Rollin’ in Wenatchee

We started riding along Highway 97 and experienced the bittersweetness of a newly paved road. The upside was that the road was nice and smooth, but the downsides were that the tar was hot and toxic-smelling, and the shoulder had a ton of gravel and debris from the paving. We rode amidst the pebbles and chemical fumes, dodging the occasional snake carcass. (Seriously, I swerved around about a half dozen coiled up serpent corpses. What is the deal, do they all decide to slither to the side of the road when nearing their life cycle so they can curl up and die?) After a ludicrously short amount of time, Jason had to stop because of a flat tire, so I waited on the side of the road, baking in the sun while he and his dad changed the flat.

Jason pretends to know what he’s doing while his dad does the actual tire changing

They blew through a couple cartridges but couldn’t quite get the tire fully inflated, so we rode a short while until we got to a little store, at which point we stopped and asked some fellow cyclists if they had a pump. They only had a craptacular hand pump that barely worked, so Jason and Jim used another cartridge to fill up the tire even more. I killed time by buying a jug of water and ingesting most of it. It was the highlight of my workout.

After squandering more time on the flat, we finally got to the mighty McNeil Canyon climb. This sumbitch is a nightmare — it’s a several mile-long hill up the canyon that offers zero shade or any sort of breeze. It just keeps winding forever and ever, and you never get a reprieve — no small descents, no flat stretches, nothing until you get to the top. I climbed McNeil a couple months ago with Teresa and some girls during her bachelorette weekend, and it took me an hour to ascend it. I had to stop multiple times during the climb to let the lactic acid dissipate from my burning quads. I’ve heard McNeil has a reputation among seasoned cyclists as being the worst climb in Washington.

My ultimate goal is to conquer this thing without having to stop, but unfortunately that didn’t happen this time around. I started climbing and immediately felt the heat — it was so stifling and intense that I had to stop after a short while and rip off my helmet so I could get some semblance of air to reach my fat noggin. I repeated this process a few more times, but the heat just sucked the energy out of my legs and I didn’t want to have nothing left by the time I got to the top since we were going to have to ride another 20 or so miles before we got to a store for more fuel and water. I threw in the towel, having only climbed up half of McNeil, and told Jason and Jim that I’d wait for them at the park at the bottom of the canyon. They soldiered on slowly, intent on conquering McNeil since they hadn’t climbed it before.

I got to the bottom of the canyon and rolled into the park. All of my water bottles were full of hot, unappetizing liquid, and all I wanted was something cold to drink. Unfortunately, the drinking fountain next to the bathrooms had such pathetic water pressure that I was going to have to tongue kiss it in order to successfully ingest anything (most likely herpes), and I wasn’t quite that desperate. Another drinking fountain near the courts was shut off, and a third spigot was broken. What the hell, it’s the middle of summer and 100 degrees outside and none of this shit works. *shakes fist*

Frustrated, I gave up, parked my bike under a tree, and waded into the river clutching my water bottles in hopes of cooling them down a bit. I sat in my makeshift refrigerator for a long while before returning to the park and sitting at a picnic table in some shade. I considered riding out and back along 97 while waiting for Jason and Jim to return from climbing McNeil, but I was paranoid about missing them and figured it’d be best to just sit tight. “Sit tight” quickly translated to falling asleep. Oops.

After my little cat nap, I woke up feeling even more dehydrated and had now thrown groggy into the mix. Great. Where the hell were they? Finally I saw them descend down the canyon. When they got to me, I heard the standard grumblings about how effing miserable that climb is and how hot and tired they were. We sat in the river for a while to cool off, then rode back to the store, which was quickly becoming our desert oasis.

Jason’s dad cooling off much like how a dog would

Jason hydrating like a champ

At this point the heat was really starting to psych me out. It was going to be similarly hot in Penticton for Ironman Canada, and I was worried about not being able to handle it. I texted Teresa in a panic:

“Riding in Wenatchee and having a crisis about riding in the heat. Giving me doubts about Canada.”

