Gracie Gets A Poodle-Leg

Both S and I were traveling last week so the felines were on their own from Sunday afternoon to Thursday evening. Apparently, they had a wicked house party because Gracie was still hungover when we returned home Thursday. (Our cat sitter didn't see her on Tuesday but that isn't highly unusual).

I took one look at that cat and said to S, "Something's not right." Super lethargic, wouldn't play with any toy (and this is a cat that will say no to treats if you put her favorite toy in view), puking up yellow stuff constantly and if she walked was all slinky, tail down, sad looking. We decided if she didn't look better in the morning, we'd take her to the vet.

My guess was she had eaten a part of a toy and it was wedged in her intestines. X-rays at the first vet showed nada. Same with the blood work - nothing unusual. The vet recommended bringing her home, keeping her quiet and bring her to the emergency vet for an unltrasound if she continued vomiting. As soon as we got her home, "Blech". Twenty minutes later, "Blech Blech!" Of to the emergency vet. The ultrasound showed nothing but by now the poor thing was super dehydrated so she had to spend the night there with an IV.

We got her back Saturday evening. She was pretty low key Sunday. By Monday she was pretty much back to normal. But due to the IV, she had one of her legs shaved in a poodle-like fashion and her belly shaved for the ultrasound. I'm happy to report she's back to terrorizing the household.

Running in Rainville

6 miles around Greenlake (Seattle) in 49 degree heavy drizzle. Still
dark at 7:15 am when I finished. Reminds me of why I moved away from here a few years ago.

Rollers Are A Contact Sport

Who knew? Today we opted for a workout on the new rollers. S and I have our rollers set up side by side with about a 3 foot space in between. Eighteen minutes into the workout, we're both imagining warm weather, nice beaches and palm trees while watching Step Into Liquid on DVD. Out of the corner of my eye, I see S swerve and hear, "Whoa! Uh oh!" Wham! She flies off the rollers to her right and takes me out off my rollers. We both just sat there for a few second, took injury status (we were both fine) and then started laughing. Thankfully, the new rubber floor cushioned our falls a bit. We still haven't figured out exactly what happened. She thinks she simply forgot she was on rollers, started looking around a bit and then just lost it.

I did discover a bit later that my bike bit me as I fell on it. Damn Ankle Biter! Got a bruise inside my knee as well. I'm almost feeling like it really IS mountain bike season. I've been missing my collection of bruises and cuts. :)

Stop The Madness!

I'm so DONE with the snow. Even me, who would love to be out snowboarding today had to take a pass due to dealing with taxes, bills and other way fun stuff around the house including shoveling 6 inches of the sloggy mess. At least we got a snowman out of it. If only he had a brain, he could do my taxes. I REALLY despise this time of year. The weather makes me crazy and I have to face the reality of how many $$$ I let W waste. Grrrrr....

And the snow....early this morning I could hear the plows going by which led to my nightmare of being stuck on the cruise ship in a snow storm. As I tried to get out of the snow, I was lost below deck as I searched to find the gym. Geez.....

In order to cheer up, I signed up for my first bike race of the season, The King of Burlingame MTB Time Trial. April 6th. A month away. Better get riding.

Finished Up The Floor

All the beveled edges were delivered yesterday. This morning I put them all down. I insisted on keeping the sample orange corner pieces, though. My special touch. :)

Data, Data, Data

Since the skies still insist on dropping the white stuff on it (Yay! - for riding on boards, Boo! - for riding on bikes), I've been doing my training on the Rollers For Idiots in the basement. I'm seriously starting to love those things. I've also set the Garmin Edge 305 up and have been using it with the GPS off for the inside rides. The graphs and numbers are interesting but I should really be training with a plan. Right now it's more like, "I guess I should go do an hour." but no specific stuff in mind. You can kind of see that in the graph above. 60 min ride. Got on and bored myself for the first 30 min (actually, I was mesmerized by a DVD of Madonna's Confession Tour ;-) ) Once I finally came to my senses, I thought, "Hey, why not throw in a few intervals." Kind of cool to see that reflected in the graph.

First Ride On The New Board

Headed up to Sunapee yesterday to try out the new board and bindings. OMG! What a huge difference! The new board is an Arbor Push and I picked up a pair of Salomon eLite bindings on sale at REI. Sweet! Absolutely perfect conditions - sunny, warm (40-ish), perfect snow and no lift lines. Only complaint is that today I sound like Cartman, "Ow! My ass!" due to moron skier who rode up the chair with me and then turned right in front of me as we got off. Clueless.

