The Cascades.

When you've got kids, a full time job, and all the trappings that go along with said happy meal, you need to get creative w/ your training time. I use to go run stadiums at Cal, but it just wasn't doing it for me. Thus was born "The Cascades". Since I do alot of training on my lunch hour, as cross season would roll around I began looking for the equivalent of an urban cross loop. It needed to be close to work, incorprate some run-ups, have a bit of recovery and hopefully be accessible to others. A few years ago I stumbled up The Cleveland Cascade. Check out the pic. That's a looooong set of stairs. The real joke comes at the top when you remount and have to keep climbing for another 100 meters. Nice! A few wrong turns later and I had a good 5 minute loop. Eight repeats and I was ready to puke. So far so good. The only problem was, I was lonely. In the early days, my buddy Robeanski would tag along and that 130lb MF-er would put some hurt on. Still, I was often just solo. Last year, PuddinPie started coming out on a regular basis. I despised his youthful legs, but welcomed his non-stop banter. But that's about as big as it got. So today was a bit of a milestone. No less than 6 crossers showed up to do The Cascades. Myself, Rhoda, PuddinPie, Scarecrow, Jesus, and Rook. Fiesty shows up w/o a bike but sporting some smart and sassy running shorts. My heart sang...then the laps started and it almost stopped. Rhoda always thinks his size is a hindrance (think Chewbacca meets Magnus Backstedt), yet in the next breadth complains about not finding an indoor trainer that can provide enough resistance. I think his power output is about 1.21 jigawatts. Scarecrow shows up for the first time on some tired ole rag of a cross rig and quickly shows that it's most definateley not about the bike! Jesus shows up late, but provides us w/ ample opportunity for heckling as he does lap upon lap. PuddinPie, Rook and me pull up the rear. I'm so happy I could almost hurl. We must be doing 'em right. Rock on fellas.