Bartlett's "Labor Day"

Name: Reed Bartlett

Birthday: September 6, 1966

Occupation: 5.10 Guru

 

The Challenge:

Bike 35 miles with 3,500 feet of elevation gain.
Run 3.5 Miles.
Climb 35 V3's (although I could substitute 2 V2's for one V3 if necessary).
Do 35 flatwater cartwheels in my kayak.
Eat 3.5 King Pin Apple Fritters.
Eat 3.5 burritos.
Drink 3.5 Beers.
Drink 3.5 cocktails.
Smoke 3.5 cigarettes.
 
 
Birthday Challenge Wrap-Up 2002

The birthday challenge went well.  I started on the 36 Twinkies at midnight and had downed six before I went to bed.  I had another few before I headed out for the boulders in the morning.  In fact, pretty much all I ate all day was Twinkies.  I had some energy drink and Gatorade and some beer, but everything else was Twinkie.  The bouldering went very well.  The high points for harder problems worked out well, since I did a couple of V5s and a V6, which counted for over half of my points.  I think that for the next one I either need to up it so that V4 is the median or give a little less rewards for harder problems.  The biking turned out to be pretty hard.  I did the 36 miles in six laps, with a beer each lap as proposed.  However, I didn't do it very fast and the sky was dark when I finished.  In fact, Steve joined me for a couple of laps, including the last one.  Well, in the dark he somehow went off course.  Fortunately he's pretty wise about this things, so he headed to the road and followed that to the cars.  I finished the last Twinkie sometime around 10pm before dinner was served.  I still have some, maybe I will go eat one now. 

The best part was that I once again had an amazing group of people supporting me (even without Bob's no-show).  Phil came out for his first BC appearance (apart from his own of course).  He also put up a new problem and did a scary V7.  Todd and John were there, as well as Switch and her boyfriend Kevin, who rode the whole bike section.  And, of course, the usual Redlands' suspects.

Birthday Challenge Wrap-Up 2001
My Birthday Challenge this year took place on Sept 2nd in Santa Barbara. 
Once again I benefited from some fantastic support and encouragement.  
An added bonus this year was that Rachel was in town and made a last-minute
decision to do a Birthday Challenge of her own, so we had two Challenges 
going on concurrently.
I was planning on doing the following things within a 24-hour period, 
starting at midnight on Saturday and finishing Sunday at Midnight.  

My plan was to:
Bike 35 miles with 3,500 feet of elevation gain
Run 3.5 Miles
Climb 35 V3's (although I could substitute 2 V2's for one V3 if necessary)
Do 35 flatwater cartwheels in my kayak
Eat 3.5 King Pin Apple Fritters
Eat 3.5 burritos
Drink 3.5 Beers
Drink 3.5 cocktails
Smoke 3.5 cigarettes
 

.

 
Rachel's list was similar and we both started at midnight with some eating 
and drinking.  I downed one burrito, one fritter, 2.5 cocktails, 3 beers 
and all 3.5 cigarettes before finally stumbling off to bed sometime after 
2am.
I woke early and botched the coffee making duties.  Thankfully Bob rescued
 me and we got caffeinated.  We wasted nearly an hour getting ready for 
the ride before we finally departed around 8am.  The ride was fantastic.
 After about 16 miles we had made our way up to Gibraltar rock at an 
elevation of about 2,500 feet.  We assumed that we would get the other 
1,000 feet through the ups and downs on the ride.  We then headed down 
and contoured around the hills for a while before heading into Montecito.
 It was during this time that we had the rare opportunity to watch a 
bobcat lope across the road in front of us.  We eventually made our way home
 to Bob's house, which was serving as base and a final total of 36 miles 
and not quite 3,500 feet of climbing.
 

 

 
The next stop was the 3.5-mile trail run.  Again we took a while making The transition and then at the trailhead I had problems with my car 
alarm that necessitated that I take my alarm transceiver apart in order to deactivate the alarm.  Finally after much waiting and wasted time
we started the run.
By now it was sometime near noon and the sun was straight overhead.  Rachel joined us for the trail run as we started to plod our way up 
a.. road?  It soon became clear that I had been sandbagged.  Actually it was my own fault. I should have scouted out the trails and such, 
but I relied on the Bob's advice.  Bob runs a fair bit, and he only runs difficult trails.  Bob said that this trail was "the easiest run 
I know."  Well, while I believe him, I sure don't want to go run his other trails with him.  The trail seemed to climb forever, climbing 
over 900 feet in the 1.75 miles to the turn around at Inspiration Point. At about that point the only thing I was inspired to do was 
continuously mouth insults to Bob.  The run back to the car was definitely much easier and went by without incident.
We next headed down to Scoffield Park to begin the bouldering.  We also played with my car alarm a bit more, which wasn't very fun.  The 
bouldering at Scoffield Park is a little hard to get used to and I had a difficult time warming up.  I finally managed to do a few V3's 
and V4's and I also narrowly failed on a few others.  Then we headed up to Lizard's Mouth, where we hoped to finish the bouldering.  We 
were starting to run out of time and I was beginning to worry that this would become an issue.
 
