2008 Firsts

2008 was a year full of firsts for me. I'll share a few of them:

• Cabo - swimming in jellyfish, climbing onto a rock to escape said jellyfish, while several people twice my age came back to rescue Brian and I, while explaining "You're going nowhere on the rock" and "the jellyfish aren't that bad". (In my defense they were awful!)
• Yoga - I now know 1 yoga word and its corresponding pose. Otherwise I am lost.
• Bike - topping 300 miles / week and not being 100% destroyed by this.
• Health - got a little injured, got better, I am grateful. Big thanks to Dan the Man (shown below in his usual dapper attire) for all his ART work!
• Alcatraz Swim - I am strong enough to make it to shore without getting swept out to sea.
• Heart Rate - I have one, and willing and wishing it higher during a workout does not work, trust me, I have tried.
• Music - Coachella rocks, especially Sia.
• New trails - pure running bliss. Oh, and I'm still very allergic to poison oak.
• Bike Commuting - it's fun and doable.
• Listening - the training plan does not work if I can't listen to my body and determine if it's capable of going hard on that specific day.
• Friends - they mean the world to me and made 2008 so superbly wonderful. Thank you!!
  

A Happy Christmas

Christmas was great this year. My grandma came all the way from MI, along with my aunt from Canada. And Grandma came stocked with homemade cookies. Ginger snaps, peanut butter kiss cookies, mint chocolate crackles, I am in heaven!  She's staying all week and promised to bake more with me so I can share them with the boys on my long ride next weekend.

Apparently my Mom loves rock band. This is my cousin and I rockin out on Christmas Eve, while Steven teaches my mom to play drums. She was actually pretty good!

Grandma thought she might be interested in playing as well, but wanted to try out the fit of the guitar first. Did I mention she is 94? Oh yeah, I hope I got those genes!!

All the excitement of presents, watching A Christmas Story, rock band and the sugar rush of Grandma's homemade cookies did in Tiptoe and Steven.

Calm Before the Storm

On my ride this morning, the calm before the storm.

Merry Christmas!!

The Rocky Relationship

I had a date with my trainer this morning. I may have mentioned my love/hate relationship with my trainer (mostly hate). I live in a place where you can bike outside year-round, so why would I want to ride a trainer?! This morning it was purely because it's dark outside at 5am and work calls during daylight hours.

Even so, I thought a list of the things I love (followed by hate) might be appropriate today.

The nothing but twu LOVE (to be read in the voice from the Princess Bride) list:

1. When the weather outside is frightful, my trainer's so delightful . . . this actually worked when I lived where it snowed.
   
2. Cold rain, monsoons, hurricanes, typhoons (this works about 3x / year).
3. Darkness - I can not seem to find anything safe about training outdoors in the dark.
4. It's good for the occasional catch-up of everything on the DVR, but only for easy workouts. Anything else and I can't concentrate on the TV because I'm trying so dang hard to get my heart rate up (see #6 on the HATE list . . .)

Not so much love (aka HATE) list:

1. The trainer takes me nowhere - bicycles were invented to take you somewhere, "Oh the Place's You'll Go!" to quote my favorite author. No changing scenery on my trainer!
2. No fresh air blowing in my face - an electric fan plugged into the wall doesn't cut it.
3. There is no screaming downhill at white-knuckle clenching speeds (for the boys I ride with - stop laughing because you think I descend like a girl - this is how it is in my mind!)
4. If I'm going to work as hard as I do to get my heart rate as high as coach wants, I at least want to be flying down the road while my legs are screaming "stopit, stopit, stopit!"
5. After you "climb" there is no satisfaction of seeing what is on the other side. You're still in exactly the same boring trainer location you started, staring at the same boring wall, TV, couch, whatever.
6. My heart rate does not work on the trainer - seriously, it's like pulling teeth to get my HR up at all. Funny, because if you put me in the great outdoors with a few guys in Swami's or CowboySteve.com outfits to chase I seem to have no trouble red-lining the dumb thing!
   

I think Tiptoe enjoys my trainer workouts though - we get to spend some quality time together.

Does resting mix with XMAS Shopping?

This rainy day is a rest day and after a weekend of multiple parties, bike rides and runs I am ready for it. So today is a whole day of no swim, bike, run or heart-rate monitor attached to me.

Being that there are only two days left until Christmas I thought it a perfect day to begin my shopping! My grandma arrives tomorrow from Michigan. I have ZERO gifts to give anyone yet. Oh, and Christmas dinner is at our house. I can get this solved on my lunch break, right?!

I should have eaten a Cliff bar before heading out . . .

I stopped to get coffee, because really, can anything make crazy Christmas shopping crowds any more exciting?! I walked through sideways rain to get into the store, only to discover no shopping carts and two ladies having a purse-punching fight over a cart. It was impressive and I was slightly frightened!

I quickly decided I did NOT need a cart!

