To Go Balls Out Or Not To Go Balls Out: That Is The Question

And on this particular occasion, the answer was: only go balls out to the extent that you get enough points to win the series overall.
First, we'll get the suspense out of the way with the race results:
4th place in Moab, 1st place overall!

I did not get the memo about wearing shorts.

The Moab stop in the Big Mountain Enduro series was supposed to take place on Saturday, August 23rd.  Ever since the race venues were announced in early January, participants were freaking out over the chosen date.  You see, Moab is in the desert, and daytime temperatures usually stay in the upper 90s and lower 100s well into September--not ideal riding conditions, especially for a race with a stage that's 17 miles long.

(The red line is 17.2 miles.  Ouch.)

Last year BME had the Moab final in late September, and it snowed heavily up in the mountains (at the start line) the night before the race, making it a nasty, dangerous sledding situation for the first stage, as well as tearing up the trail and making the Forest Service very grumpy.  So this year, to avoid another mudfest, they held it a month earlier, but that in turn would put people at risk for heat exhaustion.  There's just no easy way to race in Moab, and rumor has it that the venue will be dropped for next year.
So, despite Moab's typical weather forecast, the area experienced a whole mess of rain the day before the race was to be held, so the organizers pushed the start time back from 5:45am to 7:45 am for the pros and 10:00am for the amateurs.  This was perfectly fine for me because I can't eat breakfast early in the morning without feeling nauseous, so it would give me a chance to fill up properly before riding.  On Saturday we awoke to light rain, then heavier rain, then intermittent downpours followed by short periods of blue sky and then more rain.  At 8:00am the organizers canceled the race for the day and established a tentative start time of 7:45am on Sunday.  This ruffled lots of feathers, as some racers only budgeted enough time for Saturday and had to return from whence they came, and they received no refunds or adjustments; unfortunately that's the name of the game sometimes.  Those of us that stayed found ourselves suddenly with a lot of time on our hands and nothing particularly exciting to do; rain is perfectly pleasant when you're at home and can curl up under the covers with a book, but when personal space isn't available stir-craziness quickly sets in.  My crew convened at Wake and Bake, a coffee shop on the main drag with free wi-fi, and watched a replay of the Downhill World Championship race going on in Meribel, France:

