bikevomit

can i get a 'hell yes'?

2010-01-25T19:25:00.000-08:00

So, last weekend (Jan. 16) was the Frozen Oter Ultra Trek. I attempted this last year and got schooled so hard I stayed out of the woods for weeks. This year-- I knew-- had to be different.

Team Fat Otter offers up two flavors for this event: the 64-mile, 24-hour, I'm-so-crazy-I-need-shock-therapy full distance; or the 32-mile, 12-hour, I-have-a-few-screws-loose-but-am-still-a-functioning-member-of-society half distance. Since I have a full time job and a healthy respect (read: fear) of danger, I chose the latter. My Project Athena Goddess teammate Kerrie had to bail at the last minute (moving + training for a Namibian ultra + holidays = no time), so I was on my own.

Solo in the woods of Northern Kettle Moraine State Park. For at least five hours of darkness.

My group, the solo half distance, was the first off. A few of us began jogging right from the start, where the snow was hard packed. I'm glad we did; less than a mile in the snow got loose and deeper. I used my $18 Target trekking poles for all they were worth and then some. I was pretty psyched to see Evan Wing at the 8 mile CP-- it's nice to know that someone running support really gets what you're trying to do. I asked for whiskey and bacon, which no one had, so I settled for my trail mix and Heed mixed with hot water. I didn't allow myself my iPod unless I made it to the first 8 mile CP in time to continue on... and success! My second 8 miles, the ones with music, were my fastest for the day.

By 9 miles in, my GoreTex Salomons were filled with water--either from snow, sweat, or both. I knew I had a fresh pair of socks in my pack, so I pushed on to the 16 mile (a.k.a. the Turnaround). Perhaps I should have stopped earlier.

When I took off my first sock, one of the volunteers audibly gasped. My foot was basically grey (think bathtub pruning), with my second and middle toes forming weird blisters around the base of the nail. And let's not forget the "toe hat" blisters that I have grown to know and love... thank God for April and Ellie. Again, having friendly, knowing faces at these checkpoints kept me going. April lent me her Vaseline Lip Therapy (closest thing to lube anybody had) to rub on my toes, Ellie made some hot Heed (my new favorite drink), and I took my first (and only) 800mg of Ibuprofen. Now, I have never been a fan of doping, but damn did that help.

I was cutting it close. I had to get out of that CP before the 6-hour mark if I had any hope of finishing in time. A big group of 6-8 guys got to the checkpoint right behind me, and they did not like the idea of getting chicked. The hunt was on. I shoved my dry socks into my wet shoes and got my ass moving. It was getting dark and I knew it, so I had my headlamp out before I left.

One of my major accomplishments in this event was my organization; I seemed to have everything ready to go. I almost didn't stop for anything: glove changes, eating, drinking-- the one time I had to pee I was counting the seconds.

Regardless of my phenominal preparation for this event, a few of the boys caught me. Fine with me; while motivating, the coyote howling in the valley and the random car stopping for far too long (at one of the few road crossings) were not things I enjoyed encountering on my own. We talked a bit about these encounters before I broke away from them again just before the final manned CP at 24 miles.

Back at Evan's camp, I was again faced with super wet feet; but this time with no spare socks. I took them off and hung them by the fire. This time around, venison jerky and (yes!) a bottle of whiskey were available. I took a stick of jerky and a snort off the bottle, and suddenly what I was doing seemed much less idiotic. Back on with the wet socks and shoes, I'm off!

By this point, two of the guys from the group had passed me at the 24-mile, and my bladder of water was frozen solid. The other guys that were behind me were making coyote howls as they chased me down. I have to assume that anybody with less of a sense of humor would really hate this... and I'll admit that I was damn near sprinting to the end when I saw the fire marking the finish line. But at no point was I afraid. Coyotes, creepy cars, frozen fluids... these were all things that I handled with a levelheadedness that I did not know I possessed.

Anyway, I finished with about 12 minutes to spare. And there was chicken soup at the end! Real soup, not the skinny-noodled kind. And a jar of giant dill pickles! And New Glarus beer!

Can I get a hell yes?

Results: sore hips & feet, 9th of 37 (including teams), only chick to finish the half in time.

Project Athena!!

2009-10-08T15:24:00.001-07:00

September 30- October 4: Rim 2 Rim 2 Rim, Project Athena fundraising adventure.

I'm a little at a loss for words on this, but I felt it was necessary to post something. My loss of words may be because I'm not much of a mushy person... and any descriptions in English are just going to come off mushy.

This was an amazing group of people in an amazing setting, all for the purpose of helping others. All the planets aligned; it was the perfect storm.

See? Already I'm getting mushy. Think of any cheesy cliche, and I won't fight you on it. I seriously came back a different person.

The goal:
Cross the Grand Canyon on foot. Twice. From the South Rim to the North on Thursday, and a different route back on Friday. So I was thinking that this will be pretty easy; hiking is just walking, right? After two 10+ hour days with minimal stopping and a new series of blisters that Robyn dubbed "The Toe Hat", I realized that I was wrong.

The cause:
Project Athena, a non-profit that helps women "strive and survive" after medical tragedy/setback by fulfilling an athletic dream. For example, Kerrie Kerkman. She has a degenerative spinal condition, and has already had one spinal fusion- with the possibility of more on the horizon. Her dream was to to not only see the Great Wall in China, but to run the Great Wall marathon. In May 2009, accompanied by Melissa Cleary, she did just that. Project Athena provides funds and support for the "Athenaship Recipients" in these athletic endeavors.

The R2R2R recipient was Sandy Kilburg, aptly nicknamed "Sunshine". Always positive and active, you would never know that she is a breast cancer survivor.

Some of the people:
Melissa Cleary, San Diego firefighter, marathoner (dozens of 'em). Strong and kind, her Project Athena job description is "Angel of Hope". Seriously, it says so on her business card- and after hiking with her, I can't think of a better description. And again, don't think mushy: she's originally from Philly and tells it like it is. She carried packs and weight from damn near everyone.

Robyn Benincasa, San Diego firefighter, world class adventure racer. Strong, fun, and ridiculously modest, she is a founder of Project Athena (job description: "Minister of Dreams"). Anyone who follows adventure racing is aware of Robyn's rockstar status, but she is more down-to-earth than most amateur Cat. 3 road cyclists. Another woman who isn't afraid to tell it like it is, she knew my feet hurt before I did. She took weight and physically pushed, pulled, and dragged us to completion.

Masha Glanville, recently retired from the workforce and world class adventure racer. I didn't get a lot of time with Mosh, but I do know this: she suffers more gracefully than anyone I have ever known. She physically pulled (on a towline) other hikers for dozens of miles.

Florence Debout, French, tiny, and powerful, her Project Athena description is "Commissioner of Courage". Again, not a lot of time with Florence, but her presence is much larger than her compact frame. For example, Florence and Robyn completed RAW this year, and their two-person female team won their division and placed 3rd OVERALL. She is also not one to boast.

Jonea Mounsey, flight nurse, local, hiker extraordinaire, route finder. Another pusher/puller/dragger, Jonea is just an all around cool chick.

Josh Liberman, a professional photog there to document who quickly became one of us, and Jackie Windh, a journalist and photographer there to cover the event for Sleepmonsters, and who has always been one of us.

The "B" Team: abbreviated from "Bitchin'!", this was Wendy, a San Diego firefighter, Erica, the sweetest girl with a contagious laugh, and myself, the ex-crackhead posing as an athlete. We vowed on Day 2 that we would stay together and damnit, we did. Every. Last. Painful. Step. You learn a lot about yourself when you are stripped of all ego, walking in well after everyone else.

There were 22 of us, which would make for a really long blog. The moral is this: go to Project Athena and donate at least a tithe. Or ten bucks, whatever. Click here to do it under my page.

It is a cause worthy of all of your disposable income.

makin' progress

2009-10-08T15:23:00.000-07:00

Dennis Grelk and I teamed up on August 29th to do the 12-hour Thunder Rolls AR. We're both in our first year or two of adventure racing, but we get into it like a couple of rabid beavers. Dennis is a great teammate for many reasons, not the least of which are his VW bus and his ability to tow my ass on a bike to the finish line at 26mph-- after 11 hours and 53 minutes of racing. (We finished, according to my watch, with 20 seconds to spare.)

Of note on this race:
1. Two-mile run epilogue, in which teams receive Map 1 of 6 and passport (for marking obtained CPs). Dennis had a pulled Achilles' tendon, so the run was less than fun for his angry foot. Luckily for us, Dennis and I are total geeks (again, great teammate) and had spent the evening before overlaying the existing maps to determine where CP 1 was on the missing map.
That way, we didn't have to stop and plot the UTM coordinates. We were off!

2. Rockin' bike section, in which I was towed for the first time. It was awesome! The only team that caught us was 3-person coed Team Bushwacker, and we all know that they are monsters, so I'm okay with it. Two water crossings by bike.

3. The Tyrolean traverse, during which certain female racers are accused of sounding like birthing water buffalo. Whatever, I think I sounded like a warrior princess. Did I mention that we had to traverse with our bikes?

4. The first orienteering course. We hit the traverse in second place. When we came out of this O-course, we were 16th. We spent 90 minutes on one CP, and still never found it. Yeah, neither of us are navigators. Not at all.

5. The damned paddle, in which all energy stores are completely sapped. The Mississippi is one powerful, angry bitch. A few days before the race, one river town had received 10" of rain in one storm. It took us 3+ hours to get two CPs, but damnit, we got them. God bless 180 Energy drinks and beans- supplied at the boat launch. Thunder Rolls volunteers are awesome.

6. The finish, in which racers are handed an ice cold beer (in a custom Thunder Rolls coozie). The rest of the race was a blur as I clung to Dennis' wheel.

the Muddy Buddy!! ...and a fuddy duddy

2009-08-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

Did my first race as an Otter last Sunday-- the Muddy Buddy Chicago! Rod McLennan and I teamed up and gave that course the business as Fat Otter III.

This was my first Muddy Buddy, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It was what I would call a "civilian" race-- with 1700 teams of two and free Red Hook beer, the vibe was definitely pretty chill. The course was quick, creative and fun... and who doesn't love an excuse to crawl through the mud? Rod and I ended up 9th in our division... I'll take it, since there were 148 teams and I wasted some time waiting for a bike that was already in one of the transitions. (Note: make bike more identifiable next year.) Afterwards I stopped by the Zanfel tent and got to chat with Mr. Steve! Haven't seen him since the High Profile Adventure Camp last April.

We celebrated for a while, then I stopped by the bike corral to pick up my bike... to no avail. That's right: someone took my MTB. Are you kidding me? The year I get in to Chequamegon, and now I am without bike??

The race promotor/director was as helpful as could be expected, but the website had warned that the corral was not secure. I'm so used to bike and adventure races--where it's all athletes and no one would mess with your gear--that I disregarded this warning.

I had a three-hour drive home to totally lose my shit about it, and believe me, I did. But that didn't bring me any closer to having a bike again, so I decided instead on this:

I have chosen to believe that my bike ran off to live on a beautiful farm with an active family who cleans, maintains, and keeps bicycles inside. They have pristine singletrack out the back door and live on beautiful, rolling gravel roads. The Tassajara is in a much better place now. *sniff*

...and now I will somehow get a new bike.

