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crossfix

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  • Birthday 02/12/1978

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  1. Hello everyone. I'm Brandon, and I've been vegan for 15 years. I've also been an athlete for 18 years. I'm currently living in Portland, studying Environmental Design, Architecture, Art and Dance at PCC/PSU and apprenticing with a good friend as a tattoo artist. I'm getting more serious about bicycle racing, and climbing, and taking a break from coaching competitive snowboarding and skiing. I'm looking to meet more vegans around Portland who are into training and building a community of healthy, ambitious, driven, happy friends. I've joined Team Green and will hopefully be heading the new Portland Chapter, and am a volunteer for NWVeg and a member of the local Vegan meetups and clubs. I'm going to be hosting/organizing weekly vegan dinner parties and barbecues/picnics, so keep your eyes peeled for those. Feel free to look me up on facebook, twitter and tumblr for updates and info. http://www.facebook.com/brandonsequoia http://veganfiction.tumblr.com @veganfiction on Twitter Thanks for being here!
  2. http://www.nwveg.org/events.php Some cool events around Portland for NW Vegans to meet and share. Maybe see some of you out and about?
  3. where do you coach spin? I'm looking for a gym to join. Right now I'm just doing a bunch of commuting, some hill work, starting intervals this weekend, and my hip hop dance workouts 4 times a week. I also do some resistance work at home, but nothing very intense. I've been meaning to climb three or four nights a week, but it's taking some time to fall into my routine. Hopefully after this weekend, a rare birthday weekend that threw off my schedule, I'll get the routine back and be able to add some more strength training to my routine! Your log is amazingly thorough and impressively long! I hope to emulate it on my blog starting Saturday! Thanks for the hard work!
  4. I'm pretty sure I'm the guy you're talking to in Portland right now. I'm down as death. I even got the cash in hand for my kit. I'm going to mail out the money order tomorrow. I'll be in touch! (By the way, Scars of Tomorrow, and Embrace Today were missing from your list...) What's current? I've been out of the loop for a couple of years.
  5. I used to live in Bend, and had tried, unsuccessfully, to get Nature's and Devore's to carry Vega. I wish I could have done more. I live in Portland now, am a full-time student, and just got heavily involved in competitive cycling. (Track and Cyclocross) I've been into climbing and dancing semi-competitively for a long time, and Portland is a great town for all of this! Especially with all the amazing vegan options for food and clothing and lifestyle! (Food Fight, Held, Herbivore, Organic Athletes, Vegan Bodybuilding, etc.) I'm heading over to Food Fight right now to buy some Vega Chocolate Powder from Chad and Emiko personally! Robert, you still supplementing people's purchases? Let's meet up for lunch sometime, I'd like to pick your brain and get plugged in with the vegan fitness community here in Portland now that I'm a full-time, permanent Portlander again!
  6. I used to manage a gym and have been bouldering for years. Start out with some cheap climbing shoes from REI. Go with Mad Rock or Evolv, or whatever fits comfortably but snug and is a great deal. Wear them until your feet get strong, and then take them back and get a nicer pair that fits what you like to climb. You'll quickly learn that even with bouldering there are several different styles to choose from, and climbing shoes are designed to excel at specific styles of climbing. Get 5.10 Anasazi's if you like to climb straight up vertical faces with small holds and lots of friction moves. If you prefer dynamic moves on steeply overhung cave walls, get a shoe with lots of rubber around the heel for heel hooking, a good, sharp downturn in the arch, for pinpoint toe control, and a good amount of rubber over the toes for toe hooking and protection from the cave ceiling. If you climb a lot of everything, try Evolv or Mad Rock, as they make more all-around models. Avoid Scarpa, La Sportiva, Boreal, or anything that sounds Spanish or Italian if you are looking for a vegan shoe. The Southern Europeans love their leather. Once your feet get strong enough, you can start doing workouts in some of those 5 Fingers shown above. They are great for increasing arch strength, balance, toe strength and foot muscle coordination.
