Tony and I went to my cousin’s wedding in Vancouver, BC back in July. The wedding photographer had a “photobooth” at the banquet for the guests to goof off. It would be a perfect photo if Tony had a pocket protector!
June 25, 2011
Forest Park Loop Number 6
Posted by Tony McCray under Running | Tags: forest park, Running, trail running, vibram five fingers |Leave a Comment
Forest Park Loop Number 6 at Garmin Connect – Details
This morning, for the first time in over two years(!) I made it out trail running. I’ve been trying to build my fitness back up after a couple of years of, well, distractions. Or laziness. Call it what you will. I’ve been busy.
I figured I had about six miles in me. So far this year that is about my longest run. Looking through my Forest Park map pack, Loop Number 6 is around six miles long. Perfect. I pulled on my Vibrams, grabbed a bottle of water and my camera, and headed out the door.
It was a perfect morning for a run – blue skies, and not too chilly. And I loved every minutes of it. At times like these I have to ask myself, why don’t I do this more often? I regret doing so little running through the fall and winter. I wish I was in better shape now so I could run further and longer. Hopefully this year I can focus a bit more on running and training and general. I still really want to try an ultra.
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- This loop begins on Firelane 7, at the top of Springville Rd
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- Firelane 7, just past the gate
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- Looks like someone may have tried to build a shelter off the trail
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- Rocking the Team Elkhorn Shirt. Yes, it’s Dri-FIT.
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- Huge tree stump off the Hardesty Trail
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- Vibram 5 Fingers. I love wearing these.
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- The Ridge Trail, which completed the loop
June 25, 2011
2011 Elkhorn Classic Stage Race Day 0
Posted by Tony McCray under Cycling | Tags: baker city, bike racing, elkhorn, elkhorn classic, elkhorn classic stage race, obra |Leave a Comment
For me the 2011 Elkhorn Classic Stage Race started the day before the race with the 5ish hour drive out to Baker City. Two friends, Scott and Steve, also helping out the race, our gear, and 19 OBRA wheels left my house just after 10 on Thursday morning. The drive was pretty uneventful until just before Pendleton (and our scheduled lunch stop!). An ODOT truck off the right side of the road had a sign up that there was an accident ahead. Not much further, everything came to a standstill. After around 10′ sitting there, I finally shut the car down and got out to see how far up the backup was. Turns out, as far ahead as I could see.
Scott got on TripCheck to see what was going on, and learned that the freeway was closed at 12:30 (about 40 minutes before we got stuck) due to a vehicle fire. He also talked with a few truckers and learned that the vehicle that was on fire was a hay truck, and the backup was about 2 miles long at that point. We got out, took some pictures, and just waited for things to move again.
Close to an hour later things finally did start moving again. The next two miles were slow since the freeway was still down to one lane while they continued to clean up. The truck that caught fire was completely charred. And the area around the fire smelled really bad too!
Other than this slight delay the trip was uneventful. We pulled into Baker City about 4:30 and got to work pulling all the race gear out of storage at the High School. After that is was dinner at Paizano’s, and then to the Always Welcome Inn for the last good night of sleep for the weekend!
June 7, 2011
Meatza
Posted by Tony McCray under Diet and Nutrition | Tags: Meatza, paleo, primal |Leave a Comment
Tonight my wife and I made a meatza. Why hadn’t I heard of this before? Ground beef with some herbs and eggs for the “crust” and then whatever you want on top. I first saw the idea on Mark’s Daily Apple.
The crust before baking:
Th crust after baking:
The meatza ready for eating. My side free of tomato sauce and cheese. It was pretty good! I will definitely do this again.
June 3, 2011
Went for a ride at lunch today, covering some of the ground the Helvatia Half Marathon will cover in a few weeks. I have been meaning to get back on my bike for a while. Not wanting to run again so soon, and with the best weather of the year so far, today seemed like a great day to get back on the bike. So last night I pulled my nice bike out of the attic and inflated the tires. This morning the front was low – I have a slow leak! Fortunately it held air well enough to get through the ride. Although the bike performed fine in the shifting/breaking department, I definitely have some maintenance to do this weekend. I felt surprisingly good considering my sporadic training lately, and the fact that this is only my second ride in 2011. In fact, it might be my second ride in 14 or 15 months!
Helvatia Half by tonymccray at Garmin Connect – Details.
February 3, 2011
The Facebook-sphere exploded on Tony after he was interviewed by the media for the Kyron Horman search last Sunday. A ton of people said they saw him on TV. Same thing happened at work, too. A lot of what he said was edited out. And he was even got re-edited out of one video. Here’s one clip you can catch him for a second or two.
