Tag: ironman

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Iron Man

I’m sitting here in Berkeley. It’s a gorgeous solstice/Father’s Day. About 1,000 miles to the north-northeast, my friend Pete is competing in his second Ironman Coeur d’Alene triathlon. I was there for the event last year, and it was extraordinary to see so many committed, focused athletes. And it was extraordinary to see Pete accomplish something he’d set out years ago to do, another in a long line of endurance feats (triathlons of various lengths, half-marathons, marathons, 50-kilometer and 50-mile running races) that I stand in awe of.

It’s 10:35 a.m. here in Berkeley. That means he’s about two hours into the second event of the day, the 112-mile bike segment that goes north out of the town of Coeur d’Alene and winds through the rolling hills near Hayden Lake. A year and a half ago or so, we went up there together to ride the course. Much of the route is characterized by short, sharp climbs and descents, with a more or less flat run into and out of the start/finish in CdA.

Anyway, I’ll be followng the race all day today. The mass start at the swim was at 7 a.m. If he’s close to the 12-hour time he expects–12 hours of really laying it out there!–he’ll finish around 7 tonight. If you want to check in on his progress, look for bib number 1615 on the race tracker page; and, hey, leave a comment on his race-training blog.

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Dateline Coeur D’Alene

Treefarm100507

I know one thing about Coeur D’Alene that I didn’t know yesterday when I left home: It’s 1,000 miles from Berkeley, almost exactly. I had broken the trip down into increments — 510 miles to Eugene, another 110 or so to Portland, and then a big jump of 380 to this place — so the enormity of the undertaking didn’t really hit me. Now that we (Pete and I) are here and now that we’ve eaten at the conveniently located Outback Steakhouse, our plan is to get up early and do a 112-mile bike ride. The course is the one used by the Ironman event held here each year in June; Pete’s signed up to do it in 2008, and he wants to get an idea of what the terrain is like. I’m just tagging along — no triathlons in my future that I know of.

Anyway, the drive up from Portland featured more spectacular Western landscape. Today’s drive started east on  Interstate 84, up through the Columbia River Gorge and past the Bonneville, Dalles and John Day dams. The gorge is monumental and ought to be seen at less than 70 mph. A good 125 miles east of Portland the highway leaves the immediate riverside and you finally get a look at what lies beyond the edge of the gorge. Unlike the wet, green country around Portland, this is the dry West. But undulating and mountainous, in the distance, and beautiful.

Before we turned north across the Columbia, we saw what I took to be some artificially built mounds in the distance. Ahead of us on our right, there was a massive stand of trees. A massive tree farm, actually. And it went on and on for miles. The mounds in the distance were actually farmed forests. The trees looked familiar but unfamiliar — a kind of poplar, maybe. Pete saw a couple of signs, one naming the trees in as "Pacific albus" planted in 1999 and the outfit growing them as the GreenWood Tree Farm.

It’s not clear to me how much land they have planted out there — I’ve seen references that range from 6,000 to 35,000 acres. It’s a big expanse. Checking online, I see that GreenWood has developed Pacific albus, a poplar hybrid, as a source of commercial hardwood and has a deal with another Northwest forest products company to build a sawmill near the tree farm we passed. You could say lots about this kind of farming: that it’s a result of so much of the wild old forests in the region being cut down; that it spares wild forests, if any, from being cut down; that it’s a really smart way to answer a demand that’s only growing. I still have to say, though, it was odd to see these immense stands of trees so clearly meant for nothing other than cutting and milling.

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