Yeah, but how many miles today?

Spring has finally arrived in Boston. It lasted some 30 seconds before we charged right on to one of the most beautiful summers I can remember. Ever since I stopped working about 2 weeks ago, the weather has been in the sixties, seventies, and even high eighties with beautiful, sunny blue skies. It's made it impossible to get anything done, including blogging, finding a job, or packing for my trip. (I leave tomorrow, eep!) What I have done, though, is ride my bike nearly every single day. Last week I rode over 425 miles all in one week, just because there was no reason not to.

On Monday I went out for a 45-mile ride with some of the bike shop groupies to watch the Boston Marathon. We took it easy, and rode up the course backwards to mile 10 to watch the wheelchair competitors, the elite men and women (wow, Kara Goucher is even hot when she's running!), and most of the qualified runners come by. Somehow I missed Cranky running by, which I was very disappointed about. This post is not about the Boston Marathon, but there is one thing I noticed while I was watching. I know that they say that elite men and elite women run at roughly the same cadence, but that's not what it looked like. The elite men looked like they were taking long, effortless, bounding strides. The women, on the other hand, were taking tiny, choppy strides. Their feet looked like they were moving about 6 inches per stride, and that they were able to maintain sub-6-minute-mile pace because they were taking about a thousand of those 6-inch strides in a minute. The Asian women, especially seemed to take short, choppy strides. It was all very interesting.

Volunteers setting up at about mile 22.

Riding down Heartbreak Hill.

The elite women. Do you recognize them?

The best picture I got of the Elite men. I'm a BAD photographer!

On Wednesday I took my Phyxie out for a training ride because I thought it might rain on me. I made it 55 miles before I gave up on the rain catching up to me and went home. It's amazing how having to pedal without a break for 3 hours really wore me out much more than riding a geared bike at the same speed. It took my crotch days to recover from sitting in that horrible saddle for so long.

On Friday it got up to almost 80 degrees, and I went out for a solo 130-mile ride. I rode out to the start of a local century about 15 miles away (Climb to the Clouds if you know the rides in the area), and rode the course by myself. The ride has TONS of climbing, but the weather was perfect, the roads were well paved, and it was the first day that the trees had started to bloom and the leaves were starting to spring out. I had a tailwind the whole way home. It was the kind of ride that reminds me why I love riding my bike. I didn't have a single low moment the whole ride. Here are more bad pictures of pretty things taken while riding:

I was very high up in the air. That's what this photo is supposed to show. It doesn't.

Pretty mountain in the background. Instead it looks like a picture of 2 dead trees.

These people must have been very rich because they had a huge house... but I'd passed it before the camera took the picture.

And this is what much of the road looked like. I'm so lucky! I think I peed in these woods, by the way.

Grease Monkey's butt.

On Saturday my Grease Monkey got her new Specialized S-Works Ruby, so I rode a whopping 4 miles with her to work, and 4 miles back. It was pretty intense.

And then on Sunday, I rode a 300K, or 190 miles: about 6 miles shorter than my longest-ever ride.

The ride started out in Schuylerville, NY (about 4 hours away) at 4:00 in the morning. To be there with enough time before the start, I had to leave my house at about 11:30 at night. I like driving through the night, and I was just thrilled with my life as I drove alone across MA and into NY, drinking coffee the whole time. The coffee probably explains why I was loving life so much, and also why once I got off the interstate somewhere near Troy, NY, I had to pee RIGHT THEN! No worries, it was about 2:45 in the morning and I was on a deserted state highway in cow country. I pulled over and began to relieve myself as nature intended. Of course, how could it have gone any other way, a pick-up full of rowdy men drove by right then. I tied it off, stood up, and tried to pull my pants up before they got too close... but what else would someone be doing standing with their pants open in front of their car on a deserted highway at this time of night? They all yelled and hooted and drove on. My day's humiliation over, I climbed back in the car and drove the rest of the way to John, the world's most generous race director's house.

I had never ridden at night before, not really. Sure, I'd ridden under street lights on busy roads for a mile or two, but never in night like this. Schuylerville is so rural that there are no street lights on its roads. There are no cities or buildings that have bright lights on through the night. The moon wasn't even out. It was DARK! We let John, the world's most generous race director lead the charge for the first 2 hours until the sun came up. We rode through an inky black vacuum where you couldn't see farther than 30 feet in front of you, or however far your light reached. I sat on the front next to John, because I didn't trust these other people in the dark. What if they turned into monsters or something?

We're riding along, 2-abreast, taking up the whole traffic lane with John, the world's most generous race director on the left and me on the right when suddenly a GIANT dark beast began moving on the side of the road, and moving FAST! I screamed and swerved. We all yelled and braked. It was Bigfoot! It was a grizzly bear! No, wait, never mind... it was... a horse that had gotten loose. It still scared the shit out of me, and I wasn't about to get too close to it and startle it in the dark. The horse galloped ahead of us for a few miles, and it kept looking back. I think that it realized what deep shit it was in trying to get away in the dark and it was using our lights. Finally it stopped running with us and we rolled along at a less cautious pace again.

I tried to take a picture of the horse, but this was all that came out. It's out there though, believe me.

Other animals I saw on my ride:
Skunk - dead
Beaver - living
Cows and goats - living
Porcupine - splat!
Wild turkeys - both living and dead
Lots and lots and lots of frog pancakes, many with one lone leg sticking up in the air - dead
Dear - deceased

When the sun came up, everyone was still together. Of the roughly 10 riders, there were two kinds: There were the experienced Brevet riders who spent the whole time talking to each other about how "Last year the Catskills 1200k was the only Brevet I did all year, and I don't recommend doing it that way..." and "Well the last time I went to PBP (Paris-Brest-Paris, the Kona, Boston Marathon, or Western States of ultracycling)..." These guys had all the attachments for the geeky reflective night gear, lacked just enough social skills to be into this kind of thing, and wore RUSA (Randonneurs USA) jerseys. The other riders were the ones whose lights hung limply off their snappy racing kits and no handlebar bags with handy plastic windows on top to put their cue sheets in. There were 11 checkpoints along the course, and by the third the two groups had sifted themselves out. I was surprised to find that the people who did most of their training by themselves and couldn't pronounce Randonneur to save our lives were the ones who wound up ahead. The experienced riders scratched together whole meals at each gas station checkpoint and sat around to take their time and eat them. Those of us who were used to riding alone grabbed whatever we could shove into pockets or bottles and got back to our bikes as soon as possible. At least for me, it was out of habit. Not only do I hate wasting time getting cold at rest stops (it just makes you stiffer and more sore), but when I stop on my own long rides, if I spend too long in a convenience store my bike could get stolen.

