Outside Features

Start of the Pacific Crest Half Ironman. I'm the one in the blue cap. "You will have a long and prosperous life," promised the fortune cookie that I cracked open a couple of days ago. I sure hope so. I tucked the tiny slip of white paper into my pocket, not wanting to tease the Gods by unceremoniously sending it to the recycle bin.

Last week, Eddie Miller died on a trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River with a group of fellow Bendites. I knew Eddie a little, paddling with him a few times with the stand-up group in Bend. He was a fit, athletic 57-year-old outdoorsman who had just received his river guide license. When the headline circulated the internet last Wednesday, I immediately assumed that a deadly rapid, maybe the notorious Velvet, had taken him. I felt a jolt of sadness for Eddie, but also a jolt of fear. I'll be floating the Middle Fork as you read this.
However, Eddie had negotiated the river safely. It was the final day of the weeklong trip and he had set out on a pre-prandial hike with his wildflower books. Eddie simply slipped on some wet rocks and tumbled down a cliff. The National Guard finally located his body four days later.

The ump runs hot, cold and wild. I am a whitewater neophyte, but I'm joining some far-flung friends to do a trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River over the Fourth of July. The Middle Fork is 100 miles of free flowing river in the heart of the Frank Church - River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho. A group from Bend that did the Middle Fork two weeks ago reported that it was "big and pushy" and, in one incident, unfortunately lost a kayak, never to be seen again. Wanting to actually return from the River of No Return, I figured I'd better do some serious cramming, so I got out on a couple of our best rivers these past two weekends.

Ted and Joan Winchel, who both won the 70-74 age group at the Dirty Half.Are you a runner or are you someone who runs? Does running define you or is it just something you do? When I used to develop running shoes for Nike, we would actually segment the market based on that distinction. A non-ectomorph with three knee surgeries and one foot surgery in my medical records, I am definitely not a runner. Mostly I do it to keep my dog sane. Which is why I didn't sign up for the Dirty Half and wasn't even thinking about it. The super popular event filled up weeks ago. But somehow, after a beer at the Sisters Rodeo on Saturday night with a friend who had an entry that she couldn't use, I ended up at the start line at Phil's Trail at 8am on Sunday morning with 682 other runners (or people who run) and 13.1 miles of trail looming in front of me.

Henry and Amy celebrate a tandem victory.Paddling, skiing, running, hiking, backpacking, climbing, swimming, geocaching-you name it- is all-good, but the bike is my first love. I can still remember the big day when my Dad took off my training wheels and I wobbled away. For a kid growing up in the country, it was my magic carpet to new places and new adventures. Still is.
MOUNTAIN
This is the place and the time to get out on your mountain bike. The not-so-secret news is out: Bend was named Mountain Bike Action Magazine’s Top American Mountain Biking Town in the May 2009 issue. The snow is melting rapidly, opening up higher elevation trails, and the recent showers have been excellent for dust abatement on lower trails. Do it now!

ADVENTURE DEFICIT DISORDER

"The best laid plans of mice and (wo)men often go awry," wrote poet Robert Burns. If you are anything like me, you feel a welling sense of panic as winter suddenly tranforms into summer on the High Desert. The anxiety revolves around a desire to maximize our short summer by packing each weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day with as many adventures as humanly possible. If a weekend gets lost to poor planning, or unforseen circumstances, I suffer from a condition my friends and I have dubbed "ADD" (Adventure Deficit Disorder). As far as I know, the only cure for a sudden bout of ADD is Plan B.
Fortunately, like a drugstore pharmacist, Central Oregon offers up a vast array of antidotes, especially this time of year. Sometimes we forget how much fun it is to just play in your own backyard.

STEVE LARSEN REMEMBERED
Dogs don't just live in the moment-they lick it, roll in it and breathe it in.Bend lost one of its greatest athletes last
week. Steve Larsen, who was only 39, collapsed during a running workout
at the Cascade Middle School track on Tuesday May 19th and died. Shock
waves rippled through the Bend community.
"It was sad and very
shocking," said Max King, who was leading the workout. "I had them
doing a standard track workout.  Four sets of a tempo pace 1000m,
followed by a 5K pace 800m. We had just started and we were in the
middle of the first 800m. He just went down to the track on his hands
then rolled to his back. Some people thought he had pulled a muscle at
first. It was obvious pretty much right away though that something more
was wrong. We started CPR immediately and within four to five minutes
the ambulance was there. Unfortunately in this case nothing we could
have done would have saved him. There were several nurses and multiple
people trained in CPR. We did everything we were trained to do. I'm
proud of the group of people I have out there. They were amazing."
I
first met Steve when he was 21 years old and racing for the U.S.
National Cycling Team. Two years older than Lance Armstrong, he was
definitely one of our brightest young stars. Steve raced on the
Motorola team with Lance for three years in the early 1990s, racing in
the Giro d'Italia and other major European events. He was probably the
only professional to compete in the world championships for road,
mountain bike, track, cyclocross, triathlon and off-road triathlon.

What a race! Tutu-Licious edged out the D&D Girls by 28 seconds as the fastest women's team in 2:02:20.It's Monday morning after PPP weekend and I'm trying to counteract the
lactic acid and the beer in my system with ibuprofen and Frappuccino as
I write this column. Hopefully, you'll understand if it's a bit hazy. I
love PPP (this was my 13th in a row) yet it always feels like
post-partum depression when it's all over.

PPPOST PARTUM
This
was the biggest Pole Pedal Paddle ever, with 2,925 racers, and maybe
even the best ever too, with absolutely perfect race weather. Huge
congratulations go to Molly Cogswell-Kelley, the MBSEF crew and all the
volunteers for an amazing event.
We did pretty well with our
race predictions here. Marshall Greene repeated as men's champion by a
solid three minutes, while Sarah Max repeated as women's champion by
edging out Source pick Muffy Roy by 56 seconds. At the finish line,
Sarah commented that she proved me wrong, so I want to give her credit.
PPP has a history of champions stringing together win streaks (a la
Justin Wadsworth, Ben Husaby and Suzanne King). Racers who figure out
all the fine nuances to win the race seem to be able to do it again.
Sarah is only 34 and Marshall is only 27, so both have a great shot at
becoming the winningest PPP champions ever. (The feat would require
four more victories for Sarah and five for Marshall).