If You Can Dodge Traffic You Can Dodge a Ball

If Patches O'Houlihan is to believed, ESPN8 "the ocho" ought to start filming dodgeball games in Southeast Asia. No crosswalks, no traffic lights or signs, and sidewalks that exist solely for parking; as of this writing, I have not seen an accident or near miss. The difference seems to come from a recognition by drivers that the road is not personal property. It is a space shared by cars, motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians, vendors, and animals. My observation is that the maximum speed for any given vehicle on a stretch of road is much lower than what an American driver would hit; the difference between the minimum and maximum speeds for the American would be much larger. Drivers here don't stop but they seem to be aware of their surroundings so it is safe for a pedestrian to cross eight lanes of traffic while no driver is inconvenienced. Traffic moves much more fluidly.  There are many motorbikes on the roads and they are able to dodge pedestrians much more effectively than cars and trucks.  It seems to terrify most of the people that I have tried to cross the road with, but I am continually amazed at just how fluid it is.

Although I can handle the traffic, it does make it much more difficult for those who are not as agile.  Near my hostel in Chiang Mai there was one pedestrian light.  You had to call it yourself and it would give you a 15 second red light to cross four lanes of one way traffic.  Usually, once the drivers didn't see anyone else crossing the street, they continued on, regardless of the light.  One night I saw a three legged dog trying to cross the road.  The curbs are over a foot high and there is no shoulder on the road so it was difficult for him to cross one lane at a time which is what I often did.  Instead, he patiently sat by the crossing button until someone came along and pressed it, allowing him to cross.  Although it took him longer than the allotted fifteen seconds to cross, drivers still waited for him.

Being in Singapore for the last few days has made me realize just how much I missed orderly traffic.  As much as I got used to dealing with dodging traffic, it is so much less stressful when you are reasonably certain that someone won't run a red light and kill you.

Thanksgiving, Cambodian Style

I'm one of the few Americans who does not particularly enjoy Thanksgiving. I find it stressful, I'm not a huge fan of traditional Thanksgiving foods, and it is placed so close to both Veterans Day and Christmas on the calendar that I think it would be more useful in March or August when you've been in long period of no days off.

I haven't met many Americans so far in Cambodia so I didn't find anyone who was longing for a Thanksgiving. This is the third time in the past four years that I have spent the holiday on my own so I wasn't too upset because I didn't have my turkey.

S-21

I arrived in Phnom Penh on Tuesday. On Wednesday I went to the museum at the site of the former S-21 prison of the Khmer Rouge. The site was a school that had been repurposed as a prison and you could still see how it looked like a school. The buildings still were set up as classrooms, except for lines set apart every few feet, indicating where a cell wall had been located; one of the buildings still had the cells intact. The playground equipment was still in the yard. Only later is it revealed that the equipment had been utilized as instruments of torture. The area is full of flowers and palm trees; the complex is still surrounded by double metal walls and barbed wire. The museum was emotionally draining and I went back and had a pretty low key evening.

Excavated graves

Memorial stupa

The next morning I rented a bike and rode an hour through Cambodian traffic to the Killing Fields at Cheung Ek.  I was shocked at just how small the complex is. The prisoner drop off, detention center, and office were all within ten meters of each other. No buildings were left after the war so the complex is just fields, along with a memorial near the entrance. As I looked out, the fields are marked with depressions in the earth. It looked a little strange at first but I later learned that these were the sites of graves not massive enough to designate with extra signs. I spent a few hours taking in the area and learning about the Khmer Rouge. At the entrance (and the end of the tour) is a memorial.
This stupa is filled with bones so high that it was impossible to stand in it and see what was in the levels near the top; a photograph could only capture maybe a quarter of it in any given shot.