Nothing was actually happening on the screen at the time, we just wanted to make the picture more dramatic.
Finally, the rain let up, and we loaded up the bikes and went to the one trail near town that doesn't go to complete crap during inclement weather: Captain Ahab!  Apparently everyone else had the exact same idea, because the trail was positively swarming with bikes bearing number plates.  I'm sure we looked like complete dorks to any locals unlucky enough to be stuck on the trail with us that day, but it's okay because we're enduro.
(If you don't know what enduro is, just watch this video)
After the ride we went to a barbecue put on by BME to mollify us about the race delay, then a Mexican restaurant, then back to camp for an early bedtime.  Fun fact about Utah: in some restaurant establishments, you can't just order an alcoholic beverage; you also have to order food, and eat it.  I don't know what happens if you order food and then don't eat it, but the server at the Mexican place was very adamant that this was the case.  Mormons may be polite, but they really want to make sure that no one will have fun if they're not having fun.
Sunday morning: word comes from Facebook that the race is on, but only a fraction of the second stage will now be run because the Forest Service and BLM are having a shit fit about the trail conditions.  This comes as great news to the majority of racers, because it cuts out the nasty, grueling, cross country-y part of the stage that is mostly likely to kill everyone.  However, it means that the first stage, starting from waaaay up in the La Sal mountains, will be wet and slippery and extra sketchy.
This is where the strategizing comes in.  I hadn't originally planned to race Moab because it's not really my jam: long, tiring, lots of pedaling; and my endurance was in the crapper because I'd been too busy working/packing/cleaning to train ride my bike a couple times a week in the entire month of August.  My forte is take-my-time climbs and fun gnarly descents, neither of which describes the original second stage of the Moab race.  But when my friend Megan broke her arm on a trip to Jackson at the end of August, I decided to help her out and buy her race entry so she wouldn't lose $175.  Then I looked at the BME standings and calculated that all I needed to win the series (i.e., earn the most points) was to get 6th place or better in Moab.  I wanted to win the series overall for two reasons: one, it would look good on a race resume if I want to try and get enough sponsors to go pro; and two, they give out good prizes to the series winners.
So, as stated before, I kept the balls in and played it safe during the race instead of blasting down the mountain like a crazy person, picking my lines and braking more than I would have normally.  Even so, my front tire slipped on a wet rock halfway down the first stage and I almost lost it. After the two timed stages, everyone still had to get all the way back to town, which was about 20 miles any way you sliced it, and my crew was in serious need of some beer when we arrived back at the sponsor village, which was generously provided by Oskar Blues Brewery.  Then I checked the printout of the standings, and got a bit of a surprise: the girl who won in my category had, in previous BME races, placed 8th, 8th, and 18th.  I was stoked for her--she's a really sweet girl, and a good rider, but I'm not entirely trusting that the timing was accurate at this venue.  Timing inconsistencies also happened at the BME race in Keystone (they erroneously put me in 5th place when I actually got 2nd place, 10 seconds back from 1st), but I decided not to contest it on this occasion.  I came in 4th, which was pretty much what I expected, and kept me in a comfortable lead in the overall by 110 points.  The prizes were pretty good, as I thought they would be: tires, Smith sunglasses (MSRP $159), wheels (MSRP $999), and a cool little CnCd metal trophy, which I like better than the medal I got last year.  I'm keeping the sunnies, though the fact that they cost the same as a month of Obamacare health insurance is a little galling, and I'm on the fence as to whether I should sell the wheels or put them on my bike.  They're bright yellow and very enduro.  After the awards were doled out, we drank some more beer and then the rest of my crew rolled out to their respective homes.  I had dinner at the brewery with one of the locals, slept in the van outside another friend's house, went for a quick easy ride in the morning and then headed back north to Pokey.  All in all, a good trip!
Next time: new-ish news from Pocatello.

The Pokey Dispatch: Days 1-4

I live in Idaho now!  Woo!  Here are my recollections of the first few days after the move, starting with the trip from Denver.
We picked up the 14ft truck from an auto service place in Broomfield at 8am on Friday, swung by our mostly empty house to pick up the last few things we needed to take with us, and then drove back to Mike's parents house, where all of the things that were going to Idaho were stacked in a neat corner of their garage: bed, dressers, futon, desk, bookshelf, a couple dozen boxes and five bikes.  Mike's dad, Tom, worked as a mover for a few summers in college, so he immediately took charge of the Tetris-ing of furniture and boxes.  He seemed to get quite a kick out of it, so Mike and I just took his directions, and I was relieved to not be leading the chaos.  Loading took about three hours, then I went and visited some friends for poolside drinks while Mike ran a few errands, and we reconvened back at Tom and Peggy's for dinner with them and Jeff's family.  Jeff's younger daughter, Ila, had previously been a pretty quiet and content baby, but on this occasion she was offended by nearly everything: her high chair, being held, not being held, pizza, juice, etc., and let us know this with high-pitched squeals.  Good thing she's cute.  Liv had on a 'Frozen'-themed dress with the blonde witch-type character gazing out in an entirely inappropriately provocative manner...are female characters from children's movies becoming more beguiling, or am I just getting old and cranky?  When it was time to go, I picked up Liv and told her the only three things she needs to know for life:  ride fast, take chances; rubber side down; and safety third.  I don't believe it sunk in at the time, but someday she'll think back and say 'Oh. That does make sense'.
That night we met friends at a Mexican restaurant that has good tequila and a DJ after 10pm.  It started out as just me, Mike, Megan and Stevezie, but in short order we had to pull 4 tables together and take over half of the dining area.  There was tequila, and dancing, and then good-byes; it was a great send-off.
The next morning we were in no hurry to get going, as the drive was nine hours and we didn't need to be there at any particular time.  I loaded the last few things into the van, put the bikes on the rack, and fired up some podcasts.  We rolled out just after 1pm and a light lunch.
The drive should have been nine hours, at least, but that's assuming you don't have a large heavy vehicle and a stiff headwind.  The fuel economy on the Uhaul dropped precipitously when the speedo went past 65mph, so we took it pretty easy, and eventually made it to our rental house in Pocatello just after midnight.  We opened some windows and fired up a couple box fans to air the place out overnight and slept in the van with the dogs.
Day one in Pokey!  Unloading the van only took two hours, but now, nearly two weeks later, some things are still in boxes.  We got rid of a lot of stuff, and rented a storage unit in CO, but it's still a bit of a squeeze living in this 576-square-foot house, especially since we have to keep all the bikes in the living room (they're worth more than all of our other belongings combined).

