Surfacing

Haven't posted anything lately, because, well, I haven't been riding.

So, it is 6 weeks out from surgery, and the doctor cleared me to do whatever I wanted, but not all at once.

I rode out to meet Susan O for lunch, day before yesterday.  I enjoy having lunch with Susan, and she is located in the relatively flat direction.  15.75 miles on the Bleriot.  Heart rate was way up there, although I didn't feel bad.  Pace was a couple mph below my usual for that route.  And I felt every single vertical foot on the return.  I have to start somewhere.

A picture

Bikes, to prove it happened (Susan's new Wicked built by Corey Thompson)

And some new handknit socks, made with yarn I had just laying around the house

Yesterday I dug up the baby hand weights (2 lbs!), and started on the lifting program which is safe for little old ladies in nursing homes.  It does progress from there, truly.  For some of the exercises, I started with the 2lb weight, decided that was ridiculous, and used the 5lb weight.  My arms are stronger than my core at the moment.

Baby steps.

Misleading Arithmetic

Like many of you, I often check out ebooks from our library.  The app is Overdrive, and I typically get the Kindle version of the book, because, well, I was given a Kindle, plus there are Kindle readers available for every electronic device I own.

It is rare that the book I'd like to read is immediately available.  So I wait.  This is what Overdrive tells me when I click to see what it means when I am "next in line for the book", or there are "3 people ahead of me for the book":

There are not 3 people ahead of me.  There are 90 people ahead of me.  Each copy does NOT have a separate line.  I will not get that book until the 90 people in front of me have finished reading their copy.  It might go faster, because there are 38 copies, but still, 90 people have to finish reading that book before it is my turn.

Exhaling...

The aforementioned surgery was a week ago; today I had my first post-op visit.

Now that it's going to be just fine, I'll spill.  I had cancer.  That is SUPER hard to tell people, because often they get all upset, and you feel that you need to be making them feel better, rather than the other way around.  So I didn't share much beforehand.

The doctor called a couple days after the Solstice Ride (pro tip: whenever the doctor calls YOU, in person, the news is not good).  I spent some time being stunned and stressed.  After the first visit, the surgeon assured me that it was early, and surgery would likely be all I'd need.

Given that I'd been working harder than I should have had to so as to finish rides in a reasonable time, I took this as a message that I did not have to keep fighting it for the time being.  Seriously, I'd ride 100k and nap for a couple of days (!)

I did abandon my current R-12 run, because I'll probably not be 200k recovered by the end of March.  The P-12 is still a "maybe".  I'll see.  The surgeon thinks not ("how long would it take you?" About 6 hours.  "No").  The PA and I were trying to decide if she meant no you may not do it, or if she just didn't think it was one of the best ideas I've ever had.

During surgery, the surgeon harvested a bunch of lymph nodes, so we've been waiting for the pathology report.

All good.  No more cancer.  No subsequent treatment.

Now I need to work my way through recovery - it was robot surgery, but there was a lot of internal rummaging around!

I'm walking - distance record is 1.6 miles, 90 vertical feet.  Also staying within the neighborhood, because going anywhere useful and interesting is a steep downhill/uphill with no pedestrian accommodations.

I'll probably stick to that for a few more weeks, until my core recovers somewhat, then take the bike out for a short spin in the neighborhood.

That's a Wrap

So, I have this surgery thing coming up, and I'll be off the bike for however long it takes to recover.  The doctor said 4-6 weeks, but I am betting she didn't mean I'd be able to crank out a 200k by then.  Given that, I deliberately abandoned my current R-12 run, because otherwise I'd be stressing myself into attempting a 200k before the end of March, which would probably be a bad idea.  I did think I might be able to keep the P-12 going.

With that in mind, I rounded up a group of friends to ride Ray's North Plains Banks Vernonia 100k, my very favorite local 100k.

Ray, Susan O, Michal, Graham, and Steve all turned up.  The day was cloudy, but not rainy.



As is often the case when I ride with more than one person, the group fragmented.  Michal stuck with me the whole stretch to Vernonia.  Overall, this was a faster pace than the last outing, as Susan was back on an upright bike.





There was a 5k run in progress, fortunately not too many participants!



We didn't see the others at the lake - when we met up at the Black Bear, they said they'd all taken the Adventure Detour.  We took the Road Detour.



Susan told me my sticky bun with frosting, heated, with butter was already ordered. :-)  For that matter EVERYONE ordered one.

Eventually I figured we should head back.

We regrouped at the Banks Trailhead.  I was starting to feel done, but we had only 9 more miles to go.





Fitz had been hitting a bucket of balls close by, and joined us at the finish.

Thanks everyone for joining me!

You Go On Ahead, I'll Catch Up

said Lynne before, never.

