Countdown to 30: 26 Days to Go

4/1: 157.0
4/2: 155.0
4/3: 155.2
4/4: 154.6
4/5: 154.8
4/6: 154.2
4/7: 153.2
4/8: 154.8
4/9: 152.6
4/10: 151.2 (Wow! How'd THAT happen? Local minima, methinks)

AM Workout: Crossfit Total, and I could not be happier. For those unfamiliar with the XFit Total, it is the total combined weight of your best squat, deadlift and shoulder (military) press. You can "work up" to your max-and should-but all the movements have to be completed in one (reasonable length) exercise session. No adding your best deadlift from Tuesday to your best Squat from last Saturday, in other words.

My pipe dream if-everything-goes-right-and-God-Himself-spots-me goal was a 500 pound total. I wasn't entirely sure how that was going to happen, since I've never pulled more than 185# or pushed more than 75#, and my 205# PR squat had a spot-assist and was probably not full depth anyway. But it was my goal. And you know how I am with a goal.

So, here's how it went down under (and over) the bar:

I worked up 195# on the squat, tried for 205 and failed. I think if I had backed down to 200 I would have stuck it, and probably been able to get 205 too. But as it was my too-long warm-up session was making me a bit jello-y, so I moved on to the pull.

Deadlift - Indulge me, I've worked hard to get my pull half-way respectable.
135- No problem, obviously. This is warm up weight.
185- Hard. Really hard. 50# jump to my previous PR may have been too ambitious off my warm-up weight but I lifted it.
195- Failed. Twice. Like, not even off the ground fail.
190- Backed off, stepped back, thought through my set-up. Closed my eyes. Clean lift. Wasn't even that hard, strangely.
195- Also easy. Continued to increment up 5# at a time.
200- I'm trying not to freak out too much that I'm actually able to pick this shit up. And at this point it's hard but it's not, like, freaky hard.
205- Ok, here it started to get freaky hard. My form started to degrade.
210- Put on a belt. First time ever. Form not at all pristine but successful pull.
215- Form crap but sucessful pull. Barely. That was all I had. New PR by 30 pounds, and suddenly 500# total was in sight!

Press-
Had no problem incrementing up from 65 to 85 pounds. 85 actually wasn't even totally sucky. And I knew I needed 90 on the press to make 500, but I failed twice or three times trying to execute. Texted awesome Trainer / Coach Kevin. Told him where I was in my press. He texted back: "Grip It And Rip It." It took everything I had, but I got under the bar and locked out.

Then I ran around the gym like a little girl on a candy bender cause I was so skipping pleased with myself. 500# Total! Yeah!

After some rest and food and other life stuff it was time for....

PM Workout.
This was a Friday Night Special with Kevin, and it was a paced workout...one of those where you just can't go till you puke. Instead you have to be smart about where to spend the energy and where to conserve it. 15 minutes total, rotating activity on the 5 minute mark. Go for max reps in time.

5 minutes jump-rope (count reps): 410
5 minutes wall-ball (count reps): 104 (12# ball)
5 minutes row (count meters): 1120 (level 3)

Finished off the night with a boat-load of brown rice sushi and called it a night.

Countdown to 30: 27 Days to Go

4/1: 157.0
4/2: 155.0
4/3: 155.2
4/4: 154.6
4/5: 154.8
4/6: 154.2
4/7: 153.2
4/8: 154.8
4/0: 152.6

Rest Day!!!!!

Typical Breakfast

Exercise is important but diet will make or break a good fitness
plan. I an currently on what I call the "no fun diet" but I'm still
eating well. Here's what I'm having for breakfast.

Herb rubbed steelhead
Roasted broccoli
Banana (not pictured)

Countdown to 30: 28 Days to Go

4/1: 157.0
4/2: 155.0
4/3: 155.2
4/4: 154.6
4/5: 154.8
4/6: 154.2
4/7: 153.2
4/8: 154.8

Workout: 60 minute spin class / Hills and Speed Intervals.

