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!

A Note About Swimming

My plans to unveil a wicked fast swimmer (me) next weekend are already feeling a bit foiled. The Carson pool has a big swim meet this weekend, so no long course at all till next weekend. They actually said Monday was a "maybe" but I have learned not to count on "maybe" under any circumstances, be they swimming or can-I-get-a-puppy or otherwise.

I also called the Arundel Swim Center, a big 50-meter facility about 15 minutes from my mom's house in Maryland, where I'll be next week. "Long course?" the guy sounded way too confused to be a real live employee but he was indeed a real live employee. "You mean like 50 meters? No we don't never do that. We got diving boards and stuff all in the way." Why would you build a 50 meter pool but have it permanently set up short course? Is there a real reason or is it just a mixture of redneckness, laziness, and low demand?

I even looked into swimming here at my [sort of] beloved lake. Current Lake Tahoe water temperature is in the mid to upper 40's, depending on where you are. That's a bit cold for me in the context of a quality workout.

Oh well. I can still get in a decent short course workout. I just like the long course for longer sets - for one thing I am much less likely to lose count and get confused! (This is yet another reason to be permanently mad at my mom for not putting me into a swim team program as a child. Swim team kids know how to do long sets.)

Firsts

This was a weekend of firsts, in various totally exciting ways.

-I finally swam long-course at the Carson pool this morning! It was awesome.

-I rode a couple of bike routes for the first time this year - yesterday, I rode west along the lake down to Tahoe Pines and back on my TT bike. A nice mostly rolling ride which I haven't done since November - it still kills me that I can spin out on a 53x12 on a short downhill here, the air is that thin! Then today I headed up to the Mt. Rose Lookout on my road bike, which I technically actually haven't done since I visited Greg here last May, before he moved to Oakland with me. I got a few cool photos too:

Here is the view of Incline Village and the Lake from the lookout point, facing mostly West and a little South.

This is the local ski resort, Diamond Peak. The weekend was beautiful and sunny but we still have lots of pockets of snow left.

-Today was the first time I was quick enough to photograph one of the many coyotes trotting around now that the weather has turned warm! I saw this one getting ready to cross Mt. Rose Highway when I was on my bike and I managed to get my new Fuji Finepix z100fd camera out in time. Speaking of, I am so impressed with the quality of the shots - the coyote was about 50 feet away!

-And finally, I broke down and went clothes shopping for Greg today for the first time ever. That's what happens when there is a certain imbalance between people's senses of style and cuteness in the relationship! (Or really, an imbalance in the importance each person places on these things). It was fun. He's going to look super cute next time he goes out in public!

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

Doh

So, apparently Coach totally screwed up my training over the past week or so. Like royally f'ed up... last week was a rest week, but I didn't arrive at this week very refreshed, made it halfway through the week's workouts before falling apart yesterday and barely making it up and down the pool with fins on this morning.

Coach is in big trubs.

The thing is, Coach is actually Me. Clearly I am not the best coach in the whole world, ready to take an athlete to levels beyond her wildest dreams. I just fit into my own price range pretty well, and after 4 years of bike racing I figured I could bumble along on my own this year without being too much the worse for wear. Having a resident swim expert is helpful too!

But I am not firing myself. I think I just got a bit overenthusiastic with how good I was feeling (up until this week that is), and forgot that I can't train at 6,400' the same way I would at sea level. I think this is particularly true of a rest week, when I used to keep my intensity and just back off of the volume - for a cycle of two weeks on/one off at sea level, this worked well for me. I am thinking that was my primary mistake last week - I felt good so I ran and rode hard, just not for too long. But on Monday I felt sluggish, figured it was just because it was Monday, Tuesday sucked worse, Wednesday I muscled my way through a tough trainer workout, hoping my legs would come around even though the effort felt harder than it did a week and a half ago at the very end of my block, and that was pretty much my last gasp.

All just theorization of course. I am open to other analyses, for example "if you'd stop blogging about your cat/fish/mom/cleverness maybe your training would be more focused".

Now it's time for some hard-core relaxation (as if I had a choice! The SRM won't let me lie about the inefficacy of my legs, and the pool and treadmill are equally unforgiving). Maybe I'll even read a book (gasp!). Better to lose a few days now than a few weeks or months later on in the year...

3rd Birthday

Today my boss's son Jack had his 3rd birthday party at the Rec Center, which coincidentally and conveniently is also where Greg and I swim and work out. They had a bouncy castle in the gym for an hour, then toddler swim hour in the pool, followed by cake and snacks and gifts.

