Race Report

I ran my race in Oakland last month, just as planned. I did not, however, reach my goal of under two hours. More like two hours and forty-five minutes. The race was quite hilly and entirely on trails. This lead for slow going. Slow going with some amazing views, though. And a period of time in the middle of the race when Kate and I stopped speaking until we reached either a)food or b) the end of the race, whichever presented itself first. Lessons learned:
-Don't just look at the peaks in the elevation map, check the scale
-Eat a lot of breakfast before a hilly trail race
-Kate and I have the power to outsmart poisonous plants
-Margaritas and fish tacos are excellent recovery food
-Oh, and Southwest Airlines gives you free bloody mary's if you fly on Valentine's Day
-Also on the topic of airlines, you will be treated like (and feel like) the luckiest girl alive if you travel with the flowers your boyfriend gave you for your birthday

Other skills aquired during my winter ashore:
-How to give an IV, insert a catheter, perform emergency childbirth, stitch up a wound, and intubate someone
-That Fritos are highly flammable
-Any vegetable juice can be mixed with tonic water, vodka, and pepper for a refreshing, healthy drink
-Caribou is tasty

Being Girly

I work, and for all practical purposes live, on a not so big ship full of guys. I also spend every day wearing clothes that make me feel entirely unattractive (though this does not appear to deter the above mentioned guys). This gets old. And it has brought out a girliness in me that I did not know existed. This inport, my newfound girliness reached a new level when I got a massage today. I had never gotten a message before. It was absolutely amazing. Amazing! While the massage oil does leave your entire body a little slick, I highly recommended it to anyone regardless of how girly you may or may not be. Setting up a massage appointment will now be the first thing I do upon arrival after I secure a rental car and a hotel room.

In other news, I came quite close to reaching my running goal of 100 miles for this last cruise. However, I was set back by a bad cold, several days of 8-10 foot seas, and our cruise being cut short because our rescue boat broke. Our next cruise is a two week transit up to Bellingham so I don't think I'll be doing too much running....

I was about to post some pictures from Western Samoa, where I was this past June, but the computer is not agreeing with me. Perhaps tomorrow.

Back to Running

So, I did pretty well on my fitness goal for my last cruise. I'm not sure if it worked out perfectly, but I ran plenty and rowed some. In the end I rowed about 16.5K and ran 60 miles. That's pretty good. My goal for this next cruise, a two month trip to Kwajalein and back, is to run 100 miles. I did the math and that's doable. Also, I realized that I can actually be pretty creative with my workouts on the treadmill. I've done intervals and hills and fast short runs and long slow runs. This is good to keep from getting bored. So is watching movies while I run.

Right now I'm on land and have done a bit of running out here on Ford Island (part of Pearl Harbor). There are a few memorials (read: sunken ships close to a marker on shore) near by and it dawned on me that I'm running through what it pretty much the only WWII battleground in our country. That was a cool thought. It also made me wish I could talk to my grandfather about being a sailor. He was, and he loved it. But, he died before I knew I was going to be a sailor.

Alright, time to get on with my last day off. Hopefully I'll have some pictures of Samoa to post before I head back out to sea on Thursday.

Life at Sea, part III

Here you go, more cloud pictures. Enjoy!

Life at Sea, part II

So, most of the time we're actually far, far from land. Over a thousand miles from land. And we spend a lot of our time recovering and deploying buoys for the TAO array so scientists can monitor El Nino.

Here is a buoy we're just putting into the water.















And here's the buoy all lined up behind the ship while the scientists put instruments on the mooring cable to get data at various depths. Someone was doing some excellent driving during this deployment. See how the cable is perfectly lined up in the a-frame and close to the ship (but not under it)? That's the goal.















Before we deploy a buoy, we usually recover one from the location. Here's a before and after picture of the underside of some buoys. The one in the foreground was just recovered. The one in the background is about to be deployed. As you can see, the buoys sometimes get covered in barnacles. This one was pretty amazing.















Barncles up close (insert background music of Nick singing "Barnacle Bill the Sailor"):















No presentation of life at sea would be complete without a sunset picture. This happens to be the sunset from the night I saw the green flash. That was pretty amazing. I'd show more weather pictures, but I don't feel like other people have the same cloud picture enthusiasm as myself.















And last but not least, the hula girl on our bridge:

Life at Sea, part I

Here are some pictures from my recent adventures in Nuku Hiva, Marquises: First, a view of our ship (farthest to the right) at anchor and the road over the mountain.















Another view not too far up the road. I actually ate goat from Nuku Hiva. It was meaty, but tender.















This is the road on the other side of the island, you can see it switching back and forth over the ridge. It was quite the drive.



















If you stand where the above picture is taken and look right, you see this:















Look left, and you see this:
















If you hike over a ridge off this bay, you can get to the next bay over. It was a pretty steep hike, but it was worth it. A friend and I hiked over and went snorkling on the reef in the bay below. The Pacific Ocean beats Lake Michigan when it comes to interesting stuff underwater.















Driving over a mountain on narrow unpaved roads with sharp turns and random wild horses and chickens, to hike over another mountain, to snorkle, to hike back over the mountain and then drive back over the other mountain makes for a good adventure. It also makes you sleepy.

Up next, what we actually do most of the time.

Race Time

I found my race for this winter. Anyone want to join me? It's even the day after my birthday, so it's perfect. And, there appears to be a distance for everyone. I'm thinking the 20K will be a good distance for me. Although, a 12.4mi race the day after one's birthday does put a damper on the festivities. Hmmm.... Perhaps I could extend the celebration. Either way, I found my race.