Bit of a rebound bump this AM...I'm not worried. I know my diet and exercise have been tight, so some fluctuation is fine...the important thing is the trend, the moving average, and that's on course.

I'm pretty wiped today, actually. It's been a hard push since my last rest day, on Saturday. Today I did Sue's awesome spin class but I could feel the need for a recovery day. So that's it for today, and I'm taking tomorrow completely off.

One of my favorite quotes about this: "Exercise is the architect of your body; sleep is the builder." Without rest you just get really tired, not strong.

So that's it for today.

Countdown to 30: 29 Days to Go

4/1: 157.0
4/2: 155.0
4/3: 155.2
4/4: 154.6
4/5: 154.8
4/6: 154.2
4/7: 153.2

Quite a drop today...that's how it tends to go. Stable with a slow downward trend, then a full pound drop. Feels good to be on track, though.

AM Workout - Crossfit WOD:
Press (x1): 55 - 65 - 75 - 85 (f) - 80 - 80
Push-press (x3): 85 - 90 - 95 - 100 - 105 (2)
Push-jerk (x5): 95 - 100 - 105 (4) - 105 - 110 (2) - 110 (2)

Then:
Squat 5 x 95 / 5 x 145 / 5 x 165 x2 / 3 x 170 (fail on 4)
Pull-ups, 3 rounds: 11, 12, 11

PM Workout - Crossfit Football Inspired
4 Rounds for Time
15 Bench Press @ 75#
20 Pul-Ups
25 Box Jumps (bench height - 15"?)
(15:30)
Then, Crossfit Endurance:
run @ 6.3 MPH, 12% Grade
30 sec on - 20 sec off tabata / 8 rounds

I messed this up, lost track and did 7 rounds, but it still smoked me. After all this, tomorrow will be a light day.

Countdown to 30: 30 Days to Go

4/6 154.2/27%

Workout: Ran Greenlake with K-Lo. Prob 2.25-2.5 total run distance. Decent pace; worked on pose form.

Recovered 10 minutes or so, then Crossfit WOD, subbing push-ups for pull-ups:

Walking lunge 100 ft.
21 Push-ups
21 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
18 Push-ups
18 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
15 Push-ups
15 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
12 Push-ups
12 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
9 Push-ups
9 Sit-ups
Walking Lunge 100 ft.
6 Push-ups
6 Sit-ups

Countdown to 30: 31 Days to Go

4/1 Starting Point: 157.0/27% Unadjusted Body Fat (my actual body fat is probably 17%)
4/2: 155.0/27% UABF
4/3: 155.2/27.5% UABF
4/4: 154.6/27.5% UABF
4/5: 154.8/27% UABF

So far after a pretty sharp initial drop my weight has hovered right around 155, which is definitely a comfortable place for my body to be while I'm in training. Still, I am making moderate progress if you look at the trend, and all it'll take to hit my goal is a pound a week. Slow and steady wins the race, as the moral of the story goes.

AM Workout - Crossfit Football WOD:
3 Rounds For Time
Power Clean -> Thruster -> Back Squat -> Rack Jerk x 7
7 Pull-ups
Foul if you rack or drop the weight within a round. Foul = 1 extra pull up at the end
70#; 2 Fouls (forgot to time)
THEN:
5 Rounds of:
Deadlifts 8 @ 135#
Sumo Squat Box Jumps 12 @ 12" box

PM Workout - Crossfit Endurance WOD
2 x 1 K sprint with 2 minute rest between sprints. Done on road; first 1K had slight downhill grade; 2nd 1K (returning) had slight uphill grade.

