tap, tap, tap

*clears throat*

Well it's been a while! I'm resurrecting this blog because on Friday I'm heading to Sweden for a week and putting stuff up on social media is fun for the likes, but isn't easy to look back at later. I don't know if I will REALLY update this every day, but I might.

Agenda:

• arrive Stockholm on Saturday the 21st, explore the city all day Sunday & Monday. Take an overnight train 12 hours north to be above the Arctic Circle. 
• Tuesday night: stay at the TreeHotel in the MirrorCube 
• Wednesday night: stay in the Abisko Mountain Station at the one combination hotel/hostel. I'm vague on what this thing is - but the entire point is to go to up a chairlift to the Aurora Sky Station for a swank dinner and then a Northern Lights observation (we hope)
• Thursday night: stay at the IceHotel - yep. Yes, we will be sleeping in a room that is cold enough to have its very own ice sculptures. Yes, I am open to the idea of finding the sauna and sleeping there! 
• Friday: fly back to Stockholm, last night there in a yacht hotel! 
• Saturday: bonus excitement, flying back in international business class as a way to extend the vacation just a leeetle bit longer. 

What else is going on with me?
Job: I'm five months into my new job and it's still feeling pretty good. I took a month off between jobs (which was SO GREAT) and then was in training for pretty much the entire rest of 2016 (which is an astonishing investment for a company to make). I'm actually/finally now going fully live on doing my job and it's a lot to juggle but so far I am very happy I made a change.

Fitness: this fell apart. I did summit South Sister with friends in August, and it was so hard - 13 hours of hiking because it was a LOT of very steep up and down, and I'm slow. But my running practice ground to a halt and hasn't been replaced by anything. I have intentions of getting back into it if we ever see the ground again.

Snow! We get snow here in the Pacific Northwest every now and then but we got about 8 inches a week ago and it's just lingering. It's been temps in the 20s, we don't have plows, ice and snow still all over the side streets.. I haven't been in a car since last Tuesday, and I ventured out on foot last Thursday night and on Saturday afternoon - that's been the extent of it!

The state of the world: big enormous panicked grump. Trying to focus on the good, learning how to use my voice politically. Very sad I'm going to miss all the amazing energy of the political protest march here in town on Saturday - I think it would be enormously uplifting. Stockholm is hosting a march that day as well, but I don't know if we will get there in time to participate.

January challenge: For the weeks between Christmas and Sweden, I've done a challenge to have no sugar/no alcohol/no restaurants. Part of this is health-related, part of it is financial: I think by spending NO money (except on groceries and doing some political activism), I will balance the spending in Sweden and come in okay for the month's total.

On the plus side: Cutest niece ever. Knitting some more. Cooking a lot of good food.

Doing a Duathlon

I've had a few fitness goals for this year:

• March: 5k run (completed in really awful weather)
• April: 62-mile bike ride in Salem (an hour south of Portland)
• May: 55-mile bike ride to the coast
• August: summit South Sister in the Bend area

I was supposed to do the 62-mile ride yesterday. It hasn't been a great training season so far - I haven't had a ton of motivation, and my training partner has really been off for a few years now, but hasn't fully admitted it. I think it's a combination of something medical going on, and also not being in the same place mentally she used to be. We've done some training together but everything is a struggle and she's exhausted after not a ton of effort - and I'm not motivated enough to do more on my own! 

So, she got a bad head cold before this event, and her longest ride for the season was only 25 miles (at which point she was exhausted). I'd ridden longer, a couple whopping 36-mile rides, but wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to do more. So when she got sick I was actually kind of glad - the weather was looking horrible anyway, and I didn't want to drive 2 hours and bike for 6 hours in crap weather... or at all, to be honest. 

BUT THEN I remembered that another friend was doing a duathlon this weekend! So I joined her. We had to run 5km, bike 15 miles, and run another 5km. I hadn't even been running in a couple of weeks and have been struggling with discomfort, so I wasn't sure how it was going to go at all! 

The weather was actually not bad at all, so that was the first good news. We got there early to set up our bikes and gear in the transition area - every athlete stages their biking shoes, helmet, gear near their bike so they can change from running mode to biking mode and then back again. Some people had their stuff in buckets which was pretty smart - gives them a place to sit to change their shoes! I just piled my stuff on the ground and then draped a trash bag around the shoes & helmet in case of rain. 

