Cross Crusade #7 - P.I.R.

Last week on Sunday was the second to last race in the Cross Crusade series for 2009. The event was held up at PIR - and the weather was perfect. By perfect I mean it rained for about 5 days before the event - and the POURED during the women's race, so the course, was slippery, technical, and covered in mud. Perfect.

A shot to give you an idea of how deep the mud was covering most of the course - it was like riding through peanut butter.

Photo from PDX Cross

Towards the beginning of my race - when I'm not totally covered in mud yet.

Photo by OregonVelo

Running uphill carrying my bike.

Photo by Jenn Levo

A shot back down the hill so you can see the mud, water, and barriers!

Photo by Jenn Levo

Getting ready to re-mount my bike.

Photo by Jenn Levo

Running over the top of a concrete bunker that was on the course.

Photo by OregonVelo

Lowe's Sweater!

Last week I finally finished the sweater for my friend, Michelle's, daughter Lowe. I say finally - because I had the darn thing completely knitted in July - and then I stalled out on sewing all the pieces together. Lowe has been getting bigger & bigger recently - and I started to get worried she'd get bigger than the sweater - so that made me motivated to finish up. Here's a shot of little Lowe-bug in her sweater, and also an adorable pair of ruffle pants that Michelle just whipped up last week. Michelle is a sewing genius!

I knit the sweater using a Blue Moon Fiber Arts pattern called "Baby Yours" - the yarn is also Blue Moon Fiber Arts - Socks That Rock, lightweight, in Sunstone.

Extra Halloween Shot!

Not sure why I forgot to post this one yesterday - but here's a great one of me pretending to eat my friend's baby, Lowe! (as a side note - Lowe was about the most ADORABLE lil' pumpkin you've ever seen - and she slept so soundly! Even as the undead were coming to get her!)

Halloween 2009

This Halloween Thor and I went out as zombies for the evening. Our friends, Will & Becky, are big-time zombie fans and we borrowed the outfits from them. Here we are at Becky & Will's Halloween party:

Me, Thor, Jess, Will & Matt (as Edward Cullen)

Thor and I rocking some vampire fangs we picked up from Michelle during the evening.

Thor giving his best 'scary' face.

Me, giving mine (and yes, I realize I do look legitimately disturbing!)

Cx #5 - Astoria

This past weekend Thor and I rolled out to the coast on Friday night to hang out with our friends, Annie & Andrew, and then do the Cross Crusade race #5 in Astoria on Saturday. We rolled into the race in just the nick of time - I had about 45 minutes to register, warm-up, and get to the start line.

My race started out really well. The five minutes prior to the start of the ladies race it absolutely POURED rain on us (like 1/2" in 5 minutes) so the course was incredibly muddy & slick. This favored riders with decent handling skills, and I think all the mountain biking I did this summer really paid off! I found myself right behind some ladies who typically finish in the top 5 (normally I never see these riders once the race has started). I began getting excited and then all of a sudden: fwhup, fwhup, fwhup, fwhup. My rear wheel was flat. Nooooo! Sigh...so I had to run a full lap carrying my bike until I got back around to the pit where I could swap my rear wheel out. At that point I was beyond last in my category....sigh...I managed to claw my way back a bit - but I think I ended up finishing about 33rd out of 38. Ouch. Oh well - it was still my favorite race of the season so far because of all the mud and tricky handling sections!
Here are a few pictures of the race!

I'm not actually in this shot - but it shows you the six-pack of barriers we had to run over.

Me - running with my bike shortly after my flat tire.

More running. Meh.

Back on the bike - finally!

This shot is funny because I actually look like I'm not moving! But you can see Thor in the background pointing me out to Laea (my dedicated cheering squad!)

After the race - showing off my mud while waiting in line to rinse off my bike.

Blazers Opening Night - 2009!

As a super surprise Thor got us tickets to the opening game of the Blazer's season! They played the Houston Rockets last night and we won: 96-87. For reasons I don't entirely understand - StubHub messed up our ticket order not once, but twice, but this ended up being a great thing for Thor & I! Because the snafoo was their fault Stubhub hooked us up with replacement tickets down near the court- we were in about the 6th row - it was amazing, and we never would have paid for those tickets on our own!!! (think $500-ish for a pair of tickets).

Here I am standing at the beginning of our row - you can see how close we were to the action!

An usher offered to take a picture of Thor & I together - my guess is that he was about 83 years old - and pretty shaky with the camera (hence the fuzziness). Thor is wearing on of the free Blazer hats that they were giving away to everyone who came to opening night!

Here's a shot of Brandon Roy getting ready to take a free-throw (I think that's what it's called! Obviously I have a LOT to learn about basketball still!)

These seats were SOOO much fun. I might be ruined for life. =) I told Thor that at some point during our lives we just need to bite the bullet and spring for a pair of tickets, courtside, right at mid-court. Maybe for our 25th wedding anniversary or something like that!

More CX#4 pics!

Here are four more shots from the Sunday race that my teammate, Jenn, snapped of me out on the course!

My friend, Sara (Fletch), and I lined up at the start of the race.

Riding up a muddy off-camber hill.

Running through the first set of barriers.
Rounding the final corner into the homestretch!