The New Experiment

ANNOUNCEMENT: Claire is getting her social media worked out.
Many of you have complained about the pop-up asking for a password when you try to view my blog. That happened when I figured out that whenever you google my name, my Twitter account is the first hit. Since I use words like "shit" in my tweets, I found it necessary to block my tweets from prying eyes (potential clients). I have dropped the Twitter feed from my sidebar (tear) so that the password popup is gone. If anyone knows how to get my real name OFF my speedracer twitter account, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

In the meantime I have recently created more professional Facebook and Twitter accounts that I will be updating more regularly sans the cursing and with more information than just "first satisfying bowel movement in weeks" as my tweet content. My newer "professional" twitter name is @ClaireLunardoni, and my Facebook is finally linked up to my real name (and if I went to high school with you, no I STILL don't want to be your friend!). Hit me up!

Winter is my season of experimentation. In the winter of 2008-09 I experimented with giving up sugar, caffeine, processed grains, and dairy. It was great but completely unsustainable. In 2009 I tried a training program to do 1000 push-ups in an hour that I KNEW was bunk. I proved it was bunk when I gave up on Christmas Eve after achieving 500 push-ups in an hour and 15 minutes. My shoulders are STILL rounded forward from it.

This year's experiment is a doozie... for me anyway because it requires me doing something that I absolutely LOATHE: counting calories.

Many of my clients ask me about Biggest Loser. Even though I personally love Biggest Loser for many of the same reasons I loved both the Anna Nicole Show and Lifetime Television, as a trainer I'm also obligated to poo-poo it because of the negative impression that it gives of our profession. (Although I don't know if ANY trainer should be complaining about a show that is basically a 2-hour commercial for their services). Nevertheless, despite practically living in a gym (my desk chair is a plyo box), I don't know any better what goes on behind the scenes at Biggest Loser than my clients do. How much are they eating? How much are they exercising? What exactly is the composition of their diet and exercise program? Are Bob and Jillian really like that behind the scenes? Uhhhh... hold on, I'll just pull out my How the Fuck Am I Supposed to Know app.

Some internet research told me that they're doing some 4-6 hours of exercise a day (including at least 90 minutes of intervals) and eating somewhere between 1000 and 1500 calories a day. With a deficit of several thousand calories per day, bodies that are screaming to be given a chance to heal, and cutting all the processed crap out of their diet, it's no wonder they get results. There's also some severe dehydration going on to cut weight, but that's beside the point.

In a quest for more detailed knowledge of their fitness and nutrition plan to report back to my clients (and because I'd recently had a dream that Jillian got drunk and insisted we have sex on her motorcycle), I picked up a couple of Jillian Michaels' books. Around this time, one of my heavier clients said to me, "Yeah, but it's easier for someone like you to lose weight than someone like me." Well that was it. Not only was it completely untrue, but the best way to get a Claire to do something extreme and possibly stupid is to make it into a competition, even if it's just an imaginary cage match with scrunchy-faced "fitness guru."

One of the Jillian books I had picked up was "Making the Cut," which promised me that I could "drop the last stubborn 10 to 20 pounds once and for all" in 30 days. Sure, okay, whatever. Who doesn't want that? Rather than being aimed at the morbidly obese, this "plan" is closer to what participants on her spin-off show "Losing It" probably do: a 30-day diet for drastic results for one specific occasion (wedding, high school reunion, that day that you finally "accidentally" run into the ex).

Here's a summary of the diet: you only get to eat your BMR's worth of calories, and you're supposed to do these high-intensity "advanced" weight-training circuits 4 times a week, plus cardio for like an hour every day. There's this 50-question questionnaire that tells you what kind of metabolism you have, and I'm a "slow oxidizer," which means that I get 65% carbs, 25% protein, and 15% fat (more carbs than the other two oxidizing groups).

Problem No. 1 with The Plan: I'm a vegetarian. Most of my meals are high in carbohydrates from vegetables and whole grains. My protein sources tend to be toward the high-fat (cheese, eggs), high-carb (legumes, whole grains), or no-no foods anyway (soy, tisk tisk). Of course I feel full after eating a lot of carbs, because I always eat lots of carbs. Of course I find high-fat meals satisfying if it's pretty much the only time I get both fat and protein in my diet. So how am I supposed to answer a question like, "You concentrate best when you eat: A. fruits and grains, B. nothing in particular affects my concentration, C. meat and fatty food"? Well, A is the only one I've tried so...

