Basically Back to Normal

After a few days of being so very tired, I got my head and legs back on straight, just in time for the weekend!

So my training was actually pretty decent.

Friday was a nice run and a long course swim down in Carson, where I ran into an Exterra triathlete who lives in Incline just like me - we are going to try to start carpooling down there once or twice a week, since we seem to have compatible work schedules and 60 miles round trip alone is kind of silly. According to my mom, I can't afford that gas cost anyway (see yesterday's freakout topic).

Yesterday was just a bike day, 2:30 on the trainer with 1:45 of that being interval work. The time flew by, first due to *sigh* Jason Bourne (who BY THE WAY swims breastroke with scissors kick, JUST LIKE ME!!!! He's so great), and then due to my awesome new iPod. Why I ever defected from the iPod Classic to the measly Shuffle remains a mystery. I am glad I regained my senses.

Then today I swam in our gross dumb indoor pool here in Incline, although I was very happy to notice that they seem to be vacuuming it more these days, so there are way fewer hair clumps and bandaids than there used to be! Still a bunch of kids running around though, including two girls whose mom ignored the "no food" signs and let them open a tube of Pringles in the locker room which they promptly dropped all over the floor and a bunch of them shattered and started turning into mealy globs because of the water from the pool and people showering, then of course the trio hightailed it out of there without telling the front desk that they ruined the locker room floor for all the other patrons. Gross. Sometimes people with kids really amaze me.

And finally, today was long run day! I headed out for 90 minutes after my swim. I haven't done a long run since Wildflower three weeks ago, and technically my last long training run was 5 weeks ago, so it felt great to get out and run long after taking a break from it. I missed the feeling I get after an hour of running, when I start to feel really good and really efficient and a little dose of soreness from muscles working hard and adrenaline from knowing I still have a ways to run. Also the sun made an appearance so there were lots of tourists walking around on Lakeshore Drive taking pictures of the big houses and wearing goofy "Lake Tahoe Hyatt" sweatshirts they must have bought from the giftshop because they came here unprepared for the cold - kind of like those dinky "San Francisco" sweatshirts you see walking all over the city in July on people who are clearly out-of-towners who didn't do their research... "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." Supposedly Mark Twain said that but there isn't proof that he really did.

Anyhow, so that's that. Now I am sitting here goofing off on the internet, trying to make a somewhat cool-ish website for myself because on a whim a couple weeks ago I decided that blogger was dumb and I am sick of having two blogs and wouldn't it be way better to have just one site with my journal and artwork and race stuff all organized so I dropped more $ than I should have on all that hosting domain-name nonsense. Groan. I am determined to make it look like I want it to but it's taking me forever!

What Not To Do

Man I can't believe the weekend is nearly over. I need another one please, I am wrecked. And I didn't really do a ridiculous amount of training - I probably just made some stupid decisions (or stupid forgets, that's a little more accurate).

The weekdays this week were strategically splattered with some quality intensity work, along with attempted recovery. Intensity is pretty hard up here, and I've found that recovery is hard too. Back in Oakland, if I'd feel sluggish and crappy, I'd head out for an hour loop up Tunnel Road and down through Montclair or Claremont, and arrive back home feeling worlds better and ready for another loop or three. That just doesn't happen here, that refreshed feeling after a nice spin (neither the feeling NOR the spin - it's mostly just staring at the ride time begging for it to be over already). And there are certainly no "recovery runs". Recovery has to come in other forms I guess, namely sleep! And I made sure to get plenty of sleep this week.

So after a good but well-planned week, I planned to have a good and well-planned weekend too. Didn't get off to the best start. Yesterday Greg and I drove down to the pool in Carson for a long course workout, the pool opened at 10:30 according to the website. We made the mistake of not calling ahead (rationalization being that if we called at 10 to verify it was set up LCM they'd be closed anyway so why bother), and of course got there to find the pool teeming with teenagers and their parents and coaches and hormones. Woohoo swim meet taking over the whole pool... Greg threw his towel, it didn't make any noise or do any damage but that was all that was on hand to display Major Frustration. But after a long drive back up the mountain, we managed to get in a decent workout at our pool in Incline, so that was nice, though the workout we'd planned would have been so much better.