I hope nobody has claustrophobia.

Luckily the place also has a concrete basement, but the stairs are steep and it's full of spiderwebs.  I'm generally pro-spider and anti-most insects, but the sheer biomass of the basement spiders is a tad unnerving.  Unfortunately I have to go down there at least a couple times a day to retrieve things because there is only enough space upstairs for about half our stuff.  Oh well--it's only for a year, and the place is cheap and has a fenced yard for the dogs, so I can deal.

This is where the zombies will come from.

We worked on unpacking until 2pm, when we both got unbearably cranky from the lack of food, and I set out on my bike to find something to bring back.  Google said there was a Chinese place on Main Street a few blocks away, but when I got there it turned out to be closed.  In fact most places on Main were closed on Sundays, and the street was eerily empty of pedestrians, an odd change from Boulder where any Sunday with remotely nice weather is a circus.  But a block away there was a Thai restaurant that was open, albeit completely empty of customers, with two young girls behind the counter.  I looked at the menu, placed my order and was told it would be about ten minutes.  The older girl, maybe nine years old, walked back toward the kitchen and for a moment I thought she might also be cooking the food, but she gave the ticket to a woman and came back to the front to ring me up.  For the record: I wouldn't have thought to put pineapple, pine nuts and currants in fried rice, but the stuff I got was pretty tasty.
On my short pedal back to the house, I encountered another cyclist, a man wearing standard roadie gear except for a helmet with a green spiky mohawk on top  Odd, because the stretchy skintight shorts imply a concern with aerodynamics but the mohawk would likely prove dicey in crosswinds.
Later on, we walked the dogs to the river a few blocks over, then watched a movie while Mike built a new wheel for his Nomad.
Day two: first order of business was to acquire a washer and dryer because I am too old and intolerant of randos to ever go back to using a laundromat. Also we still had the Uhaul for another day, so might as well make full use of it.  Craigslist turned up a relatively new set a couple miles away for a few hundred bucks; some quick correspondence with the owner, and a couple hours later they were ours.  The setup was a tad hairy because the person who ran the lines for hookups did it in an incredibly inconvenient way, but eventually they were up and running smoothly.  Next order of business: a haircut for Mike, foodstuffs from Costco and housewares from Ross.  We got ourselves over to the shopping center with all three storefronts around 2pm, and to our surprise there was a 30 minute wait for the haircut and the checkout lines at the Costco were 4 or 5 deep.  At 2 on a Monday.  I guess regular business hours apply here less than in most places.  After the retail adventures, dinner, another walk for the pups, and the remaining bike wheel.
Day three: time for a bike ride!  There is a trailhead ten minutes from our house by bike, so we saddled up and pedaled over.  The trail system is City Creek, and the uphill-only bike trail that accesses the downhill trails winds its way along the creek, nicely shaded by leafy trees.  The trails are well maintained and feature some nicely built berms that we could hit with pretty good speed, slingshotting out the other side without losing traction.  There are supposed to be some really baller descents from higher up, but we haven't made it there yet since we've got so much else to do.
Day four: one of the students in Mike's program invited everyone over to his house for a barbecue in the evening, so I dumped some pita chips and artichoke dip on a plate and we headed over.  The host had requested that no one bring alcoholic beverages, and once we got there it turned out that he had six kids and there were Bible- and Jesus-related placards all over the house, so we're guessing Mormon.  Several other guests had brought their offspring as well: the first sight that greeted us upon entering was a mid-thirties couple with four boys, all of them with the exact same gelled-up fauxhawk as their dad. He joked that they were trying for a girl; funny because it's usually the other way around.  One wife of a student asked me if we had kids; I said no, just dogs, and she chuckled and said that animals were more her thing too, so I'm glad there's at least one other person with the same inclination.  She has a couple horses, so maybe if I'm lucky I'll get to go riding out here sometime!  Everyone was quite nice, and I got to talk bikes and trails with a guy who had grown up in Pokey, so it was a good time overall.
Day five: Mike went to orientation and I loaded up the van and headed the Moab for the Big Mountain Enduro race.  I hadn't originally planned on racing Moab, because it's not my favorite trail, but I was leading the series with points in my category and I only needed sixth place or better to win the overall, so I figured it was probably worth the time and money.  The six-hour trip was entirely uneventful, but in the evening Mike called to tell me about his exciting mountain bike ride he had gone on with some of his classmates.  First, most of the others in the group had shown up on pretty old bikes that probably weren't in fantastic condition, and one guy had even neglected to bring a helmet.  He was from Chicago; apparently news of this newfangled helmet technology hasn't reached the midwest yet.  It began storming soon after they set out, and, as Mike now knows, the dirt here turns to peanut butter when it gets wet, which means it sticks to tires and gums up stays and wreaks major havoc with rim brakes.  At one point the guy with no helmet came into a turn too hot, had no traction for braking, missed the bridge and fell into the creek.  Don't worry, he's okay.  But I'm not going to ride with him until he gets a helmet, because having to get someone with a head wound out of the backcountry is no picnic.  Not that a helmet will protect you from all harm, but it's still much better than nothing.  This has been a public service announcement from Bike Snob PID :)
Next time: race report from the BME series final!