I had an hour ride back to Phnom Penh in the early afternoon heat to contemplate everything I had learned in the past 24 hours. This genocide is so recent that I have met Cambodians who are not too old and remember relatives fleeing the country. I have never been one to take account of what I have; this is the first Thanksgiving where I felt compelled to think through what I take for granted in my daily life. This trip as a whole has made me much more aware of what I have come to assume is normal but is actually a sign of privilege. However, spending Thanksgiving seeing the mechanisms of genocide first hand was by far the most thankful that I have ever felt for all that I take for granted in my life.

Scuba weekend

The only hard dates that I had for this trip was 9-23 Dec I had a massage course in Chiang Mai. I had almost three weeks from when I left Bangkok until the start of the course so my original plan was to spend a few days in Phnom Penh, another few days in Siem Reap (near Angkor) then the rest of the time in Laos. It always seems like there is so much time when you write plans down.

After spending a depressing few days in Phnom Penh and realizing that I had no beach plans until Christmas, I decided to pull out my scuba referral from last winter and finally get my open water certification. A dive shop in Sihanoukville, Scuba Nation, had an overnight trip that worked perfectly with my schedule and they were very accomodating of my last minute plan to get certified. So, Saturday morning I hopped on a bus and a few hours later I was in a pool. A few hours at the dive shop doing drills, written work, and talking to the instructor and I was cleared to go on the boat the next morning.

The boat ride out was a little rough but I was fine at first. Almost everyone else was feeling a little sick so they skipped breakfast, leaving only a few of us to eat it. I should have remembered how pineapple makes me sick. It is one of my favorite foods but it makes me sick every time I eat it. So, after eating at least two thirds of a pineapple in pretty rough water, I decided I needed to lay down. Of course, I had been applying sunscreen but every place to lay down on the boat was sunny so I laid with my back to the sun. I think you can figure out how this story ends. I hadn't been sick my entire trip but the combination of pineapple, rough sea, and sunburn proved more than my stomach could handle.

Soon we arrived at the dive site. One other diver was also doing his open water dives so we were paired up. Actually being in the ocean was so different from being in the pool. The water was warm and we had over 20m visibility. We did a few drills at the beginning of each dive, then floated along for the next 45 minutes or so, doing two dives each day.

Aside from the burn (which seemed to bother everyone else more than me at the time) the trip was exactly what I needed: time to sit in the sun, float around in the water, and let my brain be overwhelmed by something crazy, such as breathing underwater.

Bangkok: Not the Hangover

Full disclosure: the Hangover 2 formed almost all of my pre-arrival perception of Bangkok. Thankfully, that was not my experience.

I came to Bangkok to eat and get cheap massages. I succeeded on both counts, and was pleasantly surprised by the rest of what Bangkok had to offer.
My first full day was spent sightseeing: the palace, Wat Poh, Arun Wat. Everything was so shiny that it was hard to see in the sun. I was surprised by how close together the buildings in each complex are. Individually they are quite large and would be impressive; together they are crammed in so tightly that it is difficult to appreciate the buildings in isolation. This may be intentional so that one doesn't place a higher value on one building than the complex that it supports, but I still kept finding myself wishing that I could see each for its own merits.

The next day I took as a rest day since I was pretty beat up from the heat and sun the day before. I planted myself in one of the malls and got some good people watching in. Later I saw the new Bond movie, Skyfall. I was very confused when buying the ticket at the counter because I didn't understand what the girl was asking me. She kept showing me a seating chart for the theater; I finally worked out that you buy a particular seat, the same way you would for most other venues in the US.
My final day in Bangkok was spent wandering around, starting at the Independence Memorial, past the zoo, palace, Golden Mount, Ratchanatda temple and the Giant Swing. I'm not sure why it is called the giant swing. I was expecting something pretty epic, but it was basically just a gate, not a giant swing set :-(  I walked through what appeared to be the Buddha market district on my way back. It was shop after shop of Buddha statues of all sizes and colors.

