wildcelticrose.net

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Although there were some “glitches” to the weekend, it was a pretty awesome time to live in Tacoma.

I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning ready to go to the farmer’s market with Francine.

As I walked into the living room, still slightly blind and not yet caffeinated, I heard an odd noise in the living room. I wandered in, dazed and squinting thinking that I was going to have to deal with a mouse or something.

The sound was too distinct, too rhythmic, as I got closer, it sounded like “drip… drip… drip…”

It was barely drizzling outside, nothing should be dripping.

That’s when I found the leak just inside my front door (the only flat part of my roof)

a few buckets and an emergency call to Guardian Roofing and my house is now graced with a lovely white tarp (hey, it’s only ghetto if you use a blue tarp right?)

At least it didn’t happen during the actual rainy season. It will all work out.

I still managed to have a lovely girls afternoon with my long time friend Betsy having her birthday pedicure at Club Biella and a nice lunch at Dukes on the waterfront.

I came home to catch up on writing and to clean my office (my desk now resembles and archaeological dig: I think my PSE bill is in the Precambrian layer)

Ah, but that was not to be. My phone rang and it was my manager. She has only called me at home twice in the last five years. The last time was an emergency with a suspect in the act of committing fraud. This time was no different and after three hours, I had the satisfaction of seeing someone who has been the bane of my existence for the last three years lead away in handcuffs.

After that, I headed North to meet up with some friends from high school for a mini reunion. We graduated [cough] 30 years ago in Ventura California, but two of us live up here in the PNW and another friend who now lives in San Francisco was up visiting family

Sunday morning was another (unfortunately) early wake up call because the guy that was going to stain my fence and pergola couldn’t do it on Saturday as planned and came early Sunday.

I was ready for a slug day, when my friend Janet showed up on her bike wanting to go for a ride. It was just what I needed (to get off my ass) after 3 months of escrow, moving and rehabbing a fractured foot/big toe.

We wandered around the garden grazing on blueberries and peas and marveling at how Tagro creates mutant like vegetable growth.

We rode out to Proctor to check out Jubilee Cupcakes. I had tried the place once under the old name/recipe and was disappointed by the dry (almost stale tasting) cupcake. I had heard that they reworked their recipe to make it more moist, so I was anxious to try it.

We arrived at 11:45 to find a huge sign on the door saying that they wouldn’t be open until 11:00. The door was unlocked so we went in.

We were excited to try the cupcakes and sip some coffee on the porch.

We chose our cupcakes and asked for cups of drip coffee.

They couldn’t do it because their espresso machine was “being serviced”.

They had “french press” coffee on the menu so we said that we’d like that.

They couldn’t do that.

So is it that they can’t boil water without the espresso machine (no stove, no microwave?) or that you can’t grind coffee without the machine.

I can tell you that if it was my business, I’d have walked the one block over to Metro Market or Safeway and purchased ground coffee. If it was a water issue, I’d have grabbed a microwave or teapot form home.

Sorry Jubilee, but this may have been your last chance.

It’s too hard to try and love you.

We rode out to the Antique Sandwich (where we have NEVER been disappointed), and had pie and coffee out in the garden.

After that, we had a lovely ride around Five Mile Drive amongst the old growth trees and Puget Sound and then headed over to the HUB to enjoy a happy hour Buffalo Chicken Pizza and a Harmon beer.

We meandered back towards my hood (Hilltop) and stopped off at my friend Francine’s house. I could smell the unmistakable scent of roasting coffee beans.

We wandered her garden for a while and then headed back home.

Francine and I then went foraging.

The alleys of Hilltop are ripe with opportunity and culinary delights. We picked (and ate) our fill of blackberries, checked on the overgrown grape vines that will provide us tasty treats in a few weeks and also visited some apple trees.

When I got home (with the few berries I didn’t eat) I engaged in an experiement.

I didn’t have any small tart pans, but I did find a funky little pan that bakes little bundt cake shaped brownies.

I rolled out some pie crust with a bit of extra butter and moisture, cut it into little circles with my water glasses and lined the mini bundt forms with the crust.

Then I made a tart filling out of sour cream, fresh eggs (from the back yard, it doesn’t get any more fresh that pulling it out from under a chicken) flour, sugar and vanilla. I topped the tarts with blackberries so fresh and sweet that they didn’t need any sugar.

