I don't remember ever being this nervous for anything. This is the feeling I had 2 seconds before I got my nose pierced for the second time. 2 seconds before your nose is pierced for the second time, the piercer (who has more tattoos than clear skin, some kind of weird shaving pattern on his/her head, and about 32 man-made holes in his/her head) is holding a needle as thick as a pencil up to your face, the piercer's perforated face is 4 inches from yours and s/he's lining up the sharp end of that needle on the little dot s/he's drawn on your skin and suddenly you realize, "This lunatic, who is probably a junky, is about to IMPALE part of my body with that gigantic needle." Then you remember how much it hurt the first time, and that even after they pierce you, they still have to put the jewlery into the wound, which hurts even more. And if you're a sane person, no matter how calm you look, you're still pretty damned nervous, because you just paid $80 to get stabbed in the face. You wonder what the hell you were thinking, and you'd be crazy not to want to back out. I feel like that. Normally my resting heartrate is in the high 50's in the morning and around 70 while I'm sitting around doing stuff. Yesterday in the car driving (after a day of inactivity), my heartrate was 90! That's how nervous I am.
To prepare for this race I have swum 227,591 yards, biked 2,059.6 miles, rode 99 hours, 20 minutes and 15 seconds on the trainer, and run 782.2 miles since November 11 (when I started my log). But still I don't feel ready! I could probably count on 2 hands the number of times I've run off the bike. I've only run off the bike on exactly 4 rides longer than 50 miles, and only twice was the run more than a mile. I haven't run more than 13 miles since April. I've swum 4000 yards at a stretch twice all year. I've done nothing to practice my nutrition... Was my taper enough? Was it too much? I don't know.
Yesterday I went back to the time trial. My legs had felt like trash all week. Since I tend to perform better towards the end of the week than the beginning, I figured that moving them for half an hour would be just what I needed. Cunt on a Pink Bike wasn't there, but her husband was. With my bike in perfect working order I only went 5 seconds faster. I couldn't believe it! Given, I think I paced it wrong, and felt like I was going to puke for the whole second half. If the 220 minus your age rule of thumb is really true, then I reached 96% of my MHR (187 bpm), and averaged 94% (183 bpm).
While I'm gone, feel free to catch up on the AIDS LifeCycle reports (I've posted Day 6 below; it's a long one, I apologize). I don't know if there's an athlete tracker function, but feel free to check (if you know my last name!). This blog is a tremendous motivator to not suck ass in races, so I figure that if I put my race plan up, it will not only give me a chance to collect my thoughts, but will also give me something to hold myself accountable. Feel free to comment/criticize. I'm sure all of it will go flying out the window when the gun goes off anyway.
Pre-race I will focus on the little things: Getting coffee, finding a bathroom, getting my wetsuit on, peeing in my wetsuit, etc. I will try not to think about what I'm about to do.
In the swim I plan to start nearer to the front and inside than usual. That way I will get swum OVER rather than swimming head-on into feet. If I find feet, I will follow them. If I don't I will concentrate on keeping my head down, my catch, and not swimming off course. I have no idea about pacing but I expect to swim between 1:03 and 1:10 (I know that's a huge gap, I have no idea how fast I swim in open water!).
In T1 I will put on sunscreen, cycling shoes, socks, helmet, and glasses in that order, put an extra bag of nutrition in my pocket, look around for all my shit, stuff it in my transition bag, and hightail it out of there.
I will not eat anything for the first 20 minutes of the bike and concentrate on settling into a rhythm. Once those 20 minutes are up, I will start eating every 20 minutes and draining a bottle every 45 minutes. I am going to try to hold an average of above 20 mph, but if it's not happening, I'm not going to worry about it. My race is going to happen on the bike, so I'm going to concentrate on keeping my effort at an even 75% from mile 10 to mile 105. The last 7 miles will be about loosening up my legs. I hope to go around 5:30 on the bike, but will certainly be done in around 6 hours.
I plan to do a flying shoeless dismount into transition. I will put on my shoes (with lace locks), visor, and race belt, and run out of transition with my run bottle (empty with drink powder already in it) and transition bag in-hand. I'll drop the bag at the first available bush or tree, and fill up the water bottle at the 1 mile aid station, while I'm still getting my legs.
I have no idea what pace I'll run, but I'm going to try to keep it between 9 and 10 minute/miles and just focus on form rather than distance. We must have sexy photos, you know! There's an aid station every mile with blocks, pretzels, and snacks, so I'll just do my nutrition on the fly. I'll take it easy until mile 18, and see how I feel from there. Really, the marathon is a big, black hole in my imagination. We all know that I hate running, I hate marathons, and I hate running in a triathlon. So it would follow that running a marathon at the end of a triathlon will be the most painful, unpleasant experience of my life. My only expectation is to finish the marathon. I hope to do it running. If I break 5:00 I'll be happy. If I break 4:30 I'll be ecstatic.
Stay tuned, because depending on whether I get Shane's permission or not, I might put up his cell phone number for you to text messages of support. Please, no "you're doing great" stuff. Please send things that will get me fired up, like, "I bet you can't do it!", "You're a winner just for finishing!", "I'll be so mad at you if you don't beat Bobby's time!", etc.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Day 6: I won the race!
Related posts:
Prologue: Dykes and Bikes
Day 1: A Ride Down Memory Lane
Day 2: And I'm faster than YOU, and YOU, and YOU...
Day 3: Back Pedaling
Day 4: I find a Fan Club and an Archnemesis
Day 5: Red Dress Day
I woke up early on Day 6 in order to hit the road early. All the holdups on Red Dress Day and the subsequent argument over how much pizza a human being has the right to eat had me feeling sullen and cranky, and I really wanted to get out there and see what I was capable of on my 6th consecutive day of riding. I still felt good, but everyone else seemed to have faded long ago and now they were cracked and peeling. Meg's friend, the heavy one, sagged before she even left camp (when I heard that, I was even more bitter about the pizza comment!). Meg would have problems later in the day. Shane was falling apart and just wouldn't admit it. "I saw Mdot girl in the med tent last night," he confided. "She was walking all funny and had her leg taped up." Alisa was in better spirits after her meltdown, but ready to get off the bike. Word on the street was that if you got too close to Trish she might explode. The only ones who still felt good were me and Lorraine. So while Shane decided to spend the day with Meg and Jess, I rolled out just as they opened bike parking and struck out on my own.
"Just to remind you, you'll be held at Rest Stop 2 until 9:00, so you might as well take your time!" a man was yelling over and over as he paced bike parking. It was 7:00 in the morning and Rest Stop 2 was only 25 miles away.
Coming out of camp we started to climb immediately. It was a long, long hill about 1,000 feet high and 16 miles long. It wasn't too challenging, never going above 5%, and I trucked my way to the top without much trouble. One guy that passed me on the climb said, "Hey, I know you! We talked yesterday. I'm Merc."
"From the cell phone chargers?" I said. Electrical outlets were hard to come by, and people tended to congregate around them to make sure their stuff wasn't unplugged. Now that I think about it, this man wasn't who I thought he was and I have no idea who he really was.
"What are you doing out this early?" he asked.
"Sometimes I ride with my friends, sometimes I want to beat the crowds."
"We call that, 'racing for the blue water'," he said.
"What? What does that mean?"
"In the Porta-Potties. You know, the blue water that no one's used yet." He had a point. I liked that. So even though they were going to hold me at Rest Stop 2, I raced for the blue.
Finally I got to the long, glorious downhill on beautiful, glassy pavement. The only problem was that we were on a sort of freeway at that point, and I was stuck behind a guy who was riding his brakes the whole way down, weaving all over the lane. "ON YOUR LEFT," I called as loud as I could. He continued weaving. He simply wasn't holding his line, and I didn't dare pass him going 35+ mph on a freeway. "ON YOUR LEFT!" I called again. Still, nothing. I came in a little closer. "LEFT!" ... nothing... "PLEASE don't make me ride on the rumblestrip!" I pleaded. Finally he moved way right for long enough for me to pass him. "THANK YOU," I yelled, adding a few impolite nicknames under my breath.
At the bottom of the hill, even before I'd lost the momentum from the descent, the rout spit us RIGHT onto highway 101. If you don't know the area, this is a MAJOR highway, and the best way to get to LA from all coastal points north. It's pretty and runs right along the water, but it's still a freeway and it's still scary as hell to ride your bike on. On top of that there was an UNBELIEVABLE headwind gusting up the coast. I'd never had to ride into a wind like this for any significant amount of time. In fact, I don't think I'd ever encountered a headwind like this until this week. When I got into Rest Stop 2 there were only about a dozen people there, and the roadies were still setting up. They were having a hell of a time getting the canopies set up in the wind, and it took me and another rider to hold one of the posts down while the roadie tied it to the bumper of his truck (the milk crates filled with full jugs of water weren't enough to hold it down). I still had 40 minutes to wait, so I grabbed a couple of Mojo bars and sat at the top of a 100' cliff to look at the ocean. A tall man, about 30 years old sat next to me. "Hi! What's your name?!" he said. He was so flaming, he would set off sprinklers.
"Claire, what's yours?"
"Joseph." Then he looked meaningfully into my sunglasses. "I want you to remember me," his voice dropped and he said it like it was really important. If he weren't the gayest man I've ever met (and that's saying a lot), I might have thought he was hitting on me. Now that I think about it, he may have been a positive pedaler not wearing a jersey. Either way, it was clear that he liked being the center of attention. "I haven't seen YOU here before..." he went on in a Cheshire Cat kind of way. I swear, if I didn't know better I would think he was hitting on me.
"I was here the other morning. Sometimes I ride with friends, sometimes I ride alone."
"Well I'm your friend now, honey!" he said.
At a quarter to 9 there were over a hundred riders in Rest Stop 2, and dozens more coming by the minute. I decided that if I wanted to keep my lead, I'd better line up now. I grabbed my bike from its spot right at the front of the rack and nosed my way to the front of the gathering crowd. Then I spotted Shane. "Come have snack with me!" he said.
"Like hell I'm giving up this spot!" I said. "Come here when you're done!" But when he was done I was surrounded by another hundred people. He found a spot about 20 feet away and we made faces at each other, since we were too far apart to talk. Mdot girl was there too, just a couple of shoulders away to my right.
The reason for the hold was that just beyond the rest area there was a narrow bridge with no shoulder. The CHP (California Highway Patrol) had agreed to close down a lane for us between the hours of 9:00 and 12:00 a.m., but no earlier and no later. As the crowd thickened, tension rose. Nine o'clock came and went, and there was still no sign that they were going to let us go. "C'maaaaaaan!" a guy right behind me yelled. "WHAT'S THE FUCKING HOLD-UP?!" I don't think he realized how far his voice was carrying. "It's 9:15 already! Let us GO already!" It was only 9:10. These obnoxious comments continued at regular intervals, whether encouraged or not. He would say something, maybe laugh at his own joke, wait about 15 seconds, and then say something else obnoxious. People around him (including myself) were starting to turn and give him dirty looks.
Riders waiting to leave Rest Stop 2 at around 9:15.
Finally, one of the roadies started moving down the line yelling, "We are just waiting for the CHP to come back and tell us that the cones are set and we will let you go. We can't let you leave before that!"
"That's fucking CalTrans for you!" (CalTrans = California Transit) yelled the obnoxious man behind me. "Fucking Schwarzenegger won't give any money to fucking CalTrans..." What the hell is he talking about?! He thinks just because ONE trooper is running late setting up some cones it's a giant government conspiracy?! This is hardly the Super Dome! I thought. It was like having Gilbert Gottfried right over my shoulder. More people started turning and giving him dirty looks.
"Uh oh, Jimmy!" he yelled to someone at the very front of the pack. "I think I'm starting to piss off the neighbors! Time to leave the neighborhood!" 'Jimmy' turned around and gave him a half snicker, half snarl and turned back to the guy next to him.
"What the fuck IS this?! Are we going to have to wait her all fucking day?! TYPICAL CalTrans, doesn't work for fucking shit..." he went on.
Mdot girl turned around, "You know, you have real bad energy about you, you know that?!" she said. "It's not like you're the only one waiting here, so why don't you just calm down."
"I got a real bad energy?! I got a real bad energy?!"
"Yeah, so why don't you just keep it down," she said. Alright, she was kind of a bitch, but at least she was actually SAYING what the hundreds of people around her were thinking.
"I should come over there and kick your ass!" he said. "I'll kick your ass and throw your bike in the ocean and show YOU who's got bad energy!"
She just raised an eyebrow and turned away. Still, Gilbert Gottfried didn't shut up.
At about 9:30 the roadies started making the rounds again with an update. "The trooper laid the cones only about this far from the barrier." She held up her hands about 16 inches apart. "We're going to have to wait until he re-lays them, then when he comes back here, we'll let you go.
"I could ride through something like that! Let us go!" yelled Gilbert Gottfried. "If you can't ride through something like that, you DESERVE to fall under a truck." Oh yeah, well why don't you go out there and try, then, thought a couple hundred annoyed cyclists. I'll drive the truck.
"Where's he in such a hurry to be?" I said to the guy next to me. I said it loud enough that I could be overheard. "He got an appointment in camp or something?"
"Some people just have to make asses of themselves, they can't help it!" he said. This guy was another Ironman athlete from the New York area and we bonded over triathlon, location, and rolling our eyes at each other every time Gilbert Gottfried opened his mouth.
He'd started to repeat himself. "If fucking Schwarzenegger weren't so busy blowing shit up and would put money into CalTrans..." What planet is this guy living on?! What is Schwarzenegger blowing up?! He may be Republican. He may blow shit up in movies, but he's hardly responsible for the war in Iraq..., thought hundreds of people around him.
The roadies were trying to make the best of a bad situation by inspiring us. "There are now roughly 2,000 cyclists gathered her right now. That is more than participated in the first AIDS/LifeCycle 7 years ago!" It wasn't inspiring anyone, just stressing us out that there were 2,000 of us and our bikes squashed into a tiny little Park & Ride off highway 101. I'd been lined up for nearly an hour.
"YOU SAID YOU'D LET US GO AT 9:00! WAS THAT 9:00 EAST COAST TIME?!" yelled Gilbert Gottfried.
Finally I turned around with the best look of disgust I could muster. "East coast time is 3 hours AHEAD, you moron."
He pretended like he hadn't heard me, but yelled, "I mean Hawaiian time?!" If this guy wasn't careful the crowd was going to pick him up and throw him over the cliff.
FINALLY at around 9:45 they announced that they would be releasing us in waves roughly 5 minutes apart. I smooshed forward to make sure I'd be in the first wave. They let us off, and I saw that Mdot girl was also going to be in the first wave. I got lost in the shuffle trying to clip in and she pulled out first, getting a roughly 50 meter head start on me. I made sure to say, "ON YOUR LEFT!" good and loud as I passed her, and surge ahead so that she couldn't catch me. Once I got up the momentum I kept it going. The headwind had died down a bit, but it was still strong. I didn't care. I was so sick of being around people that all I wanted to do was get AWAY. I hammered as hard as I could for the next 20 miles to lunch. Some people passed me, but not too many.
When I got to the bridge and the cones I couldn't believe it! The bridge was no more than 10 feet long, and there were only about a dozen cones laid out to block the lane! 40 minutes to do this?! Now that WAS silly. After about 10 miles on Highway 1, we hit Santa Barbara county and moved inland a bit. The road began to roll and I pushed harder. I saw a girl up ahead. She'd ridden away from me on the way out of Santa María and I hadn't been able to catch her. I was going to hang in behind her, but eventually momentum got ahold of me and I just passed her. I looked over and smiled, "Hi," I said.
"Hi."
Then I rode away.
As I pulled into lunch, I was among the first 10 or so riders into the stop. I looked around and didn't see any women. I stuck my fist up in the air, pasted the biggest, most triumphant smile I could on my face and yelled, "I WON THE RACE!!!" Of course, it's not a race, and this wasn't even any kind of finish line, just a rest stop, but it was a joke. Some people clapped, others smiled, others laughed, some looked confused.
I racked my bike and was walking right to the lunch table when a big guy in a t-shirt that said Media stepped in front of me. I froze. "Hi, I'm with the media and we've got a camera crew right over here and we'd really like to get an interview with a woman..." He stopped. My face was already ashen. "Not interested?"
"No. Thank you, but I am NOT interested!" I said. My mother will resent this answer for as long as she lives, but I knew that if I stepped in front of a TV camera I would just say something stupid. I wouldn't think to say anything about the charity, or to thank the supporters, or to say great things about the communities. I would probably get up there and start talking shit on all the other riders and how I was so much faster than all of them, even the boys. I don't really have a filter for what comes out of my mouth, so I just try to stay out of situations where it could get me in trouble.
I got my lunch and spent a few minutes refilling my bottles. When I sat down in a nice, sunny spot the girl that I'd just passed was at an empty table a few feet away. "Who do you race for?" she asked.
"No one. Just me," I said. "How about you?"
"I race against myself," she said. "It's more fun that way. You're a really strong rider."
"You too," I said. "You should race. You'd be good at it."
"Thanks." And then we both turned to our sandwiches. See? I'm not competitive off the bike. Not unless you're asking for it (Mdot girl! Cunt on a Pink Bike!).
Suddenly a guy started yelling from over at another table. It was probably Gilbert Gottfried, but I wasn't sure because even though I'd stood right in front of him for an hour, I never got a good look at his face. "Yeah, well if they ask you if you rode every mile, you can't say you did! You didn't ride every mile!"
