Announcing…

Karey is going to be riding for Therapeutic Associates on their newly formed Women’s Elite Team, and she is very excited!!!!!

There will be a “press release” about the whole team coming out soon.  I have known about this for a while, but I wanted to wait till we got our new kits so I could include an awesome picture of me in my new kit along with the announcement.  (Yes, I am a geek).

Our team currently consists of 5 (including me) awesome, hardcore, fiesty ladies and I can’t wait to be able to race with them and to race for them!

So, here it is: here’s what you’ll be lookin’ for as you try to catch me in a sprint…

Me lookin' pro!

and here’s a little close up of the jersey, just in case you care to look

Anyway, we have some great sponsors, including the makers of a fairly newly developed energy/recovery drink called Gener8 Vitargo.  It’s really awesome and its available at GNC stores.  Check out the website. I highly recommend it for any endurance sports and for a recovery drink.  Tastes good and fuels well.

Enough about that – this last week was a much needed rest week.  Last week I put in quite a few hours on the bike and ended the week on Sunday in Bend up at Mt Bachelor.  Bill (the head honcho – I guess you could say) of the TAI team is a cross-country ski instructor and offered to give us a little skating lesson since it was about 24 degrees in town.  We headed up to the mountain after obtaining skiis from Bend Bike-n-Sport.  It was Sunny and about 50 degrees on the hill.  Awesome!  Well, skating was hard – and it was a good work out.  I had a tough time getting the motion down, and when I finally had it, I was almost too tuckered out to even do anything.  But, next time, it will go much better!

This last week I took it easy, getting in about 10.5 hours and I feel very well rested and ready to begin my last few weeks of base miles.  I do need a massage though, because my little muscles are starting to get hard as rocks – and I don’t necessarily think its just because I’m getting really really strong.  – though that would be nice.

Anyway, that’s about it for now!  Happy riding – or skiing – or whatever it is you love to do.

Weekly Update

Alright.  So – this week has been a good one.  And I am currently pretty tired, but not too tired.  I feel worked, but not exhausted, so that’s good.  I am looking forward to an awesome rest day tomorrow.

Since I am recently graduated, and unfotunately also recently mostly laid off – I have been doing a lot of riding.  WHICH IS AWESEOME, don’t get me wrong – it just feels a little weird to not have homework and not have to work 3 jobs every day.  But, I’m adjusting.  My week has consisted of applying to about 10 different places thus far and, like I said, riding a lot.  I have also kept myself occupied with straightening up the house (even though it doesn’t really look it right now), and reading and watching some movies.  My new movie watching has included Wall-E – which was cute, but not my favorite animated movie, and Tropic Thunder, which I laughed ALOT during – but it does include some crude humor and strong drug references, so parents might be strongly cautioned.

As for riding, I am feeling REALLLLLLY good, and really strong right now.  Well, its not necessarily the same strong as a, “I could beat anyone up this hill” strong, or “come and sprint with me and I’ll tear your legs off” strong – but it’s a type of endurance strong that I’ve never really felt before.  It’s a, “I can hold more watts for a longer time than I ever thought I could” sort of strong.  So, that’s good.  My heart rate is feelig really comfortable at a higher rate than I’m used to, and my legs are holding out longer.  Not to mention that my bottom is starting to be more tolerable on my saddle for longer periods of time.

So, my grand totals for this week are:

Hours on the bike: 18:55:30

Kj Used (Kiljoules = calories – basically) = 10,124

KM rode: 499.87

Food eaten: a whole crap load!

New Peak Efforts set for 30 sec, and 90 min

Legs feel good, I’m healthy, and ready for more next week!  wahoo!

Time to go eat some more food.

