Nick and I are about to walk out the door - to the airport - for a week’s vacaction in Amsterdam with Jessica. Our adventure has its own website and will be documented by all three of us throughout the week. Follow us here:
Shania had another doctor appointment yesterday and this time it was all good news! The stitches came out, and the incision is all healed up. Her ear infections, in both ears, are COMPLETELY GONE - I don’t think she’s ever been 100% ear infection free since we’ve had her. That is HUGE. I’m hoping the regimine of Benedryl/Claritin will keep them from coming back. Now that I know she will eat them if I drop them in her food, it’ll be much easier to keep the regimine going. And today I got a call from the doctor with the results of her urinalysis - there is no sign of infection.
So, she’s got some antibiotics to finish and then she needs to go for another urinalysis a week after that - just to be sure its gone for good.
Jon says she’s been chasing Chilli around the yard faster than usual lately and she’s been really snuggly and happy for the past few weeks. She hasn’t had a single ‘accident’ in the house since I brought her home from surgery. Good news all around.
When the race hoop-lah is all over, we’ll be on vacation in Vegas. In fact, we’ve already alerted our race volunteer staff that no matter what, we’re driving away from the park at 5:00 because we have an 8:00 flight on Sunday.
I’ve never flown on Spirit, and DTW has just opened a brand new terminal that Spirit flys out of, so hopefully things will go smoothly. If we get out of Addison on time, we should have plenty of breathing room for whatever may happen. Nick’s plan is to get to the airport early enough to allow for sitting in the bar and drinking a couple of beers before boarding. I’m looking forward to sitting listening to my audiobook while knitting sock #2 of the pair I was working on for my mom’s birthday (its only going to be 2 months late). I’m working on the “leg” part of the sock which requires no thinking what-so-ever and is just really mentally relaxing to work on. Its actually my favorite part about knitting socks - I sense really tall socks in my future 
I think we decied that we’re going to rent a car for the first couple of days of our Vegas trip. The swanky place where we’re staying has free valet parking, and cars are pretty cheap to rent in Vegas. I doubt we’ll get ot to Boulder City for the dirt demo on Monday, but on Tuesday we plan to head there and also visit the yummmy yummmy brewery in town that day. We’re thinking a convertible is in order for this trip, wouldn’t you agree?
I’m really looking forward to staying at the swanky condo for a week. I’m sure we’ll sit through the time-share presentation (again), thinking (again) that this is a great idea and it would make sense, since we go to Vegas every year anyway. And then, by the time we’re riding the plane home on Saturday we’ll come to our senses and realize that renting your vacation is really not that bad - and getting an additional mortgage for $20k+ is just not in our life plan. But, I have to say - it is very compelling when you get all the benefits of the Marriott vacation club on top of the wonderful Vegas condo.
In other news - Shania had a visit with the doctor yesterday to check the progress of her ears. He was really surprised to see how good she’s doing - the incision is healing up very well and there’s hardly any ‘debris’ from the ear infections (black goop that come out of her ear holes). She hasn’t had an accident in the house a single time since we brought her home last week which tells us that the antibiotics are working for the bladder infection (thank god - if not, it would have been another $300 in tests).
Oh .. and one more thing - my “local food fairy” brought us some Fat Tire from her Colorado galavants. Kristi and Erik took a 2 week vacation, driving out west and riding bikes. *JEALOUS* :D Thanks Kristi, we cracked the 6pack last night and it was mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (FYI - Kristi also brought is 2 dozen Jean Kay’s pasties from Marquette in August .. she’s the greatest).
Ok .. really one more thing - I just heard that our friend Ali will be in Vegas next week too. I haven’t seen Ali since she moved to Cali (she’s already since then moved to NY) so I hope we can run in to each other. Ali - look for the girl who looks like me, hanging out with the guy who looks like Nick
Friday was an interesting ballet of running around. Mike and I had decided to swap trucks in the morning so that I could pick up his giant movie screen from Trails Edge (where its been for a year). He’s been thinking of setting it up somplace at the Addison Oaks race to play some MTB movies during the day. The screen is super long, and his truck has a bigger bed than ours (and certainly longer than the jeep). Also, I was going to be picking up cones, stakes and other trail marking materials from the Sherp that the Metro South chapter is letting us borrow for the race. Mike has graciously offered to house that stuff until race day.
