« May 2006 | Main | July 2006 »
June 30, 2006
$8.25 beer + free sunshine
My week has been surreal, to say the least. And very stressful. For many reasons. But yesterday I got to spend a beautiful afternoon outside enjoying a Giants game. This is pretty unusual. It's usually overcast and bleak here this time of year. Our Fourth of July fireworks shows are typically cut off halfway -- meaning we only see the bottom half of the pyrotechnics -- if not obscured completely by a blanket of fog.
To top off my weird week, Dave woke me up this morning to tell me the news about the Tour. I just can't believe that Basso and Ullrich are out. Please, Ivan, say it's not true. (Things aren't looking good for either of them.)
I hope this sorta-extended weekend will bring happy rides and (crossing my fingers, but not holding my breath) more sunshine so I'm inspired to post more and bump this cruddy camera-phone photo off the top of the page.
June 26, 2006
Ride the Rockies
I'll let the photos do the talking.
I wish I were back in Colorado right now, climbing a 10,000-foot pass in the morning sunshine.
 |  |
 |  |
 |  |
June 16, 2006
The Pelican Inn
For my birthday Dave treated me to a night at the Pelican Inn. The Pelican is a wonderful old Tudor B&B north of San Francisco in Muir Beach. In my opinion, it's one of the most magical spots in California, where the golden-green slopes of Mt. Tam meet the crashing waves of the Pacific. Legend has it that Sir Francis Drake's ship the Pelican once landed on the beach here.
We've enjoyed brunch, dinner, and post-hike pints at the Pelican's candlelit restaurant and cozy pub many times. But we had never stayed the night. We slept in a canopy bed under a portrait of Elizabeth I (another awesome redhead). Waking up to the sounds of waves crashing on the distant beach, horses cavorting and birds singing was a most pleasant way to start the week. We were treated to traditional English breakfast in the heated conservatory before we had to head back to the city to go to work. My only complaint was that I couldn't taste anything thanks to the cold that has taken over my respiratory system. I guess you can't have everything.
Ride the Rockies starts on Sunday and I'm really reallllly hoping that I am back to 100% cardio capacity by then. Especially since the first day of riding starts above 6,000 feet, where there is considerably less oxygen than we have here at sea level. This cold is waning, and I can taste and smell and breathe through my nose again, but I am coughing up some nasty stuff. I haven't worked out since my race on Sunday. I'll be, uh, very well rested for the 6-day ride.
June 14, 2006
Dancing down the middle at the CaliMan triathlon
Every time I do a race that takes longer than three hours, I find myself thinking, man, this is painful. It always hurts. Really, really hurts. Short races are genuinely fun. But in marathons, half-ironmans, ironmans, whatever, the last few miles of running are always P-A-I-N.
That's true even on my best days. The CaliMan half-iron-distance race was not one of my best days, nor was it one of my worst. In fact, it was right in the middle in every way. At least it was a great training day for Ironman Wisconsin, which is in exactly three months. THREE MONTHS.
But how do I make a training day sound interesting? If you want to read about dead fish, my reason for wearing black socks, or the moment I bathed in fruity extra-virgin olive oil, then read on.
Maybe I can come up with interesting ways to describe the pre-race sore throat that has now become a full-blown cold. On Saturday I felt like someone had lightly scuffed my throat with a Brillo pad. I'd swallow and think, hm, allergies?, rationalizing that the rural area that hosted the race might be home to new and interesting pollens that had set off my histamine firehose. That would not be the first time this has happened. I spent the entire week before Ironman New Zealand thinking I had a horrible cold before I realized that hey, I felt totally fine aside from the snot storm brewing in my nose, and that my immune system simply didn't agree with the sudden change in seasons brought on by 14 hours of air travel. Nothing a little Claritin couldn't clear up.
So. On Sunday morning I was harboring a cold but felt pretty OK. We got to the race start and I squeezed into my wetsuit, which I bought 20 pounds ago and which is officially at least one size too small. Kudos to Ironman Wetsuits for the flexibility of their neoprene -- it worked great.
