Pause

I didn't intend to pause my blogging for the Cascade Lakes Relay - but I am. I planned to put together this coming Friday's Razors Edge and have it magically pop up while I was, again, away from technology (at least the big technology I use to pull the pieces together for my weekly prompt).

But the big event itself has taken so much time this past ten days that I didn't get it done and so, there will be a short intermission as I head over to central Oregon tomorrow.

I have printed reams of paper (and I'm really not exaggerating: five sets of race guides, five full maps, volunteer packets, directions from Portland to the car rental pick-up to the campground to the start line and so on - then tonight even more: phone lists and car rental reservations and campground reservations). I have bought a heaping cart-load at Winco: mini-bagels, many packages of meats and cheeses, many pounds of bananas and clementines, five pounds of Red Vines and black licorice, and suckers, and raw almonds and five cases of water. And more.

I've spent many hours on the phone with insurance compaines and the rental car company and AAA and another supplemental insurance company.

And checked red flashing lights for operability, tested the new pesticide sprayers (thanks to a couple of running teams - we learned that these handy inexpensive garden tools make great cooling equipment for runners/walkers in the desert in summer), sorted the supplies into storage boxes for each van.

And put out little emotional or excitement or "what if" fires among the team.

And the day is here. Tomorrow I will somehow stuff all of the equipment and food that is taking up a chunk of my living room into my compact sedan. My partner will drive me to the meet-up spot, where I will offload everything - including the five cases of water in my trunk - into the RV, in which several of us are making the drive over to the Bend area to pick up the cars and go to our campsite.

Oh - did I say that we are camping this year? We have a nice little group campsite right on the edge of a little lake. Should be gorgeous. The RV is small and is for the inactive van's walkers to chill out (literally) if it's hot - but otherwise, we're sleeping in tents.

I'm excited. A little anxious - I didn't train as hard as I did last year for this. But I'm also in better general fitness shape than I was. So while I know I will be a little sore and I know my pace will (I want to say "probably" but I know the reality is it *will*) be slower than last year - I will still do it. And I will be okay. I've done some walking, focusing on the downhills since I am again doing the six miles down down down leg (six miles, 1,400 elevation loss). My IT bands will notice my reduced training - but I started taking Arnica on Sunday, along with Ibuprofen, and I saw my chiropractor today who gave me some kinesio tape with instructions. My recovery time from working out aches is really great (on indicator of improved fitness) and I have promised several people I won't overdo it and push myself beyond what is reasonable. So - I know I will be sore and I know I will be slower - but I also know I can do it. How great to be able to say, "three miles? that's easy!"

It's been a little hectic and I'm a little low on sleep.

So this week's Razor's Edge will wait. Or be skipped.

Or you can hop over to YouTube and search for "Cascade Lakes Relay" and pick a video as your inspiration. Pick a character from those on screen (or pick a whole team!) - and tell a story about who they are and how they got to CLR.

Friday I'll be on the road with the MissFit WiseWalkers. Making our way from Silver Lake through the Cascade Lakes Highway and on up to Bend.

Ahhh.

photograph from OregonLive's RunOregon blog

MissFit Dragons capture the flag

This is a great picture from the Rose Festival Dragon Boat races last weekend. It shows the coming together of all of our work and training: the paddlers give us the momentum to get from the start on the east side of the river to the finish on the west side of the river, I steer us from point A to B in as straight a line as possible to maximize the efforts of the paddlers and to hit our target - the flag, then Tawna grabs it from its buoy and raises it high to signal the time-keepers, with our coach-caller Nikki kneeling on the deck keeping us in time and motivated. We all work together to make it happen - each piece important on its own and yet its significance is lost without the others: power, direction, achievement, and guidance.

Thanks for the beautiful picture and the amazing weekend, Nikki.
You brought us all together.

CLR 2009 video contest

My team is having our first meeting for the 2010 Cascade Lakes Relay this week. I'm excited to get together with everyone and excited that we are going again. This week CLR announced the winners of this year's video contest (I'm hoping we'll have our own entry next year). This is the second place winner, from the team Out Chasing Booty. Watching all the entries has me totally jazzed to do it, again. And I needed a little jazzing about right now - the 9-10 mile walks sometimes get boring when I'm going it alone.




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post-relay

What a fantastic day, today!

I woke without a sore knee, thanks to the awesome and talented Betsy Mitchell, DC, despite my record time going 1372 feet in six miles downhill yesterday. I have been going to her for years; but she has been especially supportive and helpful as I increase my physical activity and through things like aching knees, twisted back muscles during dragon boats, strained tendons during whitewater rafting, DOMS (now that was a "great" one: Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, tending to show up in people as they age.... great), and she has been phenomenal as I've been training for this relay. She put kinesio tape on my tend-to-ache-knee the day before I went to Bend and gave me a new set to apply before my feat yesterday. And, voila, I awoke with not only a non-aching knee, but a knee that felt great.

My training for the event, with specific focus two to three days a week on the big downhill part, really paid off and the preparation and prevention steps helped, too. A year ago I went on a round trip 6.5 or 7 mile hike with a friend and I halfway back I thought there was a chance I would not be able to make it down to the car, my knees both hurt and the more sensitive one was throbbing and aching. (You know, once you're up there on a hike in the forest, you have to get back down - you can't park your behind and tell your buddy to just swing the car around.)

My back was sore this morning; couldn't quite stand up straight when I got out of bed. Excuse me, couldn't quite stand up straight when I rolled out of my sleeping bag on a 1" self-inflating camping pad this morning. Oh, that might of been part of the problem - I was too tired to inflate my air mattress last night, which would have given my pushed-to-its-max body a little more cush to sleep on. A shower helped and I straightened right up and the back pain eventually went away.