He was yelling in our general direction. I looked around for someone behind me. She looked around too. "Who's he talking to?" she asked.
"No idea."
"What does he mean?"
"Hell if I know."
I was totally happy to be all by my self, wolfing down my sandwich in peace when a stranger sat down across from me and started yapping right away. He introduced himself, told me several details of his life which I did not ask for or listen to, and then finally asked, "Where are you from?"
"Boston, and yourself?"
"Boston? Really? What part?"
"About 10 miles north."
"What town?"
Nobody knows my town. People the next town over don't even know where my town is. There is absolutely no reason to go to my town unless you're one of the 25,000 people that live there, or need a Christmas tree or topiary from our huge garden center. You wouldn't even pass through my town if you got lost. Saying the name of my town usually shuts people up, because they've never heard of it and therefore have nothing else to say. "Winchester," I said. There, that should do it! I thought.
"Winchester?! Really?! I grew up in Winchester!"
No you didn't. You're lying to me. There is no reason why anyone from this far away would know Winchester. "Really?" I asked, disinterestedly.
"Yeah. I used to play at the Packer courts all the time." I stopped eating my sandwich and looked at him. The Packer courts are some tennis courts less than a mile from my house. "I used to live over by Lynch Middle School..."
"It's an elementary school now," I said in disbelief. This guy really was from Winchester, and it looked like he hadn't been back in over 40 years, and here he was sitting across from me at a picnic table in Santa Barbara, California. That didn't mean I wanted to talk to him, though.
He kept talking and talking, no matter how little feedback I gave him, until Shane turned up about 10 minutes later. Then he kept talking. Between words I managed to squeeze in a greeting to Shane. "Where've you been?"
"I left in the group behind you. I left Meg and them this morning. They were just going too slow, and my knees were bothering me too much. I just want to get today over with."
Meanwhile, the man from Winchester was still yammering on in the background.
"Well, I was just about to leave once I finished my sandwich," I said to Shane.
He looked at the man from Winchester still telling his life's story. "Hold on, I'll eat quick." In a daring show of gastric acrobatics, Shane gulped down his sandwich in a matter of minutes.
"Well, we'll see you around," I said to the man from Winchester, and we both got up and left him mid-sentence. We'd been around other people too much this past week to bother with manners.
Shane and I were among the first people out of lunch, but not THE first. We got caught in a group that was more competitive than they were good. Every time we would try to get around them, each individual would surge ahead to not let us pass. Plus there were lots of rolling hills and stoplights. The end result was that it was hard to stay together. I would surge on ahead, trying to get around the pack, only to be caught at a stop light or on a hill. Every once in awhile Shane would turn up again after I thought he was gone for good and heckle me as he passed. "You're not SPECIAL!" I would yell as I passed him back. I suppose we could have worked together to get out of the group, but we were both feeling like lone wolves at that moment, and we both wanted to prove that we were top dog. Eventually Shane was gone and I finally lost the pack. Now that I was alone, I missed him.
I asked him that night what had happened, "You guys were all surging all over the place and racing to every stop light. I don't know, it just wasn't fun. I was over it."
I guess I could have gone easier, but Shane and I were getting dangerously close to overdosing on each other. I was goading him too harshly, and he was saying more and more often how mean I was. "You know, I'm the only one of your friends who will put up with your shit," he said.
"No you're not! I have other friends!"
"Well I'm the only one who doesn't talk shit about you behind your back!" I know Shane well, and I know what he meant about people talking shit behind my back. I have a pretty good idea of what people say, and I deserve it. Sometimes I'm a bit caustic. Shane's comment was more meant to cut me down to size than it was true. I think we were jealous of each other. He was jealous because, even though he was doping and he was the one who rode his bike every day, I was still a slightly stronger rider. I was jealous because he wanted to do RAAM, and he was talking about trying to qualify next year. That was MY dream, and I didn't want him getting it first, especially since I'M the planner. He's always got his head in the clouds and coming up with hair-brained schemes: a commune in Costa Rica, a pyramid scheme, writing a book, buying real estate in San Francisco, starting a co-op. RAAM just sounded like another one of his hairbrained schemes, and I didn't want him talking about one of MY dreams like that. It made it sound cheap. It was probably better that we were apart.
The harbor in Santa Barbara. I'm going to live here someday.
For the last 30 miles I rode by myself. For the first ten miles after lunch we were riding through Santa Barbara, which is where I'm going to live when I'm a millionaire. They had us riding on a bike path, which was a pain in the ass because there were menacing signs everywhere that said not to go over 10 mph. I even managed to lose the trail once... okay, twice. Then, I came through a gauntlet of UCSB coeds handing out Red Vines and came upon a clearing with tables: they were giving away free ice cream and strawberries! I had a small cone of the most delicious ice cream I've ever tasted and stood at the strawberry table for about 10 minutes eating berry after berry. I couldn't believe Shane wasn't here by now (when he did arrive, he washed his hands for several minutes with real running water, not the hand sanitizer stuff that just spreads the dirt around!). I stood watching the cyclists come in across the street, and the only other person standing there was: Mdot girl! We were standing not 2 feet apart. We clearly knew each other, and we clearly weren't speaking to each other. Finally I said, "Have you seen Shane?"
"Is he the dude that rides with you guys?" she asked.
Duh! "Yeah."
"Nope. Have you seen Kim?"
"Nope." End of conversation. I stuck around for a few more minutes, and when he didn't come, I went on by myself.
Me looking fat and eating ice cream. This is Ginger. She came out every day to cheer us on somewhere along the course, wearing a different outfit every day. Shortly after this picture was taken someone asked, "Will Ginger be at the closing ceremonies tomorrow?" "No honey, Ginger is just for fun. Closing ceremonies are just to thank the riders. Ginger has no business stealing the show there." It was one of the most gracious things I heard all week.
The final 10 miles was a nerve-racking stretch on the shoulder of 101 along the beach. My ass was sore and the pavement was rough. The paint that they'd used to paint the bike lane logo on the ground must have been a half inch thick, because it rattled my teeth every time I rode over one. Every time a truck went by the wind would blast you off course. The headwind was strong, and I was lonely out there. Almost no one was ahead of me or behind me. For the first time I hit a low. I just wanted this to be over. I wanted to get off my bike and rest. I was checking my mileage every couple of seconds and it didn't seem to be budging. I started feeling sorry for myself.
Finally we got to the town of Ventura, where camp was. "Just 1.5 more miles!" a volunteer at an intersection told me. He lied. It was easily another 3.
Just then, a couple of guys rode up behind me. "Hey! Joseph, right? I remember you!" I remembered him because he'd asked me to this morning.
He didn't seem to care, he was talking to someone much more interesting: an attractive man. We were riding on a boardwalk again and there were pedestrians and more stationary obstacles everywhere. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!" Joseph screamed like a little girl. "Don't run over the cute ones!" There were a couple of 17-year-old jock-looking guys walking in front of me. I was not about to hit them. "I saw you, girl. You almost ran over those cute guys..." Joseph said, swiveling around in his saddle to check them out over his shoulder.
"Did not!"
We were only riding at about 15 mph, Joseph and his crush du jour about 5 feet in front of me, when a long-haired, bearded man busted out from behind a planter brandishing a cane. "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN, MAN!" he yelled, trying to smack Joseph with the cane. Joseph screamed again. The guy's face looked funny and he slurred his speech like he'd had a stroke, but he couldn't have been more than 40 years old. The lights were on, but no one was home. We sprinted away from him the final half mile in to camp.
The first thing I did when I got to camp was schedule my free massage. Every rider got only one free massage, and most people had the same idea that I did: to save it until the last day. Since I was among the first people in camp (except the sagged riders), there were still slots when I got there. When I got on the table my masseur asked, "So what hurts?"
I tried to think of something to complain about. "Actually, nothing," I said. "I just didn't want to pass up a free massage..."
"Nothing is bothering you?!" he asked. "Are you a rider or a roadie?"
"I'm riding. Well, I guess my shoulders are usually pretty tight. I mean, not right now, but most of the time," I offered.
"Alright..." he said, and had me lie down. He massaged my whole body. He did this thing where he put my knee in my armpit and my whole back cracked, but that was the most dramatic thing about the massage. When I was finished he said, "Wow, you really didn't have ANY tight spots or knots. You were right!" We were both surprised. It just didn't make sense. I hadn't even been stretching.
"Thanks!" I said, and hopped off the table.
When I got out, Shane had finally come back into camp. We'd both had low points today and we blamed it on the pizza the night before. We walked to the beach that was RIGHT next to camp. Shane's afraid of water (he discovered a dead body at the beach when he was 10), so he didn't go in past his ankles, but I waded in up to my waist. I had my cap and goggles with me, but the water wasn't all that warm. "How about I just dive under?" I said. "Just to say I did it."
"You're crazy," Shane said.
"It's been suggested." The next wave that came along I dove under it and ran back up the beach screaming like a little kid. "NOT THAT WARM! NOT THAT WARM!" I squealed. Once I got to our stuff I admitted. "It wasn't that cold either."
We weren't the only ones who had had bad days. Narine had gotten lost thanks to this one roadie who dressed up as a giant purple pill that said "YOU ARE MY VIAGRA!" and he would yell, "Keep it up! Keep it up!" to all the riders who went past his post. Today, it had been his job to wave us off the road and onto a bike path. "But when I rode by, I was so busy staring at this fool screaming in his stupid costume that I didn't pay any attention to what he was saying. I followed the road up that gigantic hill. Do you guys remember that? So I went up that big hill and down the other side, and eventually a sweep van comes up next to me and the driver says, 'Blazing your own trail?' I hate that stupid viagra guy." Apparently the rest of the old ladies had passed her in a pace line. "They come up to me like a freight train and Kim yells, 'Get on the back!' I wasn't getting on that thing! I'm here to enjoy myself and see the scenery, not blow through here like a tank engine!"
Meg had an even better story. She had been one of the last ones to come out of Rest Stop 2, and, as a slower rider, she got to lunch shortly before they were closing. They threatened to sag her if she didn't get out soon, so she wolfed down her lunch too quickly and rode away. Then, on the road after lunch her helmet strap was rubbing against her throat in a funny way that made her nauseous (I don't get it either). Suddenly, right as she was riding down a hill, she turned her head and puked... Only, since she was riding down hill, it splattered all over her. When the sweep car saw her, they were afraid that she might be dehydrated and wouldn't let her keep going.
In Lompoc I'd visited the Dedication Tent. The Dedication Tent was a closed tent where they played soft music and people could post pictures and messages for friends and loved ones who had died of AIDS. I went into that tent and read many of the messages. I stared at the pictures. There were people who had written lists of names a dozen names long. There were messages to brothers, fathers, sons, boyfriends, daughters, and friends. I came out of that tent crying and went straight to my tent.
In Ventura, the last night of the ride, we held a candlelight vigil. They gave out candles in clear, plastic cups and 3,000 riders and roadies went down to the beach and stood in a circle. The circle was about 4 people deep and roughly the length of a football field. The guys who dressed in drag in earnest (not the showy Liza Manelli types) wore their best skirts and wigs and stuffed bras. Everyone was quiet, looking at their candles. Even if you weren't into symbolic things like this, it was dark and quiet and there was nothing to do BUT look at your candles.
Then, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence came out. I don't quite know what the whole story is, but they are a whole group of gay men who dress up in nun costumes and kabuki-type make-up and do charity work at gay-centered events. I don't know if it's a San Francisco thing or if there are chapters in other cities. Apparently it's a really involved organization with a hierarchy and a whole system of moving up from a novice to a mont to Mother Superior. Anyway, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence came out with big candles and some sort of red banner and walked a lap around the ring of candles.
(Right: A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence on Red Dress Day)
Then, people started walking up to the waves and putting their candles out in the water. Only most people were wearing pants and shoes, and with the waves, it was hard to be in just the right place at the right time to put your candle out without getting your shoes wet. It was taking awhile for everyone to get to the waves at just the right moment. "Can't I just blow my candle out?" asked Shane.
"No, Shane! This is important."
"Oh, come on, half those people aren't even putting their candles in the water. They're just putting it out in the wet sand like a cigarette."
"Shane, if this were a memorial service for you, would you like to be put in the waves, or would you like to be blown out like a birthday candle? We're waiting for the waves!"
So we waited for the waves, then went back to our tent and went to sleep.
Day's miles: 87.68
Total saddle time: 4:54:07
Average speed: 17.9 mph
Total elevation gain/loss: roughly 2,000'
Prologue: Dykes and Bikes
Day 1: A Ride Down Memory Lane
Day 2: And I'm faster than YOU, and YOU, and YOU...
Day 3: Back Pedaling
Day 4: I find a Fan Club and an Archnemesis
Day 5: Red Dress Day
I woke up early on Day 6 in order to hit the road early. All the holdups on Red Dress Day and the subsequent argument over how much pizza a human being has the right to eat had me feeling sullen and cranky, and I really wanted to get out there and see what I was capable of on my 6th consecutive day of riding. I still felt good, but everyone else seemed to have faded long ago and now they were cracked and peeling. Meg's friend, the heavy one, sagged before she even left camp (when I heard that, I was even more bitter about the pizza comment!). Meg would have problems later in the day. Shane was falling apart and just wouldn't admit it. "I saw Mdot girl in the med tent last night," he confided. "She was walking all funny and had her leg taped up." Alisa was in better spirits after her meltdown, but ready to get off the bike. Word on the street was that if you got too close to Trish she might explode. The only ones who still felt good were me and Lorraine. So while Shane decided to spend the day with Meg and Jess, I rolled out just as they opened bike parking and struck out on my own."Just to remind you, you'll be held at Rest Stop 2 until 9:00, so you might as well take your time!" a man was yelling over and over as he paced bike parking. It was 7:00 in the morning and Rest Stop 2 was only 25 miles away.
Coming out of camp we started to climb immediately. It was a long, long hill about 1,000 feet high and 16 miles long. It wasn't too challenging, never going above 5%, and I trucked my way to the top without much trouble. One guy that passed me on the climb said, "Hey, I know you! We talked yesterday. I'm Merc."
"From the cell phone chargers?" I said. Electrical outlets were hard to come by, and people tended to congregate around them to make sure their stuff wasn't unplugged. Now that I think about it, this man wasn't who I thought he was and I have no idea who he really was.
"What are you doing out this early?" he asked.
"Sometimes I ride with my friends, sometimes I want to beat the crowds."
"We call that, 'racing for the blue water'," he said.
"What? What does that mean?"
"In the Porta-Potties. You know, the blue water that no one's used yet." He had a point. I liked that. So even though they were going to hold me at Rest Stop 2, I raced for the blue.
Finally I got to the long, glorious downhill on beautiful, glassy pavement. The only problem was that we were on a sort of freeway at that point, and I was stuck behind a guy who was riding his brakes the whole way down, weaving all over the lane. "ON YOUR LEFT," I called as loud as I could. He continued weaving. He simply wasn't holding his line, and I didn't dare pass him going 35+ mph on a freeway. "ON YOUR LEFT!" I called again. Still, nothing. I came in a little closer. "LEFT!" ... nothing... "PLEASE don't make me ride on the rumblestrip!" I pleaded. Finally he moved way right for long enough for me to pass him. "THANK YOU," I yelled, adding a few impolite nicknames under my breath.
At the bottom of the hill, even before I'd lost the momentum from the descent, the rout spit us RIGHT onto highway 101. If you don't know the area, this is a MAJOR highway, and the best way to get to LA from all coastal points north. It's pretty and runs right along the water, but it's still a freeway and it's still scary as hell to ride your bike on. On top of that there was an UNBELIEVABLE headwind gusting up the coast. I'd never had to ride into a wind like this for any significant amount of time. In fact, I don't think I'd ever encountered a headwind like this until this week. When I got into Rest Stop 2 there were only about a dozen people there, and the roadies were still setting up. They were having a hell of a time getting the canopies set up in the wind, and it took me and another rider to hold one of the posts down while the roadie tied it to the bumper of his truck (the milk crates filled with full jugs of water weren't enough to hold it down). I still had 40 minutes to wait, so I grabbed a couple of Mojo bars and sat at the top of a 100' cliff to look at the ocean. A tall man, about 30 years old sat next to me. "Hi! What's your name?!" he said. He was so flaming, he would set off sprinklers."Claire, what's yours?"
"Joseph." Then he looked meaningfully into my sunglasses. "I want you to remember me," his voice dropped and he said it like it was really important. If he weren't the gayest man I've ever met (and that's saying a lot), I might have thought he was hitting on me. Now that I think about it, he may have been a positive pedaler not wearing a jersey. Either way, it was clear that he liked being the center of attention. "I haven't seen YOU here before..." he went on in a Cheshire Cat kind of way. I swear, if I didn't know better I would think he was hitting on me.
"I was here the other morning. Sometimes I ride with friends, sometimes I ride alone."
"Well I'm your friend now, honey!" he said.
At a quarter to 9 there were over a hundred riders in Rest Stop 2, and dozens more coming by the minute. I decided that if I wanted to keep my lead, I'd better line up now. I grabbed my bike from its spot right at the front of the rack and nosed my way to the front of the gathering crowd. Then I spotted Shane. "Come have snack with me!" he said.
"Like hell I'm giving up this spot!" I said. "Come here when you're done!" But when he was done I was surrounded by another hundred people. He found a spot about 20 feet away and we made faces at each other, since we were too far apart to talk. Mdot girl was there too, just a couple of shoulders away to my right.