So, I left a little early for work on Friday and stopped in Oak Park on the way. Its a quick little jaunt off the expressway, but hardly out of my way at all. We swapped keys, and I drove away in his big truck. Around noon-thrity, I drove from work out to Trails Edge to drop off Bob’s destroyed wheel, pick up the screen, marking stuff and a bike for Bill to try out over the weekend and went back to work. After work, I drove to Mike’s place to get my jeep back, then by Bill’s place to drop off the bike and then finally I made my way home. By then, it was raining pretty hard.
We ordered pizza and watched TV for the night - it was a long busy week, and we needed some chill time.
Saturday, we were planning on meeting Steve at Addison to talk about the kids race and some other logistics. Nick and Mike also had to meet with another TC to talk about some business. It was pouring rain when we got to Mike’s place a little before 11 and raining even harder while we were walking around at the park. We got pretty soaked in the hour or so we were out there. Once home, we commenced with the LWM (lazy weekend mode) - watching movies and chilling on the couch. Nick even napped on the couch for a couple of hours in the evening while the PASTIES were cooking (I listened to music and knitted).
By sunday AM, cabin fever had grabbed hold and I was ready for some fresh air. Since it wasn’t raining, and just gloomy, we decided to grab the bikes and head out for a ride. We rode for a little over an hour, got a little over 10 miles in and brought home lunch from Jimmy Johns. A slight burst of motivation got me to clean up the bedroom a bit, deciding to throw away Shanias dirty and disgusting (several year old) dog bed and replace it with something that was completely washable (with the old one, we could only wash the cover). So, we went out to run some errands and made it back just as the heavy rain started to fall.
After that - it was back to LWM for the remainder of the evening. I’d found a frozen lasagna in the freezer and called that dinner.
Overall - not a bad weekend .. I just wish I could have ridden my bike a bit more. But, what can you do when you depend on Ma Nature?
As panicked as I was earlier this week, I’m much more relaxed now.
The Addison Oaks fiasco
Lots of things have happened this week and we are much more on track than we were this time last week. Awards have been ordered (and are going to be awesome!), insurance has been purchased, start/finish line setup is covered (thanks to OCP), the kids race is covered (thanks to Mike and Steve), the beer has been finalized (thanks Tom and Chris) and neutral race support has been secured (thanks TJ).
We’re heading out tomorrow to meet Steve and talk about the kids race. I hope to ride the course to scope where we need to mark and where we need to place course marshalls.
The Merchandise headache
I’ve filled all outstanding merchandise orders and haven’t received anything new since. YAY!
The crumbling homefront
Shania is back home and doing very well. She’s got a shaved ear and a very neat incision to be cared for. Her ears are still very swollen with infection, but I’ve been giving her all kinds of different ear drops and medications - hopefully we’ll see that swelling go down over the next few days. I also had them test for UTI and/or intestinal problems while she was under anesthesia. Turns out, she’s got a pretty severe UTI which has probably been causing all of the indoor poo/pee problems we’ve been having. She seems to be responding well to the antibiotics prescribed, which is good. She’s happy and spunky, just like normal.
We’ve got a follow up with the doc next week.
The Trails Edge saga
Not much new on this front, but I’m still banking on getting the sponsorship proposal updated before we go to vegas. We’ll see how that goes.
