Month: May 2019

Second verse, same as the first

We are minutes away from packing up the car to try this all again.

We’ll still have a safety kayaker (hooray!) but we’ll ultimately be self-supporting (still not unsupported though). We’ll be taking two cars, dropping one at Timberline with skis and climbing gear, and one at Hood River with swim and bike gear. Logistically, this makes it a little more challenging/time consuming, but ultimately it doesn’t change much.

I mainly feel better about this second start, since the swim was the biggest unknown. And, well, now we know things. But we’re still not sure if our planned adjustments will … Continue reading

Well. That didn’t go as planned.

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” – Paulo Coelho

We always knew we might not be able to complete the Picnic in one (or two or five) attempts. Many things need to align to make this happen, including our health, good weather on the river, good weather on the mountain, our fitness level (and lack of injury), a support crew, and a variety of factors we can’t control (mainly to do with other people).

We knew we were toeing the line with a couple of those things on Thursday. I’d been sick … Continue reading

The night before.

Well, hopefully in 24 hours we’ll be pedaling our butts up to Timberline Lodge. For now, we drink tea and prepare. We’re both feeling healthier, though neither of us is totally 100%. However, we’ve taken the past few days off to give ourselves maximum chance at recovery.

Tonight we bought most of the last few items we need, and tomorrow we’ll get a couple more snacks to round it all out.

The bikes have been cleaned and oiled. The food and drink has been prepped. And the gear has been laid out. My pieces alone:

FOR THE SWIM:

Namely the
… Continue reading

Packing List:

Welp. Paul is sick. I’m getting better, but he’s currently on hot shower #2 for the day. Many fingers are crossed. In the meantime, we’re preparing as if we’ll move forward.

That means we’re making sure we have everything we need from gear to snacks to a support crew (as mentioned, this is a supported attempt). At this point, we both feel like we have our packing dialed. We’ve been getting pretty consistent with what gear we’re using over the past several weeks (going with the adage “nothing new on race Picnic day”).

But, just to be on the … Continue reading

4 days and counting…

Today is Monday. It feels kind of like the Monday before Thanksgiving, where you know you’re about to get a long weekend and you really don’t want to be working. You’re already day dreaming about pie and stuffing, and you’re mentally just not in the game.

That’s how today feels.

I’m also feeling super anxious. I’ve been battling allergies that turned into a cold (or something?) for the past 9 days. Yes. NINE DAYS. I can’t even tell you how the number of mugs of tea I’ve had. BUT. I’m thinking I might be on the upswing. ???

On the … Continue reading

Tapering is hard

For the past few days we’ve been tapering (essentially doing shorter workouts and taking more rest).

I’ve never had to taper before. I don’t usually train that much for things. I once trained for a marathon, but my knees chronically kinda suck. I trained fine for a while, but when I got to the 13mi long Saturday training run I had to limp the last 2 miles home. So, then I just stopped training and several weeks later just did the marathon.

(And by “just did the marathon” I mean: I ran 6mi, my knee exploded in pain, I popped … Continue reading