The reason for the hold was that just beyond the rest area there was a narrow bridge with no shoulder. The CHP (California Highway Patrol) had agreed to close down a lane for us between the hours of 9:00 and 12:00 a.m., but no earlier and no later. As the crowd thickened, tension rose. Nine o'clock came and went, and there was still no sign that they were going to let us go. "C'maaaaaaan!" a guy right behind me yelled. "WHAT'S THE FUCKING HOLD-UP?!" I don't think he realized how far his voice was carrying. "It's 9:15 already! Let us GO already!" It was only 9:10. These obnoxious comments continued at regular intervals, whether encouraged or not. He would say something, maybe laugh at his own joke, wait about 15 seconds, and then say something else obnoxious. People around him (including myself) were starting to turn and give him dirty looks.
Riders waiting to leave Rest Stop 2 at around 9:15."That's fucking CalTrans for you!" (CalTrans = California Transit) yelled the obnoxious man behind me. "Fucking Schwarzenegger won't give any money to fucking CalTrans..." What the hell is he talking about?! He thinks just because ONE trooper is running late setting up some cones it's a giant government conspiracy?! This is hardly the Super Dome! I thought. It was like having Gilbert Gottfried right over my shoulder. More people started turning and giving him dirty looks."Uh oh, Jimmy!" he yelled to someone at the very front of the pack. "I think I'm starting to piss off the neighbors! Time to leave the neighborhood!" 'Jimmy' turned around and gave him a half snicker, half snarl and turned back to the guy next to him.
"What the fuck IS this?! Are we going to have to wait her all fucking day?! TYPICAL CalTrans, doesn't work for fucking shit..." he went on.
Mdot girl turned around, "You know, you have real bad energy about you, you know that?!" she said. "It's not like you're the only one waiting here, so why don't you just calm down."
"I got a real bad energy?! I got a real bad energy?!"
"Yeah, so why don't you just keep it down," she said. Alright, she was kind of a bitch, but at least she was actually SAYING what the hundreds of people around her were thinking.
"I should come over there and kick your ass!" he said. "I'll kick your ass and throw your bike in the ocean and show YOU who's got bad energy!"
She just raised an eyebrow and turned away. Still, Gilbert Gottfried didn't shut up.
At about 9:30 the roadies started making the rounds again with an update. "The trooper laid the cones only about this far from the barrier." She held up her hands about 16 inches apart. "We're going to have to wait until he re-lays them, then when he comes back here, we'll let you go.
"I could ride through something like that! Let us go!" yelled Gilbert Gottfried. "If you can't ride through something like that, you DESERVE to fall under a truck." Oh yeah, well why don't you go out there and try, then, thought a couple hundred annoyed cyclists. I'll drive the truck.
"Where's he in such a hurry to be?" I said to the guy next to me. I said it loud enough that I could be overheard. "He got an appointment in camp or something?"
"Some people just have to make asses of themselves, they can't help it!" he said. This guy was another Ironman athlete from the New York area and we bonded over triathlon, location, and rolling our eyes at each other every time Gilbert Gottfried opened his mouth.
He'd started to repeat himself. "If fucking Schwarzenegger weren't so busy blowing shit up and would put money into CalTrans..." What planet is this guy living on?! What is Schwarzenegger blowing up?! He may be Republican. He may blow shit up in movies, but he's hardly responsible for the war in Iraq..., thought hundreds of people around him.
The roadies were trying to make the best of a bad situation by inspiring us. "There are now roughly 2,000 cyclists gathered her right now. That is more than participated in the first AIDS/LifeCycle 7 years ago!" It wasn't inspiring anyone, just stressing us out that there were 2,000 of us and our bikes squashed into a tiny little Park & Ride off highway 101. I'd been lined up for nearly an hour.
"YOU SAID YOU'D LET US GO AT 9:00! WAS THAT 9:00 EAST COAST TIME?!" yelled Gilbert Gottfried.
Finally I turned around with the best look of disgust I could muster. "East coast time is 3 hours AHEAD, you moron."
He pretended like he hadn't heard me, but yelled, "I mean Hawaiian time?!" If this guy wasn't careful the crowd was going to pick him up and throw him over the cliff.
FINALLY at around 9:45 they announced that they would be releasing us in waves roughly 5 minutes apart. I smooshed forward to make sure I'd be in the first wave. They let us off, and I saw that Mdot girl was also going to be in the first wave. I got lost in the shuffle trying to clip in and she pulled out first, getting a roughly 50 meter head start on me. I made sure to say, "ON YOUR LEFT!" good and loud as I passed her, and surge ahead so that she couldn't catch me. Once I got up the momentum I kept it going. The headwind had died down a bit, but it was still strong. I didn't care. I was so sick of being around people that all I wanted to do was get AWAY. I hammered as hard as I could for the next 20 miles to lunch. Some people passed me, but not too many.
When I got to the bridge and the cones I couldn't believe it! The bridge was no more than 10 feet long, and there were only about a dozen cones laid out to block the lane! 40 minutes to do this?! Now that WAS silly. After about 10 miles on Highway 1, we hit Santa Barbara county and moved inland a bit. The road began to roll and I pushed harder. I saw a girl up ahead. She'd ridden away from me on the way out of Santa María and I hadn't been able to catch her. I was going to hang in behind her, but eventually momentum got ahold of me and I just passed her. I looked over and smiled, "Hi," I said.
"Hi."
Then I rode away.
As I pulled into lunch, I was among the first 10 or so riders into the stop. I looked around and didn't see any women. I stuck my fist up in the air, pasted the biggest, most triumphant smile I could on my face and yelled, "I WON THE RACE!!!" Of course, it's not a race, and this wasn't even any kind of finish line, just a rest stop, but it was a joke. Some people clapped, others smiled, others laughed, some looked confused.
I racked my bike and was walking right to the lunch table when a big guy in a t-shirt that said Media stepped in front of me. I froze. "Hi, I'm with the media and we've got a camera crew right over here and we'd really like to get an interview with a woman..." He stopped. My face was already ashen. "Not interested?"
"No. Thank you, but I am NOT interested!" I said. My mother will resent this answer for as long as she lives, but I knew that if I stepped in front of a TV camera I would just say something stupid. I wouldn't think to say anything about the charity, or to thank the supporters, or to say great things about the communities. I would probably get up there and start talking shit on all the other riders and how I was so much faster than all of them, even the boys. I don't really have a filter for what comes out of my mouth, so I just try to stay out of situations where it could get me in trouble.
I got my lunch and spent a few minutes refilling my bottles. When I sat down in a nice, sunny spot the girl that I'd just passed was at an empty table a few feet away. "Who do you race for?" she asked.
"No one. Just me," I said. "How about you?"
"I race against myself," she said. "It's more fun that way. You're a really strong rider."
"You too," I said. "You should race. You'd be good at it."
"Thanks." And then we both turned to our sandwiches. See? I'm not competitive off the bike. Not unless you're asking for it (Mdot girl! Cunt on a Pink Bike!).
Suddenly a guy started yelling from over at another table. It was probably Gilbert Gottfried, but I wasn't sure because even though I'd stood right in front of him for an hour, I never got a good look at his face. "Yeah, well if they ask you if you rode every mile, you can't say you did! You didn't ride every mile!"
He was yelling in our general direction. I looked around for someone behind me. She looked around too. "Who's he talking to?" she asked.
"No idea."
"What does he mean?"
"Hell if I know."
I was totally happy to be all by my self, wolfing down my sandwich in peace when a stranger sat down across from me and started yapping right away. He introduced himself, told me several details of his life which I did not ask for or listen to, and then finally asked, "Where are you from?"
"Boston, and yourself?"
"Boston? Really? What part?"
"About 10 miles north."
"What town?"
Nobody knows my town. People the next town over don't even know where my town is. There is absolutely no reason to go to my town unless you're one of the 25,000 people that live there, or need a Christmas tree or topiary from our huge garden center. You wouldn't even pass through my town if you got lost. Saying the name of my town usually shuts people up, because they've never heard of it and therefore have nothing else to say. "Winchester," I said. There, that should do it! I thought.
"Winchester?! Really?! I grew up in Winchester!"
No you didn't. You're lying to me. There is no reason why anyone from this far away would know Winchester. "Really?" I asked, disinterestedly.
"Yeah. I used to play at the Packer courts all the time." I stopped eating my sandwich and looked at him. The Packer courts are some tennis courts less than a mile from my house. "I used to live over by Lynch Middle School..."
"It's an elementary school now," I said in disbelief. This guy really was from Winchester, and it looked like he hadn't been back in over 40 years, and here he was sitting across from me at a picnic table in Santa Barbara, California. That didn't mean I wanted to talk to him, though.
He kept talking and talking, no matter how little feedback I gave him, until Shane turned up about 10 minutes later. Then he kept talking. Between words I managed to squeeze in a greeting to Shane. "Where've you been?"
"I left in the group behind you. I left Meg and them this morning. They were just going too slow, and my knees were bothering me too much. I just want to get today over with."
Meanwhile, the man from Winchester was still yammering on in the background.
"Well, I was just about to leave once I finished my sandwich," I said to Shane.
He looked at the man from Winchester still telling his life's story. "Hold on, I'll eat quick." In a daring show of gastric acrobatics, Shane gulped down his sandwich in a matter of minutes.
"Well, we'll see you around," I said to the man from Winchester, and we both got up and left him mid-sentence. We'd been around other people too much this past week to bother with manners.
Shane and I were among the first people out of lunch, but not THE first. We got caught in a group that was more competitive than they were good. Every time we would try to get around them, each individual would surge ahead to not let us pass. Plus there were lots of rolling hills and stoplights. The end result was that it was hard to stay together. I would surge on ahead, trying to get around the pack, only to be caught at a stop light or on a hill. Every once in awhile Shane would turn up again after I thought he was gone for good and heckle me as he passed. "You're not SPECIAL!" I would yell as I passed him back. I suppose we could have worked together to get out of the group, but we were both feeling like lone wolves at that moment, and we both wanted to prove that we were top dog. Eventually Shane was gone and I finally lost the pack. Now that I was alone, I missed him.
I asked him that night what had happened, "You guys were all surging all over the place and racing to every stop light. I don't know, it just wasn't fun. I was over it."
I guess I could have gone easier, but Shane and I were getting dangerously close to overdosing on each other. I was goading him too harshly, and he was saying more and more often how mean I was. "You know, I'm the only one of your friends who will put up with your shit," he said.
"No you're not! I have other friends!"
"Well I'm the only one who doesn't talk shit about you behind your back!" I know Shane well, and I know what he meant about people talking shit behind my back. I have a pretty good idea of what people say, and I deserve it. Sometimes I'm a bit caustic. Shane's comment was more meant to cut me down to size than it was true. I think we were jealous of each other. He was jealous because, even though he was doping and he was the one who rode his bike every day, I was still a slightly stronger rider. I was jealous because he wanted to do RAAM, and he was talking about trying to qualify next year. That was MY dream, and I didn't want him getting it first, especially since I'M the planner. He's always got his head in the clouds and coming up with hair-brained schemes: a commune in Costa Rica, a pyramid scheme, writing a book, buying real estate in San Francisco, starting a co-op. RAAM just sounded like another one of his hairbrained schemes, and I didn't want him talking about one of MY dreams like that. It made it sound cheap. It was probably better that we were apart.
The harbor in Santa Barbara. I'm going to live here someday."Is he the dude that rides with you guys?" she asked.
Duh! "Yeah."
"Nope. Have you seen Kim?"
"Nope." End of conversation. I stuck around for a few more minutes, and when he didn't come, I went on by myself.
Me looking fat and eating ice cream. This is Ginger. She came out every day to cheer us on somewhere along the course, wearing a different outfit every day. Shortly after this picture was taken someone asked, "Will Ginger be at the closing ceremonies tomorrow?" "No honey, Ginger is just for fun. Closing ceremonies are just to thank the riders. Ginger has no business stealing the show there." It was one of the most gracious things I heard all week.The final 10 miles was a nerve-racking stretch on the shoulder of 101 along the beach. My ass was sore and the pavement was rough. The paint that they'd used to paint the bike lane logo on the ground must have been a half inch thick, because it rattled my teeth every time I rode over one. Every time a truck went by the wind would blast you off course. The headwind was strong, and I was lonely out there. Almost no one was ahead of me or behind me. For the first time I hit a low. I just wanted this to be over. I wanted to get off my bike and rest. I was checking my mileage every couple of seconds and it didn't seem to be budging. I started feeling sorry for myself.Finally we got to the town of Ventura, where camp was. "Just 1.5 more miles!" a volunteer at an intersection told me. He lied. It was easily another 3.
Just then, a couple of guys rode up behind me. "Hey! Joseph, right? I remember you!" I remembered him because he'd asked me to this morning.
He didn't seem to care, he was talking to someone much more interesting: an attractive man. We were riding on a boardwalk again and there were pedestrians and more stationary obstacles everywhere. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!" Joseph screamed like a little girl. "Don't run over the cute ones!" There were a couple of 17-year-old jock-looking guys walking in front of me. I was not about to hit them. "I saw you, girl. You almost ran over those cute guys..." Joseph said, swiveling around in his saddle to check them out over his shoulder.
"Did not!"
We were only riding at about 15 mph, Joseph and his crush du jour about 5 feet in front of me, when a long-haired, bearded man busted out from behind a planter brandishing a cane. "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN, MAN!" he yelled, trying to smack Joseph with the cane. Joseph screamed again. The guy's face looked funny and he slurred his speech like he'd had a stroke, but he couldn't have been more than 40 years old. The lights were on, but no one was home. We sprinted away from him the final half mile in to camp.
The first thing I did when I got to camp was schedule my free massage. Every rider got only one free massage, and most people had the same idea that I did: to save it until the last day. Since I was among the first people in camp (except the sagged riders), there were still slots when I got there. When I got on the table my masseur asked, "So what hurts?"
I tried to think of something to complain about. "Actually, nothing," I said. "I just didn't want to pass up a free massage..."
"Nothing is bothering you?!" he asked. "Are you a rider or a roadie?"
"I'm riding. Well, I guess my shoulders are usually pretty tight. I mean, not right now, but most of the time," I offered.
"Alright..." he said, and had me lie down. He massaged my whole body. He did this thing where he put my knee in my armpit and my whole back cracked, but that was the most dramatic thing about the massage. When I was finished he said, "Wow, you really didn't have ANY tight spots or knots. You were right!" We were both surprised. It just didn't make sense. I hadn't even been stretching.
"Thanks!" I said, and hopped off the table.
When I got out, Shane had finally come back into camp. We'd both had low points today and we blamed it on the pizza the night before. We walked to the beach that was RIGHT next to camp. Shane's afraid of water (he discovered a dead body at the beach when he was 10), so he didn't go in past his ankles, but I waded in up to my waist. I had my cap and goggles with me, but the water wasn't all that warm. "How about I just dive under?" I said. "Just to say I did it."
"You're crazy," Shane said.
"It's been suggested." The next wave that came along I dove under it and ran back up the beach screaming like a little kid. "NOT THAT WARM! NOT THAT WARM!" I squealed. Once I got to our stuff I admitted. "It wasn't that cold either."
We weren't the only ones who had had bad days. Narine had gotten lost thanks to this one roadie who dressed up as a giant purple pill that said "YOU ARE MY VIAGRA!" and he would yell, "Keep it up! Keep it up!" to all the riders who went past his post. Today, it had been his job to wave us off the road and onto a bike path. "But when I rode by, I was so busy staring at this fool screaming in his stupid costume that I didn't pay any attention to what he was saying. I followed the road up that gigantic hill. Do you guys remember that? So I went up that big hill and down the other side, and eventually a sweep van comes up next to me and the driver says, 'Blazing your own trail?' I hate that stupid viagra guy." Apparently the rest of the old ladies had passed her in a pace line. "They come up to me like a freight train and Kim yells, 'Get on the back!' I wasn't getting on that thing! I'm here to enjoy myself and see the scenery, not blow through here like a tank engine!"Meg had an even better story. She had been one of the last ones to come out of Rest Stop 2, and, as a slower rider, she got to lunch shortly before they were closing. They threatened to sag her if she didn't get out soon, so she wolfed down her lunch too quickly and rode away. Then, on the road after lunch her helmet strap was rubbing against her throat in a funny way that made her nauseous (I don't get it either). Suddenly, right as she was riding down a hill, she turned her head and puked... Only, since she was riding down hill, it splattered all over her. When the sweep car saw her, they were afraid that she might be dehydrated and wouldn't let her keep going.
In Lompoc I'd visited the Dedication Tent. The Dedication Tent was a closed tent where they played soft music and people could post pictures and messages for friends and loved ones who had died of AIDS. I went into that tent and read many of the messages. I stared at the pictures. There were people who had written lists of names a dozen names long. There were messages to brothers, fathers, sons, boyfriends, daughters, and friends. I came out of that tent crying and went straight to my tent.
