Smurf along with Cara

Complainypantses

2012-01-11T19:26:00.000-05:00

Hello, friend.

If you don't know what Google Reader is, you should discover it. Frankly, I don't know what I would do without it. Definitely not read the blogs of the few people who are still blogging! (Thank you Danielle, for your regular posts.) It's pretty much where I get all of my news. If you don't have a feed reader on your web page, I don't read it.

One of the blogs I read is called Mr. Money Mustache. He is totally awesome on so many levels. You can learn for yourself why by reading his bloggity blog, which is updated quite frequently with entertaining, albeit sometimes long-winded, posts.

The reason I write about him now is because he is not afraid to say things like "these people deserve a punch in the face", or call people out on being "complainypantses", or (Mom, close your ears) call people "fucktards" for being mentally backwards regarding certain subjects. Yes, I think that word is hilarious. I'm putting it out there for the interwebs to see.

After several seasons of being flame mailed for stupid, not-really-relevant-to-saving-the-world-in-general, cycling team related managerial misunderstandings, I have done my best to extricate myself from the drama of People Who Email Too Quickly About Inconsequential Crap. I've found that being Treasurer for my local club is a great way to give back to the community with small risk of drama. It's the President's job to deal with that crappity crap!

So, today, when I received a flame mail for innocently being the nerdy little accountant that I am, I let out a Frenchified "ouf!" and went and had a good cry in my car. (all better now, not to worry. I have regained command of my awesomeness) Andy will tell me not to waste my time on a blog post, but frankly I've been meaning to post about how much I admire Mr. Money Mustache's willingness to throw around aforementioned phrases with liberal application, and here's my window.

Don't let the complainypantses get you down, my friends. You can't literally give them a punch in the face (if you do, shame on you!), but it might make you feel better if you talk about it in a blog post. Kapow!

New year, same old me

2012-01-01T18:10:00.001-05:00

Happy 2012!

I'm getting old. It blows! And of course friends who are older than me will say "young'un!" and friends who are younger than me will say "better you than me!" (you just wait your turn, wee ones...) One of the double edged swords about age is: experience.

I now know not to bother with New Year's Resolutions - rarely have I put anything out there that would be much of a sacrifice or change in my lifestyle. So I haven't even bothered with one in a good little while. Although, one year in high school, I swore off sodie pop as part of a new year's goal... and I made it! The following New Year's eve, at midnight:01 I was chugging back a Sprite in celebration (yeah, totally lame. Aren't high school kids typically chugging other things?)

Anyway, Andy and I had a Diet Coke addiction. For me, it was up to 3 "travel drinkies' a day at work, plus probably another pint of it once I got home. I knew it was bad for the environment, for me, for our wallet. But I just couldn't give it up! (Even articles that demonstrate others out there suffer the same fate as Andy and myself were to no avail)

Anyway, I can proudly say I am on day 5 of no sodie pop. I have to go cold turkey or it won't work; this is what my experience tells me. The only side effects I've had is utter fatigue by 10 p.m., and a faint case of smug when I think about all the plastic I'm saving from the recycling trucks. It's not really a new year's resolution, although it is a resolution that I took that just happened to be right around new year's. Hmm, is that the same thing? Cara goes zen.

It's possible I should install one of these in my office, just in case:

I don't know how to break Andy of his diet coke habit, but Ima gonna try.

Don't you dare try to keep either of us off the cookies, though.

New year, same old me. Maybe with a little less aspartame running through my veins.

Happy Holly Daze

2011-12-25T13:02:00.000-05:00

For those of you who celebrate, Happy Christmas! For those who don't, Bah, Humbug! I swing both ways when it comes to the holly daze.

But this year, THIS YEAR, I know that there really is a Sandy Claws... First, because I saw him at the Bay Head Fire house immediately after we sang "Here comes Santa Claus" (twice); he drove up in, conveniently, a Bay Head Fire Engine and gave me not one but TWO candy canes. Clearly I've been a good little girl this year.

Second proof that he exists: I was sitting in my in-laws' living room, which faces the bay in Bay Head, talking animatedly to my sister about smurf puzzles and college savings funds. Suddenly I saw, rowing smoothly through sun dappled water, the big man himself, clearly enjoying himself after the stress of a night of delivering goodies to all the boys and girls of the world. Needless to say, I hung up most immediately and snagged this awesome shot with my celly:

So, he really does exist, and obviously rowed his way to bring socks and sweaters and recipe books and gadgets to the McApplegate family. Now you know!

And some more photos:

Cara! You're doing... pretty good.

2011-12-04T19:23:00.001-05:00

The title of this post are words spoken in a special cheer given to me yesterday.... Special, in that anyone bothered to cheer for me at all! [thank you, melanie, you rock. I mean it. You told me to pedal in that spot I wasn't pedaling in, and because of it I came within 1 second of fourth place. If only I had pedaled sooner!]

But it still is a pretty funny cheer. Because the few races I've bothered to do in the last month, well.... I've not been particularly good, by my gold medal standards of "yesteryear," that indefinable period of "not this year." :-)

So let's go backwards in time, a month and a half almost! Halloween 'Cross was smurftacular. No, not the women's race, in which I finished a disappointing 14th not even out of breath (Andy suggested I might want to "try," or something), but I didn't even get a moment's peace to throw a pity party because Andy made me throw down my bike and hop on the tandumb so we could race for Tandumbmonium glory in the Tandem class!

A costume was a must, so we dressed up as our current favorite cartoon characters - Garu and Pucca.

I think we did a smashing job on the costumes!

Looks a lot like the cartoon

and for the second year in a row we managed to bring home tandumb glory, besting some fabulous teams which included a former teammate/current BFF and a schwinn stingray with chrome fenders. We snagged some cash and the best handup yet this year - a can of SPAM! Which was very difficult to figure out where to put during the race, and now I don't know what to do with it....

And then we zipped home to do who knows what.

And then I can't remember the next weekend, and then November 12th or so I was hopping a plane or two to go see my Grandpa and family on the UP for a fast weekend of happy fun.

Totally lucked out on the weather (high 40s/low 50s instead of 7 inches of snow) AND the awesome happenstance of a 'cross race within a mile of our house AND someone being nice enough (foolish?) to loan me a bike to race! (really, I couldn't believe how nice these people are! I made two new facefriends!)

After 10 years of racing 'cross, my mom has never seen me in a race? She was super excited, and the kids in the family really wanted to play on the playset at Tourist Park... with weather in the low 50s it was a great day to be outside on the UP, although the locals were disappointed there was no snow. Not me, no how!

look at those HOTT arm warmers - apparently very helpful in identifying me

Anyway, I borrowed a super awesome Giant TCX, but didn't pay careful enough attention to the saddle height and consequently felt like I was driving an underpowered boat during the race. The course was totally old school low key - flagging instead of tape in most places, and we didn't even have numbers to pin on! But the crowd that was there was fiercely loyal to having fun, and I was bummed I couldn't hang around afterward to heckle the hipsters and the lumberjacks who raced the A race. It would seem that "fast people" exist all over the country, and dagnabbit two stayed ahead of me the whole race. So, 3rd it was. Mom and Dad still seemed proud so that's what counts. And I got in an awesome workout!

And I'm all typed out. I really just started this post so I could show off a thank you note I wrote in 1983 to my Grandma and Grandpa, unearthed as my sister nosed around some stationery boxes. Wasn't I a thoughtful little 6 year old?

Diversity

2011-10-27T23:29:00.001-04:00

Hello, fan! (mommy)

For the past three years I've avoided the gym like Andy avoids housework, which is a little bit like superman avoiding kryptonite. As a result, I have become so one dimensional at times I think I resemble flat stanley. Not good.

In case you don't know Flat Stanley, here he is. He's flat.

So about four weeks ago one of my co-workers challenged the office to Boot Camp, a body weight based fitness class that meets three times a week just up the road from the house. The group challenge, and pretty low cost, motivated me off my patootie and at 6 am on October 10 I found myself doing my first pushup since high school. The exercises were awkward and I quickly confirmed what I had long suspected - I have zero upper body strength and little core. At least I'm the best (girl) runner there.... Most everyone's in the same boat and it has been a great experience to go to the same class three days a week, getting to know people who probably wouldn't make eye contact with me at the grocery store otherwise.

Unicoi, TN CX - my legs are begging me to stop. Photo by Ddubb

After diligently attending all three sessions the first week, I found myself too damn tired to train. In spite of my 0 hours training plan, I journeyed to Tennesee on the weekend (10/15-16) for a double header of 'cross racing. And, as could be expected but not necessarily accepted, it felt like someone had tied lead balloons to my legs and I therefore interpret this to mean I sucked. Super frownie face! Everything hurt, everywhere!

I started week two with a bit of an attitude (why am I doing this, it's making me suck!), but also with a little more determination to get some cycling training in, as well. I'm still a cyclist, right? Maybe. I made a key decision - avoid 8 hours of driving for two 45 minute races and stay home and train, which in theory goes against my bike racery grain. As that crazy country bumpkin I used to work with would say, in barely understandable southern drawl, "do whut?" [Insert pause here for shocked interpretation of county speech] Turns out, it made sense, and last weekend was fantabulastic, filled with solid riding, sunny days, and much homestead accomplishments.

With my new found arm-strength, I was able to help Andy carry our bee hive from its black mountain home to a borrowed truck, to a new temporary home at my girlfriend Trish's. (we have to build a bear fence if we want to keep it at our new place). Three weeks ago, my arms probably would have failed me and I would have dropped that sucker on Andy's foot, causing hundreds of worker bees to kamikaze themselves all over him. Instead, we made the transfer smoothly (although slowly), and now potential tenant or purchasers will not be distracted by the weird white box with little stinging insects flying in and out of it.

And now I'm done with three weeks of boot camp, AND I went running yesterday, AND I've been swimming at the Y when Andy goes. Hence, the post title, 'diversity'. It doesn't really help the cycling. BUT, I think I've been long overdue for a routine shake up, and the DIVERSITY is making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Which helps everyone, outside.

Up next? Well, I did decide to skip Boot Camp on the Fridays before I race... which would be this weekend. It might actually give me half a chance at not sucking. MSG Cross on Caturday, and my first NCCX race of the year on Sunday in Boone. It's Halloween weekend, which means there's potential for a whole lot more silly than usual. Woot!

Zombieland

2011-10-21T22:51:00.000-04:00

When last I blogged, I wrote about the impending cyclo-cross season. Well, I think I did. Blogger won't show me right now so I'm going to have to go on memory, which seems to be failing of late.

It takes a lot of work to get up to cyclo-cross speed, and I'm really not doing it right now. Cyclo-cross work, that is. Or, riding in general. I said that I was going to take it one race at a time, and when it stopped being fun, I would stop.

Well.... it's still fun (even though I am not as fast as I would like), but.... and maybe this is sleep deprivation talking.... I am finding it really hard to get excited about the amount of driving (tree-killing) I will have to do in the upcoming weeks to attain aforementioned levels of funness. Especially without dedicated travel buddies or teammates. (So I'm staying home this weekend - whee!)

That being said, Friday oct 7th I went down to Brevard to participate in the Zombie Bash Alley Cat race. Super de duperdee fun. I tooled around on the singlespeed with Ddubb, Diana, Nate and Abby Wyatt, which is pretty much my extended family so yippee! We all dressed like Zombies and had a marvelous time, zipping around Brevard and yelling "brains" at every turn. Mmmm..... brains! Nate and Abby drank coffee sized mugs of jack daniels, we dug acorns out of a zombie squirrel's intestines, played croquet, and danced Thriller repeatedly until Nate and Abby satisfied the alcohol drinking test.

I managed to bring the fun into my office, before hand, as I enlisted the help of some of my colleagues to enable my zombie makeover. Some bike testers over at Bike magazine happened to show up for the ride so they captured a lot o' fun images from the night. Check it out over at bike mag! <a href="http://www.bikemag.com/gallery/bike-bible-team-does-zombie-squirrel-alleycat/">http://www.bikemag.com/gallery/bike-bible-team-does-zombie-squirrel-alleycat/</a>

Much fun was had by all, and more fun will be had going forward....

Fall means cyclo-cross is coming

2011-09-26T22:23:00.000-04:00

Fall is here! Holy crap!

'Back in the day', my team bio proclaimed my favorite time of year 'Fall, 'cause it means 'cross is coming!' And cyclo cross has always been my favorite discipline of cycling.

So how is it that in my last post, I said "Some day I will again do Epic Stuff", and mentioned nothing about racing cyclo-cross?

In retrospect, the stress of buying a new house without yet selling the old one (and we had very good reason to do that, don't get me wrong), and packing to move, all the while training for our goal race of the year, plus trying to earn a living, pushed me beyond my stress capacity. I thought that getting past the goal, which at times felt more like a hurdle, would relieve some of the self induced pressure. But post-race, it seemed like the 'extra' time was consumed either by work or that post euphoric, weight gain inducing funk that I always swear I am going to avoid.

And so, I had Zero plans to travel to any cyclo-cross race this year. With no race goals in sight, training the last few weeks has been sporadic and unstructured.

Unbidden, Andy built up my cross bike. I snuck out on it, almost feeling obligated, one cool bright afternoon. The flowing trails in Bent Creek quickly reminded me how much I love riding cross bikes.

Damn. That one little ride made me want to race, but I've let all my top end fitness go! Ack, to hell with it, I'll race myself into shape.

So last weekend I made my 2011 cyclo cross debut at the MSG cyclo cross series race in unicoi, tn. It was fun. I was but a shadow of form from year's past... But that's okay. I didn't go there to be awesome (besides my usual awesomeness that I just exude, ya know). But there was a definite fun factor and I do plan on racing again. I might even get around to training!

Sponsors? Who wants to sponsor a non-committal out of shape amateur racer? (step forward if you do!) I found some crazy lady who is keen to get me to any race I want to go to, so I put her name on my bike - check it out!

Someday I will again do Epic Stuff

2011-09-05T21:42:00.000-04:00

Three weeks have passed since our last Great Adventure, and I find myself in that nebulous post-goal haze that leaves the average Joe(sephina) feeling a little grumpy and shiftless.

I took almost two weeks off the bike, working on getting our old house ready for sale. (buy our house? Please?)

When I finally rode again, the only motivation in doing so was saving money by riding my bike to work. Oh, and participating in the Race to the Rock on my 3^rd day (August 27), which this year was a 25 mile time trial around Lake Lure! I had no business racing after such a hiatus but I did it anyway, because that is what silly is made of, and we all know I’m full of it (silly, that is). Since only a bunch of tired triathletes raced it (it was the 3^rd in a triad of events) I managed to score the win, resulting in a prize of a tiny gold medal.

I convinced Andy to race, too, and he came away with the same result as me. The course was so awesome and the opportunity to ride up Chimney Rock so rare (bikes aren’t usually allowed) that neither of us cared (much) that there were no prizes. I really hope they do that again! Maybe next year I’ll do the triad, although it involves running and triathlons, blech!

Fast forward to Wednesday, August 31. Following up on some nagging knee pain that Andy had been experiencing for over a year, he visited his team doctor, who immediately shipped him off for an MRI. Prognosis: his right knee is Pretty Damn Messed Up. L 6 weeks of super light activity, and an immediate cessation of bike riding to allow the swelling in the bone to go down (!). Also, some crazy therapy that will hopefully allow him to avoid 60%-success-rate-surgery.

My biggest concern about all of this was how Andy would react to doctor-ordered time off the bike! The boy does not like days without exercise.

So, on Caturday, we made our first trip to the YMCA to start swimming. Day 1, while not a disaster, established the baseline of “needs much improvement”. Andy learned first hand just how important efficiency is, and I learned that despite 15 years of competitive experience, I have little idea how to help anyone improve their swimming ability. Needless to say, we’ve been watching YouTube videos and on Day 2 (today), I had him do breathing drills before every lap he swam.

What’s up next for me? I don’t know. I really don’t have any goals, although Andy tried to pick one for me – not sure if I can get motivated for it. I did get out for a 39 minute run in the rain today – hopefully I can walk tomorrow.

Which brings me to my only reference of the post's title, Someday I will Again do Epic Stuff! But I don't know when.

Hopefully some more interesting and frequent posts to come soon.

Andy at the start of the Race to the Rock, Rock in the background

Saw this vintage 7-11 team bike at the start of the Race tot he Rock and couldn't resist taking a photo!

At the finish! Hell yeah I did the 1 hr 25 minute race with my cell phone in my pocket

Andy's podium. to his right is his former Cane Creek teammate Heath Dotson, who has since turned tot triathlons.

One thing we are doing is massive purging of crap-we-don't-need. And that includes the original stereo from Andy's 1996 Dodge Caravan, which we got rid of in 2005. !

Tandumbing Across the Sky in Leadville, CO

2011-08-16T00:18:00.000-04:00

'The Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race is just like a 10k festival run', says my BFF Evie as we eat breakfast post race in the Delaware Hotel.

There is, of course, a hint of sarcasm in her voice and a twinkle in her eye as she pronounces this. But the allusions are there - the goodie bags, the post race food and vendor displays (even a beer tent!), the oftentimes random schwag (shower bomb, anyone?), the participants of all ranges of the athletic spectrum, all of whom are 'winners'. But, to steal a saying from the Mad Hatter from the most recent Alice in Wonderland, everything is much muchier. So much muchier.

My memories of 2011 are very different from 2010 - less perfect new car smell, more raw and functional. Just two days later, it already feels distant, like it happened in another lifetime. And maybe it did.

By virtue of our sub 9 hour, 80th place finish last year, we got to line up in the first 'corral' of 100 riders, pretty damn sweet. This helped us stay out of trouble at the start, except there was one scary moment when I thought there was going to be a 50 bike pileup. Although we lost all of our speed, and the smell of burned rubber and curses of stressed and angry-yet-relieved riders filled the air, everyone stayed upright and we barreled on toward St. Kevin's, first baby climb of the day.

Singletrack.com, somewhere during the start

What else do I remember?

My brother's voice at the first aid station, urging me to "Go Cara!" in the same tone my father used to use when I was growing up, only not so loud or urgent and therefore not embarrassing.

Being yelled at by a single bike rider for 'getting in the way' on the 1 mile of singletrack of the course, exiting said singletrack right behind the riders who entered ahead of us, and then towing Mr. Critical on the pavement afterward at some ridiculously high speed that he couldn't have possibly done on his own. (I believe a 'nyah nyah nyah' should have been issued, but I refrained, although I guess here's the call out - nyah nyah nyah, buddy!)

Passing through Twin Lakes outbound, CrestedButtePhotography.com

Frenchy (if you've watched either of the Race Across The Sky movies you should know this character!), descending Columbine while we were ascending, crying out in his adorable accent 'heyhey, tahn-demmm! Whey to go!" and one of the riders around us said 'did he call you a duo-dumb?' and I thought 'We're the lost duodumb of ravenclaw!' but no one would have understood my joke so I kept it to myself.

Watching the lead riders descend Columbine, cheering names and keeping up a running commentary with Andy as to who was going to place how. Remembering Todd Wells (Winner!) nursing a beer pitcher like it was a pint at an after party at the 2004 cyclocross nationals.