We got home around 1 p.m. and I was seeing stars. Actually more like this big fuzzy rectangle off to the left, in both eyes, regardless of whether my eyelids were closed or open. Thinking I was low in blood sugar, I ate a cookie or two, but that didn't help. Greg's dad informed me via telephone that it's a sign of dehydration, not eye cancer or cookie deprivation, and I realized that I'd had half a water bottle all day... including the hard 1.25 hr swim in a warm pool... crap. I had forgotten to drink! What a rookie maneuver! Ugh!

I downed a big bottle of electrolyte mix but I am guessing that was maybe too little too late, because my long run in the afternoon was the worst ever (partly because of my route choice and the 30 mph winds but I did really feel horrid), and my long ride today with friends down in Reno was the second worst of the past month or so. I knew at the start that it would be a long four hours, my legs and heart felt so tired, and the wind steadily built from 15 mph to a good 25 mph, so I struggled but toughed it out. And I reminded myself that if 2 weeks ago I could do four hours by myself on the Pacific Coast Highway on a brand new TT bike with only one bottle cage and starting the ride with the worst saddle sore I have had in months and riding into a 15 mph headwind for the whole first half of the ride, if I could do that, I could certainly deal with cold windy Reno. At least I had company and an irritant-free crotch area. Although it was a bit embarrassing, not ONLY did my companions have to wait for Courtenay the Snail at the tops of the climbs, they also had to wait at the bottoms of the descents!! Apparently I was the only one with contacts, they could all see fine down the long super windy descents, whereas I was left dizzy and trying for the life and safety of me to just stare at the white line and get down and out of the wind. Sheesh.

So, lesson being: hydrate! It will make your weekends funner! (I know I am just begging for a basewater comment once again...) Now I am warming up and hydrating with some herbal tea, hoping hoping hoping that I feel better by tomorrow. The Carson City pool is supposed to be set up long-course until 9 a.m., and I am determined to make my third effort at getting there the charm. Greg can't go though, he has to get his foot x-rayed. (Add'l source of stress this weekend. To Be Continued.)

Santa Monica - Day 5, "The Blur"

Why do recovery days have to feel like the busiest of all?! Today was an easy day of training before tomorrow's last hurrah and Sunday's drive home but MAN I am beat.

I got up at 8.

I fed the puppy and the birds and me.

I ran.

I ate 3 pieces of toast.

I went to the bike shop to pick up my TT bike.

I rode my TT bike.

I ate some Newman's O's, and some other stuff, I forget.

I swam.

I went back to the bike shop to pick up my road bike.

I showered and spent like an hour doing my hair.

Greg was present for a lot of these "i did"s but not for this one:
I went out to dinner with my aunt and uncle and cousin!! We went out in Venice Beach, to a place called Hal's, and I had a delicious steak and tons of water because I was too scared to order a glass of wine and too busy chatting to ask a waiter for something more exciting anyway.

I checked emails on my phone on the drive home.

I am blogging quick.

I can't wait for bed, and for tomorrow! (no not because of dumb basketball, but because tomorrow will be a fun day of training, woohoo!)(i am definitely not trying to trade lives with any fellow alumnae...)

Santa Monica - Day 4

I'm sitting on the couch with a belly full of pizza and feet warmed by a puppy, watching the surfing movie 'Riding Giants' - even though a couple people die, this is MUCH more my style than 'No Country For Old Dumbheads', plus there is an actual soundtrack that makes me feel hip and cool because I know a lot of the songs. NCFOD is devoid of music, it's creepy.

Today was a long-ride day, I did one of my favourite loops down here, which involves riding out the Pacific Coast Highway, then up Latigo Canyon Road, rolling along a good long stretch of Mulholland Drive, and climbing out over Stunt Road. The route is pretty quiet in the middle of the week, except for the perpetually awful PCH on which I will never ever feel comfortable. God. No photos of the ride, I did bring my camera but I actually didn't even stop for food or water so that should say something about my relentless pedalling!

After the ride I headed back over to Helen's Cycles for some tweaking on my new Blue TT bike. So far, so good - I'm loving the bike and I am ESPECIALLY loving the guys at Helen's. Usually I feel like I have to "know" someone at a bike shop in order to get good treatment, but here that is totally not the case. I didn't even wear overwhelmingly cute outfits or makeup or anything!

