Before Aero Bars

Check out this old picture - I think it was from either Nationals or possibly the PanAm games. Jerry Baker is yelling splits at the team pursuits.

Craigs list

Craigs list rules. That pretty much sums up what I've been up to all day.

We had a tenant file bankruptcy and the employees took everything of value to them and left the big stuff for us to dispose of. Luckily we didn't have any red tape and hassle to reclaim the space by WaMu. Since we're the landlord, we get first dibs on the material as a means to recover lost rent. So I snapped a few photos and started posting them on Craigslist. Within minutes I had quite a few responses and nibbles. A few hecklers, but for the most part serious buyers. I meet with most of them tomorrow.

Hopefully we'll get things back and get a new tenant in the space within a month. Know anyone looking for office furniture? I've got tons of desks and chairs priced to move!

The winning Sonics

Attended a Sonics game last night against the Houston Rockets. The Sups maintained a 10 point lead over the Rockets and things were looking great until the final 4 minutes and things just fell apart. The inevitable happened and they lost - which brings their stats up to 12 loses, a NBA Franchise record. Way to go guys!

Seriously though - sounds like they need to invest in some mental training and work with some Zen doctors to get their heads on straight. They dominated 3/4 of the game and then things just fell apart. Bummer.

Kevin posted some amazing photos from the LA world cup on his flicker site - check them out....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kspiegel/

I'll take sunshine, thank you!

Today was one of those mornings that you hope to remember for the rest of your life.

I'm officially back in love with Seattle.

Rode early this am with Peter and Shawn up to Woodland, a suburb just outside of Edmonds. From there we watched as the moon dipped down behind the snow capped Olympics and watched the sun warm the colors across the Puget Sound. Oh what a sight.

And then I rode home, after stopping and grabbing a tea, and froze my digits off. You know it's cold out when your powertap stops working.

But that view - that view still puts a smile on my face. I just wish I had my camera.

Weekend Predictions

It's not looking good locally to do some biking this weekend. I know it's a little early to predict - but with possible snow showers/sleet forecast for the weekend, who would seriously in their right mind pedal in that kind of weather? Why fight what mother nature is dishing out and use it to your advantage to get in some snow play in the mountains?

That just cleared any doubt I had in my mind about going back to the cabin this weekend. :) Bring on the back country and skate skiing! Seriously though, should I be that worried that I'm not putting in massive amounts of suffer fest during the weekends and instead enjoying every sweat pounding minute of climbing mountains? I know I'm getting in a killer workout for several hours at a time - how can it be that different than riding all day? I guess we'll find out once race season rolls around.... (but at least I know my sanity will be in tact!)

98103 - (wunderground.com)
Tues 37
Wednesday 41
Thurs 39/29 30% chance of snow
Friday 39/31 20% chance of snow
Saturday 40/35 60% chance of snow

Sounds like some killer riding conditions - not! I fully support you lunatics that kit up though and put in the mileage. I've been there - it takes a certain breed.

98833 - Mazama Time....
Tuesday 22/-3 Sunny
Wed 21/3 Sunny
Thurs 22/15 20% chance of snow
Fri 21/11 Partly cloudy
Sat 25/12 40% chance of snow

Thank you snow angels, thank you.

20 Skyline "Mini Vacation"

Unfortunately we brought our camera this weekend sans the battery, which was left in the charger in the living room at home. So no photos! You know what that means - something EPIC was bound to happen....

After 5.5 hours of driving, we arrived to a winter wonderland in Lost River. We had heard it snows quite a bit in Mazama, but we had NO IDEA our cabin would be encased in snow and 5 foot banks would line the driveway. First order of business - dig out a spot to park the car. Only one car can shimmy down the roads at a time so we went into digging over time to make a spot. Ryan did the majority of the work while Josh and I got the cabin lit up, plugged in the radiator and schlepped our gear inside.

This was our first time to the cabin in the winter - so we weren't sure what to expect as far as heat goes. It was chilly those first few hours - but after we tucked ourselves into bed for the night, I remember waking up sweaty and wondering who turned up the heat? Thank goodness our cabin was nice and toasty! Night time lows were in the teens with day time highs were mid twenties!