Adventures in facial piercings

In college, I got my nose pierced because I wanted some kind of facial adornment and an eyebrow piercing seemed too scary.  The stud came out constantly, but I was usually able to recover it from my pillow, and when I couldn't I just stuck an earring in there to keep the hole from closing until I bought a new one.  Then, on a mountain bike ride in Fruita in 2009, I must have accidentally pulled the stud out while performing a Farmer John (it was cold), because afterwards it was nowhere to be found.  Not having ready access to a tattoo/piercing shop at the campsite, I figured that was that, and let the hole close up.
Or so I thought.
This summer, I've been racing a riding with a lot of other girls, and several of them have nose piercings of varying size and ostentatiousness, and all of them are around my age.  I still like the way nose studs look, so out of curiosity I tried sticking an earring through the depression still visible in my nose.  Lo and behold, it went right through, so the following week I rode my bike to a piercing parlor on the CU campus and checked out the goods.  The store offered basic little studs for $10 each in various colors, with an option to upgrade to free crystal replacements for $20.  I'd never had a crystal fall out of a stud before, so I got one 'installed' at the place and took another one home for backup.
About a month later, I woke up to find that the crystal had come out of my stud (damn!).  Unfortunately, I had had the guy at the piercing place corkscrew the post before putting it in so that it would be nearly impossible for it to get pulled out, and I didn't want to deal with it, so I just left the unbedazzled stud there for a while, figuring it didn't make that big a difference.
Then the other night, I decided enough was enough, and it was time to bring in the backup.  I tugged and swirled the stud for a while, to no avail, and then rummaged around in the tool box for some needlenose pliers.  Those also had no effect.  I returned the pliers to the tool box and extracted the coup de grace: wire cutters.  Drawn by the commotion and cursing, Mike came into the bathroom to find me bracing myself for the snip, and promptly offered his assistance.  I then had four hands in or around my nose, but after some nervous flinching and giggling, the post was extricated from my nostril with the requisite boogers in tow.  The new stud was inserted with much less ado, and voila, facial accessory accomplished.
The moral of the story is: 30 is not too old to have a nose piercing, and for heaven's sake just shell out for the more expensive stud.