She responded with this gem:

“Dump water over head!”

I countered with “My water’s too hot!” It doesn’t really feel refreshing to dump liquid over your head when it’s the same temperature as your pee.

We finally managed to tear ourselves away from the cool refuge of the store and continued along 97 back to the car. Jason and his dad both started to cramp from the heat, and by the time we finished, neither Jason nor I were in the mood to do a 30 minute brick run in 100 degree temps. We opted instead to drown our sorrows in an obscene amount of barbecue and iced tea.

Wenatchee is a fiery mistress, and riding along 97 and climbing up that bitch canyon is great training for Canada, but it was so hot that I was really worried about how I’d be able to handle the heat on race day. Thankfully, we had a training weekend coming up in Penticton, so I’d be able to experience first-hand how conditions would feel…

via reddit, where I get my daily Internet fix

If I saw dudes dressed like this cheering me on at races, I would race all the freaking time.

We got to Chehalis and found two stores that were open: Wal-Mart and K-Mart. Faced with the worst Choose Your Own Adventure path imaginable, I opted for K-Mart since it rang of nostalgia instead of evil corporate greed. We pulled up and initially thought the store wasn’t open yet due to the vacant, post-apocalyptic parking lot, but once we let the tumbleweeds roll by, we checked the store signage and found that K-Mart was indeed open for business.

I headed into the store and stopped first for a bathroom break, where I got to enjoy listening to the morning cleaning lady argue with someone in Spanish while sitting in the stall next to me. Afterwards, I marveled at the “Layaway Pick Up” sign (how 80’s!) and wandered the aisles looking for any of the three items I needed to purchase. I couldn’t find anything except for nine variations of “World’s Greatest Dad” t-shirts, so we asked the cashier for help. I found out that they didn’t have any of the items I was looking for — I could maybe understand not having gloves, but a store that doesn’t carry jackets or electrical tape? No wonder they’re going out of business.

Frustrated, I begrudgingly resorted to stopping at Wal-Mart to procure my items. I found a black $7 windbreaker that looked like a Hefty bag and had “Chinese child labor” written all over it. After nabbing electrical tape and some cycling gloves, we were finally able to exit this middle American wasteland and continue on to Mt. St. Helens.

We arrived at the school where the organized ride started and picked up our registration packet. After meeting up with some teammates who were also doing the ride, we all embarked along the road that would lead us to the top of the mountain. It was cold and rainy — my sunglasses fogged up almost immediately, and riding too closely behind Jason resulted in an immediate spray of muddy water all over me. Fantastic.

The climbs weren’t bad at all — gradual and long, but I must be getting better at climbing hills because the stubby Asian legs were doing pretty decent that day. Climbing also kept me warm; unfortunately, when we stopped at the first aid station and I stopped working, I got pretty cold relatively quickly. We attempted to shake off the cold and damp and trudged on to aid station #2.

When we stopped at the second aid station, one of the race organizers discouraged us from going the final 13 miles to the summit, in typical Gandalf fashion. Apparently temperatures were continuing to drop, and the top was especially cold with a mix of rain and snow. Several cyclists were getting hypothermia and had to be shuttled down, and they were running out of shuttle rides.

While we all debated on what to do, the waiting around meant I started to get colder and colder. I scanned the aid station and saw a huge group of cyclists grouped together and wondered what they were doing before realizing they were all huddled three athletes deep around a huge fire pit, trying to warm up. They looked like spandex-clad hobos minus the woeful harmonica music. (One cyclist later told me the huddled masses reminded her of the scene from March of the Penguins where the animals huddled together with their eggs at their feet — also an apt visual.)

Jason and his dad macho-ly wanted to continue to the top, but I’ve seen Alive and I know how much those two can eat, so I didn’t want to get stranded up there and have to fend off two ravenous Panamanians who felt like partaking in some Korean BBQ. We compromised and decided to head back down the mountain and make up the lost mileage by climbing back up a ways.

