Motivated

It's been awhile since I've posted, been really busy working on our Courage Against Cancer website. (http://www.courageagainstcancer.com/) We've been trying to raise awareness about ovarian cancer for the past 8 months and have come along way. Then a month ago a co-worker/friend of mine is diagnosed with Breast cancer. Why is it all around me? I went on a ride with her last week, she literally said "I want to get in a workout tonight because I don't know how I'll feel after chemo". I was motivated to ride tonight, because I didn't have to go home and worry about my hair falling out, worried about getting sick, worried about being able to eat, worried about everything..When I left work today, I didn't hesitate to get changed and start riding. I felt blessed as I was able to ride today, I was thankful for being healthy and I was riding for those who couldn't. I'll continue to do my best to help bring awareness to all about these terrible diseases. Women out there please keep getting checked, pay attention to your body.. don't think "it's nothing" and don't be afraid.

peace and love

Eating Raw..feeling raw

Let me start by saying.. I really do love my life, I like my new job, I enjoy spending time with my family and friends. The people in my life bring me so much joy.

However, the past few months have been harder than I had admitted to.. I tended to suppress my feelings by drinking and eating or whatever I felt like. I think I was more vulnerable than I realized, more "needy" than I wanted to be. And to be honest I'm not very proud of some of the things I did. I'll just leave it at that..


So I wanted to cleanse myself both emotionally and physically. I was talking to a good friend of mine who is a raw vegan. Yep only raw fruits and vegetables.. hard right? Nope, not at all, at least not the eating part.. the feeling part was a whole different story. It's weird when you don't have "comfort" food or alcohol to run to when you're feeling down, something to numb you to "get you through" that rough patch.


I learned some things in those 13 days.. (random number of days that I did it before going to Omaha) I learned that I had so things that were blocking me from moving on, things maybe I knew but didn't want to admit. So I challenged myself to work through it and continue to do so every day.

Oh yeah now I'm a vegetarian.. Except for sushi, but really the whole experience of eating sushi is more spiritual than a meal right? So this is how I feel today.. who knows what tomorrow will bring??

Oops...

I let it happen.. I let time pass and now it's just been awhile since I've posted anything. But I have been busy with baseball games, following Cal State Fullerton where my newphew plays. From Sacramento to San Luis Obispo to Omaha, NE where the baseball college world series is held. What a ride it's been, I love sports, love baseball, and love my family. A great combination and so much fun along the way. And although I'm fortunate to be so close to my given family, I miss my "chosen family".... my friends.

Sometimes it's hard because we are spread out geographically. I miss the luxury of just stopping by to say hi.. or going to dinner. But now that baseball is over, my weekends are free again to schedule some new adventures. I like being spontaneous and it's summer time.. which means, 4th of July parties, boating weekends, BBQs, rides, runs etc. Man I love my life and look forward to the good times ahead.

peace and love to all

Is today Great?

A friend if mine asked me "Is today great?" And to that I say yes! Even the days that are hard, days where tears fall, days were nothing seems to go my way, those days could be just as great as the happy days. Because to me, even though it feels like hell, situations seem hard, or I have a heavy heart.. it does get better, and it's those feelings and that process that make the day great. If I never felt anything , was numb to the world, or going through the motions how would I ever know if I had a great day?

Remember you can't turn back time, "so how do you want to spend your day?"

Is today great for you?

One of those people..

I use to live in Long Beach and loved driving down PCH to go to work in Newport. Every day I would look at the surfers, the cyclists, the runners, walkers, talkers, everybody that was outside and wonder.. how do I become one of those people? What do they do for a living?

Within the last 6 months, my partner and I split, I moved, I lost my job and I lost a good friend. Silver lining?? I was able to become "one of those people". Someone who was able to ride their bike every morning, meet friends in the middle of the day just because and spend quality time with friends and family.

I've met some new people along the way, got to know others better, worked through some challenging times and feel very fortunate to have had this time. I start a new job on Monday and am excited to learn something new. Although my schedule won't be as flexible, my time with friends and family will still be a priority. Because at the end of the day I don't think anybody says.. I wish I would have worked more..

Happy Birthday Katy!

Jackson Adventure

I've been asking my friend Subrina to go on a road trip with her jeep. I love jeeps, the open air, the off roading (if needed), for some reason I just feel more adventerous when I'm in one. So she got it ready and drove up to Sacramento, where we were going to kidnap Lisa and hit the open road. With it being Katy's birthday on Wednesday we knew the three of us had to be together.

