My Pinkalicious, Pinkatastic, Pinkarrific Bike and Birthday

Yes, I know it's PINK. Really pink! And I'm not usually a pink kinda gal, but all will be explained....You might've guessed from my last post that I was leaning towards buying the Quintana Roo CD01. I'm not kidding when I say this decision cost me several sleepless nights (as my husband can attest). I know a lot of people just pick a bike and are done with it, but I don't get to upgrade my bikes all that often (and with one kid starting college classes right now, I can foresee no new bikes in my immediate future), so I wanted to make sure it was absolutely the right decision.

In the end, it came down to fit (as it should in all bike-buying decisions). The CD01 is an extremely adjustable bike. The seatpost has a very clever adjustment system that lets me monkey with my seat angle to my heart's content, and a series of carbon spacers makes adjusting the handlebars just as smooth. So as we speak, I'm dialing in the fit on this fast flying machine. But why all the pink? Apparently, there's more than a few of last year's bikes left over in this paint scheme (this year's is a much more sedate black with purple striping) and I got a smokin' deal on it.

But as it turns out, pink is an auspicious color right now. My daughter Asa had just gotten the lead role in the musical "Pinkalicious" being produced locally. So she is constantly practicing lines and songs with lyrics such as "Pinkatastic, pinkarrific...life is a pinkatastic dream come true". When my mom visited last week, she showed up in a pinkarrific outfit of her own and they went off for a pinkatastic afternoon of lunch, shopping, and movies (aren't grandmas the greatest??) Thus, the bike has been dubbed "Pinkalicious" (though my hubby keeps referring to it as "Pepto Bismol", and my son commented on the pink camouflage color scheme: "the only place that thing would be camouflaged would be in a cupcake factory".

Still, I think it's the best thing that's happened to me on a birthday in many a long year. How can turning forty-six be bad when you have an awesome bike like that to ride? And ride it I have. Though I had the first triathlon of the season looming this weekend, and was supposed to be tapering, I couldn't resist taking it out for over an hour a day. It rides like a dream, and I have to tell you ladies, that Adamo saddle is just a wonderful thing. No more squishing of the girl bits.


 Luckily, the good weather also arrived just in time for my birthday weekend, and the pinkalicious fun continued with a run through paths of pink flowering trees in the glorious, wonderful sunshine! Hubby and the kids met me for a walk with the dogs and Asa picked a pink blossom for me to sport behind my ear. I am still trying to wrap my head around being forty-six. How come I still feel like I'm twenty-one? Oh yeah, because I TRI!!!

 And all that Tri-ing deserves some chocolate pudding, don't you think? My son Mackenzie, knowing that I am not really a cake person made up some of my grandma Minshall's famous 1-2-3 chocolate pudding recipe for celebrating with. He even wrote "46" in red frosting on it (being a 15 year old boy, he is automatically allergic to touching anything pink), but the frosting kind of bled into the pudding, making it look more like a zombie apocalypse kind of birthday (probably more to his liking anyways). But it tasted great, with an appropriate mountain of whipped cream on top. All in all, it was just a wonderful way to celebrate being on this planet for forty-six years. I know how lucky I am to have my family, my health, good friends, a beautiful place to live, and now a gorgeous pink speed rocket to ride around on.

So on this pink-a-tastic day, I'll leave you with my grandma's pudding recipe. You can make this up with coconut and almond milk, or regular old milk. Any way you make it, it's very tasty stuff. And my grandma lived a long and healthy life into her 90's, so there's got to be something said for chocolate pudding every now and then!

1 Tbsp Corn Starch
2 Tbsp Baking Cocoa
3 Tbsp Sugar (Mackenzie used a mixture of coconut sugar and xylitol from birth tree bark

Stir into:

1 Cup Milk

Microwave 2 minutes, then stir. Microwave 2 more minutes until pudding forms. Double the recipe for a hungry family of four!

Aging Up: A Birthday Run Through The Primeval Coastal Forest

 What do you want for your birthday? A dreaded question from someone who doesn't really need anymore stuff in her life. Fortunately, my hubby doesn't take offense if I have no interest in some bauble or another (I'm convinced that he married me because I hate the mall). He knows how to treat a birthday girl right, which in my case means packing the kids and the dogs over to the coast for the day. And apparently God knew that after so many unending days of rain, I needed a clear sky over my head. So though it was not exactly warm or sunny, it was not raining, and that's all that mattered.

