Epic Ride of Coldness

Introduction:
This weekend Sam and I went to St. George with our friends K.A.R. and their children.  K.R. is doing the St. George Ironman and he and I were going to ride the Ironman bike course which is a loop just over 50 miles (in the Ironman they ride it twice).  Originally Connie, Grace, and Jonah were going to come too, but Jonah had been sick, so we didn't want to stress him, so Connie and Grace had a girl's Saturday where they went out to eat (at 'In and Out' burger), went to a friend's birthday party, and Gracie and her friend got their hair done.  This however is the account of how what started as a nice lovely ride turned into a race against hypothermia.

8:30 am, Hotel Room
I just looked out the window.  It's still raining.  It has been raining all night.  I checked the temperature on weather.com.  It is 47.  That is not too bad.  I call KR and ask him what he thinks.  We decided we will try it out and if it is too cold we can just turn around

9:00 am, KRs Hotel Room (different hotel)
I dropped Sam off with AR and kids, and now we are getting our bikes ready.  It is still raining but just a light rain.

9:30 am, Somewhere in St. George
I guess we should of printed off a map on how to get to the bike course. With the little 1x2 inch screen on the bike GPS is kind of hard to tell how close we are.  Fortunately, despite the light rain, it is not too cold, my butt is getting wet from the back tire flicking water on it, but it is not bad.

9:46 am, Bluff St.
After a few wrong turns, we are now on the actual Ironman course.  I am starting to get hot.  I take off my big gloves and the beanie under my helmet.

9:51 am, Random Extra Loop
Part of the Ironman course goes onto a little half mile bike trail through some random neighborhood.  This addition to the course seems totally random.   We speculate as to why they added it in.  The course has to be exactly 112 total miles, but this seems a strange and dangerous way to add a half mile.  My speculation is the contractors who built these neighborhood are sponsors of the race and a condition of the sponsorship is that the race go by some houses that were built.

10:01 am, One last wrong turn
Oops, I guess we missed a turn.  Time to jump the divider in the middle of road.

10:11 am, mile 10
Finally we are getting away from the city onto open roads.  And the rain has stopped.  In general, if we have remembered the elevation profile correctly (this is foreshadowing),  the course should go gradually uphill for the next 20 miles, then should be all downhill for the last 25 miles.  I  speculate that since the rain has stopped, we might be dried out before we hit the downhill part, which would be good, because it would be cold to be wet and going fast downhill (this is some more foreshadowing).


10:30 am, mile 15
Wow, it is absolutely beautiful here.  The clouds are hanging just over the edges of Snow canyon and everything is green. I wish I had brought my helmet cam.

10:40 am, mile 18
We see a cool water fall thingy and stop and eat some stuff.  KR really needs to learn to eat while riding ;-). I take some pictures with the camera on my phone:

11:02 am, mile 23
It is starting to get hillier, but not too bad.  Some of the hills get up to 14% grade, but most are not more then a quarter mile long.

11:10 am, mile 25
KR says it about 6 miles to Veyo.  This is where the course turns and starts heading back towards St. George.  We assume (you know what they say about assume) that this is where the downhill starts.  This is good because, I can distinctly feel that the temperature has started to drop and my arms and legs are starting to stiffen up.

KR smiles because he doesn't know what lies ahead

11:35 am, mile 30
Definitely feeling cold now.  The temperature has dropped about 10 degrees and HOLY TAMOLA, that looks like a steep climb.  The road goes right up a cliff.  It turns out to be about a mile long, averaging about 8-9% grade but frequently 11 and 12% and once hits 13%.  Wow, that was a hard climb.  I am definitely cold now despite the hard labor of climbing.  I put back on my big gloves and beanie. We are almost to Veyo and then it should be a chilly but easy coast back down to St. George.

11:56 am, mile 33
Yeah, we have reached Veyo.  Time for our coast back down to St. George


12:00 pm, mile 34
Hmm, there must be some sort of optical illusion, it looks like there is a big ol' hill in front of us.  My joints are feeling stiff, but I guess I can muster up the will to climb one more hill.

