Some words from a Silver

Let me be honest with you - I am terrible at fitness. I have been for as long as I can remember. I hated gym class in public & high school. I have had gym memberships on more than one occasion and actually gone to the gym twice at most, each time. I decided to take up running and did it once (after buying pricey running shoes!) There is a distinct lack of fitness regimen in my life.

It's not that I'm in terrible shape; I'm not. Neither am I in good shape. I have weirdness in my left knee & hip that makes it hard to crouch or climb stairs at times. I can't run unless my life depends on it. I get winded if I climb a lot of stairs. And if you go by general standards of female shape and body, I have more weight on me than is ideal. I suppose that makes me just about average.

It's in my nature, however, to compare myself to everyone around me. I compare myself when I'm riding my bike to the people who ride past me effortlessly on the uphill, and feel like I'm falling short. I follow it up with reasons why I'm not - at least I'm ON my bike, and I'm doing a near 15k ride each way to get to and from work, up and down mountains and bridges, and hey, I haven't actually been bike commuting in two years and they're doing it way more often, and some of them are crazy roadies and I'll never keep up with them even if I want to. But all of these thoughts come after the fact, and while they help, the initial feeling of losing some sort of competition in my head (stupid competitive head) is not really a good one.

I've been realizing for the past year or two (not including pregnancy time) that I am quite simply thinner in my mind than I actually am. I think you're supposed to feel the opposite, according to what all the magazines say anyhow, but that's not for me. I assume I'm pretty slim, and then see a photo of myself and think "holy crap I'm SO much bigger than I think I am!" On top of that, I'm realizing that in my general age group among the other women at work (and I work with a lot of women) I'm on the larger scale. It is very unsettling to think you're one size and realize that you're not - even when you think you're thin.

Earlier in the spring I signed up to do core conditioning clinics with a group of women, specifically designed to condition you for mountain biking. I actually rather enjoyed it, and stuck with it I think because it was a class format that a friend was also taking, and I had paid to go to the class, which commits me to going on two levels. You might think that paying for a gym membership would provide the same commitment, but it really doesn't. At any rate, this wasn't about weight loss, it was about strengthening and conditioning. And it was good, but I haven't lost weight.

I considered a mommy boot camp type thing, and even signed up for one, but it was cancelled before it even began. After that I realized that a boot camp is probably not for me anyway - I don't like exercising, and turning it into some sort of military training thing just bothers me on so many levels.

Those conditioning clinics are still happening, but with the car purchase we're not in any place for me to rejoin them. It's possible in a few months we'll work out how to fit it in, but right now it's not an option. So I've decided in the meantime that my only real option for cardio fitness is the biking to and from work, which I restarted doing this week.

On Monday I rode to work, then went downtown on my bike at lunchtime, then back to work, and then did a partial ride home (combined with transit.) It felt good, and I was exhausted. Yesterday I took transit as usual. Today I rode again, this time managing to go both to and from work. It felt great, and wasn't as hard as on Monday. It's amazing how fast you acclimatize to that kind of exertion.

My ride isn't really a short one. I measured it out once on google maps, and it came to about 14.5 km one way. There is uphill and downhill in both directions, although it's slightly more downhill on the way there, and thus slightly more uphill on the way home. It takes me just under an hour to do the ride at the moment - probably about 45 - 50 minutes.

This means I'm doing an hour and a half of cardio on a bike every time I ride. I have no idea if this will help me lose weight. I'm not entirely certain that losing weight is what I want to do - people keep telling me I look like I've lost weight, but I haven't actually lost a pound in about 6 months now. My shape has definitely changed since before the pregnancy, and I'm down to my pre-pregnancy weight without really having to work at it (probably because of breastfeeding, but who knows).

