Terry on Main Street

This photo essay is from a little wandering I did a few weeks back. Plain Dealing is a small town straight north of Bossier City, LA. It happens to be on my long-ride training loop, and each Saturday morning when I ride through these empty streets and by the old auto garage I wonder about what must have been. It seems there is a lot of this “what must have been” around rural LA. Sad, but it does make for great photo subjects.

Enjoy. Leave a comment if you like. Hopefully with things getting a little lighter at work there will be more photo essays…let us know what you think–good, bad, or otherwise.

As it turns out, Natchitoches is apparently a town of morning people. Arriving in this hamlet after about 3 pm will lead you to closed restaurants and empty streets. Perhaps they siesta, I’m not sure. Never the less, we wandered around oogling the French architecture and old buildings. We did find a local drive-in sort of place that had meat pies, so the trip was not a waste. My two cents–not bad, but meat pies in Australia were way better.

One last cute one of Mom and Dad.

I think they enjoyed the trip, and its always fun to spend time with them. It was probably their last trip down south, as I’ll be moving back to Monterey in September! I’ll have to take them to Yosemite the next time they come to visit.

The main reason the parents escaped Iowa was to get a few rides in without needing studded tires and lobster gloves. So we took a couple of rides around the seemingly endless fireroads of Barksdale AFB’s East Reservation. The area makes for some nice, long gravel road rides–perfectly sampled on a cx bike.

And after every good, long ride you need an even better late-afternoon lunch at the best little bistro in Shreveport. And blackberry bread pudding for dessert.

As for the photos, remember way back in January when I was stuck in Montgomery, AL for a month? No? Oh yeah, that’s because I suck at updating this blog. Anyway, yes, I was in Montgomery for a month, and Terry was even with me. There’s a base in AL that Air Force likes to send all of its officers to every few years to learn how to be better officers. And all of us officers go because we get to drink beer more than we normally do because there’s nothing else to do but…drink beer.

Amazingly, in the less-than-desirable locale that is Montgomery we found this incredible burrito lounge. Yeah, those words don’t really go together…big fatty burrito and swanky lounge wear doesn’t really conjure up the best mental image, but I’m telling you, the El Rey Burrito Lounge in Montgomery is top 5 Mexican places we’ve every dined in…and trust me, I’ve eaten a lot of Mexican. This is an educated opinion. Plus, they have a beer list that is something like 200 brews long. Mmmm. Besides the tasty tortilla-wrapped delights, unbelievable salsa, and the cold beer, its a cool location in this neat old neighborhood in Montgomery called Old Cloverdale. So, if you’re ever in Montgomery for some reason, go there. Eat there. Drink there. Its worth it. There’s also a great little wood oven pizza place called Tomatino’s just across the street if burritos and salsa so good you could drink it aren’t your thing.

Enjoy the photos…and leave a comment if you like. Terry’s been working his butt off sprucing this page up, so let him know what you think!

Random scene over the patio fence.

The first round.

Serious discussion.

Sign language.

From the patio.

Beer List (just clicked this one, but now I see I should have shifted because that brew in the glass is a North Coast Blue Star I think).

The street scene in Old Cloverdale.

Beer Fridge.

Ladies Room.

We decided to build a snowman, but apparently I don’t know how to build one. I guess the snow in Iowa was always too dry or blowing around to much to make many snowmen when I was growing up. Luckily Terry is some sort of snowman-building engineer, so he did most of the work to get Freddy the Snowman off the ground. I have no idea why we named him Freddy. We slapped a camera on a tripod and with my handy-dandy Canon timer remote-controller to capture our progress in 10 second intervals. Smash all those images together and you get a fun little movie…

Too bad the snow was completely gone and we were back to our usual brown yuckiness by about 1 pm. I’ll get some images posted here a bit later to show off the snowiness. Also, don’t forget to check out our ongoing 2010 Photo of the Day project on Flickr.

The whole race for me was comical at times. First, it was incredibly foggy at the venue today. There were spots where the visibility was less than arms length, I swear. So rather than warm up on the bike on the local roads in the thick fog, I figured I would just run to warm up. I set up my transition like I knew what I was doing (I definitely don’t), and then went to stay warm in the car. Thinking that we started at 9, I was warming my feet and watching all the multisport-geeks out warming up. Around 8:30 I decided it was time for that one last bathroom break before getting ready (not the kind you should hold). There I was, strolling around this pecan farm looking for a bathroom, porta-potty, a large bush, anything. I find nothing, but I do hear this voice trying to yell something that sounds like “5 minutes. We’re starting in 5 minutes.” Wait a minute, who is starting in 5 minutes? Is there a kids race? Those people around the starting area look adult-sized. Crap!

