At least you don't get cold with all the climbing...

Yesterday was the big interview day for my Greencard. Terry and I took the day off work, not because we thought it's going to take all day, but just because we could. After spending not even 45 minutes in the office, we were all set and done, approved, seal in the passport and out of the door. SWEET!

We had a cycling date with my training partner (Stacy) for AOMM at noon in Tigerville. On tap was a lot of climbing and enjoying the afternoon off... It was cold yesterday, but of course, there are no bad conditions, only bad clothing choices. We sure layered up.

I am wearing: long winter bibs (bibs are a pain for a pit stop, but great for the rest of the time... unbeatable!), base layer under short sleeve cycling jersey (a girl can dream that it's going to be warm enough to ride without jacket) under cycling jacket. On my head a cap that covers the ears (under the helmet)... That's probably my favorite piece of gear right now. On my feet: thin cotton socks, wool socks, toasty toes and neoprene covers over the shoes. On my hands: wool cycling gloves and thicker fleece gloves in my back pocket just in case.

In the background you can see Terry's new ride about to head out on her maiden voyage! Looks like he made a great choice for himself, he really likes the bike... YAY!

By the time we started at Tigerville, it was close to 12.30pm and sunny. With all my layers and the sun out, I was toasty from the get go. I even worried, that I had too many layers on.... But not for long. Once we hit the Greenville Watershed area, we were under tree cover and it got cooler right away. Also, the sun was covered up with clouds. But as long as we were climbing (and we climbed a lot) it was quite warm. The first 20 miles, I unzipped my jacket on the uphills and then zipped it up again for the downhills and that worked pretty good with regulating the temperature.

The higher we climbed, the colder it got and the further we got into the mountains, the darker it got. By the time we got to Flat Rock it was dreary and chilly. We stopped at the gas station for a little pit stop and get some food into us... Twix anyone? I so didn't feel like my Powerbar gel blasts! That was one yummie Twix! Terry went overboard with moonpie and a hot dog! I am not kidding!

Since the Flat Rock stop was a little on the longer side, we were pretty cold by the time we hopped back on the bikes. Stacy had frozen toes, but fortunately, I did pack an extra set of toasty toes that seemed to do the trick. My fingers were numb for the next couple of miles, because between Flat Rock and Saluda is actually fairly flat or downhill for a while until you finally start climbing again and get a chance warm up. On this stretch of road, we actually saw icicles hanging from rocks at the side of the road... BRRRRRRRRRR!

Originally, we wanted to stop by at Keith's triathlon shop in Saluda. He rode along with us for a couple of miles on the Watershed Road and we wanted to say hi again, but it had already gotten so late until we finally arrived in Saluda, that we didn't even stop, but started to make our way back down right away.

I was very happy that my fingers didn't go numb on the way down. I am not a very gifted downhill rider, so you won't see me zipping down the hills any time soon. When my fingers go numb in the cold, I always get nervous, because I feel like I can't grab my brakes properly. But everything went just fine and the downhills are not that steep, so I hardly made use of my brakes.

In the last couple of miles from the end of our ride, the sun came back out. Well, for us it came back out, but I think that the sun was out in Tigerville the whole time and we only ended up riding around in the clouds that got stuck in the mountains.

We ended up with 45 miles in 3h 15m... That's a good start to AOMM training. Also, with each ride, we seem to get our gear needs dialed in better. Seriously, being cold is just such a mental barrier for my riding, but so far this wintery riding season, things have been fairly toasty.

Happy weekend everyone!

And Then, I Pushed "Submit"

Earlier this year, I was working the package pickup (with other people of course) for the Assault on Mt Mitchell and Marion (AOMM). I always thought this race is CRAZY! But then you are standing around at the expo and see all these people come through... All excited about the race and the wheels in my head started turning. Maybe it wouldn't be all that crazy to try to go out for this???

After the initial "I'll do Mt Mitchell next year!", I started to think about it a little... You know, all the training that you have to put in for a 100 mile bike race up to the highest point East of the Mississippi. The race is in May, so that means you have to ride through the winter and really, the trainer and spin classes alone won't cut it anymore. All those hours on the road alone... I guess, training for this alone* was holding me back mentally the most.


*There are "Mt Mitchell" training rides, but they are posted at speeds that are just not going to happen for me.

Well and then I talked to one of my training buddy tri girls and turns out that she had this race loosely on her radar and with her decision of a late in the year Ironman, her schedule cleared up to train for Mt Mitchell. AWESOME!

So all that was left to do right now, was to push "submit" for the 2011 membership of the Spartanburg Freewheelers.

You are right, this is not a registration for AOMM, the registration is not open yet. But in order to get a shot at even registering for this event, you have to be a member of the Freewheelers for that year. There are a couple of hundred slots that are sold to the general public, but they go very fast, so becoming a member is the way to go.