(But just in case, keep your eyes peeled for a red & silver Gary Fisher Tassajara, nicknamed "The Ass Jar")

Is it possible to bruise your sternum?

2009-07-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

This weekend was FORC's first annual series of MTB races at Scott County Park, the Mean Fuzzy. Two days of racing with multiple categories and the good swag that FORC is known for made for a FANTASTIC first event.

Saturday was a "short track" race. This was my first attempt at short track and it was AWESOME. I'm not sure what else to say about it- I felt good and the course was great fun. I really need to work on my technical skills--I know I had the fitness to do much more than I did, even in a race that is generally less technical. My race (novice) was six laps and lasted around 28 minutes (balls to the wall!). The course was dry and fast, making for good clean fun.

Sunday was the cross country (XC) race. Two laps, 10 miles. Again, I was feeling really good about my fitness--but this was definitely more technical than the short track. I rode most of the race with Christie Klemish, until I decided it would be fun to wreck like a cartoon character.

Here's the scene: left handlebar hits tree, recover, right handlebar hits tree, barely recover, small root system finishes me off. Wobble, wobble, whoa! It was slow motion as I started to tip right, and all I could think was: "That is a lot of poison ivy." The next thing I know, I'm in the ditch (head lower than feet) and have somehow lost my right shoe. I took the end of my handlebars to the sternum (luckily no bar ends!) and had the wind knocked out of me. When the stars and tweeting birds cleared and my eyes focused, I was face-to-face with a three-leafed beauty.

Don't get me wrong- I love rolling around in poison ivy just as much as the next girl. But as I looked for my shoe (which I found still attached to my bike?) I just felt dirty.

I feel bad for the guy behind me- when he came around the corner all he would've seen sticking out of the ditch is two spinning wheels and perhaps a black-socked foot. Rock and roll.

My day was topped off by a good Zanfel scrubbing in the parking lot and a couple-hour jaunt to the ER with Matt Klemish (Christie's husband) to take care of his 3rd-degree ankle sprain (a nice, gnarly knot). Genesis East had Klem out lightning fast and we were back at the course sipping beers before the end of the expert race--which, by the way, was over 30 miles and took nearly three hours. This is why Bruce Grell is my hero. What a freak!

Side note: I seriously love that Zanfel. Seriously. If you do anything in the woods, ever, you must have this stuff. Do not cry to me about the cost, I am not listening. It is worth every penny.

Results: Sat- 1 of 3 Women's Novice, Sun- 3 of 6 Women's Novice, pain with deep breaths, slight bad-beer buzz. See you in the funny pages...

Stayin' at The Bates

2009-07-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

It’s true, and I can vouch: you get what you pay for… and I stayed at a $43 motel on Tuesday.

When I first pulled in to Nowhere, KS I stopped at a gas station to fill up and get anything I would need for the next day’s 5am start- cereal bar, juice, caffeine. The guy behind the counter had a very Jeffrey Dahmer-esque vibe. So when he asked me why I wouldn’t stop by in the morning, I minimized any information and got the hell out of there. But not before he got in a “What does your license plate say? I can tell you’re not from here… we don’t get many good-lookin’ women like you around here.” He followed this with one of the most horrifying laugh/grin combinations I have ever seen-- outside of a movie theater. Seriously. We’re talking cheap “Halloween Sound Effects” cassette. It was all I could do to stifle my Jamie Lee Curtis scream.

I should mention here that I had been in a van for nine hours after a two hour bike ride. My clothes were wrinkled and I was wearing pool shoes. My skin was in a civil war which resulted in three meteor-sized pimples around my left eye. (When I got home Sean asked, “What’s on your face?”) So no, I was not a “good looking woman” by any stretch of the imagination.

I escape the gas station unscathed but shaken and realize with horror that my motel was directly across the street. I knew that when I pulled my giant, white, beacon of a 3/4-ton van into the parking lot I would just announce myself to all the Jeff Dahmers of the area. It was 9pm. Awesome.

I get checked in and head to my room, key in hand. A key. Literally, a metal key--which in some situations, can be viewed as quaint. I was simply interested in security at this point, so the key was a bit disheartening, as was the lack of any other form of lock on the door. But this was nothing compared to the room.

In the right context, many of the things that I encountered could have been any variation of the word “quaint”. For example, the adorable stains on the throw pillows. Or the super-cute half-drank can of Squirt in the mini-fridge. Or the endearing loose toilet seat—I love to hover in my hotel! But I was not at a forgivable bed and breakfast out east. I was in the middle of Kansas surrounded by weirdos.

I decided that I would be better off sleeping (and I use this term loosely) in my clothes, skipping the filthy shower, and shoving the “desk chair” (a folding chair) under the door handle for security. Good times!

bonk hard chill

2009-04-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

So, DG and I did a 12-hour adventure race on Feb. 7th. Called the Bonk Hard Chill, this race adds the extra challenge of cold weather on top of physical endurance. Good times!

I had done the Frozen Otter, so I felt I had my winter gear pretty dialed in. DG had just done the Arrowhead 135 (26 hours- third place!), so he for sure had his winter gear dialed in. We were set. Oh, except for the fact that the weather took a freak turn and it was 60 degF during the race!! So much for the cold weather home court advantage.

This was DG's first actual AR, and only my third or fourth, so we still had a few things to figure out. We got our maps Friday night and spent a few hours plotting UTMs and mapping our course. We decided I would navgate the first land O, and he would take the second one. We would both work on the canoe and bike routes.

We hit the first land nav section pretty dead on, but our pace was slower overall than most-- I wanted to make sure I wasn't getting us lost. When I'm more confident with my nav skills, then maybe we can run full boar through the woods... but not yet.

Of note was the second canoe section, where we had to strap our bikes in the canoes and paddle them a short distance across the lake. This is where we learned that a tailwind is actually the worst thing you can have in a canoe... a tailwind will blow you sideways. Since DG had never paddled a canoe before, I was in back. I should mention here that I am not known for my upper body strength. You could say that my language in this section was colorful. Definitely one of the more frustrating experiences of my life.

We got on our bikes (the right kind of pain) and did a couple CPs, then got to the church. At the church was a veritable army of volunteers (I believe the volunteer-to-racer ratio was 2:1). Along with brownies, juice, and turkey sandwiches, we received the second half of our map which we then had to plot and chart. Again, we took our time to be safe and double-checked our work.

We hit the final land nav with only enough time for one CP before we had to strap our bikes back in the canoe... and we wanted to give ourselves enough time for that nightmare.

...but the canoe back was something completely different. We were headed into the sunset, and the air was calm. We sat back and enjoyed our final paddle in. It was just a few miles by bike to the finish line from the shore.

Results: DG's first race, my first time not getting short-coursed, cool views of an uncharacteristicly unpopulated Lake of the Ozarks, dead last in our division

Frozen Otter

2009-02-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

January 17th was the Frozen Otter Ultra-Trek. For me, a long hike. I attempted the half: 32 miles. I completed half of the half: 16 miles. Single-digit temps, and it snowed the whole goddamn time. It was a trudgefest of a good proportion. One of the more difficult things I've done to date.

I trekked with the guys from team POLeR, Chad Hannon and John "Code" Morris. Chad made a video.

I think this will be excellent training for the Bataan Death March.

CTS Performance Testing Camp

2009-02-04T07:01:00.000-08:00

January. Subzero. I have been going so crazy riding the trainer that I started to move my whole workout room upstairs into the empty spare bedroom. I half-assed it, so now the house is an mess of weights, stability balls (yes, plural), bosu, mats, etc, etc, all over the house.

I decided to mix things up a bit and go to the Carmichael Training Systems Performance Testing Camp in Colorado Springs.

All in all, a rockin’ experience. I hadn’t been to CO in a while, and never to CO Springs. It’s a great little town, with cute local restaurants with good food within walking distance of the major hotel.

CTS headquarters is a surprisingly low-key building. I had this illusion of some intimidating structure, full of coaches buzzing around being important and impersonal. The exact opposite is true. A one-level repurposed brick building in an art district, CTS headquarters is totally unassuming. And there were maybe a dozen people in the office, every single one of them friendly and approachable, even Dean Golich (though he seems to have an unnatural lust for Porsches). Chris Carmichael’s office is also unassuming. Many coaches were out with their athletes.

Only two other athletes were at this particular Testing Camp, which is understandable. Only the truly masochistic want to know their performance levels in the off-season, especially that soon after the holidays. One was a pro triathlete. The other was an elite road racer. Truly out of my league… but you would never know it. Everyone treated me exactly the same as the other two campers, and all test results were confidential, given directly to me by my coach.

I’ll spare the lackluster details. The results are: I’m not a pro, I have a lot of work to do, I need to eat better, and I bought a Powertap the second I got home.

hopelessly spoiled~ VandeCross

2008-11-10T08:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the Old Towne VandeCross, Race #2 of the DICE series ("Double 'I' Cyclocross Experiment", I believe) out in an old Belgian neighborhood in Moline.

The weather, up until about Saturday, had been unseasonably warm- 70degF on Wednesday- so when Mother Nature decided to bitch slap us with sub-freezing temps and flurries on Sunday, many of us were caught unprepared. I found myself loaning out more than one piece of winter gear. I also wore my Craft balaclava (available for purchase at Healthy Habits) for the first time this year, and was pleased to discover that it smelled way too much like a urinal cake. I did not, to my knowledge, ever place it in a urinal, so I'm not sure where the smell came from. Not that the smell stopped me from wearing it...

Note to self: wash all winter gear before trying to use it.

Anyway, the course was sweet: lots of power climbs and fun, technical descents; corners that allowed speed (when handled with skill- which is not me, but made for fun race viewing); wide, sweeping areas that allowed recovery and acceleration. DICE has me hopelessly spoiled when it comes to race courses.

Did I mention the cold? Not enough to freeze a bottle, but defintely below anything I was prepped for. Layers, layers. I did my best, considering: I hadn't ridden since Thursday, and before that, Monday; my right eye has some sort of unknown (and mildly alarming) allergic reaction that makes me look a bit like I've had a stroke; and when I woke up yesterday morning, my G.I. tract was rocking like a Bosnian discotheque. I rode within my ability, and ended up fifth (in the money!) out of seven.

I'm just glad that this year I am actually racing the Women's races, instead of copping out and going for the Beginner's.

On to Psyclofest!

cultural jackass

2008-10-31T11:19:00.000-07:00

Not sure if I did anything wrong here, but it seems highly feasible.

I just got done shooting a portrait of a man from Finland. His English was pretty good, but I still found myself making a lot of hand gestures, including the dreaded "thumb's up".

The first time I flashed the awful thumb, my subject startled a bit- as though I had flipped him the bird. I instantly realized my faux pas: many a hand signal means something else in other cultures. (Such as our "OK" symbol basically means "asshole" in certain Asian countries.) I do not know if a thumb's up is offensive in Finland or not, but it seems very possible that it could mean "up yours, shit tooth".

I never, ever use the "thumb's up". I know it's totally lame. So it's baffling that it was my instinctive first move with this guy.

But more horrifying is the fact that I continued to use it. I must've flashed my thumb half a dozen times, including as I walked him out. "Okay, thanks! See you later! Up yours, shit tooth."

I'm an asshole.

sideways flying corn trash

2008-10-29T08:27:00.000-07:00

So, last Sunday the DICE Women's Team (i.e.: Lindsay and myself) made it over to Des Moines for day two of the Spooky CX races.

