Ugh Redux.
7/18/06

WTF?? That's all I have to say. Tonight is a 1600 yard swim and a 30 minute "easy" run. There are no easy runs. I ran my fastest mile yet on Sunday night - 10:45. As Ian says, I am now as fast as a pretty fit middle school kid. I'd get a high B in P.E. with that time. Yippee!

See the server room project pics here. This is why I've been working so much lately. Now that the server room remodel is done, I can focus on something else that will keep me at work for a million hours a week.

Ugh
6/11/06

I'm sooooo tired. Too may demands on my time right now. I need to have a little breathing room and I can't find it. *sigh* So Saturday I ran with Ian in the morning, then did a painful ride with Steph. We did the Pig Farm ride (aka the "my ass hurts a lot" ride). Hills. Lots of hills. Then a big hill, with the pig farm at the top. There were a ridiculous number of cars speeding along the narrow winding roads, and it was stressing us out. Those bastards. Anyway, it was a good ride, somewhere between 14 and 16 miles of hills.

But...I awoke in the middle of the night feeling not so good. Then I spent the next several hours being violently ill and wishing I were dead. I still feel icky and I look like I am, in fact, dead. I have that oh-so-attractive pasty cold sweat look. And I'm at work, which makes it all that much worse. Actually, I think that I have done all that I can do here today, and I am ready to head out. There seems to be some sort of street faire going on at Civic Center - I think I'll go check it out.

This week is busy. Very busy at work, and the kids both have their graduation stuff going on. Ian is graduating from middle school, and Rhianna is being promoted to the 7th grade. Ian's grad dance is Tuesday night, and he has a fabulous tux to wear (I'll post pics). On Saturday he leaves for the east coast trip. I've got to get him packed today.

Tonight is a run (I think) and tomorrow I may swim, since I missed so much workout stuff last week. I also promise myself to do my best to get enough sleep this week so I don't just implode and disappear. Or something. See training schedule for this month.

Bay to Breakers 12k Race Report
5/24/06

Ian and I were up at 5:30 am on race day. We had all of our gear laid out and ready to go. Grandma Dorothy was dropped off at our house at 6 and we were ready to head out to pick up evil aunt Stephanie. It was pretty grim looking outside - looked like rain. A few drops splattered the windshield as we pulled out of the driveway. We didn't care!

We hopped on BART and headed into the City. At Embarcadero Ian discovered that the bottle of water he drank on the way in was wanting to make an exit, so we had to find a bathroom.It's a good thing we were there early - they were calling the final 5 minutes when Ian finally got into the bathroom. His estimated finish time allowed him to start at the front, right behind the seeded runners, but the toilets were at the way back. He had like 4 minutes to get through something like 60,000 people and get to his starting spot.

Ian ended up crossing the start line 3 minutes after the race started. For me and Steph it was between 8 and 9 minutes, and for my mom it was around 12. Ian reported that he was able to start running right away (the rest of us had to do the "B2B shuffle" for a while) and he passed lots of people. He ran the whole thing fast, including the Hayes Street Hill, which is a horrible grade and demoralizing for the fastest runners. It's one of those hills where in the first block you think "oh yeah, I can run this if I just keep to a reasonable pace," then you hit the second block and it gets hard, and from then on it's pure pain as the grade steeply increases. By the time you get to the top, you are cursing the Hayes Street Hill. But Ian made it over the hill and through the park, and he called and left me a message from the finish line! Ian's unofficial finish time (he started his clock when he crossed the start line) was 1:06, which placed him in the top 2000 finishers out of an estimated 62,000. Woohoo!!

Meanwhile, Steph and I were steadily running/walking towards the finish, and grandma was walking. Steph and I averaged 13 minute miles, which was not too bad considering the walking we did. After the race, we all had lots of finish line pics taken (I ordered copies, I'll post them when they get here) and then walked to Footstock where we had monster piles of chicken and rice and other good stuff.

