Off the Back Cycling

Back in the Saddle

2010-02-28T19:03:00.000-08:00

What a difference a day on the bike with teammates and does for my outlook. We had our annual Sequim Race clinic this weekend and I was not sure I should even go for several reasons.

1. I just haven't taken time away from my family in a over a year.

2. Em had a soccer game with her new Rx goggles and I was excited to see her play.

3. I wasn't sure I could even keep up with anyone and

4. I just felt very disconnected from the team since I have been MIA for, forever.

I decided to make the time for me and ask for a carpool. My friend Cov graciously offered; this was the motivation I needed to pack the night before, wake up early on a Saturday and get my old morning race routine a rejuvenated try. The previous weekend I intended on going to the team rides but couldn't pull myself out of bed until just a wee bit too late and missed both rides by about 15min each morning. I road solo to May Valley on Saturday and Solo around the North end Sunday. It was good for confidence that I had some kind of fitness but also 2 long rides and my back was fine. Fine! that was new and such a welcome change from three years of suffering every time I road my bike.

So Saturday I woke up early and got ready like it was a race. There was a comfort in the familiar routine and I was excited to be with friends again. I was pretty apprehensive of how the actually riding would go but just happy to be going.

Had a great drive over with friends and then we prepared to "race". Just being in a pack was nerve racking at first but I settled in and then just tried to hold on. Then it got easier and on the downhill corner I felt some of my confidence come back. I managed to hold on to the main pack for a lap + a little; not crash while running over a full water bottle and nearly missing a second! Sheesh!

I got caught by a chase group and didn't let go of a wheel that I know well and trust until the last conrner. We finished the second lap and I did a simulated sprint (the only on I have ever won) It wasn't a real race and doesn't really count but it did for me in the sense that I felt competitive again and that feeling that only comes with racing that I haven't had for years. I felt more like me again.

Saturday was the hardest single effort I have done in several years and I felt it afterward for sure the gut pain etc. But the best part is I still had no back pain, hallelujah!

Had lunch then hurried home. Reid and I went to dinner with our very good friends to Snappy Dragon. We had a blast, I have missed S & J so much over the last year. I felt like part of my world was returning to normal, happiness in the everyday things could be found agian.

Today, I spent the day pulling weeds and scraping gutters in the warmth and sunshine and I couldn't have been more content. Life does go on and days do return to pleasant and calm. Time does heal and racing my bike is going to happen again.

Today is a good day and I am looking forward to many tomorrows.

Reflection

2010-01-06T11:12:00.001-08:00

I have been reflecting on the past year a lot lately. The holidays always brings out more emotions probably because each year I pull out the ornaments and pictures from the past and it congers up all the associated memories. This year was especially hard. Everything seemed to bring back memories of our life as an intact family. The loss of our family as a whole weighs heavily on my heart and then the loss of Kevin being part of it even when we were apart is numbing. There have been many positive things happening in my life this year. Reid and I were married and we started our life as a family. This is a good thing and I can’t imagine how difficult this past year would have been without his support and love. My health is vastly improved, the struggles with my back and then the whole mess with the surgeries is a thing of the past. I actually am feeling strong and mostly pain free, but then again I am now in my forties so aches and pains are bound to be expected sometimes.
I have been going through all of the pictures and videos from when Meg was born up until present days. This has been fun to see my babies as infants and remember all the little moments, it has also been very hard to see images of Kevin, hear his voice and see the life we shared. Going through old letters and emails I found a series of the most difficult time in our life as a couple. Rereading them brought such sorrow to my heart. The things that get lost when you are hurting, communication is not always heard as intended and I look at what we wrote to each other now and realize we were both struggling to get the other to really hear that we still loved one another. Our own pain and frustration, insecurities and stubbornness seemed to blind us both. I am not sure that we could have ever reconciled our marriage there were some very deep wounds and some patterns of unhealthy interactions that may not have ever been resolved. Yet, I know in my heart that I never stopped loving Kevin I just could not let that love rise to the surface in the storm of conflict we found ourselves. I don’t think we ever put closure on our relationship; there was still a struggle for the truth around unresolved issues. Continued patterns of behavior that I felt compelled to help change. Parts of Kevin as a father I could not just turn away from and we struggled with this continually. The girls both wrote letters with the grief counselor as if they were written by their daddy, what they would have wanted him to say to help bring closure to the unresolved issues. Reading them made me so sad. I wish he could have told the girls these things himself and received the gift of love from admitting his own flaws. I can only hope that he would have been able to do this in life at some point. He simply was denied the opportunity. I wish I could have been at a point to forgive him for his shortcomings this is what stood in my way to healing for four years. I had already grieved the loss of our marriage and our home when he died, the grief I have felt for the loss of Kevin has been immense to compound that with the loss of our life in the same home as a family would have been so devastating that I am not sure that I would have the strength to cope with it all at once. I think of Kevin still daily, he is never far from my thoughts he never was.

idle hands...

2009-08-27T14:16:00.001-07:00

work is very slow today, I am caught up on all the pressing matters and no one seems to need to collect flow data. So, I did my other jobs; caught up on kid calendars, paid for soccer team backpacks sent out odds and ends emails pretty much anything I can do while in my lab I have done. So now what? I realize that I like to be busy I like to have several fires to stoke at any given time. I should just sit back and read a book for a while or something but I don't even have a book to read because I am usually way too busy for such things. I could go on Facebook and be"social" but that is always more fun when I am procrastinating on one task working on another and need a little distraction. Beside I already did that while I was sending out reminders for budget numbers today. I could read blogs... done, now I can write my own entry, almost done. Then what? Hmm I guess I should take a break and go to the gym that will give me something to do.

Something has to change

2009-08-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

Another cyclist is critically injured this morning. No details really, they don't know if it was a hit and run or she just crashed. Hoping she recovers I am so saddened by another accident like this.

I learned over the weekend that last month Jose Hernando was killed on LWB when he struck the side of a van that made a Left turn in front of him. My deepest condolences to his family and friends.

Monday the State Court of Appeals overruled a Seattle law that could criminally charge a driver for seriously injuring or killing someone while driving a motor vehicle. Basically, it is not a crime to be negligent while driving it is a traffic infraction that has an incidental death.

Accidents do happen I agree and not every time a cyclist or pedestrian is hit by a car it is the drivers fault. But when a driver is careless, inattentive or in too big of a hurry to drive safely and shows disregard for others safety outside of the vehicle, that should be by all means be a crime.

The woman that killed Kevin was so close to being prosecuted for a felony charge of Vehicular Homicide under the Disregard for Safety of Others (DSO) but the county prosecutor couldn't put it over that threshold because a u-turn is legal. It was done unsafely and she also crossed into the bike lane to do it but because they can't prove she KNEW she was being unsafe they won't prosecute her. The City did have the law that was just overruled, Assault by Vehicle, to fill in this gap between an infraction and a felony crime still making it criminal with restitution for killing someone. It has been overturned as unconstitutional because it is not a state law. A driver who kills someone even if they are fully negligent are not criminally liable unless the show intent to cause harm or are under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The punishment is a $175 fine for the infraction of Negligent Driving in the 2nd Degree. All the attorney's have told me this is best handled in the civil system, that is where we will find justice. I do not agree.

Accountability for the actions of drivers should be greater. It is each persons responsibility to ride and drive safely no doubt we all have that accountability but we live in a city that is pushing cycling as a standard of transportation. Law makers have a duty take care of all citizen and they are falling short. It looks good to be progressive by creating bike lanes and share lanes (don't get me started on that whole thing) but when it comes to actually making a person in a car have a duty and responsibility for their driving they are failing us. It is still viewed and a right to drive and a mistake while behind the wheel is unfortunate but incidental to that right to drive. It should be part of the state requirement to get a drivers licence that drivers are taught to pay attention to all forms of transportation and that it is a privilege to drive not a right. If a person seriously injures or kills someone and it is due to their driving, not the person that was hit, they should get more than a ticket. At minimum they should lose their licence, haven't they just given outstanding evidence that they are a danger while driving?

I think I need to go outside and just let out a good loud scream.

I still ride, I ride as safely as I can. I am defensive but that is all I can do I will not win if a driver if not paying attention. None of us will. Riding your bike or walking across a street should not be a life threatening risk but the State Court basically is saying that you do so at your own risk, the drivers have the rights to drive with reckless abandon, well they may get a ticket...

Please ride safe and smart and hug your loved ones often.

Time

2009-08-13T23:00:00.001-07:00

I am amazed at how much time has passed. Another season draws to an end and I am in a place that I never would have expected.

Time heals and has its way of helping to dull and dissipate pain and loss. It helps, if you let it, to clarify the good and melt away what was sad, painful and frightening. I reach for the times that are positive and the things that are here and now those that bring happiness. My children, my new husband, my friends these I draw strengths from to overcome the continued weight of things that should not be.

I try to breath in what brings good to me and breath out the anger and acidity that boils around me. I hold onto my truths, I love my girls, I love my family and I love my friends, they matter over all other things made of earth, steel or carbon. I hold onto hope that the days will continue to get brighter that I will continue to get stronger and eventually, my only care will be which passion I will follow each day.

preparing for my 1st team ride

2009-01-16T17:53:00.000-08:00

It is time to get back out there. I am mentally preparing for a training ride the way I used to prepare for a race. I am nervous, I am mentally going through checklists of what I need to have set out, what I should eat tonight, what tomorrow will be like, if I will get dropped and so on. What do I have to worry about? Nothing really I will be fine, I just feel like I am stepping back in when training is more than half over and I have less fitness than I can really remember. I feel slightly like an outsider too, no bike bonding time with my teammates in such a long time. Many I have never ridden with at all. Got to just get back out there.

I have been on the maiden voyage with my new rain bike Reid built for me. Nashbar aluminum frame, carbon fork and seat post, disc breaks, all black with silver accents it is good lookin' and the fit is perfect. My plan is to drive to the start, I never do that I always add my 6mile bike commute to the ride but tomorrow just making it to Seward with the team is going to be a challenge, then (hopefully) spinning back to Zoka's for our post team ride meet up. If I am lucky I will get back before they do after they head to Jones Rd and back. Ha! (that is a joke, I betta' be back before them or I might as well put on some tyvek, buy me a recumbent and call it good)

Maybe I will see you out there tomorrow, hope so I really miss all my biking buddies!

White Christmas

2008-12-20T09:48:00.001-08:00

Wow it has been a while. I am so far off the back cycling right now it seems pointless write anything. My rain bike is still not built up but with the current weather conditions it wouldn't really matter.

Yesterday the girls and I escaped Seattle with all the icy roads it took us 35 minute just to get the the freeway. Then we had slippery roads up the pass, cars spinning out, jackknifed trucks resulting in 30 mile detours and one very frightened driver (not me) going no faster than 25mph down all of Blewett. 7 1/2 hours later we made it. Glad to be in Mazama at the cabin with Reid and the girls and a very happy mountain dog.

Today we go out on snowmobiles to find a Christmas tree. It will be my very first time on one and I am the driver. Wish me luck!

Sunday

2008-11-09T21:36:00.000-08:00

was a great day. I woke up to a clean and almost ant free kitchen. Odorous house ants are very difficult to get rid of. They love sugars and yes, my house is still stocked with Halloween candy from my girls that is now safely in Ziploc bags and more importantly not in my gut. :)
I played with Miley who was in need of some rough housin' then got ready to go to Emily's last soccer game of the season. The game was great they tied 1-1 Emily scoring for the tie, that's my Emmy! Then it was off to the pizza party, only bitter sweet part is that this was my last year to coach since she will move up t a level that I am not skilled enough to handle and I couldn't coach due to all that happened, the sweet part was Megan empathizing with me and how I must feel even though I said nothing, that's my Megan. I love these two people so very much and know I am so very lucky to have them in my life.
After the pizza party I said my goodbyes and head to the IMA (on a Sunday! 1st time ever) to ride the life cycle and do my exercises, it was good and I appreciate every drop of sweat and every sore muscle. A month ago I could barely get off a couch.
Next it was home to feed Miley then head to dinner with my good friends Shan and Jason. I managed to leave my keys in the house and realized it just as I shut the front door oops! Miley was very curious why I was walking around the house with her inside, "hey, open the door good girl!" Alas, she is a dog no oposable thumbs and even when she sits when I say "sit" she doesn't really understand English. Luckily I have a supper secret key just in case, this is not the first time I have needed it either. And no it is not in a fake rock! Dinner was great, Thia yum yum and the company was even better, I love these two people they are such a good couple and both such true friends. I am a very lucky person indeed!
I came home to my lovely girl and my guardian Miley, she is always happy to see me and I to see her. We watched TV for a while, bear attacks and how to survive, then headed up to bed. She is now sleeping next to me after getting her night time belly rubs and I am on the computer
that has taken up residence where I used to have pillows. I will watch on more episode of "The Office" on Netflix watch instantly, hopefully I wont fall asleep this time halfway thorough and wake up in the middle of the night with my glasses and the lights still on, how embarrassing!
Monday I will go to work and PT then see my team, many for the first time and then the week will fly by and soon another Sunday will be upon me, I can only hope it will be a wonderful as this one.

Making this quick

2008-10-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

Things have accomplished today;
1.Giving up giving up coffee, it became became obvious that I can not survive with out the number one drug of choice (that has not been verified but likely is true) when I wanted to cry because I could not function at work and really Really REALLY wanted to just lay down and the lab floor and take a nap. Yuck!
2.Going to the gym and riding the life-cycle for 30 minutes. First excercise I have had since July!
3.Buying x-mas gifts at smartwool sale before Halloween! OK only two cute hats, but it counts.
4.Wrote a blog entry.
Whew! Done.

New Decade

2008-10-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

Well it is here, the eve of a new decade. Not that I mind, age is truly a relative thing, I don't feel as old as I thought 40 would feel. Even with all the turmoil I have had lately I am not resigned to being "over the hill". No black balloon's, no jars of Geritol, that is what I remember from when I was young. My aunt getting a big bottle of scotch and joking that she was sure it was going to be Geritol. I am not worried about anything like that. I saw this birthday looming on the horizon and was looking forward to it. I was looking forward to my future and all the good places my life was going. Somehow that has taken a turn, not so sure where it is going now but I will find out in time.

Today has been a hard one, very lonely. I have my sweet girl Miley who I took to the dog park today, a nice triumph in doing something normal but sadness to not be sharing her antics with anyone. The rest of the day was spent much in silence with lovely flowers from my mom set on my bookcase. The only sound I could hear was the clock ticking off the seconds shortening the time until I was officially one year older and pushed to into the next bracket the defines age. It is almost here, I have so much to look forward to and tomorrow will be spent with the two most beautiful girls in the world doing important stuff like going to soccer games. I bought a birthday cake today rich and chocolaty, Emily will like that. The day will simple and normal, that is good enough for me. Even if it is not how I had envisioned the day to be exactly, it is life with all of the unexpected things that come with it and I have survived them thus far. Spending the day with my girls is a wonderful gift everything beyond that will be icing on the cake. Did I mention it is chocolate?