The course was a little above what I have come to expect from some CX race courses. There. I said it. You know you're all thinking it anyway! Someone once said that adventure is one part poor judgment and two parts persistance, anyway. This race was at Living History Farms, and included some rolling forest trail (sweet), a murky field trail ending in a face-planting muddy ditch (dumb), a short but steep-ish gravel/asphalt hill (sweet), grass switchbacks with one more-than-180- degree left-hand downhill switchback (dumb), and a long, steady, grinding hill with a few low barricades (tough, but sweet). There was also and inexplicable double-mound of mulch. Weird.

The Women's Open field consisted of 9 riders, including me & Lindsay, Sydney Brown (I wonder who's going to win?), Brittany from ICCC, a couple of DesMoines riders and a few others I didn't recognize. Considering the weather, I consider this to be a pretty solid turnout. Speaking of the weather, did I mention the wind?

Iowans/Illinoians/ Nebraskans who are not in caves (and probably those in caves as well) experienced Sunday's winds: 32mph steady, gusting up to 54mph. There is no reason I should be able to see the side of my wheel like that while racing! The good news is, this leveled the playing field a bit. The field spread out pretty much from the gun, but that's to be expected in a Women's Open. The wind did keep us Cat 4's from getting lapped, though. I spent most of the race leap-frogging with Michelle from DMOS-- which was nice because I was able to sit on her wheel in a brutal headwind section for two of the four laps. She's a tough chick- she face planted in the ditch on lap one, successfully tried again on lap two, wrecked in the same spot on lap three, and made it on lap four. I have to say that after watching her face plant the first time, I decided to make this section a personal mandatory dismount. And you know what? The five to ten seconds lost for a dismount was definitely worth it. (With an honest assessment of my bike handling in mud, a wreck would have been inevitable.) I later found out that Lindsay had used the same tactic.

On the last lap, I sat up a bit in the tailwind section for a boost, and got away. Michelle stayed within sight of me for the entire lap, but didn't quite catch back on. I ended up 7th. Lindsay ended up third, but you can read about that on her blog: http://smurfettebike.blogspot.com/

All in all, a good workout.

On to Vandecross!

seriously: HOW DO THESE PEOPLE KEEP FINDING ME?

2008-10-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

Just a quick anecdote from the bike path.

Last night I was going to take the CX bike out for a few hours~ the path to Devil's Glen, out towards Scott Co. Park and into some gravel. Got to the path and realized it was about 15 degF cooler than expected, so changed my plans on the fly. I decided to ride the path to the Riverdale end, then back towards a park where I could do some mount/dismount/carry practice.

Got really cold, headed into D'port a bit, and decided to turn around after about an hour of jacking around on different grassy knolls. As I was passing through the softball complex area, I saw a man. A man with a bike and a lot of bags. I assumed that he was homeless.

I should mention here that while vagrants in general do not frighten me, I do believe that in order to be a vagrant in an area such as the Quad Cities, there must be at least a small degree of mental illness.

That said, I gave the obligatory nod and kept riding.

He yelled something after me about how I should have a spare tire.

I kept riding.

Crazy Hobo: "Hey! You can't ride that fast!"

(I should mention here that I was traveling at maybe 16 mph.)

I kept riding.

CH: "I'm gonna whip yer ass!"

Me (under breath): "Grand."

I have never been good with threats anyway, whether they are idle or not. But when I heard the clicking of gears on the Crazy Hobo's bike and glanced over my shoulder to see him gaining, I must admit I kind of freaked. Fuck! This circus sideshow had legs. He was loaded down like a pack mule and rolling at about 24 mph on an ancient Schwinn Collegiate. Did I mention that he was missing a shoe? Nothing like a crazed derelict to start some forced interval training! I dropped into my biggest gear and got the fuck out of there. He chased me for a while, giving the occasional hoot, literally: "Whoo hoooo!!!". I lost him for sure around Duck Creek golf course when I opted off the path for the roads, where I felt much, much safer.

I know that he was probably just an old cyclist who had said "Enough!" to society, as many of us dream of doing. But the situation was this: I'm female, smallish (in comparison), it's getting dark, and the path was unpopulated. In these parameters I have to give a resounding "fuck that!"

Fuck, man! Where do these people come from? And why are they so attracted to me?

the thunder rolls

2008-09-09T07:58:00.000-07:00

Saturday, Sept. 6 was The Thunder Rolls AR-- put on evil genius race director Gerry Voelliger. Sean and I did the 12-hour event.

Giving specifics of this race would take way too much time. Here are some highlights:

Section 1: the dreaded pack raft

Gerry (GV) threw a curveball this year, putting "pack raft" on the mandatory gear list. The forum was ablaze with questions, most of which boiled down to "what the hell is a pack raft?" A pack raft is exactly what it sounds like: an inflatable raft that is small enough to carry in your pack. Luckily GV was kind enough to not make us carry the rafts. We biked to the dock (TA1), where we inflated the rafts and hit the river.

Sean and I had tried out a number of pack raft formations. We had the 3-man boat and two single trail boats. When we were doing our military-style recon of the Mississippi backwaters, we actually ran into Gerry, who was in a single trail boat himself. He recommended using two trail boats and tying them side-by-side. We tried this and did find it to be somewhat efficient (a relative term when you consider that we were in an inflated craft).

However, on race day, we decided to use carabiners to attach our two boats, which creating a frustrating wobbling as our boats bounced off each other. Teams in the exact same 3-man boat that we had in the back of our car were flying past us. Kind of a downer. We got the two pack raft checkpoints (CPs) and got the hell out of the water.

Section 2: Loud Thunder o, also known as Shut Up, Eat, and Follow the Navigator

At the dock, the volunteers gave wristbands for the first orienteering course. We did alright on this course. I set my watch to beep every 15 minutes, so we drank every 15 and ate every 30. There was one CP that really fucked with us, but there were three other teams with us in the woods lost on the same CP. When we found it, we hadn't gone far enough... and had confused some of the other teams as well. {sigh}

This section was somewhat uneventful, but did present some mild exhaustion. We have a tendency to take a direct bearing from CP to CP, and just deal with the terrain... which ends up wearing us down really quickly. I think some of the faster teams might be a little smarter about this, finding trails and ridgelines to follow. {double sigh}

Section 3: canoe 1- never buy a kayak paddle from Dick's Sporting Goods

We got back to the dock, turned in our wristbands, and got our canoe. I climbed into the front, Sean got in the back, and as I was preparing to push off, I hear this: "Aw, shit! You've got to be fucking kidding me!"

I look back, and Sean is holding his kayak paddle in two pieces. (I should note here that we bought that paddle at Dick's about a week before and had only used it twice.) He is the stronger paddler, so I gave him my fully-intact paddle and took one of his halves to use like an oar. Luckily we had tried this formation during our recon, so it wasn't much of a stretch. We picked up the island CP and gave the duck blinds a wide berth, the way Gerry warned at the pre-race meeting. (Perhaps a wider berth than necessary...)

Section 4: Wildcat Den is under-appreciated and volunteers rule

At the opposite dock (Iowa side of the 'ole Miss), the volunteers had hot baked beans and 180 energy drinks waiting for us. As we were leaving the dock, the energy drink must've taken hold: "I feel awesome!! I am having so much fun!"

We headed into Wildcat Den State Park for six more CPs. On the two-mile walk to the park, we had to stop and wrap Sean's ankle. He has an old break that gives him problems at inconvenient times--such as at the beginning of a 3-4 hour hiking section of a race. The Ace bandage seemed to help and we went on about our business. We struggled a bit on this O-section, but the park is so beautiful that it didn't matter at all. One particular checkpoint was just off a sandstone creekbed. We got really lost on this section... but it truly didn't matter.

We also struggled with a CP in a cave. There are two caves at Wildcat Den-- one of which was too small to house a CP. The other, the Brandt Memorial, is placed high with a wide mouth and a low ceiling. I had to climb up several levels to get into the cave, only to not see the CP flag. We were stumped and ran into more teams. One team with a particularly tall guy climb into the Brandt cave (all the way in)... and found the CP all the way in the back. It was completely dark and I had to belly-crawl to reach it to punch my wristband!

The final checkpoint at Wildcat Den was a tyrolean traverse over the creek by the gristmill. This was as exhausting as it was fun. I was relieved to see Janelle at the starting side of the traverse-- she always makes me feel safe. I continued to refuse to believe that I have inherited my mother's fear of heights and made it across without shitting myself. We headed back to the dock, hopped in our canoe, and headed back to Illinois.

We approached the IL dock at almost exactly 6:00, the time we were supposed to be crossing the finish line. We still had a bike ride to Snowstar for two CPs, and a MTB ride at Loud Thunder for two more CPs-- in addition to the 45-minute ride simply to reach the finish line.

Needless to say, we opted to simply ride back in. We crossed the finish line at 6:55, exhausted, exhilarated, and not dead last (although nowhere close to first).

Team Fat Otter popped my cherry

2008-08-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

I love to learn the hard way.

Last Sunday night, I was checking some emails from the CAARA list. I was drooling over different races the way an eleven-year-old boy looks at porn: I wasn't sure what to do with it, but I knew I wanted it.

Sean happened to see one about the Sweaty Otter 24-hour race. She was a sexy race, with smoky woods, great hills, and curvy routes... not to mention required toys (climbing harnesses!). We briefly entertained the idea of signing up ("Hey, maybe Stephanie would want to do it, too!") but laughed it off a bit. Later on I mentioned it to Stephanie ("Oh, yay!") and we all started to think about it seriously. We registered on Wednesday night. The race was Saturday, with registration starting at 6am.

Rookie mistake #1: Giving ourselves two days prep for a race.

Our house (Stephanie was staying with us) looked like the site of a death match between REI, the grocery store, and Farm and Fleet. We had half a dozen copies of the gear list all over the house as we scrambled to get everything together. We didn't have any UTM plotting devices, so we ordered some from two different sources (MapTools.com and BackpackingLight.com) in the hopes that one would show up in time. No dice on that. What is it with these outfitters not having next-day air mail as an option?

Friday finally came. All three of us had to work (due to the limited notice), so we weren't on the road until about 5:30. Sean had a job in Watertown, so he had to take the truck & trailer separately. Steph and I had to turn around twice for things we had forgotten. We had to get to Madison before REI closed to get 2' sewn slings (we were short three), so we were off in a rush.

We got the slings and headed towards the park. We all decided to get a room in West Bend and try to get a little rest. The room (apparently the only one left in West Bend) reeked of cigareete smoke.

The morning of the race, Sean woke up and said, "Mmmm... let's get some biscuits and gravy." I almost puked right there. The motel had a waffle iron, but my old buddy nausea was hangin' with me, so I had some OJ and called it good. We met another team (Knome Hunters Too) and they gave us directions to the highway.

The race.

Registration was similar to other multisport/endurance races with packets and such. Rod from Fat Otter loaned us a UTM device which eased our minds a little.

The race started at 11:00 am sharp with a three-mile trail run designed to (effectively) break up the field a bit. Stephanie can easily run a 7-and-a-half minute mile, but alas, I cannot. We fell pretty far back right off the bat. Of note: there was a bright red thong hanging on one of the bushes on the run course.

