Another powder day

Yesterday we faced a tough day of skate skiing at the Nordic Center. They may have groomed first thing in the morning but at just before 10 when we set out, the trails were new over groomed...about 2" new. That just isn't conducive to skate skiing but we made the best of it and skied out Easy Back and around the range loop and then did Zig Zag and Woody's Way. I finished the day really tired and worn out. I wish that Michael Keep was still the manager of the Nordic Center. He always did an awesome job of regrooming throughout the day. I miss him.

Whew

I'm tired after all this skiing. Saturday was skate skiing, Sunday was classic skiing and Christmas morning I got up early and headed up to Mt. Bachelor for another day of skate. It was sunny with blue skies but still fairly cold out. The grooming was fresh and it was nice after my last day out was a giant powder day. I had the trails basically to myself and took my time and skied every intermediate trail at the Nordic Center.

Today after checking the snow report for Bachelor and seeing they had over 7" of new snow, we headed to Meissner SnoPark for a great day of classic cross country. It was partly sunny and cold when we headed out - one of the few cars in the lot. They had gotten just as much new snow and after a short time out the grooming ended for the loop I wanted to do. So, with snow almost up to my knees, we forged ahead. It was slow going through all the powder but I muscled it out and was rewarded with great weather and fun skiing. Since it was Wednesday I figured we HAD to ski this trail.

Merry Christmas

Too much powder

That's right, you read it correctly. There was too much powder at the mtn today and it made skate skiing very difficult. After a late night on the town (mostly The Summit Saloon and Stage), we slept in before scooting out the door to get in some fun. I'm not sure if they even groomed the Nordic trails this morning. Obviously I should have brought up the classic skis, but I didn't. Tomorrow I think we'll do some classic instead. Still, it was fun to get out in the fresh air and we managed to get about 18 km of skiing in.

It was more fun than these guys probably had.

Night Ski

After work I headed up to the mountains with some friends. We were going to ski out of the Swampy Snopark but the road into the lot hadn't been plowed in some time and there looked to be somewhere around 1.5-2 feet of snow on the ground. We opted to not risk getting the car stuck and turned around to go to Meisner. The conditions at Meisner were lovely...lots of powder on the trails - knee deep in places. Light and dry snow everywhere and it was coming down heavily as we skied. We took turns breaking trail the whole night and did a great 2 hour loop that left me hot and tired. Great night to ski!

Get outside and enjoy winter!

Light it up!

A couple pics I took riding home from work the other night. It's nice to look around and enjoy things instead of rushing through traffic trying to get home. Relax, it's almost Christmas!





Tonight I'm heading out for an evening xc ski. Wish me luck because I'm not that great on regular classic xc skis. Skate...any day, but regular seems harder to me. Mostly just the control part. I'm cool going uphills but on corners and decents you should fear me!

Sunday's Ski

Went skate skiing again yesterday. It was really windy up at the mountain but once we got down into the lower trails we were sheltered nicely. The conditions weren't great - really slow snow, but of course I still had fun. It was an extra workout trying to keep the smooth gliding motion. Some of the snow coverage on the lower trails is a bit spotty and some of the short hills are really steep. I doubt this will show how really steep it was, but trust me.





Going back up "the screamer" which is the giant hill you have to ascend to get back to the Nordic Lodge, the wind kicked up. The lady in front of me blew over so I put my head down and leaned into each pushoff a little more. Skate skiing is all about rhythm and smooth motions.

I have a cookie exchange to go to Tuesday night so I dedicated Sunday afternoon to baking cookies. YUM!

Bottle Exchange

We rode down to our friends' house for a little holiday get together last night. Bring a bottle of liquor, get a bottle of liquor. . Good times and interesting liquor. Some better than others.

Pretty paper, ribbon, what lies beneath?



My transportation for the evening.



Th tree half way through the bottle exchange. Choices, choices, choices....do you go for the fancy wrapped ones or the crappy wrapped ones?



I picked a moderately wrapped one and ended up with a bottle of FIRE WATER. It's 100 proof cinnamon schnapps. Well, it was all gone by the time we left and I'm pretty sure I coaxed half of the people at the party to have at least one shot



This poor soul ended up with a bottle of Mad Dog and it drove her crazy!



The ride home was a nice refreshing uphill jaunt.

The Three Little Pigs


Three Little Pigs went out to dinner one night. The waiter came and took their drink order.

"I would like a Sprite," said the first little piggy.
"I would like a Coke," said the second little piggy.
"I want beer, lots and lots of beer," said the third little piggy.

The drinks were brought out and the waiter took their orders for dinner

"I want a nice big steak," said the first piggy.
"I would like the salad plate," said the second piggy.
"I want beer, lots and lots of beer," said the third little piggy.