I tried to nonchalantly jog over to the car to grab all my racing accoutrement, all the while thinking, I’m about to do this Du and I really need to doodoo. Oh well. I strapped on my number, my big ass GPS watch, my Fox mountain bike gloves, and double knotted my running shoes. I rushed over to the starting line, did my usual sizing up of the competition…they all had shoes that didn’t have to be double knotted. Oh well. So there we are, in the freezing cold, getting a very detailed, turn-by-turn description of the entire route, and then we were ready for the gun. Oh wait, no, we had to take a time out to pray for the beautiful bloody freakin’ freezing morning and for our safety and all that. Huh? Anyways, then we got the gun and we were off. Run run run. Not much to talk about on the first 1.5 mi part, into the transition zone sitting about 5th, unknotted my running shoe laces, threw on the SIDIs, blew Terry a kiss and out I went on my road bike sans TT bars because I couldn’t find all the pieces to put them on the night before.

Now for the fun part of duathlons. Lots of men run really fast. And lost of those men can’t ride a bike to save their lives. And seriously, you paid how much for that fancy schmancy Cervelo and disk wheel only to have platform pedals and old school toe clips? Did not changing your shoes really save you that much time in transition? Or do you not have the fancy speed lace running shoes? And if you can’t steer your bike in a reasonably straight line, maybe you shouldn’t use the aerobars just yet. At any rate, I was picking off the fast runner men for the first few miles of the bike portion, which distracted me from the fact that my legs were freezing. It was definitely cold. And still foggy. In fact, it was so cold and foggy on one portion of the bike that the water droplets collecting on my sunglasses from the fog were actually freezing, which made it a little tricky to see at times. Luckily the sun started to break through and melted all the frozen bits off. The remainder of the bike was rather uneventful…two women passed me (darn tri girls stomping out massive gears), so I think I was in 7th as I came into the transition. Terry was on the side of the road snapping photos, so I was sure to blow him another kiss…

Changed my shoes, tied my double knot again, threw my running hat back on, and out I went to finish the last 1.5 mi run. I could definitely feel my lack of bothering to break a sweat since returning from Cyclocross Nationals in Bend back in early December. The legs were heavy and still moving in pedal-like circles, but after a few steps I slid back into my running rhythm. I was happily bumbling along, made it to the turn around, and headed back toward the finish. With the sun now behind me, my shadow was visible in front of me…and then I realized that I looked like some sort of crazy Yeti with my hat all askew and some crazy 80s-style big-hair wings poking out. Good goo I looked like a hot mess. But I finished, didn’t get passed by any more women, so I figured I was 7th.

After the race someone had a big vat of red beans and rice for us to eat and Terry continued to mock my insanity for running, biking, and running again in the freezing cold. I was patiently waiting for transition to open again so I could grab my bike and was hoping that the results would be posted somewhere since we were chip timed so that I could see how I finished, then we could go. I kept waiting and then finally they said that they were going to hand out awards. I just wanted to see the print out of splits and all that since I didn’t think I had placed, but I stood around and listened to the awards ceremony while Terry sat in the car warming his feet. I heard the overall winner’s time, and I was about 10 minutes behind her. Then they started into the age group categories…I was faster than the 20-24 winner, but the 25-29 winner smoked me. Then they announced the 30-34 second place finisher…wait a minute, I think my time was faster, maybe? Then they called my name as the 30-34 winner! Haha! I headed back to the car with my new plaque. Terry was shocked! He didn’t get out of the car to take the podium pic since we both thought I was 7th and wouldn’t get anything. So the winner shot had to happen in the car!

Next event on the opening race weekend of 2010: mountain bike race! Way more fun than anything involving road running and TTing on a bike.

