Next year, I promise

So in three years racing Vance Creek, I've had some problems:
2006: was involved in a crash, screwing up my shifters and breaks (DNF)
2007: got a flat and watched as the wheel car (where I actually had put in wheels) blew by me (DNF)
2008: fell off the pack on the first time up the hill (finished, though probably half an hour behind everyone else)

I always think I'll like this course and do well, as I used to be a decent climber. It's such a love-hate relationship, sometimes. At least I can count yesterday as a good training ride, with real climbing.
On the good news side of things, pre-season track starts on Friday. Provided the weather holds, I'm really excited to get out there. Hopefully, my track strength hasn't gone the way of my climbing.

Chicago, part 2

I was in Chicago from Thursday night to yesterday. It was the most time I've ever spent in the Midwest, and it was super, super flat. But it was a fun trip. I got to see some friends from high school who have spread to the rest of the country. And I got to see my sister and her daily life. We walked around a lot of the neighborhoods, saw some touristy stuff, went to the zoo, had some good food, went into some great stores for things like clothes, books, and cds. I really like visiting places where I know people, so I don't just have to wander around, not knowing where to go. I didn't take that many pictures, but here are some of them from my more touristy day.


Statue in honor of the "first self-sustaining controlled nuclear chain reaction;" the physics major in me was excited (U of Chicago)

Looking South, I think, from the beach (Jackson Park?) in Hyde Park

The bean or Cloud Gate and a reflection of downtown Chicago (Millenium Park)

Me reflected in a fairly smudged bean

Chicago, in preparation

I have returned from the land where most bathroom light switches are actually inside the bathroom and where the water is on the same plane and not downhill from everything else. I will post pictures tonight or tomorrow night. And then I might race Seward. We’ll see.

It's not an eye for an eye; it's a favor for a favor

I've just finished the creation of some figures for my paper. I finally figured out how I was using the model wrong. Basically, a glacier goes from high to low, but I was putting it in from low to high, and, for some crazy reason, the model couldn't make the glacier flow uphill. But it's good now, and I got a fair amount done in the past couple days. I've emailed it all to my fake advisor, so he can look over it while I'm in the Windy City until Tuesday.
It looks like the weather is going to be better (or at least warmer) there than here in Seattle, so that's good. I should hopefully get in a nice ride tomorrow, so I won't feel to guilty about riding when I'm in Chicago while a lot of my teammates race some crazy stage race (Walla Walla). In other cycling news, I actually survived a night ride last night, going North to Shoreline then cutting over to the BG (1 hour 40 minutes or so). I also started actually keeping a training diary, which means I'll slowly stop training over a month or so, as that's what seems to happen whenever I start keeping track of it. Well, there's a first time for everything, so maybe this will actually stick.
Apropo of nothing, I've noticed something in music lately. First off, I tend to go through periods where I'll only listen to my personal collection of music (all 16 gigs), but I also listen to KEXP a lot when I can't figure out what I want. I've been on a new music tear lately, and I'm been really into some of the music that seems really influenced by 50s/60s pop and/or surf rock (M. Ward, She & Him, Bubblegum Lemonade, the latest Magnetic Fields). I'm not really talking about the blues/soul influence (Amy Winehouse), though that is definitely another trend (maybe a more popular one). It's seems that indie music is just getting over a similar influence from the past couple years of folk/bluegrass (Sufjan, Bright Eyes, Iron & Wine). Anyway, I'm really liking a lot of the stuff out there. It made me realize a couple of things: First, I think I need to invest in the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, and second, I think I'd like a lot of the stuff by The Jesus and Mary Chain. It's really not super-surprising that I like this stuff, as I really liked some of the more surf-pop Queers music. This is similar to how I came to bluegrass through a path that started with Social Distortion and went to some rockabilly. And I came to the Queers and Social Distortion through Nirvana's Incesticide, as it certainly had a punk/pop-punk influence that I really liked. It was mainly what my friends listened to (back when we were grunge middle school students), so maybe I can tie all of my music to Nirvana originally.

