King Corn

I'm currently nursing a pulled calf muscle so most exercise is out of the question - hell, walking is a challenge. Instead, I sat on the couch after work and watched King Corn, It's a documentary about 2 friends from college that move to Iowa to learn where their food comes from. They plant and grow an acre of corn and try to follow what happens to it in the food system. Not the most exciting movie, but pretty thought provoking and interesting.

Race Weekend

This weekend we drove down to Weaverville, CA for a race Sunday. Saturday it was cold, foggy and drizzling when we got to the event. The 12 Hour race was in full force. That's the race Derek and I were going to do but had to cancel after injuries. So, we planned to preride the Super D race course Saturday and then race it Sunday morning. The registration said we could pedal up to the top of the course if we wanted to preride it, but that driving wasn't allowed since we would have to drive up the same road the 12 hour racers were riding up for the first 3 miles. No problem, we decided we'd pedal up. It was a 7 mile climb according to the map. The scenery was really different then anything I've ridden in.

It was the hardest 7 mile climb I think I've ever done. After the first mile of flatter trail, it became steep and steeper with no flat spots and around 2,500 to 3k of climbing shoved into the remaining 6 miles. Once we reached the top I was a bit skeptical because as I peaked off the side of the cliff it went pretty much straight down with lots of rocks and ruts. I dropped my saddle, zipped up my thermal vest and started down. For the first mile or so I was behind the saddle with my sternum actually resting on the seat. That's how far I had to get back to keep from going over the bars!

Here is the starting...I felt like I was in Costa Rica or something with the interesting scenery.





Top of the climb - start of steep decent down into the depths of the earth.




Fast flowing singletrack further down at the bottom.





Once I made it through that the course opened up into a fast twisty singletrack through the trees...plenty of mud and puddles to splash through as well. It was a bit over a 6 mile descent with LOTS of pedaling. We finished in time to take hot showers at the High School, make ourselves some sandwiches and wash it all down with some good beer while we watched the racers come in for laps of the race. Ahhhh, it was good to not be racing.



Camping in the rain was interesting. All night long it sounded like we were in a giant popcorn popper as rain pelted our tent. Race day arrived and after a treacherous shuttle ride up the same trail we had somehow ridden up the day before, it was time to race. My legs were really tired from the ride the day before and I just wanted to play it safe. Off I went through the steep chute, huffing and puffing, pedaling hard and pushing on. The last part of the 6 miles has more ups then I remembered and my legs were completely dead. It was all I could do to keep moving and I was tired. Sadly, there were no other females doing the race so I was really racing just against myself. Guess what, I won!

Campground views:






Whiskeytown Lake



Pretty flowers.

Another night of mountain biking. It ended up pretty chilly towards the end because we were out there awhile. We went a little harder than usual and it felt good. I must confess, I want 90 degree weather back. Whoever did something to anger the Warmth Gods, please apologize. Enough.

Brrr, a cold ride in to work yesterday! By lunch it had warmed up a tad for my ride to the pool and swim. The tent cover is mostly off the shallow end and lap after lap I cherished the rays as they warmed my back and shoulders. Back on the bike and to the office to finish off the day. Riding home I felt like a sail. The wind ripped at my jacket and steered my bike around.

Last night was as good a night as any for a mountain bike ride. We left from work and rode up Phil's Trail to the helipad where we were greeted with rain. It made the trail nice and damp and kept everyone else away. Going down Whoops was fun because the conditions are perfect after the snowmelt! We shot down Bens across to Kent's and then back up Mike's to Ben's and back. Good ride even if it was a bit chilly and sprinkled off and on.

I swam at lunch and the pool cover is coming off! That might not be too nice for morning swims since it was barely in the 30's this morning for my ride to work. Brrrr. My hands still sting as I type this.

Transitions

I did some video filming of the bike to run transition at the Pole Pedal Paddle on Saturday. It was blazing hot and even just standing there I had sweat dripping down my legs. HOT HOT HOT! I rode down on my cruiser bike for it and riding back uphill to our house on that thing was quite a chore in 90+ weather. It's heavy and not very practical but a lot of fun still.

Sunday we went for a giant mountain bike ride. We started out on our way to Mrazek only to be turned around by a forest fire that was burning up there! The snow just friggin melted, how could there be a fire already dammit. So, instead we rode back up Ben's and then up Upper Whoops until the snow started to be too much. We headed back down, up Phil's to Storm King and took that all the way across the highway and down the Southern part, back up COD to ELV, Kent's and Ben's. All told it was a bit over 3 hours of pedaling. Storm King, as usual, was free of people. I really like that trail for that very reason. I'm pretty sure I've never seen water running in the little gully along the trail but there was a stream running there today.






