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Double Race Reportage

Wow what a weekend. Between the two of us it went something like this: Saturday:

Terry plays soccer game in Monterey (1-0 win); Beth goes to the Ride the World Cup Fundraiser at Hellyer (just watching and eating yummy goodies); Terry coaches U-12 soccer game in Sunnyvale (tied 2-2); Beth picks up Terry in Sunnyvale and then off to Sierra Point for night 'cross race (B win); get home at 11:30; go to bed.

Sunday:

Beth goes to CCCX #4 (B win again); Terry plays soccer game (5-1 win); Chipotle; homework; and hopefully sleep here in a few minutes.

So here's the quick and dirty on the race reporting before I fall asleep...

Saturday night I raced my first-ever BASP series race up in San Francisco. It was also my first-ever night. Really the only reason that I went all the way up to SF to race is because this was a night race and I thought it would be cool...and it definitely was! We raced around what really seemed more like a BMX track with all the bumpiness and short, steep pop-up hills next to the marina at Sierra Point. They brought in a ton of flood lights to light it up almost like day time. The laps were really short and pretty much all power. I got a great start off the line (the track pays off again!) and bunny-hopped the first curb in the lead and held it for the rest of the race. But the race was certainly not without incident! Coming around to finish the first lap someone had a huge husky on a leash next to the course and was trying to drag the dog off the edge of the road, but the dog didn't want to go. So I'm flying up the pavement with Niki B right behind me when the leash snaps! The dog is now loose and doesn't know where to go, so I do my best evasive maneuver and slid to the side, narrowly avoid a pile-up with the very large dog...poor Niki behind me had to lock the brakes up to avoid collision. Dang! Then with about 4 laps to go I was cruising around the course, settling in to the pace I wanted to maintain the rest of the way. There was a 180-degree turn from asphalt to dirt that was getting a littler looser each lap. Well, I came in a little faster than normal I guess and started to slide out. I was able to get my left foot out in time for a quick dab, but not before I smacked my knee on the end of my handle bar. OUCH! For a few pedal strokes I was thinking, damn this really hurts, but I knew it was just a bruise so I bit my lip and kept on going. Afterwards I finally took a look at it and realized I'd smacked it hard enough to actually get a nice little cut and a big ass bruise right on my knee-cap. It didn't affect me too much during the race. So that was the excitement of the race. It was really fun and I felt so good riding...I would get these little surges of energy and somehow pull a little more power out of my legs. I was really surprised to have won; I was really nervous before the race with so many fast looking girls lined up...there were 12 or 13 there I think. It really helped that we had a great Bella cheering section there helping us along. And that the weather was so nice! Here's the requisite podium shot:

Today was the 4th installment of the local CCCX series held on the Happy Trails behind the DoD Center. I loooove that single track in there - its fast and swoopy and racing on it is so much fun. Unfortunately I think a lot of folks didn't come out to race today after racing up in the city the night before so the fields were really small. There were only four of us in the B's, maybe six A's, and not many more than that in the Master's women's categories. And fellow Bella Michelle Perez was the lone C racer - another win for her keeps her in the series lead! And Amy Abele picked up a second place finish in the Master's race despite a little spill on the course. As for me, I was excited to be at a 'cross race but wasn't feeling too keen on racing. I didn't feel tired but I certainly didn't feel zippy. Rod decided to line us all up together at the start rather than starting us in waves by category since all the fields were so small, so I got to line up and start right with the A's. I was thinking, hey, this is a great opportunity to see if I can hang with the A's...and the answer to that was a resounding NO! I lined up behind Bev Chaney knowing that with her mountain biking background she'd get clipped in and off the line fast and she didn't let me down! But then we started up the first climb and I yo-yo'd of the back a bit and that was pretty much the last I saw of the A's with the exception of a few glimpses here and there. That's a level I'm not ready for quite yet! So I was basically solo for the rest of the race, rather uneventful until the start of the final lap. There was a tricky transition from a fast pavement section into a slightly off-camper singletrack that was super hardpacked with a nice layer of slippery sandy/pebbley non-sense on top. I'd ridden it the first three laps without incident. On the last lap I just wanted to ride nice and conservatively, so I slowed down for the transition...and slid right out. Somehow I re-smacked my knee that I'd smacked the night before I something and smacked my hip on the ground. Ouch. I popped back up mainly because I'm always really embarrassed when I crash and hopped back on, all the while very concerned as to whether or not I'd ripped a hole in my brand new skinsuit. Then just up the trail was a barrier section...getting off and trying to run made the knee hurt a lot, but I got back on and kept going...pedalling helped loosen it up and the rest of the lap went down without incident, though I'm sure at a much slower pace. And I crossed the finish line to find that my skinsuit was not torn...phew! So I won and got a nice fat box of CalGiant strawberries! Yummy yummy!