Giving up?

2008-10-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

At what point to you decide to just give up? It depends I suppose, in a bike race at least for me there are several key moments that I find it prudent to give up.
Example 1. In a crit once you are getting lapped and our good friend Phil pulls you, then it is time to give up. But I don’t give up before that ‘cause you never know what can happen to slow stuff up and catch back on (although that has never happened to me once they have been totally out of sight). So, until pulled it becomes cornering practice and a $20+ workout.
Example 2. In a road race I would possibly say when the follow car passes you but, I have been passed by the follow car and DIDN’T give up passed the follow car and worked my but off to catch back on. Walla Walla for instance I did this a whopping 5 times. I know, I know why did I keep getting dropped? I will never know but it must have something to due with not tucking in and holding a darn wheel! So I have to choose a different moment, hmmm I only give up if my bike fails me or my body screams “uncle!”
Even when I see those flashing lights head over the horizon out of sight I don’t usually give up, I practice TTing. If you know me, you know that I hate to TT so that is saying something ;)
Example 3. When you are on a team training ride ( these are technically not races but some days you have to wonder) and there is that all important sprint point, you are on down to 3 gulps in the water bottle and one Cliff shot and you are riding with da' boys. Now that is time to give up and not spend the last match, Ballard is a long way from Mercer Island.

Now life is not a bike race, although I am sure there are plenty of analogies that can be drawn from this fabulous sport. :) I am wondering in life when do I give up?

Like with my illness, when should I have given up? Well never, that is part of what was so scary, I had to keep going even without knowing if it would ever end. Giving up would never have been an option for me, my body would have had to give up without my consent.

Basically I don’t give up easily I endure as much as I can. This is especially true with those that I love. I guess I am wondering with those that you hold closest when is it time give up? When your heart and your feelings keep getting bruised how many times before you say "uncle"? I try to be understanding, empathetic and forgive when I can. But when you keep getting knocked down at what point do you pick yourself back up, brush off all the dirt, turn and walk away not to look back? I don’t have that answer today. Once upon a time I did, there was a crystal clear moment when the pain out weighed the love. I am a Libra and it is my birthday month, so I get to use my astrological sign for this metaphor which is… a scale. Right now that scale is in a pivotal balance ready to tip to either side and I don’t know which way it will go. Nothing crystal clear but that day must be coming soon.

Rollercoaster’s

2008-10-04T22:22:00.000-07:00

As a kid I loved them they were exhilarating I never felt sick and could go on them over and over. Now as un adult I don’t feel quite the same way, whiplash, motion sickness, knocking heads with my companion in the car. They just don’t hold the same appeal. After the last 2 months I would have even more hesitance and even fear for my safety to get on one. Now bike racing is a risk too and could potentially cause injury similar to my fears of a rollercoaster. Does that mean I won’t bike race again? I eagerly look forward to getting back on the bike and racing again. Is there risk? Yes, am willing to accept that risk because of what I gain from the experience? I guess so, I love racing my bike.

I have been on several rollercoaster’s in the last 2 months metaphorically speaking, (duh!) that I don’t remember buying a ticket for. I find myself riding them wanting the out of control ups, downs and turns to stop. Rollercoaster #1- I will name it The Brain Sinker this one is my illness. I just wanted to get the heck off but I had to ride it out. I feel like that ride has slowed and is coming to a stop, not by my choice or my control, but rather by the intervention of medicine (a little late, but it does finally seems to have ended and I am on the path to recovery) The 2nd one is a bit more difficult to explain, I will name it… heck I can’t invent one to cover this drama. Parts of it I am ready to jump off, no desire to ride this out and I don’t feel like I hold much control in stopping it. Sometime it is better to let things go and simply move on. Other parts I am saying “bring it on!” I am ready for this even with all the past it will bring up and how it means I have to go back and revisit old wounds it is necessary and could salvage a relationship outside of my own. The rest of this ride is choosing my direction right now its up and down and all over. I feel that the path I was on before everything happened has now diverged into different directions and I need to decide which one I am on or choose a brand new one to follow.

There is a 3rd rollercoaster I need to mention that I don’t want off of. If you ever saw Parenthood with Steve Martin you will understand. This ride is filled with ups and downs, the unexpected, joys and pains but it is one heck of a ride. I have no intentions of stopping or jumping off this ride I will stay on it for as long as I can.

Miley

2008-09-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

It has been 10 days since went back in to have my second back surgery for them to go in find the leak and glue it shut. They never located the actual site of the leak but glued, tested and glues some more until the they could not see anymore fluid coming out. I think it worked, but everyday I wake up and still have head pain and am frightened of it returning to the previous level. I am resting and finding that even being up and moving around the house, sitting at a table or taking even a short walk is exhausting. Can’t even imagine riding my bike right now, exercise is not even part of the plan for awhile. What do I do with my day? Mostly I sit and rest and hangout with my sweet girl Miley. She has become my constant companion, she has kept watch over me staying by my side. She has come up on the bed or come gently over to sniff and kiss my face when I have been crying in pain from the surgery, my head and neck or just my heart. Miley has been protective of me with all the "strangers" that have come to help me since I got home last Wednesday. She will come and sit next to me and woof at some of the new people who have been stopping by, she keeps a close eye on me and stays nearby most of the time. She has been excellent on all the walks my friends have taken her on. She misses my girls since they have had to stay with their father this whole time and runs around the house full of joy when they visit. She has been on patrol in the yard trying to catch a mole, unfortunately that has resulted in numerous large holes but she is trying. Yesterday I decided to walk around the block I debated if I should bring her for fear of injuring myself, I brought her anyway and she was perfect. She walked slowly at my pace and kept checking in with me, she never pulled and came straight back to the door even though the walk was short. I have bonded so completely with her and am in awe of her sensitivity to me, my pain and my emotions as well as her loyalty and her devotion to this new job of keeping watch over me. She is sitting by the front door right now looking out the screen keeping an eye on the world outside. Sitting up when people, bikes and best of all dogs walk by. She could easily bust through the screen but she doesn't even paw at it, she just sits up or stands for the more interesting the passerby while periodically looking back over at me and checking in.
Miley has become a healer, a guardian and my most loved friend. At 1 year old to have done all of that is remarkable. I can’t wait until she gets back to her other job of the morning routine helping my wake my girls and get them off to school. It is lonely here right now, just me to look after no Megan or Emily, no Reid and no kitties (she had taken on the responsibility of herding them to the basement and just chasing for fun).
I am so fortunate in so many ways, while I have lost so much during this whole series of events I am blessed with love and friendship from so many that reached out to me, my Miley culminates this all in one 93lbs bundle of fur.

Emerging

2008-09-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

I have emerged on the other side of the most traumatic illness I could imagine. I was stripped of everything for a moment. What I will get back, being mom for sure. My health will return, I will get strong again although it will be a slow process. I have gained so much in this, more love and support that I could ever imagine was there for me. The friends and family that have come to lift me up through this while I was the most incapable of caring for myself physically and emotionally is amazing. I love them all and am eternally grateful.

What I lost in that 2 months was time that I don't get back, 1st days of school, events and moments that I would have shared with others. The most significant loss is the love of my life. I hide him from my blog most of the time because I don't like to air my feelings about him and about our relationship publicly it is how I guess I protected and respected that this isn't the place for me to express that personal relationship. Maybe I should have shown my appreciation and love for him here, maybe not. I lost him before I could get out of the nightmare I was in. I finally was relinquished from the pain and agony of the leak that pulled my brain away from my skull and made living, thinking, feeling anything normal impossible to find my heart now crushed and the promise of our future together gone. Over the months of my illness his frustrations with issues mounted and I was not able to respond to. There were issues, there are things that I said and did that hurt him we needed to be deal with them but I was incapable of doing any of it until today. How very sorry I am that I can't rewind to the beginning of August and see what I see now, take back actions or things I said during my illness that hurt him. I was not myself for those two months and I wish that he could understand that more fully than I think he does and realize that everything that I was doing was not how I really am. The chronic pain and the physiological toll that leak had on me made me into a different person. I kept saying "I don't feel like me anymore" I wish he had listened to that more completely. Even after what has happened and the awful way the events played out I love him and know that I can forgive in time if we are able to work on things. My hope is that he can understand me and what was happening to me. At the same time that he was feeling like everything was lost, the issues were too much and he had to get out I was trapped helpless to do anything to fix how he felt just as he was helpless to fix me. How tragic that an illness can steel away so much and even when it is over the loss is greater than what could have been imagined.

Waiting

2008-09-18T19:15:00.001-07:00

I am laying in my bed waiting for the UW hospital to call and tell me to drive over to have surgery tonight. Crazy, they said 8PM but it is now 9PM and I am at home waiting. Not sure if they will call at all and how fresh is a surgeon at 10 at night to be cutting me open and looking around?

I have been unable to sit up with out extreme head and neck pain since August 15th. I have had 1 surgery, 10 IV's, 4 MRI's and 2 CT scans, 3 ER trips, 2 hospital stays with surgery 2 and hospital stay 3 and more IV's pending, but really who's counting? (My insurance is I am sure)

Due to all of this I am unable to take care of my girls, this is killing me. I have missed the 1st day of school, soccer, and just daily life with them. With all the pain this is what makes me cry, not being mom. I so desperately want to get back to normal and want to do all the daily stuff. I want to be the caregiver not the one needing help for almost everything. I want my morning routine of getting the girls ready for school and the rush in the evening to get it all done before tomorrow. Sure I also want to ride a bike see my friends and simply live a normal day, but at the core it is being there for Megan and Emily that I want back the most. Clarity in life can come from having everything stripped to the bare elements and seeing what is left. If I have to loose everything one thing at a time what do I hold the closest and let go of last? My girls, not that I did not already know how much they mean to me I did, it's that I don't think I realized for myself how much happiness my being mom makes me. I love all the other things in my life too but I have not sobbed over not being able to ride my bike or drive or sit upright and eat or anything except that I can't be there for my girls. Don't get me wrong, I have lost it and cried over feeling like I will never be normal again but true loss and fear of loss has only been over being mom.

Tomorrow is a new day, and I am feeling like the surgery won't happen tonight but who knows, one more thing out of my control for now. Hopefully tomorrow I will have a buoyant brain.

ER not as seen on TV

2008-08-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

Saturday turned out to be a pretty sucky day all in all. I thought I was doing better even over at friends for dinner on Friday night but Saturday rolled in as an ugly ugly morning. In a fog that I couldn't quite explain then sick nothing to come up but it still was.
Called the neurosurgeon on call and he talked me it could be a virus had I been around any kids? Well no, unless you count 30 somethings and boy sense of humor... He said that he wasn't the best at evaluating these things and I should go to the ER. Really didn't want to so he gave me Zofran that I got from the local pharmacy and slept most of the day. Woke up toward evening and felt even worse pain nausea and couldn't keep even water down for a minute. I was falling down not able to walk but had to crawl to the bathroom, Time to go to the ER. Should have gone to Swedish just down the street but since I had surgery at the UW did the drive there instead. MISTAKE! They were apathetic couldn't speak English or put in an IV without spilling a ton of my blood (not what I needed to see at that moment) I was there for 6 hours with barely anyone even checking in on me the Docs were nice once they showed up but that wasn't until 1 or 2 am. I finally went out and told them I just want to go home. They then gave me meds and a narcotic that I though was going to send me into cardiac arrest, no joke my whole body seized up and hurt in my chest so bad the nurse said take deep breaths, cool they may be the last I ever get! Not to be too dramatic but I was very scared at that moment that things were going very wrong. Needless to say I survived, yesterday was a fog all day forced to finally eat and drink, Prune juice of all things now I really feel old. I am on the up swing. Yea.

Then I hear this morning that a teammate and a good friend had a nasty crash at the Kirkland crit. Hoping they are both doing OK today and recovering. Anyone know how Carol is doing let me know please. Tricia I hear is tough as ever and is said to be doing fine with a nasty bump to the head. :(

Please, no more ER for anyone this year!!!

Surgery

2008-08-06T15:44:00.000-07:00

Well it is done! I had my back surgery on Monday. My Doc said it was going to be fun, huh? For him it was a hoot, he found a rare condition in my nerves and a floating piece of vertebrae. My Nerves for S1-L5 and L5-L4 are fused and travel through the same foraimen, these two things were contributing greatly to pain. The pain in the middle of my back it gone, like magic, it has been a 1-1/2 years of continuous discomfort. I am very sore from the incision right now and get tired easily I am also still on some hefty pain pills but that is only for the bone he drilled away to make room for 2 nerves and the opening.

Here is the image of my spinal nerves, and the bone that has been "gnawed" away. My doc was excited to show me what he did and what he found. He was carrying this photo around with him to show colleagues. I asked him to sign my copy, if he would have had a sharpie I think he would have. I am the second person he has ever seen with the condition that is out of over 1,000 procedure's. Lucky deformed me! :)

What is next is 6 weeks of little activity then back to PT. Hopefully I will be on the bike again in about 2months. Can't push it or I will cause more problems. Here is for be so antsy to bike that once I start to I hope to make the most out of winter training. I am looking into a new rain bike too. Something lighter than my 15 year old steel Specialized. Any suggestions?

I finally started to update my flickr. More pic's to come, right now it is only a hike to Lake Anne and My Aspen Family Reunion. Check it out.

Hope to make it to the Kirkland crit to cheer on my team and assorted friends whom I hope to see out there.

Alrighty, I am pooped from sitting and typing this it is time for another nap!

Cheers!

Michele

Still alive

2008-07-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

Haven't been in the bloggin mood as of late. Too busy having fun in the sun mostly in Mazama since that seems to be where the sun is.

Been hiking quite a bit nothing too difficult but they have all been beautiful. I love the N Casacdes more and more and there is still so much to do and see. Tried mountain biking a few times. My new bike is sweet but I just don't have the stability right now and my back gets tired after about 1 hour. My sis and her husband came up from Durango and put the hurt on. They are so fricken fit. We had a blast hanging out. I get to see them again this Friday when I fly back to Aspen for our family reunion. Should be a good time seeing all the cousins back at the ranch. I still miss the Aspen ranch it was a kids paradise it is a very special place for all of us and it will be great to go back. Just wish I could bring my girls and Reid, way too expensive though. :(

I come back and start my count down to surgery. I made the decision to go this rout since nothing else seems to be making me better. The Doc is confident that I will get some relief but the recovery will be slow. 1 year is his estimation before I am back to really riding and hopefully racing. At this point just being abel to do anything without being in pain woudl be nice. I am pretty nervous, I don't know how bad the first part of recovery will be but he said 6 weeks before I can even start back to PT. Ugg, I hope it all goes OK.

Keeping up

2008-06-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

not so well, at least with blogging.

Summer if we can call it that yet has been busy. I have taken on a entire new lab that has me being tugged and pulled in different directions apearnetly there is not enough of me to go around, who'd thought? It is keeping me overly busy at work, managing my lab and starting one up from scratch. At some point they should start to pay me for all the extra time I am spending doing this but not yet.