But my hips- or my hip sockets? Something in that area needs attention. Which is why I am grateful I have an appointment with the chiropractor tomorrow morning. Yay for me.

In another side of things - we are going to do the Cascade Lakes Relay again next year. On the ride home in the RV, we did a little strategizing and planning - which I will continue with. I will be the team captain, again, next year (like the sound of that? me!?! team captain!) and I'm getting feedback from the participants on their "kudos" and "oops." Next year will be even better.

And I have already heard back from one of this year's participants that she wants to be on our team, again. Yay!

Then tonight I had a peer editing & potluck dinner with the editor, publisher, and a few of the other authors for Alltopia, the zine which is publishing one of my creative non-fiction pieces in their fall issue. That was really nice and helpful.

The zine release and reading will be on August 23rd at 6:00 pm, at Hipbone Studio. More details to come after I get the full information from the editor.

Now I'm really tired and need to go to bed. And I have a story due today. Sleep? Write? Sleepzzzzz.

And did I tell you that my team did great! As in Tony the Tiger, grrrreaaaaaat!

Relay: results

The MissFit WiseWalkers finished the Cascade Lakes Relay at 6:30 pm - 33.5 hours!! Our team average was 3.95 mph!! We all beat our personal bests.

Relay: day 2 update

We are at the middle of leg #3 of the final van #2 group. The amazing Nikki Becker maintained just a hair over 15 min miles on her 4 miles uphill leg - most of that in the initial 1.5 miles; amazing timing. We're all doing great times and having a blast. It's hot - tho less than yesterday.

We are doing great!
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Ahh, oww, zzz

4:34 AM. In Bend. Ice pack on knee. Feet happily sore. Exhausted in a wow-look-what-I-and-we accomplished way. Sleep should come easily. Up at 8:30 to shower, grab coffee and breakfast, and head to Devil's Lake on Mt Bachelor to our final exchange and the last six legs.

I will only have one: six miles steadily down for 1372 feet, third leg from the end.

Goodnightzzzzz
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Relay: day 2 update

Van #2 finished our six legs 21 minutes ahead of our estimated scheduled time : I came in at 3:16 AM and handed the bracelet-baton off to van #1.

Now back to the house in Bend for about 4 hours sleep and a shower!

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Relay: day 2

It's 12:15 AM and we are on the next to last of this section of legs. I recently completed my first leg of the relay: 3.3 miles in 52 minutes! We have made up some time (two other teammates picked up time a couple legs ago) - so we are back on track for a 3:30 AM exchange with our #1 van.

Go, MissFit WiseWalkers at the Cascade Lakes Relay!
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Relay: 9:45 pm

We are now the active van with our 3rd walker on the road. We are keeping to our estimated time and we rock!!

I have the next leg. It's 3.3 miles, probably 72 degrees, and dark. Then I will have another leg which starts about 1:30 AM.

We are having a great time, the scenery is beautiful, and the people are great.

We will become "inactive" around 4AM.

This is bliss and I can't wait to get my feet on the road!

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Relay: LaPine sleep area

Sated with breakfast, armed with crosswords and books and snacks and water galore, we arrived at the sleep area. To sleep? Probably not a lot, though that would be a good idea. Our "active" time will be from around 7PM to 4AM. But sleeping in a park, in the shade (whew), along the busy street in town (but not the highway), with temperatures reaching toward 90 and beyond is not likely - or not likely except in short naps. Between trips to the bathroom, updates from our active van on times when they have mobile service, and our excitement and wanting for it to be our turn. No, not a lot of sleep.

So far my team time predictions are pretty accurate - our teammates are doing a great job. We are about 17 minutes behing my prediction - but I think the current walker will make up a little of that.

We are still excited. We are ready to go. We are doing this!

An adventure, for sure.
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relay: the night before

We are in Bend - all walkers and both drivers. With an RV which will stay here (not allowed to be on the route) and our 2 vans (well, one van and one suv). We are fed, carbed up, excited, having fun, and sprawled on just about every square foot of this apartment, including the porch. We went through a thunderstorm and pouring rain, had a slight delay due to a jack-knifed semi. And we're asleep or soon to be. There is a coffee shop across the street that opens 30 minutes before we leave.

We are ready.

We will have fun. We are prepared!

MissFits on the move

What an amazing group of people have gathered under the leadership of MissFit Adventures owner, Nikki Becker.

As I've written about over the last six months, the MissFit Dragons was an amazing experience with an incredible group of women. We really came together as a team and we worked to do our best. And we did our best and we had fun.

Out of that experience, I created a Cascade Lakes Relay team, which we have called the MissFit WiseWalkers. (Remember that name! You have until July 1st to put together a team - either walking or running. If you do put together a team - for either this year or next - mention me and my team; we will get a referral gas card!) Most of the team is from the dragon boat team.

And speaking of other adventures from the paddlers, some of them are with Nikki right now and will begin their descent into the Grand Canyon tomorrow. They are doing a several days hike into and out of the canyon. Wow.

Another of our paddlers started organizing a Race for the Cure team. We will have walkers and runners; friends and family will be joining us, too. We don't have a name yet and many have been tossed around. Think about it: what rhymes with MissFit?! We probably won't go *there* with the naming .. but we had fun with seeing what we can come up with. I will let you know when we decide on something.

Then there are two of us who are planning to walk the Seattle half marathon in November. We will start recruiting other runners and walkers to join with us in that.

And I signed up for next summer's rafting the Grand Canyon eight-day trip with Nikki and some of the others from the team.

Gals on the go, indeed!