In Ventura, the last night of the ride, we held a candlelight vigil. They gave out candles in clear, plastic cups and 3,000 riders and roadies went down to the beach and stood in a circle. The circle was about 4 people deep and roughly the length of a football field. The guys who dressed in drag in earnest (not the showy Liza Manelli types) wore their best skirts and wigs and stuffed bras. Everyone was quiet, looking at their candles. Even if you weren't into symbolic things like this, it was dark and quiet and there was nothing to do BUT look at your candles.Then, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence came out. I don't quite know what the whole story is, but they are a whole group of gay men who dress up in nun costumes and kabuki-type make-up and do charity work at gay-centered events. I don't know if it's a San Francisco thing or if there are chapters in other cities. Apparently it's a really involved organization with a hierarchy and a whole system of moving up from a novice to a mont to Mother Superior. Anyway, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence came out with big candles and some sort of red banner and walked a lap around the ring of candles.(Right: A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence on Red Dress Day)
Then, people started walking up to the waves and putting their candles out in the water. Only most people were wearing pants and shoes, and with the waves, it was hard to be in just the right place at the right time to put your candle out without getting your shoes wet. It was taking awhile for everyone to get to the waves at just the right moment. "Can't I just blow my candle out?" asked Shane.
"No, Shane! This is important."
"Oh, come on, half those people aren't even putting their candles in the water. They're just putting it out in the wet sand like a cigarette."
"Shane, if this were a memorial service for you, would you like to be put in the waves, or would you like to be blown out like a birthday candle? We're waiting for the waves!"
So we waited for the waves, then went back to our tent and went to sleep.
Day's miles: 87.68
Total saddle time: 4:54:07
Average speed: 17.9 mph
Total elevation gain/loss: roughly 2,000'
Sunday, July 27, 2008
HELP!!!
Oh god, oh god, oh god! My ironman (Vineman) is in less than a week! Oh god! I want to quit!
I got an e-mail last night about special needs bags. Special needs bags, to me, like some of the hazy, mysterious details of sex are to a virgin. I know that they exist. I know that everyone does it, and someday I will too, and then I will understand that it's not that big a deal. But right now special needs bags kind of scare the living crap out of me. What if I don't do it right? What if how I pack my special needs bag gives me away as a virgin?! Will it hurt?!
What the hell should I put in my special needs bag?! For me, "special needs" means things like inhalers, insulin, sign language interpreters, and pacemaker bracelets. Since I don't have asthma, diabetes, a hearing impairment (arguably), or a pacemaker, I have no idea what to put in my special needs bag. I know you're supposed to put things like spare tubes and real (un-pocketable) food. But what?! I can only imagine that eating an almond butter sandwich will slow me down on the bike. And am I supposed to STOP to collect my bag? I don't want to stop. I've seen footage of people handing Tour riders some sort of drawstring deal, but I imagine weeding through something like that on the bike really
slowing me down. What do I do with the bag when I'm done? Throw it at the side of the road?! Keep it with me?!
Then they say that we can have special needs bags on the run! It's a loop course, so they say we can leave it in T2 or carry it out onto the course with us and drop it somewhere to come back to it later. What special needs might I have on the run?! Should I take advantage of this?! If I do, should I drop the bag or leave it in T2? Oh no! Now I'm actually physically shaking.
And while we're at it, I have some more details I'm having an anxiety attack over:
I've never done a transition from a bag before. This does NOT appeal to my inherent disorganization. Any suggestions?!
T1 and T2 are in different places. Will I be able to get to my bike in the morning before the start?! How am I going to know where my bike is in transition?
I've heard stories of volunteers that help you in transition. Do they go get your bike for you? Do they rack it when I'm done?! Are they handing me shit out of my bag, or do they just give me the bag and let me go? I've seen pictures of lawn chairs in transition in Mdot races, am I going to have one of those?! I realize that this isn't an Mdot race, so some things may be different. What's different?!
How the hell am I going to run a MARATHON at the end of all that?!
It is not unheard of for triathletes to drop dead in the middle of a swim. They always say they "don't know what caused Peggy Sue/Billy Bob to stop swimming and float face down to the nearest kayak", but I know the truth: SHARKS! Yes, that's right, what they are not telling you is that each and every one of those triathletes was eaten by sharks. And the ones that drowned in fresh water? Sharks again. I know it is not likely for me to be eaten by a shark some 10 miles from the coast, but IT COULD HAPPEN! Strange things happen every day! If there are river porpoises, then there can be fresh water sharks. And you know what else? People die while running every day. They always say, "Peggy Sue/Billy Bob had a preexisting, undiagnosed heart condition, which caused him/her to collapse at mile 15 of the run..." Well I know the truth! LAND SHARKS! You've seen all those challenged athletes missing limbs in all the ironman feel good human interest stories. You know what REALLY happened to them? LAND SHARKS! What happens if I get attacked by a land shark? Will anyone save me?!
What am I not thinking to ask?!
Is it too late to drop out?!
I got an e-mail last night about special needs bags. Special needs bags, to me, like some of the hazy, mysterious details of sex are to a virgin. I know that they exist. I know that everyone does it, and someday I will too, and then I will understand that it's not that big a deal. But right now special needs bags kind of scare the living crap out of me. What if I don't do it right? What if how I pack my special needs bag gives me away as a virgin?! Will it hurt?!What the hell should I put in my special needs bag?! For me, "special needs" means things like inhalers, insulin, sign language interpreters, and pacemaker bracelets. Since I don't have asthma, diabetes, a hearing impairment (arguably), or a pacemaker, I have no idea what to put in my special needs bag. I know you're supposed to put things like spare tubes and real (un-pocketable) food. But what?! I can only imagine that eating an almond butter sandwich will slow me down on the bike. And am I supposed to STOP to collect my bag? I don't want to stop. I've seen footage of people handing Tour riders some sort of drawstring deal, but I imagine weeding through something like that on the bike really
slowing me down. What do I do with the bag when I'm done? Throw it at the side of the road?! Keep it with me?!Then they say that we can have special needs bags on the run! It's a loop course, so they say we can leave it in T2 or carry it out onto the course with us and drop it somewhere to come back to it later. What special needs might I have on the run?! Should I take advantage of this?! If I do, should I drop the bag or leave it in T2? Oh no! Now I'm actually physically shaking.
And while we're at it, I have some more details I'm having an anxiety attack over:
I've never done a transition from a bag before. This does NOT appeal to my inherent disorganization. Any suggestions?!
T1 and T2 are in different places. Will I be able to get to my bike in the morning before the start?! How am I going to know where my bike is in transition?I've heard stories of volunteers that help you in transition. Do they go get your bike for you? Do they rack it when I'm done?! Are they handing me shit out of my bag, or do they just give me the bag and let me go? I've seen pictures of lawn chairs in transition in Mdot races, am I going to have one of those?! I realize that this isn't an Mdot race, so some things may be different. What's different?!
How the hell am I going to run a MARATHON at the end of all that?!
It is not unheard of for triathletes to drop dead in the middle of a swim. They always say they "don't know what caused Peggy Sue/Billy Bob to stop swimming and float face down to the nearest kayak", but I know the truth: SHARKS! Yes, that's right, what they are not telling you is that each and every one of those triathletes was eaten by sharks. And the ones that drowned in fresh water? Sharks again. I know it is not likely for me to be eaten by a shark some 10 miles from the coast, but IT COULD HAPPEN! Strange things happen every day! If there are river porpoises, then there can be fresh water sharks. And you know what else? People die while running every day. They always say, "Peggy Sue/Billy Bob had a preexisting, undiagnosed heart condition, which caused him/her to collapse at mile 15 of the run..." Well I know the truth! LAND SHARKS! You've seen all those challenged athletes missing limbs in all the ironman feel good human interest stories. You know what REALLY happened to them? LAND SHARKS! What happens if I get attacked by a land shark? Will anyone save me?!
What am I not thinking to ask?!
Is it too late to drop out?!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Blog Candy
I have been tagged by Judi. Normally I don't do the survey thing, but I feel like my last post makes me look like a real hater (you would agree if you'd seen her, though). I've been getting in trouble lately for hating on my page. (Speaking of which, she – if you know who I'm talking about, good; if you don't, don't worry – actually did really well at the Vineman 70.3, which may just make me mad enough to set a world record or something, who knows.) So in a hurry to put something else up that is not raining bad vibes on real people, I will post this survey.
If you could have any one — and only one — bike in the world, what would it be?
The free bike that my sponsors give me when I'm a pro bike racer. They would make sure it was top-of-the-line, and best of all, it would be free.
Do you already have that coveted dream bike? If so, is it everything you hoped it would be? If not, are you working toward getting it? If you’re not working toward getting it, why not?
I LOVE my current bike. My bike is my boyfriend. It is everything that I hoped it would be and more.
If you had to choose one — and only one — bike route to do every day for the rest of your life, what would it be, and why?
It would be an imaginary rout. It would be 100 miles long, have some major climbs in the middle with lots of fast descents and hairpin turns with no traffic, then lots of flat, flat, flats. And there would be TONS of well-equipped gas stations with bathrooms and bike racks along the rout.
What kind of sick person would force another person to ride one and only one bike ride to to do for the rest of her / his life?
Someone who thinks that writing silly surveys makes him/her God.
Do you ride both road and mountain bikes? If both, which do you prefer and why? If only one or the other, why are you so narrow minded?
Never ridden a mountain bike. Looks fun and scary and dirty. I would try it if I could get a nice bike for, say, $20. But since I think mountain bikes cost a bit more than that, my mountain biking career will just have to wait a few years. And anyway, mountain biking really looks like it would hurt your crotch.
Have you ever ridden a recumbent? If so, why? If not, describe the circumstances under which you would ride a recumbent.
No. I think recumbents are for fat people who can't get into the right position on their road bike because of their intrusive gut.
Have you ever raced a triathlon? If so, have you also ever tried strangling yourself with dental floss?
Yes I have raced a triathlon. No, I have never tried to strangle myself with dental floss (although sometimes it makes my gums bleed), but it sounds like more fun than running at the end of a triathlon. I will certainly give it a try soon.
Suppose you were forced to either give up ice cream or bicycles for the rest of your life. Which would you give up, and why?
Ice cream, duh. Why would ANYONE worship a food so much that they would give up their favorite hobby for it? That's stupid. Anyone who would give up biking for ice cream is probably already too fat to ride his/her bike anyway and probably already rides a recumbent, which I would argue is not actually cycling anyway.
What is a question you think this questionnaire should have asked, but has not? Also, answer it.
Why do people write these silly blog/myspace/facebook surveys? I don't know. Why do people respond to them?
You’re riding your bike in the wilderness (if you’re a roadie, you’re on a road, but otherwise the surroundings are quite wilderness-like) and you see a bear. The bear sees you. What do you do?
Kill it and eat it, then use its pelt to line my saddle.
Now, tag three biking bloggers. List them below.
Saddle Sores and Crotch Rot
Chamois wedgie
You CAN get road rash in an ice rink
If you could have any one — and only one — bike in the world, what would it be?
The free bike that my sponsors give me when I'm a pro bike racer. They would make sure it was top-of-the-line, and best of all, it would be free.
Do you already have that coveted dream bike? If so, is it everything you hoped it would be? If not, are you working toward getting it? If you’re not working toward getting it, why not?
I LOVE my current bike. My bike is my boyfriend. It is everything that I hoped it would be and more.
If you had to choose one — and only one — bike route to do every day for the rest of your life, what would it be, and why?
It would be an imaginary rout. It would be 100 miles long, have some major climbs in the middle with lots of fast descents and hairpin turns with no traffic, then lots of flat, flat, flats. And there would be TONS of well-equipped gas stations with bathrooms and bike racks along the rout.
What kind of sick person would force another person to ride one and only one bike ride to to do for the rest of her / his life?
Someone who thinks that writing silly surveys makes him/her God.
Do you ride both road and mountain bikes? If both, which do you prefer and why? If only one or the other, why are you so narrow minded?
Never ridden a mountain bike. Looks fun and scary and dirty. I would try it if I could get a nice bike for, say, $20. But since I think mountain bikes cost a bit more than that, my mountain biking career will just have to wait a few years. And anyway, mountain biking really looks like it would hurt your crotch.
Have you ever ridden a recumbent? If so, why? If not, describe the circumstances under which you would ride a recumbent.
No. I think recumbents are for fat people who can't get into the right position on their road bike because of their intrusive gut.
Have you ever raced a triathlon? If so, have you also ever tried strangling yourself with dental floss?
Yes I have raced a triathlon. No, I have never tried to strangle myself with dental floss (although sometimes it makes my gums bleed), but it sounds like more fun than running at the end of a triathlon. I will certainly give it a try soon.
Suppose you were forced to either give up ice cream or bicycles for the rest of your life. Which would you give up, and why?
Ice cream, duh. Why would ANYONE worship a food so much that they would give up their favorite hobby for it? That's stupid. Anyone who would give up biking for ice cream is probably already too fat to ride his/her bike anyway and probably already rides a recumbent, which I would argue is not actually cycling anyway.
What is a question you think this questionnaire should have asked, but has not? Also, answer it.
Why do people write these silly blog/myspace/facebook surveys? I don't know. Why do people respond to them?
You’re riding your bike in the wilderness (if you’re a roadie, you’re on a road, but otherwise the surroundings are quite wilderness-like) and you see a bear. The bear sees you. What do you do?
Kill it and eat it, then use its pelt to line my saddle.
Now, tag three biking bloggers. List them below.
Saddle Sores and Crotch Rot
Chamois wedgie
You CAN get road rash in an ice rink
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
I WILL NOT BE IGNORED!
Last week, after a couple of mis-fires I managed to show up at the right place at the right time to a time trial put on by the local bike club every Wednesday night. I was coming off a 200-mile weekend, I didn't know the rout, and it was about 90º out with humidity somewhere in excess of 90%. I wasn't really expecting much of myself, especially since all-out snot-slinging efforts are not really my strong suit.
In the parking lot I put my bike together, pumped up my tires, and would have liked to lube my chain (I seemed to remember it needing it by the end of Saturday's ride), but couldn't find the lube in my car. Oh well. I set about trying to look like I knew what I was doing, which was hard, because I had a million questions.
"Where's registration?"
"How much is it?"
"Who do I make the check out to?"
"I don't want to go first, I don't know the rout."
"Is the rout marked?"
"Then how will I know where I'm going?"
"Where's the start?"
"How do I get there?"
"Is it marked?"
"Then how will I know where I'm going?"
"Oops, no, I was not born yesterday. Oh, today's the 16th, not the 15th? Sorry. What? You wanted my BIRTHDAY on that line? I'm 25."
In the half hour or so we had before the start a kind girl named Dawn took me out to ride the first half of the course. She tried to talk to me, but I couldn't hear what she was saying and there was too much traffic to ride side-by-side. I pulled up next to her to try hear something she said, then moved ahead. Then I lead her RIGHT into a pothole. "Aw, shit, fuck!" she yelled as she swerved onto the grass at the side of the road. Oops. I apologized profusely, but I think she wanted to be rid of me after that. We stopped so that she could pee in the woods, she described the rest of the turns to me, and we rode back to the start. Without talking.
The starting line was a stop sign on a busy street, so everyone waited in a driveway a hundred yards from the intersection until their number was close. Dawn was number 2, so she was already at the start waiting to leave, but there were another half dozen or so women standing in the driveway amid a whole mess of fast-looking men. There were a couple of "recreational"-looking triathletes (read: chunky), and a couple of crazy-fast-looking women in Team Psycho skinsuits. And one was riding... a pink bike! I knew immediately who she was from a comment Iron Matron left on my Patriot Half race report:
In the parking lot I put my bike together, pumped up my tires, and would have liked to lube my chain (I seemed to remember it needing it by the end of Saturday's ride), but couldn't find the lube in my car. Oh well. I set about trying to look like I knew what I was doing, which was hard, because I had a million questions.
"Where's registration?"
"How much is it?"
"Who do I make the check out to?"
"I don't want to go first, I don't know the rout."
"Is the rout marked?"
"Then how will I know where I'm going?"
"Where's the start?"
"How do I get there?"
"Is it marked?"
"Then how will I know where I'm going?"
"Oops, no, I was not born yesterday. Oh, today's the 16th, not the 15th? Sorry. What? You wanted my BIRTHDAY on that line? I'm 25."
In the half hour or so we had before the start a kind girl named Dawn took me out to ride the first half of the course. She tried to talk to me, but I couldn't hear what she was saying and there was too much traffic to ride side-by-side. I pulled up next to her to try hear something she said, then moved ahead. Then I lead her RIGHT into a pothole. "Aw, shit, fuck!" she yelled as she swerved onto the grass at the side of the road. Oops. I apologized profusely, but I think she wanted to be rid of me after that. We stopped so that she could pee in the woods, she described the rest of the turns to me, and we rode back to the start. Without talking.
The starting line was a stop sign on a busy street, so everyone waited in a driveway a hundred yards from the intersection until their number was close. Dawn was number 2, so she was already at the start waiting to leave, but there were another half dozen or so women standing in the driveway amid a whole mess of fast-looking men. There were a couple of "recreational"-looking triathletes (read: chunky), and a couple of crazy-fast-looking women in Team Psycho skinsuits. And one was riding... a pink bike! I knew immediately who she was from a comment Iron Matron left on my Patriot Half race report:
Finally, you have to remember that in Patriot you had just done one of the very fastest bike splits of the day. You beat everyone--including Bob (actually, no I didn't), including some elites, and including Cunt on a Pink Bike--a former elite and likely the one you saw in pink on the bike. I know she has a pink racing bike.
I didn't remember seeing her at the Patriot, but this must be her. I looked at her face, she put on a Faster-Than-Thou gameface and looked away.
A volunteer pulled me out of my reveries. "Which AIDS ride was that?" It took a second to realize she was talking to me. I was wearing my AIDS LifeCycle jersey.
