Early Sunday Twin Falls

After a late night of drinking with friends, I was up at 6am to meet Angela for a quick Sunday trek out to Twin Falls.  Luckily this hike is only a few miles without much elevation gain since I was pretty dehydrated that morning.

Twin Falls - Snoqualmie Pass | North Bend Area

June 8, 2014



 

The happiest of dogs

Heart rock on the trail

Dog bridge

 

Sunny Saturday Hike

Jena's friend Angela is in town from San Diego and while I only met her 2 weeks ago, we already have clicked wonderfully.

She loves hiking also so I invited her on my weekly excursion with Lucy.  She only had a couple hours so we kept it classic with a hike up Poo Poo Point on Tiger Mountain.  This is such a fantastic hike because it is only 15 minutes away, a quick 8 miles roundtrip and has amazing views.

A Girl and Her Dog

As I can no longer bring myself to spend 6-8 hours on my bicycle, I have started hiking even more in order to have a workout that Lucy can do with me.  I think it would be fun to chronicle my adventures so here we go.

Oyster Dome - Puget Sound and Islands | North Sound

May 11, 2014

 

 

 

Rattlesnake Ledge - Snoqualmie Pass | North Bend Area

May 1, 2014

 

 

 

Squak Mountain - Issaquah Alps

April 6, 2014

 

 

 

Poo Poo Point - Issaquah Alps | Tiger Mountain

March 2, 2014

 

 

 

 

Spencer Butte - Eugene, Oregon

November 27, 2013

 

 

 

Poo Poo Point - Issaquah Alps | Tiger Mountain

November 3, 2013

 

Lucy's first hike!

 

Race Report: STP One Day

2013 Group Health Seattle to Portland One Day Ride

Strava Part One
Strava Part Two
(my Garmin didn't start until ~3 miles in and then the battery died at mile 180 wherein I turned on the Strava app on my phone to capture the last 20 miles)

~206 miles
~3,500 ft elevation
12:42 time in the saddle
3:45 taking breaks
15.9 mph average

Random thoughts on the ride:

• The weather was perfect, I kept my layers on until the halfway mark in Centralia.
• Jed was awesome, seriously such great support (see braid photo below).  He kept morale up, great attitude and took care of us fabulously.  So much appreciation.
• I pulled the entire ride except for about 10 miles where Kim pulled or I picked up the back of a pace line.  It was hard to find pace lines the second half of the ride and many times I had to slow down to go on a pace line just to give myself a wind break for a bit.
• Terrible headwind.  Especially on the highway portion (miles 130-190).
• We left UW at 4:30am and arrived in Portland around 9pm.
• Got passed by my friend Guido, it was cool that amongst 10,000+ people, we were able to see each other on the course.  He finished about 5 hours before we did.
• Miles 130-175 were the longest miles ever.
• Miles 150-175 = world of hurt.
• Miles 180-200 = Garmin died, felt so lost and confused at not knowing speed and distance left.
• 1 mile out from Finish Line, Kim's back tire totally blew out.  Put in another tube and hoped for the best.
• 1/2 mile out from Finish Line, Kim's back tire blew out again.  Good samaritan that worked at local bike shop gave Kim his tire.  Gave his tire.  Meanwhile, Jed thinks we have died 1/2 mile from finish line and frantically calls/texts me. (He had a GPS tracking on my phone to know where we were all day).
• Good bike samaritan saves my sanity and I tell him that we will bring a 6 pack of his favorite beer to his work the next day.
• Finish Line, finally.  
• Hotel, where I had pre-packed a couple of Blue Moons in a cooler for much needed shower beers.
• Overall, I had a really good time but for now, this is a one-and-done situation for me.  I would happily do support for friends in future.
• TMI: while at home on Sunday, inspecting 'damage' done to my body, I found two huge bruises on the bottom of my booty cheeks.  No wonder they were hurting so badly during the ride.

4:30am Start Line

Around mile 150 - legs are hurtin'

Jed's sweet braiding skills at 100 miles in.

