Hiking Mt. Rose, Part II

So Kevin and I decided to hike up to Mt. Rose summit on a whim last night, and so we dropped the boys off early at preschool this morning. We were on the trail by 7:45 a.m. It was a beautiful crisp morning, and I wore my vest I got from the Escape from Prison Hill Run and a light sweatshirt. Here is a picture of the half way point, and a sign with one of the famous TRT symbols on it:

I was really glad I had both because the summit was so windy (thought I might get blown off the edge!)- probably not even 50 degrees if you take in the wind chill factor. You can see how windy it was on Lake Tahoe, even from the summit.

At least there were no clouds of those weird flying bugs like the last time. We were the first ones on the trail, and met no one on the way up. It was about 9:45 by the time we reached the summit, had a little snack, gave Pirate some water, and headed back down. But before that, the obligatory photo, with Reno (and Pirate!) in the background.

I think we ran at least half of the 4.8 miles back to the truck, although I did take a nasty fall on the way down. I kept telling myself in my head to pick up my feet because there were lots of loose rocks, and rocks embedded in the dirt sticking up ready to catch the toes of lazy runners. Anyway, my hands aren't even scratched, but I did tear my new running capris, and bloodied up my right knee pretty decently. Of course I brought band-aids, but had nothing to wipe up the blood running down my shin, so I used soft flat leaves instead. The band-aids I stuck on ended up slipping off somewhere on the trail on the run back down because the blood was too much and too slick. Here is a picture of the dried bloody dirty ickiness I took back at the parking lot.

Reached the truck at 11:05, so it took us 3 hours and 20 minutes total. About the same time it took the first time we did this hike.

Sushi and Painting

I've had a busy weekend! We took the boys to sushi (Jasmine in Double Diamond) for the very first time, and I am proud to say they each ate about $17-18 worth of sushi each! I don't think I'll get them a-la-carte next time... I wasn't sure how they would do. They like rice, and they LOVE fish, but they've never had raw fish before. Of course, I didn't tell them it was raw, and they picked their rolls apart, eating every last bit. Sean tried to hard to use his chopsticks, and I worked with him on holding them, but he eventually either stabbed his sushi with one, or just used his fingers. He did develop a taste for my green tea though. They were so good, and the sushi chefs were really nice (we sat at the bar) since it was their first time. They seemed unsure at first though and offered their Chinese menu, but I wanted the boys to have a chance at the raw stuff. Now I'm not afraid to take them back, and have them try some miso soup (somehow forgot to order that part).

As for the yesterday, I spent hours in the boy's bathroom painting over that nasty dark yellow that was in there- took 2 coats of primer, and 2 coats of semi-gloss to cover it. Then I did a little sponge painting, and I have some simple lighthouse wallpaper strips I want to put up. I'll share a picture when I'm all finished. I also need to paint the baseboards and doorframes (whoo-hoo.) because they look dirty next to the clean white paint. I also added a second medicine cabinet and put in a new towl rack/matching tp roll holder. I'm very pleased with how it is turning out- although I had no idea how much extra work it was going to be to get all the yellow off all the corners, and the sink and the light fixtures (the previous owners didn't tape when they painted it). But it was worth it!



Oh, and I finally caved in and let Kevin buy a motorcycle yesterday. I was tired of him nagging me everyday, so I told him to just go buy one and be done with it. It's an '06 Yamaha 650, black and chrome (with matching helmet) and only has 5000 miles on it. It IS a good lookin' bike... But it will be a while before I get on the back of that thing- not until Kev feels completely comfortable with just himself on it.

Pyramid Lake Tri 8/04/07

Well, I've done it! I've completed all the races I said I wanted to this season, except for the Marathon de Mayo (too much homework that particular weekend, plus I hadn't trained enough to do a 10k yet). But I did add in an extra 10k in Grass Valley wth Chris to make up for it. Anyway, I did really well this year at Pyramid- I felt like I had trained almost enough. I swam a few times (a mile last Monday just to make sure I still could), ran 7 miles last Saturday and 5 on Wednesday, biked for an hour on Thursday, and walked for 25 minutes with Pirate on Friday just to keep my muscles loosened up for the Saturday race. Here are the distances: 800 meter swim (1/2 mile) in the lake (which was pretty warm!), 13 mile bike over gentle rolling hills, and a 3 mile run with a short steep hill at the beginning and flat for the rest of it. My time? 1 hour 35 minutes and 24 seconds, which put me in 3rd place for my age group! I checked my times from the last time I competed in this race in 2004 (my 2nd ever triathlon), and I did that one in 1:41:52. So I took 6 whole minutes off! I did add a minute to my swim (I'm stickin' to my shoulder surgery as my excuse), but I took off 11 minutes from the bike? That doesn't make sense. I think they included my transition times in that figure because we didn't have chips that year.
Anyway, here is a picture of Dave and me (I made him do the tri with me since Kevin was up at band camp being big important low brass instructor man). But guess what- I have some pretty good bragging rights as well- in 2004, Dave and I also did this race together, although I did not know him them (not until the next week when I started working at NW library with him), but he killed me in that race- I think he beat me by about 13 minutes. But this year, I beat HIM by 3 whole minutes! Whoo-hoo! (Sorry Dave- I know I made you do this race with me, but I am kinda stoked! Thanks for being such a good sport about it all...) Here is the link to the official 2007 results page if you want to look it up:

And the 2004 Race Results if you want to compare and contrast how I did then to how I did yesterday. (I guess these links are mostly for me though, so I don't have to go back and look them up again later. :)

Since I got 3rd in my age group, I wonder if I won something? I didn't stick around for the awards ceremony...