"Which AIDS ride was that?" she repeated. I told her and we chatted for a minute. She'd done it years ago, back when it was the California AIDS ride; back when there was the scandal about the organizers paying themselves 6-figure salaries and only donating 16% to the foundation. (Don't worry, donors, it's under different management now.)
I guess I got a little too distracted.
"NUMBERS 3 AND 4!!! NUMBERS 3 AND FOOOOOUR!" the Cunt on a Pink Bike was yelling like she owned the place.
"Oh shit! That's me!" I said and rolled over to the line.
When I rolled past her she was still yelling, "NUMBERS THHHHHREEEEEEE AND FFFFFFFFOOOOOUUUUUURRRR!"
"Number 4, I'm coming, I'm coming!" I said as I rolled by her. Guess I was wearing my invisible cap.
"NUMBERS! THREE! AND! FOUR!" Who did this bitch think she was? She wasn't even working the event.
I watched as they grabbed the back of Number 3's seat, put their legs on either side of his wheel, and counted down for him. Then he was gone. I had 30 seconds.
"You're going to want to clip in before we let you go," said the kindly bike geek working the start. I recognized him from the bike shop.
"Okay," I said, and stepped on my pedal... and rolled away. "Sorry."
"You're going to want to HOLD ON TO YOUR BRAKES as you stand up," the volunteer guy advised me. "Eddie already knows the course. He doesn't need you dragging him along the whole thing."
Oops.
I managed to get on my bike before the countdown, and when they set me free I realized I was in WAY too hard a gear. I rolled off at about half a mile an hour, very aware that the Cunt on a Pink Bike was right behind me and had witnessed the whole thing. I'm such a tool!
The course was a 9.75-mile, flat (not Florida flat, but flat enough) course. The pavement was pitted at times, but for the most part it was pretty good. I'm no good with this max effort stuff, so I took it out as hard as I could, then scaled back when I thought I'd maxed out. When I felt like I could breathe again I would push harder. I was heaving like I haven't breathed in a long time. My mouth got that phlegm-y feeling that happens when you're thirsty and working too hard. I was sweating like a pig and sweat was dripping off of me everywhere: my chin, my elbows, my knees, my forearms... I don't waste any extra energy hanging on to my aerobars, and a couple of times I rode over some holes in the road that threatened to throw me off my bars. Once I actually WAS kicked hard enough to lose contact with the elbow pads and swerved pretty badly.
About halfway through I passed Dawn. She passed me back on a slight incline, but then I got back in front of her and she was gone. Actually, she was gone rather quickly, and I wonder what happened to her, since there's no one named Dawn in the results. I was having a lot of problems shifting. I kept having to over-shift a gear and then shift back. It was really fucking me up. I just felt like I was always in the wrong gear, which doesn't help when your legs are screaming and you can't breathe as it is. Then, at about mile 7 I hit a divot that almost knocked my teeth out. After that something didn't feel right. I could hear something rattling and wondered if maybe I got a flat tire. But no, if I had a flat tire I wouldn't be going this fast. Whatever it was, it was slowing me down though (just not as much as a flat). I could just FEEL that my power was disappearing SOMEWHERE into my bike. I listened closely, sometimes I leave a tube of Nuun tabs in my bento box and they rattle like hell, but the sound wasn't coming from my bento box.
In the last .75 miles you have to climb a hill. Not a big one, but enough so that you notice when you've already been redlining it for 20 minutes. Whatever was wrong with my bike was not helping this climbing situation, dammit! I crossed the finish line in 26:01.5, averaging 22.48 mph. I was pretty happy with that considering the issues I'd been having with my gearing and whatever the hell that was that was rattling. I rode around a traffic island and then a parking lot until I got my heartrate and breathing under control, then I came to a stop behind the officials at the starting line.
A moment after I stopped, the Cunt on a Pink Bike came in, waving her aerobar. Something wasn't right with this picture. It took me a moment to figure out that the thing had broken clean off and was hanging by her shifter cable.
"You're an animal, Cunt on a Pink Bike!" someone yelled (only they didn't call her that, of course).
I took another good look at my bike: tires weren't flat, bento box was empty, brakes weren't rubbing, everything looked alright. I rode around for a minute or two to clear the shit out of my legs, and then decided that there was no reason to wait around. The problem was that I was about a mile from my car and had no idea how to get back. I looked around. The only people who were standing around who WEREN'T serving some kind of function at the finish line were the Cunt on a Pink Bike and her man friend. I had no choice. I rode up to where they were standing and stood in that obvious way you do when you're trying to get someone's attention.
"...I'm going to fucking kill him," Cunt on a Pink Bike was saying. "How does an aerobar break?! I couldn't even shift..." and she went on and on like that for minutes, ignoring my obvious presence. Was I wearing my invisible cap again? I doubted whether these were the people to ask, but there was no one else around and, although she didn't know it, I'd already beat this bitch once before. The way she was talking you would think this was the Olympic trials, not some Wednesday night local ride, and that whoever was the last person to touch her bike had done this on purpose. I mean, that sucks that her bar broke, but it didn't suck THAT bad, not like the way she was talking.
Finally she ran out of things to blame on other people, and her man friend turned his attention to me.
"Excuse me, I'm so sorry to interrupt, I just... do you know the way back to the car?"
Cunt on a Pink Bike continued to look straight ahead, as if no one else were there. As if she had merely stopped bitching because she had run out of things to say, and this insignificant speck of dirt that her man friend was talking to were not even worth a turn of the head.
"You mean the parking lot?" the man friend said. Then he proceeded to give me detailed directions back to the parking lot. We must have been talking for a couple of minutes, and in that time NOTHING in Cunt on a Pink Bike's demeanor gave the slightest hint that she was aware that I was alive.
I wanted to say, "You were at Patriot, right? Yeah, I thought so. I remember passing you. I recognized your bike," even though I don't actually remember passing her. I DID beat her by 4:00, though.
"We're just going to grab our bottles and ride back ourselves in a minute if you want to follow us," said the kindly man friend who clearly recognized me as a living, breathing being.
I flicked my eyes over Cunt on a Pink Bike for a quick second, "No thanks, I think I can find it," I said. Then I looked down, and right then was when I spotted the problem with my bike: the quick release on my front wheel had popped open. No wonder it had been rattling and I'd felt like I lost so much speed! "Oh shit, THAT'S what was rattling the last 2 miles!" I said and leaned over to flip it shut.
"Be careful! That's dangerous!" said the man friend, who, unlike his companion, probably would be sorry to see me fall under the wheels of a Mack truck. I don't know if the Cunt on a Pink Bike heard this part of the interaction. If she did, she continued to not react. Of course she probably did, and made some pretty unflattering assumptions about my proficiency as a bicycle owner. Judging by her opinion of her own bike mechanic, though, it looked like the people she thought were inept mechanical dumbasses wasn't a very exclusive club.
I rode back to the parking lot and took my time packing up my car. I wanted to thank Dawn for showing me the ropes. After a few minutes Cunt on a Pink Bike rolled into the parking lot, BELLOWING, "IF ONE MORE THING GOES WRONG ON MY FUCKING BIKE...!" I don't know what else could have gone wrong, but I'm sure it wasn't worth all that. She was still upright and rolling, what more could she ask for? What a whore. I really, really hoped I'd beat her. I hoped that it had registered that she wasn't the only one having mechanical difficulties that day. I doubt it, though. She spent that evening on another plane of existence, where she was the only thing that mattered, and the whole world was revolving around her and her stupid-ass pink bike.
They took their sweet time posting the results, and when I finally saw them on Sunday afternoon, I almost shit my pants.
A volunteer pulled me out of my reveries. "Which AIDS ride was that?" It took a second to realize she was talking to me. I was wearing my AIDS LifeCycle jersey.
"Which AIDS ride was that?" she repeated. I told her and we chatted for a minute. She'd done it years ago, back when it was the California AIDS ride; back when there was the scandal about the organizers paying themselves 6-figure salaries and only donating 16% to the foundation. (Don't worry, donors, it's under different management now.)
I guess I got a little too distracted.
"NUMBERS 3 AND 4!!! NUMBERS 3 AND FOOOOOUR!" the Cunt on a Pink Bike was yelling like she owned the place.
"Oh shit! That's me!" I said and rolled over to the line.
When I rolled past her she was still yelling, "NUMBERS THHHHHREEEEEEE AND FFFFFFFFOOOOOUUUUUURRRR!"
"Number 4, I'm coming, I'm coming!" I said as I rolled by her. Guess I was wearing my invisible cap.
"NUMBERS! THREE! AND! FOUR!" Who did this bitch think she was? She wasn't even working the event.
I watched as they grabbed the back of Number 3's seat, put their legs on either side of his wheel, and counted down for him. Then he was gone. I had 30 seconds.
"You're going to want to clip in before we let you go," said the kindly bike geek working the start. I recognized him from the bike shop.
"Okay," I said, and stepped on my pedal... and rolled away. "Sorry."
"You're going to want to HOLD ON TO YOUR BRAKES as you stand up," the volunteer guy advised me. "Eddie already knows the course. He doesn't need you dragging him along the whole thing."
Oops.
I managed to get on my bike before the countdown, and when they set me free I realized I was in WAY too hard a gear. I rolled off at about half a mile an hour, very aware that the Cunt on a Pink Bike was right behind me and had witnessed the whole thing. I'm such a tool!
The course was a 9.75-mile, flat (not Florida flat, but flat enough) course. The pavement was pitted at times, but for the most part it was pretty good. I'm no good with this max effort stuff, so I took it out as hard as I could, then scaled back when I thought I'd maxed out. When I felt like I could breathe again I would push harder. I was heaving like I haven't breathed in a long time. My mouth got that phlegm-y feeling that happens when you're thirsty and working too hard. I was sweating like a pig and sweat was dripping off of me everywhere: my chin, my elbows, my knees, my forearms... I don't waste any extra energy hanging on to my aerobars, and a couple of times I rode over some holes in the road that threatened to throw me off my bars. Once I actually WAS kicked hard enough to lose contact with the elbow pads and swerved pretty badly.
About halfway through I passed Dawn. She passed me back on a slight incline, but then I got back in front of her and she was gone. Actually, she was gone rather quickly, and I wonder what happened to her, since there's no one named Dawn in the results. I was having a lot of problems shifting. I kept having to over-shift a gear and then shift back. It was really fucking me up. I just felt like I was always in the wrong gear, which doesn't help when your legs are screaming and you can't breathe as it is. Then, at about mile 7 I hit a divot that almost knocked my teeth out. After that something didn't feel right. I could hear something rattling and wondered if maybe I got a flat tire. But no, if I had a flat tire I wouldn't be going this fast. Whatever it was, it was slowing me down though (just not as much as a flat). I could just FEEL that my power was disappearing SOMEWHERE into my bike. I listened closely, sometimes I leave a tube of Nuun tabs in my bento box and they rattle like hell, but the sound wasn't coming from my bento box.
In the last .75 miles you have to climb a hill. Not a big one, but enough so that you notice when you've already been redlining it for 20 minutes. Whatever was wrong with my bike was not helping this climbing situation, dammit! I crossed the finish line in 26:01.5, averaging 22.48 mph. I was pretty happy with that considering the issues I'd been having with my gearing and whatever the hell that was that was rattling. I rode around a traffic island and then a parking lot until I got my heartrate and breathing under control, then I came to a stop behind the officials at the starting line.
A moment after I stopped, the Cunt on a Pink Bike came in, waving her aerobar. Something wasn't right with this picture. It took me a moment to figure out that the thing had broken clean off and was hanging by her shifter cable.
"You're an animal, Cunt on a Pink Bike!" someone yelled (only they didn't call her that, of course).
I took another good look at my bike: tires weren't flat, bento box was empty, brakes weren't rubbing, everything looked alright. I rode around for a minute or two to clear the shit out of my legs, and then decided that there was no reason to wait around. The problem was that I was about a mile from my car and had no idea how to get back. I looked around. The only people who were standing around who WEREN'T serving some kind of function at the finish line were the Cunt on a Pink Bike and her man friend. I had no choice. I rode up to where they were standing and stood in that obvious way you do when you're trying to get someone's attention.
"...I'm going to fucking kill him," Cunt on a Pink Bike was saying. "How does an aerobar break?! I couldn't even shift..." and she went on and on like that for minutes, ignoring my obvious presence. Was I wearing my invisible cap again? I doubted whether these were the people to ask, but there was no one else around and, although she didn't know it, I'd already beat this bitch once before. The way she was talking you would think this was the Olympic trials, not some Wednesday night local ride, and that whoever was the last person to touch her bike had done this on purpose. I mean, that sucks that her bar broke, but it didn't suck THAT bad, not like the way she was talking.
Finally she ran out of things to blame on other people, and her man friend turned his attention to me.
"Excuse me, I'm so sorry to interrupt, I just... do you know the way back to the car?"
Cunt on a Pink Bike continued to look straight ahead, as if no one else were there. As if she had merely stopped bitching because she had run out of things to say, and this insignificant speck of dirt that her man friend was talking to were not even worth a turn of the head.
"You mean the parking lot?" the man friend said. Then he proceeded to give me detailed directions back to the parking lot. We must have been talking for a couple of minutes, and in that time NOTHING in Cunt on a Pink Bike's demeanor gave the slightest hint that she was aware that I was alive.
I wanted to say, "You were at Patriot, right? Yeah, I thought so. I remember passing you. I recognized your bike," even though I don't actually remember passing her. I DID beat her by 4:00, though.
"We're just going to grab our bottles and ride back ourselves in a minute if you want to follow us," said the kindly man friend who clearly recognized me as a living, breathing being.
I flicked my eyes over Cunt on a Pink Bike for a quick second, "No thanks, I think I can find it," I said. Then I looked down, and right then was when I spotted the problem with my bike: the quick release on my front wheel had popped open. No wonder it had been rattling and I'd felt like I lost so much speed! "Oh shit, THAT'S what was rattling the last 2 miles!" I said and leaned over to flip it shut.
"Be careful! That's dangerous!" said the man friend, who, unlike his companion, probably would be sorry to see me fall under the wheels of a Mack truck. I don't know if the Cunt on a Pink Bike heard this part of the interaction. If she did, she continued to not react. Of course she probably did, and made some pretty unflattering assumptions about my proficiency as a bicycle owner. Judging by her opinion of her own bike mechanic, though, it looked like the people she thought were inept mechanical dumbasses wasn't a very exclusive club.
I rode back to the parking lot and took my time packing up my car. I wanted to thank Dawn for showing me the ropes. After a few minutes Cunt on a Pink Bike rolled into the parking lot, BELLOWING, "IF ONE MORE THING GOES WRONG ON MY FUCKING BIKE...!" I don't know what else could have gone wrong, but I'm sure it wasn't worth all that. She was still upright and rolling, what more could she ask for? What a whore. I really, really hoped I'd beat her. I hoped that it had registered that she wasn't the only one having mechanical difficulties that day. I doubt it, though. She spent that evening on another plane of existence, where she was the only thing that mattered, and the whole world was revolving around her and her stupid-ass pink bike.
They took their sweet time posting the results, and when I finally saw them on Sunday afternoon, I almost shit my pants.
Rider Age Time MPH Aero Remarks
1 Karen Smyers 47 23:00.2 25.43 Y
2 Claire Badass Mofo 25 26:01.5 22.48 Y
3 Cunt on a Pink Bike 45 26:43.6 21.89 Y
4 Some chick 53 28:28.2 20.55 Y
5 Some other chick 39 29:27.3 1 9.86 N dropped chain
I beat the Cunt on a Pink Bike pretty convincingly (I was only 10s behind her PB for the season), but did you see that name in front of mine?! Karen Smyers?! Holy crap! And she'd beat me by a solid 3:00, a full 3 mph faster than I was. I will never, ever in my life complain about losing to Karen Smyers. Man, with times like that (and pushing 50 no less!), she could put on all the airs she wanted and I wouldn't complain. She could ride the pinkest bike ever known to man and I would respect her. From what I hear though (one of the chicks in the fast lane at our pool used to train with her back in the day), she is the most understated, modest woman you will ever meet.
But Cunt on a Pink Bike? She's a bit big for her britches, don't you think? I feel like if you're going to ignore someone and treat them like something disgusting you just scraped off the bottom of your cycling cleat, then you should at least make sure you're better than them first. With the times she's posting, it's not exactly a given that she'll be faster than ANYONE.
But maybe she doesn't know. I can imagine her sitting in her lair (à la Cruella DeVille, only with with pink, fluffy things everywhere rather than spotted), checking the results and fuming. I imagine her thinking that she never would have come in behind me, if it weren't for that aerobar. I she doesn't even know that my gears weren't working right, and my front wheel was rattling all over the place. So now I HAVE to go back tonight with a healthy bike, with legs that didn't just ride 200 miles over the weekend, and I have to REALLY show her who's boss. Cunt on a Pink Bike, consider yourself served!
Results to come... as long as this menacing-looking thunderstorm blows over in the next hour!
Update: I watched the doppler radar for about an hour to see if the storm would blow over. It looked like it would, so I got in my car, drove in the driving rain out to Concord, and sure enough, by the time I got there the rain had stopped and the sun looked like it was trying to come out. But the parking lot was deserted. Looks like it was rained out anyway. I'm so mad I could spit! Now Cunt on a Pink Bike will have to wait WEEKS to find out who's boss!