The swim part was SO CUTE. Yeah I know in the past I have bitched about kids swimming, but:

1. My boss's kids are really cute (see previous description of the Cuteness Dichotomy)

2. The party-goers were too small for the lobster, so no need to deal with that annoying and large reminder of how stupid IVGID can be with their money and decision-making.

Little Jack had to put on his swim trunks in the women's locker room with his mom (they had little sharks! so cute!), and I was heading to the pool to do my swim workout at the same time.

"COTE-knee, I'm going SWIMMIN!!" smiled Jack as we headed through the door. He made my day! And after an hour of swimming with his dad and jumping into the water more and more bravely, he was NOT interested in getting out of the water and going to have cake.

My kind of kid.

On a separate note, the lake looked pretty cool on my drive home from work yesterday:


(and thanks for the comments regarding yesterday's survey - looks like i will be buying a new camera soon!)

A Glimpse...

(I hardly even need to squint to see a BEACH!)

Four consecutive days of 40+ degree temps here in Tahoe made an outside ride irresistible today - I headed up to Spooner Lake. So yes, this is snow, not sand!

Probably For the Best

Today was an "it's probably for the best" sort of day, for a couple of reasons. Meaning, initial freakouts were followed by slightly more mature and introspective "oh, right, phew" moments.

Reason one is fairly run-of-the-mill - today we got hit with 5 inches of wet snow and a lot of wind. The power was out at the gym, so the pool and treadmills were inaccessible for my 1 hr swim and 1 hr 20 run... Shortened to a 0 hr swim and a 30 min run outside on my new Yak Trax sneaker things. I intended to do the full run outside, but the winds were at nearly 30 mph with gusts of 60 in places, it was snowing, and while the Yak Trax definitely improved my traction, running in today's snow was like running in deep sand, so I switched over to the cleared pavement in the road, but then I felt like the functionality of my shoes was compromised by the Yak Trax, sorry for the run-on sentence about this run-of-the-mill running story but that's totally what happened. So anyhow with sore ankles, a windswept face, and cold feet, I headed home, leaving this week's long run for tomorrow. I didn't complete my planned hours for the week, but I don't mind the outcome: a little extra rest, and time to drag Greg down to the crazy looking beach and take photos! Can you believe this is Lake Tahoe? It looks like the Pacific Ocean! Maybe I should have tried to do my swim outside too...

Today I also learned that registering for a triathlon is distinctly NOT like registering for a bike race, and should not be approached lackadaisically. I never entered any bike race more than 2 or on rare occasions 3 weeks in advance, but this morning I decided to register for my intended first triathlon of the season, Oceanside 70.3, which is over 2 months away, and it's full! Freakout commenced, because my main goal for the 2008 season is to qualify for my Elite license (tri-speak for Professional, for all you non-geeks out there), and Oceanside is one of the Elite qualifiers.

I felt like such a retard, for a few minutes anyway. But it's actually definitely for the best. For one thing, with all this winter weather we are having, I don't know that I'll feel ready for a half-ironman at the end of March. For another thing, the 70.3 races are run by the Ironman Corporation. I don't really agree with the company's values or philosophies, so I am actually glad not to be giving them any of my money.

Anyhow here are the photos Greg and I snapped of each other at the windy beach during our freezing 30 second visit!

Third and Inches

I am grateful that my new snow boots came in the mail on Friday. (A) I think they are totally cute and cozy and (B) over the next ten days, the only day without a snow icon in the forecast is this coming Saturday.

Thus I am also grateful that, despite my previous pansy statements, I rode outside yesterday! It might be a little while before I can do that again.

Third grateful item is yesterday's Walmart/Target trip. A trip to Carson was not in the weekend plan considering we went twice last week, but yesterday morning our TV up and died. Which was fine with me - Greg got it 3 weeks ago on Craigslist for $65 (about $50 too much if you ask me), it was big and heavy and the remote didn't work and it was some brand I'd never heard of and it looked old and sure enough, it turned out to be a piece of crap after all. Since today is NFL Conference Championship day (hence the post title), no TV was no option. Originally we were trying to stay frugal and get another old-fashioned TV but due to size constraints we got a 20" flat screen instead. It's way easier to move around for use during trainer workouts, it doesn't dominate the whole room, and side bonus: the remote works AND came with batteries!