Mine and Lance's bikes in front of one of the checkpoints.

By about mile 50, John, the world's most generous race director and I were riding with a French-Canadian girl we'll call Canadian Spice (because she had the same name as 2 of the spice girls... sorta), and a guy we'll call Lance (because he was wearing a yellow jersey and resembled Lance Armstrong in that they're both white men on bicycles). As we rode the next 140 miles together, I got to know both their stories, and was impressed by both of their grit, and also their humility. It's important to respect someone if you're going to be staring at their ass or letting them stare at yours for over 12 hours.

Canadian Spice was from Montreal and rode a 13-pound (including pedals and bottle cages) beautiful Cervélo with Zipp wheels. "I didn't always ride such a nice bike," she said in her cute French accent. "A few years ago I rode across Canada on a big metal frame that weighed over 20 lb." She rode solo, completely unsupported, for 10 to 12 hours a day from one side of Canada to the other in a few weeks. "But then last year I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and I thought that I deserved to spoil myself. Why save money on a bike when biking is my passion? Life is too short!" And why did she ride a Cervélo, of all the nice bikes out there? "Because Cervélo means brain," she said. And they're Canadian. That bike WAS sexy... it even SOUNDED fast.

Lance was the quiet type. We hardly spoke until after the 100th mile when we finally began exchanging life stories. He had no idea what a brevet was, or Randonneuring, or PBP. He just loved the challenge of riding his bike long distances, and usually did so alone. He would just set out by himself before dawn and ride 200 miles or more, until it started to get dark again, then he would go home to his wife and kids. He hoped to get to 300 solo miles this year... and finish the whole thing before sunset.

In the beginning of the ride, my ass was dragging. I was still sore from the 130 hilly miles 2 days before. But later in the ride, I started to feel great! In fact, I felt better at mile 150 than I had at mile 50. Not everyone was quite so lucky in staving off fatigue. John, the world's most generous race director, kept cramping and getting dropped off the back. After the century mark he was dropping off the back more and more quickly, and at the rest stops he was getting grouchy. After a grouchy conversation with Lance about which side of the lake was the north side, he let himself get dropped for good. I was still on cloud nine. I had packed 2 nutella and almond butter sandwiches; 3 bags of a mix of spice drops, almond M&Ms, charleston chews, and banana chips; and 3 Kind bars. At every control point (gas station) I filled up my bottles with a different kind of drink. I started with Accelerade, but then moved on to Gatorade, root beer, orange juice, Mountain Dew, and the mother of all energy drinks: Red Bull. Lance and Canadian Spice were sharing ham sandwiches, and Canadian spice was stocking up on the best that the Land of the Free has to offer: Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut granola bars.
"We don't have these in Canada!" she said through a full mouth. "These are great!" she gushed, as she shoved one in her mouth and the other five from the pack in her pockets.

My pockets were so stuffed with food that I had to put my sandwiches in a backpack that I wore until about 130 miles when I finally had enough space in my pockets to take it off.

"How is that Red Bull?" Lance asked. "Does it taste good?"
"It tastes like jelly beans that someone's spit back into the can with some Lysol," I said, "but the sugar and caffeine help."
"It's kind of a funny color..." he made a face as I poured it into my water bottle. It reminded me of that scene in House where House is standing in front of a urinal with a can of energy drink in his hand and he says to Wilson, "Funny, it's the same color coming out as going in. Do you think they do that on purpose?"

Yes, Red Bull looks disgusting, tastes disgusting, and has so many questionable substances in it that I wouldn't be surprised if it's outlawed in 10 years, but it works. While Lance had been doing much of the pulling for the first part of the ride, I was now riding in front more and more. I guess it was noticeable enough for Canadian Spice and Lance to share a Red Bull at the next checkpoint. They each got paper cups, and split up a 16 oz can. "It doesn't taste nearly as bad as it smells," Lance said.
"Oh my goodness! I really like it!" Canadian Spice giggled with her accent that just kept getting more and more endearing. "I've never tried it. I eat all organic, all natural, but this tastes really good!"
"Really?!" I asked. I hate Red Bull. I'd moved on to Mountain Dew.
"Oh my God, yeah! I love it! I'm going to get another one before we head out!" And that she did.

We were now rolling through about 200K (125 miles) into our 300K, and Lance and Canadian Spice had their first Red Bull wings. "Wow! I can't believe how much better I feel!" Lance kept saying.
"I'm going to buy a whole case of the stuff!" Canadian Spice went on. At the next stop, which was at a pizza shop, they walked right over to the cooler together to look for more Red Bull while I got our cards stamped.

Meanwhile, while Canadian Spice and Lance were high on Red Bull, we were riding through the Adirondack National Park, and I was high on life. I should have been getting cranky at this point, but I wasn't. As cheesy as it sounds, all I could think about was how lucky I was that my body let me do this. I know I should have taken pictures, but I knew they wouldn't come out. We rode for about 25 miles along one road that rolled up and down like a roller coaster, each downhill would give you just enough momentum to get to the top of the next one. The scenery was beautiful, the pavement was perfect, there were almost no cars, and the riders I was with were of similar riding styles. My body even felt good.