Finish Line action shot

Finish line with 1 Day Rider patches

Lake WA Loop Plus Some

 

On Saturday, Kim and I completed the our longest ride yet for this season, 60 miles.  Our original plan was to do 80 miles with a group of Kim's friends but we quickly realized that their speed was much quicker than ours and that trying to keep up for 80 miles would be no fun.

 

 

So we ended up backtracking from Montlake to I-90 and back, watched some of the UW vs Cal races on the Montlake Bridge above the cut, went back and forth a bit in Kirkland, got caught in downpour rain for about 10 miles in Renton, but overall had a good, adventurous ride.

 

 

My Thoughts on Boston

I still feel in shock when I think or read updated reports of the Boston Marathon yesterday.  I feel more struck and more affected by this act of terrorism and hate than I have by other senseless and cowardly shootings and tragedies.

I feel connected to the athletes and spectators hurt by the bombings because I am an athlete.  While I have never ran a marathon, I have ran a couple halfs and have done various other endurance events.  We are athletes.  We have the same goals, same lifestyles, same feelings of pushing our bodies to accomplish events.

I am horrified at what happened, to hear about amputations and worse of the athletes and spectators.  I can easily place myself in their shoes with my family and friends at the finish line.  These cowardly attacks leave many questions in its place: why?  who would do something like this?  These questions have been asked before with  no answer.

This one struck much too close to home.  Pray for Boston. Pray for the athletes.

Attempting Seattle to Portland in One Day

This year, Ashley, Kim and I will be attempting to complete the Seattle to Portland bike ride in one day.  It is going to be a doozy.

Total distance: ~205 miles
Total elevation gain: 4,828 feet

 

Post-Holidays Juicing Update

I know I stopped posting about juicing a while ago, so as a wrap-up, I juiced for all meals for 7 days and lost a whopping total of 3lbs.  Sigh.

However, the juicing is clearly not sustainable as I was miserable (did I mention cold?) and bored with my meals for the full week.  The secondary week I switched to juicing for breakfast and/or lunch and although that was much more do-able, I wasn't enjoying it much.  I am not sure how others have juiced for multiple months.

After a lovely holiday back home I am back to reality today.  My juicer currently sits forlorn on the counter and I eyeball it once in a while, contemplating a return.

For the next two months I will be busy studying once again so while I may make a juice once in  a while (a lot of the recipes were really tasty), I will not be regularly juicing again in the immediate future.

Juicing Day 6 - Lots of Pulp

There is so much pulp leftover after I make my juices.  I felt bad just throwing it away (as I don't have a garden or compost) so I looked up some recipes to make with the pulp.

Once recipe was to make vegetable stock, which is great to use in making soups.  The recipe is simple, add the pulp, water and spices and simmer for a couple hours.  Strain the pulp from the liquid and you have your stock.

Pulp simmering

If I had a strainer cloth this might have worked better, but overall it didn't make much stock.

Not a lot of stock

 

I did cheat a little bit this weekend, I had a glass of wine at a party and made butternut squash and apple soup.  I know I am only supposed to do 'juices' but having warm soup helped the emotional side so much that I didn't care.

 

 



Jucing Day 3 - Warming Up

I have realized that doing a juicing cleanse in fall/winter is not a good idea.  While I crave hot tea, coffee and soups, I have to sip on refrigerated juices.

To help me keep myself from freezing and going crazy, I will be making puree soups out of veggies.  I found a bunch of recipes and am planning on going to Costco tonight to pick up the produce needed.

I had back-to-back meetings 10am-4pm today so I only had a small juice in the morning and then a small juice again after my meetings.  This definitely went against the juicing schedule, where they have you eat every 2-3 hours.

 I am so looking forward to warm soups

I am going to brunch with a couple of friends tomorrow so it will be my first real challenge - to go out to eat and not actually eat.  I will see if they have any vegetable soups and if not, then get some fruit to munch on.  I am ok with doing what is needed for my lifestyle, ordering and eating (!) fruit and such at restaurants. 

Juicing Day 2 - Tired & Cold

Super tired.  Had a really hard time waking up and felt half asleep through my morning meetings.  Whether this is due to the juicing, the fact that I suck at sleeping or that I have low iron (just found out) and haven't purchased supplements yet, I don't know.