As I piled various gifts into my arms and wandered the store aimlessly, I noticed some perfect gloves for running and added them to the pile. And then I found a trash can for my recycled paper at work. And peanut butter chocolates, 'ohhhh, I need those!' I quickly realized I was purchasing more for myself than for others. Dangit, shopping trip is quickly digressing!

My toe got run over by a man pushing a large cart full of toys. He did not notice. But really, someone with that many children, or someone who purchases that many gifts for one child is probably frazzled enough and allowed to miss the girl in the blue rain coat with too much stuff in her hands.

An hour later I exited the store, with multiple gifts, a perfect one for my grandma, and the feeling I had just completed an excellent arm strength/endurance workout.

Here are my last minute shopping observations:

1. Sales are better 2 days before Christmas, but the crazy people you will encounter may offset this benefit.
   
2. The Internet rocks and all shopping should be done with this medium, ALWAYS!
3. Shopping carts are over-rated.
4. Since I never go shopping, last-minute Christmas shopping has the danger of turning into more of a personal shopping expedition.
   
5. Shopping is more of a workout than I remembered and should not be done on a rest day!

Cramming and Birthdays

I used to think the ability to cram as much as possible into the shortest amount of time was such a great thing! I am starting to think it's a bit of a curse. Yesterday was another marathon day. I thought the weekends were supposed to be relaxing! Don't get me wrong, it was all fun, and I chose to do all of it - there was no forced participation. 

The day started with a 6:30am bike start, 36 degrees. Thanks to Shannon, the Mikes and Marit for helping me keep my constantly-wanting-to-drop heart rate up where it should have been! The hours flew by, my heart rate cooperated and it was a simply beautiful way to begin the day. Rushed home, rushed to church, ran home from church (literally - it was the only way to fit my run in), rushed to a friend's open house, and then to a Brian's birthday party. Somewhere in that mess I forgot to eat lunch. Any of you who know me well, know this is a dangerous time to be around me. I am a very happy person as long as I am not (a) hungry (b) thirsty or (c) tired. Any of the above mentioned and just steer clear!

The party was great - Roo and Jesse learned to play poker and then subsequently lost all their poker chips.

For some reason we thought Allan was recovered enough from last weekend's bike crash to stick him smack in the front and center of our birthday party group photo. Actually, he's doing great and plays poker really well while on Vicodin!

Birthday boy front and center - not sure why I'm the only one with a birthday hat on . . .

Jesse's birthday is next week and I'm going to miss it! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSE!!!

In lieu of a birthday cake we made a smiley face out of Kin'dra's home-made cookies and whipped cream, forgetting that when you tip the plate everything slides a bit! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIAN!!!

Dear Santa . . .

What bike-commuting girl doesn't need one of these?! HELLLLLLO fun! A nice fixed gear to make me strong (or embarrassed when I realize I can't climb the hill by my office in one gear and have to walk this beauty up.) And could the cup holder be any better? Upright to keep my java from spilling all over! I could have used those rain fenders the last few days during our most recent monsoon. . .
I ended up taking a 2-day break from bike-commuting due to our rain storm. Anywhere else in the US and every TV station would not have referred to it as "Winter Storm Warning" or "The storm of the century", etc. Granted, we did have a lot of flooding and since it hardly ever rains here it also means most people in CA have no clue that you should slow down when driving in rain.

This morning it was still wet out, but not raining, so at 5:30am I hopped on my bike in the dark, cold 40 degree weather (I know, more violins are needed) to ride to the pool. I missed the bike commuting and on the way to work the view was absolutely spectacular: huge puffy white clouds, snow-covered mountains in the background and wet, green hills. Everything had that crisp, clean look and for some reason I just don't think I would have gotten a full appreciation for it had I not been zipping downhill with the cold wind in my face.

Whheeeeee!!

If it somehow has not yet become apparent from my previous blog posts, I'm kind of like a little kid playing grown up. Sure, I have a job and own a house and do grown-up "serious" things, but training for triathlon, riding my bike, and all the other fun things I blog about are what I really love about my life. I feel really lucky to have the time, physical ability and friends who enjoy these crazy adventures as much as I do.  And I feel very happy to have Steven - the husband who will hop on swing with me at the beach, travel all over the US to triathlons and do more loads of laundry than I ever do because I'm always out riding my bike. I am grateful for many things, but happiness tops the list today.

Santa's Transportation

In my world I always thought Santa rode a bike. How else can you explain why some people get to open gifts on Christmas Eve and others on Christmas Day?! 

Yesterday driving north on I-5 from San Diego I saw Santa driving a Saturn. Shocking!!! I even captured photographic evidence.

Apparently in Germany Santa delivers mail on a bicycle.  This image was captured in Himmelpfort, Germany (near Berlin). The German postal service ensures that over 270,000 letters from children to Santa are answered each Christmas. Now this is more like it, I might have to move to Germany . . . 

Rain, Pain and Trains

This weekend southern CA got its first winter storm. I got to ride and run in some chilly rain showers. (I know, I know, all you Canadian, Michigander and New Englanders can pull out your violins in unison.) It was actually a fun day of training. I tried to capture a picture of the angry ocean, but it probably just looks tropical because there are palm trees in it.