So without cash to join a class, I'm hoping that my riding to and from work can be some sort of fitness regimen. If I lose weight, that would be awesome. If I tone up and look better, that would also rock. If I lose a size, that would be nice too. But really, what I want is to be able to play with Lyra and keep up with her at least a bit. She's an active little monkey, and I don't want to be a couch potato for her life. The biking will help, I just hope it's enough. I don't have the money (or, to be honest, want to spare any more time away from Lyra) to get a personal trainer or join hardcore classes. Plus, I don't wanna.

Except that part of my brain that's comparing me to everyone else and saying I fall short. I'll just continue telling that part to shut the hell up.

Tomorrow morning I pack up Lyra first thing in the morning and walk her to daycare before heading on to work. I am of mixed emotions about this, as I am sure many others have been before me. There are a lot of random thoughts cascading around in my head tonight. I worry that Lyra's not going to get enough to eat at daycare - she's not all that into food, most of the time. I worry that I'm going to spend my entire lunch pumping milk without having a chance to take a break and eat. I worry that I won't fit into the new format and team that they've developed at my office in the year I've been gone. I worry that my daily two hours of commuting time is going to make me crazy. I worry that I'm going to be exhausted, that getting up extra early and getting out the door is going to be incredibly hard, that I'm not going to get enough sleep to be all that functional, that I'm going to spend too much money on expensive coffee because I don't really like the cheap stuff.

All this worrying is not really something I do much, so it's making me kind of moody. I'm already exhausted and I haven't even gone back yet. We can't afford for me to not go back, and to be fair I really do enjoy my workplace. I should be excited. Instead I'm just kind of worried. I can accept that, tomorrow I'll be at work either way.

Today we went to a mountain bike trail building day on Fromme, which got me thinking more about my relationship with riding these days.

Lately I've also been trying to get back into biking. What I've figured out is my lack of fundamental skill and learning is a problem lately. I'm afraid of momentum, I'm afraid to go too fast or feel like my bike is leaving me behind, which sometimes you have to do to get past obstacles. I'm nervous about riding in general, so I hesitate rather than make plans to get out on my bike - and end up not going at all. I've been out riding twice I think in the past few months, because I don't make plans to get out. I don't really want to ride the trails that are close to me, they're all at a level that I'm not comfortable with, and rather than going out to practice on them and try to develop skills I just feel like crap because I can't ride anything. I get filled with panic and freeze up. It's not fun, and saying I should just keep riding till I get over it doesn't help. I know, I've tried telling myself that.

Plus with Lyra I'm more worried about hurting myself badly. This is a sport where you expect that you will fall, because you aren't always going to ride perfectly, you can't predict changes in the trail, and things can happen that are entirely out of your control. It's part of what makes riding fun.

At least I feel a bit like I've figured out that problem - I need to go back to the basics, to learn beginner skills that I've never really had, and to ride trails that aren't full of technical features that freak me out. I need to pretend like I've never ridden before and start from scratch. I need to ride places that aren't on the North Shore. I really need to get out and actually ride, but I know now that means I have to go out and do trails that no one else feels like doing because they're too easy. I'm not talking Floppy Bunny easy either... I'm not there yet. I used to be, but I'm not anymore. I'm just barely able to deal with riding the Richard Juryn trail, and I still walk stupid little things on that because I panic. I think I need to do some XC.

So maybe with going back to work I'll feel more comfortable spending the money to take out a co-op car and go riding from time to time. I miss the times when I really enjoyed riding. I'm not really interested in going to Whistler, or trying to push my limits by riding on the North Shore. I want to start slow and easy. And I don't feel like joining another club. I barely make it to the rides the club I'm already in does. I guess I should really start there with the weekly XC rides, and see what I can figure out beyond that.

I guess there's a lot on my mind tonight. Hopefully I will sleep just fine - I'm certainly tired enough.

