would come out and volunteer at a few races through out the rest of the summer, but was unable to race.

The final big news of the early summer was that I got a new job. Good for me and my finances, but bad for blogging and writing race reports. This was because I ended up sitting at my desk all day stairing at a computer screen and did not feel like doing it when I got home. Plus I got rid of my home internet access, so I spent the majority of July and August not even turning on my computer. I had quite a few emails outstanding. Some of them not the nicest.

But the good news in all this is that I did continue to train and race. If fact I think I got faster because I was searching for new teammates and did not want to be the slow person on the team. Another piece of good news is that I now have a backlog of race stories to make it through the fall and winter with.

So now that I have cleared up the past, it is time to start looking towards the future. WHAT race to do next summer? This may seem like a strange time to be asking such a question since this race season is not even over yet, but PQ is in June 2006 and the lottery registration ends on September 20th. Now that is a long way out. My issue is whether I want to do PQ or the RacingthePlant in the Gobi desert. I can only afford to do one of these two races next summer and I need to decide sometime soon.

Most people have not ever heard of Racingtheplanet, so if you’re too lazy or lack the time to check out the website here is the quick skinny. It is a 150-mile six-day staged race across the Gobi dessert in Western China. Last year’s high temp was 122 F and the races were battered by enormous duststorms. And people think I am a weirdo for wanting to go?

The upside of the race is the Ian Adams in the race director, it is in China, you can race solo so I would not have to find a team, and besides food and new shoes I would not have to buy any gear. I say any new gear, but you always end up buying new gear no matter what you do. That is until you garage or living room ends up looking like REI. The downside is that it concists only of running/trekking, but more importantly is that it is in western China, which means that the cost is going to be very high. Mostly because of the airline tickets. I could cut my cost be taking a train from Beijing to the starting line, but that would add four days to my travel. Plus what are the odds I would actually make it to my correct destination??

Then there is PQ. I really want to do this race, especially since I did not get the true expedition race experience last year due to all the stoppages. You can read the race reports on PDXAR.com if you want. I think there is like six of them. Secondly, PQ is in the US again which means the cost will be less. Next year it is going international. But I need to get a team set up again and the regisitration deadline is coming up.

Since it does not appear that I am going to have any teammates willing to commit to PQ by the deadline, I think that might make the decision for me. If the race sells out then, I will have to sign up for the Gobi race simply because there will be no open spots. But if it does not sell out, I will be forced to think about this a while longer. My teammate Chad Markle from last year who just kicked my ass at the Trioba 24 is interest in doing the race, but he like a true guy, is afraid of commitment. It could be a long few weeks here while I kick around the choices and money issues some more. It is not like I have not been doing this already for the last few weeks.

My friend Don Funk wants me to do the Gobi race because he says he can only get excited about doing international race anymore. I guess that is what happens when you race for 10 years. He wanted me to sign up for a race in Libya this February with him, but my wife, “super support Carol” quickly vetoed that idea. Something about getting blown up. I told her I would pass as a French Canadian from Sweden, but she would not have any of it.

I guess I will go back to my highly scientific study of figuring out the true value of the race and where my money should go by solving the Dollar per Mile equation. But I am stuck on the question of is airline miles part of the race. I mean is it really a discipline to sit on a small place for way too long? If so how does one train for it? O wait I guess I could move my work space into a cube and move the walls in. Then there is the culture aspect; what value do I add to that? Questions? Many questions. It’s time to go bang my head for a while. O yea I guess I will write up that race report for the Trioba 24 as well.