To "celebrate" the decision, my training partner, hubs and I did a nice long bike ride today. We rode from Tigerville, to Flat Rock, to Saluda and back to Tigerville. Garmin said that it was a total of 6,000 ft (cumulative) climbing over 45 miles. More about that ride tomorrow.... Time to chill or better yet, warm up, since the ride was chilly enough! ;-)

Voting as been extented!! GO SRT!

Forget what I said yesterday about it being the last day of voting for the 250K USD grant for the Swamp Rabbit Trail improvements on Pepsi Refresh.

VOTING HAS BEEN EXTENTED TO DEC 31ST!!!*

@Lindsay: Thanks for letting me know that voting has been extented... I already deleted my daily reminder and everything! ;-)

So as an active member of this community, pls give yourself the Christmas gift of an improved trail and take the time to vote! PLEEEEEASE!

You use these ways to record two votes every day:

http://pep.si/9mxLhq 

·         text 104074 to PEPSI(73774)

In order to vote on Pepsi Refresh, you will have to create a user account. If you choose to text your vote, no registration is necessary.

As of today, the SRT moved to #75... Slowly, but surely... ;-)

My Kind of Amusement Park

Last Saturday, we headed out to the U.S. Whitewater Center near Charlotte NC. This place is actually used as a training center for the Olympic whitewater slalom racing team. They have an artificial canal there, that they can switch from rapid 2 to 4 in what seems minutes.

The canal is open for the public for rafting and kayaking as well, but for that, we'll come back when it's a little warmer. We decided to get the CoolSport pass, which included everything except the whitewater rafting/ kayaking.

So we did....

Awesome butt picture at the climbing wall.

I completely underestimated how tough rock climbing is! ;-)

Just posing... What a wonderful sunny and chilly day we picked!

On the adventure course.... Hanging on for dear life! ;-)

Still hanging...

On the entrance for the short zip line.

The mega zip was closed unfortunately for maintenance.

Climbing up to the little zip.

3, 2, 1.... GOOOOOOO! ;-)

GOOOOOOOOOOO..... ;-)

This time we were just spectators... Next time, we'll be on the canal.

 We also went mountain biking on their easiest loop there.

They do have several trails there that can be used for biking, hiking and trail running.

There is a trail running series on the premises.

Our last activity was flat water kayaking on the Catawba River right next to the park.

There, we saw this crane hunting for lunch.

After the kayaking we were toast and ready to go.

We also had wet bottoms, but fortunately also a change of clothes in the car.

This was a lot of bang for the buck and all of the equipment rentals are included in the price... mtn bikes, kayaks etc. On top of that, the equipment was in really good shape. With it being Thanksgiving weekend and off-season and pretty cold, the park was fairly empty and we practically, didn't have any line anywhere. 

I can only recommend going... It's a ton of fun for active people, but if you want to take grandma and grandpa along, they can get in the park without paying admission and just watch the kids doing their thing. There is no fence around the property, so if you have your own mtn bike or you want to go trail running, you just have to pay parking and then you can use the trail.

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One quick reminder: Today is the last day to vote for the Swamp Rabbit Trail on Pepsi Refresh... Just click on the link in the sidebar.

The Gobble Gooble Weekend

I am a slacker in the blogging department these days, but I only feel a tiny little bit guilty about it. Now it's Monday again and that means a 4-day-mini-vacation over the Thanksgiving holidays is over. The only good thing about the weekend being over is that my next vacation is getting closer.... :-)

So how did I spent my mini vacation?

On Thanksgiving Day (last Thursday - for my German friends) we slept in.... At least it was sleeping in for us. Then my awesome hubby cooked pancakes... The obvious choice of course, since Thanksgiving is a eating holiday and you have to start off the day in the right manner. For the next couple of hours, we did some extreme couching and watched the preparation for the Thanksgiving parade and a "Burn Notice" marathon. After a long deliberation, I finally managed to roll off the couch and brave the elements on a pre-turkey bike ride. We ended up doing close to 25 miles at a decent speed and the only reason why we didn't stay out longer were my frozen toes. With that, I had officially the first frozen toes of the season and you can rest assured, that I won't leave the house without my toasty toes ever again as soon as temps going under 60 degrees... Seriously!

After that we went out (shocking!) for Thanksgiving lunch. We stuffed our bellies with the good stuff... No cooking, preparation and cleaning up required from our side. Yes, it maybe is a little weird that we decided to do Thanksgiving this year like that, but we just wanted to relax and cooking for several hours, hosting a bunch of people and then cleaning for several hours is just not really relaxing. Funny enough, in the meantime I talked to so many people that did exactly the same thing... Not so shocking after all hmmm? ;-)

The rest of the day was spent on the couch continuing the "Burn Notice" marathon until the belly was yelling for more.... I sure got the eating part of this holiday down like nobody's business!

