I'm making progress on several of my other goals, and wanted to give an update!
#13: Do 25 full-length push-ups. I did 30 full-length push-ups! I'm marking this off the list, but the reason I'm classifying it as "progress" and keeping it in my mind as something to continue to work on is that I didn't go all the way down to the floor on them. On the one hand I'm stoked enough to consider the goal accomplished, but on the other hand, my internal measuring stick won't let me forget that I didn't exactly do them perfectly. Maybe with more work in the future, my form will improve.
#17: Be comfortable in a size 8. As of right now, I'm comfortable in a size 8 skirt/dress. I can fit into 8 jeans, but I wouldn't exactly call it the most comfortable thing ever. The thing is, my butt/thighs are...well, let's just say "athletic." My waist is consistently one size lower than them. Should I cross this one off? I would say to wait a bit and see, but if this is the size I got down to after half a year of training and working out 6-7 days a week for hours at at time, then the chances are I'm not going to get any smaller on my own. If I could have three wishes, one of them would be that our bodies were made so that we could bust our butts to get to our ideal look, and then stop, and our bodies would stay there! Since that is unfortunately not the case, I'm considering this goal achieved as a reward for all my hard work during training. If I can stay at this size for a while on my own, I'll be even more pleased.
#18: Avoid getting sunburned. I have to say, I'm so freaking proud of myself on this one. It was one thing to be paranoid about sun right after my cancer diagnosis/surgery late last summer and avoid getting sunburned for the month of hot weather we had left. It's been another thing all together to be as diligent about protecting myself when we had 5-hour practices outside, at the 8-hour race where I had to make sure to reapply sunscreen at each transition, and when all my friends are talking about how glad they are to finally be getting some sun again and not be so white. I know our culture is all about the beauty of tan skin, but it's been hard to head into summer hearing everyone talking about how happy they are to be getting lots of sun and color and to know that I have to stay as white as possible. One of the girls at the race actually asked me the morning we were heading back to Texas, "God, how did you finish this weekend so white??" (read that with a shocked and condescending tone and you've got it). I was so irritated with her tone and implication that I shot back, "Oh, I had skin cancer last year, so I can't get too much sun anymore." She looked appropriately embarrassed and contrite. I know it probably wasn't the nicest thing to do, but it made me feel a little better, at least for that moment. So I'm not crossing it off since this is a goal I have to focus on for the rest of my life, but I am proud of my success so far.
#28: Keep a potted plant alive for at least one year. I got three plants when we moved into our house in July of last year: two flowering plants and an aloe plant. I diligently nursed them through the winter, and we survived an early spring scare when I put them outside to enjoy the sun and they got burnt to a crisp. They are still alive and green, albeit with no blooms and only a few leaves. Hurry up, July!
#67: Pay off all medical bills. We had three big bills (anesthesiologist, surgeon, and hospital) and a number of smaller bills to pay off after my September surgery. I am sooo happy to say that we paid off the first of the three big bills this week!! Woo-hoo!!! We only have another couple of months on the other big bill and most of the smaller ones, and then we'll only have the hospital bill left. Seeing as how we'll be paying on that one for a couple of years, don't expect to see this one getting crossed off the list any time soon.
#90: Go to the O. Henry pun off. Damn, damn, damn. We missed it. We were even in town when it was happening. I know there's always next year, but damn.
#95: Read a nonfiction book. This one should be crossed off already. I read Into the Wild. I just didn't like it very much, and didn't want to waste this goal on a book I didn't really like. However, I am now reading Under the Banner of Heaven, Three Cups of Tea, and Fear No Evil, all nonfiction books that so far have been absolutely outstanding!! I love having free time again!!
Hope all is well!
KC
Friday, May 23, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
#9: Avia Wildflower half-ironman!
Let me preface this with saying that I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures! There were so many people there with cameras, Alex just figured that he'd let them take the pictures. Now someone is putting them onto a DVD with a soundtrack, which will be awesome, but the upshot is that I don't have any to show you here. Sorry.
In the weeks leading up to the May 3rd race, I went through a bout of pre-race anxiety unlike any I had experienced before. When my coach asked who was nervous about the race and all of us raised our hands, his response was, "Of course you're nervous! We've been kicking your asses in practice for three months now, so all you know is 'pain' and 'hard.' But this has all been in preparation for the race, so that when you get there, you can actually have fun with it rather than having a miserable experience." I wanted to believe him, but my Pavlovian response after three-plus months of ass-kicking workouts was extreme anxiety about the pain about to be wrought on my body and mind.
The main source of my anxiety was that there is a time cut-off for the course. If you don't finish the bike within a certain amount of time, you can't finish the race. I wasn't the slowest person on my team, but I was far from the fastest. To cope with my anxiety, I visualized finishing the race, I calculated out my estimated times for each leg based on my predicted speeds, I made a list of inspirational words (fortitude, stamina, guts, strength, etc...), and I tried my best whenever anyone asked me if I was excited/nervous to only respond in a positive manner (I failed the most often with this technique, I think!). Our practices got shorter, and I once again started having fun with them. The taper segment of training is lovely in that it gives your body a chance to (finally!) rest and recover a bit, but it also means that the nervous energy has less of an outlet. Alex was in Germany for the couple of weeks leading up to the race, so I didn't even have him around to calm me down. I warned him when he came back that I was liable to be more quiet than normal (we were only 5 days pre-race at that point). He was (of course) brilliant in leaving me alone when I needed it and comforting me and getting me to laugh and not be so nervous, too.
We got in to California the Thursday before the race late in the morning. After stopping at In and Out Burger, a staple of California cuisine, for lunch, where I discovered ordering your burger "animal style" makes all the difference in the world, we headed out to the park/campground/race course. The event was held in and around Lake San Antonio in Monterey County. This is about an hour from the nearest anything, so most of the participants of the race camp for the weekend in the park. And there were literally thousands of participants! We got in early and got a primo camping spot, and then went for a short run to stretch our legs from the flight/drive. We jogged down to the transition area (where all participants rack their bikes and gear during the race), which was about 1.5 miles downhill from where we were camping. We checked out the swim course, felt the water (cold!!), and then jogged over to the first hill on the bike course. This hill is the second-most infamous hill on the course, known as Beach Hill, because it is long and steep and you are only on your bike for about 3 minutes before getting to it, so your legs have not had a chance yet to warm-up. We walked up the hill, and for the first time, I felt my anxiety start to melt away. This hill was NOTHING compared to the hills we had been practicing on in Austin weekend after weekend after weekend! Sure it was longer, but it wasn't as steep. All I would have to do is shift into my easiest gear and settle in. I started to smile and feel the familiar sense of eagerness that is my normal pre-race zone.
On Friday we went for a swim in the lake to test out the temperature with our wet suits (still really cold!!), picked up our bikes, and went for a really short ride around the park to make sure that they had been put back together correctly (we had them shipped out to the face site in boxes) and that they were ready to go. We think piled into vans and drove the 56-mile bike course, so that we could see the hills that made this course one of the toughest 1/2's in the world. I was surprised at how much of the course seemed flat. With everyone talking about the hills so much, no one really mentioned that so much of it is flat or gently rolling! My confidence grew another notch. Sure there were a few hills to worry about, but heck, you only had to get up them one time! We spent the rest of the day trying to stay off our feet and resting up. That night we had our big Team In Training pasta dinner, where all the chapters from around the country come together and celebrate our fundraising accomplishments and share inspirational stories. I was only $100 away from being in the top 10 fundraisers for the entire group! Thank you to everyone who donated!! My team ended up raising more than $107,000 for the LLS, and the total amount raised by all chapters topped $1.7 million. That is simply amazing!
The morning of the race dawned clear and cold. The day started in the upper 30's, but without any clouds in the sky, I knew the temps would rise as soon as the sun came up. Another plus to it being so chilly is that the water in the lake wouldn't seem nearly as cold. My coach was busy taping inspirational messages to our bike handles (Eat! Drink! Attack!), and I taped on a fortune that I had gotten in a fortune cookie two days before we left: "You know what you want. Now go get it." We had to be all set up and out of the transition area by 7:30 a.m. because the race started at 8. However, my wave didn't go off until 9:10, so I had quite a while to wait and relax before my wave. The first two waves were the professional men and women, respectively, so it was really cool to see them start and to see how freaking fast they finished their swim and were off on their bike! I got to see Chris McCormack, the current world champion (he won Kona, the world ironman championship), which was pretty cool. One of the last things I did before lining up with my group was to write "Chutzpah" in purple marker on my right inner forearm. I had decided that this was going to be my theme word for the day. All I had to remember was to have some chutzpah!
