MFG #2- Fort Steilacoom

I can sum up my race in one word: sucky. I bet a lot of the suckiness could have been avoided if:

1. I got more than 5 hours of sleep the night before
2. I actually warmed up (one slow pre-race lap does NOT count as a warm up)
3. I spent more time training and less time being stressed out.

Not really looking forward to next Sunday's race. Ugh.

This photo shows how slow I was- I had time to smile and wave at the camera!

MFG cross #1

Today was the inaugral MFG cross race at Big Finn Hill in Kirkland. It was hot and sunny- not good cross weather in my opinion, and the course was totally designed for roadies. It was fun but REALLY tough and my back is totally aching now. My form was a lot better today and I think I came in 5th out of 20-some riders. Here I am out in front...that only lasted for about a minute though!

Cyclocross season is here!

Monday's race was the kick-off for cross season here in the NW. It was a new venue for me and I was relieved to see that the course had a little singletrack, which tends to be one of my strong suits. My plan was to take it easy- start in the back, keep an easy pace and just get back into the swing of things. Well, that plan went to hell- I was lined up against the fence (heading into a right-hand turn) so I sped to the front to avoid getting shut out. The rest of the race was brutal- my lungs are just not 100% yet. BUT- I still managed to take 2nd out of 17! Here I am busting my butt across the finish line...

Evicted!

I had to evict a chipmunk today- he wasn't paying rent on the flowerpot. Poor thing is probably sitting out in the rain somewhere :(

Here fishy, fishy, fishy....

Last weekend we went out on the Puget Sound to catch some pink salmon. It was a gorgeous day and we pulled in four good-size fish! Click here for a few more pictures.

Photos from Poland

I finally posted some photos here.

Our travels to the countryside...

One of the main reasons we came to Poland was to "get back to our roots". Mom has been speaking to some newfound cousins in Lancut (pronounced Wine-suit) and they asked us to come visit for a couple days. We thought it would be easiest to take a train from Krakow to Lancut and it turned out to be a trip from hell!

The morning started out innocently enough with breakfast at the hotel. It's the same thing every day for me- three slices of rye bread with butter and jelly with some green tea. There are other items at the buffet but I wouldn't dare try them!

The hellish day started when the cabs arrived. First of all keep in mind that between the four of use there are seven pieces of luggage and about as many carry-on bags and purses. So one cabbie looks at all the bags and basically says "forget it" in Polish. We eventually had to call the hotel receptionist over to help us out. Then we arrive at the train station. We check our tickets and figure out that we're supposed to be on platform 2. We lug all of our bags up the stairs or elevator and wait for the train to arrive. Shortly before our scheduled departure I notice that we're on the wrong frickin' platform. F***! There was no way we could get all of that luggage down the stairs and back to the other platform in 2 minutes, and thus we missed the train. Thankfully a very nice young guy helped us reschedule our tickets and get us to the correct platform.

But our troubles were not over yet! As soon as the train pulled up, passengers rushed the cars trying to get on and we totally struggled with all of those stinkin' suitcases. So then I start looking for seats. Do we have assigned seats? Who knows- none of us can read the ticket an so we're just standing there blocking the narrow aisles. Then the conductor points out that we're in the wrong frickin' car and we have to the move to the one behind us. ARRGGH. The train is about to leave any minute and we had to wrestle all of those stupid suitcases off that car and onto the new one. The conductor helps us find our seats but the little compartment can barely fit us and the luggage and he helps us put the bags on the overhead racks. FINALLY we sit down for a breather.

Little did we know what would happen when we arrived at our destination, Lancut (pronounced wine-suit). We pull up to the station and um, it's in the middle of nowhere. I mean, just a platform out in the middle of frickin' nowhere. We figured there would be taxis around but there were none to be found. I pop my head into the ticket office but no one speaks english. Ugh. I called our hotel and no one speaks english there either! I was so frustrated that I was nearly in tears. We had no idea how we'd get to the hotel. We end up calling our travel agent in the US to see what we should do, and while that's happening a Chrystler minivan pulls up and asks if we need any help in a mix of Polish and Italian. We handed the phone to him and our agent explained the situation. He offered to drive us to the hotel but we were a but unsure ("stranger danger" as Rose called it). However, he seemed nice so we went for it. He dropped us off and refused to take any money (we still pushed 20zl. at him anyway). Talk about a stressful trip.

So then we check into the hotel. It's actually a "pension" and man, it was sure no-frills. Our room looked like the maid's quarters and only had a small skylight for air. Needless to say it was so damn HOT in there. We decided to venture out for some dinner since we had barely eaten anything that day and ended up eating pizza...go figure.

Ok, so I know we were out in the sticks and all, but everyone STARED at us like we had 3 heads or something. I mean really stared. Do we really look that different? Or maybe people have never head english spoken before. Either way it was weird and very uncomfortable.

