Three year Anniversary!

Today marks three years for Smap and me being married!

I'm looking forward to many more happy years Smap!

Black Bear Rampage 2008

Well, this past weekend, Smap and I successfully finished the 2nd and our 2nd Black Bear Rampage. I didn't take a lot of photos this year like last year. I am hoping they will have some on the website that I can steal later.

I took the day off of school on Friday to help prepare for our two night camp at the Ocoee River. This is one of our favorite places to camp for several reasons. We love the Tanasi Trail System, Smap loves to paddle the Ocoee (I use to, but prefer not to now), and the campground is easy to get to and has a lot of shade on one side for our dog/child Ippon. We always have to take him with us of course!

We got down there and set up camp next to a good friend Shannon. She is another one of my girl friends who left Knoxville for a better city. It is okay though, she is only in Nashville, so I still see her frequently at mountain bike races! Shannon was camping with another friend of ours (Ed), who is from Knoxville, but we camp with him more than see him. It was nice hanging with them off and on all weekend.

The weather could not have been perfect for this year's race. Last year it poured in the beginning, leading to a sloppery wet crappy ride for me. Tons of issues last year. This year's problem for me was cramping. After finishing the race and speaking with most of my friends, I was not the only one who experienced major cramping this year. I have never popped so many Endurolites in my life, but thank goodness I had them because they saved my life for the last 20 of the total 44 miles.

Smap entered the men's single speed division and got 5th place. I think he was twice as old as the guys who beat him and he was only 1:30 behind 3rd. He did awesome. He also improved his time from last year by like 8 min's or something. And, they made the race longer this year by adding a two mile ride up the street to the turn in onto Brushy Creek trail. This was to break up the mass start in each category. I was very proud of him for the lack of training both of us had put into preparing....I married a natural.

My race was good too. I was of course the only single speeding female out there. I got combined into the W's sport category. The ride up the street wasn't too bad on my single speed...I think I went onto Brushy Creek in 4th position out of 14 Sport Women. I finished 5th. I improved my overall time from last year by 14 min's. I was disheartened at the awards ceremony because I was under the impression that my W's sport category was going to be divided into two age groups....up to 34, and then 35 and over. The top three women who won were all over 35, which would have put me on the podium for a 2nd place. WOULD HAVE.....they decided to combine our age groups and just make one group since "there weren't enough of us" to warrant two classes. I CALLED B.S. on that one!!!! There were 2 guys who finished the BURLY BEAR division and they both got to get up on the podium and receive prizes....3 pro women, podium and prizes, 3 juniors under 18...yep, podium and prizes.....but, we only had five in our age group and 9 in the 35+ age group, so we didn't have enough! Ridiculous... I was so disgusted by this I just couldn't stand it. I only wanted to have my photo made on the podium standing near Gary Fisher (one of my icons)... Their prizes sucked, so it sure as hell wasn't about that. UGGG.

Anyway, enough ranting. The race was fun and I got to see a lot of friends, and meet new people. One of my friends that I met this summer at a race is 47 and she kicked major butt to get 2nd in our field....she did all this with MS and a cracked rib.....yes, MS!!

I especially enjoyed the weekend because it was kind of Smap and my 3rd anniversary weekend...three years on October 1st!

We'll see if I can get over my frustrations with the store who put the race on this weekend and possibly compete next year. I did get to meet and talk with Gary Fisher a few times. Gary was roommates with Kent Bostick...a Knoxville pro cyclist who is still a pro in his 50's now. Smap met Gary a few years ago at Trek World and found out that they had Kent as a friend in common, so it was cool when Smap walked up to Gary on Friday night and Gary remembered Smap. Smap did take my photo with Gary, but I don't know if it is an acceptable photo by my standards to publish on my blog (I looked gross). :-)

Happy Birthday to all my friends...

Tonight Smap and I went to a good friend's 30th birthday party (Josh Reed).  I was sat next to someone I didn't know and ended up having a great time.  Turns out, the gal I was sitting next to graduated the year behind me at Bearden High back in the EARLY nineties.  I LOVE meeting new people and I especially LOVE meeting and talking to people from the past, or people that I normally don't get the chance to talk to.  

