The only thing I'll post about MJ

The Alta Alpina Challenge: Riding the Wild Sierra

I am the secretary for our local cycling club, Alta Alpina. The club decided last year to start a new event that would showcase the roads we love to ride. It was a HUGE undertaking. Since I have experience with it, I decided to help out by coordinating sponsorship. We had some amazing sponsors: amazing, Bonk Breaker Bars, of which the Peanut Butter and Jelly bar (actually tastes just like it!) is also a new favorite of mine, Clif Bar, who donated a gazillion Clif Blocks, and Sierra Summits sunscreen (which is aaaawesome), among others.

The Alta Alpina challenge was really three events in one: a kids/family fun ride, a choose-your-own-adventure style ride where you could ride anywhere from 1-6 mountain passes and the now-infamous 200 mile double century option with 8 mountain passes and over 20,000 feet of climbing! I also ran a rest stop that day, which I had never done before and we had SO much fun. The weather was absolutely AWFUL. It was freezing, snowing, and at times hailing on us. I was so happy to be in 6 layers of clothing and not on my bike. We did our best to make the riders warm and happy and despite the weather, everyone was in a really chipper mood!

Anne, Nick and Corey helped out. We set up the Pearl Izumi tent, brought a huge carafe of coffee and an 18 pack of beer for the boys and chopped a lot of bagels and fruit:



The earliest riders through our rest stop (which was at the top of Carson Pass on the way to Kirkwood) saw the best weather:











You can see the clouds start to roll in here:



























The snow and rain would roll through in patches. It was unpredictable!



Anne and our friend Jerry, who was running a SAG support vehicle:





I had such a blast running the rest stop. It was a really rewarding experience. That may have been partly because our participants were all SO awesome! What great troopers to be excited and enthusiastic about the event despite such awful miserable conditions. I feel really proud to have been part of the organization of something so momentous and fun! The event was a huge success and people are already requesting information about next year!





This is my favorite picture from the day. Jerry caught her hiding from the snow in the alcove by the bathroom, putting plastic bags on her feet to ward off cold wet socks. All smiles never-the-less.



Oh, and this is hanging in the bathrooms at the Markleeville Turtle Rock Park center and it never fails to make me laugh. I'm always happy that no one else is in the bathroom with me because I always forget it's there and then am delightfully surprised all over again:

Lake Almanor Century

The weekend before my birthday, Allison "I can eat 7 saltines in an hour" Oliver and I drove up to Chester, CA to ride in the Mile High Century. We had been wanting to do a century and this one was inexpensive, in a beautiful part of CA, and close by. The ride would circle Lake Almanor, which sits at the base of Lasson National Park (a volcano!) and the end of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. It's about a three hour drive north of Tahoe.

Lake Almanor:





I booked us a room at a really adorable bed and breakfast: The St. Bernard Lodge. The family that ran it was fabulous - they even woke up two hours early the next morning to make us egg, sausage and english muffin sandwiches before the ride! They were also kind enough to let us stash our stuff there and return to shower afterwards which was so amazing. It made our drive home so much better.

The view from the lodge porch:



The dining room:



When Allison woke up the next morning her stomach was a wreck and the woman went to her house and raided her personal stash of tums for Al. I think Al took 5 different kinds of meds that morning. Cheery way to start your day. It worked out well for me because Allison is really fast on her bike and I normally can't keep up with her. Since she wasn't feeling so hot, the ride was chill and we cruised together, which was fun.



The upstairs hall:





Our bedroom:



One of the lodge's shared baths (clawfoot tub!):



Another one of the bedrooms:



The ride was gorgeous, fast and flat. We met up with a friend of mine from Alta Alpina, Joe, and all rode together. The ride went out of Chester clockwise around the lake and then wound through some valleys overlooked by large hills south of the lake before returning to the west shore. We were cracking up when we left the start line because one mile out there was a rest stop. One mile!? It was in front of a bike shop and I joked that they must be trying to drum up some extra business.

What a beautiful area! We couldn't believe how great the roads were, how beautiful the scenery, how few cyclists we came across and the utter total lack of cars!







Lunch was awesome! A small restaurant ran it and there was real thick sliced turkey breast for sandwiches, homemade pasta and potato salad, huge chunks of melons, and cookies!