My initial impression came on the first chair ride up the mountain - it's significantly lighter. My left leg wasn't getting that "huge piece of gear hanging off my foot" sensation. Second impression, a fresh coat of wax makes a board VERY slippery (duh). Now I know why I had a bit of trouble keeping up with Frank and The Columbian on some of the flat traverses in Tahoe. I was slightly worried about doing tight turns with the board since it's 5cm longer than my old one. After I slid a few feet further than I expected off the chair (due to the new wax), I had a narrow trail to take ride to connect up to the runs I wanted to do. The board handled great. Hit one of the wider trails and pointed it straight down the mountain - way smoother than my other board at speed. Nice! My turns seemed better, the board tracked better and even on the steeps, held a great edge. No, I did not go into the terrain park. I am starting to think about building a small jump in the park near my house to work on getting some air and landings. I had a blast the few times I inadvertently went flying off a few small bumps. Would love to get better at it. Another foot expected in NH today. Hmmmm....throw the Treo in my pocket and head up again later in the week? Tempted.

Winter Riding - Inside

I couldn't take it anymore - the trainer was killing me with boredom. Generally, I can keep myself occupied for 1.5 - 2 hrs. I can even tolerate Coach Troy. But given that I have trouble focusing in general, I would really space out on a trainer. Looking for a bit more excitement, I decided to switch to rollers. I didn't think S would appreciate me throwing a set of rollers in one of the upstairs hallways so decided to go for the new e-motion rollers from insideride.com (a.k.a. rollers for idiots). These rollers float inside a frame on giant elastics so the bike is allowed more movement and really does feel like riding on the road. It's also way easier to stand out of the saddle and sprint (I would definitely biff it big time doing that on normal rollers.) I'm really enjoying the challenge of learning something new. I've done about 50 miles or so on them so far and it's making my inside training way more fun.

The new rollers also inspired us to clean up the basement a bit and put down a new workout floor in the area we've been using as our mini gym. Almost finished - just waiting for the bevel edges pieces of the flooring to be delivered.

More Winter Riding

Hard to believe, but I haven't boarded with TCB (a.k.a. "Frank") in over three years. We kept talking about it but never got it together. Finally, the stars aligned and due to business travel to the west coast, we made plans to head to
Tahoe for the weekend.

Gotta love packing a snowboard bag for a business trip. No, Gracie didn't managed to get stuffed in there. Fortunately, United hadn't instituted their new policy of having to pay to check a second bag.

Wanting to avoid the crowds, we decided we'd play hooky on Friday and left San Jose Thursday evening. The Sports Wagon was stuffed with both of our snowboard gear, my 10 days worth of luggage, Frank's suitcase and spin stuff (she had to teach spin class before we headed out.)

We drove as far as Auburn that night. Well, Frank drove, I slept. Spent the night at the local Best Western which had make-your-own-waffles (including regular and individual mini waffles) for breakfast. Yum.

After breakfast we headed to Sugar Bowl. It felt SO good to be out of those long days of meetings followed by dinner/events with coworkers. It was a perfect day - sunny, blue skies, warm and little wind. This was my first time at boarding there. The snow was decent snow (yes, I'm getting spoiled by all the snow on the east coast this year) and it was great to try out some new trails. We kept it easy and I managed to not let Frank into talking me into hurling myself down some of the black diamond cliffs - we'd save that for later in the weekend. ;-)

The Columbian joined us on Saturday since he was also out west for our work meetings. We decided to board Homewood because we'd had a previous epic day there and plus the views of the lake from the are just incredible. I'd forgotten just how incredible when on my first run down High Grade I caught a glimpse of the lake out of my peripheral vision, felt like I was going to fall right off the slope and into the lake and almost biffed it. IMHO, that is the most spectacular view from any ski slope I've ever encountered.

Awesome day of riding. Got my own chicken sandwich for lunch (usually split one with Frank - it's tradition) but we were both too hungry. And it seems that all the leg work in the gym is paying off. My legs lasted through most of both days of boarding without a problem. :) Followed up the day with some pinot and great Italian food at a small place called Fiamma's in Tahoe City. Yum.

Winter Riding - Part Deux

Ok, winter riding - THAT'S what I'm talking about! Valentine's Day brought me something extremely fun. My new Arbor Push. I've been lusting over this board for a few months. And despite what the Columbian says, I don't just buy myself whatever toy I want. In fact, I blew my snowboard dispensable income on new rollers (post on that coming soon) instead thinking I'd get more use out of them.

