Race Report: Tour d’Organics (aka: Tour d’Rolling Hill Hell )

August 21, 2008

This past Sunday I attempted my first official century ride (official because it’s the first one I’ve ever paid to do… and when you pay for something it makes it official. Attempted because, well, you’ll see shortly).

The ride: the Tour d’Organics in Sebastopol.

Distance: ~97 miles

Elevation: ~7300 feet

So how’d it go? Well, you know how sometimes when things are like seriously traumatic, people can’t really talk about them? But if you give them a box of crayons they go to town? That’s pretty much how I’ve been for the last three days. The result (since I don’t have a box of crayons) is the picture to the right.

But now that the whole rocking-back-and-forth-in-the-fetal-position thing has gotten a little boring, I’m ready to share some words, pictures, and videos.

So, my friend from UCLA was up in the Bay Area this weekend for a wedding – which means, after quite a bit of bribing and begging, he agreed to come along. I knew some Googlers were going but I:

a) didn’t want to ride 100 miles alone

b) even if someone agreed to ride with me, I totally freak out at the thought of making some poor soul wait for me as I slowly chug my lifeless body up the mountains.

c) In case of crying, I can’t have Googlers there… bad for the image. You understand.

So Eric is was!

At 6:20AM we arrived at the start area, signed in, and got a big map. The map getting business was the first surprise. We both thought there’d be giant signs all over the place telling us where to go… but the big map with lots and lots of directions suggested we were mistaken.

After the second surprise (that there was no “Start” line), we sort of just rolled out of the parking lot and got started. At about mile 2 I had my first (and only) near-accident. The roads were super wet and I decided to brake right on the “T” in “Stop”. My back tire did the whole sliding thing as my mouth hung open in horror. But, luckily, I didn’t crash. Peed myself, but didn’t crash.

Fast forward a bit and we had our first serious issue (as explained in the video):

So it turns out we biked the first 8-10ish miles twice. And since we’re talking about 8ish miles with hills, I was a little upset.

But the good news is I got to see the most adorable baby donkey twice! And the second time around I decided I just couldn’t go on living if I rode by without petting him.

Finally we made our way to the first rest stop and bumped into Josh and Mark from Google. I didn’t recognize them but somehow they knew who I was. This was fortunate because they let me know they rode the first loop twice, too. And what can I say, misery loves company

The rest stop people were super friendly and had loads of fruit, bread, peanut butter, and these little bottled juices. Those were delicious. And not only did they have good food, but they let us know all about how many gophers they’ve caught so far this year. And I’m telling you right now… this isn’t a catch and release situation.

So with that, we were back on the road.

Fast forward: I (and not Eric) got lost. Long story short we were finally on a nice descent when this blond chick sort of cut me off at the bottom and then zoomed off. And I, seeing some gradual hills coming up, decided I’d hop on her wheel and push it a bit. Now, thanks to gravity, I tend to go a bit faster on the downhills than Eric. And so, it was no great surprise that I didn’t see him for a while. This chick was hauling! But after a while of looking back and not seeing Eric I thought something seemed a bit off. So I went up a hill with her and decided to wait at the top. Minutes pass and there’s no Eric. I decide he’s probably been hit by a car (this has happened before), so I zoom on back. Turns out this chick led us the wrong way. She missed a turn. So poor Eric had been sitting waiting for me for something like 30 minutes… wondering if it was I who was squished by a car. hehe…oops!

Let’s just say I could see the satan flames in his eyes way before I pulled up next to him with an angelic smile upon my face. He was pissed!

After that he basically wanted to turn around and make the ride into something like 40 miles. I begged and begged and we finally agreed to go to this other shortcut – which, if we didn’t get lost and do the same loop twice, would make the ride about 70-75ish miles. But, with the first loop twice and my 30 minute extra jaunt, I would end up doing about 90 miles. And that was fine by me.

The rest of the ride consisted of trying to see ridiculously obscure green markers on the road, trying to make it to rest stops before they closed, and laughing at ourselves for pretty much failing.

The good news is that after we cut across the shortcut we actually were back among lots of bikers – which made the ride feel more like an official big thing.

Here we are at one of the final rest stops

I was pretty dead at that point. I think the lovely graph to the right explains why.

