Haven’t written in the blog for over a month now. I have been MIA on the internet front! Here is a little update of the last few weeks from my end.

 

Have been busy getting things sorted with my new career in Real Estate soon to start as soon as my work visa is approved and granted which should be not much longer now! I made a decision on the brokerage here in Penticton I am going to be working with.  And now have started putting together my business plan, advertising image, marketing premises, and website. I like to make a plan and then work the plan. Just like training for a race...

How was that for a segue into my first race of the season? Today was the Summerland Centennial Half Marathon, http://www.interiorrunning.ca/  Forecast was for sunny and warmish, however Mother Nature threw us some wet snow instead! This was a very hilly course. I did a practice run on it 2 weeks ago which was brutal and took me 2 hours. So for today’s race I thought anything under 1:50 would be fantastic. I took it out conservative and kept pushing my pace throughout. I felt my base training had me feeling strong and ready for this event. I never went anaerobic, just kept it a touch over steady to begin with and pushed up to tempo for the end. 1:42 finish time and 1^st in my age group 35-39 and 6^th overall female. 

Yeah, 35-39 age group this year! I aged up.  Now I am with the tough and strong fast ladies.  So far this year is off to a great start.  Gotta kick out of the raffled off prizes at the end of the race.  I won a solar panel to charge my car battery if I am ever caught stranded with a dead battery (who knew?)  and Scott won a little tea set.  How cute, huh?

I live in Canada now and I hear more about the US politics now that I moved away from the US! It amazed me when I traveled away from the US in Australia and New Zealand how much their local news reported on what was going on in the US. Drove me crazy actually. But that is a whole other topic. I have been asked by a couple Canucks about the US election process and my mind immediately came up with a cluster fuck of primaries, conventions, electoral votes but I couldn’t remember how it all went together to lead to the eventual president being put into office. I went back  and re-studied it. Well after all that-its still a cluster fuck to me. Who came up with this system? I found this cheat sheet: http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/election/president.html   This sheet kept it simple! What do you know it was made for kids!

So, in case you didn’t know, a Caucus is a gathering of people at a certain place in favor of a candidate. They do a head count and if you have a certain number the candidate is deemed able to go on in the elections to the primaries. The next caucus is in New Hampshire. 

Guess what I did over Chistmas break?!? Originally from Southern California my feet have never walked on water before, much less ice skated. I think I skated a couple times around age 6 at a birthday party perhaps? And that was in a housed rink! Here I am at the foot of the Canadian Rockies in my in-laws backyard on frozen Columbia Lake, with hockey skates on. What a thrill!  And gorgeous.  My Canuck side of the family all born with skates on are of course brilliant at hockey and skating. As soon as I had my skates on I promptly slipped and fell onto my back.  They were very quickly reminded that I grew up way south of the border.   

 

Once I got the hang of it, it was like skate skiing and turned into a great workout. My muscles with so much biking and running are used to going forwards and back, this side to side motion was good for them. Some other folks had scraped the snow off the ice to make a rink and also created tracks around the lake so you could do laps. My husband grew up playing ice hockey so of course we had to hit the puck around, however we couldn’t find a puck, ended up using a fluorescent ball. We did some passes, he taught me a few things, started racing around trying to get the puck from each other…….hmmmm…….…this hockey thing is pretty fun. Might have to do more of this in the winter season. I think I am starting to really like winter and Canada!   

Living in the great white north now through the cold winter months I have been taken back by memories of hot family vacations in Death Valley, California.   

When my grandfather was alive he loved to vacation in Death Valley over Thanksgiving Week. So we went there a lot. If you’ve never experienced Death Valley it is one of the strangest places on the planet. At 3.4million acres it is the largest National Park in the continental US. Boasting the lowest point in the US (282 feet below sea level) as well as the hottest temperature recorded in the US (134F). Death Valley formed when the two mountain ranges, the Panamint and the Amargosa rose up and separated and the land between them dropped. 

I grew up in Los Angeles so we would all jump in the car and travel over the long HOT highway to Death Valley for our family vacation. Good times! Upon entering the park the highway leading down the valley floor is a serious of whoop-de-doos. If taken at the right speed a kid in the back seat could actually catch air off their seat!   

Once inside the park there are many strange things to see, like the Devils Cornfield, Badwater, and Scotty’s Castle. And its HOT! Especially in summer. Unbelievably hot. A very normal sight when we were there was cars on the side of the road with their hoods up, overheating.    

I think the weirdest place of all the sights was the Racetrack. A long bumpy drive will get you there and its well worth it.  The Racetrack is an old dried up lake bed, 3 miles by 1 mile. There are about 150 rocks sitting on this lake bed, ranging in size from 2 to 700 pounds, all with tracks behind them for hundreds and hundreds of feet. This is the weird part. No one moves these rocks. They have been blown around on this lake bed making these tracks over time, yet no one has actually seen this happen. It’s been a wonder for geologists for years. In fact they’ve gone up there and done studies on the rocks. Naming and marking them and watching their movement over time. Some move about 800 feet over a winter, some larger ones hardly move at all. And some very large 700 pound rocks have even disappeared and then have been found again many years later somewhere else! 