As soon as we began our descent, my brain screamed, “I immediately regret this decision!” My shoes and gloves were soaking wet from the rain, so my hands and feet instantly froze as I shot down the mountain. My faith in my motor skills declined sharply as my hands grew stiffer and stiffer, so I rode the brakes with three functioning fingers as I wobbled downhill, fending off shivers. I saw Jason and his dad waiting for me in front of the Mt. St. Helens Forest Center and stopped to meet them, shaking like a scared little bunny.

We headed inside to warm up and figure out what to do. I scanned the lobby of the Forest Center and saw about a dozen cyclists looking like soggy and miserable refugees. Some were given blankets, while others were so desperate for warm clothes that they shelled out money in the gift shop for commemorative Mt. St. Helens fleece pullovers (which I hope were adorned with the exclamation “I had a BLAST at the Mt. St. Helens Forest Center!”).

The three of us were ushered into a back display area and plopped next to a radiator. One of the employees handed me a cup of coffee, but I immediately had to put it down because I was shivering so hard, the cup’s contents were threatening to splash all over the place. To keep me occupied, another employee showed me pictures of Mt. St. Helen’s path of destruction way back in 1980.

Jason and his dad opted to continue down the mountain back to the school where we started, but I was too cold to be able to descend all the way down so I elected to wait with the other wet and freezing cyclists and hope for rescue. I took brief refuge in the ladies’ restroom and virtually molested the hand dryer for about 20 minutes in a sad attempt to dry my gloves and clothes.

After a while, it felt like I was waiting with a group of people plucked straight out of The Grapes of Wrath. I heard them pine for warmth and sun as if they were dreaming of a new life out west:

Cyclist #1: “I hear they’ve got warm showers back at the school!”
Cyclist #2: “And pipin’ hot beverages and pasta!”
Cyclist #3: “I tell ya, things will be great once we get to the bottom of this here mountain.”

Meanwhile, a couple of cyclists and I conspired to pool our money together to try and bribe some Forest Center tourists to give us a lift back to the school.

Lady: “I have fifteen dollars.”
Me: “I’ve got one dollar.”
Lady: “We have sixteen dollars!”

As we were plotting to commandeer a tour bus in an epic Lord of the Flies-like fashion, out of nowhere the Montana Boys Choir sauntered into the lobby and decided to randomly belt out two religious songs in front of an audience composed of smiling, awestruck Forest Center employees and scowling, shivering cyclists.

Eventually, a school bus pulled up and we click-clacked onto the bus while wielding our cumbersome bikes and our drenched gear. I managed to get two compliments on my Cervelo P2, which ended up being the highlight of my day. We all couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of a bus full of cyclists with their bikes sticking straight up in the air, balanced on one tire.

We finally got back to the school and I changed into a dry pair of clothes. My 82 mile training ride turned into 32 miles of shivering failure. I drowned my sorrows in a gigantic hot chocolate and about half a pizza, wondering when I’d be able to finally get in a decent bike ride. Sigh.

Our bikes’ temporary home

View from our hotel room

On Saturday Jason, his dad and I woke up and prepped everything for our ride. We parked a few miles from the transition area and started setting everything up when I realized that the black rolled up wad of fabric I grabbed and shoved into my bag wasn’t arm sleeves like I thought, but rather compression sleeves for my legs. Fudgers! It was going to be a gray, chilly day, and my wimpo arms were surely going to freeze without some sort of cover. Jason suggested I just wear my compression sleeves as arm warmers. I didn’t have any better options, so that’s what I did. I ended up with 90 miles of compressiony goodness, but unfortunately I realized two things after the ride:

1. The sleeves, which typically go from under my knee to my ankle, weren’t long enough to cover my entire arm.
2. Even though the sun wasn’t out, that doesn’t mean the rays weren’t poking through the clouds.

As such, I ended the ride with this B.S.:

This is not a good look for me

The watch tan I’m used to. The half-forearm tan? Not so much. (I’ve grown accustomed to the hairy arms though, so deal with it.) Anyway, I started riding for a whopping minute before realizing that, no fucking way, my bike computer’s cadence sensor wasn’t working again. What the shit, I just replaced this stupid thing two weeks ago! I angrily fiddled with it for a while, and it went from not reading my cadence to not reading anything. Great, now I was going to ride 90 miles with no indication of my speed or cadence.