After the run we were given our maps. The race was divided into ten "sections". Section 1 was a road ride to New Fane for a singletrack loop for the first checkpoint (CP). From there was a road ride to Mauthe Lake for Section 2- a nav course with six CPs. After Mauthe Lake we were back to transition 1 (TA1- the car). We did our version of planning and figured the first two sections would be "quick".

We headed out on some county roads with me & Stephanie in the lead. This is particularly stupid because SEAN IS THE NAVIGATOR. We got to Hwy67 ("off limits") and realized that we had headed north instead of south, adding about 7 road miles to our journey.

Rookie mistake #2: Not following the navigator.

Hammer had to loan us a bunch of gear, including his Bianchi Super Grizzly MTB for Sean. Stephanie had just purchased a new Diamondback 29er, which she rode for the first time during the race.

We lucked out with Stephanie's ride. (The guys at Healthy Habits sure know how to fit a bike!) Hammer's bike seat was visibly too low for Sean, so when we got to New Fane we raised his seat. This helped and all was well until the Bianchi started to ghost shift. We got it into a solid gear and hopped on to some pretty fun singletrack (Sean: "I could do this all day!").

We knew we were dead last at this point and decided that we would just chill out and try to survive. The Bianchi started to ghost shift again, so we had to put it in a gear suitable for the uphills, which forced Sean to spin out on downhills and flats. Pretty frustrating.

Rookie mistake #3: Going into a race on a new and/or foreign bike.

We finally got over to Mauthe lake and got our nav maps. Stephanie and I immediatley started plotting the UTMs on the giant map. When we finished, Sean held up a smaller, more specific map: "What's this?" Three of the six UTMs were already plotted! We checked our work and headed out--after spending more than an hour in transition.

Rookie mistake #4: Not looking through all of a packet before plotting UTMs.

Sean is a great navigator, but we made a few mistakes here, too... see rookie mistake #2. There was a lot of second guessing. At one point we were following an elevation line on the map, thinking it was the path we were walking on.

We finally finished up the nav course and got back over to TA1 after dark, exhausted and thirsty. The intention was to eat, but I was feeling nauseous. I asked Rod if that was normal. Rod: "Ooh. Only if you haven't been eating enough." Dammit! We were so sure that we would be back to TA1 right away, I hadn't brought along enough food!

Rookie mistake #5: Assuming that anything will be "quick".

We headed out to the slack line, which was fun for Sean & Stephanie. We then rode over to the Tower, where one of the checkpoints was at the top. This was one of the coolest things I have ever seen, seriously. The three-story tower has no roof, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The sky was a shade of dark that can only happen in the Wisconsin woods. There was a meteor shower, presenting falling stars every few minutes. The was a light breeze. It was a live planetarium, just for us.

Rookie accomplishment #1: Appreciating the moment.

Sean was cramping pretty badly, so we chilled a minute. The temperature was dropping pretty quickly. We were already below 50degF. Stephanie mentioned that she was prone to hypothermia. "If I get wet, it can get really bad." We decided we better keep moving.

The next leg was a longer road ride up to the marsh for the paddle section. It took a long time, and when we got there we were all so cold we had to bust out our emergency blankets and huddle together. When we got our paddle gear bag, we discovered that I had not put the glow sticks in. It was 3:30 in the morning. This would not fly. Stephanie, in charge of team morale and motivation, began scavaging glow sticks from other teams as Sean and I sat and watched team after team coming out of the water... soaking wet.

This was the point when I decided that I had to be the bad guy here. We were severely underprepared and getting in the water at this point-- me undernourished, Sean cramping, and Stephanie prone to hypothermia-- just seemed kind of stupid. We sat in a volunteer's heated truck and discussed the situation. We were done.

We never did the second MTB nav, the zipline, or the bonus nav back by TA1.

Rookie accomplishment #2: Knowing when you're in over your head and being honest with your team.

We rode back to TA1. This was in essence our trail of tears. It took hours. Stephanie kept fluttering back and forth, riding out in front and then circling back to us- until one time she just didn't circle back. Sean and I were maybe halfway when we got off and started to walk. As teams passed us, we asked them to send a vehicle back to get us. At the sign to the Tower, we parked our bikes by the road and climbed into the ditch to try and sleep. My stomach started to cramp really back, and when I looked over at Sean he was shivering at his core. We decided to keep moving. We got picked up by ___ in the truck we had warmed up in hours earlier. I decided that it is a "healing truck". Sean and I passed out on the 15-minute ride back.

I'm glad we did this race. Like most endurance sports, until you have attempted an event, you don't really know what you're trying to do. I thought I had been training. The truth was, I was training for a bike race, or an orienteering event. Not this. I have a lot of work to do.

don't be confused, i'm not a navigator

2008-08-10T08:56:00.000-07:00

The weekend of Jul 19-20 was the CAARA 2-Day Potluck, a free event designed to help beginners get into the sport of AR. The first day was an optional activity, either a MTB bike, a bike and hike, or a paddle. That evening, there were clinics on paddling, gear, and a storytime about Primal Quest. The final day was a practice race.

I did this event last year and felt that it rocked, so I decided to see if Stephanie wanted to go, too. She was down and we were off.

We got out to the park, which was a small city park in a small city (Spring Valley). There was, however, a pool. We checked in, set up our tents, and headed out for the MTB ride.

Day 1- Ride @ Mattheissen SP

The 'MTB ride' turned out to be a road ride to Mattheissen State Park, where there is some singletrack. The roads to Mattheissen (past Starved Rock) have some hills that would be challenging on a well-equipped road bike, so my heavy GF Tassajara (the AssJar) with knobbies was not necessarily the best tool for this task. I assume Mattheissen's singletrack is pretty sweet in the right conditions, but it had been raining and the trails were greeezy. If I've learned anything from Rage, it's not to shred trails by riding them in the wrong conditions. ("Somebody broke their back building that shit! Don't fuck it up!") We got about fifteen minutes in and decided to turn around. Stopping every ten feet wasn't really that fun anyway.

Now, heading in we were sure to stay on the "main trail", not taking any branches until we got our bearings. Turning around ended up being more challenging, as there were about a thousand feeder trails that we failed to notice. We had no idea which trails we had come off of. Forty-five minutes later we ran into the Hernanns, who had just started in. They told us to stay right and we did and eventually got back out to the sweet, sweet pavement. We had to stop and scrape pounds of mud off our bikes to simply make them operational again.

We ran into a few other folks and the Hernanns, and we all headed back towards Spring Valley- via the ice cream shop in Utica. Adventure racing is tasty!

Day 1 (evening)- Clinics

Not much to say, other than there was a lot of info involved here. A LOT. I won a pair of socks during the ARFE "Racing Green" clinic because I knew that you should pee on a rock in the woods. Gerry Voelliger gave the gear talk and I think may have given some hints for Thunder Rolls. Of course, I have been very wrong about hints before...

The night nav clinic had to be called off because a wicked storm ripped through. Again, super psyched about my Boy Scout-style Eureka pup tent! Handled it like a champ. Forgot a tarp so I had to cut up some garbage bags which worked just fine. I slept without problem during the violent thunderstorm- I was just happy to be dry and lying on the ground.

Day 2- Practice AR

I am fucking psyched about how this thing went. Stephanie and I went into this knowing that neither of us are navigators and we would have to be careful. The pre-race meeting was fast and furious, with me franticly taking notes. There has to be a better way to do that.

The race started with one teammate (Stephanie) running to the other side of a baseball diamond and grabbing one of many papers stuck in the fence. It was a word find, and there were different requirements. We grabbed a "find ten", which turned out to be one of the worst. We were third to last when we finally started out.

CPs 1, 2, 3

We jogged to the first checkpoint (CP) and found it pretty quickly on the top of a hill. We then ran down to CP2 on the river bed, where there was a descending rope (no harnesses required) to a sideways scaling (along the clay riverbed) into a woody area along the river. This may or may not be where I got poison ivy. We were already gaining on some teams. CP 3 was across a shallow section of river. This is where we saw Team Child's Voice, which was reassuring because Milan is a really awesome navigator. We high-fived and wished them luck. We jogged past them on the way to CP4.

CPs 4, 5
CP 4 was actually in the Illinois river attached to a kayak paddled by Neil Johnson (the Tax Guy- Team Critical Path). I did the swim portion and the water was refreshing. CP 5 was back to the start/finish to pick up our bikes. We were keeping a steady pace and transitioned quickly.

CPs 6, 7, 8, 9

The ride to CP 6 was fast and fun, with one wicked hike-a-bike gravel hill. It started on paved roads, but at the bottom of a fast, curvy road it transitioned to gravel pretty quick. I remembered this from last year and warned Stephanie. As we were pushing our bikes up the wicked hill, Chad came by in a truck and said he had to check on someone who wrecked and probably had a separated shoulder. We wished them luck and health and kept pushing on. We had passed another team or two in the bike transition, and thought we were maybe in third place.

CP 6 was the bike drop. Code and Yi Shun were manning the point. When we handed off our bikes I didn't see the other bikes, so I asked Yi Shun, "Where are you putting the bikes?"

Yi Shun: "We don't know yet."
Me: "Are we the first ones here?"
Yi Shun: "Yep."

Stephanie and I looked at each other and headed off. No way! We decided to take the fire roads into CPs 7 (at shed and shelter) and CP 8 (bottom of ravine). I think a lot of teams tried to take the gravel road around the outside (which is what I was proposing) and it proved to be harder. We found these CPs pretty easily. At one point coming out of the ravine, we heard the second place team and tried to hide by laying flat against the side of the ravine. This also might be where I got poison ivy. CP 9 was back to pick up our bikes. Code told us later that we had about a 45-minute lead at this point.

CPs 10, 11

CP 10 was right at the bottom of said wicked hike-a-bike hill, across some tracks. We found it and were on the gravel towards CP11. CP11 was on an old rail trail, right at the intersection with a highway. We slightly overshot the old tracks and turned back to catch it. Later we found out that some teams overshot on purpose in order to ride the roads in lieu of the grassy offroad route that we chose. However, we came out of the woods right on the highway, at the bottom of the trail up to CP11 and got it.

CP12- final CP, also known as the Trail of Tears

We knew we had probably lost a little ground overshooting the trail on CP11 (and stopping to pee- this also may be where I got poison ivy- so much for finding a rock), so we rode fast and furious along the old rail trail. Here I would like to pass along some of the things Chad said in the pre-race meeting: "Do not cross the creek on foot. There is no reason to cross the creek on foot." "Stay to the right." "Look for the spray painted arrow. Follow the spray painted arrow." "You will cross three railroad tressles."

We stayed right, but knew something was up when the trail went into the creek ("Do not cross the creek on foot. There is no reason to cross the creek on foot.") We turned back and checked some of the other possible routes, thinking that maybe the rights we had been taking might not have actually been trail. We headed up a steep incline to a corn field, which (out of respect for the farmer) we spent twenty minutes hike-a-biking around, only to find a sheer dropoff dead end. We headed back and ran into a group of teams also perplexed, including Child's Voice. Instead of staying and brainstorming with a known skilled navigator, we freaked and rode away from them- a total rookie mistake.

If we had stayed on pace, we would have finished this race in around two hours, forty-five minutes.

We got so severely lost on CP12, we finished in just under six hours. Luckily we had 100oz bladders of water and thousands of calories in bars and gels.