Best of all, it never actually rained on us! It was kind of humid, and cool. It felt really good to run through Golden Gate Park and feel that ocean breeze cooling me down. All in all, a very fun day!

Here are some pics.

The start line
Naked guys running.	Ian - almost at the finish	Ian - post race	Me, Ian and Steph, post race

Stuff...
4/28/06

Yeah, so, there's always stuff going on, right? No time to write anything. We had our fabulous spring break vacation - a road trip to L.A., which was very fun. Except for the part where I got really sick and was kind of miserable but tried not to let it ruin everyone else's fun. Boo. Anyway, we went all over the place. We went to Santa Monica, Disneyland, Universal Studios, The Petersen Automotive Museum, The Huntington, The Getty Center, Hollywood Blvd., downtown L.A., and much, much more! Well, maybe not that much more.

Now we're back, and this is week 1 of training for me. I already missed a workout (last night, a run, couldn't do it because it got too late). I do need to sleep sometimes, you know. Anyway, my goal is to miss as few workouts as possible. It will be tough, but I'll do my best. I've got the Bay to Breakers coming up, which Steph, Ian and Grandma Dorothy are doing also. Then comes the Santa Cruz Sentinel triathlon. After that I get to ease off a little, then ramp up for the Hawaii half IronMan. I'm sure I'll have another Cinderella classic century in there, and maybe another century as well. I was just checking out the course profiles for the half IronMan, and the hills look big and scary. Plus it's going to be hot, and I kind of crap out in high heat. So serious training is in my future. I'm scared.

Steph and I plan to attack Mt. Diablo untill we get all the way up it. It's a pretty tough ride. I'll get to the top, though - some day.

Alrighty then, go check out all the new photos on the photo page! And take a look at the current training logs as well!

Cinderella 2006 Race Report!
3/26/06

The week leading up to the Cinderella century was not promising. It was rainy. It was cold. And I threw my back out 5 days before the ride. But I decided that if I could finish last year, after having a kidney stone removed, then I could do this too.

The day dawned cold and wet. I loaded my bike and gear into the car and headed out to Steph’s house. We got our act together, threw my stuff in her car and headed for Camp Parks. We were directed to park in a huge bog - I mean field. Our “parking guide” commented that parking thousands of female cyclists was like herding cats.

We stepped out of the car and into – a bog. It took us a while to get suited up and ready to hit the registration area. 3 or 4 steps from the car and my feet were soaked. We squelched our way across the bog and up the hill to the clubhouse, where we picked up our wristbands and rider numbers. Steph had to go back to the car for my extra pair of gloves, and then we were off!

The first leg was OK. Cold, windy, wet, but OK. It was over 20 miles to the first check point. We dried out fast in between rainy spells. We saw our first little crash almost immediately. Slippery, treacherous ground. I tried to stick to a moderate pace to save my back – I knew it could be a problem later in the ride.

At the first checkpoint we grabbed some food and headed for the toilets. Then we were off! Again! The second leg was more difficult. There were hills, there was wind and rain. It was tough going. At the end of the second leg was the lunch stop. There seemed to be a lot less people there than last year. We had a good lunch and got out of there as fast as we could. We knew that the next stretch would be the hardest.

Sure enough, it was about 12 miles of hell. Long, straight, flat road for miles and miles. HEAVY headwind, estimated at 25-30 miles per hour. It was so bad that all I could do was grind away at 5-6 mph and hope that it would all be over soon. It wasn’t. It took more than 2 hours to get through there. And no-one was passing me. The wind gusts were so strong that they threatened to whip my bike right out from under me. I saw a major crash, with a woman down and an ambulance on the way. I got rained on and hailed on, and it hurt. It was like a nightmare, and I thought it would never be over.

But all things must eventually come to an end, and I did eventually make it to the final checkpoint. I had a little more to eat, and then it was time for the final push. We noticed that a lot of women were opting to go back in the sag vans at that point, and I later read that many women cut a lot of miles off the ride by going an alternate route and trying to avoid the rough areas. We felt that we had come through the worst of it, and there was no way we were not going to ride the final 16 miles!