Our friend Allan rode Saturday as well. He made it 65 miles screaming down mountains in the rain, only to get home, ride up on the sidewalk at 3mph, get his wheel caught in a manhole and flip over his handlebars, landing on the sidewalk face-first. We're working on an award for "the most crazy accident." He now has 18 stitches in his lip, a black eye and a broken rib. 

Some funny notes from the accident. When asked his age right after he had regained consciousness, Allan said "uh, I don't know, 40-something." Our friend Mike decided this was a fair answer since after 40 everyone tries to forget their exact age anyway.

Once at the hospital the nurse attempted to put an IV in Allan's arm.

Nurse #1 to Nurse #2: Can you help me out there? This guy has tricky veins!

Allan to Nurse #1: Oh, I'm an Ironman.

Nurse #2: Oh I never saw that movie but I heard it was funny.

Allan has no recollection of this conversation, thankfully Mike was there to witness it so it can be recounted at many future parties. All joking aside though, we are really grateful Allan is going to be ok and wish him a very speedy recovery!!

And finally, what weekend is complete without a visit to the San Diego Train Show? Steven is somewhat of a model train enthusiast. Hence our yearly visit the model train show. Thankfully he isn't over-the-top into model railroading - meaning he does not dress up in overalls and an engineer hat. And some of the trains, scenery and buildings are actually really cool!

Simplicity

The ability to get to/from work, the pool, etc. all with my own 2 legs is really somewhat exhilarating. I have found I look forward to my commute home from work. Everyone has Christmas lights up and the crisp cold wind in my face that causes my eyes to water each night as I zoom down the hill I work on makes it seem a bit more festive. (I still somewhat have issue with the fact that it never seems to really feel like Christmas in Cali - this is what growing up in Chicago with a sometimes white but always cold Christmas did for me.)

I love this illustration - thanks to Nick Dewar for letting me share it!

42° of Fun!

For those of you who think California is a warm paradise at all times, this post is for you. It was 42° when I got up to ride this morning and I had 1.5 hours of biking on my training schedule.

Being that I have a love/hate relationship with my trainer (mostly hate), I scrounged around in the garage to find my gloves, promising myself that the ride would end at a coffee house.

I have mentioned before that my clothes never seem to match when I ride (or run). I was not lying. I'm quite sure these gloves came straight from 1986. They say "STORM" near the index finger. Therefore, I call them my storm trooper gloves. I do not care that they do not match - they keep me warm.

It's amazing how sometimes the coldest, windiest mornings by the coast are often some of the most beautiful. I made it up to the harbor and was entertained by about 10 seals. Half of them were all in a group in the middle of the harbor huddled together (I think they were cold too), while a few others kept popping their heads out of the water. This picture isn't that great, but the seals are in the center.And I thought it was cold riding my bike on the coast - check out the guys that actually got into the water to surf this morning. I know, I know, they wear wetsuits, but it is still cold!

My ride ended at work, but not without a stop for coffee. I find it fitting that my car has 2 cupholders, none of which are large enough for my travel mug. My bike has 2 holders that hold it perfectly.

Happy 4-0 Mark!!

This is our good friend Mark. The BIG 4-0 happened this past week.

His lovely wife Indira organized a Vegas party. The pictures will tell you the rest of the story, but I'll just add that is was an epic party.

The number of times I received the comment "Charisa, you have a dress on?!" was high. It's a fair comment since 99% of the time we hang out with these people in sweaty spandex, but perhaps we need to branch out from triathlon a little more often.

Roulette was the only game I could make any money on last night . . . Mark owned the table though.

After the tables were closed the dancing started. It looks more like a group hug, but I swear we were really dancing.

Brian thinks he just won something here!  

And some REAL dancing!!!

This hot guy agreed to be my date . . . I am one lucky girl!

I've probably said it before, but it is always worth saying again. I think I have the best friends in the world!

Thanks for an awesome Vegas party Mark! And may your 40s be even better than your 30s!

2 lefts then a fireball . . .

I get asked a lot what Steven does when I'm on my long rides. "Oh, he sits at home longingly waiting for my return. Sometimes cooking amazing meals for me since I come home super hungry!" Or something like that . . .

Golfing, surfing, crossword puzzles, running, yard work, the list goes on. It's probably easier if I just show some pictures.


If this picture had audio you would hear "Two lefts, then the fireball! No, no, you have to do the two lefts first, then the fireball. Ohhhhhhhhhhh Dude, I just killed you!"

What you can't tell from the picture is that Steven is multi-tasking. He is on the phone AND killing his twin brother at the same time.

His brother lives up north, but thanks to Playstation technology, they can play Street Fighter together whenever they want. This also keeps me from having to play Street Fighter with him. Not that I couldn't, or wouldn't be good at it (well, actually I'm pretty sure I'd suck at it), but I'm somewhat competitive though and it might not be good for our marraige.

Cannonball!

I'm jumping back in. Base training started today.
I'm hoping to keep up with the bike-commuting as well.