Frustrated and fueled by rage, I took off and anger-rode for an hour. After a while, Jason appeared next to me, slightly out of breath, exclaiming, “It took me forever to catch up to you! You need to slow down!” Apparently I was averaging about 24 mph and was climbing rollers going 20. To be fair, the first 30 or 40 miles of the Canada course are pretty fast, with lots of flats/downhills and a few inconsequential hills. I pouted a bit more about my broken computer but decided to slow it down in anticipation of Richter Pass.

Before we got to the pass, Jason’s dad got an epic flat by running over a huge kinked wad of wire. He wrestled it out of his tire and changed the tube but wanted to stop at a gas station to properly fill the tire with air. While he was fixing his bike, I stopped inside to use the bathroom and buy more fuel. When I came out, I saw Jason barely hiding his irritation while a filthy grifter with roughly four teeth peppered him with questions about our bikes. Apparently this Canadian mountain man had been marveling at how nice our bikes were and said that someone should build an eight person stealth bomber out of the same carbon fiber our bikes are made from. He then paused, looked at Jason, and said, “I see you’ve got a belly under all that gear! You must work in an office, eh? This is good exercise for that!” Jason muttered a “Yeah…” while murdering the dude with his eyes, and I resisted the urge to laugh. What kind of person makes remarks about a complete stranger’s stomach? Dudes with meth mouth, that’s who.

“Your belly offends me and my professional appearance.”

After our brief break, we continued on and hit the pass almost immediately. I gotta say, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Don’t get me wrong, Richter Pass is no picnic, but you get to climb for a bit before shooting down a decent decline, then lather, rinse, repeat for a while and before you know it, you’re done. Unfortunately, after you conquer the pass (and are rewarded with a nice downhill), you get hit with a bunch of rollers that are pretty sucky, especially when you factor in a craptacular crosswind (which we got hit with on Saturday).

We skipped an out and back portion of the ride and continued on until we hit the second significant climb, which is the stretch of road leading to Yellow Lake. (Brief aside: who names a body of water “Yellow Lake”? Nothing screams “urine-soaked” like that moniker. It actually is a pretty lake though, and not at all yellow. Still, not the best name.) I thought this climb was uber-shittier than Richter because unlike Richter, which has steep climbs but brief reprieves where you get to descend, the Yellow Lake climb is pretty much a long, arduous, gradual, relentless son of a bitch until you get to the top. On the way up I saw several banana peels and wondered if Jason was trying to take me out, Mario Kart style. If only I had a red shell…

I’m gunnin’ for ya, Jas

The last several miles of the bike course shoot you down a pants crappingly fast descent that scared the bejesus out of me due to the semis and crosswinds. Operation De-Chunkify has been going well for me, but at that point I wondered if I should have actually gained an extra 15 lbs instead of lost weight so I’d be better anchored and wouldn’t get bitch slapped by the wind and cars. At several points during the descent I envisioned myself getting blown over the guardrail and falling to my death while still clipped into my bike.

The next day Jas and I ran the middle portion of the run course, which is the same stretch as the first part of the bike course. We did about 15 miles in the sun and I thought about how miserable I was going to be racing in 90 degree heat considering I was already feeling overheated at 70 degrees. The “inconsequential” hills I mentioned earlier on the bike suddenly seemed like a jerk crusted bastard during the run. This will not feel good on race day.

We spent the remainder of the weekend enjoying the gorgeous scenery and buying roughly an asston of wine:

View of the swim start from a vineyard across the lake

Loitering in some Canadian’s vineyard

Jason’s mom gets inspired by the boobalicious mermaid statue

Our Ironman training fuel

Before we left, we flailed around in the freezing lake (“freezing” being 55 degrees) for about 20 minutes, making me think that I really need to do a couple more open water swims before Boise. Poop. Other than that, though, it was good to explore the Ironman course and dump my paycheck into many, many wine purchases. I can’t wait to come up with the team in July and do it all again. Hopefully Teresa will have some good advice on how to pace myself for the ride, and I’m counting on doing more wine tasting with some of my teammates. Don’t let me down, Ironman crew!

