[ Home  ]

Tony hasn't mountain biked before. He goes shopping at the Bike Emporium in Auburn and buys a bike and starts training with the others after work.  The team starts to get in shape with 2 hour rides followed by 1 hour trail runs in the heat of Northern California,  after working all day and being old farts close to or over forty.  The training gets more intense as Sarah runs with us at noontime. Sarah is a talented athlete. She competed in the national swim competition in her teens. She has placed in road and trail races.  The old farts, motivated by male ego, push themselves to keep up with Sarah.  In the back of their minds, they think, if we can get Sarah to race with us at the FogDog, we could be a good team. But Sarah only owns a road bike and has family commitments.  it is not really practical for her to buy a mountain bike, adventure racing gear and commit to the time away from her family to train and race.  We continue to train and figure we will cross that bridge about racing with Sarah,  later. Worse case, we compete in the master division or corporate division since we all work at HP. 

Wayne, David and Sarah start running 10 milers before work. The plan is happening.  Then it all starts to unravel.  Wayne for the first time suffers allergies. He can't keep up with Sarah and David during the runs and starts dreading it. Tony is going back to school and can't train much on the bike. Still Tony, David, Wayne and Sarah have  a good pre- Hi-Tec simulation by kayaking on Lake Natomas, mountain biking  around Folsom Lake and running the 4 Bridges course except for Wayne who starts suffering towards the end. 

Wayne, David and Tony race in LA.. Wayne suffers on the run. Tony suffers during the mountain bike. Team Seabhaid makes all sorts of mistakes and waste a lot of time with slow transitions. Still they place 11th. We are pretty trashed after the race and disappointed that they hadn't done better. At least they are on track for the FogDog.

Next event is the Sacramento Hi-Tec event in August.  The plan is to do well there, train hard and its off the FogDog in November.  Wayne is also going to school for an MS in Finance. He tries to train, work and take 2 courses and is on the edge of burnout. Tony gets in contact with a local TV station and Team Seabhaid and a few other teams meet at the Granite Bay course the day before the Hi-Tec race for a local film crew.  During a break in the filming, the real break occurs.  Team Seabhaid decide to climb "the wall" and see what we can do to speed up our times over the wall.  We were slow in LA and want to improve. On the fifth experiment, Wayne falls from the platform and breaks his collarbone. Fortunately, nobody was filming it.  He regrets that he just didn't get up and drive himself to the hospital. "It don't hurt until the bone shows". Since it is at a State Park, the lifeguards come over. He gets strapped to a board and taken away to the hospital while Tony and David conduct TV interviews. Must be the British accents. The first concern is getting a replacement for Wayne. We call everyone and nobody is available. Randy, who the race organizers set up with the team,  comes to the rescue. He doesn't work at HP so the team has to compete in the All-male division. 

The next day they race and do well. They finish 11th in the open category.  FogDog is out however. It is the end of August. It will take 6 to 8 weeks for Wayne's broken collar bone to heal.  It would normally take 4 weeks but it takes longer, the older you get.  Tony and Wayne focus on school and put the 24 hour race off for another year. Dave does some light training since he has nobody to train with and motivate him. 

HP announces its intent to merge with Compaq in September 2001.  Tony and Wayne expedite school since there will be layoffs. Wayne registers to take the CFA Level 1 exam in June,2002. Over the winter months Wayne starts running again and gets back into shape. He goes cross country skiing at the end of March, 2002, takes an innocent fall but performs a split and hears a tearing noise.  He thinks it is his knee but gets up and is alright but the hamstring is a little sore. He thinks he got lucky. He skiis another 2 hours although by the time he finishes is in pain.  The leg swells up and he is  black and blue from below the knee to his butt.  He figures in a week he will be back to noontime runs.  He goes to the doctor 2 weeks later and the doctor proclaims that it is the second worst hamstring tear he has ever seen. The worst injury required surgery and ended that person's collegiate football career.

Wayne was going to run in the Lake Tahoe Relay event in June but because of the torn hamstring is replaced by Ed.  We also recruit Herb, Gerardo, Brian and Tom.  Sarah doesn't run it as she has expecting the family to expand by one, but her time stays as the best mile per hour time. The team finishes 2nd in corporate division.

Tony is too busy with school and Wayne is out of shape. In August,  David recruits JP and Dale for the Sacramento Hi-Tec Race. The team comes in 26th in the All-Male division.

Sarah has a child and gets laid off from HP during the summer. David runs Eppie's Great race in July and the 4 bridges 1/2 marathon in October after 2 weeks of scuba diving.  He is on track to meet his goal at the 4 bridges race but  falls off the pace in the last 3 miles.   Tony and Wayne push school again. Wayne takes 3 graduate courses in the fall.