At the next rest stop (you'll notice that this isn't exactly sequential... it was a long day, just bear with me) one of the ruddy-faced townies that looked like he spent his mornings drinking coffee at the convenience store and evenings drinking Budweiser at the local bar asked, "How many miles have you ladies ridden?"
Canadian Spice paused, trying to do the conversion from metric in her head. "One thirty," I told him.
"And how many of those have you ridden today?" he asked, with "little ladies" implicit in his tone.
"Those were all today!" Canadian Spice beamed.
He took a moment, trying to figure out if we were lying. "It would take me a week to ride that far!" he said, now genuinely impressed. Damned right it would! I thought. It was still only lunch time.

The rest of the day continued in much the same way. We would ride for an hour or two, and then stop at a gas station checkpoint and Canadian Spice would get more Red Bull. I had the cue sheet, so I lead more and more because my math skills were getting a bit fuzzy so I kept giving the wrong instructions to Lance. We would make a turn at mile 169.5 and the next turn wouldn't be until mile 174.9 and I would say, "Okay, now keep your eye out because it's going to be a quick right on bluebird lane in half a mile." That sort of thing. Canadian Spice never lead, but she was just so damned cute, it was impossible to care.

Finally, we hit the 24-hour course with about 17 miles to go, and a big tailwind picked up. I lead a paceline next to the Hudson river riding 23 miles per hour with 180 miles already on our odometers. We were cooking! We were going to be the first riders in to the finish by hours. "Now no sprint finishes when we get back!" Lance joked.
"No way! I'm too tired!" I lied. I kind of wanted to be the first one in, even though it was a non-competitive ride and the other two would be right behind me.
"A sprint?! Forget it!" said Canadian Spice.

We came down the final hill towards John's house and all tucked into aerodynamic crouches. And then suddenly my cue sheet and brevet card which had been obediently clipped to my handlebars for 189.5 miles flew off. "Nooooooooooooooo!" I screamed. If you don't have your Brevet card at the end, you don't get credit for finishing. I turned around up the hill, and my companions were kind enough to wait for me. "C'mon!" I called as I zoomed by them a minute later, touching my brakes, but just barely. I made the final right and started sprinting down Pearl St. towards John, the world's most generous race director's house. Just then Canadian Spice came around me and zoomed past to the house in the last 30 feet. "Nooooooooooooooo!" I yelled again for the second time in 2 minutes. I didn't really care, and we all laughed about it later as they accused me of dropping my cue sheet on purpose, but the coolest part was that 2 women were among the first three to finish. "I've never been in a group ride before where women were the strongest riders!" Lance said. "This brevet stuff is pretty cool."

I really look like a tool on the left. Am I sticking my butt out?!

After that I shoved some sandwiches in my mouth and hit the road. I got home almost 24 hours after leaving, stinky and sweaty and dog tired, but STILL in a good mood.

Okay, that's it for awhile. I'm off to Europe tomorrow night, so stay tuned to the twitter feed at the top of the sidebar. Have a great month, everyone. Happy trails!

Women are bitches.

Sunday was my very first road race. It was... a learning experience. Learning experiences are hard to swallow when you already know everything. But knowing something and actually being able to execute it are two different things... as I learned on Sunday.

I had already ridden roughly 200 miles that week, but the weather had been so beautiful, I really couldn't resist. Since most of my riding until now had been to and from work on my Phyxie, I wasn't really sure what kind of shape I was in. On Tuesday I had gone looking for my top gear, and simply couldn't find it. I was in good riding shape, just not good racing shape. So I just hoped for the best.

On Friday I bought slick race tires to switch out with the beefier training tires I'd been riding. After about an hour of jabbing at the tire (and tube underneath) with a tire lever, I finally had to take the tires into the bike shop to be changed. Sleeping with your bike mechanic has its perks, but it also has its drawbacks when everyone in the shop now knows you well enough to make fun of you for not being able to do simple maintenance on your own bike. I left my wheels and the tires at the shop and ran off to get ready for a wedding. My favorite Grease Monkey changed them while I was gone, and the next morning when she pulled them out of the back of her car... guess what? The tire I'd been trying to fix was flat. "Oh man, I must have pinched it when I was changing it!" she groaned. "I NEVER do that!"
"Yeah," I said. "Errrr, maybe you pinched the tire... that's it." So we took a detour back to the shop on the way to the race where she changed the tube, and I sat there and took shit from everyone again for making such an amateur boo-boo.

Bike back in one piece, we packed the dog, all my cycling stuff, and our asses into the Grease Monkey's car and set off for Plymouth, about an hour south. When we got there, we missed one turn after another, until finally we found the address I had written down. But because this is me, it was the WRONG address. I had written down the address for where you should send registration forms, not for the start of the race. "Oh my god, are you always like this?!" asked the world's most patient Grease Monkey.
"Yes," I said sheepishly. "So you should probably get used to it." Thank goodness for internet and GPS on cell phones, or we would have just had to turn around and go home. The bitchy lady in the GPS lead us to the entrance to the park, and then we drove over what must have at one time been pavement... for miles and miles. "Where the fuck is this place?" my Grease Monkey kept asking.
"Shouldn't we see bikes by now?" I wondered, getting even more nervous. The cup of coffee I'd had on the way over wasn't doing much for my pre-race jitters. I was not looking forward to riding over this crumbling pavement in a paceline.

Finally we found the start with only about half an hour to go, and I scurried around trying to get everything sorted out in time. So much for a warm-up. There were 13 women riding the race, and as far as I could tell, they were from all categories. This really sucked for me because not only would I be riding with the big guns, but I wasn't (and still am not sure) if I'd be able to qualify for points to move up a category based on my placing. The way things shook out though, I doubt it matters.


I knew almost nothing about this race, other than that it was 20 miles long. The race official stood in front of us and explained the rules. "Although this is like a crit course, we will be running it by road race rules." My head spun. A crit??? Like the kind that goes really fast with sharp turns??? The kind that they tell you to avoid if you aren't confident with your bike handling skills, because it's where you're most likely to have a high-speed crash??? The kind where you're just doing loops and loops of the same course over and over??? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! "You will be doing 16 laps of a roughly 1.3-mile circuit. If you get lapped by the group, you are not permitted to hop on the back of the group, but there aren't many of you, so we should be able to keep track of you." Groooooooooooooooan! Getting lapped?! I don't want to get lapped! Then he explained a few more rules, and they counted down and set us off.