Enough rambling for now...it was a lovely though quite tiring weekend. Now its time for bed.

Rest Week

This week is a training rest week. I tend to stretch the definition of "rest" week and sometimes get a little lazy. But that also keeps me from taking myself to seriously...and often it takes a whole week of not being serious to have an impact. So this morning I dropped Terry off at school and then headed to Ft Ord for an early morning ride. It was supposed to be a sprint workout--my favorite--but it didn't happen.

See, before I left the car I grabbed my little point and shoot camera and dropped it in the jersey pocket. And since I had it with me, I just had to use it. First I went to the fishing hole...

But I don't think there's been any fishies there for awhile. Then I cruised over to the old shooting range. No one has been shooting there for awhile either, but some pretty things grow there now...

Then I saw some art someone decided to add to the side of the building. Or at least someone thought it was art. Others likely have a different opinion...

And then there was an open door on the other side of the building. Why is it that you always look in an open door when passing by? Inside, light was streaming through a long-gone window...

All that to say I didn't really do my workout today. And I didn't mind at all.

Note: You can click on the photos to see them a bit bigger, and while you're looking at them nice and big, moving your mouse over the left or right hand side of the image will bring up an arrow so you can scroll through all the images in this post. A couple of these photos were edited with some photo-editing software called Color Efex Pro 3.0 by Nik Software. We are doing the 15-day free trial of it to see if it will be our Christmas present to ourselves.

Weekend Fun

I really need to get someone to help me come up with better blog titles. Anyways, busy weekend. First with Terry's details...he's coaching a little U-12 boys soccer team this fall. They struggled at the beginning of the season a bit but yesterday they beat the first place team in the league! Yippie! And then today his local league team played and won 8-0, but I don't think he scored a goal all day, shockingly. And that makes for like 4 games in a row without an injury. Knock on wood.

I'll my weekend start with Saturday...I went to the track to "help" Megan with a little training session. Note that I said "help" and not actually "do a track workout with Megan" because I would likely still be curled up on a ball somewhere on the Hellyer infield if I had done the entire workout with her. Basically it amounted to me sprinting a little bit ahead of her and then she'd blow by me like I was on a junior gear. Then Shelley recommended that I try to throw some flicks at her from down in the pole, but Megan was so fast going by me that I don't think my flicks were even noticed. But it was fun and I love to get a good sprint in at the track. Megan has been picked to represent Team USA at the Manchester Revolution track events in January and February and would really like to get some good training in, so if you want to help her out on the track, give her a shout. You're guaranteed a good workout and a good laugh.

From Hellyer I continued my journey northward/eastward/away from the coast to Sacramento for race #4 of the NCNCA Cup which happened to be part of the Sacramento Cyclocross Series. So rather than getting up way before the crack of dawn to drive 3 hours for a 45 minute race, I drove 2 hours from Hellyer to spend the night with teammate and uber-long distance rider Katie in Sac-town. I almost felt like I was sort of a big deal with host housing the night before the race plus Katie's boy/super mechanic Dean fixed up my bike for me the night before the race!