Well, well, well

Well the hand is looking better.  I’m still not sure if it’s broken, because I refuse to go to the doctor, but after the swelling went down, I have resumed most normal activities with the hand.  It still hurts to grasp anything too tightly and I found that when I play games, I like to clap when something goes well, and it HURTS!  Right now it feels fine on its own, like just sitting there, and so I tend to forget that I have a really really bruised/sprained/maybe broken hand.  Anyway, it started looking cool a couple days ago.  Like – imagine how you would want your makeup to look if you were being a realllllly real-looking zombie for Halloween.  Well, that’s how it looked.  And it spread all the way up my hand and a little down my wrist – which kind of scared me, but according to Mike, it’s just “secondary tissue death” – so it’s nothing to be worried about – like tissue death is a minor issue – ha!

Anyway, so that’s that.  It still hurts to touch and lean on, but I’ve been riding my bike and its been pretty good.

Speaking of riding my bike (cause that’s what we’re all here to read about, right?), last Saturday, Chris, Derek and Larry and I all went out for a Brownsville ride.  Chris made it clear that we were going at his tempo, because he needed a good ride – which is fine, because usually his medium tempo is my FAST tempo (while drafting) – and I needed a good ride also.  Well, we started out and in the first few minutes I thought I was going to die – well, not die, but my HR was up pretty high.  Derek and Larry were feelin’ it too, and decided to do a little switching off in the back.  The lucky person who wanted a lot of work got to sit right behind Chris.    Well, after my legs warmed up a bit, it actually went really well.  I spent a lot of time right behind Chris, and it felt pretty good.  It was difficult, but it was good for me.  Then we hit the long hill.  Chris took off, of course, and there was no way I could keep up with him, but I wasn’t hurting too bad, so I just kept a steady tempo all the way up.  It was awesome, because my heart rate was actually up for the first part, but I wasn’t really breathing hard – and it went better than I thought it would.  I was the first out of the 3 of us to get to the top!  FINALLY!!!!!! I beat them up the hill!!!!!!!!!!!!  Chris was surprised also (thanks Chris).  haha  Anyway, it was a good day.

The next day I woke up feeling like poo.  I felt weird about riding – like I kinda felt like if I were to get hit by a car, Sunday would have been the day.  But, I went out with Chris anyway.  We were going to meet up with Derek and do Cottage Grove.  I got a flat when we weren’t even out of town.  I just felt like I wasn’t supposed to go on this ride.  Also, I’ve been having problems with my hipflexor muscle – and it was acting up (I think from the awesome climb the day before).  Anyway, so we decided to do Dillard instead of Cottage grove – and Chris turned off at the bottom of the hill to do a long ride.

Once I was safely back in my house, I hopped back on the trainer for a bit and finished off my time.  So, no getting hit by cars, and no more flats – which was good.

Yesterday was an awesome day off – I watched Wall-E…(it was okay)  And that’s that.  Time to train some more!!!!!!!  Tempor efforts and hills this week yipeee!!!!

The best crash ever…

So, imagine this.  Karey, riding her bike, no hands, trying to take off her rain jacket.  Now, Karey has done this feat before – and with great success.  In fact, she has previously succeeded in taking her jacket out of her pocket, putting it on, and vice versa, putting it back in her pocket.  Well, for some reason, Karey decided she would attempt this again – while going up a hill.  Her balance was just fine – until one of her arms wasn’t coming out quite nicely from her rain jacket.  As her bike begins to wobble back and forth, she tries to remove her other arm from the tangled mess of rain jacket and wind vest, and feels her handlebars jacknife in front of her.  OH shit!  She goes down as she yells and squeaks out some sort of yelp.

Karey proceeds to roll around in the middle of the road because her knee hurts so bad, and once standing up realizes that her hand also hurts pretty bad.  Meanwhile Mike and Chris aren’t sure whether to laugh or if they’re going to have to tow her back home.  She lays back down trying to decide whether  to cry ’cause of the pain or laugh because of how dumb she feels.  She then removes her glove to reveal an already swollen hand.

So, now she sits at the computer and types one handed-like because her hand is so swollen she can’t move it.  She believes it may be broken, because it hurts like hell to move it or put any pressure on it – but we’ll have to see once the swelling goes down.

Dang it! Moral of the story: Don’t wear an unzipped wind vest under your rain jacket and try to take it off while riding your bike up a hill.