The swim was a breeze. The reservoir was probably 70 degrees and didn't taste too bad. (Dave did point out a dead fish draped over the "NO SWIMMING" sign near the start, and I wish he hadn't.) Since there were fewer than 250 competitors, they threw us all into a mass start, which was totally fine. Near the end of the swim, my cap crept up to the top of my giant head and threatened to pop off, and with every other stroke I tried to yank it down over my forehead, to no effect. Dave made fun of me as I ran up the ramp: "Ariel! Nice job keeping the swim cap on!!!" For the sake of the race photographers, I refrained from greeting him with my middle finger. I exited the swim in just over 40 minutes, which is exactly what I expected.
Onto the bike. The first few miles of the bike were lovely rolling hills. Then around mile 10 we got to the boring residential neighborhoods and the wind. The course was mostly flat, with one extended climb and several short, steep climbs, and a good dose of headwind. But I spent a good amount of the ride flying in my aerobars. I remember at one point, around mile 30, looking down at my bike computer and thinking: HR 150, cadence 95, speed 20.0mph: perfect. And given how much time I felt like I was going 18-20mph, I expected a faster bike split than I got. But those few hills and the windy stretches really slowed me down. My bike split was 3:22, or 16.6mph.
By the way, there were no porta-potties on the bike course. They made this clear in the pre-race announcements. It's impossible (for me) to ride 56 miles without peeing. This leaves a person with few options. Use your imagination. (Or don't.)
My socks were wet going into the second transition (see previous paragraph) so once I racked my bike, I took time to change into dry socks, which are crucial to my happiness on a 13.1-mile run. Something that is crucial to my happiness the day after a 13.1-mile run is applying sunblock, which I should have done at this point, but didn't do. The stuff I applied at 4:30am had pretty much rubbed or sweated off. Big mistake.
I headed out onto the run feeling just OK. I started clicking off 10-minute miles, not pushing it too hard, and thinking nice and easy. The effort wasn't too hard, and I felt like I could keep it up for over two hours for sure. The course was completely exposed, though, and it was getting hot. The clouds that had blanketed the sky during the bike had disappeared completely, and there was very little shade. I got to mile 8 still feeling fine, but mile 9 was a gradual uphill that completely blew my pace. From there on it was a sufferfest.
I went through every trick in my book. The most effective was to keep telling myself, don't walk, just slow down. And it worked: I didn't walk (except briefly through the aid stations), but I sure did slow down. I lost eight minutes somewhere in the last five miles. Still not sure how that happened. I mean, I was passing people! In the last mile alone, I passed three people. One of them was a woman whom I'd been chasing for the last six miles. I made a firm decision that I had to crush her spirit (sorry lady!) or risk having her pass me back, which she totally could. So I rallied and passed her like she was standing still. Then fifty yards ahead I slowed back down. My run time was 2:20 and change, which is second in slowness only to my first-ever half-ironman back in 2002.
I finished in 6:29. That's right between my best half (6:03) and my slowest (7:0something on the notoriously tough Wildflower long course). I was pretty darn happy to be finished. I was 33rd out of 65 women. Which means my time IS the median time.
I was second in the Athena division and won an armload of merchandise, including a small bottle of Lucero olive oil. We tasted their whole line of extra-virgin olive oil at the little race expo. The stuff is fantastic and the company is run by a young triathlete and his family. If you ever see it at a farmer's market, by all means buy some. We took the olive oil with some freshly baked bread on our kayaking trip the next day, and it sure did hit the spot. (We also took a hunk of Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam cheese. But NO WINE, believe it or not. And no quips about the wetsuit not fitting, I know, I know, sheesh.)
So that's the story of my 20th triathlon, my fifth half-ironman. I'm proud of it. I kept moving despite my legs begging me to stop. Although I don't find the long races to be fun, every time I finish one, I reaffirm that I have the power to change my life, that I can persevere, and that I can do extraordinary things. And that's pretty damn cool.
CaliMan 1/2-iron-distance triathlon: 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike, 13.1-mile run
Swim: 40:28
T1: 2:56
Bike: 3:22:47
T2: 3:08
Run: 2:20:18
Total: 6:29:39
June 13, 2006
Paddling on glass
This photo looks very lonely to me, but the three hours Dave and I spent kayaking on Bodega Bay on Monday were not lonely at all. It was quiet and peaceful, and we had the company of several curious animals.
