This morning I set out on a 20 mile bike ride through Shasta Valley towards Table Rock. I checked out the route first on mapmyride.com and chose what looked like the most interesting route. I geared up in padded bike shorts, a bright floral sleeveless jersey, bike shoes and a helmet and set off towards the east.
For the first mile I rode through the residential streets of Montague on Highway 3. Less than 2 miles in, Highway 3 ends and turns into Little Shasta/ Ball Mountain Road. Around here roads are given names for where they lead. Montague/Grenada takes you to and from Montague and Grenada. Yreka/Ager takes you from Yreka to Ager. Little Shasta takes you to the town of Little Shasta, which I don't think is really a town, although it kinda says so on the sign. At mile 3, I turned off the highway and onto the continuance of Ball Mountain Little Shasta Road. I use the term "highway" loosely. It's a two lane road where vehicles whiz by every 2-3 minutes.
Ball Mountain takes you through a few ranches over a relatively flat road with maybe a slight incline. I waved to the occasional rancher that drove by in a pick up truck, wearing a cowboy hat or the more farmer type hat. Cows watched me curiously as I scoped out the view of Mt. Shasta and the Marble Mountains, still covered in snow and glaciers, rising high up above the green valley below. Irrigation ditches gurgled and rushed by on the side of the road. I watched a crop plane fertilizing the fields (treating it? Who knows.) and circling above my head before diving down again and repeating the circle above me.
I rode by a two story brick house with the bright white pillars that reached all the way to the top and it reminded me of the old houses in the southeast. An old man sat on the front porch and I waved, but a pillar passed between us and I had to get my eyes back on the road, so I didn't see if he waved back. In the corral next to the house, a horse bucked and ran back and forth. He seemed fairly agitated. Two little quail ran across the road to get out of my way.
I came upon a sign that said "Unimproved Road. Passenger vehicles and trailers not advised". I wondered, What about a skinny bike tire? I supposed at any point if the road got too rough to continue on a road bike, I would just turn around. It wasn't all that bad, some pot holes and rough road conditions, but I wanted to reach ten miles and I could see Table Rock in the distance, so I pressed on.
My brain did not make the connection with the road name "Townsend". Even though road names are actually quite descriptive out here. I mean, what is really meant by "town's end" when you've been far away from any sort of civilization for miles now? Totally irrelevant....or was it?
The rough road continued on a little longer and I rode past a herd of cows that regarded me warily. Some started a decent trot away from the fence, a few moo'd but none of them decided to run. Up ahead I saw a sign that read "Historical Marker Ahead". Oh really? Cool.
Immediately after that the paved road ended at a T with a dirt road. Good lord. Remember, skinny tires. If you don't know the difference between a road bike and a mountain bike, or even a recreational cruiser bike, you just wouldn't understand. I'm also not quite the seasoned rider, so I don't completely know the capabilities of my bike, skinny tires in general, or even myself as a rider. I know at some point in your career in a certain sport, your comfort level reaches a maximum, and your bike in this case would just become an extension of your body. I'm not there. I equate it to how I am in the water versus how a novice swimmer is in the water. I can just tell by their body language that they are not 100% comfortable in the water, whereas I'm completely at home. I have never ridden a road bike on anything other than pavement. I thought I remembered something about how in the Tour du France (or however that goes) they ride over gravel roads or cobblestone streets. Same kinda bike, just more experienced riders. I can do this.
I stopped in the intersection and turned to see the historical marker sitting right there. In my panic of finding a dirt/gravel road in front of me, I nearly missed a site of historical interest. Tailholt: one of Siskiyou County's "lost cities". Here used to be the site of the Tailholt Post office, which was moved down the road where it still stands today (not sure if it's still in service or not, didn't go down that road). This little town, which is now just a historical maker at a dirt intersection, used to have a saloon, racetrack, baseball field, harness shop, blacksmith shop, slaughterhouse, meat market and grist mill. You can read a little more about it HERE. By the way, I had to look it up, but a grist mill is where grain is ground in to flour.
I was only at about 8.5 miles and my goal for the day was 20 miles total. I can get very mission driven on rides and runs, which is why I didn't have my camera with me and I really wish I did. I eyed the road for a little bit and then decided to give it a go. If Lance Armstrong can do it, so can I. Not really, for several reasons, but you get what I mean. Anyway, if I crashed way out here (past Town's End) there would be no one to make me feel embarassed. And being as the crash would probably be a low speed one in which I could not control my skinny tires in gravel and dirt, I would probably be ok. Yes, I carry my cell phone.
