Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today’s bike club ride is our old route out to Glendora. Nothing special, but a chance to look in on the construction of the Metro Gold Line extension in Azusa, and also to go by the Huy Fong Foods hot-sauce factory in Irwindale. The city council in Irwindale is thinking of declaring the factory to be a public nuisance, since a few of the people in the neighborhood don’t like the smell of the factory.

It was a cool spring morning, just about perfect for riding. We headed out to the east. When we got to Azusa, we took a short detour to go see the construction of the new Metro station. They are making good progress since we went to see this in February.

We stopped for coffee and snacks in Glendora, and we had a look at the chalk art drawn on the sidewalks there. Then we headed back, passing by some giant inflatable rabbits in front of the the same house that had the giant candy canes and Christmas ornaments in the past. Then we rode by the enormous Huy Fong Foods hot-sauce plant. Then we took in some more of the Gold Line construction in Duarte and Monrovia. All told, it was a pleasant ride.

42 miles.

This weekend, Kathleen wanted to go to Tomatomania. We’d missed their events in Encino and La Cañada when we were away in Seattle and San Diego. So what was left was the stop in Fillmore. At first, I thought going to Fillmore for tomato seedlings seemed absurd. But then I thought about the clipping I have from the L.A. Times from March, 1995 about the Fillmore and Western Railway. Going there and riding the train has been on my list of things to do for 19 years now, so we decided to go and make a day of it.

We went up relatively early so that we could pick out some tomatoes before going to ride the train. We brought a cooler along to put the plants in so that they wouldn’t get baked in the hot car while we were on the train.

The train ride is about 10 miles from Fillmore to Santa Paula. It was pretty scenic, with the train cruising by endless citrus and avocado orchards. Some of them had beehives to pollinate the trees, and the train passed through big clouds of bees there. We were riding in the open-air car, but the bees ignored us.

When we got to Santa Paula, the train let us off for about an hour, so we walked into downtown and had some lunch. Then we took a walk back to the train station, stopping off to look at the memorial for the Saint Francis Dam disaster. While we were there, we found out that the restored WWII bombers that we went to see in Burbank were doing an airshow in Oxnard. We saw the B-17 fly by a couple of times during the afternoon.

On the way back, the train stopped off at The Loose Caboose, which was a very weird grab bag of stuff. Kathleen stopped to feed the goats, and we had a look at the koi ponds and turtles. It was a strange, but very entertaining place.

The trip to Fillmore made for a long day, but it was a fun time.

The Earthquake Notification Service, also known as My Pet Project, passed 400,000 subscribers over the weekend. It’s still hard to believe that something I built is being used by so many people.

Last month, when Kathleen and I took the tour of “The Crappiest Place on Earth“, there was a display in the visitor center about the Los Angeles “Green Streets” program, with some photos of their demonstration project on Elmer Ave in Sun Valley. And of course, my first thought was that we were going to get a bike ride out of this. I looked it up, and it’s just a bit northwest of Burbank Airport. And we’ve ridden there before to see the World War II bombers, among other things.

On the way out there, we stopped by to see the desert tortoises in Burbank. The guy who owns the house came out to feed them and talk to us. He was feeding them some small squashes and a head of cauliflower, and they seemed pretty excited by that. Sort of like when I saw the slow-motion feeding frenzy at the Caltech turtle pond. He also said that the tortoises sometimes mate, and that’s apparently a sight to see.

Continuing on, we went by Burbank Airport and on into Sun Valley to Elmer Ave. And yes, it looks like a demonstration project. Solar-powered street lights, basins to catch runoff, permeable driveways, and barrels to catch rainwater. I made me want to join up for the Pasadena Turf Removal Program.

After that, we headed down to Priscilla’s for snacks. The route home went across Glendale. We were going to take the pedestrian bridge over the Glendale Freeway, but at the last minute, we decided to try going across the freeway on Round Top Ave. I thought it might be a bit shorter, and that it might avoid the hill that we have to ride up after crossing the freeway. It did avoid that hill, but only at the cost of us having to ride up an even bigger hill. So that route experiment was kind of a dud. But at least it was a nice day for riding.

45 miles.

Route Map

Today was time for the Los Angeles edition of the Lung Association’s Fight for Air Climb. 63 stories up the stairs at the Aon building downtown. This was the first stair climb I ever did, back in 2009. At the time, I had no idea what I was getting into, and certainly no idea I’d still be doing it five years later, or that I’d end up making an actual contribution to this insane little sport.

Since I’ve been having major back issues since November, I went into this with the idea that I wanted to have no expectations. And that was my intention. But since I’ve been doing a little bit of faster stair climbing in practice, I thought I’d maybe try for at least a little bit of speed. But when we got there, I realized that I’d forgotten to bring my watch. So even if I wanted to go for speed, there was no way to really do that without a watch. So that made it easy to go into this event with no expectations.

When we got there, Lisa was warming up in the lobby of the building, wearing an altitude-training mask. She said it’s supposed to restrict breathing just a bit to simulate the lower oxygen levels at high altitudes. Well, mostly, it made her look a bit like a Hannibal Lecter of the stairwell. Which I guess is a good thing.