Ups and downs, more of the latter

So, the race today was so not what I expected. It was pretty fast from the start, and I was feeling pretty tired and sore. About 5 laps in, I fell off the back, tried to bridge back on, freaked out, and proceeded to start hyperventilating. I pulled off with still about 20 minutes to go, and I was able to control my breathing, but I was pretty dizzy for a while afterward. I'm definitely not at the stage where I can do two tough races back-to-back, but hopefully I'll get there. It's still pretty early. At least my team did really well, with Tamara leading off the front for a long time, then Carol taking it after getting a good gap for quite a few laps.

This is not a test

My birthday was on Friday. Since I had bike races both today and tomorrow, we went out on Thursday night for it. I'm glad that I have accomodating friends, especially the non-cyclist ones, as no one seemed to mind the late-notice Thursday outing. It probably helps that most of us are grad students. We had a night out in Ballard, pizza and beers basically, and I barely made it until midnight, which was my goal as it was then "officially" my birthday. It was really great to go out with some close friends and just chill, nothing crazy at all. I will highly recommend Madame K's in Ballard for pizza. They had some great toppings, and I loved their thin crust (I don't personally like thick crusts, so I didn't try it). Anyway, it was a good evening, though I'm very glad we went out then instead of last night, or I would have felt like death today.
I raced Volunteer Park, and I actually achieved my goal of finishing an open (cats 1/2/3) women's race with the field. It was the first time that I didn't get lapped at one of these races, and I was very happy to see that my fitness is not all that bad. I think that I got 14th out of 18 finishers (22 started). It's not super-great, but I'll take it over getting last from being lapped. I think I was partially fueled by strong motivation to not be embarassed in front of my non-cyclist friends, as quite a few were there to watch.
The race started from the gun, and there was a pretty awful looking crash that happened just a couple lengths in front of me. Amara (of wheelsinfocus.com fame) got sent into a bush right next to her, and Annette (old teammate on Ti, ended up with a dislocated shoulder) went down, along Chris from Byrne. I managed to avoid it, though it shook me up for about a lap. It was interesting: this year's VP versus last year. I remember being pretty nervous on the descend (fast and fairly steep for a crit), but this year I knew I had to hang on as much as possible, and it didn't really phase me. I definitely agree with Jen, though, that spinning up the hill would have helped. I just pushed it up everytime, and I didn't have anything left on the false flat. But, seriously, I'm very happy to actually have stayed with the group the whole time. I can only build up from there, as long as I keep training. Here's hoping that tomorrow's race goes okay: it's only cat 3s, and most of the really strong ones were out there today, so maybe it won't blow me away.
Speaking of tomorrow, I think it might just be me, but I have to refer to it as "Boat Street," still. Calling it the "Brad Lewis Memorial" is just a little too difficult to do. I'm sure I confuse some of the newer racers in the community (and people in general, it seems), but I don't know, it's just a weird, personal thing. It's one of my favorite crits, and I can't deny that. But I was working the corner of Pacific St. and Brooklyn two years ago during the 1-2 race, and I remember looking over and just seeing Brad fall. I had no idea what to do, as people were still racing, and I was still standing there when I saw the paramedics leading Emily away from the race. I had no idea what had happened until later that night. And I still have a tough time walking down Brooklyn and will almost always go another route, if I'm trying to get to Oceanography, Agua Verde, or Recycled Cycles. I know that a lot of people have the "this is what he said to me earlier that day," but I don't. All I remember was that I was bitching about how out of shape I felt, as my annoying, middle-of-the-pack cat 4 self. I don't really know why this all adds up to me being unable to call the race by it's new name, but I just can't.

