| Miles of Life ~ My life as a donut | Kylie Donia |
Mike and I went for a mountain bike ride this afternoon.
We got kinda stuck. Ended up in an orchard. Fenced. And the fence topped with barb wire. So we ended up hiking and bushwacking our way out (going back how we came is too easy ;).
And Mike’s pedal fell off.
Good times 🙂
Saturday was a 5k. The same course I set a PR on last year. I went faster 🙂 23:44! Although their times were a bit odd in that I was in a group and they have no one right by me — my watch had me at 23:19 and a 7:21 pace since the course is long, but also didn’t have the 5 seconds of getting to the start line. Either way, a PR. And yeah, it kinda hurt. But it was a beautiful course, and I’ll take it! Official stats:
23:44 (7:38 pace) — 282/3015 overall, 43/1505 women, 8/171 W25-29
Sunday was Mike’s and my first off-road tri, and from there we were going to head to Redlands and see some of the Redlands Classic bike race on our bikes, so Saturday night we packed up the car and the bikes had a sleepover in the car (which left our house looking a bit empty).
The mountain bike race was chosen since Mike won an entry by winning the Redlands Tri, and since I have wanted to do one for a couple years we went for it. Although it was a bit confusing at the start (missing Mike’s early reg and no one sure what we needed to fill out) we got registered and got a great spot set up in transition. Wetsuits on, and down to the beach. There were only 2 waves (it was a pretty small local race) and Mike’s was off fairly quickly. Supposed to be 5 minutes after, my wave was bumped to 20 minutes after. I watched Mike come out of the water in second 🙂 and got ready to go. And our start time was bumped back by another 20 minutes. So much for that well-planned gel and warm-up! About 20 minutes later, we suddenly we had a 30 second warning, just enough time to wipe the fog out of my goggles, and we were off. I had a pretty good swim, and felt my spotting was not as bad as usual.
It has been a while since I had to wiggle out of a wetsuit on my own! I made it, pulled on bike shoes and a helmet and was off in about 5th or so according to one of the race guys telling us things. I passed a couple other women early in the loop, and later was passed by a couple. Oh, and in one section, there were TALL weeds, taller than me on my bike, with just barely a path through them. One of the weeds caught my handlebars and pulled me into the weeds. Where I didn’t fall over since they were strong, and just had to pull out of them and keep going. And then I made it up and over a curb without pausing (I still feel like I have TONS of mtb skills work to do!). One loop down, off the bike at the dismount, run through the TA, and then back on the bike at the mount line for loop 2. Weird, but it worked (there was a one loop race as well).
Second (and final) loop about 10 miles into the race I could feel that PR from the day before. My legs were tiring fast! The 2 women I had just in sight moved well ahead, and I started wondering how that hilly 3.2 mile run would feel. But first things first, and I kept pedaling. And found that I had launched one of my 2 gels, so I had one and wouldn’t have one at the start of the run. Oh well, keep moving. As I came around the final turn there was Mike (and a camera)!
Back into transition, and a nice smooth change into the run gear. My mtb shoes are so hard to get off! I will have to try out my new ones (with a tongue instead of elastic) next time.
I got off the bike in about 7th place Mike thought, and I started my run. My plan was to enjoy it. There were some pretty trails, and I knew my legs were fairly shot. Someone forgot to tell my competitive side though! It was a tough course, with the first part having tons of climbing. I guess the ultra training has helped — feeling pretty bad I still passed the 2 women right in front of me! And then later another one that had passed me on the bike, and into a fun little single track, and with .8 miles to go I could see another. But she had a decent lead, so I didn’t think I’d make it. Then she walked a hill, and I went for it and made it past. Since most of the climbing and harder downhills were all in the first half, this last mile was a lot of fun. Almost done, around a turn, and again Mike. He was chatting, so I had to talk for him to see me. But he still got a picture as I told him that if I beat him to the finish line he owed me lunch *and* dinner (he already owed me lunch).
He did beat me to the line, but still ended up buying me dinner. He’s that awesome.