Dude, if someone threw a tray of mustard at me while I was riding, I would freak the eff out and go apeshit on him. Then again, I can’t stand mustard, but still, that’s so not cool.

So true. (Diagram courtesy of Indexed)

Last year I did a 50 mile ride in Yakima, and I was riding along a long, open stretch of highway when I felt something bounce off my inner thigh. I didn’t think anything of it until about ten seconds later when I felt a sharp, searing pain on the inside of my leg. I stopped and hopped off my bike to inspect what the hell had happened. It turned out that a freakin’ bee flew towards my leg ass-first and stung me. I had a sting mark on my inner thigh for the entire summer.

This year I went back and did the same Yakima ride, only I rode about 62 miles. As I started, I jokingly thought to myself “I better not get stung by a bee this time around.” No sooner did I think that when I felt a series of stinging, sharp pains under my boob. I panicked and smooshed/itched at the area until the sensation subsided. Eventually I forgot about it until later that day when I was stripping down to take a shower and discovered smashed bug carcasses stuck to my chest. Those little effers had flown down my shirt, got trapped in my sports bra and decided to bite me over and over again until I crushed them against my bony bosom. What the hell?!

So yeah, triathletes are like little bug magnets. Every triathlete I know has had some sort of bug encounter (most recently, Jason forgot his pair of sunglasses for a ride and had a bug bounce directly off his eyeball). I know that protein’s good for athletes, but I’m getting tired of sucking face with gnats. I mean, the least they could do is buy me a drink first…

Our track record with Lake Stevens isn’t great. The first time we rode it went okay, but we were with a giant group who actually knew where they were going. The second time we did the course, Jason’s friend broke his rear derailleur while miserably cranking up a hill and had to wait around in a combination general store/bait and tackle shop while Jason and I rode back to the car so we could pick him up. (Naturally, we got lost on the way back.)

This time around, we packed up our bike stuff and headed to Jason’s parents’ house to meet up with his dad who also wanted to ride the course. We got to “downtown” Lake Stevens (meaning the street with the Subway), parked, used the bathroom, checked our maps and ventured off for our hardcore 55 mile bike ride.

When we came to the first intersection we immediately made the wrong decision and ventured in the completely opposite direction of where we were supposed to head. We biked for about 4 miles before realizing that we had to be horribly lost because we ended up riding directly into a construction zone. Barriers were placed right up against the white line, forcing us into the lane as hoards of vehicles zoomed past us. I prayed that I wouldn’t get clipped by a car while trying not to pass out from the mixture of exhaust fumes and construction stink.

After another mile or two we managed to wrangle free from the construction zone and stopped to check our maps again. We found the road that led back to where we parked, so we decided to take it all the way to the starting point so we could get our bearings and find the proper course. After riding for a bit, we stopped again to check the map to make sure we were on the right track. It was at this point when Jason’s dad realized he had broken a rear bike spoke. Great. Okay, Plan B: Ride back to the car, head to Jason’s parents’ house so his dad could swap out the tire with his other bike’s spare rim, then find a new goddamn course that’s easy to navigate and relatively free of toxic fumes.

We rode onward: me in front, Jason a bit behind me and his dad bringing up the rear with his broken spoke. I was pedaling pretty steadily when I happened to run over something pretty hard with my front tire. I had about enough time to mentally utter “Shit” before my tire imploded. GAHHHH. I stopped and Jason rode up next to me, exclaiming that he had heard my tire pop when it happened (and he had been a ways behind me).

