The Gear Thing (part 2)

I had a birthday this week.  I turned 39.  For the 20^th time.

I have to say that I don’t usually feel 59, but the morning after my birthday, after a couple too many thyme bomb cocktails (see below for recipe), I was definitely feeling my age.

But, fortunately there is no acute chocolate shortage going on, so there was cake!  And presents. 

(Thankfulness Note:  I give thanks to cake, cholcolate and presents, and for my amazing wife who gives me these things.)

Nancy got me the Raidlight Revolutiv 24 liter race vest for my birthday.  A race vest is a backpack for running (item 1 on the Mandatory Equipment List, MEL).  The Revolutiv weighs 250 grams or a little more than 8 ounces.  As opposed to my  current running pack, the UltimateDirection Fastpack 30 which looks like a backpack, the Revolutiv looks like a vest with a pocket on the back.  According to Raidlight, it is a “large capacity” race vest, although it looks like it barely has room for a loaf of bread.  It took me several minutes to squeeze a 5 kg bag of rice into the main compartment. 

The Raidlight Revolutiv vest (on the left) next to the UD fastpack 30

There are a couple of Raidlight bottle options that we'll need to talk about later

And by calling it a vest (and, I suspect, in the interest in keeping the weight down), Raidlight has been able to dispense completely with the padded shoulder straps one usually expects on a backpack.  The material that comprises the shoulder strap area is so insubstantial that you can actually see through it in places.  Which begs the question.  How comfortable is this vest thingie?  (how about after a 12 hour schlepp in the desert?)

a stuffed vest on model

hair care is the first victim of the pandemic

As mentioned, I loaded it up with 5kg of rice (and 2kg of water) and jogged around with it yesterday.  It felt pretty good.  It does ride well on my back and doesn’t jostle unduly with my stride.  But it is definitely not as comfortable as the UD Fastpack 30 which actually has a little padding in the shoulder straps and has a plastic/foam back support piece.  So I think there’s going to have to be a tradeoff here: Comfort for weight.  (weight in turn which may make me uncomfortable in the long run, Hmmm….)  The Fastpack 30 weighs 750 grams (24 oz), so 3x more than the Revolutiv.  And at 30 liters, there’s more room, for bringing more stuff, making a heavier pack for carrying out across the desert.

Lots to think about.  I am definitely going to have to take the Revolutiv out for a test run, or two.  But given that the vest is made of paper thin material, I don’t want to test it out too much, because I’d be worried that taking a well worn vest out into the wilderness would be begging for seem failure.

And speaking of the weight v. comfort conundrum, I have been pondering the sleeping pad concept.  Sleeping pads are not even on the MEL, but the idea of running all day and then preparing to do it again the next day by sleeping on the cold hard ground, doesn’t sound particularly appealing.  We have a couple of the Thermarest NeoAir Xlite pads.  We have a full size pad (12 oz) and a shortie pad (8oz), again the trade off: Is carrying an extra 4 ounces every day worth having your feet off the ground when you sleep every night?  

How do you put this to the test?  Thermarest now puts out an even lighter NeoAir pad, the Uberlite, but the reviews suggest that they have a high rate of leakage (going back to the cold hard ground thing), so I am not sure it is worth investing in the new pad.

Nancy also bought me the Raidlight Hyperlight jacket to satisfy item #25 on the MEL.  We haven’t had much rain here lately, so I can’t speak to its waterproofness, but it is very light.  I am going to put it on when I next go to work on our irrigation, so I will get back to you on water resistance and breathability.

All of the Raidlight stuff is pretty expensive.  Naturally a few weeks after Nancy bought my birthday presents, Raidlight put their entire inventory on 50% spring sale.  And although we were a little miffed at the timing error, I did get in on the sale and bought some tights (item #22), desert cap (#27) and some desert gaiters (not on the MEL).

I’ve been working my way through the MEL.  Next steps will have to be bedding and lighting (items 2-4).  The sleeping bag promises to be the most expensive purchase on the MEL.  My Mountain Hardware ultralight 15 degree F sleeping bag from a decade ago weighs just under 2 pounds.  It’s super comfy and warm, but I don’t think it’s going to make the cut (see comfort v. weight tradeoff).  There are a number of bags out there today that meet the 32 deg requirement and weigh only a pound.  And given that it literally has to fit in a breadbox, compressibility is also a big deal.  It looks like the new thing for fastpackers is the quilt.  Quilts weigh even less (no zipper, less material), but they seem a little futzy and if I read things right, you rely solely on the insulation of your pad for your parts on the ground side.  Could be risky.  If anyone has any thoughts on the trend towards quilting, let me know.  Until then, I will be meandering the internet looking at down count and other bag factors until I can actually get out to REI or Northface and actually run my fingers over the ripstop. 

