The problem with yoga

I'm trying for the umpteenth time to incorporate yoga into my weekly routine. I find, however, that it is impossible for me to participate in an activity that I'm not supposed to inhale mass quantities of food beforehand. When I come home from a long day at work, what wins out? Not my yoga DVD, but a fabulous, well-earned dinner washed down with some decent French red wine. Now if I was supposed to get on my trainer or even go out for another ride - totally do-able given the contents of my fat belly. But to get on the floor and bend and twist and heave-ho is a recipe for something far messier than Momo's litterbox.

First thing in the morning? Doesn't work either. That is time preciously carved out for sleeping til the 8th hour, putting lunch together, checking that the bike will roll, and heading out the door.

I know it's good for me, but it's just not meant to be. Thxvmch.

Drilled with Love

The Birthday Fairy came into town this weekend and made me my first studded tire for going into battle the next time the city is encased in ice. 162 sheet metal screws of death! Some kids stay up at night praying for snow to go sledding, now I'm praying for ice to go ride my bike. Full report to follow, hopefully sometime before spring. If cherry blossoms begin to bloom before its maiden voyage I'll make a trek up to the Pass for a test run, but nothing could possibly beat trekking across an incapacitated city and feeling absolutely BADASS.

For Sale! Chamois Creme - NOT USED (much)

(Not to pick on one of my guy teammates, but this is too good to pass up)

"I bought some Assos chamois cream in an effort to try something other than the Butt’r I have been using for seven years. Well, it seems that this stuff has menthol in it which should only be used in Halls cough drops, IcyHot and cigarettes. Well after trying it once, I found it was NOT for me. 'Susy' tells me that the lady folk really like this stuff (???) Anyway, I’m looking to offload it as I wont be using it again. So here is the important info – only used once and more importantly, I didn’t double dip! I paid $18 for the 140 ml container and would be happy to let it go for $10. If you are interested, let me know."

I told him that I dunno what unsavory ladies he's been talking to, but anything with menthol has not been approved for use in HooHooville so he should stick with the yummy shea butter found in Greyhound Juice. Love your jewels and support the Locals!!

Well golly

I got this unexpected surprise at work today. I guess they were going to give me the actual letter at our staff meeting, but I skipped out in favor of going to the gym (even though I ended up yapping on the phone with Jane in the parking lot longer than actually being at the gym), so all I get right now is a fax transmittal.

It's a letter of commendation from our department head for my work on the oil spill the past 2 months, the spill that's pretty much taken over my life and put me under far too much stress and taken away far too much base mileage for the upcoming racing season (oh, but the herring!!! Who will save the herring!!). At first I figured it was just a form letter, but then people started coming in at the end of the day to congratulate me and explain that these don't come out very often and it dawned on me that this might actually be a true letter of acknowledgement and appreciation for all I did.

I guess all I can say is THANKS!, but how about a RAISE! This fax doesn't do much to help the water damage in my bathroom!!

Just kidding.

It's nice for people down in the trenches to be recognized. Salut!

The wonders of my knee

Saw my doc today as a follow up to the xray and MRI I had done on my knee the other week. That week of tele skiing in BC had done me in and it was time to see what was rumbling under the hood. Fifteen years has past since its last inspection and I sure got my copay's worth! You may recall that I optimistically thought it would just be a bunch of yummy scar tissue. Oh no.

1) Re-torn ACL - I AM STUNNED, yet remarkably flabbergasted at the awesomeness of my leg strength to adapt to this handicap. And in all my ignorance I cannot believe that I've been running around and trying to ski with NO ACL. Those of you who don't know this cute little ligament - it basically stabilizes your whole knee, connecting the tibia and femur, and w/o it your knee buckles and you fall and hurt more delicate features. Picture yourself with a rubber chicken as your right leg, now try to go play. I tore this ACL back in 1988 and it was very annoying to have it buckle intermittently until I finally had it repaired in 1993. She doesn't know how long it's been torn, but I have no idea when I could have done this over the last 15 years. I guess that woman rugby player who tried to pick me up at the gym years ago was right when I tried to insist that I couldn't play w/o an ACL: " I don't have an ACL," she said alluringly.

2) Torn lateral meniscus and medial meniscus - Oh boy torn cartilage!! I had one of these repaired in 1988, guess it's time again!

3) Chondromalacia - More damaged cartilage! This is more cartilage under the kneecap and on the femur. Pain increases with bending! This is why tele and walking downhill hurts like HELL. Joy!!

4) Osteoarthritic changes - Yay arthritis!! She said it's just starting and that it could be mitigated with glucosamine and chondroitin supplements and maybe surgery to clean it out.

She was expecting to put me in surgery soon, but I said NO THANKS, maybe next year. It doesn't interfere with my cycling, which is all that matters right now. So my backcountry skiing dreams are indefinitely postponed. I'll keep the fire going for y'all and drink all the Baileys myself!

Oh bother

I was just going to say that I've been in full Eeyore-mode the past few weeks as life pulls one rug after the other from under me. Then I noticed a remarkable resemblance between my new team photo and this picture of Eeyore, minus the pink bow in my pigtail. If you've seen my team photo you should be laughing by now, otherwise you'll have to wait for our new team site to go public, like any time this summer.

Someone said "Good morning, Jill" to me on the trail this morning and I was so blinded by the SUN of all things, that I could not make out who it was, only a friendly feminine voice. I thought it was Miss Jen, but that was eventually ruled out. I'll just think it was my fairy godmother out for a sunny morning ride.

