Success! Team Salty Dawgs Do Marin!

We did it!  Mark, Mike and I completed the 100K Marin Century Route on Saturday, August 2.  Mike noticed at the last rest stop that the route was actually only 57 miles, so Mark and I added a 20 minute loop at the end of the ride to make sure we got our full 62 miles in.

Stats: Since April, I rode 900 miles, burned 36,204 calories and rode for 75 hours and 35 minutes to train for this 100K ride to raise money for the American Lung Association.

Results: I rode 62 miles, climbed 3830 feet, and burned 2360 calories in 6 hours and 15 minutes. (that includes time at rest stops).

Best results: I raised nearly $4500 for the American Lung Association of California, and Oracle will be chipping in about another $1500 in matching donation.  I have been overwhelmed with everyone's generosity.

Not bad for a woman who thought she'd never ride a bicycle again just 3 years ago!

The ride was fabulous, and the rest stops had the best food! They had all the standards: m&ms, nuts, chips, cookies, PB&J and Gatorade.  But then they had even more: focaccia bread, brie, strawberries, figs, beef jerky, peaches, grapes, cherries, coffee cake and more.

That really helped me avoid stomach cramps while I rode (more fruit, less heavy/fatty stuff).

The day started out cool and nice (and missing Mike, who started 38 minutes after us...)

Mark beat me to the Big Rock (he appears to be being very silly)

but I got there eventually...

We did see a little bit of sun and Mark warmed up enough to take off his arm warmers, though they came back on for some of the descents.

Mike did find us and ride with us for a lot of the ride - completing Team Salty Dawgs!

We were still grinning at the finish!

Photos courtesy of Captivating Sports and Event Photos!

I couldn't have done this with out the support of my friends and family, and without Mike and Mark.  Mark even pushed me a bit up the steepest climb - I think he was getting bored.

I felt like I could've easily done another 10 miles... with more training, maybe next year I can try 100 miles...

THANK YOU!!  Valerie

Support Requested: Salty Dawgs Ride Again for the American Lung Association!

As you faithful readers know, I love riding my bicycle and I love raising money to help the American Lung Association of California fight lung disease!

Due to my earlier injuries, I haven't been able to support the ALAC for a few years.  The ALAC no longer does their Two Rock Ride, but that's not going to stop me!  I'm riding the Marin Century this Saturday!  I'll be doing the metric century (100K/60miles) - quite a challenge for me, as I haven't done more than 40-45 miles since my injury.  My trainer - my husband, Mark - has been working with me every weekend on longer rides with more climbs. I'm sure I'll be ready.

This ride is important to me, as a long time asthma sufferer and since I've lost so many loved ones to lung cancer and other lung diseases.  My mother, a non-smoker who survived her ordeal with lung cancer, inspires me to ride every day and not to take my lungs for granted! My mom lost 1/2 of one lung to cancer, and I know she misses it!

So, please support my ride! I'm trying to raise $8,000 and I'm only 30% of the way there - the ride is on Saturday!  I know together that we can do this!

Thank you so much!

Valerie

Drivers: Don't "creep" towards bicyclists!

Riding into to work this morning, I encountered an all too common event: I have the right-of-way, I'm in the intersection and a car who does NOT have the right-of-way starts.... creeping in.

I'm sure the driver is creeping into the intersection because they want to save that 1/2 a millisecond after I've cleared the intersection to enter it.

Please do not do this!

1. As a cyclist, it is impossible for me to distinguish between you seeing me and thinking it's okay to creep into the intersection and you not seeing me and starting your move into the intersection.
2. What if you sneeze, cough, or your foot just slips on the throttle and it goes from creeping to fast acceleration?
3. As I usually ride with 1-2 other folks, and you're stopped when one of them passes and then you start creeping - I really don't think you see me. I am the slowest in the pack, so there is often a small gap (about one car length - which is NOT enough space for you to pull through).
4. Bicyclists are going faster than you think.  Or slower. It depends on the rider. Pay attention, please.

When this happens, I will yell (I've already dinged my bell as I approached the intersection).  Do NOT rev your engine in response. See #2 above.

I'm lucky that much of my commute is on quiet neighborhood streets and trails, but I've even encountered the "creeper" in parks!

