iron katymoe » travel

Solvang Century

katymoe — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:50:01 +0000

The Solvang Century landed this year smack dab in the middle of mine and Katie’s birthdays. We thought this sounded like the perfect way to celebrate! Who doesn’t want to ride 100 miles for their birthday? I’ve never done an organized century and I’ve heard great things about Solvang. Katie and I stayed with my grandma in Santa Maria on Friday night. We had a blast taking her out to dinner at the Olive Garden! Yum, carb-loading!

Katie and I got up at 5am, strapped the bikes on the car and headed south to Solvang. When we arrived there were already cyclists out on the road. We found parking, admired the cute little town, decided to stay in town next time, checked in at registration, and started the challenging part of the day, deciding what to wear. People were wearing everything you could imagine from shorts and a jersey, to pants with full shoe-covers, hats, and jackets. We finally decided on knickers, arm-warmers, toe warmers, and vests, and we were OFF!

It was a little cold starting out, but the sun was out so I knew it would warm up, and I HATE carrying extra stuff if I don’t need it. I was little nervous about how I would feel on the ride. My training rides leading up to Solvang were only about 40 to 60 miles. I was really worried I’d get to mile 80 and want to die.

The morning was really fun, HUGE packs of cyclists would fly by us and Katie and would just hop in and FLY with them as long as we could. Effortlessly cruising at speeds of sometimes 27 mph. FUN! We would typically hit a hill and be dropped like we weren’t even pedaling. It was always fun while it lasted. We made sure to “get our money’s worth” at all the rest stops by eating as much as we could. We would randomly find some big dudes to ride behind, as the winds were ridiculous. We were happy to pull as well, but lots of dudes couldn’t handle girls being in their groups and would drop us just because they were stupid. We would usually just pass those groups when we’d find another group willing to work with us. Dummies. I guess being pulled by a girl makes you feel like less of a man?Katie and I got a huge kick out of this guy. It was a tandom set up for a kid on the back (see those little legs!). The dad was riding with his young son on the back! Whoa. In the picture Katie is up talking with him to his right. He rode with his son on the back for the first half, and then traded kids and rode with his daughter the second half. Too cute!

Here’s the climb graph of the century. I said earlier I was a little nervous about how I’d feel after mile 80. Well, I never looked at the graphs or the map or anything (if it’s not a race sometimes I like to be surprised so I don’t worry about things that are out of my control). I’m not sure if you can see the numbers or not, but basically that HUGE climb at the end…that starts right around mile 80.Needless to say not knowing how long I was climbing (and it was relatively gradual) I was not feeling great at mile 80. I was actually feeling pretty bad. I was wondering how I was going to make it to mile 100…..moving at about 8 mph. UGH torture. Luckily for me around mile 87 or 90 we started our decent…..and other than a few minor bumps in the road….the decent carried us all the way back to the finish! It was so fun and fast, every ride should end like that!