I saddled back up and pedaled up the road where I met another intersection. Of course there are no road signs out here (other than the unimproved road warning signs) so I didn't know which road was which, but I had a mental note of the map I checked out online before setting out, so I took a right towards Table Rock. The road was dirt and gravel, rutted out and washboarded. I was so busy focusing on the road that I couldn't tell I was going uphill. I thought maybe my tire was flat or something, but trying to check the back tire while you're riding your bike is a pretty sketchy ordeal. I don't recommend it, especially if you don't have great command of your bike to begin with.
At one point, I was charged by a squirrel and it scared the crap out of me. Up to this point on my ride, I had only merely been threatened by birds along the road. None of them took a dive at me, but they chirped excitedly as they tend to do in the spring time when some threat is upon them, and flew around me a few times. In a week or two that will turn in to dive bombing. Right now they don't have any babies to protect.
Anyway, back to the rabid squirrel. Out of the corner of my eye (remember I'm already tense from trying to steer my bike on a dirt road) I see something run at me from the side of the road. It continues towards me at great speed and I turn my head to see a squirrel sprinting towards my bike, where at about 6 inches away, it stops, flattens down and then disappears back to the side of the road. Geezo. I continued on. Obviously I am faster than a rabid squirrel, even on a dirt road.
In the shadow of Table Rock, right before I reached a ranch house, I hit 10 miles, dismounted, took a drink of water, turned around and headed towards home. This is when I realized I had been going uphill for quite some time. As my bike picked up speed without any help from me, I pondered whether I would have more control over my bike going fast or slow. I guess it depends. I could feel my rear tire fishtail out every once in awhile and it made me awfully nervous. I lightly touched the brakes, being as I felt braking hard would really make me lose control. I visualized the effect of crashing in the gravel and how it would feel to have dirt and gravel embed itself in my skin. I slowed down a little more.
On the way back there was no sign of the crazy squirrel. You know, you might laugh, but hitting a squirrel while riding with skinny tires (I'm telling you, if you don't understand the skinny tire deal, just go ride one) could cause some serious damage to myself and probably my bike. More to myself though, being as my speed was probably less than impressive at this point. I skidded and slid all the way back to the historical marker where I turned on to the pavement. On the side of the road was a sign "Rough Road". I had to laugh. I suppose it depends on your perspective. I was so happy to be back on pavement. It felt smooth under my tires and I relaxed a bit as I greeted the cows that moo'd at me.
Then the road got real bumpy again. My bike vibrated so badly beneath me that I had a hard time holding on to the handle bars. I gripped as hard as I could but was only able to manage a loose grip. I passed Townsend again and it wasn't long before the road smoothed out for good. I came upon the two story brick house again and waved at the old man. Looking a little more closely I could see he had his chin to his chest. Probably sleeping. Maybe he's dead. I wasn't going to be the one to check. I rode on.
The road opened back up to pastures and the crop plane continued to swoop through the valley. I passed a couple cattle chutes, some that looked more advanced than others. I relaxed and pressed my shoulders down away from my ears and switched my grip on the handle bars. I merged onto the highway with 3 miles left to go and went up and down a few more hills before hitting the residential streets of Montague. I shifted my hands back to the brakes to cover them in the event a car pulled out in front of me, shifted to a higher gear and picked up the pace for the last half mile. 7th street...8th street...bright yellow pedestrian crossing sign....and took a right turn onto 9th. I unclipped my left foot, pulled up in front of my house and leaned left. Thankfully I also went left. With my left foot on the ground, I unclipped my right foot, dismounted and clicked up the driveway in my bike cleats.
What an awesome ride. 20 miles in one hour and 22 minutes. That's an average of 14.5 miles per hour... which would've been quite a bit faster had it not been for the dirt road portion...which I survived.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
GRE- Take One
This morning I took the GRE test for the first time. Now that I'm done mourning over the exam, I can begin studying more to retake it. I got some of the results right away but need to wait for the essay scores. The GRE consists of two essay questions, 2 verbal reasoning sections and 2 math sections... as well as an additional section in one of the areas that isn't graded, but you aren't told which one is just for study purposes, so one of the sections don't count towards your score.... but you don't know which one.
