Reached the Beach!

A hundred miles is a really friggin’ long way to ride a bicycle! I vaguely knew this before (duh!), but the message was really driven home on Saturday when we did Reach the Beach. There was heat, there was headwind and there was even some mechanical troubles early on, but we managed to get ourselves by bicycle from Portland to Pacific City.

The first 45 miles were gorgeous and lovely. Nice little hills, winding roads, bucolic farmlands, a sunny clear morning. The next 30 or 35 miles were a little rougher. We were a bit tired. Due to a mechanical issue early on, it was later in the day than we had intended. The sunny morning had turned into searing mid-day heat. We were on an open, exposed road with not much to look at and the flat, endless road teamed up with a fairly fierce headwind to decimate my hamstrings. And we still had 26 miles to go! We had, however, finally reached the coastal range with cooler temps and intermittent shade. The first half-shady patch of road brought a round of cheers from those riding around me. The hills brought vocal outbursts of another variety…

Near the very end I started to feel that I couldn’t possibly keep riding – at least not at the pace my Christopher was going, but somehow I managed to keep mashing the pedals down and stay upright. When we hit 100 miles I kept looking around for the finish line. The beach had to be just right around the corner, right? RIGHT?! Turns out this “century” ride is more like 103 or 104 miles. But finally we reached Pacific City and I thought, “I made it! I made it! I made it!” However, we were at the south end of town and the finish line was at the north end of town. So after snaking our way through nearly standstill traffic with pedestrians crawling all over the place we found the finish line, showers and beer.

A bit of an anticlimactic ending, but still very good. The weather at the beach was just about perfect, the food seemed phenomenal (though that could be my metabolism talking), and we got to slurp down a few fantastic beers while staring at a pretty spectacular piece of the Pacific Ocean.

And together my Christopher and I raised $170 for the American Lung Association. Not bad for a Saturday. Two days later I’m still pretty wiped out, but at least my hands have stopped their involuntary twitching (seriously, they were doing it all day yesterday.)

Reach the Beach – Outlook

Reach the Beach – our 100-mile bicycle ride & fundraiser – is coming up on Saturday (there is still time to sponsor me!) As mentioned before, we’ve had a most miserable spring to train for this sucker. And now Mother Nature is gearing up for a complete, total and sudden reversal. We started the week with temps in the 40’s and tomorrow are due for 94. Saturday has a high temp prediction of 91. Eeek.

We’ve trained enough (barely) in terms of miles, but I don’t know how prepared we are going to be for the heat. Riding my bicycle home from work yesterday in 67 degrees seemed hot.

So we are drinking water and eating a lot of good food and resting this week (the best part of an event is the week or two of “rest” you get to indulge in just before) and hopefully we don’t succumb to the heat.

Wish us luck !!

Swan Lake

The froggies are quite neat. And then you get to the friggin' AMAZING bit with the head swan lady defying the normal bounds of the human body.

When I talk about my desire to levitate (see post below), this is about eight degrees beyond what I was thinking of!

Learning to Levitate

I have a hard time going to the gym if I don’t have a concrete, performance-related goal. A triathlon in July, or a 100-mile bike ride on Saturday, for example. Goals like “lose 5 pounds” or “be healthy” have never cut it for me.

So what is my current goal?

Levitation.

I don’t mean I’m taking magic classes and I’m not referring to the spiritual, emotional, karmic or hippy self. I mean I want to physically levitate. Like gymnasts, swimmers, cats, dancers, and other such athletes possessed of such incredible core muscles and flexibility that they are able to move their bodies through space in defiance of gravity.

So how does one train to levitate? Well… I should probably start up with the yoga classes again, but while I drum up the resources for that (both time and monetary) I’m focusing on core strength exercises. Bench press, pull-ups, 18 different back moves, 18 different sit-up and side moves and some good stretching in between.

The dark-chocolate covered oreos are NOT helping. (But they are soooooo good.)