The next morning we got up, made the obligatory Krusteaze wheat and honey pancakes and bananas and some tea and headed out to do some back country skiing. At first we thought we would drive to the point where we could park down Lost River Road, which turned out to be about .10 miles from our cabin. So we piled back in the car, geared up and headed off directly from the cabin. We ended up skinning for about 3 hours straight - only to climb out Hart's pass area and up a crusty icy sketchy slope. Unfortunately the snow was shit - and we had made more tracks without much elevation gain, which meant a long slow skin back to the cabin. All in all we sweat our asses off for 5+ hours. We got in maybe a dozen turns. Well more like Ryan and Josh got in several turns - I chickened out and snow plowed the entire crusty way. Actually, I take that back. I made about 5 turns - and adorned three face plants! (Accompanied by giggling like a little girl the entire time.) I like to make things as easy as possible and with grace.

We returned to the cabin and had an amazing chili aroma - we planned ahead and put some ingredients in the slow cooker. It was a perfect way to make up for some bunk skiing. Josh brought some scotch - which was used as a dare during our heated game of "Asshole." The rest of the night was spent recouping from our long skin.

Our plan for Sunday was skate skiing. On Thursday night Ryan went and bought skate skis, poles and boots and Josh rented some at REI Friday night on our way out of town. Since the Methow has the second largest network of skating in the US we decided to give it a whirl. We drove down LRR to Mazama, went to park where you usually do in the summer, when all three of us simultaneously realized we were driving on the groomed trail! Ryan stopped immediately, and Josh and I jumped out to push us out of the tracks we had quickly sunken into. Luckily no one saw us - but how embarrassing! Just across the road, was a huge berm hiding the dozens of cars in a parking lot. Whoops. Now we know. I'm still shaking my head while chuckling.

We quickly found out the Methow Valley Nordic costs $20 per day per adult for access to their groomed trails. You mean we have to pay $60 to ski on a trail some jerk just drove through? Ha! Luckily we forgot our wallets back at the cabin so we sought the free trails - and dog friendly ones to boot! Makiah happily jogged behind Ryan and I a full 8.3k! It was a killer workout. REI only rents super duper racer skis and they were a little difficult to try skating on - but Josh rallied and made the most of it! Ryan of course picked it up and was skating circles around me in no time. He's the most amazing off the coach athlete I have ever met. Inspiring for sure!

Back to the cabin we went, ate lunch, packed up and headed home around 3. It took us about the same time to get to Mazama- a long five plus hours. Ryan thought it was worth- especially for his "mini vacation." He needed it too - on Friday his company let go 1/2 of their field workers as a means to cut back. Crazy! We're already contemplating going back this next weekend.... and after reading the ride reports from fellow teammates about freezing their asses off and doing indoor trainer rides - I think that 5+ hour drive doesn't sound that bad after all!

Hope you had a good weekend...

Jennie Reed Rules

In case you didn't read - Reed won gold in the Keirin this past weekend at the LA World Cup and silver in the match sprints. Way to go Jennie!

Whenever I lack motivation and need a little boost, I often visit Brooke Miller's blog. She's a talker that one - but living in Cleveland, and still maintaining a pro training plan throughout the winter - this chica is tough! For instance, the other day there was still some ice on the ground leftover from our little mini ice storm, it was cold out and doing 2 hours zone 2 outside didn't sound that appealing. Good thing I visited Brooke's site - she was saying how excited she was that it was 31 outside and balmy. I can only imagine how rough it is to train in one of the midwest states during the winter and just how much trainer time you really have to put in. It was just the attitude adjustment I needed and in minutes I was kitted up and in the saddle.

It has been nice to supplement the training with some backcountry skiing and skating. When it's raining at home and chilly - it's nice knowing I'll still get a killer workout on the slopes by my own demise. Endurance sports rule.

Ryan bought a skate ski set up last night without ever trying it before. I think he'll like it though - he played hockey for 20 years and I'm sure he'll be skating circles around me the first go.

Still cleaning up the abandoned space at work - I can't believe how much useless shit these people had! I mean seriously, who needs 50 stainless steel coffee mugs and plastic mugs with your logo on it? Anybody in the market for some swag? Maybe I can use those as primes! Just teasing.

Great Group Discussion

Around 16 ladies showed up last night for our track meeting and we made some head way! We came up with some solid solutions to some of the issues I mentioned in my previous post and also came up with some new ideas to improve track racing overall.

So - here's the skinny:

Cat 3 ladies are in an odd position if we do not offer a women's only elite field - they are intimated of racing with the men yet need to improve their skills by racing with people better than them. (One woman was so frustrated racing with the men last year, she obtained a downgrade.) To lessen the gap between the recently upgraded cat 3's and the 1/2's, the cat 3's can still race on Wednesdays with the Cat 4's in a combined and separately scored race. The catch - they will be in restricted gearing (say an 81") and will not gain any points toward an upgrade. As an incentive to get the 3's up and racing on Friday nights, we are going to offer Cat 3 only primes. We thought this was the best solution to getting the 3's showing up regularly to Friday nights and still allow those who are timid of racing under the lights or who want more practice the ability to do so on Wednesdays.