My hostel was located near the red light district so there was always good people watching. In particular, at night you could plant down at any street facing bar and see lady boys strutting around, as well as the female prostitutes and, primarily, older white men. In fact, I was kicked out of a bar one night because we didn't place our orders quickly enough for their taste and we were informed a group of prostitutes needed the space.
Unfortunately, this scene has been pretty common everywhere I've been so far. Most of the time they are young Asian prostitutes and older white men; occasionally the two are married. I was told that it was becoming such a problem that the Cambodian government enacted rules regarding the age difference between a native and foreigner attempting to get married. I have yet to see an Asian man and white woman (I have seen plenty of Asian American men who, after eavesdropping, are definitely American). It is something that really bothers me every time I see it and I'm still trying to reason out why. I'm normally okay with letting people do whatever they want to as long as it is not harmful and non-destructive. It's definitely not the age difference since I have no problem with couples with large age gaps and I don't think it is a racial thing because I don't think I'd think twice if I saw the same couple walking around in the US. I keep getting flashbacks to my history textbooks and their images of old colonial officials. I think it is the implied power differential that exists that is very unsettling to me.

I'll update this post once I have my pictures. They are currently zipped up on my memory card and I can't access them.

I'm Totally Not a Shoe Girl But...

I love my FiveFingers.  I think anyone who knows me already knows this, but since I'm travelling and trying to get better about blogging, the world is getting this post.

Hiking to Lantau Peak in Hong Kong

Reasons FiveFingers are Awesome Travel Shoes:

1. They keep your feet much cooler than sneakers but are much sturdier than flip flops.
2. You can wash them in the shower.
3. Given that outside of DC and stair races they aren't very common, they're a good conversation starter.
4. They take up very little space in a bag and weigh next to nothing.
5. When flying in the United States, I've only ever had to remove them once at airport security. I don't know if this is a TSA policy or if they just don't see it often.
6. Better grip on slick roads and sidewalks. I heard this from a fellow five finger enthusiast so I can't personally vouch for this but he said when he was in Singapore during the rainy season his fivefingers were the only shoes he had that allowed him to walk without slipping everywhere.


Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.

Hong Kong

Cal, the master of promoting all things Cal, wanted to me to clarify that this week in Hong Kong is not actually part of my sabbatical, but rather, my sabbatiCal.  (He's been letting me crash on his couch so I'm not in a position to deny this request).  Now onto slightly less Cal related things...

Given that I really needed a chance to recharge after a hectic couple of months, easing into travel by first crashing in Chicago for a few days and then spending a relaxing week in Hong Kong has proven to be a good decision.  I was able to get over jet lag quickly, take my time wandering around the city, and still tie up some loose ends back in DC without feeling like I was wasting limited time.

The weekend was spent hanging out with Cal and his friends and was pretty low key in general.  I was exhausted for most of it, although I think it had more to do with me being run down than with jet lag.  Sunday morning I decided to run the stairs in Cal's apartment building.  Given that the weekend before I placed fifth in my age group at the Willis Tower race, I thought a twenty eight story residential stairwell should be fine.  In fact, the stairwell wasn't much longer than my office stairwell, but it was so dusty and the air here is so miserable that I was struggling to breathe by the top.  Given that I think I'm in better aerobic shape now than I have been in a long time, I now understand why there isn't much of a fitness culture in Hong Kong.  Later that night Cal and I met up with a friend of his to hike up to the Peak.  From here we could see over the whole city.  I got gelato at the top, breaking my almost 48hr chocolate fast.  We took the tram down which reminded me of a slow roller coaster but was actually a pretty neat experience.

Before planning this trip I wasn't aware that Hong Kong is a city with the country just on the edges.  I heard that one of the islands, Lantau, had good hiking and a giant Buddha.  It was enough to sell me on the idea so I hopped on the MTR and within forty minutes I was queued for the cable car that goes to the big Buddha.  The Buddha sits on top of a hill and is huge so it could be seen from the cable car; up close it was even more impressive.  There is a monastery nearby, so I wandered over there for some vegetarian dim sum.  I then continued onto an art exhibition called the Wisdom Path which is a series of wooden stakes with passages from the Heart Sutra painted on them; these stakes are arranged in an infinity symbol on the side of a hill.  I was feeling pretty adventurous so I decided to hike up to Lantau Peak.  I had read this was a strenuous hike, but I am in pretty good shape so I decided to go for it.  The peak sits at 934m and the hike itself was pretty vertical on stone steps.