1st 1k: 4:28
2nd 1k: 5:00

Countdown to 30: 32 Days to Go

4/1 Starting Point: 157.0/27% Unadjusted Body Fat (my actual body fat is probably 17%)
4/2: 155.0/27% UABF
4/3: 155.2/27.5% UABF
4/4: 154.6/27.5% UABF

Played a little golf today at the pitch and putt and did some gardening, but no gym time. Taking this as a down day. A series of double-workout days have left me needing some recovery time and one of my BIG goals for this season is to train smarter so I end up with less sick & down time due to overtraining.

To that end, I am moving away from my previous season's training methodology wherein I did the WODs as best I could while grinding out sprint-distance amounts of long slow swim, boke or run cardio on an almost daily basis.

I am instead embracing the crossfit endurance programming, which uses a lot more fast interval work along with some tempo work to get an endurance base built with a LOT less stress on the body. There's a part of me that is skeptical -- can a workout regime that never trains you up to or past your distance really prepare you for your distance? really? -- but so far crossfit programming has rarely failed to deliver what it promises. So I'm going to be working in a lot more wind sprints and a lot less long slow distance. We'll see how it goes.

Countdown to 30: 33 Days to Go

4/1 Starting Point: 157.0/27% Unadjusted Body Fat (my actual body fat is probably 17%)
4/2: 155.0/27% UABF
4/3: 155.2/27.5% UABF

AM Workout:
Power Clean 5 x 3 x 100#
3 Rounds Pull-ups: 10, 11, 12
Then, 5 Rounds for Time:
12 Overhead Squats @ 50#
10 24" Box Jumps
5 Deadlifts @ 135#
(13:29)

PM Workout:
3 Rounds for Time:
30 swings @ 35#
30 sit-ups
30 burpees
(15:00)

Countdown to 30: 34 Days to Go

4/1 Starting Point: 157.0/27% Unadjusted Body Fat (my actual body fat is probably 17%)
Today: 155.0/27% UABF

AM Workout - Crossfit Football WOD:
3 x 5 x 165 Squats
1 x 5 x 105; 2 x 5 x 110 Bench Press
Then, 7 Rounds for Time:
3 push-jerk @ 95#
6 pull-ups
9 box jumps
(7:56)

PM Workout:
Run 3 miles @ 6 mph on treadmil, 0-2.5% grade.

The 5 pounds/5 weeks Plan

So I'm exactly 5 weeks from the big 3-0. Not that I'm freaking out about it or anything--at 29 my life is pretty good--but I want to start my thirties in the most ripped, lean, badass shape of my life.

So I am embarking on the 5 pounds/5 weeks plan. The goal is to strip off the Cookie Weight I've been hauling around since Chirstmas, lean out, and go into Race season fitter than ever. I suckered my friend K-Lo into doing this with me, so I'll get back here with periodic updates on our progress.

Starting Point: 157.0 / 27% body fat according to my wildly inaccurate Tanita Body Fat Scale. It runs a consistent 10% high, so my actual body fat is probably right around 17%.

2009: New Year, New Goals

Well 2008 was a year of ups and downs, wouldn't you say?  National Up: first black president (maybe now Europe will talk to us again?) National Down: big ol' economic collapse.  Personal Up: Finished Danskin; badass husband and kid continue to put up with me.  Personal Down: well, actually, I've had it pretty good, and so far the people closest to us are weathering the economic storm pretty well (I'm knocking on wood here), but I did lose two personal chef clients within a month of each other, so that was a bit of a bummer.  

You know what is definitely NOT a bummer?  Crossfit.  Post-Danskin exercise has been almost entirely crossfit directed.  It looks like my gym is going to start offering crossfit classes, led by Kevin who got his Level 1 cert a few months back.  Kettlebells, ropes, rings...all a few minutes from my house?  Now THAT would be a dream come true.  In the meantime, I've been pretty good about getting a regular WOD thing going a couple times a week, but I'm definitely seizing the new year as a new opportunity to step up my training.