The last leg was the best! I knew it was almost over. Riding to the finish was awesome – I knew it was the most challenging ride I had done, and I was really proud of myself for finishing. We dropped our bikes on the grass and went into the clubhouse to pick up our patches and get a t-shirt. We had a post race meal there and chilled for a while. I listened to all the women around me swapping war stories about the day, and I was really amazed to hear that most of them had not finished. The last I heard, only about 20% of the riders actually crossed the finish line on their own steam.

According to my heart rate monitor, I burned 6350 calories on that ride. We were out on the course for about 7.5 hours total. You have no idea how much my ass hurt.

Cleaning house...
2/8/06

Something about this time of year makes me want to move everything around and get a fresh start. Currently I'm cleaning out my closet and reorganizing. It's an agonizing process. I have all these projects in mind and no time to start them, let alone complete anything. I know, one step at a time and in no time I'll be done. Riiiight.

I signed up today for the Bay to Breakers 12k run (I signed up Ian as well) and the Santa Cruz Sentinel triathlon. I'm training now for the Cinderella bike century, which is coming up in March.Busy busy! I guess I'd better get going with my training schedule. I have not been running for quite a while - I had an achilles tendon injury that I trained through for Sentinel last year, and I've been trying to let it heal. It's a lot better now, but it still bothers me a bit. I'll work out a month of training and post it.

I saw a lady with a substantial beard at Walgreens yesterday. It was...interesting.

Clearly I'm still working too much.
2/2/06

It's been a LOOOONG time since I've had even a spare moment to update this! I've been working massive amounts of overtime. I'm sitting here on hold with Dell. For some reason, they cannot get it together to send out a part to me. Why? Who knows. But I've been on hold forever and it's making me nuts.

We bought a new car! It's a Saturn Vue. It looks like this:

It's our very first NEW new car! Man, will these people EVER answer the phone??? Anyway, I'm training again for the Cinderella Century, which was tons of fun last year. This year I hope to not have a kidney stone at the same time. Things might be just a little smoother.

More later!

I work too much.
10/12/05

I really need a day off. I'm frustrated by some of my co-workers. OK, I just got yelled at by a lawyer who feels that I am personally responsible for breaking computers in the office. Now I'm not just stressed, I'm really angry. Really really angry. So angry that I may say something that I shouldn't. Hello, we are experiencing some hardware failures. I am fixing them as fast as I can. I did not break them and I cannot stop them from breaking. All I can do is fix them.

I'm so mad right now.

Official Race Results...
10/4/05

MICHELLE TAYLOR
Overall rank: 835
Total time: 03:47:57

Swim: 00:38:17
Swim rank: 806
Transition 1: 00:07:42

Bike: 01:32:12
Bike rank: 782
Bike MPH: 16.2
T-2: 00:05:16

Run: 01:24:28
Run rank: 833
Run MPH: 00:13:37

STEPHANIE ANDERSON
Overall rank: 819
Total time: 03:38:59

Swim: 00:41:29
Swim rank: 841
T-1: 00:07:50

Bike: 01:35:14
Bike rank: 810
Bike MPH: 15.7
T-2: 00:03:01

Run: 01:11:23
Run rank: 800
Run MPH: 00:11:30

Race Report!
10/3/05

Sunday morning started off mostly clear and beautiful, unlike the day before when I could barely see across the street through the fog. I got dressed and at 6AM took my transition bag and bike across the street to the transition area, got body marked, laid out all my stuff, and took my empty bag back up to the room. We spent about 45 minutes hanging out and getting into our wetsuits, then we headed out to the swim start.