We talked about creating a distribution list where we can check to see who's going to show up on Friday nights - but really we thought the onus is on the teams to get their teammates out there and participate. If this means offering more ladies only track classes to introduce the roadies to track then we have more than enough volunteers and able bodies to make it happen. Teams just need to pick a date that doesn't conflict with something already happening on the track and we'll make it happen.

We also talked about making Sunday's a regular thing - say showing up for the Woody workout and having someone take lead for the women. More time in the saddle on the track means the better you'll get.

And one of my favorite ideas - mentors for Wednesday nights. A few ladies already volunteered to show up - basically they would provide answers to new female racers. Things such as what to expect in the race, what to do in certain situations, race analysis, etc. The mentor would tell the registration table that they are the mentor that night and if any new people showed up to direct them to them. Hopefully with more support people will gain the confidence and take out some of the learning curve in making them competitive.

We did have a few teams absent from the meeting - and as a group we wondered how we can get more of them involved. That remains a little bit of an issue - but hopefully the word will spread about the awesome support people get at the track and they'll start showing up.

I may be forgetting something - I'm a little busy at work right now. A tenant filed bankruptcy and abandoned all of their stuff. I've been going through it all and recycling a ton of sales information. Apparently these people didn't believe in getting rid of anything (I've seen stuff from 1999!). Know anyone who needs staplers and office supplies?

Women's Track Meeting Tonight

I'm hosting a women's meeting tonight in attempt to pool our resources and get some commitment from the ladies to have elite level racing on Friday nights. I know, it's January and what am I doing thinking about track racing now when it's a summer sport? Well my hope is that we get enough women excited about track racing that they come out during the regular season and race.

It's been an ongoing struggle to get the ladies out at the track. Last season we had 33 category 4 women show up - definitely a record! But the leap to Cat 3 seemed to have an enormous crevasse between the two. Because we didn't have enough elite women showing up, we were forced to race with the men. Personally I find racing with the men an amazing workout and forces you to be on your game. But for a lot of the women out there - racing with the men sounded too daunting so they wouldn't show up. Two years ago I was the lone woman racing with the men at the end of the season. Three years ago we had women's racing on Friday nights and a solid group of 10 showing up.

What to do?

Putting my own ambitions and desires aside, having a women's field is important. Especially if they want to grow the field and the depth of the women. But having the ladies show up has been a struggle - it seems only a handful of women want to be competitive and strive to get better. I've found the only way to do that is to race with people who are better and stronger than you. Maybe I'm looking at it from the wrong angle - but there has to be some way to get our elite level numbers up.

At the same time, I'm happy racing with the men. At least I know they will have a field that is the closest to elite national size. There's a big difference between racing with 8 women of mixed ability and 18+ cat 3 men. Last year I tried racing in both categories but found myself frustrated with the disparity between the two groups.

Hopefully tonight we'll come up with some viable options and make them work this year. It'd be nice to give the ladies who just upgraded from Cat 4 a chance to race and get better in a cat 3 field. And maybe come up with some ideas to keep the national level racers happy as well.

If you have any suggestions - please let me know.

Apparently I've been in the dark

Super star takes the world by storm! Does anyone know more about this guy?

For those of you who thought the chicken was cool... check this out.

98833

We're attempting our first winter run at the cabin next weekend. In case you forgot, our cabin is RUSTIC. Meaning - there's no running water, the electricity is accessible from the exterior by running an extension cord through the window, there's an outhouse and absolutely zero heat.

And in case you're wondering - the forecast for the weekend calls for a balmy high of 24 and a low of 17.

Did I mention the Methow Valley offers some of the best cross country and skate skiing in the US? And with the Cascades at your back door - you can't go wrong with some back country skiing!

I'm saving up to build a real cabin already....

Weekend Wonder

Took my nephew Coleman (he's 4) to Snoqualmie for his first day on the slopes. He had a little anxiety when we tried to ditch him at the Kid's Corral and then again when we saw him later. We asked him if he would go skiing again, and without batting an eye, "No."



Coleman only last a half day - and slept the entire way home. We got back in time for me to do a ride before we were off to dinner with my Mom's new flame's family. They are really nice people!