They turned out awesome (now I just need to figure out how to replicate the recipe).

I’m tellin’ ya…

Heaven is a little slice of Hilltop.

~L

Mood: exhausted

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I didn’t have the time, energy or inclination to rant yesterday or squee today.

In addition to being super busy at work, and my usual frenzy in the yard/garden, I’m finally getting off my butt, now that the foot/big toe is finally healed and working out again.

I’m volunteering as a Swim Angel for the Danskin Women’s Triathlon again on the 15th, and have signed up for two sprint triathlons in September (when I will also be volunteering as a Swim Sister for the Trek Triathlon).

I need to get off my butt.

Three months off of training has completely kicked my butt, I’m out of shape and weak (and none to happy with myself about it)

I already blogged about my not so smart five mile “run” on the steep evil trails of Chambers creek which left me limping for a few days.

I did take a rest day on Monday. (yard work counts as rest right?)

Tuesday, I joined the Harmon Bike Club for a ride, which was not the smartest thing I could have done since they were trained up for the Courage Classic and I’m in worse shape than I was in February (actually, in February I was kicking ass and taking names)

It was hilly (over 1,000 feet elevation gain) because ALL of Tacoma is hilly. (oh, since I live on the HILLtop, it’s a long uphill slog to get back home)

I was feeling pretty demoralized after I was done (the last person in) but at least I did it.

Yesterday, Gene and I went out the Steel Lake for an open water swim. If I’m going to be a “calming” and “motivating” influence on women (most of them doing their first triathlon ever, many of them cancer survivors, some in active treatment) I’m helping through the swim course at Danskin, I’d better be competent and confident, so I needed to get back out there.

I managed to get through a mile swim. I did have to stop and rest a few times, but that’s no biggie. It’s probably the least demoralizing thing I’ve done since I started working out again.

Today was the Tacoma (Beer) Runners run.

We started out at Woody’s on the Waterfront, ran up and over the 11th St Bridge, around the tideflats and Foss Waterway, back up Pacific Ave and across the bridge of glass.

I was not fast and I was not last (but close)

I did not even stay for the beer (wait? Wasn’t that the point?). It was too crowded and too hot to wait inside in line for one, so I socialized a bit, drank some water and headed home and enjoyed a margarita on my newly screened back porch.

Now, I’m exhausted and need to go to bed.

I have another long work day tomorrow, and then I’m taking Alisa, Robin and Karen (all will do their first triathlon at Danskin) out for an open water swim clinic. I may swim a bit after they’re done to get a workout in. But tomorrow is about them and paying forward all the help Gene and Steve gave me when I was first starting out.

~L

Mood: exhausted

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What a day! Numerous things that could go wrong, did go wrong.

I had a pretty stressful week last week. Between the weather rapidly changing, extremely high pollen counts and my girly hormones I had a sinus/migrainey headache for nearly three days. The time change kicked my butt in a big way, so I was sleep deprived and I wasn’t eating as well as I should have.

Add to this the fact that I’ve been trying to get a hold of the public administrator that’s dealing with my Mom’s stuff only to discover that she doesn’t work there anymore and you get one very stressed out tired Lisa who doesn’t feel well.

I was looking forward to the Tacoma Wheelmen Training ride this morning (I didn’t have to lead this one) and set my alarm nice and early (but still went to bed early enough to get a full 8 hours sleep for a change).

Of course, the alarm went off and I fell back to sleep.

I ate a quick breakfast, slammed down my latte and ran out the door with my bike gear.

That’s when I remembered that I needed to get gas. No way was I going to make it in time.

I called Carla’s cell to let her know I was running late (even though I was not leading today, I was supposed to give the safety talk) and did my best to get there quickly but safely.

As I arrived at the Sumner Library, I saw the group I was going to ride with (the 15-17 mph group) leaving, and the slower group in the parking lot. I had my race bike and I wanted to ride faster than they would go, so I grabbed a queue sheet from Cynthia, hopped on the bike and hauled butt down the road.

I was cruising at about 22 miles per hour when I passed my turn off (I was riding the route I knew, not the route that was on the sheet). It was then that I realized I felt funny.

