Well Hello

I see that I sucked at blogging in 2009. It was a crazy busy year...moved away from Monterey and Terry to Lousyana, bought a house, settled in to a crazy busy job, confirmed on too many occasions that I hate road racing, tried to race elite cyclocross in a place with no cyclocross, and battled a few million mosquitoes and spiders. Maybe I didn't blog much because I spent much of the year bitter and/or frustrated with being away from Terry or struggling with cycling or just burnt out from my job, and I didn't want that funk on my blog. So, while I hate the idea of New Years resolutions, it is a time for a fresh start, so let's fire this bad boy back up and start sharing some photos and fun stuff. We have a plan to do the photo/day thing, so watch Flickr for that... One of the highlights of the year was a little addition to our family. I went to a cx race in Ft Worth in November and came home with a puppy! I'd been wanting a brittany spaniel for awhile, but Terry was vehemently against having a dog. He claimed allergies. I grew up always having at least one dog around the farm, and normally we had 2 or 3. My dad used to hunt pheasants and quail with his brittanies, and I love the breed's demeanor and spunk. I found a litter advertised in the Dallas paper, so after my ridiculously poor showing at the cx race, I headed out to find a puppy. I ended up with a preciously little girl I named Massey, after the Massey-Ferguson tractor that was on the farm where I bought her. It was nice to have another warm body in the house and something to keep me busy/entertained after work. But Terry was not happy. He was pretty upset that I got a dog. Yes, I was in the doghouse over this one. But she was so cute...

I went home to Iowa for Thanksgiving, raced my first UCI event at Jingle Cross Rock in Iowa City (yes, Meredith Miller lapped me), and Massey came along. Everyone loved her.  She was just so cute and traveled really well. But Terry was still grumpy about it. Despite being all the way in Monterey and not having met her, he was convinced that all dogs are the devil. Finally, Terry graduated and came home for the holidays. He met Massey and fell in love! Now every time we go out he has to check out the dog treats and toys aisle to see if there's something else he can get to spoil his little girl a little more. She follows him around the house. He totally pampers her. We are now a happy family of 3. And be warned...you may see lots of adorable doggy pics in 2010.

Surf City #2 and #3

Finally got my first cyclocross race of the year in this weekend. Yes, it did involve flying all the way to California. Yes, it did hurt. Yes, it was my first foray into the world of racing with the A's, time trial world champions, singlespeed world champions, multiple national champions, pro mountain bikers, and the rest of the lot. Daaaammn, these girls are FAST! Yes, I did finish DFL both days. But at least it was fun! Day One my goal was not to get lapped. The course at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds was hot, dry, and fast, fast, fast. Let's see, I hung in tough for all of umm, one lap. I was comfortable and relatively quick through the technical sections, but there was this ridiculously long road section where everyone just rode away from me. There was this crazy little uphill that we had to grunt up every time (see the pic courtesy of Terry), so that's what I looked forward to each lap. Otherwise, nothing to interesting to talk about besides me being much slower than everyone else. I actually did a little victory dance in my head when I got the one-lap-to-go sign because I hadn't gotten lapped by the speedy leaders.

Day Two...more of the same. The course was a little bit different today, and there was a nice little run-up, which always makes me happy! My goal today was to hang with some of the girls that I knew I should be able to hang with. Terry told me I looked good through the first lap, but by the time we got to the road section on the second lap, I was done once again. So I suffered along as best I could, and stuck it out the whole time even though I really wanted to throw in the towel. Once again, I didn't get lapped, so I guess I'll take that away as my small bright spot in a weekend of crazy cyclocross suffering. My new Ellsworth Roots ride was great (except for the creaky seat post I have to fix!), and the Williams Wheels were awesome.

I am disappointed with how my races went this weekend, but I also know what I have to work on through the rest of the season. Living in a place that doesn't have much of a fall racing scene and no cyclocross makes it a little tough to check where I am. I can tell that I didn't have the track to help the speed and fitness this summer, and I could definitely tell that I didn't have the "race fitness" that the rest of the field that has been racing since early- to mid-September did. And I know where I stood fitness-wise last year at this time and I don't think I'm in the same place. But, I know what I have to do to get to where I want to be...and the goal wasn't to be there this year anyway. Patience.

It was great to see all the NorCal folks I'd missed all summer. I doubt I'll be back here anytime soon, so it was great to see everyone at the races, and to those I missed...you know how to get in touch with me.

Next race...Ft Worth Cyclocross next weekend...I'll get to see how Texas does 'cross. Perhaps BBQ rather than burritos and tamales afterwards.

Weekend in the Mud

Finally. I'm writing a race report. Granted, I did do some road races this summer, but they were not blog worthy. That's because road racing is lame. This weekend I headed just down the road to Ruston, LA for the Piney Hills Classic. The race is actually part of the Texas Mountain Bike Racing Association's Fall Cup points series (weird, huh?), so the turn out is pretty good with lots of fast folks from Texas coming over to race. I raced on these trails for the duathlon I did back in June when I first got here, and have ridden them a few other times. It's an incredible 10-mi loop of mostly singletrack up and down ravines and through the woods. Plenty of technical with tree roots and stuff. The event follows a stage race format, with Cat 2's (that's me) doing a 3-mi time trial and the regular cross country race towards the stage results. There was also an optional short track cross-country race on Saturday morning, and the cyclocross fiend in me couldn't pass that up! Weather geek interjection: I should mention that its monsoon season down here. I don't think we normally have monsoons here, but its an El Nino year (that's Spanish for "the Nino") so the rain just keeps coming. Rumor today was that in the last 41 days a rain gauge near the course has collected 26 inches of rain. I think they got somewhere between 3" and 4" in that area last week. Fortunately the weekend brought crisp, sunny autumn days, but there was plenty of mud out on the trails.