and you cried and you cried

Apparently, I'm on a roll with watching movies that I've been wanting to see, having rented the Darjeeling Limited a week or two ago. I watched Superbad last night, at the urging of some high school teachers. I've been told it's actually provides good insight into teenagers, and truthfully a lot of the awkwardness made me very uncomfortable because it was fairly reminiscent of my real-life, high school awkwardness. It was also very funny and fairly sweet, in a kind of crude way.
A couple of things totally drove me crazy, though: First off, it kind of felt like this was a movie about people in high school written by people who were in high school over a decade ago. I mean the teenage drama and awkward issues are the same over this time, but it almost felt like a lot of the fashions, high school cliques, and cars that high schoolers drove were the same as when I was in high school. Also, who actually would put pennants from their colleges in their rooms? Seriously? And if a student has been accepted to Dartmouth, he is most not likely taking gym, home ec., and shop in his senior year. Most school systems don't even require gym beyond freshman or sophomore year. And barely any schools actually offer traditional home ec. (making omelettes) and shop (using bandsaws) anymore. At least in some places around Seattle and in my home town, which in WV is certainly not ahead of the curve, more hands-on and/or vocational courses were offered at a centralized center. And, truthfully, students going on to schools like Dartmouth were not really the target students for these classes. Finally, I would love to know what high school math class teaches i (square root of -1) toward the end of the year? Other than all of these issues, which drove me crazy (though it might just be because I'm crazy anyway), I did enjoy the movie.
Also related to pop culture, kind of, I'm hoping for music for my birthday, which is coming up on Friday. I've been wanting to get the newer and/or only albums Los Campesinos, Vampire Weekend, Magnetic Fields, and Cloud Cult (I don't even know if their newest is technically out). I might want to get the new R.E.M. album, but I need to hear more beyond the awesome (super?) song Supernatural Superserious.
Anyway, this weekend is looking to be fun, with two local crits: Boat Street and Volunteer Park. And it looks like it might actually get above 60 degrees, which will be amazing. With how accurate the forecasts have been lately, it will probably be 35 and snowing, though.

Biking heavy weekend

This was a bike-filled weekend. I helped with a track class on Saturday, which actually happened despite potentially unhappy-looking weather. It was a bit cold, but it was great to be on the track again, and I exploited this to its fullest by doing some intervals after the class. My legs were definitely not used to the fixed gear, but it wasn't too bad. I have to add that I was very glad to be running a pretty easy gear. After that I went to pick up a new saddle for my track bike. It's bubble gum pink and perfectly matches the bar tape and rims on my bike. Since, you know, track is really 80% style.
Sunday, I biked around Lake Washington, north first. I really thought I was going to just go over I-90, instead of doing the whole loop. But I figured I might as well completely wreck myself, and I made it back fine. There were certainly some moments where I thought I would just fall over, such as when I was we met some guys who were hammering and road with them from Coulin Park to turning off Rainer onto Seward Park. The women I was with just let them ride away from us, as even though we were now going uphill, they didn't seem to be slowing down. This is the first ride where I wasn't the last one up the climbs, in fact was soundly in the middle, and I noticed that the moments I was hurting most were when other people were actually breathing visibly heavier too. I feel a bit trashed now, but at least I know I'm not as bad, fitness-wise, as I had expected to be.
After getting home, we actually tried a new recipe using our new crock pot. We had a huge, 8-quart one that we got for our wedding, but it was way too big for two people, and the controls were quite sparse: there was no timer or anything. So, we use a Bed, Bath, & Beyond gift card to get a smaller, better one (a Rival SmartPot, if it matters). With this new toy, we made French onion soup using a combination of a recipe from the Joy of Cooking and one from the booklet that came with the crock pot. It turned out good, though I re-discovered that I absolutely detest soggy bread. After scooping out the nastiness, I just used some nice, dry toast with Gruyere melted on, which worked well. Unfortunately, I wasn't really in the mood for it, though it certainly smelled amazing, as it wasn't really a great post-ride meal. Normally, I prefer things a bit more caloric rich, starchy, and protein heavy. We'll probably make it again, though, so I can try it when I'm in a better mood to eat it.

I'd go the whole wide world

I have been a total sap lately. We just finished watching Stranger Than Fiction, and I was so close to tears. I always forget about that movie, but it's so good. And last night, I watched KCTS 's (Seattle channel 9, PBS) About Us episode Inlaws & Outlaws. It was really good and touching and sweet; there were a couple points that I was just balling. I am such a sucker for older couples. Man, soon I'll be eating ice cream and watching Steel Magnolias or something.
On a career-oriented note, I really started my paper. I did the outline and everything. And today I learned the important skill of running models on multiple computers, in the background. I'll tell you, it's just as exciting as it sounds.