The Pre-Half Marathon Ride

katymoe — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:44:04 +0000

The Surf City Half Marathon was a blast! It was a very busy weekend too. Just because you are in Southern California for the weekend doesn’t mean Ironman Training stops. Brett and I drove down to San Pedro Friday night after I got of work. We arrived at the harbor (we were staying on his boat) around 1 am in the middle of a crazy storm that felt like a hurricane. I was imagining that my ride the next morning may not go very smoothly, as the forecast said rain for the morning as well. Just before I fell asleep, I joked with Brett about our escape route, and if I should save my bike if the boat capsized in the storm. When I woke up for my ride, this is what I saw. The person’s boat straight across from us SUNK! I must have some crazy intuition about these things. I headed up to the car to get my bike ready for the ride and my rear tire was flat again, great! Oh, and notice the BLACK sky in the background of the picture. I wasn’t feeling very pumped about this ride. I was supposed to ride for 2 hours, I wasn’t sure where I was going, the roads were soaked, and it looked like the skies were about to open up and POUR on me. While I was changing my tire, the FOUR fire trucks filled with firemen that arrived “on the scene” of the sinking boat sat there and watched me change my tire….saying things like, “so you’re gonna brave this weather huh?” and “you’ve seen that sky right”. Like I wasn’t nervous enough about the ride….then I was feeling really awkward finishing changing my flat with four truck-loads of men watching me. ugh! They finally left, just as I was heading out. My legs felt tired and the wind was almost blowing the palm trees over, I didn’t have a good feeling about this ride. Then I rode a few miles came around the corner and saw this. I thought things were looking up, these were beautiful views, maybe this could be a nice ride? Maybe the sun would even come out? I started to get into my rhythm. I saw a cute little park area, thought about stopping to pee, decided not too (I mean things were going so well), and then realized my back tire was flat. I had been on my bike for 5 miles. Maybe today was NOT looking up. I thought about calling Brett to come get me. I hate changing my back tire. Then I thought about how at least it was a good spot to get a flat, I did have to pee after all. I’ll change the flat , if I flat AGAIN I’ll call Brett. I think it took something like 30 seconds to change this flat, I’m basically a professional now. I headed back out on the wet debris-ridden road anticipating more disasters. I took a couple wrong turns, saw some beautiful houses, more beautiful views, and the wind was CRAZY. I decided to just go with the flow. A few more turns and this is what I see in the distance, a mudslide covering the road. I saw cars going through it, but it looked pretty deep. I decided to walk my bike up on the sidewalk, but that was also covered in mud and I ended up with sticky muddy shoes. Great. I tried to clean them a bit in the grass, it didn’t work well. I could barely clip back in and it was REALLY hard to clip out (I hope I didn’t do any serious pedal/clip damage). A few more miles and a few minor mudslides later I came across this sign. At this point I’m just laughing at all that is going wrong, or that could go wrong. What else can you do? Things could be worse, I could be wet and cold. At least it was just a weird obstacle-course ride. What does “constant land movement” even mean? I was picturing a fun-house when they have the wobbly floor as you walk through. Basically, what it means is the roads are ridiculously uneven. Like some little kid tried to stack pieces of road together. It was treacherous. Luckily the cars were actually driving cautiously and sharing their lane with me. It was very nice. The ride home was relatively uneventful. The sun was kinda shining, I knew where all the obstacles were. I just had to ride an hour home, it was going to be a good ride after all. I did this same ride on Monday in the SUN, it was beautiful and nice. I can’t wait to ride there again next time I’m in San Pedro.

NIKE Women’s Marathon

katymoe — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:46:16 +0000

I made it. I made it to the NIKE women’s marathon and I made it THROUGH the NIKE women’s marathon, well half-marathon. This race is very near and dear to my heart because it was my first FULL MARATHON way back in 2005, wahoo! I loved ALL of it, I always wanted to come back to race it again!!! Many of my BIG dreams started there! Maybe I COULD qualify for Boston? Maybe I COULD race and Ironman?!

This year’s race was supposed to be very exciting and fun. I was planning to race at NWM (that’s what I’m calling it because I’m tired of writing it ok?)….back to the story….I was planning to race the full marathon this year. I got really excited because…

1. I was going to get to race this race again, plain and simple.

2. This was going to be my first SOLO-marathon (marathon without an IM attached) since 2006!

3. Including my two IM races this would be a marathon distance run every year for the past 5 years!

Now, don’t those three things sounds exciting?!?!?!? I was JAZZED! Then I found out I had a racing buddy doing it too. Life couldn’t get better. Well, a couple hundred-ish miles of running later, we all know the story of my stinkin’ plantar fascia and it’s plans to ruin my life.