Tonight I went biking in Port Moody with Maryn and Steve. It wasn't a very long ride, and it wasn't a super difficult trail. I'm out of practice and have lost my biking legs to some degree, however, and I'm still trying to get the hang of my Nomad, so shorter and easier was what I was looking for. Steve, who is awesome to ride with, stayed back with me and led the way, letting me know what was ahead on the trail and waiting up for me when I got freaked out by shadows and such. The trail itself was flowy, and covered in dirt instead of eroded down to the rocks like most of the North Shore is.

Basically, it was awesome.

The weather was perfect for an evening ride - sunny and a bit cool. We started at seven so it was late enough in the day that the sun wasn't intensely bright or excessively hot. We cheated on the ride up - Maryn convinced her husband to drive us to the meeting point with our bikes. I went to the box, and then I felt shame. There was a pleasant, leisurely ride to the trailhead through the forest, which was quite lovely. The trail itself was in a remarkably pretty area. At one point I stopped with Steve and we looked at the pattern of the sun, painting gold through the trees and on the ground like it does in the evenings on the mountainside. It was beautiful, and made me wish I had brought my camera. Steven pointed out that we could see the water through the trees as well - and where in the area could you get that? I mentioned maybe riding up Burnaby, but really, Burnaby Mountain is nowhere near as lovely as Eagle. Burnaby still feels like city to me - Eagle doesn't, even though the city of Port Moody is not far away.

So while I didn't quite reach that zone where riding is the only thing that exists (I kept getting distracted by my brain talking too much... must smack it around a bit and get it to shut up when I ride) I did have a good, fun ride, and I started to feel a bit like I was getting used to my new bike. Finally. I forget, when I'm not riding, why I like riding so much. I forget, when I'm riding annoying trails I don't like, why riding is so much fun when I'm on trails I like. I'm incredibly happy that Adam took care of Lyra tonight and let me go out to Port Moody for a ride. I'm starting to remember how to enjoy it. I want to go back and ride some more.

I went for a ride yesterday morning with Maryn, which was nice. I still haven't got all my confidence back, but I am riding a bit better every time I go out. We just did a quick and easy ride, because Maryn was on a timeline, but it was good. I almost feel like I know the bike now - it's starting to feel right again. We rode up in fog, but as soon as we turned around to ride down it started pouring. It was a very wet ride. It felt good to be on my bike though, and Adam had a good morning with Lyra - it was a good morning for all of us.

Today's adventure involves taking the bus/seabus/skytrain out to visit my mom in Pitt Meadows. I haven't done a long trip on transit with Lyra in the past month or so. She was really good on the bus before, quiet and interested in things or just napping in the sling. I'm hoping that still holds true, with the new, more aware and awake Lyra. It's always an adventure with a baby in tow!

Speaking of babies - she'll be five months old tomorrow!

So oki_v2 arrived here around noon. I had somewhat forgotten that he was coming up for a visit, and when my friend Brooke called me yesterday afternoon to find out if I could go for a ride, I was all excited and got a babysitter for Lyra (since Adam had to work) and said yes.

Poor, poor Oki.

Anyhow, Oki arrived at noon. I offhandedly asked him if he wanted to go for a bike ride with me. I'm pretty sure his mind went 'recently had a baby, should be fine' and he said "Sure!"

Oh yeah, I'm evil.

J came by to watch Lyra, then Brooke arrived and we tried to fit three bikes into her little CR-V. Somehow we managed, and Oki followed us in his own car down to the Inter River park. I had assured him that we were going on a beginner shore trail - the Richard Juryn Memorial trail, to be precise.

It starts with a nice mellow ride up. Oki doesn't bike, so it wasn't such a mellow ride up for him. Poor guy had cramping legs on the first uphill bit. Later there's a hike-a-bike, then you get to ride down through some mildly technical rooty and bumpy bits, and then a gravel path out. I'd say he performed admirably considering he's never mountain biked before, and I put him on a hardtail to start. From what I saw he never totally bailed, although he did run into a tree or two, and fell forward onto the bike frame once or twice.