Short Track

Well, the starting field for this one was a bit sparse. There was me and one other girl. Wow, two of us. Since the short track didn't count towards the stage results for us, most girls chose to skip it. But I wanted do the the short track more than any of the other events to get me ready for cross...yes that's right, I haven't done a cross race yet this year. The race official asked if we wanted to shorten the race and I kindly said, no thank you, full length please. So off we went, I guess I got the hole shot, and cruised from there. It was obscenely muddy, but riding in soupy mud is strikingly similar to riding in Ft Ord sand. I sort of didn't know what to do once I had a good gap...keep hammering for the fitness, or conserve for the coming races? I kept hammering along with taking some lines I wouldn't normally take through some spots for the practice. Overall, it was fun, I got covered in mud, but stayed safe and upright the whole time. Felt great, with that nice lung burn at the end.

Time Trial

After I got the bike and myself cleaned up, lubed up (the bike, not me), and made a quick trip to the Subway in nearby Wal-Mart for lunch (Wal-Mart in southern town...that 15 minute experience is worthy of whole other blog), it was time for the time trial. I generally loathe roadie time trials, with the crazy wheels and crazy bars and crazy helmets. But a mountain bike time trial...heck yeah! Plus, given that I got dropped in all those CCCX pro/expert mountain bike races at Ft Ord, I'm fairly familiar with the solo mtb effort. The course was sa-weeeet...started at the top of this crazy steep hill--coming over the top of it was like cresting the top of the big hill on a roller coaster...super steep, straight down, and only a bit bumpy, so you could let go of the brakes, hang your butt off the back of the saddle and go...just make sure you don't launch yourself over the berm at the bottom! I felt amazing, but didn't know how long 3.5 miles would be, so I was conservatively hammering. The course had just a few gooey sections, but otherwise it was generally tacky and fast. We went off at 30-second intervals, and I caught the two girls ahead of me, so I was happy. The only bummer was that it was over so fast. I think I could have gone harder had I realized the course was so short. But, in the end, I posted the fastest time in my age group, so I held the lead after Stage 1.

Cross-Country

Despite how hard I'd ridden yesterday, I was still feeling pretty good during my warm-up this morning. I held close to a 1-minute lead in the GC (saying GC about a mtb race makes me giggle), but I didn't want anyone in my class to get a gap once we started. The xc was supposed to be 2 laps around the 10-mile loop, but due to all the rain, they had to chop off about 2 miles for parts of the trail that were unrideable. My great warm-up was really all for not...the officials had us all stage 10 minutes before the start. And by all, I mean every single age group of Cat 2 men, then they finally staged the women...but the first group of men still hadn't started. So I think we stood around in the upper-40 degree early morning shade for about 20 minutes before we finally got the gun. The race started off fast and furious, with a couple of girls from the 20-29 age group getting a good gap on the rest of us. There was one girl right on my wheel thru the first section of woods, and it turned out it was one of the local Shreveport riders, so I was happy to let Kim go by...she was flying and looking great through the technical stuff. The ride was going well, rather uneventful, just muddy, until I clipped a handlebar on a little tree...I crashed. But, no harm done, just a little muddy, so up I got and on I went. Then, sometime in next few mud puddles or stream crossings, my rear cog/freewheel/derailleur/chain decided it didn't want to cooperate anymore. Every time I was grinding up a grunter of a climb, my chain would either slip the freewheel or I'd get chain suck that would lock up the cranks. I guess my cyclocross trail running training paid off, because I had to start running up a bunch of the hills. Then I crashed again in the weird place when my front wheel just slid right off the trail. Lesson learned: 30 psi is too much in the Schwalbe's in the mud. Slowly my competition started catching back up, and as we neared the end of the first lap, I was exhausted, covered in mud, and Tammie, my main competition, was right on my wheel. Eeek! And with a whole lap remaining, I still had another hour to race. My technical skills would allow me to get a gap on her, but she would reel me back in on the climbs. The soupy mud from the previous day was now gooey, sticky, clay-like mud that sucked your wheels down and bogged you down...and with a finicky rear freewheel, it was quickly getting miserable. But I knew I needed the fitness so I just kept hammering. I slowly caught the other younger girls who had gotten away at the start when they had major mechanicals, so I was at the front of the women's Cat 2 race. It really was a race of attrition in those conditions. Finally, towards the end of the lap, I finally got enough of a gap to relax a bit and cruise in for the win. I think this was my first ever cross-country win.

Bummer of the day...Kim, the local girl who was crushing it ended up crashing pretty hard during the race. She broke her arm near her elbow and has to get it surgically repaired. Heal up fast Kim! I want to go ride with you!

The aftermath...this is what the bike looked like when I got home today. She was clean at the start. I think I'll have to replace the chain, and possibly the rear cog. I also have mud stains on my legs that I can't get off. Stupid red mud. I have also official resigned from road racing. Its lame...this was so much more fun!

Next up: Surf City baby! I'll get to see all my NorCal friends next weekend! Yippie!

Urban Wandering

As most of our readers know, I've been living in Shreveport, LA while Terry is still in Monterey, CA. He still has the ocean, beaches, wildflowers, mountains, waterfalls, sea otters, redwoods, etc. all at his disposal. I have been trying really hard to find my groove with the outdoor scene here in Swampland USA, but I'm not going to lie...I'm terrified of swamps. I've seen alligators, water moccasins, spiders, other random snakes, fire ants, and enough poison ivy and assorted brambly plants to make me really not enjoy going out into nature ever. Its driving me crazy. On Sunday I really wanted to go take some photos. But after nearly crapping my pants following an alligator encounter earlier last week, I decided to change it up. Shreveport is an old town long past its prime. At one time is was bigger than Dallas. Part of downtown has been revitalized, with bright-light casinos and smoky jazz houses; but pockets of the old town still exist. Large brick buildings, once stately and proud, now stand abandoned and worn. And while I love to shoot a great sunset over the ocean, a beautiful waterfall, or alpenglow on a snowy mountain summit, my next favorite thing to shoot is old, decaying buildings. So I wandered around downtown Shreveport for a couple hours last week, and here's what I came away with...