The rest of our stay in Lancut was, um, interesting...to be continued!!!

Poland- day 4

Today we visited the salt mines. They are over 400' deep! I wasn't really sure about this tour but it was quite fun and very interesting. Believe it or not they carved a whole chapel out of salt!

We ended up having Mexican food for dinner. Yep, that's right- Mexican food. And I must say it wasn't that bad!

Poland- day 3

We spent the morning at Auschwitz and Birkenau. There's not much to say about these places really. Auschwitz looked like a park with the trees, grass and brick buildings. That is, until you see things like the mounds of human hair, a room full of shoes and the gas chamber. Birkenau was another story. At one time it was covered with hundreds of crude wooden barracks but only a few are still standing. The brick chimneys remain though and they stretch as far as the eye can see. The most ominous structure is the brick entrance and watchtower (as seen in Schindler's List). Sad.

Later that afternoon Jana invited us to dinner at their home. Their home is really neat- it's an old flat (more than a hundred years old) and is filled with all sorts of books and antiques. We had a traditional Polish dinner of beet soup, beef and potatoes, and an assortment of sweets for dessert. Of course no visit to a Polish home would be complete with out the vodka! Ugh. We at dinner in the building's brick courtyard. It was so beatiful. Well, minus the endless cooing of pigeons.

Poland- Day 2

Mom has been doing some family tree research and found some distant relative in Krakow. So Jana and her daughter Francesca took us around town for a tour of the city. Oh, did I mention that Jana has degrees in art history, architecture and the theology? Needless to say they took us to some amazing sites- churches, the Jewish quarter and the Wawel castle. We stopped for lunch at a wonderful outdoor cafe.

Later that evening the four of us wandered around the main square and did a little more shopping. The old section of town is just beautiful!

Hello from Poland! Day 1

Mom, Rosie, Dorothy and I made it to Poland in one piece!

My flight out of Seattle was late...because someone's seat wouldn't fully recline. I can't believe they delayed the flight by a 1/2 hour because of something so trivial. Whatever! The 3 hour flight wasn't that bad and before I knew it I was touching down in Chicago and would soon be meeting up with my family. I was starving so I stopped at the Pizzeria Uno stand to get a mini pizza before going into the international terminal. OK, so I think I found the world's worst pizza! But since it's pizza I still ate it, although I left the crust on my plate. Yuck. So I went through security and saw mom and the ladies sitting there. We spent some time catching up and then almost missed the flight as we didn't hear any announcements (in English that is). We sat on the ground for nearly an hour as some mysterious repair was being made (once again the annoucement was in Polish, so we don't know what happened). LOT airlines is definitely no-frills. Coach seats, crappy headphones and strange meals. Our dinner included chicken and rice, bread, jelly, lunchmeat and pico de gallo. Oh, and don't forget the Kit-Kat. The flight was long and my anti-anxiety stuff did not work! Finally we got a few hours of sleep and then woke to an equally bizarre breakfast. Upon landing the passengers broke out in spontaneous applause and cheering- must be a Polish thing.

After customs we picked up the bags, met our driver and headed to the hotel. Our accomodations in Krakow (pronounced Krakoov by the locals) are simple but very nice. Mom was lamenting over the lack of a coffee pot in the room, which I thought was kind of funny. I informed her that the coffee in Europe is not at all like Maxwell House and is very strong.

After cleaning up a bit we headed to the Old Town just to check things out. The main square is gorgeous! We did a little shopping and then headed back to the hotel, totally zonked but excited to finally be in Poland!

Yukon River Quest

Right now Eric and Robin are halfway throught the 460-mile Yukon River Quest, a kayak race from Whitehorse to Dawson City. You can track the teams progress throught their SPOT messenger. Note: you will have to zoom in on the Yukon so see things in greater detail.

Day 1 of the race

24 Hours Round the Clock

Most people celebrate their birthday in a rather traditional way- dinner, party, bar hopping, whatever. I opted to ride my bike in circles for 24 hours. Huh? Back in January I had this grand idea to ride the 24 hours of Spokane..solo. This is actually quite funny because I do not have an endurance muscle in my body- how would I survive riding for 24 hours?

After a brutal 7 hour drive (thank you traffic jam) we rolled into the campground and set up shop outside the VanderWaal family "house on wheels". I barely slept that night- was it from anxiety or the constantly slamming door of the port-a-potty? We woke early on Saturday, made some last minute tweaks to my bike then had an awesome pancake breakfast courtesy of Aaron's mom.

I finally had the "why the hell did I sign up for this" moment as I put on my team kit. And then Rebecca Rusch rolls by and I feel my stomach turn over. OK, I know I'm not here to compete but when the world champion shows up you can't help but feel inadequate. Fortunately for me she was on a relay team...whew!