Seeing Rebecca Rusch in apparently the top 20 riders and feeling like an absolute hack. Animal!

Reaching the top of Columbine within a few seconds of last year's pace; feeling deceived somehow - I thought we'd be smashing last year's time.

The sketch Columbine descent, filled with sand, loose gravel, wheel grabbing rain gullies and walking riders spilling over into our line. So much slower than last year!

Timing our distance between the 2nd place tandem on Columbine - a healthy buffer.

Our low spot, the approach to the pipeline 2 aid station, where our legs didn't seem to work and I couldn't get Andy to eat or drink and we were passed by line after line of riders.

Blacking out and almost passing out as we walked up the steep, seemingly interminable sun-exposed powerline trail on the return.

Smiling for every dang camera I saw, cause gosh darnit I didn't want any grimaces recorded on film! But on Powerline I was too busy trying not to faint to remember to smile.

Andy stressing me out because we were sure we were well off last year's pace due to the incredibly sandy descents and blinding dust, and he still wanted to be sub 9.

Flying in toward the finish on the roller coaster approach, passing riders like they were standing still, only to drop our timing chain and have to stop.

Finally, finally reaching the finish, hearing the crowd that lined the street throw out a collective cheer for us (at least that's what it felt like) happy to be done and never have to do that again.

Winning, but somehow a little dissatisfied because we were four minutes slower than last year.

Andy coveting Bart Brentjen's purple Milka hat, wondering if he would trade it (we couldn't think of anything he would want so didn't ask).

Spending time with my family, friends, Andy's colleagues and athletes throughout the whole weekend... Feeling so grateful that the reason we were all together was this incredibly positive event - the promoters have really created a supportive and happy environment for all to participate in one way or another. So many people who love the challenge of riding bikes, amidst beautiful scenery, and no rain! (although I think we could have gone a lot faster with rain. )

All in all, an excellent trip and an excellent race. They treat the athletes - from the first finisher to the last - with such respect and enthusiasm that it would be difficult to speak ill of the race.

But do I want to go back? Ask me again in January. For now, I'm looking forward to some time off the bike. And, in case you're wondering, the effort required to finish (and organize!) this thing was significantly more than a 10k run. :-) Just sayin'!

Really got a kick out of this company's artwork - Dutch children chasing (essentially) a pig in a blanket. They were tasty - perhaps worth chasing.

Evie & Brian (right) visited us as part of their 3 week long Great American Road Trip . <3

Radio Silence

2011-08-07T22:57:00.000-04:00

Wow, the entire month of July has passed with no word from me on the McApplegate goings on.

Why for? Well, if you can believe it, we’ve been even busier then usual… and that’s saying something!

July 1, Andy’s office moved from South Asheville to downtown Brevard. Run a Google Maps on that from Black Mountain, folks… for a happy household, a commute like that would just not work.

So we started looking for houses in late May, I think… our only qualifiers were 1. somewhere in between his work & mine (West Asheville), and 2. ability to mountain bike from the house. Well, okay, that second qualifier was a bit of a limiter. In Western North Carolina, however, not as much as one might encounter elsewhere.

Fast forward through a week or two of looking at varying quality of houses, and we wound up making an offer on the very first house we looked at, just up the street from the Bent Creek Experimental Forest in Asheville.

And, July 19 we closed. In between all that, we were trying to pack, train, WORK (you know, so we can PAY for the new place!), and maintain our sanity. We actually wound up delaying the move for a week, because we simply hadn’t gotten enough done.

Even though we’ve officially moved, we’re not anywhere near done with the Black Mountain house: just today I was there packing up a carload of odds and ends. Sometime after next week we’ll list it either for sale or rent, but for now it sits waiting for someone to love it.

We’re barely settled into the new house (bed! Toiletries! I can sorta find my work clothes!) But this much is clear: it has not been an ideal precursor to our goal event of the season. For one more week, though, I will put that thought out of my mind as we enter the final taper for the Leadville 100, which holy crappity crap is this coming Caturday!

I think I’m in pretty good shape. I’ve got more enduro events under my belt than last year, I managed to get down to race weight again, and Andy’s already out there acclimatizing (and recovering from our stressful July).

And, we live in a place where in just 6 minutes I can ride my bike from garage door to trailhead. Life is good.

Next update? Might not be till after the Big Event. Wish us luck!

Largest purchase of our lives and I document it with a crappy cell phone photo. :-)

Blood Sweat and Gears - Tandem Century in the High Country

2011-07-17T21:47:00.000-04:00

Life has been unusually busy lately, and that’s saying something, since usually it’s pretty dang busy here in the McApplegate household. J I'll explain why in a few days.

When last I updated, nearly a month ago, we had just finished the Lumberjack 100 on the mountain bike tandumb.

Life is such a blur right now I had to turn to my twitter feed to remember what we did after that!

June 25, we went north to Valle Crucis, NC (just outside of Boone) to participate in the 100 mile road event called Blood, Sweat and Gears. After a calm relaxing evening in the Barker house, we awoke at sunrise and descended down the mountain to line up with 748 other eager beavers who were ready to tackle 13,000 feet of climbing mountains via bike.

I’ve only done this event one other time, my very first century ever, in 2002. I vaguely remember, at mile 90, feeling certain I could make it another 10 miles without needing more fuel or water. In reality, the ride is 106 miles, the last 10 containing some mean kickers of hills. Needless to say, the last 6 miles in 2002 were the longest 6 miles of my life. I vowed this would not happen to me again!

So we took care of ourselves, riding hard to stay with the main group, but eating and drinking like good little racer types. We never managed to get to the front of the peleton, but hung out at the back of the main pack and punched tickets for the first 60 miles. Once the group blew to smithereens on the super steep and painful Snake Mountain, we spent the rest of the ride enjoying the roads, the good cheer of the many volunteers, getting heckled by many Boone-folk we have come to know over the years, and all in all having a good time. (Although based on the below photo, maybe it was just me having fun?)

Photo by HighSouthCollective

5 hours and 35 minutes after we started, we happily crossed the finish line, covering the last 10 miles or so as quickly as we started. Tired, dusty, and grimy, we were pretty dang happy with the effort. Training seems to be on track for some pesky little 100 miler, which at the time was 1.5 mos away, now just 1 mo away…

And oops, I'm all blogged out for the night. Hopefully it won't take me another month to update again, so much to write about...

Lumberjack 100 2011 edition, Tandem style

2011-06-19T23:19:00.000-04:00

On February 1, 8 pm EST, Andy geared up for a race. He toed the start line, anxiously poised for immediate action. As soon as the 'go' was given, he furiously entered our registration information into the website for the Lumberjack 100 mountain bike race, to be held in the then-distant future of June 18. For the next fourteen minutes, we 'watched' the registered riders list increase exponentially, praying that 8 other crazy people would want to race a tandem on that course (we needed 5 teams for a 'class'). At the last minute, the tandem class reached five and we cheered as if a race was already won. If we were going to participate, we at least wanted to stand a chance of winning a prize.

Fast forward four plus months, and we hurtled out of North Carolina, through Tennesee, Kentucky and Ohio, for seemingly forever, finally arriving, after 14 hours of driving, just east of Manistee, Michigan, at the Manistee National Forest. We 'camped' in the meowmobile at a lovely campground about 15 minutes away from the race trailhead, arriving Thursday evening just in time to sneak in a spin in the fading sunlight. Friday we pre-rode about half of the course, during which time I found myself briefly pondering the sanity of our decision to spend the equivalent of a workday on the back of a tandem on that trail.

But, I had committed, so at 7 am the next day Andy and I lined up on the tandem, next to the other 360 silly bike riders who also chose to ride these sweet trails.The road was completely taken up with riders jammed in like vienna sausages as close to the front as possible, so we took a spot about 3rd row, on the grass. We had a mile long pavement lead out before hitting the trail, and Andy had visions of dragging the field to the trailhead and dropping them off once we got there. But as luck would have it, we were pinned in right in the middle of the road, about three wheels back, and stayed there. Which was a good thing for any racer who wanted to go fast, because it turns out that, no matter how strong we may be, the twisty, flowy, bumpy trail was difficult to maneuver on the tandem, and therefore our combined power was slower than we would typically expect.

As it was, we caused a fair amount of traffic jams early in the first lap of three. I told myself, hopefully, that later on in the race, when these people would still have energy because they hadn't fried their legs in the beginning, they would be thanking us. Except, of course, the dumb guy who tried to pass us in a silly spot and ran full speed into a tree, almost knocking us over, then yelling at us as if it were our fault. Umm, no!

The course was a 33 mile loop consisting 95% of tight, twisty singletrack that wound through a dense forest lush with greenery from recent rains. At times the trail was so tight I was surprised we were able to squeeze between the trees. We quickly settled into a rhythm, improving our flow in every section, maximizing efficiency. Unlike our only previous tandem 100 miler, we never discussed competition. The course was so challenging mentally that we had to remain 100% focused at all times; if a team was ahead of us, or were to pass us, it was highly unlikely that we could safely change our pace to react.

So we rode our pace, eating when we could, grateful for the lap format as we stopped at our cooler each time and replenished our fuel. Just forty miles in, though, I could not imagine finishing, my backside was so sore. From then on our efforts were hampered by a subconscious pain avoidance on my part. But we carried on, no breakdowns or significant mechanicals, eventually crossing the finish line, first tandem, 9 hours and 7 minutes after starting.

This event was by far the most challenging thing we have ever done together. The things for which I am most appreciative: there was no yelling at each other, no teary breakdowns; nothing but a boatload of teamwork. And, the two other teams on the podium? Male-male. Always feels good to girl the guys... :-)

This is only the beginning of our summer adventures - up next: the Blood, Sweat and Gears century on the road tandem, June 25.

Dramatic photo of Andy observing Lake Michigan in Manistee. If you look closely you can see the seagulls flying away.

Photographer's self portrait. I should be embarrassed that I didn't learn his name, but he was drunk and I was bonked so whatever. Thank you, o nameless one!

2011 Lumberjack Tandem Podium. The super tall guy on the right of the photo wanted to kill me because I made them change 3 minutes after they finished because I wanted to start the 14 hour drive. Thanks for humoring me, guys!

Almost summer!

2011-06-16T16:03:00.000-04:00

Well, fan, it's almost summer, and when last I updated I had just returned from my annual family visit in Marquette, MI.

I was up there for a week, managing to borrow my cousin's mountain bike for two grin inducing trail rides. After my retubike didn't make time for my bike until the ring of fire training race three days later.

I sense that the road racing chapter of my life is coming to a close, but the motorpacing aspect of the training series drew me to it. Usually I just do the men's race (more reliable speed and effort), but in an attempt to help bolster the women's race I ponied up the extra $ for it, even if I was skeptical of the fun factor.

In an attempt to help set up my new teammates to do well in the sprints, (the Wed night training races here are run points race style, which means every five laps the field sprints for points, the last lap & final sprint being worth double. most points wins.) I just attacked attacked attacked the field when I could, trying to make the few non-teammates work to chase me down. When the sprint laps came, if I wasn't completely fried I went hard early, praying Erica or Allison would come around me. We didn't really have the timing down perfectly-one sprint we gave to a non-teammie, one sprint no one came around me-but I got a great workout in and that was what I wanted. With two laps to go the bell rang for a gambler's prime, so I went for it super early, taking the prime (awesome Essential Journeys soap! Get some!) and continuing the effort. How I managed to hold that effort for two laps I have no idea, but after a tongue lolling, leg searing escape I found myself rounding the final 'corner' with no one next to me. I took the final sprint, and with that won the race. Yes, a road bike race. Wha?

It is not a huge victory, but it sure made me feel good that night, anyway. Anyway, at the end of this post ( I hope) are two photos from that night. One of me attacking the field, the other of the finishing sprint. :-)

I found myself back at the speedway two days later, to participate in the strangest of things - a cyclo-cross race (in May!). I lined up with the strongest local ladies, and we all had fun racing each other while weaving through the B men who had started 15 seconds ahead of us, reggae music from the Mountain Sports Festival venue floating in the air around us. I managed to get the W in that one, too, winning the coolest piece of recycled bike equipment artwork called 'bent creek cherry.' I took this as an omen of things to come, which I will discuss in a post later this summer... (hopefully) photo below of me skating through the sandpit in the race.

I can't post a photo of this sweet piece of art, though, as we are currently in the Meowmobile headed toward Manistee, MI for the 100 mile mountain bike race called the Lumberjack 100. (Aka a million hours away from home) on Saturday we'll be competing together in the 100 mile Race on the tandumb! I'll try to make time for some more updates on the trip.

Cara

Yooperland

2011-05-27T17:27:00.000-04:00

A story in which I take a trip to my mother’s motherland, also known as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, more specifically the town Marquette, plunked down on the southern shoreline of Lake Superior, of Great Lakes fame.

May 17 – 21, 2011

People who live on the Upper Peninsula colloquially call themselves Yoopers, derived from the abbreviation often used when referring to Northern Michigan – the UP. Say it with a Scandinavian accent, “yooo-peee”. Actually, you still get the “yoop” sound without the accent but (in my most humble opinion) it’s much more fun with the Scandinavian accent. You betcha!

I thank my lucky stars for the modern day technology that allows a person to traverse the vast expanse of terra firma from Western North Carolina to the UP in a mere four hours. Driving it takes 18-22, depending on how many times Andy lets us stop for my tiny bladder.

The purpose for my visit, similar to last year’s, was to join my Grandfather, Alfred Camilli, and other family, in celebrating Al’s 98^th birthday. Ninety Eight effin’ years! Hell yeah I’m going to celebrate! Even if it just meant visiting him in his retirement community apartment and looking at old photos that are as familiar to me as my trusty well worn converse. Which is to say, every time I look at them I see something different. J

Al had been living in the house he’d been in since 1942 until this past November, when he had a back injury that landed him in the hospital, and subsequently a care facility. He’s been installed in an assisted living facility since February, and it seems like a pretty sweet place to be. Kinda like a college dorm, only without the crazy parties, or noise, and with nurses instead of RAs. And they make sure you eat and take your meds. Okay, not like a dorm at all. Anyway, I still think it’s great for him, but he seems a little bored, even with such fun weekly activities scheduled such as Bingo, the Price is Right, and yes, a Happy Hour! (Apparently, the Activities Director gets quite a laugh when everyone in the place thinks a loaf of bread still costs $0.25.)

For it being vacation, whose very definition is “respite”, I remember feeling vaguely stressed out most of the time, a product of trying to do a little bit too much and being a little bit shiftless in making plans.

My mom, sister, her eldest (of 3) young’un, and I shared my empty-for-now aunt & uncle’s house. We weren’t there too often, as we filled our days with our usual visiting G-pa, thrifting, sightseeing and finding-ways-to-keep-a-bored-five-year-old-engaged. (Lucky for us there are other kiddos in the family in town who love to play, but we didn’t spend 24-7 with them, shucky darn).

xxxxxxx

Here’s another one of those blog posts that was started days ago, never to be finished. Until today! But I just won’t follow through on much more description.

The trip was fun, the party well attended by family and community leaders and much appreciated, and Grandpa even made the FRONT PAGE of the local paper.

For five years or so (college), I skipped my annual visits to the UP. Don’t ask me why now, I can’t remember back that far. But I’m so glad I went.

What kind of mischief and mayhem should I cause now? ;-)

One of Grandpa's buddies meets my Uncle

Cousin Susie, yours truly, my sis

I forgot to mention the City Council declared May 20, 2011 "Al Camilli Day". I want my own day too!

Loverboy

2011-05-22T15:33:00.000-04:00

The title of the post? The name of the most recent album of my favoritest artist: Brett Dennen.

Silly album title notwithstanding, it’s a great album. More upbeat than his previous, also awesome albums, it has caused me to break out into spontaneous (hopefully unobserved) dance on more than one occasion.

When his tour dates were announced in January, I was over the moon happy that he had a stop in Asheville, and it was on a Sunday night, so we could certainly arrange to be in town! The fact that it was the week leading up to a vacation was pure vanilla seven minute icing on the proverbial moist and decadent baked from scratch chocolate cake. What a great way to put me in the right frame of mind for a hard-earned four days away from work!

His musical performance was spot on, and got me dancing and grooving and I think Andy even managed to be a little less statuesque than usual. I was bummed that Mr. Dennen didn’t seem to really connect to the crowd – at all – or know what town he was in (c’mon, man!) but, for the most part, I was there for the music, and that I heard, and thoroughly enjoyed.

The last song he played was “Blessed”, a great way to top off an excellent evening. It kept the music in my heart and head through the long Monday workday (and beyond), and made me immune to stress or worry. I believe a Woo to the capital Hoo is in order for that one. “Blessed is this life, and I’m going to celebrate being alive!” And so I do, so I will.

Off Roading, Tandumb style

2011-05-22T15:08:00.000-04:00

Sunday, May 15 was the day I was really looking forward to and perhaps knowing it was so close made Saturday, the 14^th a much better day.

Andy and I set out on a “mountain bike tandem adventure,” which for us just means riding for a really long time, and when in town, on roads or trails we already know. We were going to do most of the Off Road Assault on Mount Mitchell course, which we can get to with just a 15 minute bike ride, but overnight rain and the resulting soggy trails changed our plans to stick to the fire roads. That was fine with me since those trails are pretty technical and this would be our first mountain bike tandumb ride ALL YEAR!

What was the ride like, besides, of course, awesome (since it involved me and Andy)? We live on a mountain, and our big race this year involves riding up and down a bunch o’ mountains. So, that’s what we did. Up the 15 mile Curtis Creek fire road, down a long descent into the Black Mountain Campground (not to be confused with the Town of Black Mountain, which lies 20+ miles away), then climb out and up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, where the views were so beautiful and poetic they looked fake.

Imagine this view, only in Technicolor - a glimmer of the beauty of the Blue Ridge Parkway

Even after 10 years of living here the scenery just doesn’t get old.

Bombing down the parkway at 40 mph I noticed the rear wheel wobbling dramatically from side to side, something it’s not supposed to do. As my imagination works well beyond the 10% brainpower I use in other daily activities, Andy figured I was being a worry wart, but we stopped to check it out anyway. Turns out we broke a spoke, which scared the bejiminies out of me since we still had to descend Curtis Creek, but thankfully it didn’t phase Andy in the least.

Andy fixes our broken spoke, sort of not really.

On our last climb, a 3 mile stretch up a closed highway, my favoritest climb in the world, I pretended it was a race and rode up it like I had a snackie cake in my pocket and a hungry Andy was trolling for it. Four plus hours into the ride, and I could put out that kind of effort! I was stoked stoked stoked I could do this, and gloated at my current state of awesomeness on the short remainder to the ride.

But perhaps I was fueled by an invisible energy known as excitement, for every second we pedaled was a second closer to the evening, one I had been anticipating for quite some time.

See next post for details about the evening….

Rest Weekend

2011-05-22T14:53:00.000-04:00

Those of you who receive my blog posts via email, I apologize in advance. You’ll be getting a bunch o’ emails as I catch up on writing after a long, dry spell. I’m sitting in the Detroit airport waiting for a plane to take me back to Ashevegas. I had a good trip, and happy motivates me to write.

So, we’ll start where I feel like, which is:

Last weekend, May 14/15, I did some serious mental recharging.