You thought I'd go to Asia without them?

YIt took about forty five minutes and I was so hot that my pant legs were rolled most of the way up and I was in just a tank top.  I passed a lot of people near the bottom of the trail.  Most were only hiking up high enough to get some good photos.  I don't think I saw anyone for the last twenty or thirty minutes of the hike up.  Since I didn't see anyone on my way up and I was drenched in sweat, I was very surprised to find two guys dressed in jeans and flannel shirts at the top.
They were both from Hong Kong and very surprised that as a tourist I chose to leave the city and go hiking.  I opted to go down the other side of the mountain which, while rolling, was preferable to the vertical climb down which was my other option.  I reached the bottom of the mountain, continued on the trail for a little bit longer, then hit the highway.  I hopped on the bus and was halfway across the island in twenty minutes.

The next day my legs were dead from my hike so I opted for a beach day.  I headed down to Stanley which is a beach town on the south side of Hong Kong island.  It reminded me of the Mediterranean.  I felt at ease for the first time since I arrived in Asia; for someone so pale I have a real fondness for the beach.  I wandered through a park that goes along the water for awhile, spent some exploring the woods off the path, then headed down to the beach.  The beach was kind of sandy but mostly slightly larger rocks; they weren't rough to walk on and they weren't so small they got into everything.  I slept, read, wrote up some notes, and ate chocolate.  The water was warm and clear; I somehow forgot to bring a swimsuit and the beach was not at all secluded so skinny dipping was out of the question.

Stupidly forgot my swimsuit

I eventually headed back towards Cal's, catching the MTR during rush hour.  I was warned of how crazy it could get.  Maybe I had my expectations set too high, but I didn't find rush hour to be crazy.  Everything was very orderly, albeit crowded, and people were very patient about waiting for the next train.

Mine is much smaller than Jackie Chan's

It was comparatively warm out the next day so I headed to the museum campus.  I started with the Avenue of the Stars which is Hong Kong's version of Hollywood's Walk of Fame.  From there I continued onto the art museum and was underwhelmed.  Hitting the local art museums is something I enjoy doing in a new place, along with climbing to the highest points, and checking out the underground city.  Half of the six exhibition halls were closed and the three that were open were quite underwhelming.  There was very little explanation about the work there and I didn't find myself really getting into anything.  Next was the space museum.  It was small and pretty elementary but I thought it was well done and entertaining enough.  I spent the next few hours wandering down the Kowloon waterfront and eating.

Sha Tin Race Course

That evening I headed to the racetrack.  Apparently horse racing is the only legal form of gambling in Hong Kong so the races are very popular.  There were lots of old men there, many just sitting in the betting rooms watching the race on the tv screens.  It was my first horse race that I remember (my dad tells me he took me once when I was very small and I was terrified by the horses charging towards me) and I thought it was worth the time just to see expats and locals all taking very different approaches to enjoying the same activity.

In summary, Hong Kong was much more varied in its terrain than I was expecting.  You can get to some great hikes and beaches in under an hour on public transit.  The food is good, plenty of variety, and it's much cheaper than most major cities I've been to.  The only real issue that stuck out to me regards traffic.  The city is very efficient at moving people around, but once they are off of mechanized transport, it seems to fall apart.  I think this is the one thing that really bothered me.  There is no established foot traffic pattern, people walk very slowly, and no one seems to think it's a problem if you just stop in the middle of the sidewalk for no apparent reason.  I am generally a fast walker and walk like I'm in a rush to get somewhere so I always think people move slowly, but Hong Kong stands out singularly in how inefficient foot travel is.

