Come on Irene

We fled London, complete with an arrival at Heathrow only to find firetrucks lined up and everyone standing outside, and have spent the last week enjoying a lovely, sunny week in Vermont. Then, on Friday, we packed up and headed to the Maine coast, just in time for a hurricane. Oh joy!

So far today it's been windy and grey, with some rain coming down, but nothing too exciting yet. Himself and I went down to the water to see what was going on. It was high tide, and the pier for the dock was almost under water. The harbor was quiet, with lots of boats moored to hunker down for the storm, and the wind was rippling the surface of the sea into incredible interference patterns and ruffles.

 

I hope everyone else on the East Coast is staying warm and dry and safe. I'm going to hunker down and watch movies with the girls. See you on the other side!

Shades of things to come

The fun bit:

 

The not-so-fun bit:

I guess the Olympics really are coming, hunh? Yikes...

In other news, we have survived eight days of just us Girls while Himself was in China on a business trip, and are now gearing up for a nice long stint on our original side of the pond. By the time we get back, it will be time for school again - hard to believe how quickly the summer has gone by. But it always does!

Thank you New York

Ouch, there's something in my eye making me cry.

Just amazing.

Tour de France Stage 19: an overview

Last week, Himself went off to the French Alpes to do a little riding/Tour de France groupie-ing with a friend from Texas. What follows is a transcript of our text message interchange on Friday afternoon while I watched the stage on TV and he watched it from the hillside of Alpe d'Huez:

Himself: Rode up alpe d'huez. Way more fun than last time! Today it is already a 9 mile party. Incredible to be here!
Porpoise: I'm jealous!
H: It's ok, I got you a present.
P: Andy Schlek?
H: Guido*, he was going backwards anyway. Might as well bring him home.
P: Frank? Ivan? Please, anyone but Guido!
H: Cav?
P: Ummmm...too high maintenance. How about Thor?
H: He's busy. How about Levi? He's not doing anything (oh snap!)
P: LOL. Maybe that new young rider? Or maybe Tyler? Cadel? we could bbq for him...
H: If Cadel doesn't get himself bbq'd today. Imagine Andy will be turning up the heat.

You get the idea. He sat on the side of the Alpe in the midst of a pile of people who had been drinking all day, watching the best cyclists in the world speed their way up a truly legendary climb. Not a bad way to spend a Friday afternoon in July!

* Guido = Alberto Contador, so nicknamed because of a series of Sidi cycling shoe ads on TV here in the UK showing him wearing a white tuxedo, barefoot, carrying a pair of cycling shoes. Ewwwww!

Happy 4th of July!

Sadly, the Brits do not view today as a good excuse to stay home from work/school and each carbonized meat with lots of beer and watermelon. So we had to do it yesterday. We headed off to the home of some fellow expat-Americans (or rather, one expat-American, one expat-Ukranian and their two lovely children). I was charged with bringing graham crackers, for that special American summer sugar infusion, S'mores.

No problem! I thought. However, the British are unaware (or perhaps just resistant to) Nabisco's total graham cracker monopoly. And the digestive biscuit, while extremely tasty (and occasionally already chocolate coated!), was not going to fly. So I channeled my inner Martha and made graham crackers.

Molasses substitute

Very sticky dough

They weren't like the store-bought kind, that's for sure, but they were very, very, very good. And judging by the amount of gooey marshmallow and melted chocolate that was flying around yesterday, no one noticed the difference.

My inner Martha was feeling particularly rambunctious (and American food-deprived) this weekend, because I also made bagels.

Proto-bagels

Look Ma, no hands!

Duuuuuude...woah....

Way easier then I'd expected (although I'm not sure I ever really thought about how you made bagels before Saturday...), and pretty good. Next time I will make sure to have actual bread flour in the pantry instead of using a bread mix.

Yum! And also very good with cream cheese and orange marmalade.

I hope everyone has a fabulous Fourth, with lots of fireworks and lovely summer weather. Enjoy!

