Ace and I went to Lake Tahoe two weekends ago. He was racing in the XTerra National Championships. I was thrilled for the excuse to see Tahoe when it wasn't buried in snow - I'd only ever been there to ski.
Ace booked us a lake-view suite at the Cedar Glen Lodge, a motel whose decor tended towards the woody. 
But it was great - the enormous common area had plenty of room for bikes. And skis, if you're planning ahead. The place slept four comfortably - queen bedroom and a pullout couch, dining room table AND a breakfast table - and supplied towels for an army.
This photo doesn't include the bath sheets and hand towels on the other side of the shower. Total count: 2 bath sheets, 4 bath towels, 8 hand towels, 6 wash cloths. I wanted to phone housekeeping and say we needed more towels - just to see what they'd say. Note that you cannot remove any but the top washcloth without sending the entire stack tumbling. This may be an intentional ploy to appear munificent but discourage guests from actually using any but the most easily accessible linens from the other towel bar. Bingo - you're only laundering 1 towel per guest!
Most appealing to me was the small touches - in particular the strip of paper across the toilet seat that says, "Sanitized for your protection." Who does that any more?? I'm going to buy a case of those strips and use them at home. Just as soon as I pick up the living room. And my bedroom. And do the dishes. And clean out a box of old tax papers.
I was feeling bad about not having done any significant bike rides in weeks and weeks, so Ace encouraged me to bring my bike along so I could ride around the lake. The Tahoe Marathon was on Saturday, shutting down some of the lakeside road, so I did my run Saturday while Ace tested out his mountain bike, which he hadn't really ridden since sending himself to the emergency room more than a month earlier. (Not as exciting as it sounds - the ER doctor literally laughed when he asked her for stitches. "Just one? Please?" She put some Krazy Glue on his chin and sent him home.)
Fortunately it was a "recovery" week on my marathon training plan, so I only had to find an 11 mile route. The day had evaporated quickly before we fully got our act together (we'd slept in then lounged around on the beach and at our motel for most of the day - very peaceful, the lake was totally still...and also there was a girl taking porno audition photos with her mom. Fancy was her name.). So rather than seek out paths and parks after we explored the XTerra registration and expo area I decided I'd simply stay put and run around the race course. It was a 3.1 mile loop: the sport race ran it once, Ace's race would run it twice, and I resigned myself to running it 4 times.
"What goes on at an XTerra Expo?" you ask. Not what you might think. I expected lots of people with tattoos hawking the latest awesome hard-core mud-traversing, ravine jumping mountain bike paraphernalia; showing off mad tricks on two wheels and basically just being badasses. Instead, Paul Mitchell is a sponsor and there was a whole lot of people getting their hair done.
Nevertheless, I have newly vast respect for what XTerra means. I assumed it was basically equivalent to a 
road triathlon, where the main challenge was covering the distance quickly, simply swapping out pavement for dirt; after all, the bike and run times were similar for similar distances. I had no idea! The run course was an obstacle course. Under fallen trees, into steep dips and over creeks, scrambling over boulders, and traversing fallen trees to cross little gullies. The first of these natural bridges wasn't so bad, the log was wide and the bottom wasn't so far. But at the second I froze. A regular sized tree crossed a creek-bottomed gap - but the bottom was a good 15 feet below. I fall down walking down the sidewalk. I was not about to break my neck getting all Indiana Jones with no one around me. Except it did occur to me that hundreds of people would be taking this route over the course of the weekend, so it must be doable; if I didn't get over this thing how did I expect to run the route FOUR times; and finally, the longer I stood there, the more paralyzed I'd become. So I got over it (literally and figuratively), completed the loop, then three times more, and was extremely proud of myself for achieving nine minute miles, and deeply appreciative of the people who race these things.
I assume that the bike portion similarly translates to a much more technically demanding (and scary) exercise than I ever imagined. Ace confirms that this is so. (The photo at left from the bike course accurately represents the tightness of the turns but fails to show the steep drop off down the cliff.) So even though running a marked loop four times seems like a dull way to get my mileage in, I think it was the best understanding I could have gotten of what this race was all about. I encourage spectators to not merely stand on the sidelines, but to experience first hand an XTerra course, and imagine yourself RACING it. An extraordinary new perspective.
