It's colder than a...

I really hate the phrases "lake effect" and "wind chill" or "feels like temperature." I'm not a fan of Winter.  As a kid I recall it being my favorite season.  I would wear shorts to school in January (in Wisconsin) like it was completely sane to do.  I hated Summer heat.  I still don't like when the thermometer creeps above 90 (and that's mostly an acclimation thing.  Once we have a week or so of hot I usually start to ENJOY it a little), but I find it pretty tolerable.  It's truly the humidity that I loathe more.  I think I could be pretty happy living in the desert.

We have been relatively spoiled this Winter...thus far.  But the past week has brought us more typical January weather.  I don't care for it.  Cold, snow, wind, a drafty house and itchy skin from the overly dry heated air (even with a console humidifier running 24/7).  My knuckles crack and bleed.  It's overcast.  Yesterday I failed to get in a workout (helped a friend out transporting her preschooler to and from preschool and ran some errands...didn't want to have to take a second shower and anger my already irritated Winter skin) and today I'm sorta regretting that, since I REALLY don't want to run outdoors with windchills bouncing just below and just above 0.  And slip-sliding around on snowy/icy roads.  I'd make a damned poor Canadian.

Big oaf on his giant fat bike.
Photo courtesy of our friend, Josh Duggan

Thus far the only cool thing I've found about this Winter (I mean, aside from not having much of one) was spectating last weekend's first "fat bike" race.  DH has one of these, a Salsa Mukluk.  Part of me thinks I'd enjoy Winter more if I had one of these franken-bikes (perhaps I will win one, I've purchased a bunch of $5 raffle tickets from Velo-City Cycles...100% of tickets sold go to the JDRF), but the other part of me LOATHES the laundry required to ride outdoors in the Winter.  A few days ago I did my first ever ride on my cyclocross bike with studded tires (hubby joined me) and that was fun, even with the 13º windchill.  But the laundry...ugh!  A single workout for 2 adults required at least a full load of laundry.  And it takes forever to get all those layers on...and neoprene shoe covers (those things are particularly irritating to deal with--I totally get why people who ride more in the Winter invest in actual winter cycling boots.  I would, too).  Yuck, I've decided those things were invented by Satan, himself.

So, at some point I have a 4 miler on the agenda, but I'm definitely dragging my feet and waiting for the "warmest" window of the day to do it.  Weather.com keeps moving that window.  I'm sure Old Man Winter is getting a real kick out of that.

Happy New Year! (belated)

Uhh...oops.  It's almost the 6th.

Not a lot to report on the fitness front.  Christmas week proved to be one of my laziest weeks in recent memory--and it was kinda awesome.  Except for feeling truly gross from the mass quantities of carby goodness I felt obligated to shovel in my mouth...and alcohol (and fried cheese curds--can't go to WI without eating these at every possible opportunity).  Mmm....

So, yeah...needless to say, the scale had words with me when we got home from Green Bay and I stepped on it.  I think it whimpered, too.  But it was totally worth it to relax in a hotel with a pool, hot tub, sauna, and steam room and a liberal policy on alcoholic beverages in said pool area.

Wii -- go big, or go home!

We've spent a few nights after Christmas at the Green Bay Hyatt (formerly Hotel Sierra) for the past 2 years and it's really become a great new holiday tradition for my family.  Every family has their own private space, but on-site breakfasts and a full bar, as well as a workout room with treadmills (I ran a whopping THREE WHOLE MILES while we were there...you know, to buy me a couple of guilt-free beers), ellipticals, stationary bikes, and free weights.  So plenty of space to gather and lots to do, which is really important with 3 rambunctious boys of 8-10.5 years of age.  We were even able to reserve a conference room (my kid sister's fiancé works at the hotel and attached convention center) and play Wii using a projector.

Winter is still sort of almost nonexistent in these parts.  I'm not going to complain.  After last year with it's endless Winter and almost entirely absent Spring we deserve a break.  Not only has it been warmer than usual, we're also seeing Mr. Sun!!!