It had been beautiful, sunny, blue skies and warm. Needless to say, Tuesday happened to be one of the coldest days of the week. But hey it's an adventure so off we went.. Of course Lisa said, she was only going because it's what Katy would have wanted her to do. And by looking at her bundled up I'm sure she wasn't kidding;)

Lisa and Kirby

Amador county has several wineries, but we stayed in Jackson which is a about 25 minutes south of all of them. Hey no worries, let's go check out downtown Jackson.. that took all of 2 minutes to drive through. And we learned that most things are closed, Mon, Tues, Wed.. how do people stay in business??

Downtown Jackson

Off we went to Sutter Creek, a cute little town , 10 minutes away. Had some lunch at the Palace, then walked down the street to wine taste at the only place that was open for wine tasting. However before the wine tasting we had stopped at a few Antique stores, Subrina is a big fan, it's something she and Katy shared and appreciated together.

As we were looking around, we started talking to a local, we were telling her we are going to walk to downtown Jackson and check out the local bar. She was adamant about us not going.. that we should drive 15-20 minutes away and go to St. George in Volcano. She had lived there all her life and had never gone in. What?? Well then for sure we have to check it out right?



In town, Lisa and Subrina stopped at a book store. Lisa likes to check out books, pick up ones that she needs to replace in her library. Odd thing is as she went inside Subrina was looking at the books outside, okay Subrina looking at books isn't the odd part :) It's the book that Subrina finds, "What Katy did at School".. throughout the day there were signs that Katy was with us.










The Main Event Bar, with the tourquoise door was nothing to be afraid of. I think most people are friendly if you give them a chance. We met a few locals that day and their stories were very interesting. However they did think we were with the FBI because Subrina was asking so many questions.



All in all it was a good trip, we created new memories and have more stories to tell.. isn't that what life is about? Take adventures.. whether it's an afternoon, a day or a week go out there and make new memories with your friends and family.

Santa Cruz 10k

Sometimes we do things because we can, or we have the time or because somebody asks. A few weeks ago Christine had told us about this 10k she was doing in Santa Cruz. She's a soccer coach and had been teaching her kids about doing more than just playing the game. Last season she told her kids she would donate $50 a win towards Cancer research and $75 for any shut outs. They asked why she was doing that and she told them about Katy, and then said try this 10k and see if it's something you'd want to do in the future. To find something that's important to you and work towards it.

So Christine did it for her girls and we did it for Christine. So off I went.. driving 6 hours to run 6 miles. But I was excited to see Christine, Candi and Subrina and I had never been to Santa Cruz. It was a beautiful weekend in northern california, we walked on the boardwalk, laughed and told stories as always enjoying our time together. Sunday morning we woke up bright and early for our run along the beach. Don't know if it was the will to compete, the will to finish, or just the fact that we were able to, we all got our personal bests.

Christine finishing with her girls

Me, Subrina & Christine happy we're done

Moab Moutain Bike Ride

I've always wanted to go to Moab, Ut to ride my mountain bike. I use to mountain bike a lot more a few years ago. I absolutely loved it, but life changes and the things you love to do sometimes get pushed to the side. I'm working on bringing and keeping the things I like to do back into my life.

So after 2 days of road bike riding.. Subrina and I were excited to go with Terry and Jill mountain biking. Jill found us a nice easy trail.. beautiful surroundings, easy trails for us non-experts.

When road biking, I get on my bike and pedal, pedal, pedal. Not a lot of technical skills are required, at least for the type of riding I'm doing. On the mountain bike, you have to think about what line to take, the different type of terrain, the ups and downs.. how am I suppose to position my body so I don't go over my handlebars? Yeah didn't have that down because I did this..

I'm pretty sure that what I looked like as I was going over my handlebars.

After I took a header, my friends thought it was a good idea to have a reinactment. However, it wasn't a true reinactment because my bike had actually bounced off my back and ended up about 5 feet away from me and I'm pretty sure I wasn't smiling. So after getting that out of the way within our first 20 minutes of riding, I was as confident as could be continuing on with the day. Yeah right! Nonetheless, we still did have a great time.

Terry

Subrina

We were exhausted!

It's the simple things that make Subrina happy.

Last day of Skinny Tire weekend

Ride days are over.. now we get to sit and enjoy each others company.

