Milestones

Wow are we blessed.  We found out today that beyond the initial deposit for our trip to Albania, fundraising and financial gifts completed the rest of the trip cost.  It’s a humbling feeling to know that people contributed to your trip, but I’m not sure why.   I think it’s a mix of 1) not being able to reconcile why people would spend their money on us and 2) realizing that they’re spending their money on spreading the gospel and that ultimately we’re accountable to Christ for the work being done.  Nonetheless, it’s an exciting time and hard to believe that in less than 7 days we’ll already be in Albania.

Albania Team

On a cycling note, we had a great group ride with North Central Cyclery last night.  We had a nice group of 8 and a beautiful night to ride.  It was great to take a slightly different route than normal, and everyone seemed to be in a good mood and having good legs.  Last night’s ride was really important to be personally for two reasons:

1.       Broke 1000 miles for the first time ever in a year

2.       Broke 20mph average for the first time in a ride (rode 33 last night)



The cycling log...





Average speed - picture is a little blurry...fitting, because that's how I felt afterwards



Swedish Days Century...well almost

Having done the inclement weather Minnesota Ironman century ride earlier this spring, I felt quite relieved (and slightly disoriented) to be doing a century ride in nice weather.  It ended up being a beautiful day with a little more wind than I was hoping for….stupid flat cornfields! 

I had two goals for the day - 1) finish it under six hours of riding (average better than 16.6mph), and 2) ride solo as much as possible.

The start of a beautiful day

Both of my previous centuries were with other people, and it’s such an advantage to ride with other people.  You work together as drafting partners, you help each other through the tough patches, and you help keep each other’s minds occupied during some of the boring stretches.  Something about doing it on my own was enticing, I think I just wanted to know what it was like to have stay motivated and fight the wind and boredom on my own.

We checked in (Anna waited a bit and did the 25 mile route with some of my in-laws) and then I took off.  The early part of the ride was beautiful.  Tree covered roads, enough turns and hills to keep it interesting, and some cool houses along the way.   I just rode how I felt to the first check point (~18 miles) a little quicker than I was hoping that early on. 

First checkpoint…18 miles at 18.9mph.

At the first check point I ran into a guy, Mattias, who rides some of the Saturday morning rides with the bike shop, and I rode to the next 30 miles with them.  Since my goal was to ride solo as much as possible, I stayed on the front as much as I could.  They felt bad and pulled took some turns in the wind, but I think I only had true drafting for about 4 miles in that group. 

Second checkpoint…35 miles at 18.2mph.

About 15 miles after the second checkpoint, the route for the 64/75 mile routes split off and that group turned to go the shorter route, so I was back on my own.  I had a nice tailwind thankfully, and was rolling along at about 22-23 mph down Middleton road for a stretch without much work.   The group I had been riding with was going a little slower than I wanted, but I think that was a blessing in disguise for me to conserve more energy. 

This part of the route was right by Anna’s grandparents’ house, so I knew the area well.  A couple in front of me took a turn that wasn’t part of the route, so I pulled out my map to make sure I knew what was coming.  Sure enough the directions on the course had you turn down a different road than the map showed.  I didn’t think much of it at that time, but the route was marked so I went with it.  It turned into the wind, which was a little rough.

Third checkpoint….58 miles at 17.7mph.

By now it was starting to get a bit warm – it was 80 with a glaring sun in the open cornfields, and the wind was 10-15mph out of the East-Southeast with gusts up to 20mph.  Unfortunately the pretty part of the ride was over, and we were in the cornfields with straight farm section roads – mile increments.   The shorter routes (64/75) met up with the longer routes (100/124) again at this checkpoint, so there were plenty of people on the road when I left the checkpoint.  Unfortunately the shorter routes split off again fairly soon, and the road got very lonely.  There was a couple that passed me and stayed within a quarter mile, so they were a nice little carrot to keep me going.

