Pretty Pictures

There's a couple of great photos from a bike friend of mine that captures some of our fun times recently.  Cargo Bike Ride memorial day was awesome, except for a little altercation I had with railroad tracks that resulted in a sprained knee and some ER visits, but I'm healing up well.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/sets/72157624094867065/ Cargo Bike Ride photos

A while back we all hung out at Sylvies for a little party - (the coordination guru for the Seattle Bicycle Music Festival).  http://www.flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/sets/72157624103986455/

Seattle Bike Music Festival

http://seattlebmp.wordpress.com/

Seattle bike Music Festival will be September 11th this year and I'm helping out.  Fundraising and Raising Awareness.....go check it out, there's some amazing things that're happening in the following months.  June 26th is the Rawk and Roll Alleycat Race and a Concert The Ride.  Come check it out!!!!!!!!!!

"The Seattle Bicycle Music Festival is a 100% non-profit, volunteer-run grassroots organization. We aim to promote cycling culture in general, and build community throughout Seattle by using art, music, and bicycles to bring people together.  The Mission of the Seattle Bicycle Music Festival is to promote sustainable culture in general and bicycle culture in particular, by physically engaging and immersing communities in the magic of bike culture, and cultivating and nurturing networks of local sustainable musicians, through our staging of usually free, community participatory, educational, bicycle-based music events"

On Why I Used to Hate Cyclists (and still do)

Now, in the years before I started cycling I lived a stone throw away from the Burke Gilman trail, which I used (and still do) on a daily basis. I used to laugh and sneer and vehemently curse at the stuipd cyclists who would create a black hole of death around them when they wouldn't adhere to common traffic laws. I realize now as I ride not ALL cyclists are evil. Just some of them. Granted, I'm not the be all and end all of cycling etiquette. I do stupid things occasionally -but never the same stupid thing more than once - I learn my lessons. (The one exception being I listing to music with one earbud in occasionally.)



However, after this "BIKE TO WORK DAY" that everyone was so "super psyched and totally revved up for", I felt it necessary to state the reasons some cyclists give the rest of us a bad name. This has been culmulating since the weather turned nice (for a while) and there's all these newbies on the road. I'm excited that the bike love is spreading - biking is awesome - (Do It!). But really, please learn the basics before you present a death hazard to yourself and those around you.



1. You-on a bicycle-are a vehicle. Follow vehicular rules.

1.a. stopping at stop signs, especially those designed SOLELY for bicycles.

1.a.1. when stopping at red lights - stop for the duration of the red light. Don't stop, see no cars coming, then run the red light. You're still running the red light.

1.b. Be in the correct lane. If you're turning right, be in the right lane. If you're turning left, be in the left lane. Don't cut me off because you have poor planning. It's JUST as dangerous than if a car did the same thing.

1.c. Wait your turn. If I get to a stop sign before you, line up BEHIND me. Don't cut me off, or stop your bike 1/2 on and 1/2 off the sidewalk in front of me and then yell at me when I don't immediately go when the light turns green because I'm unsure of whether you're going to T-bone me.

1.d. Don't ride for extended periods on the sidewalk.



2. Wear proper gear.

2.a. Wear a helmet. Period. No description or explaination necessary. You're stupid if you don't and most likely will get hurt and I will have no sympathy whatsover. At all.

2.b. As a general rule, if you're on the BMI index as overweight, please don't wear spandex. It's not good. I am not fit enough to wear spandex and so I don't. It's not good.

2.c. Fenders are friendly! Besides the asphault backwash and butt bucket you experience when you have no fenders, if you're the unlucky person to ride behind someone when they don't have fenders (EVEN THOUGH YOU DO HAVE FENDERS) you end up getting soaked. It's not really *necessary* per se, but it's courteous.



3. Don't assume since I'm on a bike and you're on a bike we're best friends. **Generally I like lots of people and am a people-person, but when you're A. riding on the sidewalk B. Weaving back and forth C. Not wearing a helmet D. Listening to your Ipod so loud I can hear it coming from your earbuds 4 feet away DON'T assume your perky little smile head bob thing is going to make me feel better/like you when you narrowly escape running me over (while I'm walking my bike on the sidewalk)



As a disclaimer - again - I am by no means at all the best rider. But every time I ride with someone and they point out something that's not condusive to good cycling I get better the next time I go out. So that's why I used to hate cyclists, and to some extent, still hate the bad ones.

Sunday... race pictures, news, and names.

Beautiful awesome pretty day outside. Went to Andrew's race today and putzed around. Ended up trying out clipless pedals on the mountain bike for the first time, but more trial will be needed to see if it's good or not. Then I had a really nice picnic with Paul and got all sleepy and a little sunburned. It's absolutely GORGEOUS in Seattle right now. I love it.