We did everything we weren't supposed to do, including crossing the creek on foot. We were six minutes (literally- "Let's give this 10 minutes and then head back") from quitting, when we heard voices coming out of the creek bed: "This is the worst fucking weekend! First my kayak flies off the truck, now you got us lost!"

Stephanie and I look at each other. Other racers!

We found them, and it was Dawn and Matt. They were in the creek (drivetrains submerged) trying to find the elusive tressles, too. We spoke to them and they had seen the spray paint but hadn't taken it ("Stay to the right"). We teamed up with them and they showed us the arrow- which turned out to be the only left on the trail. Stephanie and I had forgotten all about the spray paint.

Nonchalantly, I asked Dawn if they had enough to eat & drink, considering that we were over five hours in.

Dawn: "We had an apple."
Me: "How many apples did you have?"
Dawn: "We split one."

At this point, Stephanie and I both started pulling out gels and bars to give them, forcing them to get some calories.

As we headed out, we all stayed together. We laughed and pointed out that we were all so far behind that they would probably be sending search and rescue soon. A few times Dawn and Matt told us we could go on ahead, but that seemed ridiculous. The only reason we found CP12 was because they showed us the trail. We became a team of four as we headed back into town for the finish.

We finished third to last.

cycling = terrorism?

2008-07-12T16:38:00.000-07:00

Yet another encounter with the fundamentally insane. Where do these fucking people come from? And how do they keep finding me?

Today was the Mississippi Bluffs road race (MBRR), a super low-key local race just above Rapids City. Set on rural roads with wide shoulders and rolling hills, the MBRR course is one that many of us train on regularly. The course was 25K (about 15 miles) and the small field was divided into two groups: Beginner men/women, and Cat. 1-4. There were less than 30 racers total. Absolutely chill and no big fucking deal. A good day.

I sat this one out, due to my inability to shake this cold and my recent travel to Oregon (more on that later). I headed out to the race to help (DICE was putting this on, after all) and ended up being a corner marshall in a snappy orange vest. It offset the tattoos well.

This is where the weirdness begins.

This race was short. The Beginner group did one lap, the other group did two. After the two groups came through the first time, a man who lives across the street rolled by slowly in his red, shiny, what-the-fuck-ever car. He pulled into his driveway, paused, drove up to his house, reconsidered, turned around and drove back to the end of his driveway- about 20 feet total. He then got out and stood there, staring at me. after a few minutes of these shenanigans, he decided to shuffle across the street towards me. I should also mention at this point that he was missing at least four visible teeth. Our conversation:

Lazy Toothless Fuck: "What is going on?"
Me: "Just a small bike race. I'm here to direct bikers and make sure everyone's safe."
LTF: "You should have a sign."
M: "Well, there are signs up the road this way and down that way. I'm marking this intersection."
LTF (with a small 'smile') : "So you're the sign, then?"
M (smiling back pleasantly) : "I guess so!"

With that, he mumbled something about safety and shuffled back across to the sedentary safety of his car, which he then pulled back up to his house. All in all, not that notable an incident. Until he came driving back 20 minutes later.

LTF: "I called 9-1-1, and they don't know anything about this."
M: "You called 9-1-1?"
LTF: "Yeah, they don't know anything about this."
M: "Well, 9-1-1 is emergency services so I can't imagine they would. But there is a county sheriff at the next interestion who knows about it. He's guarding the course."
LTF: "Where?"

At this point, I give the man detailed directions on how to find a T intersection. I'll spare the details.

All converstions with this guy entailed him saying something ridiculously negative and/or paranoid, and me responding in a pleasant, telemarketer fact-giving way. I will now give you the best parts of this conversation.

LTF: "Black Hawk?" (pointing to the license plate on my car) "Is that where you're out of?"
M: "I grew up there, but I live in the Quad Cities now."
LTF: "Well, I reported that plate to the police."
M (saccharine): "Of course you did."

But hands down, the best part of the conversation was this:

LTF: "I wasn't notified anything about this thing. I didn't even see anything about it on TV."
M: "No, we won't be televised. This is a pretty small event. Just a group of people getting together to ride our bikes."
LTF: "That sounds like terrorism to me."

I am happy to report that I did not laugh in his face, nor shove--or get otherwise violent with--this man. I simply responded (happily):

M: "Terrorism? Really? You think we're terrorists?"

I have to admit I was kind of psyched at this point. Fucking sweet--I've never been called a terrorist before! I don't think it was the reaction he was hoping for, as this man obviously feeds on negativity. It must suck to be him...

LTF: "Well, a group of people getting together and not telling anybody about it..."
M: "It's more like a family reunion."
LTF: "Then that definitely sounds like terrorism!"

Wow. It must really suck to be this guy.

M: "I'm sorry. If you have any concerns you can direct them to the race promoter. His name is Donnie Miller and he is over at Adventure Quest right now."
LTF: "Don't talk to me about Adventure Quest! It's a gimmick."
M: "Okay. Well, I'm a volunteer. We're using the parking lot over at Adventure Quest, and that's where you can direct concerns. Or feel free and head down to the T intersection and speak with the sheriff."

The rest of the conversation between myself and this particular fucking idiot was simply a banter of him giving me some form of criticism, and me sweetly responding with directions to either Donnie, the sheriff, or both.

I would've been pissed if it hadn't been so funny... and kind of sad.

I swear to God, these people love me--and I have no idea why. How do they keep finding me?

the river ate my city

2008-06-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

Mother Nature is fucking pissed.

2008-06-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

…but I would be, too.

There’s a solid theory that the planet has been here much longer than you or I, and that it will remain much longer after. And let’s admit it, we’ve been shitty patrons. I can see why she’s trying to take a shower. We’re a pretty nasty species.

So everyone apologize to your mama, and be nice to her: drive less, recycle, minimize breeding, love the people that are already bred, eat seasonal.

Why am I repeating this hippie rhetoric? Because you know you're proper fucked when you make the BBC news.

i know that i suck.

2008-06-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

i truly have posts for the AR camp, Iowa City RR, Sylvan Island Stampede, Hawai'i, and the recent weather.

but i let my home internet service lapse while i was on the island.

it's back on now.

i'll be sure to post what i have.

this weekend.

girl scout's honor.

in the creep zone

2008-04-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

last night i was supposed to complete a one-hour trail run.

i am totally sick of the trails around my apartment.

i thought i'd be clever and run out at the QCTri course. even more intelligent, i thought i could save a little gas and bike there. "it's not far," i thought. "i'll just take it easy."

i'm a fucking idiot.

there is no 'taking it easy' on west Locust Street. there are lots of cars, and they are driven by slack-jawed yokel fucks who hate cyclists. on the right is a gravel dropoff. on the left is a median with a curb. best to put it in the big ring and get the fuck out of there...

when i get to west lake, i am pretty fired up to be intact. until i realize what is going down.

apparently, West Lake in the springtime is where creepy fuckers go to hang out alone in their pickups. i am followed in to the park by one of these pukes, who stays behind me at 10mph... even when the road is clear for passing. there are two pickups with guys in the parking lot i want to head into, so i head for an empty lot. Slow Truck Guy follows me in.

i am obviously not going to be leaving my bike and running here. i can hear the news already: "unidentified woman decides to run alone at West Lake surrounded only by trees, water, and lonely men. details at 10." my imagination fills in the details with images picked up from various CSI and Law & Order scenarios.

Slow Truck Guy (STG) stares me down as he passes. i stare back and pull out my multi-tool, flipping oped the flathead screwdriver (the closest thing i have to a weapon). i then nonchalantly start digging at the cleat on the bottom of my shoe. STG pulls to the other side of the parking lot, gets out, takes off his jacket, puts it behind his seat, and gets back in. he then sits there for a minute before pulling out, just as slowly as he came in. maybe the douchebag just can't figure out how to get his truck out of first gear.

fuck. now i have to turn right back around and face Locust- just to get home and run those goddamned trails i have been avoiding all along!

...but you have to go with your gut. and i have no intention of having my limp ass pulled out of the lake.

a phone-lickin' good time

2008-03-31T11:58:00.000-07:00

lindsay and i decided to have our DICE Women's training camp on Saturday.

of course this would be the day with 20 mph winds that gust up to 27 mph.

we went out in Iowa, did a Wisconsin/Telegraph Rd. loop, then braved the terrifying and glass-covered Centennial bridge in strong crosswinds to pass into Illinois. we continued out into the wind until we did a lollipop loop turnaround-and-back on Hubbard/Dennhardt Rds. we stopped at the Village RX (Hampton) for a little lunch. i had my phone for desert. we opted for the Arsenal bridge for our return Mighty Miss crossing, where we had to wait for the drawspan to close. the Arsenal bridge was just as horrifying as the Centennial, if not more so.

we were out for about 3 1/2 hours.

lessons: crushing headwinds do not make for an easy ride (i had forgotten this), do not put gel wrappers in the same jersey pocket as cell phone, i (heart) andrea's old TargeTraining jacket.

Jackson Hole rocks my socks

2008-03-31T11:37:00.000-07:00

Feb. 27-Mar. 1: i headed off to Jackson Hole, WY for my cousin Megan's wedding. they put us all up at the Snow King resort, right at the base of the steepest (not tallest) ski run in the U.S. of A.

the wedding was a swingin' good time on Leap Day (February 29). hundreds of folks showed up(both the bride and groom are from Jackson, so a lot of the townies showed up), many rocking cowboy hats. Uncle Pete owns The Liquor Store. not much else needs to be said about that.

i got a chance to run about every day. one day i ran through town and stumbled upon Fitzgerald's Bicycles. Fitzgerald's is the type of shop you hope to find when you are out-of-town: the owner loves bikes and hangs out at the shop, the mechanics know what's up, Surlys in stock. i was worried at first- the shop didn't smell like a proper bike shop; it was pretty shiny in general. (for a moment i thought i had unwittingly stumbled into a trek store.) then i saw the Pugsley leaning against the counter, and i relaxed. i found out it was a brand-new location, so the shiny-ness will take care of itself in good time. they had a bunch of CompuTrainers, and the next day they set me up on a rental bike and off i went for an hour at altitude on a snowy day! i bought a t-shirt that says "Eat Food, Chop Wood, Ride Bike" on the front and has their logo on the back.

i also ran through the National Elk Refuge, which is home to around 3,000 head of elk. it really is something to see. i got a chance to snowboard at Teton Village. the smallest hill was 416'. i don't even know what the highest peak was.

i will be going back.

Snowgaine-O

2008-02-26T07:04:00.000-08:00

I did my first event with Team POLeR, a six-hour "rogaine style" orienteering event at the Mississippi Palisades SP. We had a blast, and came in 9th (out of like 14). That's pretty good considering the field (lots of very quick, seasoned veterans) and conditions. Plus, we were the only team of four, which is generally slower. Oh yeah... they had me on board, and I am totally clueless. A bit of a handicap, one might say.

Mississippi Palisades is a beautiful park north of the QCA, covered with anywhere from 6" to 3.5' of snow. The temps ranged from 15degF to a balmy 25degF. I wore some old hiking boots, wool socks, running tights with cycling tights over top, base layers, ANdrea's old TargetTraining jacket, Salsa beanie, etc. The rest of the team showed up in mostly waterproof gear. Most noteable: gaiters. Oh shit, I thought. What am I getting in to?