Problem No. 2 with The Plan: Michaels gives me a formula to figure out my BMR, but doesn't take into account body composition. I have way more muscle than the "typical" person my size. I weigh 130 pounds, but I have 110 pounds of lean mass. I'm also WAY more active than most people. I'm a trainer. I'm lifting, spotting, demonstrating, and riding my bike around the city for 12 hours a day 5-7 days a week. According to Jillian, I'm not allowed to eat more than 1385 calories every day. According to the Katch-McArdle formula for BMR, my BMR is more like 1450, and my. My daily caloric expenditure is somewhere between 2500 and 3000 calories per day. Michaels' answer to any excuse I may have, "It's only 30 days -- suck it up!" (that's a direct quote).

The real reason that I tried the "The Fuck You Jillian Starvation Diet" (other than, I'll admit it, wanting "my sexiest body ever!"), was because I thought it was a terrible idea. I have several clients who are subsisting off of fewer than 1500 calories per day, and they're the ones who aren't losing any weight. But how do you tell a frustrated dieter that the best way to lose weight is to eat more? And how do you sympathize with someone trying to cut calories when your 5'2" frame has processed 2500-3000 calories pretty much every day for the past 10 years? Finally, I knew what was supposed to happen when you go on low-calorie diets, but I wanted to see for myself.

Diet Strategy Number 1: Don't Keep Your Diet a Secret
I told every single one of my friends, clients, and coworkers that I was doing this diet so that I wouldn't chicken out. Let me tell you, I would have given this stupid shit up on the first day if it hadn't been for that!

My typical day's eating looks like this:
4:30 am -- apple
8:30 am -- oatmeal with 1/2 a scoop of protein powder and a tablespoon of chia seeds
10:30 am -- lift weights for an hour. Feel like shit. Am able to lift way less than I usually would. Take extra long breaks because my recovery is shit. Am successful in not fainting.
11:30 am -- plain nonfat Greek yogurt and a banana
12:30 pm -- run, ride, do yoga, swim for 30 - 90 min, high intensity. Cardio actually felt okay through the whole experiment
2:00 pm -- eat some sort of grain salad with veggies
4:00 pm -- eat a fruit salad and worry about going over on my carbs
8:00 pm -- 4 egg whites, sauteed spinach, be glad for the chance to go to bed and not be hungry anymore

Diet Danger Number 1: If You Severely Restrict Your Calories, You Will Lose Muscle, Not Fat.
After 10 days on the diet, I had lost 2.4 pounds. I had lost 1.9 pounds of muscle, despite lifting weights for over an hour four times per week. Yes, this was a very short time for a weight training program, but I wasn't really looking forward to having lost 8 pounds of muscle by the end of the program.

Diet Danger Number 2: If You Are Hungry All the Time, You Are Unlikely to Stick to Your Diet and You Will Gain the Weight Back Sooner Rather than Later.
I was so hungry! I don't mean like tummy grumbling hungry. I mean like feeling like I was in a constant state of bonking hungry. I managed to stick to my calorie limit for 10 days, keeping all my macronutrients in the right proportions. Every time I stood up, I would be dizzy for a good 30 seconds. I would lose count while counting to 10. I couldn't remember what people had said to me that morning. I was nearly getting in accidents because I was driving around in a fog. I was loathe to demonstrate an exercise because I was afraid I would collapse and my muscles would burn for the next 10 seconds. I could think about nothing but how hungry I was. Walking past restaurants was torture. I began fantasizing about food.

I was a total wreck, not just energy-wise. I was going crazy. I turned into a control freak (more than ever, like I was when I was a teenager and I used to pitch a fit if somebody wanted to watch something else when it was my turn to watch Ally McBeal all alone and do my crunches). If something unexpected came up, I was more likely to cry until I get my way than to get it done. Clients would ask me to reschedule appointments and I would get extremely put out. "You want to come 15 minutes later? Fine! Let me put an ALERT on that so I don't FORGET." (Fucker!)

I was even more scatterbrained than ever. I would tell my clients to do 12 of an exercise and stop counting at 5. Supersetting squats and shoulder presses? I'll forget the squats. I'd spend eons staring at my phone because by the time I've turned it on, I've forgotten what I was checking, so it times out and puts itself to sleep. Then I'd turn it back on and try to remember.