After some pleasant hours spent racing sticks down a creek, exploring tidepools, flying kites, and chasing the dogs around, I got to pull on my favorite Five Finger toe shoes and go for a run up this fabulous trail. It starts at the beach, winds up and over this big promontory, climbing high above the lighthouse, and down the other side to a wide stretch of largely inaccessible and empty beach. The forests are lusciously green and primeval, with gigantic wind-twisted trees and beautiful ferny mossy floors. I really can't say much more about it with mere words, other than that it was perfect in every way. And I would've run faster if I could've stopped myself from taking all of these photos with my cell phone. 

So here's a visual tour of my beautiful birthday run.

You go up and over this big ridge. The lighthouse makes sure the ships don't hit it in the fog.

 The trail is so steep that it's full of switchbacks. At some point, the trail builders just gave up on switchbacks and installed some rough stairs. Great for training those glutes, hamstrings, and quads! My dog Sophie takes it all in stride.

Trees grow out of "nurse logs", old fallen trees that have since disintegrated, providing food for the new young trees to grow up on.

Spectacular views of the rugged Oregon coastline are a trail runner's best reward. In this photo, you can see how much elevation the trail gains, since I started running down on the beach!

 The forest is unbelievably green and lovely. Here, the valley falls away beneath me in a sea of ferns, moss, salal,  and evergreens.

Eventually, the trail pops you out onto a windswept beach, where you feel like the only human alive on the planet, dwarfed by the massive Pacific Ocean, and soothed by its roar.

 If you pay attention, you find beautiful little Zen moments all around you. I could meditate on this tableau of a stick and a rock for hours.

Sandstone cliffs to the right of the beach are carved by wind and waves into intricate patterns

In some places, the soft sandstone has been carved out from under the very roots of the trees, leaving them suspended in space.

 

Seaweed tangles adorn the beach with the woven netting of a former kelp forest

Everywhere along the beach, you must leap across small streams. Each is patterned with beautiful swirls of different colored sand. Every one of these creek bottoms could be considered a work of art.

 I arrive at the end of my run tired but ecstatic. In a state of bliss unparalleled in modern existence. How often do you get to feel like the only person on earth? To run alone and silent through an ancient forest. To look across the expanse of miles of beach and see no one, hear nothing but wind and surf. My spirit is renewed.

We drive to Mo's, a staple of our coast trips. The best chowder house on the Oregon coast. Our friendly waitress snaps a pic of the family for us. I am so blessed to have this wonderful family around me on my birthday.

I have this marvelous Paleo feast of blackened salmon and steamed and seasoned green beans. Double yum! Plus some of Mo's awesome clam chowder.

Okay, so it's not Paleo, but I top it off with Mo's homemade marionberry cobbler with some local vanilla ice cream. Heaven on earth. A perfect way to age up and turn 45. My day could not be any better. I am so thankful to have a family who gave me what I really wanted for my birthday, a beautiful home state with gorgeous parks and trails, and a body that can do amazing things like running up and over mountains. 

I am truly blessed.

Today I'm 43. I Run Up Mountains.

Yesterday I was out biking with hubby doing errands around town. We were about to leave the Builder's Garage Sale (would've been better to bring a truck than our bikes, honestly) when this man walked up to me and out of the blue says "Do you run up mountains?"

Um....not recently

"Well," he said, "you just look like you could run up mountains"

and with that he walked off.

Today is my birthday. My 43rd birthday. I can't count the number of people who have told me "you don't have to tell me how old you are." I could care less how old I am. I'm 43. 43 years on this planet. There's nothing to be ashamed of, being 43. 43 trips around the sun. Why do we treat it like it's some horrible curse???

I'm 43 years old, and while I haven't run up mountains since hubby and I trained to climb Kilimanjaro in 1995, I could do it at any point I chose to. Isn't that the coolest thing about keeping your body, your mind, and your spirit in tip-top condition and feeling young?? I COULD run up a mountain tomorrow, if I felt like it. And you never know, I just might.

And while no one in our family ran up any mountains today, Wayne and the kids ran down some sand dunes with our new pup, Callie. Now Wayne is a pretty speedy runner, but this dog is something else. Doesn't she look like she's channeling greyhound in this picture???

Speaking of Callie, it's amazing how much more healthy and vital she's gotten in the almost two weeks we've had her now. When she first came to live with us, she slept a lot and seemed almost lethargic. Little by little she pepped up and just in the last few days she has become quite another dog altogether. I know our neighbor who rescued her said she was infested with fleas, ticks, and worms when she first found her and she was still getting over all of that, so this is probably just her returning to good health, maybe for the first time ever. She has definitely filled out and filled up with energy now!