O.K., one last revisitation of a topic I have already discussed in previous posts: my Private All Girls' Baltimore High School's Alumnae Magazine. I've decided not to post my entry to the magazine, a. because it's boring but more importantly b. because my problem with the magazine in the first place is it feels like a forum for hyperbole, or at least making things seem better than they are by crowing about your huge wedding or your babies or your job at Vogue/Miramax/Barclay's. This happens to me every year, and I know I am not the only one ;)

Although, I do remember last year there was a big deal being made over one girl completing her first ever sprint triathlon. So maybe I have some worthwhile impress-everyone-and-make-them-jealous fodder after all.

I want a puppy.

Santa Monica - Day 1

So far I am pretty stoked on vacation Santa Monica Training Camp. Lots of play time with my best little buddy, and lots of play time with my best big buddy, too. This morning we rode along the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu to Latigo Canyon Road, where we both did a nice long climbing interval.

During this time I realized I am exactly like my mom. I made Greg stop for photos several times, even though he's all serious about his training (and so am I)(totally)(all the time), but here we are in this beautiful place and with a cool new camera and the minor unclip-and-squint-into-the-sun inconvenience is a tiny price to pay for the photographic memories we'll have later! Plus I wanted to memorialize the first time in AGES that we have successfully ridden together for more than 35 seconds ;)

We got back and did a tempo run, which was mostly great. I am without any instrumentation here because I sent my Timex back to get warrantied, so without a heartrate monitor or even a watch I went too hard, but I need to develop my feel independent of gadgetry so it was probably a good thing. Right now though I am propping my feet up and guzzling PowerBar Recovery like it's going out of style, because we are headed to the Santa Monica Swim Center to swim Long Course Meters tonight! For some reason it's only set up long course from 7:30-8:30 p.m. on Mondays. Side note: I am so stoked to be sponsored by PowerBar, they have the most palatable recovery mix ever! I love it, which is a good thing because usually recovery drink works best if you actually drink it, instead of mixing a full bottle and forcing down only like 4 sips of it.

Arnold wolfs down some carrots, his favourite treat

Also, I forgot to mention that our hosts here in Santa Monica are pig-sitting! A friend's potbellied pig, Arnold, is staying here for a few weeks while the friend is out of town. Arnold is bristly and cutely talkative with his pig noises, and he loves veggies! Greg said something totally mean though. "I bet Arnold would taste delicious, he eats such a healthy diet." BOYS! Sheesh. I told Greg to shut his trap (not my exact words) and then gave Arnold another carrot. Bob the puppy likes Arnold because for some gross doggie reason he likes to eat pig poop. Gross. I still love Bob though, and thankfully there's a hose in the yard to rinse out his mouth in case he accidentally gets into Arnold's section of the yard.

Who's cuter, me or Arnold? (don't answer pls)

Poor Bob wants so badly to play with Arnold!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow, Greg and I and a car full of STUFF will be driving from Incline Village all the way down to San Dimas, CA. I have adamantly repeated multiple times that we are leaving first thing, no doodling around with "oh let's go do a swim first" and "let's make a big breakfast" and "i have to finish packing" and next thing you know we hit the road at noon sharp and arrive at 10 pm after multiple pit stops.

Poor Greg, I keep repeating myself and he keeps repeating "O.K., I agree with you!" himself. Poor Greg!

Also poor Greg because the original plan was for him to stay in San Dimas with me and the rest of the VAC girls, to train and watch some racing and cheer and hang out. But, when I told him it would be 6 girls plus him all in 2 rooms, and we'd maybe do his HAIR and NAILS for him, and no there's no kitchen so we'll just go out for burritos and gossip about the race, he got (understandably) a bit gun-shy and formulated Plan B. So, now he is going to spend tomorrow evening with me and the girls in S.D. and then hightail it west, to the sandy peaceful shores of Santa Monica, where he will be able to sleep and train and do boy stuff in peace without having to fend off a bunch of sports bras and hair dryers!

But, despite this removal of my own personal cheering section and moral support, I am really looking forward to the race. It will be a great opportunity to get in a bunch of intensity, while helping my teammates and enjoying my favourite type of bike racing: stage racing! I am also slightly nervous, because my triathlon training is right on track but is devoid of some of the training that's really helpful in bike racing, for example sprints and VO2 work on the bike. When I did this race a couple of years ago, Alisha Lion not only finished 3rd in the well-contested overall classification, but she also went running after every stage! I am not quite in that rockstar category - I'll probably do a run tomorrow evening, and I'll do a run after Sunday's criterium, and hopefully an easy swim or two as well over the course of the weekend. But the bike race is the priority, I'll have tons of time to get in good swimming and running workouts in lovely Santa Monica all next week (YAY 50 meter outdoor pool and YAY multitude of running venues!).