Susan is still recovering from her wrist surgery, and borrowed a friend's Catrike so she could keep riding.  She recruited me to ride the North Plains Banks Vernonia 100k, and after some waffling, we settled on Monday, because the weather was going to be perfect.  She'd checked with Ray to see if the trail was open; it had been closed with landslides, trees down, and washouts.

We met up at the North Plains McDonalds, and she was on a mission.  "I think I'll need the entire time to finish this.  Might not even finish in time!"  And, fortified by second breakfast, we were off at our 9:30 start time.  Susan said riding the trike was like doing leg presses over and over and over and over and over...

Fresh gravel on Vadis Rd by the lumber mill.

The weather was perfect.  Clear.  Sunny.  Bright.  Freshly washed!




Got to Banks, where I needed to stop for a bit.  Susan was twitchy.  "You go on ahead, I'll catch up."  Did those words just come out of my mouth?

Shortly thereafter, I did catch up.  Said hi to Callie and Romulus/Remus (the dogs).  Eventually we started climbing.  It was the most relaxing pace for me ever.  Usually I am working hard trying to stay not too far behind everyone else!

There was some silt on the trail near the summit; made riding tricky for me.  The trike has no stability issues.

Susan did really well; she even made it up Tophill without having to walk the trike.  I paused to pull on a jacket for the descent; thought Susan would too, but she took off.  I caught up again.

We passed McDonald Rd, where I'd turned back last time.  Eventually we found many large cut up trees, which had probably been lying across the trail.

The Vernonia Lake detour is still in effect, so we had to ride on Hwy 47 up the hill and then down to the lake, rather than take the flat, log truck free trail.



Back to the convenience store - someone thought we'd not have enough time for a stop at Black Bear.  We would have; I've left Vernonia later than this and finished in time :-)  So cheesy crackers and Gatorade, plus my pbj sandwich from home.

By now it was warming up.  The air had that "hint of Spring".

Some stops on the way up to document the big logs and downhill trail-side landslide.  There is also an embryonic sinkhole, but I didn't get a picture.  Safety cones and hazard tape mark all the caution spots.





The trip down from the summit (once past that slippery silt) was as fun as ever, but as we got closer in, we found a horse, more cyclists, and many pedestrians.

Given that we had plenty of time once we returned to Banks, we stopped for a few pictures of Mt Hood over the last 9 miles.









Finished with almost a half hour to spare :-)

Solstice Ride

Over the past several years, the Solstice Ride has become a thing.  Ride through the longest night of the year.  A few years ago, Susan recruited riders to join her in riding Ken's Lunch at Nick's permanent, using the McMenamin's Hotel Oregon in McMinnville as the midpoint, with pizza and coffee.

I never could play, because it was either my dad's birthday, or some social event.  This year, after checking the calendar, I suggested to my mom that if she was having a party for dad that it not be Saturday night.  There was a social event, but I begged off.  Cake and ice cream were scheduled for Sunday afternoon, after Asher (our grandson) woke up from his nap.  I'd probably be awake from my nap by then as well.

And then it started raining.  And raining.  And flooding.  Susan spent a very large amount of time visiting all the county (two counties!) flood websites and maps, and came up with a reroute that detoured around every single flooded location.

It was supposed to be rainy and low 40's that night.  Prime hypothermia territory, so I packed extra socks, baselayer, caps, and gloves.  Planned to wear newspaper sacks over my socks (I have still not yet achieved non-leaky foot coverings).  Bought another thermal bottle, so I could have two bottles of hot liquid calories.  Eating with fluffy gloves on is problematic.  Drinking is easier.

Bought purple and green LED holiday lights and spoke reflectors for the bike.

Made a hi-viz reflective neck flap for my helmet cover, so water wouldn't run off the cover and onto my back/neck via my rain jacket collar.

Susan suggested that another rider and I start earlier, because the timing was such that the turnaround food would be ready at 11:30pm, and maybe we wouldn't make it in 5.5 hours.  So we planned to start a half hour before the main group.

I spent the afternoon lying around reading a book.  Almost as good as sleeping.

Arrived at the start (Grand Central Bakery), unloaded the bike and asked Chris W to watch it while I found a place to park the car.  Met some riders I didn't know.  

Interesting conversation with some other patrons - one was French and was curious about the "Randonneur" on so many of our jerseys.  "It means hiker!"  Yes, it does, and also a type of bicyclist.  He'd never heard of PBP.  One of the women was amazed that we were planning to ride through the night.  Yes, we have lights and reflective gear.  Had any of us ever been hit by a car?  Well, yes, that would be me.  The bike was seriously crunched.  I was lucky.  And Susan said: "it wasn't her fault.  The driver wasn't looking."  True that.

"Did you all come down from Seattle to do this?"  Some riders did, but you don't have live in Seattle to get that blue wool jersey.

