A really good weekend

You can't stay down forever. You just can't. No matter how much of a sad sack of shit you are, at some point something's going to happen and you're going to smile in spite of yourself. That was what happened to me on Saturday. I woke up, and in spite of everything, I had a good day.

I'd been fighting all Friday with Grease Monkey. In the morning it was about her dishes in the sink. In the evening it was about her ex girlfriend coming over to get some stuff that had been in storage all this time. And before bed I had finally sat her down and made her listen while I said my piece (calmly), which led to her telling me to never speak to her again. So despite a lullaby of screaming and slamming doors on Friday night, I slept like a rock (as you do when you've done as much crying in one day as I'd done), and I woke up on Saturday in a good mood.

It was sunny and warm like it usually is in late May, not late March as I saddled up to go on my first group ride in about six months with real, live people. I had planned to ride easy with Slick, Pepe, and Jorge in order to save my legs for Sunday's first race of the season. Usually everyone rolls out together and then we regroup at a stop sign five miles out, so I didn't think anything of rolling out with the big guns... until we hit the stop sign and they kept right on rolling. I turned around to look for Slick and them, but there was no one behind me. When I turned back, everyone had taken off full steam... up a hill. I had to think fast, so I took off after them... and immediately dropped my chain (haven't done that in... years!). By the time I'd caught on to the pack, I was committed to keeping up with the big boys for the day and in significant oxygen debt.

In the past it has taken all I have to keep up with the fast group when they're cruising along. When they're hammering, forget it! These are guys who average 22+ mph for a century, although no one's in that kind of shape this time of year. But today I had no problem keeping up with anyone, even when everyone gunned it into the town line sprints. It looked like Eric's coaching was working after all. I am so strong! I kept telling myself over and over, because affirmations are supposed to come true if you say them right.

The only time I had to push in the whole ride was going up the damned hills. We'd be riding along just fine and I'd barely be pedaling. Then, when I knew a hill was coming up I'd try to jockey toward the front and then rip it up the hill as hard as I could. And fashoom! Vroom! Whirrrrr! I'd be 10 yards off the back by the top of the rise. Luckily, real cyclists go on a cigarette break the second they crest a hill (figuratively of course), and I was able to catch back on as they picked their noses going down the back side.

I started to get really mad at myself. There is simply no reason why I should be such a shitty climber. I'm small. I'm powerful. I can't sprint for shit, so if you're not a sprinter, you're a climber, right? But nope. Not me. I'm a complete anomaly in that I'm fast, but never when it matters.

And I might have stayed angry about getting dropped on all the hills if I weren't so damned proud of myself for keeping up on the rest of the ride. At one point near the end of the ride I confessed to another rider that I hadn't ridden with people in forever, so I hoped I wasn't too squirrely. "Nah, you're not squirrely at all!" he said. My heart nearly burst out of my chest with pride. I'm always ashamed of my triathlon roots because cyclists see triathletes as a liability in the pack. I practically blended in!

Then, after the ride one of the Big Boys introduced himself. "You rode really strong today," he said. I played it cool and graciously thanked him, but inside I was jumping up and down, clapping and screaming: They like me! They really do! Those five desperate minutes of going balls out after the last hill to try to catch up were instantly forgotten. I decided that it had been a good ride.

With a song in my heart and a smile on my face, I checked my cell phone as I shoved a Clif bar into my face before riding home. Text from Grease Monkey (who was supposed to never be speaking to me again): "I don't want to fight anymore."

In this whole ordeal, I've known that all I had to do was shift my attitude, and things would begin to fall back into place. Once I stopped going crazy and being a needy, clingy, desperate headcase, then she would chill out too. But I just couldn't seem to get my mind around relaxing or being happy again. Now it seemed like all my meditating and visualizing and praying to God and the Flying Spaghetti Monster were finally beginning to kick in. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

For the rest of the day I was just chill. I wasn't anxiously checking my phone for messages from HER every 2 minutes, and I wasn't depressed. I enjoyed the sunset. That night I hung out with Grease Monkey and it was just like when we first met with us giggling and flirting like kids. For once I was fine with us not being "us" for now. It was just... well... a perfect day!

Sunday

Sunday's race was a crit (riding endless laps in a tiny circle in a tight group for an hour, just so everyone can sprint for 20 seconds at the end). Have I mentioned that I hate crits? I've only done one, and it was such a horrible experience that I didn't do another bike race for 4 months. Stupid crits. But so much of bike racing is crits around here, that I have to get used to them, even if I never get good at them.

Knowing full well that I might cause grievous bodily harm to another rider with my erratic riding in a tight pack, I decided to do my first crit of the year far, far from the women that I would have to see for the rest of the season. Three hours away in southwestern Connecticut seemed like a good place to start.

Instead of a traditional play-by-play race report, I'll just give you a list of seven reasons why I hate crits:

1. Crits suck because you can't warm up right. Because the course is a mile or less and they're always running another category's race right up till the last minute, you don't get to warm up on the course. You have to go get lost somewhere in town, and you don't get to ride around and figure out where the bad pavement or tight corners are before the rest of the party shows up.
2. Crits suck because it's all about jockeying for position, not riding your bike. It's like riding in a washing machine. One minute you've got a nice spot in the front, and the next everything's been turned upside-down. You get boxed in, you get passed on all sides, and you get cut off. You move your legs more to get out of the way of other girls than you do to pedal. There were times when I just wanted to stick my fist out and clothesline the train of girls passing me without letting me in, or elbowing girls in the face who got too close.
   
3. Crits suck because they're bike races that discourage pedaling. I swear I spent 3/4 of that stupid race not pedaling. Last time I learned my lesson about not letting anyone use me as a workhorse, so I only pedaled to get myself back up to the front of the pack, and then I pedaled like hell up the little hill up to the finish line on each lap. If I pedaled anywhere but on the hill, I found myself shooting out the front in no time. Then, when we hit the little hill all the girls who had been sitting on my wheel not pedaling would use their fresh legs and zoom right by me, and by the next lap I'd be spit out the back.
4. Crits suck because it's not the best cyclist who wins, it's the biggest weasel. So the art of successful crit racing is to be the one who sucks the most wheels, pedals the least, and cuts the most people off to be in the best position to sprint away for the last few seconds of the race. To me, that's not cycling, that's... cheating!
5. Crits suck because the courses are boring. If you're just riding round and round around the block 22 times, the course is boring and predictable. There's no place to break away, so everyone just winds up riding together the whole time in a giant clump and stressing each other out. Everyone sprints in all the same places, and it's about as fun as watching traffic at a stop light.
   