What a spectacular feeling, a weekend at home, and a strict mandate-to-self to NOT WORK! I was aware of the toll working seven days a week was extracting, but not really cognizant of it.

I started the weekend off perfectly by meeting one of my BFFs Karen at Bent Creek for a fast, shortish mountain bike ride. As I’ve been doing endurance stuff lately it was pretty uncomfortable following her on her singlespeed up some of the silly steep climbs, but it was good for me. Plus, girl time is an often-overlooked necessity. A good fun workout, too.

After the ride, she said “want to go on a short run with me?” Um… okay! (I chose not to mention that I have not run consistently in months, nay years) In a strange bit of happenstance, I had the necessary gear in my car. So, off we went, up one of the trails we had just ridden. It goes a lot slower running. There’s not really any coasting. Karen was jogging easily, and I didn’t bother to tell her that up one hill I almost blacked out from the effort. No need to alarm her… J Thirty five minutes later we were back at the cars, and I thought “I wonder if I’ll be able to walk tomorrow?” (I managed)

I spent the rest of the day UNCLUTTERING. First time in four months I could see the sheets on the bed in the upstairs guest room; I folded up the futon so we can’t use it for laundry storage anymore. IT MADE ME FEEL INVINCIBLE! So intriguing, what clearing out a small piece of clutter can do to the brain. I keep the website Unclutterer on my Google Reader, but if I ever put any of the article recommendations into practice, I don’t take note of it. On this day, however, I was following one article’s advice with a satchel at the ready to catch the clothes and odds and ends I don’t need any more. Lickety split, I had a full trash bag of goodies to give to the Kiwanis Store. Happiness is an empty room, among other things…

To be continued…

My little mommy

2011-05-08T20:03:00.000-04:00

It’s mother’s day, and while I don’t think I’ve ever done a call out on the bloggity blog for my little mommy, I should. This blog is all for her, you know.

My very first sport was swimming, a love affair that lasted about 16 years. My older brother started first (or was it my sister, the oldest of us 3? Maybe they started at the same time) and I would go to practice with my mom. She would sit on the hard benches that lined the windows that lined the pool, and I would walk up and down the length of the pool on the outside of the windows, following my brother as he swam laps with the swim team. Sometimes he would make faces at me from the water, and I really wanted to be in the pool too, just 'cause he was there.

At some point, age 6 I think, I joined too. And Mom continued to sit on those uncomfortable benches, either the round rust orange plastic things that only two people who knew each other could fit on, or the long wooden benches with narrow slatted seats that three or four people could use. She would talk to the other swim mothers, or sometimes run errands, but just about every night she’d be there, watching us through the window. It never occurred to me that not everyone’s mother did this. She was always there.

In high school, I went out for the cross country team. I wasn’t a particularly good runner (slightly above average, which is the kind of swimmer I was too, and the kind of cyclist I am), but it was fun, and we didn’t have a swim team. She came to every meet, cheering her little heart out. Again, not many other runners’ parents made these trips. But she travelled all over the metro area to watch me run these silly 20 minute events.

I think it was my sophomore year she decided we needed to revive the swim team, which had been axed a few years prior, and she started a campaign to raise money for a team. She gathered a bunch of friends and had a silent auction and petitioned businesses and put a boatload of work into it. She raised the money, convinced the school board we needed a team for both high schools in the district, and I’m not sure I ever thanked her. THANK YOU MOMMY.

I swam through college, although the last year was a bit of a joke, as I had discovered cycling by that point. If we had a meet in a 3 hour radius of the greater St. Louis area, Mom would be there. Again, I don’t think I ever thanked her. I don’t suppose parents expect that of their kids (having no children, how would I know?), but it needs to come out at some point. THANK YOU MOMMY!

Even when I started cycling in college, she came to the events she could. One year the team wanted to borrow our mini-van to get us to the regional championships, 9 hours away. "Sure," she said, "so long as I can come with you!" So we had team mom for the whole weekend. Maybe (probably) (most likely) my teammates thought this was weird, I don't remember, but it didn't strike me as strange in the least. Mom always came to my events, why should this be any different? :-)

I’m (mostly) Grown-Up now. I don’t have swim meets any more. I live 10 hours away from my parents. Mom’s only seen me race my bike once a year for the past 10 years. I write this blog so she can have a blow by blow of the races she's missing. Lately I've been doing a pretty piss poor job on updating, but I'm going to try to do better.

THANK YOU MOMMY for your steadfast support of your slightly above average girl. Happy Mother’s Day, even if every day should be Mother’s Day.

Cohutta, part II

2011-05-08T17:44:00.000-04:00

Dang, i usually type up my posts in Word and then paste them into Blogger to finish them. I think i'll go back to that going forward, since my cohutta post went up half finished. :-( Meh.

Anyway, where I left off on the last post, I was waiting for Andy to finish, starting to get worried. I finally went and changed, and he still hadn't come in. They did the podium for the 65 milers, during which I paid no attention to anything, even though my teammate Joe won the singlespeed race, and still he hadn't come in.

And then, a race volunteer came and said "Ms. Applegate?" (cue foreboding music). "Apparently your husband crashed pretty bad out there." Agh! Andy doesn't crash! WTF! but the volunteer didn't know anything else, and just as soon as he said "I'm not sure where he is", he added on "oh wait, there he is", and there was Andy, standing at the finish line talking to some friends. My brain didn't even have enough time to freak out, which is pretty good, given my ridiculously active imagination....

You know those nasty gravel downhills that were giving me the heebie jeebies? Well, at mile 72 Andy was in about 15th place bombing down one, and his rear wheel fishtailed. As he corrected it, his front wheel went sideways and he high sided his bike, thudding to the ground at about 35 mph. Apparently he hit so hard he just lay in the middle of the road in shock for about 5 minutes (sounds familiar), then once he got to the side of the road he spent another 10 minutes fighting nausea (again, familiar.) Frankly I can't believe he was able to finish. But I guess that's just stubborn ol' Andy, so against the notion of quitting that not even being thrown violently to the ground will stop him.

He was incredibly lucky though - nothing broken, just some scrapes and cuts, and of course sore all over. And, since he was no longer in race mode, he was able to see the fresh water bottle on the side of the trail that had a crisp $20 bill in it as he entered the last 10 miles of single track. He was very proud of his $20. "I got $20!" he said proudly, thrusting it into my hand. Thank you Trailhead Bicycles!

But after he let his guard done at the finish line, the shock of the impact caught up with him and he lay on the ground in the fetal position, refusing water and bevvies because they weren't cold enough. It was a rough rest of the day, for sure. Socializing was eliminated from the itinerary, as my main concern was making sure he was okay. Thank goodness we were just a 2.5 hour drive from home!

The end result of all of this was that I had to learn how to drive the Sprinter (the Meowmobile), as Andy lay in the back recovering. It shouldn't be such a big deal, but that thing is long, and my day to day car is a little compact (the Smurfmobile). I never want to own a bigger vehicle. There was a lot of talking to myself as we wound our way through the twisty gorge that passes through the Nantahala region, and some irritated drivers cursing the grandma in front of them (I imagine), but we made it through safe and sound.

All in all, a pretty good weekend, actually. Crashing sucks, but it's always a good day when you don't break anything! Plus, no rain. Or thunder, or lightning, or hail, all of which occurred during last year's edition. Andy still managed 43rd out of a cajillion riders on the day, which frankly is pretty impressive. Me? I didn't even bother to check results since I was certain I had done atrociously. Proof positive that I am not really a bike racer anymore. The funny thing is, it meant that I missed my podium, as apparently I was 5th!

Due to worrying about Andy, I didn't snag any photos, even though I walked around with that dang camera in my hand. There are some cool photos here, though. If you were a participant you should buy some!

Cohutta

2011-05-08T17:01:00.001-04:00

Well, when last I updated Andy and I were peacefully chilling by the campground picnic table, books in hand.

We capped that day off with a relaxed bit o' course pre-ride and registration, then spent a nice quiet evening preparing for a long day of riding in the Cohutta wilderness.

This was Andy's fifth year participating in this event (5 years? really?). I've been around every time he's toed the line, but only ever bothered to race it when they had a 35 mile option (and one year I made a new course called the Cohutta 10. ;-))

But in a fit of silliness I registered for the 65 miler this year. The 100 milers shipped off at 7 a.m., and it was a strange feeling to be too concerned avoiding shivering in the 45 degree temps than to watch Andy's event start. With temps forecasted for the high 70s, shivering was a necessity for comfort later in the day. But that didn't make me appreciate it any.

So the 100 milers rolled away and I dragged myself out of the warm Sprinter just in time to go the the start. It was a strange start to a race; I'm used to being packed in like sardines with other racers nudging forward to get a better start position. Instead, everyone was hanging out like we were starting a group ride or something. I guess this is the difference between laid back endurance events and high strung road races. Works for me!

I got through the first 18 miles of singletrack without getting yelled at too much, which was pleasant, but I was still too dang slow skill wise. Once we got into the next 35 miles of fire roads I was set a comfortable pace on the climbs, feeling strong and not tired at all. But, with new gravel strewn seemingly everywhere, I was a big wimpy Cara brakestoomuch on the downhills. Slow as a snail with salt on its back... But I couldn't get the flashbacks to Iron Cross out of my head, so, slow is how I rolled. (umm, i just saw that that was 3.5 years ago. time to move on already? sheesh.)

I knew there were a bunch o' girls ahead of me, and I just concentrated on maximizing my fitness so that we can rock the tandumb in August. I like to say that when we ride the tandem we get a 10% boost in my ability because I can't touch the brakes, but I'm changing that assessment to 40%. I brake too dang much!

After 6 hours of pedaling or so I got passed by the leading 100 miler, some french dude who was very polite. "Allez!" i said to him in my head. I didn't say it out loud because I was too busy throwing myself out of the way. If the guy is over 35 miles ahead of me, hell yeah I'm moving out of the way! Fortunately only 3 or 4 more 100 milers passed me. They weren't all as polite as Christian, but I figured it can't be easy having to pass a cajillion slow riders and stay nice about it. My goal was that Andy not pass me, and he didn't.

And, after a happy little descent on the Thunderrock trail, during which no women passed me, a pleasant surprise given my lack of speed going downhill, I found myself riding strong on the finishing pavement. 6 hrs 39 minutes, which didn't seem too bad until I heard the winning guy was 4:53 or something silly like that. Oh ego, thou art deflated. I probably didn't ride hard enough, as I still had something left in the tank, but I was good and tired. I have to be able to go 2 more hours come August, (and come June, now I think about it!) so I guess that'll do.

When I finished I waited around the finish line for Andy. I watched the guys he usually finished with come in, and made casual chit chat with them while I waited. None had seen him after certain points in the race. What I should have done was ask some of the later racers if they had seen them, but I didn't know anyone. So i just hung around and figured he had blown up and had to slow way down as he has done in years past.

To be continued, because I accidentally posted this before it was done...

Tranquility

2011-04-29T11:30:00.000-04:00

This picture is taken during one of the most peaceful moments I have had in months.

We are at the thunderrock campground right next to the ocoee river. Birds chirp, sunlight filters through the canopy of trees under which we are parked, and we can hear the water rushing over the rocks just a hundred feet away.

My work project, while not finished, is past its 'major construction' hurdle, and i will not think about it again for the rest of this trip. I also think i am over the stress it has caused me the last teo months.

We got here a day early and the only thing on our schedule is riding, at some point, and cooking. I don't have Internet (this may or may not send when we finally start riding), and our whole day lays before us.

In short, life is good! I will keep this in mind at the early morning start of tomorrow's 65 mile mountain bike race. (andy's racing the 100)

Grind on the Greenway

2011-04-23T22:48:00.000-04:00

Yesterday about 15 minutes after I posted my update, we sailed past the entrance to the race venue. Andy was a little flustered and grumbly about it, griping as we turned onto a side road to turn around and backtrack.

I was silently enduring the gripefest, and didn't think to question his logic as he pulled off to turn around in a dirt pull out, even though it'd been raining all day. Um, yeah, not a good idea. We slid across the soft red clay surface, slowly drifting toward a threatening cable anchor of a telephone pole. We were literally spinning our wheels when a good Samaritan construction worker pulled up with his 4x4, chains at the ready. Crisis averted! Waiting two hours for AAA would have been mighty unpleasant.

Getting Unstuck

The trail, slick with Mother Nature's misty tears, was sweet relief after those stressful moments. I felt calm and confident, in spite of the twisty rooty challenges around every turn. Knowing it would most likely dry up for the racing, I was in good spirits after the pre-ride.

Quick din din and then we hurried to find our campsite parking, having been told the gates would shut at 8. We reserved a campsite, but you actually had to walk into the woods to get to it, and we were sleeping in the Meowmobile. Fortunately there was parking right next to the bathhouse, and only one other group of brave souls reserved a campsite (and we actually knew them!), so we had nice quiet parking and an almost private bathhouse.

A late race start of 11 am meant we had ample sleep-in time, a welcome change from our typical race day routine. Once we woke up, though, there wasn't much to do besides breakfast and go to the race course, so that's what we did. We pretty much had our pick of pit areas, getting there so early.

It was gray, misting and in the 50s as we prepped our site for a half day of racing.

I wrote the above in the car on the drive home, and now we're home, and I don't feel like writing anymore. So, to summarize, my race started off well, but got worse as the sun came out, the temperature rose, and the trail dried out, which seems counterintuitive to my typical riding style. On lap 3, about 6 miles into the 9 (10?) mile loop, my rear wheel slipped on a root and sent me careening into a tree, and my brain came unfettered. I wasn't too injured, I didn't hit my head, but nothing in the world appealed to me except laying down and enjoying the silence of not moving any more. So I made my way back to the pit and quit. I didn't and still don't regret it. If there's no love, it's absolutely okay in my book to stop. So that's what I did.

Andy was riding steadily in second place, behind his teammate Terry who was blistering the laps away. When I watched Terry come in at the end of his 5th lap, his bike was making an awful racket. I didn't think much of it, but later he came in on foot - he had broken his hub. That moved Andy into first place, which he kept for the rest of the race. At least someone in the family rode well....

Maybe photos tomorrow, I took some but I seem to have misplaced the camera. We're home now and I'm looking forward to a good lie-in tomorrow.

Spring

2011-04-22T17:11:00.000-04:00

Greetings!

We're on our way to a six hour mountain bike race in Charlotte (the Grind on The Greenway), and I thought I'd take a moment to come out of my stupor to write a brief, if somewhat boring, update.

The past few months, training during the week has not been much of an option. Those triathletes you always read about, who are working 80 hours a week, training and winning, and keeping a happy home life? I call shenanigans!

I am not complaining about anything, but I sure can't train to win when working silly hours. Maybe I just am not enough of an overachiever... So, mostly I've turned into a weekend warrior who feels lucky anytime I'm able to squeeze in a weekday workout. That being said, when I do manage to get out I try to pack some quality into the workout. There have been a few interval sessions with my computer in my back as I commute to work...

Most weekends, we have most definitely been warrioring!

First, the 6 hours of warrior creek the first weekend of April. I pretty much went through the motions on that one, uncoordinated and unhappy on some sweet but slick singletrack. Days like that the only thing that keeps me on the bike is knowing that in August I have to be ready for more than an 8 1/2 hour day. Finished in 6th after 6 hours and 12 minutes of riding. The weather was nice, the trail got better as the day went on, and there were all sorts of cool people I knew riding around in the woods.

The following weekend my bff Karen and I journeyed to brevard, nc for a giant 100k cookie ride (almost 800 riders!) called the Assault on the Carolinas. Unfortunately I had my first road mechanical in many years, eventually having to manually shift from the big to little rings, and vice versa. Once I got past the frustration of it, it made me ride a lot harder than I probably would have,so... Yay! Karen graciously wAited for me when I mysteriously disappeared from our group (due to aforementioned mechanical), and we finished the last 20 miles together under a cool Carolina sun. A great day to be out riding, even if it meant enduring karen's taunts about finding myself a bike mechanic.

Skip through the following week, where I found enough time to show up for team photos and a local training crit (1 minute bike ride from my office), and the next night made it out to our time trial training series. Did my first team time trial in FIVE YEARS, with people I hardly knew, and had a blast. We even coached each other through a really smooth turnaround - good times. Maybe I'll get permission from our team photog to post some photos, when I'm not writing from a device the size of a deck of cards.

This past weekend we ventured west in the meowmobile to take part in El Ocho, an 8 hour mountain bike race in morristown, tn. Again, I did the first 2 hours going through the motions, hating the trail, my bike, myself (it was slick at the start), telling myself I could quit at 4 hours. Fortunately the woods, lake, and drying out trails cleared my mood, and I stayed on the bike a total of 7 hours, good enough for 3rd. We did have a winner in the family, though - Andy bested all the whipper snappers to take the win.

It's raining right now as we hurtle toward Charlotte; I hate slick trails and roots, but have my fingers crossed that by 11 am tomorrow the trail will have dried out. Supposed to be a high of 82!

Until next time, which will hopefully not be as delayed as last time...

Cara
Sent from an itty bitty magic box

What's going on?

2011-03-24T21:15:00.000-04:00

Hey man! is how I answer the phone when my buddy D-dubb calls... "What's going on?"

Some people recover quickly from illness, and I'm usually one of those people. Actually, I usually don't get sick at all. But the flu that I caught mid-February knocked me down, literally and figuratively. Add to that an over-full work schedule and you get Grumplestilstkin Cara who doesn't want to do, well, anything.

So.... let me just give you the breakdown, according to my twitter feed:

Monday, February 28: I keep doing silly things. @BikeReg'd for 6 Hour Grind on the Greenway on April 23 http://www.BikeReg.com/events/register.asp?EventID=12579

Yeah, I really shouldn't do twisty technical mountain bike races. We've made the Leadville 100 our goal race again so I have to get used to spending a lot of time on the bike again, and that is why I registered for that race. (sounds better than "andy made me!") I've signed up for a couple other races in between now and then, too, which I'll mention, one of these days... :-)

Thursday, March 3: Night ride with @andyapplegate. Surreal. Beautiful. <3

Oh, that was a good one. My training the previous few weeks had consisted of either riding the trainer or not riding at all, and that day I was determined to ride my bike, outside, after work, daylight or not. I put two lights on their chargers in the morning and when I got home that evening set out to ride the trails in Montreat, a mountain town one mile up the road with a nice little trail system. As I was climbing the second climb, I happened into Andy, who was on his way home, racing daylight. I gave him one of my lights and he turned around and rode with me. Riding through tunnels of laurel trees in the pitch black with only one little light to illuminate my way was pure happy. We had that universe to ourselves and it was smurftacular.

Caturday, March 5: Kitty sighting at the snake creek start means it's going to be a good day:-) http://t.co/wWaqrlH

I dropped Andy and Nate off at the start of the final Snake Creek Gap Time Trial (they did the 34 miler, I did the 17 miler), and there was a camper parked there that had those two kitties milling about. They were meowy and adorable and probably too friendly with everyone who was pulling up. I thought it was a sign it was going to be a good day but nature and my bike had other designs...

Here are Nate & Andy before the race start. My Smurf game on my iphone has a silly photo app.