The meals were brought out and a while later the waiter approached the table and asked if the piggies would like any dessert.

"I want a banana split," said the first piggy.
"I want a cheesecake," said the second piggy.
"I want beer, lots and lots of beer," exclaimed the third little piggy.

"Pardon me for asking," said the waiter to the third little piggy,"
But why have you only ordered beer all evening?"


You're gonna LOVE me for this....



The third piggy says -



"Well, somebody has to go 'Wee, wee, wee, all the way home!

I've been riding home the back way along the river lately so that I can enjoy the sights without having to worry about cars. Maybe next week I'll need my studded bike tires since snow is in the forecast. I rode to the pool at lunch and after warming up and doing some drills, did a focused workout of 5 X 100m on 2:08 repeated 4 times. So that's a total of 2000 meters.

Back to riding though...Even my ornaments ride!

Happy Tuesday

It isn't even snowy or very wintery outside. I rode my regular cyclocross bike to the pool today and home from work...no studded tires, no nothing. When is it going to snow in town?

We have received a few giant gift baskets here at work and I am appaled at the amount of packaging that goes into those things! There are baggies of food packaged inside boxes that are then in a big basket and wrapped with plastic. Don't get me wrong, dark chocolate covered peanut clusters are good, but I just think the packaging is excessive. I'll shut up now and go eat some processed cheese.

WOOHOO!

Ski, Tree, and Summit Saloon

Yesterday was a busy day! As planned, we headed up for our first skate ski of the year. The coverage was decent from the Nordic Center out to the oval, around Easy Back, and Woody's Way. Enough to warm up, refigure out the V1 and V2, get some flow, and enjoy the snow.



Derek screwing around. Sure, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.



*Nobody got hurt in this instance.

In true honor of The Christmas Story...




Then we changed over to snowshoes and hiked around looking for "the perfect tree". The perfect tree is a true challenge...especially if you aren't buying it from a tree farm. We crisscrossed the forest pointing out different trees, comparing qualities and continuously pointing further up at a tree we thought was better. At what point do you call it a day and just settle for something less perfect? We finally decided on one. It's taller then what we set out to get. It measured in at almost 11.5 feet tall and very full, but hey, that's what we have vaulted ceilings for right? It has some bare spots but we love it.





Then we were off to the soft opening of The Summit Saloon and Stage. It's open to the public starting Tuesday at 11:00 but we got the sneak peak. It's very open and inviting inside and they have added a giant flat screen tv above the bar downstairs. The upstairs is large and will be great for music venues. Last night John (one of th e owners), played with his band, and then Rhyme & Reason played as well. There is a full bar and they have some great shots on the drink menu, including the Drake Park Duck Fart. hahahahah The list of beers on tap is extensive and I chose the Rogue Red, Full Sail's Amber, and Deschutes' Hop Trip. Some of my favorite appetizers were the basil pesto dip served with bread, and the jalapeno artichoke dip served with tortilla chips. Though, I will obviously be going back for all the things I missed. The menu is made up of salads, sandwiches, burgers, and then entrees like Sheppard's Pie, Fish and Chips, and pasta. Derek had a roast beef sandwich served open face with gravy on top, and I had the Fish & Chips. Both tasty. Can you tell I'm really excited about this place?

Sobriety Gum

Finally the weekend.

Lately I've been waking up around 2:30am and staying awake for 2 hours or so as random thoughts flip through my mind. Such as:

If I didn't have hands how long would it take me to swim across the pool? Just to check, I balled my hands up into fists and tried to swim today. It's hard.

An acupuncturist once told me that your organs each have their turn to rest during the night and whatever time I'm waking up could be tied to that organ functioning oddly. He told me the approximate times for each organ but I can't remember what they were.

I'm excited to skate ski this weekend. The first time out for the season is always pretty awkward but I love being outside and can't wait.

Not much else is happening in my world.

The snow is falling outside and I'm getting anxious to get out and skate ski. I had an MRI on my "good" knee on Thursday and find out the prognosis tomorrow after work. Luckily the conditions at the mountain aren't great yet so I don't feel like I'm missing anything...yet. The pool is always there for me. Yesterday I did a new workout. I'm struggling because I can swim for a long time and even do lots of intervals but I never feel tired like I would cycling. I am trying to work on speed but I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. I qualify for the medium speed lanes but I'd like to get faster... hey, you have to have a goal, right? I'm stuck at around 1:50 for 100m and I'd like that to be way faster. Anyway, yesterday after some warmup laps and drills I did a main set of:

8x50m on 1:12
8x50m on 1:08
8x50m on 1:12
8x50m on 1:04

between each 50m I felt like I had way too much time to recover so I'll cut those down next time.