6. Crits suck because they always come down to a sprint up a hill. So the only time that anyone is ever putting in any effort at all whatsoever is on a hill into the finish that happens every lap (in my limited experience, this is always the way the course is set up). Wiesel your way around 90% of the course, sprint up a hill, repeat. Since I can't sprint OR climb, this makes crits especially stupid. I feel like I'm just getting warmed up, and then everyone goes on a cigarette break just as I catch up.
7. Crits are stupid because I'm not good at them. I lead into the hill on the second-to-last lap, hoping to get a better spot at the front when the pack accelerated through the bell lap. But by the top of the hill I was boxed in and couldn't get around to where the girls were accelerating. By half way through the last lap I was all the way in the back again. I moved around to the outside and accelerated back to the front by the bottom of the hill and sprinted for all I was worth. Apparently all I'm worth is 17th out of 20, because even though I hit the hill in 4th or 5th place, all the wheel-sucking weasels came around at the end.
   

All that being said, I count the race as a success. I knew it would take a miracle for me to do well at a crit, so my goals were on other things:

1. Handle myself well in a pack. I resolved to dive head-first into the pack and hold on to people's wheels at all costs. I concentrated very hard on what was going on around me at all times, and aimed for the tight spots if they were the best place to go. I got touched by several girls and cut off once and never faltered, so I think that was a success.
2. Not be anyone's bitch. I promised myself I would stay in the pack and not ride off the front. I only pulled the pack once, and only for about a minute. And when I was up there, I didn't ride hard. So there. I didn't give nothing to nobody!
   
3. Not go down or take anyone else out. Success!
4. Ride the hill like a bat out of hell. Okay, so I didn't shoot out the front on the hills, but I didn't shoot out the back either. In the past I would have been dropped every single time. Instead, I was just as wiesely as everyone else and didn't pedal in order to save my energy for the hill. Judging by how sore my ass was last night, I guess I rode pretty hard even though I was never accelerating for long enough to break a good sweat.
   
5. Have fun. Well... that one still needs work.
   

Back in action

I've been... absent. From the whole blogger world. In fact, I've been absent from a lot of things that I care about lately. I was absent from Christmas, for example because I was told not to come. Now the family's mad because I've been so absent.

It's a long story about why I wasn't invited for Christmas, and it's not really something I want to shout all over the internet (the internet isn't nearly so big as I used to think... more on that later). But basically there's a rift in my family, and I'm alone on the wrong side of it. My asshole brother is a violent, two-faced, manipulative bastard who hits me when he feels I need to be put in my place. I don't feel that that's right. Mom just wants everyone to get along. Dad wants everything to go his way. Having a violent, two-faced, manipulative, possibly bipolar, definitely socially remiss narcissist in your family is... well, uncomfortable. Admitting that you have a violent, two-faced, manipulative, possibly bipolar, definitely socially remiss narcissist as a son is much harder than just dumping all the blame on the headstrong bitch daughter.

So I had no Christmas, and I'm beginning to feel like the whole world's out to get me.

I found a used tea bag in my shoe the other day. Dad put it there. Who does that? The whole world really is out to get me.

On top of all that, I wrote an article about the latest doping investigations of a certain pro cyclist. It was Christmas day and the article was meant to be a lighthearted piece. The image of anti-doping officials going through a team's trash just struck me as comical and vaguely like a cartoon storyline. I wrote the article using metaphors and imagery that I thought evoked the cartoon playing out in my head, and was actually kind of proud of it. The article was immediately picked up by a bike forum where the trolls were not amused. They didn't think that I was critical enough of a man they believed to be a clear scoundrel. Within 3 hours I had hundreds of page hits, dozens of snide comments about my character and integrity in both the comments section of my article (since deleted) and on the bike forum, and a severe anxiety attack (it was Christmas f'r crissake! Didn't these people have Christmas goose to carve?!). I do not take criticism well. Ever since then I've been getting insults posted on every article that I've ever written on the internet, not to mention all over this particular bike forum when I bother to check it. It's gotten to the point where I dread even checking my inbox, and don't want to write for anyone anymore. I have contemplated legally changing my name, because the world really is out to get me.

Add to that work stress, studying for the personal trainer exam, and about a million demands on my wallet, and I've just wanted to curl up and disappear from the world. Every time I sit down at my computer it feels like the world is going to crawl through my screen and start clawing at my face. I haven't much felt like blogging.

But I suppose I should update my personal blog from time to time. Because of all the things I do on the internet, this is the most important to me personally... even if I have been a bit of a prodigal son. There are a number of people out in cyberspace who I count among my very real friends. I miss you guys.

Boo hoo! Whatever. So what's in store for 2010?
In 2008 I raced nearly every weekend, and I had so much fun! (Right: Me, happy in 2008). Then, in 2009 I decided I was going to buckle down. I was going to focus on a few goals and really put all my efforts toward those goals. The problem was, I wanted to try to qualify for Boston, Kona, and RAAM all in one year. It was like trying to go to the moon, the bottom of the sea, and the top of Mt. Everest in one year... all while falling in love. In the end I burnt out on all, accomplished none, and became domesticated.

In 2010 I'm just going to simplify further. I'm going to ride my bike. I'm going to ride my bike a lot, I'm going to ride my bike hard, and when I don't want to ride my bike I'm going to sit around and drink lemonade and throw frisbees to the dog while my girlfriend rides her bike. I am going to be a bike racer. My only athletic goal for 2010 is to upgrade to Cat II by the end of the season, and by all accounts not even that may be that difficult.

All I have to do in 2010 is just race a lot, ride a lot, and rest a lot. I can do that! Well... except maybe the third one.

It's kind of scary stepping away from triathlon completely. I had The Call with my coach today; the one about what we're doing next season. I asked, "So I was wondering if I should still do some running... You know, to help lose those last 10 pounds (to finally excavate my six-pack and TdF ass) and maybe for some crosstraining... I can hit so much higher heartrates running and..."

