Steve Tilford

Yesterday was the typical day up in Cable. Eat, swim, sauna, eat, exercise, eat, chop wood, eat, drink wine at the Rivers Eatery. It takes a few days to get used to the whole routine. Gwen makes the rest of us look super lazy because she swam for over an hour, so everyone else is playing catch up and that is impossible.

Pat, Gwen and I rode over 3 hours off-road yesterday afternoon. I only have road pedals and shoes, so I taking it a little easy. Pat has a big tired Surley that rolls over everything. Gwen was riding a stupid light Specialized dual suspension bike. She has dramatically improved technically the last couple years. She doesn’t recognize it, but she is going so much faster than even last fall, the last time she really road a MTB.

She was going so well that once Pat and I rode pretty fast for a longer section, then stopped and waited at an intersection. We barely had time to take a drink and she showed up. I just looked at Pat and we started cracking up. I told her I was embarrassed that we weren’t further ahead. In reality, she was just going super good.

Dennis got a new chainsaw. A couple weeks ago, during Chequamegon, the Stihl that he has had for 28 years, quit working. It actually didn’t quit, but I noticed that the chain wasn’t getting any oil. The oil pump blew. I’m going to fix it for him, but in the meantime, he got 2nd one. Dennis hasn’t fired up the new saw, so I went out and split a bunch of wood that had already been cut. I think that splitting wood is cathartic. I’m not so big at picking up the wood, putting it in a wheelbarrow, then moving to the pile and stacking it. But the splitting part I enjoy. It’s good exercise.

Today, Gwen has already been down at the lake for a good bit. We are trying to watching Lombardi and the Super Prestige cross race on the internet. Plus, Dennis is making waffles, or at least preparing the batter. Pat and I are going to ride trails again. They are taking off later today.

Tomorrow I am going to drive down to Winona and see my dentist friend there. Then probably head back to Topeka, maybe through Ames Iowa. My friend, Michael Fatka had a hip replacement and had a couple complications. One which was a pulmonary embolism. He’s at home, but feeling shitty. He needs some chores done, so we can help him out some there.

Gwen told me to try the avocado/egg smear. I’d already put butter and jam on the other piece, my normal toast coverings.

Pat and Gwen on an open section.

Not sure what we were doing here.

I split most of this section yesterday.

I went for a final swim last night, after cutting wood for a few hours yesterday. The lake is super cold, like in for 5 minutes and your muscles barely function. I had already turned on the sauna and when I got back I was crimpled by cold. Anyway, I have already written a post about 3 years ago, about my best sauna memories, so I thought I’d just repost it. It’s below. I cut a ton of wood yesterday, rode MTB’s for nearly three hours and made a pie. Little stiff today. Probably from making the pie. Okay, have to start driving. (New pie pictures below the sauna pictures.)

I was flipping through an Outside Magazine yesterday and there was an article on Taylor Phinney and how he was using a sauna after training to increase blood plasma and thus VO2.

I had actually just gotten out of the sauna when I saw the article. I have always loved saunas. I like heat in general, although not so much anymore when I’m racing. When I was a kid, I used to get inside our car in the driveway, in the middle of a summer day, with the windows rolled up, and sit there for long periods, basking in the heat.

When I was a junior I was invited to the Olympic training center and met Eddie B. One of the first things that Eddie did was take us to a gym and put all of us in a sauna. It was Jeff Bradley, Greg Demgen, Mark Frise, Greg LeMond, and all the other guys on the Junior National Team. Eddie just sat by the stones and poured ladle after ladle of water, creating a cloud of steam. Soon it was just Lemond and I left, each sitting as far away from the stones as possible, in opposite corners. I just kept hearing the sizzle of the water on the rocks and then the searing heat of the steam would hit us. After what seemed like an eternity, I hear Greg whisper, “Hey Tilford, I’ll go if you go.” I said back, you go first. He said we’ll go together. The heat moving to the door was nearly overwhelming. Eddie just stayed in the sauna and we just kept hearing the sizzle of the water over and over again. He made his point that he was much tougher than us. It was a very good lesson.

Later, when I went to KU, I used to have a work/study job at the computer center, which was next to the gym. Afterwork, at 11pm, I’d go over to the gym and read the KU paper in the sauna. I’d go through wave after wave of wrestlers, trying to get down to weight. I could sit in there for a couple hours.

I’ve always thought that taking a sauna was good for you. In 1994, before MTB Worlds in Vail, I was feeling pretty ill. Ned wasn’t good either. There was a sauna in my condo so everyday, three times a day, for most of the week before, I got into the sauna for 30 minutes. My though process was that a sauna created a synthetic fever and the bug inside of me couldn’t live in the high temperature. I have no idea if that is anywhere close to true, but by the weekend, I felt better and finished 12th, the 3rd American, after starting 125 guys back in the smoking section.

I built the sauna here. It is in the “Kansas Garage” at Dennis’. It was built pretty much from scratch. We bought the heater element and insulated door, but everything else we built. Dennis went over to the local lumberyard, Vortanz’s, and cherry picked the cedar decking. Not the clear boards you’re supposed to use for a sauna, but we ended up with hardly any knots. A knot in a board is supposed to heat up and the sap is supposed to come out, but the few knots in our sauna seem to not have that problem.