Seattle Stereotypes

Ever wonder what stereotypical Seattlites are like? Check out this website for a local insurance agency...which Northwest Profile are you? I think I'm a mix of #1 (First Snowflake Freak Out Lady) and #100 (Confused East Coast Transplant). Eric is #5 (Northwest Male Action Figure).

Australia

I'm sure you've heard about the horrible wildfires in southern Australia. I saw this photo online and it broke my heart. Usually koalas are rather mean but this one was desperate for help. From what I read she is resting comfortably in a wildlife rehab facility :)

Sound sleepers

Somehow we slept through the 4.6 earthquake last week. After5 years in California and 4 here in Washington, we have still never felt one. Maybe that's a good thing. Little bird definitely noticed- he had a "flap attack" right around the time of the quake and woke us up. Crazy!

Utahhhhh

Last weekend we travelled to Salt Lake City for 1.) the Outdoor Retailer show and 2.) great hiking in Canyonlands National park. I met up with Eric on Thursday evening and we had dinner at the Red Iguana...no doubt SLC's most famous Mexican restaurant. We headed down to Moab on Friday and took in the great scenery, sun, and tunes of Willie's Place (XM radio) during the 4 hour trip. On Saturday we woke up super early, packed up and drove about 60 miles south to the Needles district of Canyonlands. We planned on trying to find the "All American Man" petroglyph but the 4x4 road wasn't exactly passable with a 2-wheel drive rental car. Maybe we'll go back in the summer. So, plan B was to hike around Chesler Park which was still totally awesome. We ended up hiking to Druid Arch. Check out the photos here!

The winter doldrums

This is the time of year when the winter doldrums hit. We'll be stuck with rain and gloomy weather for the next 3 months. Ugh! Eric and I are heading to Salt Lake City in a couple weeks for the Outdoor Retailer show and hopefully some sun. The plan is to hike around Canyonlands but if it snows we might end up skiing.

Merry Christmas!

So we are having a true white Christmas after all- a couple more inches of the fluffy stuff fell overnight. We opened gifts this morning then headed out for a nice snowshoe up at the pass. Click here for a few pictures!

White Christmas??

Looks like we're going to have a white Christmas after all! We have been inundated with snow since last week. I'm sure there's nearly a foot on the ground. All of this snow has brought the city of Seattle to it's knees...so far I've had two snow days!

Weekend!

Finally- a weekend without a bike race! Friday was the annual cookie baking/decorating night and yesterday we went out for a nice leisurely hike on Little Si. It's weird to see the mountains without snow- it kind of felt like spring weather. Today Eric finished up the Christmas lights and is now topping off the house with a glowing santa sleigh and reindeer. I have compiled a few photos from the weekend here.

What's new?

The last couple weeks have been pretty busy.

-My last CX race was on the 30th of November. I ran over a screw on the 2nd lap and had to DNF. I think it would've been my best race of the year too. Ugh.
-Eric and friends did the fall Beast adventure race near Mt. Rainer.
-We flew back to Michigan for Turkey Day. Pictures can be found here.

Eric's first CX race

No, you're not seeing things- this is a photo of Eric from today's CX race! He finally gave it a try and did OK. No crashes but he did manage to take out a section of the FSA banner...LOL.

SCC #6- Bremerton

I have to say I wasn't really prepared for Sunday's race. A week of travel (which included a lot of eating, drinking and standing around) followed by a week of laziness is not considered good training. Oh well! We got up pretty early (well, after several snooze alarms) and caught the 7:40 ferry to Bremerton. Once we arrived I rode a practice lap and then settled in for a warmup on the trainer. The course varied quite a bit-lots of pavement, lots of mud, and some MTB-style singletrack. Did I mention that we got to ride through 2 barns? I had a bad line going into the first two turns and was nearly cut off both times. I had to work really had to get back in the race and passed quite a few girls on that first lap. Laps 2, 3, and 4 were tough- the singletrack was fast but once I hit the muddy part I slowed to a crawl. On lap #5 I was able to pass one more racer to finish in 7th out of 23.

At the start line:

Scc #4- Donida Farms

Mudfest 2008. That's all I have to say about today's race at Donida Farms. It rained all morning and turned most of the course into the stuff that cyclocross dreams are made of. I didn't know there could be so many forms of mud- at times it resembled brownie batter, wet cement, and even wet clay (on the run-ups of course). I had a decent start and hung with the top riders for maybe two laps, but then started losing steam on the thick, sloppy singlegtrack (imagine riding through wet concrete). It was easily the hardest race I've ever done and surprisingly I came in 8th. Crazy!! Thank you J&S for being my cheerleading squad- next time I will furnish you with skirts and pom-poms :) Click here for a few more photos.

Eric's trip to China

Eric just posted some of his pictures from China- click here to see them!

Day in Photos

I found the camera in my bag yesterday so I took some photos...

Here's my desk. And yes, I do wear sandals when it's raining in October. Note the awful flourescent glow in our office.


Susan brought Dakota.


I think he came down with "Varilitis"


Ah, the drive home. Thanks to an accident near our exit, my commute went from 30min to over an hour. I had a lot of time to take photos... Here's the"parking lot" at exit 17:


The RV park that's pretty much full year-round. I wonder if people live there.


Issaquah has these funny little clouds that hover over the valley.


Self-portrait:

It's about time!!!

Our new microwave was installed today and I couldn't be happier. Cooking with pots and pans has been a real drag...

A can of Coke will wash down any bizarre Chinese delicacy of unknown origin.



Like this...

SPOT Satellite Messengers rock!

Eric picked up a free SPOT Satellite Messenger at last summer's Gorge Games. It is awesome and will pinpoint his exact location almost anywhere in the world. He's testing it out in China right now...

Here he is on Saturday:


And today near Shanghai:


Using the satelllite overlay you can even see which building he's in!

Another Sunday, another race

Today's race was at Seatac again. My support crew (aka Eric) is in China so I had to fend for myself. He takes care of the logistics- all I have to do is show up, warm up and race. Needless to say time management was an issue this morning!

The start was fine and I was sitting nicely in the top 5. The girl directly in front of me was really slow on the singletrack though and soon the top 3 pulled away. Ugh!! Then the shifting problem started (insert ominous music here). I just had new shifter cables installed last weekend and apparently it was time for them to be tightened up. It's weird because I didn't notice anything funny on today's warmup. Anyway, all I heard for 53 minutes was "click-click, click-click" as my chain bobbled between cogs. I only had one real working gear and it was sucky one at that. I was so frustrated that I considered DNF'ing. But I didn't, and on my last lap I put the hammer down and finished 6th out of 21.

Some photos courtesy of Jerry:






After my race I went for a short run at Tiger Mtn. The weather today was just gorgeous!

Today Eric and I went for an actual ride (i.e.- not a spinning class, CX workout or race). Fall is in the air and the leaves are finally starting to change color around here. The cooler weather is here too-by the end of the ride our toes were half frozen!

Here's Eric messing around by the garage:


Here I am by Tiger Mtn:


Last weekend was SCC #2 at Seatac. Long story short, I was sick but still ended up racing- I really like the course, it was sunny and dry, plus I wanted to try out my new brakes (Thanks Veloce Velo!) I was 2nd off the start but lost steam on every lap. I still took 8th out of 21 though. The appropriately named "Thighmaster" run-up just about killed me!