Still freezing at work, I think I will bring in a space heater to blast directly on me for the day.

Felt much better by the afternoon but I was so miserably cold that I didn't finish 1 1/2 of my last juices for the day.

By the time I got home I was so cold and tired that instead of my dinner juices I ate 2 avocados.  I know I am not supposed to 'eat' anything but I was so sick of being cold that I couldn't stand it.

So, with my avocados, I curled up under a blanket on the couch, snuggled with the kitties and watched Harry Potter.

Juicing Day 1

Day 1 of juicing completed and I think it went fine.  I didn't drink nearly as much water as I should have but I was so cold (my office is freezing) that it was tough to.  In the afternoon I finally starting drinking hot water plain and warmed up a bit.

I went to Target yesterday evening to pick up some more nalgenes, as this is what a full day's consumption looks like:

 

 

There are actually 6 juices here, the first nalgene contains two.  Combined, here is what is in all 6:

 

13 apples

3 carrots

1 lemon

1 cup spinach

2 stalks celery

1 cucumber

1 pineapple

1 lime

1 cup kale

1/4 bunch of broccoli

1/2 red beet

1/2 zucchini

 

2 juices worth of fruit/veggies

 

 It takes me about an hour to cut up, create juice for a full day and clean up.  I make all juices the night before. 

 

I woke up with a bit of a headache today but I think that is due to dehydration.  Day 2-3 are supposed to be the hardest, so we will see how the rest of this week goes. 

 



Juicing Day 0 - Groceries

My juicer arrived and I put together my shopping list for 2 days of meals. I already had some of the stuff on the list (apples, carrots, etc) so I purchased:

10 golden delicious apples
10 gala apples
2 avocados
1 red beet
1 bunch broccoli
1 bunch celery
2 cucumbers
1 lemon
3 limes
5oz kale
10oz spinach
2 pineapples
1 zucchini

At QFC this totaled to $49.  Clearly, I will be hitting up Costco this weekend.

Juicing

On Saturday, I wasn't able to fall asleep so I spent more time that I care to admit browsing the interwebs.  I landed on Pinterest which is something I rarely check out but there are always time-consuming 'pins' there.  I ended up on a couple different blogs that talked about juicing which lead me to the Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead documentary.  At 1:30am I decided to watch it.

While the documentary itself wasn't that great, the message was clear.  Liquified fruits and veggies = weight loss, increase in heath and energy and a great detox of your system.

As many of my friends can attest to, I am a pretty healthy eater.  I primarily eat pescatarian and have very limited amount of carbs, and I don't drink soda or fast food.  I have been an athlete through college and still work out regularly, do endurance events and have a personal trainer.  However, ever since high school I have struggled with my weight.  I have gone to multiple doctors, have had everything tested and tried every diet.  I even tried hypnosis.

Everytime, the doctors tell me I am perfectly healthy and my heart breaks a little.

So, to continue my trend of trying everything in hopes that one day something will work, I am going to go on a "juice fast" for the next two weeks at least.

I gathered info from a bunch of places and am going to do what works best for me and my lifestyle.  I purchased a juicer, found a bunch of recipes and am excited to start.  I know it will be hard but it won't be the most difficult thing I have ever done.  I plan on documenting this cleanse as much as possible for the next couple of weeks.

The juicer arrives on Wednesday so will kick this off as soon as I figure out how to use it.

RSVP Race Report

Ride from Seattle to Vancouver, BC and Party (RSVP)
Total Distance: 189 miles
Average Speed: 14.2 mph
Total Elevation Gain: 7115 ft

This past weekend Heather, Ashley, Josh and I biked from Seattle, WA to Vancouver, BC.

Day 1:
Seattle to Bellingham
105 miles
Average Speed: 14.2 mph
Elevation Gain: 4400 ft

Start Line

Friday was the hottest day yet in Seattle, with temperatures in the mid to upper 90's.  This might not seem toasty to my CA and Texas peeps but keep in mind that Seattle homes and apartments do not have A/C.  This also meant that we didn't just bring the sample size of sunscreen bottle, we brought the whole thing.  I think I put on sunscreen 5 different times which caused a nice shiny layer for all of the following pictures.