Admired all the decorated bikes.  Asta's was a work of art, with green lights on the rims.

Susan gave Anita the Tracks of Death warning, but also said that I knew all about them (only 1.5 miles from my house), and I'd not let her go zipping across them.

I'd finished my eggnog latte and pastry (serious meal consumed a couple hours before), It was 5:30, and time for us to depart.  Norm snapped a few pictures of us before we pulled out.

photo by Norm Carr

Anita is not from around here, so she was counting on me to navigate us through the suburbs and small towns for the first 20 or so miles.  No worries on my part, other than it is harder to see navigational signs in the dark.

Our first interesting bit was the Fanno Creek Trail.  I was wondering how that section of the trail had fared in the rain, and, sure enough, we got to a Closed, Detour sign.  Amazingly enough, the detour was signed all the way through the neighborhood!  The last sign was not too well placed, but I realized we'd end up on Scholl's Ferry if we didn't get back on the trail, and, sure enough, there was the sign, placed right where our headlights wouldn't catch it.

Successful navigation of the Tracks of Death, and then traversing through Beaverton south of Farmington Rd, crossing north into Aloha and continuing west on Johnson (wow, nice new pavement!), and finally into Hillsboro, passing by the Intel Ronler Acres fab, and out to North Plains, our first control.

While it was dark, it wasn't raining, and I finally pulled off the warm overgloves and rode with just ratty short finger gloves.  The jacket, jersey, and baselayer were zipped and unzipped as necessary.

Anita said "so, I hear you spin...", which led to a long conversation on spinning and knitting.

We had a brief pause at North Plains, and then headed south.  We were out in the country now, and only had to pass through the small town of Cornelius.  I knew where the right turn after Cornelius was, but Anita had gotten ahead and passed it.  I stopped and yelled.  And yelled.  She finally noticed that my light wasn't following, and came back.

A bit further along, we passed by the Fern Hill wetlands, which were FULL.  The field on the other side of the road was also flooded.  At the corner of Geiger and Fern Hill, the road heading north was flooded and closed, which is why we went through Cornelius, rather than Forest Grove.

The route went all the way down Fern Hill/Spring Hill/North Valley, to Ribbon Ridge.  I pointed out the flooded wetlands to the west, and said we'd probably see cars parked at the road end of the flooded driveways (they have boats for just this eventuality).  It had been raining lightly off and on (mostly off), but we did have a noticeable headwind as soon as we turned south from North Plains.  It was a surprisingly bright night, even though it was cloudy.  Or maybe the purple and green lights on my bike gave me that impression.  Even though I've got a Luxos headlight, it still seemed rather less dark than it should have been.

As we got to the southern end of this leg, I started looking for bike headlights.  I could see a group behind us as we were headed up Ribbon Ridge to Kuehne, and they caught us on Kuehne, so we all rode the last 12 miles sort of together.

No Flash, photo by Graham Ross

Bicycle Headlights, photo by Graham Ross

Asta, Anita and I were so caught up in admiring the decorations in downtown McMinnville that we rode right past the control and had to head back a few blocks.  The locals were delighted by our brightly lit bikes.

We rolled our bikes right into the hotel, where they joined all the twinkly bikes already parked.  One hotel staffer, clearly not in on the program... "you rode all the way from Portland?  Are you going to stay here and ride back tomorrow?"

photo by Norm Carr

I was starting to wobble and shiver, so Susan suggested I put on a dry shirt.  Asta came along, just to make sure I didn't fall over :-)  Dry shirt installed, I drank a lot of water, a gel, a handful of salt, some coffee, and managed to eat a piece of really good pizza.  I wish I'd had the appetite for more (the McMenamins Hood River Pizza), because it was really, really good.  My stomach was unhappy, probably because my sinuses were dripping down my throat the whole way out.

I also changed my socks.  The plastic bags had prevented leakage, but they were soggy from sweat.  Again, if we hadn't had an extended stop, this wouldn't have been an issue.  But if I'm damp, I will get cold on a protracted stop.

So, dry baselayer, dry socks, and a dry cap, damp jersey over that :-) and we all headed out.  Norm had planned to be sweep, so we rode together the whole way back.  There was a cracking tailwind any time we were headed north, which was most of the way to North Plains.  While Norm and I have been on several of the same rides, we really haven't had an opportunity for extended conversation, and it was really nice to finally get to do that.

Still not raining, other than the occasional drizzle.  By now there was absolutely NO ONE on the roads but us.  There was a police car with lights flashing on Ribbon Ridge, but nothing else there, so we singled up and went around.

At one point Norm said "well, it's 2:30 in the morning... "  Me: "don't say that!  I don't want to know!"  But I wasn't getting in the least bit sleepy, which I had worried about, as my night riding track record isn't the best.

