A waste of a perfectly good bike ride

I've been loving trail running lately. Claire, the one who hates to run (although admittedly I don't think I've ever said that about trail running) has been having "Oh my god, I love my life! I wish I had more time to run" moments every time I hit the trails. On Saturday I went for a 10-mile trail run, up out of the canyon, up a 2000' mountain, and then back down. Normally when I'm finishing a hard 2-hour run, I will round kick someone in the face (or aim for the face and hit the knees) if they get between me and my car, especially if I've been out of water for an hour. This time, though, as I was running through the neighborhoods back to my car, a girl who looked like maybe she could strip off her rainbow leg warmers and star in Twilight yelled to me, "Have you seen a boy?"

Boy. Yes, I have heard of such things. They are like men only smaller and with less hair. "Uh, I don't think so," I said. "I'm sorry, I wasn't really looking." With my visor on and my head down, I wouldn't have seen a charging elephant... or so I thought.

I continued running down the road and about 3 blocks later I came across a 10-year-old boy with a committed rat tail, running next to a friend who was on a bike. "Hey, kid!" I yelled. "I think someone's looking for you!"

The kid suddenly cut in a different direction and ran down a side street. "He's running away from home," his not-so-bright friend on the bike told me right before following him down the street.

I'd been running for 10 miles. I hate kids. I hate rat tails. I had every good reason to just keep on running and leave this particular dispute to resolve itself. Instead, I took off after him at top speed. He turned with that "Oh fuck!" look that a bunny gets right before it bolts from a barking chihuahua under the wheels of a speeding Mack truck. The side street turned out to be a cul-de-sac and he was cornered. He started weaving back and forth as you would if someone were shooting at you. "Sorry, kid!" I said as I hopped back and forth through the street toward him. "I just can't let you go. She's worried about you."

"You can't win this one, Jimmy!" the dim boy on the bike said.

At that moment little Jimmy saw the Twilight girl. She saw him. "Jimmy, stay right fucking there!" she yelled. He darted across the street. "Oh my fucking GAWD, Jimmy..."

This was my cue to leave. Fast. And I wasn't even feeling sorry for myself for having to run so hard at the end of my epic run. Where was the Mexican soap opera that I was always the tragic hero of by the end of my runs?

I was high on life from my run all that afternoon and into the next day when I had to do a (dun, dun, duuuuuun!) crit. Now if you haven't been here for awhile, let me remind you that I fucking hate criteriums. They are races that discourage strong legs and reward the weasels. They are dangerous and ugly. I hate 'em, hate 'em, hate 'em. But crits are a necessary evil in cycling because they teach good pack skills, because they usually figure into any stage race, and because early season training crits are a good chance to network. Since I really wanted to ride with a team once I was back in shape (although that may take a year), I reluctantly went to Freemont for the Early Bird training crit.

The Bay Area is generally beautiful, but Fremont is an exception to this rule. To get to it, I skipped over the impressive Bay Bridge, passed by the neutral San Mateo Bridge, and went over the ugly Dumbarton Bridge. There were no pretty hills on the horizon, and it was the kind of ugly low bridge made from pilings that they have in Florida. Rather than dropping us back to earth among skyscrapers, the Dumbarton Bridge farted me out in the middle of a marsh among a forest of power lines. Even the name of the bridge starts with "dumb." It was a beautiful day, and here I was in a concrete jungle of the East Bay.

I'm sure that crits are the same the world over. If I went to a criterium somewhere in Nepal or Somalia, I'm sure it would still be held in a deserted office park. I drove into a deserted office park just like the deserted office park in Boston where the training crits were held there. I filled out the same registration form for one-day entries that they use all around the country and sighed. Was I really skipping a chance to go on a real ride to ride a 1.5-mile circuit around the Dell building? I handed over $20. That was a lot of money for a race that was only going to last 40 minutes and where they wouldn't even be keeping score.

I stood in line for the bathroom with the same cyclists who look the same the world over waiting to deposit my Starbucks (Starbucks, please sponsor my blog), when... No way! Holy shit! ... I saw the chick who was at every single race I ever did in New England. I had seen her at brevets, training crits, time trials, road races, women's training rides, and out-of-state races, and now here she was 3000 miles away in a NEBC kit. "No way! You've gotta be shitting me!" I said. "What are you doing here?" I hugged her because it seemed the thing to do, but once we were already hugging I think both of us thought better of it and wondered how soon we could politely get out of touching each other.

