Adventures of the Northwest

Long time no post....life is crazy but looking good!

Life is flying past me….. but yet the time change is making me so slow. I’m so busy that I can’t even think about posting to my blog most of the time. Maybe this summer with the excitement of training, racing and my training efforts paying off will encourage me. Family, friends, the sun, the blooming of new life, adventures in the sun, biking, racing, hiking…. Maybe I won’t have time.

It’s been crazy around my part of the world. I’ve been training most days – 6 days of the week – for 1 hour or 2 or even 3 hours. It has been intense, fun while sometimes wanting to just go home and crash. Crash from being tired, crashed from being emotionally drained about personal things, work things or whatever else things. Sometimes mentally drained and just want to go have fun.

I helped with the Marymoor Velodrome Association’s auction. It took place on April 1st. All of the volunteers did a lot of hard work and made a lot of effort to pull it off quite successfully!!! Hyun was a tremendous pillar for the organization’s success at this auction. He was the man. There were others that volunteered to do the big back drop boards that were incredible! :) Others helped with data entry (YEAH JOHN!!!!), helped organize the bidding sheets, give us feedback as to what auctions (during the live auction) were sold at and who won them and so forth. Jane was one of the MCs for the auction and did a great job. She won one of the best items – Rat City roller racing ticket package!!! :) Go Jane! :) Hee hee I had a lot of fun and enjoyed it. I wish I would have had time to bid on things and I was really shocked and disappointed by how cheap some items were sold at. However, overall we did a spectacular job! It was good seeing so many old faces although I didn't get to socialize like I wanted. I hope to see them all on the track soon! :)

Recently I did a ride with my coach, Jane and another woman. It was a lot of fun even though it rained on us. L It was a 60 mile ride from Renton to Black Diamond and back. It was nice and it didn’t rain too bad but just enough. I helped teach the first track class of the year the day before that. It was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed it and the students were great. What a great group of people that really did not hold back, didn’t have a lot of fears and were ready to get right into track racing. It was a good workout, albeit a bit easy and not what I really needed, but the 60 mile ride the next day whooped my butt. Between the hard workouts that week, the Saturday class and the fast ride on Sunday – I was whooped. I am hoping that all this training will pay off and will help me to be in tip top shape for this season. I am getting really anxious. Happy but anxious to race. Excited but anxious to race. It should be interesting.

I just got my new training schedule. I get to do hill repeats all month. I found the perfect hill, thanks to Jane’s suggestion, outside of Bothell area. I did it last night but started at Marymoor Park. So it was like a 10 mile ride to get up there. I climbed the hill, came back down, climbed the hill and on the 2nd descent it started to rain HARD. I was not a happy camper. I turned back to go home…. It’s ok I thought. I got extra mileage and next time I’ll park closer to the hill and go from there. It will be good. I got back to the park right before dark which was a good thing. It will be great to do that each week – 3 times, 4 times and even 5 times… UP and DoWn…. UP and DoWn…. UP and DoWn…. It should be interesting. The last week of my month long training will include Thursday night’s track training. That means a workout 7x/week. YIKES! I am supposed to get to the track every Sunday for a 2 hour workout. That should be fun – if the weather holds off. If the weather doesn’t hold off (or my schedule doesn’t permit) then I need to do a 2 hour workout at home or on the road.

Tuesday night, I was supposed to do an hour workout of zone 2. Zone 2 ‘walking’?!?!?! I couldn’t maintain Zone 2 in ‘walking’ conditions. That meant I essentially had to run! RUN!?! I’m not a runner but it did feel real good. I was trying to keep up with a friend of mine. Running, walking real fast – oooops, heart rate’s dropping…. Back to running…. Running kicking up my heels, running exaggerating knee lifts…. Ok heart rate is good… walk real fast….. heart rate’s dropping…. Back to running. Then there was this one time where I moved my legs almost as if I was roller skating or roller blading… I can feel that was good for my glutes and quads. Good deal! I need to do that messing around type running again sometime. J I feel good having run and am more motivated to do that type of thing more often now. My abs feel a bit sore which is great, my glutes, quads, inner thighs…. YEAH! Heck yeah! It feels good. I also lost 1.5 lbs this last week which makes me feel good.

Also, along with Jane, Jill and another friend – I have become wheat free (gluten when possible) with my diet. Many people I know (my coach, a friend in TOPS, etc.) are wheat or gluten free with their diets. Some people have SEVERE allergy reactions to those products containing wheat or gluten. Some people have a milder reaction, such as myself, where we feel bloated all the time. Feel like sandpaper is in our stomachs and they hurt so much after eating something with wheat in it. It is a difficult task to be on such a strict diet as lots of things you wouldn’t even think of have ‘wheat’ or by-products of wheat such as soy sauce or vinegar and so forth. It makes it quite challenging; however, I feel SOOOO much better having changed my diet. I do think I need to get more protein though and get a more balanced diet with my new diet. Tomorrow I am going to make some homemade energy bars for a 60 mile “Tulip ride” on Saturday. I LOVE that ride. It is always so beautiful and a great workout! I can’t wait!!! :) It should be a lot of fun but I am nervous as we usually stop at a bakery but I won’t be able to eat anything. I’ll have to bring some rice crackers to eat, some energy bars (homemade and 1 or 2 non-homemade just in case), a banana and I don’t know what else. I’ll bring quite a bit though to keep me going and to last a ‘lunch’ worth. :) Other than that, just looking for new adventures, new opportunities and to see where my ship will continue to sail. It should be fun and exciting. We will see what happens. I am trying to take on new things, have fun, enjoy life and also get really into shape. :)

Off for new adventures….. hope to keep you more in-tuned on them – SOON!

posted by Seattlebiker @ 11:03 AM