"Nah, forget the running," he said. You would think that I would have been doing my happy dance (pictured at right) when he said that, but I was scared. I mean, I had just run a 22:44 5K... with sore legs. I was the first woman to cross the finish line that night. I was FINALLY, after so many years of trying, getting to be a fast runner! Now that I was finally getting the hang of running, I had to put my money where my mouth was and walk away. "Running is just going to take the snap out of your cycling legs. You can burn way more calories in a 2-hour endurance ride than you can in a 45-minute run. Anyway, all that heartrate stuff is sport-specific. Just because you can run at 190 bpm doesn't mean that you'll hit it any easier on the bike." It was exactly the advice I would have given... to someone else. Why was I so reluctant to give up running??? I couldn't tell you.
"So which workouts can I tack onto?" I asked. If there was one thing that I learned from working with Eric leading up to the Ironman, it was that if I sandbagged I'd be sorry for it later. Eventually I just broke down and accepted his limits. There were workouts I could tack onto, and there were workouts that were better left alone.
"You can tack on to any of them, as long as you get your hard work done at the beginning when you're fresh," he said.
"Really? But what about the day before a key workout?"
"No, you'll be fine. If you want to go out for a 3-hour easy ride rather than a 90-minute easy ride because it's a nice day, go ahead."
"Really?" That was scary. Freedom to ride my bike when and for however long I wanted? Where would I go? What would I do? I would see all those routes that I loved to explore before my strict triathlon workouts kept me doing the same loops week in and week out! I wouldn't be able to agonize about 1-minute fluctuations from day to day over a way-too-familiar course.

"One thing that we're going to have to be careful of with with you, though..." he warned. "I've seen so many guys (and gals) who get into the sport already strong and blow through the lower categories, and then when they start racing with the 1's and 2's, all their weaknesses are highlighted. Suddenly they get dropped so early they can't even finish the race..." (my pulse quickened, that would be horrible!). "Next thing I know, they've dropped out of cycling altogether." Gulp!

I am a cocky piece of shit. I've gotten a bit more humble this past season, but I don't take being humiliated much better than being criticized. I can't climb for shit. I can't sprint for shit. For once on the bike I'm going to have to get used to things not going my way. This is going to be scary. This is going to be humbling. This is going to hurt. It's going to be fun! But it's also going to be fun to blog about, because when girls beat me, I get mad. When I get mad, people seem to enjoy it.

SOME women are bitches

You may remember that I had a rather unimpressive introduction to bike racing. I was frustrated that the strongest rider wasn't necessarily the one that won, and maybe secretly a little scared of the packs. But then last week, after a particularly encouraging century where I wiped the floor with a few folks, people had some very flattering things to say about my riding. "Do you race?!" people kept asking me. "Where did this girl come from?!" they kept asking Jorge and Pepe. After one particularly strong woman said she was going to read about me in the newspapers some day, I decided to give the whole bike racing thing another crack. (By the way, if you want to be my friend for life, compliment my cycling... I'm that shallow.)

When I signed up for the race 6 days out, the forecast was for sun and 80º temps. Well, that'll be comfortable! I thought. It's been in the 90's and humid every day for weeks, and for some reason I guess I'd convinced myself I lived in one of those places where no one needs to check the weather. Almost as soon as I send my money in, the weather forecast changed to 60º temperatures, rain, and heavy wind. Well the forecast has changed before. It'll change again. Here's the best way to predict the weather in Boston: If the forecast is for good weather, the weather will be bad. If the forecast is for bad weather, the weather will be bad. And if the forecast is for bad weather and you cancel your plans, then it will be a beautiful day.

I didn't cancel my plans, so as I drove down to eastern Connecticut my windshield wipers (which hadn't seen action for about 6 weeks) went at full blast. It can't keep up like this, I thought. Another rule about New England weather: whenever you say it can't get any worse, it always does. When I signed in at registration it was only sprinkling. When I got on my bike to do a lap and preview the 10-mile course, it started to rain. By the time I got back to the start, it was pouring, there was a cold wind, and I was already soaked to the skin. Who knew that 60º could feel so cold?! I hadn't thought to bring arm warmers, or leg warmers, or even the sleeves to my rain jacket. I was feeling like a real idiot. These girls look fast, I thought. This was a stupid idea. I don't want to do this in the pouring rain. I just want to go home. I really thought about it, too. I thought of just getting back in the car and going home before I got any wetter. But $30 is a lot of money for me these days, and I'd already paid that much to do this race, so I might as well ride. If I didn't like it I could always drop off the back and treat it like a handicap race, chasing everybody down. (This was actually my plan for if things went sour!)

This time I swore to myself that I was going to make other people do the work, and I wasn't going to get dropped. But somehow I kept winding up in the back. The girl in front of me was all over the place, especially to my right forcing me over the line in the middle of the road. And she kept letting all this daylight get through between her and the girl in front of her. On top of all that, she smelled so bad that I could smell her from six feet away. I decided that my goal would be to get around her, and in about 4 miles I did. Then I still couldn't break into the paceline. What paceline?! I kept wondering. There's no order to this whatsoever!!! I would get on the right side of the road, and the line would move left. I would move to the left, and they'd move back to the right again. This is more like bumper cars than a paceline! Finally, on the back part of the first loop, we hit the steepest hill on the course: 2 minutes of pain that just kept getting steeper and steeper. As usual, I fell behind as we started climbing and I was at the back of the pack in no time. And then something funny happened... I started passing people back. By the top of the hill I'd spun my way back to the middle of the pack. Unfortunately, the first half of the pack was a ways up the road. Even though I had no air in my lungs and my legs were shaky, I chased them down: motoring down the hill.

When I caught the group, I looked up the road and saw that 3 more girls had gotten away. I kept coming to the front bracing myself for a stiff pull just to be passed on the right or the left after about 2 seconds. What about trading off pulls? What the fuck was this? And we weren't gaining any ground on the other girls. I would sit on the front for about 5 seconds, and we would close in a bike length or two, and then someone else would pass me and the gap would stop shrinking. After a few miles of this, I thought, Fuck you guys. I'm not letting the break get away from me again because no one else is willing to work! I accelerated and cought the pack easily. There was no one on my tail for a minute or two, and then the bumper cars caught up.

I sat in the pack as we finished the first loop and headed out on the second one. I tried to keep myself in about the fifth seat so that I could watch what was happening at the front, but far enough back so that I could refuse to pull. On the big hill the 3 riders made their move again, and this time I didn't waste my time waiting for anyone else and took off after them. This time the breakaway stuck, and I was in it. I looked around at the other numbers a Cat 1, a Cat 2, and a Cat 3: none of them were the numbers in my category. As long as I could hold on to these girls' wheels and we could keep away from the chase pack for another 13 miles or so, I had it won.