On to the race...There were only 5 of us in the B's today, but my main competition, Melanie, was there so I knew I was in for a battle. The course was great--completely flat (some might say grass crit), and with a little rain last night and one race before us this morning, a nice tracky groove was worn in making the course pretty fast and great for power riders. Two sets of double barriers and a cool section of 4 shorter barriers (bunny-hop-able by most of the men's fields). The weather was beautiful, the leaves were changing, nice crisp fall day...anyways, back to the race...I got a good start and held a lead for about 1/2 a lap and then Melanie came by me. We both settled in and she got a little gap on me by the end of the first lap. But slowly I whittled it down and got back head of her by the start of the 3rd lap. Then I got a little gap and tried to extend it out, but Melanie is tough and wouldn't let me get to far ahead. She made a pretty good charge on the 2nd to last lap so I just started grunting out all the long, power straightaways in a huge gear to try to hold the lead. About mid-way through the final lap I finally pulled away from her a little bit and pulled out another victory! Photos courtesy of Katie.

[caption id="attachment_153" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="CX Smile"]CX Smile[/caption]

That makes my second victory in the NCNCA Cup series and moved me in to first place in the series standings, but Melanie is right there in 2nd. Its going to make the rest of the series really fun!

[caption id="attachment_155" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Po-dee-dum"]Po-dee-dum[/caption]

Nevada Marian was also there racing today with the all-star A's. She raced her butt off today after racing yesterday up in Reno. Hardcore!

[caption id="attachment_151" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Bella Hotties in Skinsuits"]Hotties in Skinsuits...[/caption]

Next weekend is a double race weekend! Night 'cross race at Sierra Point on Saturday night and then CCCX #4 at Ft Ord.

Polaroiding

A few weeks ago Terry downloaded this fun little plug-in called Poladroid. All you have to do is drag and drop a photo onto the Polaroid camera icon and the process starts, just like an old school Polaroid. First an image pops up with a brown square on it. Then slowly over the next few minutes the image slowly "develops" and about 5 minutes later, you have an image that looks just like what would have come out of the instant camera. Don't feel like waiting 5 minutes? Click on the image and you can actually "shake it like a polaroid picture" by moving your mouse around and the picture actual develops faster! And you can set the preferences to put fingerprints on the border or to put dust on the pic. Its pretty cool. Unfortunately the Windows version isn't out yet...rumored to come out some time this month. Here are a few samples...Terry has more, including some cool ones from Surf City, but he and his computer with all of his pictures are at school right now.

And ultimately the point of this post was to see if I could post more than one image in the new blog...it was a pain in the old one.

Bonus Terry pic...because he's so cute.

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

So this culinary creation was my idea.  Well, almost. I read about the idea on the web and then actually put it into practice.  Get your self a rotisserie chicken and boil the bones with garlic and veggies for a couple of hours.  I did it in a spaghetti pot because it made separating the broth from the bones easy.  Then, after discarding the bones, add the chicken and veggies and other spices and let it simmer for a couple of more hours.  And voilá, you have some yummy chicken noodle soup.  And I have to say that man it was good.  Now I'm not usually one to not use the grill to do the cooking, but this was easy and still kept me out of the mystery that is the oven.

Iowa State CX Championships

That's right, this is a race report, but no, I was not in Iowa this weekend. Instead, my sister went out to give 'cross racing a try for the first time...and picked the state championship as her first race. Well, maybe she was "strongly encouraged" by her big sister to go find out how much fun 'cross racing is. She tried to tell me that she is going to school full-time in addition to working 12 hour shifts as a nurse's assistant and therefore hasn't been on her bike in a month. I told her that its only a 45 minute race and she doesn't have anything to lose so why not give it a go.

I'd actually forgotten that we'd discussed her doing this race until Saturday afternoon when Dad called me and said they were at the race venue getting ready for Kristen's race...in my head I'm thinking, oh crap! I didn't prep her at all...I mean, Kristen does know how to get herself ready for a race, she road races all the time...but a 'cross race is a little different...so much strategy, so many little details, so much suffering (maybe I'd skip that part)...so dad's on the phone telling me what the course is like and I ask if her tires are pretty soft. He says, no, we pumped them up nice and hard...NOOOO!!! Crap, go let air out now! But it was too late, Kristen was already on the starting line. They started and off she went.