So for my birthday, I got what I most wanted - no presents, just the presence of my kids and hubby. We took an impromptu run to the beach. Despite having a ton of work to do around the homefront (we are currently remodeling the front of our house/deck) we grabbed a half a day since the sun was shining and headed west. The sun and sand were beckoning, and I got to play a little bit of frisbee with my kids, watch them run around with the new pup and...

What birthday would be complete without a swim? This is a lot earlier than I usually get in the lake, even with the full wetsuit. But the water looked too inviting to pass up and of course I did pack the wetsuit along just in case.... I'm guesstimating it was about 57 degrees, cold enough I had trouble talking when I got out due to my lips freezing. But still, it felt marvelous, simply grand. As soon as I took that first stroke, I was in heaven. Sunlight sparkling on the water droplets flying off of my fingers, and the sound of the small waves in my neoprene-covered ears. In my head, Beethoven's full orchestral Ode to Joy started playing, perfectly timed to the rhythm of my strokes, and I felt that peculiar joy of being so very alive down to the last nerve ending in my little toes.

I may be {gasp, cue drumroll....} 43 years old... but I can still run up mountains, or swim laps around a lake any time I choose.

Annual Adventures at Waldo

This will most likely be one of the few blog posts I manage to scribble before we leave for Italy next Saturday (OMG!) The number of details rattling in my brain is mind-boggling, but we managed to still throw our camping gear in the van and make it up to our favorite lake for Mackenzie's 12th (simply not possible...he's twelve???) birthday. The thing he most wanted to do was to camp at a lake and go kayaking. So we met my mom and a bunch of friends up at Waldo Lake and broke out some s'mores to celebrate. At 4:14 in the afternoon, he became a 12 year old on the shore of the lake.

As soon as we got settled in at camp and tromped down to the water's edge, I could feel the water pulling at me like some kind of crazy addiction. I couldn't just NOT get in. Good thing I brought my wetsuit, Waldo Lake is cold and clear as glass. Last year when we camped here I went for a short swim, but without a wetsuit I couldn't go very far out past the shallows where it's (relatively) warmer. This year Mackenzie kayaked with me while I swam out and around an island over much deeper water. What a trip, it was like hovering over a canyon as the water got deeper, yet was still almost as clear as the air, and the bottom fell farther and farther beneath us. The only thing I've ever felt like that before was wall diving on coral reefs in some extremely good visibility, where you just sort of float out over the abyss.

One advantage to the wetsuit that I've recently discovered is that if I just keep it on, I can stay in such freezing water and play with the kids (who are seemingly immune to the cold). So I kept my wetsuit on for about three hours and alternately swam with the kids and did laps around the island with either Mackenzie or my mom in the kayak with me. As is the case every time I end up at Waldo Lake, I feel supremely blessed to be in one of the world's most beautiful places. Here's a pic of my mom in her kayak. You can see the wonderful clarity of the water, and her adventurous spirit. She's such a great pal!


While at Waldo, a friend of mine took me mountain biking. I hadn't been in a very long time and honestly, I'm a total scaredy cat when it comes to stuff like that. So I was Very Very Brave and went out on this rooty rocky trail with her that goes around the lake (I'm sure to a dedicated single-tracker this trail would be child's play, but it intimidated me). I think it's a good idea to jump out of our personal comfort zones every so often, at least that's what I tried to tell myself as I bumped and ground over the obstacles. But I have to admit that after about an hour I really relaxed into it and was enjoying myself, not to mention shouting "wheeeee!" when I managed to make it over a particularly challenging (to me) rocky bit.

I'm also pushing my comfort zone in a completely different way these days. Mackenzie is growing up, becoming independent, doing things like paddling away from me into the lake by himself. It gives me new appreciation for my mom and her fussing over me whenever she sees me swimming in open water. It's hard to let your kids go, even when it's something you know they love to do. And truthfully, there were times when I never thought I'd see the day where my son was so independent in this way. I mean, this is the kid who was so freaked out he wouldn't get on the Storybook Boats at Disneyland. They were "too tippy" and he totally wigged out and we left that ride when he was little. And now he jumps in a kayak and paddles out into this deep deep lake? Parenthood freaks me the heck out sometimes. But at the same time I'm totally thrilled for him, this amazing creature that I get to call my son.