My two goals for the race were to finish in as close to eight hours as possible and (perhaps more importantly) to respond to every challenge with a positive attitude. It was really important to me that I enjoy my time at this race--I had been working towards this day for the last six months! When it was time for my wave, I got in the very back of my group. I would rather swim past people than be constantly getting swum over and passed myself. When the bell went off, one of the first things I noticed was that the water didn't seem as cold as it had the day before. Gotta love adrenaline.
Swimming is one of my favorite parts of a triathlon. It's not that I'm a fast swimmer, it's just that I really love being in the water. And I'm not necessarily a slow swimmer. I like to pretend I'm very average at this discipline. As we went out, around the first buoy, and down the straight away, I was relishing the feel of the water as it flowed over my face and arms. We approached a tall marker, and I thought, "Man! I am doing so good! That's already the turn to go back in!" Unfortunately, I then saw that people were continuing on straight. Laughing at my not-so-modest mindset, I settled in and got into a comfortable rhythm. I noticed some swim caps of the wave after mine starting to pass me, but I knew I wasn't the fastest swimmer, so this didn't really bother me. I expected to be passed. We approached the next tall marker and I thought, "Sweet! Here we are at the turn. That didn't really seem too long, and I still feel fresh and energized! I'm doing great!" And then I saw that people were continuing on straight. Crap. So this wasn't going to be a walk in the park. Well, I guess it is a half-ironman, after all, so it shouldn't really be a breeze. I stopped thinking about how fast I was or wasn't going and started concentrating on staying in a straight line, breathing, and swimming with my hips (thanks, Coach Annika!). I thought about all the people and moments who had helped me get to this point, from our swim coach and our 5:30 a.m. winter practices in the outdoor, heated pool at the JCC to my friends, family, and husband who had supported me and encouraged me and who all believed in me. I was overcome with elation. I remember thinking to myself, "I'm doing it. I'm in the middle of doing it--the thing that I've (we've all) been working toward and looking to for the last six months." How freaking awesome. There was one more exciting moment around the actual turn back in where a girl tried to swim past me by grabbing my shoulder and pulling me back. I in turn grabbed her arm and pulled it down and in front of me, effectively pulling her underwater. Not the nicest move ever, but I think it will help in the future for her to be a little more considerate in races. She looked a bit startled. I exited the water in exactly 45 minutes, a bit longer than I had optimistically predicted in my head, but considering I hadn't actually ever swum that distance in open water, I don't think my prediction was very accurate. Now it was time for the bike. The bug-a-boo of my training, the source of all my race anxiety. It was here that I would either make it or die.
Because we had jogged the beginning of the bike course on Thursday, I knew what to expect coming up to Beach Hill. I took it easy, settling in to the new movements of the bike, letting my legs slowly warm up. Beach Hill was there and then gone. I hadn't really even noticed it. I was watching each person in front of me get closer and then get left behind. I was watching the light poles, knowing that the one next to the big tree signaled the top of the hill. The first big hill of the course, the one that has been called "the hardest hill that nobody talks about" was behind me! On my way out of the park, I passed Chris McCormack on his way back in! He was in the lead, and I called out an encouraging shout for him as he passed. I wonder if he hears things like that or if he's in such a zone that he tunes everything out. I exited the park and started on my 56-mile ride around the lake, through wine country. The wildflowers were out in abundance and my race nutrition plan had me doing something--drinking, taking a gu, or eating something--at least every 15 minutes, so I just settled in and focused on the mileage signs ticking past one after another. I usually give myself about 15 miles on the bike to start feeling good, and I was surprised at how quickly the first 15 miles passed. The terrain was flat or rolling hills, which allowed me to eat and drink with ease. Before I knew it, I was at mile 25 and time for my "lunch": a PBJ and some potato chips. I had these stashed in bag on my bike, so I just munched on them as I went, slowing down a bit and taking time to get in some calories that would be sure to help me on the second half of the course...where it would get hard. Looking at the bike course elevation chart below, I had told myself that there were five hills that I had to worry about: Beach Hill (which you can see at the very beginning); the small hill at mile 35 (which I though might be a challenge after enjoying downhill for such a long time); Nasty Grade, THE hill on the course, which stands out on the chart like a giant nasty monster; and the two final hills on the course at about miles 46 and 51.
When riding, though, and looking back on it, I can really only remember two hills: Beach, which wasn't a problem at all, and Nasty. The others were such non-events that I don't even remember ever thinking, "ok, now I'm on a hill. Suck it up and get to the top." This is such a testament to our coaches and the endless practices of them kicking our asses up every single steep hill in Austin! As I rode, I was able to look around at the rolling hills (they seemed like mountains to this Texas girl, but I was told they are actually just hills) and the green vineyards and remember thinking, "This is so cool! I am riding my bike through California!" Then mile 40 hit and it was time to get serious. It was time to tackle Nasty Grade.
Thanks to having driven the course the day before, I knew where Nasty started and knew when to shift into easier and easier gears. I had never before ridden a hill so long (we don't have things like that here in Austin), and I remember getting anxious at the beginning, when my heart rate started to rise and my breathing became more difficult. It's easy to get panicky when you're starting to breathe hard and you know you still have such a long climb ahead of you. Then I thought to myself, "What do you want? To have a great attitude no matter what. Ok, what do you have to do in order to accomplish that? No bitch about how hard this is and only think positive thoughts. What kind of positive thoughts? That this isn't that hard! That I can do this!" The impact that this conversation had on me was immediate. My mood lightened, my brow unfurrowed, and I actually spent a good part of the hill singing "la la la la la" in time with my pedal strokes! The other thing that really helped my mood on this hill was all the people I was passing. It's one thing to pass other girls--I know I'm fairly athletic compared to the average girl--but it was another thing totally to pass big athletic men! What a high!! All those hills climbed in Austin, all that hard work, all those burning muscles and bad thoughts about my coach, it was all worth it. Totally, without a doubt, worth it. I was KILLING Nasty Grade! When I got to the top, I allowed myself a moment to enjoy the sight from the top of the course, looking down at the lake we had just swum in and at the surrounding countryside. I let out a joyous whoop--Nasty Grade was behind me!--and with a huge smile settled down onto my aerobars to enjoy the awesome descent that came right after. The rest of the course passed in a blur. I had survived the bike. I knew by my watch that I was going to make it in faster than I had predicted, leaving me with TONS of time to finish the race. When I pulled in to the transition area, the look on my coach's face was priceless--maybe my favorite moment of the entire day. He looked absolutely surprised and thrilled that I was back so early! That was my high of the race, too. I knew I had done a great job on the bike, and that it hadn't even been too hard!
Now it was time for the 13.1-mile run. This was probably the most overlooked part of the race for me because I was so fixated on completing the bike. I'm not a runner--it's by far the weakest of the three sports for me--so I just had to rely on my coaches and our hill and track workouts that I was prepared and would be ok! There's really not a lot to say about the run. It was really, really hard. It was 60% trail running, and they were like mountain (hill, whatever) hiking trails. I remember there being one particular hill where I could reach out in front of me and touch the trail. That's how steep it was. It was ridiculous. But the great thing is, because I'm not a runner, and because it was so important to me that I enjoy my time in this race, I had absolutely NO problem walking! So basically I ran when I could, and I walked when I needed to. I chatted with those around me (by this point in the race, with the pros and elites and other bad-asses already long finished, everyone around me was walking) and dealt with my stomach issues which were starting to surface. I stopped four or five times to go to the bathroom (always in a port-a-potty, Robie!!). The best part of the run was through the TNT campgrounds. The support from the crowds was overwhelming, and I didn't even have to try too hard to run through this part. They carried me along for a couple of miles. There was "The Pit," a one mile descent and then U-turn and come right back out, that kind of sucked, but like I said above, I was perfectly happy to walk when I needed to. In fact, the only discomfort that I remember for the entire race (aside from the previously mentioned stomach problems) was that my feet started hurting at about mile 9 of the run. I figured that by that point in the day, they were allowed to hurt a little. The elation that I felt on the run was incredible. I knew that I was going to make it, finish the race, probably in a faster time than I had predicted. It was a gorgeous day. I was about to successfully complete the thing I had been working toward so hard for so long. I thought again about all the people and all the moments that had come together to get me to this point. I teared up several times.
Then I was there -- the one mile descent that took me into the finish line. I usually don't run downhill because it's so hard on my knees, but nothing was going to keep me from running now. I thought about my coach running next to me, telling me to shorten my strides and keep my feet moving quickly ("Be dainty!"). I thought about my friend Shannon and knew that she would have loved to have done this race and pretended that she was there, finishing with me. I thought about my friend Kathleen, who had trained with us for four and a half months before developing a stress fracture in her foot that put her in a cast and out of the race for good, and how much she wanted to be doing exactly what I was doing right then. I thought about my husband, who had in his own way gone through the training with me for the last six months, having dealt with my exhaustion and mood swings and fundraisers and gear lying all over the house, who was waiting for me at the finish line. When I entered the finish chute, a crazy loud cheer went up from my teammates (or was that me cheering in my own head?) who had already finished, and Alex ran with me, on the other side of the fence.