Which reminds me: I better go buy some sunscreen.

Rode the Peaks

I did my outdoor Incline Peaks ride yesterday - it was fantastic! Hardly any cars! Several friendly fellow-citizens out walking their friendly well-behaved cute doggies! I even saw another cyclist! (And, I have a new appreciation for how many pricey houses are tucked away on the mountainside, all in this one little town...)

The weather was decent but super windy. On future windy days I will avoid Tyner, the biggie that goes up to 7,600', because it's quite exposed, and while it averages a 6% gradient there are many stretches that are 8-10%. So, combine these factors with the many curves in the road and the lack of those metal bumper/fence-like thingies that prevent cars (and bikes) from flying off the road into a gulley 200 ft below, and you get a road that's fun to climb but not so much fun to descend in 15-25mph mountainside gusts! The views were gorgeous though, next time I will bring my camera.

I feel lame that I was humbled by a little steep road and some wind... What happened to the Courtenay who used to race people down the mountain? I am hoping it's just a matter of clearing out my descending cobwebs after a winter on the trainer.

Anyhow after my ride I spent 40 minutes in line at Raley's - apparently it's Spring Break for a bunch of people so they've descended on my store and wiped them out of all my favourite stuff, although I will say that Maui Melon Mint Orbit Gum is not a bad stand-in for Lemon-Lime.

After that I spent about an hour and forty minutes trying to get what seems to be a 697cc tire onto my 700cc race wheel. I tried every trick in the book shy of breaking off my carbon rim. Next up is batting my eyelashes at some big strong boys, for example Greg and our team mechanic John. And, guess what else: I get to pick up my NEW BIKE this weekend!!! I am so excited, I can't wait to ride it!

Even though I am freezing I am ordering a Milkshake!

Today I rode outside! Starting from the Trader Joe's in Carson City, which is about 25 miles from our place in Incline Village and about 1,500' lower in elevation, heading South along Jack's Valley Road through Genoa (Nevada's first settlement, established in 1851 - it's actually pretty cute!), down to Fredericksburg Road, Emigrant Trail, and turning around just past Woodford.

My plan to find the 7 (or 5) Peaks of Incline this week was thwarted by a couple days of snow and wintry temps and I wound up riding inside for most of my workouts. But my limit on the trainer is not high now that Spring feels so imminent - I already did one hard trainer workout this week, and the trainer just didn't feel like the right choice for getting a quality long ride done today. It felt depressing. By comparison, a 30 minute drive to relentless 20 mph winds and 40 degree temperatures was downright inspiring!

I have done this ride once before, and new I could expect DRY (yay high desert that gets not-much snow!), lightly trafficked roads, lots of ponies and cows to say hi to along the way, and lots of gorgeous views...

View near the beginning of the ride, at the top of Jack's Valley

View near my turn-around at Crystal Springs, if I'd continued on I'd have reached the famous Luther Pass

I only took a few pictures because the entire way back was so windy that my eyeballs were knocked out of focus. That's my theory anyway. I really could not see well at all, it was slightly alarming. Plus regaining momentum into a retarded headwind after a valley-vista photo-op... not worth it. (I thought of you Marit!). Oh and this is still my camera phone, since I didn't consult the expert before purchasing my Fuji Finepix, I doomed myself to true snail-mail!

Also I did not see a single other cyclist, not even Greg. We did separate rides. After the Colfax debacle which was all his fault of course and was preceded by the Auburn NOT-group ride which was also his fault, I have sworn never to ride with him again and I am sticking to my guns. So there. Hmf. I am also keeping the memory of my dear grandmother alive by ensuring that no matter what happens, I always make sure to place the blame.

But I did let him come with me to In-n-Out for burgers, fries, and Milkshakes!! Woohoo!

and right now i don't feel so good

Plotting

Yesterday I headed outside in the mid-afternoon 54 degree temps for my afternoon ride. Recently I'd heard about a "7 Peaks of Incline" bike route that sticks to quiet residential roads in town and takes advantage of the 6,250' to 7,600' elevation span between the low and high points of Incline Village. So, after a few unpleasant rides along the highly trafficked lakeside highway that heads towards Carson City and South Lake Tahoe, and after an awful reminder of how dangerous it can be to share roads with cars, I decideded to test out our residential streets yesterday.