Spent the long weekend up in Vancouver with newly visa-ed Zack and our bikes. Amazingly bike and ped-friendly. Well marked bike routes, bike blvds, well maintained roads, curb-side signals for bikes to change the stop light, and wallet-sized foldable bike maps. This city did a great job making Seattle look like a total hick town. It's depressing that our officials have let Seattle get this far behind in safe or bike-friendly infrastructure despite inflating sales and property taxes. Oh, and did I mention Canada's free health care? We watched Sicko, too. Depressing.

The nice surprise was the organic bakery around the corner from his new house that had a Pie and Chai special and even had a full list of gluten free pie and soy ice cream! YUM!! I may have visited more than once.

Only 8 days until LOST is back. I miss Hurley and Locke.

Stubborn with a side of stupid

Last night we had another massive winter storm. Lots of heavy rain that turned to sleet...then snow. Overnight the skies cleared and the temperature dropped, leaving the morning with mass amounts of ice covering the entire city.

Never one to listen to the word of reason, esp when it comes to bikes, I mounted my CX tires onto my singlespeed and stepped outside. When everything beneath your feet glistens from the ice, you know it's going to be a long ride to work. I slid on my cleats down my big hill, let out some tire pressure, gingerly got onto the main arterial and made my way down to the Ballard Locks rather than deal with dicey traffic and the Ballard Bridge. The sun was high and warm down in Ballard, but once I was on the Burke, I realized it would take many hours of warm sunshine to melt that coat of thick ice. I tried going on another main road, but I was not fond of dealing with big cars driving on black ice.

An HOUR later, I made it to Fremont. I decided to hole up at Peets and let the world warm up a little before proceeding. I hugged my Americano and watched other cyclists walk their bikes over the ice or mash through on mtbs. Thirty minutes went by and I gave it another go. There was still mass amounts of ice in the bike lanes and on the Burke, so I navigated to Northlake which was gloriously wet and clear of ice. Once at UW, I hopped back on the Burke and chopped through slowly melting ice. Up by TiCycles I could get onto the dirt trail, which my CX tires dug into with glee and even broke through the icy patches.

2 1/2 hours later, I got to work. The sun is still high so hopefully this shit will melt throughout the day. I'm going up to Vancouver this weekend to visit my handsome fellow and we're going to buy a few bottles of wine and build some studded tires. I have a deep need to be destructive so this will be a marvelous outlet.

Sunshine!

Happy! Sunshine! Bikes! Track! Pacelines! Go Fast! Friends! More!!

Bailey

And you think you love snow? No, you don't. Really.

For sweet Rose

Our teammate's partner, Rose, passed away this morning after many years of battling cancer throughout her young life. She was adamant that Lance Armstrong had it easy. What most people don't know is that his cancer is one of the most treatable out there, while his "miraculous" recovery made the rest of the world's cancer patients appear weaker or less of a super hero.

Rose was a super hero. She came to many of our races to cheer us on even if she just had chemo the day before. She would bundle herself up and be so tired that she could barely get up, but it gave her great joy to see her partner race and to be an honorary member of the team. One of the funniest times was when she and Heather rented one of those crazy fancy expandable RVs and drove it to the Walla Walla stage race so they'd have someplace cozy to spend 4 days. Turns out that Heather couldn't drive the rig so Rose channeled her inner truck driver and drove the whole way there and back. Ever try to k-turn an RV? Rose did. Ever get chased off the suburban streets of Walla Walla by the local cops and have to retreat to the Wal-Mart parking lot? Rose did.

As it so happens, in 2008 our team has a new partnership with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) where Rose received much support and treatment. Our team plans to do a lot of outreach with the SCCA because many of us feel that there is so much more to racing that just collecting points and striving to crush the competition. A kit is more than just flashy sponsorship. We want it to echo "I make a difference in a cancer patient's life," whether it's fundraising or taking them for a ride around Greenlake. Sometimes having the sun rise in the morning is more than another day to be stronger, sometimes it's a gift from heaven.

Much love to our teammate during this time and to sweet Rose for making us better people.

2008: Now with left tele turns!

Spent a week over New Year's with good friends and a cute boy up at Kicking Horse ski area in Golden, BC. Not nearly as much dumpage as the Cascades have been getting, but it was a fantastically huge mountain with lots of terrain (i.e. lots of green runs for gumbies like myself). Most of all it was a great chance to put in many hours on my tele skis to see if I could improve any.

Good news: I can now make a real left tele-turn! No more just turning to the right for me. There were a few marvelous epiphanies about weight distribution and positioning that made my turns actually work really well. Zack took some footage of me looking somewhat competent going down the slope, albeit in slo-freakin'-motion. Someone speed me up! One of these days I'll be able to stop worrying about going too fast and work with the skis and the terrain rather than have them work me.

Bad news: All this bending and turning and working against the skis so much has left my right knee most unpleased with this new activity and it swelled up after a few days, leaving me in too much pain for any more turns. Time to finally have someone check out what's been happening in there since my last reconstructive surgery 15 years ago. Hopefully just a mess of scar tissue that can be broken down in a few physical therapy appointments (right?). Nothing like another nagging injury to have lined up in the queue.

Otherwise it was a wonderful break from anything work related and I'm stoked to get back on the bike (something I can do well!!) and start training my ass off. It feels like I've been off the bike for years. Now if it would let up raining......