Run Rory Run.

I have signed up for the Bolder Boulder. My 5k time from the Summer Open last week qualified me for the fastest Bolder Boulder wave I have ever been in. At first I was nervous and considered starting in a slower group. Now I am excited and look forward to trying to keep up with the people in my wave. I ran 6:27s for 3 miles after swimming and biking last week. Hopefully, I can that pace for twice the distance on fresh legs.

I also signed up for my first ever fly fishing competition. I have no idea what to expect, but just realized that I don't have the equipment necessary that they require. I have a 9ft 5/6 weight (thanks Steve), but need a 9ft 5 weight. Here is more info about the fishing competition at the Teva Mountain Games. The idea is that you have to cast for accuracy and distance before you are allowed on the water to try and hook a fish. This weekend is the absolute mayhem of the Boulder Creek Festival. We took the dogs and felt like real Boulderites.

Drill baby drill, or kill baby krill?

I am sick of hearing about the oil spill while nobody mentions the lack of focus on alternative energy. This article discusses how they are continuously failing to plug the leak. I wish Obama would (if he has any real power) step up and impose a stricter moratorium on off shore drilling while taxing imported oil at a significant rate. I think that this country would support a shift in energy sources. Of course we cannot just stop using oil. That won't happen. Maybe it is up to the consumers. Drive less, bike more, open a window instead of using air conditioning. Petroleum is the cheapest, most cost effective energy producing resource (at the moment) so as long as the supply is there, the demand can only be changed by the consumers. Of course I am sitting in a plastic chair typing on a plastic keyboard listening to my plastic phone ring. I guess I should go and find a solution before ranting.

Mustache turbulence.

It has been forever, but I finally got some fishing in. I pulled out 3 Browns and 1 Rainbow Trout in the space of a couple blocks. I love Boulder Creek, but let people believe that there are no fish in there. Swimming has been more fun now that my mustache is pretty thick. I can constantly feel it and see it so it is probably due for a trim. But then I talked to Ben and he told me that, "the mustache acts like a trip wire for hydrodynamic flow. This causes turbulence before the water hits the eddy of your chin. This reduces drag so a mustache will actually make you faster. And you can tell anyone that you heard this straight from an engineer that knows his shit. I took some advanced fluid classes, I know my shit."
I think that Pre's mustache helped him. If I run the Bolder Boulder it will be because of Pre.

1st triathlon of the season.

After a week of injury and a week of illness, I am happy with my results from yesterday's Summer Open sprint triathlon.
I swam a 10:53 750 meter swim. I love wetsuits. I never got on anybody's feet. That was frustrating. I had a few strokes behind somebody, but then they would start breaststroking. Being out in no man's land feels inefficient.
After a quick (:52) T1, I was onto the bike. There were a ton of Triads and even one Triad SL. My 12.4 mile bike was completed in 32:32 for an average speed of 22.9 mph. For me that is pretty good, but compared to the rest of the field, it sucks. We are going to work on the bike for the upcoming season.
T2 (:41) went well and I took off quickly on the heels of some guy hauling ass for the first half mile. Realizing that pace was unsustainable, I settled into my own rhythm and tried to pick people off. The run felt good and I was happy with a 19:58 (6:27 pace) 5k.

I ended up 3rd in my age group out of 33 and 28th of the 353 total.
I am still not feeling 100% and it was difficult to pick up the pace at some points in the race. I had a blast none the less and got to play with the dogs in the lake after the race. Time for a busy day off now.

Frying Pan adventure.

So sitting around the house being sick is pretty miserable, so after work, we packed up the car and drove into the mountains. Everyone knows about the Fryingpan River and it's monster trout. So we headed that direction. We pulled a "pirate camping" maneuver and slept in the car on the side of the road. It is a 3 1/2 hour drive from Boulder, so being able to fish at first light with nobody around is rare and pretty awesome. Unfortunately, first light was freezing cold! We put on every layer of clothing that we had and waited for the sun to hit the water before venturing into the river.