The first 5k went reasonably well - I ran (...trotted) the whole thing which was a pleasant surprise. I got to the bike and felt a little bit tired/unsteady, but once I was geared up and got to pedal, it felt nice to use my legs that way. It took me an hour to do the 15 miles, which is a pretty good pace for me! We had to go east, then west, then east again along a flat and open stretch of road, and the westward part had a fair bit of headwind, so it was nice to finish with the tailwind pushing me along. 

I got back to the transition area and hung up my bike...and couldn't believe I had to do MORE...putting on my shoes I was kind of in a daze and really not sure how I was going to do anything else. I knew there were only about 10-15 people behind me in the event, but at least I wasn't in last place! 

Somehow I managed to trot almost the whole first half of the final 5k, and on the turnaround I alternated walking and jogging as much as possible. I ran across the finish line and only got rained on a little bit! I knew that my friend was behind me so I hung out about ten minutes so I could see her cross the finish line and walk back to our gear together. 

I never ever ever would have expected to do a duathlon. I honestly don't know if I'd do it again, but at least I know (at the moment) that I can do it if I want to! Talk about unexpected places in life! 

Mount Saint Helens - to the summit!

After seven months of training and over 100 miles on the trails, I was as ready as I was going to be for Mount Saint Helens. My friend Julie got ten permits (100 people per day get to go for the summit in the summer time) and there were six of us from Portland and four from Seattle.

Every hiking party has to sign in and out, so they know if they have to come looking for you.

I'd hiked with each person on Team Portland at least once, and it seemed like my pace was a good mesh with at least a couple other hikers. The other three were faster, but didn't seem to mind regrouping regularly, so we planned to just stick together for the most part.

View of Mount Adams

The MSH trail is an out and back, on a route called Monitor Ridge. It's under 5 miles one-way, and I knew that the trail was broken up like so:
 - 1/3 slight elevation climb along a forested trail
 - 1/3 "trail" in a boulder-strewn wall, with a ton of elevation gain
 - 1/3 trudge/scramble/two steps forward, one step back along an ashy slope.
The entire elevation gain is 4665 feet, with the peak at an elevation of 8280 feet. The vast majority of the climbing occurs in about 3 miles.

An idea of the terrain we had to climb - for hours.

The hike was super tough, both physically and psychologically. One person in our group has done the hike many times, but never in summer - only when there is lots of snow on the mountain. Then, he said, all the boulder field is covered by snow, so you just snowshoe on up! Of course, you also have to start a couple miles further away from the trailhead...

Fortunately I'd read a recommendation somewhere online to bring sturdy work gloves. I used my hands a LOT on the scramble up and down, and would have shredded my palms and fingers without my trusty leather gardening gloves.

View from lunch - we'd come a long way! 

We got lucky with the weather - it was warm but not hot, and we had cloud cover much of the time. We got one wind/rain squall, right after we cleared the boulder field on the way up, but it abated pretty quickly and I didn't even bring out my warm jacket, though I did put on a hat and long-sleeve layer for a while. We all had plenty of food and water - in all I drank nearly all the 5 liters of water I brought, but I didn't run out!

We still had a very long-looking way to go - that lighter brown is the rim, and there are people up there. 

It took us about 90 more minutes of uphill hiking to get there. 

I was most despairing when we stopped for lunch. We started hiking at 7am, and at 12:40 the top still looked impossibly far away. We (I, anyway!) had a tentative plan to turn around at 2pm - my logic was that we'd have been hiking 7 hours by then, and could spend nearly that long coming down, and I didn't want to get caught out in the dark if I could help it. Others on my group wanted to go for the summit no matter what, and I was nervous about the possible consequences.

It was a relief to get out of the boulder field, though the going was by no means easy!

At 2pm we weren't at the summit, and it still seemed a ways away, but at least we were out of the boulders and onto the steep rocky/ashy slope. We decided to go for it (summit fever is real!) and I made the summit at 2:10. Woooooo!

Dramatic summiting shot. 

One of my friends stopped about 20 minutes short of the summit, just feeling too maxed out. But she was close enough that she could hear our voices, and after some reflection and regrouping, she decided to go for it after all. Fortunately I spotted her attempt to join us, just before she was obscured by a rise in the ground. One of the fitter members of our group went down to confirm she was in fact making an attempt for the top, and kept her company on the way back up. I was grateful he was able to be so nice, because I did NOT want to cover any bonus ground myself!

Looking down into the crater. It was hard to get a decent shot!

