2018 In Review

2019-03-24 by Quinlan Pfifferyear-end-review

“Nothing is Ideal” - Zybin

Accomplishments

What an AWESOME year. All over the place, but I did a lot of things I’ve never done before, and felt a lot of things I’ve never felt before.

General

• Found somebody I really like
• Shaved my legs a couple times
• Quit my job

Racing/Bikes

• Tracklocross came and went
• Won the gold sprints right before bone machine, beating all the out of towners. It’s the only bike skill I’m really good at.
• Finally bought a mountain bike
• Visited my grandmother in NY and raced BMX in jeans. Way more fun than I thought it would be.
• Made it to Cat 2 in track
• PB’d my 200m sprint at 12.20. The track record is 11.06.
• Raced my bike all summer, in three different velodromes. Victoria, Seattle and PDX.
• Went to Mission Crit V (best race of my life). Very emotional.
• Re-attempted the Oregon Outback solo, failed it, had a WONDERFUL time.
• Rode out to the coast, overnighted, and came back
• Underground COBRA race was pretty rad, too. Did poorly but had too much fun.
• Mountain biked all over the place, but the triple was especially memorable. Syncline, Post Canyon and Sandy Ridge.

Adventure

• Completed a 10-Day silent meditation retreat in Yangon, Myanmar.
• Rode the train to Klamath Falls for no reason, then rode it back. Thanks Bryan.
• Tried escape rooms for the first time. We’ve done three, I think we’ve passed two.
• Travelled to New York for 18 hours to see Lightning Bolt, Show me the Body play.
• Had a great match against Jake (way bigger than me!), getting my boxing skills back up. Bonus, the stomp.
• Attended the Gambler 500 for the first time.
• Trekked to Everest Basecamp (as well as the three passes)
• Travelled the world. Made it to five different countries before our round-the-world trip was over (Pakistan, China, Dubai, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand). It continued into 2019, but thats for next year.
• Bungee jumped
• Bought a packraft, took a whitewater class and ran parts of three different rivers (Clackamas, Truckee, American)
• Went to EVO2018, even though I don’t play fighting games anymore. Kind of a whole hilarious misstep.

Climbing

• It was a good year for climbing. I climbed in Leavenworth, Lake Tahoe, Smith Rock (Bend, OR) and Thailand. We climbed a lot on the SE Asia tour, but most of it was in 2019.
• Led (Onsite, too) a 6B+ (In Vietnam) outside.
• Crack climbed for the first time

Strength/Fitness

• Deadlifted 405 pounds (!!!) on 2/28. Thanks Bryan.
• Did my longest endurance day in Lake Tahoe with Megan. We ran/walk/power-hiked 26 miles for 14 hours, with almost 10,000ft of gain. Nightmare, but awesome. Very hard.

Books

I read a lot of books on the trip, but some were in 2019. I’ve only included the titles from 2018 here. I think “Open” by Agassi was my favorite - it’s a fantastic book and a pageturner.

• American Kingpin - Nick Bilton
• A Wise Man’s Fear - Patrick Rothfuss
• Billion Dollar Whale - Tom Wright/Bradley Hope
• Black Hole - Bucky Sinister
• Chris Hoy: The Autobiography - Chris Hoy
• Comemadre - Roque Larraquy and Heather Cleary
• Children of Dune - Frank Herbert
• Dune - Frank Herbert
• Dune Messiah - Frank Herbert
• French Exit: A Novel - Patrick deWitt
• Get in the Van - Henry Rollins
• Good Old Neon - DFW
• Her Body and Other Parties - Carmen Maria Machado
• Idoru - William Gibson
• Intentional Dissonance - Iain S. Thomas
• North - Scott Jurek
• Open - Andre Agassi
• Post Office - Bukowski
• Shibumi - Trevanian
• The Obree Way - Graeme Obree
• The Sun also Rises - Hemmingway
• The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss
• What I talk about when I talk about running - Murakami
• Zero History - William Gibson

Side-Projects

N/A

Regrets

• It was a weird year for journalling. Some spots are filled in, some arent. I managed to journal almost every day on the SE Asia trip, though.
• NO RAGRETS

Goals from Last Year

Failed all of them! To be fair my write-up for 2017 was pretty half-assed. I didn’t really have many goals at all.

• FailedSquat 300+ Lbs.
• FailedBivvy at least once a month
• FailedGet the second MR2 up and running
• FailedJournal Every Day
• FailedRead a book a month
• FailedAttend a rally/rallycross event

Goals for 2019

A lot of these goals were kept in a list on my phone as we were on the SE Asia tour. It’s wonderful what being deprived of any kind of distraction will do to your ability to prepare for the future. Are you READY FOR THIS ONE?

I will attack my goals with certainty and discipline.
AVOID SELF-INDULGENT BEHAVIOR
DONT GET COMPLACENT
I will spend time each day toward accomplishing one or all of them.
Money spent on a goal is not moeny wasted.
Time spent learning is worth it.

• Finish the 50k trail run you’re already signed up for
• Survive the Oregon Emerald Outback
• Make a serious effort to de-humbug yourself. Like coding again.
• Do more escape rooms with M
• Do another bikepacking route in OR
• Coast and back dirt ride
• Dirt century
• Half-framebag for Motobecane
• groading.com trip reports
• Sell BMX Bike
• Sell extra MR2 stuff
• Do an OMTM ride (with the group, or just the GPX track)
• More 5AM dawnpatrol rides
• Do an S24O
• Simple bikerafting trip
• Grow red or green chillis
• Break 200M record
• Visit Bishop again
• Finish building DIY Packraft
• Throw a race
• Read a book at least once a month
• Redo personal website
• Eat more plant-based
• Sew more stuff
• Put money into Roth IRA
• Do the Quintuple MTB trip: Syncline, Post, Sandy Ridge, Powell Butte, Gateway Green
• Climb with more people
• Keep up climbing fitness
• Paddle with Zybin
• Cook more - Breakfasts, lunches, snacks, crockpot. Save money!

Injuries

Wanted to try this one this year. It’s easy to forget how messed up you get over the course of a year so I wanted to try and remember.

• IT Band Syndrome
• Cracked rib (boxing)
• Black eye (boxing)
• 2nd Degree burns on hand (from hot tea at the 10-day retreat)
• Tick bite
• Pulled hamstring (sprinting)
• Never-ending sinus infection (early in the year)
• Heating iron burn from inattention welding packraft
• Sprained thumb (boxing)

I guess I didn’t get hurt too badly this year. Lots of nagging little injuries though.

Random Stats

• Longest ride (non-stop): 100 miles during day 2 of the outback. GRAVEL!
• Longest ride (stop-to-stop): The Oregon Outback, 305 miles over four days.
• Fastest 200m Sprint: 12.2
• Weight: ~155lbs
• Books read: 19
• Commits: 237
• Longest Commit Streak: 5 days
• Heaviest deadlift: 405lbs
• Heaviest squat: 295
• Heaviest bench: 185