Anyway, like usual, Andrew rocked and took 8th place in his division and 17th overall out of the "sport" category (which had over 50 people in it). It was totally fun to see everyone at a real race, as the Wednesday night things aren't a really races per se. I've mulling over my thoughts on racing and I'm sure there will be a post later on in the future fleshing out my mullations. Anyway - I took some awesome pictures and will share:

This is by far my all time favorite picture of Andrew so far.

Group shot of all the "sport" people going off.

And some random thoughts from Friday:
I'm not prone to terror (or fear for that matter) this whole swine flu thing isn't a joke, but I don't freak out like some people around the office/country are, but according to http://bouncewith.me.uk/europe/8027043.htm Zombizim (deriving from Swine flue) is going to arise and your loved ones are going to attack you....total bummer.


News (or fake news) is totally wacky. I get 20 seconds of news in the morning in the elevator on the way up to my office (yes, there's tvs in the elevators here) and one of this week's top storieswas .... BARBIE GETS A TATTOO!!! Not just a shoulder tattoo, but a tramp stamp. Totally lame that that's more "important" than, I don't know...just about everything else.


And possible names for my bike:

Nia "Champion" Celtic/Gaelic

Naava "Pleasant Beautiful" Hebrew

Nala "successful" African

Naja - "Strong and stoic" African



Adah - "beautiful addition" Hebrew
Adina - "beautiful adorned" Hebrew

Naveen "Beautiful Pleasant" Celtic/Gaelic

Davina "Beloved" Celtic/Gaelic

Nenet "Goddess of the Deep" Arabic

!!!MINE!!!!

First off - Yay for sleep!!! I slept over 11 hours, had two semi-conversations/mutterings with Paul, and turned off my alarm in my sleep Tuesday night - and I SLEPT! :) It makes a world of difference. Finally been getting some real sleep - which is awesome.


So the title of this post is !!!MINE!!! and that's because I've been saving since Januaryish for a road bike. I saved up roughly 500, and promptly spent it on Iri, my dual suspension mountain bike. I had some major doctor/medicine bills with my thyroid being all weird, which resulted in no savings, and now its almost May and Andrew's taking the road bike I'm riding back in the beginning of August. As much as I'm completely totally grateful for him loaning me the Kona, I WANT my own bike. So I decided to say screw it and go on this focused bonanza to get enough money to get my bike. Which I should have on the inside in 15 days and on the outside 30 days. I finally applied for the social security benefits from Rich's death which will come in 15-30 days. I sold my Chrome bag that I didn't use and SouthPark Seasons so I'm now up to $440. I'm selling his amp and his two left handed electric guitars. I can maybe sell the Windows Server 2008 Exam Training Materials he bought and never used and he Monty Python box set that I've never watched and possibly my old hybrid bike which will bring it up to MY VERY OWN Kona Jake. Soon. Very soon......I totally can't wait.

Past Week

So it's been over a week since I've posted. I'm a slacker.

Last Friday the 17th... So I got the Kona back after the crank arm fell off and on a ride with Andrew I noticed my left pedal felt weird. I stopped and ONCE AGAIN - the crank arm was falling off. I was super pissed. I took it to Second Ascent, which is a bike/climbing/ski shop near where I live and they fixed it right up (for free) and I just have to say - THEY ROCK. Recycled Cycles sucks - which was the bike shop that SHOULD have fixed it in the first place. So I headed home and said screw it.

Saturday ... was nice. I had a friend who had worked at CollinsWoerman over for dinner. It was a down home type dinner with two types of pot pie. One was a double mushroom and triple onion pot pie simmered in a red wine broth that was excellent and the other was an italian sausage, carrot, celery, mushroom, onion, mix. We had a layered pudding that rocked the casbah for desert, and lots of wine. Oh yeah - I LOVE wine.

Sunday ...I spent the day with Paul riding. I was BOOKING IT!! Going 17-20 mph pretty much the entire way, it was AWESOME! It feels good to be able to rock it out now. Unfortunately, I ate before riding back and had an upset stomach - I really can't eat and then ride. I came home and crashed out and then did a massive overload of dish washing from the night before prior to going out for sushi for the first time (for real). Sushi is really interesting. I didn't like the sea urchin at all - the texture was really weird (and it looked like brains). The eel was yummy, and I found that raw fish have a very delicate flavor. Wasabi is awesome and sake is dangerously delicious! I'm going to have to go a couple more times before I decide whether I relaly like it or not. Plus, I realized a cosmopolitan life style in the city is good, is wonderful, is amazing. I'm so happy I left Kansas and came to where I belong.

Monday ... I felt like I was all done healing in terms of my ribs and neck. The area on my leg where I took a chunk out of myself with the crank was still giving me problems, but the worst was over. Beautiful days were here for sure, the sun was shining and I wanted to be outside!!! I realized I was also changing my thinking about my workouts. The last 2 months (thyroid problems, sinus infection, and rib issues) showed me that balance between the bike and life is needed. Basically if I have a choice between spending a summer day writing while having coffee with Paul and "training" = training takes back seat. Then again, my outlook constantly changes about - well - most everything.