We hung out at the rim for a while, taking pictures and enjoying the moment. Then, however, we had to face the fact that we were only halfway done with our hike! Going down was still super hard, and I was so so tired already... I didn't take a single picture of the descent!

Triumphant group shot (of most of us)

The last two miles of trail (the wooded, gradual grade) felt like they took forever...but I officially signed us off the trail at 7:21 - for a total of 12:21 hiking. What an accomplishment!!!! My body is still sore four days later, but I'm slowly getting back to normal.

This is how we all felt! 

I'm actually toying with doing South Sister next year... we'll see!

Mount Saint Helens - training hikes!

Earlier this year a friend came up with an audacious-feeling goal: summiting Mount Saint Helens on August 2nd. I guess it was a bucket list item for her, but it never was something I ever considered doing. However, I'm not one to back away from a challenge, and I do better with fitness activities if I'm terrified of some event I'm committed to doing, so I agreed to join!

Multnomah Falls - a classic for a reason

I'm so glad I had this event in front of me because it got me out on the trails way more than ever before. Ever since I moved to Oregon in 1996 I wanted to do more hiking (I told myself) but somehow I rarely did more than one or two hikes per year.

Springtime on Hamilton Mountain

This year I did a ton of hiking - at least 107 miles! I started in January hiking in Forest Park with friends, but then we started hitting the Gorge and got some real classics in:
Wahkeena Falls, Angel's Rest (twice), Cape Horn, Herman Creek Trailhead, Hamilton Mountain (twice), Dog Mountain, Herman Creek & Nick Eaton Trail, Multnomah Falls to Nesika Lodge, Forest Park (starting outside Linnton), Wahkeena to Multnomah Falls, Algonquin Park (in Canada), Mt. Defiance, and Eagle Creek.

Dog Mountain in wildflower season

My favorite was Dog Mountain - it's legendary for its beauty during wildflower season, and we went in May, on Mother's Day. I was stunned at the flowers - SO beautiful! I've been hearing about that hike since I moved here and I now know it's worth the effort.

Part of the trail on Mount Defiance

Mount Defiance is a legend amongst hikers - some joke that you summit Mount Hood to train for Defiance! It IS a beast - 12 miles round-trip, 4800 feet of climbing, relentlessly UP or DOWN, and the last couple of miles of trail were actually scary, they were so steep, slippery, and eroding. But, we persevered and felt like we were as ready as we were going to be to tackle Mount Saint Helens.

On the way down on Defiance. This part of the trail was super scary. 

Next post: Mount Saint Helens!!! (spoiler alert: we survived!)

scary exciting plan

A friend proposed that she try to get a number of us permits to hike to the top of Mount St. Helens sometime this year. I accepted, she got into the lottery (i.e. hit the site first thing when permits were available), and we're in! We're going to summit Mount St. Helens on Sunday August 2nd. EEk!

We've bitten off quite a challenge - it's 10.5 miles round trip, 4450 feet of elevation gain, and it's rated Very Difficult; gloves are recommended for climbing around all the boulders covered with ash! You have to carry your own water, and the training recommendation one friend found is that you plan to carry about 30 pounds (mostly water). Wow.

It will be interesting to see how this goes. Of the 8 permits we are using, one person has done this before and is very fit/experienced with training for tough events. Two of us did Cycle Oregon last year, so we have recent experience in setting a tough goal and hitting it. Two of us have done tough things in the distant past (marathon, Cycle Oregon), but have had a few years of not being so good about following through on challenging fitness plans. Three are wild cards that are probably pretty reliable.

I know that things happen and life throws changes at us, so who knows, maybe I'll be one of the people who bails on the event! Every single year since I moved here in the 90s I've wanted to have a year with lots of hiking, so this may be it! My lack of car will be a hindrance in that, however...

done and done!

I survived Cycle Oregon! I even had fun along the way, though the ride itself was brutal. On day three or four, my friend and I agreed it might be our last CO. But by day seven we were already getting nostalgic, so no promises that this is the last. It's definitely the last for quite a while, though!

The route was tough - 400 miles and 30,000 feet of climbing if you did the basics, no extra legs:

My friend and I sagged after 33 miles on day four (i.e. quit early and caught a ride on one of the support vehicles) - we could've gone longer, but it's unlikely we could have finished the day, so we quit early in order to get a ride before the sag wagons got totally swamped. It was a good call.