That night Ryan and I went to bed by 9:30 to get up early Sunday morning and ski a blue bird day. It was amazing. Check out the views.







We got up to Crystal around 8:45am and parked. The initial skin was 2.5 hours all uphill. We contemplated a big tour or do some laps in the Cement Basin area. Due to the stability of the snow, we decided on the later and had 10-12" of untracked powder the entire day. I would say it was one of the best ski days of the year! When we got back to the parking lot the inbound skiers said it was one of the busiest days they had ever seen at Crystal. Funny, we only saw one other party the entire day. Yay for powder days!

A few more shots

This is Sonya, climbing in Arboli and kicking ass.



This was taken at Montsant during one of two rain days. The cave had some hard climbs in it - the easiest being a 7A. Which meant, no climbing for moi.



This is what happens to your hands when you climb on jagged sharp limestone for 12+ days.

A break from the funk

It's actually not raining outside at the moment.

Sorry about that previous post - I think that was some counter culture/ post relaxing vacation reality stress coming out. But it's peaked and I'm over it. :) Shoes.

Got an email from Suz asking the 1/2 ladies if they have a preference to ride with either the Cat 3 men or the Masters A/B field for the first few races of the season. Personally I'm happy with either group - it's a kick ass workout and simulates elite level racing the best. But more importantly, we only have 8 weeks to go before the local early season racing starts. I don't know about you, but I am STOKED to get some racing in. Be gone zone 2 doldrum! Hello intensity!

I can't wait to break my chicken legs out of their tights and show their ferocity to the world. :)

Just to cheer you up....

Not sure if I posted this here - but if you need a good laugh, here you go!

Did a 2 hour ride yesterday morning along the Burke and for the first time ever, I thought to myself, "I hate Seattle." Whoa. Things are getting serious.

So I vow, from this point forward, to no longer ride the Burke for 2008 (between the U and Log Boom). I'm doing it for Seattle.

my own personal training camp

Siurana, Spain is located approximately 2 hours southwest of Barcelona in the San Padres Mountain range. It is accessible primarily by car due to its hilly landscape. Siurana was "discovered" by the rock climbing community in the 1980's and has seen a lot of development since. No wonder why - the village is perched atop a huge limestone crag and has thousands of bolted sport routes.


This photo was taken across the gully on my way to Arboli, a neighboring village. To give you an idea - a bird would probably only have to fly 1.5 kilometers to get from Siurana to Arboli but by bike it took 15k.

So why Siurana? In case you didn't know - Ryan's a climbing feign. Originally we were going to go to Thailand but due to the civil unrest and probably lack of cycling roads, we sought out another nice weather winter destination. (Not to mention this area is frequently by climbing heavyweights Chris Sharma, Piatxi Usobiaga, Graham, etc.) Toni, the owner of the camp site we stayed at, has won numerous world cups and has a nice little set up. He rents bungalows for 60 Euro a night, which sleep up to 4. Since we had 5, he gave us an extra mattress for free. Unlike previous Euro trips, this seemed like luxury. We had running HOT water, heat, a roof over our heads, etc. The only issue would be contemplating climbing back up the road to the bungalow or hitching a ride. (It was 6k from the main road from Cornudella de Montsant and gained about 500m of altitude.) Don't worry - I never hitched a ride. :)



This is the view from the road that travels between the campsite to the main village of Siurana. You can see the Montsant mountain in the distance and the windy road below. The best part? The roads were immaculate. They often hold the world cup indie races nearby (between Capafonts and Montral) and put down new asphalt quite often.

I mentioned there were 5 of us - Ryan, myself, Jesse, Sonya and Orion. They would climb all day and I would pedal several hours through the landscape. My companion was my trusty Kona. Everyday we would awake by 9, head to the cafe that served bocadillo fritta (egg omelette's with potatoes and zucchinis, sandwiched between fresh baguette bread smeared with tomatoes) and then they would head off climbing around 11am. Some days I would do a loop and meet them then attempt to climb, some days I would do a longer loop and come back to the bungalow and relax.

We had completely different vacations. I saw the entire surrounding area and they saw lots of rock.



This was my favorite village - Capafonts. It is perched in the middle of a small valley surrounded on all sides by rock formations and gullies.



From Capafonts I circumnavigated Montral - whose refugi is barely seen in the distance.



This is the view from the Montral village. Simply breathtaking.