In a few days I'll be doing my first ever "Winter" cyclocross race.  6 days later I may be doing my first "fat bike" snow (ha!) race as part of a 2-person team sharing a Salsa Mukluk bike for alternating laps over the course of 3 hours.  MAY, since the race filled-up sometime in recent days.  They had a cap of 75 riders.  As of maybe a week ago only 40 or so had registered.  Oops.  So a guy my prospective teammate and I know who has some pull is going to see if we can't get squeaked in.

Yeah, really no snow in the forecast in the foreseeable future.

In other cool news, for Christmas I got a brand new iPhone 4s!  I decided just days before my previous phone's 1 year warranty was set to expire (Christmas Eve) that I should probably take it in to see if it could be replaced or if I could upgrade with a nominal fee...perhaps to an iPhone.

I learned that my only options were an exchange with another HTC Incredible, which would likely have the same issues I was having (primarily in the form of constant, daily, random crashes), or they could factory reset the phone and re-install the updated OS, but that would almost certainly yield the same result.

OR...I could make use of one of the new phones that our account was eligible to receive.  Little did I know that I could apply one of those to my line.  DH's phone is eligible for upgrade, as well as our "home" phone, which is just a crappy little freebie phone and works just fine.  So I applied that new phone to my line -- voila, iPhone!

Man, do I love the thing.  It's simply a thing of beauty.  And it plays so nicely with my Mac Mini computer, yet I can still make use of all of the Google features that I was accustomed to using on my Droid.  AND now I don't have to run with a phone and an iPod--it's all in one.

I had to wait about 9 days to get the new phone, due to the holiday backlog and us being out of town (FedEx couldn't deliver on the first 2 tries, since we weren't home).  It's as if my old phone knew it was about to be replaced--its behavior was particularly horrid while we were in WI.  I think my hubby was even shocked by how often and at random it would crash.

What...you don't keep bikes in your bathtub?

And DS also LOVES his new Christmas present (Redline Conquest 24 cyclocross bike -- he named it Havoc/Havok, after an X-Men character, apparently).  He has yet to ride it outdoors, since we had so little time on Christmas day, then left the day after for WI.  Weather between then and him starting back to school was sorta wet and nasty (unseasonably warm, but still not particularly "nice").  We need time to be with him to teach him how to shift and brake, too.  This is his first bike with gears and no coaster brake.  We can't wait until the slushy slop is cleared from the rail trail so that we can go ride up and down and work on bike skills with him without having to deal with cars.  I have no doubt that it won't be long before he's tearing it up everywhere he can.  Perhaps he can even get in on the Feb. or March cyclocross races, assuming it's not too cold for a skinny kid with almost no body fat.

I've been a bad widdle blogger....

It's been over a month since my last confes...er...blog entry.

Umm...lessee...in that time I rode my last cyclocross race of the 2011 Kisscross season.  It was a good time, but not quite as fun as some of the earlier races.  It was cold and wet and dreary.  I also had my first fall during a CX race.  Technically I fell twice, but only once during the actual race.  I also fell during the warm-up...underestimated the oomph I needed to get up a steep little bump.  The actual race fall was a matter of my front wheel not wanting to turn in deep, gloopy mud.   So I pretty much ran over one of the orange plastic stakes that hold the yellow course marking tape.  I crushed the stake...with my mighty left leg.  Uh...except the stake was pretty much intact and I had a bruise on both my thigh and calf from the stake.  It was still a good time, though.  I miraculously made it through a stretch of mud on the first lap (but not the 2nd and 3rd laps).  Quite a few people didn't make it through on any attempt.  On the first lap the biggest issue was crowding.  I'm not sure how I managed to keep rolling and not have to dismount to dodge other riders.  Luck.

Derek competed in his first ever "B" race and made it through about halfway before he majorly blew a tire (not just the innertube, the entire tire).  In a mad dash to find a substitute bike he grabbed mine...keep in mind that there is nearly a full foot height difference between my spouse and I.  See the giant man on the tiny clown bike...

Post race we enjoyed soup and beer and the company of friends at a wonderful Irish-themed tavern right next door to our favorite bike shop (across the street from that is a microbrewery--can you see part of the reason that we love that shop so much?!).

Work continues towards getting the ODRAM site ready to go live.  We hope to have it ready to go before the new year.  Building this site keeps reminding me how fun that day was and how much I am looking forward to riding across the state, again.  This time sans-monsoon, I hope.