Easing into Sabbatical

After a year or so of growing restless I finally took the plunge and decided to get out of DC.  This was a tough decision because I actually like DC.  Of all the cities I have traveled to, DC has always felt the most comfortable and home like to me.  I didn't dislike my job, friends, or life in general.  The problem was that for the past three years I have felt restless.  I wanted to get out and see something different, pushing myself to grow in ways that I wasn't able to in DC.

About a year ago a friend of mine moved to Hong Kong and has been bugging me ever since to visit.  Asia has never been particularly high on my list of must sees; I always viewed it as the type of place that I wouldn't turn down a trip there, but if planning my own I would probably go elsewhere.  About a year ago I realized that a perfect combination of direct flights from Chicago, my sister's birthday (in Chicago), the Willis Tower race, a change in my company's time keeping system, and the best weather of the year occurred in early November.  I decided to bank as much vacation as possible so I could take a three week trip.  In early spring I started to burn out.  I was teaching two to six classes a week, two weekly front desk shifts at the yoga studio, giving two bike tours a week, and working a full time job in addition to still trying to have a social life and stay in shape.  I was enjoying everything but I knew it was unsustainable.  In July I took my sister to the west coast to celebrate her graduation.  My ulterior motive was that I wanted someone to ride STP with me and knew she would deal with a 200 mile bike ride if I just kept telling her it was a good idea.  I decided to burn more vacation time than I planned but after two weeks I still hadn't satisfied my restlessness.

It was around this time that I started to toy with the idea of leaving my job and travelling around Asia for a few months.  As a last minute plan, I hadn't saved up specifically for this trip so the length of my travelling would be capped at a few months and limited to countries with a low cost of living; Southeast Asia fit my requirements perfectly.  I am terrible at advance planning when no one else is affected; organizing events for groups is not a problem but I just can't do it for myself.  So, even as I write this from Hong Kong, I still do not have a good idea of what route I will take.  The rough itinerary, without date projections is:
Bangkok --> Phnom Penh --> Angkor --> Laos --> Chiang Mai --> beach time --> Singapore and Malaysia --> Philippines

I will do my best to upload some photos and trip reports to this blog.  Additional photos will be available at some point on Facebook as well.

Ugh, Not Another Utkatasana

I've noticed in both my personal practice and my teaching lately that I have shying away from chair pose (utkatasana).  This is a very common pose and part of the surya B sequence so I encounter it in every class I take and teach.  Utkatasana is sometimes referred to as "victory pose."  Lately, this pose has not been feeling very victorious.

I first noticed my aversion to chair pose this summer.  In my years of practice I had never disliked this pose and I used to teach it frequently.  I create my classes from my practice and I did a lot of cycling this summer. I began to incorporate more front body stretches and a lot of quad openers (which I believe to be lacking in most classes).  Chair pose is a quad strengthener and I began to reduce how often I included it in my classes.

In class a few weeks ago, the instructor had us sit back in chair pose.  A very common instruction, but as I sat there in my chair pose I found myself growing irritated.  She then instructed us to fold forward and the irritation dissipated.  Round 2 of surya B: same problem.  Each time she had us come to chair pose, I found myself coming into it with progressively straighter legs; my level of irritation and the angle between my thighs and calves seemed to be inversely related.  I kept at this experiment for the next week or two, playing with how irritated I was compared to how deep my squat was.  I finally decided that if I didn't want to be irritated I should just avoid the pose (avoiding the problem rather than solving it).  I began only teaching one chair pose in each of my classes and practicing it with such minimal flexion that my legs probably appeared to be fully extended.