Also, on day 6, we "only" biked 70  miles and then went white water rafting for 8 miles and were driven the rest of the way to camp. It seemed like a good idea, but we wound up waiting about 90 minutes to get started and FROZE on the river in our bike gear. So it wasn't all that much fun, but it was different!

In total I figure we rode 350 miles and climbed 27,000 feet - that is plenty for me!

The scenery was amazing:

And we were really happy to be done.

 

Really, really, really happy. 

I'm also happy to say I think my training was at least adequate. I may have been able to finish day four - almost definitely, if crawling into camp in tears counts as finishing. But I felt pretty good, overall, and like my endurance was decent. The hardest day for me, mentally, was day 3 - at the beginning I just did not see HOW we could do it, but we did! And now it's over! We'll see what fitness I do this fall.

One last weekend

WHEW. One last weekend of effort before Cycle Oregon is here. Tomorrow for the first time this summer I'm going to be in town and NOT biking - I'm going on a hike with some friends I haven't seen in months. Then I bike on Sunday and Monday. I think I'm going to ride to the library today so I'll pick up some miles, and with a ride next Wednesday I WILL hit an extra 250 miles before CO - bringing me to 1,250 for the season, before I do 400 on the ride.

Is it any wonder I'm going to be ready for a bike-break??

This whole summer has felt like one big event after another: awesome Hawaii wedding, trip to Ashland, family reunion, amazing long weekend at camp, and then of course the buildup to the ride. I was a bit surprised to look at my calendar and see that the rest of the year is still stuffed with activities! It looks like I'll have a breather in November, maybe. Of course, I think I'm going to sign up for a run, so I'll have to find one that fits around everything else!

I did it!

My goal this year was to ride 1,000  miles before Cycle Oregon - and I made it with three weeks to spare!

No rest for the weary, though! My new goal is to get another 250 in before we head out of town. That's a bit of a stretch, and I know it. Here's how I think it'll go:
     This week: Wednesday 15 miles, Saturday 86 miles (omg), Sunday 20 miles = 121
     Following week: Wednesday 15 miles, Saturday 50, Sunday xx, Monday yy = 65 + ?
     Final few days beforehand: Wednesday 15

If I do the miles as planned, that'll leave 49 miles for me to do that Sunday/Monday (it's Labor Day weekend already...!). That should be very doable - note there is an IF in the previous sentence, and a SHOULD in this one. We'll see how it plays out. I do have plans with my bike friends for a specific ride that Sunday, but I'm not sure about its mileage.

This coming Saturday will be my longest ride of the year (.4 longer than the longest Cycle Oregon day, though much much much flatter) - it's an organized ride, and I'm not going with any friends, so I hope that there are enough other riders to distract/entertain me as I slog it out. And I hope it's not as hot as it's been lately.. it's looking like high 80s which is ten degrees cooler than the LAST organized ride I did, so that's a positive sign.

In general, I'm nervous about my conditioning and stamina. I guess part of that is because it never gets easy, even if it goes faster! As part of a loop I did this weekend I revisited a hill I did this spring. At the time I remember I was in my smallest gears and going 3 miles per hour - my app thought I'd stopped moving! This time I was in harder gears and kept it above 8 miles per hour the whole time, so clearly I've improved! But I was sure happy when the light at the top of the hill turned red so I could recover.

I was talking to a bike pro today and she was impressed with my training - I've been doing just about 100 miles/week and running about 6 miles/week, usually with two days of little or no activity. She thinks it'll be sufficient for me to do okay on the ride. I sure hope so!

I also finally picked a bike seat. It is fine in the crotch and upper legs area (the woman I talked to today calls that area the blegs (butt/legs) - ha!). The seat makes my sit bones feel sore, but on the other hand I've been on a different seat every week all summer long. My butt has NO IDEA what "my" seat feels like. So, I bought the seat, have it on my bike and have a couple hundred miles to get used to it. Gulp.

Calories and fitness: almost six months in

On February 19th this year I started logging my calories using an app called LoseIt. It's free, but I chose it mainly because a couple of friends were already using it. In fact, I had it on my phone for at least a couple of months before I started using it. I've always resisted counting calories - because it's both hard, and honest! - and I haven't been in a place where I wanted to be really scrupulous about my intake.