One of the highlights of the year was a little addition to our family. I went to a cx race in Ft Worth in November and came home with a puppy! I’d been wanting a brittany spaniel for awhile, but Terry was vehemently against having a dog. He claimed allergies. I grew up always having at least one dog around the farm, and normally we had 2 or 3. My dad used to hunt pheasants and quail with his brittanies, and I love the breed’s demeanor and spunk. I found a litter advertised in the Dallas paper, so after my ridiculously poor showing at the cx race, I headed out to find a puppy. I ended up with a preciously little girl I named Massey, after the Massey-Ferguson tractor that was on the farm where I bought her. It was nice to have another warm body in the house and something to keep me busy/entertained after work. But Terry was not happy. He was pretty upset that I got a dog. Yes, I was in the doghouse over this one. But she was so cute…

I went home to Iowa for Thanksgiving, raced my first UCI event at Jingle Cross Rock in Iowa City (yes, Meredith Miller lapped me), and Massey came along. Everyone loved her.  She was just so cute and traveled really well. But Terry was still grumpy about it. Despite being all the way in Monterey and not having met her, he was convinced that all dogs are the devil. Finally, Terry graduated and came home for the holidays. He met Massey and fell in love! Now every time we go out he has to check out the dog treats and toys aisle to see if there’s something else he can get to spoil his little girl a little more. She follows him around the house. He totally pampers her. We are now a happy family of 3. And be warned…you may see lots of adorable doggy pics in 2010.

Day One my goal was not to get lapped. The course at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds was hot, dry, and fast, fast, fast. Let’s see, I hung in tough for all of umm, one lap. I was comfortable and relatively quick through the technical sections, but there was this ridiculously long road section where everyone just rode away from me. There was this crazy little uphill that we had to grunt up every time (see the pic courtesy of Terry), so that’s what I looked forward to each lap. Otherwise, nothing to interesting to talk about besides me being much slower than everyone else. I actually did a little victory dance in my head when I got the one-lap-to-go sign because I hadn’t gotten lapped by the speedy leaders.

Day Two…more of the same. The course was a little bit different today, and there was a nice little run-up, which always makes me happy! My goal today was to hang with some of the girls that I knew I should be able to hang with. Terry told me I looked good through the first lap, but by the time we got to the road section on the second lap, I was done once again. So I suffered along as best I could, and stuck it out the whole time even though I really wanted to throw in the towel. Once again, I didn’t get lapped, so I guess I’ll take that away as my small bright spot in a weekend of crazy cyclocross suffering. My new Ellsworth Roots ride was great (except for the creaky seat post I have to fix!), and the Williams Wheels were awesome.

I am disappointed with how my races went this weekend, but I also know what I have to work on through the rest of the season. Living in a place that doesn’t have much of a fall racing scene and no cyclocross makes it a little tough to check where I am. I can tell that I didn’t have the track to help the speed and fitness this summer, and I could definitely tell that I didn’t have the “race fitness” that the rest of the field that has been racing since early- to mid-September did. And I know where I stood fitness-wise last year at this time and I don’t think I’m in the same place. But, I know what I have to do to get to where I want to be…and the goal wasn’t to be there this year anyway. Patience.

It was great to see all the NorCal folks I’d missed all summer. I doubt I’ll be back here anytime soon, so it was great to see everyone at the races, and to those I missed…you know how to get in touch with me.

Next race…Ft Worth Cyclocross next weekend…I’ll get to see how Texas does ‘cross. Perhaps BBQ rather than burritos and tamales afterwards.

Weather geek interjection: I should mention that its monsoon season down here. I don’t think we normally have monsoons here, but its an El Nino year (that’s Spanish for “the Nino”) so the rain just keeps coming. Rumor today was that in the last 41 days a rain gauge near the course has collected 26 inches of rain. I think they got somewhere between 3″ and 4″ in that area last week. Fortunately the weekend brought crisp, sunny autumn days, but there was plenty of mud out on the trails.

Short Track

Well, the starting field for this one was a bit sparse. There was me and one other girl. Wow, two of us. Since the short track didn’t count towards the stage results for us, most girls chose to skip it. But I wanted do the the short track more than any of the other events to get me ready for cross…yes that’s right, I haven’t done a cross race yet this year. The race official asked if we wanted to shorten the race and I kindly said, no thank you, full length please. So off we went, I guess I got the hole shot, and cruised from there. It was obscenely muddy, but riding in soupy mud is strikingly similar to riding in Ft Ord sand. I sort of didn’t know what to do once I had a good gap…keep hammering for the fitness, or conserve for the coming races? I kept hammering along with taking some lines I wouldn’t normally take through some spots for the practice. Overall, it was fun, I got covered in mud, but stayed safe and upright the whole time. Felt great, with that nice lung burn at the end.