Please just stay stationary as bicycles pass you. Look at them so that they can see your eyes and know you see them.  If your windows are darkly tinted and I can't see you - I don't know that you saw me.

The worst creepers are those who are clearly playing with their phone or radio (ie NOT looking).  While it's illegal to play with your phone while stationary, if you MUST do it - please have your foot on the break.

Right now, my regular trail is closed due to construction on the new SF 49ers Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, so I have to ride through a parking lot for a park/tennis courts/golf course/ACE Train/SF 49ers construction (yes, that IS the official bike detour).  That is scary enough. Drivers not stopping at the T intersection (which is a 1 way stop - I do not have a stop sign) is pretty scary, especially when they are large construction trucks or employees running late.

There is always a Santa Clara police officer there, but he seems to be on break as he's always at the far end of the parking lot where the bike trail begins again and not where everyone is running their stop sign and revving their engines at bicyclists.

Be careful out there, y'all! :-)
 

Line in the Sand: Metric Century Here I Come!

As many of you have been following my troubles with my leg injury (and everything that stemmed from that) and keeping my asthma and PIC in control, you'll know how big of a deal it is that I've signed up for the Marin Century for this August!

Bicycling is an important part of who I am - I am excited to get back into training mode!

Okay, so I'm just signed up for the metric (62 miles), but that will be the most that I will have cycled since I injured myself in 2010.  Who else wants to join me? I miss riding with a group of friends and even if you can't do the ride, let's get together for summer rides or virtual training. Who's in?

Flash Mob: My walk for Multiple Myeloma

Cancer sucks. Period. The older I get, the more people I know personally that are battling this horrible disease.  It comes in some many forms.  Last weekend I walked for my friend Laura, who had just lost her seven year battle with Multiple Myeloma, a rare blood cancer, on March 25, 2013. She was just 57 years old.

Laura, though, never lost her joy of living and her appreciation of dance. She asked for one thing as the end approached: she wanted a flash mob to greet her in Heaven.  Her daughter, Jillian, arranged for just that. Here's the dance we did just before the walk - growing to over 100 dancers!


Thanks to everyone's incredibly generous support of my walk, I raised over $3500 towards Multiple Myeloma research.

Amazing Commute Today

Our regular bike route has a bridge out this week for repairs, so Mark suggested we hop on our mountain bikes and head out to work on the Bayshore trail.  It had been more than two years since I had ridden in along the San Francisco Bay. I had forgotten how wonderful it was.

When Sun Microsystems, Inc. was up in Menlo Park, the trails along the Bayshore were all paved, so we could ride our road bikes in and get into work in pretty good time. The Santa Clara trails, though, are not paved.  Since then we've moved down to Santa Clara. As mountain bikes are generally slower and we're always running short on time, we always take our road bikes in along lightly traveled roads.

But, do you know what? Lightly traveled roads still have cars on them. And leaf blowers. And drivers that turn right right in front of you.

The Bayshore just has runners and a few other bikes.

It was so peaceful and beautiful. Riding behind Hanger One, naked now. Forlorn.  Seeing the other hangers at NASA Ames.  Smelling the sea air, hearing the birds, watching the squirrels scurry up and down the hills.

We saw several blue herons, egrets, ducks, geese, coots, a night heron and Mark caught a glimpse of an otter.

Yes, the ride took longer, and I was beyond starving when I got home, but I feel recharged. Happy. Peaceful.

Beers (and Bears) of Yosemite

I had the great fortune of making it up to Yosemite 3 times this summer.  Yosemite is the most beautiful place I've ever been, and you can't beat a campground within walking distance to a bar!

Yosemite bars serve Mammoth Brewing Company brews on tap, and you can also purchase them in every grocery store we checked (okay, that was just the one in Curry Village...).  I haven't seen Mammoth beers out here in the bay area, so was excited to try them the first weekend we were out.  I ordered myself a Double Nut Brown and my husband an Epic IPA.   The brown was a nice typical brown (which just might be my new favorite style of beer), rich, nutty, slightly sweet without being syrupy, with an incredibly smooth finish.  The Epic was much too bitter for me, typical of American brewers pushing for stronger & stronger flavored IPAs (as opposed to, in my opinion, nice flavors).  Much like its flavor, the beer itself was very strong. Of course, American bars so rarely list the ABV, so we didn't know 'til my poor husband woke up the next morning with a terrible hangover.