I started to change my tire (my sixth flat in a year — at least I’m getting pretty good at swapping out tubes). Jason’s dad continued on to the car as I wasted a cartridge trying to figure out how to inflate a tube without using a bike pump. Thankfully, the second time was the charm. I inflated my tire and was about to put it back onto my bike when Jason said, “Hey, look.” I checked out the exterior of the tire and, sure enough, it was totally shredded in one section, with a chunk of rubber hanging off like a loose tooth. My ride was officially over.

Basically, our 55 mile ride ended up being 10 miles. We got lost, Jason’s dad broke a spoke, and I had to spend $70 on a new tire, cartridges and tubes. In a nutshell: biking is bullshit.

“Worse” is putting it lightly. This mofo is 2 miles long. While the rest of the hill isn’t as superbly steep as the beginning part, it’s a long, winding, never-ending piece of crap. Every time I rounded a corner and expected to be at the end, I’d see more hill to climb. I cursed, sweated, wheezed, dropped my chain, cursed again, stopped to put the chain back on my bike, burned my legs up trying to start climbing again mid-hill, sweated some more, wheezed a few more times, and finally made it to the top. Then we turned around, flew down the hill (well, they flew while I held my brakes in a nervous death grip) and climbed the bastard again. While I was in better gearing the second time around, my legs were tired and hating me for drowning them in lactic acid. Why the hell would I want to pay to bike up this hill? I just climbed it twice for free and hated every sweat-soaked minute of it!

Our practice ride was last Sunday, and all week Jason and I contemplated signing up for the duathlon. Teresa initially wanted us to do the long course (which consisted of a 5.1 mile run, a 28.8 mile bike and a 3.7 mile run), meaning we’d have to do the bike loop (and that bullshit hill) twice, and once we rode the course we were like “Yeeeeeah, the short course seems more appropriate.” Several of our training buddies were doing the short course and a couple of folks were doing the long course. Confident that she could conquer the hill this year, Beth egged me on to sign up and race with her.

Jason and I dragged our feet up until Saturday, at which point Jason put on his game face, hitched up his britches and decided to do the race. He set out his gear and clothes and I begrudgingly mimicked him like a disgruntled monkey. When the alarm started blaring at 5:15 am on Sunday morning, he bounced out of bed and said in a far-too-chipper voice, “Time to get ready, Bec!” My response was a mumbly “I don’t wanna do the race.” He said, “Why not?”, and I muttered something about getting bullied into it, how the bike course wasn’t fun, the hill was stupid, I’m gonna do crappy, it’s unnatural for human beings to wake up before 6 am, etc.

This is not the first time I’ve put up a fight getting out of bed for a race, and it won’t be the last time. Jason knows my routine, and he’s become quite adept at subtly bullying me into racing. Here’s how he does it:

Me (laying in bed): “I don’t want to race.”
Jason (from the other room): “That’s fine, honey. You don’t have to race if you don’t want to.”

I get out of bed, use the bathroom, re-enter the bedroom and see that my ninja boyfriend has already made the bed.

Me: “Damnit.”

I walk downstairs and see that Jason is making breakfast.

Jason: “You don’t have to race. Nobody’s making you…do you want oatmeal? One packet or two?”
Me: “One…wait, I want an English muffin. And I don’t think I’m going to do the race.”
Jason (putting an English muffin in the toaster oven): “That’s okay, don’t feel stressed. I’m still going to race but you don’t have to. Are you going to stay home, or will you still watch?” He starts pumping up my bike tires.
Me (eating my English muffin): “I…don’t know…maybe…maybe I’ll come and watch…”
Jason: “Okay, that would be nice…do you want a Gu2O or just a water bottle?” He starts mixing bottles.
Me: “I’ll take one of each…wait, what am I saying? I’m not racing today!”

And then before I know it, I’m pulling out of our garage with my race gear on and my bike strapped to the back of my car. He is such a sneaky bastard.

We got to the fairgrounds, signed up for the race and set up our transition area. Before the race began Teresa snapped a photo of her athletes like a proud parent taking pictures of her kids on their first day of Kindergarten:

Look how bleary eyed I look. At this point I still hadn’t forgiven Jason for suckering me into waking up at 5 am and driving all the way to cold-ass Enumclaw to do a stupid duathlon.

