Twin Peaks - Hood to Coast Recap Part 2

"The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start." ~ John Bingham

Ok, I know I said I'd write this entry on Monday but it has taken me longer to recover lost sleep than I expected. I've been going to bed early all week.  Anyway, where was I?


Becky's family met her at the end of her first leg.  Her
children ran the last 50 or so feet with her (with their
signs).  They were the hit of the exchange.  So. Cute. 
Even cuter was Becky trying to explain to them she
wasn't done yet but still had two more legs to go.


Oh, so, after I finished my first leg, the final four runners in my van had to finish theirs. For the rest of them, it was very hot and humid. Unfortunately, we were unable to give a lot of support to them as they were running on the Springwater Corridor, a biking/walking path that used to be a rail corridor that stretches from Boring to Portland. For runners #9-12, it was unending blackberry bushes casting minimal shade, heat radiating from the blacktop and no breeze. I'm really glad I wasn't running any of those legs this year.

After being crammed in a van, it was nice
just to stretch out some.

Once we had all finished our first legs, it was back to Nathan's where we ate lasagna, soaked in the local pool and showered. Then, feeling refreshed, we all napped.

On to Exchange 18, the Columbia Fairgrounds. Well, technically, we never made it to the fairgrounds. The traffic going past the fairgrounds was soo bad that Shawn and Bill hopped out about a half mile early to jog up to the exchange to relieve Lauren (runner #6), who had to wait about 10-15 minutes for the hand off. Bill got back just before we passed the point of no return and we were able to by-pass most of the traffic by skirting through the neighborhood. Unfortunately, traffic only got worse from there, with almost every exchange thereafter backing up a half mile to a full mile.

Now we come to the part that people have been wondering about. The dreaded Twin Peaks leg. We managed to get ahead of Shawn but not by much. I had just enough time to use a Honey Bucket. I'd already gotten all of my reflective gear on but I forgot my visor, which helps keep my headlamp on. Nathan started to go back to the van to get it but Shawn came in right at that moment, and I had to go on without it.  I felt rushed and somewhat unprepared.

Now, I'll be honest, I've been scared of this leg ever since it was assigned to me. It looks absolutely horrible on paper (see here) and I'd heard nothing good about it. Everyone complains about the dust, the incline, the length, everything. So, I was worried even though I've been training for it. It really was a miracle that I even started.

But, it was beautiful. There were so many stars and I could see them so clearly.  At certain points, I could look ahead and see vans ahead on the mountainside and know, that was where I was going.  It felt a little humid at the start but not too hot and as I heated up, my elevation increased and the temperature fell so that I was never to warm or too cold.  Vans would pass every so often, illuminating the road.  Runners passed as well, offering encouragement.  But I didn't need it the way I had on my first leg.  I had the stars to encourage me.  I had the quiet of the mountains and the cool night air to refresh me.

My newest favorite quote is one by Marcus Aurelius, our team's psuedo-namesake.  It's listed at the bottom of this blog now but I'll repeat it again.  "Dwell on the beauty of life.  Watch the stars and see yourself running with them."  Last Friday night and into Saturday morning, I was watching the stars and I was running with them.  I chose to dwell on the beauty of life and I loved every minute of it.

Ugh - Hood to Coast Recap Part One

So, Hood to Coast.  How do I sum up 30 hours of fun, agony, joy, frustration and hilarity? It's a difficult thing to do.  But to paraphrase Lewis Carroll, I'll begin at the beginning and continue to the end.  Then I'll stop.

Since I've already detailed my preparations in a previous post, I'll start with the first van exchange, Exchange 6.  Bernadette was kind enough to pick me up on the way to meet the van but she was a little late because she was answering a work email.  We got to Nathan's with just enough time to load our stuff and shoehorn ourselves into the Suburban.  As a result, I didn't get to decorate our van until we got to Exchange 6.  I did a pretty good job, though, if I say so myself.

Van 1 started at Timberline Lodge in torrential rain after driving up in a thunderstorm.  Thankfully, the rain stopped soon after that.  Van 1 had some great stories to tell us about driving up in the lightening.  Lauren, runner #6, soon made it to the exchange, Shawn took the bracelet and we were off down the road.  It was blisteringly hot and humid in Sandy so we stopped to give Shawn some water.  Running machine that he is, he was soon done and it was my turn.

I'm off!