In other news - I’ve finally booked tickets for our Vegas trip. We’re leaving on race-day, flight is at 8:00 pm. We’ll most likely be leaving right from Addison to go to the airport. Luckily, I paid extra to secure a couple of exit row seats, so we’ll have plenty of room to stretch out and sleep. I think Karma came through for me on this too - when I looked at flights on Monday, the price had gone down below $300 (it’d been sitting at $354 for the past couple of months), but I wanted to wait until I knew how much Shania was going to cost before I made the purchase. On Tuesday, I didn’t get a chance to get to the bank to make the deposit that I needed to make in order to purchase tickets - the price had gone back up to $354. On Wednesday, I finally was ready to make the purchase and got tickets for just over $300 (but, add in $60 for luggage and another $60 for seat assignments). And, it was really perfect timing because - Thursday the price went up to $419, and today I saw the price went up to $489 (I get daily alerts from Kayak). Wow - talk about getting it right. Heh.
Generally speaking, I’m not one to dine alone. Most often, lunch is eaten at my desk while surfing the web, on a conference call, or just otherwise working.
Today, however, I needed a change of scenery and decided to dine-in @ my favorite medeterranian restaurant - la marsa. They’ve just finished a big expansion/remodelling project and the place looks great!
Lunch looks even better tho …
she sleeps
Poor Shania is in the hospital again. She had a hematoma on her ear and the only fix for that is surgery.
I left her at the doctors office last night and will pick her up tomorrow with stitches and a good dose of pain medicine. I’ll be following up with a variety of different ear drops and other mumbo jumbo.
This doctors office is full of people who just love animals. They really pay a lot of attention to Shania and give her all kinds of love and attention. I feel really comfortable leaving her there as I know she’ll get lots of petting and sweet talk. She’ll be well taken care of.
Shania has the sweetest and most loving face I’ve ever seen on a dog. She always looks at you (ie - anyone) as if you’re her favorite human to ever touch her. She really makes you feel loved and needed. It’ll be tough, that day when her age finally wins out.
It felt like I might have been making a blogging comeback with my super-formatted and intelligent post about the Maybury race. And then I disappeared again. Such is .. me 
I’ve got a few irons in the fire and its getting a little tough to keep them all straight.
The biggest - Addison Oaks Fall XC Race - September 21, 2008
The Metro North chapter of the MMBA is promoting the Addison Oaks Fall XC race this year. This stands to be a major chapter fundraiser. Our chapter has never done anything like this before, and I certainly haven’t either. There’s a really small group of us organizing things and its starting to get a little stressful. There’s too many loose ends and so much that we don’t even know that we’re missing.
Not so big, but still taking brainpower - MMBA merchandise
Earlier this summer, we opened a new MMBA online store. We implemened X-Cart software and designed it up. Its a really great tool - and people are using it. This means I have things to send out, often. Its been relatively slow lately, but I just haven’t been able to stay on top of it very well.
In addition to the store, I’ve been to a few races this year .. the races themselves take a whole day, and then I have to sort the money and memberships and get those to the right people. I just finished gathering and separating and processing everything from the Maybury race that was a couple of weeks ago. Luckily, that one was easy as we didn’t sell much
On the homefront - dogs and things
I just noticed yesterday that our oldest dog, Shania, has a hematoma on her ear. This is not a new thing - this will be the third time since we’ve had her (~5 years). She gets ear infections and shakes her head. This breaks blood vessels in her ears. It takes surgery to repair. Looks like I’ll be calling the vet today.
Aside from that, she’s just been getting old. She hasn’t been very good about holding her poo and we’ve been cleaning up stinky piles from her cage and from the living room rug (she does this at night when we’re sleeping and we get to find it in the morning when we wake up - I don’t recommend this as a replacement for coffee). So, my first thought was to have someone come over during the day and let them out so that she’s not stuck in the cage all day. But, even with Jon coming by for 15 minutes between noon and one, she was still leaving presents in the cage before 5 when we get home, or she’d have a present waiting for Jon when he came by.
We decided to start leaving them outside in the AM and have Jon put them inside if the weather is bad in the afternoon - if the weather looks good, he just comes by and gives them love and exercise and leaves them outside. Its been better for cleaning up the poo, but might have escalated the ear infection/head shaking that caused the hematoma - but its just a guess and I have no basis to back this theory up.
All I know is, I’m tired of cleaning up poo. And I hope to god that this hematoma will be cleanly fixed with a simple surgery. Last time, it was months of follow up as the thing didn’t heal and the infections ran crazy.