It was pouring and I'd had to chuck my glasses at the side of the road when the nose piece fell off. With every turn it seemed to be raining harder and harder and I squinted my eyes tighter and tighter. There were rivers running down the street and huge puddles at the side of the road. Each lap there were more branches in the road that hadn't been there before. We were all soaked to the skin and I could see through white spots in people's jerseys and shorts. When I was at the front, I could feel the wind catching in my jersey and not being able to get through the wet fabric. The girls would pull away from me on a hill, but I would always catch them up on the downhill.

Heading out for the third and final lap, the woman in front of me started looking back down the road behind us. "Are they back there?" I asked. I felt like we'd let off the gas a little, and I was afraid that a Cat 4 girl would catch us. I knew that if I had to sprint, I'd be sunk.
"Nope, I can't see them," she said. "And anyway, aren't you the one that pulled them back up last time? You're strong," she encouraged. My head swelled with pride until it was popping out the vents in my helmet.

We hit the big hill for the third and final time, and one girl shot to the top. There's no way she can keep sprinting after climbing like that, I thought. But by the time I crested the top, she was far ahead. It took me another minute or two to get my legs back, and by then her gap had opened up more. With one gigantic push, I thought that maybe I could catch her. But I had to think about all those hills between me and the finish. If we weren't taking quick pulls, then I'd blow to bits on the next hill and have to ride in alone. I got on the front and tried hammering for a few minutes, but no one else really seemed that interested in capitulating either. I settled back into a more comfortable pace and let someone else take the pull as we watched the lead car disappear down the road. "Nice pull," said the Cat 1 rider. Maybe women weren't such bitches after all.

The finish was somewhat anticlimactic. Just as I thought, the Cat 1 woman passed me, I had a fair fight with the Cat 3 woman but she got away from me too. So I finished fourth overall, but still 2 minutes up on the next Cat 4 rider.

Once I'd cooled down, collected my glasses from the side of the road, and grabbed a dry change of clothes, I wandered into the school to change. It was Naked Time in the girls' room as we all crammed into the tiny bathroom to change. "Did you win?" one topless girl asked me.
"No, I came in fourth," I said.
"But you were the Cat 4 in the break, right?"
I hadn't realized anyone had been keeping such close track. "Yeah, that was me."
"Good job," she said in that way that you could tell that she was eating her heart out. "Well I was in the chase pack. I came in second."
"Oh! Congratulations! You rode really strong!" I had no idea who she was or what she'd been wearing let alone how she rode, but I find it a lot easier to be gracious when I've beat someone.
"Yeah, we were chasing you, but we came in just behind you guys," she said.
"Oh." I hadn't seen the results yet, but I hadn't even seen anyone down the road at the finish. I hadn't seen any other women at the finish until I'd gone back for my glasses a few minutes after it was over.
"There was some Cat 3 who was playing with the fours," she explained. What does that mean? I wondered.
"What do you mean 'playing?'" a naked woman asked. She had been wearing a low number, and I was relieved that "playing" wasn't some cycling term I'd never heard of before that referred to something I had been doing accidentally.
"She was blocking us, riding all over the place so we couldn't come around," she explained. "She was on your team," she said, pointing her finger accusingly at the Cat 1 who'd been in the break with me. Funny, no one else in the bathroom had noticed that.
"You don't ride in packs much, do you?" she asked me, still wondering where the hell I'd come from to beat her. She was being condescending, and later I figured out that she'd only signed up for this race for the points to move up a category. By beating her, I'd taken her points.
"Well, not with people I don't know," I conceded. I didn't care–I'd beatten her. Let her criticize all she wanted, I knew I could do it again. I'd figured out who she was, and she wasn't that strong a rider, just someone who knew how to suck the right wheel.
"Yeah, I could tell because you kept moving away from the group. With time you'll learn to stay in the pack."
"Oh," I said. And yet I still beat you, I thought. Obviously, I still had more energy than you when the break got away.

When they posted the results, I was hoping to find out the chick's name so that I could stalk her and develop an imaginary rivalry with her. They taped up the list and she immediately started yelling. "I'M NOT EVEN ON THERE! I WAS SECOND! WHERE'S THE USA CYCLING OFFICIAL??? I WANT TO CONTEST THESE RESULTS!!!" For the millionth time of the day, I was glad that I'd beat her. More importantly, I was glad that she'd already noticed that I'd come in before her so that I didn't have to drag witnesses into the whole thing. While she tracked down an official, I snuck to the prize table and collected my medal and $35 prize. It was the first money I'd ever won, and in an hour and a half of cycling I'd made more than I made yesterday in 10 hours of writing.

As I got back in the car in the pouring rain, I celebrated my little private victory. This pays better than my "job," I thought, and I beat a bitch too big for her britches. I guess cycling isn't such a horrible sport after all.

Things to talk about when I get back

Hi, folks!

It seems that I have a bit of a lurker infestation. My comments have been light for weeks, lulling me into a false sense of security. I thought no one but my asshole brother was reading, digging up dirt to hold against me. Of course it figures that when I would say something scary (or perhaps embarrassing), sticking my neck out there with my big goals for 2009, everyone would come out of the woodwork to let me know that yes, I am being watched! I look forward to reading about all your goals for 2009 soon. In the meantime, I have responded to many of your comments in the comments field of my previous post.

I would love to catch up sooner, but this afternoon I'm off to the sunshine state! I'll be meeting up with Angry, Cranky, and Leana for a marathon and a half in The Happiest Place on Earth. I'll also be meeting Jen, which I'm really excited about. It'll be a real blogger reunion. You can make your predictions about my times in the poll on the sidebar. No cheating by checking my results.

And finally, just a note about something that has been bothering me, and that others have picked up on as well. Although I have ridden on the same course, on the same day as Karen Smyers, I do not now, nor have I ever, wanted to beat her, said I was going to beat her, or expected to beat her. In fact, she is so far out of my zip code, that I don't even dream about trying. I DO have an (imaginary) rivalry with someone on Team Psycho, but it is not Karen Smyers. I believe that champions deserve their due, and I am not going to disrespect a champion of her caliber by smack talking, even if I'm joking. I have quite enough with my rivalries with people on THIS plain of existence (even though they may believe that they're above it). So please, no more talk of rematches between me and Karen Smyers. No more saying that I'll be kicking her ass in 2009. How about this: If I'm ever on the bike next to a world-class athlete again, if I'm within 5% of their performance, we can talk shit then. In the meantime, I'll stick with people more on my level: Grandpa, cunts with an affinity for pink, tomato-faced Red Sox fans, Big Red, and any bitches too big for their britches.