I distinctly remember going up one nameless, random, and what I like to call “rolling uphill of hell” when Eric pointed out a guy and gal going up on single speeds! And they were doing the century!!

At that point I went into fantasy mode. I thought… maybe this isn’t really a ride like I think. Maybe I’ve already died and this ride is supposed to absolve me of my sins. And maybe those two on the single speeds were just worse people than I was… and so it’s only fair that they suffer a lot more.

But then I gasped! Maybe this isn’t about absolution. What if I, like Sisyphus, was being punished…forever! But instead of having to haul a giant boulder up a mountain, I had to haul myself up. And whereas his boulder would fall back down at the last minute, they devised a new torture for me: I would make it over every hill only to be confronted with another one. And so it would go. Forever.

Luckily a few miles later it started to appear that the gods were done with their games, as a flat/slight descent seemed to be wrapping up the ride. And so, like Ebenezer Scrooge awaking on Christmas morning to find himself with another chance at a good life, I too shed all negativity and had a fun time pushing it for the last few miles.

And so we finished… sort of. In the car on the way back to SF, we decided to capture the lessons we learned from this ride.

Overall it was a challenging ride that would have gone a lot better if we didn’t do the first loop twice… and if I wouldn’t have gone the wrong way for 30 minutes.

Oh well! There’s always next time!

And for all the pictures go here.

Posted by Heather | Filed Under race reports | 2 Comments

Race Report: Angel Island 12k Trail Run

August 9, 2008

First, to get you in the proper mood, cue the tunes.

Alright, got that playing in the background? Good…very good

So Saturday. It was cold. It was early. It was Epic.

On this fateful day Savannah (sissy), Beth, and I made our way to Tiburon, where we got on a ferry with lots of other trail running fanatics.

Our destination: Angel Island.

Our mission: the Envirosports 12k Angel Island trail run of glory.

Beth’s mission: the Envirosports 25k Angel Island trail run of glory (+1)

(side note: I feel comfortable saying we were surrounded by “fanatics” because it was fairly obvious from the number of inside jokes and traditions thrown out by the race director that pretty much everybody there had done this race before. For instance, pause the music and check out one tradition in action: the “singing” of “America the beautiful” by a bunch of runners.)

Alright, turn the music back on. Good. I hope you’re feeling that shiat.

So, back to the story, funny thing… I had called and/or emailed and/or IM’ed sissy about a zillion times reminding her to bring water and some calories to this race because there would be no aid stations. And, let me tell you, running up and down hills for a little over seven miles without water sounds like a big dose of being in hell to me. So what happens race day morning? Savannah’s prepared. And me? Not only did I not eat breakfast, I also failed to bring water. But as luck would have it, Beth is one of those über prepared types (not surprising… she’s also an extreme-triathelete goddess who has successfully completed an Ironman! And we all know what type of personality is required to do that!) So Beth not only friggin baked and brought some delicious carrot cake (without frosting…sadly), she had extra water bottles in her trunk. So I happily ate said carrot cake and snatched said water. And again, all was good in the world.

Now, as many of you faithful blog readers know, this race was the encore to Savannah and my first trail run – which was a 10k. Since that one and this one I’ve been doing a lot of biking. Not so much running, but logging a lot of miles on the bike. As in, looking at my calendar, it’s got two runs marked. Two runs (each four miles) and ten rides (where the shortest [and most often ridden] rides are 43 miles). And, since the last race, Savannah had run somewhere between five to seven times. But with only two(ish) runs in the last week. So this race was going to be interesting!

And, after Beth zoomed off for her 25k race, Savannah and I got lined up and wanted to let you know how things were going so far…

So after that, we were off!

Now this run had what felt like a very different elevation profile from the previous run. Whereas Sequoia had some ridiculous “holy gods can I even run up/down this without going into cardiac arrest and/or tumbling to my doom (respectively)?!”, Angel Island was all about the gradual moderate uphill. Which I love love love. Your heart rate steadies and you get in the zone as you just cruise up. That and the views were gorgeous.