Freshly paved roads that are barely wide enough for two cars to pass one another. Luckily I saw maybe 5 cars on each 3+ hour ride I went on. I saw maybe 5 cyclists total - half of which were mountain bikers. Honestly, I felt like I was stealing something. Everything was so clean - so carefully kept. No glass on the roads, no abandoned cars on the lands- the Spaniards know how to live.



I decided I could live here. So what if the roof caved in and there's no heat?



This is Ullemolins a terraced village on the 242 regional road.

Luckily climbers require rest days, which meant we got to head down to the beach and do some site seeing. It was warmer down there - about 12 C - but still chilly. I didn't think it was possible - but this girl managed to find boots to match her hair. Wow.



Now - back to climbing. As long as you were in the sun - you were fine. The moment you stepped out, freezing cold. But the views would take your breath away.



Ryan has been climbing for about 10 years now. (He'll probably correct me. :) He trained hard prior to setting off for Spain and planned his peak perfectly. He managed to flash at least 15 7A+ (about 5.12a). Um.... can you say, BAD ASS?



So you're probably wondering, what does flash mean? He basically walked up to the climb, with no prior knowledge, hung quickdraws as he climbed, and completed the climb from ground to anchors without falling once.



Yes, he's part monkey. But luckily not hairy like an ape.



The jaw dropping La Rambla Direct - rated 5.15a and repeated only by the worlds elite climbers. This is a view from under the climb - and the following gives you an idea of just how overhanging the route is. Other than the crack, I don't see ANY holds.



The guy hanging is jugging up a fixed line to work the upper moves. Because these routes are so long, often climbers will work the route in sections in order to master it. The hope is to be able to redpoint it - climbing from bottom to anchors without falling. This is different from an onsite or flash - because they have been on the climb before.

Of course we had to visit Barcelona on another rest day. Our mission - see as much of the city via walking as possible. Here's Gaudi's famous Familia cathedral - maybe it will help you understand the saying "that's so Gaudi!" He didn't really like details much - rrrrriiiiight.



We of course had to eat some tapas while there - but the Spaniards eating schedule is totally different from ours. Shops close in the middle of day from about 2-6 for a siesta and then they don't start eating till 11pm at night! By that point we were starving and couldn't wait to chow down on some finger food.

Because of this siesta, we would often find ourselves desparate to get some food right around 6. Corundella is the nearest village with groceries available and was a 6k drive down the road. So when we happened upon a supermarket on our rest day near Cambrils, we went a little wild. Between 5 of us, we spent 150 Euro on groceries.



Our favorite delicacy? Nutella and animal crackers. Thank GOD it's harder to find Nutella at the store. (But I hate to admit it, I found it at Fred Meyer's already and NO I did not buy any. ;)

Simply put - I have way too many photos to put up on one blog. These were just some highlights. My goal is to collaborate everyone's photos together and make them into one nice slide show. Our friends Ben and Danielle have a projection screen at their house and have graciously offered to host a showing. If you're interested in coming and seeing more of our adventure - please let me know!

Blurry Eyed and Fuzzy

So that's what happens to your vision when you wake up at 4:30 am in Spain, fly direct from Barcelona to New York, have a 4 hour lay over and then hop on a direct flight from NY to Seattle to arrive at 8:40pm PST. My math may be off a little bit - but I think we were traveling for about 24 hours. And it was worth every minute of it.

Luckily I have the day off from work today so downloading of the photos will have to wait till tomorrow. I miss that place already. The olive orchards, the whindy roads, the sunshine and rustic feel of the San Padres mountains. It's even been a little bit of shock not hearing Spanish every where - something Ryan and I plan on learning as part of our New Year's resolution.

Where to start? Simply put - that was one of the funnest vacations I've had. Roaming around seldom traveled mountain roads, seeing how minimally the Spaniards live, enjoying new foods and great company.

But for now, I think I'm going to rest my weary eyes one last day before getting back to the grind and reluctantly returning to reality. I still feel ultra relaxed and rejuvenated - and more than ever, ready to get back to the bike.

(Just to give you a taste - I put in 24 hours of riding, burning over 14,000 kj and climbing my heart out. The land is not flat - far from it. And what goes down, must come up, over and over and over again. More to come...)

Audios!

Oh just wait till I post a trip report on this place. It´s been amazing! I highly recommend coming here - being a climber or not. Time to get back to playing!

fELIZ Navidad

Greetings from Siurana! We´re having fun!

Shoes, Cookies and Presents

My mom, sister Marcy, Ryan and I got together on Monday night for some sugar cookie making and decorating and to celebrate Christmas. My mom tends to excel at gift giving - she even had something for Makiah. She quickly snatched the treat out of my hand and hurried off to her dog bed to commence the chewathon.