1 Karen Smyers 47 23:00.2 25.43 Y
2 Claire Badass Mofo 25 26:01.5 22.48 Y
3 Cunt on a Pink Bike 45 26:43.6 21.89 Y
4 Some chick 53 28:28.2 20.55 Y
5 Some other chick 39 29:27.3 1 9.86 N dropped chain
I beat the Cunt on a Pink Bike pretty convincingly (I was only 10s behind her PB for the season), but did you see that name in front of mine?! Karen Smyers?! Holy crap! And she'd beat me by a solid 3:00, a full 3 mph faster than I was. I will never, ever in my life complain about losing to Karen Smyers. Man, with times like that (and pushing 50 no less!), she could put on all the airs she wanted and I wouldn't complain. She could ride the pinkest bike ever known to man and I would respect her. From what I hear though (one of the chicks in the fast lane at our pool used to train with her back in the day), she is the most understated, modest woman you will ever meet.
But Cunt on a Pink Bike? She's a bit big for her britches, don't you think? I feel like if you're going to ignore someone and treat them like something disgusting you just scraped off the bottom of your cycling cleat, then you should at least make sure you're better than them first. With the times she's posting, it's not exactly a given that she'll be faster than ANYONE.
But maybe she doesn't know. I can imagine her sitting in her lair (à la Cruella DeVille, only with with pink, fluffy things everywhere rather than spotted), checking the results and fuming. I imagine her thinking that she never would have come in behind me, if it weren't for that aerobar. I she doesn't even know that my gears weren't working right, and my front wheel was rattling all over the place. So now I HAVE to go back tonight with a healthy bike, with legs that didn't just ride 200 miles over the weekend, and I have to REALLY show her who's boss. Cunt on a Pink Bike, consider yourself served!
Results to come... as long as this menacing-looking thunderstorm blows over in the next hour!
Update: I watched the doppler radar for about an hour to see if the storm would blow over. It looked like it would, so I got in my car, drove in the driving rain out to Concord, and sure enough, by the time I got there the rain had stopped and the sun looked like it was trying to come out. But the parking lot was deserted. Looks like it was rained out anyway. I'm so mad I could spit! Now Cunt on a Pink Bike will have to wait WEEKS to find out who's boss!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Another brush with fame, another chace to taste my foot
I wasn't going to write a post about this. I'm supposed to be tapering. I didn't want to endure the disapproving looks that people would be giving me through cyberspace if I told you that I did a TOUGH 60-mile bike ride less than 2 weeks from my ironman. But then, circumstances forced my hand and I just HAVE to tell you about it.
Today was the Charles River Wheelmen's (CRW) Climb to the Clouds century. This is the ride that I tried to do from a cue sheet back in April and got so horribly lost. The keynote of this event, though, is the climb up Mt. Wachusett, a 2,000' ski mountain which is the highest point in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
I wanted to climb that mountain.
Really bad.
So I checked out the web site and saw that there was a 50-mile option to the ride. It meant driving further, but I could still climb my mountain. 50 miles is okay for a taper, right?
I knew a whole bunch of people who were supposed to be doing the ride, but since I'd decided to do it last minute I didn't get to tell any of them and just planned on riding it alone. So imagine my delight when I pulled in and in the space next to me was George, one of the legions of straight men over 40 that I've befriended at one event or another. I got out of my car with my arms spread wide. "George! I'm so glad to see you!" I said.
He looked at me. He squinted. He raised his sunglasses off his eyes. He kept looking at me. No recognition.
"I'm Claire," I said.
"OOOOOOH! Claire! I didn't recognize you without your bike and helmet!" he said. Thank god I'm not the only one. "What are you doing here?!"
"I couldn't sit still. I really, really, really wanted to come, so here I am!"
I ran off to register and use the bathroom, and when I got back to put my bike together I saw George leaving with a whole posse dressed in matching NEBC gear (the competitive club in these here parts). That was fine. I wanted to ride easy today, and that would be a lot easier to achieve if I was alone. I put my bike together, pumped up my tires, changed my shoes, changed my watch, and realized I forgot my gloves. Fuck. Then I realized I didn't have my helmet. FUCK! I'd driven an hour to get here and there was no time to go home and get it. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I rode over to registration. "Hi, I forgot my helmet... Can I have my 20 bucks back?" I asked. They suggested I wait for the King of the Bike Geeks to come over from the 100-mile start, he usually comes with extra everything. That seemed like as good a solution as any, although the King of the Bike Geeks would never let me live it down.
Luckily, one of the volunteers took pity on me and started asking around if anyone had a spare helmet. As luck would have it, a tall, skinny guy with a small head DID have an extra helmet. If I tightened it as much as it would go and jammed my ponytail in the back, it almost fit convincingly. I thanked him profusely and set off on my own. I had to make sure I got back before he did. I had planned on doing the shortest ride, but when I found out that that rout didn't go up the mountain I traded in my 50-mile cue sheet for the metric century cue sheet. I wanted to climb that mountain!
For the first 20 miles we climbed slowly and I passed people bit by bit. No one passed me until we got to the foot of the mountain. I've said in previous posts that I'm a climber. I lied. I don't know where I got that idea. Or maybe I used to be a climber and I lost it with all this New England rolling, I don't know. But for whatever reason, I am no longer a climber. I passed a few people who were weaving drunkenly all over the road trying to make the grade less severe by turning a 4-mile road into a 10-mile rout via S-curves. But mostly still, I got passed. On the way up I spotted George coming down, but he didn't recognize me, and I didn't call out. The hill wasn't too, too steep. The grade never went above 10% and it never even stayed at that for more than a quarter mile or so. But still, it was enough to have me in my lowest gear and sweating bullets.
Then, all by himself, the guy who broke the fixed gear course record at the 24-hour race last weekend blasted out onto the road in the other direction on his fixed gear again. "HEY!" I yelled. He was the boyfriend of the other girl in the 12-hour division, Emily, who is NOT a bitch. His name is Dave, but I couldn't remember that at the time.
"Hey! Claire, right? Emily's waiting down at the visitor's center."
I couldn't for the LIFE of me remember his name. We circled each other chatting for a few seconds without getting off our bikes, and then I continued up the road and he continued down it.
I got to the top without much hooplah and just turned around. There wasn't much to do up there for a lonely girl riding all by herself. Now the descent! YESSSS! This was what I had been waiting for. This was what I was risking my fresh legs for: steep grades and hairpin turns! But the quality of the concrete was pretty shitty, and I wound up braking way more than I wanted to the whole way down. Every time I hit a divot I thought that I was going to knock my teeth out, and the corners were so rough that you had to take them slow to keep from losing your bike out from under you at some frost heave or something. Lame.
When I got to the bottom George was standing there with his group of NEBC riders, many of whom were women. Women! I thought, I HATE riding with women! But there was no way around it now, even if I didn't know George I would have fallen in with this crowd at the pace we were going. There were still some pretty significant downhills, and I got caught braking at the back of the group on the first one. This would not do! I tried to power ahead, and I got to pull for a little while, but at the first hint of an uphill they all rushed around me on all sides. I had to ride as hard as I could to keep up with them, and I was back in the ass end when we got to the next downhill. Damn. These were the same roads and hills I'd run in Stu's 30K in March (which nearly killed me), and I was having to work way, way harder than I wanted to to keep up. But I refused to let all these women get away! My rule in life is never to be dropped by a female if I can help it.
At the 25-ish mile mark I met up with George, I met up with Emily and Dave around miles 45 or 50. Note that after mile 30, the course was relatively flat! No wonder I was dying out there!
It was only about 80*, but still about 100% humidity (no exaggeration) and absolutely no breeze. I was raining sweat. My hands were so sweaty that there were times I couldn't get enough of a grip on the brakes to shift. Also my shifter cables had been kind of fucked up all week and my bike couldn't seem to pick a gear. This was a hell of a time to only have the use of half my gears.
The group stopped at the next water stop. "Way to go! You're giving 'em hell!" George said.
"Are you kidding me?!" I asked. "I try to pull ahead to get some personal space and the pack just chews me up and spits me out the back!" I tried to get a few seconds' head start when we got back out on the road again, but that was gone in a matter of seconds. What I hated most was when our group came up on another pack, because I would have to work on negotiating my way through the new pack, while still trying to keep up with my pack. God help me if we caught a group on a hill, which is exactly what was happening now! I was riding so hard that I thought that my heart was going to explode when I looked over and saw a couple of riders in "Radonneurs of New England" jerseys. Ultracyclists! As I passed the first one I looked over. It was Dave, the fixed gear guy, and Emily was right ahead. That seemed like just about the best damned excuse in the world to slow down.
"What are you doing riding with those shady NEBC characters?" Dave, the fixed gear guy asked.
"I keep trying to get away from them and it's not working!" I said. "I pass them and they catch up, I try to drop back and wind up catching them before long."
Then I caught up with Emily. "I think it's funny that we're riding with John Kerry," she said.
"What?! Really?!"
"Yeah, I was riding next to him before staring at him thinking, 'You look... familiar,' and then I realized it. It makes sense..."
The man who was allegedly John Kerry was a few riders ahead, just behind the NEBC crew, who had not dropped us after all.
We all stopped at the next water stop and I took a good look at the man who was allegedly John Kerry. He was a bigger man than I expected. Tall and solid-looking, but fit for an old guy. It was hard to recognize him with the big old sunglasses and the helmet, but it was him alright. I have a rule of never speaking to famous people, and since I was RAINING sweat, it did not seem like a good time to tell John Kerry that I voted for him, so I did not speak to John Kerry. I waved goodbye to George and rode on ahead with Emily and Dave who were going a more comfortable pace and were actually my age. "I saw John Kerry," I confided to Emily. "It looks like he's gotten fat. It's a shame that they don't have photographers at this event. Wouldn't it be great to stick with him all the way to the finish and then out-sprint him at the line? I'd ride the extra 40 miles for that photo."
"Yeah," said Emily. "When we were done I'd turn to him and say, 'Goddammit John Kerry! You lose at EVERYTHING!'"
I take back calling Emily 'Skinny Bitch' and pretty much anything bad I might have said or thought about her. It was the greatest quip ever.
"He's got a nice bike though," Emily added. He was riding a purple custom Serotta. I don't know how I feel about a presidential candidate riding a purple bike, but it doesn't get much nicer than Serotta. Maybe if he rode a manly red, white, and blue bike like mine, this country wouldn't be in the mess it's in.
"Sure," I said, "paid by for the tax dollars of Massachusetts."
"WHAAAT?" said Dave, who was in the front pulling.
I pulled up next to him just as we were passing a guy in a pink jersey, "PAID FOR BY THE TAX DOLLARS OF MASSACHUSETTS!" I yelled.
"EEEEASY there, killer," he said. I thought maybe he was talking to the guy that we were passing. Had he swerved? When we had put a few yards between us and the guy in the pink jersey Dave said, "That was John Kerry's aide guy right there!" Yet again, I had put my foot in my mouth. I looked up the road and sure enough, there was John Kerry's giant yellow ass atop his purple bike just a few yards up the road.
"Errrr, ummmm... I mean these wonderfully paved roads!" I said loudly, more as a joke than anything else. I wasn't sure how nice I had to be to John Kerry? Did I have to worry about hurting his feelings? Could he sick the Patriot Act on me for criticizing his bike? Maybe if John Kerry were actually president I wouldn't be afraid of my government. Luckily, just as we were coming around to pass John Kerry, we reached the 60-mile turn-off and I said goodbye to my friends.
"BYE CLAIRE!" they yelled.
Oh shit! Now John Kerry knows my name! What if he comes to my house and asks for the state tax refund back to buy himself some new carbon fiber toys?! I thought as I rode away.
And then I finished. George and the NEBC bitches came in shortly behind me. I drove home, had the bike shop fix my shifter cables, and made some lunch. So far, John Kerry has not come to demand an apology for my insulting his bike. And by the way, I'm pretty sure that if I had ridden the extra 20 miles back to Concord, I could have out-sprinted John Kerry into the parking lot. Because if John Kerry were any good at close races with photo finishes, he would have been in Washington today, not riding a purple bike through "Fruit Country" in Western Mass.
Coming soon: More brushes with greatness and more shit talking, this time about a PINK bike.
Today was the Charles River Wheelmen's (CRW) Climb to the Clouds century. This is the ride that I tried to do from a cue sheet back in April and got so horribly lost. The keynote of this event, though, is the climb up Mt. Wachusett, a 2,000' ski mountain which is the highest point in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
I wanted to climb that mountain.
Really bad.
So I checked out the web site and saw that there was a 50-mile option to the ride. It meant driving further, but I could still climb my mountain. 50 miles is okay for a taper, right?
I knew a whole bunch of people who were supposed to be doing the ride, but since I'd decided to do it last minute I didn't get to tell any of them and just planned on riding it alone. So imagine my delight when I pulled in and in the space next to me was George, one of the legions of straight men over 40 that I've befriended at one event or another. I got out of my car with my arms spread wide. "George! I'm so glad to see you!" I said.
He looked at me. He squinted. He raised his sunglasses off his eyes. He kept looking at me. No recognition.
"I'm Claire," I said.
"OOOOOOH! Claire! I didn't recognize you without your bike and helmet!" he said. Thank god I'm not the only one. "What are you doing here?!"
"I couldn't sit still. I really, really, really wanted to come, so here I am!"
I ran off to register and use the bathroom, and when I got back to put my bike together I saw George leaving with a whole posse dressed in matching NEBC gear (the competitive club in these here parts). That was fine. I wanted to ride easy today, and that would be a lot easier to achieve if I was alone. I put my bike together, pumped up my tires, changed my shoes, changed my watch, and realized I forgot my gloves. Fuck. Then I realized I didn't have my helmet. FUCK! I'd driven an hour to get here and there was no time to go home and get it. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I rode over to registration. "Hi, I forgot my helmet... Can I have my 20 bucks back?" I asked. They suggested I wait for the King of the Bike Geeks to come over from the 100-mile start, he usually comes with extra everything. That seemed like as good a solution as any, although the King of the Bike Geeks would never let me live it down.Luckily, one of the volunteers took pity on me and started asking around if anyone had a spare helmet. As luck would have it, a tall, skinny guy with a small head DID have an extra helmet. If I tightened it as much as it would go and jammed my ponytail in the back, it almost fit convincingly. I thanked him profusely and set off on my own. I had to make sure I got back before he did. I had planned on doing the shortest ride, but when I found out that that rout didn't go up the mountain I traded in my 50-mile cue sheet for the metric century cue sheet. I wanted to climb that mountain!
For the first 20 miles we climbed slowly and I passed people bit by bit. No one passed me until we got to the foot of the mountain. I've said in previous posts that I'm a climber. I lied. I don't know where I got that idea. Or maybe I used to be a climber and I lost it with all this New England rolling, I don't know. But for whatever reason, I am no longer a climber. I passed a few people who were weaving drunkenly all over the road trying to make the grade less severe by turning a 4-mile road into a 10-mile rout via S-curves. But mostly still, I got passed. On the way up I spotted George coming down, but he didn't recognize me, and I didn't call out. The hill wasn't too, too steep. The grade never went above 10% and it never even stayed at that for more than a quarter mile or so. But still, it was enough to have me in my lowest gear and sweating bullets.Then, all by himself, the guy who broke the fixed gear course record at the 24-hour race last weekend blasted out onto the road in the other direction on his fixed gear again. "HEY!" I yelled. He was the boyfriend of the other girl in the 12-hour division, Emily, who is NOT a bitch. His name is Dave, but I couldn't remember that at the time.
"Hey! Claire, right? Emily's waiting down at the visitor's center."
I couldn't for the LIFE of me remember his name. We circled each other chatting for a few seconds without getting off our bikes, and then I continued up the road and he continued down it.
I got to the top without much hooplah and just turned around. There wasn't much to do up there for a lonely girl riding all by herself. Now the descent! YESSSS! This was what I had been waiting for. This was what I was risking my fresh legs for: steep grades and hairpin turns! But the quality of the concrete was pretty shitty, and I wound up braking way more than I wanted to the whole way down. Every time I hit a divot I thought that I was going to knock my teeth out, and the corners were so rough that you had to take them slow to keep from losing your bike out from under you at some frost heave or something. Lame.When I got to the bottom George was standing there with his group of NEBC riders, many of whom were women. Women! I thought, I HATE riding with women! But there was no way around it now, even if I didn't know George I would have fallen in with this crowd at the pace we were going. There were still some pretty significant downhills, and I got caught braking at the back of the group on the first one. This would not do! I tried to power ahead, and I got to pull for a little while, but at the first hint of an uphill they all rushed around me on all sides. I had to ride as hard as I could to keep up with them, and I was back in the ass end when we got to the next downhill. Damn. These were the same roads and hills I'd run in Stu's 30K in March (which nearly killed me), and I was having to work way, way harder than I wanted to to keep up. But I refused to let all these women get away! My rule in life is never to be dropped by a female if I can help it.
At the 25-ish mile mark I met up with George, I met up with Emily and Dave around miles 45 or 50. Note that after mile 30, the course was relatively flat! No wonder I was dying out there!It was only about 80*, but still about 100% humidity (no exaggeration) and absolutely no breeze. I was raining sweat. My hands were so sweaty that there were times I couldn't get enough of a grip on the brakes to shift. Also my shifter cables had been kind of fucked up all week and my bike couldn't seem to pick a gear. This was a hell of a time to only have the use of half my gears.
The group stopped at the next water stop. "Way to go! You're giving 'em hell!" George said.