I was asked to join the team of a local crossfit gym that wants to participate in the regional qualifiers for the games, which was really flattering except the invite came BEFORE the gym owner realized I'm probably not quite *that* fit.  I'm like, normal people fit.  I'm not crossfit games qualifier fit.  I'm barely normal crossfit fit.  But it's an interesting idea as a goal....and would require SERIOUSLY stepping up my commitment level while not driving myself into overtraining exhaustion like last year.  That was really not fun.  

Found Dave Werner's (Level 4 Crossfit in Seattle) amazing set of skill benchmarks, and once again am humbled by how far there is to go in the pursuit of increasing fitness.   Looking forward for 2009, basically, I'd like to be able to check off the Level II - Intermediate Athlete Skill Goals by the end of the year. Some things are going to be pretty doable (100 free squats)...some are going to be a lot harder (body weight bench press), but I think the goals are reasonable.

So, without further ado, here are my specific 2009 New Year's Goals:

Deadlift.  Right now, it's seriously weak.  I think I can pull 155.  That's bodyweight.  Level II benchmark calls for a 1.5x pull, and I want to eventually be able to deadlift 2x bodyweight, which would be 310 pounds.  Why?  Because I suck at these now, and I hate sucking at things.

Push-Ups: Also a suck-fest for me, especially as I have spent so much time developing my pull-ups.  Push-ups have not been getting the love.  So I'm committing (with Nick) to the 100 Push-Up Challenge.  This should have my push-ups in way better shape in a mere 6 weeks!

Core Strength: I actually thought my core strength was pretty good, and I was able to hold an L-sit for 10 seconds the other day at Local's Gym with Jesse.  That's the minimum for Level I Fitness...gonna have to add 20 seconds to that for Level II.  To help out with core stuff, I'm gonna do the 200 Sit-Up Challenge with Nick.  This is mostly just cause it's convenient to interleave the sit-up challenge with the pull-up challenge.  And, I figure a bunch of sit-ups can't hurt.

Muted Hip: I have a serious problem muting my hip in dynamic movement.  This comes through in my push-press, power clean (oh boy does it ever show in the power clean) and my deadlift....it's a serious problem and I have come to believe the I'm going to have to get a way better handle on it before any substantial gains will be seen in the deadlift.  Plus getting a better explosive hip opening will probably do tons for my thrusters, swings, etc.  Basically, I attempt to turn any action that should be generated by force at the glute /hip into a squat, where I can transfer the stress to my quads, back and (gasp) knees.  Sound bad?  It is.  2009 is all about fixing it.  Ironically, the one exercise where I don't do this is, in fact, the squat.  My squat ain't bad.

A Mile Per Pizza Slice

Last night my enthusiasm for Pagliacci's Verde Primo (hold the mozzarella but leave the little sprinkles of goat cheese; they're hardly dairy, right?) got the better of me and before I knew what had happened I ate SIX slices of artichoke & pesto-y goodness. Now, I'm a girl who can eat, but six slices of pizza may is a tiny bit excessive, even by my warped standards. So this morning after a nice healthy breakfast (of, um, left over cold pizza) I went for a run and vowed a mile for each of those six slices! Wahoo, it's a 10K day!

As I ran up and around and down and back and forth in my fair town I thought a lot about Hesper, my old workout buddy and in many regards my fitness inspiration. She is trapped in Middle-of-Nowhere Texas and does not get to run next to views of the ferry and Sound and competitive Old Lady Rose Gardens like this:



Or this:


Or this:


Thinking about Hesper and the 108 degree weather and cottonmouth water moccasins she deals with on her runs helps to remind me not to take for granted what I have: a gorgeous, temperate seaside town; a body that usually listens to me when I tell it to MOVE!; the time to go for runs that might take 90 minutes or more; and a complete lack of poisonous snakes anywhere near my running routes. These are all tremendous blessings, and when I focus on them it's harder to hate running, or feel grumbley about how it's my weak leg in triathlon.

