The Everyday Athlete

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• Christmas in 1981: Showdown on the Sledding Hill

  Merry Christmas Eve to all! I hope everyone is enjoying a safe and warm celebration, wherever you’ve ended up this holiday season. We’ve decided to stay in town and wait out the storm instead of braving the winter roadways to get to my parent’s... Posted Dec 24 2008, 02:57 PM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: adventure, stories

• World Domination From a Hot-Pink Banana Seat: Christmas in 1985

  My last column for 2008 will run in tomorrow’s Oregonian, but if you don’t get the paper you can check it out online. In it, I begin my quest for world domination, inspired by a bike-accessory I received for Christmas. (It was the motorcylce... Posted Dec 20 2008, 05:32 PM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: cycling, bikes, adventure, stories, everyday_cyclist, glimmers

• Saltzman at Night: I did not anticipate the teeth.

  I can see the dog’s teeth. What strikes me is not that the teeth have the potential to puncture skin, but that I can actually see them. It is pitch black, the cold winter trees of Forest Park blocking out the moonlight. Moments earlier I’d... Posted Dec 04 2008, 06:04 PM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: cycling, cyclocross, training, adventure, stories

• Thank you Thank you and Thank you: From the Gratitude Files

  In 1999 I was living in Calcutta, India working for Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. By day I cleaned bed sores and pulled maggots out of open wounds. I carried skeletal women in my arms and bathed them with my hands. I held the women who... Posted Nov 28 2008, 09:47 PM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: life, stories, glimmers

• The Killing Fields: Kruger’s Crossing Race Report is Up, Complete with Dead Rat

  Photo: Kenji Sugahara Hey - is Thanksgiving tomorrow? How the hell did that happen? Sunday’s race report went up yesterday afternoon over at Ye Olde Wend Magazine. This week is the classic 5 days of work stuffed into 3 days time but how can I not... Posted Nov 26 2008, 03:59 PM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: racing, cycling, cyclocross, stories

• Race Report: Barton Park Carnage

  The Barton Park race report is up over at the Wend Blog! You can read it below, too. Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR. All photos courtesy of Stiv Wilson. Blood, rocks, mud, carnage. Barton Park 2008 will go down in infamy. Cue to the quarry... Posted Nov 04 2008, 09:17 AM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: cross_crusade, racing, cycling, cyclocross, stories

• Perfect Agony: Rainier Cyclocross Race Report

  The full race report follows, but I wanted to mention that I’ve recently established a relationship with Wend Magazine and they’ll be publishing these reports as a diary series on their blog this year. I’m super excited to be hooked... Posted Oct 22 2008, 09:55 AM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: cross_crusade, cycling, cyclocross, bikes, announcement, stories

• The Curse of Villebois

  I should have known better. We’re racing bikes through what is left of a former insane asylum. A few rotting concrete walls and several deadly spikes of rebar growing out of the ground here and there are the only remnants of the building that was Dammasch... Posted Oct 15 2008, 10:22 AM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: cross_crusade, racing, cycling, cyclocross, adventure, stories

• Death to Chihuahuas: Cyclocross Animal Sacrifice Part Two

  I had to kill a bird to get the ‘cross gods to bless me with a remount. Since then my front wheel is a magnet for suicidal vermin. Squirrels dodging underneath my mud tires, looking for an easy way to end the pain of losing the backyard battle to... Posted Oct 09 2008, 03:19 PM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: cycling, cyclocross, adventure, stories

• Humility in Doses

  It’s safe to say that Molly Cameron is the sole reason that Sal and I are the ‘cross fanatics that we are. She probably doesn’t know this, but it’s true. In 2006 I started reading her blog and eventually gave into the intrigue... Posted Oct 03 2008, 10:45 AM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: cyclocross, training, stories

• Pedal Until You Taste Blood: The Battle at Barlow

  Last week, reader Guy Smith of the Crossniacs forwarded me a link to this article in the New York Times. In the first paragraph, the author quotes a former coach who once told him, “Pedal until you taste blood.” I liked that. I thought about... Posted Sep 28 2008, 08:43 PM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: racing, cycling, cyclocross, bikes, stories

• Breaking the bird’s neck seems like a bad omen but I remind myself that I believe neither in omens nor birds. Still, when I feel the bone snap under me, my heart drops into my gut and my sentence stops inside my mouth, without bothering to find... Posted Sep 10 2008, 07:02 PM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: cycling, cyclocross, stories

• New ‘Cross Strategy for 2008: Animal Sacrifice

  Breaking the bird’s neck seems like a bad omen but I remind myself that I believe neither in omens nor birds. Still, when I feel the bone snap under me, my heart drops into my gut and my sentence stops inside my mouth, without bothering to find... Posted Sep 10 2008, 07:02 PM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: cycling, cyclocross, training, stories

• Timothy Lake: 7400 Feet of Glory

  Mile 35: I hate Natalie Ramsland’s guts. Not because she climbs like a scared monkey, or because she’s the primary reason I am stuck on this mountain pushing gears, but because she knows what to expect next. She’s done a pre-ride. Who... Posted Jul 21 2008, 04:31 PM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: cycling, motivation, stories, randonneuring

• Boulder, Colorado: Part Two

  12 hours in a conference chair and I’m at my wits end.   I have been eating Nectar Bars and apples stolen from the hotel lobby display.  Cottage cheese from the grocery store.  Baby carrots. This trip is going down on the cheap. I... Posted Jun 08 2008, 09:42 PM by The Everyday Athlete Filed under: life, adventure, stories