Wednesday the 22nd ... was admin day. We get flowers at work, (sarcastic)...woo.hoo. However, I really was pleasantly surprised - the team I'm on got me flowers and cupcakes AND a giftcard for over $120 to a spa nearby - YAY! Plus, my "mentor" gave me flowers too - so now my desk looks like a floral shop :) I love flowers.

I also "raced" - which completely utterly sucked. I found out then that my ribs weren't healed (or that they were healed unless I pushed my body to it's outer limits, flew it off of rolling dirt bumps, threw it down a rocky tree-root riddled track, then strained it getting up really evil short hills.) My neck was shot and bike wasn't set up right so my lower back was thrashed. Oh yeah - and weird feeling called "fear" entered into my mind as I looked down a 10' or so drop that was at a very severe angle and ended into a sand trap to immediately do a 180 turn. I did it and everything else that made me frightened (this would hurt if I wiped out... there's a thorn bush that would tear me up, I bet that tree is very solid, that's a long ways down, blah blah blah). I did them simply because they scared me, but I wasn't really expecting that to be such a large part of my mentality. Fear is only useful if it doesn't get in the way. It was going bearable until the douchebags who lapped me started screaming that "We're RACING" - yelling for us to get off the course (me and the sport class people pre-riding). I yelled at them I was racing too.... just not very well.

That was the last straw - I was in a lot of pain (lower back especially), my ribs and neck hurt, and all these weren't normal race agony, they were sharp "PAY ATTENTION TO ME" pain. Not something that's totally wise to "play through." so I came to the next open area that I could ditch and rode back to the truck. I did about 2 1/4 laps. We were supposed to do 3. I really didn't care at that point. All I could think of afterwards was "Why in the hell do I do this?" I'm still wondering about that. But after taking this upcoming week off, I'll go back and do it again the Wednesday after that....You definitely have to be a little masochistic to do this to your body over and over again.

Friday the 24th started out crappy and ended up really fun. I had a icky boring day at work and ended up breaking the valve on my back tire taking it down from the bike rack at work. After some indecision/discussion about whether I could put the bike on the bus or fix it at work I fixed the tire and busted butt going home. I typically do my commute in 40-45 minutes, and my fastest time so far was 32 or 31 minutes. Going home on Friday in rush hour traffic I made it in 27 minutes. (insert excited expression here)!!!!!!!! That's AWESOME. It felt really great (well, I was sore the next day and it was really hard when I did it, but I felt great nevertheless).

So I was totally psyched going into the rest of the evening. Paul and I went to a book reading about dive bars at Abraxus http://www.abraxusbooks.com/page.php?inc=dive_bars and ended up doing a dive bar drinking bonanza with the rest of the people afterwards. It was really fun. I drank enough, but not too much, which was perfect. Ended up going out for breakfast the next day, reading, writing, generally having a really chill and nice weekend together with Paul.

So besides the fact I've been fighting insomnia for the past two weeks or so, I'm doing pretty good. I'm happy it's summer and I'm reading some really great books about neurology and consciousness. I'm making good delicious food (baked potato soup and some coconut macaroons today). I'm happy, even through I'm a little sleep-deprived.

I like Bob

After spending yet another day with chest pain, and bailing out on work early because of it, my boss insisted I go see the doctor. Since the rib/chest/stomach pain had only been increasing since Tuesday I relented and called my family doc, who promptly told me to go to the ER. I have insurance with Group Health, so called their closest hospital to see what I needed to do/where I needed to go so as to have the cheapest and easiest way to get checked out. After an hour of waiting for a phone call that never came, I called them back again and was told to go to the Urgent Care Group Health Center in Capitol Hill.


Andrew had originally planned that morning of coming over to pick up a bike part after I got home. When he heard I was going to the ER he refused to let me take the bus and insisted he drive me there, wait for me, and drive me back. There are times I feel truly blessed by the friends I have.


So we went to the ER and after the whole signing in, going through the "on a scale of 1 to 10 how much pain are you in" business, I was stuck in a room, waited around forever, and eventually saw a doctor who after a fair amount of poking and prodding, proclaimed my road rash not infected said I had just sprained my ribcage - which I was thrilled about.


Since the massive amounts of Advil I had been taking were doing little to dull the pain, they gave me a Vicodin. I've not taken a heavy duty pain killer before and let me just say its....... very effective and has a very interesting response in my body. I ended up chattering Andrew's ear off on the ride home mainly due to the fact my internal monologue was nonexistent. There were lots of statements like - "What a cute puppy!" and "I like cheese." :) It makes the pain a faint bass line underneath this wonderfully intricate, distracting melody. From feeling the effects of it wearing off this evening I can definitely say it makes this whole thing MUCH easier to deal with, and helps A LOT.