Yesterday I mailed our annual holiday card.  Every year I say I'm going to cut back, yet I somehow have managed to mail 79 of those things.  I think that's a new record.  Sheesh.  Perhaps in the future I should simply do a blog entry with the photo for all of our electronically inclined friends and family.  That would probably cut the # of cards I mail down to to maybe 20 (like my luddite parents).

We're down to just 4 more days until Christmas Eve. I'm really looking forward to our relatively new tradition of Chinese take-out on the night before Christmas, a mostly quiet day on the actual holiday, followed by a road trip to WI to spend time with my family for a few days after Christmas.

I especially can't wait for DS to "unwrap" his primary gift: a shiny new Redline Conquest 24.  It's the baby version of my cyclocross bike.  And when I say shiny, I'm not kidding...it has chrome bar tape and I found a chrome-painted version of the same bottle cage model that I use on all of my bikes!  We're still not sure how we will unveil it.  Right now we're thinking of some sort of treasure hunt with clues on various items that he unwraps.  We are actually considering stashing it in the shower, of all places.  He's a 10 year old boy...he'd never look THERE!

Sneak Peek!

I've been a busy little bee the past couple of days.  The ODRAM (One Day Ride Across MI) planning committee met earlier in the week to start discussing the 2012 ride.  My hubby is the official "cartographer" and had also been the "webmaster" for the previous year.  The "site" consisted of a simple information page with an email contact for more info.  Most riders gleaned info. from a Facebook event page, as well.

This year the committee decided to have a more official and complete site developed and asked me to help--cool beans!

So I kinda dove-in headfirst.  I had considered building the site from scratch, which would be very labor-intensive and probably look incredibly clumsy, since my HTML coding skills are amateur, at best.  I also don't have the best handle on CSS coding.  I'm better at tweaking existing code.

Rough draft of the new-and-improved ODRAM site's FAQs page

The easiest solution I came up with was to take a Blogger template site and customize it to work more as a website than a blog.  Aside from the top navbar it doesn't really function like a typical Blogger site.

Instead of a single page with numerous entries, there are multiple pages...home, route maps, FAQs, organizers' bios, relevant links, contact.  We're also hoping to get some positive testimonials to post on the site.  Once the site is closer to being ready for wide-release we'll point the existing odram.com URL to the Blogger page.

Unlike most blog entries there won't be a spot for comments to be left on any of the pages, instead we will direct people to an official Facebook group page for question/answer.  This will help prevent clutter on the official site and to encourage more discussion and communication amongst participants and organizers.

Miss Matchy-Matchy Muddy Butt

This past weekend I competed in my 5th ever cyclocross race.  Fun times, again!  I placed 7/11 in the women's C race.  Initially the result was 6/10, so a woman's result must have gotten mixed into the men's ranking.  11 women in this race is GREAT!  I think last year they were lucky to have more than 2-3 women riding in any of the races.

Jack Kunnen snagged another nice photo of me...all matchy-matchy with my bike (I took some ribbing for that.  To be fair, I had the arm sleeves and tank under my jersey for years before the bike or jersey were even in existence), scooping in as much air as I could muster with my mouth agape.  When the season has closed I think DH and I are going to have to order a few digital copies of his work.  In all the running races I've done I think I have maybe 2 photos that were worth ordering.  Jack seems to shoot at least one good shot of me at every race.

There were some good spots of mud on the course, which got increasingly muddy with each lap.  The A and B racers got FILTHY!  It was a beautiful thing.

Next Sunday (3 days after Thanksgiving) is the last CX race of the season.  I'm already feeling sorta blue about it.  But there are a few Winter "snowcross" races that I hope to try.  I'm guessing that my mountain bike might be more useful for that.  As if I weren't already completely lacking in barrier-clearing skills.  I think my mtn. bike weighs at least 10#s more than my CX bike, too!  I'd better start pumping iron NOW!

Dirt Hurts!

10/23/11 - 6/7 C female...
I missed out on a cheesecake
-- that went to the DFL woman!

It's been over 3 weeks since my little 2-wheeled jaunt in the desert. I've managed some rides on my road bike, since then (including nearly 34, today), but most of my time astride a bike has been spent on my cyclocross bike.

