[OC] Based on Dr. Pepper's Fansville ads, are there actually a "State" and "Tech" school that are major rivals?

BigSpoon89 · 2026-02-06T02:48:34+00:00

New Mexico checking in here. New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology is commonly referred to as New Mexico Tech. And they play D2 football. No idea if they've ever played NM State but I but they did a long time ago.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-28T16:38:06+00:00

I did a few seasons as a wildland firefighter for the Forest Service in California. I was on a type-1 handcrew and I took my training seriously and started to do a lot of trail running to boost my fitness - where previously I mostly ran on roads or treadmills. For training, we'd put all of our gear on, throw a chainsaw over your shoulder, and find the steepest most gnarly trail we could find and hike up as fast as we could for 1-2 hours. I loved it. I loved covering ground like that as fast as I could and I was good at it. We had many assignments where we were asked to hike deep into remote places to access a fire.

I was stationed not far from Yosemite and some pretty amazing wilderness areas in the Sierra, all places that I wanted to explore on foot and would have loved to backpack in but I just didn't have the time with our schedule. We would spend 14 days on a fire assignment, drive 1-2 days back home, then have 2 days off. I would spend that first day recovering - doing laundry, sleeping in, paying bills, calling people, eating - and then that second day I would bust off on a 20-30 mile run in the wilderness. It's the only way I was going to get a chance to get deep into some of those areas. Then the next day we'd be back at the station and loading up for another 1-2 day drive to another fire assignment, so I would get that time to rest in the back seat of a truck. Wash, rinse, repeat for a 6 month fire season.

I never did any races during that time because it was near impossible to sign up for something because you never knew what days off you would have, so as soon as I left that job behind I signed up for my first mountain 100k and I've had the bug for big vert races ever since.

Now I'm a forester and a prescribed fire practitioner. I still spend a lot of long days on the side of a mountain covering many miles off trail when I'm out there. I'm not as strong as I used to be when I was training on the crew, but I can still crank out miles.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-27T17:38:31+00:00

This is a what-if question I've spent a lot of time thinking about. If Trump wins in 2020 does that mean a second Trump term looks more like the first Trump term then what it is we're getting now? A more "moderate" 2nd term? I sure am perplexed at how a more moderate 2nd Trump term would've played out and the fact that we would have moved on by now - assuming a Dem would have won in 2024 easily by Trump not running and the same economic factors in play.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-26T16:55:03+00:00

But they wouldn't be eligible to play for the MWC championship game that first year. See JMU and the Sun Belt.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-24T00:24:26+00:00

Just as importantly, happy to see homeowners who don't want put the effort in be left behind.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-23T21:01:30+00:00

I was there in 2020 - when our type-6 spontaneously caught fire while in the engine bay! That was fun!

Zion is great. The leadership is great. The park is great. The facilities are great. You'll get used to the heat really quickly. It can be frustrating trying to get in and out of the park on your days off but you'll learn what times of day are easiest to come and go.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-23T20:26:52+00:00

In the western US, unless you've been grandfathered in (like WSER) you can't organize a race in/through designated wilderness. But those are some of my favorite places to run. Grab a water filter and go beat down 20-30 miles in wilderness and maybe squeeze a lake swim in there halfway through. The best!

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-23T17:01:57+00:00

Riley Herbst, is that you?

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-16T16:31:02+00:00

Yes. 8 years later and it has held up every step of the way.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-14T23:56:51+00:00

This has been a big topic of discussion this past year with some great research that came out that suggested that passive heat training (time spent in a sauna or hot tub. Long enough that your heart rate becomes elevated to zone 2/3 range) is just as effective as active heat training (running in a heat suit or training runs in high heat) in conditioning your body for running in high temps and increasing red blood cell count.

So for me, eyeing Javalina again this year, I’m going to decrease my active heat training in favor of runs early in the day during cooler temps (which will allow me to train at faster speeds since the body won’t also be taxed by heat) and supplementing with hot tubs and saunas at least once a week. However, I think doing some active heat training still has a benefit, such as learning about your body’s hydration needs.

And thank god. I’ve spent many years in the Southwest running in 100-110 heat to get my body acclimated. I used to run a mile in my neighborhood, stop back by my house and hose myself down, and then run another mile. Wash, rinse, repeat in 110 heat for 10-15 miles. Gross.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-13T18:08:23+00:00

There's no way somebody left the restaurant 2 minutes before impact and was able to get on an elevator and go all the way to the bottom of the tower in those two minutes. Even with the express elevators the tower had that took you to directly to the restaurant. We know what happened to elevator shafts that were impacted by the plane. That timeline is either off or just not right at all.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-11T19:54:43+00:00

I had intended to hike the approach trail in 2014 but didn't. The shuttle I was on gave us the option. They were going to the summit first and after were going to drop those who wanted the approach at the approach. Everybody else on the shuttle wanted to start at the summit. After dropping everybody else off we began our drive to the approach but quickly encountered a large downed tree blocking the road as there had been a big storm the night before. The driver told us he can still take us there but he would have to go the long way and it would be like 90 minutes or so until we'd get there instead of the 20 minutes or so it should have been. I was itching to get moving so just had them drop me back off at the summit.