We followed a serious butter fest sugar cookie from my new favorite cookbook and it took a while to figure out the consistency. But once it finally started to roll into a monster ball, I divided it into two discs and put it in the fridge to chill. And a new trick I learned- put parchment paper on both sides of your cookie dough to prevent the dough from sticking to your rolling pin. (Notice smiley Makiah in the background - she's such a people dog.)



Next came the baking, and then after they cooled completely, the decorating. Ryan's homemade icing was good - a little runny though and it made for a hard precise decorating medium.



Of course we couldn't just fill up on cookies - and my mom came prepared with a childhood favorite of Portuguese Bean Soup. Don't worry - if you didn't get enough fat intake from the cookie scraps, you will most certainly get there by downing some sausage soup! Nothing that tastes that good can be good for you!



After dinner we did our gift exchange and Ryan hit the nail on the head with the soap shoe dispenser. (Originally it was a re-gift from Carrie at the elephant exchange this past weekend. Ryan saw it, wrapped it and we had a good chuckle about it.) I swear he used a whole thing of tape to wrap it - but it was well worth it. My mom was squealing in delight, "where on Earth did you find such a perfect gift?"



We headed back to the kitchen to complete our cookies and Marcy and Ryan both kicked out the final touches on the heart stopping treats. They looked great!



And of course, Marcy's favorite creation - a sky diving santa wearing a G string. Nice work Marcy!

It's hard to follow up the CT...

Thank you all my faithful female readers who got a kick out of the last post. It makes me laugh thinking how hard it made all of you laugh when you read that well thought out and carefully crafted post. HA!

The Cougar

Today was very productive on the surf front - I just couldn't pass this one up.

Thanks Jesse -

This was created by our Spanish interpretor Jesse. Thanks for the laughs.

Ryan

Stiff Neck

Yet another bad ass weekend of fun fun fun!

Kicked off the long winter nights with a sushi party with chef Melanie directing all of us how to make sushi. Turns out we bought one too many spider crabs and eel and had a few pieces of sushi leftover. The good news - everyone walked away with stuffed bellies and happy faces.

We went to Uwagimaya on Thursday and picked up some necessary ingredients - can't forget the MSG! Luckily only the mayo and the eel had the sixth food group in it - speaking of which - eel is super fatty with 265 calories in one teaspoon! According to Ai, this fat is what makes the ladies more attractive and attaches to the hips. Bring on the Omega 3's and pack on the ba-donk-a-donk butt.



The ladies had the first attempt at the rolling and made cute petite little rolls. They were perfect bit size pieces. You could even talk while chewing them down.



Then the guys had gave it a go and made some macho man rolls. Check out Ryan's big rice sushi fix! He attempted to eat it in one bite too and was chewing for a while. And then he made some oyster sushi and spread on a shot-to-the-dome chuck of wasabi.






The next morning, Ryan got up at 5 and I slept in till 6 to meet up with Julie and head up to Steven's Pass for some inbound skiing. Ryan went with some fellas to Crystal area and did some back country skiing. Julie and I planned on meeting Karen at the clock at 9:30 and by 9:50 we were itching to go with no sign of her and headed up the mountain. It snowed all day - and the powder was great. They still need more snow - a couple of rocks were exposed and they have yet to open the back side of the mountain - but all in all it was a great day! We managed to ski up till 3:30 - a record for me, especially on tele skis. The slopes were crowded though - with way too many people on the mountain. We saw evidence of a collision under the Skyline chair - a good excuse to do more moguls and harder terrain.

My legs are starting to come around and they weren't nearly as sore and sluggish as last week. Afterward we headed to Leavenworth to Karen and Anne's bungalow nestled on the Wenatchee River off of Icicle Creek Road.. They fed us enchiladas and we had some laughs over dinner. We also had the annual Ti white elephant gift exchange - and I finally got rid of the infamous penis shorts! Carrie is now the proud owner of the statue David nude colored shorts, well until next year.

The next morning we woke up and headed out for a few hours of skate skiing. The snow was great and we built up a sweat on fun rolling terrain. At one point, we were cruising along and some guy was approaching us, I decided to go in hot into a down sloping corner, lost my balance and did a cartoon looking maneuver, yard sailing and taking out the cross country tracks. We all laughed pretty hard - although this morning I woke up with a crook in my neck. I sure wish someone could have caught that on camera - classic!