Other than that, life has been pretty good in our little part of the world.  The irrigation district put water in the canals, and I spent much of the last week unclogging and replacing irrigation heads, so the water is splashing in our pasture and hopefully the grass will start growing soon.  I have two 24 hour shifts coming up in the emergency room, but hopefully the pandemic will continue to tread lightly here in Central Oregon.  Here’s hoping that you all are safe and healthy wherever you are. 

(Thankfulness note:  I give thanks for spring and growing grass)

Here’s a prescription for the Thyme Bomb cocktails (they will cure what ails you):

3 oz vodka

½ oz lemon juice (more or less to taste)

½ oz simple syrup (also to taste)

5-6 sprigs of thyme

1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger

Muddle the ingredients in a large glass

Strain into shaker, Shake over ice.

Serve in a chilled martini glass with a sprig or two of thyme as garnish

Cheers!

The Work Thing (part 1)

For those of you who were operating under the misconception that I am a professional athlete, or for those of you that know me to be a bum that spends a lot of time exercising, I should clarify that I do have a job. I am a board certified emergency physician. I have been working emergency rooms for 30 years in Pennsylvania, Alaska, Massachusetts, Washington, California and Oregon. Emergency medicine has been a good job for me. The irregular, problem based nature of the practice seems to fit with my ADHD and the occasional opportunity to perform life-saving procedures provides the doses of adrenaline that my system needs to keep going. The emergency room is the most democratic part of American healthcare, we treat patients according to the severity of their problem, not their ability to pay for it. And while emergency medicine has been good for me, it has also allowed me to give a little back to the society that nurtured and educated me. Additionally, emergency medicine has given me the opportunity to provide medical care as a volunteer all over the globe. In 2011, I volunteered as a race doctor on the Gobi March, and the itch was introduced that gradually became my plan to run the Atacama Crossing.

 

Volunteers at the Atacama race in 2015. Most of the medical team is stage right. I’ve been on the medical team at 6 races now. I’m scheduled to work Gobi Mongolia 2020, in June.

(Thankfulness note: I give thanks for having a job in these hard times.) 

After my lymphoma treatment in 2014, in an effort to improve my chances of remission, we moved from Seattle to Central Oregon, and I went from working at a high volume, high acuity (huge stress) big city emergency room to lower volume, lower acuity work in small towns. Of course, crazy things can happen in small towns too, so when you least expect it, an emergency room in the middle of nowhere can suddenly fill with very sick or injured people. And now I work part time. 88 hours a month. Which, as you may have noticed, allows me more free time to train than your average human.

I went back to work this week. After 2 weeks of travel and 2 weeks of quarantine, it was a little bit of a shock to the system. Central Oregon is currently not one of America’s COVID19 hotspots. We have about 40 people in the area who have tested positive and roughly 10 people who have been hospitalized. The numbers are gradually increasing, but not doubling every day. Our hospitals have cancelled all elective surgeries and put up tents and made beds available for a potential onslaught of sick patients. But at the moment, mercifully, the beds remain empty and the emergency rooms are calmer than usual. Still, I will admit that I was nervous stepping back into the department this week. I always have a little anxiety when I come to work. You always wonder what’s waiting behind door number 2. But this is just a little crazier than usual. I am confident in the skills I have to take care of a person sick with the virus. But multiple people? And in the back of my head: can I keep myself safe from the virus? I have practiced putting on (and, more importantly, taking off) the equipment for SARS and Ebola. I can do this safely. But now we are being told we don’t have very much of this equipment. And we will be reusing masks and shields that we’ve been taught to throw away. Putting a potentially contaminated mask back on is a skill that no one has ever taught me, and yet this may be the most important skill of the coming weeks.

I’ve been rummaging through my garage for protective gear, in case the stores at the hospital run out before the resupply. Don’t be too freaked out if you see your doctor coming towards you in a chainsaw helmet and a painter's respirator.  I'll leave the chainsaw at home.

 

Or maybe we can all just wrap ourselves in Bubble Wrap until this is over.

 

But before the bubble wrap. I’ve got a 2 hour run on the training schedule. It’s 36 (2C) degrees and sleeting out. Sounds like the perfect opportunity for social distancing. And it will help my anxiety as well.