After battling with The Fascia (I’m calling it that), I almost immediately wrote the full marathon off, but for a LONG time still planned to race the 1/2. I mean, c’mon when “The Fascia” started acting up, I was already running 13 mile long-runs. Piece of cake right? Well…Lefty over there (I’m talking about my left foot) didn’t agree. Race day was fast approaching and I wasn’t running AT ALL. Like ZERO miles for the past month and a half. gasp! I was, however, water running, elipticaling, and cycling up a storm (more stories on those things to come), oh and not P90Xing (more on that too….I know I know…where are the HOT-Katy pictures? I don’t want to talk about it).

Suddenly it was race week, and I started panicking. I REALLY wanted my TIFFANY’s necklace….and they always have great race shirts….but could I trust myself to NOT RUN…to save my foot? Could I walk a half-marathon…..how long does that take anyways? It sounded REALLY boring. Almost torturous….to go to a RUNNING race and WALK and watch everyone else LOVING being able to RUN. UGH! What had I done to deserve this!?

I went over every possible plan with Brett, about how I would/could walk this race. Really, I didn’t think I’d be able to run the whole thing AND I thought it would be better for my foot to walk it. So I talked about alternating running and walking a mile at a time, then running three, walking one, etc, etc. Literally, I think my wonderful Brett sat through me saying each and every possible scenario of how to run walk 13 miles (thank you!).

Race morning, my plan was to run three miles then see how I felt and then jog/walk the rest of the way. Well, I LOVE RUNNING!!!!! So…when I got to mile three, I kinda decided that I should probably run to mile 6 since that was where the hills were. Then at mile six, I decided to just run THAT hill….then the next one was so small that…..then I before I knew it I was at mile TEN….so I just kinda finished the race without walking. I did stop and take LOTs o’ Pictures. My foot feels the same (if not better) which is weird, but I’m totally ok with it.

My pictures from the weekend don’t really “go with” the actual blog so I’m just posting them here at the bottom.

Just Us Girls La Femme Sportive

Sporting our new gear!

Beautiful views looking back at the Embarcadero from the top of mile 6ish.

These signs were so fun to read on the hills!

Looking down on the finish line from mile 9.

Celebrating with Kristen and Cheree

Kristen ran the full marathon and Cheree ran the 1/2

(but only because she ran a full last weekend!)

depression hurts. (but not as bad as plantar fasciitis).

katymoe — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:32:14 +0000

as you’ve noticed i’ve been on a little posting/blogging hiatus. it’s hard for me to write about things that aren’t entertaining, inspiring, or hilarious….so i don’t. it’s like the ol’ saying, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”. that’s how i feel about blogging.

so as you know i hurt my toe. after that healed it was all marathon training, all the time. NIKE women’s marathon was going to be my “big race” of 2009 and keep me on track to do one marathon a year for the past four years. after a few weeks of struggling through my 7-8 mile long-runs, i really started to feel “it” coming back. ”it” being that LOVE for running i have. that grinning from ear to ear for the whole hour and a half that i’m pounding the pavement. that feeling that i wish my long run were longer….that i could stay out running all day….that i was a professional ultra marathon runner…….eeeerrchk (the sound of screeching brakes, in case you couldn’t tell).

so, about the time that “it” (see above) was coming back, my little left foot (yep, same foot as the toe injury) started hurting. i started icing, stretching, everything-ing your supposed to do-ing when your foot hurts. i kept running though, hoping the other preventative measures would fix my little problem. they didn’t. after running on my sore foot for a couple weeks, i decided to take a (dreaded) week off. my dr. decided i had plantar fasciitis, and sent me to Physical Therapy (yay).

it’s been a couple weeks now, my foot still hurts. i’ve decided to do only the half marathon at NIKE women’s marathon. this makes me sad, but ultimately i need to be healthy for IM Coeur d’ Alene next summer. marathon training through plantar fasciitis is not going to make me healthy. half marathon training probably will not make me healthy either, (my PT keeps reminding me of this) but i’m doing it. i ran three miles this week, it hurt. my night splint should be coming this week so maybe that will fix me….

here are a couple pictures from my “week off of running road trip to seattle”

sunset view from our last night camping

love birds loving seattle

Zona loving the car.