Day 1- trying to figure out why I am so intrigued

I am planning on attempting an ultra challenge in May, so much so that I will fork over the $150. registration fee on Friday. Why am I doing this? Three reasons: 1. My friend Marty gave me an assignment to chase motivation and find balance to be able to return to myself. 2. Its a great cause. I have said many times before that there is something about that ridge that draws me in. It's my connection to things unworldly. This event benefits the preservation of that open space. 3. Kenny and I have been trying to go on a trekking trip that will involve 10-15 miles of hiking a day in an extreme climate (above the circle). This will get me ready to attempt that. So day one, I figure I am already used to 2-3 mile walks in my hilly neighborhood. Today I changed it up a bit trying to go uphill as much as possible. I also tried to maintain a pace of 3.5 miles and hour uphill (faster on the flats). I walked for about an hour with my leggy husband keeping pace. It doesn't sound like much but it's a start. I plan on approaching this as I would any endurance challenge, train 6 days a week, increase 10% a week. It worked in 1999 like a charm when I went from riding 3 miles on my first training ride to 350 miles 4 months later. I can do this! (who knows maybe I will get tot he point of running) What did we see? Walking is interesting. The world slows down tremendously. For the past month whenever we have walked the neighborhood we have witnessed the changes left by SANDY. Each time we have seen something different. What amazes me is how much cleanup is still left 5 weeks later. Today there are still houses with trees resting where a roof once was, massive amounts of logs in yards, twisted wire still laying all over the place, and piles of wood chips everywhere. Guess we won't need to find mulch this spring.

It is all so surreal. NY is a different place. I left my house at 3:30AM this morning to head to LGA for a 7AM flight. Why so early? First, traffic is a nightmare, especially when there is a mandatory HOV restriction going into Manhattan and the checkpoint is at the airport. Secondly, Kenny needed to get into the city prior to the opening of that HOV checkpoint (6AM). We played it safe. On the way we passed a gas station with a line more than a mile long (at 3:45 AM). We passed two more stations without gas. We didn't hit any traffic, maybe it was due to the gas shortage, maybe it was due to the train restoration? Anyway, as I arrive at LGA 2.5 hours early, I am bid goodbye along with some rumbles of MAD MAX. Not sure I will have a ride home on Sunday, I may have to share a cab into NYC and hop on Metro North. After clearing security, I headed to get something to eat, I waited almost an hour for oatmeal and coffee, the airport sputtering a bit in the aftermath. While I sat and waited to board, I listened to a newly married Hasidic couple, she was pregnant with her first child. She was speaking about how hard this storm was on her sister, with 3 kids under 4. She lives on the top floor of a 15 floor building. Without an elevator she has had to walk up carrying 2 children totaling 45lbs combined, her husband refusing to help her as its deemed woman's work. Matter of fact, he claimed that the elders should shut the elevators in the building for a week each year so the women in the building could get used to such burdens. The reading I happened to be doing this week? Unorthodox so I found this eavesdropping both interesting and SAD. Chalk it up to a different culture. Kenny arrived in downtown Manhattan, still dark, and eerie as he put it. I can't help thinking about the possibility of Post Traumatic Stress as I am sure that eeriness draws up all kinds of post 911 junk (it would in me anyway). Southern NY is a mess, a much wider spread mess than that horrible day 11 years ago, but just the same, a dark downtown has to be heart-wrenching! I boarded my flight and took to the heavens just as the days light was coming up, the electricity of the landscape should have been evident, it was archaically dark, and looked undeveloped. It was hard to get over. People here don't understand, actually I am feeling like I have no right to even claim how bad it was, my neighborhood exploded and several buildings will require being torn down, but I don't live on the coast. I don't live in Long Beach, or Seaside, or on Fire Island. Sea water did not accompany the wind. In that sense we were good. Trees were just chewed up and spit out like projectiles. You know the way HS kids throw pencils into the drop ceilings whenever you have a sub? I am in Milwaukee now, removed from it, but find myself drawn to the pictures that I couldn't see all week. People don't understand,that is unless they experienced the gas lines of the 70's or maybe experienced Andrew or Katrina. I am not sure I will have power when I get back? I am not sure I will even be back to school on Monday? I arrived here a bit battered and so tired. I was not aware of how incredibly spent I was until I was able to relax a bit. Tomorrow, after a good nights sleep, I will finally enjoy watching skating.

our corner of the northeast

Yes we are alive, I think. Its cold this morning in the house (48 degrees)and promises to be even colder tonight. Our camp stove is being put to good use,paper plates and plastic utensils have new meaning, we run the generator for the fridge and the septic and our pre-storm water supply is holding up. Yesterday Ken and I spent the second morning cutting and moving a tree that fell in a neighbors yard then went to our friend Pete's to take a long needed shower. The hot water felt so good I could have stayed in there all day and I was really sleepy when I came out. Watching the devastation on TV was an eye opener, made me think about just how lucky we were despite the destruction I have witnessed here. We stopped at Home Depot on the way home and scored a $72. oil radiator for 40. because it was mis-marked, score! We also stopped at DiCicco's for a beer and heard about Janine's horrifying walk up 118 during the storm from someone else who lived the same thing… Dinner consisted of pizza and BBQ steak with Mikey and Kathleen. We ended the night with Young Frankenstein with friends. Twitter feeds and the radio tell us that LGA just reopened this morning, maybe, and because I don't have school I am hoping to catch a flight out between now and Friday to see Christopher Grizzy Windman race, see friends and escape this mess (the idea of sitting in an ice rink seems tropical) . Life is funny sometimes…laugh until it hurts!