I couldn't deal with anything mentally trying, which really sucked because in day two of the Fuck You Jillian Starvation Diet (28 days till pizza), someone smashed my window right outside of work and stole my new bike out of my car. I don't know how I would have reacted normally, but as I dealt with insurance (bike's not covered), the autoglass guys (what do you mean you have a Massachusetts insurance company?), called the cops ("yeah, sure, we're on it."), listened to my coworkers tell me how stupid it was to leave my bike in my car in the first place, and filed a police report ("how does a bike even fit into the back seat of a Corolla?"), if I'd had a gun and ran into the crackhead who violated my car and my bike, I would have shot him in the face without thinking twice. Then I would have continued to shoot when he was on the ground. Yeah, sure, it's a violation. They stole something that I worked my ass off for; something that was perfectly fitted to me and only me with the tiny frame, extra long stem, and aggressive fit, and they sold it for $20 worth of meth. But I don't like guns. Still, I was feeling violent. That night I saw Scout and laid into her so bad that she told me that she didn't want to hang out with me anymore tonight.

Starvation not only affects your energy for exercise. I had no sex drive, and didn't even want to be touched... or be around other people. Meals are so precious and so restricted that any person demanding my time or my energy may rob me of precious calories, or worse force me to cheat. I might miss some of my 8 hours of sleep that are my only escape from this shit. They may demand a portion of my already severely-depleted energy stores. I started isolating myself.

Diet Danger Number 3: If You Aren't Eating Enough Calories, Your Workouts Will Suffer
I'm an athlete getting back into training. It's bad enough that my workouts have been shit. I've got an 18-mile run on Saturday where I'll be burning 1.5 times my daily calorie allowance in the race alone. I've got a 120-mile ride on New Years that will require about 2x my daily allowance. My workouts were already crap. I was ending them early and turning down the heat because I was so low on energy. I wasn't recovering properly. Things that normally wouldn't make me sore were tearing me up. I quit one hill repeat workout short because my hips were so stiff I was afraid that I would slip out on the 40 mph descent, not crap out on the 7 mph ascent.

After 10 days I was absolutely dead. I had been hungry and able to think about nothing else for a week and a half. I couldn't imagine another 20 days of this, and the mental fog and hunger were only getting worse. My job performance was suffering. I felt sick, not in my stomach, not in my head, but in my body. I already knew the answer to this experiment: It was a terrible idea. Did I really need 10 more days of this torture to figure this out?

Diet Danger Number 4: Most Dieters Wind Up Gaining Back More Weight Than They Lost/Hunger Leads to Binging
On the 10th day I got home from my ride starving and couldn't stand the thought of having to get through the next 4 hours on nothing but a container of nonfat yogurt (I'd already eaten the banana out of desperation to get through the workout at all). I ate the yogurt, then I ate another banana, then I ate my dinner, then I ate a granola bar that had survived the pantry cleansing I had done 11 days earlier.

Then I went to the mall to go Christmas shopping. But I couldn't concentrate on finding any gifts because all I was really looking for was a Sweet Factory. I found Godiva Chocolates and See's Candies, but I couldn't very well walk around the mall eating bonbons out of a box. I had to find something that would require as little unwrapping as possible and where I could reach into an opaque bag discretely as many times as I needed to until I had eaten so much sugar that I was going to throw up. Having walked 2 laps around the mall and not found the type of binge haven that I sought, I went to the Trader Joe's next door and bought a container of Almond Butter Toffee Chocolate Dipped Whatever Things at 170 calories each. I ate all 8 of them in the package as I bought gifts in Borders. Then I went out to dinner with Scout. I was jolly and happy again and willing to be touched.

The next day I felt alive again. I was able to focus on what my clients were saying and deal with the unexpected. I went to Target to pick up part of a Christmas gift and found myself wandering the grocery aisles wishing all the other shoppers would leave so that I could design the perfect binge in peace. I hadn't eaten this way in years! What was happening to me? In the car I couldn't shove foil-wrapped white chocolate pieces and blue corn and flax seed tortilla chips into my mouth fast enough. I ate so much that I thought I really was going to vomit, and then I had pizza for dinner. This was terrible. Normally I enjoy eating with friends and pride myself on craving healthy foods. What I was doing right now was addictive behavior. What had Jillian done to me?

I know that my eating will normalize shortly, and I look forward to getting back to my own workouts rather than Jillian's mind-numbing light-weight, high-rep circuits that use half the equipment in the gym.

I have also learned valuable lessons about myself in this experiment:

• I do have willpower when I have a very specific program, but when I relinquish any control, then I lose all control.
• I need way more than 1385 calories per day to function. I should probably go no lower than 1800 calories per day to avoid going crazy.
• I still don't eat enough protein.
• Everything that they say about diets is true. The hard part is actually following the only one that works: proper diet and exercise.
  

No! and then Yes!

