Altitude and Encounters at the End of the World

They always say that training at altitude gives you all these cardio benefits. The flip side, I have found out, is that a good night's sleep near sea level after a big ride leaves you a lot less sore in the morning...



Last night La Lissa and I saw this movie about Antarctica Encounters at the End of the World. Its a Werner Herzog film, the guy who did the "Grizzly Man" movie that I never saw but heard a lot about. The film was really great for a variety of reasons. The film profiled scientists as the McMurdo research station, a 5,000-person NSF station which studies everything from molecular biology of seal milk, underwater ice creatures, volcanos, to high-energy particle physics. But far from being a feature-length version of a NOVA episode, the film avoided the clichés of nature documentaries, and was more like a meditation on the universe while driving 80 Km/hr on a snowmobile over an ice sea on some mild hallucinogenic. Whatever it was, it was really good, and I recommend all rockwallers go see it.

Update

After six days of driving we arrived to Ottawa, which is pronounced in Canadianese with drawn out vowels as "OAuutaawaa." After brisk and stressed out apartment hunting we found a place on I think the third day of looking: big backyard, huge basement for a climbing wall and bike storage, nice molding and old hardwood floors. The only problem is that the move in date is Sep. 1! Hence, we are currently living in a hostel, sharing a kitchen and bathroom with some college guys. Not the greatest situation, but it will do. We haven't spent much time here yet though. I had a conference to go to in Montreal all last week. I presented my paper, which I recently found out got accepted to PRL, and heard a bunch of talks on Theoretical Neuroscience. We also checked out some great restaurants there. After waiting in line we got a smoked ham sandwitch and frites at Schwartz's deli, and had a "nice" meal at the somewhat famous L'Express, a traditional French bistro type place. L'Express was kind of over hyped, but I had a pretty good plate of steak frites... The best place we went by far was Boulangerie Kouing Amman. We kind of missed the Kouings at Les Madelines in SLC, so we gave it a shot. The Kouings were great and so was the espresso and the croissants and the whole damn thing. The place has only three tables and is housed in a rustic log cabin type thing right in the middle of old town Montreal.

I've also been doing some exploring by bike. Today I went on a tour of the Gatenau park. Gentle rolling hills can sap you, over time at least. I still have all my bikes in storage except my steel single speed, so with flip flops and a rain parka I spent about four hours going down every road I got lost on. I must still have some of the Utah RBC count in me because I was going pretty fast. None of the other road bikey dudes passed me, but I passed a lot of them. The bike path system here is very extensive. I traveled on routes with cars only a small percentage of the time.

Well thats enough for now. When I get my gear out of storage and it stops raining I'll give a report on the climbing here....

Why Me?

That's the name of the route.

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