The back is so so, I road into work Mon-Wed with one detour to Seward but by today it was clear that was enough. Bummer. I am slated to have surgery the begining of August. Please please please let that help!

The cabin ROCKS! We now have a hot tub. Therapy for the back, really. Looking forward to 9 days in Mazama to play, relax and spend time with my beautiful girls.

I miss all the racing although I had a great time supporting my team in Methow.

OK I have now kept up a bit more, not too exciting but there it is.

Cheers.

Tail Winds

2008-05-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Some days when I am on my bike it seems that all the stars are aligned. Yesterday was one of those days or so I thought. I hopped on my bike to head home after work and it was as if I was flying. My legs went around effortlessly, my lungs and heart seemed to be humming along in perfect sync. I floated by others as if they were hardly moving. It was blissful. I though "I am getting so much stronger, I can start racing now!" Then I turned North and headed ever so slightly uphill. I slowed and my legs began to burn a little and my back began to ache. I shifted down, a guy with very hairy legs, in his aero bars, loaded down with panniers passed me. Maybe I am not ready to race or maybe I can race if there are tail winds, only down hills and I have the perfect wheel to tuck behind. But, where then would the challenge come from? How would that make me stronger or better? It wouldn't. *sigh* It does hurt to get better, it takes getting beat to want to improve. At least for me, even if what is beating me are my own expectations.

As for yesterday, I will take it. That few moments of sweet harmonious riding and feeling good about what I was doing is enough to know where I want to be next time there is no tail wind and I am truly climbing. I will do it with confidence, strength and endurance, I'll get there just you wait.

Bike to Work Day!

2008-05-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

1st, what about Bike Home from Work Day?? I didn't have time to stop and get any goodies this morning I was late. I was however ecstatic that I was actually biking! Unfortuantely, my hiatus from the bike had other complications, like my locker in the HSB that I have had for 5+ years. Appearently since I haven't been in there as often I missed the note saying that on May 9th Building Management (BM) was doing "spring cleaning" meaning "remove your lock and belongings or we will cut off your lock and through out your sh*t!"
Alas, Wednesday I biked in and found my lock gone and all my shower supplies including towel, hairdryer, good shampoo, deoderant etc. gone! Called BM to see if they still had my stuff - No they trew it out, this coming from the UW who is all about reduce, reuse, recycle! So I re-purchased or brought in all new stuff and picked out a new locker since as it turns out most >50% of the lockers have had locks on and not been open since as long ago as 1996! Spring Cleaning may have been in order so others could stash their stuff too. As consolation I biked in today in just my kit, sun on my arms and legs that is worth something, never mind the entire bathroom worth of supplies on my back. :)

sudo R&R ~ AKA moving in

2008-05-05T14:42:00.000-07:00

We moved into our Mazama cabin this past weekend. I had hoped to go for a ride on Sunday but alas too much to do and little people anxious to explore the valley. It was beautiful and warm. The wild flowers are beginning to bloom. The views from the upper meadow just steps from our place are breathtaking. Riding will come soon enough. My back is still recovering. At least I can commute now and I am trying to swim regularly. Knowing all of the opportunities for recreation in the Methow valley is making eager to get back and to get strong again.

View from the main floor

Can't wait to have friends out to stay with us. It is even better when shared with others.

Thanks so much to the generosity of our friends Micheal and John for spending their weekend helping! Thanks to our new neighbors Tim and Kathy(still building their dream house) for saving our ass, not to mention a 30' U-haul and our electrical service from disaster! We are so fortunate to have this place to go to now. If it weren't for having to make money and my girls and our friends I think I could drive over that pass an simply stay. I guess a owe thanks for all the good stuff in Seattle that keeps us here so that when we do drive over Hwy 20 we appreciate going there that much more.

A very tired out puppy!

Working Dog

2008-04-24T13:58:00.001-07:00

At the end of October I introduced a new family member. She came to us as a 17.5lb black fur ball with the sweetest little tri-colored face. Her official name is Werlwind’s Picture Perfect. How do “they” come up with those names? She was part of the “p” litter thus her official name had to start w/ a “p” to designate what litter she is from. I picked it out, because after all I really did think she looked perfect. My girls picked out her calling name, Miley and yes the Disney super star did have an influence over the choice by my younger daughter (her only claim to being a girl at heart with her very tomboy exterior).

Now 5+ months later our little fur ball is 75lbs and still growing, has a gorgeous coat of shiny wavy fur, big brown eyes and what seems to be a constant smile, Smiley Miley. Since the first week we have been following a morning routine when the girls are with me. Miley wakes me up at 6:00-6:30am to go outside, then breakfast and then she waits for my older daughter to come up to go to school. We go out and she gets in the car, I used to pick her up and put her in back. While driving I could only see a small tuft of fur every once and a while moving about in the back. Now she jumps right in and takes up most of the rear window. She often rests her head along the side window and watches the world go by as we drive to school. She watches my daughter until she is out of sight around the building and then she settles in while we drive home. Once back home she goes in to wake up my younger daughter by leaping up onto the bed and laying ½ way across her, wagging her tail and giving a couple licks. We get ready and when it is time to go I open the closet and grab her leash. Over the last few months the routine has resulted in her new behavior, excited and wagging her tail she waits for me to affix the leash to her collar. I fold it over a few times and she gingerly takes it in her mouth and goes to the front door for our departure. Once out the door she waits until both my daughter and I are walking and she trots a few steps ahead looking back and waiting every few seconds. She holds her head up high and stop at every corner to sit and wait for us when I say “stop”. We used to get about a block this way then I would take her leash and we would do a normal dog walk. Now we are up to 6 blocks until we turn and hit a busy street. Miley trots in front doing what I now understand is her job. She is taking my girls to school this is now what she knows she should do. I honestly believe this to be true because on the way home when it is just the two of us she stops and sniffs, she chases after leaves or follows birds and squirrels as far as the leash will let her and she pulls me a little and looks to me for treats. I am amazed by her, at any other time we go for walks she really acts like any other dog on a leash. But every morning she is waiting to work and she leads the way. When the girls aren’t there I actually see a change in her smile, she is missing a very special part of her day, just like me.

HUGE sigh of relief!

2008-04-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

Doc's have decided that the nodule they found is not a threat at this time and that just watching it by ultrasound is fine. Whew, the though of more blood draws and fine needle biopsy from my 9 year old had me very worried. Even though I tried to say it is nothing everything will be fine, I really was fearing the worst. So glad they don't think it is an issue and can be monitored non invasively.

My Doc decided that after my complaint of leg weakness and failing the leg pressure test that the second spinal injection needs to happen, today. Yesterday she stuck ~25 needles in my back, hurt for a while but actually feels a little better today. This hopefully will get me back to were the doc says I need to be, square one, no bike riding, PT and stretching. Then slowly add swimming and biking. Is Saturday slowly? Prolly not...

Speaking of Saturday, Walla Walla! Good luck everyone who is going I am jealous to not be there. I will keep my fingers crossed that the report for very cool temps and precip are wrong, wrong, wrong!

VP Breakdown

2008-04-15T09:47:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, life has a way of putting everything in perspective very quickly. My daughters are the number one important thing in my life and when one of them gets sick its scary, when the docs don't know what's wrong you realize how quickly everything can change. After Tuesday night in the ER all night with my little one and calls later in the week with somethings they need to look at more closely I realized that nothing I do in life is more important then caring for my girls. Keeping my fingers crossed now as I wait for what the next steps I am hoping with everything that I am that it is really nothing and they are just doing their jobs to be sure of that.

It is a very good thing to have outlets and friends, especially when there is stuff on the horizon that scares you. This is why I LOVE the cycling community, it was so nice to be greeted by so many friendly faces. Regardless of how I did the day was perfect, sun sun everywhere and I finally got to shed the arm warmers and I got to spend the day involved in my favorite sport with my girls, friends and our puppy. What a glorious day.

VP:

I got there at 7:45 to set up a spot for our cat 4 team to warm up and get out on the course for the pre-ride that Gina is always kind enough to wake up and do with us. Not sure what happened with the warm up many gals didn't show til later and never saw them for the warm up but I tried. Watched the 4/5's race while warming up and then went around a few times before the line up. I went around one too many and ended up starting at the very back of what ended up being a field of 53 women!

Starting position was not ideal but I didn't really care since I figured I had very little chance of surviving the entire race. At the gun I was pretty much DFL around the water tower I could see the front of the race disappearing down the hill before I even made the left turn. Oh well, I spent my remaining time making up distance and finally got tethered onto the back of the main field but I just couldn't get the power to move up into the pack and get shelter. After a few times around with the field just in front of me my back and right leg told me I was finished. 15 of a 30 minute crit, oh well.

Thank you to Gina for yelling encouragement to me even as I fell off. Thank you to Amara and her always upbeat can do attitude with me, (one of these days I will actually do what she says she knows that I can :) I appreciate all of the people I could here cheering for me even though I was clearly not going to do anything spectacular. Thanks to Shannon for calling me the night before to just wish me luck knowing it was my first attempt at racing this year. To all of my friends THANK YOU!! It really does mean a lot and I hope I can return the same type of encouragement to all of you at some point.

There was a crash in the W123, Annette seemed to get the worst of it, hoping for a speedy recovery for her. Amara, I hope you are feeling better and no more dizziness!

As far as my team, they did awesome! This was the 1st crit for many of the W4's each one of them hung in and rocked that race. I hear they repeated the performance at BL Memorial the following day too. Yeah!

Wish I was well enough for Walla Walla, bummed to not be part of the whole team bonding thing right now but my time will come.

Still working on my back, still trying to keep life in perspective, with my little girl who is giving me a scare, I just keep hoping that it is nothing and she is going to be fine. She is my highest priority. It helps to have all the other encouragement to keep me positive and to keep hoping for the best case. Life just keep coming no matter what and you've got to roll with it.

Cheers!

expanding and shrinking

2008-04-07T16:04:00.000-07:00

What do you do when even with every good intention you still fall further and further away from where you want to be? This is my question today. I brought in a very healthy lunch of hummus veggies, salad w/ feta and pepperoncini's and the goal of eating in my office then getting to the gym to do core and stretching. Riding my bike? well no, too busy this morning getting kids and pets ready to get myself packed and ready to ride in. Did I get to the gym? well no, too busy helping people at my lab, and waiting for people to show up that are late or don't show at all. Time that I could have actually gotten to the gym now gone. When do I get to do something for me? I get to take sick leave tomorrow to get needles in my back, does that count?
So, what is expanding? My frustration along with my ass! What is shrinking? My ability to cope with current state of being and my fitness!

Volunteer Park is Saturday, I am seriously not in race shape but hell or high water... OK rain or shine, I am going to roll up to that little white line clip in and pedal. Humph!

See ya Saturday! BTW... not a chance that I will be in my skinsuit ;p

Swimmy

2008-04-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

I went swimming yesterday. How is that it is so much more complicated then getting all the bike gear on and out the door for a ride? Already misplaced (or lost if I don't find) my goggles. It felt good to get some form of exercise. I used to be a pretty good swimmer, 200IM was my thing. Yesterday was during open swim at Ballard which meant crosswise with kid bobbing back and forth across the lane. Still OK just LOTS of turning around hard to get in a rhythm. One thing about swimming if I do it for 30-40 minutes continually I am starving when I get out and yesterday I realized actually very thirsty. Still it seems to be so much more consuming of time to get ready and get in the pool than to put on all the lycra, helmet, shoes, gloves, goo, water bottles, ipod etc. Why is that?

I was going to swim at the IMA today but it seemed like too much work that early in the morning to remember everything... Uh, Swimsuit, goggles (if I could find them).

Hmmm.

Anyway it seems that swimming can be for everyone... if we only put forth the effort. ;p

:(

2008-03-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

Starting to feel very sad about not racing and it seems like I will never be out racing let alone riding at this point. Spinal injection on Wednesday, hurt like a mother then no pain at all for a couple hours now, a raging headache and the pain is back. Bummer. I was told that this could happen and to give it a few days to a week so not giving up just yet.

The weather is not all that inviting for racing right now anyways so I guess if there is anytime to be forced on the bench now is not too bad of a time. Still, I miss it and feel like I am getting so far out of shape that I will be at the back all season. Better than not being out at all right?

Still hopeful that I will recover and at least get out to the track this year.

On the brighter side, we made an offer on a cabin in Mazama and got it! WooHoo! Looking forward to winter and summer fun in one of the most beautiful places in Washington. Haven't told the girls yet, boy are they going to be excited.

Trying to weight the good with the bad, all in all it is mostly good. My health issue will get resolved my patients is wearing thin but I just need to stay as positive as I look toward all the good in my life to balance it out. Mazama is my spoon full of sugar right now. Not to mention I have the most beautiful girls and a very caring boyfriend.

Spain!

2008-03-20T09:55:00.000-07:00

I am so far behind on everything so this will be very quick.

I am back, it was amazing! I would love to go back to Mallorca and acctually get to ride my bike! Did a few short rides my back was seriously whacked from the plane travel and walking about 10miles a day for a week prior to getting to ride. Eventhough I couldn't climb or ride hard with everyone else just being on a bike in those surrounding was inspiring and I loved it.

Shannon and Jason's wedding was absolutely beautiful, fun, and inspiring with good friends and great familys!

Just a few photos then I need to catch up on two weeks of missed work. Blah!

This is at Montserrat outside of Barcellona way up on a mountain.

Sevilla was a beautiful old city with the second largest catherdral in Europe behind the Vatican. This is a street outside the Alakazar palace, truly amazing!

This is inside one of the Moorish architecture room of the palace.

Hotel Amadeus in Sevilla

Biking back to our Agrotourism Son Suriana in Mallorca. An old farmhouse turned B&B still growing fruit, olives, almonds and fig trees and sheep grazing on the hill side. What more could you ask for?

I have an empty flikr account that I plan on filling soon with lots more photos. I post the link once I get that done.

I hear that the racing here in the NW is going great. Sounds like a solid womens field. Yeah!!! I sure hope to be out there with y'all very soon. Got to get some injections and dry needling done to calm down my back and then I'll be out. Most likely living up to "Off the Back" but at least I'll be out there. ;p

Miss seeing all my teammates and fast lady friends.

Cheers!

Si Mallorca, No Mason!

2008-02-27T12:32:00.000-08:00

I don't know much if any spanish but really does it matter? I leave for Spain on Friday! Barcelona > South Lots of places > ride a camel > see some apes > Mallorca! Riding and Shan and Jason's wedding! I am very nervous to be gone so long but excited too. Should be a great time.

My back is so so, got the MRI results back and it is at least expected... Spondy, Disc bulge and tear. Next step? Don't know, pain management is my guess. I just need to take care and keep active. Not sure if I will be able to run again, never liked it much but it is funny how you miss something when you can't do it.