The other nice thing about a first off-road tri is the automatic PR! 🙂 Although I didn’t do too shabby:
2:29:36 — 53/112 overall, 5/20 women, 2/5 W25-29
After the race we hung out for quite a while waiting for results. They still had nothing, and finally announced that they’d have to mail out the awards and weren’t going to get them done that day. It was chipped timed, but they were having computer issues. Honestly, I’m not so impressed with the race organization. For how expensive it was, I expected better. While I had a lot of fun, it was so behind schedule and disappointing to not get results, so I’m not sure if I’d do it again. When they announced results would be online this evening, we left, and headed to Redlands and had a nice easy 11ish mile ride around the Redlands Classic course. With In N Out burgers on the way, and then great Thai food before heading home.
Mike had a great race as well and was 2nd or 3rd overall! He says 3rd, but right now results have him 2nd. So the results might all change — oh, and it now says splits won’t be available until Wednesday night. So there are definitely some issues still there.
Oh… and for those of you still wondering how Oceanside was, Mike did a great job and I got some great photos. It’s all over on his blog, and I don’t have the energy to type it up now 🙂 But I had fun cheering for people and hanging out with Marky and crew.
I spent Tuesday through Thursday in San Diego with Cervelo getting to test ride their bikes and see their wind tunnel testing and engineering presentations.
Then Mike and I went for an early morning mtn bike ride Saturday. We ended up ditching the bikes in a bush and hiking up to a favorite waterfall (yeah, in bike shoes). And I left wearing….
!!!!! Yup, he proposed 
You know you have found the right one when the proposal comes during a ride in almost-rain, early morning light, with helmet hair, and on a fun unplanned side trail
Having no set training schedule for the day, and a 3 day weekend, and Mike’s new mountain bike still being too clean, we decided to head up to Big Bear Lake for some kayaking and mountain biking on Sunday.
However, we didn’t count on fires closing the road up on the side of the mountain near us. So the 1.5 or 2 hour drive got about 30-45 minutes longer as we went up the back instead.
And although we knew there was a chance of thunder storms for the afternoon, we didn’t realize how much rain there would be! We each had a long sleeved running shirt, and while we hung out at the bike shop (getting some new rim tape on my bike, and generally chatting with the folks there that I haven’t seen in a while). But it cleared up eventually. Although we didn’t want to risk the lightning in the kayak situation, the day and the trails were PERFECT for a ride.
We started with some fire road climbing, armed with a small map with only a couple main fire roads and 2 of the more popular trails.
We of course stopped for a few photo shots on the way.
And then we of course missed the turn for one of the trails we had hoped to take, and instead took one that we found. We had a GPS, so weren’t too worried about getting lost. We could always retrace our steps.
And we found some great views!
Some sections were a bit less rideable than others… but we just kept seeing what was over the next hill.
We did end up hitting the fire road that the other trail would have taken us to, as well as finding some fun sections to play on along the way.
And some of the fire road sections were gorgeous! If you look closely, you can see me on the fire road.
Then we ended up at my favorite single track in the world: 1E01 — what I picture when I think of mountain biking.
Some sections are a bit more technical than others. There was some rutted sections, and some rocky ones. Some drops to go off. Some of everything, but nothing impossible for me.
Although I did wipe out once… a rutted section between a rock and a tree, I avoided the rock, hit the rut, and clipped the tree with my handle bars. Oops… probably should have gone over the rock although it looked a bit big — it would have been more comfy than doing a handstand with my bike still attached to my feet! It was a slow motion fall, and I didn’t smack my head against the next giant rock since I saw that coming! Only some bruises though, so it’s ok. Really, without any wipeouts, I’d wonder if I was trying hard enough stuff or was going to easy. Mike saw it, but didn’t have the camera ready in time. Next time!
But it was an awesome day! We made it down without further crazy adventure and then packed the bikes back up.
Before driving down the mountain though we had to try to get ahold of the bike shop guys… as we realized my phone had been left in there and they closed about 10 minutes before we realized it. Unfortunately, they actually locked the keys in the shop that day. So it took a bit of time for them to hunt down a spare, but they found it, I got the phone, and we were on our way home. Right as the rain started up again!