Things started out well at Lizard's Mouth, once we had rearranged
the plan so that V4's would count as 1.5 V3's and V2's would count
as half of a V3 and that I needed a point total of 35 instead of
actually doing 35 V3's. This was definitely a more realistic goal,
albeit still quite hard.  After a couple of hours I was not quite
half way to my goal and there was probably less than an hour of 
light left.  I decided to call it quits at that point and work on
completing the rest of the challenge.  I decided to sit down and 
eat the rest of my burrito before we left, while the rest of the
gang continued to work on some more problems.  During this time 
Todd flashed High  Hat (V5), which is pretty damned good for most 
of the folks in our group. Unfortunately the burrito didn't taste 
very good and went down really slowly.  Each bite took a fair bit 
of effort and I wasn't a hundred percent sure that I would get it
all down.  I was also concerned because I still had some fritter
to go and another whole burrito.
As we headed to the Goleta Valley Athletic Club for the flatwater 
cartwheeling part of the challenge I ate a bit more fritter and now
had less than half of a fritter to go.  I figured that I would 
probably make that part of the challenge, but I still had one more
burrito to contend with.
The cartwheels went surprisingly easily.  I almost always managed to
get three ends, or in other words to do one full cartwheel and 
then halfway through the next.  A couple of times I was able to do
two whole cartwheels in a row and my best effort was three in a row.
During this time Rachel was doing 25 laps and she seemed to be 
doing well at this point.

 

. 

Rob Raker:  Rob borrowed my old bike and powered out the ride.  Then
 he and Steve destroyed the run.  Then he had friends to visit so he
 took off on my bike for some more riding from friend's house to 
friend's house.
Jan Sovich:  Jan got up early and joined us for the ride before other 
duties called him away.  He and John powered up the climb and were 
waiting patiently for us when we got there.
Rachel:  Rachel powered through the run and her boundless energy kept
 me inspired when my energy was ebbing.
 
We had to search a bit for burritos, because it was now after 10pm on
 a Sunday night.  Finally we ended up at a very suspect looking little 
market. Fortunately Deb, our local guide, knew what she was doing and
 the burritos were these home made jobs that you only needed to heat
 up.  We headed back to Bob's place and the final bit of Fritter was
 consumed, along with that last burrito.  I also finished up my last
 cocktail with about 5 minutes to spare.
So in retrospect, I think that I might have succeeded with the whole
challenge if I hadn't wasted so much time along the way.  But I have
 also noted that it is difficult to avoid such delays.  I am still 
quite happy with the way things turned out and I had a great time, 
even during the run, well at least as I remember it now.
I would also like to thank everyone who helped out:
Steve Edwards: Steve was there throughout the whole day and did part
 of each challenge, except for the cartwheels.
Bob Banks:  Even though Bob loves Bob Roll, he doesn't cycle.  So
 he joined us for most of the other challenges and helped secure the access to the pool at GVAC.
John Fieldhouse:  John had a lot of house work to do preparing for
 a big refinancing review.  Nonetheless, he drove up late Saturday
 joined in for some of the drinking, didn't get enough sleep and 
powered through the ride. Then he hopped back in his Jeep and headed
 home to do more housework.  What a star.
Dave Brainerd:  Dave is a fantastic cyclist and served as our guide
 for the ride.  He also was fantastic when he got sick in the middle
 of the ride during the descent and just shrugged it off, saying "I 
guess I'm officially hung over."

 

 
Todd Daniels and John Lachey:  Todd and John got up early in Orange County and drove up for the days festivities.  They were waiting for us when we finished the ride 
and then offered support and encouragement throughout the rest of the day. 
Deb: Deb was awesome.  She showed up Saturday evening and urged us through the initial stages of the challenge.  Then she showed up at Lizard's Mouth with burritos in 
tow.  She stayed with us for the rest of the evening and even helped us find the very key late night burrito spot.
Jaime Grant:  Without his help I might not have been able to get a hold of any fritters, which would have taken a lot of fun out of the challenge.
Other players who offered encouragement though out the event: Phil and Joanne, Hawk, The Reverend Speefnarkle, Gina, Amos White, Georgia, and any one else who I am 
forgetting at this point.There should be some photos on www.birthdaychallenge.com in a few days or so.   Now it's your turn to plan your challenge.  So, what are you going to do?
Cheers,
Reed