But back to the hospital - after being given the Vicodin, an attendant named Bob came in to clean out my road rash and apply a silver-thingy paste to it and wrap it up. By the time Bob was cleaning out my wound the Vicodin kicked in and I was aware that the cleaning procedures he did, squirting this saline solution in the wound and blotting/wiping off the excess stuff, was really kinda painful, but then I got all distracted by the really pretty clouds in the bright blue sky. I actually had a great conversation with him and he was a great attendant.


After spending a 7 month mark dinner together with Paul, I'm feeling so much better. Food, significantly less pain, and not dreading the workday pain totally makes me a happier person!

And on a total bonus note, being on the bike isn't going to diminish my body's ability to heal. So after I get the wheel fixed for the Kona it's going to be lots of easy longish rides for me. Andrew's racing this weekend at a real race (I'm going as a cheerleader). Hopefully I'll have some great pictures from it.

Totally awesome favorite picture ever I took last weekend.

I had to share.

Bruises and Scrapes

Ok, so I posted on Monday that learning how to do moving mounts/dismounts was the first time I broke skin on my bike. I apparently loved doing that so much I went above and beyond on Tuesday.

Andrew and I went to South Sea-Tac trails to have fun and get some training in before the race on Wednesday. We played on the trails for a bit, then I practiced lofting my front wheel, which is really difficult. My wrist started to hurt a little, so I thought, "Ooh! There's that awesome dirt jump field I could go play in."

I trundled off to the dirt jump field and took a look around. I want to make a point of saying that there were jumps 3-5 feet tall with 3-5 feet drop offs and I thought....hrm. Those look a little advanced. So I scoped out the areas and picked a little mound, 1/2 the size of some of the ones I've done, with no drop off after it and a nice swooping down afterwards. I got up some speed and hit the jump....maybe going 10-15 miles per hour....and the next thing I know I'm belly sliding 10-15 feet. Even at the point of impact, I'm laughing in my head as I see my bike flying over me and landing another 5 feet in front of me.

I have no idea what happened to cause my wipe out. The only thing I can think of is that I didn't hold on to my bike.

The end result is some road rash on my forearms, which is the worse abrasiveness. I have some minor scratches/bruises on my lower stomach and upper thighs and some developing bruises on my lower legs. The worst of it, though, is the buised torso/ribs. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to laugh. It hurts. Period. And when the pain reliever wears off, it's not good. That and I think I've got some minor whiplash from my neck snapping backward. Again, once the pain reliever wears off, it hurts to turn my neck or move. The mild throbbing turns into acute pain. So I guess the end result is a first hand knowledge that wiping out hurts. However, it could have been MUCH worse. Basically I'm a little scraped up and a sore/bruised in places. Nothing's broken, no concusion, I could have cracked some ribs, and my bike is perfectly fine.

In my infinite wisdom (ha!) I decided I still wanted to try racing the next day. Throughout the course of Wednesday at work my ribs became more and more sore and the road rash less and less of a concern. I met Andrew at his place and we went out to the field. I pre-rode the course and ended up realizing how much pain I was in. I decided I'd race, but bail if it got to be really bad....and now I'm wondering what "really bad" means to me.

Anyway, there were a bunch of people in the beginner class and we all took off. I purposefully positioned myself in the back of the pack because I knew I was not going to be fast. I followed the last rider entering the course, but there was mass confusion as the start of the course wasn't laid out. People were milling around, turning back, and then branching off in several different directions. I ended up going back to the start and then telling Andrew I was bailing. The bruised ribs equal continual nausea and I was feeling like dirty nasty poop on a stick that had been put through a blender and then run over.

I ended up taking lots of pictures, riding around some more (SLOWLY), going to the dirt jump field to try to figure out what the hell went wrong, and chatting up some other girls that were there - ended up learning some really valuable knowledge about climbing from one of them. End of the night resulted in the pain medication wearing off and me being in a lot of pain.

I'm not sure how my training is going to be for the next few days or if I'll be able to race next Wednesday. Running's out of the question, as it's too much impact on my ribs and so is weight lifting. Biking is okay, but I have to go really slow and even that results in increased nausea, so I'm not sure what I'll be doing. All I really want to do right now is lay down. Paul's going on a mini-vacataion to San Fransisco to see a friend and have lunch with his parents, so I'll have the weekend to myself. Originally that was going to result with a lot of time spent on the bike. Now I'm rethinking that and considering spending the time writing at coffee shops.

Lance Armstrong:

"Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever."

"If you're worried about falling off the bike, you'd never get on."

PIctures of my Race

Andrew took pictures of my race, I'm the one in the pink shirt, black pants, muddy shoes, looking beat up :)

A Brand New World

I've been wanting to post since Wednesday, but...um....I've been busy :) Be forewarned, this is a long one.

Through Andrew and other girls at the races Andrew went to I had heard about the Wednesday night mountain bike races that were going on and I told Andrew/Paul on March 21st at Andrew's first race that - "What the hell! I'll race mountain bikes on the Wednesday races." I'd been mountain biking a few times (maybe 2 or 3 at that point). A month after I first experience mountain biking (which is a lot more difficult than road biking) and I decide I want to start racing. There are times I wonder what gets into me.