It takes about 3.5 hours to get through the exam. That's 3.5 hours of staring at the computer in a frenzy to answer all the questions in the alloted time. You start with an essay analyzing an issue and are given 30 minutes to read the prompt, put together your stand on the issue with supporting ideas, review your work and submit it. Then you get a 60 second break if you want it...and since it takes several minutes to check in and out of the exam, that doesn't give you time to get up from your seat. It's enough time to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and click "Continue". Then you begin another essay where you are given an argument and you have to analyze that argument. You're given 30 minutes for this one as well. I think I did fairly well on both of these, but they must be submitted to an actual person who will read them over and give you a score of 0-6 on each essay. A 4 is acceptable. Anything less is just not good at all. This is the only area that any of my colleges have a required score in. After reviewing all of my schools, I need to get a 5 or better. I might be ok in that area.
After another 60 second break, I dove into the verbal reasoning section. There are 25 questions and you're given 35 minutes to answer them. Some are complete the sentence, some are articles with questions attached and others are fill in the blanks. You get another 60 second break and dive into the quantitative reasoning section. You get 40 minutes to answer 25 math questions. This is not a lot, regardless of what that looks like. As I struggled to set up formulas to solve the problems or comparisons, the clock ticked away. It was awful and I knew it. I marked ones I didn't know and came back at the end of the section to guess away at 5 or 6 of the questions.
Then there was a 10 minute break. I peed and got a sip of water and sat back down to start verbal reasoning section 2. There was a 60 second break after that and into math section 2. Knowing I did badly on the first math section, I tried harder to solve problems I knew I could solve...given the time. But I wasn't given the time, and then was shocked to see that I was out of time and had to go back and review another 5 or 6 questions that I had marked. In less than 2 minutes, I randomly selected answers to about 6 questions. I was exhausted and dejected. But I was done.
BUT WAIT! Another verbal reasoning section popped up. Son of a bitch. Excuse the language, but seriously? Ah yes. The dreaded "extra section that doesn't count towards your score but you don't know which one that is" scenario. So there were 3 verbal sections and one of them didn't count. But I didn't know which one so I had to give this last section all I had...which wasn't much.
At the end of the exam, you get the scores for your math and verbal, and then the essay scores (average of the two) are mailed in about 2 weeks. I really did not want to see my scores, I was pretty irritated with the testing process by that point. But I clicked through to see my scores anyway...because I kinda had to.
So the scoring works like this. Between the two math sections, you can score between 130 and 170. And then the same applies to the verbal. You get one math score and one verbal...and then 2 wks later, also one writing score. The lowest score you can possibly score on the math and verbal is 130. The highest is 170. So basically 130 is equal to zero. I scored a 158 on the verbal and 150 on the math. Pretty freakin' terrible. Especially the math. Putting that in perspective, there are 40 possible points in each subject matter (170-130 = 40). So on the verbal I scored 28 out of 40 (70%) and on the math I scored 20 out of 40 (that would be a whopping 50%).
I got home and googled what the averages to these exams are. Obviously, a 70% is fairly average, and so my verbal score is not terrible. Had my math score been in that range, I could just let it go. Of course, as long as my written score is 5 or above, I could still just let it go. But then I would be telling my potential grad schools that not only am I terrible at math, but I'm content in staying that way and am not going to make an attempt at getting a better score. Being as I will be required to take 3 semesters of Calculus, I just don't see that as being a wise choice.So I'm starting again.
I've got a new study book for math and will focus on each section until I feel I have it down so well that I can fly through the math problems with ease (because that is what's required if you want to do well). Most of the problems I can answer given enough time to struggle through it, but that obviously does not work in this case. I can't take the test more than once in a 30 day period and not more than 5 times in a year. So in June I'll do a mental check on where I'm at with the math and schedule a second exam. Of course I will also continue to study my vocabulary words so I can get a better score in the verbal as well, but the concentration will be on the math.
When I got home from the exam (it was an hour drive one way to the testing center) I took a nap. I dreamed I had run a marathon that I wasn't totally thrilled with, but I figured since it didn't take that much out of me to begin with, I'd just do another one. This is funny because I just realized that the exam took me about 3.5 hours to do, and my marathon time is 3:31. If only I had energy gels and water with me throughout the exam (you can't take those in with you) and two bathroom breaks as opposed to the one. Pretty funny.
