Adventures w/ Trusty Pam

Hey people. Pam and I have a running joke about my Svengali-like vibes and all the equipment I've "made her buy" over the years. (racquetball stuff, tennis stuff, her first bike, which led to 2 & now 3, skis, various seasonal clothing, running shoes, and I tried to take credit for her brief aqua aerobics instructing career, but she says she'd have done that even if she hadn't met me in my own class. Talk about out of the box-- doing jumping jacks in a swimsuit in front of a bunch of strangers-- SO not me.)

Well, it's happened again. Now Pam has her very own girl mountain bike too-- just like Penny!

But how will we tell them apart? Hers will likely be "stabled" in my garage. I made Penny her very own little i.d. tag.

Also, Penny already has her first scratch, from the most boring crash on record. I was trying to go up this rather small hill made only of loose sand. I thought all I had to do to make it was not give up. No problem, that's my specialty- except instead I lost all forward movement and fell over sideways. Poor Penny! Right on her go go boot! (frowns)

The mountain biking is going good. I've totally changed my strategy though. The day after I got Penny I took her over and went through the whole course. Lots of it is too tough for a total beginner like me, so it took me a long time and I had to walk a bunch of parts. When I say too tough, I mean for me-- for my fear level as someone who is oldER and already has a couple of injuries going. If I crash hard it is not going to be good I'm guessing. I get the impression younger, dareyer folk probably just grit their teeth and go for it.

I know personally I need lots of repetition to get comfortable, and I can psych myself out if I continually have a problem with a certain feature, so I've pulled back a little. Instead of trying to ride the whole thing every time, I'm just taking it in steps, starting with the easier stuff. By riding through the same sections over and over I'm learning how to deal with those particular obstacles and getting more confidence. I'm focusing on #1- clean runs, and then getting faster and faster. I'm about ready to add another section now and feel like I'm learning a lot.

I'm telling you all this in case you decide you might want to try it. I know I sometimes sound super "danger girl-ish", but really I'm not into smashing up me or the bike, and there are ways to get into this and stay in one piece. Let me know if you ever want to go over and try it.

In other adventurey news, T Pam found these pics on this guys' website of the big kayak race last weekend. This is one of the "serious dudes."

This is that middle aged guy I was duking it out with for a while.
Ok, maybe he's older than I thought.

I love to see people totally having fun with it.

This guy talked to us on the bus quite a bit. Nice guy.

The canoeing teams were pretty aggressive and would plow right past you if you were in the way, bump your boat and everything. With two people paddling even the older out of shape people were generally faster than single canoers or kayakers.

Again, love to see people having fun, enjoying the outdoors-- and go team chick!


Here's Trusty Pam trying to knock a guy in the head. Hey, anything to get the lead. (just kidding)

This lady came in second.

This is the kiss-blowing lady. I can't hate her though. She was pretty cool. I can only hope I get to kick some forty-something-year-old "kid's" ass when I'm her age.

Here's me. See what I mean about us looking a little out of place? God, seeing those boots makes me laugh. You can see I'm in another neck and neck battle with the kiss-blower here (red kayak).

Too funny- check out that look of determination, and my Yurtle The Turtle neck. Maybe I think I can win by a nose...

This is just a cool shot of the river. All in all, this was fun. Some things are hard while you're doing them, but you know you'll look back and be glad you went for it, and have some funny memories or whatever. This was like that.

When I'm super old someday, I'll be able to look back on this and smile. Getting whooped by old ladies, stepping out of the box again, the beautiful day, how sore my hands were, laughing my butt off with Pam, all of it.