And then, just like that, it was over. They were putting a medal around my head, a cold washcloth around my neck, and taking the timing chip off my completely dirt-covered ankle. I've never before cried at the end of a race, but I've never before worked for something so hard for so long, either. I cried as Alex hugged me and told me how proud of me he was. I cried because I had done it, something that was really hard and that had taken all that I had for half a year. And I cried because it was over. Now I couldn't say that I had this amazing thing in front of me anymore. It was officially in the past tense. I would get my life back, be able to hang out with my friends again, drink, watch TV, read for pleasure! But I would also have a huge void that I would have to find new ways to fill.
I spent the rest of the afternoon on top of the world, cheering in the rest of our team, comforting the ones who hadn't made the bike time cutoff. It was time for drinks, s'mores, the CalPoly Tri team streakers, and wildly inappropriate drunken antics around the campfire. It was time to celebrate!
Thanks to all who have supported me on this endeavor. It was one of my most amazing accomplishments yet, and I thank each of you who were with me on this journey. Now it's time for racing and riding for fun again. Or, as Alex put it, it's time for some "small goals" for a while. I couldn't agree more.
In the weeks leading up to the May 3rd race, I went through a bout of pre-race anxiety unlike any I had experienced before. When my coach asked who was nervous about the race and all of us raised our hands, his response was, "Of course you're nervous! We've been kicking your asses in practice for three months now, so all you know is 'pain' and 'hard.' But this has all been in preparation for the race, so that when you get there, you can actually have fun with it rather than having a miserable experience." I wanted to believe him, but my Pavlovian response after three-plus months of ass-kicking workouts was extreme anxiety about the pain about to be wrought on my body and mind.
The main source of my anxiety was that there is a time cut-off for the course. If you don't finish the bike within a certain amount of time, you can't finish the race. I wasn't the slowest person on my team, but I was far from the fastest. To cope with my anxiety, I visualized finishing the race, I calculated out my estimated times for each leg based on my predicted speeds, I made a list of inspirational words (fortitude, stamina, guts, strength, etc...), and I tried my best whenever anyone asked me if I was excited/nervous to only respond in a positive manner (I failed the most often with this technique, I think!). Our practices got shorter, and I once again started having fun with them. The taper segment of training is lovely in that it gives your body a chance to (finally!) rest and recover a bit, but it also means that the nervous energy has less of an outlet. Alex was in Germany for the couple of weeks leading up to the race, so I didn't even have him around to calm me down. I warned him when he came back that I was liable to be more quiet than normal (we were only 5 days pre-race at that point). He was (of course) brilliant in leaving me alone when I needed it and comforting me and getting me to laugh and not be so nervous, too.
We got in to California the Thursday before the race late in the morning. After stopping at In and Out Burger, a staple of California cuisine, for lunch, where I discovered ordering your burger "animal style" makes all the difference in the world, we headed out to the park/campground/race course. The event was held in and around Lake San Antonio in Monterey County. This is about an hour from the nearest anything, so most of the participants of the race camp for the weekend in the park. And there were literally thousands of participants! We got in early and got a primo camping spot, and then went for a short run to stretch our legs from the flight/drive. We jogged down to the transition area (where all participants rack their bikes and gear during the race), which was about 1.5 miles downhill from where we were camping. We checked out the swim course, felt the water (cold!!), and then jogged over to the first hill on the bike course. This hill is the second-most infamous hill on the course, known as Beach Hill, because it is long and steep and you are only on your bike for about 3 minutes before getting to it, so your legs have not had a chance yet to warm-up. We walked up the hill, and for the first time, I felt my anxiety start to melt away. This hill was NOTHING compared to the hills we had been practicing on in Austin weekend after weekend after weekend! Sure it was longer, but it wasn't as steep. All I would have to do is shift into my easiest gear and settle in. I started to smile and feel the familiar sense of eagerness that is my normal pre-race zone.
On Friday we went for a swim in the lake to test out the temperature with our wet suits (still really cold!!), picked up our bikes, and went for a really short ride around the park to make sure that they had been put back together correctly (we had them shipped out to the face site in boxes) and that they were ready to go. We think piled into vans and drove the 56-mile bike course, so that we could see the hills that made this course one of the toughest 1/2's in the world. I was surprised at how much of the course seemed flat. With everyone talking about the hills so much, no one really mentioned that so much of it is flat or gently rolling! My confidence grew another notch. Sure there were a few hills to worry about, but heck, you only had to get up them one time! We spent the rest of the day trying to stay off our feet and resting up. That night we had our big Team In Training pasta dinner, where all the chapters from around the country come together and celebrate our fundraising accomplishments and share inspirational stories. I was only $100 away from being in the top 10 fundraisers for the entire group! Thank you to everyone who donated!! My team ended up raising more than $107,000 for the LLS, and the total amount raised by all chapters topped $1.7 million. That is simply amazing!
The morning of the race dawned clear and cold. The day started in the upper 30's, but without any clouds in the sky, I knew the temps would rise as soon as the sun came up. Another plus to it being so chilly is that the water in the lake wouldn't seem nearly as cold. My coach was busy taping inspirational messages to our bike handles (Eat! Drink! Attack!), and I taped on a fortune that I had gotten in a fortune cookie two days before we left: "You know what you want. Now go get it." We had to be all set up and out of the transition area by 7:30 a.m. because the race started at 8. However, my wave didn't go off until 9:10, so I had quite a while to wait and relax before my wave. The first two waves were the professional men and women, respectively, so it was really cool to see them start and to see how freaking fast they finished their swim and were off on their bike! I got to see Chris McCormack, the current world champion (he won Kona, the world ironman championship), which was pretty cool. One of the last things I did before lining up with my group was to write "Chutzpah" in purple marker on my right inner forearm. I had decided that this was going to be my theme word for the day. All I had to remember was to have some chutzpah!
My two goals for the race were to finish in as close to eight hours as possible and (perhaps more importantly) to respond to every challenge with a positive attitude. It was really important to me that I enjoy my time at this race--I had been working towards this day for the last six months! When it was time for my wave, I got in the very back of my group. I would rather swim past people than be constantly getting swum over and passed myself. When the bell went off, one of the first things I noticed was that the water didn't seem as cold as it had the day before. Gotta love adrenaline.
Swimming is one of my favorite parts of a triathlon. It's not that I'm a fast swimmer, it's just that I really love being in the water. And I'm not necessarily a slow swimmer. I like to pretend I'm very average at this discipline. As we went out, around the first buoy, and down the straight away, I was relishing the feel of the water as it flowed over my face and arms. We approached a tall marker, and I thought, "Man! I am doing so good! That's already the turn to go back in!" Unfortunately, I then saw that people were continuing on straight. Laughing at my not-so-modest mindset, I settled in and got into a comfortable rhythm. I noticed some swim caps of the wave after mine starting to pass me, but I knew I wasn't the fastest swimmer, so this didn't really bother me. I expected to be passed. We approached the next tall marker and I thought, "Sweet! Here we are at the turn. That didn't really seem too long, and I still feel fresh and energized! I'm doing great!" And then I saw that people were continuing on straight. Crap. So this wasn't going to be a walk in the park. Well, I guess it is a half-ironman, after all, so it shouldn't really be a breeze. I stopped thinking about how fast I was or wasn't going and started concentrating on staying in a straight line, breathing, and swimming with my hips (thanks, Coach Annika!). I thought about all the people and moments who had helped me get to this point, from our swim coach and our 5:30 a.m. winter practices in the outdoor, heated pool at the JCC to my friends, family, and husband who had supported me and encouraged me and who all believed in me. I was overcome with elation. I remember thinking to myself, "I'm doing it. I'm in the middle of doing it--the thing that I've (we've all) been working toward and looking to for the last six months." How freaking awesome. There was one more exciting moment around the actual turn back in where a girl tried to swim past me by grabbing my shoulder and pulling me back. I in turn grabbed her arm and pulled it down and in front of me, effectively pulling her underwater. Not the nicest move ever, but I think it will help in the future for her to be a little more considerate in races. She looked a bit startled. I exited the water in exactly 45 minutes, a bit longer than I had optimistically predicted in my head, but considering I hadn't actually ever swum that distance in open water, I don't think my prediction was very accurate. Now it was time for the bike. The bug-a-boo of my training, the source of all my race anxiety. It was here that I would either make it or die.