Jackie's Wedding

Way back in May I went home for my cousin's wedding. Well, actually, I went home and then the fam piled in the car and we drove up to Eden Prairie, Minnesota. I'm not the outgoing people photographer that Terry is, but since the bride was my cousin, I felt free to wander around and took more photos than my shy self normally does at weddings. Here are a few I got, just a few months late. Congrats Jackie and Nathan!

Photo Essay: Vedauwoo

So, since Beth always seems to post a bunch of photographs on here, I thought I'd join her with some of my recent posts from Vedauwoo, WY.

Welliverphotography updates

Sorry for the confusion today if you were trying to get to our site. We are making room for a new front page to welliverphotography.com. Currently the welliverphotography.com address redirects to the new location of our blog at welliverphotography.com/blog. Eventually, welliverphotography.com will be linked directly to our gallery. Thank you for your patience as we change our site.

Welliverphotography.com Changes

Our site is about to undergo a major upgrade. Hopefully, it will be smooth.

Fields of Flowers

Terry always got mad at me when we lived in Colorado for dragging him along on "wildflower hikes" only to find few, if any, wildflowers and we certainly never whole fields of flowers. He also likes to tell me that all wildflowers are planted by someone. Our trip to Wyoming last month fixed right up. So, here's a little post for him...a reminder of all the wildflowers we found together. I don't think any of these were planted by someone. Goof.

Leapin' Lizards!

The cyclocross remount, properly done, is a thing of beauty. A single effortless bound, a leap of faith, a body horizontally suspended in superman position above saddle, above bike, above ground for a split second, and then a gentle touch down of saddle to inner thigh, a slide to center on the saddle, one foot, then the other immediately to the pedals, and go, go, go. A lovely ballet that happens in a fraction of a second. Unless you're me. Then you've spent two years of your life with this ugly stutter-step. I can dismount perfectly. I can step-through dismount or side-step dismount. I can even dismount on the drive train side. I can pick my bike up and run. Run over barriers. Run up a hill. No problem. But the remount. Oh you stupid stutter-stepping remount. Screwing me over, losing me positions I'd just dismounted and ran my butt off to gain, throwing all that work by the wayside because my stupid stupid stutter-step.

The first year I raced 'cross I went to a clinic. NorCal cx goddess Stella Carey was my instructor. She spent hours telling me how not to stutter-step. But I couldn't break it. I kept thinking, you're an athlete Beth! Watch what she's doing, then do it. Just leap. But I couldn't. That stutter-step was my nicotine; I wanted to quit but I couldn't. I guess I feared slamming my hoohaw on the saddle. Stella got fed up. She left me and my stutter-step. Who could blame her? And you can get away with a lot of stuff when you're racing C's. So the stutter-step stayed. I looked like a moron. And swore a lot. See below.

Last year I moved up to the B's. I dreamt all summer of the perfect remount. I watched videos. I watched people. I asked questions. I practiced. But that stutter-step didn't go away. All season long. Everyone in the B's could do a perfect remount, while I looked like a bad Mary Catherine Gallagher impression when I tried to leap back on my bike. I even got mocked at one race by some drunken 'cross hooligans for my abominable remount skills. I was confident that I was doomed to a life of stutter-stepping. A very wise and seasoned 'cross racer told me not to worry about my stutter, it would eventually work its way out. I didn't believe him. I knew I was doomed. Forever.

So today I'd been studying for this leadership correspondence course test that I have to take tomorrow for about 5 hours. I got bored. I got distracted. I found some photos of 'cross races. Then I looked at some of Terry's sweet pics from last year's 'cross races. I was suddenly inspired. It was getting dark outside. But I decided to go grab my 'cross bike with a questionable soft front tire off the garage wall and take it for a spin around the freshly watered and therefore questionable soft grass in the backyard.

I hopped on my bike...no stutter-step, but I can always get on from a walk without stutter-stepping. I gained some speed. I hopped off. I ran a few steps. I hopped back on. Did that just happen? Shhh, don't jinx it. I gained more speed. I hopped off. I ran a few feet. I hopped back on...HOLY CRAP! Okay, one more...no stutter-step! Really? YES!

I stayed in the backyard for about 15 minutes, hopping off, hopping back on. Not one single stutter-step! I even sort of tried to stutter-step once just to make sure I wasn't pretending to ignore the stutter-step. I made a fake barrier of out my sprinkler. I couldn't make myself stutter-step. Yay!

I called Terry...I couldn't contain my excitement. I told him it might be the happiest day of my life. That might have been a exaggeration. Luckily he's used to my gross over-exaggerations.

Tomorrow I'm going to the trails to try it out for real. And then 'cross season can officially start already!

Frustration

Right now I'm supposed to be warming up for a local mountain bike race. But instead I'm at home, eating applesauce and drinking watered-down gatorade. My week has gone something like this...Wednesday evening, pre-registered for mountain bike race, made some stir-fry; wee hours of Thursday morning, started throwing up; more humane early morning hours of Thursday, still throwing up, cursing myself for the meat I used in the stir-fry; mid-morning Thursday, off to clinic to get IV, stopped eating food, stopped throwing up, slept. Friday morning, feeling a little better, tried food again, mixed reviews, but it stayed down, slept more. Saturday morning, getting ready for race, had bagel, stomach not feeling quite right, decided not to go race. Grrr. Its always something. Its probably for the best, but I just want to get a race in down here. So, instead of a race report for today, I'll just throw some black and white photos out. I've been tinkering with a few this week, so here's a sampling. Hopefully I'll have a race report to share very soon.