ThingsTo Make You Smile And Laugh And Maybe Cry, But Only Because You're Laughing So Hard

This one's for you, Gmom!  We love you!

Slow Motion Puppies and Kittens

Pug Licks Its Face Every Time Toy Squeaks

Kitten + Lizards = Awesome

Cat vs Printer (sound necessary)

Cat vs Cat vs Printer

Otters!

Tired Baby Sea Lion

Dancing Walrus!

Sleepy Spudgy

Dog Doesn't Want To Take A Bath

Mike Birbiglia standup - animated!

Hope this helps :)

Hey look, I'm on the podium again!

So, last month I raced in the Big Mountain Enduro in Durango.  There were six other girls in my category, and I trounced them all to claim first place!

Well, that's not entirely true.  The girl who came in third, Alexandra, was hot on my heels on Stages 1 and 2, but she had a mechanical problem on Stage 3 that knocked her cumulative time back by a couple minutes.  (I know she had a mechanical because she was trying to fix it when I caught up to her right before a chunky uphill section.  I hopped off my bike to start shoving as she moved out of the trail, but I then tripped and fell onto her, which probably did not help her time either.)  The girl in second, Terah, was only a second behind me on Stage 2, but my lead on the other stages built up to give me the win.  Woo!

So, let's take a quick look at the evolution of my podium finishes.
Here we have: "I did not expect to be here and am still not entirely sure how this happened."

Next, we have: "I have been up here before, but I still do not know what I'm supposed to do exactly."

And finally: "I earned this one, dammit!  Booyah!"

In fact, I over-earned the last one, because immediately afterward I came down with a nasty cold that left me moaning and snuffling for a week.  I was pretty determined to put up a good showing, so much so that I went to Durango with a few friends on the Wednesday evening before the race in order to pre-ride the stages.  Day 1 was Kennebec Pass, which included two untimed 6 mile-ish climbs and two fast, occasionally terrifying singletrack descents.  Here's the first part of the trail:

Eeep.

 Day 2 was Raiders Ridge, just east of town, and a second, marginally technical trail, the name of which now escapes me.
Kennebec Pass was an absolute beast.  On Thursday, we paid to get shuttled to the trailhead in a lifted van instead of riding pushing our bikes up the rough 4WD road to the top of the pass, because we didn't want to get wrecked before the race even started.  We made our way to the rumored start line and assessed the situation:  nasty exposure, steep drop to the right, couple scree fields, waterbars that had to be taken slowly or we'd go flying off the mountainside, blind corners, overgrown trail...super.  Happily, our group had no incidents, but I had to go frustratingly slow for the first few hundred yards because I was unfamiliar with the trail.  Then we dropped into a drainage with lots of surprise switchbacks and stream crossings, and eventually came to the finish of Stage 1.  This meant that it was time to start climbing!  We were in no hurry, having literally nothing else to do that day but ride this trail, but even at an easy pace we were out of breath and hating the race organizers for being so cruel as to make us pedal our bikes uphill.  The bastards!

This is Matt. He is out of breath.

This is Eric.  He is also out of breath, but he has a dog named Kaia.

Eventually we made it to the start line for the second stage, and had a blast riding the flowy, jumpy downhill to the road back into Durango.  We had some beers, ate some dinner, and crashed early.

On Friday, a few of the local riders led us on a preview of Raider's Ridge, which is almost exactly like Dakota Ridge in Golden, Colorado, but longer and more difficult and with less shade.  The ridge undulates for a few miles in a general south-ish direction, and alternates between ledgy off-camber rock and ledgy cliff-exposure rock, plus some loose stuff here and there to keep it interesting.  It was awful.  I'm sure the locals can go and figure out the lines and piece everything together eventually, but for a race, it was a mess.

Carnage in 3, 2, 1...