Since returning from Death Valley and Las Vegas Derek and I have spent a couple of gorgeous Saturday afternoons bombing-around on our muddy backroads.  I have also "raced" in 2 cyclocross events (in addition to the 2 I participated in prior to the DV ride) and really enjoyed myself. I am by no means good at the sport. I mean, I'm probably worse at cyclocross than I am at running, at least relative to the entire field. In running I generally finish right smack dab in the middle of any field. And in shorter events, like 5ks, I might even finish in the top third, overall and in my age group. In cyclocross I am happy to not be last in the C race (ie the slowest of the A/B/C fields).

To be fair, running races attract a wider range of abilities.  Cycling races are limited to those who are serious enough about the sport to have invested in relatively pricey and specialized gear.  Running shoes enable pretty much anyone to toe-the-line.

But I've yet to fall (*knocks on wood*), which says something, as last week's race photos demonstrated that even faster, more skilled riders were struggling with a section of the course that I managed to make it down 3x without so much as unclipping a single foot.

10/30/11 - 6/9 C female

I'm doing better on hills and feeling more confident and skilled with my bike-handling abilities, as well.  Next year's goals are to continue to progress with these things, but also to improve my mounts and dismounts -- which right now pretty much consist of me coming to a dead stop, dismounting, doing my run-ups and/or barriers, setting my bike down, and starting again from a dead stop...all while people who are actually slower than me on the pedaling parts pass me.  I don't want to lose places over my mounts/dismounts in 2012.

As much as I've come to love these races, I find myself already dreading the end of the season...I was scared shitless for the first few races, but now I'm having such fun gutting it out for 30ish minutes a couple of Sundays each month in the Fall.  Our last race is Thanksgiving Day weekend.  I am thankful for cowbells, hecklers, and good beer at the finish.  There's a good chance that my hubby will be moving up to the B field, so I'll even have him to heckle me in future races.  I respond better to snark than I do to gracious support, heh.

I'm also looking forward to a couple of Winter 'cross races that are offered in the area.  Those should be a fun change of pace.  I think studded tires will be on my Christmas list (is that weird...ya'know, being a girl who wants utilitarian tires, instead of perfume or some designer wardrobe item, or something...?).

Looks kinda like a hedgehog, doesn't it?

In addition to my time on my CX bike I also joined my hubby and a few friends for an afternoon of loops at Luton park.  I will say that my first jaunt at Luton went relatively better than last week's ride.  I just felt..."off" and sort of foggy the entire time.  Towards the end of the day took a bit of a tumble as I attempted a tight turn heading down a hill.  I landed hard on my left hip/thigh (earning myself a 4"x3" bruise), with my feet pointing up the hill.  I recall rolling at least once, and have a smaller bruise on my right thigh to show for it.

The big bruise is still sorta hard 5 days out.  And my legs are littered with bruises from that ride and other random, minor pedal whacks and moments of me lacking grace (at least 75% of the time I can't actually determine the cause of any bruise...I'm just covered with them and some of the larger ones can be painful for days).  We attended Derek's cousin's wedding on Saturday and I was feeling a little self conscious about the abundance of multi-colored splotches on my lower legs.  I'm actually overdue for a physical and I think I'm going to ask about the possibility of a clotting disorder (on paper I have nearly all of the symptoms for von Willenbrand Disease, including anemia, and actually had a surgeon very concerned years ago, as I bled heavily in the OR.  I've always avoided aspirin, just to be safe, but it has me wondering if my diagnosed stage 2 endometriosis isn't just endometriosis, since the heavy and prolonged menstrual bleeding could have just as easily been from a clotting disorder).  I've always bruised easily, but it seems to have worsened in the past decade.  It's my ease of bruising and bleeding that has always made me apprehensive to try mountain biking.

Now that I've tried it and like it I don't want to have reason to avoid it, especially if there is some treatable condition at play.  I don't really mind falling.  What I DO mind is the painful after-effect of a big-ass hematoma on my big ass!

