chichitao's group - FULL! (Page 83)

Hope you made it there safely Erica.

So, I finally went for a ride today.  Got my bike all spiffed up yesterday and rode with a friend this morning.  Just took it easy.  I could tell I was out of shape and was winded on several small hills.  The arm did ok.  The worst place for it was with my hands on the hoods.  The drops and the front/flat bar seemed to be fine.  We got on some rough roads for a little portion and that created some pain but not too much.  I imagine it will be sore the rest of the day. 

Found out something weird on this ride, that I am allergic to something in Powerbar Energy Gels (strawberry/banana flavor).  I had never taken one before but got it in a race packet and decided to try it out today.  Took it at the halfway point.  About 20-30min later my tongue and throat went partially numb.  Very strange.  Told my friend that it felt like when you swallow a little bit of Novocaine at the dentist.  I was worried b/c what if it got worse and it affected my swallowing and breathing?  Luckily it never did.  It is now about 3hrs later and is almost gone.  The only food allergies I know about are some shellfish, and those cause me chest pains.  Never had this happen before.  Has anyone ever heard of this before?  There is nothing on the ingredients that stands out as being unusual.  I normally take GUs.  Won't be taking any more of those!

Sorry, forgot to post to let you know we did get here!  Around 12:30pm on Saturday.  The drive was much more enjoyable than either one of us thought it would be.  Also, once we got here, we took off to see the city immediately.  We went to a really awesome bar with my cousin (a bar/hotel that was built in a renovated elementary school), then we watched some bicycle polo (AWESOME!), and went out to dinner and to a really neat local organic grocery store, then yesterday we went out to breakfast, explored the city some (including NIKE), and went to the zoo, then helped cook dinner, and then today we went to see Lewis & Clark, went to one of the best bike stores in the nation, and then it was time to take him to the airport.  So we've been crazy busy.  Ryan LOVES the city, too.  It makes me happy.

Unfortunately, he had to go home, and now I'm very disappointed he's not around.  I keep telling myself it'll be worth it in the long run.  Here goes nothing.

I have no idea what your last name is.  Look me up...Meggan Ciaccia

Me too, me too! Peter Garbacz

Done and done!  I didn't realize that you guys didn't know my last name since I pretty much know yours from tracking at races!  I am an uber creeper though, so I forget that others aren't!

Went for an awesome hike today in the Hoyt Arboratum.  UNBELIEVABLE.  It's so hard to fathom that a beautiful park like that is in the middle of the city!  This is why I love Portland!  I know we still have the full semester to try this place out, but I'm already sure we're going to want to move here!

That's crazy, Tim! I dunno if I'd be able to deal with that!

So this weekend, I'm meeting up with a tri club from my home down that will be doing the HIM bike course... We're doing a 30-40 min swim, the 94k bike ride, then a 15k run :S Oh dear... it just hit me what the eff I signed up for...

Tim - since I've been in Portland, we've had 2 days that it hit over 90 degrees, and I HATE it.  I tried to leave the oppressive heat of the midwest.  Luckily, it's been cooling down to the 60s at night.  In sum, I am SO happy I don't live in Tejas!

Pete - you're going to do great!  Just remember how lucky you are that you got to sign up and do something that cool!  I'm super jealous.

So, I went into work yesterday just to meet some people, and it is AWESOME!  The campus is gorgeous, the people are cool, and everything is super casual.  My boss is going to work on getting me some tickets to some local games too, including a US Women's National team soccer game!  Love it.  Can't wait to start!

We made out ok.  We were at the beach in central Jersey Friday night for a wedding.  It was very surreal seeing all the houses and businesses boarded up.  We spent the night at a friends' house and got out of town early Saturday morning.  We stuck around to help them get stuff in storage and stuff out of their basement but we were home by noon.  And then John went to my parent's house and helped them because they had gotten in Saturday morning from vacation.  With my mom a few weeks away from a knee replacement, she is limited to what she can do.

We got slammed with rain all afternoon, evening, and night on Saturday.  The wind was pretty bad but most of that was overnight.  We were finally getting the boys in bed about 9:30 when the started with the tornado watches/warnings.  We booked it to the basement and just slept down there.  We pulled the boys' mattresses down there and just camped out.  We have some old trees on our property and we were concerned.  Branches fall down with just normal storms.  We did lose some branches but no damage thankfully.  No flooding in our house but we have never had a problem with that.  It was still pretty windy yesterday all day long so we stayed inside most of the day.  I know I sound crazy but I am paranoid about the trees. 

Philly is going to be interesting the next few days with all the flooding.  Dad Chach went to the beach house Thursday and sealed up the place.  I think he is going down this evening to see what kind of damage we may be dealing with.  We are three blocks from the beach but the beaches are long there.  We are a quarter mile from door to ocean.  We know that our road flooded but not sure how bad.  The ground floor of the house is the garage so there should not be that much damage. 

Thanks for checking in!

Erica, thanks for the PM! I'll read it when I get a chance. Gonna take a while to get through all that :P

So Montreal got hit with some pretty torrential downpours yesterday, as the edge of the storm hit us. Pretty crazy as I was driving back to town. Luckily, I wasn't here, as I was back in Huntsville for my last big training session before my race! :S It was really, really hard. We did about 2.5k in the water, the 94km bike course, and then ran 12... That run was TOUGH. I know I screwed up my nutrition on the bike (swapped out my 250cal Ironman Perform for 20cal G2... what was I thinking), and suffered hard on the run. Took me way longer than planned to do that run, but I went out super fast, too, so... live and learn! 2 weeks out, 1 more long run, and a semi-long ride planned, then a few shorter ones to boot. This is all getting real! 