Later in the day, Caturday, March 5: Last 2011 snake creek gap not so good for the mcapplegates. Seems like 2 weeks of flu is not good prep. Andy crashed hard, but still ok.

I rode like crap. I could feel the lack of power from almost 3 weeks off the bike, and also it was wet and rainy out and I was getting chain suck up every climb. I even had two riders make fun of me for doing a track stand in a perfectly rideable section of fireroad! That, my friends, is because I don't want to break my chain, duh! Eventually I was so frustrated with my bike that I stopped trying at all, and I rolled in barely fatigued, with my slowest time out of all 3 attempts. Andy had a bad day too, crashing early which shook his confidence. He still took the overall win, so we had to hang around for the podium.

As you can see only one of these guys remembered how to be a podium standout. hint: not andy!

Well, how-dee-doo! I turned a couple few tweets into a blog post, thus informing my little mommy & daddy about what's been going on, much more so than my tired phone conversations in which i tell them I'm working stupid hours, riding my bike some, and mostly not much else. Now I'm only about 3 weeks behind... and i'll have to catch you all up some other time. If i were to tweet right this moment, it might say "it's a nutella straight from the jar kind of evening."

26.2 on 2.26

2011-02-27T20:44:00.000-05:00

Another two weeks have passed since my last post... do I sense a theme?

One of the things I intended to do this year was post to this here bloggity blog 1x a week. Not particularly effective... yet.

One of the reasons I've fallen off the radar is that after my last post, I took a couple days off the bike to recover. Despite my efforts to allow myself to recuperate, my body was too weak to fend off the flu that was spreading around my office like a wildfire. Tuesday I was home feeling horrible, and was out of the office the rest of the week. Of course the weather warmed up beautifully, and while all my outdoorsy friends were enjoying the high 50s/low 60s weather on the weekend, I was moping around on the couch watching an entire season of Xena: Warrior Princess. I'm midway through season 3 now.

Luckily, Andy was out of town at the Kenda Pro Cycling Team Camp, which meant that only one of us had to endure that unpleasant fate

Fast forward to this weekend: although still using a fair amount of Kleenex, I actually have ENERGY and was therefore up to the challenge of chasing Andy this past Saturday, February 26, as he competed in the Black Mountain Marathon, his third running race ever, and his second marathon.

The run literally goes out & comes back a few hundred yards from our house, and traverses trails that Andy runs and rides on every day. When he signed up for it way back in September I thought he was pretty crazy, but watching everyone run on race day I was kinda jealous... maybe it was just because I knew they were all healthy. Umm, yeah, definitely because I was jealous they're healthy. At least on a bicycle one can coast...

Lucky for me my buddy Ddubb came out and rode with me to the top of Appalachian Way to take some photos and cheer on the runners. I failed to mention to him that getting to our chosen photo spot involved a rocky dirt road climb that was over 18 degrees in steepness and would take about 1/2 an hour to get up... hee hee. It starts just 10 minutes away from our house, too, so we weren't anywhere near warmed up when we hit it. We crawled up the pavement that leads up to it (also extremely steep), and when we got to the dirt road I told him "here's where it gets hard." Ddubb's not one to complain, so all I heard was... nothing. He was also carrying a 20 pound backpack... oops!

Andy descending Old Toll Road about 3 hrs 15 min into the race

After waiting a little bit too long (got cold), Andy finally came down the mountain in about 25th position... Ddubb took some awesome photos and here is one:

I missed his finish because we descended the mountain "the long way" so as to not get in any runners' way, but he finished safely in 26th overall, 4 hrs 9 minutes, only getting girled twice. Not bad for only running two - three times a week.

The rest of the day was spent napping or lounging, a great way to top off an exciting morning.

Today we rode the road tandem for 3 hours and if I didn't know better I would have thought that I hadn't ridden in months it fatigued me so... But, I think I can safely say the flu is GONE! and I can now get back to training, which is great, seeing as next weekend is Snake Creek Gap #3.

So, I'm really looking forward to a week of "normal", which is anything that involves BEING HEALTHY. :-) Unless I'm hit by a stroke of genius before the weekend (stop laughing!), my next post will probably be a recap of next weekend's Snake Creek Gap adventures.

Horsin' Around in Georgia

2011-02-13T22:00:00.000-05:00

Ooh, almost a month since my last post. Where does the time go?

Mostly, I've been either working or riding. It seems like I've been riding a fair amount but when I look at my training hours no, not really.

Andy wanted to go race a 9 hour race at Heritage Park (primarily a horse park) in Watkinsville, Georgia (just south of Athens) this weekend, so I tagged along. The past two years I've "raced" (and really I mean participated in) this with my buddy D-dubb on a relay team, but he went to a different race instead this year, so I did the 6 hour race, solo. Splitting up the dynamic duo! For shame...

We drove down in the meowmobile Friday just in time to squeeze out a lap on the tight, twisty course. Having spent the better part of my training hours this year indoors (almost through season 1 of Xena!), I felt all wobbly and sloppy on the mountain bike. Nothing too incredibly technical on the course - no major drop offs or rock gardens - but it had rained at some point during the week and that left the trails a little slick and wet in a few spots.

The Meowmobile at Sunset

After a yummy home cooked burrito dinner we watched a cheesy teen movie then hit the hay. Temps got below freezing overnight which made my toes and nose a little cold, but all in all a good solid sleep. It's pretty sweet to camp out at the race course without actually having to camp!

Anyway, the race... they start you out on a downhill and you're supposed to do a "parade lap" around a field before they dump you into the woods. Then, you fly downhill on a rutted out fireroad into the first singletrack section. About 80% of the course is singletrack, actually (and about 80% of statistics are wrong, or right? or made up?). I didn't go terribly hard at the beginning, seeing as I was in it for 6 hours, and I haven't ridden that long since August 14. But, in retrospect, it might have been a good idea to go a little harder at the beginning, seeing as after about 50 people made it into the singletrack without too much trouble, the rest of us lined up and waited for the bottleneck to clear so we could get on the course. I vaguely remember this happening at another race, but of course didn't remember this on race day and so as the old adage go, got to repeat history. Meh.

I'm pretty sure no one will ever call me speed demon as a result of my mountain biking prowess (or lack thereof). But if there's one thing I did right yesterday, it was eat and hydrate, and pace myself. Oh, wait, that's three things. The accountant who can't count strikes again! Anyway, that is what i did - rode steadily, took care of myself, enjoyed the day, and when I hit what I thought would be my last lap (5), picked up the pace, mainly because (to my surprise) I still had energy. I passed last year's winner (Emily Brock) on that fifth lap, a big shocker to me, which motivated me to keep the pace high. [I must insert the caveat here that she was riding a singlespeed, which is kinda like putting a cajillion minute handicap on yourself.]

Turns out, I rode fast enough on that 5th lap to earn myself another lap! Part of me was saying "don't do it", and another part was challenging me to see if I could make it by the 6 hour cutoff. We had to be done in 6 hours for the lap to count, and I rolled through the end of the 5th at about 4 hours 59 minutes. So I went out hoping to make it back in time to have 6 laps count for my final tally. Apart from running into a tree on the first downhill and crashing to the ground in front of some poor guy I had just passed, the last lap went off without any issues and I turned in my fastest lap of the day! I was totally elated by this at the finish and sadly had no one to celebrate it with, as Andy was still out racing. So I just patted myself on the back and went and checked results. oooh, second! I had no idea, at all. What a pleasant surprise!

Women's Solo 6 Hr Podium - that's me in #2, wearing my Asheville Bicycle Racing Club kit.

Andy had a pretty good race too, and after 8+ hours of racing he was able to secure 3rd place.

Expert 9 Hour Men's solo Podium - Jason Murrell 2nd, Andy Johnston 1st, my Andy 3rd

All in all a good day for both of us.

Up next: Andy travels to the Kenda Pro Cycling Team Camp, and me? I'm undecided. Maybe a road race in Greenville this weekend? Probably just a nice solid weekend of training.

Chicken Dance

2011-01-16T21:47:00.000-05:00

Wave your hands in the air like you don't care!

Making an Appearance

2011-01-16T21:32:00.000-05:00

Wow, two weeks since my last post... and what has happened since that time? Mostly, snow.

I finally started up riding again, after about four weeks off the bike. With just a few day of trainer riding under my belt I made my off road debut last weekend, the 8th, at the Snake Creek Gap Mountain Bike Time trial in Dalton, GA. It was an awesome day of riding (however slowly), especially sweeter than usual as the ashevegas area had snow and yuck everywhere.

Came home to dire predictions of more snowstorms and sadly the weather actually delivered as predicted. I literally camped out at the office for two nights in a somewhat successful attempt to close out the 2010 books; then spent all week with Mr. bike trainer and netflix.

According to my not-at-all-sketched out 2011 training plan, racing is done for me until mid February ish, at which time I will begin to make sorry appearances displaying my winter weight and form and whine about how much I suck. In honor of my dear friends of the MSG Cyclo-cross scene, however, I made an exception to my "no racing in January" rule this past Caturday and went to Kingsport, TN to participate in a UCI sanctioned cyclo-cross race. Never-you-mind that I hadn't touched my bike since that pathetic showing at Cyclo-cross nationals... (fortunately Andy had touched my bike, and it was functioning perfectly)

Well my fitness was as could be expected (meh) but boy-oh-boy did I have fun! Rode at about 80% effort the whole time as my body just said "no harder!" and managed to finish exactly mid-pack, big ol' grin on my face. Which means 5th, in this case. Ladies, where the heck a doodle were you?

After my race, I eschewed the usual cool down/recovery process for a little bit of tomfoolery fun. Specifically, acting like Big Bird and cheering for my cross buddies who were racing the men's elite race.

My cheering was totally awesome and clearly propelled Travis to the victory - photo hijacked from Carolina Cycling News

In other news, on Friday I received the sad word that my 2010 team's most excellent sponsor chose not to continue its support of our program. Super frownie face! Luckily for me, the Asheville Bicycle Racing Club has always been willing to welcome me back with open arms. So, I return to the fold after 7 years absence... and I was even able to dig out a jersey to race in, and some hipster pants.

see the smile? super fun!

yup, i raced in those.

Up next? Finalizing year end at work, and getting focused on some base miles. Probably not in that order. :-)

Cross Wrap-up

2011-01-01T09:38:00.000-05:00

I started this blog post 2.8 weeks ago... before i can post about New Year's (happy new year, everyone!) I figger I should get it posted. It was no where near done, and somehow it seems another lifetime ago so should I post? guess so.
---
Well, my final cyclo-cross race of 2010 has come and gone, and in the wake of the packing-up excitement and after party and day long travel and return to work I haven't made time to post about it.

I didn't even write a dang haiku!

So, the short of it: Bend, Oregon. 2010 Cyclo-cross national championships. The best riders in the country are there, which also includes the best in the WORLD, and essentially I brought a defective gun to the show. Wrong gearing, only one bike, brakes too tight (and therefore rubbing the whole time), oh, and crapped out legs = I was praying to be cut from the race. And for the first time ever I was lapped at nationals, bottom of the bunch. Sigh. Epic fail.

So, what else could I do but live it up during the men's race and at the afterparty?

And that is what I did.

Me & the Eviekins pre race. One cool thing is that everyone always thinks I"m evie and cheers for me (Go Evie!) (not sure why, i'm 2x her size). But it's flattering anyway!

sucking. had to toss the glasses on the first lap, too, couldn't see. go figure!

This dude got a whole bunch o' cheers from me, mostly in the form of screaming "go mustache!" he deserves several high fives for taking kooky style to the extreme.

super fans abounded. a fair amount of guys in costume or with no shirts on.

abby & nate post race. nate fell down a coupla times. :-(

D-dubb's daughter amber, with d-dubb & diana in the background

me & evie post cheering. she's getting ready to leave, i'm still in my cheering outfit (jeggings!)

Alex dancing at the afterparty. all he kept saying to me was "don't tell Andy I'm drunk!" Okay! ;-)

Friday Race, continued

2010-12-12T10:18:00.000-05:00

Evie wrote a haiku for me, after watching me race:

Her face of FOCUS

Intent on the task at hand

No mechanicals.

Cyclingdirt.org posted a video that features the crash, you can see he became bored watching us try to extricate our stupid bikes and moved on to more interesting things, like the women racing for the win. ;-)

Visit cyclingdirt.org for more Videos

Elite race today at 12:30 PST! Watch it live on Cyclingdirt! You probably won't see me, though, I'm starting 11th row which is essentially out of contention for anything beyond mid-pack.

Cyclocross Nationals: Masters 30+ Race

2010-12-11T10:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the Women's Masters 30-34 National Championship Cyclo-cross race in Bend, OR. I came out here for two races, and this was the "main" one. Winning it was out of the question, but top 10 was feasible.

I had a great warmup thanks to the Lemond trainer station right next to the start line, and was ready to redeem myself after screwing up my time trial on Thursday due to poor mechanical attention. (loose stem bolts, agh!) I had 2nd to last row seeding, but I felt there would be room to move on the pave or mud right at the start. How wrong I was.

The gun went off, and the front two rows shot off the line. I took about three pedal strokes and watch a train wreck right in front of me. Bikes flying in the air, I unclipped and thought "I can make it through! There's a gap!" and then someone behind me slammed into me and I crashed into the pile ahead of me.

See the pictorial, below:

Literally three seconds into the race. Great start, girls!

If you look closely enough you can see me trying to extricate my bike.

I counted at least 16 of us caught up in it. Game not over, but severely handicapped.

No one was hurt, that I know of, but my saddle got wedged into the handlebars of one of the girls who slammed into me, and I was the second to last one to leave the pileup; I tried to get my saddle out without ripping out her shifter cable, but it was wedged tight. Eventually the officials rushed over and helped extricate it.

Miraculously my bike was in fine shape and I tore out of there, grateful I wasn't injured and happy to be riding, albeit starting from DFL.

So, I spent the rest of the race playing catch-up and enjoying my time in the icy mud. I rode well, negative splitting each lap, and passed lots and lots of girls, even given my demotivated state of mind. On the last lap someone dangled a dollar bill in front of me through an icy puddle and I went for it! And would have had it but they tied it to the rope too tightly. But I didn't care, no one ever just throws money at me so I was smiling.

Went up the run-up and the dude was waiting for me on the other side. I grabbed it like I had won the race. It was fun, I got my arse kicked, but both my body and my bike survived to tell the tale. And that is what matters to me!

Results tell me I was 20th, and my lap times tell me that I lost about 1.5 minutes on the first lap, or so. Which would have put me in contention for top 10. Good enough for me, given the variables!

Look out, ladies, I'm a gonna git you!

Taking the steps 2 at a time made it go faster.

Woo hoo! a dollar!

On Time Trial Results

2010-12-10T00:53:00.000-05:00

Well, I don't know exactly how I did in the time trial (which in a race of 42 women only matters a little bit, not as much as in a race o' 150 guys), but my teammate Deb saw the results posted at the finish line and said I was mid pack. That is utterly amazing to me, as I fell twice AND my handlebars were pointing in the wrong direction. This happened, of course, pretty much at the start so i spent most of the race laughing at myself and using my hips to steer the bike.

The below photo is taken about 1.5 minutes into the race, on an icy downhill. if you look closely enough you just might see me smiling.

Haiku
On time trial results
Mid Morning time trial
Handlebars pointing sideways
Real race tomorrow

Whew!

Bike racing haiku

2010-12-09T15:21:00.001-05:00

I'm in Bend, OR right now, for the 2010 Cyclo-cross national
Championships.

This morning I decided to put ou travel experiences to paper in haiku
form.

As I just finished my masters 30+ time trial (which determines start
position), I had to write this one down.

When building a bike
Remember the nuts and bolts
They must be tightened

Needless to say, I'm pretty darned glad my stem was loose on a
relatively unimportant time trial, and not the real deal, which is
tomorrow at one. Nevertheless, I'm pretty disappointed in myself,
cause my legs felt pretty good. Sigh.

More haikus coming!

CX in CLT

2010-11-14T20:23:00.000-05:00

Toots and the Maytals are playing in Ashevegas tonight, and after a day at the races the old skool ska song "Shame and Scandal" is playing in my head. Technically, that song was written by the Skatalites but I'm sure at some point or another Toots covered it. And if not, the song is still in my head because of their visit, or maybe it's just an excuse to link it to today's events...

But I was too tired to make the journey (20 minute drive) into town, since we raced in Charlotte today.

Fiets Mann Racing really did a helluva great job with course layout, AND equal payout as the men for the top 5 ladies - unheard of any more in this crappy economic climate. It was very challenging but flowed quite well, favoring someone who could really drive their bike as well as pedal it. I never felt on top of my game, and never pushed the corners as I could have, but I did stay upright and that is more than a lot o' girls could say.

After a start more conducive to an endurance mountain bike race than a shortish all out effort, I found myself at the back of the field in the first 30 seconds of the race (boo). Race leader Robin Farina overshot the first tricky corner, and not 10 seconds later I found myself off my bike avoiding Golden Moore who had slid out on an off camber. All less than a minute into the race! That really didn't help my mental game as I got going again, already seemingly light years down on the leaders.

Eventually I picked my way through the field, settling into a fourth place chase of Robin, Golden and Charlotte based cyclist Rip Nicholson. Pro cyclo-crossers will tell you that if you're not absolutely at your limit for the entirety of the race, you're doing it wrong. I won't admit to doing it wrong, but I think there was more in me, and I can't for the life of me figure out why I didn't leave it all out there (maybe worrying about certain other rider's injuries :(...) The three ahead of me were far enough away that they were "out of sight, out of mind", so when I finished I didn't give much thought to my placing. It's not hard to score us when we come across solo.

Fast forward to halfway through the next race, when i decided to go get my prize money. Then, and only then, did I receive a shock: I wasn't placed in 4th as I had thought, I was placed 2nd! As much as I wanted to better my placing, I immediately went to ask if there was an error. Nope, Golden crashed in a sand pit and broke her bike, and Robin? Cue "Shame and Scandal" music (okay, i know the song about a boy wanting to marry his non-sister, but whatever... just shame and scandal in the family is enough)... she was DQed for taking water bottle handups during the race - not allowed in cyclo-cross.

I'm not passing judgment on either side of the decision, but dang, that was one expensive handup! (or handups, if there were more than one). Instead of winning the heaviest purse in the whole 2010 NCCX Series, Robin went home with nothing but a bad mood. I won't complain about my increased winnings though... Thank you Luna Cycles! Really, I mean it.

Andy raced the masters race (as well as the pro 1-2 race) and placed second, winning a goody bag filled with a variety of items, most notably a roll of toilet paper (provided by a plumbing company). Really, that is ingenious. Who can't use toilet paper?

A fun filled day of with excitement, thrills and near spills, and briefly glimpsing some BFFs.

Up next: hometown racing in Jackson Park, Hendersonville! (well, as close to home as it gets). Good friends will be in town and there will be little travel... really looking forward to it. My focus for the week? Starts, gosh darnit.

Race Across the Sky!

2010-11-03T20:11:00.000-04:00

If you are a regular bloggity blog reader, you'll know that Andy and I competed in the Leadville Trail 100 mile mountain bike race this year. (wait, how can there be such a thing as a regular reader, when I post so sporadically anymore?)