I think this TV will be a key over the next 10+ days, I am feeling the need to get my weekly hour totals on the bike out of the single digits, which will entail 4 two-hour trainer rides (?!). Training camp is the second/third week of February and I'd rather not, I dunno, suck? And PS why didn't I ask for cross-country ski equipment for Christmas? I couldn't have truly expected to ride outside all winter, nor could I have expected to magically grow some insane tolerance for the trainer. Anyhow, cross your fingers for me that I pull an Eli Manning and suddenly get my shit together.

Still Not a Snow Bunny

After two good weeks of indoor trainer workouts on my bike, I decided yesterday I'd had enough. I braved the 34-degree clear but windy 3:30 in the afternoon Tahoe roads, seemingly well-dressed...

I was so cold after 1 hour that I headed straight to the gym for my run. It took me a good half hour on the treadmill to even begin to feel my toes.

Several options and possibilities exist:
- I have bad circulation and shouldn't even bother with Out Side
- I have OK circulation but shouldn't have counted on late afternoon sun for warmth
- Wool socks, monster-size booties,thick leg warmers, bib shorts, craft turtle neck, jersey, wind vest, wind jacket, K2 survival gear gloves, and hat with ear flaps are insufficient
- I am a pansy

It will be a couple weeks before I test this out again.

Grand Tour of Tahoe/Carson

Greg and I headed down to Carson aGAIN today - yesterday we rode, today we did errands, because yesterday, when we had planned to kill the two proverbial birds, someone anonymous forgot his shorts so we had to go back home to get them rather than do errands with that time. But no matter, we thought, this is a rest week so we have oodles of time.

As we drove down the mountain today, though, we saw a ton of emergency lights. The intersection of highways 50 and 395 was completely shut down due to 6 cars in varying states of squishedness and overturnedness, and one huge tractor-trailer on its side and all across the road. Gnarly stuff... and traffic was ridiculous. The accident was in between Carson and all its big box stores, really poor placement choice by those drivers.

So after errands we took the "scenic" route home, via Kingsbury Grade and South Lake Tahoe. Fortunately I at least had my camera phone, if not my real camera, because we got some great views of the Carson Valley. Actually here it doesn't look like much more than a big cold white blanket but I thought it was beautiful.

I am sort of kind of looking forward to riding this climb on my bike come spring/summer I guess? It's fierce. And not in the ANTM/Tim Gunn/Larry David way.

Blizzard: 100% Chance

Day two of the storm, we currently have 2.5-3 feet. The snow isn't supposed to stop until Wednesday! Yesterday it started out as a rain-snow mix, since the temperature was a bit above freezing. Greg and I did our swim workout in the morning, and then he was going to drop me off at work but since work is at 7500', not the 6500' of the lake, slush turned to full-on white-out blizzard a little above 7000' so we turned around. Gingerly. I worked from home until mid-afternoon, and then headed to the gym to run and lift. We had about 5 accumulated inches of slush by that time, not exactly run-able but definitely drive-able.

By the time I left the gym at 5, though, we had blizzard conditions at lake level. Lots of small snow flakes and lots of wind so it was incredibly difficult to see anything, plus the slush from earlier had frozen to ice underneath the freshly falling snow. Major ew... And as we all know, I am NOT the world's best driver in ideal conditions. But it is only a mile and a half from the gym to my house, other people seemed to be driving just fine, so I figured I would just slowly make my way home. Plus I had left both cell phones at home so I couldn't exactly call for rescue! After thirty-five harrowing minutes, 10 of which spent immobile and stuck at an intersection, I made it!

For the rest of this particular blizzard, I will be running to the gym and to anywhere else I need to go. I did that today and it actually worked out much better than yesterday's trip! Although I have to run slowish, as soon as I tried to run my normal pace I fell flat on my face. But it was so peaceful and different outside, as soon as I warmed up it was great fun. My eyelashes were coated with snow!

Here Comes the Storm!

Yay snow! I think I am starting to like it here.

The Lost Month

GUESS WHAT IS BACK?!?! Beloved 'puter. Not only did they replace the hard drive, but they also cleaned it and fixed a dent or two!

Anyhow here's a pictoral account of all the exciting Incline happenings of the past month. (Note there are no people in the photos because, sigh, I still have no friends.)

The sun rose:

The cat got some baths...
...and survived:

It Snowed:

And the sun set:

Not Quite Out Of The Tunnel

So the beloved laptop is not home yet, and we got over a foot of snow (my first snow in like 6 years, I was all excited but I have been told that I'll be sick of it really soon), so my access to free community computers is even more diminished than it was before.

Ah well.

Latest opinions on T.V.:

- does anyone else think that there might be fewer psychopathic gun-firing youth murderers if the news would STOP AGGRANDIZING every single massacre? Where do they think these kids get their ideas in the first place?