When we asked the barmaid on our next visit about the ABV, she believed the brown was close to 5 or 5.5% and the IPA, being EPIC, was closer to 8 or 9%.  Yikes, a warning would've been nice!

On another stay, we also tried the Mammoth Brewing Company Amber - lots of flavor in this one, a bit of honey,  caramel, hops and lots more carbonation (not necessarily a good thing when you are at altitude).

I didn't get to see any bears in their natural habitat this year, but did have the misfortune of camping at a site with a loose bear locker.  This black bear had obviously learned that if he banged on this locker, he could often get the food out. We had it padlocked, so that method didn't work, but didn't stop him from knocking on the locker. Fortunately, our neighbors chased him out of the site (we were in our tent).  The next night he came back, and this time I got to help with the chasing!  On the last day of that trip, the rangers treed that bear and we had a quiet night of sleep. This is when I'm glad we don't camp in grizzly country! *whew*

First Big Training Ride and Request for Advice

Last Sunday, 1/2 of Team Salty Dawgs (plus a bonus rider) headed out on our first big training ride in preparation for my first century: 58 miles! We started in Mountain View (though one rider started in Sunnyvale...), headed up the bay shore trail to the Sun's Menlo Park campus, and made a right turn onto the Dumbarton Bridge. After we got over the bridge, we continued on beautiful bicycle trails through Alameda County until we found ourselves at Niles, where we had a delightful lunch at a little cafe (complete with cafe lattes!) and watched the steam trains go by.

After lunch, we reversed our route, pushing hard against the head winds that had come in since the morning. My dear friend Eileen had only ridden 11 miles previously this year, so I was very proud of how she stuck with the group and had no complaints (other than dreaming about a warm bath and cookies back at her own home).

We jokingly called it the Tour de Toilettes, as it seemed one of us always needed to stop every time we came across one. Fortunately, all of them, except one dreadful port-a-potty, were well maintained and clean. :-)

We did this in 4 hours and 19 minutes of ride time - it was mostly flat, though, so this weekend we'll have to start on the hills!

My only complaint, though, which is one I seem to have after every long ride (greater than 3 hours) is a headache and a stomach ache. My stomach seems to get incredibly filled with air during a ride - like I'm swallowing air or something? It's sort of like drinking a couple of Diet Cokes or beers really fast. That full feeling that, I'm sorry to say, does come with burps and nausea.

I'm certainly not drinking soda during a ride like this. I was also not eating, except for my lunch stop. I drank water pretty continuously from my Camel Bak.

So, any ideas? Anyone else have this problem of stomach ache on a long ride?

One of my team mates, Bryn, thinks the headache might be from lack of electrolytes and has suggested Cytomax. What do you think?

I've also been focusing on my speed - I want to finish these 100 miles in less than 24 hours :) My normal average speed on a ride like that is 12.5 mph, I've got to do better. That was my normal speed into work, but with all the riding I've been doing lately, I've gotten that up to around 15 mph (no hills).

btw, I'm still looking for folks to join our team! The ride is in Sonoma area, 65 or 100 miles, on June 26. You can find information on our team page. If you can't ride, please support us with a financial donation! Thank you!

Lots of Fun East Bay Activities

While I'm normally a San Francisco Peninsula or South Bay kind of girl, I've spent the last two weekends in the East Bay.

Last weekend, we went with our friends visiting from Seattle to Niles to hop on the steam powered Niles Canyon Railway train! What I loved about this train was that it made the *exact* noise that all trains make in cartoons... which, apparently, is unique to steam trains (and a sound guy was there recording it as it pulled into the station). And it had a great whistle, as well! It didn't go very fast, but that was all the better to enjoy the beautiful rolling hills and other quaint scenery from the open top rail car. The train took us to Sunol, where we had a picnic lunch in the park that is right across the street from the depot.

After lunch, we thought we'd get a cup of coffee in the Jazz Cafe. Unfortunately, a couple of lattes ended up being a complicated order. The barista had problems with the order... twice. The first time, she couldn't read her own hand writing, so we had to tell her the order again. After about 30 minutes with no coffee, we checked again, and she'd forgotten to make them. Fortunately for us, the train was running late so we had plenty of time to finish our coffees once we got them. The atmosphere was very cool, but not sure about the service.