But of course, everyone is a bit different in their running preferences. For instance, we found out that Savannah in fact is a much bigger fan of the steep quick hills. And how did we find this out? Well, I kept accidentally speeding up and Savannah, bless her, would kindly remind me to “slow the hell down or go away”. So, after we calibrated ourselves to each other, things went a bit better for the sissy-team-spirit bit.

Here’s us after that first main climb (this, to note, was before sissy-calibration)

Savannah also had her first taste of mental games and fantasies one can play when racing. There were a few women who were doing the run hard then walk thing and Savannah was having none of it. We were running up this hill and I was totally in the zone when Savannah whispers “they are so annoying! I hate them!” So, to solve this issue, Savannah decides it’s high time we pick up the pace (much to my dismay, on this steeper bit) and get away from them. So me and my much shorter self picked up the pace and frantically tried and keep up with gazelle-sprinter Savannah. ‘Twas a success.

With Savannah leading the way, the pace was brought up again once I let her know all the uphill was over and it was downhill to the finish. A few others ended up behind us and I think this motivated Savannah to really kick it up. And so, we were zooming! Eventually we got stuck behind a lot of people and Savannah wasn’t exactly sure how to get around them so I took the lead and tried to pick up the pace again. We were making awesome time (and saw a few others sacrificed to the down-hill-tumble gods) all the way to the finish. And Savannah, with her iron will, really gave it 100%. At one point she gasped, “I’m going to cry. I just want to cry it’s so hard”. But I

a) knew how close we were to the finish at that point

b) thought, “well, she can still speak! So we’re ok!”

c) felt the pressure of the goal Savannah had set for us. When we first signed up for this race Savannah said “let’s do this 12k in the same time we did our previous 10k”. So that meant shaving off some serious time. I really wanted her to see it was possible and so, I really wanted to run her to her gazelle limits.

Here we are coming in to the finish (you can see she was a little feisty)

For our previous run we finished that 10k in about 1:31:06. And what was our time on this race?

drum roll please

1:29:19!!!! So that’s a huge improvement. To be fair, this course was much more runner friendly, but still! I was so so happy that we made it!

And it wasn’t long at all after our finish that I spotted Beth, running goddess, coming in for her own 25k kick ass finish! Here she is

Turns out she won for her age division! (now she of course didn’t tell me this, I had to do my own investigative reporting). I’m just bummed I didn’t get her autograph!

So that was the race! I really loved it and highly recommend this course to those who are into the gradual continuous climbing style. But, I would not really recommend this as a first-time 25k course. The 25k course people run the 12k loop twice, which means they have to run right down to the finish line and then run right back up that hill – and I think that’s very mentally challenging. Especially for a first timer.

The best ending to this day was sitting on the ferry going back to Tiburon and watching as Beth took off her shoe and revealed a totally bloody sock (and, seconds later, foot). We aren’t quite sure where the blood is coming from (I voted nail-skin area), but I sure know all the other runners near us sure appreciated that special share!

After that I went home and went back to bed. The end!

To see all the pictures, go here.

Posted by Heather | Filed Under race reports | 1 Comment

7000 feet of quad and booty burning glory

August 2, 2008

On Saturday the cycling sirens sang yet again. And this time the call had a “climb epic heights” ring to it. And, since we all know how siren calls go, I had to oblige.

The ride was a from-somewhere-between-Burlingame and Woodside, up Old La Honda, through Pescadero, out to Half Moon Bay, and up and over back down to Canada road-loop. For written directions of what we did go here. And, if you’re more visually oriented, you can see a very rough gmap of it here instead. Suffice to say, the ride was truly one of great glory. Having never climbed anything like that before, I was super proud of myself. Looking back and seeing countless hills in the far distance, and then knowing that you’ve climbed them, makes for a pretty awesome moment. Plus, it’s just such a gorgeous ride. Zillions of redwood trees, isolated little towns, wildflowers, the ocean — it’s just fantastic.

So here’s the beginning…

in the car on our way…

Step one: find purportedly delicious coffee place (Philz - in the Mission)

Step two: buy and taste test said purported deliciousness

(note to other caffeine/coffee junkies: ’tis quite delicious. They add their sugar and homemade cream for you…and it’s heavenly. And, since it’s not like you added the sugar and cream yourself, it totally doesn’t count as bad for you!)