It turned out Andrew had to work on the first Wednesday night race so that meant no ride out past Sea-Tac, which meant no racing. I tried to find a ride, asking a couple of people and posted on a couple of forums, but no luck, so I was happy to go be picking up Damian after work after a week him being in the shop. After being in some meetings at work on Wednesday, I see an e-mail from Andrew at around 3:40 that he had a break in work, so he could take me out to the race - he couldn't race, but he would root me on.

I stalled and gave excuses. I was nowhere near mentally prepared to race. The word race even rolled off the tongue too fast for me. The actual thought of - Me. On my bike. Against people who were fast. - I was nowhere near ready physically or mentally - period. Not Ready. Andrew, for all his irritating insistence really is a positive influence in my life - he e-mailed me back when I threw silly excuses at him about dirty clothes and me not spending enough time on the bike recently. I think it's beautiful and motivating -

Andrew

"I had a dance teacher who dismissed the idea of not being "in shape."...The shape we were in that day was the shape we were in, and it was never the wrong time to accept corrections and try to make improvements. I think racing is very similar. Everything can be analyzed to within an inch of its life before and after. But during the race, the only thing that matters is racing with one's whole heart. You're in more than adequate shape to do that, and everything else is just detail. ...So you should let me give you a ride to the race, go as hard and as fast as you can, and then you can figure out about stuff like time spent on the bike and clean cycling pants and sleep."

So I went.

I've not been nervous, in, well, what feels like eons. I left work, running to get on a bus and hurry home to quickly change because we were *just* going to have time to make it. I was shaking the entire way home. I couldn't think. I got changed/packed/out the door in under 6 minutes while Andrew put the bike in the truck and we left. On the way there, I thought - what do I have to be nervous about? I knew I was going to DFL - come in dead last. That didn't bother me - I knew I wasn't going to be physically up to competitively racing. It made me happy to think that even if I went every single week and always finished a lap behind everyone else, I would go. I would be that person who would try over and over again, even if they have no chance to win, because it would be good for me. I wasn't worried about hurting myself, or quitting, or wimping out.

I was afraid of disappointing Andrew, or having a lack of support after I finished. Once I realized that, I wasn't nervous anymore. I would like it, or I would hate it, I would suck, or I would do ok. But he wouldn't be disappointed and the support he has given me through this is really stellar.

We get there about 4 minutes before the start was going. It was super chaotic and they held the race for me. I didn't know how many laps I was supposed to do, or what the course was like, or anything. I heard a guy behind me say we were doing 2 laps, so I planned on holding back for the 1st lap and going as hard as I could the 2nd lap.

Racing is unlike anything anyone can ever describe. You won't know what it's like unless you do it. Saying it's hard is beyond an understatement. It was perhaps the hardest thing I've ever done with my body. Ever. It was really emotionally trying for me. It was mentally taxing and nerve wracking and at the end I felt simultaneously like throwing up, like I was going to collapse, and that midgets had been beating me with thick little sticks.

I can't wait to do it again.

The course itself was awesome, some really cool technical stuff, some great descents, mud and in a really varied beautiful area. There was also some really hard parts - some really crappy sand tracks up up up some hills, some mud that got progressively worse with each lap - I definitely ate my daily dose of minerals from the dirt that was flung into my open panting mouth, and there were some painful switchbacks I'm not very good at.

I held back the first lap, and about 1/4 of the way through the few people that were behind me I let pass because we were coming up on a hill and I wasn't going to be a jerk and screw up other people's race - I knew I was going to be the last. I was doing really good the first lap - the lactic acid hadn't started building up, I was going pretty fast for me and I was breathing in my "I'm still functioning well and okay" stage. The 2nd lap was brutal. I pushed myself too hard because I thought it was the end and barely was able to get to the finish.

At which point I realized there were no mud splattered people waiting around.....so I looked around, confused, and sought an administrator and asked if the beginners were doing 2 or 3 laps, to which he replied, "No - they do 4." I'm sure a mixture of consternation and weariness must have planted itself firmly on my face. He asked me "Do you just want to stop?" I just looked at him and said "Well, no. I'll finish" and then went on to my 3rd lap.

At which point I could barely see anything at all - it was raining and my glasses were mud splattered, fogged up completely from my heaving breath. I would consciously have to think about breathing regularly. My legs were burning, lactic acid eating me up from the inside out. The rocks and roots and tree branches over the trail were sending painful jolts through my body - even though Iri was SUPER cushy and a dual suspension. My brain was not functioning. I had a hard time keeping the bike upright and I was in no way a smooth operator on my bike at this point.