Gone are the lazy days of Thanksgiving where I had almost 4 full days off (almost). This week was back to a normal schedule of 12-hour days and lots of running around. To complicate matters, this week Lindsey was in the area for a workshop only about 1.5 hours away in a suburb of San Jose called Morgan Hill.

Shithead had told me that she would be in town from Monday till Friday, so I blocked off Monday night and possibly Wednesday night to see her. Late Sunday night she told me she wouldn't be in till late Monday and couldn't do dinner. Thanks a lot, fuckwad. I've only been asking for your flight itinerary for 2 months...

Shortly after having this conversation over text message, I went into the supermarket. I was in the personal care aisle and saw that they sold lube. Scout and I had run out of lube that weekend, so I pulled out my phone to ask her if I should pick up some more. Practical problem, innocent question.

When I got out to my car I noticed that I in fact hadn't texted Scout about the lube, but instead I'd asked the last person I'd been texting: Lindsey. Fuck you, iPhone!
Still, I assumed Lindsey had figured out what had happened and would still be down to have a very G-rated dinner on Wednesday night. I took Wednesday afternoon off of commitments and canceled my Thursday morning appointments so that I wouldn't have to be up at 3:30 in the morning the next day. I heard nothing back from Lindsey on Monday night confirming she could do dinner. Nothing by Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday evening I called and left a message asking her where/when I should pick her up. It wasn't until I was getting in bed Tuesday night that I got a call back from her. "There's nowhere to eat around here," she said.

"Lindsey, I don't care where we eat, that's beside the point. I don't care if we go to Denny's."

"Oh, well there's a Denny's right outside."

"Okay, well I don't really want to go to Denny's." I then went on to tell her about how I'd cried myself to sleep over a little old lady I'd seen eating oatmeal alone in a Denny's on Thanksgiving. I kept saying "we" as I told the story.

"Who's 'we'?"

"Me and The Girl."

"How's that going by the way?"

"Really good, actually." End of sentence. End of topic as far as I was concerned. I didn't want to get into that with her. It was none of her business.

"So what was that text message...?"

"Uhhhhhh, yeah. Sorry about that. That wasn't meant for you... I just... you know how I text the wrong person sometimes..." (this has happened before).

"Yeah, I was with my girlfriend Jenn when I got that and..." Dropping the girl's name sounded forced. I rolled my eyes. Whatever. I knew the new victim couldn't have been around for more than a month anyway. Poor sucker didn't know what she was in for.

"Well I'm embarrassed about it, so let's not talk about it anymore. I'll pick you up at your hotel at 8."

At 6:00 the next morning she called me. "What's up?" I asked her after I was out of my session.

"Oh sorry, I must have ass dialed you. I'll let you know later if I'm still up for tonight."

Long pause. I was deciding whether to throw my phone across the room or give her a piece of my mind. I'm sorry if me taking off of work to drive 1.5 hours down there and buy you dinner is inconvenient to you, you stupid cunt! I wanted to say. "Yeah, whatever," I said in my flattest, you're-the-biggest-fucking-loser-I've-ever-met voice I could muster. "Just let me know before 6 if you're going to be a flake." Then I hung up.

No confirmation at noon. No confirmation at 2. No confirmation at 3. At 4:30 I texted her to see if we were still on. At 5:57 I was getting out of the shower and hopping in the car when I got a text message: "I've got an exam tomorrow and I've gotta study and get to bed at a decent time. I'm really sorry."

I wanted to scream. I wanted to drive down there and tear her throat out. I wanted to call her up and tell her just how much of a fucking loser she was. I wanted to stomp her face into the pavement. When half of life is just showing up, she still can't get shit done. I'd thought that suddenly and unexpectedly being in the same neighborhood after 5 months she would take an hour out of her day because that's what you do. But no, Lindsey has never done a single thing in her life that she could possibly get out of. She almost missed her brother's wedding. I wouldn't be surprised if she missed her dad's funeral.

I texted her back saying, "You've never studied a day in your life" (you stupid cow, it's only a 2-day workshop anyway) "and I've been up since 3:30 and already put in 12 hours' work. I don't have to play this Chase After Lindsey game anymore. Go to hell."

I was furious. Not because she'd ditched me. Over the past couple of weeks I couldn't see anything positive coming out of the reunion at all. But what made me so pissed was the inconsiderateness and disrespect of it all. This whole time I had thought that she had treated me like shit because she was trying to prove something, and people do horrible things to each other when they're breaking up. But no, she really just is that self-centered, stupid, lazy, and disorganized. She hadn't even taken the time to be vindictive. She'd just discarded me like a CD she was sick of listening to. And I had let reading into her malfunction ruin my life. I wanted to drive over there and tell her what a fucking loser she was, then I wanted to call all her friends and tell them the same. Then I wanted to sell her dog to a nice family with a dog house to make the beast sleep outside every night.