Ooooooh, and I got a fixed gear. It comes with a love interest...

Allez, allez, allez!

It's that time of the year again. While I should be training like crazy for Disney right now, I've conveniently put up a blinder in my mind around that topic (marathon? what marathon? ...and a half?! I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about). Instead I'm spending all my mental energy planning for next summer when I'm going to be a cycling monster. I love planning. In many ways I like it better than the actual training and racing itself. I could (and have) sit there for hours planning out my training, mapping out the minutia down to the last detail, and getting ready for anything. I feel like the planning itself will make me faster. Like simply the act of writing down fast interval times will somehow make them attainable. It makes me feel excited. It makes me feel safe with all the workouts in their tiny little boxes on a calendar or excel sheet.

Often half the plan gets thrown out the window, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Just the act of thinking it through the first time will help me come up with an even BETTER plan next time. I realize what parts were unrealistic and which parts were too easy, where I need more work and where my strengths really lie. I have a whole notebook devoted to evolving plans for plans for plans. I know, I know.

*** NERD ALERT ***

I have lots and lots of outings planned for 2009, ranging from 10-mile time trials to 400-mile weekend trips to Canada and back. But the most exciting one of all, and the one that requires the most planning is my trip to Europe. Shane, my brother from another mother, is going to be my date for my friend Emily's wedding in London on May 24. But as long as we're going to be in Europe, we might as well make the best of it. So after dropping some presentable clothes and bulky non-essentials in London, we are going to go across the channel and spend a few days in Paris, before setting out for Barcelona... on our BIKES!!!

And we're not going in a straight line either. No way, José... or pas de tout, Joseph! We may never get this chance again, and we're going to make the best of it, dammit! From Paris we're going to ride southeast to Lyon. From Lyon we'll continue southwest through the Alps along the Italian border over such climbs as l'Alpe d'Huez, until we hit Nice. From Nice we're going to take some flat days along the coast through Marseilles before turning back inland to hit the meat of the Pyrenees. We'll ride back northeast as far as Toulouse so that we can ride through Andorra and over the Port d'Envalira, the tallest peak in the Pyranees, before riding down into Spain and south to Barcelona. It works out to be about 1,400 miles in 14 days.


Shane is a planner. I am a planner. And ever since we committed to actually making this happen a couple of weeks ago, we've both set to work furiously planning and planning to our little hearts' content. Shane bought maps and books with titles like "France by bike", and I've been studying google maps of France locating every famous Tour de France climb I can. We both speak Spanish and English, but we're setting about learning French. Shane is taking a French 2 class at community college and I'm digging around on my shelves looking through old French books from high school and college to see if I can resurrect the few years of French I took. I'm re-reading all 1300 pages of Les Misérables (no better way to get acquainted with France than Victor Hugo). We've both downloaded and started listening to every Learn French podcast on iTunes. I've already gone to the bike shop and grilled them on the advantages of various bike and component combinations.

(Well-intending commenters: Unless you've done a similar trip, don't worry about giving advice. We've got enough advice from people who know from experience to cull through for the time being.)

Six months out we're trying to figure out all the details. Should we bring our crappy bikes or our racing bikes? Panniers or backpacks? Where will we get food and water? (Shane wanted to bring iodide pills, but I pointed out that we were going to France, not India, and we surely would never go more than an hour without seeing a bar of some kind). Hostels, or camping? (probably a mixture) How would we find camp grounds? Are sleeping bags too bulky? What clothes would we need? (or more specifically, what clothes WON'T we need?) How are we going to get our bike boxes around? (cardboard most likely) How are we going to get our bikes back to London? How much money will we need? (Lots) While I'm wishing we had a French-speaking third musketeer who had unlimited resources to follow us in a fully-stocked RV, Shane has already begun mentally packing and re-packing his panniers.

So without further adu, here's the porn. Day by day, here's the plan so far. Of course they'll most likely evolve over the next 5 months:

Day 1 - Paris to Auxerre - 116 miles

Day 2 - Auxerre to Chalon-sur-Saône - 108 miles

Day 3 - Chalon-sur-Saône to Lyon - 83 miles

Day 4 - Lyon to Grenoble - 80 miles (into the Alps now)

Day 5 - Grenoble to Embrun - 118 miles (including l'Alpe d'Huez and Mt. Dauphin!!!)

Day 6 - Embrun to Nice - 130 miles (Last day in the Alps)

Day 7 - Nice to Toulon - 109 miles

Day 8 - Toulon to Marseille - 43 miles

Day 9 - Marseille to Montpellier - 119 miles

Day 10 - Montpellier to Castres - 112 miles (Into the Pyrenees now)

Day 11 - Castres to Toulouse - 42 miles

Day 12 - Toulouse to La Seu d'Urgell - 135 miles (The hardest day of the trip. We start in France, go through Andorra and over Port d'Envalira, the highest peak in the Pyrenees, and then down into Spain.)

Day 13 - La Seu d'Urgell to Montseny - 94 miles

Day 14 - Montseny to Barcelona - 65 miles

Reason No. 421,964 to wear a helmet

(Are you listening, Judi?)

I can't afford a new train ticket, so I'm back to riding my bike to/from work.  Now that school's back in session and everyone's home from vacation, there are even more wackos out on the road. More cabs with non-functioning blinkers, more trucks making deliveries and parking wherever they damned well please, more of the no. 77 bus, more Berklee School of Music kids stepping out into the street without looking, more drivers talking on cell phones swinging in and out of the bike lane, more insecure drivers hugging the right side of the road, more everything.  

But this morning was bad.  I won't even try to figure out why a lawnmower was driving down Mass Ave at rush hour.  I don't even pretend to know what divine power gave him the right

 of way to run a light and cut me off.  That was weird, but that wasn't the most frustrating part of my ride.  No, the most frustrating part was when, 3 blocks from my office a school

 bus mysteriously stopped (without signaling).  Was there a light up there?  I couldn't see what was going on ahead of the school bus, so I went to the left of it to go around.  Next to the school bus was another semi, so it was a tight spot.  I'm rolling on through the 2-foot channel be

tween the two giant vehicles, hearing the screams of little children inside the bus, when suddenly, about 10 feet in front of me I see the little stop sign that sticks out when the bus's doors are open

 start to swing out.  A second later, now about 5 feet away and too late to stop, I realize that the stop sign is right at face level.  I ducked my head.  The stop sign grazed the top of my helmet, and then I heard a THUNK as my backpack smacked right into it.