I had enough thought process to recognize I was a lap behind everyone and I would have to bust it out to finish anytime remotely in the vicinity of my own group, because the sport people were starting after us. It didn't look like it was going to happen. I went as hard as I could and fought against whiny despair ladened thoughts - "this is so hard, I'm already behind, I'll never catch up" Thoughts I wasn't expecting at all. Within a few moments of their beginning I thought only that - "There is a trail in front of you. Push the pedals as fast as you can. There is no finish. There is no 3/4 or 1/2 or 1/4 of a lap left. There is only this small stretch of dirt and rock and sand to push through. Go. Go fast. Go hard as you can." After that there was no thoughts. There was my feet on the pedals and my ragged strangled breath, and my aching arms helping me along.

I finished. I did 3 laps to everyone else's 4. I was quite a ways behind them. But I finished.

And I can't wait to do it again.

Broken Thoughts about the Last Week

So I got off the evil medication that had been screwing with my thyroid last Sunday and around Tuesday/Wednesday I starting to feel much more like myself again. It's amazing how un-myself I get when every thing's out of whack. It feels like surfacing from the depths of the ocean when I get out form under one of these funks. Experiences like this ALWAYS make me appreciate how well I function when my body's working well.

Only memorable parts of this week were that I worked on all three of my bikes on Tuesday. It took two hours to clean/lube/swap out some parts/etc... Ironically after all of that Wednesday I start in to bike to get my blood drawn before going to work and the screw that holds the left crank/pedal in fell out. It was typical Seattle weather so it's rainy-gray-gray-gray-rainy-cold-rain some more so I couldn't find the screw and had to bike home one legged (over a mile). It sucked and I'm sure I looked really funny. Right now it's at a shop getting repaired and I probably won't get the bike back until about a week. I already miss it.

The high point was that since the road bike was out of commission I went mountain biking with Andrew at Soaring Eagle Park on Thursday, which is amazing. The terrain was great - lots of rolly single track, root encrusted, HUGE mud puddles filled with water everywhere and some nice stretches that you could get up some great speed. Anyway, it made me really appreciate Iri. It was definitely what she was made for and I realized why exactly I love mountain biking.

1. I get to get dirty. As my mom can attest, I LOVED playing in the mud and the dirt when I was a kid. I can remember one time in particular that it rained really hard and there was a massive amount of standing water/mud in our backyard and neighbors garden. When I knocked on the back door before coming back in the house my mom looked at me shocked through the screen door with a face I'll never forget. She told my brother and I "Stay there!". Putting paper bags on the floor in between the backdoor and the bathroom she told us to jump into the tub with all our clothes on. We were COVERED in mud. I can't imagine how much of a pain it was for her to clean up after us, especially me, when we were young.

2. Mud puddles, moguls, going down fast, etc... I love fun nifty things that make me do things/experience a feeling with my body I wouldn't normally get to.

3. I get to bike.

It's a total bonus I get to do all those things all at once with mountain biking.

Things are going well otherwise. Dwight, Paul's friend is coming down this weekend and there's the Tour de French Fry we're checking out on Saturday. Since I don't have Damian, I won't be participating, but it should be fun to take some good pictures. I ?think? Andrew's racing on Saturday and if he is I might go watch/play myself. Work's kinda sucked this last week, I've got a lot on my plate with 4 or 5 different projects going on and things are deadline sensitive right now, which always makes it a little worse. As usual, everyone thinks I'm their top priority...it's part of my job, but it gets tiring sometimes. I just finished The Autobiography of Malcom X, which I hadn't read in over 7 years and is one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE books. Very well written and a beautiful story of an amazing personality.

A word I came across I like

deliquesce \'de-li-'kwes\ v *1: to dissolve or melt away 2: to become soft or liquid with age or maturity

Busy Weekend!

So this weekend both rocked and sucked.  Saturday was super fun.  Andrew had a mountain bike race, and I got to ride Iri (my new mountain bike) on real trails for the first time on some trails and dirty her up.  Plus, Sunday I did the longest ride I've ever done.

Saturday was really cool.  Andrew, Paul, and I headed out around 7:20ish after strapping Iri to the back of Andrew's truck.  We *just* made the ferry and went to Port Gamble, which is far north and kind of out in the middle of nowhere.  There were only about 20 people racing, 8 or so girls, 12 or so boys.  What was totally awesome about it was:

1. There was a lot of girls there, and I got to talk to them about bikes. I've never really got to talk to girls who bike, it's really predominated by the boys, and seeing so many of them out there was really awesome.

2. I forgot how AWESOME the before/during/after competition glow is.  Even though I wasn't racing, and not even really watching Andrew since it was a 14 mile out and back lap, I got to be there to be his cheerleader, something Paul's going to be doing a lot of in the next few years.  Seeing him suit up, register, warm-up, get started, and his "coming down" routine really reminded me of all of the awesome feelings I had when I competed in debate and forensics.  I LOVED the excitement, the focus, the anticipation, the dedication and mind obliterating absorption into what you did, then the come down afterwards, the routines and the butterflies and the glow of doing well.  I'm looking forward to getting to experience that again.