There wasn't anything magical about the date I started tracking - I was staying with friends who were both riding a health/fitness wave, and it inspired me to get started. I'm still not remotely perfect - I don't really know how best to figure out calories when I eat out, so I've created a generic "restaurant meal" entry that I use, and take a wild guess about how many calories I actually ate. And when I spent two weeks in Hawaii for my brother's wedding, I didn't bother at all - just tried to make healthy choices and resumed my tracking when I got home. In fact, non-tracking has been my M.O. for all the various trips I've taken this year, and I think it's worked pretty well for me.  Fortunately I really do know how to eat pretty healthily, and I've been doing a better job about portion control, which is probably my biggest issue. (Also, I haven't bought ice cream to keep at home since at least the beginning of the year - definitely a help!)

So how's it going? Pretty well! Counting calories FINALLY imparted to me on a gut level why exercise is so important. If I'm limiting myself to 1,149 calories per day, it makes a HUGE difference if I go on a run and pick up 400 calories! There's no question that is an hour well-spent.

I had some medical stuff earlier this year that resulted in me dropping 5 pounds (I'm totally fine now), and since then I've dropped an additional 20. When I started tracking I was at a new all-time high (by just about 5 pounds but still... not the kind of records I like breaking!), so I'm still in a familiar weight range right now. And I've been training for Cycle Oregon, and cross-training by running. Once the ride is over (and it's coming right up!!!! eeek) I know for sure I will bike a LOT less. But I want to keep running, and intend to sign up for some 5k runs, and perhaps a 10k in the spring, so I stay motivated and engaged with exercise. And I can head back to the pool once the rains set in - that's a tough workout!

I use RunKeeper to track my running, walking, biking, and swimming. So far this year I've run 52 miles (!!!) and have biked 907 miles. My pre-Cycle Oregon goal was to hit 1,000 miles, and my stretch goal was 1,200. Since I still have three weekends to train (gah) I may even make it to 1,300 before we go ride 400 miles in a week. Yowza. I've set a goal to run 100 miles by the end of the  year, and I guess I'm on track to meet that goal too. To be honest, I'm way more wowed by the running numbers - I've done Cycle Oregon three times before, so riding 1,000 miles in preparation is significant, but at least a little familiar. Running ANY distance is a totally new experience for me!

As I said recently, this fitness/health stuff seems to come in waves, and I'm under no illusion that I'm suddenly magically a new person. But... I think I have the tools to do this. I'd like to drop a few more pounds before CO, but really, I'm focusing on being strong and active. We'll see where it takes me!

Headwinds, tailwinds

Woo-hoo: it's time to buy a pair of shorts one size smaller! Since February I've been tracking my calories for the first time in my life. I love that various apps make it so easy to do that! I don't do well tracking when I eat out - I made up a "restaurant meal" entry and then take a wild guess about how many calories I ingested. I eat out maybe four times a week, so this isn't an ideal thing, but it's working okay for now. I've also been exercising a lot, and I have to say it's motivating to be able to get caloric credit for the exercise I'm doing!

Last week was the first time I tried running intervals. I did six 6-minute cycles; each cycle consisted of 3 minutes of running fast, and 3 minutes of walking/staggering/trotting. It was really really hard but gave me some payoff immediately - the next time I ran (two days later) I cut a minute off my average speed, and I cut another minute off this week! Now I'm down - temporarily, anyway - to an 11:30 mile, and it's still hard but it's starting to feel like I'm actually running. Crazy!

All in all it's been a great spring/summer for me on the health & exercise front, but I'm realistic and know it's not like I'm suddenly a new person. I typically go long months with little to no exercise, and then may have a biking season or something before resuming my slothful ways. Right now it's feeling pretty natural and good to get out there and exercise, and it's likely it won't always be that way.

A billion years ago I subscribed to Utne Reader, which is a magazine that compiles interesting stories from other media sources. This was in the early 90s, and I remember reading an article about time and how we perceive it and how we cycle through it - sometimes we are sluggish and everything is effortful and takes forever, and sometimes we are a whirlwind of productivity and everything comes together and time is our magical friend. I picture it like a sine wave of effort with the uphill and downhill chunks not really in our control, but hopefully ours to recognize and seize upon.

So, right now, I'm in the downhill curve of the sine wave, in terms of exercise - for the most part it feels good to get out there, I enjoy the activity (even when it's hard and I'm tired and sore and... I swear, I DO enjoy some element of it!), and I look forward to the next round. One of these days I'm likely to encounter the uphill, headwind, don't-wannas and I will have to deal with them when they come.