Also, I would like to address Fellow Chick Biker's comment on my last post.  She said,

"yeah, yeah, you are so talented, blah. enter a real road race and we'll see if you can hang."

First off, that is just exactly the opposite of what I was saying in my last post.  If she'd actually read the whole post, maybe she would have seen that.  I know I tend to go on a bit (these race reports are more of a scrapbook for me than for anyone else), but if you're going to say something that confrontational to someone, I believe you should find out if they've at least addressed the topic in the post that you're commenting on.  Then again, maybe she can't read. What I was saying was that I haven't competed in a real road race, and it isn't fair for me to think much of myself because I don't know what the riding is like in a real road race, and I don't know if I could hang.  Other people are telling me I'm good, but I've learned the hard way to never underestimate the competition till you've toed the line.

Still, in my defense, I am not a triathon-only rider.  I have a fair amount of experience riding with serious road riders.  What Fellow Chick Biker does not know, and would have found out if she'd taken the time to ask is that I rode in Europe for over a year, WITH a club, and in several races.  I won a climbing preme in one of those races. I was the first chick overall up that hill.  The rides I did were not super competitive, but still, I have seen the inside of a peloton in my day. Another thing that Fellow Chick Biker would not know unless she had asked is that I still ride with road riders.  There is a competitive group that leaves from the local bike shop on Saturday mornings.  I don't know what category they are, but they are active racers and strong riders. There is a "deliberate" group, a medium group, and a "fast" group.  I go with the faster guys. And I can hang with them.  I'm one of the few chicks who ever has been able to ride with the fast group on the Saturday morning rides.  So, Fellow Chick Biker, you're right.  I have never entered a real road race, and I don't know if I can hang, but I never said that I could.  I never said I was the next Lance Armstrong, or even the next Kristen Armstrong.  If I ever say I'm a strong cyclist, it is only in comparison to my swimming and running.  Maybe you're faster, maybe a lot of people are faster.  That's fine, whatever, I don't care.  I just enjoy riding my bike.  I'm not the one saying that I'm going to take the cycling world by storm when I get into cycling seriously next summer.  I'm just going to ride my bike hard and let the cards fall where they may.  

And as Grouchy Co-worker Caitlin says, "Haters, go fist yourselves."

I can turn 65 miles into 100... TADAAAA!

Well, I finally got my new bike. It is a Specialized Tarmac Rival. If you want to see all the details you can look at the Specialized's wrap sheet (for some reason my computer only wants to go to the Spanish page, sorry). The cool stuff I can say without mispronouncing something is that it's all carbon fiber, ultegra whatever, and 17 lb fully dressed. And it's a girl. I'm not one to name bikes, but for some reason, even tough I finally wound up going with a boy's bike, this one's a girl.
Here's a real picture of mine, getting ready to take its first real ride.

Wednesday I took one look at the weather forecast for Thursday, and told my boss that I was not going to be in tomorrow. The forecast called for sun and highs in the mid 60's!!!!!! The only problem was, I didn't know where to ride. There are no group rides on Thursdays at midday, at least none that I know of, so I was on my own. Where the hell was I going to find 80-100 miles, preferably in a straight line? Short of taking my bike onto the interstate, I had very few options. So I decided to give the cue sheet thing a try.

If you don't know what a cue sheet is, it's a list of turn-by-turn directions for a ride that someone has already mapped out. I'd resisted cue sheet rides in the past because I have the worst sense of direction ever. Really, no kidding, worst sense of direction ever in human history. No exaggeration. I'm not the best at following instructions either. I chose a ride for a century that I had wanted to do, but probably shouldn't because of its proximity to Vineman. It goes from Walden Pond to Mt. Wachusett (the word "mountain" used very loosely). Over the whole course, you are fabled to gain and lose 7,000 feet. You can see the cue sheet here. When you look at the cue sheet, the first thing you'll notice is that it's LONG: 110 turns to be exact. The next thing that you'll notice is that you're very rarely on the same road for more than a mile. If you take the time to check out the provided information itself, you'll find that the abbreviations and shorthand are confusing at best. Nevertheless, I printed up the 3 pages it took to reproduce all 110 of these directions, and headed for Concord.

Once I found somewhere to park at Concord Carlisle High School that didn't require a permit (what kind of high school has a sophisticated fob-sensor-based entry for its parking lots?!) I was off and rolling. I clipped my cue sheet to my brake cables and set off. Okay, first directions, go right on Thoreau. Well that's not where the front entrance to the high school was, that was on Walden road, but I found a back exit, that did, in fact, lead to Thoreau, and went right as told. First disaster evaded, we're off to a great start. Next direction: Cross Rte 2. I rode down Thoreau in the direction it told me and... the road ended. Well fuck, what now? So I reset my garmen (so I could still follow the distances on the cue sheet) and turned around. This time I went to the other entrance and started on Walden Rd. This DID in fact cross Rte 2, and I was on my merry way. The next several directions had me continuing straight and I handled those just fine, but when we got to the first turn, I missed it. When I hit a t-stop and was NOT on the road I was supposed to turn on, I stopped to regroup. I rode back several miles, and didn't see the road I was looking for. I turned around again and rode all the way back to the T-stop, still no road. I stopped and asked a woman who was mulching her yard for directions. She knew one way to get where I was going, but not the way on my cue sheet. This would be a pattern over the course of the day. "You're really far off course," she said. This would be another theme throughout the day. I guess that people just assume that if it's more than a mile, it'll just be too much of a pain to give you the directions for how to get there. When I finally found the turn, the cue sheet said I should have only gone 3.9 miles. I'd already covered over ten. Well shit, it doesn't get much better than this.

Me and my bike, my bike and me. I didn't take any pictures during the ride, so I'll give you pictures of me and my pretty new bike to look at instead. I think this was supposed to be "staring off into
the distance, inspired". It came out like, "Mommy, I lost my
ballooooooooon!"