I vented and then I moved on.

The next day I was in a session with a client when a certain well-known San Franciscan, Korean-American gay activist comedian came on TV. "She's not looking strung out anymore," I said. "She must be off the coke if she could gain weight after being on Dancing with the Stars. I'd love to see what her training looks like..."

Yeah, be careful what you wish for.

That night I got an email from Ducky with a lead. His line said, "You want it?" and then began the forwarded message:

Hi, I'm looking for a personal trainer to do a bootcamp style class for Gargamet Show [name changed to protect the Claire] and 2 others on Saturday at 4pm. It would need to be at the venue she's performing at, the Nob Hill Masonic Center. Please contact me if you have someone that might be interested.

Uhhhh, YES! Okay, well my first though was, will there be cameras?! But I told Ducky I'd do it.

Immediately Lindsey was forgotten, except that I wanted her to know that while she was so self-important about a workshop for a job that paid her less after 3 years of being a mechanic than I used to earn after 3 months selling bikes, I was now making about three times her yearly income and training celebrities. Loser!
But I was frightened too. I would be in unfamiliar surroundings, with no equipment, and training not only a celebrity, but someone I had been a huge fan of since high school. The rest of the week I was shitting bricks.

I did not have a quiet day to get ready for My Big Break. Instead, this was the morning of the Lollipop Run 5K; the culmination of all our hard work with the elementary school girls. It was pouring with rain in Golden Gate Park, but 8 out of the 11 girls showed up to run anyway. Still, more Running Buddies (adults who volunteered to run with them) came than we had girls. As I walked to the start, I started to get a little misty-eyed. A 5K is a really long way for a 3rd, 4th, or 5th grader, especially our girls who didn't get much physical activity. Most of the girls wore a bigger shirt size than I did, and all of them had actually started to grow on me. Yes, I actually loved these girls and I was just so damned proud of them! I made sure I hardened up before I actually had to see anybody though.

The rain stopped before the start, and the girls and their running buddies set off. I waited until all the girls and all the Running Buddies from all the schools in the Bay Area had crossed the starting line, then I started running through the pack. As I caught up with each girl I talked with them for a little bit. They'd all started out too fast, they'd all gotten a cramp, they were all tired, and they all finished. I ran through the crowd from the very back to near the front and heard the same conversation: (little voice) "I'm tired, my legs hurt..." (big voice) "Do you want to walk?" "Let's run again when we get to that tree." "You're doing great!" "Pace yourself, slow and steady." And then one, "You can walk when you finish!" As they crossed the finish line, each one had a huge smile on her face, even the ones who were too cool for school in practice. I couldn't have been more excited.

I rushed across town for one more session before going home to change, then coming back to pick up some yoga mats and dumbbells for Gargamet Show. I came into the empty venue and they showed me to a room in the basement where I would be training her. They introduced me to the security guys who would be protecting us, and pulled down the blinds so you couldn't see the room from the street.

When she finally came in with another one of her roadies, I stuck out my hand. "Hi, I'm Claire."

"I'm Gargamet," she said just at the same time as I was saying, "I know who you are and turned my attention to the short girl next to her and asked her name."

I make a fool of myself in front of celebrities, so I just stuck to my job. Fill out the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (How would you rate your state of health? "Excellent" circled), sign the liability form (AUTOGRAPH!), discuss training history and current aches and pains briefly. Train.

We started with bodyweight squats, and somehow I wound up leading them like an aerobics instructor. Here I am, doing squats face-to-face with a woman who used to dominate my headphones back in the days of Napster, and she's watching me do squats. "You have really nice legs," she said.



"Thanks," I said. "Cyclist."

"Is that what does it?" I shrugged. I was resisting the temptation to tell her exactly HOW MUCH weight I'd gained since moving to California (10 pounds, but 5 of it muscle somehow).

I had them moving the whole time, and kept small talk to a minimum. Gargamet Show didn't really seem interested in stories, she just wanted to train. By the end of the session, the ice had melted a bit though. "Am I going to get made fun of tonight?" I asked finally.

"No," she assured me. "I do this in every city. It's not part of my act. I've had 30 trainers in 30 cities though, and this has been by far the hardest. I like it."

