FYI

So, this weekend I'm hitting the French Broad and the South Fork of the Holston. It's gonna be hella awesome. I'l post pics afterward so long as my camera doesn't get eaten by the river. Also, just over a month until I'll be on the transam!!

Mountains

Random Quote of the Day:
When you try to climb a mountain to prove how big you are, you almost never make it. And even if you do, it's a hollow victory. In order to sustain the victory, you have to prove yourself again and again in some other way, and again and again and again, driven forever to fill a false image, haunted by the fear that the image is not true and that someone will find out. That's never the way.

Alack

I am no longer a NCAA swimmer. This makes me sad. I did, however, have the most amazing last meet possible. There was a heck-of-a-lot of dancing and singing (which is pretty darn rare), some amazing fans, mi hermana, the awesome coaches, and us three amigas (we kinda kick butt).

So, to all those involved, thank you. To those not involved, you have a lot to live up to. (Demanding? Me? Never.)

Training Ride #1

Woot! So, the lovely thing about complaining about how much you haven't been training is that it makes you go for a ride when the weather is nice the very next day. Took a 31.25mi ride down to the Dip Dog and back (the best thing about those kind of rides is the exceptionally large banana splits that meet you half way). It was nearly all rolling (and kinda steep) little hills aside from one nice spinning spot through Chilhowie (the busiest section anyways). Took Rt 11 the entire way once I got to Glade Springs and kept my average speed above 14 (the spinning sections were around 18-20 while some of the hills coming back had me going around 5mph. Only 1 rogue dog and 2 honking (but otherwise courteous) drivers. Not bad for this region. I'd like to get my good pedals on the bike, switch my seatbag with the one on my road bike (room for things other than my spare tube), check out the Brooks saddle, and generally give my bike a good once over before I do too much more riding (i.e. I'll be procrastinating another month).

Welcome, everybody!! With approximately 3 months until I leave Virginia on a bicycle, I decided to go on and set up a blog for my trip. My dad and I will be leaving from Yorktown, following the TransAm Bike Trail until Missoula, MT, at which point we'll go north through Glacier National Park to the Northern Tier Bike Trail, which will take us through a bit of Canada to our final destination of Anacortes, WA. If you want more info on the route, check out adventurecycling.org.
We decided on this trip a while back (somewhat whimsically) and have kinda finalized the plan this year. It should take around 3 months, which will hopefully give me a little spare time at the end to find a place to live for grad school. This is a bit sketchy, since I haven't even decided where I'll go (and thus don't know when the school will be starting).
If you're wondering about the name of the blog, you clearly haven't been around my amazing swim coaches enough. I may not be the best at kicking while I swim :).
I'm a little nervous (but very excited) for a couple of reasons: (1) I feel like I should probably be bicycling more than I've had a chance to lately (2) I'm about to spend 3 months straight with one person - there's definately some conflict on the horizon (3) A few days before I start, I'll be leaving some great people whom I may never get to spend much time with again. I do, however, get to take a long (and quite physically demanding) trip through some of the most gorgeous spots in the continental US; I've really been hoping to do something similar to the AT (which I hope to get around to sometime in the future), and this provides an awesome opportunity.
I may not write much for the next 2-3 months, but I'll try to update this as much as possible once I'm on the road.