That first leg was the hardest.  I started well, nice and slow and steady.  The van stopped about 2 miles in to give me water.  Earlier, I had made the mistake of telling Nathan that "Who Let the Dogs Out" was in my running playlist.  Horrible song, I know, but it has a great beat and it always makes me laugh.  As I rounded the corner to where they were parked, he blasted it from the car speakers. It was a great pick-me-up.  However, somehow, I had got it in my brain that the leg was 3.5 miles, not 4.55, so I told them I wouldn't need anymore water stops.  Soon after they moved on, another female runner started to pass me but encouraged me to run with her.  I tried to tell her to go on but she was insistent.  It was fun to run with someone for a while but as a result, I pushed a little too hard to soon and got a stitch in my side.  I had to fall back and regroup.  When I got to the next turn, my watch said I had been running over 35 minutes so I thought I was close to the end.  Then I rounded the turn and saw a sign saying "1 more mile to lucky leg exchange." Ugh.  It was at the base of a rather steep hill.  Double ugh.  It was nearly 90 degrees fahrenheit.  Triple ugh.  I had told the van not to stop again.  Quadruple ugh.

Handing off to Bill - glad that leg is done!

I found the strength to run up the hill, albeit slowly (I nearly roadkilled someone who had roadkilled me just before the hill) and then rewarded myself with walking for about a minute.  There was a nice patch of shade and a little breeze so I soon started feeling a bit better.  I powered through that final mile and happily handed the bracelet to Bill who had the next leg.  Bernadette handed me a bottle of water which I promptly poured over my head.  Man, that felt good.

As a runner on Leg 8, I was given a token for a free beer at the finish line on the beach, a Widmer headband and a chance to play a game of chance.  I got to roll a giant die and if it landed on a 2, a 4, or a 6, I won a prize.  Well, who doesn't love free stuff?  So, I rolled the die, it fell off the table into the grass and landed on a 2.  What did I win, you ask?  I won a Widmer key lanyard and 6 commemorative Hood to Prost bottle openers.  Woohoo!

Check out my Widmer swag!  Pretty entertaining for someone who doesn't drink beer!

This recap will continue tomorrow as I am still rather zonked and I have work tomorrow.

Summer Camp! er, I mean Hood to Coast!

The day has finally arrived.  Hood to Coast day!  Woohoo!  In case you haven't noticed, I love Hood to Coast.  Wait, no, I LOVE Hood to Coast!  I don't know what it is about it that I love so much.  Try explaining it to anyone who doesn't know or write it down on paper and it just sounds horrendous.  Thirty plus hours in a van, running three different distances ranging from just over three to just over eight miles, no sleep, bad food, Honey Buckets, I could go on. And on.

And yet, Hood to Coast is one of the highlights of my year.  And it starts today!

This year, my preparations started a couple of days earlier.  I had to give Della a bath before I bundled her off to my sister's house and, apparently, it has been sufficiently warm enough in Portland for Della to finally start shedding her winter coat.  Except she wasn't shedding it, she was blowing it.  In the tub.  I swear, she left a third of her coat in the tub.  Next morning, she was still one giant scruffy fluff.  I was actually a little late for work because I was brushing her down.  Another third of her coat off later, she looked better and a little more comfortable.  But when I got home, I was still pulling tufts of fur off her.  She is now at my sister's where, hopefully, she will behave herself and not leave too much fur behind.

Amazing what you need for a 200 mile relay race.

Last night, I started packing.  I've been figuring out my list of what to bring to Hood to Coast for a few weeks now.  With some creative packing, I managed to get most of it in my gym bag.  Food will have to go in a separate bag which I think I would prefer anyway.  I wasn't at all sleepy last night, I was too wired.  Finally, about 10:30, after watching the Hood to Coast documentary, again, I had to force myself to go to bed.

I set my alarm for around 7:00, giving me plenty of time to shower and finish packing.  Unfortunately, I woke up at my almost normal time of 5:30.  Boing! Wide awake, no hope of going back to sleep.  I lay in bed as long as I could stand it, which wasn't long.  Up I went, to finish packing.  Since then, I've taken a nice, leisurely shower, packed, started a load of laundry (not H2C related) and finished loading the dishwasher.  I watched the news and weather (I'm glad I'm not running leg 1 this year, thunderstorms and pouring rain at the start), ate breakfast, watched an episode of Star Trek: Voyager (yes, I am a geek, get used to it) and now, I'm writing this blog entry.  I could do some vacuuming but I keep telling myself I need to conserve my energy.  Really, I'm just lazy and I don't want to right now.  I want to be on my way to Sandy where my van will start.

As I wrote in an earlier blog entry, Hood to Coast, for me, is like summer camp.  It's a break from my everyday life, a time to get away and do something different.  It challenges my body and my will and my preconceived notions of what I can do.  I get to experience my co-workers in a different way, seeing them outside the office.  I get to watch thousands of people do something incredible. 

And I can't wait to start.