In any case, it was a lovely weekend, followed by a more traditional birthday party once we returned to town. My sis and brother-in-law came down for a few days and we all had a great time. I was glad that we squeezed in those couple of lovely days at the lake though, a fall tradition that I wouldn't have wanted to miss.

My New Lake Buddy

Last weekend was my mom's birthday, so we met up with her halfway between her house and ours (about an hour and a half drive for each of us) at the lovely Umpqua river. The great thing about my mom is you'd never know she's 67 years old, certainly not by her energy level! We met up, went for a beautiful hike to a waterfall, then we found this cute little reservoir and she pulled her kayak off of her car and took the kids kayaking around the lake. Mackenzie decided he wanted to try it out on his own and she let him borrow her kayak. He proceeded to pretty much monopolize it for the rest of the afternoon. By the end of the day, he was moving a kayak to the top of his next birthday list.

The fun bit was when I went for a swim and he kayaked alongside of me. He was quick to point out that one advantage of getting him his own kayak would be that whenever I want to do open water training, he could paddle along next to me. I have to admit, it was really fun to swim and watch him smoothly maneuvering through the water next to me. My mom is all for the idea. Being a mom (and I do understand now!) she always worried about me going out into these lakes by myself and swimming. You know, the Loch Ness Monster might eat me or something. And my hubby who is much more of a mother hen than I'll ever be pretty much feels the same way about it. So I've taken to scanning CraigsList for a Swifty kayak like my mom's, and maybe I'll have a little buddy to head out on the lake with me this summer!

So, here's to my mom: 67 years young, a hiking, kayaking, fun-filled dynamo of a lady. She's inspired me in so many ways, and she's a great friend.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Birthday Week Ups and Downs

So last Thursday was my birthday, I turned 41 at eight-something in the evening as my mom likes to say. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster week including the birthday. My husband was out of town (hazards of marrying a pilot) but my son brought me a birthday card as soon as I opened my eyes, and my daughter went downstairs and came back up with breakfast in bed (toast, well buttered) which was very sweet. By the afternoon however, I was feeling really miserably sick. The sore lungs from last Tuesday's Time Trial in the freezing rain were turning into a hacking painful chest and I started to run a fever. It's pretty rare that I get sick, so it always throws me for a loop not to be feeling good. I didn't even exercise for two days in a row, so I knew I was really down with something.

Other than the cold though, many quietly good things happened in my birthday week. My mom and sister called, my friend K. wrote me a card about friendship that really touched my heart. Her daughter C. made my day by writing "No matter how old you get, I know you are a wild teenager at heart" in a card. High praise indeed from a teenager herself! And they gave me a copy of the comic book Zits, which has been cracking me up regularly. I guess it's good reading for a few short years when I'll have a teenager myself.

My hubby made my day by drawing an almost indecipherable wetsuit in his card to me. Luckily, he wrote the word "Aqua" on the leg of it, or I might've really wondered. So wheeeee! I get to get a full-sleeved wetsuit! My old farmer john style is on its last legs, so this is really exciting for me. Other women may want flowers, wine, and diamonds, but this man knows what really makes me happy: neoprene.

Other exciting things happened this week. I got my first photo into Flickr's Explore section (where they showcase interesting and enticing photos), which is a pretty big honor. It was this photo I took of the kids in the Sacramento River at sunset, one of my favorites. I also discovered that so far I am leading the Cat4 women in the Time Trial series I've been doing. Given that it's my first year taking a stab at bike racing, and I get on my bike maybe twice a week right now, I'm pretty pleased with that. We'll have to see how this last week goes though to see where I end up.

So all in all, not a bad way to get another year older. No big parties, no hoopla, just some quiet moments, cards, conversations with those who are closest to me. As I get older, I am happier with presence than presents. I'm thinking a lot about getting older this year, partly because 40 was a milestone year but 41 is now into the 40s. It's also partly because I can feel my body pushing back a little on me, resisting getting faster, getting a little more sore than it used to when I ask it to go hard. And partly because of this 365 Days of self portraits project on Flickr. Ever try to look at a hundred photos of yourself? It really makes you look at the person that you are right now, not the person you think you'd look like if you took the time to get all glammed up and take a studio portrait with nice lighting and all, but the person with spriggy grey hairs and a wrinkle or three or four. It's been an interesting experience since I'm usually the one taking photos of everyone else in my life, now suddenly I have all these photos of myself and it's kind of strange.

So I'll probably muse more on aging some other time, but for now it's nice to feel healthier again, and I'm grateful to be forty-one years old on this earth today and feeling the sun on my face.