- today is the big Hatton/Mayweather boxing fight in Vegas. Thankfully, it's $54.95 + taxes and fees on pay-per-view, so I don't have to watch two guys try to pummel each other for real. It's bad enough in the movies... Nevertheless I have watched the "24/7" buildup shows, and I am rooting for Hatton.

Latest opinions on Modern Literature:

- I started reading "The Gift" for Book Club this week, and I just can't stomach it. Stuff like "she was still so overcome by the emotion" and "'Wow, you're really muscular'" and "blah blah blah Almighty God", etc. Anyway I can't deal.

Provided there is enough egg-nog on hand to allow me to open my mouth amongst a bunch of strangers, my contribution to the discussion will be "there's a typo on page 98" and "this is as bad as 'Bridges of Madison County'."

I am still looking forward to it though. Everyone has to bring a snack!!

Mountaintop Rescue!

(and by the way I am still laptop-less so no photos for a few more days... sorry!)

Anyhow this morning, as I was poring over Joy of Cooking wondering which was less likely to be disastrous, Pumpkin Pie or Pumpkin Cheesecake, I got a phone call from my very own pumpkin who had left about 15 minutes earlier to drive to Reno for work. He was halfway up Mt. Rose with a flat tire and no changing tools.

I leaped to action - my trusty Honda Civic and I were off to save him and his not-very trusty Honda Accord which I hate with increasing vengeance.

And by the way, 8:30 a.m. in late November at 7500' of elevation outside is NOT THE TIME to be wearing only velour pants, a t-shirt, and a $10 hoodie from Target. The good news is I have finally traded in my flipflops for solid footwear so at least my toes weren't freezing.

As per usual with my stories, I am providing an excess of detail for a nonexistent punch line. We changed the tire. Greg took my car to Reno and I am stuck with his temperamental relic from the dark ages all day. Good thing my only errands are within walking distance (and the 76 station is right across the street from our house! how fortunate!).

Now I am going to get back to my pie decision.

Back on the Wagon

After an interminable week of no training, I broke down this morning and went for a swim. It felt great to be back in the water, although I am somehow already slower than I was before Silverman... ah well I have time to get back up to speed! I am going to start my weightlifting program tomorrow, assuming I can find some record of what I did last year embedded in my email. I spent forever looking for the notebook where I wrote everything down, but apparently I threw it out in one of my all-too-frequent-and-MADDENLY-NONSENSICAL-AND-HAPHAZARD cleaning frenzies.

God.

Separate topic: Yesterday, at the height of my no-workout boredom and inspired by all the Real Housewives of Orange County "pampering" I have been seeing on TV, I trotted off to the Lake Tahoe Hyatt's Stillwater Spa, armed with a $200 gift card AND a local's discount card (good for 25% off!), thinking that I'd be able to get a full day's worth of pampering... it was actually used up after 2 hours but it was a pretty nice two hours. I got a massage (nice but definitely inferior to JD's massages) and then a facial (a first for me - it was awesome! But it did remind me of high school and all those cucumber/avocado/peach whatever masks we smeared all over ourselves to actually disastrous affects, although the cucumber one was super fun because it peeled off like a big patch of elmer's glue).

I don't think I could go back though. For one thing, I wouldn't ask for another gift of a spa treatment there, I find the bang-for-the-buck factor to be severely lacking. And for another thing, the excessive "you deserve it!" pampering feels way too ridiculous and indicative of what really bugs me about our society today. Everyone is special, everyone is a princess, everyone deserves to have all kinds of money and products and rose-smelling crap slathered all over them, and the slathering is totally essential to being beautiful. Major groan.

Apocalyptic whining aside: man the facial was nice!

License to Luv Life

Since moving to Tahoe 10 days ago, I have seen approximately tons of fancy cars with license plates announcing the awesome great Tahoe mountain life loved and lived by the driver of said fancy car.

I think there's some be-jealous-of-me phenomenon going on here? Not that this attitude is exclusive to Tahoe at all, I guess it's pretty american, but still I am enjoying all the license plate manifestations of it tootling around the lake.

Truckee River

I did a great ride today, starting from Incline Village and going along the lake to Tahoe City, then following the Truckee River into Truckee, then going over Brockaway (only not-exactly-fun part...) back to the lake. It's been a bit cloudy and hazy for the past couple of days, I wonder if the fires in Southern California are the reason?

Unpacked the Camera

And yes, it's beautiful up here!