Favorite Picture!

A couple of weekends ago, I volunteered at a local fundraising event for Rett Syndrome. It was a 3k walk and a 5k run. Since I'm not a fan of walking more than I have to or running at all, I decided to manage the water station for the 5k runners. It was a tough job. My performance was adequate, but next year I will make improvements for sure.

Below is one of the best pictures from the event. Our friend Brian Koder took the picture of Derik and Brian running and doing their best imitation of Chariots of Fire.

The intensity is really too much. Derik was doing the 3k walk and Brian was finishing his run. I really love this picture.

This leads me to my next thought. I have to start running soon. I have decided that July is going to be the month of "Ann the Runner". I'm really not excited about it. Maybe I should purchase some new running outfits for my month of running to motivate me. Maybe if I had a cute new pair of neon shoes, I wouldn't dread putting them on each time.

I see people running all of the time. Everyone has a specific style or "gait" when they run. I am very self conscious of my gait. I'm pretty sure I look ridiculous. That and the fact that I have a pouty look on my face like I am going to break down and cry at any moment.

Can't wait for July,

Ann the Runner

24!

And another 24 hour race is in the books!

This one may go down as one of the most fun weekends I've had. We were surrounded by a fun group of people and really had the best time.

One of my goals for this race was to figure out how to eat, race and digest - yes in that order. I've had a lot of problems over the years trying to digest my food during this race. I tried a different tactic this year. I sought the advice of my wise coach and much to my surprise it really worked out well. Here is what I ate for the 24 hours of the race, in this order:

1. Chia seed and date pudding
2. Brown rice with cooked carrots
3. coconut water
4. sweet potatoes
5. coconut water
6. chia and date pudding
7. coconut water
8. sweet potatoes 

By the middle of the night I was actually gagging while eating my sweet potatoes. I tried to play it off as no big deal while I had a conversation with my teammates, but I wasn't too successful. The dry heaves aside, I was really happy about being able to digest my food during the race. 

Mmmmmm.....chia seed pudding is sooooo yummy. Let me know if you want the recipe.

The other great part of the race was our Camp Bitch Karen. She gave herself the name Camp Bitch and we love her for it. She took so much care of us and was the best support you could ask for. She put up with all of our crap and really made the race one of the more enjoyable events of the year. 

Do you see her "Bitch Belt"? She wears a belt that contains the finishing rider's recovery drink. She has a timer and restarts the clock for each new lap to help us keep track of our time. If we require a warm coat after our lap - she has it ready for us when we are there. She walks the finishing racer off their lap and then goes to our lap board to write down our times. She has our food ready for us and makes sure that we eat, drink and recover in time. It is really pretty amazing. All of us crazy racers and our very own Camp Bitch. We were so very fortunate to be able to share our race experience with Karen. 

Each year when I am done with the 24 hour race I tell myself that it will be the last one I do. I have a love hate relationship with the race. It took me until January of this year to decide to race it again. Now that I've completed my 4th race, I'm am once again thinking that I will not participate in another 24 hour race.

I probably could be talked into doing it again, but at this point the answer is - no. 

Ok, well, maybe not a definitive no, but more like a probably not. 

Thanks to all my teammates and good friends that helped to make this race so great. 

Weekend Fun

I'm getting back into mountain bike racing again. Tried my hand at road racing this year and was not having any fun so I switched my focus a bit for the rest of the year.

I decided to move up to the Expert field for racing mountain bikes. My first race was in Chelan and I was very nervous. Our field was pretty small, only about 8 of us which also included pro women. I was mostly nervous about the amount of climbing on the course. I am not very good at sustained climbing and this course was either straight up or straight down.

It was a tough race, I suffered and finished dead last, at least 15 minutes behind the last rider. They had even started awards for the other categories as I was finishing. A bit humbling for me, but it also lit a spark in me to improve my climbing.



The next weekend we went to another mtn bike race in Port Gamble. The Stottlemeyer 30 miler was a lot of fun last year and I was really looking forward to it again. It is one of my favorite courses as it is very technical with roots and twists and turns. Over 30 miles, your body takes quite a beating. The best part of a technical course is that there is so much to thinking about and concentrate on that you never have time to dwell on how much your body hurts. That comes when the race is over. And also into the next day.

We had a really fun time during the Stottlemeyer. Brian and I both improved our times from the previous year so that was exciting.

Here is a great shot of me during the race. Note - I think I am having fun at this point!

Afterwards we drove to Port Townsend for pizza. One of our favorite pizza places is Waterfront Pizza. Pretty sure I could eat pizza every day from this place. Yum!

Next weekend is the Spokane 24 hour mountain bike race. Team Shredded Bits and the Funky Junk will race again! It will be our 4th time competing in this event. Looking forward to it!

I'll get to it....

It seems that my last post has been quite a while ago. I know that many things have happened in the past 6 months that are blogworthy, but I've just not seemed interested in posting. I keep thinking to myself, "oh! that'd be a funny story for the blog, I'll get to it" Turns out I never really got to it.

Maybe it is because I stopped carrying my camera around with me. I've decided that I hate taking pictures. Too much work to stop what I am doing, pull out a camera, get the right setting and snap a photo. Bleh, can't stand it. I need to work on my attitude a little bit. What is a blog without pictures? Nobody likes to just read words on the screen. BORING.

Ok, I'll work on taking more pictures and blogging. I'll get to it.

The truth is that I've been avoiding my blog a little bit. I didn't want to write a post that was sad, but sometimes you just have to.

We lost our best friend Spencer in February. We had been treating him for cancer and it began to take too much of a toll on his body. Of course, no one ever wants to lose a pet. The dalmatians we lost before Spencer (Riley and Jester) did not live out the full lives. Riley died at 4 and Jester died at 7. Old man Spencer made it to 12.5! We had never put a dog to sleep before. It was very difficult, but also peaceful knowing that he would no longer be suffering. It is difficult watching your dog's health decline. It happened slowly with Spencer and then one day I just knew that he really wasn't having a good time in this world. That was a tough day. 

Anyhoo, I guess I have to start updating this thing a bit more frequently and perhaps take some more pictures. We've got some weekend trips coming up soon so I guess I'll drag out the old clunky camera and take some pictures to keep things interesting. 

Don't worry, I'll get to it.