How going home for Christmas makes me faster

I love going home (to NS) for Christmas. The house is full - 7 kids running in every direction, 9 orso adults, lots of food, and the feeling of 'home'.

So why does this make me faster? Well, imagine a few feet of snow, kids from the age of 2 to 16, loads of sleds to choose from and a great sledding hill ... and your daily workout quickly becomes sledding! Now, with kids it's not just the act of sliding down and walking up ... but of waling up while towing one or two kids behind you yelling 'faster! faster!'. Now you are getting the picture! It's a cardio and strength workout all in one ... and if you try to talk or get into a snowball fight on the way up the hill ... well, it makes it that much more fun.

Then of course there is playing alphabet soup, hunting dragons, and generally keeping up with the neices/nephews!  Add to that the fantastic home-grown food (in massive quantities) and the relaxation of being home, and when I got back on the bike - i could push more on my intervals!

I highly reccomend this specialized Christmas training program! It's good for the body and soul :)

Happy holidays all!

How the search for ice cream is making me faster

I know, it seems backwards ... but it's true. My quest for the perfect ice cream is helping make me faster! How you ask? How is it possible?

Well it's easy. You ride your bike to your ice cream destinations :) So far i've had two such weekend rides ... the other weekend I headed over to Leavenworth in search of Ice Cream. The ride was amazing ... I love my new Norco CCR ... it is so LIGHT and FAST :) Beautiful sceanery ... a crazy 15 mile climb on the way there and 25 mile climb on the way back ...

All told it was about 90 miles of riding for ice cream that wasn't so stellar. Too late i saw the Stone Cold Creamery as I was sittng on the grass enjoying the cone i'd purchased! Now that is some good ice cream! I'll have to do the ride again and get the good stuff :)

The other adventure was to Alki Beach ... the long way. This was only a 70 mile ride and the ice cream was pretty darned good :)

Ah, the live of an ice cream addict. Or is it bike riding i'm addicted to? I'm not sure :)

Well, that was fun!!

I did the high cascade 100 yesterday .... what a blast!

By the numbers:
Miles riden: 110
Vertical feet climbed: 14,000
Crashes: 1
Lost banannas: 2

Now for the fun stuff! The race started at an early 5:30am and a frigid 28F (yes, that is below 0C!!!) I had winter leg warmers, arm warmers, a under layer, jersey, vest, hat, and jacket on to start. Yikes, it was cold. I knew it would warm up fast. At the start line before the sun ride we could see the man on the mood. The race was at Mt bachelor- away from the city ... and ite stars were amazing!

Up came the sun and off we went .... 5:45 was the official start time by my watch :) The first section was 35 miles - the longest without aide, so i started with a bottle and a camelback. I'm pretty sure my bottle froze because i noticed a crack in it about about mile 15 ... had to drink out of it a certain way to avoid concentrated heed going everywhere!

We started with a road climb and jeep track descent. Everyone went out pretty hot and i would guess I was in the end of the middle of the pack ... usual spot :) The jeep descent and singletrack was dusty so i wore my trusty bandana (thanks Frank!) to protect my lungs.  This part of the course was a big singletrack descent followed by a climb. About 22 miles in they had a spot to drop gear. I dropped my warm leg warmers and jacket there :) Yup, it was warming up. After the clothes drop it was a long slog uphill thru the singletrack and back to the first aide/drop and start/finish!

The rest of the race I did bottles and dumped the camelback.  The course was full of singletrack, both up and down ... twisty, turny, up and down. SO MUCH FUN!!  The course was hard but fun. Things that stood out:
- passing the girl that passed me at mile 25 around mile 100
- starting to feel good around mile 75
- the view of bachelor on the worst climb on the course
- the fun fun fun technical descent

A great race! I'll be back again for sure

What happened to summer?

I'm not sure what happened to summer ... we had 5 beautiful days around the 4th of July and now we are back into rain season :(

Oh well, here is hopeing we have good weather for the 100 miler in Bend, OR next weekend! All ready to go, just need to decide which bike to race and ensure i taper!