When I was going to school, I went to quite a few schools.... I went from Rocky Hill Elementary, to Blue Grass when my mom moved after my first grade year.  I then went to Bearden Middle for all of one week in middle school until my mom decided that taking us to school every day was way too much and riding the bus that we were zoned for was a lot easier for her.  I understand why she transfered us after that week. Starting six grade twice was pretty hard....so, I went to Bearden to Farragut Middle.  I hated Farragut.  And, being a twin was hard for me.  I hated that people considered me the same person as my sister even though we were so different...we fought a lot in the 7th grade... it all had to do with me having my own identity. When my mom and dad gave us the option of splitting up, I was all over it.  I transfered to Webb for my eighth grade year and lasted there for all of two years.  I just couldn't stand the clicks there.  I had some friends, but I think I was a little toooooo tomboy to remain.  I joined my twin back at Bearden High for 10th grade (we had our own identities at that point).  My mom switched her over when she was a freshman.  Bearden was awesome and  I am so glad I went to that high school.  I probably could have changed schools every year because I just enjoyed meeting new people every day.  It wasn't until high school that I actually enjoyed being a twin because we meet twice the people...twice the friends.  College was very interesting for us because randoms would come up to me on campus and tell me very private things.  So private that I would just basically run as fast as I could away from these strangers later realizing....CRAP, they thought I was Larkin.  Sometimes I would just let the random people tell me the really personal crap and try later to describe the people to my sister...and their stories.  We both went through this quite often and it became pretty funny.  One time in high school we were both dating two guys from Catholic High.  We were all four big snow skiers, so we went on a big double date up to Ober Gatlinburg one night (this was back when there was snow on a regular basis up there).  So, my boyfriend got out of the car and planted a big huge kiss on my sis....thinking of course it was me.  We all four looked at each other really funny, so then to get back at my boyfriend, my sister's boyfriend and I gave each other a replicated kiss to get back.  TOO FUNNY....

Getting back to meeting people.  Smap use to get upset with me for talking to randoms every where we went.  UNTIL 2005....we were standing up on Brass Town Bald in Georgia waiting on the Tour de Georgia to come up the mountain.  This was Lance's "last American tour" (I say this because he is now coming out of retirement and racing the Tour de GA next year now).  Anyways, we were standing up there freezing our asses off, so I took it upon myself to start talking to a gal standing there in her Dansko clogs ( I heart Dansko clogs and have quite a few pairs).  She and I became fast friends and come to find out she was the wife of Tom Danielson, who is/was on Lance's Discovery Team....  After an hour of shooting the sh-t with her, I called Smap over to photograph the two of us....he was like, "why the hell do you want a photo with a person you just met????"....I told him who she was and he was like, "oh, okay"...and then he became fast friends with her.  Her husband was the first up the mountain that day and won the stage.  Smap landed a press pass to the press conference from our friend Jimi Flynt (she works at HGTV and called the Tour giving them a BS story about HG doing some story on the tour, so she got a nice week long press pass).  Jimi was exhausted from standing in the cold all day, so she gave him her pass....good thing her name is Jimi because when Smap ran up there, they were like, "and your name????"...Smap said, "Jimi"....it wouldn't have worked if her name had been Katie.  He was in the press conference with Kristen (Tom's wife), so Kristin got Tom's autograph for Smap's  Discovery jersey.....then, Tom asked Smap, "Can Lance sign it too"....HOLY COW!!!!!!..... So, to make a long story short, Smap no longer minds if I talk to strangers.  You just don't know who you are going to meet.  I like talking to strangers....well, if they are sane of course.  

Back to the birthdays...I got way off tangent.  Another friend of ours Phil Rader, turned 60 last Sunday.  He is an incredible cyclist and we spent Wednesday evening riding Haw Ridge with him.  I love our friends and I am so grateful to have them.  I am so glad Smap turned me onto mountain biking like he did too.  I use to cringe when he made me go mountain biking and now it is the other way around.  Road biking...cringe cringe.... I still do it, but it is sooooo hard for me now.  I would so much rather be on a trail mastering crap that I have been trying for years to master.  And, there are ZERO cars.  Mountain bikers are SO laid back too....beer after every ride...that is what it is all about.

Enough... sorry for the ramble, but sometimes it is necessary.  

commuting

I have been doing a lot of commuting lately.  For one thing, I really don't want to pay for gas right now....it is a joke.  I despise gas companies....greedy greedy greedy!   I also despise people who don't think cyclists have a right to be on the roads.  One a-hole tried to run me off the road tonight while I was riding down Northshore Drive.  Tennessee passed a law recently mandating that vehicles give cyclists three feet on the roads....I am seeing a lot of people are completely ignorant to this.  I also hear on a regular basis, people in vehicles purposely trying to cause harm to cyclists.  What is the point?  We really don't take up that much space, and if we are slowing down traffic, then that could be a good thing sometimes.  People are driving way too fast anyways.   JUST VENTING....