(Death Valley) California Dreaming: part 4 - Leaving Las Vegas

Part 3

Traci & Brad

After leaving the pool and cleaning ourselves up we took the Deuce bus to The Chapel of the Bells to witness the vow renewal of our teammate, Brad, and his wife, Traci. This was only my 3rd trip to Vegas and my 2nd attendance of a vow renewal. Good stuff. Anyone can get married, nowadays, so it's truly a privilege to see couples recommit.

Following the ceremony we made a quick stop to the Stratosphere casino for drinks and a round of machine gambling. I think the bride won about $8, which is more than I've ever gambled in Vegas and definitely more than I've ever won.

We then waited for what seemed like forever before we hopped onto another Deuce bus and walked a few blocks on-foot to a recommended Italian restaurant behind the Flamingo hotel, Battista's.  There we had very reasonably-priced all-inclusive dinners that featured soup or salad, bread, entree, unlimited carafes of red and white wine, and "cappuccino."  I had excellent lasagna.

Battista's bathroom art

Once we had (once again) gorged ourselves we wandered through the Bellagio to look at the Chihuly lobby art, then through the conservatory with their astoundingly gorgeous seasonal flower arrangements.  Then we took in the Bellagio fountain show and made our way back to the Strip, where the group split up.  Some were returning to Fremont street, while others were staying on the Strip a while longer.  Derek and I headed across the street to the Planet Hollywood shops to find a souvenir for Dane, not realizing that it was closing time, so after trudging though the mall we caught an express bus back to the Golden Nugget.

The hotel gift shop was still open, so we purchased a funny shark tank-themed "triathlon" shirt for Dane.  We also got him a set of Vegas dominos at the airport on our way out.  He was pretty thrilled by both souvenirs.

The next morning Derek ran down to the Starbucks at the base of the hotel elevator and grabbed coffees and pastries for breakfast while I showered.  We finished packing and met our teammate, Mike, down at the airport shuttle stop.

Yay for elbow room!

After a brief wait we were on our way to the airport, where we would meet up with 4 more teammates for our trip back to MI.  We knew in advance that our flight was delayed by about 25 minutes.  This left for a very short layover in Minneapolis, but we arrived back in MI on-time, without hours of delays and time trapped on planes, THANKFULLY!

The person who was to share our row on the first and longer flight never showed, so Derek and I were treated to 3 seats between the 2 of us, SCORE!

The aftermath of returning home has included many loads of laundry (and our various ride kits won't be home until tomorrow, when we pick up our bikes from the transport truck), trying to stay warm, running in the rain while feeling a little blue (and more than a little annoyed by the wet, cold, windy, wretched MI weather), snuggling cats and kid, and sleeping.  No longer am I feeling thirsty all the time or yelling "drinking" any time I take a swig from a bottle or glass (in Death Valley everyone helps keep each other hydrated by yelling out reminders to slurp up some water or sports drink.  No one is found without a bottle in-hand).

Next year the team talk is leaning towards Tahoe for our ride destination, but I can definitely see why several team members always ride in Death Valley, even if it means raising money to do more than 1 ride in a season.  There is something special about that location.  We take over a resort and the isolation of the place forces a level of intimacy that wouldn't be present in very many other ride destinations.  Add to that the severity of the landscape and temperature and it's nearly like being on another planet with a relatively small group of people.  Everyone HAS to look out for their fellow rider, because of the inherent risks of not doing so.

There's a certain amount of mirroring of the JDRF Ride to Cure program in the Death Valley destination, really.  Even those of us who are not directly touched by type 1 diabetes NEED to help those who are.  If a cure is found for this autoimmune disorder, it stands to reason that cures for other autoimmune disorders can't be far behind...things like asthma, allergies, lupus, celiac disease, thyroid disease, Chron's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, arthritis, and endometriosis could potentially be eradicated.  I doubt there is anyone alive who is more than a single degree away from someone who suffers with one of these diseases. As a team we are doing so much to help improve the quality and quantity of life for so many.  I can't wait to be a part of it again in 2012!

(Death Valley) California Dreaming: part 3 - Vegas bound, baby!

Part 2

Our final breakfast in Death Valley consisted of more of the same from the previous 2 days...bacon, biscuits & gravy, coffee, fruit, and a happy, full tummy.