The ignored stepchild - Team Trails Edge
I’m also supposed to be the manager for the Trails Edge team. I’ve done such a good job this year that we haven’t even gotten an order in for one of our sponsors and its already September. Nice.
I can honestly say that I have this job only because I’m slightly more attentive to it that the Sherp. Its certainly not because I’m qualified.
Oh, and Interbike is in a couple of weeks, so that means its already time to start shoping for new sponsors. I’d really love to have our proposal updated before then so that I can take a few copies with me, just in case something comes up. We’ll see how that goes - we’re supposed to fly out the night of the Addison race.
Did I mention that I still have to get plane tickets - heh.
There’s more to this list - but just writing it is stressing me out. And, now its time for me to get ready to go to work.
History of a racing headcase
Most of my friends and loved ones are well aware that I become a total nutjob in the face of competition. A few years ago, I actually had to stop racing because it was making me completely crazy every time I got on a bicycle. Endurance “races” never seemed like races to me, so I never really took them very seriously and always had fun. Its only been this year that I’ve poked my toe back into the lake that is the XC Mountain Bike Race. In June, I did the Hanson Hills CPS race. I only had to do 1 lap, since I was doing sport/beg SS and it was a fantastic lap. One of my best ever racing experiences. I was not fast, nor was I strong, but damnit, I pushed and pushed and pushed and didn’t give up, and I really had fun.
I also pushed hard and raced hard during my 2 laps of the Tree Farm for the relay in August - and had fun.
So, I was excited about the Maybury CPS Time Trial that was this past weekend. We’ve been getting out on the bikes a lot more lately and I was feeling strong and confident. Maybury is a tough trail, but I know it well, and it was to be only 1 lap since its a time trial. I’d even posted on the interwebs that I would be racing. I was committed.
Self-inflicted doom
It started on Friday. Mike had been in Mexico all week and we all wanted to ride when he got home. It was a gorgeous night and Nick and I were both out of work early enough to make it Mike’s house for a good long ride. We rode from Mike’s place out to stony - taking the long long climb into the park off of the CRT so that we could easily stop by the Skills Park and check out the happenings. After playing around there for a bit, we took the paved path to the MTB trailhead, rode in, did the pines and headed back to Troy for a total of 26+ miles. Not super long by most people’s standards, but for little old me, on my dinky-geared singlespeed (32/19 on a 29er), chasing Mike and Nick (who were having a man-war), it was a solid high-intensity ride.
Even higher intensity on the way home, as it was getting dark and I didn’t want to loose contact with the boys while on the road. And honestly? I pretty much knew that I was doing harm for the next day’s race, but its not often that I feel THAT good on a ride, THAT strong and THAT confident. I was having so much fun pushing myself and keeping up, that I just didn’t even want to back off.
Unfortunately, when we got back to Mikes, I completely spaced on the Recoverite. Instead, we went inside and I had 2 large glasses of gatorade and a handful of peanut M&Ms. It was well after 9:00 when we finally got around to eating dinner. It was 10:00 before I started gathering merchandise and packing the Jeep for the next day.
I bet it was close to 1am before we went to bed. I was up before 7 and out the door before 8.
Nerves of Paper
I was nervous from the minute I woke up. My nerves get so bad before races that I just can’t swallow food. Its not that I get nauseous or anything like that, but its more like my throat closes up and will not swallow anything that’s not liquid. I sucked down a non-fat latte on the way out to Maybury, but couldn’t even think about a pastry or anything of that nature. I figured that at least, the milk in the latte would give me something. Heh.
I managed to distract myself for awhile with setting up the merchandise tables and tent, but not enough of a distraction to actually eat some food. In retrospect, there were some things I could (should) have done. I will think about those next time and call it lesson learned.
