The finished tat!

Saturday afternoon I saw Kerry at Kirkland Tattoo and she went to work on getting my tat finished up. I went in with a general idea of some detail I wanted done to it but the final result turned out soooo much better than I could have possibly imagined. I'm totally stoked by how it looks! Kerry used a touch of white ink to add highlighting and detail and it really seals the deal. I'm definitely getting my artwork together and having her do my 3rd piece I've been thinking about. More on that later....

Here's some pics from the session. Seeing the progression is really cool.

Crystal hillclimb

Today was the big 6 mile painful hill climb up Crystal Mountain. I have one word to describe my ride: suck!

I had planned to leave at 8am to get there around 9:30 but some jackass in a gigantic SUV decided that leaving his car blocking our condo garage would be a great start to everyone's morning. 45 minutes later I got to smile as the big ass thing got hauled away on a tow truck. I didn't get to Crystal until slightly after 10:30 and had to scramble to get registered and warmed up for an 11:55 start.

For the second year I was the first Cat 4 woman off and I really wish I could start further back for once and have a carrot! Despite the mediocre warmup I felt pretty good for the first 2 miles, then everything went to hell. My knees are horribly sore from running and shortly after I passed the 2 mile mark my IT band started catching in my right knee. That was totally unexpected and I had to back off the pace a bit to keep it in check. I just tried to pedal harder with my left leg. Then at the 3 mile mark my back suddenly started spasming with nearly every pedal stroke. I tweaked it pretty bad last Friday trying to move heavy furniture I shouldn't have been moving.

The rest of the way up sucked and I very nearly bailed at mile 5 but since only 9 gals showed for the Cat 4s I knew I just needed to finish. By this point I had been passed by nearly everyone but summoned enough energy to sprint to the line. I didn't stick around to see the official times but I was somewhere around 37:50, which was nearly 2 minutes slower than last year, so I know something was amiss.

I'm pretty disappointed since I was really hoping for a much better ride. I was shooting for a 35-minute time. Ah well. I packed it up and headed back to Seattle so I could make my 4pm tattoo appointment. That was much more fun (sad, isn't it?) and I'll do a post on that with some pics shortly.

Now I'm trying to rest up the back and the knees for Seward tomorrow. I was really hoping to do well there but now I'm not so sure.

Maybe I should switch teams

I ran downstairs to the pizza place last night to get a Greek Salad and while I was waiting had an interesting experience. This girl comes over to me to say hi, then tells me that she feels a bit strange because she never does this and proceeds to ask me out for a drink. Haha!

I told her I was totally flattered and if that did it for me it would be awesome, but unfortunately it's not my thing. Then she asked me if I've considered "switching teams." I said, "Yeah! Everyday!" Haha!

I can't say I've had that happen before. She was pretty cute too! My guy friends are all in dismay I didn't get her number. Silly boys.

Cross boot camp

I need to get my butt in gear for cross so I dropped in for the CycleU bootcamp on Tuesday. Craig does such a great job and the camp was awesome. The only problem was me! I got my cross bike out of storage in the AM and realized I was missing a seatpost, saddle, and pedals. I forgot I used the seatpost for the spinning bike, which I don't have at the moment. So, I stole my road bike post and saddle and picked up a new pair of SPDs from Center Cycle.

I got to CycleU 25 minutes early and frantically tried to pump up my tires, get my seat adjusted, put the pedals on and generally get my bike running. During our warmup I had to keep readjusting my seat and my handlebars kept sliding down after a short period of time. I've tightened them numerous times and still have this problem so I need to get that fixed. I also couldn't shift into many of my gears so I essentially ended up doing single speed cross all night. Oh well. I'm really considering doing single speed cross this year so I guess it's good practice!

At the end of the session we ran through an actual course and I biffed it in the sand pit, got my shoe stuck on the bike (without my foot in it) and realized way too late that I had completely forgotten how to dismount and nearly face-planted into a barrier. Good times! I definitely need to polish the cross skills before Star Crossed, but it was a great time!

Reminder to myself: loosen my pedal tension and fix those damn handlebars!

The TTT bust

Saturday I met the girls for a TTT practice in Leschi and we had a great time and were really looking forward to the TTT on Sunday. We woke up Sunday morning all ready to ride and the weather was absolute crap. It was pouring rain and none of us were particularly thrilled to ride a 32-mile TTT in the rain so we all bailed. Turns out it was a bad idea because the other teams that traveled to Elma said it didn't even rain there. What a bummer! Ah well, I guess you never can tell.

Since the TTT didn't work out I ended up filling my weekend with various other activities, including a trip to the Kirkland tattoo shop. The artist there checked my tat and said it's healed enough for round 2, so I'm going in this Saturday after Crystal to get it finished up. While I was there I also added to my piercings, though I'm not telling what I got. Some things should be a mystery....

WTF

I think I have too many blog posts with that title. Seriously though...I have to work on this project at work that involves a 9-page PL/SQL query. 9 pages? And it doesn't even do everything we need. So by the time we're done we'll likely have a 12 page query. Shit like this isn't funny.

Busy weekend!

I figured I'd have a low-key weekend since I wasn't racing but that hardly was the case. I ended up heading out to do the lake loop on Saturday. My timing was so perfect that I ended up in Kirkland right as Z was getting home from his TTT practice so we decided to cruise over to Fremont to join our already drunk teammates Todd and Jason at the Tour de Fat. It was Jason's birthday so at least they had a good excuse this time. Z nearly ripped my legs off on the Burke so I ended up with a pretty briskly-paced 60+ mile ride Saturday. I think he was a little amped to ride his new Seven.

Here's some funny pics of Jason and Todd riding really wild bikes at the Tour de Fat. The best part was this little corral they had set up with all kinds of f***ed up bikes. Watching drunk people crash and try to avoid crashing was awesome.