Right away I had to give up on any aspirations of speed. My feet were aching and I had to keep taking mini frewheeling breaks to take the pressure off of them (I think it was the brand new shoes). There was a headwind, and not only did I have to read my cue sheet, and spot arrows that were faded, covered in sand, or gone entirely, but the first chunk of the ride took me over some of the world's worst pavement. I think some of it might have been the original asphalt from when paved roads were brought to America, with layers upon layers of uneven patches along with fresh potholes. You can't pedal over that crap. All I could do was hold on tight to my handlebars and stand up to try to let my knees absorb some of the shock so I wouldn't get a pinch flat on some unavoidable pothole. This asphalt vomit tends to only be on the right side of the road, though. Near the center line pavement tends to be clear and glassy smooth. So whenever possible I'd ride out to the center of the lane, but inevitably a car would come up behind me after about 10 milliseconds and I'd have to go back to the asphalt vomit. I would try to hug the shoulder and will the car past me as fast as possible. Come around quickly please, I muttered as my brain was rattled free and my teeth banged together. But nooooooooo. While European drivers will speed past you the first chance they get leaving you a roomy 14 inches of wiggle room, Americans wait behind you until they can pull ALL THE WAY to the other side of the road and pass you slowly and cautiously. As if I needed 10 feet to ride next to a car safely? And how exactly is driving into oncoming traffic safer than coming within an arm's length of a cyclist for 3 seconds or less?

Some of these speed variations are due to hills. Many of them, though, are the direct result of me saying, "what the fuck?" and then pulling a U-turn.

I settled into a rhythm and all was going fairly well until I came to the right turn onto Long Hill Road at about mile 20 according to the cue sheet. Well, there was a sign that said Long Hill Road, but it was straight ahead, not to the right. I followed Long Hill Road anyway, maybe it was one of those "trick" right turns. Then I was supposed to bear left. I found no fork. By the time I saw an address again, I wasn't on Long Hill Road anymore. Shit. I asked a dog walker, and he told me to go straight back the way I came, which I did. No Long Hill Road. I turned around again. If there's one thing I hate more than getting hopelessly lost, it's getting hopelessly lost and having to backtrack over shitty pavement uphill. This was some of the worst pavement of the day, and it was uphill BOTH WAYS, meaning that there was a climb and a descent in each direction. I stopped and asked directions again, this time from a woman cleaning out her car. "I don't know any Long Hill Road," the woman said. "Where are you trying to get to?" I explained that I wasn't trying to get TO anything, I was trying to follow this rout, because if I left it, then I'd really be in trouble. I read her the next few instructions. "Bolton center?!" she said. "You're way off course, honey." How could that be? I'd been on Long Hill Road only about a mile ago. She gave me directions back to Rte 117 where the rout would cross later so I could try to pick up from there. "... and that'll put you on Main Street..." she said.
"Main Street?" I asked. "Isn't that just about half a mile that way?" I'd passed it on my first trip through the Land of Shitty Pavement.
"No, no, you're looking for Main Street, Bolton, honey. You're in Hudson." What the hell? I knew I'd been following the directions right, how did I wind up in the wrong TOWN?! I tried to show her my directions, hoping it would refresh her memory on where Long Hill Road might be. "Oh, I don't know the names of the streets in Bolton," she told me. "Just go to Rte 117 and you'll be able to find your way from there." Crap.

This map really doesn't do justice to how lost I got how many times.
For a better map, click here. And for a map of what I should have
done, click here.

The woman's directions held true, though, and I was able to find my way back to the rout. (On the way back I would find that her directions spit me on Rte 117 only a block from Long Hill Road.) After that, the terrain started getting hillier, the headwind started to pick up, and my directions got worse. Golf courses had given way to farms and orchards. There were fewer streets and even fewer signs. I was higher up now and there were fewer trees and I could see tiny little mountains in the distance. One of my directions said, "Turn left at... NO SIGN", but then offered the helpful hint "Mary Had a Little Lamb sign". Huh? When I finally found the road (thanks to some rare arrows that had survived the winter), I didn't see anything saying Mary Had a Little Lamb, but the street itself did have a perfectly visible and legible sign. Go figure.

I was starting to get a little worried. I was pushing 50 miles and still hadn't gotten to the far point at Mt. Wachusett. I'd already gone nearly 20 miles farther than the directions said, and would probably get lost more before all was said and done. I started to imagine what I would do if I either bonked or got stuck in the dark. I could just picture the phone call I would have to make, "Hi, Dad, I don't know where I am or what town I'm in, but I see moo-cows. Can you come pick me up?" I came upon this funny junction between 2 highways where the directions were only "go left around island". That could have meant a lot of things. I interpreted the cue sheet as best I could and rode past several on ramps for interstates and large highways, and then the road turned mean-looking with 3 lanes in each direction and Jersey barriers in the middle. I looked at the Garmin, I'd just clicked over 50 miles. Fuck it, I'm going back, I thought, and cut across 3 lanes to make an illegal U-turn.

My standard picture-taking face. Mom hates it.

But following the reverse directions was even more confusing than following the directions the first time around. All those streets looked the same, there were new forks where there had never been forks before, and everything was backwards. I had to think for a good long time to figure out that I would have to look at the street name from the line ABOVE and the turn from the line BELOW and reverse it in order to find my way back. If I thought the directions were hard to follow on the way OUT I was really screwed now.

I was also having nutrition-related issues. That morning I had made a bunch of date rolls: pureed dates with lemonzest, almonds, and coconut oil rolled in shreaded coconut. The coconut on the outside was my idea, because although delicious, pureed dates have the sticky, squishy texture of cookie dough, and I'd spent all week trying to find a way to package them to go so they wouldn't stick to everything. The coconut seemed to work pretty well, and I'd packed about 8 of them in my bento box. The biggest problem I ran into, though, was that they were still soft and difficult to grab on the go, and my fingers kept sinking into the date blobs and coming back with chunks of dismembered date roll. After a few rolls, not only were my fingers sticky and black from road grime, but my brake levers were sticky too. To make matters worse, I'd put the bento box in the corner between my seat post and top tube, and my legs kept knocking my arm out of the way every time I got a good grip on the suckers. I stopped at a gas station and bought Gatorade and water and moved my bento box to the front half of the top tube. There was a less obvious reason for this, too: I had to pee, and I was unwilling to leave my bike unattended while I locked myself in some bathroom. I figured that if it got too bad, I could always "christen" my bike with "processed Accelerade". Luckily, it did not come to that, although it might have made a better story if I did. I almost "let loose" a couple of times, but the idea of riding around it wet shorts (even if I rinsed my crotch with water from my water bottle) just seemed like it would add another annoyance to an already annoying ride.