Enjoying the view

Subrina and I enjoying an adult beverage

Candi and Christine

Maria and Subrina being silly

Jamie and I waiting for our beer sampler

A toast to Katy and a thanks for bringing us together

Ride to Dead Horse Point

All afternoon and the night before, everybody kept looking at the the climbing we would be doing. Stressing, complaining, stressing.. finally we said people!!.. there's no getting out of it so let's just enjoy this time we have together.. because after the climbing tomorrow we don't know what kind of shape you'll be in :)

Candi, Jamie, Christine, Subrina and I decided to do the 44 mile ride, instead of the 67 miles like Roseanna and Maria. Yeah the 44 miles was plenty for us "non-climbers". But the view was absolutely worth it! And to those gals who haven't been riding any hills.. 2 mile, 8% grade was a heck of an accomplishment. Enjoy the pics from along the way.

Me, Jamie, Christine & Subrina before we started up the hill.

Candi.. I did it!

Subrina, Jamie and Chrisine.. making up the hill.

Subrina really does think she's a superstar

Jamie still smiling

I'm smiling thinking of the downhill we're about to do.

Team KatyStrong at the top of Dead Horse Point

Festival Celebration

After our ride on Saturday we all showered up and went to the Festival celebration. There was food, guest speakers, live music, adult beverages, but what I enjoyed the most was meeting new people. Ames is in her survirship from Ovarian cancer. Last year her friends rode for her, and this year she rode for herself. Way to go Ames!

Brett is a 3 time survivor of three different types of cancer, he kicked peoples butts up the hills!

Team KatyStrong was the top team fundraiser, raising just over $3,800 for the livestrong foundation. Thank you all for your support.

Ride along Colorado River

Our first day was a flat 38 mile out and back along the Colorado river. It was a fun ride, here are some pics from along the way.

Subrina and Maria

Jamie, Christine & Candi

Jamie and I

Christine, Jamie, Maria, Candi & Subrina

Morning of Day 1 Ride

All of us were excited for today. We got up early for coffee talk, which is always my favorite part of the day, we ate breakfast and then.. we looked at the tempature, it was 25 at 7:00 am we were hoping that it would warm up to at least 70 for our start time at 9, what.. we could hope :) Needless to say it was 28 when we left this morning, my goodness that was cold.

Subrina didn't want to get out of the car.

The Wall of Honor was a board that had pictures of people who are battling cancer and people who haven't been so fortunate. There was a lot of love in the room for all the friends and family on the wall.

They had baloons that people got to write messages on to their loved ones. It was a way to let go of some of the feelings we all had. Before the ride started we had a moment of silence and they released them.

Team KatyStrong, Maria, me, Christine, Jamie, Candi and Subrina.

Road trip to Moab

Ok so we decided to stay in Vegas to break up the long drive to Moab, Ut. We got up early Friday morning and were on the road by 9:00am! That is extremely early leaving the town of sin. But Candi, Subrina, Jamie, Christine and I were all aware of our goal for the morning so we were in at a reasonable time the night before.


How many hours to Moab from Vegas? Only 6 1/2 hours.. we figure maybe 7 since we're pulling the trailer. Uuummm yeah, traffice, a few restroom breaks, a stop for lunch and a mere 9 hours later we rolled into Moab. It was one of the longest drives ever.. luckily for us Maria and Roseanna were coming from Colorado, which really did only 6 1/2 hours. So by the time we arrived at the condo they had dinner ready. Thank you Maria and Roseanna!

Packing up..

Who would have thought having to pack 6 bikes would create such a production. We decided to rent a u-haul for our bikes. We figured since we are staying overnight in Vegas we wanted our bikes to be safe.. didn't want anybody to see them and hock them for gambling money. Thank goodness for Subrina, because we needed to turn our moving u-haul into a bike caring u-haul. Here's some pics from her building a home for our bikes.

Hmm.. how many bikes and bags do we need to fit?

Oh yeah, I got this!

Yep sparks.. she's cutting a metal bar that will hold the bikes.

Idea! I'll make a bike bar

Oh and a shelf ..

My contribution :)

Custom bars, custom shelf, swim noodles for protection, custom bike bar and whola.. we now have a home for our bikes, thanks Subrina you're the best!

Shirts are in!

Subrina had this idea to get shirts made with the slogan Got Ovaries? get checked. With the sale of the shirt we've attached informational cards and the Courage wristbands. We hope people will ask what's that shirt say? What does that mean? The proceeds will be going towards the "Katy McKenzie Scholarship Fund" at American River College, where Katy coached and was assistant Atheletic Director.

We sold our first 2 shirts last night, Shell and Aimee wore them proudly.

Last training day apart..

We're all so glad the days of training apart are over, well at least for this ride it is. :)
Here are some pics of the gals from all over.

Maria in beautiful Colorado

Candi and Subrina in Fresno

Jamie in San Mateo (Christine missing because she's taking pic)

Me in Huntington Beach