I looked at my Garmin and discovered that my heart rate was 190 and rising.

Not good.

I turned around, got off the bike sat on a grassy area near a gas station and did the Valslava Maneuver to get my heart rate back down. info for those interested in PSVT and the above mentioned maneuver here

Uh yeah… can you say stress, lack of sleep, too much caffeine too quickly and hauling ass when not warmed up?

Dork!

After few seconds, I got my heart rate back down to 145 (reasonable for someone riding 22 mph) I got back on my bike and continued hauling butt to try to catch up. At this time, I was certain that I was probably now behind the slow group.

I followed the queue sheets and did fine until I got on 15 NW in Auburn. The queue sheet said right on that street and then left on another. Well, in order to get on that other street you need to take a right and loop around under the bridge. I didn’t know that, so I crossed the bridge and kept on going.

Off into the busy busy heart of Auburn I went thinking to myself, “I wouldn’t have planned a route through all of this traffic.” (well duh! That wasn’t the route)

I finally figured out that I was way WAY off track and looped around back to where I thought I could pick up the road I missed. I never found it, but did find a parallel road. I turned to get to West Valley Highway about where I figured I should be turning if I were on track.

As I turned onto the highway, I found the group, MY group, the one I was trying to catch stopped at a gas station (thank goodness for one rider’s self proclaimed weak bladder).

I had ridden one mile more than they had and had stooped to deal with the heart rate issues and still caught them. I was feeling pretty happy about that.

It was a fun ride.

Near the end, when I was taking these pictures, I turned to tell one of the guys (amazed that I could take picture and ride) “My first horrible crash will most likely involve a camera.”

He said, “I don’t want to be involved in that” and gave me a bit of (good natured) crap about it.

About ¼ mile later, I heard a crash and the sound of a head (in a helmet thankfully) smacking the pavement. He had turned to look for some folks that couldn’t keep up, lost his balance and went down, HARD.

We got him and his bike checked out and they were fine. He’ll need a new helmet though.

Give me crap will you?

Not proofreading this, just getting my butt to bed. Today was insanely busy and I have to be up early tomorrow for the Wallace Falls Hike.

Moondance party photos (just a few) are uploading to my Flickr’ page

~L

Mood: Tired

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Sheesh, what a week (or so)

I’ve been working on this update for several days, running out of time at each attempt, and decided to use this morning’s break time to get it posted.

Oh, and if I owe you email or a phone call, sorry. I’m really behind on all correspondence.

Saturday was a fun ride with the Cascade Bicycle Club-We started out at the Red Hook Brewery in Woodinville, rode down the Sammamish River trail, around the lake and back to the brewery for lunch (and a beer or two) at Forecaster’s Pub

The ride was 35 miles and the group I was with averages about 15 mph.

After that, I headed over to the Y for a swim workout. I could barely feel my legs after a few rounds of dolphin kicking.

I killed my bike computer some time ago, and have been relying on my Garmin for bike data. Since I use it for multi-sport/triathlon, it’s a wrist model and it’s difficult to view my current speed. It also doesn’t stop the clock when I stop so my average speed doesn’t calculate correctly.

I sucked it up and bought a Sigma wireless bike computer. Since I’m going to be leading rides for Both Cascade and the Tacoma Wheelmen, I need to make sure that I’m riding the advertised pace of the ride and I need to be able to see that quickly. It will also be nice to know what my actual average is. This model is waterproof, so hopefully I won’t kill it as quickly as my previous one.

AND, it’s wireless… which made it much easier to install

On Sunday, I took a group out for the Tacoma Wheelmen. We started at the HUB which is only four blocks from my place and it’s happy hour all day on Sunday ($5 buffalo chicken pizza… YUM!)

In honor of my favorite ride start location, I work my favorite Cycles Gladiator Jersey. (I have a long sleeve one for winter and a sleeveless one for summer)

This ride was 38 miles with about 1,900 feet of climbing. We made a loop around Pt Defiance, crossed the narrows bridge, rode the Cushman Powerline Trail all the way to the hilly end (several 8-10 percent grades) down to the Gig Harbor waterfront and up Soundview.

