Hermosa Beach Triathlon

This race has been turning into an annual tradition for me, since living in Hermosa Beach. The beauty of it is that it's a walk down the hill from my house. Lisa and I both signed up for it, but this year was a little different than years past because there wasn't a group of friends doing it with us. My brother has done it with me in the past, and even my roomate JJ and his then-girlfriend woke up early one year to check it out.

The race itself was fun. I was in the first wave of the day, and the water was calm and clear. It had rained on Friday, which meant the water was pooey. Having gotten sick from being in the water in the past, I was a little leery when the race announcer told us "we've had the water tested and it's clean, even though it rained this weekend." But either way I had already paid the money, so I definitely wasn't going to skip it purely because I had to stick my head in the water for 10 minutes at the start. Let's be honest, I've gotten in the water for far less.

After the ten minute swim, the bike was relatively painless. The only blip was when a group of cyclists rode onto the course. I was on my second lap, and seeing a group of people riding in a pack while there was a bunch of newbie triathletes riding by them not able to pass infuriarated me. I don't know what my problem is, but for some reason I get fired up about this kind of stuff. Hence, why Lisa calls me the "Hermosa Beach Vigalante." Anyways, I rode up to these cyclists and gave them an earful. "What the hell are you guys doing? Are you guys racing or what?" One of the cyclists replied "No, we're just riding." So I yelled back "Well, get the hell off the course! There's a bunch of us trying to race here!" With that, they rode off the course so people could pass. Right before I was going to ride off, I leaned over to the triathlete riding next me and muttered to him..."I really told them, didn't I?" I thought I was hilarious, but he gave me a look like I was nuts. Oh well.

After the bike, I felt like I got passed by half the field on the run, but ended up catching a few of them at end. I timed it perfectly at the end and made sure that there was no one directly in front of me. The announcer read of my name and hometown for the crowd. Ah...it's the little things that make me happy, isn't it?

The timing worked out well. I finished the run, got a water, and then walked over to see Lisa just getting out of the water (her heat was the second to last one to go.) I then had time to run home, drop off my bike, and run back to see Lisa come in from the bike and then go out on the run. I yelled at a few more pedestrians strolling on the strand to get out of the way (the Vigilante coming out again) and then waited for Lisa to come in. Overall, it was a great time. I would love to do it as long as I live here...

The Big Paddleboard Race

Hennessey's Paddleboard race is titled the U.S. Paddleboard championship, and there were plenty of people in attendance that looked like they seriously wanted to try and win the race. Australians, Lifeguards, and other experienced watermen. I, however, was really just wanting to finish the 12.9 mile race without having to get dragged from the water by one of the lifeguard boats.

Keep in mind, I estimated that I've never really paddled more than 6 miles, probably less. But I felt like I had a couple of good paddles in the past couple of weeks, so I'd give it a try. The biggest problem I thought I would have was trying to figure out how to bring enough water on the paddleboard with me. Most people had water bottle holders built into their paddleboards, but since mine is an older paddleboard it doesn't have this feature. I originally tried to superglue a water bottle on, but it wasn't sticking. Then I tried to glue an industrial velcro strip on that would hold a water bladder or water bottle onto the paddleboard. I woke up in the morning thinking this would work (actually, I stayed up half the night worrying about this) and got up to try and attach the camelbak to it. It wasn't even close to looking like it was going to work, I turned the board on it's side slightly and the camelback just came tumbling off. So, plan C...I threw on one of my bike jerseys and stuck two water bottles into my jersey. Oh, and I slipped a couple of gels into the pocket of my board shorts.

Lisa came down with me to the race, and when we got there I saw that basically everyone else looked way more experienced than me. Bottles secured to the board, gps units, sport drinks, etc.