 We decided that we would just pick up our bikes and run over the majority of the trail on race day.  Then, in the last few hundred yards of the stage, the race organizers had decided not to send us on a nice newly finished fast flowy section, but to instead make us ride down two super-steep sections that were covered with what Liz christened 'demon baby heads': loose rocks about 6 inches in diameter that really really wanted to slip under our tires and make us crash.
It was a fitting, final 'F YOU' from the trail, and we were not looking forward to racing it.
And then we did not pre-ride Stage 4.  Everyone told us that there was nothing to it, and we shouldn't bother.  Just fast and flowy downhill.  Right.  So we went to Tricia's house, waded in the nearby Las Animas river to ease the aching in our forearms and hamstrings, ate dinner, and went to bed.

For a while, at least.  Mike couldn't leave Denver until after work on Friday, so he rolled in to the campsite at 1:30 on Saturday morning.  Yay Labor Day weekend.

After Mike's arrival, I got a few more hours of fitful shut-eye (Ellie kept stepping on me), and then it was time to get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, drink coffee, and go to Tricia's house to meet the people with whom we'd be carpooling to the start of the Stage 1 climb.  Officially, the race organizers wanted all racers to meet in Durango and ride the shuttle buses to the start, but after the shitshow in Angel Fire (wherein the trailer carrying the bikes first broke and then went off the fire road into a ditch) we broke the rules and shuttled ourselves.  There was no advantage in terms of the distance we had to ride; we started the climb at the exact same spot as everyone else.  But since we began pedaling right as the first round of shuttles was heading back to town for the next load of people and bikes, we had the road to ourselves and thus felt free to go as slowly as was physically possible.  Before we set off, however, we did some yoga

Ellie is helping

and then we had a quick dance party to warm ourselves up, thanks to Liz's Jammy Pack:

If anyone cares, I would be happy to get one of these for my birthday or Christmas :)

Liz kept the Jammy Pack rocking for the entire 6-mile slog up the pass, which helped our spirits enormously, and Tricia decreed that in order to conserve energy, we should not be working so hard that we couldn't sing along to the music.  It was a good strategy, and we went slow enough that it took us two hours, but we were still a little beat at the top.  We refilled our water, stuffed some Clif energy shots in our pockets (do not try the vanilla flavor, it's horrifying), and queued up at the start line:

There was a group of 8 or so women, and we decided that we should all go at the same time to create a buffer between ourselves and the boys, who, by dint of being silly and competitive and reckless, are generally faster riders.  Liz went first, then Tricia, then me, then Leigh, who is faster than me but hadn't ridden the trail before.  A photographer got a shot of Leigh and her awesome socks after she went by:

As I expected to, I went painfully slowly on the first section, especially over the loose nasty scree

Please don't let my brakes fail.

 but once I dropped into the trees I opened up the throttle and caught Tricia on the first short uphill section.  Leigh caught me at the same spot, so she went in front and I chased her, with Tricia close behind.  We were having a super time, hootin and hollerin, until I came to a section that had given me trouble before: a blind corner with a stream crossing and a big rock that you have to manual over.  I almost made it, but I stalled and had to unclip my right foot to catch myself.  But instead of falling right, I fell left, and wasted a few seconds flailing around under my bike, trying to free myself.  I got going again and had no more issues, and crossed the finish very tired and out of breath.

Since it was quite hot, several of us all but submerged ourselves in the stream running along the trail and declared that we were too tired to ride bikes ever ever again, that riding bikes was in fact the dumbest thing a person could do, but then twenty minutes later we were up again and shoving our bikes towards the Stage 2 start line, 5 miles away.

Tricia rides a 29er because she's tall.

Stage 2 was uneventful, except I had to stop briefly and extricate the shattered remains of my chain guide from my drivetrain so that I could pedal again, which cost me a couple seconds.

fin

 

Liz's friend Arturo was not so lucky; he redlined in the last mile, crashed, and broke his helmet and one of his front teeth.  Supervan was called in to take him to the ER south of Durango, and Paddington helped by sitting on him during the ride.  He returned to Tricia's house a few hours later with a concussion, some painkillers and strict instructions not to not to race the second day.  Luckily, Arturo's dad is a dentist in Ecuador, so he'll get fixed up next time he goes to visit.

