Chain Rings and Sushi

Do you know that it's dark out at 6 am in the morning? I just discovered that this past week. The first time was Thursday morning--some co-workers and I decided to bike to work, and have a coffee stop along the way. Yesterday (Saturday), I also had to get up when it was still dark out--which is just wrong on a weekend. Pete was the race organizer for a cyclocross (CX) bike race in Ham Lake (just north of the Twin Cities). So we were up at the crack of dawn and heading north to get everything set up for the race. I was crabby...I like to ease into getting up in the morning. Pete, on the other hand, was cracking jokes, singing, blasting heavy metal in the car...it was too much for me to take in before the sun comes up. It turned out to be a pretty nice day for CX racing...about 45 degrees with the sun peeking out once in a while. The first race was the C race (the race I do). There were only about 6 other women racing. Since the race organizer had me working all morning, I didn't get a good warm-up in for this race, so I was a bit worried when we lined up. I decided to try a different strategy for this race...go out fast and try to be at the front for the set first of barriers (CX racing involves jumping off your bike and carrying it over barriers) instead of lolly-gagging at the back waiting for everyone else to get over the barriers. So when the race started, I hammered behind one other woman all of the way to the first set off barriers, dismounted, jumped the barriers, remounted (see photo, mid-remount), and headed off still sitting second. This is normally the spot where people start passing me--I took a quick look behind me, and was surprised to see that there was a gap between me and the next rider. When I hit the second barrier, I had caught up with the woman in front of me. I rode the next few laps behind this woman...everytime we hit the barriers, I would catch up to her...then she'd pull away a bit after the barriers. There was only one other woman that was ever in sight behind us--Gina (from the Alan team)...and she was gaining on us. The only other time I've ever been in contention for a top-3 finish in a bike race has been at the track, so I was getting pretty excited when I realized that the rest of the women's field was well behind us. Then on the last lap, just after the first set of barriers, I was drafting off the woman in front of me (on the road section of the course), and Gina came flying by. I decided to chase her down, and I passed the other woman. Gina went over a barrier, and I was still behind her. We got to the next barrier with about 1/2 a lap to go, and Gina got over it, and I followed right behind her. As Gina was trying to remount her bike, she missed her saddle and crashed...I was so close behind her and was in the middle of remounting my bike...I ran right into her and crashed on top of her bike. It wasn't pretty...and I'm sure if we had it on videotape it would be pretty funny. But as we tried to untangle ourselves from the bike pile, the woman that was behind us passed us. Gina and I exchanged an "are you okay?", and I got up and remounted my bike, and I remember thinking that two parts of my body were in pain. I looked down at my ankle and saw a lot of blood...and when I saw that, I felt no pain anywhere else. I tried to concentrate on chasing down the woman in front of me, but my ankle was throbbing. And when I got to the next set of barriers, I had a hard time clicking out of my pedal due to my ankle issue...it didn't seem to want to twist very easily. I got to the last straight away that heads to the finish line, and I took another quick look behind me to make sure Gina wasn't on my tail. I finished second...and I was damn happy with that. Gina and I rolled back to the registration area and laughed about our little beginner's CX racer crash (it was her first CX ever, and only my 4th CX race ever). When I was finally able to assess the damage, I realized I had a "chain ring puncture wound"...I had somehow managed to puncture my ankle on Gina's chain ring....just barely missing that vein that I'm always afraid I'm going to "nick" while shaving (that one by the ankle bone that sticks out--ladies and cyclists, you know the vein I'm talking about). I cleaned it up and bandaged it, and by the time we got home that evening, my ankle was really sore and stiff...it was making it difficult to walk. I iced it and took some ibuprofen, and it started feeling better later that night. However, as I was soaping-up my arm in the shower that night, I felt a sore spot and discovered that I had a 3-4 inch bruise that looks like the imprint of a bike tire (not exactly sure how that happened). It was then that I recalled my initial thought after my crash earlier in the day...two things hurt...apparently the other thing was my arm.