We went to the athletes' meeting and dinner - and it was the best one of these I've attended. (I've been to a couple of Ironman ones - where you go mainly so you don't have to bother looking for dinner the night before your race - including the one at Kona, which was hugely self-important and focused a lot on celebrity and pro competitors.) This one focused on ordinary folks, had a great deal of good humor, a particularly motivational slide show (that gave me no desire to do an Xterra race - lots of shots of people falling and bleeding and muddy), a ton of genuinely nice (versus game-faced, competitive) people...and an exceptional dinner. Hats off to the Incline Village Hyatt Regency for providing the latter.
Sunday morning the plan was for me to get my bike ride in while Ace raced. We figured that, from the time he started setting up transition through waiting for the start, through racing, through finishing (not only was the bike leg unusually long, but it headed straight up the mountain and back down and Ace, thank goodness, is conservative on the downhill), through a stint in the med tent (Ace had not emerged from an Xterra race unscathed all year), I might be able to fit in a good five hours to get around the lake.
When the time came I was a little bummed not to be spectating so I lingered as Ace set himself up in the morning. It's a fun, charged atmosphere in the morning.
Can you read body language? Here's a body marker whose expression says: "I love my job!"
Mei Ling here came in third in her age group -looking happy with her sweetie the morning of.
But after the kids got called to the beach (everyone starts at once!) I set off around Lake Tahoe. There's an organized ride that calls this "America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride." It is no exaggeration.
They're not always obvious on big maps, but Lake Tahoe's 
perimeter is bejeweled with these little coves all along the way. They're jewel-like because the water is so clear and clean that the pale granite rocks gleam through like emeralds. And most of the way is surrounded by forest coming right down to the water. It was hard to get good pictures, because the damned trees kept getting in the way of my panoramas. But here's a cove I pulled over for about thirty minutes into my ride, around the northeast corner of the lake.
Even when the route veers away from the lakeside, the views are still beautiful. Looking towards the mountains, everything was autumnal - yellow and grassy and treesy. This is on the east side of the lake, looking east.
(By the way, I need to digress and apologize, I don't know why all this text is linking to the pictures. I don't know how to undo it. Stupid Typepad.)
Then you get to ride into South Lake Tahoe, with all its casinos; marquees for washed up stars you really still want to see, down in the deepest part of yourself that no one talks about at parties; all you can eat breakfasts and people stumbling out, blinking, into the morning. Traffic is heavier here, but the bike lane is a little more generous.
As you tick around the south end of the lake the bike lane all but disappears, and the road starts to climb. There IS a "bike path," and a vague course description of the AMBBR route suggests it as an option. But it was not clear to me that the path was wholly paved (they rent bicycles all around the south end, but they're mountain bikes or hybrids) so I stuck to the road. Traffic was heavier, either because it's a popular part of the lake (the lake has a tail attached to it called Emerald Bay that is beautiful, with an overlook and bathrooms), or just because it was getting on in the morning. I was fully expecting impatient yahoos with boats to be beeping at me the whole ride, but, maybe because it was mostly tourists content to enjoy the view, I really didn't have too much traffic trouble, despite the crime of a tiny/nonexistent bike lane. There were quite a few "share the road" signs, which is always nice to see. It suggests a supportive community.
The ride back up the west side of the lake remained pretty, but I got in a hurry to get back to Ace's race, so I didn't stop to take many pictures. It seemed more residential and less dramatic. (I think the East Side was national parkland.) But still recreationally focused. Look how calm it is!
I wondered if living up there one loses touch with reality. I noticed that Charlie Brown was running for Congress.
Five hours after starting (4 1/2 of riding) - I finished up at Alpine Village, only to intercept Ace at the car. He'd been done for a while, but wasn't changed yet, so my timing wasn't too horrible. We stayed for awards. Our plan of hiking got blown out when he twisted his ankle on the run (not surprising at all - I nearly had several times the day before) and the weather had turned bleak so we watched some waves on a pretty little beach and headed back.
Fresh air, clean water, sun shine and stiff breezes. What more could you ask for?
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