Time Trial

After I got the bike and myself cleaned up, lubed up (the bike, not me), and made a quick trip to the Subway in nearby Wal-Mart for lunch (Wal-Mart in southern town…that 15 minute experience is worthy of whole other blog), it was time for the time trial. I generally loathe roadie time trials, with the crazy wheels and crazy bars and crazy helmets. But a mountain bike time trial…heck yeah! Plus, given that I got dropped in all those CCCX pro/expert mountain bike races at Ft Ord, I’m fairly familiar with the solo mtb effort. The course was sa-weeeet…started at the top of this crazy steep hill–coming over the top of it was like cresting the top of the big hill on a roller coaster…super steep, straight down, and only a bit bumpy, so you could let go of the brakes, hang your butt off the back of the saddle and go…just make sure you don’t launch yourself over the berm at the bottom! I felt amazing, but didn’t know how long 3.5 miles would be, so I was conservatively hammering. The course had just a few gooey sections, but otherwise it was generally tacky and fast. We went off at 30-second intervals, and I caught the two girls ahead of me, so I was happy. The only bummer was that it was over so fast. I think I could have gone harder had I realized the course was so short. But, in the end, I posted the fastest time in my age group, so I held the lead after Stage 1.

Cross-Country

Despite how hard I’d ridden yesterday, I was still feeling pretty good during my warm-up this morning. I held close to a 1-minute lead in the GC (saying GC about a mtb race makes me giggle), but I didn’t want anyone in my class to get a gap once we started. The xc was supposed to be 2 laps around the 10-mile loop, but due to all the rain, they had to chop off about 2 miles for parts of the trail that were unrideable. My great warm-up was really all for not…the officials had us all stage 10 minutes before the start. And by all, I mean every single age group of Cat 2 men, then they finally staged the women…but the first group of men still hadn’t started. So I think we stood around in the upper-40 degree early morning shade for about 20 minutes before we finally got the gun. The race started off fast and furious, with a couple of girls from the 20-29 age group getting a good gap on the rest of us. There was one girl right on my wheel thru the first section of woods, and it turned out it was one of the local Shreveport riders, so I was happy to let Kim go by…she was flying and looking great through the technical stuff. The ride was going well, rather uneventful, just muddy, until I clipped a handlebar on a little tree…I crashed. But, no harm done, just a little muddy, so up I got and on I went. Then, sometime in next few mud puddles or stream crossings, my rear cog/freewheel/derailleur/chain decided it didn’t want to cooperate anymore. Every time I was grinding up a grunter of a climb, my chain would either slip the freewheel or I’d get chain suck that would lock up the cranks. I guess my cyclocross trail running training paid off, because I had to start running up a bunch of the hills. Then I crashed again in the weird place when my front wheel just slid right off the trail. Lesson learned: 30 psi is too much in the Schwalbe’s in the mud. Slowly my competition started catching back up, and as we neared the end of the first lap, I was exhausted, covered in mud, and Tammie, my main competition, was right on my wheel. Eeek! And with a whole lap remaining, I still had another hour to race. My technical skills would allow me to get a gap on her, but she would reel me back in on the climbs. The soupy mud from the previous day was now gooey, sticky, clay-like mud that sucked your wheels down and bogged you down…and with a finicky rear freewheel, it was quickly getting miserable. But I knew I needed the fitness so I just kept hammering. I slowly caught the other younger girls who had gotten away at the start when they had major mechanicals, so I was at the front of the women’s Cat 2 race. It really was a race of attrition in those conditions. Finally, towards the end of the lap, I finally got enough of a gap to relax a bit and cruise in for the win. I think this was my first ever cross-country win.

Bummer of the day…Kim, the local girl who was crushing it ended up crashing pretty hard during the race. She broke her arm near her elbow and has to get it surgically repaired. Heal up fast Kim! I want to go ride with you!

The aftermath…this is what the bike looked like when I got home today. She was clean at the start. I think I’ll have to replace the chain, and possibly the rear cog. I also have mud stains on my legs that I can’t get off. Stupid red mud. I have also official resigned from road racing. Its lame…this was so much more fun!

Next up: Surf City baby! I’ll get to see all my NorCal friends next weekend! Yippie!