3. There was deep soul sucking mud I played around with forever while Andrew was mountain biking - Paul got some great pictures of both him and me.  

Before we got to the mud - this is me.  Happy.  On my Bike.  :)

Me fighting ferociously to keep Iri going through the deep icky mud.

Ahhhh....no more mud!  

I like how the picture has my face in focus 

and the legs/wheels all blurry like I'm going super fast.

Here's a picture of Andrew starting and finishing....he did awesome!

He's the guy in red in the middle.

And a Mud Flecked Andrew finishing first in his age division!

I'm going to enter into the really chill lax competitiveness mountain bike races out near Sea-Tack that are going to happen on Wednesday nights starting in April.  I'm not sure I'm going to be ANY good at all - my thyroid is a little worse lately which is KILLING my ability to do...well most of anything with my body.  Anyway, I figure it'll be great to practice racing, increase my technical skills, and really push myself.

Saturday was bad because I didn't eat enough, and my body/emotions had a minor breakdown. I had a really bad evening and was exhausted.  It sucked, but whatever.

Sunday was great because I did 79 miles on the road bike.  That's right - 79 miles.  I was still feeling really blah from my body being stupid, and wasn't really into going out, but I wanted to do 76 (to beat Paul's record) and so I started and rode, and rode, and rode....and then eventually finished.  I did the Lake Washington loop with a lot of deviations (cutting out the big hill on Juanita).  

The sucky part of Sunday was that on the long ride my right knee started complaining 25 miles in, 55 miles in started really complaining, started screaming at 65 and then really was crunchy Monday morning, but is working itself out this afternoon.  It was a long day and oddly enough, I expected to feel more Go Me! after doing 79 miles.  But I kind of just feel like, "Yep, I did a long ride."  I suppose I'll feel another Go Me! when I pass 100.  

It was definitely a busy weekend!

!!MY BIKE!!

I've been saving up some money for two bikes - a mountain bike and a road/cyclocross bike for the last couple of months now. My first priority was the cyclocross bike because the only road bike I have right now is borrowed from a friend (which I'll have to return around August) and road bikes are more expensive. However, a pretty sweet deal came up on craigslist this past week. It's a 2006 Cannondale Prophet, the reviews of it are fantastic, it was a $1300ish bike selling for $500, and it hardly ever riden, in perfect condition (some chain rust was the only weak point), and it had great shock absorption. Oh, and it's RED. Great bike, really cheap, totally going to change the way I mountain bike, and in a color I prefer. I'd have been stupid not to get it, so I ended up becoming a pround parent of Iri. See below for photos.

I name all of my bikes, and some that aren't mine.

Gordon is Rich's old mountian bike I've given now to Paul. Gordon was Rich's middle name and I thought it fitting. It means "Large fortification". The bike is DEFINITLY too big for me, and it's a mountain bike, so the idea of fortificaiton fits well.

Dorthy is the Cypress hybrid Paul gave to me, also my grandmother. It reminds me of her. She was older, slower, not super agressive, but a really good thing in your life and fun. Switching gears was difficult for her, she definitly had a particular way of thinking, and switching gears on the Cypress was also the bane of my existence with that bike.

Damian is Andrew's Kona Jake I'm riding. Besides the whole OMEN reference, the name Damian's background is Greek in origin possibly meaning "to tame, subdue" although also close to the word for "Sprit" It also comes from the Sanskrit word "dam", meaning "who can give". It's fitting as the Kona Damian brings out in me someone who rides fast, sometimes needed to tame or subdue myself. In the first week I had the bike, I was told about 20 times by both Paul and Andrew "This bike goes fast. Don't do anything stupid." :) It has tremendous spirit and fittingly it ties in very well with the fact it was given to me by someone for a while.

Iri is my new mountian bike. It's a very unique bike, with really interesting geometry and I decided it needed a unique name. It's really cushy, like sitting in a soft armchair, and the name creates cushy mouth movements when said. IRI is hebrew and means fire, light. The bike is lipstick red, which is bright light and like irridescent fire. Besides, I'm going to burn some trails up on it :)

IRI, MY BIKE:

Searched for some better images on the web

(my camera's still not functional yet)

and found the below:

Dalmatianess

So Sunday was my long ride, which I was really looking forward to as I hadn't been on my bike a whole lot in the past week. My legs get itching to spin...spin...spin...when I haven't rode in a while, and there's this low grade hum of "...I want to be on my bike...I want to be on my bike"...going through the back of my head. So I was really excited and pumped to be doing my long ride. I was also looking forward to the long ride so it could work out the kinks in my legs that I incurred mountain biking. After mountain biking on Saturday, my legs look like dalmatians - little black and blue bruises everywhere against my white skin and I have some pretty spectacular knots (I'm going to get shin/knee and elbow/forearm guards soon). About 30 minutes into it, my legs felt fine and I felt really good to be biking by myself, chilling out. I really love spending 3-6 hours alone, by myself, biking at my own pace, doing my own thing, looking at the beautiful scenery and riding.