12:05 pm, mile 34.5
Dang, that was not an optical illusion, that was a mile long hill.  And it has started to rain again.  BRRRR! I am starting to get soaked. At least it looks like it is downhill now.

12:10 pm, mile 35
WHAT THE #@!$%!@$%.  There is another @#$%!@$% hill.  The rain is driving down hard now. My body feels like it is encased in ice.  I wonder what will heat my body up more? A faster cadence or a slow hard cadence?  A fast cadence would mean more movement, but a slow hard cadence would engage more muscle.  Hmmm, I try both, but I am still really, really, really, stinkin' COLD!

12:23 pm, mile 37
THAT !@$%@$% HILL, WAS %#^@#$ 2 MILES LONG.  Well at least my feet don't feel cold anymore.  That is because I cannot feel them at all.  I find myself singing and making strange grunting sounds.  I think I am doing this to prevent myself from hyperventilating, but I am not really sure.  I have noticed that KR, who was dropping me on all the climbs before, is starting to slow down and I am catching up.  Or maybe I am speeding up.  I starting singing the Rocky Theme song. DUN-NA NAAAAA, DUN-NA NAAA, DU DU DUN DUN-NA-NA DUN TA DUN TA DUUUUUU.  I am kind of glad I don't have the helmet cam now.

12:31 pm, mile 39
We are now on a slight downgrade and we are going…. 13 mph.  13 #@$^@%^ mph.  We were going faster on the uphills in the first half of the ride.  A strong headwind is preventing us from getting speed.  I calculate that at our current speed we will die before reaching civilization. Hopefully there will be enough of a down slope that our bodies will slide into St. George.  Then sometime in the distant future when medical technology improves, they can defrost our bodies and revive us.  As I pull alongside KR, he very articulately describes the situation: "This is insane".

If you want to understand how cold it feels, do this little experiment.  Go fill your bathtub with cold water.  Take the temperature.  It will probably be something like 50-60 degrees.  Now add ice until the temperature is 35-40 degrees.  Now sit in that tub for an hour or so.  If you are still alive, try to do something. I believe this is a pretty good approximation of being completely soaked in the driving rain when it is just a few degrees above freezing and you are riding your bike.  I believe in doing this experiment you will understand how it seems to help to hyperventilate or sing.  I am not totally sure why this helps, but I think it is because the coldness makes you breathing muscles want to freeze up and the hyperventilation or singing keeps them moving so they don't freeze.

12:38 pm, mile 41
At last, we turn out of the wind and the downhill gets steeper.  My speed fluctuates between 20-30 mph.  I just want be done now so I go as fast I can without risking crashing on the corners.  I rotate between hyperventilating and gritting my teeth .   I don't feel cold now.  I do not feel warm, I feel kind of like I am detached from my body..

 12:51 pm mile 44
A half mile hill presents itself.  I yell at it, "YOU THINK YOU CAN SLOW ME DOWN YOU PIECE OF $%@#$%^@#$%^"  I crank on the pedals.  I am slowing, but am still maintaining a good speed for uphill.  I try to stand, but my legs start to buckle beneath me.   I scream at my legs "DID I GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO CRAMP UP! NO I DIDN'T!  NOW YOU SPIN AND YOU SPIN FAST!" and they do.   I have pulled about 100 meters ahead of KR.  I am glad too, I don't want him to hear me talking to myself.  I am really glad the I don't have the helmet cam recording this. Then I start to laugh a little.  It a very strange and demented way, this is actually really fun.  So many times in life when we are frustrated or in a bad situation the best thing for us to do is to exercise restraint and be patient and calm.  But in this situation I can throw all my unbridled frustration into the pedals and can scream and yell at the rain and it is actually feels useful for dealing with the situation.   I fly up the hill.

1:08 pm mile 50
We have descended for miles and miles, I feel like I am in a dream. 
And finally we have returned to civilization.   If we fall over here, some will probably actually see us and take us to the ER or something.  I feel like I finally returning to reality.  We wind our way through traffic back towards KRs hotel.