Easy on the shore is still fairly challenging for those who don't ride.

As for me, it was my second ride on that trail this week. My uphill stamina was much improved, and I was fairly confident on the downhill... and I didn't even have armour on! I am kind of achey now though, used muscles that are out of shape.

Now Oki's on his way back home. He left around 9pm. Crazy lad... it's going to be a long drive back, and if I'm achey he'll be downright sore.

Yep, I'm evil.

I went for a bike ride on Fromme yesterday. It was fun, although if anything I'm even MORE cautious than I was when I stopped riding last year, which is a bit frustrating. Plus I've gone back to a lot of old habits - sitting too much, braking too much, and so on. I need to get out riding more (with patient people who can put up with me being stupidly overcautious) and come spring take an Endless Biking Progression Session course.

Also, all of my biking clothes don't fit and look terrible on me right now. I'm not trying to be vain here, but I do try to avoid looking like I'm wearing stuff that's two sizes too small - right now that's EVERYTHING. Muffin top is NOT cool. And none of it is comfortable to ride in either (assuming I can even pull it on.)

All things aside, however, being on my bike again was truly fantastic.

... and little time with two hands to type it out.

Nursing Lyra has given me a new insight into the fact that I am an animal. I have no qualms nursing her anywhere, any time (except in a moving car, and that's just because she's strapped into her car seat.) This includes restaurants and stores, the sidewalk, sitting at the bus stop, on the bus itself - literally anywhere. I nurse her anywhere, and I'm completely comfortable with it. The best is when small children (almost invariably little boys) come up to see what's happening. It's quite sweet, really.

The other part of the realization that I am an animal is just the awe I feel at the fact that my body is producing exactly as much milk as she needs, on demand. To be fair, I'm very lucky in that breastfeeding came so easily to me, and now it's second nature. She knows what she's doing - we both have it pretty well figured out. I can almost feel when she needs to eat before she starts giving the signals. I'm as much an animal as a cat with kittens. I can try to intellectualize it as much as I want, but when it comes right down to it, I can't possibly explain. It just is.
Tonight I'm trying to get the bedroom clean. It hasn't been cleaned since before Lyra was born - it's probably been three months. That's unfortunate, and I think starting to drive both Adam and me crazy. Part of the problem is that we have too many clothes, and not enough closet space. Sadly, I'm still in my maternity clothing for the most part - I won't fit back into my before-pregnancy clothes for a while, but some of the maternity stuff is just too big. I'm in this insane transition where very little fits me, but I'm not willing to get rid of the pre-preggo stuff, and I can't exactly go out and buy a new wardrobe when I'm working on dropping back down in weight. I'm actually only about 7 lbs off now, but it's all in the belly I think, so pants are not fitting, and shirts I used to wear accentuate the floppy belly I got from pregnancy in a kind of nasty way. As for maternity shirts - some of them fit fine and look okay, but some of them just make me look chubby. It gets annoying - I know there are clothes I could get that would make me feel comfortable with myself, but I can't justify buying a new wardrobe.

In other news, Adam put money aside for me to get a bike post-baby... so I now have a new bike! I'm super excited, can't wait to get out and do some riding. I found a used Santa Cruz Nomad that fits me and is outfitted in great parts, as well as being super well maintained. I hope to start going out for short rides to get back in shape and see if I can still remember how to ride a bike.

Here's the video Adam made from the raw footage Lorne took of our mountain biking trip in the South Chilcotins.

Featuring... ME! (and others)

So I found this tool that allows you to take your lj and export it, then import it into blogger, Live Spaces, wordpress, and so on.

So now I'm considering copying my lj over to my blogspot blog, as a backup and possibly (or eventually to migrate myself over there?) Not that I don't like the LJ, because I do, but it seems that I could integrate blogspot into my website more effectively than lj... should I actually want to do that.