This pose was not my idea.

And I still kept getting lost. At one point I went for miles looking for a cross street to the street I was on (Hudson Rd.), only to realize that there were TWO Hudson Roads on my cue sheet and I had skipped ahead and was looking at the wrong line. I had to backtrack for the millionth time. When I finally got to the OTHER Hudson Rd., it was nowhere to be found. I rode up and down the same street from end to end 3 or 4 times before I found a woman walking a 6-year-old on his bike. "Excuse me, do you know which way Hudson Rd. is?" I asked. She did and pointed back in the direction from which I'd come and preceeded to direct me several turns back to the OTHER Hudson Road. I explained that she must be mistaken, that my directions said it crossed this road that we were on.
"Well, I live on Hudson Road, and I know it pretty well. I'm sure it doesn't cross this road," she assured me. I showed her my directions and we tried to put our heads together about how to get there. She affirmed that she was right, showing that the directions followed the same rout she was giving me. I explained that I was following the reverse directions and that that was, in fact, from whence I had come. "Well, (Andrew, stop playing in the dirt!) where are you trying to get to?" she asked.
"Concord Carlisle High School," I said.
And then she pronounced the famous last words, "(Andrew, put that down!) Carlisle, that's a REALLY long way away." Every time someone had said this today it had been shortly before they shrugged their shoulders and said they couldn't help me.
"Well, how about Walden Pond? Can you tell me how to get to Walden Pond?" No, she didn't know how to get there by back roads, but she could get me back to Rte 117. That was on my directions, and that went by Walden Pond. Okay, sure, fine. I'll just take 117 back. At least I'll know that I'll be able to find my car again someday, I thought. We chatted a bit more about how I'd been lost and how she had a terrible sense of direction and how I had a terrible sense of direction and did I want to come back to her house, her husband was much better with directions. Then she started giving me alternate directions, even more complicated than the last ones. This woman was a talker, it seemed she could spin off ways to get to 117 for hours, but she didn't know where Hudson Rd. was. It MUST have been out there, because I'd found it on the way out. "No, it's okay," I said. "I've been lost for about 40 miles today, I just want to find my car before it gets dark."
I thanked her and started to get back on my bike. "How far have you gone today?" she asked. "Andrew, don't throw sand!" she added.
I looked at my Garmin, "80 miles." If I said it nonchalantly enough maybe I could avoid the You're Crazy or the Are You Going to Be Okay? conversation. I always get uncomfortable trying to explain that 100 miles isn't all that big a deal without being arrogant or condescending about it.
"Wooooooooow," she said. I tried to hurry up and find the cleats so I could be off before she asked me something embarrassing. Just as I was pulling away she called, "My son wants to know how long you've been riding."
"5 hours!" I said, surprised myself. Crap, it was after 4 and I STILL didn't know how far away I was or how to get back to my car.

This face says: "Have you taken the picture yet? How about now?"

I followed the chatty woman's directions to the OTHER Hudson St and back onto Rte 117. As I was coming out onto the road a pickup or an SUV passed and snapped me out of my own little world when a beefy-looking dude in a backwards cap yelled "HEY!" as loud as he could, then looked at his buddy in the driver's seat like he'd just made the funniest joke in the world. I hate that. Why do footballish thugs think it's so funny to yell at cyclists? Sure, I jump every time (I'm a bit skittish that way), but what's so funny? Why is harassing cyclists such a big joke. Is yelling "HEY!" as loud as you can really supposed to make me feel like a tool? Or what IS it supposed to make me feel like? How does being a dick make you funny? I don't get it.

Up the road several miles I stopped at a light and a guy with fenders and (Rocketpants, correct me on my terminology) paniers pulled up behind me. "How far is it to Walden Pond?" I asked.
"About 3 miles," he said.
"I could kiss you right now!" I said, relieved.
"How long have you been lost for?" he asked.
"About 40 miles out of 90," I said. I thought that at least with a cyclist I wouldn't have to worry about the You're Crazy or the Are You Going to Be Okay conversation, but he did the "woooooow" thing too. Really, it's not that big a deal! Why does everyone act like you're doing some Herculean feat if you ride into the triple digits? Or not even?! All I wanted was someone sympathetic to say, "Wow, that sucks!" No one had had the decency to say "That sucks" to me all day!

Eventually I picked up the scent again and found my way back over the chip seal to the high school without major incident (although I did get lost at least one more time). When I pulled up to my car I'd gone 100.38 miles. According to the cue sheet, my rout should have only been 64.2 miles (32.1 each way). I had been lost for 38.18 miles, probably more since I'd taken the shortcut along Rte 117.

I'm so upset that this one didn't come out because it was the
picture that I wanted most.

I took my bike apart and chucked it in the car along with all the crap from my pockets and went for the world's shortest run-0ff. I was wearing a pair of long-ago retired running shoes that I use for loafing around, so I justified just running from one end of the school yard to the other. I could have run around the track since I was parked right next to it, but there were all these high school athletes down there, and I didn't much feel like doing the Long Brick Shuffle in front of the most critical of audiences. I ran a whopping .65 miles to the exit and back... with a pit stop in the middle lasting almost as long as my run itself. Actually, my legs felt great. The new bike made a world of difference for several reasons (the pedals, the weight, the bigger wheels), and I definitely could have kept riding for hours more. My butt wasn't even all that sore, although a little raw, and my run legs felt good. I might have kept running if it weren't for the 6 hours' worth of urine begging for an out. My feet had stopped aching about half way through, and as I drove home in rush hour traffic and the annoyance of the cue sheet started to wear off, I started to feel pretty proud of myself. In fact, I felt EXTATIC.

When I got home all I wanted was for someone to take a picture of me and my new bike after our first real ride. No one was home at my house, and the sun was setting, so I went next door to ask my neighbor to do it before nightfall. Joe is not one of those people you ask to help you with something if you're in a hurry. He always makes things elaborate and complicated, so that's why I didn't tell him that the flash wasn't on. Thanks to Joe, I didn't walk away with the one photo I wanted, I walked away with a whole album, and most of them were pretty good pictures (other than the poor quality). Thanks to neighbor Joe for most of the photos in this post.