piece of cake

My friend, Rachael, and I headed out to the Piece of Cake course on Sunday after a minor hiccup of me not knowing where the I-5 park & ride is (for the record it is directly across the street from PIR -- how I have been missing it all this time I'm not sure, but it's RIGHT there). I fortified myself for my first race of the season with a delicious breakfast at Fenouil. This is not typically the type of food I eat pre-race, but since I had a weekend morning without a bike ride I had to take advantage and meet some non-bike riding friends for breakfast - Yummy! (Although maybe splitting some nutella waffles was not so much the best decision for my stomach. Ah well. Lesson learned).

We drove up to WA and the weather was beautiful. Mostly clear andsunny, but with a vicious, vicious headwind that seemed to stay a headwind no matter what direction you were headed on the course. That was fine with me though - I'll take wind over rain ANY day. My stomach was a bundle of nerves as I envisioned all the possible scenarios during the race where I might get dropped -- this continued until about 10 minutes before the race when I reminded myself that if I focused on getting dropped and being slow then that was probably exactly what would happen to me during the race -- so I shifted my focus to trying to ride 'smart' and conserve my energy for as long as possible. I am notoriously bad for hanging on the wheel in front of me - so I decided to try and focus on drafting well -- AND paying attention to which way the wind was coming from so I could position myself on one side of the pack or the other (this is relatively easy to do when you're at the back and can just switch from side to side without worrying about running anyone over! I'd be careful about trying this if you're at the front or mid-pack). I'll just start by saying that the race was fast and hard (and I will take this moment to say that Beth Burns thought the pace was fast too -- so I didn't feel like as much of a weenie for thinking the same thing!). We managed to hit 31mph on the flats in the first lap --which was very fast and painful for me but I kept talking myself through it and kept saying things in my head like "focus on staying on this wheel and making it to the next corner" -- then "okay you made it. Now stay on this wheel until you get to the barn". I pretty much self-coached myself this way entirely through the first lap and into the second.

Mid-way through the second lap the pack started attacking& re-attacking. We were averaging about 24-25 mph at this point and I really didn't want to get dropped, but I just couldn't quite keep up with everyone and the gap started to open a bit. We dropped a VeloBella rider and a LandRover/Orbea rider and they just faded away --I'm not sure if they even finished the race. I think I finally got spat off the back for good around mile 28 or so -- but I rode as hard as I could and I don't think there is anything I could have done differently to stay on the pack -- so I wasn't really upset at all about getting dropped. It wasn't nearly as bad as I had been imagining! I managed to catch up with Tessa Sugahara from Group Health who got dropped about a .5 mile after me and we worked together to finish out the last lap. All in all I had a GREAT time. I think I finished 12 out of 13 (not counting the 3 or 4 riders who we dropped and must not have finished the race) so I wasn't even DFL! It was fun to get out and race -- the weather was soooooooooo nice (maybe not as nice as summer, but I was so thankful just to be on my bike and not freezing)and it felt good to get out and ride hard. I'm really lookingforward to the Cherry Blossom Classic this weekend - I think it's going to be great riding in some beautiful country, and the weather is looking pretty promising as well!

There weren't many great pictures from the women's 1/2/3 race up online, but here are a few where you can see my orange peeking out!

Right before the start of the race. There I am at the far right side of the pack.

The beginning of the 1/2 mile neutral roll out (that means you're not supposed to race until after a half mile). p.s. I'm still on the right.

You can barely see me at all here, but our lead car gapped us by just enough to allow this semi to turn out in front of us as we were coming around the corner. Yikes! Lots of braking & swearing, but no one went down.

***All three of these photos were pulled from Heidi Swift's Flickr site -- Thank you Heidi! (I hope it is okay to use these...I really don't know much about copying photos from other locations on the internet...hmm...)***

Spring Starts Update + Planting our First

Thor & I have big plans to revamp the raised beds this year -- so I'm hesitant to plant anything right now because I know it will just get torn up in the next month or two. We love fresh peas though -- so last night I planted the Cascadia variety in our 'flower bed' at the back of the house. Last year we had geraniums & nasturtiums in here -- but this spring it will house about 40 pea plants. Yummy! The first three seeds in the west end of the bed are peas that I saved from last years plants. I am putting them in the ground as an experiment in harvesting my own seed to use from year to year. If these three plants come up successfully AND have tasty peas then this year I will dry more of my 2009 harvest to save for seeding next spring. Hopefully this works!