Thanks, Sweetie! Let's ride! :-*

Winter Riding

Being an East Coaster, I'm pretty much used to working out during winter months. I've slogged hundreds of miles through snow and slush and over ice while training for the Boston Marathon. I like playing in the snow - snowshoeing, XC skiing, and snowboarding. But typically, when it comes to riding, I call it quits when the roads have been made slick and narrow by our winter storms. Add to that the ouch factor of a 20mph headwind and fuggetaboutit - I'd rather go to Abusive Spin Class (I REALLY need to write a post on that.)

But - riding in the woods - totally different game. No headwind (I can't ride fast enough to generate one and the trees block the natural wind) and with the snow and ice, it's so damn hard I'm generating more than enough heat to keep me and any squirrels close by nice and toasty.

In order to facilitate some of this off-road, crazy idea of riding on snow and ice covered trails, I sprung for a new set of Nokian Extreme 294 studded tires. My bike looks totally buff with them (even with its girly pink new derailleur cables I put on this fall.)

Of course, after I finally mounted them I had to fly off to the 70 degree weather of the Bay Area and saw people riding in shorts. I wondered yet again why we subject ourselves to living here. It's gotta make us tougher and better riders, right? ;-)

Weather + New Gadget = Riding

Given the lovely forecast for tomorrow and the fact that today was sunny and around 40 degrees, I figured if I wanted to get out and ride, I better. We'll be buried under a foot of snow tomorrow which is fine - I like skiing, boarding, and snowshoeing. But - this Christmas, Santa knew what this gadget girl would really love. A Garmin Edge 305. And I just couldn't resist trying it out. Besides being Gadget Girl, I'm also Data Girl (I think I was the only one in my MBA class who loved our semester of statistics.) So I threw one of the extra mounts on the Tsunami (which is still covered in nasty Kansas City mud) and headed out for a nice 30 mile first ride of 2008. OMG did I feel slow! I know I was riding my 'cross bike complete with knobbies but still.... Ran into Cathy and Mike on their tandem near the asparagus farm which was great for catching up and catching my breath. I was very happy when I rolled into Lexington Center. And yeah, before I even jumped out of my sweaty clothes, I uploaded the ride. You can see the ride data here. Time to crunch some numbers! And the best part, now I'll be able to find those hidden trails that Cathy takes me to. :)

The Flip

Today we were off to Johnny D's Uptown Lounge to meet PFFC for jazz brunch and our annual, always after Christmas, present exchange. I love brunch there especially the combos. Despite my size, I can out eat anyone if the the food we're eating is carbs. Pasta, waffles, pancakes, french toast, etc. Once, we ran out of batter and killed a waffle iron as I ate two 6 ft rowers under the table. Today, however, since I'm still feeling like I ate too much over the holidays, I refrained from the carbs but I did indulge in a Parrot Mimosa. After all, it was Christmas!

And speaking of Christmas, PFFC out did herself. We now have a fun little video camera, The Flip, to shoot all kinds of crazy stuff to post. Love it. And yes, those parrots in the video are our drinks. If you drink two of them, they give you the bird. The bird glass could have been fun for work. Maybe I should have sucked down two.

But in all seriousness, I work with lots of video at work and have at my disposal cameras ranging from professional cameras that you see newsmen carrying on their shoulders, to HD MiniDV camcorders to the "helmet cam". This little gizmo is really quite well done from it's ease of use of the camera itself to the simplicity of its included video editing software. Fun stuff!

Miss December

My friend and fellow mtn bike racer, Stephanie (a.k.a. Luna Chick) is Miss December in the current NEMBA calendar. Love it. Best part, though - when asked what her dream bike would be, she answered, "Any bike that'll let me beat S in the Root66 Race Series." Game on! Should be an interesting season. Glad I'm not in their category any longer. :)

What? Do I look like I'm 12?!?!?!

I decided to burn a PTO day yesterday and do some boarding. Headed up to Sunapee for nice day of playing in the snow. Three times while riding the lift, I had someone ask "Why aren't you in school today?" I realize I'm short and the baggy boarding pants and purple board with pink and white flowers don't help but really, I haven't been required by law to be in school in almost 30 years. I'm trying to take it as a compliment.

Nationals....This Is It

"This is 10 percent luck, 20 percent skill
15 percent concentrated power of will
5 percent pleasure, 50 percent pain
And 100 percent reason to remember the name"

Lyrics from Fort Minor's Remember The Name

There's something nice about Nationals coming in December. For me, it is the crescendo of the cycling season. Then there's the fact that it's followed by all the reflections, introspections and resolutions of the New Year.