This could require more thought, and deciding what I want to do in the future with my website. The other minor hitch is that blogspot has a 50 post per day limit, although apparently if you ask blogger staff nicely they can lift that limit for you in extreme circumstances (like, say, importing around 6500 livejournal posts all at once.)

A trip to the desert

Our vacation in Arizona is coming up quickly. We leave on the 13th of April. We're spending a week near Lake Pleasant, just outside of Phoenix, followed by a day down by Tuscon and a night on Kitt Peak at the Observatory. We haven't yet figured out where we're going to stay down by Kitt Peak; hopefully we can find something close to the park there for a night - a nice bed and breakfast or something.

I'm so very excited that we're getting away for a week. I've been putting money aside to make sure we can actually enjoy the vacation. Since we haven't had any time off together since just after the wedding, it's really going to be fun.

A Hoover Epic Movie

Adam's been working on a video montage of the mountain biking trip to the Southern Chilcotins last year. He didn't actually get to go on said trip (sad) but he's the most capable and talented movie editor and sound designer among us, so he's taken Lorne's videos and is turning them into something we will post to YouTube. He and Lorne were up till 2:00 this morning working on it, and he got up this morning and immediately decided to add more to it. I can't wait to share it with the world.

20 Weeks and Counting

I'm at 20 weeks now, and I can feel the baby moving around. It mostly just rolls about at random intervals. The ultrasound last week was really cool (again.) Ultrasounds are just neat. We don't know what we're having, and aren't planning to find out - it's rare to have an opportunity for such a happy surprise, and I know that whatever we end up with will be just that. It's more exciting that way. It also drives my mother crazy... sorry mom!
Feeling the baby move is deeply strange in a way that I don't think I can explain. It's light and fluid still (the kid's not that big yet) and there's no sense of kicking, so much as something doing somersaults in my belly every so often. Also, it reminds me of Alien. It can hear us now, so we both talk at my belly, which is highly entertaining to me for some reason.

Sleeping is awkward lately. I try to sleep on my left side all curled around my body pillow, but sometimes just wake up aching at random intervals anyway. Still, it's far better than before I started sleeping on that side. My neck is permanently stiff and cracking, and the pulled muscle weirdness in my back from when I was fencing (the one they never figured out) is constantly a dull ache as well. Hooray for random aches! I'm also waking up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason (or just to pee) and then finding it hard to fall back asleep. Sleeping in is right out - I have to get up in the morning when I wake up because I'm just so uncomfortable from not moving around for so long.

I need to find more exercising I can do - I walk as much as possible, but I should probably try swimming, and I need to find myself a prenatal yoga class. Stretching would do me wonders right now, I think.

So would a good massage. I made an appointment for that at the beginning of April (my favourite massage therapist got popular! Blast! And good for her!)

Tomorrow I start a new contract at work - I'll be going full time as web assistant, instead of splitting my time in half between reception and web assistant. It will last for at least three months, and then I guess we'll see what happens after that.

There are a lot of reasons for me to do this.

First off, it's a nice change from being reception. Eventually, answering phones is just plain dull - even though I did take on lots of other things that made the job more interesting (and thusly myself more useful, to the point that they're afraid of me not being in that position it seems) and I actually enjoyed the job quite a bit. Still, answering phones gets dull.

Then there's the fact that web assistant pays more. All things considered, I have a baby coming. More pay is a good thing. Maybe there's more room to move within the department, as well... don't really know that for sure right now.

There's also the flexibility I have with web that is simply not there at reception. I can leave early or come in late when I have appointments. I can make up time, and work from home if needed. I don't have to arrange for someone to be there to cover for me when I'm sick. It is handy, when pregnant, to not have to be on such a tight schedule of 8:30 - 5:30.

And of course this also gives me the opportunity to go back to a four day work week. I had been working five days a week the the last eight months - I was tired out, and really wanted the chance to rest, especially with the pregancy. So I'm back to a Monday to Thursday work schedule, and I have Fridays to get things done as needed, and the rest of the weekend to relax. Or however it works out.