The swim starts on the beach in front of the bandstand at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. I got in the water and warmed up - the water was 60 degrees. Not bad! I watched the first wave (young men) go in at 8 - a few of them in little Speedos and no wetsuits. Ah, youth. Next thing I knew, I was lining up for my wave start. Not nervous at all! They had bagpipers there (?) who started piping right before each wave went in. Then we were off! The first hurdle was clearing the &!^*$ enormous ditch and mound the race officials built to serve as the start line. I swear to god, we had to go down like 4 feet into a sand ditch and then climb at least 6 feet back out at a dead run. In wetsuits. It was hysterical - all these women hit that ditch and all I could hear was...what the *&$%# is this - who's brilliant ^%#@ idea was this... and so on. Then I was in and off. It was a FABULOUS swim, smooth and little or no chop. I got my face in and was swimming comfortably within a minute or so. No sea lions popped up to scare the crap out of me. I stuck with my age group and was out in about 38 minutes (1.5k). Woohoo! I was REALLY happy and I felt great coming out of the water. I ran up the beach and past my family, cheering me on.

So then came the run up the hill and across the street to the transition area, where I discovered that (1) I could not stand on one leg to get out of my wetsuit, and (2) I couldn't get out of my wetsuit because the heart-rate-spiking run up the hill had caused my wetsuit to become welded to my body. After a brief but seemingly endless struggle with the wetsuit, I got into my bike gear and was off! Woohoo! 26.2 miles of hills going up Highway 1 to Davenport and back. And then a little detour I didn't know about which went through some sort of park area on a narrow road that was in the worst shape I have ever seen. Very bumpy, pitted and painful. I came screaming into the dismount area where the volunteers were yelling "DISMOUNT!! DISMOUNT!!" so I dismounted, then they started screaming "RUN!! RUN!!" so I started running, which is not a great idea when you have scary racing shoes with cleats on and your legs are all wobbly and weird. But I did it anyway. Time: 1 hour 32 minutes (40k). Yay!

Now I'm ready to RUN! No, wait, I have to go find the bathroom first, because running 6 miles when you have to pee is like torture. OK, now I'm ready to run! I run out, lots of people cheering and yelling my race number. I run past my family, they are cheering and waving at me. Big smile on my face. I know that I'm done with the swim and the bike, and I know I'm going to finish. I've got more than an hour and a half to finish. If I had to walk the whole thing I could still finish. I ran just about 13 minute miles, including the several minutes I spent trying to get a rock out of my shoe before it crippled me, and walking through the water stops. Run time, about 1 hour 24 minutes (10k).

I had a great finish, I ran in very strong and the race announcer called my name and the whole crowd cheered as I came in. I got my medal in the finish chute, and I was really REALLY happy to have finished and still feel so great! We spent the rest of the day at the boardwalk, I sat on benches and soaked up the sun while Rhianna rode on everything.

Today (Monday) I still feel great - sore muscles, that's all. Oh, and I CANNOT get my race number off of my arm. I scrubbed and scrubbed and it won't come off. So don't ask me what it is. Now you know. I've also got my age on the back of my left calf, and that won't come off either. Crap.

Blisters and other issues...
9/10/05

I walked/ran between 7 and 8 miles this morning, and I have GIGANTIC blisters on my toes. They hurt. But my knee doesn't hurt at all! Woohoo! Tomorrow is a 25 mile ride/3 mile run brick workout. I hope I can run with these freakin' huge blisters. I also acquired a fence climbing injury this morning, from climbing the fence at Home Depot to use the bathroom. Actually it was AFTER I had used the bathroom, and I needed to get back on the trail. Why do they have a fence there, anyway?? I snagged my thigh on a wayward piece of fence wire. I thought it was OK, but when I actually looked at it later it didn't look so good. I guess the pain of the blisters trumped the jagged-wire thigh poke. For a while, anyway.

Oh yeah, and while I was cruising along the airfield, I got smacked in the face by a bee that wasn't looking where it was going. Didn't get stung, but it made me think about Steph's Bee vs. Human story, and I started laughing out loud (as I do every time I think about that story) and the other people on the trail thought I was crazy. And it made my sides hurt.