"Are you kidding me?!" I asked. "I try to pull ahead to get some personal space and the pack just chews me up and spits me out the back!" I tried to get a few seconds' head start when we got back out on the road again, but that was gone in a matter of seconds. What I hated most was when our group came up on another pack, because I would have to work on negotiating my way through the new pack, while still trying to keep up with my pack. God help me if we caught a group on a hill, which is exactly what was happening now! I was riding so hard that I thought that my heart was going to explode when I looked over and saw a couple of riders in "Radonneurs of New England" jerseys. Ultracyclists! As I passed the first one I looked over. It was Dave, the fixed gear guy, and Emily was right ahead. That seemed like just about the best damned excuse in the world to slow down.
"What are you doing riding with those shady NEBC characters?" Dave, the fixed gear guy asked.
"I keep trying to get away from them and it's not working!" I said. "I pass them and they catch up, I try to drop back and wind up catching them before long."
Then I caught up with Emily. "I think it's funny that we're riding with John Kerry," she said.
"What?! Really?!"
"Yeah, I was riding next to him before staring at him thinking, 'You look... familiar,' and then I realized it. It makes sense..."
The man who was allegedly John Kerry was a few riders ahead, just behind the NEBC crew, who had not dropped us after all.
We all stopped at the next water stop and I took a good look at the man who was allegedly John Kerry. He was a bigger man than I expected. Tall and solid-looking, but fit for an old guy. It was hard to recognize him with the big old sunglasses and the helmet, but it was him alright. I have a rule of never speaking to famous people, and since I was RAINING sweat, it did not seem like a good time to tell John Kerry that I voted for him, so I did not speak to John Kerry. I waved goodbye to George and rode on ahead with Emily and Dave who were going a more comfortable pace and were actually my age. "I saw John Kerry," I confided to Emily. "It looks like he's gotten fat. It's a shame that they don't have photographers at this event. Wouldn't it be great to stick with him all the way to the finish and then out-sprint him at the line? I'd ride the extra 40 miles for that photo.""Yeah," said Emily. "When we were done I'd turn to him and say, 'Goddammit John Kerry! You lose at EVERYTHING!'"
I take back calling Emily 'Skinny Bitch' and pretty much anything bad I might have said or thought about her. It was the greatest quip ever.
"He's got a nice bike though," Emily added. He was riding a purple custom Serotta. I don't know how I feel about a presidential candidate riding a purple bike, but it doesn't get much nicer than Serotta. Maybe if he rode a manly red, white, and blue bike like mine, this country wouldn't be in the mess it's in.
"Sure," I said, "paid by for the tax dollars of Massachusetts."
"WHAAAT?" said Dave, who was in the front pulling.
I pulled up next to him just as we were passing a guy in a pink jersey, "PAID FOR BY THE TAX DOLLARS OF MASSACHUSETTS!" I yelled.
"EEEEASY there, killer," he said. I thought maybe he was talking to the guy that we were passing. Had he swerved? When we had put a few yards between us and the guy in the pink jersey Dave said, "That was John Kerry's aide guy right there!" Yet again, I had put my foot in my mouth. I looked up the road and sure enough, there was John Kerry's giant yellow ass atop his purple bike just a few yards up the road.
"Errrr, ummmm... I mean these wonderfully paved roads!" I said loudly, more as a joke than anything else. I wasn't sure how nice I had to be to John Kerry? Did I have to worry about hurting his feelings? Could he sick the Patriot Act on me for criticizing his bike? Maybe if John Kerry were actually president I wouldn't be afraid of my government. Luckily, just as we were coming around to pass John Kerry, we reached the 60-mile turn-off and I said goodbye to my friends.
"BYE CLAIRE!" they yelled.
Oh shit! Now John Kerry knows my name! What if he comes to my house and asks for the state tax refund back to buy himself some new carbon fiber toys?! I thought as I rode away.
And then I finished. George and the NEBC bitches came in shortly behind me. I drove home, had the bike shop fix my shifter cables, and made some lunch. So far, John Kerry has not come to demand an apology for my insulting his bike. And by the way, I'm pretty sure that if I had ridden the extra 20 miles back to Concord, I could have out-sprinted John Kerry into the parking lot. Because if John Kerry were any good at close races with photo finishes, he would have been in Washington today, not riding a purple bike through "Fruit Country" in Western Mass.
Coming soon: More brushes with greatness and more shit talking, this time about a PINK bike.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Day 5: Red Dress Day
I know, I know, this has been a long time in coming. You've probably forgotten I ever even STARTED writing about my experience at the AIDS LifeCycle. But if you haven't guessed already, these things take awhile to type up and, well, I've been lazy. So without further adu, onwards to Day 5.
Related posts:
Prologue: Dykes and Bikes
Day 1: A Ride Down Memory Lane
Day 2: And I'm faster than YOU, and YOU, and YOU...
Day 3: Back Pedaling
Day 4: I find a Fan Club and an Archnemesis
While I was packing for my trip I called Lorraine to find out what to bring. The conversation went something like this:
Lorraine: Have you packed your red dress yet?
Claire: What?
Lorraine: Your red dress.
Claire: Is that a joke? What would I need a red dress for?
Lorraine: For Thursday. Thursday is Red Dress Day. Everyone wears red dresses. It's really fun.
Claire: I don't believe you. Not for a second, Lorraine.
Lorraine: Fine, don't believe me then. But you're sure going to feel stupid on Red Dress Day.
Claire: I don't even think I HAVE a red dress. I look like I'm in drag when I wear a dress. Can I NOT wear a red dress? I have a red jersey.
Lorraine: Sure, you CAN not wear a red dress, but you're going to look lame. EVERYONE wears a red dress. Last year there was a guy who had cleats put on the bottom of his stiletto heels. People really go all out...
Later I called Shane.
Claire: Shane, have you packed a red dress?
Shane: No. Why would I pack a red dress?
Claire: Well Lorraine said... (and I explained it)
Shane: Whatever, that's stupid. I'm not wearing a red dress. I have a red jersey.
Claire: Lorraine said you'd look like a fool...
So, by some miracle I found a red dress in my closet (actually, it was kind of a choral color) that I hadn't worn in 7 years and packed it, even though I would look more like I was in drag than the guys.
Just because you're wearing a red dress, doesn't mean you don't have to stretch.
When I woke up on Red Dress Day, it turns out that Lorraine really wasn't having me on. I woke up to 3,000 cyclists and roadies all running around in red dresses, 3/4 of whom were men. Lorraine and the Old Ladies had gotten a hotel for the night, and they were planning to get some sleep and not get to camp until the absolute last moment possible. The day was only supposed to be 40-something miles anyway, and camp didn't open until 1:00, so we might as well take our time.
Shane went ahead in his red jersey, and the Old Ladies turned up at about 7:45. They were all dressed to the nines in red, poofiness, laciness, shininess, fabulousness, sparkliness and hotpants. The first thing Lorraine said to me when she saw me was, "YOUR DRESS IS PINK!"
"No it's not! It's red! And don't you ever say otherwise!"
"It's pink," she corrected me.
From left to right: Lorraine, Alisa, Trish, and Narine.
Related posts:
Prologue: Dykes and Bikes
Day 1: A Ride Down Memory Lane
Day 2: And I'm faster than YOU, and YOU, and YOU...
Day 3: Back Pedaling
Day 4: I find a Fan Club and an Archnemesis
While I was packing for my trip I called Lorraine to find out what to bring. The conversation went something like this:
Lorraine: Have you packed your red dress yet?
Claire: What?
Lorraine: Your red dress.
Claire: Is that a joke? What would I need a red dress for?
Lorraine: For Thursday. Thursday is Red Dress Day. Everyone wears red dresses. It's really fun.
Claire: I don't believe you. Not for a second, Lorraine.
Lorraine: Fine, don't believe me then. But you're sure going to feel stupid on Red Dress Day.
Claire: I don't even think I HAVE a red dress. I look like I'm in drag when I wear a dress. Can I NOT wear a red dress? I have a red jersey.
Lorraine: Sure, you CAN not wear a red dress, but you're going to look lame. EVERYONE wears a red dress. Last year there was a guy who had cleats put on the bottom of his stiletto heels. People really go all out...
Later I called Shane.
Claire: Shane, have you packed a red dress?
Shane: No. Why would I pack a red dress?
Claire: Well Lorraine said... (and I explained it)
Shane: Whatever, that's stupid. I'm not wearing a red dress. I have a red jersey.
Claire: Lorraine said you'd look like a fool...
So, by some miracle I found a red dress in my closet (actually, it was kind of a choral color) that I hadn't worn in 7 years and packed it, even though I would look more like I was in drag than the guys.
Just because you're wearing a red dress, doesn't mean you don't have to stretch.Shane went ahead in his red jersey, and the Old Ladies turned up at about 7:45. They were all dressed to the nines in red, poofiness, laciness, shininess, fabulousness, sparkliness and hotpants. The first thing Lorraine said to me when she saw me was, "YOUR DRESS IS PINK!"
"No it's not! It's red! And don't you ever say otherwise!"
"It's pink," she corrected me.
From left to right: Lorraine, Alisa, Trish, and Narine.We spent the rest of our time pinning things onto helmets until the roadies ran around threatening to sag us all if we didn't hit the road. Lorraine pinned a pill box hat that she wasn't using onto my helmet, somewhat against my will. "Even though it clashes with your pink dress," she said as she handed my helmet back to me.
"It's red!" I insisted. It's not totally by accident that I'm not in any of the pictures from red dress day. Hey, I was in a dress, wasn't I?!
Not my picture, but we were around this chick for the hours it took us to get out of Santa María.
Finally we got out onto the road and started the SLOWING... STOPPING... SLOWING... STOPPING... ROL...STOPPING! routine. Since we were at the back of the pack, and since there were a lot of us, we had to go at a snail's pace through the eight million red lights in the town of Santa María. After about an hour and a half we were still in Santa María, we were still several miles from the first rest stop (at around 9.5 miles), and we all had to pee. We pulled off at a gas station and watched a man in a red dress walk into the bathroom and got in line behind him. About 5 minutes later we were still standing there. Clearly SOMEBODY was breaking Claire's No. 1 Rule of Public Pooping: Don't. "Fuck this, I'm going to the KFC across the street!" said Narine. Trish followed her.
Lorraine had a better idea. "Oh look! A car wash!" Alisa went in the bushes in the couple of feet between the car wash wall and a fence. Lorraine just walked right into the car wash. "It's got floor drains..." she said as she walked off.
"OH MY GOD! 1-1-1, GUYS!!!" I yelled from my place in line for the bathroom. When Lorraine and Alisa came out from their hiding places in the car wash Lorraine said, "Oh my god, you're still here?!" I made them wait another minute or two for the guy in the bathroom to come out. Then I did my business, we picked up Narine and Trish from the KFC, and resumed our SLOWING and STOPPING.
Stragglers in bike parking. This photo does it no justice.
After what felt like an eternity we hit the bottom of a long climb and were able to actually INCREASE our average speed by passing people on the way up the hill. I rode on ahead, and then waited for the rest of the Old Ladies at the top. This time I'd learned my lesson and stopped a few feet before the crest so that they wouldn't be going 35 mph yet while I was still re-mounting my bike. Before long Alisa and Lorraine turned up and I hopped in right behind them. When we hit the downhill we all stood up and hunched down into a crouch over our handlebars. I was 3 feet behind Alisa and her ass hanging out in those shiny hotpants and fishnet tights.
"ALISA! THIS IS THE BEST VIEW I'VE HAD ALL WEEK!" I yelled.
"WHAT?!" she yelled over her shoulder.
I rode up next to her and gave her a light tap on the butt. I repeated my comment. "Man, you gotta hit it harder, girl! I could hardly feel that one!" she said. So for the rest of the day I tried to get a good smack in. It's harder than it looks on a moving target. Each time she would say it was lacking something. Finally, about half way though the ride I got a good one on an uphill. My bike handling skills got much better over the course of the week. I was hitting nearly all my targets in the butt-poking game too.
We stopped at the second rest stop, which was the main street in a town of about 6 people called Casmalia. It was one of those towns made up of one poorly-paved road with a general store/post office with about as many square feet as my bedroom, and a house. In Casmalia every year they threw a dance party for us, and Lorraine had been looking forward to it for days. "Are you going to dance?!" she asked.
I don't dance.
We stood in the long line for the bathrooms, and decided to pass on the long lines for snacks. Man, showing up at the end of the pack sucked. When we went to try to start dancing (or in my case, watch the dancing), though, no one was dancing. Trish and Narine were over it and rode off. Alisa and Lorraine wiggled their butts for a couple of beats before the roadies started coming through and threatening to sag anyone who wasn't out in 5 minutes again. As we were leaving we found Kim and Mdot girl. They were not wearing dresses, pink or otherwise. Mdot girl had even foregone her red Mdot jersey for a green one from Ironman 70.3 California.
There were a couple of reasons why Day 4 was short. One was for it to be a rest day, but the other was because this was the day with the most significant hills. Coming out of Casmalia, we started climbing right away. I told Lorraine I'd see her soon and moved out to the left to pass all the fat girls in red dresses. I swear, the ride was 75% male, and all the females must have been in the back 26% of the pack. It was a pretty sad day for feminism seeing all those girls in their dresses climbing the hill at about 3 mph. I moved out to the left and started chanting "On your left" every other pedal stroke. Kim and Mdot girl were ahead of me coming up the hill. I passed them and they got in behind me. Oh no you don't! I thought. This was my chance to prove my salt after their slighte about the marathon the night before. I started powering up the hill. After a minute or so I stopped hearing Mdot girl calling out. I'd dropped her, but Kim was still there. Well, if Kim kept up with me, then Mdot girl would have no way of knowing how strong I was. Kim had to drop back and TELL Mdot girl what a badass cyclist I was. I surged. I couldn't drop Kim. Then I tried something that I'd read about, but never thought possible. "See you at the top!" I said and clicked up to a harder gear, stood up, and rode away. I stayed in that gear for about a minute, and when I dropped back down to an easier gear, Kim was gone. Ha! I'd done it. I rode hard to the top of the hill to make sure I'd gotten my breath back by the time Kim and Mdot girl showed up. Kim rode by about 30 seconds later, and Mdot girl was about a minute behind her. They rode off to talk about what a badass cyclist I am while I waited for Lorraine and Alisa.
We tore off down the hill and soon caught Kim and Mdot girl again. Next we had to climb an even longer hill that kept going up and up around every turn. At one point there was a hairpin turn and you could see all the cyclists climbing on the road directly above your head. It looked pretty damned steep. At the hairpin turn there was a roadie directing traffic, only letting us around the dangerous curve when there were no cars around. I had just barely dropped Mdot girl and Kim was still hanging on my wheel when we got to the stop sign. The roadie waved all three of us (and about 20 of our closest fat girl friends) through at the same time. I had barely clipped in again and reached a regular cadence when I pulled the harder gear trick again. I clicked the button, then clicked it again, stood up, and rode away hard. I dropped them before they even got started, and whenever they looked up the long straightaway up the hill they had to look at my pink dress among all the red ones disappearing off into the distance. I felt better now.
Lompoc, where the next camp was, is a typical steamy little town inland in southern California. It was bursting with strip malls and corporate chains, girls in shortshorts and skank tanks, and boys with big cars and floppy hair 'dos. In the local Walgreens there was a poster to vote for this year's senior beauty queen. You know, SoCal. But the PEOPLE in Lompoc were great! One woman had wanted to do the ride a year or two ago, but couldn't make it fit into her schedule. So instead of riding, she resolved to help the riders. She went to all the local businesses in Lompoc and asked for discounts for the riders. She ran off maps of town with all the businesses offering discounts highlighted and the companies who refused the discount blacked out. Then she went to the local car dealership and got them to donate their biggest cars for the night, and got her family and friends to drive those cars in a makeshift shuttle service. In each of the shopping centers in town she stationed high school cheerleaders in lawn chairs with cell phones and walkie talkies, and every time a group of cyclists needed a ride, they'd call one. All the cars and cheerleaders had tip cups to help buy the squad new supplies, and we were more than happy to give them generous tips. The drivers were a gregarious bunch. They couldn't wait to tell us all about Lompoc. There wasn't much to tell, but they kept talking anyway.
The camp site in Lompoc was famous for the ducks that would come into your tent if you left it open, and even attack you if there was food around. I was looking forward to maybe swimming in the duck pond, but once I got a good look at the stagnant water, I thought better of it. We went and found Meg and hung out for a bit while her friends showered. While we were waiting Meg told us her fantasy about being part of a harem. She had this idea that when the man wasn't around, it would be a giant X-rated movie with all the wives. "You know, you could just move into a sorority. It's like the same thing, but with more booze and without the husband," I suggested. She and Shane didn't seem to mind much that half the people in the F-section were listening in on our conversation, but it made me a little uncomfortable.
I've mentioned before that there was no privacy in the tents, whatever you talked about in your tent was everyone else's business. There was a whole crowd of people who wore Hillary t-shirts around camp. Hillary's campaign had officially rolled over and died a couple of days before in West Virginia, but the only people who didn't seem to know it yet were the Clintons and the riders on the AIDS LifeCycle who hadn't had access to a TV, radio, or newspaper in days. The night before, a couple of tents away from Meg, one of the Hillary legions was singing her praises over the phone. It was starting to bug Jessie (Meg's tentmate). Hillary this, and Hillary that. All she wanted to do was sleep. She'd had enough. The next time he said "Hillary" Jess said, "Obama!" in her best Mr. Subliminal voice.