Sunday I went for a little mountain biking adventure in Issaquah and learned the hard way that forgetting to put your front brake back on after taking the bike off the car rack is a really bad way to start a ride. I had to ride about a mile on the road before getting to the trail so of course I didn't notice the brake wasn't working. Once we hit the trail it went downhill with a sharp left at the bottom. Guess when I figured my brake wasn't working? I tried to slow for the corner and realized how screwed I was. I grabbed a handful of rear brake to try to get stopped, locked up my rear tire, went into the corner WAY too fast and fishtailed and flipped right off the trail. It was awesome. Luckily I landed in grass about a foot away from some serious blackberry thorns and only ended up with a few scratches a couple of new bruises. Good times!

Crap

When I took that fall on the tandem last month and my wrist was getting worse rather than better I decided to go get X-rayed. My doc and I have an agreement that usually if I have X-rays or any lab tests done she only calls me if something is wrong. So, if I don't hear from her, I'm good! Isn't it sad that this happens enough that we have a system for it?

I hadn't heard about my X-ray results so I assumed I was fine. Today I finally checked my voicemail since the light has been flashing on my phone at work for a while. Guess who? Yeah...Dr. Brown's office. They left a message a few days ago and I wasn't paying attention. Of course they were too busy to call me back today so now I'm worried....

C'mon Sun!

Since I spent a good portion of my life in crappy Indiana weather, I never complain about Seattle's temperate climate, but c'mon already! It's August and I had to ride my bike in drizzle this morning. And it's looking like I'm going to have to ride it home in drizzle too. I may need to plan a trip to visit my dad just to get some sunshine.

I worked out the final design ideas for filling in my new tat and will probably be going in another week or so to get it finished once it's healed. This is the idea I have so I'll see what the artist says about it. Isn't Photoshop the best? I've also decided to get my 3rd done soon. I think it's going to be in a major ouchy spot but I guess we'll see.

Major bummer on the new couch I ordered from Dania two months ago. They tried to deliver it last Friday and couldn't get it out of the elevator at my condo building. I measured everywhere to make sure that thing would fit but never considered the elevator space. Usually Dania doesn't take custom orders back but sounds like they're willing to work with me. Once they make sure I didn't order some bizarre zebra print sounds like they will just charge me a 10% restock fee and then I can order something else. I was very close to putting my old couch on the curb with a free sign so I'm glad I didn't do that. I guess I'm stuck with it a while longer.

Volunteer Park crit

I had no idea what to expect for this race since I've only ridden the bike a handful of times the last month or so, but I vowed to get a top 10. I'm a little bummed our women's 4 field wasn't larger than the 14 that turned out but I guess that's to be expected this time of year.

The course at Volunteer Park rocked and I love the hill at the end of each lap. We had a competitive field and the pace was high most of the race. Things stayed mostly together until a few laps from the end when it finally started to string out. My Achilles' heel all season has been positioning, so for once I did a good job of staying near the front the entire race. Many times I was only a few spots back from the leaders and did the extra work to stay there and close to a wheel.

On the last lap I got a little jammed coming up the hill and lost a few spots, which was a real bummer. I still managed to have some juice to get across the line just barely in 10th place. Had I picked a smarter line up the hill I might have finished a little better, but I got my top 10 so I'm happy! Even if it was a field of 14, I don't care. Mission accomplished!

I had just enough time to get changed and watch the Master's C/D race before I had to corner marshall. Z cracks me up! He took a flyer on the second lap and solidly secured himself a prime. Too bad it was a spectator's bell and not an actual prime. We'll have to get him some kind of prize for that effort!

The day was going well until the horrible crash in the Men's 3 field. I was on corner 6 heading down the back side of the course when I heard the riders yelling that some guys were down and someone needed to call the EMTs. I got down there and one of our Zoka riders, Trevor Hall, was down and not looking good. Luckily, Vicki and a few others were on the scene quickly to help him out and paramedics showed up shortly afterwards to take him to Harborview. I heard a junior racer suffered a broken pelvis and wrist and I guess someone else had a broken collarbone. Another of our Zoka riders went down and ended up with some road rash and bruises. Not fun.

The good news is that Trevor is on the mend. He has a concussion, some stitches in his ear, road rash, and bruises but he's certainly very lucky! He started the day with a 2nd place finish in the Master's race and ended it at Harborview. And my mom thinks motorcycles are dangerous....

Got my 2nd tat!

Tonight was my big night for tattoo #2 at Sleeve to the Needle! I had an appointment with Tony, a very cool guest artist from California. I've been thinking of some type of crane design for a zillion years (or so it seems) and a few weeks ago when Diana was in town I found a sketch in a book that I really liked that helped shaped the direction and kick-start the whole process. I kept messing with it and messing with it and finally settled on a final design.

The crane is a symbol of happiness and eternal youth and I figured it was a perfect symbol to get at this point in my life. Right now I'm totally happy with where I am and the things I've accomplished and couldn't be happier! Maybe the crane will give me a little luck in finding a cool guy to share life with, but that's a whole 'nother issue!

For now I just had the outline done but will likely go ahead and make a second appointment sometime in the near future to fill it in. I'll just work with an artist to figure something out. Making it all black is a little too intense but I played with Photoshop and it definitely pops much more with some fill.

I don't remember my last tattoo hurting quite as much as this one. It wasn't bad, but there were certainly some moments where I got a nice little zing. Towards the end it started feeling a little ticklish in a strange way. I can't really explain the feeling of getting tattoed. It did make me reconsider the one I'm planning for my lower abdominal area...ouch!

Anyway, here's the final result and I love it! Second appointment pending...