I now have a 62lb puppy that loves to dig and eat my favorite plants and electrical cords. Good thing she tugged it (cord) out of the wall before devouring it. Too bad I didn't see what she had done til I plugged it in! OUCH! I am still mourning the loss of the most beautiful clematis ever! hopefully I can salvage the roots and it will grow again. All is good though, I love "little" Miley anyway she is the sweetest goofy puppy and she is always smiling.

Well I need to head off to start the last minute rush to get ready to leave.

Sorry to miss Mason Lake, well not that sorry. Good luck all, have fun and rubber side down!!!!

See ya at...oh, Sequim???

All at once

2008-02-04T15:39:00.000-08:00

Wow, February is truning out to be a very full month, at least there is one extra day this year...

So much going on from all direction. Clothing for the team is in and I spent the weekend sorting and bagging it while waiting for people to come by and pick up. It is amazing how antsy I get if I "can't" leave my house because I have to be available for pick up. There was plenty for me to do there but all of the sudden I could think of a bunch of errands and stuff I 'could' be doing. Ah well, the grass is always greener or something like that. The kits look super cool my favorite part is the addition of the SRAM frogs. Frogs on my kit, cool! Dunno guess it is the zoologist in me that has been begging to have somekind of recognition since I do nothing related to that anymore (or I am just weird). :p

I am troop cookie manager now, talk about a pending nightmare! 1200 boxes of girl scout cookies are going to find their way to my house in a couple of weeks and I get to devide them all up and hope that the families come and get them ASAP otherwise I know one little Bernese Mnt Dog that will be far more tempted to get into the goods than over the weekend with lycra.
BTW if you are just dying for Girls Scout cookies before the cute littel girls harass you at the market, let me know I can hook you up.

Work craziness, writing a grant for a new sorter (not this minute, I needed a break) Got roped into speaking as an expert in my field not sure how it happend, they asked me for good topics they could have a seminar on. I gave them suggestions and they said that woudl be a great how about you do this part of the panel talk. What!! I couldn't say no after all I should try to challenge my self since I have been complaining that my job has been somewhat borring. That is next week.

Living situation is changing addition of a boy and his dog and two kitties (someday, they can't come over quite yet) how to make room?

Can't get to the snow, grr but at least I am riding my bike again. Hope to get back to Mazama mid Feb. but I don't know if that is in the cards right now.

Oh yeah, going to Spain on Feb 29th!! One week traveling around Barcelona, then south day trip to Maraco, then over to Mallorca for Shannon and Jason's wedding and cycling! WooHoo!

Better get back to writing my grant since it won't write itself.

Cheers!

Been set straight

2008-01-17T11:22:00.000-08:00

USACycling sanctions that Cat5 and 4 have field limits of 50. This means that there is a typo on the WW site. Sorry for the false excitement. There is a good list of women and I can't wait to race with them. Super cool we have 11 from my team signed up. Gonna be fun.

Walla Walla mania!!!!

2008-01-16T12:24:00.000-08:00

Registration has been open for what 2 - 3 days and the W4 field is almost full. This is partially because they limit the field to 50 riders and they added team limits as well. Good thing for the smaller teams some of the larger teams have done a great job of getting out in force for these races and they could fill 1/2 the field if there wasn't a limit. WAIT!!!! breaking news I just check the registation site and they have upped the w4's to 100. Wouldn't it be cool to see the w4 field out number the Mens P12? Last year it seemed like these guys were not out in as large of numbers. It is a bummer not have a large mens 12 field it make the crit supper fun to watch and for a bike race geek it is the ulimate in fun. (besides being out there yourself I suppose.)

Hope to be in tip topish shape by then. Is it really Easter Sunday too? Will there be any bunnies carry chocolate eggs?

2008-01-14T15:22:00.000-08:00

Quick update...

First, Happy 2008!

Went to Whistler for New Years I Skied for the first time in oh, a decade or more. 1st time on shaped skies and whoo hooo it didn't make the back any worse so that is a huge positive! Also I forgot how absolutly fun it can be to go down hill fast on sticks.

The girls snowboarded 3 days and were tearing it up, my little shreaders ;)

My back is still a serious bummer not better, sometimes worse (or just different place same deal). I did start riding again, Sunday on the BEST day in forever I road with the team and did 60 miles, I wanted to cry by the time we hit the I90 bridge on the way home but gutted it out and waited to get home to feel sorry for myself. Right now my mid back goes into spasms and clamps down on the ribs making it hurt to breath. No fun. It has got to get better though, right?

Miley is getting big, 45lbs she is such a sweet little puppy. She now can roam around the house and not get into trouble (most of the time) even if we are not home. Yeah!

Our team is already talking racing I can't quite imagine yet, there is even track talk! Sure hope I can get out there this year. Here's to hopping I fall back into one peice soon!

Cheers!

Snow Day!

2007-12-17T12:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was going to be a lazy day at home with some "quick" x-mas shopping thrown in at some point, but turns out Reid's friends bailed on him to go to the back country so he asked if we wanted to head up at about 10AM. Why not? I decided to get the troops moving and change the days plan to fun. Megan was still sleeping, I clearly remember being able to sleep until noon on weekends when I was young, now even if I don't have a thing to do I still can' t sleep past 9AM. Seriously though when was the last time I had nothing to do on a weekend?? Anyhoo, after promising Starbucks I got Megan out of bed and we packed up gear and the pup and headed out.

We played for a couple of hours,the girls were cutting some "extreme" new tracks in the snow, mostly on their buts ;p Reid did let them slide down on his split board and he pulled off a 180 (or so the story goes....) just kidding. Miley loved it, she is made for the snow. Reid brought Hershey his beagle who was hysterical good thing he likes cookies that was the only way to get him to come back from tunneling through the 16" + powdery white stuff.

We were never very far from the car, no sweeping views or solitude but it was fun.

One little moment of chaos... Emily is super bad, Megan has snow down her pants and Hershey is sure he can sneak a cookie out of my pocket. I no longer own snow boots (they are on Megan's feet) so I was in my hiking boots not really designed for walking in deep snow, me feet were freezing by the end of the day but I would do it again.

Back to Frustration

2007-12-03T11:09:00.000-08:00

This weather does nothing for me except add to frustration and complications.

On my regiment of core exercise 6/week. Started out fine, even road on Saturday but that was my mistake. I should have stayed warm, road a trainer maybe. The cold combined with a bad night sleep due to back pain should have kept me from getting out the door. If that wasn't enough Gina saying she wouldn't be riding outdoors should have. But, I really wanted to ride outside and fit in a real bike workout. By the time I was at Seward in knew I needed to turn around. Low level pain and the feeling that every pedal stroke was in my hardest gear let me know I shouldn't try to continue around the lake. Took it easy going home averaging about 16mph. Got home warmed up and went about doing my core workout. Should have all been fine. I woke up Sunday in a lot of pain radiating into my butt and leg, grrr! Now lets make this worse, headed out to REI I slip on my friggin slush covered steps and fall head first down them catching my self at the bottom with basically my thumb. Good thing I didn't go face down but I did manage to tweak my already unhappy back. I felt every stop in the car go through me and getting in and out of the car sucked. Nuff said, my back is a mess again.
Rested most of the day, beside a few unavoidable things like laundry, picking up dog poop, dishes, all of these activities I now have to moderate and think about before moving lifting etc. It makes each chore more arduous, simple things now have great impact on how I feel. To make things worse the backed up drain came back this time raw stinking sewage in the shower, Yuck. I am getting a bit grumpy and I am feeling like everything is going wrong, this is an attitude I very much like to avoid it leads to a downward spiral of health and happiness. Got to find something positive... OK, I found some old CD's of photos of my girls when they were babies. The three of us sat around the computer and laughed and reminisced about times together. How fast they have grown, how sweet the memories. :)

Birthday

2007-11-27T15:03:00.000-08:00

I just realized today is my dad's 67th birthday. The last time I saw him he was 45 years old. I don't know if I would even recognize him if I saw him. I have no idea how he is but I am pretty sure he is still living. Sad to think about it, sad that he has never seen any of his grandkids. I could say it is his loss, which it is, but really we all lose. Still don't know why he just cut all of his family off. Guess I never will, but it makes me appreciate the people I have in my life even more.

Tis the season

2007-11-26T15:44:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, tis the season for spending all my money, eating and drinking too much... oh wait, that has been my MO for a while so what's the difference now? Well, everyone else gets to join in! Oh what fun it is to...

I have already started the Holiday shopping, I will never get it done if I don't start now. I am trying to be conservative this year, the girls have PLENTY of stuff so this year it is going to be more practical gifts, I know a bit boring but our little miss Miley was not a cute puppy in a cardboard box that said "Free!" she is the gift that will keep on giving for years to come. Incidentally, she chewed up my very nice Sony earphones over the weekend, my fault, anything I don't want to become a chew toy I need to keep out of her reach, I got it. I avoid malls at all cost most of the year, now is not an exception but every year there is something I can't seem to get for someone anywhere but a department store or mall, ugh.

Thanksgiving was great, I had friends and family over, we had a great dinner and played guitar hero and pop singer ( not sure if that is the right name) until midnight. I am not into video games but this is actually really fun to play, especially the singing, I would not sing in front of my friends if it was not for the game, guaranteed they thank me for that now that they have heard what I am capable of.

I didn't manage to get any time to ride my bike all weekend or do any other form of exercise besides hiking around Discovery Park. Not only do I feel fat the scale confirms it for me. Worse yet, the lack of exercises sent my back into a downward spiral of pain. I went to my chiro today and it feels better, it is only temporary and will just go back to hurting if I don't strengthen everything around it. I get a deep tissue message tomorrow. 1st one ever, not sure what to expect.

OK I am doing it... I am making a Thanksgiving resolution, (can't wait for New Year to do this) Keep up on the Daily core exercises, ride my bike to work, eat less, no more beer (it is wine season anyway). I want to lose 4 lbs by Christmas, this is a reasonable goal, at this time of year just not gaining is a good goal so I will be very happy if I can dip the scale back even a bit in the month of December.

Broken, stopped up, can't find, not mine

2007-11-21T12:04:00.000-08:00

This is my day so far.

I have a broken instrument that is heavily overbooked and now needs to be fixed while people are breathing down my neck. Wouldn't be too big of a deal but this whole week has been hectic and my one employee was "sick" yesterday and is on vacation today. Even my 8 year old said he didn't look sick, why is he leaving. Trying to get everything set up and working while constantly being interrupted today is not helping. All fixed, whew! now I can blog ;) kidding... well sorta.

Got a call from home (my youngest doesn't have school all week and has been coming to work with me but today would have been too much for both of us) the shower and toilet in the basement were backing up with bath water from upstairs. Not sure how this is possible exactly but the drains do eventually meet up. Could be worse, could be raw sewage backing up right before I host T-day.

Drove to work, should have biked. Couldn't find my card to park in the garage, made me late with people waiting for me when I got in. I hate being late! Worse yet I found my card at the bottom of my bike bag!

Shopping cart hell, that damn cart won't go away. I called Safeway and they never came and got it so last night we walked it back to the church parking lot, this is also a soup kitchen and I am thinking that one of my neighbors didn't walk home from Safeway with a cart and someone who comes for soup brought it to the street and left it. When I went to work this morning it was still there but I got a call telling me it was back in front of my house! I should be able to laugh at how crazy it is that I have a shopping cart problem but it actually is not that funny some one took the time to walk it back up specifically to my house and put it in my driveway. It actually creeps me out a bit that someone is that aware of my house who I am sure doesn't live here and would take the time to replace the cart once it was moved. I hope they are not staking out my house for more fun filled pranks. I called Safeway again and said it has to be picked up today. We will see.

Tomorrow is Turkey Day and I have lots to do. Here is hoping that all my bad juju has been used up for awhile.

Happy Thanksgiving! Eat, drink, and ride! (not in that order necessarily) :P

Randomness

2007-11-14T11:06:00.000-08:00

Feeling fatter, got my body fat analyzed and was told I could stand to loose some, 19.6% yes I suppose I could.

Halloween candy, brought it into work in the hopes that all the people there... um here (opps, am I supposed to be working right now?) would eat and save me from binging on excessive empty calories and carbs. I have beer for that! :) No dice it sat outside my office in the computer lab calling to me every time I got up to help someone. I guess the alternative was to have it sit on the counter at home all 5 lbs from Costco and eat it all by myself over a greater time continuum. It is gone now except for a couple tootsie rolls, a couple of those couldn't hurt me...
20.1%???

Have to start Pilate's, this is going to be a home program. I am using up all of time away from the house now with little Miley I am on a shorter leash. Hmmm is that the way it should go?

Puppy kindergarten, she is doing great, I am fumbling with holding her lead, treats in both hand and a clicker while making kissy noises and trying to get her to come even amidst distracting fun puppy's. I think we have the potty training in full forward momentum which is a relief.

Shopping carts. What does a person do when a Safeway shopping cart parallel parks in front of her house? Options:
1. (the not an option) My neighbors have undoubtedly seen it there so rolling to another house is out.
2. Wait several days for someone going to the Church to shower and get soup to claim it as their own. Its been 5days, hasn't happened.
3. Return it to Safeway. The closest Safeway is 36 blocks away I am not too keen on pushing that damn thing back up there.
4. Joy ride. I am on a hill slight hill I could jump in and go for a Jack Ass type whirl.
5. Craigslist or the like. Put a sign on it that say "Free" (it is amazing what people will take with them off the curb if it is free).
6. Call the Safeway manager and ask them to come get their property. I may do this it has got to be good for a little entertainment if nothing else.

Magic Bullets

2007-11-08T19:51:00.000-08:00

Just as there are no free lunches there seem to be no magic bullets either at least for me.

Potty training a puppy, consistency, perseverance and sleepless nights. Miley is doing better but she caught a bug and I have spent the last two nights up every 1-2 hours with a puppy rushing to go out and relieve herself in the worst way. At least it has been outside, well mostly. Got to love Natures Miracle for stain and odor removal. So no magic bullet for puppy training, it is work but in the end it is worth it.

Other magic bullets I was so kindly made aware that do not exist are for my back. Injections won't do much is seems and I am not fusing my vertebrae. This leaves me with work. Work to further strengthen my core and work on patients for the natural healing process to continue as I relieve irritation by stabilizing my spine. It is up to me to get better that was the message today. I did get the OK for deep tissue massage and will pick up with my PT again. I will be happy to get stronger and ultimately it should make me a better bike racer (I can hope ;) )

Outside in November!

2007-11-05T12:49:00.000-08:00

Got to love the sunshine! What a treat for November. Today I road in and get to ride home at lunch to let out little miss Miley, then ride back to work then home again at 5PM. If it was raining I might not be so anxious to commute twice in the same day. But for my new little gal it is worth the extra trip home.

Spent yesterday doing some yard clean up and mulching, it is amazing how mulch makes the garden look better. Miley spent the afternoon outside helping mostly like a union worker, sitting back and "overseeing" what I was doing.

We started puppy-kindergarten, she did great. She already can sit, sit stay, and come. All for treats of coarse!