Another nice thing I got to think about on my 70 minute long run is that Hesper is coming back to town for the Danskin Tri, and so much fitness and beer based merriment will ensue in just six days! Wahoo!

Well just over 10K took me to the door of my gym, where I made up yesterday's Crossfit WOD:

Thursday 08080
"Karen" for time:

150 Wallball shots, 20 pound ball

Blessedly, my gym does not have a 20 pound Dynamax ball, so I did this WOD with a 10 pounder. It was hard. Like, my heart monitor screamed at me the entire time cause, at 177 bpm, I was way outside of my aerobic training range. But Crossfit's not about your "Aerobic Training Range." It's about going until you puke, then going more. I didn't quite get that intense today, but I gave it a good effort and got a time of 10:52. I broke it down into 5 sets of 30, but by set 2 we were well into 10 and 5 rep sub-sets. At the end I collapsed on the floor and walked (no running! none!) home.

1.5 Mile Open Water - New PR Swim!

Met my mom (who is basically a mermaid she's such a good swimmer) and we drove up to Lake Goodwin for a little open water swimming practice. After checking out a few swimming options on the lake (a friends dock, a community swimming area and park, and Wenberg State Park's swimming area) we settled on a lovely and jet-ski free roped off swimming area at Wenberg.

Here's the view of the swimming area from up above in the picnic area. This was after our swim, when it got crowded, so you can imagine how nice it was earlier, when we had the water practically to ourselves.

Lake Goodwin is gorgeous, with beautiful clean water with a sand and river-rock bottom. The Wenberg swimming area was great too, with a buoy line separating the shallow wading area from the deeper swimming area. If you look at the sat pic of our route you can see the swim lines and the deeper-water area. My mom swam laps on the shallower, warmer inside line (about 75 yards from one end to the other), and I ran a loop of the perimeter (200 meters, give or take).

There was nary a duck in sight (I say "no thanks," to swimmer's itch) but I did see several dragonflies and butterflies, so nature was definitely playing nice. When we first arrived, at around 11, there were several families and quite a few kids hanging out on the log-booms and off the buoy lines of the swimming area, but everyone was really cool and well behaved and the deeper water section of the swimming area was basically deserted. An hour later, when I wrapped up, quite a few more people had entered the deeper water area and I had to avoid more random legs and arms, but it still wasn't unpleasantly crowded.

I did 12 laps total, for a swim of about 1.58 miles according to mapmyrun.com. My mom went about 3/4 miles before calling it a day.

All in all, maybe the most pleasant open water swim I've yet done. The water was so clean and calm, and the loop was simple enough that I felt like I could focus on my form within the open water context. I did catch myself falling into back-quadrant swimming and windmilling a few times, but in general I think I did a pretty good job of catching-up, pulling with a high elbow, and executing a full-body rotation. I found that when I thought of my stroke as a way to propel my body into a skate position instead of a push back against the water I achieved a nice balance of fluid propulsion without shoulder and arm weariness.

I also worked on keeping eyes (and head) up so that my gaze was right around my extended hand. This really helped when it came time to breathe and sight and (especially) sight-breathe. The last thing I focused on was keeping my extended arm extended until the recovering arm got to the catch-up position on a breathing cycle. It's always been harder for me to keep balance while breathing, and my extended arm tends to drop too early because of this. The drop means that cycle turns into a windmill stroke instead of a high-elbow anchoring/pull stroke. I'm still working on it, but it's way easier in a wetsuit (isn't everything?).

Why the HELL do I do this?