A few days after another fruitless search, a call came in early morning on Wednesday. I remember hearing his cellphone went off in our bedroom. After I dozed off for I don’t know how long, he returned to the room and said he had to leave for the search. This time was 2 hikers missing in the Gorge. I was really busy at work all day. I didn’t have time to find out what’s going on until I picked up his text messages after work. One message said he got interviewed again. At least it was a good outcome. The hikers were found. Let’s keep the hopes up for the same outcome for Kyron.
July 11, 2010
Fiskars Momentum Reel Mower – buyer beware
Posted by joanne under Personal | Tags: product review, reel mower |[11] Comments
We’ve been using a Scotts reel mower since we bought the house almost 6 years ago. I don’t remember how we came to the decision to buy a reel mower instead of a gas one (something about being green?). Anyhow, when Tony took the mower out for the first time, the neighbor across the street was surprised and offered to lend us his gas mower. Tony declined the offer and started pushing. And pushing he went for all these years. I’ve never touched that thing until this spring as he got too busy with Search and Rescue. I pushed it through the back yard and I was spent. It took so much out of me that I gave up on mowing the front yard (or the irregular L-shape thing of our corner lot).
Then, I read about the Fiskars Momentum Reel Mower in a magazine. It is promoted to be “30% Easier to Push”. I read the reviews from actual use posted on Lowes website and they were mostly good. Lowes is selling it for $199.00, probably similar to what we paid for the Scotts. I thought we should give a go. I first went to Lowes by myself to get it. The mowers were stocked on a shelf above the floor level. I pushed one box a little bit and it barely moved. I figured it’s too heavy for me so I waited until Tony was home in another weekend to buy it.
June 13, 2010
Multnomah County SAR – up close and personal (part 2)
Posted by joanne under Search and Rescue[2] Comments
There was a call out to meet in the morning on Friday. Tony brought his gear to work hoping he could finish early enough to join the search. He didn’t get all of his work done until almost end of business. He called into the search and they didn’t need him then. That was actually a good thing. I called the pharmacy earlier in the week to refill the prescription of his special eye drop (it treats itchy eyes). His insurance has changed since the last time he got a prescription. He picked up the prescription plus a little cup of ice cream! He spent the rest of the night doing prep work for the bike race he will be helping out the following weekend while I was out for my monthly Amnesty meeting. Good rest night for the big weekend ahead.
The Saturday call out was to meet at 6:30am at the Sheriff’s office. I woke up around 6am and Tony had already finished eating breakfast, almost ready to go. It’s going to be a nice day, sunny and high around the low 80′s. He has only one pair of pants suitable for the whole weekend. We need to get him more. His text message after 4pm was that the team was getting ready for a second mission. He got home after 10pm. He was again congested but not sneezing as much as he used to. The allergy medicine helps but it is not enough for how much stuff he was walking through. He told me a few times before, “Search and Rescue doesn’t walk around stuff, they walk through stuff.”
June 10, 2010
Hey, what’s up, Tony’s fans? Are you tired of waiting for Tony to write anything new here? No worries, his wife is coming to the rescue. I started the post below from my blog at work. I like to continue updating it so here I am.
Reposting from Education Northwest intranet, originally published on June 8, 2010
My husband Tony joined the Multnomah County Search and Rescue (SAR) last fall. He came up with the idea when he decided to do something similar to me volunteering for Amnesty International USA (I’ve been an active member since 1999) – a cause I am deeply passionate about.
The Multnomah County SAR trainings are held from mid-September to early June every year. There is an indoor classroom training every Wednesday 7-9pm and an overnight weekend outing once a month. When he began the training last fall, we were two months into our kitchen remodel. The remodel was a total gut job. We demoed all the way to the studs and sub-floor. And we are still working on it at the moment. The SAR trainings had probably caused a good amount of delays but I didn’t mind it at all. (Big thanks to Nancy Henry for loaning us her hot plate. We are still using it everyday!!!)
June 10, 2010
since im-a-lame-o
Posted by Tony McCray under Search and Rescue | Tags: search and rescue |Leave a Comment
Been a long time. Nearly a year since I posted about my hike on the Wonderland Trail. Since then my wife and I have almost finished a kitchen remodel (and, I have to admit, she’s done quite a bit more than me). I’ve also become a certified member of the Multnomah County Sheriff Office Search and Rescue Team. The training and experiences I’ve had have been amazing. Really. It’s a shame that I haven’t bothered to write anything about it. Truly a life changing experience.
Since I can hardly take the time to write a blog post, my wife has asked to be a contributor on my blog. So of course, since I am a good husband and always listen to my wife I did just that. So, hopefully something interesting will start popping up here from time to time. Like her experiences with me being out on searches, such as the one going on now for Kyron Horman.