"I just moved here 2 months ago."

"I just moved here 6 months ago."

She looked at my number. "What?! You're still a four?" Every time we'd raced against each other in a time trial we'd finished within seconds of each other, we could easily ride together in the same pack, but any time tactics were involved she knew what to do and I chickened out. That's why she'd cat'ed up to a 1 last season, playing soigneur to a pro team this summer, while I was still a cat 4 and spent the summer drunk and getting fat.

I explained that I hadn't raced since spring of last year, and even if I'd won all those races, I still hadn't even done enough races to get the points to move up a category. "Plus, I'm really out of shape," I explained. I was looking forward to hiding in anonymity until I had my legs back. She was spoiling everything.

She looked at my legs, like you could see what kind of power was in them just by looking through my leg warmers. "You don't look like it." Yeah, thanks. Believe me. "Okay, first rule of racing, don't put your number on upside-down." She re-pinned my number. I thought about punching her. I hate being called out on a rookie mistake. I will ride off the Dumbarton Bridge on a 40* day saying it was all part of the plan before I take advice from someone more experienced than me. I wanted to stick the safety pins in her eyes.

"Thanks," I said.

After a brief warm-up, we lined up for the start. There were about 50 women, and they had us break into groups of those who had done more than 10 races, and those who hadn't. Again, not willing to admit to my beginner's status, I lined up with the more experienced girls, figuring they would be safer and forgetting that I hadn't ridden in a pack since the spring.

Off we went. For a couple of laps, I tried to sit near the front, but every time I found a comfy spot at third or fourth wheel, another train of girls would come up to the inside. Now the other paceline was the place to be, and I had to wait until they'd all gone to hop on the train.

Then there were the turns. I'm comfortable weighting the outside pedal and swooping through tight turns, but every time we came into a turn, one of the pack "mentors" riding in orange vests yelled, "Pedal through the turns, girls!" (note the photo in a previous paragraph, where all the riders have their pedals in the same position and are clearly cornering and not pedaling through a turn.) But I was in too high a gear to pedal through the turns, and if I were to spin my pedals, then I'd go right up someone's ass. So I started downshifting as we approached the turns, but because I'm more of a gear masher (yes, yes, I know...), it was awkward for me, and I would lose a lot of speed.

Only a couple of laps in the mentors started telling us not to panic, but that they were neutralizing the pack so that the other group of girls could pass. I pretended like I got caught out on the side (or maybe I really did, I don't remember) and used the chance to move up to the front of the pack. That was the last time I saw the front of the pack and I stared longingly as the inexperienced girls rode by hauling ass from 5 laps out.

I hate crits.

After a few laps I just resigned myself to the back. There was no sense in trying to get to the front if I would just wind up in the back anyway. Why not just conserve my energy in the back and then blast to the front on the final lap? I hoped I wouldn't be caught behind a wall on the final straightaway. "You should move forward," the Familiar Face told me.

"I'd love to, but I'm feeling a bit skittish."

"It's safer up there." Don't you think I know that?! If I could, I would, dammit! Don't make me use my safety pins on your eyes, because I will!

The final lap came, and I tried half-heartedly to find my way to the front before the final turn. Then in the final straightaway I found an open stretch of road and just tore forth. I passed ten or more girls, but I was already starting about 50 yards back from the leaders, so although I closed some of that gap, I really didn't have a prayer in the world. Crits are dumb.

There was a "post-race debriefing" that I had every intention of skipping, but everyone rode right into a parking lot to talk about the race so I figured I'd join. The mentors told us we were doing a great job, and despite the fact that I picked up a few pointers on how to move up without killing anyone (all of which I have forgotten by this writing), praise was thick, and the fawning, supportive tone made me want to bust out my eyeball pins again. "Noooo, you guys did GREAT! And especially for women, because everyone knows that women can't ride a bike. Bike racing is hard, and you're all winners just for getting out there. Of course you will never really be able to hack it, but you all go home and tell your friends that you did a bike race today while we talk pajoratively about these training races behind your backs. But no, really, you were awesome." Or that's what I heard anyway, because I was busy trying to dig the pins out of the back of my jersey and put them to better use.