Lap 1
I know that road racing is not like time trialing, and that there are times when the pace slackens, and times when you ride at an unsustainable pace. Still, it was annoying me that everyone was going so slowly. Girls were swooping and swarming every which way and within close proximity. I hung on the back and watched what everyone else was doing. Then, we came down a hill and had to turn a sharp hairpin turn at over 20 mph, all in a tight group. Had I been alone, picking a line through that turn would have been no problem, but with all these girls around, I got spooked. I resolved not to get trapped behind everyone in that curve again. Then, coming out of the curve the lead girls put the pedal to the metal up a short hill to the start/finish area. One down.

Lap 2
It took me a few seconds to pull back up to the group after the hill, but by the time we'd come to the far end of the circuit, they'd all slowed down again. I took the opportunity to move up in the group, but then I was off the front. What were they all doing lollygagging around like that? We were riding into the wind, why were they giving up all their momentum now? I rode about 2/3 of a bikelength ahead, looking back to make sure that I wasn't shooting off the front of the group. I was very aware that I had no idea what I was doing, and also aware that they could probably tell I had no idea what I was doing. Coming in to the sharp turn, I accellerated slightly to be able to pick my own line. I swooped through, and then coming up the hill one of the lead girls said something to me as she powered by. My hearing sucks, so I didn't know WHAT she said. Just to be safe, I decided that I wouldn't lead through that turn anymore either. I was not having fun.

Lap 3
The pack put in another acceleration, so I decided to hang back a second and watch the pack from a few bike lengths back for a lap. I knew that it was proabably going to lose me the race, but I didn't care. I REALLY wasn't having fun, and I REALLY didn't want it badly enough to have a crash, or cause a crash. I'm comfortable riding in a pack, but not on a course like this. So I dropped back, and over the course of the lap, I lost about 50 yards of ground. I was time trialing again, and they were pack riding.

Laps 4–10-ish
I wasn't the only one who had gotten dropped, though. We weren't that far behind, and I knew that if we worked together, we could catch up to the other girls. I got on the front and rode hard until I couldn't breathe anymore and my legs were on fire. The other girls hung on, and when we came around the sharp turn again, they passed me on the hill. I chased after them, and had caught them back easily within about half a minute. But when I caught them they were going so s l o w. I know that any pace feels easier when you're drafting, but this half of the course had a tailwind, and this pace was really slow, and did they even care about catching those other girls anyway? So I jumped back in front and tore off. We turned back into the wind, and I pulled even harder. But I couldn't keep this pace up. We were going to lose that lead pack if I didn't get some help. We hit the sharp turn again, me leading, and they passed me again coming up the hill. I caught them again on the other side, and pulled another 80% of the next lap. Next lap, same thing.

Speed for each lap. Note how around the 6th or 7th lap I relaxed a bit because I wasn't willing to give the other girls a free ride.

We had now officially been dropped. I was having such a crappy time that I thought about just stopping and getting off my bike. But then the dog had finished her swim, and now my Support Crew were back to the start/finish area to cheer me on. I couldn't drop out with her watching! The worst part was that every time I passed people was the one time that I was actually behind the group. I decided that if I was going to get dropped, I wasn't going to kill myself riding as hard as I could and let these other girls hop on for a free ride. I vowed to sit in for a whole, entire lap, just to see how they would ride. So that's just what I did, I let them ride their stupid slow pace, and I just regrouped, and then I zoomed by them up the hill. "Hunh, interesting." I said aloud. So it was just that they were fresher than I was that let them pass me on the hill. They weren't stronger climbers at all...

I lead for the tailwind end of the course setting a stiff pace, and then moved off to the side when we hit the headwind, waiting for one of them to come through. They moved aside behind me. You fuckers! I thought as I plugged away into the wind again. They passed me up the hill, and then I pulled ahead again on the tailwind section. Hopefully if I set a fast pace on the easy part, they'd take the hint and keep it up on the hard part. "You're doing most of the work," one of the girls said to me. I'd noticed that she hadn't taken a single pull this whole time. The next lap, I decided to let them pull me again. I slowed, and slowed, and slowed to keep from having to pass them on the easy part. Then we turned into the wind and... the girl in front waved us around. I was sitting in the back and watched the the girl in the middle (the one who'd said I was doing all the work). She didn't budge. "Ah, I see how it is," I said (aloud), and rode up to the front again.

Laps 11-14
We were now beginning to see lone riders ahead. We passed one, and on the next lap we passed another. "I think we're catching up to the lead pack!" one of the girls said.
"No way," I said, you nitwit, I thought. "We're lapping the girls off the back." I recognized them. Maybe if you weren't being so lazy and would pull your share, we really would be catching up to them!

Finally, in the last few laps we did catch up to one girl who had dropped off the back of the lead group, and she joined the train that I was reluctantly leading. At this point I had figured out that there would be no heroic breakaways, and no catching up to the lead pack. How I did in the overall standings would have nothing to do with how I rode the first 19.75 miles, and everything to do with how I sprinted up that last hill to the finish. I settled down, and towed the other girls slower than I had been in the first two thirds of the race. I started waving to my pit crew and drinking more fluids.

Lap 15
Second-to-last lap! If I was going to make a breakaway, it was going to have to be now. I rode as hard as I could for half a lap and then looked back to see how I'd done. Everyone was still close on my wheel, so I slowed down. I slowed waaaaaaaaay down. Come around, bitches! Come around! I thought. They didn't. Some got ahead on the hill into the start-finish area, but then I somehow shot to the front again when we were back on level ground.

