Nehalem Bay to Seattle

June 7th, 2011 - Nehalem Bay to Ilwaco - 45 miles

Today started out from Nehalem bay into 20 miles of 4 hill climbs. The first bit was pretty but then the frustration of hills started to set in. Luckily the next 20 miles were quite flat. As I went through Warrenington and headed to the first long bridge of the day I caught a glimpse of the behemoth that I would be needing to go over. I started to laugh a nervous giggle as I had a good 2 miles or staring at this giant beast!

The Astoria bridge is a much talked about item on the Pacific Coast Highway tour among tourist. It is a four mile long bridge with no shoulder. There is extra fun for southbound riders as they stare at the steep incline at the end of the bridge for the whole ride. For northbound riders we begin with a steep incline. Since the last bridge was no fun and was less then half the length I decided to stop and have a coffee prior to proceeding. As I was looking for a coffee shop I made a last hail mary and stopped at the visitor center. It turned out there was a bus that would take me over the bridge and a couple of miles from my campsite for the night! Of course I had just missed the next bus by ten minutes so I had a couple of hours to wait for the next. I figured the $0.50 was worth the wait.

On entering the bus I was greeted by what obviously was the regular crowd of 10 or so people who all soon knew my story and did not hesitate to give advice. It is amazing how many people will offer advice to help ensure that I took the safest route and knew of hard places on the journey. This fact always delights me.

As it started to rain while setting up camp a lady running past by and stopped to chat. It turns out that she had cycle toured and offered me a place to stay for the night.

She had to go to work at 4:30 am as she worked as a fishery agent and had to inspect the offloading of the fishing boat.  As it was I forgot my tent in her car and had to wait for her to return prior to heading off for the night.  While we waited her boyfriend and I were chatting and I found out that they were driving through Seattle later in the day.  Well I wasn't excited about the three days of raining that was expected so I asked if I could catch a ride.

We made it to Seattle where I was dropped off with Nate who had pizza and beer waiting.  We spent most of the night catching up.  It was great to be with family again.

Running? RUNNING???

30 x 30 update - 5 km continuous running

Why would I ever think adding running to my 30 x 30 would be a good idea?  I know in theory it's because I want to be able to complete a duathlon or adventure race but putting this into reality reminds me of many things.  One of these being how much I hate running!!

I have completed two runs now (in two days) and am having a fun time trying to walk around.  In cycling you should stretch but if you don't there are limited consequences.  I forgot that when you don't stretch before running all of a sudden all of your muscles refuse to do any of the basic things you take for granted, such as walking.  I did stretch before my runs but I forgot about a lot of the stretches I used to do prior to running, hence the muscles that now refuse to work.

There are many reasons I hate running.  With the main one being the reason I stopped in the first place, feeling like I was about to vomit.  (I used to run the mile in middle school for our track team.)  I know that this sick feeling is because I'm pushing myself too far to fast but I just can't seem to help it.  When I start running it feels good so I go fast, which means I can only run for about 200 meters at a time before I'm completely out of breath and want to puke.  Which leaves me not feeling good.  Viscous cycle.

I know it would help if I actually went to the trails, instead of running along the road, like I was planning.  At least that way when I started walking I'd have a view.  It just doesn't seem worth it right now as I can only run less than 0.75 miles at a time (walking and running).  I don't want to take the time to head over to the trails just to have to ride back home after 15 minutes.  I'm also scared to push myself too hard too soon especially after feeling the pain my calves are in today.

So I suppose I'll just have to grin and bare it till I get into a routine where hopefully the hate smolders into something less.  Until then I will continue to swear at myself for putting such a stupid thing on my list.

Winter Whack III

1 & 2 June 2012

So I've been pretty low key for the last 6+ weeks as my arm was healing in cast.  I really forget how mellow and down I get when I have an injury that results in me being off the bike.

But that has all changed now!  I am back to being Carissa and a big help in that was Winter Whack III, a bike polo tournament.  It happened that I got my cast off the day prior to the start of the festivities so I was pretty pumped.  Not that I could play but that I could do little things and not have that annoying thing on.

Went out on Friday to watch the knife fights which Andy ended up winning with a great shot through both bottom brackets.

Had a few hours sleep prior to heading back to the courts to listen to the pre-event briefing, that even had a perfectly timed earthquake to coincide with the safety portion.  I'd volunteered to help with the event as I couldn't play...as one of the players said I was "camp mom".  Not sure that camp mom's are suppose to drink beer (had a keg of Three Boys and Andy's home brew on the sidelines) though.

Then the day of polo started.  It was great to be around like minded bike people.  Made some new friends and got to know others a bit better.  Really was a great day and we lucked out with the weather being really nice.

Lopo Libre

Rob from Samurai Polo Cats

The view from the courts at dusk

Two days after this event Christchurch got a nice dumping of snow.  I'm glad I wasn't on the sidelines in a half foot of snow!  Much more pleasant to be warm.