Three of my Velo Bella teammates also did the B race on Saturday...Margot, Karla, and Barb. Again, there were will only a handful of women racing. But Margot won, and Karla got second, so the Bellas represented well at the Ham Lake CX race. Pete had a pretty good race too...I think he was 8th overall (out of 30).

My friend (and co-worker) Whitney had a few of us (Tim, Nathan, and Jenny) over to teach us how to make sushi. It was very fun and we made some awesome sushi while discussing the dance moves we plan to bust out during our second annual trip to Biwabik for a holiday party in December. Then we headed out to The Independent (bar) in Uptown and met up with a few of Pete's friends (Pretty Paul, Adam, and Flash). Flash discovered the hard way that the restrooms at The Independent are co-ed...he was still blushing when he left the bar. There's no need to go into details...but let's just say that his nickname had a whole new meaning that night.

Today (Sunday) was another CX race. This CX season has a few weekends with two races. Luckily, I had an excuse not to race...I'm milking the puncture wound excuse for at least a few days. But Pete raced, and had some bad luck again...his tire started coming off his bike early in the race, so he had to stop and fix it. But he still ended up finishing around 8th or 9th.

Next up...two more CX races next weekend.

Happy birthday Jana!

Thanks for reading,
SS

Fall update

Okay, so I've already been delinquent with my posts...bad blogger. Here's what's been going on over the past few weeks...which might help explain why I haven't had time to update the blog:

1. Stenson got free tickets to U2...it was a great show, even if we did get nosebleeds. Beggars can't be choosers when the tickets to see The Edge are free. Bono was a litte fruity (e.g. picture Bono blindfolded and stumbling around the stage trying to find his microphone)...but The Edge was better than ever...he is the epitome of cool.

2. The same weekend of the U2 concert, Susan and Thom were in town for a wedding. Saturday was a rainy day, so we bored Thom by sitting around watching tv all morning. But it was good to have some QT and catch-up while watching golf.

3. Pete and I took a random Friday off from work, and it turned out to be a gorgeous day. We walked to the coffee shop and lounged around all morning, then headed to the River Bottoms to do some off-road riding. It was muddy and messy, but a ton of fun...I almost crashed about twenty different times. But luckily, none of my "almost crashes" led to an actual broken bone or loss of skin...just a lot of bruises.

4. Earlier this month, Alyssa and I watched a few of our friends run the Twin Cities marathon. That was the first marathon I've ever watched and wow...I was so impressed and inspired by all of the people who do this. And they're all crazy. Amy and Renee were running their first marathon, so Alyssa and I had a plan to cheer them on at 3 different points along the 26-mile route. At the first stop (Lake Harriet), we got there just in time to see a bunch of the leaders flying by...and there was Mark (sportin' a nasty handlebar mustache)! We scanned the thousands of runners for familiar faces, and found almost everyone we knew then headed back to the car, and drove to our next stop at Lake Street and West River Parkway. We missed Mark at the second stop because he was running so dang fast, but we saw everyone else...Keith and Dan (my co-workers; Nesler--I still feel bad about not coming up with some encouraging words!), Snide (fellow cyclist randomly running the marathon), Jeremy (Pete's cycling teammate) and his wife Jenny, Dave (another cyclist), Dan (lives in our condo building), and Amy and Renee. So after cheering at stop #2, we headed to St. Paul to cheer for everyone near the Cathedral (just before the finish at the State Capitol). We saw almost everyone except Mark again, and I was so proud of Renee and Amy as they finished. When we saw Renee, she looked great and her only concern was "how's Amy?"...it was so cute (we assured her that Amy was fine). Then we waited for Amy who came running down the road with Maren (Maren ran the last few miles with her)...she looked so tired and yet so happy...I almost cried for her. We celebrated at Renee's...Sbrocco-style...as usual, Marion and Renee were the hostesses with the mostesses. And one note: if I ever decide to do something as crazy as running a marathon, I want Alyssa there cheering me on...she seriously cheered for every single runner who had their name, logo, nickname, or a saying on their shirt (e.g. "go Betty", "go Cargill", "go Army", "go Bodacious")...someone even asked her if she knew all of those people!