I'm Tired.
8/31/05

It's Wednesday. I had dental work done on three teeth yesterday afternoon, and my whole jaw still hurts. I did a 33 minute run and spent 60 minutes swimming (2000 yards) last night. I'm tired. I've got a tough spin class tonight, and tomorrow I've got an hour of Pilates and 70 minutes of running. After work, of course. And my brain hurts. There is always so much crisis in my job - broken things that need to work RIGHT NOW! Constant pressure to have all the answers.

I know that there are other people who work full time and have a family and train like I do, but it feels so hard sometimes. Sometimes I want to quit everything and disappear. Just fade away. I don't know if anyone would even notice. Maybe I'm invisible. Maybe I'm broken.

I'm just tired. It will be better tomorrow.

Updates...
8/28/05

Well, here I am making some changes to the website. Fun fun fun! I ran 6.5 miles total this morning with Ian. We walked .5 miles to the trail, ran 5.5 miles, then walked .5 miles back to the house. It was good! My ankle is sore, but it's not too bad. Tomorrow Steph and I have a 145 minute hilly bike ride immediately followed by a 15 minute run (ouch). Monday is a rest day for me.

Check out all the new pictures!

One more week until school starts! More like a week and a half, actually. The kids are very excited to be going back to school. They have orientation day next week, and they will get their class schedules and have their pictures taken (among other things). I can't believe that the summer is coming to a close

My training has been going well....last weekend Steph, Gregory and I went to Santa Cruz for a training weekend. We got to our VERY low budget hotel at the beach in the late afternoon and were told that our room with two queen beds (which I had called to confirm more than once) had been given away to someone else because they "figured we really didn't need two beds." So we got a room with one king bed and a little roll away twin bed. Jeez. Turns out that the roll away was the most comfortable.

We brought our bikes up to the room and stashed them on the balcony. Then we put on our wetsuits and headed to the beach. BTW, getting into that wetsuit was a workout in itself. We got in the water and started swimming out to the first buoy. It was hard putting my face into the water - it was very cold. It will be about 10 degrees colder when we do the race in October. We had a nice swim, I chased Steph with my feet while swimming feet first (yes, this is what we do when we are supposed to be training). I caught her, too. Then we stripped off the wetsuits and took them back to the hotel, got into our running gear and headed out on the run. Gregory ran just about the whole 10k race route, Steph and I ran about 4 miles of it. The next morning we got some food and then went out to ride the bike course on Highway 1. It's rolling hills all the way out and back. It took us 1 hour 50 minutes to do about 24 miles. We have to cut that down to 1 hour 20 minutes.

Still going strong. I've got something wrong with my ankle and it's making it hard to run, but I'm trying. Last night was 4 miles of run/walking (more running than walking), and tonight is a Pilates class.

This weekend is Steph's birthday, and we are going to Santa Cruz for a training weekend. I think we'll do an open water swim (in wetsuits) and we'll run/walk the run course on Saturday. Then on Sunday we'll ride the bike course. This will give us an idea of what our times will be like on race day. The race is a 1 mile swim, 25 mile bike and 6 mile run. I was kind of freaking out about it last night. I feel better now

OK, we've got family reunion pics, Santa Cruz pics, and Urinetown pics!

Coming soon...official cast photos from Urinetown

Now you can see what I'm up to! Woohoo! Oh yeah, and here's my official Cinderella Century race pic...click it to see it larger.

I have finally got all the pictures up! There are a TON of them, so if you want to check them out, I suggest perusing the thumbnails and only looking at the ones that pique your interest. Unless you want to suck up all the available bandwidth in your neighborhood (or building, if you're at work).

Great Britain 2005 pics are here!

Rhianna hosted a pool party at our house on Saturday, the first day of NO SCHOOL!! I'll let the picture speak for itself...

Another totally fabulous year! Rhianna graduated from elementary school with top marks in everything, and she was chosen to read her DARE essay to the graduating class (very exciting!!). She's an amazing public speaker.
See the DARE graduation pics!
See the 5th grade graduaton pics!