Also: I'm not giving away my bigger shorts just yet! In truth I'm just at the bottom of my typical twenty-pound average weight range, and chances are I'll bounce back up and my new small shorts won't fit. Maaaaybe I'm really going to keep losing and stay down... or maybe not!

Another three

Yesterday I ran another three miles during my lunch break. This time I ran solo, at the track near my home, and only walked about ten steps of it.

Goodness, is running any distance on a track BORING. It was nearly empty so I ran part of it clockwise instead of the traditional counter-clockwise, but it only helped alleviate the boredom a little. But mostly I just kept plugging, and finished at a slow and steady 13:30 pace.

So now what? I guess I learn how to do it better. The first  mile and a bit was brutal - I just wanted to STOP - but I pushed through it and was reasonably okay the rest of the time. My knees were tight yesterday and today as well, so my exercise today was 30 minutes of swimming which seems a good alternative.

Tomorrow, assuming my knees are okay, I think I will return to the track but do intervals - what, specifically, I don't know. Perhaps running fast on the straights, trotting the rounded ends, and alternating running and walking laps? I'm totally making this up as I go.

Tonight I'll be spending time with friends as it's the third anniversary of my friend's husband's death. I will be really appreciative of life and fitness and being with good people. I will also marvel a bit at how much has changed in three years - it was one of the nudges I needed to move back to Portland, but I sure wish he was still alive!

A routine? and a milestone!

I might be settling into something that resembles a fitness routine. My top priority is biking, but I do want to do justice to learning how to run. Right now it looks just possible that my weeks will look like this:
Saturday & Sunday - bike rides, of increasing length and hilliness
Monday - rest
Tuesday - run
Wednesday - swim
Thursday - run
Friday - rest

I want to enter both the biking and running with relatively fresh legs, and swimming seems like a good alternate way to exercise and burn some calories. We will see if I can settle into this pattern!

Something crazy happened on Saturday. As I said in my last post, I rolled back my c5k training and last Tuesday I spent time on the track alternating between running and walking. When it was time to run, I pushed myself pretty hard for 30 or 45 seconds, and then jogged the rest of the 90-second interval. It seemed to go pretty well, and my run time was an impressive sub-10-minute mile! But I didn't feel like I could sustain that pace for ANY amount of time. On Thursday I focused on sustaining a pace for the entire run time, and my pace was more like an 11-minute mile, and I was really ready to drop at the end of each chunk of running.

My running friends were certain I was running too fast and needed to try a slower pace, but I don't know how to gauge that. So on Saturday (instead of biking!) I went for a run with them. People, I ran three miles! That's 5k! We stopped at the midpoint for a little water, but I didn't feel like I HAD to stop. On the way back my ankle hurt a bit so I walked for maybe 15 seconds before resuming our very slow trot.

So, this running stuff is definitely coming together. Crazy.

Then on Sunday I did a 40-mile bike ride that has me back to being nervous about my ride in September. So this weekend, no easy 3 miles of running for me, no sir, back to the bike I go.

Back to it

Well, I'm back in town after two absolutely terrific weeks in Hawaii! The highlight (of course!) was my brother's wedding, which was SO lovely and SO fun and just perfect in every way. It was fun getting dressed up in a really pretty dress, I liked all the people I got to meet, and the rental house I shared with family & friends on Oahu was just terrific. After the wedding week I spent nearly a week on Kauai with friends and that was also great.

But now I'm back and fitness is the name of the game. I ate pretty healthily and swam a lot on my trip, but only tried running twice and it was pretty close to a failure both times. I was in theory on week 5 of Couch to 5k and just couldn't make it through either workout I tried. So, I'm going to have to roll back the calendar and ramp up again.

I'm signed up for a 7k on Saturday August 9th. I already know it's wildly unlikely I'll run the whole thing, but I have eight weeks to prep for it. I can't seem to fit a week of c5k training into a calendar week, but I think I'll start at either week 2 or 3 and just do my best to fit in what I can.

More important is the bike riding. I returned from my trip on Friday night and hit the road both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Saturday I did some hill riding - any route with a street named Skyline in it is going to be hilly! We rode 20 miles and did about 2500 feet of climbing. I didn't do too badly (or my friends were struggling more than I was...) and I attribute my relative strength to the running. However, Sunday my buddy and I did 35 miles of flat and I was just. not. feeling it. I got a flat at mile 6, and struggled to settle into the ride for the rest of the time we were out there. My friend was doing better than I was, but we were both feeling pretty whipped by the end of the ride.