We ran into some other women at the station that had such bad luck at the other restaurant in town that they'd missed their earlier return train. Apparently their waitress forgot that they ordered food, too. Strange little town, Sunol. I think when we do this again, we'll start out in Sunol and take our chances in Niles for lunch and coffees, as their looked like there was a lot more options there.

The train ride itself was very cool and unforgettable - hard to believe it is totally staffed and run by volunteers! Many paid employees at other establishments could learn a thing or two about customer service from these friendly folks! I can't believe I've lived in this area for so many years and had never taken that train ride before!

This weekend, we ventured to the East Bay again with a different set of friends - this time for an even more rugged experience - camping! Okay, it's car camping, and we ate like kings, but still, we were roughing it! We camped in Lake Chabot at a great campsite. The fire pit and picnic tables were well set up, bathrooms clean and well stocked and HOT showers! The big pluses of this campground: close to the bay area so we only had a short drive, and mountain bike friendly!

I've had a cold, been traveling or just generally busy lately - that's kept me out of the saddle for more than a month! This weekend, I thought what better way to get back into shape than doing a long mountain bike ride! The trails in this park were totally my style: wide, shaded, not very technical, lots of good climbs. I could ride them for hours - in fact, we did: 5 hours of riding! *whew* and that's when the nice, clean, hot showers came in very handy!

Riding my bike again!

The weather has warmed, the time change has gone into effect, and it's really spring here in the SF Bay Area! That means getting back on my bicycle! I'm coming off of a nasty cold (seems like everyone has had it), so it feels good to be breathing in the fresh morning air. I managed to commute into Menlo Park twice this week - my hubby is well on his way of biking in every day for a month... What is really cool about this ride in is just being so close to nature as we ride along the bay shore, through Shoreline park and the Palo Alto wetlands. This week, we were surrounded by butterflies who are apparently in the area as they migrate from Mexico to Washington. We spotted many egrets, nesting geese, and crows. Last night while riding home, a large hawk was pacing us, riding the wind just feet from our heads (in fact, he nearly accidentally swooped right into Mark's head at one point!) It was very cool and definitely something we could not have experienced from the car.

Oh, yes, the cars... we're actually getting problems starting these cars, just due to lack of driving. I had heard that there are supposed to be car insurance discounts if you commute by bicycle, I'll have to look into that to see if I can somehow cover the extra tune-ups we'll need to do due to lack of use ;-)

Now a side note on blogging - I'm going to update my blog roll tonight, as I realize that I haven't been very good with updating it with the blogs that I actually read every day. Some are quite funny and others very interesting. Speaking of blogs that I read, I met a friend of mine in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago that I hadn't seen in months - and we realized that since we both follow each other's blogs, that we didn't have to update each other on the big things in life - just the details and things we never got around to blogging. Very cool, if only a tiny bit nerdy. :-)

Now I'm going to try to get up all the entries that have been running through my head all week....

Fall harvest

This has been my first year trying my hand at gardening, and I've learned quite a lot! First, dwarf basil is a pain to harvest - it takes forever to pull off enough leaves for pasta!  I also discovered that I love fresh tomatoes and green beans, and fresh herbs are delightful.  For my first year I planted Better Boy tomatoes, carrots, beats, okra, broccoli, grean beans, red and yellow bell peppers, Serrano  chilies, jalapeño chillies, Anaheim peppers, "spring" onions, sage, basil, cilantro, rosemary, and thyme. Oh, and mint, but that is growing itself from the neighbors yard. :-)  The beans did fantastically well on the side of the house, and the carrots and beets thrived in a semi-shaded corner of the back yard (I'm thinking about doing a second planting this fall).  The tomatoes did well in the back, as did the Serrano chillies, but the other chillies and peppers suffered a bit - for two reasons I think, not enough afternoon sun and I didn't realize that I was supposed to fertilize them until after they were in the ground a couple of months.  I have *one* okra pod. One. Too much shade and planted a bit too late, I suspect. I'll try that again next year up front.