Running Out of Time

Hood to Coast is coming up, just a few days away.  I'm feeling confident about it, even though I have a leg that has been described as the "5.75-mile epitome of your grandfather’s walk to school—uphill, both ways—with dusty gravel doing a more than adequate job of standing in for snow."  I've been running Terwilliger on the weekends for the last couple of months so I'm not too worried about it, especially as I will be running that leg at night.  For those of you who don't know, Terwilliger Blvd is a twisty-turny street that starts near downtown Portland and wends it's way up from about 200 ft to over 600 ft in just under 6 miles.  Not quite as steep as my H2C leg but it gives a good approximation and it's the right distance.  And, as I said, I'll be running it at night.

I love night running.  I find it to be very quiet and meditative.  Night runs feel longer, as if time had stopped but also shorter, as if I was running outside of time.  My pace is usually slower, I think because I don't have same visual cues that I would during the day, but I finish the run feeling fantastic and refreshed, despite the fact I've just run several miles.

Both times that I have done Hood to Coast before, I've preferred my night runs.  There's a sense of being all by yourself, in a good way.  During the day, you can't help but notice the people you're running with but at night, the people you pass (or if you are like me, the people who pass you) are merely well-lit shadows, outlined with reflective tape.  Out in the wilderness of Oregon, on the twisty roads of the coastal mountains, they soon disappear around the next turn and you're alone once more, with the night sky, cool air, and possibly a cow munching on hay in the field next to you.  I relish those feelings, I cherish them. 

So, I am excited for Hood to Coast.  I can't wait for it.  I feel like a kid about to go to summer camp.  And the marathon I have coming up?  Well, I'm choosing not to think about it right now.  It's like the first day of school.  I know I'm behind in training for it and I know I'm running out of time. 

That reminds me, I need to go for a run.

To Zip or Not To Zip?

Zipcar is in the middle of their Low-Car Diet event right now.  It's purpose is to raise awareness of how easy it can be to use cars less.  I've always wished I could sign up but I don't own a car.  I've never owned a car.  I do not plan on ever owning a car (well, maybe, someday, I'll get a MINI).  Public transit is my primary mode of vehicular transportation and I walk everywhere else.  Occasionally, I'll reserve a Zipcar if I'm travelling somewhere with limited transit options.  I was living the No-Car lifestyle long before Zipcar arrived.

Today, I filled out a survey for Zipcar.  I believe they were partnering with Portland's Department of Transportation to discover how Zipcar has affected people's transit and personal vehicle use.  I'm always happy to fill out a survey that could help increase the transit options in Portland.  As decent as Portland's transit system is, it could be so much better.

However, today, I found some of the questions to be flawed.  For example, one question asked if I had sold my car because of Zipcar.  I was only given the option to agree or disagree.  Since I didn't have a car to begin with, I started to disagree with that statement, but that didn't feel right and I didn't want to skew the results in the negative.  Instead, I skewed the results in the positive by agreeing that Zipcar had enabled me to sell my nonexistent car.  Similar questions asked if I walked more because of Zipcar, if I biked more because of Zipcar, if I rode the bus more because of Zipcar.  I "agreed" with all of them but the truth of the matter is, I've always walked, biked and ridden the bus to get where I need.  Zipcar did nothing to change that aspect of my life.  If anything, I've driven more because of Zipcar.  I've gone from No-Car to Low-Car.

Zipcar has certainly made my life easier but I still rely heavily on other modes of transportation.  My life is planned around public transit; I won't live somewhere without good transit options.  My daily commute on the bus is a generally relaxing time, during which I knit like mad.  I am also contemplating taking part in the Bike Commuter Challenge this year, although that would mean a significant decrease in knitting time.  And, due to monetary restraints, I've decided to bus instead of Zip this weekend to a birthday party in Oregon City.

So, Zipcar, I love you and you have changed my life marginally but I'll continue on my personal Low-Car Diet without you this weekend.

Stuck on the Sleeves

In November, I will be traveling to London.  Whenever I plan a trip, I plan what I will wear with great detail.  I want to look chic (ok, I want to look fabulous) and I don't want to look like a typical American tourist, so definitely no trainers.  I've been working on my Brit vocabulary and slang, can you tell?

When I went to Italy, I took several things that I had sewn, a couple of pairs of capri pants (how appropriate for Italy), a very light shrug for entering cathedrals (bare shoulders are not allowed), a halter, a sun dress and a truly fabulous silk chiffon skirt.  My trip to London will be no different; I plan to be dressed stylishly.  And, comfortably.

One of the things I'm working on is my Londinium sweater.  I have a sweater that I knit for my trip to Boston that I absolutely love but it is brown and I wanted something in a gray that I could wear with black, as   I'm also going to be sewing a new winter coat, a Vogue pattern, in a simply beautiful black and green DKNY wool with a little bit of sparkle.  Any sweater I make would need to match and fit under the coat.