She did pretty well and never killed herself on any turns on her too-hard tires. She felt bad a little bit because she got lapped, but so did I in my first few 'cross races, so no big deal. The bummer is that the field was so small - only 12 women total, all categories!

The post-race phone call was rather entertaining. For this race the officials raced them for 45 minutes, then two laps after that. Kristen, used to road races, sort of thought that meant everyone sort of sits in for 45 minutes and then attacks on the last 2 laps...she was not prepared for the instantaneous crazy pace right off the start. Oops, should have told her about that. And looking at the photo i guess I should have told her to take the water bottle cages off, too...but at least she was sporting a Bella bottle!

This week she'll be getting my old 'cross bike in the mail, so she'll be all ready to race JingleCross over Thanksgiving on a proper 'cross bike.

Overall, she had a blast and is excited to try it again!

You Found Us

[caption id="attachment_117" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Costume Cross"]Costume Cross[/caption] Welcome to the new blog...

I got frustrated with the old blog and all of its annoyances, so here's the new blog. Its still a work in progress, but the basics are here and I'll try to keep the incredibly fascinating life of TeamWelliver documented here. The link lists will grow and the gallery will improve in the next few weeks...in between soccer games, 'cross races, and thesis writing.

Quick weekend update: we played soccer today in the local league. Terry scored an unbelievable volley from 20-yards out into the upper-90 along with another goal, I actually got an assist...and most importantly, Terry survived and didn't injure himself!

Surf City

Next time I'll stop celebrating and grab the cash!

The big Velo Bella ‘cross party is all done. I suppose I should give a nice, detailed account of the weekend of shenanigans to make the other Beth proud, but I’m going to let the hundreds of pictures around all the internets speak for themselves.

Here are the highlights:

  • Saturday we had a clinic. One billion people showed up to either learn ‘cross skills from serious all-star instructors or eat free burritos for lunch. Either way, huge thanks to the instructor folk listed here who patiently waited for me to sort through all the new registrations and find barriers and all that. That’s why they rock.
  • The course went up in record time...the people that put this race together seriously know what they are doing.
  • Interesting consequence of wearing a huge, wooly costume 1 hour before race time...warm-up was considerably shorter than usual
  • The race was really fun...all the track racing this summer helped me power through certain parts...or nearly all parts of that nice, mostly flat course
  • My maiden race voyage of Queen Anne was lovely...I think its the incredible karma courtesy of her previous superstar owner
  • As I’m sure Hernando will be surprised to see, that picture above is proof that I sometimes smile in a race...but only sometimes...and that Sabine’s costume was disturbing
  • I won my first B race...Yippie!
  • Surf City schwag is the BEST!!!

Great weekend, great racing, great friends, great fun.

Surf City Cyclocross Clinic

This past weekend Sven Nys showed everyone that even World Champions need to sharpen their cyclocross skills from time to time. If you’d prefer not to look like Sven did on this unfortunate day in your next race, then come to Velo Bella’s Surf City Cyclocross clinic!

What: Surf City Cyclocross Clinic When: Saturday, October 25th Where: Soquel High School (click for map) Time: 10:00 am Cost: $20, Juniors attend for free!

Who should attend: Anyone!! If you’re just curious about giving cyclocross a try..if you’ve done a few races and want to improve that dismount/remount/run-up/etc...if your a seasoned racer looking for a few tips to take a few seconds off that lap time..then this clinic is for you!

We’ll have some of the very best cyclocross talent NorCal has to offer there to give expert instruction in all aspects of ‘cross racing:

Ben Jacques-Maynes Shauna Potocky Kathleen Bortolussi Mark Abele Clark Natwick Sheila Moon Barb Howe Stella Carey

Steven Gile

Shelley Olds

Cal Giant Team Racers

The clinic will go something like this: 9:30 Registration Opens 10:15 Clinic Start/Instructor Introduction 10:30 Lecture & Skills Work 11:30 Break 11:45 Resume Skills Work on Course 1:30 Lunch - FREE BURRITOS!! 2:00 Open Course

If you’d like to attend, please pre-register at BikeReg.com. (Clinic registration is at the bottom of the page). Registration will also be available on the day of the clinic, but we’d like to know how many burritos we need to order, so please pre-reg if possible!