We worked up an appetite and headed to the Sleeping Lady lodge for some food and decided to try the golf course, across the street from Karen's place. It was much more challenging with tons of hills and descents - not to mention deer poop. My dumbass thought it would be fine to roll through it and it stopped me in my tracks and I went down hard. Good times, good times.



Thankfully I have a massage booked for today and I can get my neck worked on!

I've been struggling with getting on the bike lately - specifically the weekends. Will it really hurt if I take a mental break from riding long, wet and cold rides on the weekends and instead run my legs into the ground while descending mountains?

So this weekend I get to hang with some Avanti ladies and laugh our butts off on the slopes. Photos to follow....

GRD

We got home at 11:45 last night - waaaay too late for attempting to get up this morning in time to meet Peter and Shawn at Stoney G's for a morning jaunt. But surprisingly enough, I roused myself out of a deep slumber and was out the door by 7:35am. I'm going to be a hurting unit as the day wears on, I'll tell you what!

I've been scrambling lately to get things done before we head out to Spain NEXT FRIDAY. Stoked!!! I finally picked up Miller's compact bike box (I contacted him weeks ago and just now got over to Team Miller's house to pick it up), dropped off the old TV at the dump (it's been rolling around in the van for about two months - ever since we got the new one and it cost $37 smackaroos to get rid of it!), returned some stuff at Home Depot that I bought for our gutters and didn't end up using. I even had time to bake some Almond Biscotti. The days are whizzing by!

We are quickly approaching the winter solstice too - the shortest day of the year. It's all uphill from there though and we start building back toward the summer solstice - yay!



This is where we will be by the way - 60 degrees and mild temps. Hellsya!

White Fluff Addiction

You know it's bad when you start checking the snow report more than visiting your daily blog haunts. Things are getting chilly around the good old PNW - and that means white pow pow to be had in the mountains.

Suddenly our rustic cabin in the Methow is sounding really appealing despite not having any heat source. Who cares? We'll be skiing our brains out.

I did get up and move my legs in a circular motion outside this morning and it felt great.

Welcome Little One!

Proud new parents Sol and Cassie welcome Regan Tate Daughtery to the world on December 1, 2007 weighing in at 8 pounds 5 ounces. Way to go guys!!!

We were fortunate to visit them earlier in the week while they completed their stay at the Northgate Hospital and got to hold Sol's new "little Bud." It was funny hearing their account of picking out a name. Cassie said that Sol was insistent on a S name and they had already agreed on Tate for the middle name (a family name) and of course, she'd get Sol's last name. But any name starting with an S would leave the babies initials with STD and ridiculed for life. Cassie responded with, "it's like naming your baby HIV. Not happening." They are funny.

Weekend Warriors

I officially kicked off my first ski weekend of the winter this past weekend and am paying for it dearly this morning. The knees are tender, the body fatigued but my grin factor all weekend was HUGE!

Friday night was Ryan's office Christmas party and quite different than years past. He works for a home builder in Bothell and due to the real estate market fluctuation, they let go 40% of the office staff as a precaution. They also reduced their party budget significantly - in years past they've included a huge assortment of Costco party gifts people could bid on using fake money. (Items like personal computers, Ipods, a week vacation in Alaska, etc.) This year everyone was asked to bring something under $25 and people would still bid on them. Booze went for a whopping $1200 - pretty funny. We re-gifted some wine - shame on us! But some lucky $1200 bider had some nice red zin.

Saturday morning was an early start - up and at em by 4 am - on the road by 4:30. Orion and Sonya picked us up - and we headed north to Baker area to do some backcountry skiing. We arrived to the parking lot just as the sun came up - making for some awesome lighting.



Our route was to head up to Table Mountain area, assess everyone's ability and desires for the day and then make a call of where to go from there. The avalanche danger was pretty low - and the sky was cloudless - a perfect day for being outside and skinning around. We met up with Brent, Emily and Dave and headed out the ridge. Emily just got a new split board and had a difficult time with skinning - we traveled over a technical section and she took a fall into some trees and had a hard time getting out. Ultimately she and Brent decided to do some yo yo's on a guaranteed powder section while the 5 of us did a one day classic tour around Table Mountain.

The visibility was amazing - you could see Shuskan in full effect with its two hanging glaciers, Glacier Point, Mt Rainer and of course Mt Baker. It was absolutely stunning.



Luckily Dave was familiar with the area and guided us through the ridges and gullies. There was quite a bit of avalanche activity from the previous storm during the week - but when we dug a snow pit and did some analysis, we were confident we were safe. Talk about amazing powder turns and getting those first tele turns of the season! It was fantastic.