Grain Bins at Mom and Dad's House

Black-Eyed Susans near home.

Sign buried in the weeds on Little Missouri Trail, Ouachita National Forest, Arkansas.

Settling In

I feel like rambling about nothing in particular. I have thoughts bouncing around in my head and I'm not someone who talks to my plants. So my five regular readers get to read my rambles instead. Maybe I'm finally getting settled into life here in Lousyana. Perhaps I shouldn't call it that any more because its really not that bad. Its not Monterey or Tokyo or Colorado, but it could be worse. I secretly really like my job, even though its incredibly busy and the hours are long. I love the challenge of all the moving pieces involved. I have great people working for me for the most part and I like who I work for, so I certainly can't complain about that. I have a brand new shiny house in a quiet neighborhood with endless quiet country roads at my disposal to ride, even if they are painfully flat and I have to carry pepper spray to keep the occasional mean dog at bay. And there's sweet single track only 30 minutes away.

But a few things are missing. I have three things I love more than anything in the world--Terry, racing my bike(s), and photography. I wish I could get paid for living a life that involves just those three things. Right now I feel like I'm living without any of them because the first one remains in California while I've been so busy with the new house and new job and new commitments and, in typical Beth fashion, taking on too much stuff to have time for the others. But things are starting to settle down. I'm starting to get an idea of what's important. And my overly competitive imagination is starting to wander towards training routes and intervals and tempo rides and hill repeats. Maybe I can start training again. And maybe, just maybe, I can start racing again. And maybe I still have a chance to find out how good I can be at something if I focus. And thinking about that makes me excited. Excitement leads to motivation. Motivation leads to getting out there to do it. And being out there doing it makes me happy. I just have to get my priorities in line, because the only one who can impede my excitement and motivation right now is me. As easy as it might be to say no, I don't like saying no to me.

And if nothing else, Terry is coming to visit me for two weeks in June and then we get to go to Colorado together for a few days and take photos in the mountains. There's a lot that makes me happy in that statement.

Photo Essay: Moss Landing

Since this website is called "Welliver Photography" and not "Beth's Lame Bike Race Reports", I figured it was about time we started posting some of our photos. We have a few photo essays in the queue from a few months back, so I'll slowly get them posted here for your viewing pleasure. And if you like our work, don't forget to check out our book! Its currently on sale. During my last week in Monterey we met some good friends at Moss Landing for dinner. Sadly, despite having lived in Monterey for nearly 2 years, I had never snapped a single photo in the picturesque little fishing enclave of Moss Landing. So Terry and I headed up early and wandered around with our cameras to get some photos before dinner. Here's what I found...I'll try to get some of Terry's photos from the same photo walkabout soon!

And the requisite otter shot (this is the only good otter picture I have from Monterey Bay).

Du-ing the Race Thing Again

I've been in Louisiana for almost a month now. Its been a crazy first month, complete with very close calls with a tornado (2 miles away) and an alligator (about 10 feet away), searching for and buying a house, saying good-bye to Terry and sending him back to Monterey, obscene humidity, an extra lame group ride, and a very busy job. Each of those in and of itself was worthy of a blog, but with a super slow internet connection, taking an online leadership course, and a work schedule that has me up at 5:00 each morning, blogging hasn't been a priority. But I finally got a chance to do a race this weekend, so here's my race report. I am not a swimmer. When I was little I failed basic swim lessons the first time I took them. When I was 10 I did the IronKids triathlon--I was dead last out of the water after reverting to the elementary back stroke to complete my swim leg...yes, that's right, the "chicken-airplane-soldier" stroke. In case you're wondering, its not a fast stroke. In college I tore up my shoulder and as part of my rehab I was supposed to go swim--the swim coach actually told me I was moving backwards in the pool. I haven't swam a stroke since I lived in Japan, so that would be about 3 years ago. Yet for some reason when I saw that the Xterra Gator Terra off-road triathlon was only an hour away from where I live now, I had to do it. So I signed up, bought myself a silly swim cap and goggles, and even drove myself to the course last weekend to pre-ride the mountain bike leg (swweeeeettt single track by the way!). In the back of my mind I kept thinking, what the hell are you doing? You are a HORRIBLE swimmer! But I was so excited to do something competitive that I threw all logical thought out the window and was ready to dive right in.

Fortunately the stars properly aligned and my triathlon registration was "lost". So when I showed up Saturday morning for my first grown-up triathlon, I wasn't registered for it. And then I learned that there was also a duathlon. I've always wanted to do a duathlon. Running and mountain biking...I'm no superstar at either of them, but I can hold my own in both. So I signed up for the du...thank goodness no swim! There was about 25 of us at the start for the du, with only 2 other women...at least I was on the podium! The one lady looked pretty athletic, so I figured I was in for a good challenge.

The first leg was a 1.1-mile trail run, complete with a huge hill similar to the Surf City cx run-up but longer, right off the bat. All the sudden I'm in 4th place, behind three guys, with the other women well behind me. Okay, cool. But one chic was wearing a cycling kit, so she could be a good mountain biker...be smart! I ran into the transition, quickly change into my Sidi's and throw on my helmet. Some how I did a perfect flying mount of my mountain bike--amazing considering I can't do that on my 'cross bike--and off I went for the 10-mile mountain bike leg.

Ironically I finished my run in about the same time that the elite men doing the triathlon finished their swim (they started the du a few minutes after the tri swim start), so I was on the course with them. I was good in the technical sessions against them, but they would fly by me in the powery open sections. Three pro ladies passed me during the mtb, too. One of them had calves the size of my head...crazy! It was fun to be at the front of the women's field because all the spectators would cheer extra for me. I've never heard the words "You Go Girl!" so many times in my life. I even caught some air on a berm in front of one crowd while a guy behind me crashed, so I got extra cheering there. There were plenty of places on those trails to destroy yourself, and despite nearly endo'ing  hard twice, I survived unscathed. I even made a friend because he liked "following my downhill lines"...I really think he was enjoying the view. Luckily the other women in the du hadn't caught me yet, so I was still in first place as the bike wound down.