After only a month of growing time it was already time to re-pot my starts -- so I spent the evening moving about 50 little basil, tomato & pepper plants into larger peat pots so they can continue to grow. I have decided I am not going to keep all the tomato starts myself - it is just too overwhelming - so this week at knitting I will be giving away my extra starts (by 'giving away' I mean forcing them on friends!)

These next shots don't have much to do with planting, but out Red-Flowering Currant blossomed earlier this week. This shot is an example of poor site selection. I bought this plant in bare root form last year and just needed to get it in the ground so it wouldn't dry out. Of course I had big plans to move it last year so it wouldn't be smack against the side of the house ...but... as you can see now it is quite large and cumbersome. I am hoping I can move it this summer without killing the poor thing!

Rain Barrels

Adding rain barrels to our house is something that Thor and I have thought about doing-- but the project always seems to get pushed to the tail end of our home 'wish list.' I recently ran across an article on this company that sells kits for converting barrels that you can source locally to actual rain barrels for collecting water! This seems like a great idea to me because designing the rain collection system is the part that mentally bogs me down and has me setting aside the project. The name of the company is RainReserve -- I haven't actually looked closely at their prices to see if they're reasonable or ridiculous -- but I like the idea and you should check them out if you have ever thought of adding a rain barrel to your home!

***Picture from www.rainreserve.com***

Spring Steelhead

Thor & Joe took advantage of a nice Saturday yesterday to get out and fish for spring-run Steelhead on the Salmonberry. Here's a shot of Thor & his fish!

Fiesta Friday

A couple weeks ago we were at our friends, Andy & Katy's house for dinner. Andy made some great (read very strong) margaritas and you can see the evidence in these pictures (don't worry - they're totally parentally appropriate):

Katy & Andy's Fiesta Friday pics

Spring Has Sprung

We had a busy, busy weekend. New seeds started:

• Tomato: Grape Jelly Bean Red & Yellow, Lycopersicon lycopersicum (hybrid). I grew these last year and they were delicious.
• Tomato: Cherry Rainbow Mix, Lycopersicon lycopersicum (hybrid). I started three pots of these -- the seeds are dyed so you know which color you're planting. The three colors I started were: Brown Cherry, Super Snow White & Bi-colored Cherry (pink & white striped).

For those of you who have been to our house you know that the gate into our backyard has been broken for, oh, ever since we moved in. Thor put his new circular to work this weekend and put in a new latch!


Perhaps the biggest, most exciting news of the weekend is that Thor's mountain bike came in! It's an Ibis Mojo - built out full XT (except LX cassette and Heyes Stroker brakes). It also has the new Fox Talus 150 fork on it! (I realize that for about 75% of you this information will mean nothing). I'm bummed I still can't get out mtn. biking with my gimpy shouler!


Thor ripped out the back lawn that had been invested by aggressive winter moss. He has three weeks before optimal grass seeding to turn in compost, level, and lay the brick border.

The first daffodils of spring in our yard! (This is ironic given the fact that it was snowing on my bike ride into work on Monday morning).

Spring Seed Starting

I finally got my seeds started tonight. I think I might be a titch late - but at least they're done now!

Here's what I started indoors:

1. Basil: Aroma 1, Ocimum Basilicum. These are 2008 seeds so we'll see how they do. Last year I took them outside too early - so I think I'm going to leave them inside a little longer this year - like maybe until late May or so. I started 12 pots indoors - each one has about 2 or 3 seeds in it.
2. Pole Tomato: Speckled Roman, Lycopersicon lycopersicum. I started about 12 of these speckled Roma tomatoes. They're an heirloom with orange & yellow striped skins that are great for making paste & sauce. I'm hoping that they dry well too as we flew Thor's dehydrator down this fall!
3. Bush Tomato: Super Bush for Containers. 12 plants started. This variety is supposed to be fantastic for containers and gets to be only about 2 feet tall. I'm hoping this makes some good snacking tomatoes for popping into salads!
4. Peppers: Baby Belle. Little peppers perfect for munching or tossing into salads. I'm hoping these do better than my peppers did last year. I wasn't able to harvest a single pepper! These seeds are from Renee's Garden...I am on the fence as to whether or not I like this company...my package only had 12 seeds in it! I hope they all sprout.