If you have more questions, please visit the Surf City website or drop me a line (bethwellie@mac.com).

See you this weekend!!

I Heart Cyclocross

Today was my first ‘cross race of the season - CCCX #3 at Laguna Seca. It also happened to be the first race of the NCNCA Cup series. I just typed up a witty, long-winded race report that my computer decided to eat, so here’s the not-so-witty condensed version.

The course had a stupid huge hill...one of those hills where you’re not quite sure if you going to be able to keep the pedals turning. At least it was paved. I kept trying to find one more gear when I got near the top but it was never there. Then there was this silly stupid barrier right after that climb on slightly off-camber 90-degree turn that I messed up every lap. But then after that the course was fun, fun, fun!!

My main goal today was to podium since it was my first real B race. Second goal was to maintain a good pace for the whole race rather than do my usual go-out-too-hard-and-then-die race routine. I did goal number two pretty well for me, so goal number one fell nicely into place - I got 2nd!! And a nice big box of strawberries to go along with the podium finish.

Even though that stupid never-ending hill sucked every lap, I loved the rest of the course and I was having so much fun racing it - the fast corners, the fun downhills, it was a blast! And I’ve been so frustrated with my dirt riding skills lately - I’ve been sucking on my mountain bike - that it felt so good to be able to ride so aggressively on that course. Just the kind of race I needed to start the season!

And last but not least, Terry finally found himself injury-free when we woke up this morning and managed to play a whole soccer match without getting hurt today...with the exception of a little blister. His team won 4-0. I got to see the end of the match and he looked pretty good!

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Friday Night at the Welliver’s

Conversation overheard tonight at our table. Beth: Hey cutie, read the e-mail from the ladies about the thing.

Terry: Oh yeah, what did they say?

Beth: Just read it. Its in my e-mail.

Terry: Well can’t you just tell me what it say?

Beth: Dude, its right there in my inbox, just read it.

Terry (sheepishly): But I’m watching MacGyver.

That’s right. Terry was watching the MacGyver pilot on YouTube. And Richard Dean Anderson is still cute.

We Need a Padded Room

Today I volunteered to take Terry’s place on the soccer field in the local league game since I was the one who took him mountain biking and therefore feel slightly responsible for his little ‘kissing of the earth’ incident in Idaho last week. He’s actually just fine, but the cold sores that resulted from hitting his mouth still hurt too much to run. So I told his coach I would play for him. So I went in at outside midfield (i.e. winger, i.e. the position who runs the most), and being the only girl on the field, I’m about 10 years past my prime of playing outside midfield against boys. One guy got the ball and is about to beat me, so I did the one thing I’ve instinctively learned to do very well in 18 years of soccer playing...I pulled his jersey.

Now you would think that in 18 years of my uber-competitiveness on the soccer field and therefore freeeequent jersey pulling, yes, you would think that I should know what I am doing. I thought I was a pro jersey puller. But apparently not. Instead, my poor little pinky finger looks like what you see in the picture above.

I’ll get it checked out tomorrow. Its just a pinky so no big deal. But seriously, I think we do need to start looking for a padded room to live in.

Oh, and we won the game.

Big Idea of the Day

On our Idaho vacation Heather and Justin introduced the “Big Idea of the Day”...each day someone randomly came up with some sort of brilliance, be it entrepreneurial, beneficial to society, something to make life easier, something just silly/funny, etc, etc...it was never planned or staged...someone just thought out loud and it became the BIOTD. Yesterday I was discussing with a Pub outing with a friend and was thinking that instead of beer I should drink wine in order to avoid all those calories and help out with ‘cross fitness. His response:

If you weigh more by drinking more beer the bike will seem lighter comparatively and you will be more “padded” for the bruisings encountered during a ‘cross race.

That’s brilliant! Almost has if he knew that I beat the crap out of myself during a ‘cross race. That extra padding wil help!