Lap 16
As we came over the finish line, the officials rang the bell to show we were on our last lap. I barely pedaled, but no matter how slow I went, no one would let me give up the lead. I was really getting annoyed now. I went slower, and slower. And slower. And then we hit the windy section, and I went slower. We lapped a woman one more time, and I sped up. I didn't want to be stuck in a big clump coming around the curve, and I wanted all the momentum I could for the uphill sprint into the finish.

Average speed after each lap. Note how it gets slower and slower over time. The final average was 20.3 mph.

Every single one of those girls that I had towed through the whole race passed me on that hill. I already knew that I had no sprint, so I was just on damage control. My mouth dropped open, I stood up, and started swinging my bike all over the place. I almost caught the back two, but would have needed another ten feet to do it. The chick in front of me beat me by half a wheel width.

I'd pulled off just 8th out of 13. I was furious with myself for not having the confidence to stay with the big girls, and not having the tactics to keep from getting used by weaker but more experienced riders. At first I thought I hadn't had fun, but really, I think I did. It was just frustrating to suffer for 55 minutes, knowing you're going about it all wrong, and knowing it's all going to come to nothing.

As my pit crew and I were loading up the car, one of the women came up and asked me, "Are you Claire?"
"Uh... yeah..." (suspicious: How do you know my name?!) I hadn't spoken to anyone but my pit crew and the girl at registration all day.
It turns out that since I wasn't wearing the kit of the club I was racing for, I was in violation of... something. It wasn't clear, and I didn't really care about asking. It was just another thing I did wrong, and asking was just another way to look stupid! Or maybe I would have been in violation if I'd signed up to race for them and I wasn't a member. Who knows. I wanted to disappear under a rock, but all the women were now congregating around the woman who had asked my name, and they were all standing next to the car. I didn't want to introduce myself to them, and I didn't want to talk to them. I just wanted to leave. But I figured that getting in the car and running them all over would be rude.

"Hey, Suzie. What happened to you on that turn? Did you go through the dirt? I saw some tire marks."
"Yeah, I guess someone took a weird line, we started inside and came through on the outside. There was nothing right about that turn!" Oops, that was definitely me, I thought. I had my reasons for doing it at the time, but causing an accident in a tight turn was just what I was afraid would happen. Everyone was very nice as they introduced themselves and talked about how I should do this ride and that ride. I just wanted the earth to swallow me. I wanted someone to straight up tell me, "Hey, if you'd wanted someone else to lead so you wouldn't lose and make an ass of yourself, you should have done this, this, and this..." But no one was saying anything helpful. They talked and talked, and I was quiet (as I usually am), and my Pit Crew was quiet (as she never is), and eventually we escaped without running anyone over.

In the car on the way out of the park my Grease Monkey said, "I can't believe I knew every single one of those women from the shop, and not a single one of them said anything to me." The bike shop sponsors the club, so most of the riders go there to get their service done. "Maybe they recognized me and couldn't place me..." she went on, not really believing it herself. I really think they just ignored everyone who hadn't ridden. The only reason they talked to me is because A) I fucked up, and B) they recognized my name from the roster (and therefore had to make sure I didn't fuck up under their club name again).

I said over the winter that I'd be open minded about riding with women, but women really are bitches.

Another one of THOSE posts

For a more lighthearted post, see my previous post below. Sorry there are no pictures, but my scanner doesn't work, and I don't have a job anymore to scan my pictures there.

My year-and-a-half anniversary of quitting drinking went by almost a month ago without mention. I didn't have the time or flexibility in my schedule to do anything like the (nearly) half ironman I did last year to mark the 6-month mark. A year ago, it was important to keep doing more and more crazy and intense things to mark special occasions. This year, I'm more interested in saving it for where it really counts. I'm beginning to trust myself more to have free time and use it responsibly. For me, in the first year I was so afraid that if I didn't have some slightly out of reach goal around every corner, I would tumble off the wagon, never to return. Probably, if I hadn't pushed myself like I did last year, that's what would have happened.

But now after some 18 months of flexing that muscle every day, I feel like I can lead somewhat of a more normal life. I've been letting myself have friends again. I've stopped signing up for races that I don't want to do. I'm trying the whole dating thing again. And I have even purchased beer with no intention of drinking it without going off the deep end. It feels good. I know that I can never risk letting myself have a drink again. In Florida I had a non-alcoholic beer, and even the .5% alcohol by volume was enough to trip that switch in my head that said, "STAY HERE IN THE BAR. DRINK AS MUCH AS YOU CAN UNTIL THE BAR CLOSES AND YOUR MONEY RUNS OUT. DRINK! DRINK! DRINK! MAKE SURE YOU NEVER RUN OUT OF BOOZE AGAIN!" I can never just have one drink like some people can, but it feels nice to trust myself to lead a normal life in other ways.

But I'm not here to talk about drinking. I wrote that post 6 (well, nearly 7 now) months ago. The drinking is only one part of everything I had to get over to start becoming who I am now (and there's still so much to be improved upon!). Before I really started drinking, my problem was food. I was at my wits end. I remember thinking, Addicts and junkies have it easy, because no matter how hard it is, they know that they always have the hope of quitting. You can't quit eating. In many ways, I still think that I was right.



I was always afraid of getting fat as far back as I can remember. I remember going on my first diet when I was 9. Then, when I was 13 I stopped eating meat. My whole family ate meat, so suddenly I was doing something different. It was control. It was power! I got totally hooked on it. I started eating less and less, just to see how little I could get by on. I started playing games where I would see how long I could stare into the snack drawer singing the refrain from "Lady Willpower" before I closed it without taking anything and walked away. I would always leave some of everything on my plate, take the smallest portions possible, and only have seconds if they were offered to me. I started running. The summer before I started high school I weighed around 85 lb (about 40 lb less than I do now, at nearly the same height – I never did grow much after that).