Because we had jogged the beginning of the bike course on Thursday, I knew what to expect coming up to Beach Hill. I took it easy, settling in to the new movements of the bike, letting my legs slowly warm up. Beach Hill was there and then gone. I hadn't really even noticed it. I was watching each person in front of me get closer and then get left behind. I was watching the light poles, knowing that the one next to the big tree signaled the top of the hill. The first big hill of the course, the one that has been called "the hardest hill that nobody talks about" was behind me! On my way out of the park, I passed Chris McCormack on his way back in! He was in the lead, and I called out an encouraging shout for him as he passed. I wonder if he hears things like that or if he's in such a zone that he tunes everything out. I exited the park and started on my 56-mile ride around the lake, through wine country. The wildflowers were out in abundance and my race nutrition plan had me doing something--drinking, taking a gu, or eating something--at least every 15 minutes, so I just settled in and focused on the mileage signs ticking past one after another. I usually give myself about 15 miles on the bike to start feeling good, and I was surprised at how quickly the first 15 miles passed. The terrain was flat or rolling hills, which allowed me to eat and drink with ease. Before I knew it, I was at mile 25 and time for my "lunch": a PBJ and some potato chips. I had these stashed in bag on my bike, so I just munched on them as I went, slowing down a bit and taking time to get in some calories that would be sure to help me on the second half of the course...where it would get hard. Looking at the bike course elevation chart below, I had told myself that there were five hills that I had to worry about: Beach Hill (which you can see at the very beginning); the small hill at mile 35 (which I though might be a challenge after enjoying downhill for such a long time); Nasty Grade, THE hill on the course, which stands out on the chart like a giant nasty monster; and the two final hills on the course at about miles 46 and 51.
When riding, though, and looking back on it, I can really only remember two hills: Beach, which wasn't a problem at all, and Nasty. The others were such non-events that I don't even remember ever thinking, "ok, now I'm on a hill. Suck it up and get to the top." This is such a testament to our coaches and the endless practices of them kicking our asses up every single steep hill in Austin! As I rode, I was able to look around at the rolling hills (they seemed like mountains to this Texas girl, but I was told they are actually just hills) and the green vineyards and remember thinking, "This is so cool! I am riding my bike through California!" Then mile 40 hit and it was time to get serious. It was time to tackle Nasty Grade.Thanks to having driven the course the day before, I knew where Nasty started and knew when to shift into easier and easier gears. I had never before ridden a hill so long (we don't have things like that here in Austin), and I remember getting anxious at the beginning, when my heart rate started to rise and my breathing became more difficult. It's easy to get panicky when you're starting to breathe hard and you know you still have such a long climb ahead of you. Then I thought to myself, "What do you want? To have a great attitude no matter what. Ok, what do you have to do in order to accomplish that? No bitch about how hard this is and only think positive thoughts. What kind of positive thoughts? That this isn't that hard! That I can do this!" The impact that this conversation had on me was immediate. My mood lightened, my brow unfurrowed, and I actually spent a good part of the hill singing "la la la la la" in time with my pedal strokes! The other thing that really helped my mood on this hill was all the people I was passing. It's one thing to pass other girls--I know I'm fairly athletic compared to the average girl--but it was another thing totally to pass big athletic men! What a high!! All those hills climbed in Austin, all that hard work, all those burning muscles and bad thoughts about my coach, it was all worth it. Totally, without a doubt, worth it. I was KILLING Nasty Grade! When I got to the top, I allowed myself a moment to enjoy the sight from the top of the course, looking down at the lake we had just swum in and at the surrounding countryside. I let out a joyous whoop--Nasty Grade was behind me!--and with a huge smile settled down onto my aerobars to enjoy the awesome descent that came right after. The rest of the course passed in a blur. I had survived the bike. I knew by my watch that I was going to make it in faster than I had predicted, leaving me with TONS of time to finish the race. When I pulled in to the transition area, the look on my coach's face was priceless--maybe my favorite moment of the entire day. He looked absolutely surprised and thrilled that I was back so early! That was my high of the race, too. I knew I had done a great job on the bike, and that it hadn't even been too hard!
Now it was time for the 13.1-mile run. This was probably the most overlooked part of the race for me because I was so fixated on completing the bike. I'm not a runner--it's by far the weakest of the three sports for me--so I just had to rely on my coaches and our hill and track workouts that I was prepared and would be ok! There's really not a lot to say about the run. It was really, really hard. It was 60% trail running, and they were like mountain (hill, whatever) hiking trails. I remember there being one particular hill where I could reach out in front of me and touch the trail. That's how steep it was. It was ridiculous. But the great thing is, because I'm not a runner, and because it was so important to me that I enjoy my time in this race, I had absolutely NO problem walking! So basically I ran when I could, and I walked when I needed to. I chatted with those around me (by this point in the race, with the pros and elites and other bad-asses already long finished, everyone around me was walking) and dealt with my stomach issues which were starting to surface. I stopped four or five times to go to the bathroom (always in a port-a-potty, Robie!!). The best part of the run was through the TNT campgrounds. The support from the crowds was overwhelming, and I didn't even have to try too hard to run through this part. They carried me along for a couple of miles. There was "The Pit," a one mile descent and then U-turn and come right back out, that kind of sucked, but like I said above, I was perfectly happy to walk when I needed to. In fact, the only discomfort that I remember for the entire race (aside from the previously mentioned stomach problems) was that my feet started hurting at about mile 9 of the run. I figured that by that point in the day, they were allowed to hurt a little. The elation that I felt on the run was incredible. I knew that I was going to make it, finish the race, probably in a faster time than I had predicted. It was a gorgeous day. I was about to successfully complete the thing I had been working toward so hard for so long. I thought again about all the people and all the moments that had come together to get me to this point. I teared up several times.
Then I was there -- the one mile descent that took me into the finish line. I usually don't run downhill because it's so hard on my knees, but nothing was going to keep me from running now. I thought about my coach running next to me, telling me to shorten my strides and keep my feet moving quickly ("Be dainty!"). I thought about my friend Shannon and knew that she would have loved to have done this race and pretended that she was there, finishing with me. I thought about my friend Kathleen, who had trained with us for four and a half months before developing a stress fracture in her foot that put her in a cast and out of the race for good, and how much she wanted to be doing exactly what I was doing right then. I thought about my husband, who had in his own way gone through the training with me for the last six months, having dealt with my exhaustion and mood swings and fundraisers and gear lying all over the house, who was waiting for me at the finish line. When I entered the finish chute, a crazy loud cheer went up from my teammates (or was that me cheering in my own head?) who had already finished, and Alex ran with me, on the other side of the fence.
And then, just like that, it was over. They were putting a medal around my head, a cold washcloth around my neck, and taking the timing chip off my completely dirt-covered ankle. I've never before cried at the end of a race, but I've never before worked for something so hard for so long, either. I cried as Alex hugged me and told me how proud of me he was. I cried because I had done it, something that was really hard and that had taken all that I had for half a year. And I cried because it was over. Now I couldn't say that I had this amazing thing in front of me anymore. It was officially in the past tense. I would get my life back, be able to hang out with my friends again, drink, watch TV, read for pleasure! But I would also have a huge void that I would have to find new ways to fill.
I spent the rest of the afternoon on top of the world, cheering in the rest of our team, comforting the ones who hadn't made the bike time cutoff. It was time for drinks, s'mores, the CalPoly Tri team streakers, and wildly inappropriate drunken antics around the campfire. It was time to celebrate!
Thanks to all who have supported me on this endeavor. It was one of my most amazing accomplishments yet, and I thank each of you who were with me on this journey. Now it's time for racing and riding for fun again. Or, as Alex put it, it's time for some "small goals" for a while. I couldn't agree more.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
#11: MS150
About a month ago, I completed the MS150, a 160-ish mile bike ride from Houston to Austin. The course is completed over two days, with participants stopping to camp overnight in LaGrange.
I signed up with a company-sponsored team; this was, I was told, the best way to experience the ride. Rather than having to fend for yourself at any point (well, except when you're actually riding), the team would transport your luggage for you, have a cot set up for you, have masseuses waiting for you at the half-way point, cook for you, etc, etc.... I joined Team TOTAL (pronounced toe-TALL), a team sponsored by a petrochemicals company in Houston. I didn't know anyone at this company; a friend's sister worked for them...or used to work for them...or something.
We drove into Houston late Friday night (late like we got in at 1:30 a.m.) and crashed at my cousin's house for a few hours before getting back up and heading down to the start line. Since this wasn't a race and I wasn't being timed, I couldn't have cared less whether I got to the launch on time. I just wanted to make sure there were still enough people around that I could tell which direction to ride! I have never before been part of an event with so many participants! Even though the official start of the race was nearly a half hour before I got to the line, I still had to wait another 30-45 minutes to actually make it to the front.
This is about half-way up the line at the start:
Once we got started, there were cyclists as far as the eye could see! There were thousands of cyclists doing the ride (each of whom raised at least $400 for the National MS Society). I have never been a part of something so humongous--it was very, very cool!
See the tiny little dots against the trees? Those are all riders!