At Last, A sanctuary from the cold

1:23 pm mile 54
We are back at the hotel.  We through the bikes in the back of my minivan.  I am hyperventilating.  KR asks me if I am going hypothermic on him.   "No….No….No… I… am…. finnnee", I say.  In KRs hotel room, AR and the kids are waiting for us.  Sam ask me a question.  I look at him "What…?  A….what… I don't know, I'm cold".  KR says "Why don't you hope in the shower first, you look colder then me",  I hesitate for a second, I briefly think about trying to be polite and saying "No, you first", then I just think "I want to be warm" and run into the bathroom.  As I take off me shoes I am taken aback, my feet are blue.  Oh no! I am going to have to have my toes cut off I think.  But in a minute or two the blue fades as the warm water heats them back up.  I stay in the shower just long enough to regain feeling.  The K.A.R. family has to check out of their hotel and KR still needs to warm up a little.  I help them throw their things in their truck.

2:15 pm Back at my hotel
Me, Sam, and the whole K.A.R. family eat lunch in our hotel room.  I am still shivering and hyperventilating a little.  KR and I decide to go jump in the hot tub.  Finally, warmth starts to creep back into my body.  I actually start to feel a little hot.  I start to think what our next bike ride should be.

Later in the afternoon we did some fun hiking in Snow Canyon

A New Way To See The World... Or At Least Our Backyard

When we were in the process of buying our house, we loved a lot of things about it. It was an awesome location, a cool loft for the kids to play in, a huge unfinished basement, a garage, and a real master bedroom among others.  But there were a few things that we didn't like, but we figured we could fix later.  One of them was a lack of a window in the kitchen.  In our old house, the kitchen and living room were in the front of the house, with bedrooms in the back area.  This meant if the kids were playing in the backyard, there was no way to see them without going into one of the bedroom.  Being able to easily see the kids in the backyard was an absolute requirement for our new house.  A we found a house that met that requirement.  Sort of.  Our dining room and kitchen are at the back of the house, and the dining room has a big bay window that looks into the backyard, and then there is a door with a window between the kitchen and dining room, but in the actual kitchen there was no window.  So it was not possible to see half of yard while in the kitchen.  This bugged Connie, but not enough to stop us from buying the house.

But, after months and months of patient waiting, Connie finally go her kitchen window!
Yeah! 

Not only that, but those of you who have been to our house before will notice that we also got rid of the pointless drop ceiling that used to be there (except for a small part where there was plumbing that couldn't be moved).  It is awesome.  Now we can easily see the whole backyard while we are cooking, on the computer, eating, or watching TV.

As an extra bonus, we also decided to replace all the windows in the house.  The old windows were 25 years old, aluminum windows with these grandma looking cross-sections in them.  You could hold your hand up to them and feel a draft coming through.  The new windows are awesome.  They don't let any cold in and they seem to let more light it in.   They were kind of expensive so we weren't sure if it was a good idea at first, but now we are very happy we did it.

From The Bunny Hill To A Downhill Rocket

One day during Christmas break we were trying to think of something to do and decided we wanted to go sledding, so we called our super cool friends Jamie and Lehi and said, "Hey you want to go sledding?".  And they said "No".

A beautiful day on the mountain

Then they said, "We are going skiing up at Alta, it is free after 3 o'clock and it is only like 10 bucks to rent skis".  Well, we have intended to take our kids skiing or snowboarding or something for the last few years but some how never got around to it, so we got all our snow gear, jumped in the van and headed to Alta.

Grace and Jonah chilling

Connie used to be pretty good at skiing, and I had been skiing 3-4 times (I have preferred snowboarding in the past) but that was like 10 years ago.  So after we go our skis all rented, Connie took Sam to the bunny hill and on the first run taught him how to snow plow.

Connie helps Sam

Now confident that she had not forgotten how to ski, we then put Jonah in his backpack and Connie took him, Jamie helped Grace and I helped Sam.  After a few runs, Sam insisted on not getting help and started going on his own.

Grace in her princess snow chair

Grace did a few runs and then got tired, and Jonah slept soundly in his backpack (with his paranoid dad checking him every few minutes just to be sure he was really asleep and not passed out from the cold or something).

