Thirsty Thursday: Blur

Rambler: Beth Drink at Hand: Powder Keg Zinfandel

This is a quick Thirsty Thursday, and something a little different than usual. We are in the clutches of autumn. In fact, this morning I woke up to our room surprisingly chilled. We have slept with one of our bedroom windows open all summer, and this morning, for the first time, it was cold. Cold as in I thought I was waking up inside my sleeping bag in our tent. After my eyes adjusted to the darkness of 6 am, I realized I was still at home...and that fall has arrived. And that maybe we should close our window tonight.*

Fall hits me out of nowhere every year. As I mentioned last week, it really is my favorite season.  But every year I feel like I miss out. The season sneaks up and all that beautiful golden light and all those lovely trees are literally here one day and gone the next. Fall has always been hectic for us anyway. First it was soccer season, and then it was cyclocross season. I thought this year would be different. With no bike races every weekend we would be able to go out and enjoy fall. Go to the Sierra. Go find sycamores along Arroyo Seco. Go check out the golden hillsides at Coe. Yet we seem to be busier than ever this fall and we can't put our finger on why. Its just going and we can't stop it. We can barely even keep up with ourselves.

Last weekend, after an exhausting weekend of doing "stuff" (that's right, nothing in particular, just stuff), we took the dog out for a late afternoon hike in Ft Ord. I was screwing around with the camera and came away with this image.

Yeah, its nothing great. Its actually a bad photo, technically speaking. But I looked at this image on the back of the camera and thought wow, that's my fall in a little 4x6 rectangle. Beautiful light, great subject, and its all a blur. One big blur. Every fall. Maybe next year we'll get out and truly enjoy fall. This one is slipping away just as quickly as that late afternoon sun plummets out of the sky this time of year.

Not your typical Thirsty Thursday "get out there and doing something awesome" blog this week. We have another weekend booked full of more "stuff" this weekend, though we are squeezing in some fun with some friends down in SLO on Sunday. At this point its the little adventures that make life awesome. So make sure you get out there and find even that little bit of awesome in some gorgeous fall light before its gone for another year.

* For the record, my car said it was 33° this morning when I headed off to work. Brrr.

Settling In

I feel like rambling about nothing in particular. I have thoughts bouncing around in my head and I'm not someone who talks to my plants. So my five regular readers get to read my rambles instead. Maybe I'm finally getting settled into life here in Lousyana. Perhaps I shouldn't call it that any more because its really not that bad. Its not Monterey or Tokyo or Colorado, but it could be worse. I secretly really like my job, even though its incredibly busy and the hours are long. I love the challenge of all the moving pieces involved. I have great people working for me for the most part and I like who I work for, so I certainly can't complain about that. I have a brand new shiny house in a quiet neighborhood with endless quiet country roads at my disposal to ride, even if they are painfully flat and I have to carry pepper spray to keep the occasional mean dog at bay. And there's sweet single track only 30 minutes away.

But a few things are missing. I have three things I love more than anything in the world--Terry, racing my bike(s), and photography. I wish I could get paid for living a life that involves just those three things. Right now I feel like I'm living without any of them because the first one remains in California while I've been so busy with the new house and new job and new commitments and, in typical Beth fashion, taking on too much stuff to have time for the others. But things are starting to settle down. I'm starting to get an idea of what's important. And my overly competitive imagination is starting to wander towards training routes and intervals and tempo rides and hill repeats. Maybe I can start training again. And maybe, just maybe, I can start racing again. And maybe I still have a chance to find out how good I can be at something if I focus. And thinking about that makes me excited. Excitement leads to motivation. Motivation leads to getting out there to do it. And being out there doing it makes me happy. I just have to get my priorities in line, because the only one who can impede my excitement and motivation right now is me. As easy as it might be to say no, I don't like saying no to me.

And if nothing else, Terry is coming to visit me for two weeks in June and then we get to go to Colorado together for a few days and take photos in the mountains. There's a lot that makes me happy in that statement.

