Life as I know it

I’m not very good about keeping my blog updated; I seem to find other things to do instead of writing like watching TV and ya that’s about it. I’m usually too tired to think at the end of the day and therefore if I do try to write it doesn’t make any sense at all. An example of think would be “Rode bike today, legs were tired – thought about food, I need to pick up food, why is food so expensive here? Fruit apples and bananas, monkeys eat bananas – I wonder if they have monkeys in BC?...........” And there you have it, my mind jumps from one thing to another to coma blankness.

Living on my own is pretty different then from living at home. I never would have thought that I would have moved out at eighteen and technically I haven’t “moved out” but have just been living somewhere else for the past two month. I will be going home in the beginning of June which I’m pretty excited for. I will be so nice to see everyone again and not have to ride in the rain.

One thing that I hate, I know hate is a strong word but I really, really don’t like (you) rain. (I don’t know if you got that quote from the band Plain White T’s, but that song sums up the way I feel about the rain). Being a prairie girl we almost never have to ride in the rain – and if it does rain in Sask I stay indoors if I can help it. Since I’ve been out in BC I have started to melt in the rain and not in a good way. Give me wind, hills, cold, snow, ice, even heat (I really melt in heat too but I get a nice tan from that so that’s ok) but rain just kills me every time.

I’ve been getting a lot better at hills since I’ve been out here (well duh), there are not too many big long hills around where I am living in Abbotsford but I make do. My sprinting has come along way too. I feel that it’s only my time trialing at has legged a bit behind this year. Overall though I have been improving greatly from where I was last year. I have done more races in the States this year then I have in Canada. I got a late start on racing this year, I wasn’t sure it I was ready to move up to the cat ½ and start racing with the “big dogs”. I have only raced 4 stage races this year with my first race been in April. Last year I started racing in February which is very early I know but it would have been nice to maybe start racing is March so that when the time came the bigger races started I wouldn’t have feel so nervous.

I don’t have time to write any more right now, so I’ll save my race report for another day. If I forget here is a note to self – Race the Ridge and Wenatchee Stage Race. Reports MUST be written. There shouldn’t forget now.

Cheers
JG

Update

Well the Penticton camp is now over and base miles are done with for the mean time. The camp was pretty fun it was nice to see every one again. I got a little bit sick on the camp after being out in the rain and snow for a couple hours on one ride, but just took a rest day and I was ready to get back out there. Also Advil works wonders.

After the camp my mom was going to come pick me up in Penticton and we were going to drive up to Abbotsford on the Saturday but as mother nature had it, she made a blizzard in Saskatchewan. It was pretty crazy to hear some of the stories about the white out highways and crazy high winds. All I can say about that, is that I’m so glad that I wasn’t there when it happened. So I was a stuck in Penticton by myself for a while so I camped out in the hotel room watching TV. We were only a day late with going to Abbotsford which wasn’t bad.

I had my first stage race of the year a couple days ago. We drove down to Walla Walla Washington. I was pretty nervous for the whole race because it was going to be my first time racing as a cat ½ woman. It was a lot of fun being there. It really reminded me why I like racing and reminded me that I was crazy for liking racing and the pain that comes with it. We had a bit of a Saskatchewan reunion down in Walla Walla, there were a few familiar faces that I ran into.


JG

Train Camp day two

It was day two in Penticton today and we were looking for some good riding up into Oliver than onto Twin Lakes. The ride started and my bike was making noise and jumping gears every pedal stoke or so. We stop to check it out, I just thought that the gears were off but it turned out that my chain was bent. There was nothing to fit it with right at the moment so I thought that I could ride it to the next town that was 15km up the road. It was annoying, yes, a pain and a half in the rear end, yes. The noise of the chain was driving me crazy but I made it to the town without breaking the chain. Mike Horn had to take a couple links out of the chain which meant that I couldn’t use most of my gears in the big ring. I was hoping that I would have a new chain by tomorrow but I just check that the one bike shop in Penticton is close on Mondays… Joy, oh well I’ll have to deal with it one more day. Grind or spin are my choices for tomorrow! Who needs middle gears, not me!

The trip out two OK Falls was a long and tiring trip. Seventeen or so hours it took to make it here from Regina Saskatchewan. I was going crazy by… mmm 3 hours in. I wasn’t a good start to the day. I ended up watching movies for about 5 hours of the trip, read a mag front to back and when my eyes couldn’t focus anymore I stared out the window for hours. The mood in the van was pretty mellow; it was sleep, talk, and look out the window. It was a slow trip because of the van’s monster intake of fuel. The first few gas stops were only after about 2 and a half hour. I was so nice to get to the condos and crawl into bed… I was so sleepy and tired.

Well I’m going to talk about the weather now, groan! I know. Well the weather here hasn’t been treating us that nice. The first day of riding it snow and rain… in other words it was wet and miserable. I wasn’t looking forward for a wet ride but it turned out not to be that bad, we missed the worst of it. Today it was cloudy but no rain… hopefully there will be no rain for the rest of the trip, fingers cross. On the way home the wind really picked up and bit back at us. Mother Nature seems like she can’t make up her mind this year.