Between commuting and spin class I am getting in more hours riding this fall than last. That is a good sign. My back is not improving but I don't expect that it will until there is some kind of intervention medically. I go to the spine doc on Thursday, keeping my fingers crossed that he will have a plan to make it better or more manageable. Sleeping is interrupted every night because of pain. Maybe the Temporpedic bed is in order, although I can't afford one now with vet bills and dog food. Oh well, I wouldn't trade my Miley.

News and newspaper

2007-10-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

Not so good news, but at least I now know why my back is messed up.

I had x-rays of my spine last week and was diagnosed with Spondylolysis. As a result I have grade 1 spondylolisthesis. I probably have had this since I was a kid or at a minimum, from a previous car accident in my 20's. But in recent years I have had no pain (until the day I was hit by the guy who dropped his cell phone). Ugh, apparently that little fender bender was enough to re fractured or stress the weak point in the vertebrae and is the reason my back hurts so much. I am going to a Spinal Rehab and Sports Medicine Doc at Harborview in a few weeks. Hopefully he will be able to give me some relief and I will be racing in the spring.

Now for much better news... puppy delivery day is next Sunday. Woo Hoo! We are getting a little girl, her name will be Miley. If you have kids you may know who Miley Cyrus is, oh yeah, Hanna Montana. I am not a fanatic Disney star addict pu-leese, but my girls liked the name and I can't argue it is a cute name, and who wouldn't be honored to have a Bernese Mountain Dog with their name??

One of these little darlings is going to be ours. Aw how cute!

Time for lots of news papers and keeping the house picked up of bike gloves, shoes arm warmers etc. Fun to chew expensive to replace.

If you have a stock pile of newspaper let me know I will take it off your hands. Unfortunately since I get most of my news in blog form or some other electronic fashion, I have no papers of my own. *sigh* You could even get the chance to meet little Miley (she needs to meet all kinds of people for her socialization).

Cheers!

Chiro "magic"

2007-09-28T15:14:00.000-07:00

Things are a crackin'! This guy is pretty cool. He is the resident Doc/ paramedic for the Rat City Roller girls so he's GOT to get points for that. Roller Derby has a special place in my heart as one of the Lil' Derby 100 at Marymoore last year. Or Something like that....

Photo evidence, hopefully I will not get reamed by the other ladies in the picture, but if you know these gals you'll know they are not shy ;)

Anyhow, the chiro seems to be making some progress, things all over my back are moving. Guess that is what they are supposed to do. I am sore from all the manipulations 3X with him and 1X at PT has left me tender, but I can already feel more flexibility in my back and the deep pain while sleeping has lessened. Good good good! I will see how I feel after the team ride tomorrow. Here's hoping for more goodness!

new approach

2007-09-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

We had the Meet the Team Ride yesterday. All went well, the weather was favorable and the newbies were pretty cool. Definitely some good additions to the women's team is possible. This is the second team ride I have been on since that spring. The good news is that the effort was easy the bad new is that by the time we reached Coulomb Park my back was not feeling good. I consciously worked on keeping my abs engaged and not hinging on the part of my back that is still injured. It helped but today I feel like I was body slammed. Not encouraging for winter riding when it is cold and I am on my tank of a rain bike.

Tomorrow I go to a new Doc. This is a Chiro, never been to one, in fact I have actively avoided them. My PT says this guy is different, he primarily sees athletes and doesn't sign you up for lifetime "adjustments", 2 or 3 times is all he will see me. If that doesn't help then I am off to either a spinal doc or another doc for injections in the scar tissue.

I just want to get this behind me. I have been diligent about going to the gym and working on core strength, I have been commuting and keeping my fitness from slipping any further. I am motivated to get strong and to be ready to really race next season but I can't do it if I wake up after a MTTR in pain like today. Yesterday's ride is far from what the winter has in store for training.

In other news, the IMA at the UW finally got spin bikes! I am sure I am not the only one that kept asking for them for the last couple of years. I start spin classes in Oct twice a week during my lunch hour. Only $50 for the entire series, coolness. Tried to get into the Cycle U classes but I can't swing the cash or times. Hopefully I will get to do some of the indoor TT's there, they are a great reality check for fitness.

For now I am keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow is a step towards recovery.

The roof, the roof...

2007-09-19T15:25:00.000-07:00

I just can't help myself I guess. I have already found a new house project. This one is less intense but does give me the opportunity to once again use my newly found skill set.

It all started with replacing the roof on my garage. This was a much needed project that I paid to have done, the roof was very old if not original 1925, not sure> It leaked like crazy and made the garage less than usable once the rain would start. Plan now is to use it as my trainer room.

While the roof was off I took the opportunity to replace a switch in the garage attic that hadn't been working right. I turned of the garage panel like a good little electrician an began the quick replacement. Once I got into the metal box I knew that it was a good thing I was taking care of this, the side of the switch was melted and there were burn marks in the box. ( All I could hear in my head was the roof! the roof! the roof is on FIRE!) Does that date me?? Anyhoo... I started to disconnect the switch the hot side disintegrated and broke off as soon as I lifted it out. The guy (THC Dude as I *affectionately* call him) who wired it used electrical tape and no wing nuts putting all of the neutral and grounds together, bad idea... really. The black hot wire was stripped way too much and had made contact with the ground and neutral through the tape and over time had burned through. This is one of the leading causes of house fires!! (again, the roof!the roof! the roof is on FIRE!) I reached in to strip off the corroded hot wire and got zapped! "No way!" I thought "the power is totally off to the garage!" Guess not if I am getting shocked, turns out somewhere this THC Dude buried wires from the house to the garage. No idea where they are but my guess is that they are just under the grass somewhere, great fun...

Now I am trapped by my own inability to let a project sit and wait, I need to fix this wiring. OCD? no not quite, I just don't like fix it things looming over me I like to complete them so I can do something else. Like clean up the entire garage and turn it into a super cool winter workout and training room.

The new roof is great, only problem is the guys didn't have time to put the gutters back on this will create a new flooding problem in the garage. Mr. Roofer Boss Guy (RBG) called to schedule the gutter install and while I had him on the phone I wanted to let him know about a little "present" that his guys left behind. After they left I found an almost full beer bottle on my garage floor, now it was a nice micro brew bottle same kind that I had recently purchased. I didn't drink one in my garage, and I don't leave them 1/2 full. Hmmm, what could this be? my first though was correct, pee in my bottle that was left in the recycling. Nice, real nice, I love disposing of others bodily fluids. I was very nice when I told Mr. RBG about what happened, the guys were polite and cleaned up everything else but it wasn't cool and was kinda gross (ya think?) to have to get rid of their pee. Mr. RBG was apologetic (he said he felt like a poopy diaper) and would get to the bottom of it. I suppose no pun was intended and I don't know where the bottom really is, I am still waiting to hear back. Sure would like to get the gutters that are sitting in my yard actually attached to my garage...

Bike Police

2007-08-31T10:18:00.000-07:00

Biking in this morning I was already on alert for the bike police around the UW since I had heard that they were hiding near the two new blinking stops signs on the Burke. When I reached the sign for the crossing at Brooklyn (which was not blinking today) I did the closest thing to a track stand that I can manage and waited for a car to pass. The nice lady on her cruiser style commuter bike did not stop and rolled through. Low and behold there they were on their mountain bikes on the other side in the grass. They pulled the lady over to reprimand her. I didn't stay for what they had to say or if they gave her a ticket, but I felt very bad for this person who is simply trying to do her part and not clog our streets with traffic.

There is the importance of safety and education for people on their bikes but I believe that if you post the stop signs most of these people on their bikes also drive and can read and will most likely understand the concept of a stop sign. If they then choose to ignore it and roll through they either are taking a risk that they have chosen or have enough common sense to know when stopping (i.e. when the several 1000lbs object is not going to stop and they will get squished) or when rolling through is safe (i.e. lack of vehicles on the road or these vehicles yielding.) Really if they make a bad choice unfortunately they will get hurt in most cases but the innocent driver just minding there own business while talking on the cell phone (or texting or checking the traffic alerts on their smart phones) will be unscathed. OK they could have some scratches on their car, but that is about it.

I am all for following the laws and rules but I also believe that people need to take responsibility for themselves and their choices and we don't need this extra policing by a third party. If the lady flew through without looking making a car screech to a halt and then she almost ran over a baby, then by all means pull her over and give her hell, but that is not what they are doing. It is like the Mercer Island issue and drivers in general that think that stopping is putting a foot down no matter what the circumstance. I see cars and motorcycles roll through stop signs all the time, we all do. The fact is that so many people do that they would need to keep a cop at every stop sign to enforce "the rules". Not practical and the majority of the time people are safe, we by nature don't want to get hit by someone or hit anyone.

These cops would be much better utilized if they would stop the runner with the headphones on that flips a Uey on the trail with out looking or the group of walkers that spread out over the trail blocking traffic in both direction. Educate not ticket, remind anyone who is not sharing the trail that it is a shared commuting thoroughfare (yes, this would include cyclist). That would require these bike cops to actually ride up and down the trail encountering all the users and vehicles the real trail users have to contend with daily. Maybe then they would be more aware of what should be addressed as unsafe and what is reasonable for a person on a bike to do safely. Hiding in the bushes waiting to catch those rouge cyclists who don't follow the rules is not the best incentive for getting the average joe to bike to work or making it any safer for the rest of the tail users.

Dumb Monday!

2007-08-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

I had a great weekend, went for a long (relatively speaking) slow ride on Saturday and then went with Reid to Mt Rainier on Sunday. We hiked to Pebble Creek, the flowers were amazing, I love the mountains and have spent far too little time in them recently.

Even though the mountain was obscured by clouds, it was beautiful. In the morning I was feeling guilty for not doing Seward but after hiking up this mountain in the fresh air I realized my day was very well spent and Seward will be there next year.

I have missed seeing my friends and racing but I have been healing and have fun doing different things. I am actually looking forward to training. I say that now but as soon a s the roads are sheets of ice I may have second thoughts. :)

While hiking we ran into a couple of guys from Russia, they had spotted a marmot and were super excited. We told them what they were, the younger guy kept calling them mormots, (insert Russian accent). He was surprised when I told him there were black bears around as well. They were trying to feed the marmot and I told the guy that the marmot's work with the bears louring people into feeding them then the bears come out and eat the people. His eyes got huge and he said "really?!" I laughed and told him I was just kidding and he started laughing. I couldn't hlep myself.

Cute marmot eating alpine lupin.

Now for Dumb Monday.
I am dumb for packing my bag this morning and forgetting my shoes. Yes, I am walking all over my lab in cleats. Clopping around and slipping trying to help people set up their experiments and all. Funny things is it took a couple of hours before anyone asked me if I had forgotten my shoes. It is also dumb that the weekend weather was more like October than August and now Monday greats us with sun while we all have to go to work. I want more weekend(w/ sun), not Monday.

I have Wednesday off with my girls looks to be sunny, time to swim in the lake! School starts in a week. Started coaching soccer, fall is already here. Fingers crossed for an indian summer. Please, please, pretty please!!

What's new...

2007-08-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

Apparently I should update my blog. :]

New? My basement is 98% done!! Yes the annoying 2% are things like painting molding, installing bi fold doors for the laundry closet and small "weekend" projects. They still loom but nothing I can't live with. I did a thorough cleaning of the entire house last weekend, my life is sooo exciting. Actually is was great to get all the dust and neglected little things cleaned after a year of working on such an all consuming project.

I spent 10 days in Durango Co at the end of July, it was great to see my entire family and spend quality time with my girls. We hiked, went swimming, did the alpine slide at Purgatory, had a great day at Mesa Verde and just relaxed. I also got to ride with my sisters on some of the most beautiful roads around. It was great to be on my bike. My back did pretty well and I feel like it was what I needed to start my come back to racing.

Speaking of racing... Volunteer Park was my first race since Methow, it went as well as I could hope for. Good to know my fitness isn't completely gone and I do have some power back now that my injuries have had time to heal. I really need to focus on patients when I race, this was evident at the crit. Last lap I went way too early and blew up on the final hill. I knew that I had made a dumb move but other than that I loved racing again. It was nice to see friendly faces I miss my teammates though.

OK some photos of the back breaking project.

Here is the framing. This is the 1st time I have ever framed anything, needless to say later on I learned how important square, level and plumb really are. I had already completed all the demo and removed literally a ton of material. Notice the windows, it is amazing what a tigersaw can do.

Drywall installation, not plumb, not square and not standard 8ft walls=lots of measuring & cutting

Floor leveling and beadboard install. Hopefully all the foundation sealing will keep out the winter water.

The finished bedroom!! I love the floors.

Tile install with radiant flooring, very nice to walk on.

Glass shower surround & finished bathroom.

TV room and laundry. I can't believe the difference it has made to have flooring! The cement floor was very cold and dirty. I feel like my house is twice as big now.

Now I get to focus on training and enjoying my house and yard... Coming soon will be the garage renovation. It will make a great winter training room :) Never a dull moment!

Why won't you heal?!

2007-06-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

I am partially to blame for my back not healing, I work on my basement and garden. I am allowed to ride and have been, but racing has not been working out. I am trying to strike a balance with all of my commitments and interests. Finishing the basement is key to getting my life back in order. It is getting closer. The bathroom is functional the shower surround should be fulling installed this week then it is just trim work which I like. The bedroom is painted and foundation sealed (keeping my fingers crossed) I need to level the floor and install the hardwoods and trim. The rest is office and hallway mud and paint then flooring in the remainder of the basement. It all depends on how much I can do each evening , many I can't do any. Others I want to ride or head out to the track. I think I will do ok at the track, with my back shorter distances don't cause as much fatigue but then again I won't know how my back is until I try it. Hoping for the best.

My yard is looking amazing! I spent most of Sunday edging and cleaning things up a bit. All of the seeds I planted last year have taken hold and are growing well this season. The yard was bare and ugly when I moved in now it has color everywhere and feels like it is becoming mine. I have tons of different flowers and every time I go to the nursery I manage to find more that I want to add. Keeping little mental notes of what they are and where they could go. Looking forward to my next big project once the basement is done. I want a patio surrounded by flowers and plants. Then it's the vegetable garden... should take some time to chill out and let my back rest though.

Wenatchee

2007-05-15T15:26:00.000-07:00

Not too much to say about my racing. My head was not in this race from before I left. My unfinished house and it being Mother's day on Sunday was at the forefront. I wanted to go because I wanted to be supportive of my teammates and not bail when I had committed to going.

Quick rundown:
The TT I gave it my best effort but simply didn't push hard enough on the way out. Turned around and the wind stopped me, same as everyone else. Still need to practice those darn things.

The crit was my best opportunity and I just didn't make it happen. From not getting clipped in bad position for the 1st few corners and then trying to chase back on without enlisting help (I do know better but I wasn't thinking.) Then the asthma + redlining I pulled myself out disappointed with all of the mistakes I seemed to have made all at once. Then I watched as the remaining field raced and realized how dang hard they were going. Kudos to everyone who hung on to the finish!