Speaking of Soundview. I am a DORK. The reason I had such trouble on the early season ride to Gig Harbor is that I’ve been using the wrong (very steep, it’s like climbing a wall) road to get out of town. I’ve been climbing up Pioneer instead of Soundview [slaps self on forehead]

This was a fun route and a good workout; I’ll definitely lead that trip again.

Monday was work, recovery and trying to shovel through the mess all over my apartment; it seems I’m only home long enough to dirty dishes, drop outdoor/bike gear all over the place and sleep. It’s not clean, but it’s not a health hazard any more. I’ll work on it a bit more tonight after spin class.

I did get some rest Sunday evening.

I was sitting on the couch, admiring my pedicure (Angie took a few of us out for a pedi party last week).

Then I noticed the shiny gold duck that Kelly sent me.

And since I’m never out of reach of a camera…

Speaking of poultry…

My friend Sonia has been recovering from a procedure and is bored out of her skull.

She is amused by peeps, so I threw together a little YouTube video for her.

It took WAY longer than it should have because WINDOWS LIVE MOVIE MAKER SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS!!! I had to go to Windows Live because my new camera shoots .mov format (QuickTime, I HATE HATE HATE you too!) and the old, serviceable version of Windows Movie Maker doesn’t support that (or many other formats) So instead of just fixing a program that worked decently, they created a newer, crappier version.

Based on reviews and results from my friend Mark (waves to Tokyo where he’s visiting and it’s snowing) I uploaded Pinnacle Studio.

I think I’ll make a St Patty’s Day Dash video and use that for editing.

And with that, my break is over and I need to get back to work.

~L

Mood: Tired

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Chilly Hilly was a BLAST this year.

Michale F and I arrived early because he needed to register; because of this, we got “Doris Day” parking on the Waterfront a bit South of the ferry dock.

There were a lot of people registered already and since the weather was sunny and spectacular (very unFebruary like) we knew that thousands of people who were waiting to see what the weather was going to do would be registering at the last minute. The final rider count was 6,028. Yikes!

The person on the loudspeaker kept saying, “plenty of time to catch the ferry”. I looked across the street and saw the loading area nearly full and barely got in the queue. This was when I realized that no matter how much I fantasize about a lovely island home on Vashon or another one of our beautiful islands, I’d want to shoot myself if I had to use a ferry to commute every day (maybe after I retire and just want to write and do photography)

I had a brief visit with fellow ride ref Michael Snyder at the registration area before I headed over.

I discovered that I was only one row over from Allyson and Marizel, so I managed to squeeze over their direction and hang out with them while waiting to load.

I was one of the last people to make it in the queue and as the boat pulled away from the dock, we saw that the queue was full again. A quick phone check of my facebook status replies showed that Michael didn’t quite make it and there is a cutoff on the number of cyclists, not due to space limitations (it was weird not to see the deck covered in bikes) but to the number of life jackets available on the ship (that’s the law)

I ran into lots of friends on the boat (hey, with well over 6,000 people on the ride, it’s impossible not to find people you know) and spent a lot of time answering text and voice mail messages of friends I was trying to connect up with.

There were more than a few jokes about being glad that our tsunami was the day before (our tsunami was inches rather than feet)

I met Leo and my friend Bill on the Island side and waited until after the screaming hordes attacked the first hill to start our ride and ride ref duties. We figured that it would be helpful to sweep for those having mechanical problems or other issues (it was mentioned to me by a club member that they never see ride refs in the back of the pack) and that the slower riders might be more in need of support and learning about safe and courteous riding. The added bonus was that it was much less stressful than riding up the first hill in the middle of all the wobbles, stops and crashes (which there were plenty of refs already doing).

We honked our ride ref horns a LOT, made lots of bad jokes, sang silly songs, and made a huge deal out of thanking people engaging in safe and courteous riding behavior.