So thank you Bryan for yesterday’s Big Idea of the Day.

Passions

I feel like I’m at a crossroads in my life. A self-imposed cross-roads of sorts. What do I want to do with my life? A week in the mountains and spending a lot of time as the slow one in the back of the mountain bike group gives one a lot of time with one’s thoughts. I have a job. I’ll likely be able to keep that job for another 14 years if I want and retire comfortably. I forecast the weather. I’ve wanted to be a meteorologist since I was in 3rd grade. I like weather. I like it a lot. But its not my passion. And I don’t mind my job, but I certainly don’t love my job. Its not my passion either.

Soccer was of course my first passion. I lived it, breathed it. I loved it. I was pretty good at it, too. But then it started to live me. It controlled me. It was pulling me to places that I shouldn’t go. And then it got to be not fun. I had to step away. The passion consumed me and ruined it for me for awhile. Now its fun to go play every once in awhile again, but not seriously.

Then came my love of photography. I love, love, LOVE it. I’m okay at it, but not great. But I’m still learning. I’m growing. My passion is evolving. I wish it could be my job. I have a lot of passion for it. And I can do it with Terry because he shares a similar passion for it.

Then there’s cycling. I love riding, I love training like a little weirdo, I love mountain biking, I love ‘cross, I LOVE racing on the track. They are all fun. I can’t get enough. Its my other passion in my life these days besides photography. I’d love to be great but I’m happy just to be able to do it.

So how do I keep my new passions from consuming my life and tarnishing this shiny passion I have? Is the only reason I don’t mind my job is because its something I like but that I’m not passionate about? If it were up to me, my days would be equally divided between Terry, my camera, and my bike(s). But that seems like a recipe for disaster. How do I keep the balance?

In my mind I know what I want to do with my life. But I am a legend in my own day dreams. Reality is not so dreamy.

The good thing in all this pondering is that Terry and I feel the same way...and the coolest thing in the world is that we share one true passion together - each other.

Cherry-Flavored Tummy Ache

I love cherries. They are normally too expensive to buy, but today they were only $2.99 at the grocery store. I have a fruit-buying price index...nectarines and peaches when they are below $2.00, apples below $1.50, oranges about the same. Bananas are cheap enough that I’ll normally buy them whenever. Below $3.00 is my green light to buy cherries. My price index is limiting at times, but honestly, the nectarines that show up in the grocery store in January are normally pretty nasty anyway - cheap normally means in season and fresh! So now I have 2.5 pounds of cherries. This is where the grocery store tricks you because they put the cherries in those nice pre-loaded bags with a sign that says $2.99 in big letters and “per pound” in dinky little print beneath. So, yeah, I paid more than $2.99 for my cherries. I guess I’m a sucker for fruit sales.

I’m headed out of town on Wednesday afternoon for the weekend and the cherries miiiight not make it through the weekend, so, hmm, I guess I’m forced to eat all of them before I leave. Hopefully I don’t get a tummy ache! I’ll have to pace myself.

As I was sitting here enjoying a few with lunch, I was thinking about all the cherry trees in Japan. They have a gazillion cherry trees in that country that beautifully blossom every spring. Yet I don’t think a single cherry ever grows on those trees. The plum trees bloom around the same time and you can get lots of plums and plum-flavored wines and liquors and candies and nasty pickled plum stuff and other plum crap...but I don’t remember any cherry goodies. Cherries in the Japanese markets weren’t very common, and when they did show up they were something like $6 or $8 for a little tiny bag of them, so we never bought any. So what’s the deal with all those cherry trees throwing their petals around every spring with no fruit? Have they bred the usefulness out of the trees to make them aesthetically-pleasing? That’s sort of sad.

Programming Note: Posts might be on the low side for the next few weeks...working on a new site.

On the short bus

You know that saying “the dumbest smart kid”. That might be me. The past days’ events have led me to eat a lot of my Trader Joe’s Belgian chocolate. That’s right. Its over a pound. Or a “pound plus”...though I think I’m gaining more of the “plus” than just the pound as I eat it.

