30 posts tagged “lake tahoe”

What is it too soon for?
Submitted by Design Shark.

I'll admit, Question of the Day, that this one threw me at first.  You see, most people complain about something they can't wait for, rather than something that has arrived prematurely.  In fact, about the only thing most people complain about coming too soon (other than, ahem, coming too soon) is the annual holiday creep.  And they're right.  Frankly, Christmas decorations could show up in stores on December 22 and that would still be too early.  But that's not very timely now, is it?  I do enough complaining about Christmas after Thanksgiving; I don't need to go there in June.

Ordinarily I might opine that it's too soon for the brutal DC summer, but the weather has been rather mild and tolerable lately.  So I guess it's too soon to start training for that marathon.  The month since I signed up has just flown by.  I didn't run much before the big ride in Tahoe, because I didn't want to risk jeopardizing that ride with an injury.  And I haven't run enough since the big ride because I tweaked something in my left foot during the ride and have been in some pain since.  It's felt better toward the end of this week, but it still seems too soon to run four miles on Sunday. 

And, of course, it's too soon for Christmas.  It's always too soon for Christmas.  I guess I don't have a problem going there this early after all.

Have you ever burned yourself?

Well, Question of the Day, this is an auspicious beginning to the next week.  I'm impressed by your query, as it manages to walk that oh-so-fine line between banal and slightly morbid.  A lesser interrogator might have asked "Have you ever been burned?" leaving the question open to interpretation.  And I might have answered with a story about being swindled (in Shanghai) or insulted (that's a burn).  Or I might have mentioned that despite the fact that I sunburn quite easily, I have a shaky (at best) relationship with sunscreen and that I am currently sporting a nifty sunglasses tan line and that my face was peeling for much of the past week after being outside all day last Sunday.  But your question implies a certain degree of participation beyond mere circumstance on the part of the individual so that information is not really relevant either.  You have limited my response to a simple yes-or-no answer.  Well played, Question of the Day.  Well played.

So, no, I have never burned myself.  But thank you for asking.

Two days ago, I worked my ass off to climb the hills surrounding Emerald Bay on my bicycle.  The payoff was a glorious and screaming descent.  That - there - is a great analogy for all the riding I did this spring.  Despite some difficult training rides, I've been on an increasing cycling high since about mid-March.  And now it's over all too soon.

I got home from Nevada about an hour ago.  It's hard for me to believe that two years ago I was ambivalent about doing the ride the next year.  I'd sign up for 2010 tomorrow if I could.

At last night's pre-ride dinner, the final speaker was an Acute Myeloid Leukemia survivor from central Texas.  He opened his remarks with a phrase his chapter likes: Ride like it means something.  Because it does.  The 1650 Team In Training cyclists who rode around Lake Tahoe today collectively raised $6.8 million for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  The ride is almost incidental.  But that doesn't mean I'm not unbelievably proud to have done it again.

Here it is - the last map for a while.  It's a good one though.  I saved the best for last.

Today is a big day.  We turn three years old today.  We've come a long way since our humble beginnings, and have much to commemorate.  It's a less-than-ideal day for festivities, given our other plans, but birthdays are meant to be observed on the day the of.  We'll make no exceptions for ourselves.  So without further ado, here's the latest installment of our annual look back at the year that was:

• Our one and only (and ill-advised) reader poll led to a disastrous week of nothing but internet memes.
  
• There was a minor security breach when Jodi hacked our site and offerered her confessional.
• Our trip to the Outer Banks culminated with the awarding of the 2008 Beachies.
  
• We had a busy weekend.
  
• Cap'n Crunch failed in his attempt to make a mockery of Rocktober.
• We discussed wrasslin' scenarios, and other things lit'rary.
• We were part of this delicious breakfast.
• A cool Christmas present made us feel highly uncool.
  
• The Steelers won the Super Bowl....
• ....and we won Karaoke to the Death.
• M-----l posted about facial hair and an argument ensued.
• Hellooooooo, new bike!
• We spent a lot of time making maps and riding our new bike.
  

Which brings us full-circle to this morning....  Sorry to bail on our own party, but we really do have to go.  Next year, we will host a proper celebration.