Team Beth's New Direction

If this whole cycling thing does work out, I'm taking Keirin Cut Newell and Team Beth is going to switch to winter extreme sport of Crashed Ice racing. We both have dreams of being speed skaters, but let's be honest, that's way too mainstream for our fringe track and cx racing tastes. I originally found out about this crazy sport from the Reuters' Photographers blog, and if Reuters is reporting it, it must be legit.

We'll need to get Sabine to loan us her stinky hockey gear.

Breaking the Funk

I've been in a funk lately. And by lately, I mean for well over a month. I've been grumpy and mopey and bitter and probably quite unpleasant to be around. I'm normally a pretty happy-go-lucky, roll-with-it sort of person. Maybe its the self-induced stress of finishing my thesis, the end of a hard fought cyclocross season, the looming solo move to Lousy-ana, I don't know. But I have to admit, when you have over a week's worth of bright, sunny, 70-degree days in the middle of January, you can't complain. You embrace those bright blue skies and warm breezes. You get out and do what you do...so Monday I rode. I didn't train, I just rode. Pedaled along, me and my managerie of geek tools...cameras and iPhone and heart rate monitor...I played with stuff, I took pictures, I did some thinking. I made a goal for this year. Its to early to announce what my goal is, but its something. A focal point in the chaotic cloud of moving and being apart and new jobs and finishing school and finding new friends and new trails to ride. A channel, an outlet, a something to get me through the crap sandwich I'm about to choke down come April. And having a meaning to what I'm doing makes it so much easier. Today I convinced a friend to go ride with me. He's a great riding buddy...goes only as fast as I want to go, always lets me lead the way, doesn't care what trails I take, doesn't mind the inevitable bushwacking wrong turn or miscalculation of where a trail ends up (my legs are all scratched up tonight)...he just rides along with me, chitchatting and making sure we aren't taking ourselves to seriously about school. We rode Ft Ord. It was perfect. The normal sandpits were a little more packed. The downhills were swoopy and speedy. The climbs were comfortable. The skies were bright. I loved it.

Its days like today this that make piling on the jerseys and vests and arm warmers and leg warmers and toe warmers to go out in the damp, bone-chilling coastal winds and foggy soup to suffer up another never-ending climb, snot streaming, hands numb, legs screaming not to do another stupid interval--these days make it all worth it. Because when days likes this week come along, you'll want to enjoy it.

And now I'm home with Terry and we're geeking out with our nerdy homework and our iPhones and dreaming about the photography business we'd love to have some day and everything is just fine. A big ol' smile all over my face. I guess a few days of riding without a care in the world while you're in the saddle makes everything okay. Besides, how can I possibly take myself so seriously when I wear something like this...

Why isn't it this easy to write my thesis?

Monday Monday

Mondays always have been and always will be rest days. In college we never had soccer practice on Mondays. When I was in my crazy distance runner phase, Monday was either nothing or, at most, a 2-mile jog. And now that I'm doing this cycling thing, Monday is a day for catching up on homework (yeah, right), going to yoga, and generally putzing around. I didn't even race this weekend, but I still took my Monday rest day. The plan was to go to the local Pacific Grove Farmer's Market and take pics of the fascinating and usually eclectic crowds of a central Cali farmer's market. So I shuffled le ol' Stumpjumper out of the bike pile, put on my Chucks, rolled up my pant legs, and off I went.

Except I forgot that I live in a rather white, upper-middle class enclave of Lexus-driving upper-middle aged women. Pacgrovians don't make for very interesting pictures. But I had my camera and the light was starting to get good, so I decided to pedal around PG and see what I could find. Like trees in the golf course that I ride by every single day but never really notice.

We have a lot of benches in PG. Maybe its because we have so many active old people. They need places to sit every once in awhile. I don't mind though, its nice to watch the waves roll in. Or out. I never really understand what waves are doing.

And the clouds change colors.

And the pelicans fly by.

Then I rolled over to Point Pinos because the sunset looked like it might be nice. Of course I didn't have my tripod, so I had to improvise. I found yet another trusty park bench, leaned the bike against it and some how got the monster long stem and silly old school shifters to perfectly balance my sort of expensive camera (shhh, don't tell Terry). I think it worked out.

Luckily I had my light to get home and only one deer ran in front of me. Oh, and I looove my fabulous new Sheila Moon hat.