We got a lot of thank yous for being out there and only a few dirty looks from people we asked nicely to “please remember to call “on your left” when passing”. (thinking to myself here… Uh, excuse me? You are the one breaking the rules of the ride you signed up for and agreed to abide by are breaking laws, endangering others and when I ask you nicely to remember to follow the rules/laws I’m the jerk? Whatever…)

I’d say my biggest frustration was riders for whom “CAR BACK” seemed to mean “ride three abreast, pass people and take up the entire lane so that cars need to cross the double yellow line (bonus for doing so on blind corners) to get around slower riders.” (there are always a few buttheads in every crowd)

I was riding up one of the big steep hills at the end (the first of the series just before the church with the water stop and blessings) and thanked a gentleman for saying “on your left” as he passed me (we believe in loudly thanking people for doing the right thing in order to encourage such behavior from all parties in the future). The woman I had passed a hundred yards or so back who was walking her bike up the hill (and yes, I said on your left when I passed her) starting yelling at me… “WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY THAT?” I don’t know how she could have thought I was talking to her, I was nowhere near her. (and how is “thank you” offensive?) At this point I was sucking wind and couldn’t have yelled back if I wanted to. Luckily, Leo was behind me and explained to her that I was thanking the gentleman who had just passed me courteously.

The positive interactions far outweighed the negative. Overall, I’d say that the riders this year were more courteous than last year which is surprising given the huge volume of riders.

Leo and I pulled into the finish line, chatted with friends, turned in our ride ref bibs and met Bill in the beer garden.

I ran into Crystal, Michael F joined us and then we headed over to Docs Marina Grill (with a few detours around the ferry dock and other areas looking for the place because we just hadn’t ridden enough hills already) to meet Marizel, Allyson and others for beer, chowder and a bit of the USA/Canada hockey game. We were in there when team USA tied up the game in overtime. The place went NUTS!

Michael and I headed out to catch the 2:55 ferry. OMG, the lines (of cars and bikes) were the longest I’ve ever seen them. We weren’t convinced that we were going to make it on that boat, but we managed to get on just before the cutoff. It wouldn’t have been a crisis as the weather was lovely, but we were tired and didn’t feel like hanging out on line to wait for the next boat.

It was a lovely ride back.

I ran into my friend Lynne in line so we got to hang out a bit.

of course, we had to do the obligatory “Look at us on the boat with Seattle in the background picture”

On a physical note, I felt MUCH better than last year (pretty easy to do)

I was in better shape, as I’ve been exercising more consistently. Last year I hadn’t eaten or slept for 3-days and had been very sick from the stress of my mother’s impending death, layoffs at work and some other things (not the least of which was the selfish jerk I was dating at the time who made everything more stressful).

I ended being SAGed off the course just after the rest stop because I was bonking (as it turned out, after I uploaded my Garmin data, I discovered that my heart rate had peaked at 215 and stayed there for over an hour)

That nasty hill just before the rest stop got me again this year; which was mostly due to lack of legs, my cardio-vascular system is in great shape. Perhaps I just psyched myself out.

When I saw Baker Hill, I almost died (I had been SAGed off the course before this point last year so it was the first time I’d seen it) and said to the guy next to me, “I see a walk in my immediate future” but I cruised up that sucker as well as those bad nasties at the end with no problem at all. (not saying I was fast, just saying I made it without stopping or walking)

The weather was great, seeing so many friends was great; and the fact that we got beer at the beer garden before they ran out was great.

The rest of the pictures are available here:

Today, I’m resting in the morning, cleaning my filthy apartment, going grocery shopping, and running errands. Tonight, I’m doing masters swim and TWBC ride leader training.

Tomorrow I go back to work to rest.

~L

Mood: Tired

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This is going to be an interesting weekend recap, as I’m not certain I can remember it all.

I’ve been continuing to work out as hard as I can (which is not up to snuff for summer, but has been pretty good for late January/early February) not only to get back into shape for triathlon/backpacking season, and to lose the winter/death of family & friends/stress weight I put on, but to get ready to tackle Chilly Hilly next weekend.

My totals so far for the month of February are 176.6 miles on the bike; I’ll end up with over 200 miles this month which is double what I got last month, 66 miles on the spin bike, a measly two miles on snowshoes (mother nature is not cooperating in the snow department) and 6.5 miles of swimming. I need to crank up my running before the St Patty’s Day Dash(s) (I’ll be doing on in Tacoma on that Saturday and then the Seattle dash the following day) I’m also set up to run the Tacoma City Half Marathon again.

So the “weekend” (behavior) started out with the 100th Monkey event on Wednesday night (after masters swim). It continued with Speakeasy’s Grand Opening event on Thursday night (after spin class).