There were all kinds of riders out there: young and old, fit and not-so-fit. There were tons of kids doing the ride with their parents, many on tandem bikes but just as many on their own bikes (some of which were nicer than mine!). There were several couples on tandem bikes and a few riders doing it on the sitting-down-chair bikes (I forget what they're called, but the ones with the nice big seats where your pedals are out in front of you rather than under you). There was even at least one guy doing it on a unicycle! Talk about saddle sore...yikes!
Cyclists aren't supposed to ride with headphones b/c they make it hard to hear cars or other cyclists approaching. Instead, I bought a small speaker that plugs into the headphone jack on my mp3 player and strapped the player to my bike. We upgraded my card to hold 10 hours worth of music or something crazy like that, so I just turned on my radio and rocked out. The people riding around me loved the music and would often ride with me for a while before falling behind or pulling ahead.
The route stayed mostly off the major highways, sticking instead to small FMs (Farm-to-Market roads for those of you not familiar with Texas road signage). The wildflowers were out in abundance, and as mentioned above, there were literally thousands of cyclists as far as the eye could see in both directions. Many of the families whose farms we were riding by came out to the roadside to cheer us on and thank us for riding. They were cheering us on? They were thanking us for riding?? I felt like it was us who should have been thanking them for sitting outside on a warm day and supporting us! The best moment was through Fayetteville on the first day--our route took us right through downtown, and it seemed like the whole town was out lining the street cheering for us. It was like being in a parade!
I'm not sure if the audio will upload as well, but I'm just commenting on the the crowd and the cold beer that one guy is "offering" us, and at the end I'm happy that at point I've officially ridden farther than ever before!
The worst part of the experience was the camping overnight. Our accomodations were wonderful as far as camping goes, and heaven knows I was so tired after riding 80-something miles on about 4 hours of sleep that I could have slept anywhere. However, the temperatures got down to 35 degrees that night!!! I was not prepared, having only my normal sleeping bag and having left my Antarctica sleeping bag at home, but I wasn't so bad off as some. Apparently last year it was stifling, so many returning team members had only brought thin sheets!
Overall this was probably the most fun I've ever had at all the events I've ever done. Everyone was out there to have a good time, no one had a bad attitude, the weather was gorgeous, the scenery rocked, and it's so cool to say that I've ridden my bike from Houston to Austin! I will definitely be doing this ride again every year that I'm able to! I'm so glad I put this on my list!
KC
I signed up with a company-sponsored team; this was, I was told, the best way to experience the ride. Rather than having to fend for yourself at any point (well, except when you're actually riding), the team would transport your luggage for you, have a cot set up for you, have masseuses waiting for you at the half-way point, cook for you, etc, etc.... I joined Team TOTAL (pronounced toe-TALL), a team sponsored by a petrochemicals company in Houston. I didn't know anyone at this company; a friend's sister worked for them...or used to work for them...or something.
We drove into Houston late Friday night (late like we got in at 1:30 a.m.) and crashed at my cousin's house for a few hours before getting back up and heading down to the start line. Since this wasn't a race and I wasn't being timed, I couldn't have cared less whether I got to the launch on time. I just wanted to make sure there were still enough people around that I could tell which direction to ride! I have never before been part of an event with so many participants! Even though the official start of the race was nearly a half hour before I got to the line, I still had to wait another 30-45 minutes to actually make it to the front.
This is about half-way up the line at the start:
Once we got started, there were cyclists as far as the eye could see! There were thousands of cyclists doing the ride (each of whom raised at least $400 for the National MS Society). I have never been a part of something so humongous--it was very, very cool!
See the tiny little dots against the trees? Those are all riders!
There were all kinds of riders out there: young and old, fit and not-so-fit. There were tons of kids doing the ride with their parents, many on tandem bikes but just as many on their own bikes (some of which were nicer than mine!). There were several couples on tandem bikes and a few riders doing it on the sitting-down-chair bikes (I forget what they're called, but the ones with the nice big seats where your pedals are out in front of you rather than under you). There was even at least one guy doing it on a unicycle! Talk about saddle sore...yikes!
Cyclists aren't supposed to ride with headphones b/c they make it hard to hear cars or other cyclists approaching. Instead, I bought a small speaker that plugs into the headphone jack on my mp3 player and strapped the player to my bike. We upgraded my card to hold 10 hours worth of music or something crazy like that, so I just turned on my radio and rocked out. The people riding around me loved the music and would often ride with me for a while before falling behind or pulling ahead.The route stayed mostly off the major highways, sticking instead to small FMs (Farm-to-Market roads for those of you not familiar with Texas road signage). The wildflowers were out in abundance, and as mentioned above, there were literally thousands of cyclists as far as the eye could see in both directions. Many of the families whose farms we were riding by came out to the roadside to cheer us on and thank us for riding. They were cheering us on? They were thanking us for riding?? I felt like it was us who should have been thanking them for sitting outside on a warm day and supporting us! The best moment was through Fayetteville on the first day--our route took us right through downtown, and it seemed like the whole town was out lining the street cheering for us. It was like being in a parade!
I'm not sure if the audio will upload as well, but I'm just commenting on the the crowd and the cold beer that one guy is "offering" us, and at the end I'm happy that at point I've officially ridden farther than ever before!
The worst part of the experience was the camping overnight. Our accomodations were wonderful as far as camping goes, and heaven knows I was so tired after riding 80-something miles on about 4 hours of sleep that I could have slept anywhere. However, the temperatures got down to 35 degrees that night!!! I was not prepared, having only my normal sleeping bag and having left my Antarctica sleeping bag at home, but I wasn't so bad off as some. Apparently last year it was stifling, so many returning team members had only brought thin sheets!
Overall this was probably the most fun I've ever had at all the events I've ever done. Everyone was out there to have a good time, no one had a bad attitude, the weather was gorgeous, the scenery rocked, and it's so cool to say that I've ridden my bike from Houston to Austin! I will definitely be doing this ride again every year that I'm able to! I'm so glad I put this on my list!
KC
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Day 4: Beijing Zoo and Acrobats
Alex had to work Tuesday afternoon, so we spent the morning shopping for souvenirs together on Wanfujing street. If ever it was in doubt before, this was when I fully cemented my position as master haggler extraordinaire. Some hints to those of you who will be in haggling situations in the near future:
1. Don't need the item. If they think you are likely to walk away from it, they will be much more likely to offer a plausible asking price.
2. Give them your money to hold. If you'd really be willing to pay $10 for something, give them $5 to hold. If they won't come down to $5, ask for your money back. They really don't want to give back money they're already holding!!
After lunch, Alex went off to work and I went off for my own solo adventure: the Beijing Zoo! I love animals, and I couldn't wait to see the famous pandas, so I was really looking forward to this excursion. The zoo itself was built like most others--a maze of sidewalks that don't follow any discernible pattern or organization. Thank god there were English versions of the maps! My first stop, of course, was at the panda exhibit!
Apparently it was lunch time for the pandas. If you don't find this video of a panda chowing down one of the cutest things ever, you don't have a soul.
I couldn't get very many good shots on the inside because of the poor lighting, crowds, and the fact that the pandas were very clearly "so over" their notoriety and were mostly interested in eating and sleeping.
There were a couple of other pandas outside.
This sign made me laugh...always good advice at a zoo!
Here I am, thinking about leaping across the rails to pet the fuzzy panda!
The rest of the zoo was ok. Having been to the San Diego Zoo before, I know what an outstanding zoo is like, so the conditions here were a little depressing. There was not much at all in the way of habitat replication for these animals. Most of them, if they were outside at all, were lucky to be on hard-packed dirt. Many just had cement. However, they were still the lucky ones. The vast majority of the animals were inside in cages. Even the rhinos and elephants were inside!! Most of them were caged individually, not even allowing for socialization (or commiseration). Here, spectators are feeding this bear bits of cotton candy (this goes back to the locals' complete disregard for any kind of rules!):
Other than that, the only other thing of note was that there was a dog pound as part of the zoo! I guess people in Beijing (or all Chinese??) don't really have large dogs as pets, so there was a kennel full of medium- to large-sized dogs--Dalmatians, German Shepards, St. Bernards, Labs. I thought it was a funny sight for a zoo, but I guess those animals are just as exotic as camels!
Click here if you'd like to see other shots from the zoo, including some funny-looking birds and monkeys and other, more pedestrian zoo sights (camels, tigers, turtles, etc...).
After meeting Alex back at the hotel for dinner, we took one last trip--the Beijing Acrobats show! We arranged this trip through the hotel, so we had a "guide" and had a cab arranged to pick us up and take us to the theater. Our "guide" was a young girl who had at least four large shopping bags with her--I guess we had interrupted her shopping for the day. She went with us in the cab, purchased our tickets for us from the box office, and took us to our seats. Then she left! That was her whole job! I wondered how much we would have saved if we had just done it ourselves.