I'm not sure why I decided that this pose was going to irritate me and I'm not sure that it matters.  I believe that I need to re-incorporate it into my practice and simply allow these feelings of irritation.  I need to sit with my irritation and acknowledge that some poses just don't feel right sometimes.  What I need to remember is that avoidance is not a good long term coping mechanism.  I have done this with other poses before, most notably pigeon pose.  I hated pigeon and avoided it at all costs.  I still tend to shy away from teaching pigeon but I have come to terms with it and will practice it in class without cursing out my teacher too much.

My practice will always present challenges.  Today my challenges are manifesting themselves in chair pose.  These challenges will not go away, but my ability to handle them is in my control.  Just as I worked through my frustrations with pigeon pose, only to have them reappear in my chair pose, my frustrations will appear again someplace else once I am comfortable with chair pose again.  Dealing with these frustrations is where my practice really begins.

Maybe Running Isn't That Bad After All...

I'm sure many of you have heard me complain about running.  It's never been my favorite way to exercise and as far as transportation is concerned, there are much more efficient ways to get someplace.  Unfortunately, I'm pretty competitive and I've been hanging around runners.  After some friendly reminders of looming registration deadlines, my non-runner friend and I decided to sign up for the Marine Corps 10k this October.  When we signed up this past winter it seemed like we had forever to get in shape.  I was good about getting in two or three short runs a week in March/April-ish, but that slowed down to pretty much nothing until a few weeks after my July vacation.  To deal with my lack of motivation, I decided to figure out what it was about running that I didn't like.

Reason #1: Shoes
Pretty much the only equipment that running requires is shoes.  As you may know, shoes are one of the few things in the world that I really dislike.  When I would train in high school I'd always run barefoot; swimming is my ideal sport.  Thankfully I learned about Vibram FiveFingers a few years ago and they have become my go to keep-my-feet-out-of-a-surgeon's-hands tool (one time was more than enough).  Runners are advised to transition to FiveFingers slowly in order to give the feet time to strengthen.  My problem was the opposite; my feet and stride were fine to go barefoot, but I didn't have the strength to run more than a mile or two.

Reason #2: Never running for fun
This goes back to my high school field hockey days when we ran and ran and ran and the only thing that kept me running was the terror of dealing with Coach if I stopped.  I never had that experience with swimming or biking and I realized that to train for this 10k I needed a new approach to running.

After returning from vacation, I drew up a plan to address these two problems.  The shoe issue was pretty straight forward.  Since barefoot running is topic du jour, I figured I would have plenty of minimalist shoes to choose from that would give me enough support that I could build up mileage pretty quickly, but minimal enough that I didn't hate them.  However, my tiny feet limited my options to a single pair in stock at the shoe store.  Thankfully they've been great so far and I plan to race in them.  To deal with the running-for-fun problem I realized I just needed to go out and run.  It was pretty tough at first, but eventually I realized that I was kind of enjoying myself.  When I mentioned this to one of my runner friends, he strongly warned against the GPS watch.  Don't worry, I've already run into that problem :-)

Running has been okay for the past few weeks, but we'll see how the next two months go :-)

Just Ride

Last night I was riding over to a local bike shop for their regular Tuesday night ride.  I decided in late July that I wanted to improve my cadence, so I finally broke down and bought a Garmin (I held out for over a year).  I know I look at it way too frequently when I ride, but I didn't realize just how dependent I had become until last night.  I had knocked the cadence sensor out of alignment but I didn't realize it until it was too late to stop and fix it (because I couldn't let the middle aged guys who I have an unofficial race with win).  I didn't know how much it had changed my riding habits until then.  I was rolling away from the shop staring at the blank reading and trying to figure out how I was going to make it through the ride.

Obviously, this wasn't going to directly affect my ability to ride.  I've ridden my entire life up until a few weeks ago without a Garmin.  However, it messed with my head so much that I was a little concerned about how reliant I was on this little computer.  I was actually considering not riding because of a sensor being kicked a few centimeters off.  Bad weather, illness, and mechanical problems didn't phase me, so I was shocked by my reaction to this.