On Friday, I took off work early (lest I go over 40 hours for the week) to head down to Tacoma Bike to get fitted for the new bike.

After that, Bill was going crazy wanting to go for a ride (we had SUN) so he came and got me, and we headed over to the Foothills Trail to crank out a quick 16 miles (counting the 2 ½ I rode down to the shop, I got 18.5 in.

[slideshow below]

Diva (The new bike) and I were LOVING the SUN! (and the fact that you can actually see the mountain on my jersey in the background)

After that, we headed to the HUB for Happy Hour. After that, I headed over to Molly’s for some BFF time.

Saturday morning, I drug my tired carcass out of bed and headed up to Seattle for a wonderful bike ride with the Cascade Bicycle Club. We started out on Lake Washington, headed up towards I-90, rode through the bike tunnel into the city (all except Bruce, who ended up on Mercer Island by mistake; he came back across the bridge, backtracked on the Lake Washington Loop and found us on the Burke-Gilman Trail in Ballard), cruised through China Town, out along the waterfront, up past Myrtle Edwards Park, over the Ballard Locks, stopped for snacks at the Essential Baking Company in Wallingford, cruised down the Burke-Gliman Trail to the UW where we cut over onto the Lake Washington Loop, across the top of the Arboretum and back down to the Lake. I discovered that I need to do some adjustment on my front derailleur on the new bike; it doesn’t like to shift down onto the small ring (for those who don’t ride, that’s where the small/hilling climbing gears live), which isn’t so much fun in a place like Seattle.

Diva (the new bike) LOVES Seattle too! (the bridge behind me is the “wrong turn” that Bruce made. That bridge goes away from Seattle to Mercer Island, not towards Seattle where we were going-He says we can put a leash on him next time

[slideshow below]

After that, we headed over to the Columbia City Ale House to unwind.

Because I hadn’t kicked my own butt quite enough and I had some time before Dez’s party, I made a quick trip to the Y to get in a short (only half an hour) swim workout in. I tried to do mostly upper body & core in order to give my legs a break.

I ran home, got cleaned up, tossed some hot rollers in my hair, put on a bit of lipstick and mascara and headed over to Dez’s party, where we were treated to a private Kim Archer concert before she headed over to her gig at the HUB. It was great to hear her amazing voice and to hang out with her a bit.

(I look like I’m up to no good in this picture

Sunday morning, I woke up with sore tired legs, but I sucked it up and headed out to meet the Tacoma Wheelmen for a lovely ride in the rural countryside from Spanaway down to McKenna where we were treated to spectacular views of the mountain. We had lunch at the McKenna Y Restaurant and then headed out to Roy and did the route that cuts through the base formerly known as Ft Lewis (now Joint Base Lewis McChord).

(we had just exited the base when this picture was taken; we were buzzing along about 16 mph (which doesn’t sound fast until you think about hitting the pavement at that speed) with Bill behind me “pulling a Leo” nagging me about my bad habit of taking pictures while riding. Yes, my first terrible bike crash will most likely involve a camera

The road coming into Roy has a gate across it to prevent vehicle access, but there is room for bicycles and pedestrians to walk in between the gate and the fence. It’s a great place to get off the busy highway for a while.

I have a policy of never misbehaving in another country or on a military base, because that’s just stupid. Louie assured us that we were OK. I checked and there were no signs that said “no trespassing” or otherwise denying access (and those places are clearly marked). The only sign we did see said, “You are Voluntarily entering a military installation at your own risk” (ie; don’t whine and sue us if you get hit with a mortar or run over by a Stryker vehicle)

When we connected with the East Gate road, we ran into an MP and commented on his new JBFLMC stickers for his car. We chatted a bit while waiting for the rest of the group to catch up.

Louie asked if he said anything to us about where we came from and we said no. He joked that he was probably afraid to, thinking that I might be a Colonel’s wife. I puffed up and said, “Or maybe a Colonel”. Louie laughed and said, “yeah, but they’re more afraid of Colonel’s wives than Colonels.” True… We all got a good laugh out of that one.

The hills on this ride were nice rollers and I have got some sprints in. I was going to take it easy, but it was too nice a day and the sun energized me.

