Dave Orchard's Blog

Almost 3 years after I had my epiphany that I needed to get into shape and get healthier - resulting in a rigorous exercising program - my serious Grouse Grind days have thankfully made way for better things.

I took the exercise program seriously - apparently charting weight versus time and having 8 time-check points is abnormal :-) I really have to thank my great friend Sandy MacAulay for all the times that he and I hiked ourselves up the mountain. In 3 years I did the Grind 101 times, and we probably did 95 of them together. Here is the final graph of 3 years of weight versus time, with my best time in the lower left:

and a snapshot of my personal best time:

My first season's goal in 2003 was to beat my previous record (set when I was 8 years younger) of 42 minutes. On Nov 11th 2003 I managed a 40 minutes 45 seconds.

The second season's goal, 2004, was to beat my age. At the time, I was 37 years old so it was a bit of a stretch. That mission was accomplished with a time of 37 1/2 minutes. I wrote a blog entry on my mission accomplished with the 2 year chart. The best time for 2004 was set on Nov 10th 2004 at a time of 37 minutes 24 seconds.

The third season's goal was to simply get faster. It would be hard to lose much more weight and I was a year older. But what the heck. On Nov 3rd, feeling amazingly strong, I got down to 35:50. That cleared my 38 3/4 age by roughly 3 minutes. Not as stellar as Bob Obsieger doing a 39 minute grind on his 45th birthday (way to go Bob) or the 72 year old who does a 45 minute grind. To put it in one perspective, I did the grind 38 times to go from 37:25 to 35:50, or roughly 27 hours (38 * ~40 minutes) of the hardest continuous exercise I've ever done, including 5 years of rugger.

A few other notes might be of interest. My grind time is by no means anything stupendous. The best time ever is roughly 24 minutes. If I had raced in this years race, I would have placed about last in the mens elite 30-39 age group. So I'm not elite by any means.

Secondly, it was really interesting to hit my personal limit wrt weight. Whenever I dropped below about 183 lbs, I got fairly cranky, tired, etc. In today's "modern" society, it's a really strange feeling to think that "I'm at a really good weight, I shouldn't lose any more". What a novel concept in these times. I can't *quite* leave it at that, as I have apparently lost another 8 lbs since I became a dad. Who knew that fatherhood apparently burns more calories than exercising hard 6 times/week? I'm now on a strict, I mean really strict, look for the lash-marks and feel my pain, diet of extra food including deserts and beer.

Thirdly, this is the 3rd year in a row where my best times were set in November. I just love the cold weather and especially the rain. My 3 best times this year had rain and +6 to +8 degrees celcius.

Finally, I'm somewhat but not completely sad to say that maybe Sandy ran out of road wrt times and the season. I "peaked" on Nov 3rd at 35:50 and Sandy "peaked" on Nov 28th at 36:03 *BUT* the grind was covered in snow/ice from the 2/3 mark. Now that winter has set in and he will be a dad in March, I might actually hold a physical record between the two of us..

All that hiking is over now, and I'm really glad. There's simply no way to do the grind - taking about 2 1/2 hours door to door - multiple times per week with 2 new members of the family. What would another year have done? Maybe another 2 minutes off to 33 minutes? Whatever.. Trying to figure out whether Bryce is just sucking up when he cries at 1:30 or really needs some more milk or needs a burp is way more rewarding.

What is also really strange is the time dilation. When they were 2 weeks old, it felt like 2 months since I'd done the grind (actually I'd gone up the day before birth). Now they are 3 weeks old and feels like 3 months since I've taken a tram back down. I guess I should get ready for more of the time warp/dilation, or at least so I'm told.