I sucked down a Gu, did a perfect 'cross dismount at the line to the transition area (that's a good way to impress folks who know nothing about cyclocross), changed back into the running shoes and headed out for the last 3.5 miles of trail running. Unfortunately the trails were technical enough during the mtb leg that I hadn't been drinking enough water. So that coupled with trying to get my legs to stop spinning and start running made the first mile go slow. But then I grabbed a water at the aid station and got in my groove. I love trail running. Not as much as mountain biking, but its fun. Suddenly I was at the 3-mile point and realized I was almost done. I picked it up another notch and kicked it on in. I finished the whole thing in about 1:49 I think...and I won!  Yippie! I think I even got 2nd or 3rd overall against the men.

I don't have any pictures since my personal race documentary photographer was in Colorado for the weekend. But I had a great time and would love to do another off-road du again...and I'm so damn glad I didn't have to swim. I'd probably still be in that lake.

Probably won't have many more race reports for awhile. Racing is having to take a back seat to getting moved into the house and job commitments. Maybe by mid-summer I'll be back in the racing groove.

The Great Road Trip, Day 4

Finally getting my final installment to you. We set out from just west of Dallas on Monday morning with a mere three hours to drive until we got to our final destination of Shreveport, and I swear it was the longest three hours of my life! There was traffic and silly drivers with huge motorhomes pulling pickup trucks and lots of semis and an accident. But we finally made it and found our way to Louisiana.

Once we crossed the border it was just a few minutes to Shreveport and a few minutes to cross the big old Red River and we were in Bossier City. After unpacking the car and me riding my bikes around the parking lot to make sure they still worked, we were starving. Thanks to the technological wonders of things like Yelp on our iPhones, we found a little restaurant called "The Real Pickle". I have a thing for fried catfish, so I had to order the fried catfish poboy. For the uninitiated, a poboy is sort of like a sub sandwich, but it usually has some sort of fried seafood on it.

Now, for those of you keeping score at home, yes, I was in Louisiana for exactly two hours before the fried food found me. And it only took three hours for me to get an obnoxiously painful fried food headache, so fortunately I don't believe I'll have too many fried food cravings here! Meanwhile Terry flirted with the waitress like he normally does to find out what she liked and ended up with a fried oyster poboy. He loved it. Of course, now that we are in the south, Terry is smug as a bug since he can get sweet tea anywhere and everywhere. I personally find sweet tea disgusting since it tastes like tea-flavored pixie stix, but whatever. He loves it and drinks it like its liquid crack and it makes him happy so I don't argue. I stuck to beer. So that's about it. We've been looking for houses and I've had to go into work yesterday and today so we haven't explored the area too much yet, other than what our relator has shown us. Is it sad that I'm basing the location on where I can ride around my house?

The Great Road Trip, Day 3

We had about 30 minutes in New Mexico and then spent the entire rest of the day going 80 across the godforsaken abyss of west Texas. You would think that going 80 means it goes by fast but in fact, it NEVER ENDS! I don't even have much to say about it. Terry and I devised a huge plan to build a recycling center powered by wind turbines and serviced by bio-diesel powered trains. We'd build it right next to a huge federal prison so that we didn't have to force anyone to move to it...we'd just have the prisoners work at it. This is what you do when you're stuck in Texas for 8 straight hours...and we're still not done! We're only in Dallas, so we still have another few hours of Texas left in the morning. Oy! Rather than ramble on, I'll just give you a little photo essay of the day.

Crossing into Texas...

Slums of Juarez, Mexico across the river...

Part of Texas where things were still interesting to look at...

Terry put in some serious miles today, and with a smile on his face...

How the locals live...

We passed on this choice for lunch. It wasn't Mexican anyway...

The painfully flat start of I-20...

The authorities in TX are kind enough to make the drive an educational experience...

Wind farm and dust devil...

Oil tank thingies...

Another oil thingie with pretty clouds...

Farm action shot...

And a fun processing one...

The Great Road Trip, Day 2

Day two of the road trip is in the books. We started out from Indio, CA this morning with nothing to do put head east on I-10 for something like 693 miles. We crossed into Arizona...it was my first time really seeing much of Arizona. And I think I saw enough to keep me set for awhile.

We met up with Katie, one of my old college soccer teammates, in Phoenix. She was actually going to mountain bike ride with her hubby after lunch which made me a little jealous. But we had miles to drive and places to get to. And I didn't have any Stan's with me to fight off the inevitable goatheads.

So back in the car we went. I drove and Terry did his usual car shennigans, like sleeping and facebooking and twittering and learning how to make his own Choco-Taco. Meanwhile I sing along to whatever random music is on. Today I was on a big classic rock kick. When my family used to go on vacations from Iowa to Colorado my mom would copy their records onto tape and bring them along. I know every single word of every single song on the Meatloaf Bat Out of Hell album, along with several Jackson Browne, Eagles, Styx, and Journey albums. Oh, and a random Simon and Garfunkel one, too. We made our way across Airzona and into New Mexico, with me driving and singing my ass off to "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" and Terry studying how to make a homemade choco-taco.

Terry did have one job to do...grab the camera and take a picture of the New Mexico sign when we crossed the border. Its the co-pilot's job. He didn't do so well with one job.

At some point we decided that we were only going to eat Mexican food for the remainder of this trip, too. I don't know why we made this decision, but we actually had to skip out on dinner tonight in Las Cruces, NM. We were still stuffed from the late lunch and a quick ice cream stop that it didn't matter. We'll make up for it tomorrow in El Paso with some huevos rancheros. And now for a few sights from the drive...