Today's Crossfit WOD:
Do pull-ups until your hands look like this:



Ok, actual WOD for Wednesday 080806

45 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, left arm, 21 reps
45 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, right arm, 21 reps
42 Pull-ups
45 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, left arm, 15 reps
45 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, right arm, 15 reps
30 Pull-ups
45 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, left arm, 9 reps
45 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, right arm, 9 reps
18 Pull-ups

Scaled to 20# on the snatches; went to band assisted pull ups by the last round. Hands hurt so bad. Didn't time it. It took roughly forever (somewhere in the 45 minute range), mostly due to the fact that I had to talk myself into grabbing the bar after I dropped on every third pull-up. At one point I even told myself that I'd been through labor, so I could get through just three more pull-ups. Then 3 more, then 3 more.... The frustrating thing is, it isn't the muscle aspect of the pull-ups (at least if we're talking kips; strict is another story). My back is fine, arms are fine: it's my grip and (for this workout) the literally blistering pain in my hands. Towards the end of the second round, the CF'ing trainer at my gym vertical taped my hands...that's prob the only reason I didn't DNF the pull-ups.

Urg. I feel lame.

Homemade, No-Bake Energy Bars

So my kiddo wanted to make cookies, but it was FAR too hot to turn on the oven if I wasn't getting paid for it. Besides, what she really wanted was to eat cookies, and I'm not all about the eating of cookies for entertainment purposes. So we broke out the food processor and all the random bags of dried fruit from Costco that I am compelled to buy, and we just went crazy, blending things up until we had a bowl of homemade energy bar-stuff.



When we were done, adding and adjusting a bit at a time, we had two recipes that were quick, cheap (well, cheaper than $1.50 commercial bars anyway), shelf stable and pretty tasty. These are definitely high-fiber, low protein, though, so if you are not accustomed to a--ahem--high fiber diet you might not want to eat a whole lot of them at once.

Here's the recipes:

Chocolate Cherry No-Bake Energy Bars
10 oz. dried plums
5 oz. dried cherries
6 oz. whole uncooked oats
4 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 oz. Nutella

Apri-Coco No-Bake Energy Bars
10 oz. dried apricots
6 oz. dried plums
6 oz. whole uncooked oats
4 oz. shredded, unsweetened coconut
2 oz. almond butter

For either recipe: process ingredients in a food processor to a uniform puree. It will be very thick. When mixture forms a ball, it is probably ready. Press mixture into a sheetpan and smooth to make the mixture as uniform in thickness as possible. Slice into 2 oz. bars (I got about 16 bars out of each recipe) and wrap each bar individually in plastic wrap.

Hit It.

Run 3 miles (30 minutes).
Felt great with this run. Really focused on Pose form and keeping my pace up. I told myself I'd really go for 15 minutes, and the pace felt so quick for those 15 minutes. Feels like maybe there is a way to push my min/mile average up: next time I will pace run for 17 minutes, and just keep increasing.

Then, once I ran the circuitous 5K route to the gym, I did my workout:

Pull-ups 3 x 6 (just cause I need to work on pull-ups)

Crossfit WOD: Back Squats 5 x 5
Bar x 10 WU
85 x 5
95 x 5
115 x 5
135 x 5
145 - failed
145 x 3 & Called it good.

Pull-ups 3 x 8 (8 pull-ups! PR! PR! Yeah!)

So, while I'm super happy about getting 8 pull-ups before my grip gave out on me, I think these squats were rather pathetic. I weigh 155, so there is no excuse for failing on a 145# lift. Yes, squats are hard, but I can't help feeling like maybe there is a form defect in my lifting that becomes a problem under weight. Must work on this. I'm thinking about coughing up the cash and going to Rip's Basic Barbell Cert next time it's around Seattle....I want to learn perfect form on the Oly lifts and I'm beginning to realize that expert instruction is probably the only really effective way to do that. I keep nagging the trainer at the gym who is into Crossfit to schedule me for some one-on-one, but so far he's not putting me in his appointment book.

After the squats, I ran/walked home (12 minutes, mostly walking, mostly uphill).

Hit It.