I did an hour and a half, which included about 2,000' of climbing and about 10 cars total. Maybe a few more actually, but still the vehicular traffic was blessedly light, the views of Lake Tahoe reliably gorgeous, and the climbs steady and sufficiently long for some future intervals. Jackpot! Then today I consulted a map, which I should have done yesterday but the adventure was kind of on a whim... It looks like we have at least 5 good climbs on hand, 3 of which have at least 1,000' of elevation gain, and I can avoid the busy roads almost entirely. Yesterday I did two of the 5. Here's an interactive map, and the streets that are likely candidates are Tyner, Jennifer, Country Club/Eagle, 1st Green/Fairview, and Ski Way/Tyrol. Google Earth might be a better illustration but I don't have it on this computer.


View Larger Map

On Thursday I am testing out a longer route - 2.5 hours may require a couple of the roads to be climbed twice. I am looking forward to it.

Now it's time for Real Tears

Kristy winning the 2006 Auckland Half Ironman

Kristy Gough was killed on her bike yesterday, by a cop of all things, and her riding partner and fellow racer Matt Peterson was killed as well. I can't believe it. Here is the article in the San Francisco Chronicle about Kristy specifically, and here is the article about the accident.

You hear about these tragedies but never want to believe they can involve someone you actually know, someone you've rooted for, someone very close to friends of yours, someone out innocently doing something that you also innocently do every day. Lives won't be the same.

The Smiling Trick

I have started getting weird looks at the gym because I tend to smile at no one whilst sweating and huffing and puffing. I got the idea from Chris Horner, who has a permanent smile on his face even while doing something insanely hard, like attacking the Manayunk Wall from bottom to top on mile 100 or something of the 2004 race at Philly. He's one of my favourite cyclists to watch, super gutsy and talented. And always smiling. I also remember seeing him win at the 2003 San Francisco Grand Prix, the event that was solely responsible for the inception of my bike racing athletic career.


Sometimes I am not the most positive person. Shocking revelation, I know, because I totally come off as Pollyanna on the blog, but really I know I am sometimes a half-empty. So the smiling trick didn't come naturally to me, but I am working on making it a habit. For example today, my umpteenth run in a row on the treadmill due to the weather, stuck with Fox News on the gym TVs because this is Incline, tired from two hard weeks, tons of kids running around for some seemingly nonsensical elementary school field trip to the local workout facilities (??!?! and they were unsupervised, one little 9 year old got on a treadmill and jacked the speed up to like 8.5 and was hanging on to the arm handles for dear life before a gym staffer came and turned it off), anyhow I had a smile on my face for the whole 80 minutes and I had a great workout.

Humble Pie

The weather forecast is crap for the weekend here. Today was the only day with even a chance of sunshine and bike-rideable temperatures within any reasonable driving distance of Tahoe. Thusly, Greg and I shifted our training schedules around a bit and headed down to Colfax (about 20 miles from Auburn) today for this weekend's long ride.

The planned route took us from Colfax on Iowa Hill Road, which is a beautiful and very lightly travelled road that crosses the American River and then climbs and climbs and climbs up to the Forest Hill Divide, at which point I was going to turn onto Foresthill Divide Road (the nice remote end, opposite of what I did last week) until I hit 2 hours of ride time and then turn around and ride back the way I came. Elevation of this route was something like 2200' at start to 1000' at river to 2800' at Iowa Hill to 4500' at the divide and then 3200' at Foresthill. It was supposed to be a 4 hr ride.

I totally didn't make it. At first just usual "toughen up" sort of complaints were getting in my way - I was cold, the 2 miles of solid 15% uphill grade sucked, there was more and more snow and slush on the road the further I got, I was all by myself, I had forgotten my pain-numbing iPod, etc. I finally decided to call it quits and turn around at 3100' or so because the road was more than half covered with snow and ice. This was only an hour or so into the ride (and only 10 miles! ugh steep climbs!), so I was reluctant to make this call, but similar to a ride from last year, I had to tell my "you are not a quitter" self to shove it in the name of reason.

The way back was basically fine for a while, I rode hard whenever the road was mostly flat and decended carefully whenever there was slush, and made it to the start of the really steep part without being cold or miserable.