"That's fantastic!" I said. I handed her my card. "Next time you're in San Francisco, give me a call."

"I will put you in my phone," she said in a funny "tough guy" voice, actually looking at it.

"Thanks!"

I started explaining to them that if possible they should keep moving for the next hour or so to prevent soreness. "I don't know exactly what you guys do to prepare for these things, but I don't want you to be stiff on stage tonight."

"Are you coming to the show?" she asked.

"No, I kind of had plans..." (to buy more pants for work) "I didn't even know you were in town until I got the email on Wednesday."

"Well a couple of my friends can't come tonight, why don't you take their seats?"

"Okay, I've been trying to be cool about how I'm a huge fan," I admitted.

"You're sweet!" she said in a voice I suspected she reserves for ga-ga fans. "You can bring your... friend? or? whatever...?" she was looking at me inquisitively.

"I'm sure she'd love to come," I said.

"Great!" she said. "Thanks. You kicked my ass!" Then she left.

"You kicked her ass!" the roadie told me. "You're going to have a really great time at the show tonight. It's a good one. She's really funny."

"She said you kicked her ass!" the publicist said when she came in to pay me. She took my name to put me and my Plus One on the guest list.

Three hours later, Scout and I stopped by the bathroom on the way to the will-call window and ran into Esbie. "Look!" she said, bubbling over with excitement and showing us a vinyl album with the cover signed. "SIGNED! I didn't know you guys were going to be here."

"Yeah, neither did we until Claire scored free tickets a couple hours ago," Scout said. I was a little bit embarrassed. I didn't want to upstage Esbie, so I kept my mouth shut.

When we picked up the tickets from the will-call window, the woman left and came back with two back-stage passes as well. I looked at Scout like 'Oh fuck!' Then the usher escorted us to the center of the orchestra seats about 10 rows back. We still couldn't see because we were behind some tall queens, but that could have happened in the second row.

The show was funny, if a bit crude and afterward we debated whether to go to the afterparty at all. "The guy next to us just texted Michelle Tea," I wrote to Scout. "We're among the creme de la creme of San Francisco gay society." I usually shun the "cool" gay crowd in the city.

Still, we decided to stay in the surprisingly small crowd (about 20 people, one of whom I had worked with in Santa Cruz almost a decade ago and so we had someone to talk to) and drink bottled water and diet coke backstage waiting for Gargamet to come out. When she did and began moving her way through the room and posing for pictures, I just continued my conversation. I would NOT be one of those people.

Finally she noticed me. "HI!" she said. "You know I'm high from that workout. Like seriously. High. I feel great!"

"Oh good!" I said. "Are you sore at all?"

"No, I walked around for the next 45 minutes just like you told me to," Just like I told her to! "And I feel fine. Just like in la-la land."

There was a matter of a birthday present: a sex toy that resembled a chainsaw, then some more chatting, then she told everyone that she was tired. "SHE" (pointing at me) "really kicked my ass today."

Too bad the hipster sex toy crowd didn't look much like the type to be potential clients. Their fitness programs consisted of coke, trendy fixies, and organic food. I thanked her for the tickets and said good night. "Thanks again," she said.

"Give me a call next time you're in town," I said. "We'll do it harder." I was proud to draw a laugh from the coolest gay kids in SF.

And if I were a 16-year-old girl writing in my journal, I would end this entry with:

Best!

Day!

EVER!

Another brush with fame, another chace to taste my foot

I wasn't going to write a post about this. I'm supposed to be tapering. I didn't want to endure the disapproving looks that people would be giving me through cyberspace if I told you that I did a TOUGH 60-mile bike ride less than 2 weeks from my ironman. But then, circumstances forced my hand and I just HAVE to tell you about it.

Today was the Charles River Wheelmen's (CRW) Climb to the Clouds century. This is the ride that I tried to do from a cue sheet back in April and got so horribly lost. The keynote of this event, though, is the climb up Mt. Wachusett, a 2,000' ski mountain which is the highest point in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

I wanted to climb that mountain.

Really bad.

So I checked out the web site and saw that there was a 50-mile option to the ride. It meant driving further, but I could still climb my mountain. 50 miles is okay for a taper, right?

I knew a whole bunch of people who were supposed to be doing the ride, but since I'd decided to do it last minute I didn't get to tell any of them and just planned on riding it alone. So imagine my delight when I pulled in and in the space next to me was George, one of the legions of straight men over 40 that I've befriended at one event or another. I got out of my car with my arms spread wide. "George! I'm so glad to see you!" I said.
He looked at me. He squinted. He raised his sunglasses off his eyes. He kept looking at me. No recognition.
"I'm Claire," I said.
"OOOOOOH! Claire! I didn't recognize you without your bike and helmet!" he said. Thank god I'm not the only one. "What are you doing here?!"
"I couldn't sit still. I really, really, really wanted to come, so here I am!"