The RR I had no plan except if it was raining I wasn't going to ride at all. I never treated it as a race for me it was training. But I was not going to do that decent in wind and rain. The weather halfway cooperated. I did the race my hip in pain the whole climb, I could barely pedal if a sat so I spent much of the time standing and climbing. I caught up to a few of my Group Health friends and was so glad to have company. The decent was windy and I was timid. I sure liked the tailwind on the way home though.

What I came away from this weekend can be summed up in one word, friendliness. All my interactions were with super cool and friendly people. Really I can't think of a better way to feel at the end of a race. I received support from so many people and had fun in spite of my personal racing performance. I was able to celebrate the success of many friends who accomplished great things like overcoming mistakes, getting back out there after injury to getting back up with a smile after going down and even winning. Thanks for a great weekend Wenatchee, see you next year.

Vance Creek

2007-04-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

My first hilly RR of the year. Not so bad, actually better than last year were at lap 2 I blew up on the hill and got dropped. This year my goal was to not be the instigator of attacks I was to sit in ride smart and be patient. From the start I knew that two ladies would be taking off and I was pretty confident that know one would be able to catch them. The second time up the hill they simply road away from the pack. A second group of about 5 were chasing with one of my teammates in the group, the two up the road were both my teammate's so for me there was nothing for me to do but sit in. The group of five got reeled in on the flat section. Apparently the other teams failed to notice that we had no lead car thus the race was still up the road. I rider from another team came up to me and said we got them all back. I told her actually no, there is a break up the road, she was confused no she said we caught them. I told her "no I have two teammates that are long gone". She then said "hey we've got a break still up the road lets chase them down!" Good luck they are sooo gone. We stayed together and made our way up the hill the final time. I felt pretty good my back hurt some and I had to spin more than I am used to, not as much power especially when I would stand. Another one from my team pulled away from the group on the corner for the pack finish 1 2 and 3 for the day. Several more in the top 10. I didn't even see were I placed, for this race it simply didn't matter I finished with the pack I climbed better than last year and I road well just not aggressive. The race was good for learning and getting back to racing/climbing for me but it wasn't as much fun as playing with team tactics. There was no organization beyond the two that took off from the pack for our team. Mostly we all seemed to just be surviving and doing a fast ride not really a race. Good for training not what I consider a real race.

I think my teammates that disappeared up the road so fast that the rest of the ladies failed to even know they were gone are moving up to the 3's. I am very happy for them and I think they will do great. I saw that the 3's are getting their own scoring for the BARR this year, that is so cool, finally enough critical mass to start giving women in the category something to work for that is more attainable against their true competitive peers. They still race with the 1-2 but the separate scoring at least for the BARR races is definitely a step in the right direction. I also believe that when women can completely drop the entire field they need to move up, they are not learning how to race if they are in a solo break or with one other person. Their abilities are above the other women in the field and as great as it must feel to win it doesn't push them to become better racers. Hopefully the goal is not just to win for the sake of winning but to better yourself against those who are better than you. Every year there are new 4's that are more fit, stronger and faster than me. As long as I race I think this will the the case. But every year I see my own improvement and I know that eventually I will have that race that it all comes together, it may only be once but I am sure it will feel good.

Landis Case Thoughts

2007-04-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

I am a scientist and know quite a bit about creating and following protocols. As part of my job I set up and maintain quality control of sophisticated instruments (flow cytometers the same instruments that were used in the Hamilton case. This is another whole issue that I have reserved comment on because I know how easily flow data can be miss read and without seeing the raw data I hesitate to draw any conclusion.) as well as helping investigators design experiments, run the instruments, analyze data and troubleshoot. I have also worked for a company that produces toxicology products for solid phase extraction of drugs/compounds found in blood, urine etc. for analysis on HPLC and GCMS as well as the quick initial screening for the presence of all drugs using simple chromatography. I used to design the methods to extract specific molecules of interest out of a sample to produce a clean mass spec or other analysis for the compound in question. I do feel like I am probably immersed enough in this field to speak up without just talking out my ass.

From the New York Times "Don Catlin, the former head of the U.C.L.A. antidoping lab who now runs his own antidoping research facility, said that initial tests of urine samples could produce negative results because none of the tests fail the screening for a high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone. If a sample comes back below the threshold of four to one, he said, there is nothing to trigger the more sophisticated carbon isotope ratio test. That test examines the atomic makeup of testosterone in the urine and can determine if it is natural or synthetic."

Yeah, so seven samples taken did not have elevated ratios of T:E but one did. That one sample was then tested for synthetic T. C12 vs C13. This alone raises concern since it is the minute difference in C12 and C13 that consitutes synthetic vs natural Testosterone and a lab that is potentially flawed in its proceedures could easily get false results. Now I am no genius but one out of eight are elevated and gets further testing low and behold synthetic T is found. The one out of eight makes the 1:11 sample an outlier in my opinion, inconsistent with the rest of the tested samples. Usually if there is one sample that is not consistent with the rest it is suspect. In this case it became a smoking gun. The other problem is the other 7 B samples that were just tested by the same lab, again if it is a reliable test it should and would have to be reproducible with the same protocol anywhere. Having the same lab preform the test, excluding outside witnesses and coming up the identical results to the original one outlier is very curious. The other 7 samples did not trigger the more sophisticated test because there was no elevated ratio so how come they now test positive for exogenous Testosterone? Yes, yes I know that ratio of total T:E is not indicative of the T's natural or synthetic origins but it is the consistent synthetic finding NOW and the inconsistent T:E from the original tests that raises doubt for me.

Conveniently the French lab does not have to answer to any of this to anyone because they have now destroyed the evidence to which they are using to build a case against Landis. That is very bad and shady science. "It's true because we say it is" will never convince me. Science should be transparent if it is good then they should want independent verification to further solidify their findings and the overall reliability of the methods they use. Besides that there is the whole leaking of information that keeps happening. Wouldn't surprise me if the "results" were leaked before the tests ware even performed. Sheesh!

Landis is the winner of the 2006 TdF weather the French like it or not.

I am all for catching a cheat and keeping the sport clean, but how can it be clean when the ones in charge of the whole process are dirty?

G-MAX flush

2007-04-18T13:15:00.000-07:00

I got up this morning at 6:30 and decided that there was plenty of time to grout my shower tile before work. See, I hired a plumber to install my shower fittings, sink and toilet, he comes on Friday. As of last night I was a bit ill prepared for finishing work on the new bathroom, thus I must make it happen. I dreamt about it all night, little scenes in my head of grout, taping, mudding, painting and oh yea, getting a toilet. Now not just any 1.6gal wimpy Home Depot toilet, no no, I was introduces to the G-Max ToTo toilet this baby gets the job done the first time I hate that low flow toilet that you have to flush multiple times just to get the paper to go down. Anyhoo, so at 7AM I went out and started mixing up the grout. The job was annoying and I probably should have had my mocha before I started. Gravity is not your friend in many cases, 1. when you are no longer rubber side down, 2. whe you step on the scale and 3. when you are putting grout on a wall and it keeps plopping onto the floor. I finally worked out a technique of keeping most of it on the wall before smooshing it in every darn crack, 4X4 tiles look pretty but that is a lot of surface area to cover in between each one. I was down to my last two rows and the bucket was lookin' a bit shy to complete the job. Momentary panic as I had no more grout in the bag, only those plops on the shower floor. I scavenged up every bit of loose grout and narrowly escaped another mishap with this fun little project that I have taken on. Sponging off the tile made me feel better, it looks really nice. My hands an wrists are supper sore but it is just one more step closer to getting done.

And now... a little rant. Things that need to be G-MAX flushed. 1. people talking on their cell phones while trying to park, resulting in blocking traffic as they try to manoeuvre their car one handed oblivious to the line of cars (and bikes, me) waiting for them. 2. The next person on their cell phone trying to back out at the same time as #1 not paying attention creating a multiple car SNAFU neither able to negotiate either pulling in or backing out because they are too busy talking on a phone. 3. It the third person on the damn cell phone who gets impatient and tries to pull out from behind #1 and #2 almost tagging the car in oncoming traffic over corrects and almost hits me! 4. Is the guy in the Beamer 5 minutes later talking on, you guessed it his cell phone as he flies past me so close that I am almost knock off my bike, plenty of room and no traffic in the other direction. I sit up and give him a very uncharacteristic for me f/u and the accompanying gesture. Yep, G-MAX to all those people who can't hang up the dang phone or at least use a headset and pay attention to something outside their little self absorbed existence. OK, I am done.

Seward Spring Classic

2007-04-17T11:52:00.000-07:00

Whew! What a weekend. It started on Thursday, I took two days off work to finish the dry wall and tile the shower. Feeling like there is a foreseeable finish to this project makes me happy. Friday night I went to the Bodies exhibit. Very cool and a bit creepy. I kept reminding myself that these were real living people many of them seemingly young and relatively healthy (minus the fact that they died) it made me wonder if they would have wanted to become part of this attraction. The process to create these human "sculptures" included dissection then vacuum sealing the bodies in a bath of acetone (to remove all liquid) and silicon (to replace the tissue)the circulatory system was super cool, they start by removing all fluid from they circulatory system and replacing it with colored polymeres then digesting all the tissue revealing the cast of the veins and arteries. Amazing to see the arteries and capillaries suspended in a case, the human form revealed by the network of vessels that deliver oxygen to every part of our bodies. I also thought the smoker lungs were just amazing, to see what all that smoke really does to the tissue should make anyone who smokes want to quit on the spot.

Saturday finished up the wall tile minus the grout (always one more step it seems) then took all the drywall leftovers to the dump. Relaxed the rest of the day.

Sunday was again a great day to race my bike. Broken clouds, bits of sunshine, what could be better? I drove down to Seward, on the way I had the pleasure of seeing a bald eagle sitting on a low branch of a tree while going down the switch backs huge beautiful bird so close that I could see the scales on his talons. Once at Seward I quickly got ready to warmup. My warmup consisted of a spin up the blvrd then back down to the hill heading towards Rainier Ave. Three hard efforts up the hill and I was ready to go.

There were 26ish women at the line, mostly WoW and TGH. Off the line we were crawling but we quickly upped the pace. This was a fun race, it was smooth for the most part I was up front most of the race so if there was any sketchiness I missed it but I didn't hear any complaints. I attacked and chased and got in a couple of little breaks, basically I worked really hard and played but should have saved more for the finish still figuring out how to be patient. Two laps to go and a TGH attacks on the hill, I hesitate (oops) then go. My teammate Morgan sees the move also and goes. All three of us are spread out with a gap on the field, me in third I should have jumped quicker to get on the TGH wheel instead I had to chase. At the bell lap we were still spread out and I could not close it, I looked back once at the bottom of the hill and saw the entire pack on my wheel. I wasn't going to catch the two up ahead of me but I also wasn't willing to slow because the pack would have swallowed me. Last time up the hill I gave it everything I had to stay out front before the final corner. Two women got around me right before we turned I pushed a bit more to catch the TiCycles wheel then decided to go for it and try to get around her I moved out and dug as deep as I ever have. We crossed the line so close it took multiple replays of the video to determine who crossed 1st, it was me!!! 4th place I am happy.

I feel like every race I learn something, it once was simply how to hold a wheel or just finish with the pack, now in each race I am learning what it takes to win and more importantly how to get the team a win weather it is me or someone else. Morgan won Laura was 3rd and I was 4th. Good days work rewarded with sitting in the sun with friends and my girls watching bike racing.

Race Race Baby!

2007-04-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

I am surely on the road to recovery. I road around Mercer on Friday afternoon, the weather was too nice to just throw on the pack and ride my measly 6 miles home. Beautiful day to be on my bike, practically no cars or other cyclist, just me and sunshine. Very nice. I even got a start on my tan lines, no not a tan but the lines.

Saturday I woke up early and started hanging drywall, lots of smaller odd shaped pieces, slow going but progress. Funny thing, time flies when you are not paying attention, next thing I knew it was noon and needed to be at the Silver Cloud at 1PM to ride out to Bothell for our cornering clinic. Oops, quick change, Endurox and out the door. The clinic was great, it is why I really like my team, development of new racers and being around similar minded women and the amount of support. Especially from the Women's team captain Gina, she is the reason we have such a cohesive team and I have a huge amount of respect for her, a little warm fuzzy with out getting too mushy ;)

She is also why I woke up at 6AM on Sunday and was on my bike to Boat St. at 6:45. The morning was sunny and brisk a good day for a crit. Got to the course and started the pre-ride (sorry to all the guys still setting up but the pre-ride was really important for the new racers and chicken sh*ts like me to build a bit of confidence). Don't know if it is technically corner 3 or 4... uh the last corner before the sprint, I'll call it 4. I was feeling very edgy each time, I kept grabbing for the breaks more out of security then the need to slow down, this had me worried I told Gina and she said that she feathers her front break too, I felt much better knowing that and it gave me just a wee bit more confidence. Time to warm up and I felt awful, sick to my stomach, I couldn't get my heart rate above 167 my back was catching and pinching I finished the warm up and thought I was really going to be sick, nerves I was sure but it didn't make me feel better. Once at the start line the nerves subsided a bit and I just got ready to go. The gun and we were off, I got clipped in but didn't take off as fast as I would have liked to I was about two thirds back in the field, nope not the place to be. Got around the corner 4 not that bad. The pace was good I could tell women were falling off, I didn't want to get caught behind groups that were getting gapped so I moved up, to my surprise it was easy, not effortless but it wasn't killing me to get were I wanted to be. Holy cow I was not hanging on for dear life I was choosing position and thinking about what I wanted to do. The corner became smooth I trusted myself and my bike and took the corner faster leaning over and feeling good. Minor duh move I attacked to break things up and got a gap but knew I couldn't hold it for another 10 minutes slowed and was in a group of four, this was great but then they all slowed and we were caught by some chasers. Time to sit in recover and start positioning for the finish. I could hear Gina yelling at 2 laps "start thinking!" yep, time to choose my position. I did it 4th in line going into corner 3 then "shit!" we were going to overtake lapped riders right at corner 4! I psyched myself out and slowed just a bit giving a couple of riders position next to and in front of me at the corner. Now I had to navigate not only the 3 in front of me but four lapped women that spread out all over the road and several more that took the corner faster than me. I sprinted the best I could but needed a couple more inches apparently to nab 5th, 6th isn't too bad, it was a good day.

The 123 women rocked again yesterday. Suz showing us her amazing talent pulled away early and kept an impressive gap the remainder of the race. Back in the chase Amy held her position defiantly against some very strong women who I know had every intention of catching Suz but couldn't get it organized with the WoW in the group. Tricia fired off an awesome attack at two laps that splintered the field while Gina made sure that the ladies were playing nice. Good teamwork!

Next week, TST hmm, maybe not yet. Seward, I'll be there!

Stop thief!