I miss biking. I can't mountain bike (obviously) or even commute anymore. I went snowshoeing yesterday with some mountain biking girls, which was fun and all, but it's not biking. The weather has been terrible for riding (as in, you should avoid the trails due to extreme waterloggedness) so no one's really been riding, but it's starting to sink in to me that there is no biking any time in my near future. I don't know when I'll be able to ride again. There are plans for a Muddbunnies trip to Silver Star Mountain Bike Park in August. I'd love to think I could go, but I'm pretty much certain I won't be up to biking yet by then, what with the due date being late July and all.

I met with a midwife last Tuesday, which was really neat. She had a machine that could hear the baby's heartbeat - there's some weird static interference in my apartment (they come to your home to meet with you) so it was really hard to make out, but it was there. Hopefully next time Adam will be there, and the heartbeat will be a lot more apparent. The next appointment is February 13th.

The ride was good - we started in the Seymour headwaters park and went across a bunch of trails to the Bridle Path, then back to our friend Lorne's house to dry off. It wasn't raining, but the mountains are wet and we forded a couple of streams, which is never a dry event. I'm hoping we can keep up with riding maybe once a week so that we can get some of the great shape we had in the early summer back. I felt pretty good then.

I'm tired out right now, however. I was falling asleep at Lorne's place while we waited for some clothes to dry... watching Maggie and the Ferocious Beast with Lorne's son Owen.

The other day Adam and I watched Meet the Feebles. It was disturbing. We also rented 1408, which was really good. Tonight we have Blades of Glory, for something totally light and silly. Hopefully I can stay awake through it.

I'm working from home tomorrow, as I have a doctor's appointment in the middle of the day and my doctor's office is right next to my apartment. I'm doing the web job, naturally, and not reception - it's very hard to do reception from home.

My computer's choosing nice mellow music tonight. It is good.

I biked to work finally today; the ride in to work was nice, cool enough that I never felt overheated, but not so cold that I needed extra layers. The rains will start soon, and I'll probably have trouble motivating myself to ride an hour each direction in the pouring rain. We shall see, I guess. Plus I'm not fond of the idea of biking home in the dark for an hour... not so much fun.

As I rode in today I remembered something from childhood that made me smile. When I was a kid I pretended my bike was some crazy technologically advanced spy vehicle (much like K.I.T.T. but without the talking, and with a video screen built in.) Naturally, I was the spy. In the fall I would bike around Morrisburg streets pretending all sorts of adventures, and the fallen leaves were always, always bombs that I had to avoid. I would swerve all over the road weaving through the leaves half believing that if I hit one of them with my front tire I would explode, until finally there would just be too many and I'd have to give in and come up with a new game. You can't dodge leaves when the entire road is made up of them.

That is what biking in the fall reminds me of.

Monday I turn 31, and I'm looking forward to it. I rather enjoy the opportunity a birthday gives me to look back over the past year and think about what I've done, how I've changed or improved, what goals I've either completed, dismissed or failed to reach, and what my new goals might be.

I have great plans for myself, if I can figure out how to implement them. In the meantime I'll be dodging fallen leaves on my bike and having all sorts of fun at it.

We went for a ride on Burnaby tonight. It was a good ride.

I've extended my contract at work doing the web stuff. It means I'm still doing five day weeks for the next six months. Kind of unfortunate in the sense that I really like the four day workweek, but I didn't want to give up the communications work I was doing and didn't have another option to hang on to it. And so I'm a normal five day a week chump. Go me.

Tomorrow I plan to do the CBC trail day pre-hike and then help Anne garden.

Adam's been sick again lately. He's been super frustrated about it, and getting really stressed out about it. Extra stress on top of everything else that's bothering him these days... I don't know. It's just challenging or something. I'm tired.