We had a wonderful time gliding over the smooth water. It felt like we had the bay entirely to ourselves, except for maybe one or two fishing boats.
The only thing that would have made it better would have been my waterproof camera. I would have loved to dip it into the water to take photos of the swaying sea grass and the starfish on the jetty rocks. Or maybe to see what our kayaks look like from below. My heart longs to get my hands back on that camera. I hope it comes back soon.
In fact, I only took out the camera to take these few pictures after the fog had risen off the water, so the only images of our mystical, horizonless start are in my head.
June 12, 2006
Happy birthday to me
Yes, today is MY birthday, the 31st anniversary of my arrival into this world. You may all commence celebrations now. I am off to go kayaking and maybe to slurp some oysters fresh out of Tomales Bay.
Here's a birthday story for you. When my mom was wheeled out of the hospital holding brand-new little peach-fuzz-redheaded me swaddled up tight, my then-two-and-a-half-year-old sister approached us and exclaimed, "Isn't he cute!" For the record, I was, and still am, female.
Before you pop open the champagne, as a special birthday favor to me, please post a comment below to say hello, whether you're a lurker or a frequent chimer-inner. I'd appreciate it.
June 11, 2006
Hot enough for toasting marshmallows
I raced in a half-ironman triathlon today.
I broke redhead rule number one, which is: reapply, reapply, reapply sunblock.
Owwwww.
June 9, 2006
Happy birthday to...
Sara, who was born just a few days before me.
And who also appreciates the supreme excellence of chocolate milk.
June 8, 2006
The Fig & The Fog
The Girl and the Fig Apricot Fig Chutney + Humboldt Fog goat cheese. Bread, cracker, or other platform.
Glass of Amador County old vine zinfandel.*
Commence salivation. Eat. Drink. Mmmm.
*If you substitute Kermit Lynch Côtes du Rhône, which has been on sale at Whole Foods lately, you would have The Fig, The Fog & The Frog.
June 7, 2006
Watch out for me
Believe it or not, I'm not always Ms. Nice Gal.
Lately, the nasty side of me has been most likely to come out in the pool. I don't mind sharing a lane with someone (or two or four people, as is usually the case where I swim). But I expect everyone to be polite and to know what they're doing. To get in the appropriate lane, to be considerate of other swimmers, etc. When I tag someone's toes while we're swimming, I expect that person to let pass at the end of the lane, especially after the second or third time. That sort of thing. And it's not like I'm a particularly fast swimmer -- I'm really not. But I usually have a long workout to finish, and I don't want to waste time treading water behind somone who refuses to pull over.
Another thing I don't like is being lied to.
I took my Timex watch into a watch place to get the battery replaced. Now, I know that Timex says you have to send the watch back to them for battery replacement or you void the warranty, blah blah blah. but I've had luck with the watch shops in the past. I don't have time to mail the watch into Timex, for crying out loud.
I got into the pool the day after getting the battery replaced. After one length of swimming, the watch was FILLED with water and, obviously, quite dead.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
I took it back to the watch repair guy. "Do you remember me?" I asked, very calmly, as if nothing was wrong. "You replaced my watch battery on Wednesday."
The man narrowed his eyes and said no.
I showed him the waterlogged watch. "It's obviously not waterproof anymore," I said.
He countered with, "You didn't ask me to test for waterproofness. I charge extra for that." HA! If you don't remember me, how do you know I didn't ask? Bastard.
Long story medium, he finally accepted the fact that it may have been his fault that the watch got wet inside, but he blamed me forcefully for not telling him that I swim with the watch. It's a freaking Ironman SPORTS watch. OK, most people with Timex Ironman watches probably don't do Ironmans, but they probably do go to the beach occasionally, or sit in a hot tub, or bathe with their watch on, any of which would have filled this watch with water. Bastard.
He reluctantly refunded me the money I paid for the battery replacement. I told him a new watch costs $65. He said he'd try to dry out and repair the dead one over the weekend. We'll see.
June 6, 2006
More than just a wee taste of Amador County
This entry could have been an afterthought to yesterday's post about the Sierra Century, but really, I enjoyed our four hours of wine tasting much more than I enjoyed nearly eight hours of biking in 90-degree heat. Who wouldn't?