It was a long day though - at one point we boot packed to the top of a run and I remember wondering to myself, why am I here? But the next few powder turns quickly turned that frown upside down. :)

Our skin skirted around a lake - some brave soul had skinned across the lake before - but we were unwilling to risk a chilly dip in some ice cold waters. Instead we went around - and skinned for probably an hour and 15 minutes before finally arriving at the top of the saddle and shedding our skins for the last time. Talk about sloppy skiing down to the bottom - my legs were D-U-N.

The best part about skiing all day - is the sharing a good laugh over the days blunders while drinking beers at North Fork Beer Shrine on the way home. If you ever find yourself skiing at Baker and need some food - it's on the 522 just past the Sumas Y and has great pizza and beer.

The next morning came a little too early for the ski clinic I signed up for - so I decided to make the afternoon session and take my neighbor Jo. We had a great time learning some efficient V-1 techniques - thanks to an excellent instructor Eli. I was pretty tuckered out last night when I got home and the legs are definitely feeling it this morning!

The hiatus is over though - and this week it's back to the bike - I guess. :)

You gotta know when to hold 'em....

The frantic gift preparation phase hasn't quite hit me yet - but it's bound to start next week. Luckily we're leaving the country over the holidays and won't be doing the enormous gift exchange we usually do - but still have a few things we need to get together before leaving.

Speaking of traveling - we forfeited some tickets last winter to Beaver Creek because I pulled my hamstring right before we were supposed to fly out. We had a year to use them - and pay a $100/ticket change fee to exchange them. The deadline is tomorrow - and yesterday we finally found something reasonable. Check this: $159 round trip per person from Seattle to Tahoe Feb 1-4. And with our credit, as well as change fees, we only paid $11.38 out of pocket. Hellsya! Not to mention the killer deal we found by staying at a casino on the lake - we can gamble just minutes from our room. Let me tell you - Ryan and are a HUGE gamblers. ha! You gotta know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em; know when to walk away; know when to run.

We saw Larry the cable guy last night, and no, I'm not a closet hick. Talk about an interesting crowd that goes to see his act at the paramount. Larry's humor is pretty funny - he's definitely a dirty guy and likes to talk about poop. He's a man of one line wonders and strung about 1.5 hours worth of them together. One that sticks out in my mind, and this may not be appropriate for some of you younger readers, but you're going to hear it somewhere....

"I once took a picture of my butt hole with my camera phone and sent it to my aunt. She texted me back and said, 'boy that's the worst pumpkin pie I've ever seen!'"

Guess you had to be there. But the mullet man sitting in front of me was howling.

Near record breaking rain

Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire declared Washington in a state of emergency yesterday after the second highest recorded rainfall in 50+ years. SeaTac airport recorded 3.77" of rain in a 24 hour period.

I woke up to the constant tap tap tap of rain against the window. And then I listened a little closer and heard the undeniable sound of water inside the house. Uh oh. I rushed downstairs, expecting to see the basement awash in 12" of standing water again (remember our $48,000 broken water heater last winter?) relieved to find it was only water running through the aquifer in our over flow sump pump tank. Phew.

But I could still hear water running - and checked the other half of the basement to discover our reoccurring flood area and happened upon 7" of standing water. Luckily it was contained in the basement entry way. But if it gets much higher than it could over flow and start draining into our basement. Sweet.

Next order of business - a trip to the Home Depot. I figured the issue was in getting the gutters to kick the water further away from the house. The sump pump isle was filled with people, looking frantic at the empty shelves and empty Starbucks cups in their hands. I found some pipping, gutter adapters and duct tape and headed back home.

My earlier attempt to get rid of some of the water build up did nothing - the pond was as big, if not bigger than it had been when I left. Next step - find out why the gutters were leaking so bad. I should have known - they were FULL of leaves and crud from the roof. Whoops. Apparently we missed our annual gutter cleaning. (Which boils down to I didn't nag Ryan enough this year to get them cleaned.) 2 hours later the gutters were working like magic and I was able to bail out the flooded basement.

Short story: I saved our homestead and Ryan owes me dinner. :)

I finally get to get out on the bike today - and am STOKED! (7 hours of trainer time in the past few days will make anyone CRAZY.) It's in the mid- 50s today and other than the occasional flooded urban stream, it should be one of those ear to ear grin rides. :)

MAD PROPS TO JENNIE REED who rocked the World Cup Keirin with a Silver medal. Way to go Jennie!!!!