Huffy's been acting funny lately, and we're trying to decide how to deal with a car that's aging and not meeting our actual needs. We're seriously considering the Car Co-op. The front left tire loosened for no apparent reason and nearly fell off as we were driving down the highway. It was fun, really. Thankfully we had BCAA and they came to help us.

I'm tired. I think it's bedtime.

I've been so disconnected lately. I don't feel like posting anything, but I'm starting to feel weird about not being connected to people anymore - like if I don't post then I'll be forgotten. A bit pathetic of me, but hey.

I really do want to write about the mountain bike trip in the chilcotins. It was awesome, and it was incredibly difficult. I took many photos, which are all online of course. Here's a link to the online gallery.

We did 99.5 km over five days of riding in mountainous terrain. We went over three passes and down into three valleys. We gained something like 700 metres of elevation three times or so. And I was the slowest on the uphill, and just generally at the back of the group the whole time, but I was out there and I did it - so I'm rather impressed with myself.

Unfortunately for me, I've been back home for two weeks now, and I've spent this week back at work, and I feel slow and tired and fat and insecure. Oh yeah and I'm pretty sure no one likes me. Logically speaking I know better. Emotionally I haven't quite convinced myself.

It's been nice to be back at work. I have to make a decision by Monday whether I want to keep both jobs I have at work and continue with a five day work week. I don't really want to give up the Communications work - it's interesting and makes me feel like I'm more connected to a team, instead of working on my own. The Admin stuff is pretty solitary - I talk to lots of people on the phone, but I don't work directly with people. I kind of like doing that. But I'm also tired, and I really enjoyed having four day work weeks, and having Friday all to myself to do whatever I wanted, all alone. I miss that. But I make more working the five days, which is helpful, and I like doing the communications job. Yeah. I don't know. I'll probably keep the five days, I guess. I do miss my Fridays, though.

Shawn (Adam's brother) is currently living with us until he finds a place and/or job. Job might turn out to be easier to find than place, as he owns two cats and wants to spend $700/mo. and not in Surrey (or outlying areas, including Coquitlam and Port Moody and so on. North Van okay.)

I am now very sleepy and kind of grumpy. I think I shall go to bed before I get annoyed at things.

My Big Wild trip begins today! I'm finishing up packing and waiting for the rest of the group (Chris, Sean, Lorne, Jill and Marlene) to arrive so we can head off into the wilderness backcountry with our bikes.

I checked the weather forecast for Lillooet, which is the closest I could find to where we'll be, and it looks like it'll be windy with showers for the first few days. That will make things interesting, I'm sure.

Wish me luck! ... or something.

Biked to and from work again today. I rode down a hill towards the Burrard bridge (1st of two bridges I cross) at a reasonable pace. Was coming up on a light, slowing down, when I noticed a girl on another bike slowly making a left into my lane. She was looking behind her and waving at someone, so she didn't actually look before she turned, and I didn't have enough time to get out of the way... tried to swerve, but smashed into her back tire anyway and went over the handlebars, getting tangled up in my bike.

Pavement sucks. I'm bruised and scraped, but otherwise okay I think. My elbow hurts a bit, but I probably just banged it off the road.

The girl I hit was fine, didn't even get knocked off her bike I don't think. She let me in to her apartment (we were right across the street from it) where I washed all the bike grease off from getting all tangled up in my bike and gave me her number in case the repairs for my bike are pricey.

The bike itself is mostly okay, I think, except for the front tire. The wheel is no longer true, so it rubs funny and looks a little warped. Might be a spoke problem, or could be a bent rim. The rim itself has a gouge in it and it scraping the brake pad.

As for me, I've got some road rash and blooming bruises on my left hip, right thigh, and left elbow and wrist. Oh yeah, and it hurts to bend my left elbow totally. I'll have to ice it after dinner.

Biked home tonight at what I thought was a slow pace compared to yesterday, and yet somehow made it back in about 45 minutes as opposed to yesterday's 55. Weird.