Amador County, California is home to a few dozen small wineries, with zinfandel being the most popular grape. We had planned to stop by one, maybe two wineries on our way out of town. After visiting two wineries, we were having such a blast, we figured, why stop now?
Wilderotter is a fairly new shop (with a lovely new tasting room) that had a surprising, and surprisingly tasty sauvignon blanc. Our car was the only car in the lot -- as a general rule, we skipped the big or "crowded" places (meaning more than three cars in the lot). We bought four bottles of wine and went up the road a bit to Kelson Creek.
The Hawaiian-shirted guys at Kelson Creek were trying hard to fill us up with wine. I picked this place off the wine map because they're known for their ports, but we really enjoyed the zinfandel they make from unirrigated, 106-year-old vines. They plied us with chocolate brownies to taste with the port, and also with a mixture of their tawny port and almond-flavored sparkling wine. All I could taste was the almond; it was a bit much. We walked out with five bottles (two vintage port, two zin, one... rose! Ahem, I mean syrah rouge blanc. It was a hot day, and the stuff was refreshing as all get out).
We stopped into Nine Gables because they grow some of the last mission grapes in California, and we were curious. Also, they're small. Very small. We tried all three mission wines they had: white (weird! and almost savory tasting), a very light claret (interesting), and a port (also weird). For such a small winery, they had a lot of wines to offer, maybe 15 different bottles open for tasting (we didn't try them all). Their 04 reserve barbera knocked us out. Three more bottles went into the car (mission claret, barbera, and a port).
After everyone else cleared out of the Nine Gables tasting room, we had a nice chat with the proprietor, who suggested we go a bit out of the way to Dobra Zemlja, where a "white-haired Croatian guy" made the best syrah around. So we trotted out there to find their absolutely charming wine cave/tasting room. The syrah didn't do much for us, but the late-harvest zinfandel, paired with chocolate cake left over from their wine club party the night before, was indulgent and delicious. Two bottles.
We made one last stop at a fairly new place called Nua Dair, which means "New Oak" in Scots gaelic. (Why do you think I picked it?) The tasting room doubled as the barrel-aging shed. I loved their sangiovese and Dave was quite fond of their Banais red blend. (Plus we got more chocolate cake.) Two bottles.
And then it was 5pm. We had visited five wineries and bought 16 bottles of wine, we were hungry, and we had to start the 2.5-hour trip home. Such a shame! I wish we had another day to wander. But now we have enough wine to keep us busy for a long, long time.
So if any of you want to come out here and go wine-tasting, just say the word. We'll totally skip Napa, where you have to pay for wine tastings and fight hordes of tourists. As long as you aren't looking for chardonnay, Amador County rules.
June 5, 2006
Sierra Century: I rode neither a full century nor in the Sierras. Discuss.
My friends Barb and Jess talked me into doing the Sierra Century, a bike ride with several distance options that wind around the steep foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. I don't generally love courses known for both scorching heat and endless climbing, but it sounded like good training for Ride the Rockies, which is coming up very soon.
Dave and I signed up for the 100-miler. It would be Dave's first time riding that distance. I've done 100+ miles many times, but I was hesitant about the 7,000 feet of climbing. The 4,700 feet of climbing in the 67-mile ride sounded like plenty to me. That is a lot of uphill riding for one day.
Riding in the cool and damp Bay Area, I almost never leave home without an extra layer. I always have arm warmers, possibly knee warmers, maybe a vest. When we got out of the car at 6am Saturday, it was still cool out, but I noticed that NONE of the 2,000 other riders wore anything other than shorts and a jersey. I waffled about this. I really wanted to put on arm warmers. I was in denial. I knew that it would warm up fast, but I am not used to this. I left the arm warmers in the car.
We started riding at 6:30am. The first 20 miles were flat and fun, and my average speed at the first rest stop was around 17mph. I knew that number would drop quickly. And, yeah, it wasn't even 8am and it was already getting hot.
The next 20 miles were gorgeous but tough as we followed Sutter Creek upstream toward the little mining town of Volcano. Around mile 30 I pretty much talked myself out of doing the full 100 miles. My back was already sore, my arms were tight. I did make friends with a woman who was going my speed and who had also done Ironman Coeur d'Alene last year, and we chatted for several miles, but I lost her at the next rest stop.