Early last year, I made a decision to give up being a relatively successful runner (at least in age group competition) and focus on cycling. I even took a page out of my eleven year old niece's playbook and put up a list of refrigerator goals. The ultimate goal was to improve my finish at Nationals to the top 10 in my age group race. Funny looking back on those goals now. I did "Stick with the plan" but got swept off my feet (literally) so much by mt biking that I ditched the crits and roadraces. But anyway....I digress...this is supposed to be about Nationals.

Days before heading to Kansas City, we kept hearing about the ice storm there. In fact, we even started wondering whether they'd hold the event. Arrived on Wednesday and the view from the plane looked like the arctic tundra. Fortunately, I had reserved a 4WD car. Headed over to the Budget counter and the guy tells me they're out of the Jeep Liberty's I had reserved, would I mind taking something else that was 4WD for the same price. Sure, no problem. Walk out to stall B26 and there's parked a giant red Hummer.
OMG! I drive a MINI - I can't drive that beast not to mention I'd feel like someone who goes out and clubs baby seals. Geez.... S and PFFC laughed their butts off when they saw me pull up in that thing.


Since C fro LA would also be joining us, we had booked a suite at the Great Wolf Lodge. We were pretty speechless (and not in a good way) as we walked into the hotel lobby. I knew going in that it was a family hotel geared for kids but I don't think I expected the singing moose heads, the daily snow storm at 3pm, Santa's visit every day and a host of other events. The place was certainly fine and I know all my nieces and nephews would have loved the indoor water park.



The B Women race was at 9am Thursday. The course, about 10 min drive from where we were staying, opened at 8am for pre-ride. The sky was lightening as we loaded up the car at 7:30 but the sun still wasn't up. Everything was coated with layer of ice. Everything. Pre-riding the course was interesting. I liked the course but wasn't so sure about the crust of ice over it. As we rode, our tires crushed the ice resulting in the oddest sound I've ever heard during 'cross along with making me feel like I was riding in a giant glass filled with a frozen margarita. I did a lap slowly, wondering if it even made sense to do the race. Really didn't want to get hurt before the more important race the next day. Found S, talked it over, and decided to race conservatively and use the race to learn the course. Granted lines would change from one day to another (indeed, they changed from one lap to another at some points during the event) but the practice would be a good thing.

The temp when we lined up for the race was about 28 degrees. I had a front row start thanks to an early registration (cracks me up to think I registered for this race on a sunny, warm evening in Kauai. Registration started at midnight Central Time which is a quite manageable 7pm in Hawaii. Perhaps I should head for Hawaii during next year's registration as well). I had another great start - powered up the hill and hit the dirt second to the eventual winner. Along the first little pond, I rode a bit conservatively and was passed by a 5 - 6 people but was sitting in the top 10 by the time we crossed the road to the next part of the course. Getting passed by a few more women, I was more than a little annoyed and ditched the "ride conservatively" idea and punched it. I reeled a couple of riders in and really concentrated on riding hard and not making mistakes. My first two laps were probably my best of the entire season. And then it fell apart. Not sure if I just ran out of steam or what but the last two laps were probably my worst of the season. Most of the ice was now chewed up and we were riding in mud. As the mud coated the bikes, it froze. Both of my derailleur cables were going nowhere (and I have top mounted cables! Those with downtube cables had it even worse). So now I was tired and riding a single speed. Lovely. But I did manage to ride well. Handled the off camber sections fine and the ditch which seemed to claim riders and wheels every lap proved to be non-issue for me the entire weekend. The Tsunami was awesome in that crud. I love that bike. :) I finished completely wiped in 52 min or so. Good enough for 18th place.

By the time our race was over, the sun appeared. It warmed the course and really started the melting. By the end of the day, the trees no longer had that gorgeous ice coating and the course was a complete mud pit. I hung out to watch the Mens B races and cheer for the MRC boys. The off-camber section turned to slick mud for their race so that ended up being a good place to watch the carnage. ;-)

Next day, my race was at 1pm. Plan was to eat breakfast and get to the venue in time to pre-ride at noon. Breakfast at IHop - bad idea. At least for me. Not my kind of food. Lesson #32: don't change your pre-race eating habits before an important race. You'd think I'd have learned that especially after hearing about Andy blowing his egg mcmuffin at the MRC race.