The different acts were entertaining and there was a fair amount of "Ooooh and Aaaah" moments, so all-in-all the show was worth it.
Click here if you want to see other pictures of the Beijing Acrobats in action!
We packed our things when we got back to the hotel and got up bright and early the next morning for our flight from Beijing to Shanghai. We had a long layover in Shanghai, so we took the MagLev train into the city and walked along the Bundt, the boardwalk of Shanghai. The sea breeze was either idle or reversed that day, so the pollution was hanging over the city like a thick fog. We saw a street sponsored by Pepsi and ate lunch at a Pizza Hut, which was fine dining there! There was even escargot on the menu!
Here's a video of the MagLev train in full swing: 432 km/hr!
The view from the Bundt. As you can see, the pollution is even terrible on a coastal town!
The Pepsi Street:
After a few hours in Shanghai, we took the train back to the airport for our flight home! The flight back wasn't nearly as grueling as the flight over. That's the benefit of traveling with your best friend instead of alone!
All in all it was a whirlwind, fantabulous trip! We feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to go, even if just for a couple of days.
Thanks for keeping up with our journeys! Now that I've got a little more free time on my hands, I can catch up with all the blogs I've fallen behind on, including the MS150 (a two-day bike ride from Houston to Austin) and my half-ironman race!!
I hope your lives have been less busy but just as wonderful as mine has these last few months!
KC
1. Don't need the item. If they think you are likely to walk away from it, they will be much more likely to offer a plausible asking price.
2. Give them your money to hold. If you'd really be willing to pay $10 for something, give them $5 to hold. If they won't come down to $5, ask for your money back. They really don't want to give back money they're already holding!!
After lunch, Alex went off to work and I went off for my own solo adventure: the Beijing Zoo! I love animals, and I couldn't wait to see the famous pandas, so I was really looking forward to this excursion. The zoo itself was built like most others--a maze of sidewalks that don't follow any discernible pattern or organization. Thank god there were English versions of the maps! My first stop, of course, was at the panda exhibit!
Apparently it was lunch time for the pandas. If you don't find this video of a panda chowing down one of the cutest things ever, you don't have a soul.
I couldn't get very many good shots on the inside because of the poor lighting, crowds, and the fact that the pandas were very clearly "so over" their notoriety and were mostly interested in eating and sleeping.
There were a couple of other pandas outside.
This sign made me laugh...always good advice at a zoo!
Here I am, thinking about leaping across the rails to pet the fuzzy panda!
The rest of the zoo was ok. Having been to the San Diego Zoo before, I know what an outstanding zoo is like, so the conditions here were a little depressing. There was not much at all in the way of habitat replication for these animals. Most of them, if they were outside at all, were lucky to be on hard-packed dirt. Many just had cement. However, they were still the lucky ones. The vast majority of the animals were inside in cages. Even the rhinos and elephants were inside!! Most of them were caged individually, not even allowing for socialization (or commiseration). Here, spectators are feeding this bear bits of cotton candy (this goes back to the locals' complete disregard for any kind of rules!):
Other than that, the only other thing of note was that there was a dog pound as part of the zoo! I guess people in Beijing (or all Chinese??) don't really have large dogs as pets, so there was a kennel full of medium- to large-sized dogs--Dalmatians, German Shepards, St. Bernards, Labs. I thought it was a funny sight for a zoo, but I guess those animals are just as exotic as camels!
Click here if you'd like to see other shots from the zoo, including some funny-looking birds and monkeys and other, more pedestrian zoo sights (camels, tigers, turtles, etc...).
After meeting Alex back at the hotel for dinner, we took one last trip--the Beijing Acrobats show! We arranged this trip through the hotel, so we had a "guide" and had a cab arranged to pick us up and take us to the theater. Our "guide" was a young girl who had at least four large shopping bags with her--I guess we had interrupted her shopping for the day. She went with us in the cab, purchased our tickets for us from the box office, and took us to our seats. Then she left! That was her whole job! I wondered how much we would have saved if we had just done it ourselves.
The different acts were entertaining and there was a fair amount of "Ooooh and Aaaah" moments, so all-in-all the show was worth it.
Click here if you want to see other pictures of the Beijing Acrobats in action!
We packed our things when we got back to the hotel and got up bright and early the next morning for our flight from Beijing to Shanghai. We had a long layover in Shanghai, so we took the MagLev train into the city and walked along the Bundt, the boardwalk of Shanghai. The sea breeze was either idle or reversed that day, so the pollution was hanging over the city like a thick fog. We saw a street sponsored by Pepsi and ate lunch at a Pizza Hut, which was fine dining there! There was even escargot on the menu!
Here's a video of the MagLev train in full swing: 432 km/hr!
The view from the Bundt. As you can see, the pollution is even terrible on a coastal town!
The Pepsi Street:
After a few hours in Shanghai, we took the train back to the airport for our flight home! The flight back wasn't nearly as grueling as the flight over. That's the benefit of traveling with your best friend instead of alone!All in all it was a whirlwind, fantabulous trip! We feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to go, even if just for a couple of days.
Thanks for keeping up with our journeys! Now that I've got a little more free time on my hands, I can catch up with all the blogs I've fallen behind on, including the MS150 (a two-day bike ride from Houston to Austin) and my half-ironman race!!
I hope your lives have been less busy but just as wonderful as mine has these last few months!
KC
Friday, April 18, 2008
Day 3: The Ming Tombs, THE GREAT WALL, and the Donghuamen Night Market
On our third day in Beijing, we took the BIG TOUR. It's the whole reason I even went on this trip. Seeing and walking on the Great Wall of China is one of my Bucket-List items. We had great weather and were lucky to be paired with our fleet-footed, ever-so-elusive guide, Allen, again.
In order to give any mist time to burn off and the temperature time to rise, we started the day with the Ming Tombs. Many emperors of the Ming Dynasty are buried here, but only a few of the tombs have been excavated. The tomb we visited was the tomb of the 3rd Ming emperor, a general who seized control from his nephew (the 2nd Ming emperor). When the Emperor died, his 18 favorite wives were buried alive with him, 9 on each side of his tomb. That sucks.
To get to the tomb, we passed through the Yin-Yang Gate. This served as the gateway between the world of the living and the world of the dead. You had to step through leading with your right foot and come back leading with your left foot, and when you came back through, you had to shout some saying and then jump up and down and wipe any lingering spirits off of you. I would have been suspicious that this was all just an elaborate ploy to make foreign tourists look like idiots, but other groups of Chinese tourists were doing it, too.
This is the Emperor's head stone! As Allen explained to us, if you're an emperor, everything that has to do with you is much bigger than normal. As with a traditional headstone, the body was buried just behind it. If you look to the back of the picture, you will see trees on a hillside. That hillside was the emperor-sized coffin mound! The Emperor's body is buried under that hill.
Click here to see more pictures of the Ming Tombs!
After the Ming tombs, we had lunch at the local jade factory (and got to spend a great deal of time in their showroom and gift shop), and then it was off to the GREAT WALL!! We went to the Badaling section of the wall, the best-preserved and most popular section close to the Beijing area. We were told this big rock says "The Great Wall of China," but really, for all we know, it could say "Chairman Mao rocks!"
The wall was very steep in some places, making it a great hill workout for me. Alex was able to keep up with me without much difficulty, and even beat me on a short race up! Another challenge of the wall was that the stairs weren't uniform in height. Some of them were two-inches tall, others were two-feet tall!
You can kind of get a sense for how steep it was in places in this shot! The going up was hard, but the coming down was hard, too! By the time we were almost back to the bottom, our legs were shaking!
Here you can see the fantastic view. It was still very early spring, so there wasn't a whole lot of green yet, but you can get a sense of the mountainous terrain and the wall that just goes on into the distance.
Click here to see more pictures of the Great Wall!
That night, we went back to our favorite shopping area, Wanfujing Street, which was only a short seven-minute walk from our hotel. It was just off Wanfujing that we discovered the Donghuamen Night Market!
This 1/4-mile row of food carts serves tasty snacks and delicacies almost exclusively on sticks! Many carts offered sugar-coated fruit, which wasn't really all that exciting, except that they had these really tiny apples (the size of golf balls!). The majority of the carts, however, offered much more exotic fare! I know what you're all thinking, but no, we did not get anything. The locals were buying, the tourists were taking pictures and staring.
Giant prawns (on a stick)
Grasshoppers and black scorpions (on a stick)
Grubs (big, fat worms)...you guessed it--on a stick.
Click here to see more pictures of the Donghuamen Night Market, including bees on a stick, centipedes on a stick, sea urchins (not on a stick), and a great example of "Chinglish"--what happens when Chinese people try to translate stuff into English!