  7. That's super shitty. There are some really good bicycling attorneys out there who specialize in this kind of case. Might be too late in your case, but I think it's good to know that we cyclists have some great resources to protect us. I commute by bike 24/7/365 here in Portland, Oregon. And while it's constantly getting recognition as one of the top 5 bike-friendly cities in the Nation, there are still plenty of motorists and pedestrians here who are oblivious or just antagonistic toward cyclists. I have yet to be personally involved in a collision or incident, but I know that as a full-time bike commuter, it's just around the corner. I do everything I can to protect myself, including but not limited to wearing my helmet, lights, bright clothing, riding safely and consistently, and making eye contact and communicating whenever possible with other commuters/pedestrians. But all of these things only protect me from the foreseeable and avoidable. Chaos will come to play at some point. It's very reassuring for me to know that I have resources and steps I can take when something does happen to protect myself and my livelihood. Look into it if you ride your bike anywhere near traffic, ever. Make a list of what to do in the case of an accident or incident, and memorize it. Keep the info of a well-known bicycle attorney on you at all times. Keep the info for your local BTA and cycling groups handy as well. These resources prove invaluable when they are needed.
  8. Can I get into this for August? Do I need to be in your area? I'm in Portland, and I want to join the team! Got any bike jerseys that just say Vegan? I just got into track racing, and I'm training for cx season!! Also training for dance/parkour and climbing, which I do year-round.
  9. I also need some help with a training regiment. I'm a competitive cyclist, just getting into track racing, which is completely different than all other racing I've done in the past. My athletic background is in endurance running and cyclocross, and freestyle snowboarding. Track racing is much more intense, with efforts at 80 to 90% sustained for the majority of the races, with the only real variety being 110% sprints at periodic intervals. I've heard Tabatas are a great interval training for track racing, as well as hill climbs at a very high rate of pace. I've been doing a ton of endurance work, and have lost over 16 pounds of body fat, while gaining about 8 of those pounds back in muscle mass, mostly in my chest, arms and thighs. However, I'm going to start interval training and strength training along with my cardio and endurance workouts, and I am looking for advice on how to balance them out and what kind of workouts to do to keep the variety and still stay focused on my goals of increased speed and stamina. Right now my workouts on Monday and Wednesday consist of riding my track bike 12 miles over mixed terrain at about 15 to 18 mph to the track, then stretching and spinning 20 minute casual efforts on the track, followed by 10 minutes of rest and hydrating and stretching, followed by 20 more minutes of casual effort on the track. Then I ride the 12 miles home at about 18 to 22mph, followed by more stretching and hydrating. On Fridays, which are race days, I add three races to the middle of that workout, after the 20x10's, which are: 7 to 8 laps at about 85% effort with a final effort of 100% for the last lap or two. After this I do a couple of cool down laps and stretch and hydrate for 15 minutes before the next race, which is 15 laps at 85% with 100% sprints on lap 11, 6 and 1. Follow this with cool down laps, stretching and hydrating, and then there's a final 10 lap race with sprints every lap. Basically we go at whatever pace we can sustain for 10 laps without getting dropped, and try to put in a few solid 100% efforts when we feel we can. After the races I ride the 12 miles home at about 18mph. Then stretch and hydrate and eat a protein bomb usually consisting of almonds or cashews with hemp protein powder in almond milk and some chocolate or avocado. What I intend to add starting next week: Intervals, Tabatas or otherwise, on the track, and on some nearby hills. 4 hip hop dance workouts per week consisting of a stretching/resistance warmup followed by about an hour of dancing in short aerobic bursts of 3 to 5 minutes each. Yoga at home, along with core work (bicycles, some pilates stretches, hanging knee lifts and leg extensions, crunches, squats) and push ups and pull ups. I'm wondering how to structure this to allow for enough rest, and how to fuel these workouts adequately. I'm 5'10" 160 lbs. right now. And on rest days, I still ride my bike anywhere from 8 to 20 miles, because it's my sole method of transportation. Help?
  10. It's been over 4 years since this thread was active, and Parkour has gained monumental popularity in that time. Is anyone on here still practicing? I'm looking for a gym to train and practice in and a group of people to jam with. If there's anybody here still into it, get in touch! Thanks!
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