Hope you had a good weekend. Glad you guys did ok with the storm, Meggan!

So glad everyone is okay!  I kept getting updates from my friend in Philly who didn't have anywhere to go but her second-story apartment.  I feel for you guys.

I kept thinking it was odd that I wasn't seeing ANY rain from it (sometimes the Midwest will see rains from hurricanes on the east coast), and then I realized that I'm all the way across the country now!  And nobody in Portland was even talking about the hurricane.  It's crazy.

Pete - you asked for it!   I always ramble when people ask me about sports stuff.

So anyway, everything's going great here in Oregon!  I miss Ryan like crazy, but I've been so busy doing stuff that I haven't had time to get sad about it.  This city is nuts, and I love it!  I always thought I was a little bit different, and now I realize it's because I fit in with the hippies!  Yikes!

OH, and there are more strip clubs per capita here than any other city in the nation.  Go figure.

Now I'm off to Voodoo Doughnuts! http://voodoodoughnut.com/about.php  Yummm!

So when can we come visit? :P

Haha, you can come visit whenever you want!  But the funny thing here is that you don't really have to go to a strip club, you see plenty of naked-ness just walking down the streets!  So why bother paying admission? 

It sounds like you made out OK up there Meggan, good to hear.  Save up some of that water and send it our way! 

When is your race Pete?  How ya feeling?

Erica, that is really cool that you get this chance to experience a whole new world out there.  I hope Nike is good to you and works out for you.

Sandra, hope you are still doing well and life has settled down.

I leave for my cruise this Sat!  We are leaving from Galveston and stopping in Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel.  Excited and nervous at the same time.  Never been on one before and am looking forward to the relaxation but I also get motion sickness very easily so I am worried about that.  I did pick up a little motion sickness patch that I can wear behind my ear that is supposed to prevent that, so I just hope it works.  We'll be driving down to the coast Sat, staying the night at a hotel, then boarding on Sun.  Won't be back until the following Sun, so I will be off the grid here for at least 8 days. 

Trying to get in a lot of last minute workouts to get a few extra pounds off as I imagine I'll be eating a lot on the ship (that is what everyone tells me).  Got in 2 good bike rides so far this week and have 2 more planned along with 2 runs and a swim!  Busy week.  Figured I should get in one good swim before I head out into the ocean on the cruise!  Oh, and as of yesterday I surpassed my bike totals from all of last year...1367 miles and counting.  I think I could easily get up to 1800 and possibly even 2000. 

Happy Wednesday everyone!  Can you believe September is here!

Erica, I always knew that Oregon was my kind of place :P Even though I totally don't live a hippie life, I think I would fit in really well where many people did!

Tim, my race is on the 11th... I'm feeling pretty good. Nervous about the run, but overall, very excited! I'll just take it as it comes, I guess. Not much else I can do. I'll get one more long run in this week before REALLY tapering. 

Have fun on the cruise! Motion sickness on a boat might not be great for you, so here's hoping that it's ok! I know you can get bracelets that help with motion sickness (or you used to be able to 20 years ago... my sister swore by them! haha). Might be something to look in to! But have a blast. Depending on the ship, there might be a running track, but there will definitely be a gym that you can use, if you so choose I have a friend who lives on Grand Cayman, and all I can say is it looks gorgeous!

Let me know what the terrain at COZ is like... I'm considering it for my first IM!

Tim, don't be TOO concerned about the motion sickness.  I get sick SUPER easily also (like, sometimes while I'm driving myself places), but on our cruise, there was only one night that I had to go back to our cabin early from the rocking.  Generally, if there aren't rough waters, you'll barely even feel the ship move.

Biggest tip: bring your own bottled water!!!!  They charge an arm and a leg for it on the ship!  Trust me on this one!

And yes, you'll eat a TON!  Nothing better than having food available to you 24/7!  Have fun!

Hey all! Sounds like everyone is doing well! Doing pretty good here myself, just tired a lot, but that is to be expected.

Tim, have an amazing time on your cruise. We did that same trip and it was awesome!!!! Grand Caymen is beautiful and in Jamaica we climbed the Dunn's River Falls, which was awesome. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Pete-your race isn't too far away! Hang in there, you are going to be great!

Hey guys - glad to see everyone still in this forum!  I took a month off after my last race and am just getting back into the swing of things this week.  I was extremely burned out after doing my marathon then jumping right into 70.3 training the next day back in April.  It was a struggle to train this summer for my July race but I managed to squeak by -haha  Decided I needed to give the body a rest.

Hope everyone is doing good.  When I get some time I will try to read some of the posts to see what everyone has been up to!

Take care

T2

Well hey there, stranger! Long time no see.

Glad to hear that you're still around. Definitely uderstand about taking time off! I'll be doing that after next weekend... taking some time away from tris to focus on weight loss. I think I'm gonna do Crossfit for a few months. Get back into it in January. 

Even if you're not focusing on tris/training, you can still say hi once in a while, eh?  

Who is this "T2" person?  Sounds vaguely familiar...

Oh yeah!  Welcome back!  We've missed you!

I really just wanted to poke in to tell you guys that THIS vvvv http://www.portlandhikersfieldguide.org/wiki/Trail_of_Ten_Falls_Loop_Hike  is what I did today!  Go ahead, be jealous.  About 8 miles of hiking and pure awesomeness.  I'm never leaving this place!