We grabbed dinner in a small, local restaurant near the CCTV tower (the tallest tower in Beijing). This time we knew not to order too much. We had a feast of peanut chicken, steamed rice, and broccoli, for the equivalent of $4 (total). Sweet! We also caught a great view of the city from the top of the tower and were inundated with Olympic stuff! Click here for some shots of the tower, the city, and me giving an Olympic press conference!
It was a wonderful, exhausting day! On our last day in Beijing, I went to the zoo and saw the famous pandas and Alex and I caught a show of Chinese acrobats. I'll post pictures of that soon.
Thanks for keeping up with our travels and stories!
KC
In order to give any mist time to burn off and the temperature time to rise, we started the day with the Ming Tombs. Many emperors of the Ming Dynasty are buried here, but only a few of the tombs have been excavated. The tomb we visited was the tomb of the 3rd Ming emperor, a general who seized control from his nephew (the 2nd Ming emperor). When the Emperor died, his 18 favorite wives were buried alive with him, 9 on each side of his tomb. That sucks.
To get to the tomb, we passed through the Yin-Yang Gate. This served as the gateway between the world of the living and the world of the dead. You had to step through leading with your right foot and come back leading with your left foot, and when you came back through, you had to shout some saying and then jump up and down and wipe any lingering spirits off of you. I would have been suspicious that this was all just an elaborate ploy to make foreign tourists look like idiots, but other groups of Chinese tourists were doing it, too.
This is the Emperor's head stone! As Allen explained to us, if you're an emperor, everything that has to do with you is much bigger than normal. As with a traditional headstone, the body was buried just behind it. If you look to the back of the picture, you will see trees on a hillside. That hillside was the emperor-sized coffin mound! The Emperor's body is buried under that hill.
Click here to see more pictures of the Ming Tombs!
After the Ming tombs, we had lunch at the local jade factory (and got to spend a great deal of time in their showroom and gift shop), and then it was off to the GREAT WALL!! We went to the Badaling section of the wall, the best-preserved and most popular section close to the Beijing area. We were told this big rock says "The Great Wall of China," but really, for all we know, it could say "Chairman Mao rocks!"
The wall was very steep in some places, making it a great hill workout for me. Alex was able to keep up with me without much difficulty, and even beat me on a short race up! Another challenge of the wall was that the stairs weren't uniform in height. Some of them were two-inches tall, others were two-feet tall!
You can kind of get a sense for how steep it was in places in this shot! The going up was hard, but the coming down was hard, too! By the time we were almost back to the bottom, our legs were shaking!
Here you can see the fantastic view. It was still very early spring, so there wasn't a whole lot of green yet, but you can get a sense of the mountainous terrain and the wall that just goes on into the distance.
Click here to see more pictures of the Great Wall!
That night, we went back to our favorite shopping area, Wanfujing Street, which was only a short seven-minute walk from our hotel. It was just off Wanfujing that we discovered the Donghuamen Night Market!
This 1/4-mile row of food carts serves tasty snacks and delicacies almost exclusively on sticks! Many carts offered sugar-coated fruit, which wasn't really all that exciting, except that they had these really tiny apples (the size of golf balls!). The majority of the carts, however, offered much more exotic fare! I know what you're all thinking, but no, we did not get anything. The locals were buying, the tourists were taking pictures and staring.
Giant prawns (on a stick)
Grasshoppers and black scorpions (on a stick)
Grubs (big, fat worms)...you guessed it--on a stick.
Click here to see more pictures of the Donghuamen Night Market, including bees on a stick, centipedes on a stick, sea urchins (not on a stick), and a great example of "Chinglish"--what happens when Chinese people try to translate stuff into English!
We grabbed dinner in a small, local restaurant near the CCTV tower (the tallest tower in Beijing). This time we knew not to order too much. We had a feast of peanut chicken, steamed rice, and broccoli, for the equivalent of $4 (total). Sweet! We also caught a great view of the city from the top of the tower and were inundated with Olympic stuff! Click here for some shots of the tower, the city, and me giving an Olympic press conference!
It was a wonderful, exhausting day! On our last day in Beijing, I went to the zoo and saw the famous pandas and Alex and I caught a show of Chinese acrobats. I'll post pictures of that soon.
Thanks for keeping up with our travels and stories!
KC
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Day 2: The Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, and more!
OK, Day 2!
We figured the best way to see as much as possible in our limited time was to go on a guided tour. While Alex and I both like the freedom of being on our own schedule (like we did in Ireland last year), we also liked the idea of being able to ask a guide to give us the inside information on the places we were visiting...especially since it wouldn't have been easy to find someone else who spoke English! So we signed up for two guided tours: one that would take us to the Forbidden City (a.k.a., the Imperial Palace), the Summer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven, and another that would take us to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs.
Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into! Our guide for both tours was Allen (Chinese name Yun Yi...at least, I think that's what it was). He was a short, Chinese 20-something. He wore a black business coat (long) and carried a briefcase (which I never saw him open). He did NOT carry a flag or wear a colorful hat or do anything else that would distinguish him from the other 10 million short Chinese people wearing black. And he was on a mission: to get us herded through the cool sights in as little time as possible so that we would have more time to spend in the tourist traps (a.k.a., the Pearl and Silk factories). So he walked really fast. When we stopped to take pictures, finding him again was like trying to find Waldo...only Allen wasn't wearing a striped shirt. So it was like a Where's Waldo where Waldo looks just like everyone else.
Aside from the ever-elusive guide issues, both our tours were great. The weather was gorgeous both days, and even though we did have to go a lot faster than we would have liked, it really was the only way we could have gotten in everything that we did.
Our first stop on Tour Day 1 was the Imperial Palace, otherwise known as the Forbidden City. It is called this because until about 60 years ago, only members of the imperial family were allowed to see/be inside it. It was completely forbidden, upon pain of death, for any commoners to not only go inside but also to simply look inside! The grounds were massive. The complex was divided into three different sections: the front section was the business offices, the middle section was the residential part, and the back section was the gardens. There were 9,999 rooms! This is because 9 is an important number in Chinese lore, and because only gods were allowed to do anything with 10,000 of anything. Allen explained that if a person was born in the FC and visited a different room every day, he or she wouldn't repeat a room until they were 27 years old!!
Here's Alex in the first courtyard of the palace. It was SO big!
This is the beginning of the residential part of the palace. Over to the left of the picture, you can see two golden lions. These represented the Emperor and Empress. The Emperor lion held the world (a sphere) under his paw, and the Empress held a baby lion under her paw.
This was the "honeymoon suite" of the palace. After getting married, the Emperor and his new wife would spend two days in this room. It couldn't be an extended honeymoon because the Emperor got married every 2 to 3 weeks! Emperors typically had more than 2,000 wives!
Click here to see the Day 2 photo album with lots of other shots of the grounds and the gardens.
After the Forbidden City we went to the Temple of Heaven. This was the temple where the emperors went to pray for a good harvest. It was a gorgeous area--very wide open!
This is a shot of the steps leading up to the front of the temple. The dragon-carved stone in front of Alex was the part that the Emperor walked on. No one else was allowed to step on that part!
Click here to see the Day 2 photo album and more pictures of the Temple of Heaven.
After the Temple of Heaven we went to the Summer Palace. This was perhaps the area that we did the least justice. It's not actually a palace--it's a summer resort for the imperial family. It was massive--7 times the size of the entire Forbidden City. We easily could have spent the entire day there, but we went in, went straight to the lake, took a boat ride across the lake, and left. We did get some nice shots of the grounds, though, and learned some very interesting things!
This was the entrance to the Summer Palace. The entire grounds is heavily wooded to help the imperial family escape the heat of summer. As you can see, Alex and I were in China right at the beginning of spring, so we were able to catch some beautiful blooming trees. Check out that white!
This is the famous marble boat. No, it doesn't float. It's marble. The story goes, the Summer Palace was built in the time of the infamous Dragon Lady, the mother of a 4-year-old emperor. She would sit behind a curtain behind her son and basically tell him what to do to rule the country. She was cruel and just a *bit* eccentric. She was the driving force behind the construction of the resort grounds. She had the lake dug, and the earth removed from that was piled next to the lake to create a man-made hill on which the residential buildings sat. She also had a lot of money to spend on building the first Chinese navy, but she spent a great deal of that on building this marble boat instead. And she stayed young-looking by drinking breast milk. From the source. Yeah.
Here's a shot of the residential buildings of resort. We got to ride across the lake on really cool dragon boats. But that meant that we didn't walk around the buildings at all. So you'll just have to imagine their opulence. It had to have been a pretty sweet view, though!
Click here to see the Day 2 photo album, including more pictures of the grounds, the dragon boats, and a Chinese Bevo!