My thesis research is all about figuring out the height of the bottom of a cloud from space. At this point in my research, that means comparing data from a satellite called Cloudsat to a few lidar ground sites scattered around the world to validate that the satellite is telling us the proper altitude of the bottom of the cloud. (if you want to know more of the geeky science stuff, put your nerd glasses on and e-mail me).

I spent the whole day yesterday downloading data raw satellite data. I spent most of today decoding it so I can play with it and organizing it into nice folders and was quite proud of myself. I even made a spreadsheet that told me exactly what time the satellites flew over my ground sites for an entire two-year period.

Then this afternoon I was looking a bit more closely at my pretty pictures where the satellite flew each day. And realized that the days when the satellite was supposed to fly over the Oklahoma site it was flying over central China. And when it was supposed to fly over the Alaska site it was flying over Siberia.

I forgot a negative sign. So instead of searching for longitude values in the western hemisphere (where Oklahoma and Alaska are), I was looking in the eastern hemisphere (hence China and Siberia).

Darn negative sign!

Hopefully I can get it all downloaded and organized again tomorrow. There is single track to ride this weekend!

I’m It

The picture above is complete irrelevant to the post. I just got done playing around with it so I dropped it in here.

My Aunt Banana tagged me (that’s why I’m It) with one of those blog taggie questionnaires. Normally I ignore these things, but since it was my aunt, I figured I should do it. She is one of the 3 people who comments on my blog. Plus, she’s getting ready to ride the MS150 in South Dakota this weekend and could use a little support, so I’m happy to advertise and support her undertaking!

If you could have any one — and only one — bike in the world, what would it be?
Hmm, I’m not all up on fancy bikes, but it would definitely be a mountain bike with cushy travel in the back and disc brakes that didn’t squeak and a drive-train that never had to be adjusted (I’d still lube it!).

Do you already have that coveted dream bike? If so, is it everything you hoped it would be? If not, are you working toward getting it? If you’re not working toward getting it, why not?
No, my brakes squeak sometimes...but I love my mountain bike and Terry will kill me if I thought of buying another bike. So I’m happy with it.

If you had to choose one — and only one — bike route to do every day for the rest of your life, what would it be, and why?
Demo Forest...I love that single track. The climb is pretty chill and the downhill is oh so nice.

Do you ride both road and mountain bikes? If both, which do you prefer and why? If only one or the other, why are you so narrow-minded?
I ride both but I race only one. I prefer my mountain bike. Feels more natural, and I like nature-al things. Maybe I am narrow-minded but I like it. I prefer my track bike and my ‘cross bike to my road bike as well, so that should lessen the narrow-mindedness.

Have you ever ridden a recumbent? If so, why? If not, describe the circumstances under which you would ride a recumbent.
No, never. I don’t see me ever riding one ever. I think I would tip over. Plus, Lily’s buddy-boy has made me think all recumbent riders are a little sketchy. (See mom and dad, aren’t you glad you got rid of them?? Otherwise I’d have to think you are sketchy, too!)

Have you ever raced a triathlon?
Heehee...yes, I did the IronKids Triathlon when I was in 4th grade I think. Swimming is definitely not my strong suit, and I decided it would good to backstroke the whole swim, but not normal backstroke...nope, I did the elementary back stroke - as in the chicken-airplane-pencil stroke they teach little kids. I was dead last out of the pool.

Suppose you were forced to either give up ice cream or bicycles for the rest of your life. Which would you give up, and why?
I would give up bicycles. Riding is supposed to be fun, and if I can’t walk away from it, then it has become too serious. But ice cream is serious business and shall always be treated as such. Which reminds me, I’m almost out!

What is a question you think this questionnaire should have asked, but has not? Also, answer it.
Which beer is the best post-ride recovery drinky?
Right now I’m on a Sierra Nevada kick. I really liked the organic wheat brew that New Belgium made last summer, but I haven’t found it around recently and I can’t remember what it was called.

Why is tagging someone legal?
Uh, why would it be illegal?