I remember lots of great times with family spent exploring this wonder of a place. Death Valley, sure to be a treat and something very very different than you have ever seen.

I went out for a ride today on the locally famed KVR trail with about 5 cm of snow on the ground here. It was right around 0C, but windchill put us at minus 3, I would guess. Wasn’t totally into riding alone for 3 hours but gotta get it done. Jenny my friend whom also likes riding in the ‘weather’ was getting a lactate threshold test performed by my husband, also her coach. So I was on my own today. 

About 30 minutes into it the sun started to come out and man it was gorgeous. Cranked up the Rob Zombie tunes, and started singing…..My Durango……Number 95….kick boots and ultra live………Rob Zombie is the best music to ride to and got me to kick it in gear. I started zoning out and thinking about how much I love living here in Penticton. The lake on my left was so blue and the view of snow covered mountains kept me smiling.      

 I started noticing 2 sets of tracks in the snow. Both had different tread, so I knew it was 2 riders and they had not returned back to town yet. This meant 2 others were riding today ahead of me out in the snow. This town is not that big, I narrowed it down to 2 guys I know that enjoy this sort of adventure as much as I do. I decided to keep riding as far as these guys went or even better until I saw them. I came to a slick hilly section and one of the guys made it to the top, the other you could see had to walk his bike up the final section of the hill. I almost made it as far as he did. 

Not long after this I did see the 2 guys on their bikes! I was right on my guess for one of them, a local triathlete named Kirk and the other rider new to me was named Pierre, another triathlete. I turned around and road with them back to town. Guess we triathletes are the only ones crazy enough to be out riding with 5cm snow on the ground, but man its fun to ride in this white stuff! One guy pulling his kid on a sled asked us if we realized it was winter yet. 

This post isn’t about anything much really except riding your bike to Rob Zombie rocks and meeting up randomly with others when your out on a ride rocks too. Cheers. 

Our winter here in Penticton has begun. The snow has started falling. It doesn’t stay on the ground long but when you have a 4 hour ride planned it can sure change things up a bit from the norm. This is the time when the strong-willed, the super dedicated, where the stick-to-the-plan-types really show their stuff. 

 

My husband always amazes me, not to brag about him, but damn, he is one tough cookie! So disciplined! I think he actually enjoys riding the trainer. He must have an ass of steel because he breaks all my bike trainer time records, no problem. Me, I am not much for training in the cold, I love the heat-born a desert rat. Am I into riding my trainer? Not so much. But I have some very strong goals and a hefty race season in 2008 therefore I know to be strong on the bike I must train through the chilly months. I purchased a mountain bike just for this reason so I could ride outside almost year round here in Penticton and avoid my trainer at all costs. Riding the mountain bike works great for training through the chilly months because I don’t move as fast on it and therefore do not create as much wind chill during the ride, yet still get in a great workout. I have met a fantastic friend here in Penticton that actually enjoys this sort of training too.

 

So my new friend Jenny and I road our mountain bikes yesterday in minus 5 (brrrrrr) but with a gorgeous sun smiling down on us.  It was so peaceful on the mountain trails and so nice to just be out. As we were biking along we came upon a herd of wild horses and followed them for a bit until they joined up with another herd of wild ones and galloped off the trail up a mountain side. Wow what a site. We had to stop our bikes to watch them. Their breath in the cold air and their ripped muscles beneath their fur was pure beauty to watch. 

 

So back to what all this made me think about. Dedication. There are many times I would love to blow off a workout during the winter months because its damn cold or I don’t want to sit my bum on the trainer for another 3 hour bit, but I change things up a bit to get it done and actually come away enjoying it! Winter training has huge advantages and makes us strong come race season. Very strong. It’s the dedicated athletes that will take their race season to the next level. Remembering this is what keeps me disciplined through the heatless months. 

 

I can handle the once a week trainer ride, which by the way is excellent for building muscular endurance, however I am not so keen on grinding out trainer rides day after day. Still the dedicated athlete in me wants to be strong for 2008, so I have come up with some alternative ideas to get me through those nippy ones. Grab your XC skate skis and head to the nearest nordic adventure park. The skate ski pushing to the side motion is excellent cross training for our muscles so used to going forwards and backwards only. Get on your snow shoes and find some trails. Or even a trainer ride like this one isn’t so bad: Double or triple brick on your trainer to break it up (example bike 60, run 15, bike 50, run 20, bike 40, run 30), and better yet, get your friends and their bikes/trainers over to your house and do a group effort. Head to the gym to build strength with squats, deadlifts, stair steps. Of course if you have a mountain bike/cross bike then bike outside when you can or split an outside ride up with a trainer ride. All of these workouts will keep me busy this winter. Let it snow!