Ho hum, that's about it. Hopefully I can get some pics next weekend when we head out to cut down a tree. Who knows, maybe I'll even be out on skis!

Sunburn?

I'm sure people thought I had a sunburn but it was more like a cold burn. I rode to the pool the other day but I couldn't find my full leg warmers and had to settle for knee warmers instead. That meant about 5 inches of skin on my shins open to the freezing air. I'm not sure the redness shows up that good in the picture.



Yep, it's winter.

My skin smells like chlorine

Basically no snow fell last night. Up at my house it looked like it might have snowed for a minute but the roads were like a slicktrack. I had an incredible urge to pull the emergency brake and spin in circles. Why at that point does my rational side have to kick in?

I had a great swim this afternoon - warmed up with an easy 400 meters, then did some drills for another 200 meters and then was the main set... 12 reps of 100 meters leaving every 2 minutes and 10 seconds. That means I start the timer and swim 100 meters. When I'm done I let the timer run until it reaches 2:10 and then repeat. So if I'm swimming fast then I get more rest, if I'm swimming slow I get no rest. It isn't a great speed by any means and I found myself easily completing those intervals. Next time I'll bump it down to 2:05 maybe...still seems like too much rest though. Just to give those of you who are metrically challenged a frame of reference, a football field is roughly 110 meters long. I followed it up with a few hundred yards of kicking and a few hundred yards of easy freestyle and backstroke.

You can't see it that great in this picture, but I caught a black widow at work.

What's in the bag?

We got a free turkey when we went grocery shopping so we cooked up a second round of Thanksgiving on Saturday. This was a new recipe and it turned out wonderfully! In case you forget or have never read Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, paper burns at 451 degrees so the key is to not turn the oven up past that temp or the bag will catch on fire!





It was another weekend of swimming for me, though I did ride my bike to the pool one day. Riding doesn't seem to hurt my knee too much...it's walking that does it.

Gobble gobble, pedal, pedal

We are fortunate to not have to travel far on Thanksgiving. We bundled up in our coats and hats (it was 28 degrees), loaded up our BOB trailer and rode over to our friend's house for a big dinner. The trailer was able to carry a case of beer, a pan of freshly baked herb focaccia, green bean casserole, and baked spinach artichoke cheese dip.

Turkylicious

Happy Everything!

Today I'm heading over to celebrate the day with some friends. We're bringing green bean casserole, freshly baked herb focaccia bread, and baked spinach artichoke cheese dip. YUM! I can hardly wait!

Today is a day off from swimming, but I did a long one yesterday so that I could eat extra today. I'm finding it easy to add distance and time to my swims but it's very difficult to add speed. I swam 3000 meters which is roughly 1.8 miles and then I did a bunch of kicking drills as well. Since it was FREEZING cold out, it was awesome to sit in the steam room for 20 minutes afterwards. When I walked outside there was steam coming off of me for the next 5 minutes!

Tomorrow is back to the pool, anyone want to join?

Breathless

My swimming is progressing and I have been able to add time and intensity rapidly. The other afternoon I swam half a mile, then did 3 X 100m 5 times. The first 100m was at a comfortably moderate pace, the second was a bit faster and the 3rd was all out as hard as I could go. Then I swam a super easy 100m for recovery and repeated the set 5 times. That left me breathless but I pushed on and swam another half a mile before relaxing in the steam room for 20 minutes. Feels good to get my heart rate up that high and challenge myself.

We had to break up a dog fight over breakfast. One of our dogs is a giant pig and the other doesn't eat much but still protects her food. With 3 pieces left she wandered off and then came charging and growling when the other snuck over to steal what was left. Actually, she snapped and got two puncture wounds in the piggy's face. Man, they are worse than kids! I couldn't get the beagle to hold still so I could take a better picture.

Attitude

There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head. Well," she said, "I think I'll braid my hair today" So she did and she had a wonderful day.


The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head. "H-M-M," she said, "I think I'll part my hair down the middle today" So she did and she had a grand day.


The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head. "Well," she said, "today I'm going to wear my hair in a pony tail." So she did and she had a fun, fun day.


The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn't a single hair on her head. "YEA!" she exclaimed, "I don't have to fix my hair today!"

Attitude is everything.

I did a nice long swim yesterday...not so hard since it was raining out anyway and I didn't have to wish I was out riding.

Here is a pic of our 70's outfits for a party we went to Friday. Neither my pants or top are very flattering.

Just a thought

"Most people are too busy living life to ever put life in their living..."

~Doug Firebaug

I saw this quote the other day on a workout website and it made me smile. Sure, you can "live" everyday and just go through the motions, but are you really living? Makes you think, huh? Are you happy, do you do the things you want to do and are you inspired? Hopefully you answer yes.