Elevation profile from Seattle to Bellingham

At the start line, one of the swag items we got were fanny packs.  Ashley was in love.  Since there were only 2 food stops per day (comparable to other rides which have stops every ~15 miles) we had to bring a lot of food as well as all our fuel with us.  Ashley rocked hers both days, I wore mine just on the first day.

tall purple people



There were some mechanical difficulties on day 1 for Josh.  At mile 12 we went over a bump and his seat fell off.  Fell off!  He got picked up by a support vehicle and met us at the first rest stop (~35 miles). 

Sad face

Calling support

At mile 50 he got 3 (three!) flat tires while trying to leave a water stop.  Luckily there was a mechanic there and he was able to buy more tubes and a new tire.

flat tire 1

tube from flat tire



side of road waiting

Mile 90 is where the 9 mile climb started.  This was Chuckanut and took us into Bellingham and was the longest hill ever.  But had some great viewpoints.  We were staying at the dorms at WWU which worked out perfectly!  We took the bus into downtown, ate lots of food, drank a few beers and were in bed by 9pm.

view from Chuckanut

Day 2:
Bellingham to Vancouver
85 miles
Average Speed: 14.1 mph
Elevation Gain: 2500 ft

We woke up at 6am on Saturday and were ready to go by 6:30am.  Layers of sunscreen on again.

tired eyes

We grabbed some breakfast and food at Starbucks and prepared ourselves for the day.  We evaulated the course map, noticed that there was a hill called "The Wall" (see mile 30 below) and figured out where the 2 rest stops were so we could plan water accordingly.

Bellingham to Vancouver elevation profile

Majority of the roads we were on both days were long country farm roads.  Lots of flats, which was great, but also a lot and a lot of headwind (not so great).  It was really pretty and I only missed course turn-offs twice.

One of the higlights was passing through the Canadian border around mile 26.  They opened up a car lane for just bikes and barely glanced at our passports and race numbers, we didn't even have to take off our helmets or sunglasses.

border crossing

I also learned that British Columbia is "The Best Place on Earth" which I thought was a pretty bold statement.  Saturday was in the 80s which was much much cooler than the ride on Friday.

action shot

And lucky for Josh and us, Saturday there were no major mechanical problems.  The day went by pretty quickly and there was less climbing overall, but still had a couple intense climbs.

The finish was at the Coast Plaza Hotel in downtown Vancouver and it was a little anticlimatic.  I am used to the Seattle to Portland finish which ends in a large park where for the final mile, there are people lining the streets, giving high-fives, loud music and lots of finish line vendors.  Granted, there are also about 10,000 people that do the STP where for the RSVP, there were about 1500.  For the RSVP, we turned onto the street and were immediately directed to go down into the underground parking tunnel.  Dodging cars down there, we stored our bikes in the secured section and headed back up the ramp (didn't know where the elevator was) and wandered around to the front of the hotel.  We asked some people where we should go and they pointed inside where there was the finish line party.  We received a coupon for free food OR beer and had to buy tickets for anything else.  A burger cost $7.75 and beer $6.75.  We used the ticket for food and bought beer which was the Canadian equilavent of Bud Light (not tasty).  Plus, it was less than a pint so I wasn't too happy about paying nearly $7 for a tiny amount of cheap beer.  The outside seating was beyond packed so we found a table inside but the DJ had the music blasting way too loudly that we could barely hear each other while sitting beside each other.  Needless to say, we didn't stay for a second beer.

Our fantastic friend Danielle drove my car up from Seattle and picked us up from the hotel (which was booked) and drove us to the other hotel we stayed in.  We showered and went to a brewery in Gastown for second dinner.  Heather and Josh went to bed after dinner and Danielle, Ashley and I wandered around for another couple of drinks before walking back to the hotel.



Oddly enough, I am not sore from the ride.  The first day I had some achy joints and I was a little stiff after the car ride back but that has gone away already and I feel fine.  I loved being about to spend such great quality time with my friends!