I pulled a 12" and a 14" Rainbow Trout out of some slow moving water behind a cluster of rocks. The fish seemed to be sticking together, so where you saw one fish there were a few more hiding nearby. We walked up stream and found hundreds of fish, but they didn't want to eat what we had. It wasn't until later that we realized how close the dam at Reudi reservoir we were. This has a major effect on our fishing as we didn't have any shrimp patterns. The fishing shops were closed when we arrived and we were already fishing when they opened the next day. Here is why we needed shrimp patterns:

Mojdeh's fish of the day. It rose for a BWO.

Mysis relicta is the sole freshwater relative of a saltwater shrimp which became stranded inland after the last Ice Age. They were stocked in the 1950's in Colorado reservoirs in the belief that they would support populations of Kokanee salmon and lake trout. Unfortunately the researchers didn't realize that the evidence they relied upon for this theory was misplaced and that in the Colorado lakes the mysis was not visible to the salmon during day time. Nopt liking sunlight, they moved to the bottom of deep lakes during the daytime when the salmon feed on the surface.

Worse still, at night the mysis moved back to the surface to feed on the Daphnia zooplankton which was a food source for the kokanees and trout denying them a food source. The only trout which benefited from the introduction of the mysis was the lake trout, a deep water feeder which reached the depths where the mysis were located in the daytime. However, in bottom release dams with deep cold waters such as Reudi, the mysis are sucked out into the tailwaters where they become visible in the daylight permitting the trout to gorge themselves.

There are a number of mysis patterns noted below which work well. The healthy mysis are translucent. As they die they turn white, so when fishing near the outlet of the dam, fish the more translucent patterns as the mysis which have just been expelled from the dam will not immediately turn white. The whiter patterns work better a little away from the outlet. The mysis shrimp has an exceedingly high nutrient value accounting for the massive growth in the trout that are able to feed on them in large quantities.

So now we know where to fish on the Frying Pan river. I saw two trout as long as my arm that must have been 8 to 10 pounds. I didn't understand. I didn't think that they existed. Those pigs just gorge themselves on shrimp. One day I will get back and go after them.

After fishing the Frying Pan, we headed home. But not without a stop at the outlet mall in Silverthorne. Most people shop here for hours ignoring the great fish that live beneath their feet. I have fished here 4 times and the closest I got was missing a hit that I didn't think that I deserved. There weren't as many fish as there usually are, and the biggest ones were eerily absent. I still fished a parachute adams in the places where I thought the fish should be and WHAMMY I hooked one. I landed him, showed him to the admirers on the bridge above, called it quits and went shopping.

Here are the hydroponically grown tomato and basil plants that we are starting.

Hydroponics.

I thought that having this sweet mustache would improve life dramatically. As it turns out, it doesn't do much except keep parents with children far away from me. Some guy in a van without windows gave me a thumbs up and he drove past. I have been sick this week and unable to workout. Your health is your wealth. Instead of swimming, biking, and running we have set up a hydroponic system for growing our basil and tomatoes.
Still living the dream...

Splish and Sudan.

I won my first Twitter contest!

Check out Splish.com so you can have cool suits like I have. My favorite is the "I must be butter... cause I'm on a roll". It has accompanying pictures of butter and a roll. While at the pool I was talking to a woman that I was sharing a lane with. She mentioned that triathlon season is starting soon. I feel that the season is well under way. She travels for work (I didn't ask what she does) but was recently in Sudan (non work related) to help monitor the elections. I think that Boulder people would go out and do that. It sounded a bit self righteous, but maybe she can really help the Sudanese do whatever it is that they are trying to do. Even Jimmy Carter was there making sure that democracy was spread properly. Unfortunately, it sounds like most Sudanese feel that the election was rigged and the winner was predetermined.

Update 1 of the 'stache.

What is that?

So far, this mustache growing has been a success. I have received encouragement, Kiss my Face shave gel, and people pledging money on my Facebook page. I was excited to show up to soccer and see other guys growing mustaches. I think that it might just be because they are bored.

My Dad's 'stache.