Now for the embarassing part... I couldn't deal with the 15% downhill. At all. I walked for half of it, maybe more. I got off my bike and took baby steps down the road, gingerly hugging the hillside as if I were on an actual cliff, sobbing and sniffling all over the place. One car passed me while I was walking, some lady who looked at me and waved - I can't figure out why she didn't stop for someone in obvious distress?! Anyhow after around 25 or 30 minutes I finally made it to the bottom. I think it took me less time to climb that thing!

I have had problems with steep descents that have sharp dropoffs in the past, but never this bad. I really expected to be able to ride down it but when the time came, no way. (Although, I have only attempted a 2 mile 15% mountainside decent in my nightmares, never in real life!) I guess I have diagnosed myself with vertigo: in these situations, I get so paralyzed with fear by what's in my field of vision that I just can't function. It's actually the reason why I sold my mountain bike, why I have never been all the way to the top of Mt. Tam, and why I was one of the few San Francisco cyclists who hated the Marin Headlands loop.

Does anyone else have this problem?

Anyhow, tomorrow it's back to my good friend, The Trainer!

Progress on New Year's Resolutions

I never actually blogged about any resolutions, but I did indeed make a few. Do more artwork (specifically, at least a painting and a card a month), do my own bike maintenance (specifically, learn to replace cables myself), and the usual general "keep the apartment clean", "be nice", "don't eat too much or too little", etc.

It's been nearly a month, and I don't know how the crap I am so busy but I have gotten nothing accomplished! Argh! I have picked up my pencils on several occasions, but pens and paints keep getting put off till the weekend or the rest week or some time that is not the evening of a long tiring day. The good news is inspirational momentum is building, so I am thinking there will (with perhaps some caffeination?) be a breakthrough.

As for the bikes... well, I do have one major excuse, which is the lack of a bike stand. My rear derailleur cable is distinctly on its way out, I have limped through my last few workouts by periodically twisting the barrel adjuster and being flexible about my gearing choices, but after a thorough fix-it attempt last night I had to say "uncle". So I tromped over to the Village Ski Loft today, hoping that since they sell mountain bike stuff in the summer time, someone might be able to help me. The ski guys were like "dude, um, I don't know WHAT to do with a BIKE." But thankfully there is a guy there named Elko who said he could replace my cables!

Poor sad cold little bike, it looked so out of place next to all the skis and snowboards.

Warm weather ride!

Today Greg and I drove 90 miles to Auburn so we could ride our bikes outside. It's been snowing here all week, only an inch or less per day, but it's cold enough and precipitating enough to be treacherous and nasty for a four hour ride outdoors, and we only have one trainer so indoors was a non-option.

It was 50 degrees in Auburn, I didn't even need a jacket! That was a definite upside. The downside is that Forest Hill Road pretty much sucks for riding. It's slow going on the way to Forest Hill from Auburn, because there's a net uphill of about 2000' over 17 miles, plus it's a fairly wide road so all the cars go fast and it's very wind-prone, and my primary personal problem with this road is the shoulder, which is mostly narrow, strewn with glass and other debris, and there is this ledge created by two different sets of pavement, and I actually wasn't going to reveal this in the blog but today I experienced my first "crash" of 2008 thanks to this stupid ledged shoulder, a car coming next to me, a big stick log, afternoon sun in my eyes, and "Hangin' Tough" or some similar nonsense in my ears. Basically I just did an ungraceful slow somersault and now I have red mud all over my kit and bars.

But the road after Forest Hill Road made it all worth it! Decent pavement, hardly any cars, and so many views! The clouds were incredible.

Also here is Greg at the Vin Diesel Bridge over the American River, so called by me because Vin threw a car over it in XXX because it's the highest bridge in the U.S.

Next time, I will skip the Forest Hill Road portion of this ride.

Sorry for the complaining. I feel stupid bitching about stuff, I mean how lucky am I to have gotten to ride outside on a beautiful day with so many non-snow-covered sights! It should have been a lovely ride. But I couldn't stop thinking about how I used to always share beautiful rides with friends. Now I realize how lucky I was to have started my cycling career in the Bay Area, not only did I have loads of great rides on hand, but I also had loads of great people to ride with. Now it's just me and my ipod, both of which I am bored of (hence today's music selection). In Oakland, even if I did my training alone, I still saw countless cyclists or other friends when I was out riding. Today I saw 3 cyclists, and that's counting the 30 seconds I spent riding with Greg "I Don't Ride Slow" Remaly. Hmf. I feel lonely.