It takes about 3.5 hours to get through the exam. That's 3.5 hours of staring at the computer in a frenzy to answer all the questions in the alloted time. You start with an essay analyzing an issue and are given 30 minutes to read the prompt, put together your stand on the issue with supporting ideas, review your work and submit it. Then you get a 60 second break if you want it...and since it takes several minutes to check in and out of the exam, that doesn't give you time to get up from your seat. It's enough time to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and click "Continue". Then you begin another essay where you are given an argument and you have to analyze that argument. You're given 30 minutes for this one as well. I think I did fairly well on both of these, but they must be submitted to an actual person who will read them over and give you a score of 0-6 on each essay. A 4 is acceptable. Anything less is just not good at all. This is the only area that any of my colleges have a required score in. After reviewing all of my schools, I need to get a 5 or better. I might be ok in that area.
After another 60 second break, I dove into the verbal reasoning section. There are 25 questions and you're given 35 minutes to answer them. Some are complete the sentence, some are articles with questions attached and others are fill in the blanks. You get another 60 second break and dive into the quantitative reasoning section. You get 40 minutes to answer 25 math questions. This is not a lot, regardless of what that looks like. As I struggled to set up formulas to solve the problems or comparisons, the clock ticked away. It was awful and I knew it. I marked ones I didn't know and came back at the end of the section to guess away at 5 or 6 of the questions.
Then there was a 10 minute break. I peed and got a sip of water and sat back down to start verbal reasoning section 2. There was a 60 second break after that and into math section 2. Knowing I did badly on the first math section, I tried harder to solve problems I knew I could solve...given the time. But I wasn't given the time, and then was shocked to see that I was out of time and had to go back and review another 5 or 6 questions that I had marked. In less than 2 minutes, I randomly selected answers to about 6 questions. I was exhausted and dejected. But I was done.
BUT WAIT! Another verbal reasoning section popped up. Son of a bitch. Excuse the language, but seriously? Ah yes. The dreaded "extra section that doesn't count towards your score but you don't know which one that is" scenario. So there were 3 verbal sections and one of them didn't count. But I didn't know which one so I had to give this last section all I had...which wasn't much.
At the end of the exam, you get the scores for your math and verbal, and then the essay scores (average of the two) are mailed in about 2 weeks. I really did not want to see my scores, I was pretty irritated with the testing process by that point. But I clicked through to see my scores anyway...because I kinda had to.
So the scoring works like this. Between the two math sections, you can score between 130 and 170. And then the same applies to the verbal. You get one math score and one verbal...and then 2 wks later, also one writing score. The lowest score you can possibly score on the math and verbal is 130. The highest is 170. So basically 130 is equal to zero. I scored a 158 on the verbal and 150 on the math. Pretty freakin' terrible. Especially the math. Putting that in perspective, there are 40 possible points in each subject matter (170-130 = 40). So on the verbal I scored 28 out of 40 (70%) and on the math I scored 20 out of 40 (that would be a whopping 50%).
I got home and googled what the averages to these exams are. Obviously, a 70% is fairly average, and so my verbal score is not terrible. Had my math score been in that range, I could just let it go. Of course, as long as my written score is 5 or above, I could still just let it go. But then I would be telling my potential grad schools that not only am I terrible at math, but I'm content in staying that way and am not going to make an attempt at getting a better score. Being as I will be required to take 3 semesters of Calculus, I just don't see that as being a wise choice.So I'm starting again.
I've got a new study book for math and will focus on each section until I feel I have it down so well that I can fly through the math problems with ease (because that is what's required if you want to do well). Most of the problems I can answer given enough time to struggle through it, but that obviously does not work in this case. I can't take the test more than once in a 30 day period and not more than 5 times in a year. So in June I'll do a mental check on where I'm at with the math and schedule a second exam. Of course I will also continue to study my vocabulary words so I can get a better score in the verbal as well, but the concentration will be on the math.
When I got home from the exam (it was an hour drive one way to the testing center) I took a nap. I dreamed I had run a marathon that I wasn't totally thrilled with, but I figured since it didn't take that much out of me to begin with, I'd just do another one. This is funny because I just realized that the exam took me about 3.5 hours to do, and my marathon time is 3:31. If only I had energy gels and water with me throughout the exam (you can't take those in with you) and two bathroom breaks as opposed to the one. Pretty funny.
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