about getting from point A to point B in the most interesting ways possible

If you're a large woman in America, your whole life is an opportunity to feel self-conscious, embarrassed, resentful and way too big. You can hide in the corner or on the couch, you can go to therapy, or you can put on your lycra bike shorts and get out there and move.
—Jayne Williams, Slow Fat Triathlete

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August 22, 2005

Serious weekend permalink

I was running really late this morning, and was locking up the house when a homeless person walking down the street started panhandling me. She was rail-thin, missing some teeth, basically looking fairly dissheveled, pushing a grocery cart. Sheesh, it's not even nine, and I'm not even on a major street. After I murmured my regrets, she tried to fence two lawnchairs and two tiki torches. I wonder whose yard they came from?

Bicycling to work was unexciting, but it makes me grin from ear to ear.
...
I had a hardcore serious weekend this weekend! I mean, really!

Saturday, I went to the Portland CrossFit grand opening. I went towards the end, so nothing much was happening, other than the fact that Fran and her husband Tom had come down from Seattle. She and I have been corresponding for awhile, talking about good excuses to meet—and we finally had one!

Fran doesn't tend to post pictures of herself in her blog, but let me tell you this—she and her husband are adorable. So cute! And they are walking advertisements for CrossFit, really—they are both subtly strong and athletic-looking, and of course, very fit. Wow!

They of course are also nice and funny and quite enjoyable, as you might imagine from reading her blog. So we hung out at the beautiful new gym for awhile, then walked down the street for a cool drink, and later, went out for dinner.

Afterwards, we separately went on to Powell's. I found my copy of Portland's little red book of stairs : the city's ultimate guide to more than 150 curious and colorful outdoor stairways and encountered a man with the same, obscure tattoo as me. In the twelve years I've had this tattoo, I've never seen anyone else with it, and either had he. Pretty cool. Oh, and he also likes maps. I wish I had thought to take a picture.

My sweetie got a couple books on Portland history, we saw Tom one last time, and then headed home. And got stuck on the Broadway Bridge as it was opening. We watched it open, watched the pedestrians and bicyclists and a skateboarder collecting at the gate, watched the giant container ship being tugged out into the river. And then I looked into the sky and saw the moon—huge, orange, coming up from behind Mt. Hood.

I got out the camera and started snapping pictures. They didn't end up being so impressive, and I would have posted them here except my broadband crapped out this morning.

Sunday morning, I got up before g-d and proceeded to Vancouver, WA (aka Vancouver, USA) for a 30k (18.6 miles) walk. Though my 30k was doomed before I even left the house because I left late. For the first time in weeks, I made it to PFit on time.

I had also unwisely made plans at noon, not ever thinking that we might be having a benchmark on a Sunday, rather than a Saturday. So, I decided I would do a 4 hour walk instead of the 30k. I'm guessing I did 12-14 miles.

Everyone was all abuzz about Hood to Coast, and Portland to Coast, which is, ummmm, Friday! My walking coach asked me which legs I was doing... and I didn't know. Had I driven the course? Ummm, no. Then, I was checked out for a team—and had to say, umm, I'm already doing it. And apparently doing it half-assedly.

I feel like I'm in an odd sort of limbo, not really sure what to think of myself. I'm burnt out on long walks. My recent goals were all wrapped around walking. It's frustrating. I was chatting with an acquaintance about it who mentioned that she was getting very burnt out on running too, but she's now training for Tri's, and really enjoying it.

I'm desperate for some new goals, for something new to get me excited again.

Posted at August 22, 2005

Comments

What Portland to Coast team are you on?
I'm walking with my Knights of Knee team, as usual. This year we have aged enough to be in the Mixed Masters category.

We want....a shrubbery! Ni! Ni!
Our start time is 6 am. We wear the silver sequined safety vests. We pretend they look like chain mail.

Posted by: Wendy B at August 22, 2005 9:47 PM

Come on now, VJ, you have to tell us about your tatoo now, after dropping that tantalizing hint.

I like the idea walking all of Portland's downtown streets. Maybe that would be fun and more manageable than the longer walks.

So are you gonna do CrossFit?

Posted by: Megan at August 23, 2005 6:15 AM

Hi VJ, we loved Powell's too! I got a bird ID book with photos and a book about the Ozarks.

How about a photo of that tattoo?

And thanks for saying such nice things about us! We enjoyed seeing you.

Posted by: Fran at August 23, 2005 2:25 PM