On Black Friday (major shopping day here - for my German friends) Terry had to work... BOOOOOOH! I didn't feel like getting up early to make my usual Friday morning yoga class, so I slept two more hours and then did a Pilates class. I think that was my first Pilates class ever and it sure kicked my butt! After that, into the pool for a solid hour swim and by 11am, I was done with my workouts for the day. The remainders of the day was spent shopping (of course) and visiting my friend up in NC to finally meet her new baby... oooohing and awwwing you know? ;-)

Saturday we went to the U.S. Whitewater Center in Charlotte NC for the day.... I will give that one a separate post as soon as I have downloaded all the pictures. So much for now: It was a fun day and totally worth the drive and I am sure we'll be back for more in the future.

Too soon, it was Sunday and the last day of mini vacation. We went to church in the morning and then headed out for a 40 mile bike ride right after that. We did the "Happy Cow" loop that gets it's name from passing the "Happy Cow" Creamery in Pelzer on the way. We didn't stop there, but whenever you are in the area, it's totally worth checking out.. They have very yummie stuff. The ride was fun and the weather was nice, but cold. This time, I prepared better for it and was toasty throughout. What I didn't quite expect was all the hills that we encountered.... At least, it's good training and since I decided to sign up for particular race next year.... I need all the training I can get, but I'll save that for another day and another blog... Because I am sneaky like that.

No Running Until I Grow Webbing

... or my knee plays nice again.

This is not a full-blown injury yet, so it's time to take it easy for a while. My ITB is acting up again, but fortunately by far not as painful as I experienced it before my first relay in 2009. The timing is also much better this time around, because my next race is not scheduled until January (Resolution Half in TR).

I was supposed to do a track workout this morning, but after hobbling around all day yesterday it just didn't make sense so try to push myself through that workout and do more damage. Last night, after a swim and 20 minutes of foam rolling and still having lingering pain in my knee, I gave the coach a call and for the rest of the week I am not running... It's swimming and cycling now.

That's the beauty of triathlon... When one sport doesn't work out at that moment, we have two other sports to fall back on.

Bad Case of the Mondays...

Goodness, this three day week is coming at just the right moment.

I haven't had such a bad case of the Mondays in weeks, if not months. I am cranky and tired (I fell asleep at 8.30 last night) and achy and just everything.

Some of this is due to a sucky long run yesterday... Some of it, is just because it's Monday.

But let's recap this weekend in workouts a little:

SATURDAY

Getting out of bed, bright and early to meet up with a friend for an easy 30 mile bike ride. She had some other stuff going on that day, so we actually hit the road by 7.30am. It was COLD! I was layered up like an onion... Up top: base layer, short sleeve jersey, long sleeve jacket, mittens with hot hands. I actually didn't plan on riding with the jacket on, but I just didn't have the heart to take it off. On the bottom: cycling capris, leg warmers, wool socks, toasty toes, shoes and shoe covers. Since we took the ride extremely easy, that combination was perfect. I think, if we had pushed the pace more, those layers had been overkill, but since we chit-chatted more than doing anything else... it was just perfect.

After the ride, I stop at the Bavarian Pretzel Factory for some good old butter pretzels and coffee and then headed to the YMCA for an hour swim.

By the time I was back home, I was STARVING and of course, there was nothing in the fridge or at least nothing that was in any way appealing to me. Good thing, that we have a good Greek place down the road. The rest of the afternoon was spent with browsing bike stores and car dealerships... We didn't end up with a new car, but Terry finally made a decision on a new road bike*... EXCITING!!

*Christmas present and birthday present taken care off.... YIPPIE!

SUNDAY

Yesterday, I had a 15-miler on tap. After having 13-mile long runs for the last couple of months, you would think 2 miles more are not a big deal. Well, this was one of the roughest runs I had ever. Normally, stomach issues determine, if I have a good or a bad run... This one was a completely different animal.

The run was broken out in 3 mile segments and the middle segment (mile 7-9) was supposed to be at race pace. I went out too fast and I dearly paid for it. The last 6 miles just HURT! Right from the get-go, my legs didn't really feel too good, but once I did the race pace effort they were just shot and in pain. The knee stuff that I mentioned last week didn't bother me at all during the run, but today I am back to hobbling around.

And if this wasn't enough, I also got dizzy after getting home and grabbing a shower. I just made out of the shower and laying down before passing out. I have no clue what happened. The last time, I had this dizziness going on, I knew that I was dehydrated, but this time, I am sure that hydration was not the issue. I had my Nathan race vest on and was taking water at least every mile. I think that maybe I took in too little calories during the run... Terry puts his money on blood sugar drops... Who knows.

Needless to say, that the rest of the day was done for me after that. I stayed on the couch.... Indulged in pizza hmmmm and ice cream*, watched TV, skyped with my parents and just relaxed.

*go figure that I am still battling those last 5 lbs... but I swear.... I was good ALL WEEK... I just felt so weak and dizzy and frustrated after the run.... jadi, jadi, jada....

I was glad to see on my training plan that my long run this Sunday is only 5 miles... On top of that, we have other fun stuff lined up for the long holiday weekend. It's not going to be all training and it certainly is not all going to be all eating. I am looking for a good mix in activities. Lately, life has been very training and racing heavy, so it's time to change it up a little.

How did your weekend shape up?