We hit a turn about 5 miles from the last checkpoint that went up a hill into the wind right at about 75 miles into the ride.  That was one of two low points for me – but I just put my head down and pedaled through it.

Fourth checkpoint…79 miles at 17.5mph.

I took a little longer break at the last checkpoint knowing that the final section was going to be mostly right into the Eastern wind.  The last section started heading west two miles, which meant another two miles into the wind….great.  There was nice little length of road down Barber Greene into the wind and the course weaved its way up to Ellithorpe Road which was a five mile stretch straight into the wind.  My legs were shot at this point, and it was everything I had to go 14-15mph.  My back was tight, I was hot, a red-winged blackbird buzzed me twice, and I just wanted to be done.  Thankfully I was passing slower cyclists at this point, which kept me motivated that last section. 

I don’t know why, but it seems like century rides always like to end on a hill just for fun…cruel.  I noticed that as I was getting close to the finish, my mileage wasn’t still a little short of 100.  When I got back to the parking lot, I noticed I was at 98.4.  I checked the mileage difference on the route change that I mentioned earlier, and it was exactly 1.6 miles.  That was irritating.  I thought about going out and riding an extra 1.6 miles to finish off the 100 cleanly, but the school where the ride started is the highest point in the county…meaning I would have to do another brutal uphill.  The pool sounded better to me at that point, so I opted for a 98.4 mile ride and a pool.

Finish…98.4 miles at 17.3mph.

My first goal was to finish the 100 mile ride in less than six hour.  I rode 98.4 miles in 5:40:00, which extrapolates to a 5:45 finish for the 100 mile ride.  Unfortunately I can’t claim I did the full 100 mile in under six hours, but I’m pretty confident I would have completed the last 1.4 miles within the 20 minutes I had left, so I’m very pleased with that.

My second goal was to ride as much as possible solo.  I road 68 miles solo, and about 95% of the whole ride was non-drafting.  It definitely got lonely out around miles 65-80, but I feel like I have gone through some rite of passage for doing a century ride on my own.  It makes me feel stronger and makes me want to do it again and do better.  It is definitely encouraging to have people to ride with – there’s something about suffering together and carrying each other through that is so important.

Bon Appetit!

Our first year of marriage is complete - and it was completely amazing. What an incredible and rich journey the last 12 - really the last 24 months have been. Paul and I (Anna) have been aquainted for 744 days now. Undisputedly the best 744 days of our individual lives. As we've reflected back on the these days, I've been surprised by how the simple things are the most fulfilling things in the context of companionship. Life is good. Cooking together and for one another has been one of the simple joys we've shared. In true geek form, we've documented the culinary adventures along the way...

Our first attempt at an Anderson family fav... grilled pizza.

Wine and cheese. A cornerstone of culinary delight.

The remains of what was once brisket. Ahh... glorious brisket! This is what converted us to the virtues of the simple and perfect weber charcoal grill. We also fell in love with homemade smokey bbq sauce... drooling!

This chicken's destiny included herbs, a can of beer and some flames.

Simple shrimp pesto pasta

A favorite around here... beef lollipops - or something like that.

The winter months introduced deep frying - a naughty but deliciously crunchy habit. Potato wedges were paired with boneless wings and Paul's wonderful version of BWW's caribbean jerk bbq sauce.  

Tomatillos and serrano peppers from the mexican market (great find!) being prepped for homeade salsa verde and eventually Enchiladas Verdes. Delicious!

A personal twist on the wintery chicken pot pie.

P+A

Meatloaf Wellington for the cold dark days

Shrimp Shumai

A delicious effort to cook with steam instead of oil

Sushi Dragon Rolls!

(yes, that may be fried shrimp tempura)

A final shout out to Pauly and the orchid he gave to me this week. It beautified our delicious evening of Asian cuisine.

COME EAT WITH US!