AM: Crossfit WOD for Sunday 080803 (done a day late)
"Griff"

For time:
Run 800 meters
Run 400 meters backwards
Run 800 meters
Run 400 meters backwards

This was fun! Forgot my watch; would guess somewhere in the 14 minute range. Put on my track shoes and felt great, when I was going backwards. Forwards hurt...but this is a good thing for my pace improvement plan. Is it wrong to love running backwards? I much preferred the backwards sections...nice adrenaline rush from the constant fear of falling...

PM: Spin Class (45 minute, moderate intensity).

Hit It.

Crossfit WOD, as Rx:

Row 1000 meters
85 pound Thruster, 21 reps
15 Pull-ups

Row 750 meters
85 pound Thruster, 18 reps
12 Pull-ups

Row 500 meters
85 pound Thruster, 15 reps
9 Pull-ups

Rest 2 minutes between each round. Time each round separately and post times to comments.

As actually done:
45# thrusters; all other as rx

1st Round: 7:41
2nd Round: 7:00
3rd Round: 5:11 (last three pullups were ugly)

Per usual, pull-ups killed me...all sets required breaking into 3 sub-sets on the pull-ups. But all in all this was fun. I like thrusters, and when I said "Hip Snap" to myself as I went into each thruster, I found the bar felt much lighter.

The North 40 (Edmonds - Everett on the Interurban)

Today Nick took advantage of his company's support for "work-life balance" and took the day off to just hang out. After some deliberation as to how he wanted to spend his day off, he opted to go for a long-ish bike ride. Worked for me! So, we put our kiddo in full-day summer camp and planned a route.

Coming up with a good route when we had hours of uninterrupted and child-free biking time was a bit daunting. We knew we would do better with a destination (our spontaneous ride around Edmonds a few days before had become a frustrating exercise in hill repeats--fine for my training but not exactly the bonding ride Nick, who loathes hills even more than I, was looking for). Nick set the awesome goal of riding directly from our house, not driving to a trailhead (don't laugh, serious cyclists - this is new to us). But I'm skiddish in high-traffic or low-shoulder areas, so that somewhat limited our route-options. In the end, we decided that we had both been curious about the Interurban Trail for some time, and it seemed like a reasonable ride from our house to the trail, so Nick printed out some maps and we got ready.

It turns out that not only is the ride from our house to the Interurban ridiculously quick, it's also very low on the intimidation factor. A steep but short hill got us to a decent bike lane that runs generally uphill (every road around our house runs generally uphill, since we live not too far above sea level). We followed the bike lane for awhile, turned along a few low-traffic side streets, dismounted to cross hywy 99 and then --voila!--we were at the entrance to the Interurban.

The first chunk was a bit stop-and-go, with lots of "Dismount and Walk Bikes" signs that we basically obeyed, and before we knew it, we had popped out in Lynnwood, near the 44th Street entrance to I-5. At this point the trail just went to hell. Or more accurately, disappeared into the type of on-road, heavy-traffic, no-shoulder riding I set out to avoid. I guess if I were a stronger rider and more comfortable with traffic, we could have just ridden along on street for a block of white knuckled terror, but instead we dismounted and walked along the sidewalk. I hope that there is a rerouting planned for this area of the trail. It's the only part along the whole route from Edmonds to Everett that really sucked.

Once we got back on the trail things really picked up, and we entered a fast downhill stretch that took us behind the Alderwood Mall and right to the doorstep of Gregg's Alderwood. I have never really appreciated how brilliantly positioned Gregg's is until now. It was so easy to run in, grab a Clif Bar, some Shot Blocks and a new pair of gloves (my 2 week old cut-off gloves had stretched out, so Nick got them, and I bought a pair in a smaller size) and get back on the trail. Genius!

From Alderwood to the Everett mall was mostly trail; with some on-road bike paths through Mill Creek. Everything was well signed, though Nick and I did get lost at one point when we simply refused to believe that the reconnecting trail shared an entrance with the freeway. We should have believed: along 128th the trail turns west (along the sidewalk) until you are inches from riding (or walking) straight into a freeway on-ramp. It was a bit disconcerting, but once we were back on the trail it was actually quite nice, running along I-5 for awhile before looping up and over the freeway, then pushing flat and uninterrupted for quite awhile.