Everything has a tradeoff - apparently the tradeoff for living on a beautiful lake with minimal traffic in a safe and tight-knit community is that I can't ride to the local coffee shop, meet up with a handful of teammates and friends, and spend the day together on bikes. I am still adjusting to this, I guess I just took for granted how important the social aspect of riding was to me. Overall, the tradeoff is worth it. I am happy about our move to Tahoe, even though it doesn't always seem like it on my blog!

I guess O'Neill's a fatty?!

Nathan O'Neill gets busted for prescription diet drug Phentermine..

Why does he have a prescription for an appetite suppressant in the first place? He gets too celebratory at Krispy Kreme after all his stage race wins or something? I am curious to hear how this gets spun.

Lucky Duck

and, because my favourite positivity-espousing teammate succeeding in having a positive effect on me, here's version 2:

Pink

Philly pre-ride today was a blast.

Lots of nice views:
And cutenesses:

"Possum" giving "Groggles" a ride back to the hotel

Selling some Nice Stuff

I am going to momentarily use the blog as my Personal Advertising Marketplace Sell Stuff Venue. Here's what's up for new ownership:

One TIME Carbon Edge First Bicycle, size XXS (50 cm seat tube, 51.5 cm top tube):



One Powertap Pro powermeter, scientifically proven to get you uphill at warp speed** (no photo for this one)


One Pair Mavic Cosmic Carbone SL Wheels:


I will not bore the uninterested with specs, pricing, and other details here. If you or anyone you know might be interested in anything above, in any combination or non-combination, please let me know! (cour10ay at gmail dot com)

**joking

Careful Out There

Roman slid out on Happy Valley Road, sustaining road rash but thankfully not anything worse.

Emily crashed spectacularly down a Boulder descent and is sporting a very glamorous Bride of Frankenstein look whilst patiently waiting to heal enough to get back on the bike. "Why am I staying up so late these days? Because I am not an athlete anymore!" (I am bummed that my partner in crime is temporarily sidelined, although I am sure there are other members of the women's peloton who are relieved that she is absent from a few start lines... Really strong AND blonde AND pretty! That bitch!!)

Taitt got hit-and-run by some streetracer type dude yesterday, nothing is broken (except her helmet) but something is not right and as of now she is on crutches. She sees a specialist today to figure out what's wrong, please cross your fingers for her.

And as for me: I am hiding at home under my comforter, hoping I am not the next victim, yet nevertheless plotting another trip to South Park Fast-descent road...

Today was Great

Yes caffeine is still rampaging through my system and producing this somewhat uncharacteristic positivity... sorry!

Anyway. Today was the Wente Road Race. I woke up way too early for my tastes (5:15! ew!), but 3 facts made the early morning totally super:

1. The new Piedmont Ave. Peet's is 6 blocks from my house AND it opens at 6 a.m. on Saturdays!

2. It wasn't raining!

3. The sunrise this morning was lovely...

As for the race itself - it was great too. I will spare you the boring/gory details but bottom line is I felt great about my improvement since last year, when I was OTB by the time we were halfway up the climb on the first lap. This year I stayed with the main group for the entire race. AND I have confirmation from a racer with an SRM that this year was in fact harder up the climb than last year! Mt. Hood here I come... I was also really pleased for Jill McLaughlin and Stacy Marple, who were off the front for over half the race. They are both really strong and impressive racers.

Anyway, other reasons why Today was Great:

4. Roman won the men's race!

James Mattis finished 3rd but he missed the podium because he went out to ride even more after the race ended.

5. Sarah said our Team VAC kits look awesome! She is totally right.

6. Tons of cool fun people were at the race. Too many to name them all, but having almost all of my favourite people in one place really made my day! I love the racing community.

7. I went shopping and found a new favourite shirt at Old Navy whilst simultaneously talking about current favourite subject (racer boyfriends) on the phone with Tracie. Here's the shirt - it's got sparkly ponies on it! I bought two so I could "have one to give to my sister" (yes, the checkout girl did ask) but really I got 2 because I am concerned that I will need a backup favourite shirt, in the likely event that I lose/mess up the original.

That's it for now. Still waiting on a Quote of the Weekend to post, maybe that will present itself tomorrow.