Lehi and Beyah take a picture of us

Afterwords, Jamie had brought a big steaming crockpot of purple chicken noodle soup (it was purple because she put purple carrots in it) and we all chowed down on it and got warm in the lodge until they kicked us out (because it was closing time, not because all our kids were running
around yelling, at least I think).

Sam loves to ski!

A week or so after this first time, Sam and I met up with Jamie and Lehi (and Beyah) to do it again.  This time after a few runs on the bunny hill, we decided to do a real run.  Jamie (who is a much better skier than I am) helped me help Sam on and off the ski lift.  For the first few hundred meters of the run Sam and I just went along with J,L,&B.  Then we got to a place where you could either go a long slow flat way or a steeper way.  Sam decided he wanted to try the steeper way.  He was pretty good at snow plowing and turning, so I thought he would be ok.  Just as pre-caution, Lehi went down the hill a ways. Sam started down the hill and proceeded to not snow plow or turn and instead rocketed down the hill.  I started after him but not being a great skier myself went straight into a patch of powder.  Fortunately, Lehi went after Sam and helped to finally stop after several hundred meters.  (see head cam footage below).  After this intitial scare, everything went pretty smooth for the rest of the day except for one more incident when Sam verred off the main path, barely missed a giant pole and took a short cut thru the trees (Didn't get that one on the head cam unfortunately).

Awesome Headcam Footage
For Christmas, Connie got me something which I have always wanted, which is an HD headcam.  I am still getting used to it and perfecting my technique, but I did get some good footage of Sam skiing.

Here is Sam on the bunny hill.  He had a strong tendency to veer to the right so you can hear me yelling at him to put more weight on his right foot so he does not veer into the tow rope (which he did on some previous runs)



This is the start of Sam first try on a real run


Sam takes off like a rocket on a steep part of the big run. Thank goodness Lehi was down below to help bring him to a safe stop.

2010 In Review - Video and Summary, plus Gracie's Song

It is time for our annual video in review.  We love making these videos.  We make them just as much for ourselves as anyone else.  On days (and nights) when Jonah won't stop crying,  Grace turns into a pint size drama queen, and Sam seems to have ear plugs in, we watch these videos and it reminds us how good life really is. We feel blessed to have so many loving family and friends and so many opportunities to do fun things and go cool places and know great people.

Below the video is a written summary of our year.


In case you missed last years review:


Written Summary Of 2010:

Family:

• Jonah born!
• Connie and Kevin went to the several Operas (we have a friend who is a professional opera singer)
• Connie and Kevin took ballroom dance classes
• Went to Indiana for a family reunion
• Went to Alaska to visit the Jensens
• Stopped at Grand Teton National Park after LOTOJA
• Went to Arizona for Thanksgiving
• Kevin and Grace went to the Nutcracker
• Connie and Sam went to the Symphony
• Connie and Grace went to California to visit Aunt Christy
• Kevin and Sam went to Lagoon and got to ride all the big kid rides
• Lots of hiking (Dipper falls, Donut Falls,  Adams Canyon, and more)

Kevin:

• Personal best bike century (100 miles) Avg. 21 mph
• LOTOJAAF
• Trip to Germany for Work, with a side trip to Paris
• New mountain bike

Connie:

• Brought Jonah into the world
• Book Club
• Hiked Mt. Olympus
• First road bike 
• Lots of work in Primary (the kids division at our church)

Sam:

• Soccer
• 1st Grade
• Lots of reading
• Coach Pitch
• First mountain bike
• Mile run (9 minutes flat, to the hundreth of a second)
• School play (the jungle book)

Grace:

• Soccer (sort of)
• Dance Class
• Preschool
• Annabelle(BFF)

Jonah:

• Born
• Hair turned from brown to blond
• Learned to roll over
• 6 teeth
• Almost crawling

Gracie's Song

About a month before Christmas, we were listening to some Ben Folds' songs and one of our favorites 'Gracie' came on.  Now if you have never heard this song, you should now, that it describes our own Gracie perfectly as if it was custom written for her.  When Gracie heard it, she looked at Connie and said "Did daddy make this song for me?".  Well, I couldn't claim that I made the song, but I decided I could make a video for the song, and that would be just as good.  So I compiled a bunch of pictures of her growing up and made this video:

Book Club and Ginger Bread Houses

This month Connie was host for her book club's monthly meeting.  The host always chooses what book we are going to read, so Connie choose a book that was the first book that she and I ever read together as a married couple:  "A Long Way From Chicago".  When we were flying off for our honeymoon, we found this book at a book shop in the Salt Lake Airport and read it on the long flight over to Florida. It is a cute story set in the 1920s and 1930s of a couple of kids who ever summer get shipped off for a week to stay with their Grandma Dowdel.  Grandma Dowdel is a great character who is sometimes rough, sometimes dishonest, but always ultimately smart, fun, and kind.