I put in another long swim the other day after work. It's funny because I am a pretty self motivated person and there are always little tricks my mind plays on me to keep me striving for the best. Last night I was actually done with the distance I planned to swim but for the last 15 minutes I had been slowly gaining on the guy I was splitting a lane with. It was usually only 1 or 2 feet year lap, but just that little bit was like a carrot dangling in front of me (or a beer, or some nachos). So, I vowed to keep swimming until I caught him. Just that little thing kept me motivated and I eventually did catch him!

I'm not a fish

With my knee in a funk right now I've increased my pool workouts so that they are currently replacing all my riding! It's tough because I don't have fun swimming like I have fun riding. Swimming actually feels like a workout. Still, I put in three solid days of swimming this past weekend. Saturday I did a long distance day and just swam freestyle laps for an hour. Sunday I mixed it up and threw some backstroke in, but still did an hour. Monday I did some intervals. Intervals are always tough, but a really crucial part of working out. Intervals were always some of the toughest training days on my bike. You basically are trying to get your heart rate up to a REALLY high rate. You are working so hard that everything around you is a blur and even though snot may be dripping out your eyes, you can't do anything about it because you are so beat. You swear your watch is skipping chunks of time when it beeps warning that the rest period between sets is over. Glamorous huh?

I actually don't know my max heart rate for swimming. Different sports yield different heart rates. Cycling it's 184 but I've never been able to come close to that using a cross trainer eliptical at the gym and I bet it's even lower swimming. Up until this point with my pool workouts I've basically just always done straight laps. I don't entirely know what I'm doing when I try to design a swim workout but I read up a bit on the internet and after a good long warm up I swam 3X50 meters descending my time for each 50 by 2 seconds. I rested 20 seconds then and repeated 4 more times. By the last 3 50's my arms were dead tired. Then I tacked on a 25 minutes lap swim and did another interval for good measure. This one was "fun" too. I swam as hard as I could for one length, then two easy lengths, swam as hard as I could for 2 lengths and then did one easy length, then as hard as I could for 3 lengths and took a break before repeating and then cooling down.

If you have read all through this and are still awake you get a reward....Derek and I went for a short walk the other night so he could practice taking pics. It was a beautiful evening out.

All is not good

To mix it up I've been going to a kickboxing aerobics class one night a week. This is the first aerobics class I've ever been to! I can't do some of the moves because of my bad knee but I just improvise. Anyway, I rode there the other night and it's a darn good thing I had my thermal vest on because when I left it was freezing. What I didn't remember though, were my warmer gloves. I like the feeling of cold nights...especially coming from a hot sweaty gym. I took back roads all the way home so I think I only encountered 1 car, making it very relaxing and quiet. The next day I was out walking at lunch and took a step and felt a horrible pain in my "good" knee. I couldn't walk on it at all and it was bad. I massaged it and it kind of went away. Later that night it got worse, swelled, and became pretty painful. It's been that way for a few days now and I'm very frustrated. I have always been a very active person and to be limited is really tough.

So of course it's a 3 day weekend and I can't ride. Grrrrrrrr.

Da Beach

Here are some more pics from our beach weekend.





You can't visit the beach without taking sunset photos.





I think it must be pretty annoying to live here along the bay because these guys were barking constantly. They seemed very territorial and fiesty. Whenever another one wanted up on the platform to bask in the sun they would bark and yell at it until it quit trying. Too funny.

Beervana

Interesting show on OPB tonight.

Beervana

Beach Bums

We spent this past weekend at the Oregon Coast - stayed in Newport. We brought our cyclocross bikes and went on a big adventure loop on Saturday. We rode through Waldport along the 101 down to Yachats and then made a left and rode along a winding country feeling road about 10 miles before making another left and beginning a brutal climb up and up and up into the trees. It lasted forever and we thought for sure we were lost. But eventually we popped out in a big logging area and then descended a lifetime back down to Waldport. It was a great loop with little to no car traffic once we got off 101. It's been awhile since I've ridden along the coast and I forgot that salty wet tangy taste you get if you ride with your mouth open and inhale. We stopped a lot along the way and took scenery pictures though it was too dark back along the climb to get much. Here are some of the best from that ride.







Here's the Waldport Bridge

Bend Bella Cyclists

Happy Post Sugar Day!

The Bend Bella Cyclists are meeting tonight at 6:30 over in the conference room at Deschutes Library in Bend. We’ll have Gina Miller from Fresh Air Sports talk about how she got involved with that organization, what do they do, who it is for and tips for staying in shape for the winter. We would love to have new faces at the meeting...you don't have to be a member to come and listen.

Playing in the Forest

Another pretty good day of riding. It's hard to see the trail in places because there are so many pine needles blanketing the ground.