At 8:05 the short course racers started. The first run was a short 1.6 miles. I ran with Bri and we hit the transition area at around the same time. I changed out my shoes, strapped on my helmet, put on my sunglasses (which immediately fogged up), grabbed my bike and click-clacked out of the transition area (note to self: learn the fancy “run out barefoot and slip into your shoes while riding” trick sometime this season) to begin the 14.4 mile bike portion. I biked pretty steadily and felt pretty good about passing a bunch of people. When my spidey sense started tingling to inform me that the hill was approaching, I sucked down a gu and fueled via my aero bottle in anticipation.

For me, this was the third time I’d be climbing the big hill within a week, and the third time was the charm. And by “charm,” I mean it didn’t suck quite as bad as it did the previous two times. Yes, I was slow and yes, I wheezed like a fat kid on a 12 carton of smokes a day habit, but I wasn’t as slow or as wheezy as the week before. I hit the top of the hill, refrained from punching the photographer in the face for capturing me at my absolute worst, and kept plodding along.

The rest of the bike course was fairly fast. At one point there was a steep downgrade and I wasn’t in the right gearing when I got to it, but my hands were too frozen for me to trust them to fumble with the shifters at the end of my aero bars, so I ended up keeping them right next to the brakes as I coasted down the hill, praying I wouldn’t hit a pothole and fly off my bike going over 30 mph. One dude actually passed me going down the hill, shooting down in his little aero helmet and fancy bike. He was the only person to pass me on the bike portion, and I later found out that he was the long course winner. That dude was fast.

Eventually I got back to the transition area and nearly fell off my bike when I dismounted (stumpy Asian legs + frozen quads = accident waiting to happen).

(Motion lines added for emphasis)

I dropped off my bike, stripped off my helmet and sunglasses, changed into my running shoes, and started the 3.7 mile run. Holy crap, my legs were so numb and cold from the bike that I felt like little Forrest Gump running gimp-style with his leg braces (minus the triumphant scene where they break off into a million pieces and he outruns the bullies). Two women passed me on the run, but I trudged along and hit the finish line at 1:36:37. Not too shabby!

I waited around with Jason, Teresa, and some other folks for some of our teammates to finish the race. While we were waiting the race organizers announced age group winners. To my surprise, I heard someone say, “Is Rebecca Kelley here?” I waved my arms in a dorky “Derrr, I’m Rebecca Kelley!” fashion. It turns out I took 3rd in my age group, and the two women who passed me on the run took 1st and 2nd. (They beat me by less than a minute. Bastards!…though I did have the best bike time in my age group, so that’s rad.) My first age group placement! (Well, technically I took 2nd in my age group at last year’s Apple Capital Olympic triathlon, but that was out of 3 total females…and the 3rd girl didn’t even show up to race.)

I was so stoked to have received a 3rd place medal that I forgave Jason for “tricking” me into doing the race.

See? Hugs and forgiveness abounds!

Speaking of Jason, he won his age group! Well, technically he was the only person in his age group, but hey, he had to show up in order to win, right? Plus he placed 11th overall, so it’s not like his time was sucky. He did really well and I’m proud of him.

Thus concludes my lengthy duathlon recap. I guess the moral of this story is that you should never say never. You don’t know what you’re capable of until you at least give it a try. I dragged my feet and whined and pouted about not wanting to do the race, but in the end I tried my best and got a sweet-ass medal for my efforts. Oh, and having a nagging but encouraging boyfriend doesn’t hurt, either. :)

Once we were both on the mend Jason and I were all “Time to get serious, yo.” I was all geared up to go to Tuesday’s evening track practice and make my triumphant return (cue the trumpets). Jason went in the morning and gave me the following feedback:

• It was freakin’ cold
• It was really freakin’ cold
• A stretch of the track was covered in ice, making running quite treacherous
• Seriously, it was cold. Jason had to borrow tiny Tracy’s gloves so his fingers wouldn’t freeze off. I’m pretty sure the gloves are now stretched beyond repair.