I originally wanted to do 76 miles on Sunday, but ended up only doing 55.5 miles. I was okay with that deviation for a couple of reasons:

1. It's the longest I've continually been on the bike. Before, I'd done 60 miles, but had two breaks of about 1 1/2 in between some of the segments (2 miles, 1/2 hour break, 40 miles, 1 1/2 hour break, 18 miles, done). So 55.5 miles continually is pretty good.
2. It was getting dark and I haven't got my big light back from Recycled Cycles yet.
3. The main reason was that the weather was contributing to the ride being very unpleasant. It was raining just about the entire time, and fairly cold. I didn't have fenders put on the bike because I need a different screw. I had started to put fenders on, but when I encountered the screw problem, I didn't want to bug Paul to help out because he was writing so I just left. It was silly and stupid and would have saved me so much hassle to just finish, but I was too eager to get going. So after about 4 hours of my feet swimming in 40 degree water I couldn't feel my toes and couldn't move them, putting my foot down when I hit a stoplight sent a painful shock up my leg. I was really getting concerned about damaging my feet. Which is REALLY stupid. I stopped and bought new socks and doubled up on the layers because my wool socks were shot (I had stopped and rung out about 1/2 cup of water 4 times already). You also get a back-spray from the rear tire that turns your butt into a mud/water bucket, and the front tire plasters your face in nasty water and you get to eat some asphalt backwash. No fenders riding in the rain = misery. There wasn't a dry spot on me. And I was covered in mud - it made pretty cute dalmatian freckles on my face to go with my dalmatian bruises on my legs :) It's just not pleasant for 5 or 6 hours straight. So I learned a very valuable lesson: being warm and having fenders is essential.

As a deviation: a couple months back I went on a hills route, then rode around with Andrew around some more hills and we got pretty far away from home and I bonked really hard. I had eaten, but not enough and there just wasn't enough food in my system to keep me going. It was miserable and horrible and a really awful experience. My brain shut down, I could barely keep pedaling, and mentally and emotionally I started going haywire - it had the same effect on me that say, going 36-48 hours without sleep would do. HOWEVER - Since then I ALWAYS have kept lots of food on me and I haven't ever bonked on a ride. Sometimes really negative experiences teach you valuable things. So, in addition to the "I will not bonk again" rule, I've enacted the "I will never under-layer on long rides" rule (at least until it gets to be summer). Which leads on to the next reason:

4. I learned lot of valuable things. (ordered in importance)

1. I WILL NEVER GO OUT under-layered again. This is not the first time I've gone on a long ride and under dressed and been freezing and cold. It's stupid, it's counterproductive, and I won't do it again.
2. It's imperative I put fenders on AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. I've been putting it off for a week or so and before I went out I tried to put them on, but didn't because a screw wouldn't fit. I'm getting them on tonight. No matter how long it takes.
3. I need at least 9 hours of sleep after a long ride/brutal weekend. I was exhausted this morning after 7 hours of sleep and it's not going to be great for my body's recovery if I don't give it enough time to recuperate.
4. I need a goal of where I'm going, what route I'm taking, and then I just need to point my bike in that direction and go. If I don't know where I'm going, my resolve lags.
5. Hills suck (well, that's not a revelation), but they're easy when I put my head down, only look at the road 8-12 feet in front of me and block everything else out with my cap and then pedal till I reach the top. It seems kinda silly, but when I do that, they're not so hard.

5. I also did a lot of adjustments I had been meaning to do for a long time.

1. Put the computer on Damian so I can track mileage and speed
2. Tilted the handlebars a little towards me to get better positioning on the hoods.
3. Adjusted my right cleat so my knee wouldn't give me problems.
4. I cleaned up Damian. Although after my fenderless ride, I think it's more dirty than coming off the cyclocross season when Andrew gave it to me. Which makes me kind of proud. Before, someone would look at Damian and say "Wow, it's really dirty, you must ride it a lot!" and I felt it necessary to explain it wasn't my hard work making it dirty, it was Andrew's. Now I just go "Yep!"

As a side note, YAY!!!! I finally got into my "skinny pants" - the pants I haven't been able to wear in over three years. I am SUPER SUPER happy about that. And really pleasantly surprised that when I came back from changing with a glow on my face Andrew instantly asked if they were goal pants and then said "Go You!" which makes me happy - I'm really glad he can share in some part the happienss of reaching awesome goals. He's really been an inspiration and a fantastic friend through this. Also, coming into work on Monday I go over 7 comments in two hours at work about how much weight I look like I've lost from multitudes of people. All because of the awesome skinny pants - not skinny pants, but the skinniest pants!!! And there are no more skinner pants left in my closet. Now I'll have to go out and buy new ones!!!