[slideshow below]

After the ride, I went over to Molly & Charlie’s for dinner. They wanted to make sure that I got a good high protein meal after my weekend of beating the crap out of myself working out; so we had salmon, tenderloin, baked potatoes and a lovely fresh salad.

I stopped at Freddie’s on the way home for gas and milk and discovered that the 70% off the lowest marked down price sale was on, so I picked up a few shirts (around $5 each) that aren’t outdoor gear.

I ran into my friend Linda, who I haven’t seen in a long time and we chatted a bit. I got home a bit later than planned, but still managed to get almost 8 hours sleep last night.

And now, my lunch break is over, and I’m getting back to work…

~L

Mood: Tired

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I started out the weekend with a very busy Friday night which I already posted about.

I had grand plans for Saturday morning, but my body was very sore and tired so I took a clue and rested. Although I’m nowhere near where I need to be, I’ve been hitting the workouts pretty hard (well, hard for someone that up until about six weeks ago hadn’t really been doing squat) and I know that I’m not going to build strength and endurance if I don’t rest and rebuild when I’m that tired.

I’ve been dropping a pound a week which is good considering I’m also building muscle which weighs more than fat (and I have a LOT to go) and am starting to see muscle definition returning to my legs. I’m making progress.

I did spend most of the day getting ready for WineHog, which I decided to have at Speakeasy this year where there was lots of room to mingle and enjoy the art

It was fun to pull out the table cloth and see all the names, dates, drawings and spills dating back to 2005. And of course to have people sign the cloth for this year.

Don decided to come by and provide some live music.

Jim enjoyed the comfy couches

It was great to see Shon and Annie

Eric and Kathryn swept the awards winning for both best wine and best cheese.

The winning wine was Le Grand Pinot Noir

The winning cheese was Remberant Gouda

The best name was Bill’s Big Ass Zin

The prettiest bottle was Annie & Shon’s Moselland Lighthouse series Reisling. It’s difficult to tell from this stock image, but the lighthouse is on the back of the bottle and viewed through the bottle via a window in the front (I have a similar one with a castle that Betsy brought over several years ago)

This morning I got up bright and early and Bill and I headed up to Tukwila to meet the Cascade Bicycle Club for the coffee ride to Alki Beach.

We headed out with the “steady” group, but decided to come back with the faster “moderate” group. We got back just in time to get the bikes loaded before the skies opened up and it poured rain.

Had he not needed to get back home for the SuperBowl, we’d have been in Orthing on the Tacoma Wheelemen ride during the downpour (I haven’t heard if they were able to stay dry or not)

Between being with the slow group on the way out (had to hit my brakes a lot and it was a big group so I had to pay attention and ride defensively) and the faster group on the way back, I didn’t get a chance to take pictures, but did upload my Garmin data.

We rode 32.5 miles in just under 2 ½ hours.

Now I’ve got to get ready for bed and my work week

~L

Mood: Tired

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It was my Monday off and it wasn’t really raining, so I was able to join the Tacoma Wheelmen for Joyce’s Hale Hearty and Ready for Coffee ride.

I lost count of the ride participants at 30-something.

Welcome to the dark side, we have COOKIES!

Tacoma Wheelmen go crazy (in a good way) when it’s good not completely craptastic cycling weather. (which basically means, no ice, snow or relentless torrential downpours) I remember rides last year where we literally followed the de icing truck down the road in the North End and one when we all had snotcicles and our eyelashes froze on the way to Spanaway.

Here’s a photo of Steve taking a photo of the huge group at the Proctor Starbucks.

We invaded the streets of North Tacoma and wound our way to Pt Defiance…

Matt from the Harmon Bike Club was out for a solo ride and said that he saw a few bikers zip by and thought to himself “cool”, then more zipped by, and more… and more… and more…

He caught up with us in Pt Defiance. (where there were more COOKIES!)

We cruised through the west end… (obligatory photo of Bill’s butt)

and invaded our favorite espresso shop in University Place (inside and out)

It was 26 glorious (almost dry, not quite warm) hilly miles. (well, 4.16 extra for me since I rode to the ride start from home)

Of course, on every hill I kept saying, “I am so NOT ready for Chilly Hilly”

More photos here…

I hope we have decent riding weather on Saturday!

~L

Mood: Happy

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