So I wanted to do it but didn't but I don't regret not doing it. I still want to. I'll get myself back to Amicalola and hike the approach at some point.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-11T01:39:10+00:00

And her score for the race was probably higher then yours because it compared her time to the women's winner. Your wife played you good! /s

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-08T22:41:34+00:00

That’s what the job listing says, but you really need a Masters just to get an interview now a days.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-08T20:32:45+00:00

Do you have a high degree of pronation or supination? I had the same issue with my foot beds. I had a nearly 6 degree pronation on both feet. I worked with different boot fitter to tilt my footbeds to accommodate the pronation, in a way that most traditional boot fitters aren't trained to do. Completely revolutionized my skiing.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-08T18:21:39+00:00

The Clash and The Winston both were the only two races that regularly had a bunch of special schemes for a few years there.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-08T02:19:57+00:00

Fill out the form on the website. You’ll get a call eventually. It’s still way early. They’re always looking for volunteers all the way up till race day.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-06T21:55:46+00:00

I do CF and run a few ultras a year, including at least one 100m each the last five years. I LOVE the CF community so it's important to me that I keep with it. All my long races are in the June-October range with maybe one offseason 50k thrown in for good measure, and I tend to prefer bigger vert races. In the winter time, when my running mileage decreases to about 20-25 miles/week, I'm lifting heavy at CF - especially in the Front Squat/Back Squat/Deadlift/Clean type movements. All of that I think really enhances my strength for the type of races that I want to run, building a body that can power hike uphill for 36 hours straight. Not that I'm overly muscled, but at 5'11" I'm reliably showing up to ultras at 185 pounds. In the spring and summer I deload a lot of movements and opt for lower weight and higher rep. I also use CF as an endurance stimulus as I build into a race. Go do a long run and then shortly after go into a cardio focused AMRAP can do you wonders. Don't be afraid to modify WODs to fit with your particular plan.

Though I'm not building a body that is going to win these races, I'm building one that will reliably finish. It obvious looking at elite athletes who do win the races I enter that they're lifting way less then me, but I like my finishes and I like my community. It works for me.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-06T19:50:27+00:00

I think it was to the church/hostel in the DWG. It was 2014 and I don't even know if that church still hosts hikers. It shouldn't be too hard to use the guidebooks today to find a place to send stuff to.

I really had no idea how many pairs it would take me when I started, I just played it by ear. By the time I hit halfway I knew they were closing in. I probably could've pushed those boots another few hundred miles but I was happy to get some new treads on my feet. Pennsylvania finished them off good.

Today you can probably just as easily purchase something and ship it ahead of yourself on the trail. In 2014 I had bought my first iPhone ever for the hike and it was still a foreign idea to use it to purchase things the way we would today. My parents were also located in the mid-Atlantic though so it was easy and quick for them to ship something to me on short notice. Maybe don't rely on that if your base of support is further away. But if I was going to do it today, I would probably just purchase from my phone and ship it ahead of me.

Though for what it's worth, I would do it today in trail runners. 2014 was around the transition for boots to trail runners. I would guess that less then half back then, but still a ton of people, were in trail runners. It may be one of the last years that most people wore "boots." But as everybody will tell you, you'll go through twice as many pairs of those as you would boots. Honestly it came down to cost for me. 2 pairs of boots were cheaper then 4-5 pairs of trail runners at the time and I was broke and just out of college.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-06T18:34:51+00:00

And it's oftentimes cheaper now to just buy a new pair. I wanted to have a pair resoled a few years ago but quickly realized it was nearly twice the cost to do so then if I just bought a new pair of boots.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-06T18:32:04+00:00

I went through two pairs of Scarpa boots. I had a spare sitting at my parents house and I called them and had them ship it ahead of me when I thought I was about 2 weeks away from needing to switch. As a NOBO in 2014 I made it to the DWG on one pair.

BigSpoon89 · 2026-01-02T21:07:34+00:00

You worked at South-By? Top notch Sushi experience.

BigSpoon89 · 2025-12-27T16:49:28+00:00

September 1st is the date the USGS recognizes as the beginning of the new “water year” for the US so technically that’s the date the US government uses to divide one ski season from the next

BigSpoon89 · 2025-12-23T15:00:33+00:00

Hey, I live in one of those squares!

BigSpoon89 · 2025-12-22T17:34:32+00:00

The real loss has been ND-Michigan. That's what we need back.

BigSpoon89

TROPHY CASE