Upon returning to town, we waded in the river again, ate dinner again, and sat by a campfire for a while, consuming a perfectly reasonable amount of alcohol, before going to bed (again).

Day 2!  Up at 6, breakfast, drive to start of climb, dance party, pedaling.  It was really really very hot that day, so of course we had to race at 11am, because heatstroke really helps to narrow the field.
We stopped in the last bit of shade before the ridge began in earnest:

and had another quick dance party, then put on our armor and got in line to drop.

Not a single goddamn cloud in the sky.

Remember how our plan was to just pick up our bikes and sprint over the parts we couldn't ride?  Yeah, that didn't work out.  It was so hot, and I was so about to have a heart attack, that the best I could do was trudge along while resting my weight on my saddle and taking giant, scalding lungfuls of stupid Durango air.  I may or may not have been hallucinating by the end.

There was one section on the trail where you could either send a 3-ish foot drop, roll a middle line, or take a roundabout route that keeps your wheels on the ground.  I wanted to huck it (the landing was clean), but I did the smart thing and took the middle line:

And finally, after what felt like days of riding/hiking, I got to the demon baby heads.  My tires made it clear that they would buck me off if I dragged my brakes the way I wanted to, so I jumped off and ran down the sketchiest section, then hopped back on for the last hundred yards:

Not amused.

After everyone in our group came down, we sat under a tree and got rehydrated before tackling the climb to the last stage, which was, remember, supposed to be a piece of cake.  "All downhill," they said!  "Nothing to it."  Yeah, right.  It was like 90 percent pedaling, and I went so hard that I literally started dry heaving after crossing the finish line!

(barf)

Luckily the finish area was only a few minutes' walk from the ubiquitous Las Animas river, so we soaked ourselves and our nasty shammy until it was time to go to the park that BME was using as a staging area to look at our times.

There was beer

and dogs

and a man with a mohawk

The guy with the epic goatee is Gary, and the guy with the plugs is Joe, and they're both very cool.

and a podium!  Look, there's Leigh in first place for amateur women 30-39!

wow, the girl on the left is super ripped...

Her cumulative time was only 12 seconds ahead of mine, and she's pretending to be worried about the fact that we will be in the same category next year.  I think we should just practice getting the exact same time in races so that we can share the top spot.

So, that was my adventure in Durango, and if you want to see more pictures of people that aren't me, check out Mountain Flyer Magazine's coverage of the race.

(fin)

Yummertime!

Yesterday evening I made fried squash blossoms for the first time:

They were delicious and surprisingly filling, and we still got the flavor of the flowers through the tempura coating.  I think the base for the stuffing is traditionally goat cheese, but since the grocery store didn't have it on sale I used cream cheese instead.

Here's my general recipe if you want to try it:

15-20 fresh male squash blossoms, stamens and spiky sepals removed
 filling:
1/2 cup shredded pecorino romano
1/2 cup cream cheese, softened
splash of cream
some chopped herbs, like basil, thyme, parsley, and dill
1/2 garlic clove, minced
black pepper
salt
frying:
veg or canola oil
tempura mix


Combine the filling stuff and put a spoonful of the mix in each blossom, then gently twist the ends of the blossom together to contain the filling.

Heat up the oil and mix together about 1/2 cup of tempura mix and cold water.

Lightly coat the blossoms in the tempura mix and drop in the oil (I used a 9-inch fry pan with about 1/2 inch of oil).  Turn the blossoms after about a minute, fry another minute and then remove and drain.

I would have made a dipping sauce, but I couldn't think of something that would go well and I didn't want to wait any longer to stuff the blossoms in my face.  Something fresh tomato-based might be nice, but these are rich enough that you probably wouldn't want a creamy dip.

Enjoy!

Aaaaaaand We're Back!