Colorado Adventure

Well we decided to end 2010 with a bang, so we packed up the MKX and left for a 14 hour drive to Colorado at 4:30 a.m. the day after Christmas.  The drive went fast, and it we were surrounded by the most beautiful landscape of iced trees.  I can honestly say it was a scenery I've never witnessed. 

We pulled into our condo, and unpacked, wishing we still had the oxygen content we have back in Chicago.  It was quite pathetic how we huffed and puffed just carrying things back and forth between our car and the condo.  We called it a night fairly early so we could get up early and hit the slopes.

Monday
Breckenridge.  Skis were rented from a group of great guys at Wild Ernest's in Silverthorne.  If you're ever in the area, they have downhill, XC skis, and snowshoes to rent at reasonable prices.  Not to mention they knew us by name each time we walked in. 

It was my first time to Breckenridge (and skiing in Colorado), so I was really excited.  After an overfilled gondola ride, during which a lady was overly nervous about how we were over the person capacity, we took the first chair lift for a warm up run on some of the simpler slopes.  It took some time to get the ski legs back underneath us, but then we started hitting some more challenging runs.  The highlight of the day was when we rode the Imperial Express chairlift to the top of Peak 8.  The Imperial Express chairlift is the highest chairlift in North America topping out at ~12840 ft.  You can hike up another 100 feet or so to the top of the bowl, but we passed on this since I felt like a gust of wind would have blown me off the mountain. 

Anna in the bowl at Peak 8



The view at lunch

We skied down the ridgeline a bit and decided to get gutsy and jump headlong into the bowl.  We stopped to take some pictures about halfway down.  Needless to say, pictures don't do justice.  The scenery was incredible, especially up above the treeline.  Views are spectacular, and it's just amazing what God created.  You get the feeling He had some fun making the mountains.

The sky leaving Breckenridge

After lunch and a few falls down the mountain in the afternoon, we called it a day and head to the local micro-brewery - Breckenridge Brewery.  We sampled some of their food and custom brews, and then headed home to call it a night.  An early night, I sadly fell asleep at about 7:30 or 8:00 while Anna took advantage and snapped some photos of me sleeping...thanks babe.

Tuesday
Reading so much about the Leadville 100 mile mountain bike race and trail run, I wanted to drive thru Leadville and see what it was like in person.  If you ever have the chance to go to Leadville, keep on driving, it's not much to see.  It's a rough mining town from years ago, not much in the way of rustic charm.

Thankfully we brought our snowshoes with us and had done a little research about a place called Tennessee Pass just outside of Leadville.  Fantastic.  It has a small ski hill (Ski Cooper) and miles of groomed and ungroomed trails for snowshoeing and cross country skiing.  Unlike some of the more well known resorts, this place was relatively affordable, down-to-earth, and not quite so "uppity."  We went for a great snowshoe excursion to a yurt that they have in the woods set up as a restaurant, known as the Tennessee Pass Cookhouse.  Unfortunately it wasn't open, but it made for a great lunch stop with our homemade sandwiches and snacks we brought with us.  It also made for one of the best lunch views I've ever had.

Snowshoeing at Tennessee Pass

The yurt

Lunch view, day 2



Tennessee Pass also gave me a great chance to try out the cross country skis that Anna got me for Christmas.  I took them for a quick little 200 yard trial in advance of the XC ski lessons we were planning on doing the following day.
We drove the long way around so we could see Vail, and then grabbed some pizza and played Scrabble to finish off the night.  The pizza went great, the Scrabble, not so great.

Wednesday
We headed back into Breckenridge so we could walk around the different shops.  Breckenridge is a great little town, quite quaint and plenty to see and do.  I think Breck would be as much fun in the summer as the winter.  After a few hours of shopping (and spending a whopping $16 on some cold weather clothing), we headed over to Breckenridge Nordic Center for some cross country ski lessons we had scheduled earlier that day.  Admittedly this place seemed a bit pricy, at least compared to Tennessee Pass, but the extra cost was worth what we got in lessons.