After the Summer Palace, we went to the Pearl and Silk factories. They were both very interesting--we learned and witnessed how pearls are harvested from fresh-water oysters (and we got a couple of small ones as souvenirs!), and we learned and witnessed how silk worms' cocoons are stacked and stretched into luxurious silk blankets. Both of the demonstrations lasted about 5 minutes. We then had about 45 minutes in each of the factories' show rooms/gift stores. It was the only time on our tour Allen wasn't in a hurry to get us to the next place! We *almost* bought a beautiful blue silk duvet, but we came to our senses in the nick of time and walked away.
So, our second day in China was full of perfect weather, interesting factoids, and great sights! We went down to the Wanfujing shopping area that night to walk around and discovered the Donghuamen Night Market. Those are pictures you won't want to miss! I'll post those, along with our trip to the Great Wall, next!
Thanks for visiting,
K.
We figured the best way to see as much as possible in our limited time was to go on a guided tour. While Alex and I both like the freedom of being on our own schedule (like we did in Ireland last year), we also liked the idea of being able to ask a guide to give us the inside information on the places we were visiting...especially since it wouldn't have been easy to find someone else who spoke English! So we signed up for two guided tours: one that would take us to the Forbidden City (a.k.a., the Imperial Palace), the Summer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven, and another that would take us to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs.
Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into! Our guide for both tours was Allen (Chinese name Yun Yi...at least, I think that's what it was). He was a short, Chinese 20-something. He wore a black business coat (long) and carried a briefcase (which I never saw him open). He did NOT carry a flag or wear a colorful hat or do anything else that would distinguish him from the other 10 million short Chinese people wearing black. And he was on a mission: to get us herded through the cool sights in as little time as possible so that we would have more time to spend in the tourist traps (a.k.a., the Pearl and Silk factories). So he walked really fast. When we stopped to take pictures, finding him again was like trying to find Waldo...only Allen wasn't wearing a striped shirt. So it was like a Where's Waldo where Waldo looks just like everyone else.
Aside from the ever-elusive guide issues, both our tours were great. The weather was gorgeous both days, and even though we did have to go a lot faster than we would have liked, it really was the only way we could have gotten in everything that we did.
Our first stop on Tour Day 1 was the Imperial Palace, otherwise known as the Forbidden City. It is called this because until about 60 years ago, only members of the imperial family were allowed to see/be inside it. It was completely forbidden, upon pain of death, for any commoners to not only go inside but also to simply look inside! The grounds were massive. The complex was divided into three different sections: the front section was the business offices, the middle section was the residential part, and the back section was the gardens. There were 9,999 rooms! This is because 9 is an important number in Chinese lore, and because only gods were allowed to do anything with 10,000 of anything. Allen explained that if a person was born in the FC and visited a different room every day, he or she wouldn't repeat a room until they were 27 years old!!
Here's Alex in the first courtyard of the palace. It was SO big!
This is the beginning of the residential part of the palace. Over to the left of the picture, you can see two golden lions. These represented the Emperor and Empress. The Emperor lion held the world (a sphere) under his paw, and the Empress held a baby lion under her paw.
This was the "honeymoon suite" of the palace. After getting married, the Emperor and his new wife would spend two days in this room. It couldn't be an extended honeymoon because the Emperor got married every 2 to 3 weeks! Emperors typically had more than 2,000 wives!
Click here to see the Day 2 photo album with lots of other shots of the grounds and the gardens.
After the Forbidden City we went to the Temple of Heaven. This was the temple where the emperors went to pray for a good harvest. It was a gorgeous area--very wide open!
This is a shot of the steps leading up to the front of the temple. The dragon-carved stone in front of Alex was the part that the Emperor walked on. No one else was allowed to step on that part!
Click here to see the Day 2 photo album and more pictures of the Temple of Heaven.
After the Temple of Heaven we went to the Summer Palace. This was perhaps the area that we did the least justice. It's not actually a palace--it's a summer resort for the imperial family. It was massive--7 times the size of the entire Forbidden City. We easily could have spent the entire day there, but we went in, went straight to the lake, took a boat ride across the lake, and left. We did get some nice shots of the grounds, though, and learned some very interesting things!
This was the entrance to the Summer Palace. The entire grounds is heavily wooded to help the imperial family escape the heat of summer. As you can see, Alex and I were in China right at the beginning of spring, so we were able to catch some beautiful blooming trees. Check out that white!
This is the famous marble boat. No, it doesn't float. It's marble. The story goes, the Summer Palace was built in the time of the infamous Dragon Lady, the mother of a 4-year-old emperor. She would sit behind a curtain behind her son and basically tell him what to do to rule the country. She was cruel and just a *bit* eccentric. She was the driving force behind the construction of the resort grounds. She had the lake dug, and the earth removed from that was piled next to the lake to create a man-made hill on which the residential buildings sat. She also had a lot of money to spend on building the first Chinese navy, but she spent a great deal of that on building this marble boat instead. And she stayed young-looking by drinking breast milk. From the source. Yeah.
Here's a shot of the residential buildings of resort. We got to ride across the lake on really cool dragon boats. But that meant that we didn't walk around the buildings at all. So you'll just have to imagine their opulence. It had to have been a pretty sweet view, though!
Click here to see the Day 2 photo album, including more pictures of the grounds, the dragon boats, and a Chinese Bevo!
After the Summer Palace, we went to the Pearl and Silk factories. They were both very interesting--we learned and witnessed how pearls are harvested from fresh-water oysters (and we got a couple of small ones as souvenirs!), and we learned and witnessed how silk worms' cocoons are stacked and stretched into luxurious silk blankets. Both of the demonstrations lasted about 5 minutes. We then had about 45 minutes in each of the factories' show rooms/gift stores. It was the only time on our tour Allen wasn't in a hurry to get us to the next place! We *almost* bought a beautiful blue silk duvet, but we came to our senses in the nick of time and walked away.
So, our second day in China was full of perfect weather, interesting factoids, and great sights! We went down to the Wanfujing shopping area that night to walk around and discovered the Donghuamen Night Market. Those are pictures you won't want to miss! I'll post those, along with our trip to the Great Wall, next!
Thanks for visiting,
K.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Day 1: Tian'anmen Square and Temples
The first day was cold and misty...not the ideal weather for tourist-ing around a city, but c'est la vie. Luckily our hotel was only a short walk from Tian'anmen Square, so that's where we started. It was cool to be in such a historic place!
The funniest part of this day is that I started to understand how much I stood out from the crowd. When Alex would stop and take a picture of me in front of a landmark, 2 or 3 other people would also take a picture of me! I got lots and lots and lots of stares. Alex also was quite a phenomenon. One guy took a picture of him--he was trying to be sly, but Alex noticed--and then the guy was startled when Alex took a picture of him!
This is looking into Tian'anmen Square. The tall skinny thing is a monument to the people, and the big building in the background is Chairman Mao's memorial.
They really do love Chairman Mao!
Here's Alex in front of the gate in Tian'anmen. As you can see, Chairman Mao's portrait has been hung in a very honorable, prominent place!
There were groups of soldiers marching by every 20 minutes or so. I thought it would be funny to get a picture of me marching with them. When they realized what I was doing, they didn't think it was funny. At all.
We left Tian'anmen Square and took the subway (what an adventure! From the looks I got, it was not a place that tourists frequent!) to the Lama and Confucius Temples. They were both beautiful, serene places filled with people praying and paying their respects.
The Confucius Temple grounds. That's Confucius himself. Well, not really, but you know.
A giant bell and bell ringer at the Lama Temple. You can see the ornate architecture in the background.
If you'd like to see more pictures of Tian'anmen Square, the two temples, our hotel, our first attempt at ordering lunch and tea, and the infamous "pant slits" on the kids, check out the Day 1 photo album.
Next I'll post about Day 2, including the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, and the world's hardest-to-follow tour guide!
Thanks for visiting!
KC
The funniest part of this day is that I started to understand how much I stood out from the crowd. When Alex would stop and take a picture of me in front of a landmark, 2 or 3 other people would also take a picture of me! I got lots and lots and lots of stares. Alex also was quite a phenomenon. One guy took a picture of him--he was trying to be sly, but Alex noticed--and then the guy was startled when Alex took a picture of him!
They really do love Chairman Mao!
There were groups of soldiers marching by every 20 minutes or so. I thought it would be funny to get a picture of me marching with them. When they realized what I was doing, they didn't think it was funny. At all.
We left Tian'anmen Square and took the subway (what an adventure! From the looks I got, it was not a place that tourists frequent!) to the Lama and Confucius Temples. They were both beautiful, serene places filled with people praying and paying their respects.
If you'd like to see more pictures of Tian'anmen Square, the two temples, our hotel, our first attempt at ordering lunch and tea, and the infamous "pant slits" on the kids, check out the Day 1 photo album.
Next I'll post about Day 2, including the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, and the world's hardest-to-follow tour guide!
Thanks for visiting!
KC
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