Derek and I had been scheduled to take one of the last shuttle busses back to Las Vegas in the morning, but our newly engaged friends Cliff & Nicole invited us to ride back with them in their rented SUV--WIN!!! We caravaned with another vehicle full of our teammates.  Rather than taking the traditional, more direct route back that passes by Zabriskie point we followed the course out to the standard turn-around on top of Jubilee Pass, then on to Pahrump via Shoshone. Derek and I had driven this route a couple of years back, so it was nice to show it off to friends.  It was also sweet to make a quick stop for photos at the very spot where the previous day's engagement had taken place.

The group of us were able to be photographed (via camera with self-timer) atop the pass in a much more civilized manner than biking 52 miles, first.  Beers at Jubilee Pass is a new experience for the team, as well.  Beats sport drink, if you ask me!

We stopped for lunch at a Sonic in Pahrump, then easily found the Golden Nugget casino hotel on Fremont Street, aka "Old Vegas," where we'd be spending 1 or 2 nights before returning to Michigan.  Staying on Fremont street was a new experience for the entire group...and I think a pretty positive one, at that.

Nighttime at "The Tank" pool at the Golden Nugget

Immediately my husband and I were impressed by the Golden Nugget.  Smaller, quieter, cheaper, and less smokey than the strip hotels, but no less nice.  Our room was enormous.  And the pool with shark tank and water slide that passes THROUGH the shark tank, sweet!  Needless to say, none of us wasted much time getting down to that pool (though we did enter the water a LOT slower than we did the water of the spring-fed pool at Furnace Creek Ranch...that pool was like bath water and required no acclimation to enter).

After a couple of hours in the pool and hot tub we cleaned-up for Dinner at Lillie's Asian Restaurant just yards from the elevators in the hotel.  We discovered this eatery shortly after checking-in and decided that a hibachi-style grill table would be ideal for our group of 16.  Turns out we were right.

We arranged ourselves around the grills in a square...just cozy enough that we could all converse and share a fun and DELICIOUS dining experience.  And the meal prices really were relatively reasonable, compared to what we would have spent on a similar meal on the Strip.  I had jumbo sea scallops and Derek had the tenderest filet EVER.  Our entrees came with rice and grilled veggies and we both had Japanese beers and a bottle of California gewurztraminer.

Onion Volcano

Once we were all stuffed to the gills we wandered our way through the casino and out to Fremont Street to order drinks and watch the overhead LED lights show.  On the street we ended up separated into smaller groups.  Some of the team were out gambling until the wee hours, while others *cough* Derek and I *cough* stumbled our way back up to our room.  That's the first and last time I order some random drink in a big, clear, plastic football.  It didn't even taste good...at least not until I'd had enough to apparently kill my taste buds.  Then it went down a little too easily and about the only thing I clearly recall was the bartender dumping at least 8oz. worth of booze into a clear plastic cup before adding it to the football glass.  Blech.  That was $13 of misery.  I haven't been that inebriated since about 2 weeks before I turned 21 (nearly 18 years ago).  I was thisclose to tossing my amazing dinner.  Next time I stick to "known" intoxicants, like beer.  Being that inebriated is only fun for about 30 minutes, then I want to be sober and in-control, again...bed-spins are icky.

Dreaded football!  I feel queasy just looking at it...

Prior to plodding back to the room we laid around the pool and watched the fish and sharks glide around in the tank.  The main pool and water slide close at 8pm, but there is an adults-only pool that remains open until later.  Next time we go we'll have to check that one out.

The next morning Derek and I hit the buffet at Golden Nugget.  It was good for the money, but after having eaten at the Bellagio buffet on my last trip to Vegas it positively paled in comparison.  I really wanted more breakfasty-foods and they were phasing them out by the time we arrived.

We spent several hours of our last day in Vegas just lounging by the pool.  It was a great low-key day highlighted by a short visit with the "little girl" I used to babysit for and her 15 month old doll of a son, Jaxon.  Lauren lives in Vegas, but isn't so little anymore, as a 25 year old married mama.  It was really a treat being able to visit with her, as it's been at least 15 years since I last saw her.  I hope we can touch-base the next time we're in town, too.

The final chapter of the saga...