The broccoli... dear broccoli. One of my favorite vegetables, alas I've been disappointed by my home grown. After combating  a pesky caterpillar/moth with organic pesticide, I finally have florets, but they are flimsy and not firm at all. And they don't taste like what I'm used to getting from the store. They took so long to grow, planted in May in a semi-shaded spot, it's really disappointing.  I got the seed packet for free as a give-a-way at a conference, though, so maybe next year I should do some actual research into what seeds I choose. I didn't realize last spring that there were actual websites with seed reviews on them, but of course, though, there is a website for everything now.

Next year the peppers and chillies will get a sunnier spot. The tomatoes will probably go in the same place, I seem to recall it's not good to plant other things where tomatoes were, except maybe beets. Perhaps that's where I'll do my winter planting of beets (well, after the tomatoes have stopped producing). It is very nice living in a relatively mild climate, though I am hoping we will get a lot more rain this year.

Additionally, I grew my marigolds from seed this year. They are like giant marigold bushes now, getting a bit rangy so I'm not sure how much longer they'll get to stay. Oh, yeah, grew poppies, too. Now I think we'll always have poppies, as they had self seeded before I pulled them up.

My "spring" onions are well on their way to becoming full onions, I think. I was not expecting them to do that well! The chives I planted at the same time never even sprouted, but I have spring onions coming out my ears! 

There is something very rewarding about eating our own vegetables, fresh picked/pulled moments before cooking. Now, have I saved any money with all these home grown things? Once I take into account water, fertilizer and time, certainly not. I'll do it again next year all the same. :-)

And a hush fell over the crowd....

I experienced something new this weekend - I was in the Opal Ultra Lounge in the MontBleu in Lake Tahoe.  Every TV in the casino and club was tuned into the Olympics, which people had been idly watching while waiting for drinks to be made. Then the men's 400m medley relay came on.  Suddenly, the crowd quieted. Bartenders stopped making drinks. People stopped talking. Dancers stopped moving on the dance floor. We all just stopped and watched, many holding their breath while others softly chanted "U S A. U S A."  Everyone was totally riveted until the race completed, America taking another gold - Michael Phelps receiving his 8th.  It was surreal.

I'm not a huge sports fan, but I do love watching the Olympics. These sports are just not normally aired, and this is my first time watching them in HD - an awesome experience  (I do love my TiVo!).

Fireworks spoiled by nincompoops

We had a pretty great Fourth of July BBQ with friends, when we decided to walk to a nearby park and enjoy the fireworks being put on at the Shoreline Amphitheater. We thought we'd save ourselves some effort and watch from a nearby park (Whisman Sport's Complex) instead of walking all the way to the park (which would be much too crowded for driving) ... well, there was a group of idiots that thought the professional display was not enough, and they were letting off fireworks about 20 feet from a large group of people. Several of their fireworks misfired and exploded on the ground. Children were screaming and crying... yet they did not relent. They continued to let them off right near the main entrance of the park.  Some of our group had to leave early due how scared they were being so close - out of a nearly hidden back exit.  As far as I know, you're not supposed to let off fireworks in a park like that.  Who knows - but next year, we'll do the full walk to Shoreline, which is nicely policed, and enjoy the professional show without fear of injury from the amateurs. [Note: according to the Mountain View Voice, all fireworks are illegal in Mountain View]

Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!!!

We did the American Lung Association's Breathe Easy Lung Ride in San Luis Obispo last weekend, and it was WONDERFUL! Even though it was a very hot weekend, most of the ride was along the coast - which was beautiful and cool. I didn't really get hot til the last 10-15 miles, particularly when I ran out of water (my fault for not filling up at the last rest stop! I totally forgot!) Mark stopped often so I could have some water from his camel back, but the sun and the heat did get to me - I got a pounding headache behind my eyes and dizzy. Nothing an air conditioned lobby, lots of cold water & some food couldn't fix. I did finish the ride, but after the dizzy spell I did get a SAG wagon back to my hotel (3 miles from the ride start). All the same, thank you all for your very generous donations! Your gifts, plus the very generous matching gifts from the Sun Microsystems Foundation, helped me raise $6884.02! WOW!

Thank you so much - the generosity of all of you is so humbling to me. Thank you.