When we made it back to the lake, and the last rest stop, and we were only at 65 miles and the ride was supposed to be 108 miles, it became very apparent that something was not adding up. Apparently, the rest stop we were making fun of was the turn for a 22 mile out and back leg that went north of the lake. We missed the sign while we were laughing about the ridiculousness! Typical. We decided collectively that the 85ish miles we were going to ride that day were perfectly adequate and there was no need to return to the out and back. So many questions were explained! Like, why there were no cyclists - we cheated and were an hour ahead of them. Where were our other friends? Why hadn't we run into them? Because we skipped 22 miles! We must be the last ones to lunch - there's no one here! No, we were the first. That guy left out of the parking lot the same time we did, why is he so far behind us? Because he rode 22 miles that we didn't!

That's Mt. Lassen overlooking us:





The ride was fantastic. I'm thankful that Allison drove - I'm not sure how she made it the first hour it took to reach the Starbucks because I was out cold!

Blog update

While I am ever so hard trying to squirrel away cash for a new macbook, it looks as if it will be at least another month until I am able to get one due to my upcoming trip to Bend. Thus, I will give in and start blogging again from Corey's desktop, which just takes lots of time because there is no mac bulk uploader for picasa for an operating system this ancient. In the meantime, neither Corey nor I can put new music on our ipods because they aren't compatible with his desktop (another genius apple marketing move). Thankfully, it will recharge them and that discovery has made my long runs all the much more enjoyable.

I am now 32 days away from the marathon. My it band is on fire. I like how all the reading I do suggests custom orthotics to fix the problem, when I am positive that it is my custom orthotics which is causing my problem. I'm spending a lot of time on my instrument of torture and have added some strengthening exercises to the rotation. I haven't run this much in three months to not finish what I started out to do so I envision that some expensive, but necessary massages might be in my future.

Last week my long run was 18 miles and all things considering, it went really well. My IT band didn't really bother me until the end of it and while I had quite a bit of soreness in my legs from the very beginning due to an over exertion prideful show of athleticism the night before on my bike with some faster-than-thou boys, the endurolytes I took from Hammergel seemed to really help. My legs were worked afterwards and my feet felt really tired. I forced myself to sit for a few minutes in an ice bath, though while it helps, I can't manage to make myself stay in for more than 3 minutes. Maybe I'll be able to work up to more? This week I only have to run 14 miles, which is good the way my IT band is behaving and next week will be my last long run of 20 miles before the marathon.

Aaaaaaaaw! Cute puppy!

Last night we were surprised with an overnight visit from a lost puppy. The dog is so freaking adorable. He's clearly only 5 or 6 mos old and was just running loose in the neighborhood, clearly up to some shenanigans because he was soaking wet and covered in dirt. I can't let a loose puppy go roaming around at night; there are coyotes all over our area that will eat him for breakfast. He's clearly someone's pet - a collar but no tags. Apparently they don't want him that badly because he's been lost for at least more than 24 hours now with no signs posted in the area. I went to post a found dog sign at Spouts, the cafe down the street, and there was already a sign posted by the couple who found him before I did, but he escaped from their yard yesterday afternoon.

From Misc Tahoe Summer 2009

From Misc Tahoe Summer 2009

He spent the night in my car. He was howling chained up outside and whining in the bathroom inside while Allison and her dog Cowboy attempting sleep in my living room. We finally put him in the back seat of my car where he slept until about 4:45 am, when he started crying again. Oddly enough, he's been pretty tired all morning.

Sierra seems to like him okay. She rarely gives puppies a hard time.

In other news, I ran 16 miles last week (at once, 30 over the course of the week), which is the most I've ever run ever. Woah! I registered for my marathon which is pretty daunting. The 16 was really easy compared to my long run of 15 the week before - that was just awful in every way. Last week I treated myself to a pedicure afterwards. This week I treated myself to one of my fancy bottles of wine, purchased when I was in Napa with my mom and aunts. It was worth every dollar.

I also went with Allison up to Chester, CA to do a century ride this weekend. I took pictures though so that story will have to wait for my new computer.

Absentee blogger

I'm really sorry okay! I know you are waiting for pictures of Austin and stories of margaritas and Mexican, but there will be none because sadly my trusty little iBook is dying a slow and painful death. I have determined (with no help from the Apple Genius bar who was WRONG) that my logic board has become disconnected. Now, I can take a blowtorch to it with possible degrees of success but I could also scar my hard drive permanently and really what I need is a new computer. Corey, however, is THRILLED to bring home a soldering iron and crack that little plastic case open. Lucky for me the new MacBook Pros just came out and my local Apple store said they will be discounting the old ones. They told me this when I called to let them know that their Genius bar was full of idiots and that I was the computer genius around here.