Anyway, one of the cool things we did whilst out yonder was talk to the cool folks of Citizen Pictures before, during and after the race. These awesome people brought us the first Leadville Trail movie (aka "The Lance Show") last year.

I don't know if we're going to be in the movie or not, but, given that you can catch a brief glimpse of us in the trailer, and that you can also see the below image on the homepage of the movie, I think there's a pretty good shot we'll have a cameo.

So, November 4, in movie theatres across the country, one night only (except certain towns that will have an encore November 9), the Race Across the Sky movie will be showing you a visual of what many racers experience on August 14.

Get yer tickets here!

Scary Cross - Johnson City, TN

2010-10-31T21:44:00.001-04:00

Caturday, October 30 I headed northish to Johnson City, TN, for MSG Cyclocross Series race #5, at Winged Deer Park. Andy had chosen to go westish to Knoxville for a 12 hour race, so I was flying solo, mostly.

Every year the guys dial the courses in a little bit more, and this one was by far the best one I have seen at Winged Deer. It had a bunch o' long power sections interspersed with flowy swoopy turny parts that forced you to stay on top of your game.

With such a great course, and bonus points on the line for those racing in costume, it was a disappointment to see the women's turnout - just five of us. As I really want to bring my top end back, I planned on racing my little heart out anyway. I led the race out hard, with teammate Deb Whitmore and Lees-McRae student Erica Zaveta on my wheel. I blew up sky high little more than halfway through the first lap. So the three of us rode together for not quite two laps, and I felt awful. I knew that eventually it would have to break up but I couldn't imagine how.

Entering the 3rd lap, we were crawling up the uphill pavement finish section and luckily for me instinct kicked in and I attacked as hard as I could, carrying the effort through the bumpy grassy uphill straight that followed. Ouch. But I managed to break the elastic with that attack and was able to maintain the lead through to the finish.

I also got bonus points for my cool hipster outfit!

My day was not quite over after the women's race - I hung around for the single speed race as well, borrowing my buddy D-dubb's Surly.

The race started and, my legs screaming at me the entire uphill straightaway, I slotted into a solid back of the pack ride. On the second lap, the dang chain fell off. :-( Boo hoo hoo. It took me at least a minute to put it to right, but as I was only 10 minutes in I decided to keep going. Now I was just riding, enjoying the freeing feeling of riding a bike through the swoopy course and pushing my beleaguered legs to their max. 10 minutes later, the chain came off again, and I threw in the towel. I put it back on the bike but stopped at the bathroom to scrub my filthy hands. Personally I think Ddubb sabotaged the bike so that he could have one more person to place in front of... just sayin'. ;-)

A quick drive home followed by maximum quality time on the couch with the kitties finished off a most excellent day.

NC 'Cross Debut - 2010

2010-10-25T22:51:00.000-04:00

This weekend Andy and I split up... for the weekend, that is. He traveled west to the promised land of the Ozarks in Missouri for an endurance mountain bike race, and I traveled east for the first two races of the 2010 North Carolina Cyclo-Cross Series. (we will not discuss what happened to him in his race, now...)

Saturday was a 'cross race in Southern Pines on a sandy course that went down, then up, then around, over and over. I had a sluggish start and some flow issues so third place was a right gift. Stayed upright and had people cheering for me everywhere, which was of course the bee's knees. Topped the day off with a trip to Trader Joe's where I parted with 65 hard earned smackers in exchange for two satchels filled with goodies, followed by a movie viewing of How to Train a Dragon with awesome friends. All in all a most excellent day.

Sunday I managed 4th on a course that I am pretty sure was custom-made for me to hate, bringing third to within 5 seconds on the last lap! One more lap and I would have had it, or seriously maimed myself, one or the other. ;-) All in all I was pleased with my ride given the circumstances (my discombobulation when presented with twisty bumpy courses). More cool people were seen but I skedaddled early since i had to drive alone, making it home with enough time to get lots o' things done but of course accomplishing nothing but some kick arse tv viewing.

Last race on the old steed... new bikes are being built up as I type this! I'll be so much more FOCUSed. :)

Up next: Spooky Cross on Caturday in Johnson City, Tn. I'll do both the women's and single speed races, if Andy gets my bikes together in time. I do have some hallyween outfits put together so hopefully i'll have a chance to look like a big silly(er) goose. Once again Andy plans to leave me for an endurance mountain bike race, this time a little closer to home in Oak Ridge, TN for the 12 hours of Hill of Truth.

Sunday I'll travel to Boone for another dose of NC 'Cross; I'm not sure it could possibly be as awesome as last year but we'll see. Andy is hoping they will have the tandem exhibition race again, so it will give him an excuse to come up as well. I gotta research it, though, flyer doesn't mention it...

In the meantime, i'll be attending the Pink Shopping Fundraiser at Christine's Consignments tomorrow. An excellent excuse to shop at a cool store!

Iron Cross 10.10.10 Edition

2010-10-18T22:00:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know, long time no write. I've started a couple posts and have yet to finish any of them - akin to writing BFFs in middle school: millions of letters started, one or two finished. Sigh. Even this post, I started it last Sunday!

Anyway, Andy and I travelled to Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Gardners, Pa last weekend to compete in 'America's Longest Cyclo-cross race'.

After leaving much of my skin on a gravel road in this event three years ago (requiring two visits to wound care, dagnubbit), it never crossed my mind to return. Andy managed to convince me it would be 'fun' to race it on the tandem, so early Saturday morning we packed up the new Sprinter van (more on that in another post) and headed north.

A series of delays including a kerplowed tire (that's cara-speak for shredded) turned the already long drive into a drawn-out, day long affair.

We rolled into Camp Thompson just after dark, at the tail end of the free pasta dinner provided to riders. This was a very welcome meal of fresh garden salad, perfectly cooked penne or spaghetti (no mush here!), homemade meatballs and tasty tomato sauce. And cheese. And cookies. A small demonstration of love, much appreciated, towards the riders who would be cursing the promoters' names at some point in the following day's journey...

After some relaxing harry potter watching in our spiffy Meowmobile (again, I'll talk about this some other time), we hit the hay early and slept like babies until the alarm set us off at 6:30ish the day of the race.

The morning was brisk but not freezing, and after the typical pre-race preparations, we checked out the short 'cross course and its "Spiral of Death" before lining up smack dab in the middle of the men's field. The race started and Andy and I set out on our first tandem Iron Cross adventure - both of us were in for an interesting and challenging day.

Our first challenge came when we hit a 20 meter long sandpit 15 minutes into the race. Most of the guys we were riding around went left, and slow, and we barreled through on the right hand side. I was vaguely aware of the carnage to our left (guys endoing, plowing into each other, getting stuck, etcetera), but focused on getting us through the sand. As we were seemigly three feet from the exit, some dude made a 90 degree turn in front of us and Andy screeched us to a halt. Poor guy behind us endo'ed into us, poor guy who almost t-boned us got an earful.

Dismount, run, then back on the bike and away we went. Guys would queue up behind us and greedily take our draft, but if they thought we might slow down they often did the dumbest things, like try to sprint around us before a gate and not realize how fast we were going... this produced a few more "earfuls" and a couple etiquette lessons...

Eventually we hit arguably the toughest trail riding of the day - Lippencote, a twisty, rocky rooty climb that brought us to the top of a rocky, droppy log filled descent. I vaguely remembered riding it in all four of my individual participations years ago, and though I thought it would be easier on the MTB tandem, it didn't seem like it. Well, the rocky downhill was, because Andy is the one who had to finesse us through it. As we went down it I couldn't believe I had ever ridden it on my cx bike, even as I watched guys ahead of us do it seemingly with ease. (I am getting so soft!) The group we were riding with broke up quickly on this trail and we spent most of the rest of the race riding by ourselves, not the worst thing in the world given our earlier experiences, and the later ones too.

Not long after that came the Wigwam runup... an incredibly steep, rocky ascent that barely had a trail to navigate. While it didn't take nearly as long to navigate as my filtered memory told me, it was every bit as painful and leg-busting. Trying to lug a 50 pound bike up it in conjunction with my much-stronger-than-me hubby was just dumb. We made it up it but I sure hope nobody saw or heard some of the exchanges that took place.

About 2 hours and 45 minutes in, after a new section of frustratingly twisty, rocky and technical singletrack, from which I am surprised we exited still married, we found ourselves descending a fast gravel road. We had just passed four or five guys repairing flat tires, and I felt "safe" from such a terrible experience thanks to our beefy mountain bike tires. Karma's a byotch, though, and at 30+ miles an hour our rear tire blew out.

Thank goodness we kept it upright as we pulled to the side of the road. A quick assessment revealed a race-threatening mechanical: a hole in our sidewall! We booted it using 3 x $1 bills, and it miraculously held until the next aid station, where a volunteer whose sweatshirt boldly quoted Ben Franklin that "Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy" ingeniously suggested we wrap electrical tape around the tire to further strengthen the boot. So we did! And though I spent the remainder of the ride in constant fear of another blowout on a fast gravel descent, we made it through safe and sound.

The rest of the race is a blur to me, and we crossed the finish line smiling in about 5 hours (after 20+ minutes of tire repair), morales intact and still on speaking terms. Life is good!

There wasn't an official tandem category so we didn't have to hang around for the podium, but we did anyway and managed to score some yummy Bob's salsa, chips, and Green Mountain Coffee (mom, care package on its way soon). As per usual I failed to score anything in the schwag toss or name draw - one of these days....

Lots and lots o' cool photos can be found at AE Landes Photography's webbysite.

They include one of us starting up the Wigwam runup:

And one of us at the finish. See, we really are smiling!

The drive home was significantly less eventful than the the first part of the trip; the best part of all was that I was able to take more than an hour long nap completely laid out on the bed in the back of the van. It set me up to be well rested for the whole week and boy o boy was it cool. Andy is afraid to let me drive, it, though, so he did not share a similar experience.

A big thank you to everyone who made that race possible - you guys rock!

Up next for Andy: some endurance mtb race in Missouri. He's taking the meowmobile and is right smug about it.

Up next for me: cyclo-cross, cyclo-cross, cyclo-cross! I am currently sucking at it (training for endurance events just does not lend itself to short, anaerobic efforts, despite my change in workouts), but I have about 12 weeks to be less sucky so I keep plugging away at it. I made the executive decision after a disastrous trip to a UCI race September 18/19 to do mostly regional stuff, so.... this weekend I get to see lots o' cool peeps of the NC Cyclocross scene!

Leadville follow-up: FAQ

2010-08-26T21:07:00.001-04:00

Hello, Fan!

Well, I'm astounded that anyone besides my little mommy read my race report for Leadville. That thing was a book! But,a bunch of you made it through the thing 'cause you've asked me some questions. Here are some answers!

Is the course technical?

Well, that depends on what you consider technical! If you're looking for nasty, rocky, rooty, twisty single track trails, this is not the race for you. There's a lot of doubletrack and fire roads, some pavement, and a small amount of singletrack. There are some technical downhills that claimed more than one victim on the day (which at some point you have to climb, as well - just as difficult). What makes this race so dang hard is the climbing, at altitude. And the 1500 of your best friends who want to race along with you.

Was that really a film crew you were talking to at the finish line?

Yes, that was the "Race Across the Sky" crew (Citizen Pictures) who were back to do a 2010 edition. Lance bailed on the race so they got us instead. Hah hah hah, just kidding. We were interviewed for an hour on Thursday and then they filmed us in a couple different locations on the course. I probably sounded so stupid they won't put any clips of us in the film, however. But it was a fun experience, reminding me of my 2005 Tour de Donut fame.

What is your favorite memory from the event?

Well, golly, the whole trip was awesome! If I were forced to single out one thing, it would be the collective memories created every time a spectator saw us and cheered "yeah, tandem!" I mean, single bikes would ride by, and people would stare at them apathetically, and then here we'd come, and our ears would be bombarded with "first tandem! wow, tandem! goooo tandem!" (or, occasionally, go cara & andy) To have that kind of energy thrown at you makes it pretty difficult to have a bad day.

Also, it was hella-cool to spend time with my little mommy and my big bro. Here they are in Breckenridge, CO. The day after the race we shuffled through a downtown art walk, where we encountered Elly the elephant.

That is all. Looks like I'm home for the weekend - Save our Trails Challenge with D-dubb in Dupont on Caturday. Race to the Rock in Lake Lure, NC on Sunday. D-dubb claims he wants to save money and not do the Race to the Rock - i should sneeze and say "bull snot!"

Leadville 2010: Tandem edition, extended

2010-08-23T22:16:00.000-04:00

A supplement to the short version, posted earlier this week.

The Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race, August 14, 2010

Somehow, this event has grown to such legendary proportions that former Olympians such as Levi Leipheimer, Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski (JHK), Todd Wells and lots of other super fast riders threw their name in the hat this year. But, with a rider roster of approximately 1500 hardy souls, the field was composed of athletes from a vast spectrum of speed and ability. Some had never raced a mountain bike before (I really don't recommend Leadville as your first off road event). Many were seasoned veterans. All were up early trying to get a good starting position for the 6:30 am start.

The start line was a jumble of bikes and people scrambling to line up as close to the front as possible. Andy thought he had put our bike in good position but as I watched people kicking it in an attempt to move closer to the front I wasn't so sure. We wound up being further back than we initially imagined; probably in the first 300 or so. Fortunately a last minute 'systems check' revealed no obvious damage.

The first couple miles or so is a 'neutral' downhill pavement jaunt - so long as you interpret neutral to mean single file at the front at a speed of 30+ miles an hour. Our goal was to go pretty hard and get as far forward as possible to avoid traffic jams where the path pointed up at the first climb of the day, St. Kevin's (pronounced who-knows-why St. kee-vans)

Mission accomplished, we felt, for on the rollout we passed people helter-skelter and when we hit that first climb we were surrounded by capable riders who had no issues making it up the steep and occasionally loose dirt doubletrack. We were riding well and feeling good (except for my hands, which weren't feeling much at all). While the weather was brisk at the start, the sun would burn away what little clouds there were and remain out the rest of the day, blue sky sparkling above us.

Shortly after the St. Kevin's climb, on a flattish stretch of dirt road, little more than an hour into our trip, we were passed by another tandem couple, Jay and Tracey Petervary, from Idaho (or Wyoming, I can't quite remember). We introduced ourselves, Jay exclaimed 'it's tandemonium!', and they rode away.

Let me tell you, Andy did not like that one bit. I wasn't quite as worried, mostly because we had potentially only completed 1/10th of our race. My biggest concern was riding well for that entire time. So we continued on at our chosen pace, but were heartened when at the next climb they remained in sight, and we made time on them. That gave us some small confidence that our climbing ability would help us seal the deal later on.

We caught and passed the Petervarys on the Sugarloaf climb, but they stayed annoyingly close to us (as in, right behind us) until about the 35 mile mark. At that point catastophe seemingly struck - our front derailleur twisted, pushing into our tire. Had Andy not stopped immediately we would have surely ripped a hole in our rear tire. That would not have ended our race but it would have made for a long hike to the next aid station, and dashed our hopes for first place tandem glory!

Tandemonium, by Linda Guerrette

The Petervarys rode on as Andy quickly righted our twisted equipment. We hit the second aid station at Twin Lakes, 40 miles in, just 20 seconds or so behind them. Shortly thereafter we discovered a side effect of Andy's repairs - no granny gear. Agh! With the 7 mile, 1 hour+ long Columbine climb fast approaching, I could envision no scenario in which the middle ring would allow us to reach the top without utterly destroying our legs. Or, at the least, our spirits. We mashed up a short climb right after the aid station, passing the Petervarys in the process.

Not long after that came the Columbine climb. Luckily for our performance, Andy's years of experience and understanding of the mechanics of a bicycle saved us - we were able to get into the little ring so long as we started in the big ring. Quirky yet true. It probably saved our legs as it forced us to stay in the little ring at times when we might have been tempted to shift up.

The long slow climb began, and Andy suffered from his earlier efforts as I tried to shove Chomps into his hand and encourage him to drink. Having never raced more than 6ish hours before, I was metering my efforts extremely conservatively, and eating and drinking regularly. Andy, well.... not as much. He paid for some over exertions as we made our way up Columbine, but we still made pretty good time, passing a few people and not getting passed by too many.

Leadville is almost entirely an out an back course - you start in town, follow the course, and at the top of Columbine turn around and come back the way you came (mostly). So, about halfway up Columbine we started to see the leaders on their descent. I did the math in my head and figured that just 4 hours into the race they were more than 7 miles ahead of us (but don't trust me, if it doesn't involve Excel I suck at math). First came JHK, then Levi, then Todd, then I forget, and then... Dave Wiens, 6 time Leadville champ. He was observant enough and supportive enough to say "whoa, first tandem, so far up here!" Yeah, a call out from Dave Wiens! If it didn't impress me (well, yes, it did), it sure as heckadoodle impressed Andy. And spurred us on. Eventually we saw more and more riders descending as we made our way up past the timberline, and more often than not we would get a call out of support that really helped with the motivation. And finally, light years and a blister after starting the climb, we were at the turnaround, flying down to a lollipop u-turn and then climbing back out.

In true competitive fashion, I hit the split button on my watch so we could see where we stood in relation to our competition. We picked our way through the rocks, then bombed down where we could, swerving to avoid the fatigued riders who were still coming up and perhaps too tired to stay on their line. About four minutes after starting the descent, we passed the Petervarys. Andy asked me how far ahead we were, and without thinking I said "four minutes." He interpreted that to mean only two minutes had passed since the top, which spurred a sort of panic in him that remained for the rest of the race.

The descent passed quickly and safely. In a jiffy we were back at the Twin Lakes aid station, riding through the crowd which lined both sides of the path for seemingly a mile, enjoying more cries of "yeah, TANDEM!" and getting some fast and excellent support from the Carmichael Training Systems crew.

Back we went over our original path, up the narrow singletrack we had descended (Andy urging me to "see if anyone's back there" almost the entire time), up the steep hill after it (we had to walk some of it and man my blister hurt), over the only roots in the whole race, back toward the Pipeline aid station. At Pipeline we got more excellent support from the CTS crew. Stop, bottles shoved into our cages, Chomps shoved into our hands and pockets, a few sips of Coke later and we were pushed on our way, spurred by the cheers of the crowds which included my own brother's and little mommy's voices!

We battled a fierce headwind on the flattish section leading up to the return Powerline climb - demoralizing but we made it through. Powerline is a steep and rutted trail that is difficult to clear when well rested, never mind when it comes after almost eighty miles in the saddle. We had a plan to ride as much as possible by conserving energy on the less steep sections, and it seemed to work pretty well. Because of that dang blister I put a huge effort into staying on the bike. This helped us make it further up the climb than any single bikes around us; many were embarrassed to be "tandemed" up it. Somewhere along the trail, when we were in full exertion mode, I heard a spectator talking about the race winner (Levi), and I thought "that twerp's done and we still have over 20 miles to go!" Oh, the stinging ice storm that is reality.