Then, the first day of freshman year, something changed. I decided that the first day of school was a "special occasion," and that I could have a snack after school. I ate a whole, entire bagel and cream cheese. Then I hit the ice cream. I ate until I felt like I was going to puke, I just couldn't stop. It was like someone had flipped a switch. I kept eating like that for the rest of the year. I just couldn't control myself at all. The will power that I'd had the year before was completely gone. I used to hum "Lady Willpower" as I shoved cookie after cookie into my mouth. I ate a whole box of Frosted Flakes in one sitting once. Another time, I ate a whole box of nonfat coffee cake. Entenmen's cheese danishes. Gallons of ice cream. I had root beer with breakfast every day, french fries and a 6" cookie for lunch, and then I would come home and eat my face off. By the time dinner rolled around, my stomach hurt, but I had to eat something because I didn't want my parents to yell at me for eating too much junk for snack. I wanted to stop, I just couldn't. I made up new games where I'd sit in my room on the third floor with a box of girl scout cookies. I would eat one, and while I was chewing it, I'd throw the rest of the cookies one at a time out the window. It felt like control. It made me feel a little better.

By the end of my freshman year, I'd gained some 45 lb. I went from a size 0 to a size 8 by spring track season. My thighs had never touched before, and now I wore through all my pants in the crotch from the rubbing. When I was in the car, I could feel my fat jiggling and it made me sick. I had stretch marks. All my clothes were stretched out and looked like maternity clothes tenting over my paunch that I didn't always remember to suck in. It made me sick to be inside my skin, but I just couldn't stop eating. I would hardly eat anything for days, and then I'd go nuts, eating everything in sight.

Sophomore year is when things got really out of control. I learned how to stick my fingers down my throat to throw up, but I never felt like I got it all. I started stealing laxatives from the drug store, but (even then) I wouldn't poop in public restrooms. If I was ever stuck away from a private restroom when the laxatives kicked in, I would get so sick that I sometimes threw up. I used to get so angry with myself for being so out of control, that I would cut myself with a retractable exacto knife: deep gashes that would reopen when I picked up something heavy. This is the part that I most regret now, because those stupid scars will never go away.

And so it went through the rest of high school and into college. I was 20 years old, still convinced that the best days of my life had already passed when I was 13. I was so depressed that I defined myself by it. I used to cling on to all my "issues," thinking that that's what would make me special, worth knowing. If I couldn't be skinny and hot, I could be the frumpy girl who will always be there to listen to your problems. I could be that friend that you can't get rid of. I was one walking cry for help. I drank heavily, did every drug that came my way, and fucked anyone that showed an interest. I tried to kill myself one night. I did everything I could to sabotage my chances of getting accepted into my study abroad program so that I could sell everything I owned, drop out of school, and run away to New York City. Fucked-up shit crossed my mind, like wishing I had cancer, because cancer patients are skinny; or purposely becoming a junkie, because junkies are skinny. But much to my dismay, I was accepted to the study abroad program.

In Barcelona I decided that the best way to get sent home was if I got really sick, so I just stopped eating. In one month, I didn't have one bowel movement. I lost about 20 lb.

...And then I met a girl and everything changed. She was unattractive, opinionated, critical, and 10 years older than me, but she absolutely loved life, and I loved her. She was 30 and I was 20. She treated me like shit, and I loved it. She was ashamed that she was only in college, while most people her age had careers, and she was ashamed to be with me because I was so much younger. I idolized her. I would have done anything for her. "Why are you so sad all the time?" she asked me. She was expressing disgust, not concern. "It's really not hot. It makes you so much less fun to hang out with." And then she decided she wanted nothing to do with me (for the first of roughly 7 times over the course of that year). I was devastated. I locked myself in my room and got wasted, I couldn't think of any other way to deal with the emotion.

When I woke up, I felt so horrible, so absolutely disgusted with my own life, so overwhelmed with grief that she didn't want to be with me anymore, that I had no idea how I could live in my own skin even one minute longer. I guess it was despair. And then I made the first responsible decision I think I'd ever made in my life. I thought, Whatever I have been doing up until now hasn't been working. I need to quit dieting. I need a way to burn off all this energy. So I went to the gym and kicked the shit out of myself until my anxiety attack was gone. Then I went back and did it again the next day. I started eating 3 meals a day, and found that when I wasn't trying to skip meals, I didn't actually overeat. When I didn't restrict things from my diet, I didn't actually wind up binging on them as much. And I began writing in my journal compulsively. Every day I would drink and write and drink and write for hours until I could barely hold the pen anymore. I wanted to prove to this girl that I wasn't the loser deadbeat that she thought I was. I sat there every day and put my thoughts down on paper about what it must mean to be happy, almost every day for a year.

Out of that year came my drinking problem. But out of the same phase came endurance sports, and most of all my commitment to enjoying life. I did wind up hooking back up with the girl, and every time she broke up with me I would go back to my journal and figure out how to be that much better of a person. I could no more be bitter at her now for treating me like shit, than I could be at drinking for treating myself like shit. Both brought about the most positive changes in my life.

So yes, drinking ruined my life. But in a way, it saved it. If I hadn't started writing that year, then I never would have been able to break out of my negative cycle. If I hadn't started drinking, then I never would have had the patience to do all that writing. Also, drinking eventually took over my appetite. Food became just something to soak up the booze in my stomach and keep me from puking. When I finally did emerge on the other side, binge eating wasn't something that caught my attention anymore. It just didn't offer the same high as alcohol. It also helped that Spanish food sucks and I'm a horrible cook.

What I was thinking a lot about as my 1.5-year anniversary rolled around was about appreciating having my life back. I was on a pretty crazy "diet," but wasn't finding it difficult to stick to, because I had learned the significance of good eating. I knew that I couldn't drink, but am beginning to enjoy a normal life again because of it. And look at all the great things I had achieved in the process of getting myself through those addictions to food and drink. It was March, and I could still ride my bike 125 miles. I was swimming faster than I ever had before. And I had completed no fewer than 7 races of marathon distance or longer in one 9-month period. For a fuck-up, I think I was doing alright.