Biking to work & biking to save lives

This is a big week for bicycling and me, with Bike to Work Day coming up tomorrow (May 15) and my 65 mile ride for the American Lung Association on Saturday (May 17). I'm excited about Bike to Work Day, as I think this will be the first time I can actually ride in. It's always funny - I ride in all the time, but something like a doctors appointment will come up and I'll miss this one day. Well, I already rescheduled my dentist appointment so I can make it this year! I expect to see the trails pretty packed, even though my route doesn't take me along any of the "power stations", because tomorrow is also a Spare The Air Day and my last day to train for the ALA ride on Saturday.

Unfortunately, my show schedule and cold I got after we opened kept me from biking for essentially all of April - so, training didn't start until April 30. I've done this ride a few years in a row, now, so I know I can do it - I just know that my lack of training will result in being VERY tired and sore, but I will do it. I do this ride for my mother, a lung cancer survivor and asthma sufferer and for all of the family friends and family members we have lost to lung disease. If you can support me, I'd appreciate it. If not, please do something friendly for the environment on Saturday to help support clean air - like combine any trips by car, or see if you can walk or ride a bicycle to do your errands, or just make sure your car is passing its smog requirements. There's a lot of us in the Bay Area - small things we do can add up.

Bike accident

I was so sad today to read about the fatal bike accident that occurred on Steven's Creek Canyon yesterday morning. We do that ride all the time, only missing yesterday because we were skiing. I love riding that road because I find that the cyclists and motorists are generally very courteous, with the exception of occasional yahoos in sports cars. It's a nice, quiet road with a good steady climb. My heart goes out to the families of Matt Peterson and Kristy Gough, and I'm sending as many good thoughts as possible toward Christopher Knapp - I hope he is able to recover from his injuries.

Northstar skiing!

Finally made it skiing this weekend, up to Northstar, and it was AMAZING! Okay, my legs were not in the best shape, but on Saturday the sun was shining, the lift lines were short to non-existent, and the snow was perfect!  Nice and soft. Northstar left some of their runs partially ungroomed, which was a lot of fun - I could ski in the deep, cut up snow for awhile, and as I got tired - bail out to the nice, even groomed bits.  We decided to drive straight home on Sunday, after getting a look at the wind & snow starting to fall - which seems like a good decision, since the resorts got between 18" and 36" yesterday! It would've been fun to ski in, but not for long, and the drive home would've been a nightmare. I just hope we get more good snow like this - both for the skiing and to help stave off the drought!

The great outdoors!

Had a fantastic trip to Yosemite this weekend - staying in Camp Curry. What a fun place! It's still very rustic, yet it's walking distance to clean bathrooms with running water, showers, buffet, pizza shop & bar. The bartender, Ken, was very friendly as he explained that their wine list was out of date and that they no longer carried Foppiano wines, and promised to pass on my disappointment to the management. As I'm not a huge jug wine fan, we decided to have beers on tap. Not bad for the wilderness.

Deer were all over the campsite, cautious of the people, but not at all spooked. We didn't see any bears, though some of the other campers' snoring could've easily been mistaken for a bear growl ;-)

Hiked up to Nevada Falls - using the John Muir trail this time. After my last experience attempting to climb up Half Dome, I'll never go up the Mist trail again! My calves are aching horribly - guess I'm still not in climbing shape!

Lunar eclipse

This was pretty cool - I read about on the Internet yesterday, and my husband and I set the alarm for 3:30AM this morning, threw on some sweats and went outside to just look at the red moon in the sky for about 10 minutes. The view was fantastic - I can only imagine how neat it would've been if we had a telescope or binoculars, but even with the naked eye it was an awesome sight.

Lunar eclipses aren't rare - it's just rare to get such a good and unobstructed view of a full lunar eclipse.

Unfortunately, had a hard time falling back to sleep after that (the cat expecting her breakfast didn't help), but I think it was worth being a bit tired today.

Calling all potential captains!

The campaign for this year's Breathe Easy ride is ramping up, and I will not be able to captain Team Salty Dawgs this year, due to the timing of my impending nuptials. I may still do the ride for fun, but won't have the time to organize a team or do fund raising. I haven't had much luck recruiting a captain for this two time top fund raising team - so thought I'd try to find folks via this blog. Anyone available to do a GREAT ride on June 30, 2007, willing to find some teammates and raise some funds for lung disease? I'll take things over again next year, but need a little help this year.

Any takers?