We had our lowest moment on the long steep pavement uphill near Turquoise Lake, right before the final aid station. Once we refueled at the aid station, we rode a thousand times better just for having the security of drink mix in the bottles. Seemingly not long after that we were at the bottom of St. Kevin's after sloppily and blindly descending it (Andy's eyes were filled with dust). Andy looked at his watch and told me we had 35 minutes to make it under 9 hours. I couldn't remember how long it had taken us to ride the dirt "boulevard" when pre-riding on Thursday, but I thought 'surely less than half an hour?' At that point I threw "conservatism" out the window and we rode that last section as if we were finishing a short course cross country race. We caught and dropped more than half a dozen people in that last run-in. Spurred on by the cheerleaders at the corner where the dirt ended and pavement began (so fun!), and a CTS athlete who had tagged onto our wheel (thank you so much for the encouragement!), we buried ourselves over the last mile to get the best time possible. As we came down the finishing straight, I was so satisfied and thrilled with our performance and our finish that I threw my hands in the air as we crossed the line, out of pure happiness. It shows, no?

Finish line happiness, by Mark Wolff

8 hours 42 minutes, first tandem across the line, 80th overall. Someone told me it was a course record but I haven't verified that. The best part of it all? Having the ride of my life with my bff always in front of me, and family waiting at the finish. :-)

Interviewed at the finish - did I mention we might be in this year's movie?

The awards ceremony the next day featured a gymnasium stuffed with people

They treat their winners just spiffy at Leadville!

This even was our goal event for the year. I took last week off the bike, debating my next cycling related adventure. How to top this? Impossible. I'm sure I'll be able to FOCUS on something, however.

Leadville 100: The Official Report

2010-08-19T17:42:00.000-04:00

Hi-dee-ho!

We are back in town from our race of the year, the Leadville 100. I worked on a blog post on the plane, but haven't had time to finish it - it's fast becoming a book, go figure. Hopefully tonight. In the meantime, here is the official "press release" from the Performance Blog.

On August 14, Performance Bicycle Racing Team member Cara Applegate, with her husband Andy Applegate and their tandem mountain bike, lined up alongside 1500 other brave competitors – including current ProTour riders,National Champions, and Olympians – to compete in the 17th annual Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race in Leadville, CO.

The couple’s goals were lofty – to complete the 100 mile race, which climbs more than 10,000 feet at high altitude, in under 10 hours, a time which coincidentally would have won the tandem race in 2008 and 2009.

The riders were greeted with chilly air but clear skies as they took to the start line in the wee hours of the morning; once the sun broke through the last remnants of night it blazed a comfortable path for the remainder of the day.

Entering the Twin Lakes aid station. Photo Courtesy Thomas McCauley.

The duo battled with another tandem team early in the event, suffering a race-threatening mechanical little more than 35 miles in. They repaired the issue quickly without too much time lost; by the midway point the Applegates were able to amass over an 8 minute lead on Jay and Tracey Petervary of Idaho.

The Applegates steadily increased the distance between themselves and their closest competitors, completing the course well under their goal in a time of 8 hours 42 minutes, earning themselves the coveted silver and gold belt buckle given to competitors who finish under 9 hours, as well as 80th place overall. The Petervarys were the second tandem across the line, 27 minutes back.

Really happy at the finish. Photo courtesy Mark Wolff

So congratulations to the Applegates, for winning the tandem division and for setting a goal and then knocking it out of the park!

Next up for Cara: a brief break from the bicycle, having just completed her goal race of the year. Don’t expect this to be the last you hear of her – she’ll soon be storming the cyclo-cross world alongside her teammate Evie Boswell-Vilt on the team’s Focus Mares cyclo-cross bikes!

Goal Race 2010: Leadville

2010-08-11T20:05:00.000-04:00

Way back at the end of last year, smack dab in the middle of recovery from a year of studying and weight gain, I committed to Andy that I would join him in a tandem venture at the Leadville Trail 100.

8 months ago it seemed so far away that the commitment meant almost nothing. Actually setting a goal, however, a real live goal that we BOTH had floating around in our brain somewhere, and paid a boatload of money for, meant an increased commitment to training and racing (and slimming down). At least, significantly more than in years past, for me.

Holy crappity crap that race is almost upon us! Tomorrow morning I ship out for the trip west. We are well trained. We're both as light as we've been in several years. For the first time in at least four years I can say before a race there is little else (within my present range) I could have done to be ready.

Ultimately our goal is to finish the dang thing. If that finish happens to be around 10 hours, all the better. ;-) smirky smirky smirk. I am lucky that my brother and my little mommy are going to be there to give encouragement! (or heckling)

My team's main sponsor, Performance Bikes will be posting the following excerpt on its blog, most likely tomorrow.

Wish us luck!
---

Seemingly few people who participate in any organized cycling event in the continental United States remain unaware of the race made famous from a certain ProTour rider’s experience, chronicled in the 2009 film “Race Across the Sky.” The Leadville Trail 100, a 100 mile mountain bike race held in the high mountains of Colorado, annually tests the grit and mettle of more than a thousand brave souls who take to the start. This year, Performance Bicycle Racing team member Cara Applegate will tackle the race on August 14, but in a slightly unusual fashion – on a tandem mountain bike with her husband, Andy Applegate.

While the couple has been racing tandem bikes on the road for more than seven years – and share four elite national time trial titles and three masters road race and time trial titles – they have been riding the mountain bike tandem for a relatively short period of time, slightly more than a year and a half.

“We’ve both been racing bikes for a good long while – Andy 25 years and me 14 or so – and every year we seem to tweak our goals to include a new experience that will challenge our collective fortitude. A 100 mile off road endurance race in the high mountains seems to fit that bill,” explained Cara, a fleeting smile peppered with determination crossing her face.

The Applegates are not approaching this race unprepared however; they’ve spent the majority of their 2010 racing days at endurance mountain bike events, either on single bikes or the tandem. You can expect to see the Applegates at the front of the tandem pack come race day. Check back here for more details after the race.

Elite Tandem Time Trial Nationals

2010-08-10T22:09:00.000-04:00

man, i am such a horrible blogger. Frankly I'd like to blame it on twitter and facebook (i put my 140 character ideas out into the world and then stop thinking), but mostly I have fallen off the communication wagon. i don't respond to emails, I don't respond to facespace messages, and voicemails? don't you dare expect me to call you back!

that being disclaimed, I did have my arm twisted to write something "official" this week. i intend to post it tomorrow night.

Last week we were in Louisville, Kentucky to participate in the Masters National Road Championships. Oddly enough they also hold the Elite Tandem Time Trial at the same time, and we competed in that event on Tuesday, August 3.

It was bloody hot out. The kind of heat that allows you to cook your eggs on the sidewalk, and easily lose a couple few pounds by just breathing.

We did NOT have the rides of our lives. We did, however, ride pretty okay. "Okay" enough to secure the win by slightly more than two seconds over the 31 minute race. In cycling terms, 2 seconds is a half a tire's width, found or lost anywhere on the course - one pedal stroke too few, an extra push over the top of a climb, anywhere! We could have just as easily been on the other side of the coin and so are very glad the wind blew in our favor that day.

A video of us warming up prior to the time trial:

a photo of us, along with my teammates Evie and Georgia.

This is our fourth elite title. Love it!

Full post, as narrated by Evie, can be found on the Peformance Bicycle Blog by clicking on this link.

Off Road Assault on Mount Mitchell

2010-07-25T22:15:00.000-04:00

Well, the 2010 edition of the Off Road Assault on Mount Mitchell has come and gone...

The previous couple years I've entertained myself by watching the field come up old highway 70 (an easy 15 minute ride away from spectatating), then returning home to study or do my own workout. This year, I didn't have to worry about studying! Such a nice change of pace.

Andy twisted my arm to send some positive volunteer karma into the world, so I wound up helping out at aid station 3 at the top of Curtis Creek Road, a 9 or 10 mile long gravel climb that is sure to suck the soul out of the hardiest of riders.

I still logged some happy ride time, though, starting with an early morning descent down old 70 to the race start. It was cool, humid, and the road was deserted as I drifted down the mountain on a cloud of good intentions. Rides like that are the reason bikes exist.

I watched the 400 racers take the start before I headed out to the aid station. Andy's the second one in the bright green on the right of the photo, standing next to our buddies nate & alex.

More than an hour of climbing lay between me and the aid station, but it didn't phase me as on the climb I discovered the same sense of peace and contentment that manifested itself on the descent earlier in the morning. Perhaps it was just the immense satisfaction in knowing that I was NOT racing this silly thing. After all, the promoter's slogan this year is "Blue Ridge Adventures... Over a Decade of Crippling You."

The CTS crew of Tracy, Debbie and Joe had set up the aid station by the time I got there and I only had to wait about 40 minutes until the first rider came through... blazing ahead of his competition by about ten minutes. Pretty impressive considering this was little more than halfway through the race.

Tracy and Joe manning the supplies.

I placed bets with another volunteer on who would come through first (Thomas Turner), and won a $2 bill for my rider savvy. :-) The next rider to come in, a local rider with whom Andy trains occasionally, had a rear wheel on which the spokes had become completely detensioned. Totally whack. Not sure what I was thinking (well, I wasn't) but I immediately handed over my rear wheel to him... thus ending my chances of descending the mountain via any method besides a vehicle. And before you mountain bike "purists" go and chastise me for "breaking the rules" - this wasn't a sanctioned race and I had no idea - still don't, and don't care to be corrected, either - if there were any rules against this. so, MLAH! :P

Here is my sweetie meow as he crested the climb in top 10ish position. It was blazing hot and his cheeks were already sunken and hollow from the hard effort on the trails and roads. One of the good things about being early to the aid station was that he got our full attention and all the cold beverages we could give him.

When I finally saw him after his race, probably two long hours after he finished (this is another blog post in itself), I asked him how he did. "Sucky." was his response.

First place in your category? Yeah, you suck!

All in all it was a mighty fine day, subtracting a few, ummm, lower moments in my emotional spectrum (think rain, malfunctioning wheel, and no cell service). But discussion of those points is for another day.

Oh, and my wheel? 3rd place, elite men. I anxiously await the love to wind its way back to me... ;-)

Guest Blogger: Grumpy Bear

2010-07-24T21:04:00.000-04:00

Well, Aunt Evie sent me to stay with Aunt Cara, and I noticed that Cara has been MIA from the blogsphere for eons. So, I begged her to let me do a guest blog, and here I am.

She's been riding on the tandem lots with Uncle Andy (who for some silly reason she's always calling "the andykins - I just don't get it). [ed note - you don't have to get it, grumpy!] Today, for example, they went out for a nice 30 mile road tandem jaunt in the heat of the day. Andy is racing the Off Road Assault on Mount Mitchell (ORAMM) tomorrow, but Cara isn't, so I begged her to take me out for a second ride to enjoy a small tour of her favorite one hourish ride by her house.

We started at the intersection of Sunrise terrace and Penelope Street. Good stuff! She's been too busy riding her bike to weed or do other housy stuff so it looks a little overgrown.

I convinced her to take me to the start of the trailhead where tomorrow's race really kicks into gear - Kitsuma. In the ORAMM, they ride this steep and technical trail, which climbs up and over the ridge, at both the beginning and the end of the race. Cara loves it so much she took this photo then turned around.

There are several historical markers on Cara's favorite ride. This one signifies a railroad tunnel; another signifies a civil war episode, another a short-lived rail service. So much history!

After descending the gravel Mill Cree Gap road, we passed Andrew's Geyser at the bottom of the mountain. This cool little water feature is surrounded by a park that was built to memorialize a a war hero who died in the first world war. I doubt anyone's ever going to build a memorial to Grumpy Bear... and boy that makes me grumpy. The sign below actually contradicts an older sign that indicates the geyser was built in 1885 for other reasons... Proof positive that history is only as good as those who bother to recreate it.

After Andrew's geyser we moseyed down the road, past farms with sunflowers and corn and tomatoes and ponies to the intersection of Mill Creek Gap and Old Highway 70, where we stopped to whinny at some horsies. (This is where the bottom of Kitsuma comes in, too).

The descending ended here and we climbed up Cara's most favoritest climb in the world - the Old Highway 70, a closed road that winds up the mountain. About two years ago they re-paved it, eliminating the overgrown Land of the Lost feeling, and it's now called "Point Lookout Trail". Often times Cara climbs it without seeing a single soul. Mostly shaded, she loves the feeling of the trees closing in on her with no traffic to bother her solitary ascents. Today I joined her so she had to deal with me grumbling about her sweaty pocket. Didn't seem to phase her, though.

About 3/4 of the way up the climb lies the "lookout" - apparently in the 1920s-30s there was a service station here. Doesn't seem to be a lot of room for parking or a building, but nevertheless... The remnants of an old stairway remain, albeit covered by Kudzu.

Someone had come through and written "encouraging" words on the road, here and elsewhere (as this climb is the first one in tomorrow's ORAMM race!). Is this what Le Tour feels like? I bet I would have to work a lot harder than a free ride in a jersey pocket. Nobody wrote encouraging words for me, either. and I'm grumpy about it.

Here I am, still at Point Lookout. No wind today! Sure wish I had a rain cloud following me...

At the top of old 70 the road intersects with Mill Creek Gap and we found we had come full circle from where we had started. It took just 10 minutes to descend from there into the heart of town and ride back home.

All in all, I had a great little tour with Cara of the finer points of the mountains just east of Black Mountain. She sure is lucky to have such a great route in her back yard!

She claims she'll get back on the blogging wagon soon. But for now, she's getting ready to do a little bit of riding tomorrow (which includes the 1 hr + climb up Curtis Creek road) to Aid Station 3 of ORAMM where she'll give support to the foolish riders who are actually racing the silly event.

Richmond Hill Mountain Bike Race

2010-06-03T11:04:00.000-04:00

Mountain Sports Festival: Richmond Hill Mountain Bike

After returning home from Marquette, I had a great week of riding which involved commuting to or from work by bike every single day, adding extra time on the rides to enjoy the trip.

There have been quite a few local events in the area of late, and while I skipped the Ring of Fire crit series Wednesday night in favor of a French club meeting, I decided to participate in the Mountain Sports Festival on Friday and Saturday.

Friday we had a choice of either the Richmond Hill Mountain Bike Race or a crit on the “mellowdrome”. Both started at Carrier Park, which is located right across from my office. I decided to do the mountain bike race to support the local scene.

Problem was, I had never seen the mountain bike trails, I had no clue about the details of the race, how long it would take, I hadn’t looked at the weather forecast, OH, and fast women showed up. Seriously, am I still a bike racer? I didn’t even have flat changing materials. I just showed up kitted out on my bike with a water bottle. That’s it.

Two of my BFFs, former pros and now local fastwomen mommies Karen Masson and Trish Stevenson toed the line with me, along with Columbia, SC’s endurance studette Emily Brock. I had no goals (again, am I a bike racer?) other than to at least keep up on the road section.

Everyone started together doing two laps of the speedway, and about 30 of us rolled around uptempo. The pace picked up as we exited the track, and I was absolutely not ready for the drilling that took place as soon as we hit the greenway to move out of the park. Following someone who was even more timid than I was on the greenway, I found myself gapped off in no-woman’s land when we hit the road. I could see Emily, Karen & Trish in a group just ahead of me, so turned on the afterburners to catch them.

After seemingly forever riding all out by myself, I caught them, just as Emily was rolling off the front in an attempt to bridge to another group. I sat on a bit, and then saw Emily coming back to the group. I decided to have my moment of glory on the road and counter-attacked when Emily came back. It was mostly a waste of energy but as you read on you’ll see I wasn’t too concerned with wasting energy. I bridged up to a group ahead of me but they stopped working as soon as I got there, and then we climbed a big hill to get up into the park.

I am proud to announce that I was the first woman into the trails. That is where the happy story ends, because it took less than 2 minutes for trish to catch me and pass me like I was a stone on the ground. 15 seconds later I was pulling over to let Karen by, and 20 seconds after that Emily floated around me.

The tight, twisty singletrack taunted me with crooked roots and my self-doubting bike handling, and less than halfway through the first lap (of 3) I was ready to throw in the towel. Money was 3 deep, and I was in 4th (and what I thought was dead last, but turns out there were others behind me). Then, as I approached the end of lap 1, the skies opened up and started dumping buckets down on us. It took all of two seconds for me to decide to bail – my insecurity on the dry trail was going to get me injured on the snot-slick wet one. Plus, I had already gotten a good workout on the rollout, and didn’t need any more bike hours. So, when I came to the fork in the trail, I took the one less travelled (at that point) and headed out of the woods, and into the hail. Yes, hail. It was freakin’ hailing!

I camped out under a gazebo, figuring I would wait till Andy came out and try to follow him back into town. About 10 minutes later Karen & Trish came out of the woods together, and I thought “oh, they’re bailing too! I’ll ride in with them!” I had to work pretty hard to catch them and I thought “wow, they must really want to get back to the park…” Then they dropped me on the downhill that was flooded with 4 inch deep water, and I had to turn on the after burners to catch them. Eventually we rode out of the rain and onto dry ground, and they badgered me into pulling. I thought it was kinda odd how hard they were going and that they weren’t talking, considering that we were all bailing the race. But, I went to the front and time trialed us in, thinking they were getting a good motorpace. As we approached the final section, for some reason I decided to ask them if they were still racing – they were! So I pulled off with about half a mile to go and let them duke it out. Apparently they had misunderstood the volunteer’s directions and had left the course a lap early – oops!

Personally I got a great workout in, didn’t crash, and really enjoyed hanging out with my homegirls and boys post-race. I know I need to do something to fix my brain that prevents me from taking any sort of risks on a mountain bike, but that will come. Someday.

Andy was third, behind Trish’s future hubby Sam who won, and our travel buddy Nate in 2nd. D-dubb was 2nd in the singlespeed race (on his ‘cross bike!). We all hung out afterward, eating pizza, listening to free music and trying to get free stuff from the various booths in the expo. Not a bad night at all.

Photo stole from the Pisgah Sorba website...

Spin! Giggle! Sleep! Repeat!

Update! Marquette

2010-06-03T10:12:00.000-04:00

Here I am! I’m still alive!

And I’ve been busy these last few weeks. As I’m sitting in a car for the next few hours, I think I’ll try to do a couple few bloggity blog updates. I have a cold and barely slept last night, which does not explain why I am hyper as all get out and would be bouncing off the walls if I weren’t held down by the seatbelt.

Anyway, update number 1: Marquette, MI.

Every year for the past NINE YEARS I have gone to visit my grandfather, aunt and uncle, and cousins on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in August. If you’ve read my blog much you know this visit coincides with a superawesomecool mountain bike race called the Ore to Shore.

Unfortunately for what would have been my 10^th anniversary this year, I will be in Leadville, CO on the day of the 2010 O2S. Recognizing how important it is to see family even if no race is available (somehow it goes against the grain of how things are in the McApplegate household! To travel and not race!), I flew up to MQT May 19-22 to spend time with my mom, sister, cousins and Grandpa, who turned 97 on May 20. Yes, ninety seven!

It was a lovely trip in which my sister Meghan and I made certain to hold to all family traditions whilst there, which included a late night visit to Target (neither of us has time to shop at home), an afternoon spent thrifting (got some really cool stuff, including a kitty cat statue that went to a very good home), walking up to 3^rd street to make fun of the teenagers cruising, and of course the requisite sister-sister squabbling which a few weeks later I can’t remember what caused it. Breathing, probably.