Instead of continuing to freak out, I decided to shut the computer off and just ride.  I've ridden that route with those same guys all summer; I had no need for the data.  I realized that without my computer to race against, I just raced against the same guys I always race against; nothing had actually changed.

STP Day 2: Frances is still alive and speaking to me

We left the Salvation Army in Centralia where we had spent the night for the start line around 615. I had originally intended to go without my wind breaker because it was supposed to warm up and it was only going to take up space in my jersey pocket I could use for food instead (I was practically a grocery store with the amount of food I had by the end). It was mid-50s with a decent head wind though so thankfully I opted for the jacket. Frances wouldn't draft off of me so I decided to draft off of her for the first ten or fifteen miles since she was pulling anyways.

Waiting to go over a bridge

Fran was struggling but I expected that. I pushed her pretty hard the day before. However, this was the day of long steady climbs and some steep shorter climbs. Frances who hadn't even seen a hill for several months before coming to Seattle was not happy. It turns out that her left cleat was in a bad position and was pinching a nerve every time she pushed down on it. I didn't realize this until mile 160 or so when it hurt too much for her to keep quiet. I moved the cleat which prevented the pain from worsening and she had a medic tape it up but whatever pain was there stayed for the rest of the day.

Puppy in the Burley!

On the flip side, I hadn't had legs that good in a long time. Granted, I was stopping at the end of every rolling section to wait for Frances but I was flying up the hills, passing tons of people I normally would not be passing. At mile 150 there was a bridge which we had to cross in waves because of the traffic pattern. We were near the front of the wave, maybe 70 people back. I told Fran I would meet her on the other side of the bridge, then I went for it. I wasn't riding too fast for me, but I kept passing everyone whose wheel I was hanging onto so I decided to go for it. I picked up the pace and made it to the top of the bridge well before the rest of the wave. I took a minute to look around me, then bombed down the rest of the bridge. Seems like my climbing efforts of late have been paying off.

Frances riding up the road

We finally rolled into Portland around 430, grabbed some food, then headed over to our hotel to shower. We left for dinner around 930 which limited our options but we ended up getting sushi. We over ordered but figured we would just save it for breakfast. As it turns out, the chef gave us the wrong rolls so he made up the ones we ordered too. We took the rest home and watched the tour de France before we passed out. Slept for eleven or so hours and woke up to explore Portland.
In summary, Fran is still alive and speaking to me so I can't complain too much.

STP day 1

She's only smiling because
we haven't started yet

100 miles
7hr 6min of actual riding
14mph
University of Washington, Seattle, WA to Centralia College, Centralia, WA
Late start to the day after being unable to fill my tires. Not much sleep bc I insisted on going out the night before. Not much sleep the night before that bc of travel. I needed breakfast so I got a sandwich at midnight from a 24hr grocery store.

We managed to get out around 730 and went pretty smoothly until mile 22 when Fran got a pinch flat. We tried a new tube but there was still a leak so she caught a ride to the rest stop where I met her. Got everything fixed up and we were good mechanically for the rest of the day. Since we got a late start and had the flat, I wanted to make up time so Frances was a good sport and humored me for awhile as I tried to push her at 18ish mph. We encountered some hills which Fran was scared of (silly flat Midwest) but she got up them without cursing me to my face.

A few miles in and the sun isn't out yet

After the 54mile rest stop, Fran started to struggle a bit so we hung in and stopped for a quick break around 70miles. Life was much better after that and Fran was content to allow me to sprint the hills and just wait for her at the top.