The race went something like this:
-Lap 1: LeMans start and then I spent the rest of the lap figuring out the course.
-Lap 2: Faster than #1, nothing remarkable.
-Lap 3: I now refer to this lap as the "dark ages". I was hot and getting totally abused by the rocky course. Fortunately Eric found someone to adjust my fork and I am eternally grateful to the guy in the black hat (I never did find out his name).
-Lap 4: Smokin'! I felt so much better.
-Laps 5-7: Ok, just plodding along at my snail's pace. Started to walk some of the hills. Saw a couple teenage guys streak across the course (hey, it kept me awake). When I was done with #7 I realized my goal of 9 laps was in sight. So I kept going.
-Laps 8-9: Nothing special. I rode #9 quickly because I knew a nap was waiting for me back at camp.
-Naptime: I gave Eric strict orders to wake me up after an hour. Ha! After a 5 minute conversation that consisted of "wake up!" (Eric) and "go away!" (me) he gave up and let me sleep.
-Lap 10- This one almost didn't happen. I was kind of happy with my 9 laps but Eric convinced me to go out again. I was feeling a bit ragged and rode pretty slowly.
-Lap 11- Exhausted. In pain. On the verge of tears. When I started sniffling I knew this was my last lap. I pictured Tom Hanks saying "There's no crying in bike racing!". I was SO happy to be finished!!

I came in 7th out of 10 which I'm super happy about. And, I was only two measly minutes behind 5th place. Click here for few pictures!

Crazy Daisy

I've been searching high and low for a perch that Daisy cannot climb down from. Not easy when you own a cockatoo. The nice lady at the bird store just happened to have an old one in storage and gave it to me. Score! Well, not really...as you can see Daisy is already hard at work trying to figure out a way off it. Ugh!

Paddlin'

Eric and Robin are training for the Yukon River Quest and have been spending a lot of time on the water. Here are a few pics from yesterday's paddle.

(Insert ominous music here)

In case you didn't already know, I'm getting ready to ride (notice I didn't say compete) in my first solo 24-hour mountain bike race. Yes, that means riding my bike for an entire day. I'm beginning to think I'm crazy. But, even crazy people must have some goals, so here are mine for the race:

1. Finish 9 laps (135 miles)
2. Sleep for no more than 30 minutes at a time. I feel sorry for the person that wakes me up!
3. No crashes
4. No bonking
5. Remember that I'm only doing this for fun, not to race.

Where in the world are we?

How about Disneyworld?! We just got back on Sunday night. It was a total last-minute trip, with all of the reservations made about 3 weeks ago. Mom and Dad drove down from Michigan, stopped in South Carolina for a few days, and then met us in Orlando. The first night was our traditional dinner at TGI Friday's and then putt putt at Pirate's Cove. Mom actually got a hole in one. We spent the next four days at Disney and spent some time at each park. We even had some new rides to go on this time...the Everest roller coaster was great but Mission Space made us a bit green. We also spent a few mornings at Typhoon Lagoon too. All of us had a great time and we can't wait to go back!

I uploaded some photos to Flikr- click here to check them out.

April snowshowers...

Will inevitably bring May rainshowers. This was just taken a few minutes ago...arrgghhh!

2009 race schedule

I went gung-ho with my training a couple months ago, won two races and now, well, I'm losing some motivation. I went into this season with really only two goals- to race the 24 hrs of Spokane and to prepare for cyclocross. Somewhere along the way I started adding MTB races to my calendar and I'm a bit overwhelmed. So I've retooled my race plans...

-May 3: Indie Series #2- South Seatac
-May 8: 12 hours of South Seatac. Training event.
-May 23-24: 24 hours of Spokane. I'd like to do 10 laps, but that's pretty ambitious.
-May 30: Trioba Sprint adventure race with the guys.
-June 6: Indie Series #4- Bavarian Bike & Brew
-June 21: Indie Series #5- Methow Valley
-July 12: Indie Series #6-Padden MTN Pedal- Bellingham
-July 18-19: Seattle Night and Day Challenge. Only if the weather is nice though!

After that I'm headed to Poland for 2 weeks then it's time to get ready for 'cross season!

Falling behind!

Yikes- I'm falling behind on my posts. Just a few notes:

-www.ericandkaryn.com will cease to exist at some point in the near future. I did not renew our domain name because I am cheap. Not sure what will take it's place if anything. We'll still use our Flikr page for photos though.
-We're going to Disneyworld at the end of the month! Yea!
-The weather really, really sucks here in Seattle. It snowed this morning.
-We're putting out house up for sale in the very near future. And no, we're not moving out of the state although the weather here is making me want to move somewhere warm.

That's it for now!