As usual with the posts like this that get pretty personal, I'm disabling comments. If you have something you would like to say to me, please feel free to send me an email at speedyspeedracer@gmail.com.

What you missed...

Oh my, so much has happened in the month that I haven't been able to sit down and write. I don't even know where to start. I have one of my gigantic Claire compositions marinating in my head. But now that I FINALLY have a day off with no riding or commitments, I feel like I should at least give an update on some of the highlights of what's been going on over the past month. Two things changed to keep me from my computer: one good, one bad.

The bad news first: Work. No two ways about it: Work. Was. Nuts. What would have normally been a 3-month, 20-page-per-day-per-editor job, we had to crank through in 5 weeks, tearing through over 40 pages per day per editor. I was going in early and leaving late every day, and forget about lunch breaks. Once April rolled around, I was so stressed out that junk food had made its way back in to my diet. So, while the detox was making me feel great, it was no match for 50- to 60-hour weeks.

Nutella was my release for the first 2 weeks in April.

With the crazy schedule, though, I began commuting to work on my Phyxie. I just couldn't count on the train to be ready to leave when I was, and there was no way I was going to find time to ride my bike otherwise. So in the past few months I've become an urban bike lane warrior, terrorizing the 11 highly congested miles between my house and work like I was in a turf war. I even got a few notches in my belt with minor accidents and lived to tell the tale:

The first Incident:
Where: Downtown Boston
Who: A whole family: Father, 5-year-old, mother, and baby in stroller
What happened: I came up to a 5-way intersection. There were walk lights on all sides, so I went (because no urban cyclist can realistically stop at every light). Right after the intersection was a small hill, so I was pedaling hard to build up momentum for the incline (I was riding a phyxie, remember?). I had built up to maybe 15 miles an hour, and was nearly across the intersection, pulling back over onto the right side of the road, where a UPS truck happened to be parked right in front of a cross walk. Suddenly, with no more than a foot between us, a father stepped out into the intersection holding his 5-year-old son by the hand. I didn't even have time to yell, let alone find my brake. BOOM! I plowed right into them, and they went down. No sooner did I see them hit the pavement, when the stroller followed them right into my path. CLATTER, BOOM! I took mom and the stroller out next. Everyone hit the pavement but me. Thank goodness everyone was alright, but there was a scary moment where they thought the little boy's arm was broken. I've gone over the accident over and over in my mind, and there was nothing that could have been done to avoid it. For several days after that, I was pretty gunshy in the streets, but realized that the more I stayed in my lane, and the more I rode the brake, the more I almost got hit. It is actually safer to ride agressively on buisy city streets than to ride defensively. At least if you plan on riding faster than 5 miles per hour.

The Second Incident:
Where: Central Square, Cambridge
Who: Me and a beat-up early 90's Subaru
What happened: I stayed late at work, and before I left my coworker said, "Be careful, it's raining out there." Aw crap! I thought. Now I'm going to get damp! Damp? Ha! When I took my bike out the door, it was pouring buckets and I think I heard thunder. I put on a pair of pants, and just planned to ride over to the train station a block away. But by the time I got to the station, I was soaked to the skin and it would still be another hour before they would let me take a bike on the train. So I just kept riding. There was thunder and lightning, and in many places I was riding through puddles that were several inches deep. People were driving like idiots, pulling over without signaling wherever they could to drop off passengers, and I almost got doored or floored several times. I guess mirrors and blinkers stop working in the rain. All I wanted was to get home in one piece. A third of the way into my ride, where there is a traffic light every block, I was riding through a narrow passageway between the stopped traffic and the parked cars. I was half way past a bus when I saw a car gunning a left turn right in front of the bus. I squeezed my brake for all it was worth, but it was wet; it did nothing to stop me. I realized that I was going to hit him, and time slowed down. I thought about going left, but the bus was there. I thought about swerving right, but the cars were parked there. I squeezed my brake harder, it didn't do anything. I did my best to stop pedaling (phyxie, remember?), but you need more space to stop than half... no a quarter bus length. I leaned back, in case that does anything to slow you down. SMACK! I hit the back side of the car, about where the gas tank would be. It slowed me down. I couldn't tell you how I stayed up, but I did. And then the second was over, the car cleared the 3 foot gap I was riding through, and the path was clear. I could stop and chase the guy down, but it was a thunder storm and I was cold and wet, and no matter what happened, the accident was his fault anyway. I was fine, so I just kept riding.

The Third Incident:
Where: Arlington Center, 20 feet from the turn onto quieter streets
When: 20 minutes after the last accident
Who: Me and what lies beneath a puddle
What happened: It was still raining like crazy, and now I was freaked out and pissed after hitting one car and almost being hit by a dozen more. I had just passed some guy on a $70 mountain bike who had been driving me nuts taking up the whole bike lane and going about 10 mph. It is just HARD to go 10 mph on a bike that only has one gear, no freewheel, and with non-functioning wet brakes without falling under a bus. I got around him and was passing a taxi stand where the ass of one taxi was sticking out really far. I was going to have to ride through a DEEP puddle to get around. I was riding along, slowing down for the turn when suddenly, SMACK, WHOOSH! and my bike was gone. I was flying over the handlebars in Super Man position with my bike still attached to my right cleat. My left thigh jammed into the drops before I cleared the bike, and I did a giant belly flop into the puddle. I skidded about 5 feet, face-down in the puddle, still dragging my bike from my right foot before I came to a stop. All I could think while I was dragging along the road was, I can't believe my tit is in this nasty puddle right now. When I came to a stop, I did a quick body scan. Can I get back on my bike to get away from all these people that just saw me go down? I can!
"Are you alright?" asked the guy on the $70 mountain bike as I re-mounted. Damn, I hadn't dropped him yet?! I was fine. My bike seemed to be fine. I told him as much and rode away. I had bruises all over my legs, and a small scratch on my hand, but I was fine. After that I got sick again, though.
The next day on my ride home I looked at that section of pavement. It's clear and smooth, with one giant, 8 inch deep divot about the width of a dinner plate.