2007-04-05T10:04:00.000-07:00

Arrg! Ballard is ramped with a ring of thieves right now. Last month at 2am I was awake with my daughter because she was ill. I was laying there trying to get her back to sleep when I heard by back screen door open. There was no doubt that it had to be physically opened by someone. I jumped up and went out to the kitchen in to the back of the house. I didn't know exactly what I would do if someone actually had gotten in my house. In retrospect I probably would have done things a bit differently but regardless when I got to the back the screen door was swinging shut. I fumbled around in the dark for my phone dialed 911 and went to the front of the house. I witnessed a tall man walking across the street he was trying to open my neighbors car. The police finally drove down my street 10 minutes later the guy is long gone. I didn't sleep the rest of the night.

Next morning I get in my car and realize that things don't look right, stuff is all over the floor and seats (not all that unusual but not in my normal messy fashion) then I see that my iPod is gone and all of the change I keep in the car minus the pennies, they must not be worth their weight. Talk to my neighbors later that day and come to find out that they were broken into as well, the guy just walked into their house and stole cell phones iPods and a shotgun, his next stop was my house we concluded since we found their cell phone case next to my car.

Last night my girls came over to pick up a few things for their trip to Hawaii w/ their dad. They were out from about 8-9:30. When they returned home they found all kinds of drawers open and broken stuff. This jerk of a thief broke my girls piggy banks and jewelry boxes stole another iPod and stole their dad's race bike. The guy broke in through a very small unlocked window and went so far as to unscrew the light in the motion detector on the back of the house. Even though this wasn't my house this time I feel even worse because of the impact on my girls.

I do not like TT's I do not like them sam I am

2007-04-04T11:08:00.000-07:00

I do not like them in the sun. I do not like them they aren't fun. I do not like them in the rain. I do not like them too much pain. I do not like them day or night. I do not like them to train right. I do not like them on the road or at CycleU's abode. I just don't like TT's I say but I will do them anyway.
Maybe I am a super wimp, is it the pain? am I just that out of shape? I really don't know. I can't stay focused and keep the hammer down. Maybe I was just tired. My bike was auto shifting so that didn't help but still isn't why I was so S-L-O-O-O-W. Keep training (and get my bike fixed)

UW tragedy

2007-04-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

A 26 year old women was shot and killed by a man who she had a restraining order against, he then took his own life.

I know all too well the feeling of helplessness to someone who won't let you go and feels entitled to you as their own possession. People seem to feel that they deserve or should have all kinds of things including other people.

I have learned that you truly don't own anything that can not be taken away except yourself, but even this you have to hold onto and not give away.

Life is a gift, my children are a gift, my friends and family as well as cycling and health are a gifts that I love everyday and I will not forget how fortunate I am.

Racing is Fun

2007-04-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

Yea! I was able to race my bike on Sunday. 1st was Saturday, I spent all day hanging drywall that my drywall guy didn't finish, I am still in need of two more sheets and one more day of cutting and hanging then the mudding fun will begin, *sigh*. All day I kept telling myself "drink water, eat and DON'T hurt yourself" but by the end of the day my back and wrist were sore. I made a nice chili lime shrimp and rice dinner with a glass of wine and iced various spots on my back and wrist, packed all my race stuff and went to bed.

Sunday morning woke right up and got to the routine of dressing, eating, and double checking my race bag. My ride showed up right on time and we were off. Seattle actually looked like it would be a nice day. My hopes were up for good weather in Sequim. Once off the ferry the rain started and I began to have doubts that the banana belt would pull through for the day. It was wet and grey until we hit the big elk statue that welcomes you to Sequim, oh lucky day no rain!

Once in the field (the grassy one) I became nervous, but I went about my routine that I did all last year and I started to feel better.

Things I did right...
I warmed up for 40 minutes three burns but not all out.
I stretched my back and legs
I dressed perfectly not too warm not too cold.
Timed the port a potty stops and getting my gear on to be at the line right on time.
Kept myself at the front end of the pack.
Attacked at the right moment when I saw a TGH going. Was in a break of two that turned into at final break of 11 used blocking, timing communication to get our girl in the winning break at the end awesome! We talked about strategy and we put it into motion. Attack - counter attack, keep up the pace but don't chase down our own team. Everyone got it. Personally I was worried going in that I couldn't hang or possibly finish and before the my attack I had even said I think I am done my back hurts. Luckily instinct kicked in when I saw the other girl getting ready to go I didn't think I went, gave it just about everything but reserved enough not to blow myself up when we were caught I recovered and hung in pulled and ended up getting 10th.

Things I learned...
I still don't hold a wheel well enough on the headwind sections, I worked like hell because I was off the wheel in front of me and couldn't quite close the gap with the wind. I would have had more for the sprint if I was closer. Good to learn (yet again), but in reality I didn't want to come in ahead of either teammate that was with me because of the point standings besides a STBX gal took out a TGH after the line! If I had been any closer I too could have gone down. Everyone is OK but there are lessons that I hope others came away with yesterday as well.

Next up
Boat Street, never done it. I will pre ride and make a day of decision based on weather and how safe I feel I can make it. It will be the 1st crit of the season and the 1st time for a CAT4 only on this coarse. I am mostly worried about others ability here, I have done plenty of technical crits and we will have our corning clinic on Saturday so I think my team will get it, not sure about the others. If I do it plan A is warm up good and hard, start good and hard and don't slow down! Plan B $20 isn't worth loosing teeth or breaking bones and bikes so if it is sketchy as hell, quit!

I am racing again that makes me happy.

Getting in over my head

2007-03-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

Ah well, yes I suppose gutting my basement, adding and replacing the windows, framing all the rooms plus completely overhauling the bathroom and thinking I could get this all done in about two months was a bit optimistic. This was my off season project I was going to get it all done before training started, ha!
I gutted with little despair just lots of debris yet with the bonus of therapeutic sledge hammering. I got the old windows out and framed in the new with pretty much no help (minus one tearful late night that I could no longer control my hammer so my good friends came to help me put about 4-5 nails in one stud so I wouldn't have a gaping 2x3ft hole in my house, thanks SP and JS). I framed the entire basement, 6.5 ft ceilings meant every darn 2x4 had to be cut BTW 80 year old houses especially basement are anything but plumb, square and level. Arduous job measuring and cutting each piece I have no idea how many trips I made out of my basement to the garage to make cuts and frustratedly return to re cut. My mantra , measure 3-4 times cut twice ;) All this framing started by hand meaning that every 3.5 inch nail I was placing was by my own not so skilled hammering. Lesson learned, there are power tools for a reason! Once I got the framing nail gun things progressed at a more reasonable rate. Unfortunately I didn't stumble on this epiphany of using such tool until my wrist tendon was blown and I simply couldn't lift let alone use a hammer. Framing done, albeit not perfect I was feeling like things were moving along. Until I was sidetrackedby dating, it was fun and good for me but dating also halted both my basement and much of my winter training (icy weather get a little blame but not much and the pesky car accident that messed up my back gets its fair share). We broke up no more sidetrack :( so now I am back to my project.
I hired a guy to do the pluming, I know my limits ;) ! He tore through the floor added a drain for my new shower and plumbed the rough in's for the fixtures in less than a day! Money well spent.
The re-wire and new wiring job drove me nuts mostly because the guy who I bought the house from must have been high when he did the original wiring, I call it the THC wire job. I ended up replacing most of the wire in the basement plus added new for lights, bath fan and radiant heat for the tile floor. The idea of radiant flooring is lovely, warm smooth tile under your feet as you step out of the shower, installing it, a very different beast! My tile job looked great until I started walking on it. I had to level the floor first not as bad as I thought it would be but there is a learning curve (I started on the xy=0 axis) this was also the starting local for laying tile over radiant heat with it's cute little probe that sticks up 1/8 of an inch in one stinking spot. Due to this I will now be pulling out a few tiles for the do-over. Nice.

Onto dry wall, I decided that this was something I could not do alone I asked my neighbor who is in the biz if he could recommend someone. Sure! the guy who build the house down the street, perfect. He comes over gives me an estimate of time but only works time & materials not preset price. He say $40/ hour he will bring a helper couple days to hang. Sounded good to me. Now this is why people don't trust contractors, 4 days later still not done, the helper he brought for 2 of the days he says he got for $30/hour instead of the $40. That is good right? No, not so good his "helper" he was quoting me is to be on top of his $40/ hour! Last time I checked that would equal $70/hour not what he originally told me and not until after the guy had come and gone. So what to do? Step one, kick myself in the head for doing exactly what I KNOW not to do! Always get it in writing and don't hire for time and materials. Step two, tell the guy that this isn't what he had originally had told me and the time factor is now double plus extra labor that I won't have money to have him finish the job. Well that solves that I say it nicely I am looking out for him so he doesn't get stiffed some money he agrees to put in one more day at set hours and to get all the drywall done. That is today, we shall see.

I picked out paint colors thinking that this part of the project was a weekend away. Not so much, I will be mudding my walls for a few days ( shh! I am being optimistic) alright, double the time double the cost, I should know the drill by now.

This weekend I am going to Sequim #3 I'll give it my all even if it's only for a lap or so ;) Time to start doing what is fun.

My basement will be there when I get home.

Will I ever ride again?

2007-03-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

Well, yes. But will I be racing anytime soon, I don't know. Something about back injury and my inability to let my house projects slide for a while. I was going to race at Sequim #2 but decided that Saturday was a perfect day to lay tile in my basement bathroom and new wine cellar (the "cellar" will also dub as a puppy room once I get my puppy. Another story).

Anyway who knew that I could feel so bad after bending, kneeling and lifting heavy objects. I guess I did, but to feel like I did a max lift day and got run over by a truck was more than I had bargained for. Saturday night I cancelled race day. Instead Sunday I did the grout, cleaned up all the tools and random clutter so my drywall guy could walk around today. Tile looks great, I feel somewhat better and will try to sneak out on a ride today.

Did my 1st indoor TT and CycleU. Pretty cool, I kind of suck. But it is really interesting to see why. I go out way too hard and then blowup. A warm up would have been nice too but based on my past TT's it is par for the course as well. Fun to watch my watts. I am a geek when it comes to stats (part of my real job so I guess that is good) My average was low in my opinion 197 my max was 400 up the final climb. Max HR 189 ave 179. This tells me all kinds of stuff that I can work on. I plan on it as soon as I am able to really ride again.

I feel like I have missed so much racing, really it is early but each week my fellow CAT4 are racing and I am not I feel like I am even further behind. Fitness can return but I am supposed to be the Captain and my teammates barely know who I am. I don't care about winning (not that I could right now) I just want to be out there.

Guess I will settle for Seward rides a couple indoor TT's, downloading Polar data and being a number geek no matter how sad those numbers may be.

Winter Training is done

2007-03-09T11:59:00.000-08:00

Why if training is done am I not racing? Well injury for one. A dude who drops his cell phone while waiting for the light to turn green rear ends me, my back gets all jacked up... nice. So now I ride the life cycle and sneak out on rides when no one is looking. OK no one really is looking or cares that much but I can't ride hard and I need to heal. Meanwhile Mason Lake #1 went down. As a seasoned Cat4 I could tell by the finish photos that not much happened all 24 miles downhill around the corner and sprint. Not much fo a race, wish I was there.

Always check your equipment...Twice!

2006-08-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

So one of my favorite parts of the season are the LWV circuit races. This year I missed the first one while I was in Durango the second was a new coarse that should have suited me pretty well. Before the start I jokingly said better check and make sure nothing is rubbing. Which to my surprise my front break was! I thought I fixed it right before we moved down the hill to start. Apparently I did not. My speedometer was no working I must have bumped it while changing out my back wheel. I didn't realize that I had a problem until it was far too late. We did the neutral roll out which seemed hard, duh! Up the first hill the ladies attacked I was with them but my god was it killing me! We turned the first corner into a head wind and I felt like I was standing still. The lead group road off without me and now just about every other rider was catching me and passing me I couldn't even jump on a wheel of women I usually only see at the start and no more. Shit I am out of shape I was thinking among other things like, damn you suck! I ride around the first lap slightly humiliated to even pass by the corner marshals finally I reach the decent before heading back up the hill, this is when I realize that my break is rubbing I can hear it and I don't accelerate on the decent. I turn the corner and see a teammate on the hill I stopped and asked him to check for me. He does and yes the break is rubbing very nicely he fixes it for me and now the hill aint so bad but my race is long since decided so I am going for a tempo workout all for the bargain price of $20 + gas and time. Oh well got to love it anyway.

Next day after a very fun but late night BBQ w/ a wee bit too much vino I went on a ride w/ my pals. Alki loop. Didn't know we were doing tempo w/ hills. I did great! Only dropped on the long climb and not by much. Just a slight vindication for the previous days performance. Maybe I don't suck all that bad.

Elkhorn

2006-06-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

Wow! Never did I think I could suffer so much and want to go do it again. Winning for me is obviouly not why I race my bike although I wouldn't be opposed to the idea. Weekends like Elkhorn are why I race my bike. Challenge, physically and mentally I didn't know if I would survive this race and with only 4 miles to the finish both challenges became acute. The specifics of the race are limited since I was never a contender for much, it ended up being a weeknd of TT's really, not only for me. What little time I did get to actually race I enjoyed, the women were strong and handled their bikes well. I got to experience my first pee breaks, although they hurt me by being the last person back on my back the first day and having to sprint to catch back on on new chipseal (not sealed) right before the first climb unadvertised. I survived, barely, with a higher max HR than I have ever seen on my bike, dizzy and ready to puke. The next climb I made it about 1/2 way up and began to get very dizzy and could only concentrate on keeping my bike upright. I got some encouragement from Martha but I was done and I knew it. Thank goodness for the scenery what a beautiful ride.

iTT ugh! I need to practice this I never do well I don't know why.

Crit I love crits! I am starting to get the hang of this. I get off the line fast and gun it. In the future I need to think about conserving energy more don' ttake on the roll of pulling 1/2 of the 1/2's to the leaders along with the 3/4's let someone else do that! Move up move up move up hold a wheel get out of the wind. I am getting it.

101.2 miles to Dooley Mountain I am counting the .2 that my odometer read because I was whatching every .01 tick over for the last 4 miles. Started the race with bad saddle sores and worse yet a GI issue that never got better durring the race. Got dropped on the first major climb, no surprise. Thought I could catch a couple of women I saw ahead of me but took a water feed bumbled the bottle and came to a standstill in the last section of the climb whatching my teammate dissapear around the corner. Dang it would have been nice to ride with her. Stopped for my own pee break this one was successful didn't know I had stage fright until this weekend. Both pee breaks were a waste with the for me couldn't go and it expended extra energy right before a climb both times. Always learing...

The final 8 miles of this race were the hardest miles I have ever done on a bike. It was hot, 90+ by the end of the day. My body was exhausted my arms hurt my foot was cramping the GI was still cramping my legs were shot. At mile 97 I started to cry momentarily which made me laugh I couldn't belive that I had been brought to tears! My laughing didn't last long returning to crying and stopping my bike. I can't do it I thought for a second, all this way and I am going to quit now? Well no I couldn't It was going to take a while but I was going to finish. A master rider passed me and stopped himself in the one spot of shade up ahead. I got back on my bike and passed him. He cought up to me (not a difficult thinkg to do at that point) and asked if I was OK I told him I would survive. He then asked again are you sure you aren't reaching a critial state? I said yes just wishing I was 4 miles further up the road. Eventually I made it with people cheering me on. How great to be so far off the back and still get that kind of reception! What a great race.