I ran off to register and use the bathroom, and when I got back to put my bike together I saw George leaving with a whole posse dressed in matching NEBC gear (the competitive club in these here parts). That was fine. I wanted to ride easy today, and that would be a lot easier to achieve if I was alone. I put my bike together, pumped up my tires, changed my shoes, changed my watch, and realized I forgot my gloves. Fuck. Then I realized I didn't have my helmet. FUCK! I'd driven an hour to get here and there was no time to go home and get it. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I rode over to registration. "Hi, I forgot my helmet... Can I have my 20 bucks back?" I asked. They suggested I wait for the King of the Bike Geeks to come over from the 100-mile start, he usually comes with extra everything. That seemed like as good a solution as any, although the King of the Bike Geeks would never let me live it down.

Luckily, one of the volunteers took pity on me and started asking around if anyone had a spare helmet. As luck would have it, a tall, skinny guy with a small head DID have an extra helmet. If I tightened it as much as it would go and jammed my ponytail in the back, it almost fit convincingly. I thanked him profusely and set off on my own. I had to make sure I got back before he did. I had planned on doing the shortest ride, but when I found out that that rout didn't go up the mountain I traded in my 50-mile cue sheet for the metric century cue sheet. I wanted to climb that mountain!

For the first 20 miles we climbed slowly and I passed people bit by bit. No one passed me until we got to the foot of the mountain. I've said in previous posts that I'm a climber. I lied. I don't know where I got that idea. Or maybe I used to be a climber and I lost it with all this New England rolling, I don't know. But for whatever reason, I am no longer a climber. I passed a few people who were weaving drunkenly all over the road trying to make the grade less severe by turning a 4-mile road into a 10-mile rout via S-curves. But mostly still, I got passed. On the way up I spotted George coming down, but he didn't recognize me, and I didn't call out. The hill wasn't too, too steep. The grade never went above 10% and it never even stayed at that for more than a quarter mile or so. But still, it was enough to have me in my lowest gear and sweating bullets.

Then, all by himself, the guy who broke the fixed gear course record at the 24-hour race last weekend blasted out onto the road in the other direction on his fixed gear again. "HEY!" I yelled. He was the boyfriend of the other girl in the 12-hour division, Emily, who is NOT a bitch. His name is Dave, but I couldn't remember that at the time.
"Hey! Claire, right? Emily's waiting down at the visitor's center."
I couldn't for the LIFE of me remember his name. We circled each other chatting for a few seconds without getting off our bikes, and then I continued up the road and he continued down it.

I got to the top without much hooplah and just turned around. There wasn't much to do up there for a lonely girl riding all by herself. Now the descent! YESSSS! This was what I had been waiting for. This was what I was risking my fresh legs for: steep grades and hairpin turns! But the quality of the concrete was pretty shitty, and I wound up braking way more than I wanted to the whole way down. Every time I hit a divot I thought that I was going to knock my teeth out, and the corners were so rough that you had to take them slow to keep from losing your bike out from under you at some frost heave or something. Lame.

When I got to the bottom George was standing there with his group of NEBC riders, many of whom were women. Women! I thought, I HATE riding with women! But there was no way around it now, even if I didn't know George I would have fallen in with this crowd at the pace we were going. There were still some pretty significant downhills, and I got caught braking at the back of the group on the first one. This would not do! I tried to power ahead, and I got to pull for a little while, but at the first hint of an uphill they all rushed around me on all sides. I had to ride as hard as I could to keep up with them, and I was back in the ass end when we got to the next downhill. Damn. These were the same roads and hills I'd run in Stu's 30K in March (which nearly killed me), and I was having to work way, way harder than I wanted to to keep up. But I refused to let all these women get away! My rule in life is never to be dropped by a female if I can help it.

At the 25-ish mile mark I met up with George, I met up with Emily and Dave around miles 45 or 50. Note that after mile 30, the course was relatively flat! No wonder I was dying out there!

It was only about 80*, but still about 100% humidity (no exaggeration) and absolutely no breeze. I was raining sweat. My hands were so sweaty that there were times I couldn't get enough of a grip on the brakes to shift. Also my shifter cables had been kind of fucked up all week and my bike couldn't seem to pick a gear. This was a hell of a time to only have the use of half my gears.

