School and Cyclocoss

Mud!





Ted heading up the run-up.


Hanging out at the races.


Up the run-up.







School is keeping me far busier than I anticipated. It will be a big relief when this first semester is out of the way. I will be starting my research in October, rather than a year from now, so that will just add more to the plate. I'm not sure how much cyclocross I'll end up doing this year, but we did two big races in Seattle a couple weekends ago.

Starcrossed was first, which is always really fun. The combination of tons of spectators, a beer garden, and racing under the lights makes it a unique race experience. We have done Starcrossed four times now, and this was the first time we had rain... and boy did it rain. It did not stop all day, leaving what was a grassy course a mess of slippery mud. I had never raced in those conditions before, so it was a new experience for me! I crashed several times, but the mud just let me slide. I quickly found myself at the back of the field, which was not a huge surprise, and I wound up finishing last.

About halfway through the race, I felt like I had a fat lip and like my cheeks were swollen, but I tried to ignore it. After finishing (in last place!), I asked Ted if my face was "fat," and he said it was! No idea what happened, but I had an allergic reaction to something. My face was completely symmetrically swollen. It gradually went down throughout the evening (maybe the beer helped?), but I couldn't help but feel self-conscious.

Ted also had the pleasure of slipping and sliding in the mud, arriving at the car with a mud-speckled face. His sister and nephew made it out to watch, which I think just reinforced their opinions that we are somewhat crazy.

Sunday's race at Steilacoom was much drier and warmer, which was a pleasant surprise. Ted's lungs were bothering him, so he backed off of his race pace, and just rode it in. I rode as hard as I could, finishing near the back of the field. That 80 meter run-up is brutal!

Last Week

Me with my beautiful TT bike.


The swim-to-bike transition.


All of the bikes on the rack, including mine, #189.


The running leg of the sprint triathlon.


First off, I just want to say that my thoughts are with Jen.


Ted was in Chicago last week, visiting his parents and his grandmother. While he was away, I continued settling into my new routine as student, and also tried my first sprint triathlon. Mom and Dad came up to watch and take photos, and the weather could not have been better.

I did not train for the running or swimming portions at all, and I wasn't optimistic about my time since I was sick for 10 days beforehand. But, I figured it would be fun, so why not? A guy I have worked with is an avid swimmer, so I asked him what sort of time I would do for a 500 yard swim (they seed you by your swim time). He estimated that I would swim in the range of 7 to 9 minutes, so I put down 8:15 when I registered, which put me in the final swim wave, of 6. I shared a lane with 3 other women, swimming within our lane counter-clockwise. It did not take long for me to realize that I had WAY underestimated my swim time, as I was lapped 3 times! Oops! I guess someone needs to work on her upper body strength, eh?

Anyway, it ended up taking me over 12 minutes for my swim, and I was the absolute last person out of the pool. I was so relieved to hop on the bike and be back in my element. I did not realize that my transition times would end up counting toward the splits of my individual legs, which is something I wish I had known since I was not fast in the transitions! I ended up catching a ton of people on the bike, putting me back ahead of all the women I swam with, and giving me the course record for women.

I decided to run at a decent, but not overly hard pace, with hopes of avoiding too much soreness. It turned out that it didn't matter, as I woke up the next morning to screaming Achilles tendons. I wound up finishing 2nd in my age group and 5th overall for women, with a time of 1:05:00. It was definitely fun for something new, and triathlons are a hard effort!

We still have not solved the garbage problem with Hitcher, so we have stuck to our temporary plan of putting the garbage in the "cat room" every time we leave the house. We no longer even have baby locks on anymore, as he completely snapped them off last weekend. Suz suggested putting the garbage in the tub since dogs don't like to get in the bathtub. Of course, my dog absolutely loves to get in the tub, climbing in several times a week. He once even peed in there! Yes, he's weird. He's also the only dog on the planet who won't touch peanut butter.

I am going to be doing a wine project for my masters degree, starting next year sometime. I am doing the wine processing lab on Fridays, which is going to be really fun. Now if I just didn't have to take organic chem...

Dog-proof Garbage?

Hitcher has been posing a new problem recently and we're not sure what to do about it. We keep our kitchen garbage in a normal can in the cupboard under the sink, and he has discovered that it holds wonderful food scraps. We have tried baby locks - 2 different kinds - but he can still break in. Ours are at the top of the cabinet door, requiring that you press down on a piece of plastic to release the door. The other kind we have tried is also plastic and requires that you push two pieces of plastic together to pop the door open. Apparently, my 2 year old Treeing Walker Coonhound is smarter than the average 3 year old human because he can open both kinds.

We have resorted to moving the garbage to the back room (behind the baby gates that safeguard the litter boxes) each time we leave the house... which is a royal pain. Last week, Ted put a kitchen chair in front of the cupboard, but we still came home to trash, in addition to finding that he had eaten a chocolate cake retrieved from the ABOVE-counter cupboards; oh, and a loaf of bread. Yep, not sure how he got those cupboards open either. Next, Ted put a new 35 pound container of kitty litter in front of the cabinet, but he somehow managed to move that too, leaving garbage scraps strewn on the floor.

While it's super annoying to come home to garbage, the real concern is that he'll eventually eat something that makes him sick, so we have to figure something out. Until then, we'll be trying to remember to put it in the back room. Any suggestions?