So they get us out there, and the race began. My strategy was to paddle at my speed, regardless of what everyone else did. My goal was to rotate between paddling on my stomach, and paddling from my knees. My strategy was thrown off by the choppy water that we started in, and also by the fact that the entire field took off in front of me. There was a couple of people behind me, but other than that I knew I was hanging onto last place after the first 1/2 mile. Not good. The crazy thing was that the group kept angling further and further away from the shore, so I kept following them, but I really had no idea where I was going. Once we got south past the breakwall, the water got really gross-I'm talking an oil slick across the water where we were paddling. I stuck to my stomach for fear that I would fall off if I got to my knees and take an unfortunate drink of this oily water

By now I was well behind the group, and could only see a few people immediately ahead of me. One lady, who was; how should we say? not in shape; was ahead of me. My goal was just to catch up with her. I finally started seeing people coming back from around the bouy, which meant I must be getting close. It was depressing to watch these people coming by me the other way. They were absolutely flying, and giving me a front row view of how graceful a good paddleboarder looks when they're doing it right.

I turned at the buoy, and felt good enough to tell myself that I was going to make it back without getting pulled from the water. It's funny, because being out there by myself, I felt myself going through a continual self-evaluation: "my shoulders feel good, but my neck is killing me" and "I'm not too thirsty, but I'm sure I'm fairly dehydrated right now. God I'd like to have a drink. But I can't-if I sit up to get my water bottle I'll fall hopelessly behind." And so on, and so on.

By now, I was kind of losing my mind and started talking to myself incessantly, out loud and I didn't care if the lifeguard boats could here me (yes, the lifeguard boats were right behind me the whole time. A case of them "cleaning up" the course after the last person went by.) At first I was talking to the wildlife. "Hello Mr. Pelican, please don't shit on me" were the first type of comments I made. I also did my best to coach my way through the remainder of the race "don't get greedy, Mitch. Just get 16 strokes at a time. 16 on your knees, then 16 on your stomach." By this constant self-chatter I actually started to get in a groove. The water got smooth and I actually started to close the distance on the people in front of me. These brief moments are what I really enjoy about paddling. You can get lost when you can get the board in this rhythm, and for a while I got lost in it. The lifeguard boat pulled up to me to chat and see how I was doing (they probably heard me talking and wondered what the hell was going on) so I had a chance to chat with them for a while and took my mind off my shoulders, which were absolutely screaming in pain at this point.

When I got back to the breakwall, I knew I was back to taking a serious beating. The funny thing is, I had done my best in the days leading up to the race convincing myself that it wouldn't be this bad. Looking back on it, I knew deep down that this suffering was inevitable. And now every stroke was getting weaker than the one before it. A guy pulled up in a gray boat and started barking at me to catch the people in front of me. I wanted to yell at him "what the hell do you think I'm trying to do? Why don't you get your fat ass off of that seat and show me how to do it?" But all I did was nod at him and continue my feeble paddling. Then someone from the escort boat yelled at me that I was going to do it, I was going to finish. And for the first time that day, I knew he was right.

When I reached the final turn at the pier, I almost fell off the board when the finish boat let off its horn, but I made the turn and headed toward the beach. The ocean decided to finish me off completely this day, and a big wave knocked me over right at the beach. The board got ripped from my hands and I did a somersault in front of everyone. And as I crossed the line under the tent, I noticed they started taking the tent down right away. I saw Lisa, and smiled pretty sheepishly at her. I joked to her that I was ready for a beer. And then I heard the announcement I was praying I wouldn't hear as they read off my race number:

"And there he is, the last official finisher of the Hennessey's 2007 U.S. Paddleboarding championship"

Mount Langley

This weekend I went back to Mount Langley, site of my only solo camping trip. The first time I went was in 2003, and it wasn't supposed to be a solo trip. However, everyone that was going to go with me bailed out, one by one. I had the pass, and always thought that I wanted to go into the woods by myself for a weekend- so that was my chance.