What is my favorite thing about cycling?
Damn my legs are starting to look good! And it justifies my ice cream habit.

I’m not one to forward chain e-mails, so I won’t tag more people to play in the game. I’m breaking the chain...I suppose spider-monkeys are going to attack me in my sleep tonight...its a risk I’m willing to take.

Good luck with the 150 Aunt B!

Throw Me a Rope

These KT Tunstall lyrics were in my inbox this morning. Always nice to know that the feeling is the same on both sides... eaw-img_01

I want you between me and the feeling I get when I miss you But everything here is telling me I should be fine So why is it so, above as below, That I'm missing you every time

I got used to you whispering things to me into the evening We followed the sun and its colours and left this world It seems to me that I'm definitely Hearing the best that I've heard

So throw me a rope to hold me in place Show me a clock for counting my days down Cause everything's easier when you're beside me Come back and find me Cause I feel alone

And whenever you go it's like holding my breath underwater I have to admit that I kind of like it when I do Oh but I've got to be unconditionally Unafraid of my days without you

So throw me a rope to hold me in place Show me a clock for counting my days down Cause everything's easier when you're beside me Come back and find me Whenever I'm falling you're always behind me Come back and find me Cause everything's easier when you're beside me Come back and find me Cause I feel alone

Less than a month to go.

Women’s Sprint World Champion

That’s my new self-claimed title. Or maybe I was the only girl at the track today for the sprint tournament. And maybe it was just good-friendly-fun Hellyer racing and not the world championships. And maybe all the fast chicas were at Alpenrose or racing crits this weekend. Whatever, I was the women’s champion today!

In truth, the only highlight was my vastly improved time trial time. My main goal for today was to break the 14 second mark in the time trial and I went in 13.85. What does that time really mean? Absolutely nothing other than that I can sprint for 200 meters on my bike faster than I could ever run 100 meters on my feet.

The match sprints kicked my little uneducated track booty, but I learned a whole lot, so maybe next time I’ll do a little better with those. I was wearing my newly-acquired skinsuit though, so at least I looked pro.

The rest of my weekend was just as much fun as the track. Yesterday I was to go mountain bike riding at Demo. Demo is my single track sanctuary. I absolutely love it every time (even when I choose to smash my face into the ground). So I headed up north to ride...got the chain lubed, the tires deflated a bit for the trails, and up the road we went. Only my riding partner decided that it would be more fun to climb Mt. Bach instead. On the road. On our mountain bikes. With squishy-knobby tires and full suspension. I was wearing baggy downhiller shorts. Overkill? Three hours later we returned and well, we didn’t have to clean our bikes. And I got some sweet air off a speed bump, so the ride wasn’t completely a waste.

Later on Saturday I stole Terry’s secret fajita recipe for a little Queen Bella party. To be honest it was my first time really grilling anything because I am rather terrified of open gas-powered flames (the family can remember my lawn mower fire), so I was really happy that I didn’t burn the meat, me, their house, or the forest. I also made his jalapeno poppers that were a little warmer than normal. In fact I tried so hard to clean all the seeds and veins out to make them less hot that I think I have now ground jalapeno oils into my skin and under my fingernails because they are still burning today. There was homemade sangria and pies and cakes and gin and tonics and too many laughs. Its so great to have such great friends while my bestest friend is gone. Thanks ladies (and Bella fellas, too).

Hackering

I bet you thought this was another blog about Terry with a title like that. But its not. I spent all morning frustrated with the web-centric trifecta of iWeb, Apple’s new MobileMe thing, and Firefox 3. Finally I found a script that allowed me to fix the “Add a Comment” feature here. So now all three or four people that occasionally leave comments can go back to commenting away and actually see them. Yea!

Its been awhile since I said anything about riding in the blog, so there’s a pic of me riding my track bike. I went to the track on Tuesday for the points races...we did 3 races instead of the usual two since not many people were there. 96 laps of point racing. My sprint was unusually sprinty and helped me win the 2nd points race of the evening. I’m not sure how I placed in the other races, but I learned a lot - very important. And I had a whole lot of fun, which is most important.