5. Mark ran the marathon in 2 hrs and 37 minutes. And while he claimed the marathon "sucked big donkey balls" and didn't have a personal best time, the rest of us were all impressed. He was the 6th Minnesotan, and the first guy with a handlebar mustache to cross the line! (He claims the 'stache was only there for 24 hrs...for Meggan's sake, I hope that's true).

6. Not only did Stenson run a marathon that Sunday...she also got to see her hero (and mine) Dave Grohl, in concert with the rest of the Foo that night. The Edge is the epitome of cool, but Dave Grohl is the epitome of rock star. I'm seen a lot of concerts (albeit most were in my younger years) but the Foo put on one of the best shows I've seen. DG has more energy than any other performer I've ever seen...the man is amazing, running through the crowd, throwing his head around, swearing, telling stories...crazy. I think he's one of the very few people in rock history who can scream and have it sound good and musical. Oh, and two words I never thought I'd hear Dave Grohl say "Cannon Falls".

7. I spent the next weekend feeling under the weather, and trying to recover from the previous weekend. I worked on a new website I'm helping pull together while Pete did the Lake Rebecca cyclocross race. We also drove around Mpls looking at houses for sale, then climbed St. Paul's Highland water tower to see the awesome fall view (it's only open a few weekends of the year). Oh, and we went in seach of a Mr. Pizza-like pizza joint, and had pizza at Jakeeno's in Mpls with Alyssa and Erick, Renee and Mike, Andrea, and Stenson. Fun times, but it wasn't even close to as good as Mr. Pizza, so the search continues. That Sunday night, we hung out with a few friends at Hareland's house, and I had the pleasure of watching three grown men chase a mouse around the house. Good times.

8. That brings me to last weekend...another busy one. Friday I picked up my aunt Carol from the airport then picked up Pete from work, and we headed to my parents place on the lake. Chuck & Dianne, and Karen and the boys (Pork Chop and J-Dawg) were already there. My cousin Paul got married on Saturday, so the whole family was around. Pete and I spent some time with the Pork Chop Saturday morning throwing rocks in the lake and looking for clam shells...small wonders. Between the wedding and the reception we had some extra time, so we went to see my Grandma Stratton...she was surprised to see us all, but got the cookies out in record time. It was good to see her...it had been a while. When J-Dawg started tearing her house apart, we decided it was time to go. We headed back to the reception and chit-chatted with all of the relatives...then Pete and I hit a wall (sadly, it was only about 9 pm). We headed back to the cabin and tried to get a good night's sleep in preparation for Sunday's cyclocross race in Mpls. Dad and Aunt Carol made a yummy big breakfast, then we headed home...we walked in the door, changed our clothes and packed our backpackes, then jumped on our bikes and headed to the race. My race was first. It was my first CX race of the season, and I had forgotten how hard they are. It was a half an hour of pure pain...my lungs burned and my whole body hurt. In hindsight it was fun...but at the time it sucked. I totally bonked, and made the poor decision of drinking a beer after the race (instead of water and food). Pete's race didn't start so well either...he got a flat tire on the second lap, so he was trying to play catch-up for the whole race. By the time we got home it was about 5:30 and I could hardly move...I was bonked, dehydrated, sun/wind burned, and sore. Pete was kind enough to go do our grocery shopping...and when he got home we chowed down, and I was finally able to function again. I'm still sore today, but looking forward to this weekend's races...there are two of them this weekend...I guess we're glutons for punishment.

Happy belated anniversary to Karen and Chris, and happy belated birthday to Alyssa and Angie!

Strats out