Me getting some instruction by our Olympian coach

Our instructor happened to be a former Olympian in rowing (Sydney and Athens), who coached rowing in the summers on Lake Dillon and taught cross country skiing in the winter.  He took us on some basic flat trails to get a feel for our skill level, and then he quickly took us to some steeper terrain.  Sadly we found that a moderately steep hill is significantly more challenging on XC skis as opposed to downhill skis.  While carving back and forth is pretty easy on downhill skis, XC skis have a very undefined and curved edge that doesn't allow for carving.  We both tested our abilities to go downhill on XC skis, and I personally found the challenge even more exciting than downhill on the mountains.  XC skis going downhill gives me the same feeling of waterskiing, so I'm bound to like it.

It doesn't get any better than being with her

Greg, our instructor, then took us on to some more flat land and worked on rhythm and efficiency of our skiing style.  This proved to be more of a challenge than I thought, but nothing a little practice can't firm up.  After about two hours of skiing, we called it a day and headed back to Breckenridge Brewery for some happy hour appetizers which turned into our dinner.

At least we did better in the calories burned than calories ingested that day.

Thursday
We saved what we anticipated to be the best for last, and Vail did not disappoint.  A massive snowstorm was looming, so we picked up our skis the night before and headed to Vail.  To say Vail is huge is an understatement.  Vail is literally double the size of Breckenridge.  You can ski through what feel like meadows with trees on some of the runs, ski the back bowls, take extremely long and easy runs down to the bottom that give you an awesome tour of the mountain, and ride the steepest chairlifts I've ever been on. 

It was cool and sunny when we got there, no signs of the snowstorm in sight.  But after about an hour or so, we could see the clouds in the distance heading straight for us.  It began to snow, snow, and snow some more.  This was the first time I've ever gone skiing where the skiing conditions improved over the day.  Powder kept getting deeper throughout the day, and we had a blast floating in and out of trees, going down some more challenging runs, and talking to all sorts of people on the chairlifts. 


Getting snowed on at Vail



Vail Village

The snowstorm made for an awesome day of skiing, but it made for a sketchy drive back.  Since this was our last day, we decided to head back out of the mountains and figured we would try and find a place to stay East of Denver so we could get a head start on the drive for the next day.  With the roads deteriorating from the snow, trucks were required to put chains on tires and we were forced to drive through slow moving and treacherous traffic.  Quite honestly I was thankful for the slow moving traffic.  Given my midwestern upbringing, driving through snowy and icy mountain roads isn't something I have much experience doing.  It took us about three hours to get from Vail back to Denver, and then we decided to stop for a bite to eat.

Wind was kicking up the snow progressively worse, and driving another 60 miles after dinner to our stay for the night was quite challenging.  White outs, slippery roads, and shaky semis all made for a very happy arrival at our Best Western in Fort Morgan, CO.  What didn't make us happy was the awful smell coming from the food plant down the road and the freaky pictures of people from the early 1900's that were hanging on the wall above our bed, which was placed underneath a tin ceiling.  Thankfully it was clean.

Friday
We got on the road about 7:00, and made our way.  Nebraska had even worse weather forecasted.  The Weather Channel said a high of 3, snow, and 30 to 40mph winds.  Unfortunately all were true.  It slowed us down for a while, but we were able to make some decent time and get home in one piece after a long day of driving.  Our bed never felt so good.

Conclusion
We had a great time.  After stressing between Yellowstone, Florida, and Colorado, our last minute decision to head to Colorado was a winner.  We did it on a relatively budget considering we 1) drove, 2) found a deal on the condo, 3) mostly ate at the condo or brought lunches, and 4) only had two people.  After watching families of six or more people, Anna and I ran the math in our heads of how much it would cost to do a week long Colorado ski trip while staying at a condo, renting a car after flying from the East coast, paying for lift tickets, meals out, and all of the other stuff that a trip like this entails.