Londinium - see the pretty cables?

I'm using the Rosamund's Cardigan pattern, by Andrea Pomerantz, with a few alterations.  I'd rather not use hook and eyes on knits and I don't really care for how the sweater opens at the bottom without the hooks and eyes so I added some more buttonholes for a total of six buttonholes.  I've been using Shepherd's Wool by Stonehedge Fiber Mill which is a wonderful merino, with great stitch definition.  I think this is my new favorite yarn.  It's so soft and I just want to buy several skeins and roll around in them.  And let me say, I do not often have hedonistic thoughts about yarn.

Back to the sweater.  Since I will be wearing it in London, in November, where it will be really cold, I wanted longer sleeves as well so I decided to lengthen the cap sleeves.  That's actually where I am in the project, at the sleeves.  The body knit up like a dream and I really like the reversible cables, in fact, I plan on repeating the cables on the cuff.  But when I got to the sleeves, I didn't stop to figure out any of the math.  So, now I'm going to have to frog the sleeve I started and begin the sleeve again, once I've figured out the decreases.  If I start with 60 stitches and I want 3.5 repeats of the cables on the sleeves (56 stitches), I would only have to decrease 4 stitches but I want the sleeve to fit snugly.  I'll have to decrease to just before the wrist and then increase again before the cuff.

Until I get all that math figured out, the sweater will just have to wait.  Besides, I have a top-secret project that needs finishing and I bought some lovely yarn at Knit Purl's Month of Lace sale and I just got the coolest book on socks from the library and I really want to make some socks now and start the gloves I plan to take to London and ... Anyone know a cure for startitis?

Adopting Della

By the end of the first weekend of Della's and my life together, it had become a mini-mantra that I used to remind myself I wanted a dog. I love my dog. I love my dog. I love my dog. And then I begged my sister to come over and watch Della so I could get out of the house sans dog. I needed to get away from my dog.


I do love my dog. The second I saw her file on the Oregon Humane Society's website, I knew. I knew she was my dog.


Della, waiting for me outside
my local coffeeshop

Della, with her sweet black face and sad eyes, caught my attention. I loved her black and white coloring and she was the right size(my landlord imposed a weight restriction). My sister and I traveled out by bus to the shelter on a Wednesday to meet her. At first, we couldn't find her in the kennels and I felt my heart sink. She was my dog; no one else was allowed to have her. After enlisting the help of a volunteer, we were able to locate Della and spend some time with her in the visiting room. Della seemed so quiet and lady-like. She let us pet her but she was very quiet and reserved, as if she didn't believe her life could change from being a stray shelter dog.



We arranged for each of us to individually place a 24 hour hold on her. I went home that night and sent emails to anyone I could think of who might be willing to drive me over on Friday to pick her up. A friend graciously agreed to help pick her up with me. Arriving at the shelter, I was told, by more than one of the shelter employees that they were so glad I was adopting Della. Apparently, another woman was interested in Della but she had a cat and the shelter had tried to dissuade her from adopting a dog that would not do well around cats. When she returned to try and adopt Della, she threw a fit when she found out Della was reserved. No one wanted her to get Della, especially after the fit-throwing.

Some paperwork, a quick stop at the pet store and Taco Time for dinner, and we were home. That first night, Della was an angel. The next day was great; we went for long walks, I pet her a lot and snuggled with her. Sunday morning, I had to go to church. I wasn't sure if she was house-trained or not so I put her in the downstairs bathroom with a bowl of water and her bed. When I came home and opened the door to let her out, I found the door trim in pieces on the floor where Della had launched herself at the door, trying to get out.

 

By Monday morning, I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. Della had slipped out of her collar a couple of times on our walks, she had an accident inside and she managed to get herself trapped in the upstair bathroom, where she proceeded to pull the door trim off that door as well. If I looked at her cross-eyed, she would flop to the floor in a submissive gesture. I think I cried a few times that weekend and I finally begged my sister to come over, just so I could get out of the house, by myself.

I had a few thoughts that weekend, of returning her but I couldn't bear to send her back to the shelter and I had to believe we would be fine once we got comfortable with each other.  And I didn't want to admit I couldn't handle owning a dog, even if I did have thoughts of "I don't think I can deal with this for another 10 years."

Della and I have been together now for 3 years.  At 8 years old, she doesn't show much signs of slowing down and now when I think about how many years we have left together, it's more of "we only have this many years left together" instead of "how will I survive" feeling.  I don't regret adopting her, even when Della does something she shouldn't... which is often.