I caught a ride down to Baker with Claire Hopson, she was great and very supportive of keeping the women's feild alive for next year. I'll be there I told her and I will try to get others to join me.

Iron Horse Classic

2006-06-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Durango Thursday night for the Iron Horse Classic on Saturday. Durango sits at an elevation of 6700ft it is a great town and the weather was beautiful, 75-80F and very dry coming from Seattle. My plan and goals… Don’t get altitude sickness, finish the road race (hopefully in front of the train), save something for the crit on Sunday and most importantly have fun.The idea is to beat the old Coal train that goes to Silverton Co. it takes about 3 H 30 Min for the train to get there. This ride has a race and then the citizens ride much like STP, they are supposed to start after the races have been sent off but many people were already on their way up the roads well before the race including the dude on the mtn. unicycle. About 150 women P123&4’s went out the Valley together we were doing a very easy 18-20mph. We started hitting a few rollers things would speed up a bit but not much until we hit the first climb. Very quickly my fear of not even finishing this race was being realized, my heart rate zoomed to max and everything hurt; lungs, legs arms, and face (no joke my face muscles went into this weird quivering thing no idea what that was about) About half way up this first climb I thought there was no way for me to finish I still had 5000+ feet of climbing ahead of me. I tried talking to a Group Health gal that I saw passing me we said “hi” and she said keep going or something and my response was “I am going into survival mode” I made it to the top of the climb where it flattened out. I drank and concentrated on spinning out the pain from the effort I had just finished. I actually felt good got in my drops and started pushing past people and trying to find a good draft and make up time. Hit a couple of small climbs each time I went from feeling OK to pain. The extra effort of climbing took it out of me within seconds. I concentrated on spinning my gearing was quickly maxed with my 39/27 nowhere else to go just spin and deal with the pain. At this point I reminded myself to look around and at least enjoy the beautiful scenery all around me and it was amazing. Soon I saw the next climb coming around the bend this one was the steepest and longest of the day up to Coal Bank pass sitting at 10660 ft. There was a steady stream of people either passing or being passed I kept an eye on the women with 600-800 on their backs because they were part of my race. I was trying to find a carrot of some kind or someone to work with not many options. I found a pace that I could hopefully maintain for the duration. At this point I felt like I was a drone, no rhythmic distraction like counting a song or any of my usual methods of getting through these kinds of things ( albeit I have never done anything quite like this before) I just looked ahead and pedaled. I saw a sign, 4 mile to the pass, OK only 4 miles! OMG that was the longest 4 mile of my life not only did I have the muscle fatigue but my left leg and toes were cramping I could feel my toes trying to curl up in my shoe. From experience I know not to take the shoe off it just lets the toes completely cramp and curl so all I could do is keep going. At this point there were some people walking their bikes or stopped stretching and what not. Finally I was at the summit there was table of food and drink as well as volunteers handing out cups Power Aid and water. I grabbed my bottle opened the lid finished the contents and started grabbing cups of whatever I could get and dumping them into my bottle. My only though was there is no way I am stopping, if I did I knew that the cramping would only get worse, best to keep moving and start spinning down the decent. Relief!!! 800 ft of descending it was sweet! At the bottom there was one last sweeping u-turn before heading up the final climb as I entered the turn the tail wind that I hadn’t even noticed became a very strong crosswind that sent me almost off the far side of the road I kept control of the bike (barely) and realized as I finished the turn that this was now going to be a very strong headwind up the climb! Find shelter get behind anyone, good plan it helped I stayed behind whoever I could find but if they were slower I would go around to find the next person each time I moved out from behind a slower rider I knew I needed to find another wheel quickly. This climb was about 4miles long up to 11000ft from driving the route the day before and talking to my sister who had spent all spring training on it I knew that at mile post 62 there was about 2 more miles of climbing and the pitch kicked up just enough to make it the hardest part of the day. I decided to try to push a little harder to get it over with. I spun faster and tried to stand but there was nothing to breath, I was forced to sit down and keep my respiration rate as low as I could. Finally, the summit of Molas Pass yee haw!! Some flats and a very nice guy who let my draft for the next couple of miles before we hit the decent, I tried staying on his wheel but it was mighty scary at 45 mph for ~9 miles. I was a little chicken to keep that speed up on roads that if I goofed on a corner I would plummet a good 500 or so feet to my death (beside I had to survive to do the crit the next day) Silverton at last! 3H24min I placed in my age category for the Cat4’s 31st out of 51. Not at all bad for a sea-level gal who doesn’t really like climbing. Side note: I finished 4min in front of one of my sisters, surprise!! My sister Steph came in 2nd in here age category for the W4’s and 16th overall W1234 at 2H55min. She is an animal. The crit was a blast... more so once I was done (it isn’t really a blast to suffer more that I ever have well, besides the day before) watching the other races was fun. This is such a cool course 8 corner crit with an uphill (similar to Wenatchee length and pitch) at the first corner 6 more smooth corners and then the last on the downhill to the straight away finish. The crowds were energetic the Beer garden sat at the base of the final corner full of people all day. The cruiser crit was hysterical, people in costumes on all kinds of bikes tandem tall bikes a 4Xtandem with the whole family in diapers to even grandma with her walker and roller skates quite the spectacled! My crit 45min + 5 laps of pain against ladies I knew I had no change of hanging with, including Shonny Vanlandingham Luna Chicks pro MNT Bike racer (on Velo News Cover last month) and Allison Powers US Ski Team vet. After pre riding the crit and knowing how few women there were my tactic was to get to the front and up the first hill as fast as I could. Good plan cause that is what the ladies did, FAST. I did pretty well was at the front of the group for the first 2 laps but the the pace blew me off the pack third time up the hill. What I didn’t realize is that the initial move of going really hard at the start had dropped 5-6 riders from the gun. I thought I was dropped with no one behind me (counting when red lining isn’t a skill I posses.) I road as hard as I could for the next 20 minutes contemplating quitting but not wanting to with people on every corner cheering for me by name, many of them I didn’t even know but met later, I couldn’t quit! I looked back and saw 4 riders coming up behind me I slowed thinking I was getting lapped then it dawned on me there was no motorcycle. Sh*t they had been behind me that whole time I tried getting on the wheel but the head wind and my still O2 deprived body couldn’t push the envelope any further I dangled and then fell off after the hill. I finished up 7th out of 8, Woo Hoo I wasn’t DFL!! Good enough for me. Where is the food and beer?After the P12 crit there was a food(free) and beer (not free) reception/ award ceremony for the P12 and 3’s the president of US Cycling was there and even the town Mayor. It was a great event and I will do it again. Next time I will train on hills and get to Durango a few days early to acclimate I may even partake in the cruiser crit.

Elma State Road Race

2006-05-08T10:43:00.000-07:00

Well I was up to my usual old tricks, I attacked too hard too soon. My legs were very tired from no rest since Methow. Monday "recovery ride" Tuesday 2 1/2 hours on the track, Wednesday 40/20's mind you only 2 sets of 3 plus hard hill sprints. Thursday ~22 minutes of the 6PM Seward race basically intervals as I was dropped every other lap. Friday I road to work and took it easy, I did not think I would race on Saturday but things worked out so there was some one there to watch my girls while I raced.

The race, I felt OK, but I burned up way too much power before the second time up the hill and got dropped at the top. Kirstin from TGH was laboring at the same point I told her to take some deep breaths and that she could do this. She did, she got infront and started pulling she asked me to come around I tried but my stomach and legs were cramping badly, I told her I just couldn't do it. I tried to hold her wheel but to no avail. We started to descend I was already gapped and couldn't make up the distance. For the remainder of the race I could see the chase group and the lights from the main group. I used this as once again TT practice, it hurt. I got to the hill for the final time up, I had been looking back occasionally to make sure no other dropped riders were going to catch me, at this point I had suffered alone for long enough that I didn't want to compete for what ever placing I was going to end up with. No one behind me so I slowed down and just started spinning on the hill. I look back and all of the sudden there are two women gaining on me, heck no! It's not much but I wasn't going to get caught even if it is for essentially nothing. I geared back up and got up the hill with them back out of sight. Not my greatest accomplishment but I managed to get 11th only a couple minutes off the chase group.

lessons learned.
1. Recover after stage races
2. Drink more, eat more
3. Be patient! No more attacking until it really counts
4. Decide if I really want to win and race like that's what I am there to do

Methow Stage Race

2006-05-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

My goal in this stage race was to learn and build on what I did learn in the two previous SR I have done this season. (Walla Walla and Frozen Flatlands)

This was such a great place to have a stage race, thanks so much to Broadmark Capital for putting this one together. The Valley was amazing, just getting there was part of the fun. Next year hopefully the North Cascades Highway will be open, that is an even more scenic drive.

This was a combined Woman's field, Cat1-4, this by it self seemed like more than I was ready for. I was so glad to have my teammate Amy there as Cat 3 with experience but mostly because she is so much fun to hang out with. The TT started right outside our hotel, gosh that was nice getting up eating a good breakfast putting on the sausage suit ;-) jumping on the bike and warming up on the road. We were so tired from the drive that we chose not to pre-ride the course, I think that I am glad that I didn't this time the hills would have psyched me out I think. 10 mile TT with multiple rolling to climbs. I got the best TT time ever amd considering the wind and terrain I was pleased but felt I could have done better. My legs were cramping on the hills and my postition must have been off a bit because my siatic was irritated cause pain and fatiuge in my right leg. I was feeling OK till I hit the last hill on the way back, at that point my legs completely cramped up, now I understand what cramping is really like, I couldn't turn the peddles I was pusing too hard of a gear I dropped to 7 mph, omg that sucked! My 30 second person passed me then I crested the hill and started the last strech. As soon as I started spinning my legs again the cramps went away and I began to gain on the women that had just passed me. I kept her pace and she came in a second or so in front of me. All in all I was pleased and I learded from the experience.

We bought sandwiches and went back to one of our teammates place to eat and hang out. I could barely eat, I felt awful. I knew I had to because we had the crit in a couple of hours. We didn't stick around long both Amy and myself were nervouse and wanted to pre ride the crit. (This is one of the best things I have ever been tought in racing it makes such a difference to actually get on the corse and ride it before the gun. Thanks Gina! )

Twisp was windy! It was a 4 corner crit bumpy pavement pot holes lots of dirt and debris. The corners were going to be brutal only because they weren't smooth but it was doable not really scary stuff like grates and manhole covers just bumps. I have only started two combined crits in all of my years of racing (ha! well all 4 years plus this season) I knew it was going to be fast and I had to clip in and get moving, I did that but opps I was inthe second row and the ladies in front of me did not get going as fast so I did my best trackstand and waited as the fast ladies took off. Still with the pack but towards the back I knew were to be for the corners but I didn't get the choice several laps in things started to spread out I was nervouse about some of the handling around me in the corners, breaking and bad lines I backed off, should of sprinted! Not sure if I would have hung for the entire 45 minutes but I felt good and the pace up front had slowed but the group I was with was also slowing and I souldn't stay at the front with the wind. The lead rider Lisa Dunwald was going to lap us so we were pulled, DNF'd! Suck Suck Suck! On the brightside pretty much every Cat 4 was in the same boat, only two servived the crit so our GC remained pretty much unchanged.

We hung around to watch the boys race poor guys got hammered by wind and worst of all dust and dirt for 60 minutes. It was parching to just sit there let alone racing sucking that all in. Good job to all the guys who toughed it out it must not have been pleasant! Afterward we went to the Twisp River Pub, great food, I never even set my chicken club down when they brough it to me, I devoured it and manged to have a good beer too. I like beer and even though I needed to hydrate I also needed to remember this is all supposed to be fun!

Next morning, god awful start time of 8:45, still we got up ate got in the car and drove madly to get to the start to warm up. I felt bad, not sure but probably more nerves than anything. I already felt defeated, it was windy, I know from my lack luster performance at Walla Walla and Frozen Flatlands that I am not good at holding a wheel in general wind exasperates this shortcoming of mine leaving me dangling, popped or chasing in all of my races. Today I knew I was racing with a strong field and I felt very out classed. We rolled up the hill nuetral the first time, they honked and we started racing about 400 meters from the finish by the time we passed the line I was thinking to myself maybe I should just skip this, I feel like crap and I am too far down for it to matter. I didn't things got moving and I soon forgot to be negative and I began to race. My thoughts switched to "move up, tuck in, hold that wheel don't give it up." I have got to say this was my first RR with the 123, (I don't count TST I did a couple of years ago) it was great to ride with them, they were smooth and Mindy, TGH quickly began to organize the race, so different from the 4's were everyone just clusters and then yo yo's about. The terrain was mostly rolling hills curving decents and an unexpected crit like jaunt through downtown Windthrop. Yes, I realize this was in the race bible but I didn't fully get what we would be doing until we were there. That was so exciting and fast! On the second lap after the climb I saw Amy Freker attack. No one went after her, she is a Cat4 so I am not sure if the other teams didn’t care or they just simply missed it. She stayed away and not too long after Mindy jumped and bridged to her. Again no one seemed to respond. Both times for me I was trying to stick to my game plan of not attacking or chasing this being my first real combined Cat race. (I had chased Mindy down in the pervious lap and didn’t want to burn all my matches.) So off they went, TGH had the majority of riders a didn’t need to work for a while with teammates up the road but they didn’t do much the entire race after that point except chase me down after I attacked on the hill the 3 time up, yes this is where math skills and looking at my speedometer would have been a good thing. I was so happy to not have been dropped thus far or to even have to chase back on that I didn’t realize we still had an entire lap still to go and one more time up that darn hill! I was about 400m from the finish line when things started to become clear. One, Mindy and Amy just kept riding past the finish line with the lead car and two, a swarm of Group Health gals surrounded me one of them saying “just slow up they are going to catch back on anyways.” This is when it hit me, I said “aren’t we done yet?” Someone said nope one more lap. Hmmm I thought that probably was my last match. I was hurting, the TiCycles girls and a few more riders plus Amy caught up and we stared our final lap. I was just barley hanging on at this point, good thing the race was moving pretty slowly so I was able to recover. The remainder of that lap Amy, me, a couple of W.A.R (Wenatchee) girls, and a Velo Bella rider worked at the front. The final time up the hill the TGH girls busted up the hill taking the top placing. It was a good hard race.
They broke out the Cat 4’s for placing and I got 3rd in the RR and 4th place GC. Best I have ever placed in any race.

Getting Started

2006-04-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say yet. I am not able to boast any great results but I can say I have done one TT, three road races and two stage races so far this season and have done a fabulous job of falling of the back, getting caught in crashes and fumbling my TT's. But I am having fun non the less.