Rocks in New Mexico.

Crazy billboards...and why does every little tiny town in places like this have a Dairy Queen?? I think we passed roughly 273 DQ's today.

A pretty little scene.

Racing against the trains (this one's for dad...there was a UP mainline along I-10 for awhile...lots of trains)

The Great Road Trip, Day 1

Today we started our big bad road trip from Monterey to Shreveport. Well, technically we're going to Bossier City, Louisiana, but no one knows where that is, so Shreveport is easier. In fact, a lot of people don't know where Shreveport is, so if you're searching google maps right now, its in the northeast corner of LA, about straight east of Dallas. Anyways, I am moving there because the Air Force told me to while Terry gets to stay in Monterey and finish up school for the next nine months. I kidnapped him from school for a week and he's driving out to LA with me. Day one started out with a significant amount of swearing from me. I can't deny that I tend to swear more than any nice girl should, but certain things push me over the edge...this morning I had to go do my final bit of military checking-out stuff at another base (not at the school I attended) in Monterey. I rarely go there and usually only have to go to one particular building if I do, and it usually has a parking space or two available when I go there. But of course today, the usual parking lot I use was full, introducing frustration number one with me: why locate all the customer service angencies in a single building and not have ample parking available for the customers?? So I went over to another lot, parked my car at about 9:52, and walked over to my appointment. Turned in my stuff, signed off the necessary forms, back out to the car...oh, how sweet, someone left me a note on my windshield--must be a friend saying good-bye...wait a minute...are you f'ing kidding me?? A PARKING TICKET?? What the ?? (Insert lengthy profanity laced tirade).

Apparently I parked in some sort of staff parking lot. My own fault for not looking for a sign some where that must have stated that the parking lot was a staff parking lot. But seriously, did the guy watch me park my car? The ticket was written not more than 2 minutes after I got out of it. I was back out to my car in 10 minutes. And $45 for a parking ticket?? Ridiculous!

Fortunately my day quickly improved when I got to go grab sandwich from Randy's (the absolute best sandwich shop in Monterey, possibly anywhere!) before I went to pick up Terry from class so we could hit the road. And I got to see our friends, the goooooses, one more time before I left. A little background on the gooooses. First, yes, they are not geese, they are the goooooses. This is a word best said with a good Minnesota accent. There's one lone white goose at NPS who hangs out around the pond. Last year he had two lady goose friends of the candian variety and they made little goose babies. Adorable. The white goose would strut around with his two lady goose friends and watch over the little baby gooooses and it made us smile every morning. Then the baby goooses grew up and the lady goooses left the white goose all alone. I don't think the white goose can fly because he has a messed up wing. All summer and all winter the white goose was the only goose at NPS. We felt bad for him. He had no goose friends. Then about a month ago the white goose's lady goose friends came back. Supposedly candian geese mate for life. And the white goose strutted around all happy again. I would see the three of them sitting in on particular spot all the time. Today I found out why...brand new fuzzy little yellow baby goooooses. I had to take pictures.

That's the happy goooose family.

And there's one of the mommy gooooses with a baby goooose.

Terry likes to call the white goooose "Playa"...after nearly two years in California Terry still has not learned that "Playa" means "beach", not "ladies man".

Seeing the goooses was a good way to say so long to Monterey and get on the road. So off we went...down the 101 to Paso Robles then across to the 5. That road from Paso Robles to the 5 convinced me that I am definitely not missing out on a darn thing by never experiencing that silly Kern County Stage Race. I got thirsty just driving across that dusty wasteland. A tumbleweed attacked my car. The sucker waited in the almond grove, watching me come down the road and then at the last minute unleashed himself from the fence and flew at my car. There's even pieces of tumbleweed still stuck around my headlight. Vicious! Terry wondered if anyone actually drives out to the middle of no where in Kern Co. to check on the lonely cows out there. He also wanted to try to claim a grape vineyard that appeared abandoned. I told him we couldn't have a vineyard in Kern. And then there was this random place where one million oil derricks have been crammed into a square mile. What's that all about?

Fortunately we made it safely through Kern Co and on to the imfamous Grapevine and through LA and now we are in Indio. We missed all the traffic, stopped for $1 tacos in Pasedena, and breezed all the way here. Tomorrow the goal is to get to Las Cruces, NM, but we'll see what happens. I'll do another updated tomorrow...

Boggs 8-Hour, Round Two

Yes, a new blog post...since its been a few weeks, I've apparently taken the liberty to ramble on for awhile to make up for lost words. Its a little long winded, so if you just want to know the final result, scroll to the bottom... I used to think I was a distance runner. It must have been a phase to transition me from my soccer playing days to something else. I ran a few 1/2 marathons and did a full marathon and was all ready to tackle a 50-km trail run, but running hurts after awhile and I skipped the 50K. Then I moved to California and just had to buy a bike. But I was still all about the long distance thing, so I thought I should do long distance mountain bike races, and really for no reason other than that I thought I was some sort of endurance athlete or that I wanted to be some crazy endurance athlete, and I had a mountain bike that I sort of knew how to sort of ride on singletrack. So last year I did the craziness of Boggs 8-hour mountain bike race on a brand new full-suspension that I sucked at riding. But I survived and had so much fun that I decided to do it again...and bring people with me! Somehow Natasha and I convinced each other to do it (she says I convinced her, but I think it was really her idea to do it this year).

So fast-forward another year. I figured out how to ride my full-suspension bike at a reasonable, yet still significantly slower than most, downhill speed. And I gained a lot of cycling fitness and all that in the last year, too. But I also did a lot of track racing and cyclocross and crits--pretty much the opposite of marathon mountain bike races, but whatever. The pedals go around just the same. Oh, and I'm rocking some serious "thesis fitness" right now as I'd like to call it...I've been lucky to get 1.5 hour rides in about three times during the week and maybe eeked out 3.5 to 4 hours on either Saturday or Sunday, but rarely did I ride on both Saturday and Sunday (except for that stupid Madera thing) in the last 3 months due to demands of finishing my master's thesis. So I really had no expectations going into Boggs this past weekend. I was hoping to match the same number of laps I had finished the year before, but I had no idea what would happen.