Well this is it for now; I can barely keep my eyes open…..

JG

Only Weather

The weeks have been uneventful from the last time I wrote. The weather has been warming up bit by bit. Today was the first rain of the year. I was very happy to be around to see it otherwise I wouldn’t have believed it. The weekend was beautiful though, got lots on riding in, about 9 hours in total. The days all have been very windy but that’s spring in Saskatchewan. It seem like it’s almost t-shirt weather…. Wow this is lame talking about weather.

I’m off the Penticton in a couple days for the Sask Cycling climbing camp which should be fun. I hope to get lots of miles in and get faster at climbing and not go backwards for now on. I could touch on the weather and say that it’s going to be cold and wet but I won’t because I’m not going to talk about the weather any more.

Well this is all for now, hopefully I have more to talk about other then the weather…

JG

Spring Riding

Well I'm back in Saskatoon and the weather has been treating us great by Saskatchewan standers. I've been able to ride outside twice on the weekend and besides getting a bit dirty and toes freezing a little bit, it’s been fun. I think that the cars that drive beside us think that we are just a little to keen for spring to come. But the snow is melting and will hopefully (fingers crossed) will continue to. Looking at the weather forecast says that we will get into the low teen by the beginning of next week, then in the spare of two day drop to -4c and freeze everything once again and make a nice icy skating rink of the city!

Riding outside this spring seems hard, I found that it was much easier to ride in warmer weather and not be as tired. But I guess that you have to take the good with the bad. I’ve been riding my cross bike, with weights about the 23lb mark, its like biking with two people holding onto your ankles. It’s heavy and slow but it makes you work harder, or just makes you more tired, and hate that bike more. I think it’s the latter. Haha.

Today was a busy day for me; I rode for about 3 and a half hours then grabbed a bite to eat and then was off to the pool. I still swim and run in the winter, I find that its good cross training and it gives me more options other then the bike. But as soon as the snow all melts or that it becomes nice enough to ride all the time outside those other sports get put on the back shelve.

Life is like riding a bike, If it's easy , it's a sign that you're going downhill!


Cheers
JG

Tucson

Well it has been about a week since I got to Tucson and started riding. We have been very lucky with the weather here; it has been above 20c every day when riding. Our hotel is great, with pool and hot tub, but it’s a bit far from rides. We have to ride through the city for an hour or so to get out.

First day was mount lemon. Talk about easing into it; that was a slap in the face to try to climb that after 3 months on the trainer. It hurt; I hadn’t climbed a hill for probably 6 months. I was pretty dead after it.

I saw a funny commercial on TV, it is for a California milk co. and the cow says “guess we’re not in Saskatchewan anymore” I don’t know but I found it funny. Sorry this was kind of off the subject.

I wasn’t feeling that fresh for the next day of riding. It was a beautiful ride out to Gate Pass, and the view from top of the mountain. But coming from the prairies I haven’t been outside much, and just being out in the fresh air so much was tiring.

Cheers
JG

Trying to Leave

Well this is something new to write about. I was ready to fly to Tucson, all pack and set. Now the problem was to try to sleep. I don’t relish going to bed early, but I tried, it didn’t work. I had about an hour or so of sleep before I had to get up at 3:30 in the morning so that I could make my flight. I drove into the city, and the highways were extremely foggy and hard to see (this should have been my first warning sign). We are at the airport waiting in line and the line has not moved an inch in the 30 minutes that we have been waiting. They tried to move the people going to Toronto to the front of the line and get them moving, that didn't work. Why you ask, we were asking that same thing. We looked up my flight - it was cancelled! We waited another 30 minutes or so in line and finally get through and I get the craziest flight that the man could think of. Serves me right, for booking with air Canada. I am now flying as far west as possible to go south??!!?? I still don’t understand it myself. The flights were Saskatoon, Calgary, Denver and Tucson; I was OK with this. It was a bit long, but I could make do – I wasn’t too thrilled with the stop in Denver because last time I was there, they lost both my gigantic bike boxes and my bag. And I kind of needed them ASAP, because I was flying out again in a couple of days. My flight now is Saskatoon, Calgary, Vancouver, San Francisco and then Tucson.

Anyways the reason why my first flight was cancelled was because the pilot didn’t want to land in the fog. I promise that Saskatoon does not have any monsters that lurk in the fog. But then again it is Air Canada (Jazz)/ United Air… that should say it all.

So here’s what happened so far. My flight out of Saskatoon was late, surprise, surprise! While we were flying in the air, we did circles above Calgary. And when we did land there wasn’t room to dock. No big deal, I still had 15 minutes to make my flight before it took off. Calgary to Vancouver was uneventful, though we did have an Olympic athlete from Belgium on the plane. The weather in Vancouver looked nice, and things were green. Wait… this is the winter Olympics right… where's the snow??? I love Vancouver customs, the people are so personable and I don’t even have to open my bike box up xoxox. Well I still have a couple of hours to burn in the airport and I have nothing else to talk about. Once I get to Tucson there maybe some more news.

Miss you Saskatchewan… See you in the spring

Cheers
JG