I had miserable expectations for the evening track, but I didn’t have a chance to experience how cold and icy it was going to be–the extremely low temperatures prompted Teresa to cancel track. (Postpone the trumpets.)

Attempt #2 at our Triumphant Return was on Thursday. Jason and I signed up for an early morning interval cycling class and dry land swim conditioning. We set our alarm for 6 am and got everything ready the night before. At 5:40 am we were both awakened to the loudest fricking clap of thunder imaginable. We both sprang out of bed and uttered a simultaneous “Whoa.” He got up and looked out the window but saw nothing. We figured it was going to start raining and would probably freeze and make the roads slick. After climbing back into bed we heard another huge clap of thunder and anticipated the sound of falling rain next…but instead it was silent. Hmm…

A minute later my phone vibrated. It was Teresa texting me to say that it was snowing like crazy over in West Seattle so she was canceling classes. I said, “That’s weird, how is it snowing in West Seattle but not here?” Jason’s response: “Holy crap!” I looked out the window and saw blurs of white. In the 5 minutes between our first glimpse out the window and checking my phone, it had started snowing buckets. It was as if the sky farted and started pooping out snow.

We got a crapload of snow on Thursday and couldn’t work out because the Y closed and because we couldn’t run anywhere without rolling an ankle or slipping and cracking our heads open (which I’ll fully admit is something I’m prone to doing even when the weather is perfect). Aside from a trip to the grocery store, Jason and I were pretty much snowed in. Of course, having a snow day in Seattle is a built-in excuse to not work at the office, so my coworkers canceled work and all stayed home. I happily did the same.

On Friday morning my neighborhood was quiet and blanketed in snow:

The streets were empty save for two buses abandoned on Madison. The office was canceled again, so I stayed home and totally rocked the fireplace/hot chocolate/pajama pants/slippers combo. In fact, I got so comfy that I forgot to get off my ass and exercise. Silly me…

Jason and I planned on going for a run on Saturday but had afternoon plans to to see Gonzaga play UConn at the Battle in Seattle. We assured ourselves that “after the game is over we’ll go for a run.” Our optimism for both Gonzaga and for exercising lasted until the end of overtime when both the Zags lost and we were greeted with more snow flurries upon exiting Key Arena. A gruelingly slow hour later, we were finally home, our plans to run crushed under several inches of snow. The Y was closed, so we couldn’t swim or do an indoor workout, either. We managed to drown our sorrows with Mexican food and a few bottles of wine. “Tomorrow we’ll work out…”

Well, Sunday came. Once again the workout weather was…less than favorable.

The bush next to our front porch:

The steps leading up to our garage:

This is about as far as I can get my patio door to open:

Our bamboo is smothered under the weight of the snow:

And yes, it’s still snowing:

Jason and I trudged to Safeway to get stuff for dinner. We decided that a prime rib roast sounded nice and wintry, so we bought one, prepped it, and popped it in the oven. Since we both felt like fat, lethargic turds, we pulled our bikes out and decided to do an indoor ride. Triumphant return successful!

Er, kinda. The cooking roast heated up the entire downstairs, and my whole ride was choked with hot, roasted meat smell. I ended up feeling queasy and stopped after 30 minutes. The fact that I hadn’t worked out in two weeks didn’t help with my stamina, either. My triumphant return was pretty craptastic, but at least 30 minutes is better than yet another evening sitting on my ass, right? (The roast was fantastic, by the way. Way to reward your triumphant return with delicious meat and red wine, Rebecca!)

Okay, tomorrow snow be damned — I’m going to strap some tennis rackets to my feet and walk over to the Y for some swimming and weight lifting. If they’re closed (again) I’ll force myself to do another indoor ride (minus cooked beef stench) and will do sit ups and strength training until my limbs feel like noodles. I will push it to the limit (lim-mit!) and get back on track, damn it.

Or maybe I’ll open some more wine, prop up my feet, and queue up a movie…could go either way. (Who am I kidding, I know which way it’ll go…)