Before I get into the bloody details that Newell requested, I have to thank the unbelievable support crew we had! Terry waited patiently at the starting line for the entire 8 hours, keeping Natasha and I hydrated and fed all day long. Natasha's hubby Aaron was there for most laps and made sure we had the right food and lubed my chain when it needed it. Plus Hernando was there and up to his usual heckling shenanigans while Sabine made sure we were all taken care of and saved the day with a cookie for me (more on that later)...plus the three of them all got to go ride the sweet trails up there while we were racing, so it worked out great.

[caption id="attachment_356" align="aligncenter" width="256" caption="Sabine planning her 2nd ride of the day"][/caption]

Now for the race...there was this racer announcement meeting at 8 and races were supposed to start at 8:30. Well, the guy talked until 8:25 so I had about 5 minutes to go change and get back to the line. I literally rolled up, set my foot down, and then they started us. Luckily I had 8 hours to get warmed up. The course was exactly the same as the year, so at least I knew what to expect. The first few laps went by easily. The weather was gorgeous, the trails were perfect, the fellow racers were cordial and friendly. There were guys on unicycles and couples on tandems and the fabulous Lorri Lown rocking some awesome pink socks to go with her awesome pink bike (not gonna lie, I'm a little jealous)...

[caption id="attachment_349" align="aligncenter" width="256" caption="Unicyclist"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_351" align="aligncenter" width="384" caption="Crazy Tandem Couple"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_350" align="aligncenter" width="384" caption="Lorri in Pink!"][/caption]

Around 1 pm, people started getting a little crabby. I was still happily frolicking along at my "thesis fitness" pace, but some people wanted to go much faster and wanted me to get out of there way. Most likely because around lap 4 I started going really slow. The "thesis fitness" was catching up with me. After the 4th lap I got the great reassurance from Terry of "you'd better hurry up if you think you're going to do 3 more laps" and "Natasha is about to lap you". Now, I fully expected Tash to lap me, so I was cool with that. She was actually racing as opposed to my putzing. Plus she knew all the secrets of endurance racing after doing the 24-Hours of Adrenaline a ridiculous number of times, like drinking Mountain Dew in between laps. So I made a deal with myself...go until I finish 7 laps or until Tash passes me--then I could drink beer.

[caption id="attachment_355" align="aligncenter" width="256" caption="Doin' the Dew"][/caption]

Off I went for lap 5...holy cow I'm slow. And my hamstrings hurt. But I made it back around. Terry fueled me up and sent me off and told me to hurry up. So I started out on lap 6. The course had one big fire road climb early in the lap, then some fun, rolling singletrack for awhile, and then a monstrous death march of a climb that went for about a mile up a fire road and then another mile up some singletrack. The first climb was taking its toll on me, but I survived. Unfortunately my hamstrings were getting so tight that it hurt to pedal or stand on my pedals, so I just sat on my saddle and coasted through a lot of the next section. Then came the second huge climb. I noticed that I was getting so defeated that I was starting to do that whiny weird gasping breathing thing I do when I'm on the edge of a melt down and about to cry. So I decided, this is it. I'm only doing 6 laps this year. No one could fault me with all the moving and school and lack of training and general crap we're dealing with right now. But it was less than I did last year, which frustrated me, but not enough to care to do another lap. So I suffered my way to the top of the climb. The Boggs folks were smart when they designed that course though...roughly the last 1.5 miles back to the start/finish area was fun downhill. So the meltdown didn't fully come to fruition and I swooped my way back to the venue where the support crew was there to see me say, "I'm done".  Too bad I was still smiling from the last downhill section so they didn't believe me. Plus I looked like a big dofus with my helmet all askew on my head, so no one would take me seriously anyway.

[caption id="attachment_358" align="aligncenter" width="255" caption="Goofy Helmet"][/caption]

I was all prepared to convince Terry that I was done. He'd talked me into doing another lap last year, so I knew what tactics he'd use to get me to do another lap. I was ready to counter him. But then Aaron said, "its only 3:15, you have have over 2 hours to finish this last lap. You have to do another one". Uh, okay...Then Sabine says, "just stretch for a second and you can go back in a few minutes, you don't have to go right now." And then she said the golden words, "Do you want a cookie?" Yes, YES!! COOKIE! And to top it off, it was a sugar cookie. An unbelievable soft and oh-so-sugary sweet homemade sugar cookie. So I ate my cookie and drank my cytomax while the crew tended to my bike. I told them I would do another lap but I might be crying when I finish. That's how hard the last lap had been for me. Hernando said he'd have a beer to put in my hand when I finished, so fine. I'll go do the damn lap.

[caption id="attachment_354" align="aligncenter" width="255" caption="Pit Stop"][/caption]

Shockingly, lap 7 was not so bad. Maybe because I knew I was absolutely done at the end of this lap because there wasn't time to do another one. Or maybe the after taste of the sugar cookie for the first part of the lap just made me happy. Or maybe because the crew had totally rallied me to get out there and do it. I sucked it up on the climbs and let go of the brakes on the downhills and just decided to have fun with it. My hammys didn't hurt as much any more and I finally had all the fast lines figured out. I made it almost to the very tip-top of the last climb and heard a familiar voice behind me, "Hey Wellie, can I get by?" Yay! Tash was finally lapping me...I knew she was really close to the chic just ahead of her in the expert category, so I was so excited to see her go flying by me and start down the final descent! She rode so hard and was absolutely crushing it for 8 straight hours! Unbelievable. She wound up finishing 3rd in the solo expert category, just 20 seconds behind 2nd place after 8 hours of racing. Awesome!