The Hillary supporter paused for a second. Then he went right on talking. "Blah, blah, blah, Hillary..."
"Obama!"
"..." then, after a few seconds, "blah, blah, blah Hillary..."
"Ooooo-BAma!"
"..." ... "blah... blah, blah, blah Hillary..."
"oBAma!"
Shane and I had our own annoying neighbor story. Our neighbors on one side were really cool (a dude from Hawaii and a girl from one town over from me in Mass), but on the other side were a couple of girls who were AWFUL! Actually, one of them was awful. She talked incessantly, and the other girl didn't even respond to her. She was one of those people who could keep talking and talking and talking without affirmation for hours and think she'd just had a conversation. "He says he doesn't love me, but I know he loves me, my friends say that he totally loves me, he just doesn't know it yet, and I can totally tell from the way that he acts that he loves me and..." You know, that sort of thing. We didn't even know the other girl's voice. And this girl had sagged EVERY SINGLE DAY (or one of the girls had anyway, we assumed it was Monologue Girl, because she embodied all undesirable traits). The night before Shane had heard her say, "Yeah, I ride my bike everywhere. I've worn the crotch out on all my pants because I'm always riding my bike."
"And she's sagged every day!" Shane told Meg and her other tentmate, SJ (they decided to triple up), who was back from the shower now. "I ride my bike everywhere, and I haven't worn out the crotch on ANY of my pants."
And then I opened up my big mouth, "The reason that she's worn the crotch out of all her pants is because she's a FATASS!" Typical tactful Claire, but I know from experience. My inner-thigh fat wares through all my pants. Immediately I knew I shouldn't have said it. SJ is a big girl.
On the way to the shuttles Meg pulled me aside. "Can we keep the fat phobic comments out of it?"
"Fat phobic?!"
Alright, I'll admit it. I'm afraid of being fat. I think I might rather lose my left arm than be obese, but that's just me. I've had an eating disorder in the past, and I realize that this attitude is not necessarily healthy. I make a lot of fat jokes. It's impolite, and I hurt people's feelings and for that I am sincerely sorry. But still, the chick in the other tent WAS fat, and she HAD sagged every single day, and if all her pants were crotchless, it wasn't because she'd been riding her bike.
"You know," Meg chastised me, "for some people, it's not their fault that they're heavy."
I was ready to eat my hat. I HATE that defense. Yes, there are some people who have glandular problems, but those cases are extremely rare among the overweight and obese. If there's one thing I can't stand it's when girls sit there and have a "right on, sister" moment while bitching about how "unrealistic" magazine photos are, while they wolf down endless 1200-calorie hamburgers. Yes, anorexia and bulemia are horrible disorders, and I am all for discouraging them. It's a horrible way to live. But the REAL problem in this country is obesity. One in 1,000 teenage girls in America is anorexic. One in three people in the US is obese. So if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a group of fat girls sitting around saying that 5'4" women are SUPPOSED to weigh 170 lb, and that it's HEALTHY to have another slice of pizza, and exercising every day isn't healthy, and what is the media doing to our society?! This is why you are more likely to be fat if you have fat friends! And these are the same people who are all bitchy when you light up a cigarette in their same zip code.
It's simple biology. Your body is constantly trying to maintain homeostasis. If you have a glandular problem, your body is not maintaining homeostasis, and you will gain or lose a whole bunch of weight. But most overweight people are actually staying the same weight, because their body is maintaining homeostasis! They are simply putting in SO MANY CALORIES, that their bodies are able to maintain an extra 50 lb or so of adipose tissue. If they weren't eating so goddamn much, and eating so much shit, then they wouldn't be so fat. Period. And yes, each individual's metabolism is different. Mine is slow, other people's are fast, but if you don't eat too much food, then you won't become a fatass. And don't blame the media if you don't look like a model from a magazine, blame all those yahoos who are telling you that it's OKAY to be eating 2,500 calories a day if you're sedentary.
But I was overruled, and I sat there stewing at the all-you-can-eat pizza place getting seconds and thirds of salad after my 2 slices of pizza, while Meg and her friends wolfed down 5 or 6 pieces of pizza apiece and gushed about how much they LOVED food, and isn't it great being able to eat WHATEVER you want?! Don't get me started on people who think that exercise is an excuse to eat "whatever you want." Maybe I was getting a bit tired too. I was definitely getting cranky. I'd felt like I was hardly able to ride today, what with all the traffic in Santa María, stopping for half an hour at each rest stop, and only having ridden 45 miles. Everyone else might be tired and worn down, but I still felt great. The next day I was going to go out and REALLY ride on my own. I needed to get away from people. Especially the slower people at the back.
Total miles: 42.55
Time riding: 3:22:06
Average speed: 12.6 mph
"It's red!" I insisted. It's not totally by accident that I'm not in any of the pictures from red dress day. Hey, I was in a dress, wasn't I?!
Not my picture, but we were around this chick for the hours it took us to get out of Santa María.Finally we got out onto the road and started the SLOWING... STOPPING... SLOWING... STOPPING... ROL...STOPPING! routine. Since we were at the back of the pack, and since there were a lot of us, we had to go at a snail's pace through the eight million red lights in the town of Santa María. After about an hour and a half we were still in Santa María, we were still several miles from the first rest stop (at around 9.5 miles), and we all had to pee. We pulled off at a gas station and watched a man in a red dress walk into the bathroom and got in line behind him. About 5 minutes later we were still standing there. Clearly SOMEBODY was breaking Claire's No. 1 Rule of Public Pooping: Don't. "Fuck this, I'm going to the KFC across the street!" said Narine. Trish followed her.
Lorraine had a better idea. "Oh look! A car wash!" Alisa went in the bushes in the couple of feet between the car wash wall and a fence. Lorraine just walked right into the car wash. "It's got floor drains..." she said as she walked off.
"OH MY GOD! 1-1-1, GUYS!!!" I yelled from my place in line for the bathroom. When Lorraine and Alisa came out from their hiding places in the car wash Lorraine said, "Oh my god, you're still here?!" I made them wait another minute or two for the guy in the bathroom to come out. Then I did my business, we picked up Narine and Trish from the KFC, and resumed our SLOWING and STOPPING.
Stragglers in bike parking. This photo does it no justice.After what felt like an eternity we hit the bottom of a long climb and were able to actually INCREASE our average speed by passing people on the way up the hill. I rode on ahead, and then waited for the rest of the Old Ladies at the top. This time I'd learned my lesson and stopped a few feet before the crest so that they wouldn't be going 35 mph yet while I was still re-mounting my bike. Before long Alisa and Lorraine turned up and I hopped in right behind them. When we hit the downhill we all stood up and hunched down into a crouch over our handlebars. I was 3 feet behind Alisa and her ass hanging out in those shiny hotpants and fishnet tights.
"ALISA! THIS IS THE BEST VIEW I'VE HAD ALL WEEK!" I yelled.
"WHAT?!" she yelled over her shoulder.
I rode up next to her and gave her a light tap on the butt. I repeated my comment. "Man, you gotta hit it harder, girl! I could hardly feel that one!" she said. So for the rest of the day I tried to get a good smack in. It's harder than it looks on a moving target. Each time she would say it was lacking something. Finally, about half way though the ride I got a good one on an uphill. My bike handling skills got much better over the course of the week. I was hitting nearly all my targets in the butt-poking game too.
We stopped at the second rest stop, which was the main street in a town of about 6 people called Casmalia. It was one of those towns made up of one poorly-paved road with a general store/post office with about as many square feet as my bedroom, and a house. In Casmalia every year they threw a dance party for us, and Lorraine had been looking forward to it for days. "Are you going to dance?!" she asked.
I don't dance.
We stood in the long line for the bathrooms, and decided to pass on the long lines for snacks. Man, showing up at the end of the pack sucked. When we went to try to start dancing (or in my case, watch the dancing), though, no one was dancing. Trish and Narine were over it and rode off. Alisa and Lorraine wiggled their butts for a couple of beats before the roadies started coming through and threatening to sag anyone who wasn't out in 5 minutes again. As we were leaving we found Kim and Mdot girl. They were not wearing dresses, pink or otherwise. Mdot girl had even foregone her red Mdot jersey for a green one from Ironman 70.3 California.
There were a couple of reasons why Day 4 was short. One was for it to be a rest day, but the other was because this was the day with the most significant hills. Coming out of Casmalia, we started climbing right away. I told Lorraine I'd see her soon and moved out to the left to pass all the fat girls in red dresses. I swear, the ride was 75% male, and all the females must have been in the back 26% of the pack. It was a pretty sad day for feminism seeing all those girls in their dresses climbing the hill at about 3 mph. I moved out to the left and started chanting "On your left" every other pedal stroke. Kim and Mdot girl were ahead of me coming up the hill. I passed them and they got in behind me. Oh no you don't! I thought. This was my chance to prove my salt after their slighte about the marathon the night before. I started powering up the hill. After a minute or so I stopped hearing Mdot girl calling out. I'd dropped her, but Kim was still there. Well, if Kim kept up with me, then Mdot girl would have no way of knowing how strong I was. Kim had to drop back and TELL Mdot girl what a badass cyclist I was. I surged. I couldn't drop Kim. Then I tried something that I'd read about, but never thought possible. "See you at the top!" I said and clicked up to a harder gear, stood up, and rode away. I stayed in that gear for about a minute, and when I dropped back down to an easier gear, Kim was gone. Ha! I'd done it. I rode hard to the top of the hill to make sure I'd gotten my breath back by the time Kim and Mdot girl showed up. Kim rode by about 30 seconds later, and Mdot girl was about a minute behind her. They rode off to talk about what a badass cyclist I am while I waited for Lorraine and Alisa.
We tore off down the hill and soon caught Kim and Mdot girl again. Next we had to climb an even longer hill that kept going up and up around every turn. At one point there was a hairpin turn and you could see all the cyclists climbing on the road directly above your head. It looked pretty damned steep. At the hairpin turn there was a roadie directing traffic, only letting us around the dangerous curve when there were no cars around. I had just barely dropped Mdot girl and Kim was still hanging on my wheel when we got to the stop sign. The roadie waved all three of us (and about 20 of our closest fat girl friends) through at the same time. I had barely clipped in again and reached a regular cadence when I pulled the harder gear trick again. I clicked the button, then clicked it again, stood up, and rode away hard. I dropped them before they even got started, and whenever they looked up the long straightaway up the hill they had to look at my pink dress among all the red ones disappearing off into the distance. I felt better now.
Lompoc, where the next camp was, is a typical steamy little town inland in southern California. It was bursting with strip malls and corporate chains, girls in shortshorts and skank tanks, and boys with big cars and floppy hair 'dos. In the local Walgreens there was a poster to vote for this year's senior beauty queen. You know, SoCal. But the PEOPLE in Lompoc were great! One woman had wanted to do the ride a year or two ago, but couldn't make it fit into her schedule. So instead of riding, she resolved to help the riders. She went to all the local businesses in Lompoc and asked for discounts for the riders. She ran off maps of town with all the businesses offering discounts highlighted and the companies who refused the discount blacked out. Then she went to the local car dealership and got them to donate their biggest cars for the night, and got her family and friends to drive those cars in a makeshift shuttle service. In each of the shopping centers in town she stationed high school cheerleaders in lawn chairs with cell phones and walkie talkies, and every time a group of cyclists needed a ride, they'd call one. All the cars and cheerleaders had tip cups to help buy the squad new supplies, and we were more than happy to give them generous tips. The drivers were a gregarious bunch. They couldn't wait to tell us all about Lompoc. There wasn't much to tell, but they kept talking anyway.
The camp site in Lompoc was famous for the ducks that would come into your tent if you left it open, and even attack you if there was food around. I was looking forward to maybe swimming in the duck pond, but once I got a good look at the stagnant water, I thought better of it. We went and found Meg and hung out for a bit while her friends showered. While we were waiting Meg told us her fantasy about being part of a harem. She had this idea that when the man wasn't around, it would be a giant X-rated movie with all the wives. "You know, you could just move into a sorority. It's like the same thing, but with more booze and without the husband," I suggested. She and Shane didn't seem to mind much that half the people in the F-section were listening in on our conversation, but it made me a little uncomfortable.I've mentioned before that there was no privacy in the tents, whatever you talked about in your tent was everyone else's business. There was a whole crowd of people who wore Hillary t-shirts around camp. Hillary's campaign had officially rolled over and died a couple of days before in West Virginia, but the only people who didn't seem to know it yet were the Clintons and the riders on the AIDS LifeCycle who hadn't had access to a TV, radio, or newspaper in days. The night before, a couple of tents away from Meg, one of the Hillary legions was singing her praises over the phone. It was starting to bug Jessie (Meg's tentmate). Hillary this, and Hillary that. All she wanted to do was sleep. She'd had enough. The next time he said "Hillary" Jess said, "Obama!" in her best Mr. Subliminal voice.The Hillary supporter paused for a second. Then he went right on talking. "Blah, blah, blah, Hillary..."
"Obama!"
"..." then, after a few seconds, "blah, blah, blah Hillary..."
"Ooooo-BAma!"
"..." ... "blah... blah, blah, blah Hillary..."
"oBAma!"
Shane and I had our own annoying neighbor story. Our neighbors on one side were really cool (a dude from Hawaii and a girl from one town over from me in Mass), but on the other side were a couple of girls who were AWFUL! Actually, one of them was awful. She talked incessantly, and the other girl didn't even respond to her. She was one of those people who could keep talking and talking and talking without affirmation for hours and think she'd just had a conversation. "He says he doesn't love me, but I know he loves me, my friends say that he totally loves me, he just doesn't know it yet, and I can totally tell from the way that he acts that he loves me and..." You know, that sort of thing. We didn't even know the other girl's voice. And this girl had sagged EVERY SINGLE DAY (or one of the girls had anyway, we assumed it was Monologue Girl, because she embodied all undesirable traits). The night before Shane had heard her say, "Yeah, I ride my bike everywhere. I've worn the crotch out on all my pants because I'm always riding my bike."
"And she's sagged every day!" Shane told Meg and her other tentmate, SJ (they decided to triple up), who was back from the shower now. "I ride my bike everywhere, and I haven't worn out the crotch on ANY of my pants."
And then I opened up my big mouth, "The reason that she's worn the crotch out of all her pants is because she's a FATASS!" Typical tactful Claire, but I know from experience. My inner-thigh fat wares through all my pants. Immediately I knew I shouldn't have said it. SJ is a big girl.
On the way to the shuttles Meg pulled me aside. "Can we keep the fat phobic comments out of it?"
"Fat phobic?!"
Alright, I'll admit it. I'm afraid of being fat. I think I might rather lose my left arm than be obese, but that's just me. I've had an eating disorder in the past, and I realize that this attitude is not necessarily healthy. I make a lot of fat jokes. It's impolite, and I hurt people's feelings and for that I am sincerely sorry. But still, the chick in the other tent WAS fat, and she HAD sagged every single day, and if all her pants were crotchless, it wasn't because she'd been riding her bike.
"You know," Meg chastised me, "for some people, it's not their fault that they're heavy."
I was ready to eat my hat. I HATE that defense. Yes, there are some people who have glandular problems, but those cases are extremely rare among the overweight and obese. If there's one thing I can't stand it's when girls sit there and have a "right on, sister" moment while bitching about how "unrealistic" magazine photos are, while they wolf down endless 1200-calorie hamburgers. Yes, anorexia and bulemia are horrible disorders, and I am all for discouraging them. It's a horrible way to live. But the REAL problem in this country is obesity. One in 1,000 teenage girls in America is anorexic. One in three people in the US is obese. So if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a group of fat girls sitting around saying that 5'4" women are SUPPOSED to weigh 170 lb, and that it's HEALTHY to have another slice of pizza, and exercising every day isn't healthy, and what is the media doing to our society?! This is why you are more likely to be fat if you have fat friends! And these are the same people who are all bitchy when you light up a cigarette in their same zip code.
It's simple biology. Your body is constantly trying to maintain homeostasis. If you have a glandular problem, your body is not maintaining homeostasis, and you will gain or lose a whole bunch of weight. But most overweight people are actually staying the same weight, because their body is maintaining homeostasis! They are simply putting in SO MANY CALORIES, that their bodies are able to maintain an extra 50 lb or so of adipose tissue. If they weren't eating so goddamn much, and eating so much shit, then they wouldn't be so fat. Period. And yes, each individual's metabolism is different. Mine is slow, other people's are fast, but if you don't eat too much food, then you won't become a fatass. And don't blame the media if you don't look like a model from a magazine, blame all those yahoos who are telling you that it's OKAY to be eating 2,500 calories a day if you're sedentary.
But I was overruled, and I sat there stewing at the all-you-can-eat pizza place getting seconds and thirds of salad after my 2 slices of pizza, while Meg and her friends wolfed down 5 or 6 pieces of pizza apiece and gushed about how much they LOVED food, and isn't it great being able to eat WHATEVER you want?! Don't get me started on people who think that exercise is an excuse to eat "whatever you want." Maybe I was getting a bit tired too. I was definitely getting cranky. I'd felt like I was hardly able to ride today, what with all the traffic in Santa María, stopping for half an hour at each rest stop, and only having ridden 45 miles. Everyone else might be tired and worn down, but I still felt great. The next day I was going to go out and REALLY ride on my own. I needed to get away from people. Especially the slower people at the back.
Total miles: 42.55Time riding: 3:22:06
Average speed: 12.6 mph
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)