The first thing I did when I got there (besides saying hi to grandpa) was to go and steal my cousin Mike’s mountain bike. He purports it is made out of lead but it is actually a pretty nice Specialized full suspension bike. I then cruised around town down to Lakeshore Bikes to snag some lube and a cartridge, and sweet talk one of the mechanics there to help me change the pedals out. My wimpy arms were no match for those pedals; maybe I should start using them more often (my arms, that is).

Anyway, the bike shop had some cool art in front of the store:

And also some vintage forks that I admired as I waited for my pedals to miraculously put themselves on Mike’s bike:

Other happy moments included wandering around my Grandpa’s house admiring all the “vintage” things, noticing photos still tucked away on mirrors, and my 3.5 hour bike tour of town and some local trails, stopping to take a few photos along the way.

My sister found this in the attic somewhere. It was all about a bowling tournament the chamber of commerce brought to town. I love the artwork!

Here is my grandfather as a handsome young gentleman.

and my mommy as a cute little teeny bopper.

Why get rid of a good thing? Especially when it's blue.

Me & cousin Susie.

The weather was marvelous, as it seems to always be when I go up there, and therefore made me want to stay forever. But reality called and sooner rather than later I was on a plane homeward bound. I’m not sure if I’ll make it up there again this year but I imagine I will try.

If you get this reference, I am your best friend from Japan.

Boone Road Race

2010-05-17T19:15:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, May 15, Andy & I packed up the car early and drove northward to Boone, NC for a hilly road race. My first road race of the year! (actually, my first road race in OVER a year)

Lining up with 15 other ladies before the race I didn't feel nervous at all... matter of fact, I was looking forward to seeing how my climbing legs stacked up against the road racing crowd - I've been doing pretty well in the mtb races so figured it couldn't be too bad against the roadies.

The first climb came just 5 miles in, and I floated up it with no difficulty at all - I was really looking forward to crushing some egos later on in the race. But what I SHOULD have been thinking about was getting down the other side of the hill as quickly as the (whittled down) field. 'Cause I got dropped like a hot freakin potato. Or an overheated hot pocket fresh out of the microwave. :-(

I chased hard, but not hard enough, apparently, and spent a good portion of the next 10 miles dangling about 15-30 seconds back. PIA.

My descending didn't really improve as the race went on, and though I caught and worked with a few girls, they again destroyed me on the descents, leaving me riding most of the last 10 miles alone. When I hit the final 3 kilometer long climb, I decided to climb as if I were being chased by hounds and managed to catch and pass one of the riders, and finish right on the tail of another. I wound up 7th, which should be a respectable result, but given the "sensations" in my legs I should have been able to do better. Obviously, i need to do some mental training - it's the only explanation I have for getting dropped on a DESCENT! Ugh.

At the top of the climb one of my BFFs and former teammates Nancy was serving as an official. We chatted a bit (never in short supply when she & i are together) and I decided to hang around to see the Pro-1-2 men finish; we did 34 miles and they did 55 so it wouldn't be too long after us.

Despite the fact that Andy made fun of me for doing it, I rode the race with my cell phone in my pocket (ringer off). "Cara", you say, "that is silly."

Well, it would have been silly, but I didn't have a watch (and like to know my time-on-bike for my training journal), and also I was afraid that if I went off course I'd be in trouble. So, I carried it, along with a cartridge and tube - you can never be too careful!

Well, how was I to know that Andy was going to win his first pro-1-2 road race in a good many years? Fortunately I was standing at the top of the hill ready to take a photo, just for the heck of it! SO COOL.

Here is Andy and his team waiting at the line (the navy/light blue unis, andy is the closest one to the camera with his back facing it)

how cool is it that I captured this finish? and that is Nancy on the left...

Apparently Andy attacked the field with about 20 miles to go in the race... as he has been mostly mountain biking the last 2 years, and the riders who were doing most of the work were relatively young (thus not necessarily knowing him), and he had a teammate in the field, and 20 miles was a long way from the finish... well, all the stars aligned such that the field didn't chase him, thus setting him up for the W! Yay for him! And yay for me, as I had something to be happy about on the drive home.

We celebrated by eating big burritos at Black Cat in Boone. We sat in an area that seemed designed for Andy - monster artwork on the wall. :-)

Me, I have some work to do. Perhaps I took my Friday's zen calendar saying too literally - going as slow on the downhill as on the uphill. Sigh.

May is for Marriage

2010-05-17T18:43:00.000-04:00

Well, May is for Marriage for SOME people... namely, our cyclo-cross travel buddy Nathan, who has been in love with his dear Abby for a good while now. Nate just happens to be the son of our other travel buddy, Dwight (d-dubb), so it would have been pretty darn inexcusable to bow out of the wedding festivities.

So this is what we did Friday night. They managed to squeeze in the vows and the first dance before the torrential rains came, so all in all I'd call it a successful night. PLUS, they served "fancy" barbeque that was scrumdiddly icous. Oh, and I saw Nate get teary eyed during his dance - a good sign indeed. :-)

Diana and D-dubb as parents of the groom

nate & abby after tying the knot. You can see as latecomers we had prime spots at the back of the seating. :-)

this is just a funny photo all around. closest thing to a photo of me & the andykins. but what is going on behind? life is art.

nate & abby's first dance together. I DID see him get teary-eyed, but i don't think i caught it on camera. you also can't really see his fly black and green shoes.

best wishes to Abby & Nate as they start their "official" life together. :-)

Chapel Thrill

2010-05-10T21:03:00.000-04:00

And you thought my posting about the weekend was over, did you? Hah!

I followed up my race with a drive to chapel hill to visit my teammates Evie & Laura. Syd joined us for a ride on Sunday which turned out to be a marvelous three hours on sparsely traveled sun strewn roads.

A lovely weekend albeit a long drive back late on Sunday, as I couldn't leave town with out a visit to the Performance store (new cleats and blinkie lights) followed by a Trader Joe's raid.

L to R: Evie, Syd, me, Laura

6 Hour Grind on the Greenway

2010-05-10T20:45:00.000-04:00

On Caturday, May 8 Andy & I journeyed to a park just south of Charlotte, NC for a 6 hour mountain bike race called the Grind on the Greenway.

I had no idea what the course would be like other than Andy told me I'd be fine on it (which means, it couldn't be too technical or too hard)... As if!

The trouble with Andy's statement is that if he forgets what the course is like, OF COURSE I'll be fine on it. In theory.

It was 99% singletrack, filled with all sorts of twisty rooty areas just waiting to gleefully throw me to the ground at the slightest misgiving. Given that I have a propensity to brake at the merest suggestion of an obstacle, well... I was pretty slow. Consider me the turtle in this hare-brained story.

The worst part was the first lap - I didn't care enough about it and I PAID for my lack of going out hard by waiting in line for minutes on end to enter two different sections of singletrack. Holy. Crap. They definitely needed a longer rollout to let the riders get more spread out and prevent LA style bottlenecks. Of course, that still might not have kept me from having to cyclocross dismount off my bike and run up a hill because people fell down in front of me on the wide open gravel uphil at the start. Sigh.

I consistenly negative splitted my laps, eating decently and stopping just long enough to grab food or a sip of a (much appreciated) cold drink. By the end of the fourth lap I knew the course well enough to get rid of my camelbak and just work off bottles - a first for me! Usually I refuse to let go of the handlebars for anything.

Cut off was at 5 hours 30 minutes... and I finished lap 5 at 5:13, which meant lap #6 was a must for me. I had no idea where I was placed (dead last for all I knew), but I decided to try to go hard for the last lap and see what I could muster.

Not much, it seemed, as race gut started to set in and I had to do a few areas of survival mode. But my legs felt great the whole time - I finished feeling like I could ride more - and I passed at least one woman on that last lap. After I finished my 6th and final lap for a total ride time of 6 hours 18 minutes it turns out I placed 3rd, nosing out 4th by just 4 minutes! (and, just 4 minutes behind 2nd - if only I hadn't walked so many sections...)

It was really a strange feeling to get up on the podium after expecting to be dead last... but I didn't say no!

I was not the only one from the Asheville area with a podium spot... Andy won the overall after shedding ashevillian Jeremy Edge mid-race...

D-dubb even managed second, after riding a total of 7 laps in the day but only 6 during the race (seriously, dude, what were you thinking?!?!?!) just kidding, good to have you back on a mtn bike.

And TX transplants Will & Melanie black won the co-ed duo while switching off working support with their adorable kids Nikolas & Ellie Page.

A fun day and a great indicator that my fitness is coming along such that I might actually be ready when August 14 (Leadville 100) rolls around.... whoa!

Now it's really official!

2010-04-28T14:45:00.001-04:00

Somehow i still can't quite believe all those years of night school and studying are behind me. :)

El Ocho Mountain Bike Weekend

2010-04-25T20:20:00.001-04:00

The OCHO 2010-53, originally uploaded by girlysteiner.

I know I'm a week late....

But last weekend (April 17) I accompanied Andy to "El Ocho" eight hour mountain bike race in Tennessee, a mere 2 hour drive away.

With my usual racing buddy D-dubb sidelined with cracked ribs (ow! heal quickly!), I chose to sign up for the solo event, figuring I would be dead last and could stop riding whenever I felt like it.

Well, how was I supposed to know that 3.5 hours in, when I took my first extended break, (of all of 6 minutes) I would be in the lead? Seems as though all the heavy hitters were saving their legs for other races, and let me clean up on this one.

So, I felt obliged to continue riding, and managed 6 hrs 50 minutes before I pulled the plug on myself. Andy won too, albeit he rode a lot faster and longer than I did. (me = 54 miles, him = 81.)

Here is a photo from the Flickrstream of the race. I have a kewl photo of the swag and my hard-earned post race beverage to share, too, but in a separate post.

It was a pretty small race, but will surely grow exponentially once people hear about the sweet single track and excellent perks offered at the race (post-event pizza! excellently designed t-shirts and pilsner glasses! oh, and a keg, although those things don't typically catch my fancy...)

Why Gloves are Important

2010-04-04T18:13:00.006-04:00

After succesfully completing the 6 hours of Warrior Creek yesterday, where Andy placed 2nd, solo, and I placed 5th on a co-ed team with my buddy Dwight, we set out for an easy spin on the tandem today with our houseguest Dan, who also had an easy day on the docket.

It was sunny and bright and warm and happy, a great day for an Easter celebration of bonne idees (get it, bunny day?). We set out on one of my favorite rides, up and over highway 9 then across Old Fort road, twisty and challenging and fun. I love this ride, but there is a section that has made me nervous in days past, though not today. It gets littered with gravel after rains and winter, and I usually descend it pretty slowly because of it.

On the back of the tandem, you can do nothing but trust completely. Sometimes I get nervous, but I know Andy wants to crash as much as I do (which means, he doesn't), and doesn't take anything but carefully calculated risks. Sometimes, however, there is nothing but dumb luck involved.

Today, as we leaned through a tight turn a little more than halfway down the mountain, our front tire blew out. I heard the explosion, saw Andy trying to control the front end, then vaguely remember slamming onto the ground on our left hand side, sliding to a stop. How my hands wound up in front of me I'm not sure, but they did. As we were sliding I realized they were on the ground and lifted them up. I imagine that made the damage slightly less, but who knows.

Dan had been riding right behind us, and was the voice of calm in getting us up off the ground. I think he lifted the bike up off of us? I remember seeing Andy curled on the ground in front of me, and somehow I laid myself out face down in the middle of the road. Thankfully Dan was there to coax us up off the road out of danger.

After deciding we were scraped and banged up but no broken bones, we assessed the bike. The tire was trashed, and no dollar bill was going to allow us to boot it to get home. Dan headed home to get the car, and we sat around the scene of the "crime", despondent and depressed.

I had my celly on me so here is the photographic proof. Andy suggested I take photos of my wounds, which I obeyed and did. Funny that I now realize I took NO photos of him! Clearly I was a bit out of sorts.

that gash has got to be at least an inch in length. :-(

Kids, wear gloves. No matter how beautiful a day it is. I never want this to happen to my hands again.

my poor little arm. Shoulder is really sore, I think I strained it. Oh, and my sportsbra is also ruined. We won't talk about everywhere I got scrapes...

we dug a large piece of gravel out of my knee... :-( This is not my Iron Cross crash side, dagnubbit.

In the end I'm smiling! Well, kinda forced. But, all in all, I'm okay. As I go through this recap, I don't know why I didn't get any photos of Andy. silly me. He suggested the photo session i think as a way to keep my mind off things as we waited. And, no photo of Dan? Sheesh. So, here is as we watch Ronde van Vlanderen together, as I type this. :-)

Up next? Healing. Regrouping. Still riding, although probably no group rides till the hands heal. I'm not too phased - I just want the soreness to go away.

Happy easter everyone! This gave me a great excuse to pig out on the care package my mother-in-law sent. :-)

Saturday ride: lake lure

2010-03-24T13:32:00.002-04:00

The weather here is doing its usual March hijinks - cold and rainy one day, warm and happy another. Fortunately this past Saturday it was the latter.  

D-dubb and i took advantage of the blue skies to do a little 3.5 hour excursion to & around Lake Lure. We took this photo after Stopping to buy sunscreen.:) 

Sunday was a (very useful) skills clinic in Greensboro, Monday i took a rest day for the first time in forever, and Tuesday was a fast but furious group ride that told me my training is headed in the right direction. Yippee! 

Up next: commuting home 'the long way' today, time trial up elk mountain tomorrow (gee i hope i don't get schooled too badly!) And who knows what this weekend! 

It is so nice to not have to worry about studying. :)

Join us this Sunday for a Skills Clinic & Traiing Ride

2010-03-20T19:37:00.001-04:00

Join SpokesWomen Syndicate & Performance Bicycle Racing Team this Sunday, March 21st in Greensboro, NC 11am
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Join SpokesWomen Syndicate & Performance Bicycle Racing Team this Sunday, March 21st in Greensboro, NC 11am – 3pm for our first of three clinics FOR WOMEN
March 21—Greensboro, NC May 8 and September 19—Chapel Hill NC

Whether you're a seasoned rider looking to advance your current skills or a new cyclist who wants to try group rides or commuting to work, we'll help you better prepare for your cycling goals.

Schedule:
11 a.m. to 4 p.m , Brown Summit Middle School, 4720 NC Hwy. 150 E, Brown Summit, NC 27214
The Greensboro skills clinic and training ride will be led by Ashley Powell, of catup.com.

We'll Cover The Basics:
BicycleFit/Position • Safety • Pack Riding Skills • Cornering Communication on the bike

We'll also be going on a 15-20 mile group ride implementing pack-riding skills. Riding groups will be split based upon ability levels. Ability levels will be determined by a questionnaire provided at the time of registration. Please bring a 'skinny tired' road bike , helmet, shoes and cycling clothing.

Minimum participants: 10
Maximum participants: 6-8 women per coach
Cost: $40/person (portion of proceeds to go to World Bicycle Relief)

4:30 p.m. – 6 p.m. Performance Bicycle Greensboro store, 1424 Westover Terrace, Westover Gallery of Shops, Greensboro, NC 27408
After the ride, you're invited to shop with member of the Performance Bicycle Women's Racing Team and get expert advice from elite athletes on :

Clothing • The benefits of sports nutrition • Tools for training • Increasing your comfort while riding • Local group rides and races

The Greensboro skills clinic and training ride is a great opportunity to learn more about cycling and meet other women cyclists. We're looking forward to seeing you on Sunday.
Call Evie at 919.260.5078 for questions or email at evie@spokeswomensyndicate.com for registration information.


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Group ride wednesday!

2010-03-18T10:21:00.001-04:00

I ran away from work on wednesday to ride with 'the usual suspects', a group that's been meeting in some form or other for as long as we've lived here. Here we are about a half hour from done. I accidentally cut 'it doesn't get any better than this' john m out of the photo. :(

I never told you...

2010-03-11T12:28:00.003-05:00

I updated my facebook status about this, but not the bloggity blog. Not everyone who reads my blog is my facefriend, so, I give you this pictorial: It's official (as of 2/22/2010)!All hail my CPA-ness. ;-)

Laughs are good

2010-03-04T21:54:00.002-05:00

A short update, to let my mommy know I'm alive.

work has been kicking my arse lately and when it's not, I've been riding my bike.

Today I rode my bike on the indoor trainer watching this cool video called The Sufferfest. Actually, that's the name of their website and the video was called "Fight Club". A big thanks to my teammate Annie for the recommendation, I haven't been able to do a hard workout on the trainer in weeks and this did it for me - now my biggest wish is that women's racing could have that kind of coverage.

This particular video starts off with a cruiser bike stroll along bike paths in Europe somewhere (I'm sure I will be made fun of for not remembering which country) before turning on the afterburners and taking us into the 2009 road and time trial world championships for some time trialing and hill climbing interspersed with gunfire prompted attacks. Couple this with a backdrop of funky upbeat eurotechno and you have got yourself one hot mess. Literally, you'll be hot and a mess when you get off the trainer. But I sure felt great when I was done. I don't think I've ever been this excited about a bicycle video!

Go support these fun people and hook yourself up with one of their videos.

In other news, we had team camp last weekend. I. must. blog. about. this! Perhaps not in this post. But dang, there are some cool peoples on the squad. Change is often good, and I would hazard to say this will be a great move for me.

And, I was totally going to blog about something else tonight - I just remembered because I read the title of the post and said, "what the?" Marky mark finally updated his blog and it is fall out of your chair laughing good. The first paragraph sucked me in but the dog tail got me. So, go read some more. He even has pictures.

New Equipment

2010-02-21T07:53:00.003-05:00

NEW ATTITUDE:

I came to Chapel Hill this weekend (3.5 hr drive from Ashevegas). The underlying motivation of the visit was mainly to pick up my new bicicleta (Thank you Performance Bicycle and Spokeswomen Syndicate!), but it also served as a chance to spend quality time with Evie, Joe & Laura, the officers and founders of the new team.

I only knew Joe & Laura through the brief email interactions I've had with them getting the team's finances rolling, but clearly Joe felt like I could handle a bit of humor - that being the silly sticker on my new (super kick arse awesome) bike. In the spirit of Ted King, perhaps I will insert a "not" after the "I'm" on the sticker. More likely, it will have to come off. I can't really see the residents of Western North Carolina appreciating the subtle humor of the statement as they pass me on highway 70.

I can't wait for the andykins to set my bike up. The pound I will lose from the bike change will be much needed at team camp (next weekend). I also snagged some new shoes and a new helmet - woot!

The 2 hr 45 minute ride yesterday was absolutely arse kicking. It felt like i haven't been riding at all (which I have). I have a LOT of work to do to get back to fast. It seems a little daunting at present. "A little" might be an understatement. If I hadn't been surrounded by such good company and sunshine, with my own personal ride sherpa (thanks Joe!), I probably would have cried. So, lots of work to do. But I'm feeling optimistic about my ability to handle it, regardless. Still 5.5 months to get ready...