Now, just in case you have forgotten, my birthday is coming up on June 26th. Hint, Hint.

Until then, the blogs will be few and far between.

Betcha thought I was a bear.

Upon moving to California I was shocked to discover there was, for all practical purposes, no recycling program here in South Lake Tahoe. Here. In Tahoe. In California. In the world where environmental activists chain themselves to buoys and boycott a massive list of things daily that may or may not upset the delicate depth of lake clarity. Supposedly, South Lake Tahoe captures 80% of recyclables by paying people to rip open peoples trash and separating it by hand. There is no way in hell.

First of all, I don't care how many people are on that line, you aren't going to get everything. Second of all, what an insanely ridiculous way to spend resources and money. Third of all, what about all the cardboard and paper that goes in with the trash that gets food stuff on it: that can't be recycled! Preposterous.

Thus, you can imagine how thrilled I was to hear about our new (!!) recycling program involving blue bags. You simply fill up a second (colored) trash bag that the city provides you with your recyclables and when you leave it out, they leave you a new one. Chicago has a similar program but those folks buy their bags. The program rolled out in stages and my neighborhood was a test stage last fall. But to my disappointment, I was provided no blue bags. And then the program finally rolled out completely and still, I had no blue bags. My friends had blue bags. My neighbors had blue bags. What is going on here? I want to recycle! I am passionate! I am excited! I am eager! I want my bag!

I call the city refuse office and am told that because I live in an apartment building, I can't have a blue bag. They can't just have blue bags flying all over apartment complexes. I explain that I live in a very-close-to-the-road front facing apartment and how excited I am to have a blue bag. While I was commended for my enthusiasm, I was told no luck unless I worked something out with my garbage men.

The next week I staked out my house waiting for the garbage men to come by. I explained that I wanted to recycle, showed them my front door and asked if I left the blue bag in front of the dumpster would they leave me new ones on my front step? I did this with wet hair in my pajamas. I'm sure the guys were going, "Sheesh, crazy white woman!" as soon as they told me yes and I skipped back inside.

Two weeks later I had filled up enough recyclables for my blue bag. We still separate our beer, wine and water bottles for our alcoholic veteran unemployed next-door neighbor. One day Corey came home and he popped out of the dumpster where he was diving for beer bottles and exclaimed, "Betcha thought I was a bear!!" After that we just started giving them to him.

I kept my blue bag inside that night because I was concerned that someone would mess with it. I get up to swim at 6:15 every morning so on my way to the pool I set it with great excitement in front of the dumpster. When I came home from swimming I was shocked to see that our trash hadn't been collected yet (they usually come very early) AND that my blue bag was gone!! I quickly realized that it was now in the trash for my across the street neighbors. Why would they steal my blue bag?? Are they trying to hoard blue bags for themselves?

I moved my blue bag back in front of the dumpster and went inside to make coffee. I was very concerned about the state of my bag and promptly went back to check it again. It was gone! One minute and someone took it again! Outside, I couldn't find it anywhere. "AAAAAAAARGH!" I yelled, standing in the middle of the street (in pajamas, of course). A girl who lives in my complex asked if I had lost my car. I explained what was going on and she started laughing at me. Finally I looked in the dumpster and discovered my bag. Someone had put it inside the dumpster! What is going on?!?

It was heavy. I had a hard time pulling it out because the dumpster is as tall as me and it was really awkward. I went back inside and stood there, waiting to see what would happen. Surely the culprit would strike again just as quickly. Not 20 seconds later did the very same alcoholic unemployed neighbor walk around the building to move my bag again.

"BRIAN!"

"What?"

"DON'T TOUCH MY BLUE BAG! And you tell all the neighbors to NEVER EVER touch my blue bag."

"What is it?"

"Recycling. I have it worked out with the garbage men. I have to leave it there. Don't let anyone move it."

"Oh. Okay. I didn't know what that was."

Even though I had caught him red handed, I was still extremely concerned about the state of my blue bag and I proceeded to check on it every 2 minutes for an hour until the garbage men came.

I now have another new blue bag, empty and folded waiting patiently to be filled, to replace the one they took, filled to the brim with recycling.

Recycling should not cause so much anxiety.