The book mentions a lot of little historical things, so for the book club we looked up and printed off pictures of some of these things so we could get an idea of what they were : The Blue Bird Train,  The Valentines Day Massacre,  John Dilinger, A Hupmobile, Gooseberries,and A Terraplane 8 Hudson

In addition, an important compenent of many of the stories is Grandma's cooking.  So Connie helped everyone make some tarts from scratch.



Several of ladies who came to the book club didn't have anyone to watch their kids (husbands were away from home or at the book club) so we ended up having about 7-8 kids playing and watching movies in our basement.  And a few sat in to enjoy the discussion of the book.

Overall, it was a great time and we had some interesting discussions about people's ability to survive in the depression era, the effects of prohibition, and Grandma Dowdel's interesting moral compass.

Gingerbread Houses
This month we also had our annual Davies family gingerbread house decorating get together.  We decided we would make a house for each of the kids this year.  To save a lot of time baking gingerbread, we opted to not make our houses out of gingerbread, but instead graham crackers.  I highly recommend it.  The houses where much easy to make and saved a lot of baking mess.  Also as a special treat this year, T and R came out from Rhode Island.  It was the first time they had seen our new house and it was  awesome to have a chance to catch up with them.

The houses before being decorated

Close up of the graham cracker design

Decorating!

Jonathon gives us a smile

Sam's house

Gracie's house

Grandma Beth, a Ballet and a Bike

Grandma Beth:

This week was Grandparent's day at G's preschool. So we invited Grandma Beth to come to her preschool. She came and read some stories and then taught them some french. The french was extra fun because according to the Fancy Nancy books that G loves, french is fancy.


A Ballet:

This week G and I went on double daddy daughter date with our neighbors K.B. and A.B.B. We got all dressed up and went to "The Pie" for dinner and then went to see "The Nutcracker". The afternoon before we went, G was running down the sidewalk and tripped and did a face plant, badly scraping the left side of her face. When she saw herself in the mirror, she was sad and said "I'm not beautiful" in her little G voice. But we reassured her she was and she overcame her anxiety and got really excited about getting dressed up and was very excited to get her first corsage:




The corsage:

All ready to go:


Waiting with A.B.B.

Fun Dinner

A Bike:
This week we also got a very exciting new addition to our bike collection: Connie's very first road bike. It is a Specialized Ruby and it is a really sweet looking bike. Connie took for a quick 30 minutes ride on Saturday before the snow started and reports the it rides as nice as it looks.

Teeth, Tacos, and Transitions

Teeth:
This is a picture of a cause of of pain and suffering in our life:
Those are teeth number 3 and 4. They have been threatening to break through for a while and they are both finally through. J has not enjoyed the experience. Hopefully now that they are broken through he will not cry so much and we will see his happy smile more often. He has had some fun though. He has really learned to work the his bouncy chair:



Tacos:
This week, as she often does, Connie experimented with some new recipes. One of them she tried was a definite winner: Marinated pork-pull apart tacos. She found the recipe here: Spicy Shredded Pork (be warned: If you go to this site, there are hundreds of good looking recipes and you will get very hungry). Served with a little Guacamole, a few olives, and a corn tortilla, they are absolutely wonderful.

Transitions:
This week was also the first week off of day late savings time. It is always a little bit of a rough transition with the clock being set back and it getting dark before six. The kids have been a little awnry and cold weather hasn't helped. But we are determined to not let it get us down. We often go for walks on Sunday evenings and despite the rain and dark we still went for a walk tonight and had a good time (well maybe Sam didn't):