When it was time to go, we all lined up, roughly in numeric order, and roughly in the order we thought we’d finish in. My only goal at that time was that wanted to not have anyone pass me. And that worked out all right. I didn’t pass anyone, and nobody passed me. So that was all right. And in the end, my time was 12:41. Not especially fast, at least by my standards, but it was all right. It was faster than my time the first time I did this, and even though I was just taking it easy and not trying to go fast, there were only four people my age or older who went faster than me. So I really can’t complain too much about that.

When I got to the top, I took the obligatory picture with the view. and then I headed back down. I knew that Morgan was on her way downtown, and I’d told her I’d walk up with her to pace her. So we met up at the bottom and got in line for the stairs.

Meanwhile, Kathleen had started up the stairs just a bit behind me the first time, and she walked most of the way up with a group of firemen in their full regalia. She also got a picture with the view on top before heading back down.

The second time up, I walked with Morgan. I tried to be an encouraging coach, and she did very well. She maintained a steady pace all the way up. We passed lots of people, and nobody passed us. A few times, we ran up against big groups of people who were hard to get through, and at least once, I had to go ahead to sort of plow a path through them so we could pass. And when we made it to the roof, Morgan realized she should have brought her sunglasses. Who thinks of bringing sunglasses along for a stair-climbing race? But that’s the difference between a Saturday morning in April and a Friday evening in September.

When they started posting the results, I saw that they’d made a typo, and they had me listed as being 14 years old. Hmm. I had to email the timing company after we got home to get that corrected.

All told, it was a pretty good time.

Tonight was the last practice session at the Aon building, and I wanted to go up the stairs just a few more times. I’m about as ready as I’m going to be for the race on Saturday. Which is to say, I’m not really ready to race, but I’m going to go in more with the intention of just taking it easy and doing it for the experience and for the social aspect of getting to see all my crazy stair-climbing friends there.

The first time up, I wanted to take just an easy, but brisk pace. And I ended up with a 9:55 for 51 floors. That’s just a bit over five floors per minute, and it’s slightly faster than I went the first time I did this climb. back in 2009. But the difference now is that that pace is ‘brisk, but moderate’, while the first time I did it, it was ‘I feel like I’m gonna die!’ So that’s progress.

I took a moment to take a picture looking up the stair shaft. Just to get a sense of how the stairs feel infinite when we’re climbing them. They just go on endlessly, with every landing looking exactly the same as the one before and the one after. And the buttons in the service elevator are proof that the building is honest, and they didn’t skip the 13th floor.

In the end, I went up three times, just because I could. And because after Saturday, I’m not going to be seeing the inside of this building until next year.

Tonight is the next to the last practice climb at the Aon building before the race this Saturday. Since my back has been feeling a bit better the last two weeks, I’m experimenting with trying to go a bit faster again. So tonight, on my first climb, I opened the throttle a little bit more, and made the 51 story climb in 9:29. That’s still a far cry from the 8:58 I did last year, but it’s the fastest I’ve gone up stairs in a long time. And after that, I went up three more times, just because it was there. Good times.

And since all the building security people at Aon Center have been so nice to us during our stair training sessions, I baked some of my award-winning chocolate-chip cookies for them tonight. I figure, it’s not really their job to watch over a bunch of crazy stair-climbing racers, but they’re gracious and friendly to us, so I just wanted them to know that we appreciate it.

This weekend, we took an overnight trip to San Diego to visit my father, and along the way we did a bunch of other stuff.

The trip started off Saturday afternoon, when we headed down to San Diego. We visited with my father for a bit before we all went to dinner at The Prado in Balboa Park. We had a nice, fancy dinner out, and Trinh got an extra dessert, since Sunday was her birthday.

On Sunday morning, we managed to convince Lucinda, Trinh, and Melissa all to do the Lung Association stair climb with us, so we had five of us signed up to do it. It was a short one, only about 30 stories. The climb was from the lobby to 32, but the building skipped 13. I wanted to go back in and do a proper survey, but the organizers were kind of being redacted about it, and they wouldn’t let me go back in. But we did make the Channel 10 news that night:

www.10news.com/news/fight-for-air-climb-was-an-extreme-sport-for-some-an-emotional-day-for-others-03302014

After the stair climb, we headed back to our room to get cleaned up. We didn’t stay for the awards, but I found out later that I managed to place 3rd in the 50-59 age group. Not bad for coming back from not being able to walk a couple months ago.

Finally, we all went to La Jolla Cove to see the baby seals. The pups are generally born in February, so they were still pretty small, and really, there’s nothing cuter than baby seals.

Tonight was another night where I got a late start for downtown, so I only had time for two climbs. But the first one, I managed a 9:40 for the 51 floors. So that was a Good Thing. And I didn’t hurt my back in the process, so all around, it was a good evening.

Tuesday evening, I went downtown again to hit the stairs at the Aon building. Since my back is feeling slightly better these days, I’ve been experimenting with going a bit faster. So far, my best time for the 51-floor practice course has been 9:44, so I wanted to see if I could go just a little faster tonight.

AS it turned out, the answer was “no”. But that’s all right. I did a 9:47, which is pretty close. And after that, I went up another three times, just so I could have a reason to say, “what was I thinking when I signed up for this?”