During one of these long, gentle downhill straights I decided to get down into my tri bars (clip on do-hickies) and practice tri handling. Now, I've had these tri bars for about 3 weeks, and have spent about 9 minutes using them, so I have no illusions as to my handling ability while tucked down. Still, one has to start sometime, and a wide open straight-away seemed like a good place. So I tucked down and pretty quickly got up to about 28 mph (slight downhill, remember). At this speed, my eyes started to get really really dry and I realized my cycling glasses were handing from the collar of my jersey, where they had been since a water stop some miles back. What can I say, I was going really fast (for me) and I had this vision of road debris blinding me forever, so I panicked a bit and came up too quickly, reaching for my glasses at the same time. Big mistake. What happened next was like a terrifying, slo-mo impression of Weebles: I weebled, I wobbled, but I did not fall down. It was a big wobble, taking me perilously close to the drainage ditch on one side of the trail and back to the center line. I was unstable for long enough to think, "Well, this is it. I'm going to crash. I'm definitely going down, and I still don't have my glasses on." Somehow, miraculously, I did not crash. Thinking of it later, the only thing that kept me upright was my speed. I am positive that, had I been going a bit slower, I would have been on the pavement. The strange property of a bicycle to be more stable at higher speeds saved me, more than any jedi-like reflexes I possess.

Nonetheless, it shook me up (and Nick behind me, who's irritation with my zippity-go-wheee speed bender became terror that he would be scraping me off the trail with a spoon) and I continued on for the next portion of the trail in a fully upright and decidedly un-aero position.

The trail past the Everett mall moved more onto on-road bike paths, and at one point we missed a turn and had to cut back and around to get back on the trail. The trail was also interrupted with surprising frequency by these horrid gates that look like giant robot arms. The gates don't allow you to simply ride through some bollards. Instead you have to zig-zag through an opening that's almost big enough for a bike to chicane comfortably through. Almost. I got through the giant robot arms unscathed, but definitely had to put my foot down a few times to avoid ramming the far gate arm. Maybe there's a technique I don't know, because at one point a more advanced looking cyclist passed me and went through the gates just ahead of me. It appeared that he just breezed through the gates, totally clipped in and nonplussed by the whole giant-steel-bar in front of me thing.

We got the the trail end and it seemed to just....well....end. Perhaps there is more trail to explore further on, after some Everett road-riding. We didn't push on to find out, since it was about turn-around time anyway and we couldn't be late to pick up our kiddo.

The way back was into the wind and more uphill than down, and Nick was tired. He was hurting pretty bad through some of the more uphill stretches, but he powered through like a trouper. We rode pretty slow on the way back, but it was nice to be able to just chat and ride together.

All in all, I liked the trail a lot: it was mostly flat with rolling hills and a few short (and not too insane) climbs. Signage was good, but not perfect, and the road quality was very good-wide and mostly smooth, though frequently interrupted at beginning and end. The trail was as scenic as you might expect for a trail that basically follows I-5. A feeling of supreme utility made up for the lack of overwhelming natural beauty. It had a functionality I really liked, like this was the path you use to get places you actually need to go, and in that way it put ideas into our head about becoming less reliant on the car and adjusting commute patterns to incorporate some biking. Which is not to say that the trail was ugly: parts of it were quite lovely, with wooded areas and greenbelts alongside. I saw a one hawk swooping down from the trees South of Everett, and I couldn't count the dragonflies I saw zipping along.

Here's a map to the route we did. For more info on the Interurban in Snohomish County, check out this page. Total distance was just about 40 miles, at a very easy pace (about 11 miles/hr on average-on bike pace probably slightly higher because we did stop several times and walked our rides on multiple occations). Feel very good post ride.