I understood the need for the gaiters early on; after about 45 minutes we stopped because my ankles were caked with snow and I was walking in the resulting melted snow: water. I fashioned my own pair of gaiters out of a couple of plastic shopping bags and some duct tape, which worked well for a few hours. Luckily I had an extra pair of socks to change into. The only time we were truly on pavement was when we cut across the park to Hwy 84 to jog in. The cutoff time was 3:00pm; we checked in at 2:58.

I made a real effort to keep myself nourished during this event. Since we were hiking, I aimed for 20-30 grams of carbs every hour, as well as water the whole time. I had to keep my Camelbak Helena tube/mouthpiece in my cleavage to keep it from freezing. I also used my "boob warmer" to unfreeze gels and bars. Very handy! (Note: this area is also very useful as a garbage can in the warmer months.) My goal was to not embarrass myself and bonk during my first event with this group. Aside from the sock/gaiter situation, it all worked out well.

The were a few mishaps: in two and a half feet of snow, I walked straight into a tree stump- bashing my knee/shin. This isn't half as bad as when Code took a branch to the area right below his left buttcheek. Three inches to the right, and he'd a been fucked. Literally. He says it looks worse than it feels. Jesus, I hope so... because that looks like hell.

Results: immediate purchase of Gore-Tex gaiters, purchase of Ace ankle supports, 9th in a crazy strong field, flesh wounds for Code.

i made veggie soup!!!

2008-02-22T14:43:00.001-08:00

i eat like a child.

so, i have decided to prepare food like a child. but i have limited what my ingredients are. i found if i just pick the veggies i like, throw them in a pot of veggie broth, boil 'em for a minute, then simmer 'em for 20 more, i have perfectly good soup that i will actually eat. it's worthy of an installment of The Boxcar Children.

here's what i did:
30-32 oz. of veggie broth. (i used Imagine Organic. it's tomato/carrot based.)
4 cups of any kind of veggies you want. this is where you can get freaky. i went with potatoes, carrots, spring greens (the pre-mixed organic stuff), onion, tomato, and chopped fresh garlic.
1/2 - 1 tsp. various seasonings. i used sea salt, pepper, chili powder, and basil.

boil it. simmer it. eat it!

there's hope for me yet!

blood sugar trainwreck

2008-02-01T15:37:00.000-08:00

it's no secret that i have a strained relationship with food. we've never been buds... and i'm pretty sure the bitch owes me twenty bucks. lately i've been trying to incorporate more greens (blech!) and fruit, and eat fewer processed animal and sugar products. this week so far, i have had three salads and more PB&J than i care to disclose.

in my attempt to limit my processed sugars, i made a rule: when i am craving soda, i can only have Coca-Cola, and only in a can. this means that if i have a weak moment while driving and stop into a convenience store, i can only purchase a can of Coca-Cola. if they don't have cans, i have to opt for water. this is more effective than you would expect.

yesterday, about 45 minutes after having a lunch, i began to sweat profusely. my hands began to shake and i became lightheaded. lunch consisted of a small mixed greens salad with egg whites, kalamatas, and strawberries with some corn & potato chowder soup (i made myself!) and some caramel-flavored rice cakes. i drank water because the gas station i stopped at on the way to work only carried Coke in 20 oz. bottles... boo.

due to the timeline (45 minutes), i was pretty sure that i was heading into some pretty raunchy food poisoning territory, so i told my boss that i was leaving before we all regretted it. on the way home, i began to crave sugar in an unholy way. i stopped at known seller of Coke In Cans to get my fix on, to find the Coke slot empty! i stood there, betrayed, looking back and forth from the sprite to the diet coke. then- there, at the bottom of the cooler, was a 12-pack of the beloved Can! it took me three seconds to decide i was going to buy the whole fucking thing. i had the pack ripped open before i even reached the counter.

i drank my beloved Can in about two gulps, got home, crawled onto the couch and woke up two hours later... still in my coat. but no violent excreting, from either end. i felt better if not drowsy. a few armchair experts tell me they think it was some sort of blood sugar crash or hypoglycemia. any educated or medicated guesses are welcome.

my question is: why hasn't this posed a problem before?

this is what i get for trying to eat healthy.

i know what it feels like when hell freezes over

2008-01-19T13:28:00.000-08:00

Frostbite Footrace 8K (4.96 miles)

Around this time, we all get a little sick & tired of trainers and treadmills. Our judgment becomes impaired and we can be talked in to just about anything. This is how races such as the Frostbite Footrace can be successful.

The course is challenging on a pleasant day; any cyclist that has done DICE's Cody races in the spring can vouch for the hilliness of Scott County Park. Add to that a start time temperature of -3* F, with a wind chill bringing it down to -27* F. So there you have it: I was in hell, and it was definitely frozen.

Yes, bullshit at it's finest.

I am very proud of my iPod; it almost lasted until the second mile before freezing. There is not much to say about my actual running of this race, except that it proved what Andrea & I have said all along: What doesn't kill you is going to hurt really bad. The third mile was the worst. This was where taking a deep breath started to create pain in my left shoulder/shoulderblade area. I also began to get the sensation that I was simply running on stumps instead of feet. Not sure, but I think this had something to do with numbness in the toes. My left knee also felt a bit out of whack. Good times!!

The race itself is always well run (this was the 26th annual), and they had a raffle with great swag. I won a long sleeve Mizuno Dryscience running shirt! Post race had hot cider and cookies. I was hoping to beat last year's time by at least a minute or two, but after hearing the weather forecast I let that go. I've never been much of a runner anyway. I ended up with the EXACT SAME TIME as last year. Literally. To the second. It was good for second place in my AG.

Anyway, I got my subzero fix. I'll be happy enough on the trainer inside a heated building for a while longer.

results: 00:46:34 for 8K, frozen iPod, images that will haunt me forever of men with snot icicles on their porn 'staches

blunt force trauma @ the jingle cross rock

2007-12-12T14:32:00.000-08:00

the weekend after thanksgiving was the Jingle Cross Rock , the biggest badass CX race that this area has to offer. i have to say that the Meehans and all of the volunteers really throw down and make this event something to behold.

i felt a little guilty at first for registering for the beginner's race... you would think after however many years it's been, i would be strong enough to at least consider myself "intermediate". then i saw the rosters for the other races and realized that my field was definitely in the beginner's. note to self: one full winter of lazing about and drinking beer will really fuck up a racing season. who knew you couldn't get faster by sitting on your ass? i'll chalk that one up to experiential learning.

anyway, i'm psyched that i did the beginner's, because it was the first race both days-- opening up the rest of the day for spectating and a little carb replacement. it was also an "easier" course, with the run-ups shortened (which in turn shortens the descents). this "easier" course completely maxed out my current abilities, so i had no more guilt for registering 'beginner'... especially since i finished 10th both days. no puking at all... not even any jitters. i think it has something to do with jumping out of that plane. this just doesn't seem all that dangerous any more.

of note here is Kathleen Porter (KP) of Bike Tech, who has sprung out of nowhere to become really strong. this season, she was seen doing multiple races at events like Psyclofest and the Iowa State CX Champs. guess it paid off: she stomped us on saturday. nice work! another reason i'm a KP fan: she gets cleaned up faster and better than anyone else at the race. while some of us can barely bother to throw on sweatpants, KP will be in full makeup and heels before we're off the course. since my biggest pet peeve in the world is when a (female) bike racer throws caution and hygiene to the wind and wears their kit all damn day (chamois and all), KP's astounding ability to look attractive after slaughtering a field is refreshing.

anyhow, the course had a lot of fun in it, including long straight sections to pick up speed, slippery run-ups, rockin' descents, even a barn full of sand. we went one direction saturday, and then reversed it for sunday. i felt much stronger and was having a much better race on sunday until i decided to lay my bike down a couple of times. the first time wasn't such a big deal; i just slid too much trying to climb a weird switchback that a lot of folks were having trouble with. i lost about three postions in that first fuckup, but it was the second one that really cost me. i slid out again, but this time on a flat, sweeping 180. the ground was icy, too much air in my tires, blah blah. whatever happened, i wet down hard and hit my head. not sure how many girls came around me at that point, because i was on my hands and knees trying to figure out where i was. one girl asked, "are you alright?" me: "no. i hit my head." apparently the question was meant to be rhetorical, because she kept riding and didn't bother to alert the officials, even though they were stationed at the next turn. what-the-fuck-ever. no one was coming to the rescue, so i got on my bike and kind of coasted forward to the officials. they told me it was the last lap and i should "stick it out", so i did... and ended up 10th again.

the elite races fucking ruled, with crazy-ass people like todd wells, steve tilford, sue butler and wendy williams. andrea was in town for the holiday and raced as well, which ruled equally.

the weekend would not be complete without Team Skin, who created their trademark course-side pyramid and supplied many a stranger with music, cold beer, and/or a tambourine. i swear to god that JJ was looking at me when i tossed him a beer across the course- but when the beer reached critical arc he turned away... and received a full can of High Life to the forehead. holy shit- there's a classic deb wood for you: hey, thanks for the good times and beer, guys! have a little blunt force trauma on me!

but what's a bike race without a little injury? i owe JJ a bunch of beer.

results: 10th twice, animosity for racers who don't help other wrecked racers, mild hangover, blunt force trauma for JJ & myself

just a sweet transvestite

2007-11-05T16:18:00.000-08:00

friday after the freefalling experience, i headed in to cedar rapids to see a theater production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. one of my best buddies from early high school, Bryant, was Frank N. Furter himself!!

it was a great time. the theater even had bags for participation already prepared! and Bryant was beyond brilliant. i swear to god, he has been rehearsing for that role since the day he left the womb.

afterwards, lindsay, molly, and myself hunted bryant down. we had to follow him to the dressing room before we could steal him away for some late-night perkins. while in the dressing room, we encountered many interesting things, including The Love Phantom and Jolly Green Peter Pan. Jolly Green Peter Pan (JGPP) earned his name by changing into his completely green street clothes and offering us chocolate pudding. he had this really bizzarre, slow, matronly way of speaking; almost like Frank N. Furter. "would you like some puh-ding? after we all denied said pudding, he asked, "would any of you ladies like to carry my surrogate child? maybe we'll have a hermaphrodite." hmmm... sweet transvestite, indeed!