Ian was on the B honor roll this trimester, and at the honors ceremony he was awarded the 7th grade outstanding student award for Social Studies. This makes 2 years in a row that Ian has won the award, and there is very stiff competition. Woohoo Ian!
See the pics

Yeah, I know, but sometimes life interferes with doing web updates. So anyway...lots has happened! Let's see. I had another kidney stone, which I had removed on March 31 (2 days before the Cinderella Century). That was a great big bummer. I was not sure if I was going to be able to ride on April 2, but I did and it was GREAT! See some Cinderella pics here. I've also got an official ride photo which I will post as soon as I get it uploaded. My urologist says I'm crazy

An update...we are all healthy again, after being sick for weeks with a horrible nasty coughing illness. I'm about halfway through my training program for the Cinderella bike century, which is on April 2. Saturday's ride was a little over 40 miles, lots of flat, some rolling hills (aka "California flat"), and a climb to the turnaround point.

Here's a picture of the all female Cinderella group (withough Steph, she couldn't do the ride because she had to go to a conference in Sacramento). I'm in front of the sign, partially blocking out the word "regional.

Eric and I are currently planning a trip to Great Britain for our 17th anniversary. By ourselves! No kids! We've got a tentative plan - a couple of days in London, then 4 days in North Wales on Mt. Snowdon, then 5 days in Edinburgh, then 3 more days in London. Plus a couple of days for traveling to and from England. Fun fun fun! I'm hoping for a relaxing vacation.

Stephanie and Gregory were married on January 1! They went to Pacific Grove on New Year's Eve, had a romantic night there, and exchanged vows at 5 am outside (with a surfer as witness). On January 1 they were married before their family and friends at 5 pm. Check out the photos!

I've made a DVD containing the video and the photos, along with some super-swell music. Let me know if you'd like a copy!

On a sad note...I dropped my cell phone into the toilet yesterday. What I learned from this experience is that cell phones DO NOT like water, and Verizon employees are assholes.

And we are now counting down to Steph and Gregory's wedding...

All of the pictures from our trip to Great Britain and Paris are finally up!

I walked .5 miles, ran 4 miles, then walked another .5 miles last night. I only sort of felt like barfing afterwards. This morning Steph and I did core (abs) at the gym at 5 AM, and I'm sure that by tomorrow sneezing will make me cry.

Ian picked a purple cast. It's quite nice, and has been signed by just about everyone alive.

I'm feeling pretty much back to normal now, aside from an ache in my right kidney/ureter area. That's getting better every day. I was able to start training again, and Steph and I have a pretty active training schedule set up.

We ran inside at 5 am this morning, because there's this enormous fire in the Napa area that's causing large amounts of smoke to fill the Bay Area's air. The air quality people are saying to stay indoors and not do any outdoor exercising.

So we've got an indoor bike ride tonight, and I'll either do tomorrow's 4 mile run at 5 am, when the air quality is still good, or do it inside at night. But I really don't like running on the treadmill, it's incredibly boring and makes me want to poke someone in the eye. Be warned.

Ian broke his wrist at school on Friday. He and his friends decided that just WALKING to class would be really boring and, like, anticlimactic or something, so they decided to walk backwards instead. With about 150 pounds of backpack, just to add a little challenge. Ian got tripped by a friend and put his hand out to break his fall, and the rest is history. He's getting his cast put on today. I'll let you know what color he picks

Well, here's what's been going on with me...for quite a while now I've been struggling to pass a kidney stone. I was not able to pass it, so I had it removed last Tuesday (9/28/04).

The stone was really wedged in there, and the doc thinks it was stuck there for quite some time. I first had pain while we were in Inverness, which was right around August 1 or 2, so it's been a long time.

Anyway, I woke up in the hospital with a lot of pain, which took hours to bring under control. I got sent home after 10 PM (mistake). I went back into the hospital the next day with a return of uncontrollable pain. I continued to have episodes of severe pain thoughout the rest of the week. I was miserable and no fun AT ALL to be around.

I'm back at work now. And I'm on drugs. I'm still in pain. But it's getting a little bit better every day.