The manzanita is in full bloom and pretty.



This section is so cool looking.



These critters were swarming me when we stopped to decide which way to go.

Can you feel it?

Bring on the heat!

Yesterday I was busy. I rode to work, rode at lunch, rode to the pool for my evening swim, and then rode home! None of the riding was very tough or aggressive, just some good spinning. The pool was packed but I stuck with it and cranked out about 2000 meters before I had to get home for dinner and book club.

Tonight Derek and I are going mountain biking - can't wait to get dirty. The paper claimed trails were clear up to Skyliner Snopark but I imagine that isn't correct since I couldn't get even close to that far ealier in the week. We'll see though, maybe magic happened.

Derek has been tweaking his homemade salsa recipe and I think we are close to a keeper. Fresh salsa is the best.

Saturday was mountain bike day and all was well. I got the chance to catch up with a couple people I hadn't seen in awhile but ran into on the trails. For dinner we made from scratch a garlic chicken pizza with a rosemary seasoned crust. YUM!

Sunday was the big Webcyclery Chainbreaker mountain bike race that I volunteered at. Everything went well and there were about 285 racers. Everyone seemed to have a good time and it was fun to help out with again.



The Giro de Italia started Saturday over in Italy. It's a 3 week road stage race and the U.S. is heavily represented with some great contenders. In fact, after the prologue Saturday, an American was in 1st place out of the 197 or so racers out there. My mornings for the next few weeks will be less productive now that I have to check in on the live reports. I simply love cycling.

Chainbreaker

This is Sunday is the Webcyclery Chainbreaker mountain bike race here in Bend. I'm not racing but I'm volunteering to help with registration, setup, and operation of it. It should be a great day to race or spectate!

I've been doing a lot of swimming lately, got a bike ride in after work yesterday too. Most of the actual pain in my knee has gone away, now it just feels odd. It feels like there is extra stuff in there or something. I've been using a foam roller to massage my quads and IT band. I just lay on it and slowly roll down the muscle. It hurts pretty bad since my muscles are tight, but it's a good hurt. At acupuncture the other day we started using electric stimulation again. Little electrodes are hooked up to needles placed in points forming a circle around my knee. Then currents are sent across my knee cap at hi and low frequencies. It is supposed to stimulate soft tissue growth. I had a lot of this done both before and after my knee surgery. I'm so thankful that my health insurance covers these eastern medicine practices. $5 for acupuncture! WOOHOO

Minnie Ripperton Had it Right

"Lovin you, is easy cause you're beautiful." Maybe she wasn't talking about mountain biking, but it fits. Woohoo! A sunny warm day. We went for another mountain bike ride out around the lower Phil's trails. We took COD to ELV to Phil's, up Ben's to Phil's, down Kent's and Expressway, out KGB and back along COD. Whew...did I lose you? It was a great ride!



Our gourmet dinner was homemade grilled jerk chicken sandwiches with baked sweet potato fries and an apple & fennel coleslaw. YUM!

Be the Cloud

I tried a few new seasonals at Deschutes last night that are worth noting. First, the Armory Extra Pale Ale brewed specially for the Portland Deschutes Brewery Grand Opening. It is extra hoppy but very well balanced beer and I give it two thumbs up. I also had a pint of the Crystal Peak Brown. It was described as a Northern English Style Brown known for their sweet malt aroma and caramel, nutty, and toffee notes. It was a little too smooth for my taste, but I still enjoyed it! I didn't care for the Vanilla Porter and was sad that they were out of the Chocolate Stout.

I was disappointed when I woke up to cloudy skies. We decided to chance it even though it was 50% chance of thunderstorms. It was alternately sunny and then it would sprinkle a bit and went like this for the 2.5 hours we were mountain biking. The trails are so much fun after a winter of skiing and there weren't many people out today. They definitely were missing out.

Art

The Trashformation creations are on display at The Old Mill through Sunday, or you can check out some pictures Derek took last weekend. Gallery

It was perfect riding weather last night and we hit the trails. Stuff went straight from snow to dust! It should be a good weekend for riding too - I'm looking forward to it. I had my second acupuncture appt. today and I'm back at work feeling very relaxed now.