And now I am very hungry, so I'm going to find something to make for dinner.

I have very nearly raised my fundraising goal for the Chilcotins trip. If you were thinking about sponsoring the trip but haven't yet, there is still time to do so.

Just to make things extra interesting (or something) I'll throw a curveball at the whole thing for you.

Adam, who has been training and planning and working towards this trip with me for many months now; who has lost nearly 30 lbs getting fit for this trip, who was looking forward to it for as long as we knew such a thing existed, is no longer able to go. That's right folks, I'm now taking this trip sans husband.

Let's go back a couple of weeks and see how this happened, shall we? Actually, wait - we need to go back about three years to really tell the whole story.

Just before we moved out here, Adam got hurt. Over time this developed into a nasty bacterial infection that doctors were unable to diagnose, or even pin down. There were days that he was in so much pain that he couldn't work, days that we took him to emergency and spent 8 hours in the waiting rooms, days where he was sure he would never feel pain free again.

After nearly two years of going to doctor after doctor, one finally gave him a massive antibiotic prescription for six weeks. This finally got rid of the infection, and for the past year things have been good. He's been getting healthy, losing weight, changing his diet for the better, and just generally feeling great.

A few weeks ago the infection slowly crept back into his system. He denied it for a while, thinking maybe it was just his imagination, but finally had to admit that something was wrong. He went to a new doctor, as the one who had given him antibiotics a year ago has moved out of our city, and got more tests done. The tests once again showed... absolutely nothing. Whatever this infection is, they don't seem to have a name for it or tests that can actually find it. The doctor put him on antibiotics once more, a two-week dosage to get rid of the infection.

While he has the infection, he is in too much pain to be able to bike. While he's on the antibiotic, his entire system is compromised, too much sunlight is very bad for him, if he's active he might rupture a tendon, and he's just generally in rough shape.

He'll be on this antibiotic for another week and a half. He's getting better, slowly, but not in time for the trip; and he can't go on this trip unless he's completely better. It's in the backcountry - there is no way to get him out in a rush if something goes wrong. It's not fair to ask the guide to be responsible for that, either.

So he's very, very sad about this. I am sad on his behalf.

I am still going on this trip, although it may be more of a challenge for me without my usual cheerleader along. I will try extra hard to survive this trip on his behalf...

The past three weeks, since Adam's been sick, my training regimen has suffered. I wasn't biking while it was raining. I wasn't going to the gym after work because I was tired, stressed, or taking care of Adam. This is all unfortunate.

This week, I shall bike as many days as I possibly can. Today I biked. It was good.

So I guess now I'm not just riding this trip to raise money for the Canadian Parks & Wilderness Society - now I've elevated it in my own mind to riding this trip for Adam, who can't come with us anymore.

I spent the past two days in Whistler at Crankworx 2007 working at Ryan Leech's tent while he did shows and signed autographs and stuff. Basically I was there to talk to people about the Nature Challenge and answer questions about the environment and stuff. Ryan was kind enough to hand out pamphlets and talk about the challenge on his cross Canada tour.

I had fun. I also too pictures. Here's one of me and Ryan, even! (Okay, I didn't take this one, but there are hardly ever pictures of me...)



There are more here. I'll post some in the journal later.

I went on a MuddBunnies ride tonight, and totally ROCKED the first trail we rode (Floppy Bunny) and managed quite a lot of stuff that I hadn't ridden before on the second one, Natural High. I think all the confidence boosting I got riding at Silver Star on the weekend (I still can't believe how fantastic that was...) has seriously impacted my riding ability in a good way. Somehow I managed to take what I learned with the big bike and not be scared of doing it with my not-so-big bike. It felt great.

Tomorrow we're going to ride SFU Burnaby Trails.

Also, riding with other ladies is awesome. Oh, and I think I have a new biking userpic to upload. ( Help me choose which one: )