This time I went with my girlfriend Lisa, and our friends Deanna and Steve. Of course, getting out of L.A. proved to be the hardest part of the trip. Once they picked me up in downtown, it took us another 1.5 hours to make our way up the 5 and out of the city. We finally arrived at the campsite at around 1130 (after gorging on In-N-Out burgers on the way up) and set up camp. After one beer we were all exhausted and went to sleep. We agreed that we wanted to start hiking around 7 a.m., so I set my phone alarm for 6:15 a.m. Well, my alarm goes off at 6:15 but it's still ridiculously dark at that time so I hit snooze and fall back asleep. When I wake up again it's 7:30 and I'm shocked that Deanna and Steve aren't up yet. I'm not shocked that Lisa is still snoozing happily. She loves to sleep and is the only one I've ever seen be able to sleep soundly and entire night while in a tent. I wake up and start rolling up my sleeping bag while waking up Lisa, telling her we're running late. She swears it's still early, but I show her my cell phone to see the time. Lisa asks me to look at my watch, so I dig it out and...lo and behold it's actually 5:15 a.m! D@mn cell phone coverage!

We're already up, so we eat breakfast and start hiking. The trailhead starts at around 9,000 ft. so I immediately feel the altitude as we're hiking. I wanted this to be an enjoyable experience for Lisa, so I did my best to carry as much of the stuff as I could. My pack had to be around 40 lbs, and I was feeling it. It's funny how much different a hike looks when you are with other people to point stuff out to. I honestly had only done this hike a few years ago but barely remembered anything from it. Being that we were with Deanna and Steve (two hardcore outdoorsmen) we powered up the hike to the lake we were going to camp at in 3 hours, with no breaks on the way. We stayed at Lake #3 (the same lake I stayed at the first time) and it was as perfect a scene as I remembered it. The lake was right on the treeline, so there was lush vegetation all around it, but jagged peaks outlined our view all above the lake. After lunch and relaxing by our tents, we started towards the summit. We went above the creatively named lake #4 (right above lake #3) and started up the hairiest section of the hike. Switchbacks went over patches of snow and some scrambling over rocks. Lisa and I got to about 12,500 ft before she got a little too freaked out by the heights and technical hiking, so we waved at Deanna and Steve and went back to camp. On our way back we stopped at a spot by lake #4 that I couldn't pass without stopping for a while. It was at the end of the lake, and a little stream was running off of the lake. There was a small grassy area where you could sit by the stream as it ran downhill from the lake. It was comfortable, and the view was awesome. You know how people tell you to go to your "happy place" when you're getting stressed? This is the spot that I'll think about.

Lisa and I have never had a problem entertaining ourselves, and back at the camp was no different. I tried to fly fish, we drank some wine from my boda, played cards, and hiked around the campsite. It couldn't have been more than 55 degrees in the shade but once in the sun we were in shorts and t-shirts. We were starving and ready to start dinner, but figured we would walk up to lake 4 to see if we could see Steanna coming down. When I looked through the zoom lens on my camera, we spotted them just coming over the ridge. Thank god Deanna had on that bright pink t-shirt! We followed them down and actually got some good pictures of them hiking in. Once they got back, dinner was made (trader joe's mac and cheese) and we had a little more wine and some hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps. We were all dog-tired from the day and went right to sleep. I passed out, but woke up in the middle of the night with extreme soreness and couldn't fall asleep for like two hours. It didn't help that our tent was smelling soooo bad from our lack of showers. Imagine a baby diaper in a bowl of sewage. I started to lose my mind because of it, got up and went to the bathroom and stretched, and then could finally fall asleep again.

The next morning was perfectly still. I was up at 6:30, and fished some more. The golden trout were jumping everywhere. Everywhere except onto my line. I was making excuses when some guy walks down on the other side of the lake and hauls in a fish on his second cast. I gave him the fist shake and retired my fishing for the weekend. Our hike out was almost as tough as the one in, but we made it; albeit very tired and very sore. After stopping at the Pizza Factory at Lone Pine an filling up, we made the trip home safe and sound.

Mount Langley is an awesome place. It's 400+ feet shorter than Mt. Whitney, and because of that it's not nearly as popular as Whitney. However, the scenery is much much better, there is less people on the trail, and I enjoyed myself the entire time. It's definitely a place I want to go back to again year after year.