We made it to the finish line just in time for dinner. Fran is still alive and is still speaking to me. We'll see if that changes tomorrow :-)

Fran just keeps pedaling away

2000 miles on the Commuter Bike

I finally hit the 2000 mile mark on Sunday 1 July while riding up to Great Falls.  It was about 12 miles into a 40 mile trip.  It also occurred exactly six months after hitting the 1000 mile mark (31 Dec 2011).  I know 1000 miles in six months isn't terribly high mileage, almost all of it came from trips under six miles, riding to and from work.  We'll see how long the next thousand take :-)

New Teaching Schedule

After taking a few weeks for vacation, my teaching schedule will be as follows (as of 25 July):

Tuesday 6am Sunrise Yoga at Gold's in Ballston
Wednesday 645am All Levels Yoga at Tranquil Space Arlington
Sunday 6pm Restorative Yoga at Tranquil Space Arlington
One Monday a month (715pm) at BicycleSpace (check either @hiccupingyogi or @bicyclespace for info)

I also sub regularly at Tranquil Space.

Hustle Up the Hancock Recap (a few months late)

Per request from my dad (and fellow Hustler) I'm posting an update to our winter in Chicago adventure.

My biggest concern going out to Chicago in February was not the race as much as how cold I was sure it would be.  The weekend did not start off well when my Thursday night flight was cancelled due to snow.  A quick aside here: this was the fourth or fifth time in a row that my flight to Chicago in February had been cancelled and I wasn't sure I was really meant to ever make it out there in February.  When I finally got to Chicago Friday morning it was overcast with some snow.  As my dad and I were walking out of the el station, we saw the Hancock building, surrounded by so much fog that you couldn't see the top.

Saturday night we went to a reception at the restaurant at the top of the Hancock building.  My sister pointed out buildings on the ground that were 20 or 30 floors high and looked tiny from where we were.  That's when I started worrying about the race.  Living in the DC area where skyscrapers don't exist, I did all my training in a 13 floor/300 stair stairwell.  The Hancock is 92 floors/1632 stairs.

For some perspective, the tower in the bottom left of the photo to the left is the Old Water Tower.  It is one of the only buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.  It was the tallest building in the area, standing 154 feet tall.  The roof of the Hancock is 1127 feet.


Sunday morning we all woke up and headed over to the Hancock Building.  I ended up pulling a fairly early wave time, while my dad was placed in one of the last waves.  My sister ran somewhere and grabbed me a sandwich since I can hardly walk in a straight line in the morning without food, never mind run up a skyscraper.  I ate breakfast and lined up for my wave.  I had read that the first third is usually the hardest and I'm glad I had heard that before that morning.  Eventually my legs got used to climbing, I started to forget how many flights I had climbed, and the race was going pretty well.  Around the 68th floor I started to have trouble getting enough air.  The air in the stairwell is already very dry and dusty, and I did most of my training doing short sprints on 300 steps at a time and weightlifting.  Next time I run, I'll make sure to work on my lung capacity.  I grabbed a bottle of water, but my mouth was too dry and I was breathing too hard to actually drink.  I started taking the stairs one at a time to recover a little.  Around the 82nd floor I got my breathing back under control and was able to take the stairs two at a time for the rest of the race.  I finished in 17:25 (31/387 in my age group).  After trying to pace around the crowded observation deck to cool off, I was finally able to chug a few bottles of water, then wait for my dad's wave to start.

I don't know much about the details of his race, except that he single stepped most of the way up.  He finished (without medical assistance :-P) in 28:43 (200/240 in his age group, but well ahead of the 1:13:18 of the last finisher).

My sister being the lazy one she is was our pack mule and in charge of running around for food.  I'm still working on convincing her to run Sears Tower with my this fall...

New Yoga Class Schedule (aka come take my class!)

It's been almost four months since I last posted so I figured it's time for an update.

I recently started teaching a lot more than I was in 2011.  I've been teaching a donation based class at BicycleSpace in DC.  It's a great local bike shop and they've been great about getting students to the classes.  I also teach an early morning (as in 6am early and it is still dark when I get there) and a weekend power yoga class at Gold's gyms in North Arlington.  So, if you want to come take my class my schedule is:
6am Tuesdays Gold's Ballston
1230pm Sundays Gold's Clarendon
random Mondays (check BicycleSpace's fb/twitter or my twitter) at 7pm at BicycleSpace