Our bikes have been on a truck for the past week, and may have been jostled around a bit on the trip across the country.  So on the day before the big ride, we go for a short ride of ten miles or so to Zephyr Cove and back just to make sure everything is in working order.  That's also when and where the group photos - my least favorite part of the whole weekend - happen.  I just got back to the hotel, and I am pretty fucking miserable.

Last night's snow - thankfully - never materialized, and it's a little bit warmer than I expected it to be this morning.  But that rain....  My bike doesn't like to be out in the rain, and I tend to agree.  And now they're talking about wind for tomorrow, to boot.  I'm in such dire need of good weather ju-ju over the next eighteen hours that I am willing to extend to Jodi public and unsolicited happy birthday wishes.

So many happy returns, Jodi!  May your birthday brownies be just as dry and bland as you like them.  Now let's see some improvement in this shitty weather.

Real quick, because I've been awake for far too long at this point, here's the forecast for South Lake Tahoe, California over the next eight or nine hours: light rain tonight turning to snow in the morning; temperatures in the mid-to-low-thirties.

That's a piece of information I thought some of you might like to know.

It's impossibly early, but I've got to catch a flight soon to one of the best places in the world.  In just over forty-eight hours, I'll be enjoying the view you see above, only it will be much cooler and possibly raining.  Yeah, you're jealous.

I'm beginning to think that 2009 might actually be my year.  Aside from all the other great stuff that happened, my decision to finally buy the new bike I've wanted for so long has turned out to be one of the best things I've done since I bought my old bike.  This training season has been one of the most fun - if not the most fun - of the ten century rides I've done with Team In Training.  (And that in spite of all the miserable weather.)  I'm a little sad it's coming to an end.

In a week, I'll be out in California.  I put my sweet baby on a truck tomorrow.  But today there was time for one last ride.  Our official training ended last week with our ninety-three mile sufferfest, but I organized a short and easy ride down to the beach.  Seven or eight of us set out on a "leisurely" pace, and we ended up crushing it.  Today was the fastest I've ridden all season.  Let's hope the rest of the summer goes the same way.  That would make the marathon training a breeze.

For my first two or three centuries, half our training rides were out on the Virginia piedmont.  We only rode either there or Poolesville, Maryland.  We've since expanded our range, and while the variety is nice, I sometimes miss being out in horse country every other week.  Northern Fauquier county is the prettiest area in which we ride.  After about forty miles last Saturday, my riding buddy for most of this season (who comes down hard in the Maryland camp in the Virginia v. Maryland debate) opined that we were in "paradise."  It was difficult to disagree.

I started out leading a group of our third-fastest riders this week, who began forty-five minutes before the rest of the group so they would finish at about the same time.  We rolled out of the parking lot at a quarter to seven.  It sucked getting up an hour earlier than I would have otherwise, but it was nice to have the roads completely to ourselves for a bit. The big climb starts earlier than most people expect.  We ride through a little town called Bluemont, and though it's challenging, it's just a prelude for what's to come. The worst part about Mount Weather is that the highest point is just before the big descent.  So even when you think you're done, you still have to climb.  There's a good ten miles of gradual uphill after the steep uphill.  And there's a government facility about halfway to the peak that's a Cold War relic of our government's attempt to close the mine shaft gap.  Seriously. The descent from Mount Weather is a little too winding to be completely satisfying, but there's an opportunity to really open things up once you get into the gap below.  It's almost all downhill to the pit stop at Sky Meadows State Park (which was hopping because of the annual Delaplane Strawberry Festival).  I was relieved here of my duties with the third-fastest group, so I was able to take advantage of a nice false flat on which one can really haul ass. This is where the [scene missing] card belongs.  I don't have many pictures from the middle part of the ride, because I was mostly focused on just keeping going.  The few shots I did get are marred by a nice smudge across my camera lens.  The remnants of that smudge are occasionally visible in these pictures of the end of the ride, when I was feeling much better. We don't normally ride on Memorial Day weekend.  This is the first time, actually, I ever have.  So I missed out on my annual ritual of being annoyed by Rolling Thunder from the comfort of my apartment.  I was pleased, however, to see the many Harleys lining Main Street in white-bread Middleburg as we rolled back into town, where the post-ride picnic was already in progress.