Oh my, it's been a long time since my last post!  A lot has happened, too.  In June I took 1st place in my category in my very first mountain bike race ever:

(I was so startled)

But then the race organizers changed the rules, so my official ranking now is 4th. (Sad face.)  This came about because the races are scored in two ways: you get X number of points for the way you place in each stage, and you also get a cumulative time by adding up your times from all the stages (in this case, 5 stages).  I got a flat tire on the first stage, so I came in last on that one.  But the next day I won 3 of the remaining 4 stages, so I came in 1st by two points.  Apparently, though, people complained that ranking by points was unfair, so they changed it to cumulative time.  But if I hadn't flatted on the first stage there's an extremely good chance I would've won that one too, so I can't say that I'm particularly fussed about it.

But I still got to keep the loot!  Yay!:

That's like 600 bucks worth of stuff.

So it was a good time.

Then, since I had officially caught the racing bug, I competed in another Big Mountain Enduro race.  This one was in Crested Butte, CO, and I came in second by 16 seconds:

And I still had no idea how to behave on the podium, so while everyone else was doing something appropriate I was looking like a doofus:

Derrr?

It's what I do best.

It's actually a good thing that I didn't get 1st again, because then I would have gotten the same tires, roof rack, tshirt, sunglasses and shoes that I did in Angel Fire.  This time I got a spine protector, different tires, different tshirt and different sunglasses (which I gave to Mike, because I need prescription sunnies).

I also won a new pair of goggles in the raffle, which was lucky because mine were all scratched up:

Awesome.

Other things of note:

In Crested Butte, I discovered Paddington's Mini-Me:

I got to hang out with lots of ass-kickin' ladies:

from left: Leigh, Sara, Sparky, Elena, Sienna

CB has lots of adorable chubby marmots trundling around in the park:

Well camouflaged, too.

Arrelaine came with me and hung out with the dogs while I rode:

Grass + David Sedaris + Oskar Blues = Awesome

And that's Crested Butte.
Also, if you're curious what an enduro bike race is, watch this video:
http://vimeo.com/68740190

I'm planning to race in the next BME in Durango at the end of August, so wish me luck!


Mike was taking anatomy and physiology classes at CU for the whole month of June, so he did not get to participate in the races (or even come and cheer), which was a bummer.  But he was supportive from afar!

Also tired.  Very very tired.

Let's see, what else...

Those of you on Facebook already know about Kermit, our foster dog:

We were trying to think of a better name for him than the one he came with (Nick), and I really wanted to go with something from either British literature or a Broadway musical.  We were toying with the names Mr. Bingley, Elder Cunningham, Fiyero, and Mr. Knightley when all of a sudden I gasped and said "His name is Kermit!" because, well, that's exactly what he looks like.

But his full name is Kermit Fitzwilliam Bingley, so that he can be Mr. Bingley on formal occasions.

Anyway, he's being formally adopted by his new family on Friday (the Browns), and while we've enjoyed having him, Paddington and Ellie are ready for things to go back to normal.
And I will miss the snuggle-wrestling:

taken two seconds before he started squirming like mad

Good Squirms.


Two weekends ago was Stevezie's birthday party, which involved a decent amount of alcohol, OHVs, and BB guns in a national forest camping area.

It went about like you would expect, but luckily no emergency services were needed.
There were lots of dogs in our group, and Kermit ended up making very best friends with a little beagle mix puppy named Anita.  They had a whale of a time wrestling and chasing each other around, while the more grown-up dogs pretended to be too mature for playing (but secretly wanted to join in).

We also had lovely weather for hiking:

Then last weekend, I went riding at Winter Park with some other ladies for Sienna's dirty thirty birthday celebration.  And, slightly on impulse but not entirely because I've always loved this particular make and model, after trying out one of WP's rental DH bikes I bought it, because it's so much bigger and squishier and awesomer than my current freeride bike:

Her name is Marshmallow because she is squishy and delicious.

We're going to go huck some fuzzy bunnies together at Keystone on Sunday.  Hopefully there will be pics and maybe even some GoPro footage.

Super quiet, super awesome!