Other people I saw on my commute: The guy riding the foldable bike just fast enough that I just couldn't seem to pass him for miles.
The guy on a bike that was uglier than my Phyxie, with a rusted-out chain that sagged a good inch on both the top and the bottom who managed to suck my wheel for a good 2 miles as I sprinted to get away from him. His bike was so shitty, that when he shifted I turned around because it sounded like he'd fallen over. "You've got some fast legs, lady!" he called after me as I made the turn off of Mass Ave. Why is it that the guys who are all kitted out and riding nice bikes can't hang for a block, but the real riders are on the shittiest bikes?
The female bike messenger with the pink bar tape who thought she could drop me. She almost lost me in traffic, but I was right behind her all the way through Cambridge. I wanted to pass her and say, "Nice gears," (because she had them and I didn't), but then she turned off.

Other rides you missed: There was the 200K windy brevet that I only wrote a couple of lines about. That one may never make it out of the filing cabinet of my memory, but it was an epic one. After the guy busted his face on the pavement in the first 15 miles, a Straight Man Over 40 and I were the last to stick around and make sure the ambulance made it. Afterwards, all the faster riders were long gone, and we were left alone to stick out the 20+ mph winds for the rest of the day. It would have been fine, but I kept losing my cue sheet, and homeboy kept bonking. And yet he STILL rejected gels that someone offered to him that weren't the right flavor. I swear, sometimes I hate cycling because you have to be so dependent on other people; and people are exasperating. The newest member of the Straight Men Over 40 Claire Fan Club was great for the first 90 of the 110 miles we rode alone together, though.

I planned to ride up Mt. Wachusett one weekend, only to show up and find that even though it was nearly 60º outside, there were still people skiing on the mountain. So I rode a hilly 50 miles instead and felt like total ass climbing. Ass, ass, ass, ass, ass. The end.

I set out to ride a 120-mile rout by myself last weekend. The forecast called for some scattered showers that would probably peter out by mid-afternoon. I set out from my house and headed up into New Hampshire. I felt great, and my bike felt like it was pedaling itself. And then I hit the New Hampshire border. Then it started to rain. I was fine, though. I had expected some light rain, and I was dressed in my new water resistant bright-as-the-sun day glow jacket. But over two hours later, when it was still pouring buckets, I was soaked to the skin, and freezing to death, I reached my breaking point. That's the way it is for me on every ride, I'm doing great, and then my mood just CRACKS! I could miss a green light, a car might not yield, the pavement might be particularly bad, or there could be just one more hill than I'm willing to deal with. This time I missed a turn and that was the end of it. I was standing on the side of the road, looking like a drowned rat and screaming "MOTHER FUCKERS!" at all the cars that had the audacity to keep driving when I so clearly wanted them to give up their right of way. I kept riding for about 15 more miles, to total about 80 miles, some 50 of which were in the rain. But I was so cold that my reaction time was getting fucked up. I had hardly sipped my water bottle and hadn't eaten anything in about 40 miles. I still had 40 miles to go and couldn't imagine how I'd get there. I wasn't bonking, I was just freezing. So I had to do something that I hope I never have to do again. I stopped at a sub shop and called in a favor. If you don't read Michelle's blog, by the way, you should. Not only was Michelle a rock star driving 40 miles to pick my ass up in "Where-the-hell-is-Georgetown?!", but she brought me a towel and a dry change of clothes when she did it. We should all be so lucky as to have friends like Michelle.

... and the good part...

The mechanic. Yes, she has pink handlebars and pink cable housing as well as some girly leafy design on her mountain bike. But other than these glaring personality flaws, I'm loving hanging out with her – which pretty much all I've been doing in most of my (little) free time this past month. And as far as the pink bike goes (it's not pink! It's just got pink handlebar grips and cable housing!), she borrowed my road bike to ride to work one day... and suddenly she's in love with the roads and buying a road bike. It's blue. No pink. At all. And since I don't have a mountain bike, I never have to worry about being seen with a girl on a pink bike. So everything's good. Take down the red flags, we can proceed.

She did put a pink computer on the bike she's borrowing, though. We'll have to do something about that when I get it back...

If the bike shop were a sitcom, I would already have been a regular character, but now I might have made it to the regular cast. Of course the whole thing is the juiciest of gossip among the guys that work there as they make lewd conjectures about what they think might be going on behind closed doors. But in the end, everybody loves lesbians, so it's all been working out alright. It has been suggested that I have ulterior motives in dating my bike mechanic. Let me just say this right now, no. Okay? Have we got that out of our system? Good.

It's not as fun as you would think getting your bikes worked on for free. People who actually care about me are much more likely to politely point out that I have no clue what I'm doing. I thought I was pretty bad ass for being able to change a tube, pump up my own tires, and lube my chain. When someone who knows me does work on my bike, have to listen to comments such as these:
Oh my god, your headset's so loose! Have you been riding on it like this the whole time? (yes... What's a headset?) Did you even notice? (No. What's a headset and why do I need one?) If you hit something your fork could come right off. (...)
You know your bottom bracket's completely shot. (What's a bottom bracket?) Bikes aren't supposed to creak like an old boxspring, you know. (They're not? I just thought that was a sign of an aluminum frame bike!)
And did you know that your pedals are shot? The plate almost fell out of them when I took them off. (There are plates in pedals?!) And your brake caliper snapped in half when we tried to take it off... but that may have been my fault... (No, probably not....)
And I re-wrapped your bars. Whoever did them did a shitty job... (heeeeey! I wrapped my bars!)
If I thought I was a rock star for figuring out how even ride a phyxie. It turns out that it's such a piece of crap that nobody who knows anything about bikes would pay more than $20 for it. So even if I thought I was a badass, my complete inability to fix my bike, or even figure out that it needed fixing was enough to cut me down to size.

So that's what I've been up to. More cohesive posts will be back soon. In the meantime, drop a comment. First comments will be the first people whose blogs I catch up on.

It's good to be back!