Bloody Humidity
As I was sitting on the couch Saturday morning, checking email and whatnot, I noticed that sweat was just dripping off of my neck. Seven o’clock in the morning and I was already sweating. Nice. And in case you’re wondering? No, it didn’t cool off as the day went on. I’m pretty sure it was 93* and remarkably humid when it was time for me to start my race. There are really no words in the dictionary to describe how badly I react to heat and humidity. My body (and mind) just wants to shut down.
In order to prepare for a race in such humidity, you’d think I’d have some gatorade, maybe plan on having an extra bottle of water with me for when the first one ran out? Maybe I’d even be smart enough to have gatorade AND water with me on the trail to help with hydration? yeah .. this goes back to nerves of paper and not being able to think clearly before these things. I did manage to have a HammerGel about 20 minutes before my start time, and had another in my pocket in case of extreme emergency - but I only brought one bottle of water with me. The likelihood of me actually eating that gel was low, because I wouldn’t have had enough water to wash it down with (Hammer products make my mouth and lips really really sticky, and that makes me really really frustrated when I can’t wash it away).
One bottle of water is hardly enough to get me through a warmup on a day like this, let alone a 9 mile time trail. By mile 3, I was already being extra careful when drinking, just to make sure that I would have SOME water left at the end. I was out of water before I was out of the woods.
I’m giving her all she’s got captain!
I had no power. None. My legs did not want to carry me anywhere. I was .86 of a mile into the race before I had to walk my first climb (note: I’ve successfully cleared every climb on this trail on my SS many, many times.. its a tough trail, but not so tough that climbs need to be walked - even by me). On that climb, I was passed by the only other woman in the Singlespeed class as she rode right by me. She’d started 30 seconds behind me. I was already in last place. I just had nothing to give.
I rode when I could and walked when I needed to. I walked a lot. Too much. More than I EVER remember walking at Maybury. I wanted to stop. I thought about turning around at mile .86 and saying “woops, I made a mistake” … But, I’d paid $35 just a couple of hours prior, and the whole lap was less than 9 miles .. so I figured I’d just keep going and see what happened. I mean, I HAD to get warmed up sooner or later, right?
The highlight
The trail was in really rough shape - it was so dry that there were trenches everywhere and babyhead rocks rolling all around .. I’d had trouble holding a good line for most of the first 1/2 of the trail. But when I got to the “new” section, things started to flow well for me, I wasn’t fast, but I was holding good lines and carrying momentum better than I had been.
The absolute best part of the trail comes right after that new section - its a long flowy downhill that goes on for like 1/2 mile. Toward the end of this awesome downhill is a little rock drop that always makes me go “woo hoo”. Through this section, I’d finally found my groove, and I was rocking. A fast guy came up behind me and mumbled something that I couldn’t understand. I was finally smiling and just didn’t want to give up my momentum, so I made him wait until there was a bit of a straight away. Had I known it was the hermitmann, I might have hugged the side of the trail a bit to let him by .. sorry Rob! About 10 seconds after he passed me, Bill Clikeman came flying by with my teammate Alan hot on his tale. Rob ended up scoring 2nd, so I don’t think I slowed him down too much.
That downhill section was the absolute highlight of my race. It reminded me why I ride, and why I race. It made me smile and added another notch on my “love this bike” scale.
The best part about racing is crossing the finish line
No matter how good or bad a race is, the absolute best part is crossing the finish line. Its even better when you’re friends are all there and no one is tearing down the finishing chute while they’re waiting for you to finish
I finished DFL in the Sport/Beginner SS class - the other woman finished nearly 20 minutes ahead of me and was only one place higher. The competition in this class was brutal.
It was so hot that day that even after changing out of my sweaty bike clothes, drinking boatloads of water, and sitting in the shade, my heartrate never really slowed down to normal. It slowed some after I finished, but I just wasn’t able to cool down enough to be comfortable. We packed up the merchandise as soon as the last class of riders started coming across the finish line and hung out just long enough to win some HEED in the swag giveaway.
Kudos
The Metro South Chapter of the MMBA did a fantastic job with this event. There were no real hiccups that I know of (other than the fast guys eating all the food before the sport guys were finished) and everyone seemed to have a great time. You guys are awesome!