[caption id="attachment_357" align="aligncenter" width="448" caption="Tash Killin' It!"][/caption]

I cruised down the last little bit of singletrack, pretty tired, relieved to know I was almost done, and going faster than I'd ever ridden that section. That made me happy because improving my downhilling ability has been a slow and frustrating process. I'm still pretty slow at it, but I'm getting faster, and more importantly, more confident with speed in technical sections. I think my final lap ended up being faster than laps 4 thru 6, so I can't complain about that. And I was able to finish with a smile on my face. I did the same number of laps as last year but I think I finished those 7 laps at least 45 minutes sooner than I had the year before. I ended up 2nd in the solo sport category, well behind 1st place, but happy to have survived.

[caption id="attachment_359" align="aligncenter" width="461" caption="Almost done"][/caption]

So that was it, last race in NorCal. I'm glad it was a fun one and that I got to share it with some great friends. And extra thanks to Terry for putting up with this whole cycling thing. He's out there at nearly every race, always supporting and helping and cheering and pinning numbers and manning the feed zones and keeping track of water bottles and taking some sweet pictures...and he doesn't even like riding a bike. I'm pretty darn lucky!

I Got My Chair

I didn't win a bike race yesterday and could not have been happier. Why? Because my superstar Team Beth teammate won her first crit!! It was so cool and she definitely earned it. So that's the short story. And here's a picture (stolen from Sabine) of our crazy sprint finish. Thanks to Lorri and all the Velo Girls for a great event! I've noticed that the races put on by womens teams out here are the best, all the way around. For the long story (including an explanation of the title), read on below the picture. [caption id="attachment_343" align="alignnone" width="592" caption="Photo by Sabine Dukes"][/caption]

So you may have noticed that the blog has been a little slow lately. That's because I've been plugging away on my thesis. Somehow I got behind, which made last week look something like this...

Monday - Wake up. Type. Look at spreadsheets. Compare charts. Type. Sleep.

Tuesday - Wake up. Swear at my computer. Type. Cut and paste in Excel. Type. Intervals on the rollers. Type. Go to bed. Freak out because I'm behind. Get up and type more. Sleep.

Wednesday - Wake up. Type...You get the idea.

So I averaged about 4 hours of sleep each night. I'm a 7-hour minimum sleeper - if I don't get 7 hours I turn into a sniffling, crabby, emotionally jilted crazy girl. Ask Terry...he can tell a hilarious story of my emotional lameness last week. I skipped out on the Berkeley team time trial that I was supposed to do Saturday. I rode a bike for a total of three hours the whole week. Sunday morning I had to take Terry to the airport at 5:40 to catch a flight for a job interview in Baltimore. With the stupid time change it was really like 4:40. Dropped him off and went back to bed. Exhausted and grumpy.

When the alarm went off at 9 I knew I had to get up to leave by 10 to get to the crit. I didn't want to go. I was pissed that I'd pre-registered. But I knew that people were expecting me to be there. And I really wanted to go to Ikea one more time before I move because I really wanted a Poang chair. The race was in Menlo Park so Ikea would be right there when I finished. Just pedal around for an hour and then I'd get my chair. So I forced myself to lube the chain and pump up the tires and throw random bits of Bella clothing in a bag with a ClifBar and a water bottle and off I went.

I got to the race and was still not thrilled about being there. But I was there. So I got on my bike and found a little street to warm-up on and tried to motivate myself to ride. But I didn't care. Off to the starting line to line-up. I took a spot in the back because I didn't care. I always try to get to the front, but didn't feel like squeezing myself in. The whole field is standing there ready to start the race but there was some sort of "incident" at the end of the Pro/1/2 men's race (come on boys, are you kidding me??), so we had to wait for the course to be cleared. Twenty minutes later and what I think was about 10 neutral parade laps, we finally got lined up for the start. The whole time I'm thinking this is delaying my chair purchase. And I just wanted my chair.

Finally we started and I suddenly felt better. I was racing my bike. It just made sense. I got to focus on pack positioning and cornering and watching my line and other people's lines and doing my thing. Two laps in we got a bell for a prime. I was near the front so I pushed it a bit and won the prime next time around, with Beth right on my wheel...Beth says hey, we have a gap, lets go...so I went. Mind you, its about 3 laps into the race at this point and I know its not going to last, but what the hell, Beth and I are in a break. But that quickly fizzled and I drifted back into the pack, flirting the outskirts of the dark place that I didn't want to be in 3 laps into the race. I told myself if my lungs exploded I wouldn't be able to get my chair so chilled for a bit.

So fast forward a several laps and I hear a bell going through the start/finish again...another prime. There were primes every other lap in that race I think. I was mid-pack and didn't think much of it. But then we're coming back around to finish that lap and I've advanced to the front of the pack...so I surged and picked up another one. Crazy! Beth drifted by me and said stay off the front for the rest of the race, so I chilled in the pack while she went to the front and patrolled a bit. She won a prime in there too I think.

Then we got the bell for the last lap and everyone went ape-shit. Girls started trying to squeeze in places they didn't quite fit and taking some crazy lines into the corners. I was freaked out! One girl even went down on the back side after hooking bars. I tried to scoot to the front but was still about mid-pack coming around the last turn. Thankfully it was a ridiculously long finishing straight. Everyone slowed way down while 4 girls got a little gap. I suddenly had a lot of speed out of the corner and bridged across. I think Beth jumped on my wheel, so it was sort of a lead out. She slid by with about 50 meters to go and got the win! Yippie! And I was right beside her in second.

Terry was happy when I called him to tell him about the results because I actually won prize money for the first time ever. I was happy that I won some whole bean coffee from Zambrano's.

And then I went to Ikea and got my chair.