When my alarm went off Monday I had no idea where I was or why I was getting up! I guess it was a triple whammy of jet lag, vacation ending, and sheer exhaustion from the biking. But, onward and upward from here!

Busy weekend!

This weekend was super busy. On Saturday I rode 55 miles on my bicycle as part of an organized event called Reach the Beach. I rode this several times in the early 2000s and it's always been my favorite ride. For the most part, it's super beautiful, and it's very well organized with rest stops every 12-15 miles. May can be a risky time to do a bike ride in Oregon, but we got crazy lucky with the weather this time!

Saturday at the coast

I was riding with a friend who's been dealing with a pretty big range of life, work, and medical issues, so she didn't have a lot of energy and hadn't been able to ride much lately. She tried so so so hard and managed to ride 40 miles. She decided to stop at the third rest stop, since she'd been reduced to stopping every mile to try to gather some energy. I felt badly for her but agreed it was definitely the right call!

That left me to do the final 15 miles solo, but I didn't mind very much. At least it was sunny and warm, not rainy and cold like it's been on previous rides! There are some stretches of really hideous headwind in that final leg of the ride, and my butt and legs were sore from already being on the bike nearly 5 hours, but I dug out my last bits of energy and actually finished the last leg in 75 minutes, which was quicker than I'd estimated. It remains clear I have a LONG way to go before Cycle Oregon.

Sunday at the work party

Yesterday I spent three hours on a work crew in that same friend's yard - for the same pile of life, work, medical issues, her massive yard has gotten well and truly out of hand. About ten of us turned out and spent time in the cloudy rainy day taming that land! It's more yardwork than I've even done at my place! I didn't mind working in the rain at all - way better than biking in it!

A try-athlete

I've been a cyclist for a long time - I was fortunate enough to work with biking-obsessed friends in the late 90s, and they pulled me along into that world. I certainly have many years of relatively few miles, but this year will be more high-mileage as I train for and ride in Cycle Oregon in September. Including the 400 miles ridden during that week, I should do more than 1500 this year - one of my highest-mileage years!

I've already been training some this year, though I've also been a bit busy. I'm doing a 55-mile organized ride this weekend which may be interesting, as my longest ride so far was a few weeks ago and was 30 miles. So.. we'll see. It's my favorite ride, I'll be with a friend, the weather looks acceptable, and we can take lots of breaks if we need to!

But I'll admit, Cycle Oregon has me worried. Add to that the fact I have lots of weekends when I will not be in town, and only some of them will be road trips where I can bring my bike... I've got to do something else to help increase my fitness!

Enter: running. I've never run before (I like to joke that I run when chased) but it's appealing in its simplicity - strap on the shoes and head out! However, like so many things in this life, I'm finding that it's not quite as simple as that. I've been following the Couch to 5k program and completed week 3 on Saturday. Just as I hoped, I did two of the workouts while traveling for work. However, apparently it's not right if your lower legs are on fire while running, so today I got fitted for different shoes. I'm hoping this will make it easier and more enjoyable! I haven't minded the time at the track, and I get a kick out of watching the insanely fit and speedy teenagers who are there working on various skills with their coaches. I don't really know how to figure out pace and form, but I think the most important part is to learn to run without my legs aching after thirty seconds - I can worry about technique after that. 

Finally, because I'm not being complicated enough, I've started doing a little bit of lap swimming. Wow is that good exercise - my app that I use says 30 minutes of swimming is about 500 calories, vs about 200 for my slow run/walk or about 300 for my non-speedy biking. Not that I actually swim continuously for 30 minutes, mind you! But I can do a full lap, stop and breathe, and then do another. I'm almost always doing the breast stroke with some side stroke or crawl mixed in.

Right now my biggest problem is figuring out when to do all the activity! Since I'm so new at it, I always want to run on fresh legs, so I can't do it after any volume of biking. Biking is most important because of Cycle O. Swimming is a good rainy-day exercise, but we're moving into our better weather. I ought to be running 3x/week, but it's already having to slide a little for cycling. I'm mostly going to do the best I can and take it from there.

I'll be in Hawaii for two weeks in a little while, and will definitely continue the running and swimming - I already found a community pool a mile from where I'll be staying that offers lap swimming, and perhaps I'll get to test that theory about the simplicity of running. September is coming! Gotta be fit!