Though the wetlands, and up to North Plains, where we found pretty much everyone else.  Jeff L, Michal, and Chris were heading out, but the balance of the riders were sitting around drinking coffee and eating salty snacks.  My stomach was still crabby, so I went for some pretzels.  Norm produced a generic Pepcid, which I took with some hope that it might help.  He also had a collapsible flask of something :-) but found no takers for that.

A store patron (3:40am) "aren't you all up early!" No, no, we haven't gone to sleep.

Now we would be going generally south and east, and would have a headwind for the last 23 miles, as well as various traffic control devices, because we were back within the Urban Growth Boundary.

It was windy.  Heading south was a challenge.  And it finally started to rain.  We slogged our way back through Hillsboro, Aloha, and Beaverton, onto the Fanno Creek Trail, where we did have one navigational question.  Norm: "GPS says go this way."  Ok.  It really was the only way to go; the other turn dumped us onto a street.

As we were headed up the final couple miles (Multnomah Blvd), another cyclist came up.  I thought it might be Jason H, but I wasn't sure.  There was an interesting navigational bit to get us up the hill a couple blocks to the finish (Multnomah/SW Portland, the Bermuda Triangle of the city), and, hey!  We were finished!  Five minutes to spare!  (35 minutes for Norm and Jason)

Finish at Fat City Cafe, photo by Michal Young

Sadly, I couldn't summon up the stomach to eat a real breakfast, so I ordered toast and cottage cheese (a bland protein).  Jason H (it was him!) was in a similar state, so we commiserated and picked at our food.  I did snag a taste of Cyndi's hash, and wished I'd had the appetite to eat more.

Other than the not-eating part, it was a lively breakfast gathering.  Cards were finished and handed back to Susan for transfer to the perm owner.  Stories were told.  Some had been worried that Anita and I would get misplaced on the outgoing Fanno Creek Trail detour.  (Not really.  Not only am I a local, but this is MY local; I ride through the neighborhood fairly often, although not usually on the trail, but I do know where it goes, as well as how to get to the end via the surface streets.)

Cyndi wouldn't hear of my walking the bike down to the car, nor would she and Michal hear of Asta riding home.  So we were all stuffed in the van and I was shuttled down to my car.  My car warms up very quickly, so I didn't freeze on the drive home.

I took a very hot shower and conked out for a nap.  The bike remained in the car until Monday afternoon.

Knowing That An Official Finish Wasn't Likely

There we sat in Hits the Spot cafe, trying to pick a perm pop which was maybe achievable, given the staggering amount of rain and flooding we'd had the past week.  (For the record, every Oregon perm I own is probably still flooded out.)  North Plains Carlton would take us down Fern Hill Rd, which reliably floods every single heavy rain, as well as floodable stretches on Spring Hill Rd.

North Plains Banks Vernonia runs right along a couple of creeks.  Vernonia was flooded, and all approaches to the town were also flooded.  Roads washed away.  The trail status was "closed from Manning to Vernonia", with no specifics.  More than one of us really wanted to know how the trail was doing, so off we went.

The leg from North Plains to Banks was fine, although we could see where the creeks had flooded and run over the road in several places.

The trail from Banks to Manning had some litter, and, again, we could see where the trail had been flooded.  There were still some underwater bits, but they were neither long nor deep.



Then the fun began.  There was some litter on the trail, but nothing worth stopping and pitching to the side.  Then, a bit before the Buxton Trestle...



It was thought that maybe we could go around on the right, but, poking the sludge with stick revealed that it had the consistency of quicksand.  Ok,  Let's give up and over on the left a try.  Between the three of us, we were able to relay the bikes around the top of the tree.



"Only one portage".  Ok, good to know we have limits.

It was raining heavily on and off.  Feet were still good.  Hands were still good.

Proceeding on, we passed a few other runners and cyclists.  Every so often we'd stop and pitch a big branch off to the side.  There was another fallen tree, which was also successfully maneuvered off the trail.

The Nowakowski Rd crossing was clear, but the road up hill was flooded.  Tophill was uneventful, and the trail was pretty clear heading down towards Vernonia, but at the McDonald Rd crossing, the Trail Closed signage stepped up a notch.  Perhaps we should head back.  One rider: "I didn't think we'd get this far!"





Headed back up.  The descent was less fun than usual, because we were all wet, and it was cold and raining.

Portaged back over the fallen tree, and then stopped to feed someone, who was running low on zip.



 Quote: "If I wasn't having so much fun, I'd be cold and miserable!".

We thought about stopping for coffee in Banks, but by then we'd stopped descending, added another layer or two, and were warmed up, so we headed all the way back to North Plains.



The guys loaded up and went right on home; I went back into the cafe with my towel and dry shoes (what, you don't carry a towel in your car?), and drank several cups of coffee!