Snake Creek Gap #2, Tandumb Style

2010-02-14T20:17:00.002-05:00

Last weekend, February 6 to be exact, Andy and I chose to travel to Dalton, GA for the second installment of the 34 mile Snake Creek Gap mountain bike series. The weather in Asheville had been crap all week and the forecast was for more, so we decided to go to GA where the forecast was cold, not freezing, and it had been raining, not snowing.

Neither of us really felt like racing, so we chose to bring the tandem along for some 'fun' times. We picked up one of our cyclo cross travel buddies Nate Wyatt on the way out of town, and consequently spent most of the trip confused as to why we had mountain bikes and not cross bikes.

This 'race' was the most challenging thing we have ever tackled together on the tandem. Dry, we would have finished in a respectable time, in good spirits and without too many scrapes and bruises. Wet, ugh. We were slow, cold, exhausted, and made so many mistakes in the last hour I'm surprised I didn't break any bones - there were two very near misses.

All in all we spent 5 hrs 18 minutes on (or around) the bike...

And that was, unfortunately, the last time I was outside on the bike. It has been below freezing and snowy here, and the forecast is for more. I've been getting most of my hours in on the trainer watching Project Runway, Models of the Runway, Chuck, every cheesy teen movie known to man, but, enough is enough! My guess is the first time I ride outside again I'll forget how.

The cold, dead winter has numbed my brain and left me unable to write "for reals". So, I leave you with a happy valentine's day wish... i hope to get back on the blogging wagon soon.

New Year, New Beginnings

2010-01-21T21:44:00.002-05:00

Well, I know we're already 3 weeks in...

But, still. It's 2010, and all sorts o' new and happy things are clicking for the McApplegate family.

Firstly, I passed that last CPA exam I took in November. No more tests, yippee! I don't have the certificate in hand, just yet... but soon.

Next, well... too many other things to keep on listing. Andy's new job, mine (okay, been there a year, but every day it's new), new goals (Leadville!), new social groups (french club!), and even a new team.

Yup, after six seasons in the smurfy blue of bmw-bianchi... My goals no longer remotely fell in line with the team's. So, once my stable was almost entirely composed of (really dialed in) bianchi bikes... And almost every stitch of cycling clothing I own has the distiguished rondele on it... Snif. I had to move on. I was, and still am, very sad about it...

But it is natural that nothing ever stays the same, so how could I expect anything different? So, onward and upward. :-)

After making my decision, I wasn't looking for another team... my plan was to be stealth girl. But the vibrant whirlwind of life that is Evie swooped and swirled around me... And so I will be spending my 2010 season racing with the lovely ladies of the Spokeswomen Syndicate, aka Team Performance.

I have a long way to go to fitness... But the most awesome thing right now is that all I have to focus on right now is fitness and work, and I have an excellent support system that is going to help me make my goals a reality.

First race of the year: was on January 2, in 20 degree weather, on the mountain bike tandem.

Race # 2 is this weekend... again, mountain bike tandem. Southern Cross. Do you sense a theme?

Happy Birthday, Andy!

2010-01-14T08:50:00.000-05:00

Today is Andy's birthday and being the big boy that he is he couldn't wait until after work to get his prezzie.
I wrapped it expertly in a banker's box.

You can see a little bit of it as he flipped the lid off.

Yes, a new monster. El Monstero! Andy's design, my construction.

Cara & Andy's Leadville Discussion

2009-12-24T12:39:00.001-05:00

Andy and I are en route to his hometown in NJ at present. 2010 season
goals have been a big talking point on this drive. Now we're going to
do a he sYs she says session on going to race the leadville 100
mountain bike race on the tandem in August.

C: that's 100 miles off road, at altitude? Me no likey.

A: 90% of it is fireroads & pavement, which you like.

C: i'm over weight and out of shape.

A: do you plan to be over weight and out of shape in august?

C: I need help.

A: what better help than to have a new and different race goal?

C: how long do you think it will take us?

A: I think we can do it in 10 hours.

C: thT's a lot of chamois time.

A: that's a lot of time you'll be staring at my butt.

C: are you still trying to sell me on this?

My biggest beef about this is that I would miss my annual trip to MI
to do the Ore to Shore (although Andy has already researched another
race weekend in the marquette area, theoretically removing my
objection on that point)..

C: I've done an awful lot of races in an awful lot of places, but
never Leadville.

A: it's going to be crazy off the hook this year.

C: I guess if we can make it happen, let's do it!

Sent from my iPhone

When life snows you under....

2009-12-19T11:52:00.000-05:00

When life snows you under, make a snowman!

I hate white fluffy stuff. But this was fun!

Too Many

2009-12-17T22:41:00.000-05:00

Do you know what this is?

Three tandems.

In our living room.

We own them all.

I'm not even riding anymore! What is the boy thinking? :-)

We welcome to our family, the Black Fandango. Ginormous (29er), a cajillion pounds, born on 12/15/2009 to Cara & Andy at MTBTandems.com.

ABCs of Cycling

2009-12-15T20:54:00.002-05:00

I can hardly believe it has been two weeks since my exam!

I knew taking the last two within five weeks of each other was going to suck, but man am I glad I did it that way. I am finally starting to feel like I'm moving out of the haze I've been in for the last 6 mos or so. Whew!

Anyway, the day after my exam, I brought my bike to work, intending to take advantage of the sunny skies and not crazy cold weather during my lunch hour.

I made myself a bottle of gatorade, kitted up and yanked my bike out of the car without a second thought. It had been working fine on the trainer so I didn't think to check any of its mechanics.

Cyclocross jump onto the bike and away we go down the hill, whee! ....... Holy crap no brakes no brakes no brakes! Fred Fllintstone style braking followed by a sharp uturn up the hill and whew, I'm safe. No big deal, I'll fix the brakes and be on my way... but fate and my patience were against me, and I quickly and accidentally dismantled my brakes instead of repaired them. grrr. So I went back to the office and did what any not-so-rational girl would do, cry and blame my mechanic.

Next day: I'm back on the trainer because it's pouring rain. Internally I'm a little relieved as it means it doesn't matter if my brakes don't work (but Andy fixed them in 2 minutes anyway). I'm flipping channels, and stumble across public programming that shows two people standing in a driveway, talking about bike riding. "Before you ride, always remember your ABCs," the commuter instructor says. "A = Air" (yes, i usually check that) "B = Brakes" (d'oh!) and "C = Cranks/Chain" (nope, don't usually check that.)

So, the moral of this silly story: remember your ABCs. You never know when dragging your feet on the ground won't be enough.

Andy's life dream has been fulfilled

2009-12-12T10:03:00.000-05:00

Andy LOVES the wienermobile. On several occasions over the many years
we've been together we have been driving and he has excitedly reacted
to seeing the bright yellow & orange dream car traveling the opposite
direction.

Today, we know we were fated to go to our last race of the year,
though, for when we pulled into the shopping plaza fir breakfast, what
did we see?

Back to Riding!

2009-12-08T22:05:00.000-05:00

I must admit, it is probably going to take me a few weeks to remember how to really ride my bike. My first goal is to do something - anything, no matter how little - every day. In another week or so I'll start actually planning some workouts. I think.

In the meantime, I accompanied Andy to Bristol, TN this past Saturday (December 5) to have some fun in the snow, which by the time I raced the singlespeed in the mid-afternoon had become a muddy slog. I couldn't resist snapping this shot during the first race of the day. Bringing new meaning to "crop circle"!

BTW I totally got my arse handed to me. I did, however, look extremely fashionable, and I hope to have some photographic evidence soon to prove it. :-)

Done, for now?

2009-12-08T20:51:00.001-05:00

Last week, November 30th, to be exact, I took what I hope I hope I hope is my last CPA exam. With my workload becoming increasingly demanding, no exercise, and the constant feeling of being stretched to the breaking point, it couldn't have come a moment too soon.

I came out of that test feeling like I had passed! But I won't find out for another 5 weeks or more. Boo hoo hoo.

The silly NC CPA board kept me waiting week upon week for the result of my 3rd exam. Finally, finally this past Friday the silly news came in the mail. As they said at a previous employer, "good news fridays, bad news mondays." And, the news was good. I passed! Not as high a score as the first two (84 vs 94 & 88), but... don't care. Nope!

I had obstacles to my studying in front of me at every corner....

Now it's time to regroup and find my center. The first step is remembering how to train everyday! And, remembering how to write good blog posts. B0-ring!

SSWCXC09

2009-11-21T21:44:00.004-05:00

How to make such an awesome, epic adventure as my trip out to POrtland, OR at the beginning of this month as concise as possible?

Let D-dubb do the talking! Follow this link to read his "report" of numerous shenanigans we undertook on that trip.

I bought the ticket approximately one week before I had a mini meltdown and stopped training to race my bike. So, I went out there with ZERO fitness and ZERO expectations, excepting to have fun.

It was great to travel again, it was great to race, it was great to do a group ride with 50 insane singlespeeders drinking PBR in the 45 degree rain, it was great to reconnect with family, etc etc.

If you are a CX racer and you have never done a Cross Crusade series race, you are missing out. This was my 3rd trip to Portland for a cross race, and even without fitness, my sweetiemeow or my mandymeow I managed to have a blast, slipsliding in the mud and rain and oh yeah, beating d-dubb in the process. (okay, okay, i got to take the "shortcut" so I cut off about 10 or 30 seconds and caught up to him.) But, i definitely outskilled him. He'll even admit it!

I have tons of happy memories from this trip, and here are some:

staying up till almost midnight the night before my 4 a.m. wake up call to fly out there catching up with a dear friend
getting locked out of the townhouse we stayed in and hoofing it around Portland with a 50 pound bag rolling behind me. I flew all the way across the country to lunch at a Chipotle.
Early morning shake-out ride on the empty streets of industrial portland trying to figure out where we'd be going later that day
2.5 hour ride with nothing to eat or drink in the 45 degree rain, my longest ride in approximately 4 months or more
the gray, foggy, filtered light and gentle sound of rain sifting through green green trees filling my head and surrounding me as we rode the fire roads of Forest Park on the outskirts of Portland with 50 other crazy people
getting a free pair of argyle socks just for participating in that silly ride - feeling special that the promoters remembered i had been out there
super cool bike-art exhibit/pre-race party in down town portland
the noise, the excitement, the silliness of the SSWCXC 09 race
walking by the men as we walked to the women's line up to start the race, feeling like we were running some kind of gauntlet staffed by mad max's henchmen
catching d-dubb in the first 100 meters of the race, out-skilling him with my awesome "awakened" mud skills
DRUM CORPS!
heckling a guy dressed up like 16 yr old britney spears to ride a muddy run up and then almost peeing myself when he endoed spectacularly in the mud, uphill
costumes, costumes, costumes!
d-dubb's wife diana's cheery nature and williness to document the adventure with photos!
reconnecting with my cousin after many years, and spending some time with her beautiful family
Most amusing: with no fitness or training, i wound up 8th out of 38! wow.

Lots of things I didn't do, lots of people I didn't get to talk to. There will be another time, but I don't know when. I do know, I want to race my bike again, and soon.

But, before then, I have 8 days of studying to get out of the way and hopefully one last pesky exam. We shall see.

Photos are here:

Single Speed CX World Champs 2009

Sometimes, spellcheck isn't enough

2009-11-21T21:21:00.002-05:00

I intend to blog about Portland momentarily.

But, I need to share this tidbit, it's too good not to!

Sometimes, I get email forwards from people that talk about "real-life" situations that are almost too funny to be true, and I wonder... "is that made up?" I swear, this is not made up!

I have been screening resumes at my job for a few weeks now, and yesterday I received another one via email. I skimmed the cover letter and almost fell out of my chair after reading the second sentence:

Due to the economic conditions, my employer is down-sizing and after 21 years I am being laid.

Holy. Crap.

I felt obliged to let her know about her tiny omission - but I found it hard to believe her claim on her resume that she had a "keen attention to detail." Really?

Mud Bath in Boone

2009-11-07T21:27:00.005-05:00

Last weekend, against my better judgment, really, I went with Andy to a cyclo-cross race just outside of Boone, NC. I had ridden my bike 3 times in the previous three weeks but hey – the forecast called for a muddy fun course and I thought it would be fun to remember how to drive my bike through some of that stuff.

It was a foggy, damp, gray day, and the race, swirling up and down an abandoned golf course, was a hilly, muddy, and challenging feat. By the time the first minute of the race had passed, i had already lost at least 20 seconds to the leader (Beth!). I was well out of contention the entire time, and my body seemed to have limited me at about a 75% effort. But I had fun. AND, I did not break my bike. I had a huge smile on my face pretty much the whole race. All in all a good day.

My favorite moment was on the last lap of my race. A cat 3 guy (they started about 1 minute ahead of us) lapped me and then promptly broke his rear derailleur. He coasted the downhills, ran like a demon on the other parts, and on the last downhill descended so fast and with such disregard for his safety that I about had a heart attack on his behalf. We got down to the bottom, he lost momentum, and was sprinting as fast as I was riding to the finish. Guess you had to be there, but mass props to him. He just barely stayed ahead of two guys chasing him.

Afterwards I pitted for Andy, using a freakin’ mud puddle to clean his bike off in a pit the size of a teaspoon. No hose, no space in the pit…. Thank GOODNESS Will Bolt of the Bolt Brothers was there and graciously allowed me to borrow his super nice brushes. Nice people are all around you, sometimes you just gotta ask...

It was super fun to see people I haven’t seen all year and extremely refreshing to not give a flying foopy about my result. Matter of fact, I gave up two spots in the last lap just to let those riders have series points. There is clearly some competitive instinct left in me because I felt the need to announce that, but… am looking forward to 2010 when I will have my cpa exam behind me and will be able to once again focus on world domination!

Really I just wrote this post so I could share this photo my buddy D-dubb took. I love it!

3 down, I hope?

2009-10-26T21:51:00.001-04:00

Today, I took test #3 of that blasted CPA exam (Regulation, for those in the know). Where did the last 5 weeks go? I don't know. Funny that a measly little 3 hour exam can suck your life, nay, your soul, right out of you. Well, me, anyway.

And as I stayed inside, day after day studying and not taking care of my body or mind, somewhere along the way Mother Nature worked her magic and summer gave way to Fall, and here we are at the height of leaf season. And me, silly girl, head stuck in books or wasting time on the interweb.

Andy got sick - really sick - about 3 weeks ago, and I had a Very Stressful Event that sent me over the edge as well. As often does with me, I stayed off the bike for longer than my body really needed, hiding behind the excuses of "not racing" and "need to study" to keep me in my self-imposed exile. I can't say I was any more productive by robbing myself of endorphin producing exercise.

Yesterday, finally, FINALLY I got out. Not for long, but long enough to appreciate the view coming up old 70. Still my most favorite climb. Makes me realize how freakin' lucky I am!

I didn't feel too good about that test today. But, all I need is a 75. I don't find out for another month. (!) Keep your fingers crossed? And only one more to go, if I passed.

Next up: I am going to Portland for some bike racing fun! I am going to suck. You can't undue 3 weeks of no riding in 11 days. I don't care! I think I will add some bling to my uni. Bejeweler, anyone?

Cara is an idiot

2009-10-10T22:06:00.003-04:00

I used to be so good at making sure every little i was dotted, every little t crossed.

Now, it appears, I almost let "something big" slip. I know the saying goes "almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades", but really, this has taken me straight to the edge. I am glad Andy is on his trip to Iron Cross so he didn't have to hear me silently implode when I realized what a huge blunder I had made.

My CPA exam section? That I scheduled for this coming Friday, the 16th? That I felt really confident about because I was able to review the material a second time which hadn't happened on the last two sections? Uh, yeah. I didn't realize the review program was divided into two segments and I had only done one. 20+ hours of tape and 14 chapters completely unseen by me.

Do. Not. Panic.

I was willing to suck up the reschedule fee on this one - there is no way I could have gotten all that done in a week AND worked 50 hrs as I have been AND maybe exercise a day or two. No way.

I should feel like a failure, but... mostly I just am glad I could reschedule. It should be funny to me. Mostly it's just annoying. AAAAGH!!!

I really want this done. I want to be a pathetic veggie garden growin', bike racin' fool again. But in the meantime, I guess I'll gets my learninz dun.

It seems as this image, drawn by my bro more than a decade ago, still holds true for me.

I agree with Stephen Colbert

2009-10-03T19:30:00.006-04:00

You know, I have tried to stay away from politics on this bloggity blog. As my missives were originally written only for my little mommy, and she and I differ drastically on matters of politics, I feel like it's important to not offend, even if I am always right. ALWAYS.

But, I think, in this one occasion, maybe just maybe it's okay to diverge.

Why, Cara, why do you agree with Stephen Colbert, and on what?

Bears.

That's right, one of the major threats to America: Bears.

What has brought me to this incredible conclusion?

Last weekend, 9/19 to be exact, I was standing upstairs (where we sleep) and did my usual first thing in the morning check out the window to admire the gleaming white boxes that house our bees. What did I see?

Something kinda sorta like this (minus the beekeeper!)

WAH! It appeared that a bear, or perhaps a ManBearPig, or maybe even a BearShark, came through in the night and tried to rob these little ladies of their precious food.

We had to get out there prontissimo and try to evaluate the damage and put them back together as best we could. Funny thing was, the hive was really only turned over and not much physical damage was evident to the naked eye, other than some smooshed comb in the honey super (that's the smaller box on top).

The bees had already adapted to their upside down home by the time we got out there and didn't like us trying to fix the boxes. Even using the smoker Andy got attacked, and I don't know if we moved too slow or what but by the time we started putting the honey super back on he was getting stung in every exposed area he didn't know he had... So I jumped in and tried to patch everything up and I received my first ever bee sting from my hives. :-( We were both so rattled we put the top cover back on without putting all the frames in.

Perhaps rather foolishly I tried to calm them down by spraying them with sugar water, and this is the result after we both ran away from the defending bees. We could only hope that the queen was safe and sound in there and was not crushed by the bear attack or our re-alignment of the hive body (the big box).

Another revelation in doing this (as it's been raining so much here we haven't been able to inspect the hives lately) was that our bees don't have enough food to get them through the winter (if they survive this stupid attack, anyway!) So, we need to start feeding them prontissimo with sugar water. There wasn't really any honey for the bear to get, so (s)he knocked it over and went on, I suppose.

Ironically enough, the most recent Buncombe County Beekeeping Chapter meeting's presentation was about how to build a bear fence. Did I jinx it by saying to myself, in my head "this doesn't apply to me"? Meh. If I had time, I would have spent all day today building a bear fence. But instead I spent 5 hours studying.

Sadly, the bear came back yesterday and did the same thing. Part of me wonders if it's neighborhood kids and not a bear, because the body was just knocked over and didn't look tampered with at all. According to experienced Beekeepers, when a bear comes through, it usually tears the hives apart. And why wasn't the second hive bothered?

Both Andy & I were dressed for work and eating breakfast when we saw it. Not exactly how I wanted to start a busy Friday - getting attacked by angry bees (that I accidentally woke up before we could put their box back on the cinderblocks). Ugh!

Now we've put cinder blocks on top of both hives and hopefully we'll find some time to get going on a bear fence within the week - if it's not too late already.

I suck at beekeeping!

But I'll probably stick with it...