2003 brings a year of new hope but Tony is still tied up with school.  Wayne received his degree in December 2002.  To celebrate he entered a lottery to run the Boston Marathon. He had a 4% chance of getting accepted.  Luckily he didn't since he wasn't in shape to run.   He continues to take courses in San Francisco after his graduation. The courses are on technical Analysis and trading. It's a fall back plan in case he is WFR'd at work.  Wayne only mountain bikes once but starts getting back in running shape.  He and David run the Cinco de Mayo 5 Miler in Sacramento. Both are sick. Wayne with a bad stomach, sweats and dizzy and David with the flu.  David comes in 13th overall. Wayne finishes at 8 minutes per mile and goes through the rest of May with a kidney infection. Just as he is recovering, he hurts his back.  Now he isn't even  a backup to the team at Tahoe.

Tony completes school in the spring and graduates. 

The team does well at Tahoe. Tony runs a good opening leg. Gerardo, Stuart, and Sonia put in impressive times. Brian runs steadily but Herb isn't at his starting position. Dave has to hastily get ready and run Herb's leg.  Dave 'enjoys' that last 1 mile hill of his run as he curses Herb.  Herb eventually shows up and runs Dave's leg. The team comes in 4th in the mixed division. 

Dale, Marjorie  and David compete in the Sacramento Adventure Race at Folsom Lake and come in 11th in the Master's Division. 

The racing season ends. Dave continues to train.  Tony gets married. Wayne resumes training in August after entertaining company for most of the summer and suffering the flu in September but he did manage to hike the Grand Canyon.

All agree to run the Davis Stampede in February, David, Wayne.. Tony. Sarah, Gerardo, Tom, Brian, The', Stuart, Sonia and Sinclair. 

Wayne is going to train by the Galloway program.  He and David start entertaining the idea of racing in a 24 hour race next year. They need to close unfinished business.  It will take a lot of work but work seems to be stable now. More education and CFA exams can wait for Wayne.  Tony has recovered from some  injuries but has new responsibilities. 

Most who commit to run the Davis Stampede 2004 actually do it. Wayne makes his goal of 8 minutes per mile with a 1:44:50 time.  Tony runs the 10K in a better than expected time. The' finishes right behind Wayne.   Tim finishes in 2:15 and is all motivated to run the Napa Valley Marathon.  Gerardo runs a smoking time of 1:35 and his kids even win their age group divisions.  Rick runs better than he expects and passes Wayne at mile 12. Sinclair without trying comes in top 20 but is young, use to be a co-op working with us.

Dave moves on from HP.  He's too busy with new job to train plus his knee bothers him when running.   Wayne does a solo hike from King's Canyon to Lone Pine with an ascent of Mt. Whitney.  It's a great way to train and wishes Tony and Dave could make this an adventure (race). How fast could we travel in the Sierra backcountry? Could we do the John Muir trail, 226 miles, in less than 3 weeks?  Don't have the time off from work to find out. 

Wayne and Tony do a 5 day solo hike of the Rae's Lake Loop during the 3rd week of August. It isn't an adventure race but it has some aspects of it.  The highlights of the trip are the bear and cub sighting and the hail so strong it looks like snow on the ground. 

A last minute attempt to get ready for the Natomas Half Marathon doesn't pan out. Wayne is in decent shape from hiking. Tony has family responsibilities and Dave is working to hard at the start up company he is working for.  We might be able to run Davis Stampede next year. I don't think it is possible to complete a 24 hour adventure race. There are just too many commitments although David and Wayne might just enter one next spring to see if it can be done and finally check it off the list. 

2005: Wayne runs Davis Half Marathon. His training isn't nearly as consistent as last year so he runs 8:15 per mile.  He follows this up with 8 minutes per mile at the Rocklin Race for Gold in March.  He returns to New England and is denied climbing Mt. Washington with Mark and Chris due to bad weather on Memorial Day.  He beats his nephew in Racquetball and Basketball so fells pretty good that he can beat an 18 year on slacker.  

Wayne hikes Half Dome 3 times in the year. First time is in June with Tom and Jody.  The pictures inspire Al a co-worker who wants to do it so a week later they take a day off work and climb Half Dome except Al farts out and Wayne continues to the summit with Al's nephew Mike.  The final ascent is with Wayne's nephew and girlfriend in August. 

Summer is filled with motorcycle tours of Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.  Shortly after that in early August, Chris comes to California and Chris and Wayne climb Whitney in a day. They start at 3:30 am and finish at 5:30pm. 

Fall is time to get back in shape but it never seems to happen. Weight lifting isn't going as well. Shoulder injuries are slowing progress. Running is going alright. Motivated to lose weight after guest leave since there was too much sugar in the diet. 

Dave spends the year mountain biking but does not compete in any event. 

2006:  Not off to a good start.  Wayne gets 2 running injuries in January, a problem with his left calf and then plantar fasicitis in his right heel and then the flu for 2 weeks  This means that he will not compete in the Davis Half Marathon.  In the meantime, he and Dave plan to do some orienteering events this year and the Lake Tahoe relay. 

In the meantime. Wayne is attempting to learn Spanish, change jobs, refurbish his house, train,  trade, learn mountaineering and has many goals for the year including hiking John Muir Trail and hike Mt Shasta.