The Love Phantom simply wanted to hump my leg. molly has an incredibly funny picture of him huffing me in the dressing room. in the photo, i am completely oblivious.

terminal velocity

2007-11-05T15:13:00.000-08:00

so i took last thursday off of work to go and jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

i went to the Chicagoland Skydiving Center in Hinckley, IL... home of the highest tandem jump in the U.S.

at 14,500', leaping out of the side of a plane (or, in my case, getting shoved out by my tandem instructor), results in a brief period of falling at 170-180 mph. the instructor then throws a small parachute to create drag and slow you to 120mph--terminal velocity--and you will remain at this speed for 60 seconds (known in some areas as one full minute).

sean jumped, too (it was his idea) and brought his buddy bruce. bruce and i were both green.

surprisingly, i wasn't nervous at all (at first). i did, however, bring a full extra set of clothes just in case i did shit my pants or vomit down my shirt... i was not sure that my vomit-direction controlling skills would apply in this particular situation.

but it was okay; i was chill suiting up, taking direction, even on the plane. it was not until we were at the door of the plane, with me hanging over the edge, that i began to freak. while my instructor, Rob, hurled me over the edge and for the first six or so seconds of freefall, i really felt as though i had made an error.

there is no sensation of falling when you are dropping at terminal velocity. i'm not sure if it's the lack of objects flying past or the inability to gauge speed. but there is intense pressure. at one point, i was pretty sure that i was going to puke out my heart and lungs, and that the veins in my forehead would explode, drenching Rob and myself in blood. gross.

but then i came around, and really enjoyed it. every now and then, my heart would drop suddenly and panic would strike, but it would pass quickly and i'd be right back to enjoying the ride.

at 6,000', Rob gave me the "signal" to pull the ripcord. i looked down and couldn't see it. i tried to tell him that he needed to pull it, but he just pointed in my face (the "signal") again. i reached back and, surprisingly, found it right away! i pulled it and we bounced forward as the parachute released. we took our time floating down, and were able to land on our feet.

of course i have pictures.

wreckin' the bullshit with schleprock

2007-10-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

how many people can wreck in one day? is someone keeping track of this? if not, i'm going to start. sunday was the Iowa State CX Championships. the course was over a mile of bullshit, with unrealized descent potential, off-camber switchbacks going down a hill of loose leaves and walnuts, and bonus barricades placed five minutes before the start of the first race—making it impossible to pre-ride them. i am sure at least half of the racers yesterday went down at least once, if not more. almost everyone had the same grass stains on their right side... except for me. for some reason, mine were on my left side. yet another stupid fucking CX course. why do we do this? because it’s a fucking blast.

in iowa, there aren’t enough women participating in these things, so most races are “women’s open”. this means i get ruthlessly thrashed by a field composed of both newbies and hardcores.

this race started on a short paved section and made a sharp, bottle-necking left turn—this was of course the first wreck on the first lap. the course then chicaned through some grass, along a short gravelly section, down around some logs and over two more, and back to grass for a nifty area for bottle handoff (thanks, david!). the next section was placed in an area that had the potential for some rockin’ downhill action, but instead the course was set up to fuck with us, having us constantly braking, clipping out, or both. for example, the course would start downhill, but then—psych!—a 180 and you’re back to the top. or worse, the course would go all the way downhill before a muddy 180 into some max-height-limit barricades on a riser.

here’s me on this section: bombing, brake to 5 mph, slide, correct, lose more momentum, dismount, crawl over barricades, remount, remotivate.

the whole course was an exercise in staying motivated in seriously unmotivating circumstances. i think this is what CX has become for me—learning to suck it up when i really just wanna puke blood and quit. especially when i am getting my ass kicked yet again by fresh faces. seriously, where are these people coming from?

after the raw bullshit section came a short paved section into the loose off-camber switchback section. this is where most of us went down. any speed at all would throw my bike from under me. yes, i realize that i’m a shitty off-roader. but this is also where bruce grell and other skilled bike handlers went down, so i have to assume—you guessed it—that this section was also bullshit. on the last lap, i came around the second switchback and started sliding into a group of spectators. just as i was about to yell, “bad fucking place to stand!”, i saw the bike on the ground. then i saw the rider.

after a multiple-year battle with tuberculosis, Lindsay Wetzel’s internal organs have been functioning normally for a good three or four months now. so it must be time to separate a fucking shoulder, right? nice work, Schleprock. i realized it was lindsay after i had ridden past and could only muster a warbled “Lindsay?!”

sadly, this is me being helpful. also helpful: lindsay’s new name is officially “Bad Luck Schleprock”. at least they gave her vicodin at the hospital.

the weather was beautiful, by the way.

Results: second from last, swollen shin, desire to puke blood.
Lessons learned: never trust a CX course. ever.

psyclofest 2K7

2007-10-29T18:17:00.000-07:00

i was afraid this race was going to be another CX on the MTB debacle, but Healthy Habits got my new Redline in and built it in a max speed effort! i got it on wednesday, it rained thursday, i went to chicago on friday and didn’t get back until saturday night… so the first time I rode my new ‘cycle was two hours before the race. good thing the folks at the shop know what the fuck is up—the bike worked and fit great—no thanks to me.

this was a freaky fast course with a bigass paved section in it—again, so happy for the CX bike here—so it was a fabulous opportunity to get my ass seriously kicked. the run-up was retarded as always, but i sucked it up and was even able to gain a little there.

afterward, we tapped the keg of Bent River Pale Ale for the traditional bruce/deb birthday celebration. scott & karen tapped it with CO2. this was good, because at 9pm we still hadn’t killed it—but now we can have it at the next race.

Results: second from last of the finishers, massive bruising on right thigh/knee, mild hangover

sick like a monkey on crack

2007-10-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

What's better than not being able to ride your bike-- or even function really at all-- because breathing is laborious and your bones feel like you have tripled in age?

I know! All of those things, except during black panty week!

I am having so much fun.

Village CX, minus the CX

2007-10-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago was the Village Cross cyclocross (CX) race in the Village of East Davenport. I woke up that morning to Lindsay calling me asking for directions to the race. I could hear David in the background squealing... apparently, this was going to be a good race.

Let me set the scene: The day before the race, when I tried to go out for an opener ride, I discovered a rear flat on my trusty MTB. You may ask why I would care about my MTB tires the night before a CX race. My MTB is my CX bike ever since I decided to pull into my garage with my Surly Cross Check on my roof... double fucking boo. I had about five and a half hours of sleep under my belt and was really in no mood for competing in a race for which I didn't even have the appropriate equipment. I told Lindsay I'd come out and cheer her on, but I was under no circumstances going to race.

I took a shower and changed my mind.

Hammer changed my flat and us girls--me, Lindsay, Christie--rode a test lap... and for the first time ever, I was glad I jackassed the Surly. There was one particular downhill that was off-camber and had some loose shit at the bottom into a 90-degree right. With the MTB, I was able to bomb brake-free until the bottom, where I grabbed the rear brake to slide into the turn. Tons of fun. But then there was the hauling of the 34 lb. bike up the giant run-up, which was not tons of fun. Just tons.

Results: third from last, appreciation of downhilling on the MTB, one consumed sausage sampler

blo-chunk lanes

2007-09-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

This is yet another non-bike-related blog. Apparently, blown chunks are the secret ingredient to a fantastic game of bowling.

Work had me in Raleigh, NC the day after I got back from Chequamegon. After a day of shooting, myself and a few colleagues decided to unwind a bit at the hotel's hospitality suite. There were taco fixings and three free tappers. I made a taco or two and had a Shiner Bock.

One of us (to remain unnamed) thought it would be wise to go bowling-- always a good time. Everyone agreed, but when it was time to go only two of us were really down. Whatever-- the two of us went anyway.

About halfway through the second game, my belly began to grumble a bit. Knowing how this usually pans out, I suspected that the taco might make a second appearance. I warned my co-worker who, of course, was horrified. I got up for the eighth frame. My first ball took down about six pins. I headed over to the garbage can and puked up the tacos. I picked up the spare with the second ball.

I wonder if I should be alarmed by my ability to vomit without missing a beat.

We bowled a third game before I insisted that we leave.

That second game, I bowled my all-time best game-- a 166.

Bowling alleys are now officially fucking nasty.
*deb

the mushroom tattoo

2007-09-21T11:40:00.001-07:00

So, I wasn't originally going to blog this, but at the prodding of some friends I have decided it is time to heal the wounds and share this beautiful learning experience with the world.

I'm not much of a dater. I have, quite literally, no game. Worse than my lack of game is my incessant need to be nice to people, even ones that suck pretty hardcore.

The day after a breakup I decide I need to hang out with some girlfriends. We head out to a bar mid-Sunday to watch a ball game. Before we had left this particular venue, Lori had brought over a guy-- she was trying to hook me up. Her intentions, I believe, were good (if not misguided). I was honest with the guy and told him I wasn't looking to "hook up". He was cool about it and we exchanged numbers to possibly hang out some other time.

In the weeks that followed, I talked to the guy a few times. It was just general, run-of-the-mill, gettin' to know ya stuff. He seemed normal enough to me, but what the fuck do I know? After about a month, I took him up on an offer to meet for a few drinks and another Cubs game-- he would be out with his friends, so there was no pressure. I said I could be there at 7:30.

When I got there at 7:30, dude was so fucking blitzed that he could barely keep his eyes open. According to Mary The Bartender, they had been drinking (shots and whatnot) since about 3:30-- which was about an hour after we had made plans. He was chain smoking, which took him off my waiting list immediately. I asked politely at first if he would mind keeping his smoke out of my face. He obliged, but it was less than a minute before the cigarette incense was scenting my hair once again. We went back and forth a few times-- me asking him to move his smoke, him begrudgingly moving it-- until I finally said (sweetly): "Look. It's not that big of a deal. Just keep something between my face and that cigarette, or I'll sit somewhere else."

To which he replied (brace yourself), "I've got something I can put between your face and the cigarette."

Now, those that know me will realize that this kind of challenge is a cardinal error. In addition to the pint of social lubricant that I was drinking, I had also just come off a 5-hour drive from Omaha, where I worked that morning. I was in no mood for games.

So I say: "Really? Whip it out, then."

But here's where I made the error: he fucking DID IT. That's right, he took his dick out right there in the middle of Jack's in Moline, IL. But wait-- it gets better.

I put my hand out to block my view of the offending member, saying "Put that fucking thing AWAY."

He stands up. "No, come on, it was your idea." At this point, he proceded to put his cock against my thigh. I jumped back and said, "Pull your fucking pants up!"

At this point Mary The Bartender saw what was happening and came over and shut him down.

When I took my friend Brooke about the incident, she asked: "Did you punch it?"

Seriously, I really don't know why or how I attract these people. I am on dating strike... effective until conditions improve.

i'm a superfan

2007-09-17T17:36:00.000-07:00

Another highlight of the Chequamegon adventure:

Two of the racers at this year's event were none other than Greg Lemond and Gary Fisher. That's right-- these guys suited up and braved the cold for the 40 miles of fun.

Gary Fisher was at the awards ceremony. When I saw him I winked at him. I headed out to get a round before the ceremony started (Rage was NOT happy to be at the event; I needed to placate him with booze) and stopped by to say hi to the man himself. I shook his hand and told him I loved my Tassajara. He said, "Oh, cool, thanks." He finished off his beer, so I offered to buy him one. He said, "Alright, but you choose!"

I brought him back a beer and he asked my name. Later, when I was called up for my award, he yelled, "Alright Deb Wood!"

So, there it is. I now want to dry hump Gary Fisher, simply because he said my name. I am a total bike whore.

*deb*

fat tires galore

2007-09-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival up in Cable, WI. For those who don't know, this is a fucking sweet MTB race on & around the Birkebeiner trail in Northern Wisconsin. Pronounced "Schwa-muh-gun", the options are the 40-mile course (the Cheq40, or "Freakshow") or a 16-mile route (the "Short & Fat"). I did the Short & Fat this year, because the Freakshow damn near killed me back in 2005.