RAB roundup

Well, it's now ten days after the end of the ride, and "real life" is back in force. I've managed to spend several days in Cornwall more or less comatose, but thankful to have finished on Sunday in the overcast-but-mostly-dry rather then Monday's fog-and-pouring-down-rain or this past weekend's 30+-degrees-oh-my-god-I-think-I'm-going-to-melt. I've managed retrieve my bike and clean it up, including changing the rear tube that had a slow leak on the last day (discovered a mere three miles from the finish, I opted to pump it up and leave it rather then change it out). I've slept a lot, gone back to work, and had to answer "How was it?" numerous times - my generic answer has shifted from "Wet. Very wet" to "Good. Very good" which I take as a sign of progress. I've even ridden again. That is to say, I commuted to work on my single speed today, and I noticed a few things.

1) Nine miles is not long enough for me to warm up anymore. Perhaps more ridiculous heat will help with this problem.
2) People who commute by bike in London are insane. Or stupid. Or some combination of both plus a sense of invincibility (oblivion?) which I find disturbing.
3) I kept looking for C's blue raincoat, and A's red jersey, and was very sad when I didn't see either of them out there. I miss my cycling gang.
4) Not riding 100+ miles every day is not enough to fix my ankle. At least not in ten days. Given that my next athletic endeavor is coming up in less then three months, this means: get thee to a physio ASAP girl.

The last day was, as I expected from last year, fairly anticlimactic. We crossed the line together, with big smiles on our faces. I was somewhat surprised that, after going 8 days with nary a competitive quiver in sight, I spent much of the last 15 miles thinking "I do not want that guy to finish ahead of me!" I was not the only one, but we managed to refrain from macho self-flagellation and finish together. The girls and Himself were waiting at the finish with the Wee Ridiculous Dog, and their greetings were most gratifying, if a bit slobbery in one instance. And after swearing up and down that I was never going to set foot in Okehampton again, I found myself back there on our drive back to London, watching the girls romp around the ruins of a castle. Never say never, I guess.

I'm not able at the moment to come up with a pithy phrase to sum up the entirety of the ten days that were RAB (beyond "Wet. Very wet" that is). I am very glad to have been able to do it at all, grateful that my commitments and family support and general physical health were such that I was able to do the training and travel the length of this amazing place. I'm disappointed that I didn't get to descend Cheddar Gorge in the sun. I'm thrilled to have actually made it to John O'Groats. I feel tremendous admiration for those who completed the ride with various and sundry massive challenges (one arm, on a handcycle, on an Elliptigo aiming for a world record). I don't think I need to do it again, but I do know that I don't need to be afraid to climb hills anymore. Or ride in the rain. Or spend hours and hours on my bike. Or to hurt.

86:28:53 final time.

Thanks to everyone who read along, cheered me on, and donated money to ParalympicsGB. My fundraising page will stay active until 19 September 2011, so if you come across this after the fact and feel inspired to donate, please do so.

Day 9: Okehampton to Land's End

There were a few tears as I rode out of Okehampton this morning. Partly because it was the last day, partly because I was really tired from the day before, and partly because I didn't want to go up anymore hills.

It was a rough start - we went off and were almost immediately climbing. As foretold, the climbs weren't long, but they were very, very steep.

From the start, we wound our way south to Launceston and then towards Bodmin Moor. I discovered that the climbing went better when I focused on the road just ahead of my front wheel as opposed to looking up the road and worrying about how steep it was. After about 20 miles, I started feeling pretty good, although my thigh muscles were beginning to consider absconding to the Caribbean before they were completely ripped to shreds. Thankfully the last few miles into the first pit stop were mostly downhill, and we made the first 38 miles in about three hours.

From there we headed up, down, up, down, and one long last up into Truro. We were riding along tiny little back roads, some with grass growing down the middle. I started to get worried with every downhill, because I knew that meant another sharp, steep hill to climb. On any other day, it would have been totally demoralizing, but these were the last miles on the last day - every hill climbed was one hill closer to the finish.

We had one fairly flat section at 98 miles, running along the shore in Penzance. At 100 miles, we hit the steepest climb of the entire ride, and I discovered that my ankle actually could handle standing to climb, once my quads were screaming loudly enough that is. All five of us made it to the top, where we paused to catch our breath and curse Mr. Cook roundly. From there, it was continued up, down, up until we finally hit the main road and the straight shot to the finish line.

And just like that, it was done.

Day 9: 111/965/~953