The third 20-mile block was difficult. We climbed a pretty steep grade that was about 7 miles long, in searing heat. After a nice long descent to the rest stop at mile 60, my friends had talked me back into doing 100 miles.
But as we enjoyed the awesome rest-stop food (ice-cold sodas, pretzels, sandwiches, chips, cookies, m&ms, fruit), what seemed like the entire fleet of local law enforcement vehicles zoomed by the rest stop, going at impossible speeds up the narrow mountain road, sirens whining. Several Highway Patrol cars, two fire trucks, an ambulance. This is a sound that always freaks me out when I'm on my bike, but on this day I found it especially worrisome, especially since Dave was was ahead of us (along with 1,000 other cyclists) and because I am PARANOID AND NEUROTIC.
As we went back to our bikes we asked a volunteer what happened, and he said, and I quote, "Some guy got run over and died." A cyclist? we asked. Yep. Kind of an insensitive way to put it, but yes, a cyclist was killed during the ride.
That was it. I was done. I was pretty upset, too. Not as upset as I would have been if I had had to ride by the accident site after it happened, as many riders behind us did.
I bade my friends farewell and rode the final 7 miles back to the finish, completing the metric century. (Did I mention that it had 4,700 feet of climbing???) Then I headed back out onto the course to extend my ride to 80 miles. I crossed paths with Dave along the way as he returned from the 100-miler, and we rode back together.
Back at the fairgrounds, Dave and I enjoyed the post-ride food and then flopped out on a picnic blanket and waited for our friends to finish. It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon, except for the fact that every 20 minutes we had to move our blanket to keep up with the shade so we wouldn't cook in the sun.
The next morning we got up and went for a short ride, I did a 40-minute run, and then we hit the wineries of Amador County in a big way. More on that tomorrow.
June 4, 2006
Biking bee
Ariel: Why is ESPN showing a spelling bee? How is that a sport? Will they show just any competition now?
Dave: They won't show cycling.
Ba-dum-pum.
June 1, 2006
How not to sell mobile phone accessories
I recently entered the 21st century and bought a mobile phone with a color display, a camera, and the ability to play Paul Westerberg's "Waiting For Somebody" when my husband dials my number. It also does a lot of other geeky non-phone-related stuff, so I felt like I should probably buy some accessories for it to make it feel important. That's how I found myself comparison shopping between the official Cingular store and the little random phone accessory shops that dot the fringes of Market Street in downtown San Francisco.
I wandered into "AllCity Phonez2Go" or some such outfit, poked around a bit, and asked the salesperson why their plain headset thingy cost 40 percent more than the identical one in identical packaging at the Cingular store. The guy tried to convince me that the expensive one at his chintzy store was the real thing (a genuine $1 earbud marked up 2500%), while the one at the Cingular store was a cheap knock-off. (Uh-huh.)
Things got peculiar when he discovered that my phone has Bluetooth, meaning it is compatible with those hilarious Star-Trek-esque wireless headsets that hook over your ear. "You know, you really should go wireless, because those things aren't as safe," he said, nodding to the old-school wired headset I had just been examining on the counter. "You know, cervical cancer and all."
I was a bit taken aback, and I think he sensed my puzzlement, because he very deliberately mimed the motion of putting on a wired headset and sliding the phone into his pocket, where presumably, the mysterious waves radiating from it could possibly cause cervical cancer.
Never, ever in my life has someone summoned the threat of cervical cancer to try to sell me something. And I hope to god never again. But what the hell was he thinking? Does he even know what a cervix is?
I'm thinking not, because no person in his right mind would talk to an unknown woman -- a potential customer, no less -- about the health of her cervix. I don't even want to hear that stuff from any of the men I actually know. And he probably meant ovarian cancer anyway. Idiot.
Even more peculiar was the implication that with a wireless headset, which is an item I'd consider buying for for its convenience, I could place my call and then walk 20 feet away from the phone to protect my internal organs from its deadly rays. What they really should be selling at that store is tin-foil hats and coveralls. I'm sure they'd fly off the shelves.