Mike "Rage" Frasier braved the seven-hour drive with me. A group of us stayed at the Valhalla Townhouses. Rage and I shared a room with two tiny single beds-- try to sleep on a balance beam the night before a race you are totally unprepared for-- it rules. The townhouse was basically right at the finish line. Nice! Since my bed was directly under the stairs, I woke up to the fucking sound of an elephants-in-ice-skates parade. I stumbled upstairs grumbling horrible things and made a PB sandwich-- which I never touched. Some of my bunkmates had whipped up some batter and Rage set me up with a small pancake, which I was able to eat. I tried to make a second, larger pancake which I got about halfway down before the gag reflex started up... boo. I let the gag win and killed a bottle of orange juice instead.

The morning of the race, the temperature was 22* F. Now, it isn't odd for me to be lining up in cold weather (sometimes even subzero), but I have usually been training in cold weather when I do so. This was a total suckerpunch-- for the opener ride I did the day before, I was wearing shorts and a short-sleeve jersey. I had no idea what I wanted or needed to wear.

I was pretty much the only one in the house who was doing the Short & Fat, so I was on my own for race prep. I headed over and got to the start at 8:15. I got my bike set up and put it in line. I was only ten rows back from the preferred start, even though some people were there at 6 to stage their bikes. Either the S&F is way more laid back than the 40, or the cold scared people away. Whatever-- it worked out well for me. I had a great position.

I killed time and chatted with other racers. I was amazed at how chill I was. Other people were freaking out-- one woman was bawling. Hmmm- I've been there before. I saw Mad Dog McCoy and Bob from the DICE camp, and we hung out a little. The time was near, so I got out of my sweats and headed towards my bike, now buried at the front of 800 bikes. I left my Kenda jacket on until I got to my bike, then stashed it in my Camelbak Pixie. I raced in a windproof shell under my SS jersey with arm warmers and leg warmers. I had thermal booties over my shoes (with the Pearl Izumi logo blacked out, of course). Again, many comments on the rockin' Kenda gear. Folks love those fucking red flowers.

As I stood over my bike waiting for the start, I choked down a raspberry Hammer Gel. I nearly lost it, but kept it in check this time. Lucky for me, there was a random annoying teenager nearby babbling nervously to distract me. I should have fucking puked on him. Instead, I opted to point out an opening in front of us and offer it to him. Poor kid. I had water in my Pixie and a bottle of grape Cytomax on my bike. I was good to go.

The race ruled. It went much faster than expected. The Colesburg gravel RR did it's job; I didn't freak at all on the gravel. Actually, on one particular downhill, something beautiful happened. Not only was I able to stay off the brakes, but as I was bombing pell-mell, I shifted into my big ring and dropped the hammer. Yay!! It's official: I love downhillin'. I had a lot of little opportunities on different surfaces to test my new-found love of descent in this race: grass, prairie with babyheads, sand, gravel, dirt, etc, etc.

I ended up 2nd in my age group, and 36th female overall. I was psyched! I had never thought I would need to go to the awards ceremony at Chequamegon. I won a cool ceramic plaque and a nice SRAM X-9 rear derailleur. But-- oh, yeah-- I don't have SRAM on any of my bikes.... :)

Time: 01:18:45
Div Place: 2 out of 20
Gender Place: 36 out of 229
Overall Place: 283 out of 857

suckin' gravel dust

2007-09-03T18:07:00.000-07:00

Today was the Colesburg 40, a ridiculous event that puts us on MTB's and sends us into one of the hilliest areas of Iowa (a "drift-free" zone) on the sketchiest of gravel roads. Now, my friends in CO and CA may snicker at my complaints of Iowa hills, but fuck you guys, you were not there.

Since this was only my third time EVER on gravel (and the other two times were on a CX bike that no longer exists), I bitched out and did the "beginner" route-- 24 miles instead of 40. From here on out I will refer to this as the "bitch" route. I have no fucking clue how they could call this course "beginner" or even "sport" class. The gravel had been graded two days ago (translation: loose, thick gravel) and us bitches started right in with the hardcores: the Eppens on a tandem, T. Gillihan, J. Kerkove, etc., etc. Actually, our course stayed with the hardcores until 18 miles in, where we turned left to do a mile-long climb on pavement while they turned right for more loose-rock torture. I say this as if I witnessed the hardcores making this turn; that is not the case. I fell off the back like dropping anchor the second we hit gravel at mile two.

This retarded course had climbs that would turn your butthole inside out followed by gum-flapping downhills-- all through quicksand made of ping-pong-ball-sized rocks. Now I may exaggerate a bit here, but there were two climbs in particular that had NO good lines and lasted for WAY TOO LONG. There were countless downhills where I could not lay off my brakes. Even Brian Eppen called the downhills "scary". I have no idea who thought of this race, but I need to go back and avenge myself. I do not recall any flat sections along the bitch route. The bitch route also followed the hardcores through a water crossing that was deep enough to wet my chain. Oh, and also my feet, after I had to stop because I was in too large of a gear.

I caught a couple of people along the way, including Todd from Iowa City (unattached) and a father and son from Free Flight. Sadly, because I am guilty of pride, I felt the need to outsprint the boy-- who was maybe twelve years old. His dad beat me, though. Whatever... he started it!

Time: 02:13:00 (one minute slower than it took the Eppens to finish the 40-mile course)

After cleaning up a bit, I came back to the cars to find Wm, Uncle Tom, and $5 Phil already at the vehicles. Phil had gone down pretty hard, and couldn't really talk, bend over, or sit. He had a lot of bloody gravel chunks on him. I gloved up and wiped down his wounds. Tom went and found his bike in the ditch (after an hour of searching) while Andy drove him to the Manchester hospital. Phil is always good-natured and ready to laugh, no matter how sucky the situation, but today he was stone-faced and obviously in serious pain. It was pretty scary. $5 Phil came away with four broken ribs.

After seeing Phil to the hospital, we were going to head to the Team Skin potluck in rounds. T. Gillihan's parents live in Manchester so it was nearby, and we were all famished. Those of us that went first weren't there for 30 minutes when we got the call that Phil was sprung from the asylum. He showed up at the potluck ten minutes later, still in pain but hungry. Such a trooper! Skin had an awesome spread, but we couldn't stay long.

Anyway, no puking this time! I think it is because I went into this with no expectations.

you keep it down, too--
*deb*

hey, let's run through stinging nettles!

2007-08-31T21:50:00.000-07:00

So, Moon and I are going to partner up for the Southern Kettle Moraine Challenge 12-hour. Our as-yet-unnamed team had our first group practice together last night. I rode the MTB over to Healthy Habits around closing time, and we ran from there up to Crow Creek Park and around the Psyclofest course and back. On the way back, we decided to be "adventurous" (get it?) and go off-road into some brush prairie. We discovered a small creek that we got to jump and a little hill to climb. I noticed a little blood and scratches and poured some of my water bottle on my legs. It was all good fun until we got back to the shop and I noticed that my knee was no longer bleeding... because it had completely swollen shut. Both of my legs, from mid-thigh to sock, were covered with bumps in random shapes and sizes. This gave my legs the overall appearance of gourds. Mild burning was to follow. I'm just glad I got the whole stinging nettle thing out of the way.

Lesson #1: Always wear pants when running through foreign brush.

I got to ride home in the dark after that, which came as a welcome distraction from the freakshow that was my lower extremities. Brilliance abounded that night when I got about a quarter of a mile from the shop and my headlight began to dim.

Lesson #2: Always charge your headlight battery and/or carry a spare.

Luckily Moon was headed along the same way (kinda) and was willing to share some wattage. I owe him a growler of Bent River.

-Keep it down!
*deb*

Du-State-Puke

2007-08-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday was the Du-State-Du, a duathlon out at Loud Thunder State Park.

My buddy Laurel Darren is a pretty solid runner, and she was looking for a cyclist. It was only 15 hilly miles, so I agreed... even though my road season has sucked thus far.

Saturday morning I did the X-stream Cleanup along the Mississippi. After a day of picking up the trappings of our local white trash, the free-beer-and-brats party was a welcome event. Too bad I was racing the next morning at 8am. I only had a handful of beers and skipped the brats. By the time a got home, I was just stinky and tired-- so I chugged some water and passed out.

Getting up the next day was a little easier than one would expect. I hosed myself down in the shower, choked down a waffle and some juice, and hit the road. I got to the race before Laurel and had some time to have Moon look over my bike and get in a warmup.

It rained a little during my warmup, which had me a bit concerned about the supposed mile-long 15% descent on the chip-and-seal surface of Illinois City hill.

My biggest mistake was nursing Clif Shot Crisp Apple all morning, and then trying to take a Clif Shot Sonic Strawberry gel as Laurel started the run.

They had all of us bike suckers in what could only be called a holding pen, waiting for our runners to tag off after the first 2-mile run. I got down half of the gel, and felt that familiar tightness in the back of my throat. Lucky for me, I brought a bottle of water to help me out. As I stood there, poised and ready with my hands on my knees, a fellow biker asked if I was okay. I nodded, and just as I was about to say something really witty-- up it came! This was a good one, coming out of my nose and launching forward by at least four feet. And bonus: Crisp Apple is green.

Other Biker: "Oh, shit! Are you okay?"
Deb: "Yeah, just lightening the load for the climb."
OB: "Wow, that's dedication."
D: "No, that's Clif Shot Crisp Apple. And I've got about 12 minutes to get rid of the rest of it."

I caught one woman and two caught me on the bike. Only one woman that caught me didn't have a number (bikers in teams didn't wear numbers). We ended up getting second place, so that was on me. Laurel set me up to keep the first-place team at bay and I didn't swing it. Illinois City hill was not nearly as epic as legend would have it. It was only about .25-.5 of a mile and pitched at the top to max out at maybe 8-9%. I did it in my 36/23 and was fine, spinning past the dorks on MTBs. The turnaround was soon after the summit, and on my descent I saw a few people actually walking their bikes. Hmmm... maybe if I had run first it would have sucked harder. Who knows.

Lessons learned:
1. Eat a meal of solid foods the night before a race.
2. Minimize beer intake the night before a race.
3. Get the electrolyte beverage down. Chug it and finish it... don't sit there and suckle it. Use water to satisfy any nervous oral fixations.
4. Waffles are gentle coming back up.

keep it down,
*deb*

why i blog

2007-07-24T09:02:00.000-07:00

This blog is intended to help me deal with my pre-race bullshit. I have been road cycling for a few years now, and am struggling to make it past the Cat. 4 realm. This is in part due to my apparent inability to feed myself.

Anyone who has traveled to races with me, parked next to me, or even pulled up to the line with me knows that I have some serious issues with nourishment. It goes like this: I hate cheese and most things that are green. I do not like to be surprised by ingredients, so casseroles, stews, and the like are out. Ironically, I can eat hot dogs and bologna. Based on how nervous I may be, textures really start to fuck with me, and I develop a gag reflex with projectile capabilities.

On race day (and before some group rides), it takes me over an hour to choke down one Clif bar or, God forbid, a PB & J sandwich. Accelgels, Gu's, and Clif Shots inevitably make an attempt to come back. Accelgels always make it. The only real greens I get come from a supplement called Nanogreens, which I have to mix with cran-grape juice in order to stand the moldy-foot-dipped-in-green-apple flavor. I can eat raw spinach (my only organic green) if I slice it up and drown it in whipped raspberry yogurt.

So there you have it. I promise to give fair warning of any photos of vomit. The plan is to give race reports that include eating info to help me figure out why I'm such a puker.

in the meantime-- keep it down.
*deb