We did good.  God is good, and we had such a great time together building, as Anna calls it, "marriage equity."  Our marriage bank account is pretty dang good right now.

Scrabbling on Sixth Street

With the onset of my (Anna) 31st birthday Paul gave me an epic Scrabble set. Complete with gold rims, a swivel base and porcelain letters that ring with a nice clink in the bag. The set was broken-in last weekend after the Englert family December birthday gathering. The monumental game lasted into the small hours of Sunday morning and ended with a two-point win for Pauly. His first W in Paulyanna Scrabble history. Touche, my love.

Tonight is one of the most charming December evenings... a fresh blanket of snow, presents wrapped under a glistening tree, a clean home (charming for me!) and the sweet contentment of loving and being loved. There's a certain winter magic that the week before Christmas provides. We're anticipating wonderful moments with our families and a venture to Colorado. For tonight we found ourselves in D-town at the campus Bux, Paul sipping pumpkin spice and I a free decaf. I love the quietness of an empty campus coffee shop that would otherwise be bustling and crowded. I "caught my letters" and dominated this go of competition. Words we learned tonight: yin, qi and ifs.



Hopkins Park CX

Sunday was my first attempt at cyclocross - total blast, but unfortunately another race that I entered with little training.  I was hoping to ride the 4B with all of the other cross newbies, but was forced to enter into the Masters 30+ with all of the registration filled for the 4B's - translation - I got my butt kicked.

It was a beautifully crisp fall day - temp was in the high 40's / low 50's.  I got to Hopkins just in time to watch the Masters 40+ take off (the race immediately preceding mine).  Everyone was excited about the ominous flyover, and it lived up to its expectations.  After riding the course the day before, it was nice to watch others at race speed.

In the starting pen, I realized my flat bars screamed "newbie," but who cares - it's a great crowd and everyone is out for a fun time.  Criteriums are way more "serious" than cross races, so I didn't feel so bad.  Plus - when a guy riding a flat bar fixed gear is in the top 10 in the series standings, I felt encouraged that my steed was a form of rebellion...though not quite as good as some of the bikes that must have been 40+ years old. 

We rolled up to the starting line, got some pre-race instructions, and we were off.  The start was two wide 180 degree turns, followed by a funnel down to two-wide racing.  To say the least, we bunched up quick and I came to a complete stop on a couple of occasions in the first quarter mile.  The first set of barriers was about 400-600m into the race in a very narrow trail, and it was just a swarm of people hopping off their bikes and trying not to get pushed off the course into the brush. 

I fell way back pretty quick thanks to my horrid conditioning (rode once in the month prior), which was perfectly ok with me when I got to the flyover the first time - much nicer to get over it without all of the congestion.  The flyover was packed with other people in some of the other races - a huge group of the 4B's was standing and waiting for the people in front of them to clear out.  Thankfully I didn't have that problem  in the masters race...

Coming down the flyover (protecting my future children from the blunt impact)

After the first lap I was sufficiently exhausted, but it was so much fun.  Apparently there's a whole art to heckling in cyclocross.  My buddy Arik informed that I would go faster if my legs were shaved...  His heckling was weak, but at least it was personalized!  Unfortunately my uncle overheard Arik's heckling, and decided to jump in with a little bit of his own. 

Hey Arik - payback sucks.

I'll definitely be doing this again...and next time I'll do it in the 4B's so I can actually race against some people!  I'll be at the Campton CX on Halloween - debating about an outfit....

Huge thanks to North Central Cyclery and Half Acre for all of the hours of planning.  I had the privilege of helping a small bit (big props to Josh, Chris, and Tobie for their hours of work), and I have to admit that a race is much more satisfying when you helped in the setup and teardown.  I highly recommend it to others for future races - don't just be a participant - get involved.

NCC/HAC Setup Crew