and I get tossed again

I went out for a ride this morning, not really feeling it. Actually cranky was really the best way to describe how I was feeling. I just was not into anything, my head hurt, my lungs were tight, my mood was irritable at best and I felt like I was being tossed out of the house with my bike against my will. It is a pretty nice day out there, I will give you that, but all I wanted to do was sleep in, which also seemed to escape me. I have been restless since 3AM. Kenny dropped me at the trailhead on his way to the grocery store. It wasn't more than 10 minutes into my ride that I realized I had ridden through one of my usual get off my bike and panic points without thinking about it. I am beginning to think that leaf cover is a great psychological buffer. Today, however, I learned how they also hide a multitude of things that I NEED to be aware of such as sticks that jump up and bite your back wheel, root outcroppings that require some technical finesse, and then there is the rock garden that sits on the bed of scree, more realistically it is a washout drainage area that has everything from small pebbles to boulders that are shin height and not secure in any sense of the word. Yep, I found my front wheel wedged, my momentum stopped, my bike twisted and my leg still attached to it because the mud in the cleat had managed to cement it to the pedal. The worst part about this tossing that had me falling into the same stuff that hung me up in the first place was my mood, I was even more ornery now. Damn that hurt and yes it already left a mark. I pulled my whiney ass up out of the rubble and dusted myself off, took a few steps to make sure I could and got back on the bike. It really was pretty and quite honestly not such a bad way to spend an hour. I took the wrong turn and found myself all turned around in a pretty technical cluster-f#%K in places. There was the drop-off that almost had me in a really green smelly swamp because of wet roots in the turn right at the end of it and the numerous obscured logs that were hiding under leaves, one was big enough to have to J-hop. Then there was another damn skinnie across a deeper mud puddle that then one I have issues with. Thankfully, I owned most of that one and only got my foot wet at the end. From the looks of it the last guy was not so lucky. How did this crank fest end? I cut my ride 2 miles short and had Kenny pick me up where the trail crossed the road. He was on his way home from the store and it was on the way. My brain was too fried from the unexpected to manage the technical stuff I knew was ahead. Now? I'm cleaned up, looking for something for lunch, very sore in places,tired enough that I may nap before ice, and not so cranky anymore.

I'm gonna ride my bike now...

A perfect day to be tossed off that bloody skinnie again deep into that mud puddle only this time it ate me up and cut my ride to 30 min (I was kinda cold, stretched and muddy) In the end though I was all smiles! I know that one day this fat chick will beat that skinnie (no harm in trying anyway)!

Leaf cover

I decided to go out for a ride this afternoon at 3:30 but by the time I got all the nonsense out of the way my afternoon was whittled away to one hour before it would be dark enough to need lights. Yes I had them, but gathering gear seemed for some reason to be part of my problem. Eventually I left that note. I wasn't at Ninham, or Brewster Woods, or even Graham Park in Yorktown. By the time I got all my crap together I was in the woods along the power lines. At first I was dismayed at that but then when I realized that the leaf cover was hiding all those obstacles from me so that I could ride over them instead of contemplate them I found myself doing loops so I could do tricks. I managed a bunch of small drops and one medium sized one, a bunch of rock wall crossings, a few rock gardens, a few root tangles, loads of logs and a few skinnies including one that threw me knee deep into a puddle with lots of thick mud at the bottom. I rode home cursing the meager 30lbs I had in my tires when I got out of the woods but I was smiling, wheezing, and fully satisfied. Tomorrow? I hit the ice!

getting technical

I have had my Gary Fischer 29"mountain bike for two years now. I got it because I was getting bored on the road. I used to love riding in the woods but as I age I haven't been finding the courage to go over some of those technical obstacles and that has meant that I haven't progressed as far as I would like to, that is, until now. This weekend Kenny was away and I spent part of it visiting with Alison and my mom. Alison found this really great group of women to ride with and has been riding quite a bit in the past year. We went out for a ride the other day. I think the fact that she is an elementary school teacher makes her more patient than most. We both had a bunch of WAHOO moments and a blast in the 90 minutes we shared. What changed? Well, there is determination to own myself again. The there was this ride in Huntington State Park a few weeks ago that where there were 4 women my age and two guys willing to both teach and spot. I didn't ace that ride but it left a definite impression on me, enough to make me not bail on anything other than the super-technical stuff with Alison. I still couldn't j-hop really large logs, ride really long boardwalk type skinnies (to my credit they were soaked through and covered with leaves in places), or ride root and rock gardens. I tried almost everything, including some drop offs. There were so many WAHOO moments that I was stoked. What does that mean? Well today I rode in Graham Knolls Park. I decided that I would try everything, bike more that I got off, and if I got off I would at least retry the obstacle. It was like those workouts where you realize you are in shape. I managed every log (even j-hopping a few), I tried a few skinnies on purpose, I went over a bunch of rock gardens without hesitation, rock walls were a piece of cake and I left that park feeling accomplished despite my snail's pace. It has been a busy weekend riding and skating. This week will see the same. My muscles as so sore but I find myself renewed and excited about working out. I can't wait to ride with the girls again next Sunday!