I leave my car parked quite a bit...I reserve my gas for trips to Haw Ridge and the grocery store.  

That is about it.  Nothing much is new....just a lot of needy sixth graders this year.......

My little Fish-head

Smap and I were totally not expecting to fall in love with our cat.  Neither one of us have ever been "cat" people.  Both my parents have always had cats, but I have never really clicked with any of them before.  

We greedily wanted a cat to get rid of the stupid squirrels that continue to get into our attic and make all sorts of messes and cause a lot of damage to house.  But, we fell for him.  He has quickly become part of our family.  Ippon isn't all that happy about a hyper little cat in the mornings.  He has kind of spoiled Ippon's quiet mornings of eating oatmeal and watching the news with us in peace.  Fisher is coming along though.   We just recently resorted to squirting him with a little water bottle when he just won't leave Ippon alone.  

Fisher is really cool though.  He loves oatmeal everyday on his food just like Ippon and he really loves him Sunday pancakes as well.  He hasn't killed anything as far as I know, but we are giving him time.  We just really lucked out with him being so cool.  Besides his morning hyper activity, he is pretty dang mellow like the rest of us in the house.  He fits in well.

I am FINALLY feeling better, but the cold still lingers.   I have been back on the bike and I feel great on the trails.  

My sis is coming in this weekend, so I am looking forward to seeing her.  We like to drive Smap crazy....she is the sister he has never had.  :-D

Being sick is just not fun at all..

Being a teacher, I put myself if germ's way every day.  Last year I think I managed to only get sick at the beginning of the school year just like this year.  Luckily I didn't get hit by the flu last year as it was a horrible one.  They even closed school for two days.  That was nice.  I haven't been super sick, just not well enough to ride my bike....  I think though today I am going to try to get back in the saddle.  At least do a small ride out at the Ridge.  I think I am suffering now from withdrawals.  

One of my friends recently sent me a link to a Knoxville Tourism video that I somehow was put in.  I was down at the boulevard about 3-5 years ago or so riding my road bike on a nice spring day.  It was one of those days that I thought I would just wear an OLD jersey... my super old Bike Zoo jersey (it is like 9-10 years old).  I refuse to get rid of it because the colors are so pretty...my favorite colors blue and yellow.  I don't ever wear the Bike Zoo stuff any longer because well, my husband is one of the owners of Cedar Bluff Cycles, and I am a part-time employee there as well.  Anyway, of course there is a HUGE close-up of me in my bright blue and yellow Zoo jersey riding that day.  Here is the link....www.downtownknoxville.org/video/index.html

I am sort of in the middle of the video.

I went downtown for First Friday last night with my mother-in-law (Barbara), Jay, Leslie, and my new little niece Anna.  Unfortunately I could not go near her due to my stupid cold, but I must say she is the CUTEST baby ever.  I am not just saying it either....she is very pretty already!  I look forward to watching her grow up.

Black Bear Rampage is coming up at the end of the month.  Maybe all this rest I am getting will suit me well for my race?  We'll see.  I really hope it isn't raining this year!  BUT, every race I have ever done there, or been signed up for there, has been RAINY.  It never rains there when we are down there just for training or fun....only on race days.

My dad's BULL....

My dad brought me lunch to school today and I was showing him my blog....which he checks every once and a while... He wanted me to clarify that Crocket is a BULL...he still has his balls right Dad?!?!? :-) If he chops them off, then he becomes a stear and he wouldn't be able to get Rebecca preggers.... Right Dad??

Smap and I had a WONDERFUL Labor Day weekend! Smap rode 4 days straight starting on Friday evening. I rode three... I got sick Saturday down at the Ocoee @ 20 miles into our ride. I go through this basically at the beginning of the school year....all the germ over-load is just a bit too much for my system. Hopefully the BLOCKADE will kick in soon.

Too bad the Vols lost last night. Not sure if I will make it to any games this year if they don't shape up! I don't remember even if I went to any games last year. I am one of those fans who goes for the team only if they are winning....so we will see. But, my little brother has a cool place in the Fort now, so we have a cool place to go to for pre and post parties!