The group stopped at the next water stop. "Way to go! You're giving 'em hell!" George said.
"Are you kidding me?!" I asked. "I try to pull ahead to get some personal space and the pack just chews me up and spits me out the back!" I tried to get a few seconds' head start when we got back out on the road again, but that was gone in a matter of seconds. What I hated most was when our group came up on another pack, because I would have to work on negotiating my way through the new pack, while still trying to keep up with my pack. God help me if we caught a group on a hill, which is exactly what was happening now! I was riding so hard that I thought that my heart was going to explode when I looked over and saw a couple of riders in "Radonneurs of New England" jerseys. Ultracyclists! As I passed the first one I looked over. It was Dave, the fixed gear guy, and Emily was right ahead. That seemed like just about the best damned excuse in the world to slow down.
"What are you doing riding with those shady NEBC characters?" Dave, the fixed gear guy asked.
"I keep trying to get away from them and it's not working!" I said. "I pass them and they catch up, I try to drop back and wind up catching them before long."
Then I caught up with Emily. "I think it's funny that we're riding with John Kerry," she said.
"What?! Really?!"
"Yeah, I was riding next to him before staring at him thinking, 'You look... familiar,' and then I realized it. It makes sense..."
The man who was allegedly John Kerry was a few riders ahead, just behind the NEBC crew, who had not dropped us after all.


We all stopped at the next water stop and I took a good look at the man who was allegedly John Kerry. He was a bigger man than I expected. Tall and solid-looking, but fit for an old guy. It was hard to recognize him with the big old sunglasses and the helmet, but it was him alright. I have a rule of never speaking to famous people, and since I was RAINING sweat, it did not seem like a good time to tell John Kerry that I voted for him, so I did not speak to John Kerry. I waved goodbye to George and rode on ahead with Emily and Dave who were going a more comfortable pace and were actually my age. "I saw John Kerry," I confided to Emily. "It looks like he's gotten fat. It's a shame that they don't have photographers at this event. Wouldn't it be great to stick with him all the way to the finish and then out-sprint him at the line? I'd ride the extra 40 miles for that photo."
"Yeah," said Emily. "When we were done I'd turn to him and say, 'Goddammit John Kerry! You lose at EVERYTHING!'"
I take back calling Emily 'Skinny Bitch' and pretty much anything bad I might have said or thought about her. It was the greatest quip ever.
"He's got a nice bike though," Emily added. He was riding a purple custom Serotta. I don't know how I feel about a presidential candidate riding a purple bike, but it doesn't get much nicer than Serotta. Maybe if he rode a manly red, white, and blue bike like mine, this country wouldn't be in the mess it's in.
"Sure," I said, "paid by for the tax dollars of Massachusetts."
"WHAAAT?" said Dave, who was in the front pulling.
I pulled up next to him just as we were passing a guy in a pink jersey, "PAID FOR BY THE TAX DOLLARS OF MASSACHUSETTS!" I yelled.
"EEEEASY there, killer," he said. I thought maybe he was talking to the guy that we were passing. Had he swerved? When we had put a few yards between us and the guy in the pink jersey Dave said, "That was John Kerry's aide guy right there!" Yet again, I had put my foot in my mouth. I looked up the road and sure enough, there was John Kerry's giant yellow ass atop his purple bike just a few yards up the road.
"Errrr, ummmm... I mean these wonderfully paved roads!" I said loudly, more as a joke than anything else. I wasn't sure how nice I had to be to John Kerry? Did I have to worry about hurting his feelings? Could he sick the Patriot Act on me for criticizing his bike? Maybe if John Kerry were actually president I wouldn't be afraid of my government. Luckily, just as we were coming around to pass John Kerry, we reached the 60-mile turn-off and I said goodbye to my friends.
"BYE CLAIRE!" they yelled.
Oh shit! Now John Kerry knows my name! What if he comes to my house and asks for the state tax refund back to buy himself some new carbon fiber toys?! I thought as I rode away.

And then I finished. George and the NEBC bitches came in shortly behind me. I drove home, had the bike shop fix my shifter cables, and made some lunch. So far, John Kerry has not come to demand an apology for my insulting his bike. And by the way, I'm pretty sure that if I had ridden the extra 20 miles back to Concord, I could have out-sprinted John Kerry into the parking lot. Because if John Kerry were any good at close races with photo finishes, he would have been in Washington today, not riding a purple bike through "Fruit Country" in Western Mass.

Coming soon: More brushes with greatness and more shit talking, this time about a PINK bike.