The course was totally different on Friday and challenging in a whole other way. All the melting from the day before had resulted in frozen mud ruts that would grab your front wheel. Interspersed with the frozen mud ruts in the shade were long stretches of peanut butter mud that I felt were trying to suck the rubber off my rims. And then there were what appeared to be areas of peanut butter mud that in reality were frozen. That led to unexpected and fun jarring. Last but not least, there were slick patches of ice on either side of the narrow brown ribbon of best line through the course. That would make passing interesting.

I had a second row start for this race which worried me a bit given the condition of the course. I was anticipating girls going down on the first turn/downhill-uphill ditch off the pavement and didn't want to get caught behind that. Punched it at the whistle and floored it to get to the front. I arrived at the first turn about 5th or 6th and one of the first women on the dirt biffed it as expected. I changed my line last minute to avoid running her over and that was just enough to cause my rear wheel to slide in the mud and I was down. 45 sec into the race and I was already eating dirt. Wah. Got back on and started passing people again. I actually rode the mud and gunk better than many (yeah, mtb skills). I think the key for this race was to stay on the bike, ride hard but not on the crazy edge because each time I pushed it, I face planted. Case in point: coming off the long off camber section I was trailing a woman I had been trying to get ahead of for a while. The MRC guys were cheering like crazy for me, "Make a move, Teri! Make a move!" Inspired by their yelling, I decide to leave the narrow brown ribbon of safety and pass her. As I climbed out of the saddle, I realized I had picked a lousy point to pass. I was on ice, the bike flipped sideways hard and I did a superman slide on my stomach in the mud. (MRC boys yelled, "Not that move!" Yeah, I kinda figured. Thanks.) Lesson #17: Don't listen to everything the spectators yell.

As the course was more and more turned up, I found it was easier to get traction on the edges. This was fine except it also meant one ran the risk of catching the tape. At one point where I was actually keeping up some good speed, my right brake caught the course tape. Damn - those stakes were in good because my bike stopped instantly and I flew over the handlebars. This time landing hard on my back and sliding a bit. At least I was getting symmetrical mud stains on my jersey. Similarly, while making a tight right hand turn onto the off camber section to take the high line, I caught my right foot on a stake. Didn't fall but got hung up enough for people to pass me. In each fall mishap, a woman or two would pass. I felt like I was falling further and further behind. Then last time over the barriers, my chain got stuck between the spokes and the cassette. Took 30 seconds or so to free that. I was so angry by then, though, I caught two more women.

By the time I crossed the line, I was sure I was in last place. I was completely exhausted. I tried not to sob. All year, worked hard, came in last. I suck. And my head really hurt from one of the falls where I really smacked my helmet hard. S was there at the finish telling me I had did great. Wasn't sure which race she had been watching.

In retrospect, I had been riding in about 5th place for much of the race. Had I raced a little more carefully and stayed on the bike, I could have stayed there. Looking back at the pics, I was even ahead of a woman in the age group that went off before us. The disparity between my perception and reality is really quite shocking to me. I didn't look at the results until I was at dinner that evening. Totally shocked to discover I came in 10th. Next year, top 5. Year after that: 1. Remember the name. It's a new year - may as well put those goals out there.

And congrats to my teammates who took the Stars and Stripes jerseys (go Julie and Libby!) and Cris taking #2 and Sally 3. NEBC women rock!

Holiday Madness

Geez...I've been SO bad about posting lately. Not even a race report from the MRC race. I promise I will get to it.

Instead, I thought I'd share three things that improved my holiday cheer.

1) Trish decked out Red Shred with cool LED lights. I want some.


2). I got "elfed" along with my niece and nephew. Go here for the full length, Flash animation.
3). Last, but not least, yesterday I had my annual holiday meltdown. Too much stuff to do between holiday parties, holiday shopping, decorating the tree, packing my bike for Nationals, some work stuff, laundry, working out (and probably also a tad stressed from not working out as hard as usual as I taper for this week's races). Anyway, I was going off the rails. S calmed me down a bit but the thing that really made me smile was an early Christmas present. As I reached into the kitchen closet to get my boots on my way out the door to the gym, I saw one of Gracie and George's toys which they regularly swat under the closet door but can't get back out. I reflexively reached down to grab the little mouse when I realized that their toy mouses don't really have red on them and they come complete with heads. This had no head attached and it's liver half exposed. Just what I asked Santa for! We're still not sure what they do with the mice heads. We suspect they have a small trophy room in the basement (along with our bike trophies) complete with mouse skulls impaled on toothpicks. Regardless, it was a sweet Chrismas present but I did NOT capture the moment with a photo. Be thankful. ;-)