A waste of a perfectly good bike ride

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I just moved here 2 months ago."

"I just moved here 6 months ago."

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

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

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

"Thanks," I said.

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

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

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

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

I hate crits.

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

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

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

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

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

I'd rather be time trialing anyway...

After our taste of summer last week, we were back to winter this week with temperatures below freezing. As I drove to this morning's race (a weekly club training crit), I was just looking for any excuse to skip it. At first I'd hoped that maybe I'd be too late to make registration, but it looked like despite all my dawdling I was going to make it on time. Next, I thought I had plugged the wrong town into my GPS, but no such luck. As I drove up to the venue there was no question that this circular road through office buildings was the right place, but where were all the bikes? I thought maybe the whole thing had been called off, but then I spotted a lone car in a parking lot and asked him if he was there for the race. "Yeah. I don't think that there's a women's or juniors' race today, so the first race will probably go off at 9:00."
Well that sounded promising! "No women's race, huh?" I asked hopefully. "Screw it, I'll just go home then."
"No, don't worry about it! It's totally not intimidating, and there were a whole bunch of girls in the men's race last week." Damn. Guess I had run clean out of excuses.
I had one last chance to get out of this stupid race. I walked up to registration and said, "I totally forgot to get cash," (a lie, I never carry cash). "Do you take checks?"
"Sure do!" he said. Crap. No more excuses. With a heavy heart I pulled out my checkbook and committed myself to the race.

Since I was in the first heat, I got to warm up on the course, which was flat and boring. There weren't even any sharp turns (which wouldn't stop me from spacing on one hard right turn on each and every lap during the race). I stopped to water the woodchips behind an office building, and was disappointed to find that it only ate up a couple of minutes before the race start. I discovered my bottles were empty, so I pulled into an indoor soccer arena and found a water fountain... and a bathroom. Guess I hadn't needed to whip my white ass out in the freezing cold after all. Oh well. Live and learn. On the soccer field there was a women's league game going on. Girls' soccer! Why didn't I think of that sooner??? What a flash of brilliance! Soccer players are hott! (see left) This is where I could pick up chicks! There's always a wealth of lesbians in any adult soccer league, and if they were playing at 8:30 on a Sunday morning, they couldn't be huge partiers. Right? Then I remembered that I couldn't play soccer, or even start a conversation about soccer, so I went back out to the road where the only people I pick up are straight men over 40.

In the cold I just can't feel my legs under me, so even though I'd ridden for half an hour, I didn't feel any more warmed up than when I started. I tried to do one lap at tempo, but my body just felt torpid so I pulled over at the start line and just found a straight man over forty to chat with until starting time.

Finally it was time to line up, so me and about 20 guys crowded up to the start line. It wasn't till half way through the second lap that I realized that there was another chick in the pack. Se was so bundled up that she looked like an ETA terrorist. The only reason I realized that she was a girl at all was her girlie teal and white bike, which made me look closer at her hips and notice they were a bit wide for a man's. Even then, I probably wouldn't have noticed her if she hadn't cut straight across my line six inches in front of me. Terrorists!

On the drive in I'd been thinking about a conversation I'd had with the King of the Bike Geeks at the bike shop.
Me: I'm just not a sprinter. I don't even know why I'm trying crits, there's no way I can ever do well in them.
KBG: With the power and endurance that you have you've just gotta keep attacking and attacking. That way you can drop the weak riders who are just sitting in, and tire out the sprinters. Then you might have a chance.
Me: But then they'll just sit on my wheel and I'll be leading some oportunist out for a great race.
KBG: It won't work every time, but that's why they have "Most Aggressive Rider" awards.

For a few laps I spun round and round the course with the pack. But these boys weren't riding in a clump, they were riding in a strung-out line. I didn't much feel like sitting in the back of the line anymore, so I swung out to the side and rode to the front of the group. When I got there, I was still feeling pretty good and there was a lone rider who had gotten a gap, so I rode on up to him. When I got there, I looked back and I'd gotten a gap on the pack too. Time to try out KBG's plan. But once I'd caught the lone rider, he stopped to have a cigarette break and the pack caught my tail in no time. I took a deep breath and planned to sit in for a lap and figure out how things were going at the front.

I could have used my position to my advantage, but then something very unlucky happened. At random times during the race, the officials would ring a bell and we would sprint the next lap for a preme. In this case, the preme was a muffin. As I led the pack over the line, the bell rang and the marshal yelled out "MUFFIN PREME! MUFFIN PREME!" For some reason I just forgot that there was a sharp turn coming up, and I found myself trapped on the inside and riding through a small sand patch. By the time I came through the turn, I'd slowed down significantly and everyone else was accelerating for baked goods. My legs were stuffed from my acceleration the last lap, and a little daylight got in in front of my wheel. Then some more, then some more. With about seven laps to go, I was already dropped.

My race had been brought down by a muffin.

I held the gap at about 50 yards for several more laps, but I just couldn't seem to catch on. It was a windy-ish day, and at some point I had to admit that the pack was gone and I was going to have to come to terms with coming in DFL (dead fucking last). The thought of just dropping out occurred to me. This was just a training race and my legs were feeling pretty crispy anyway. But then I spotted another rider in front of me. It was the chick in the burka! I pulled up to her, hoping that we could work together, but fashoom!, she was far behind me before I even got to gauge her strength. YES! Not only would I not be DFL, I would also not be beat by the other chick.

A lap or two later I spotted my straight man over 40 friend up ahead. As I came up to him, I said, "Come on, let's at least finish with our heads held high!" But by the time I finished the sentence and turned around to see if he'd caught my wheel, he was gone too.

By this point I was getting pretty tired. I had about three laps to go all by myself, but I just couldn't bring myself to cruise it in. I still had my pride and I wanted to finish strong if I was going to finish alone. Suddenly, up ahead there was a rider in my tream's kit with frog legs flapping all over the place. I'd never seen someone look so sloppy on a bike. I wouldn't figure it out till later, but I actually knew the guy. He runs the Wednesday night hill ride, which I have attended exactly 0.5 times. I showed up one night, rode up one hill, and was the last to reach the top. Once they hit the next hill and everyone started to accelerate I thought, Fuck this! I don't need this shit. I freewheeled uphill until the whole pack had passed me, pulled a U-turn, and went home. Apparently this man with the frog legs had made everyone circle at the top of the hill for several minutes waiting for me, and now I want to hide every time I see him. But as of yet, I didn't know that Mr. Frog Legs was the hill climb dude. All I knew was that I probably knew him, and he might help me to the finish. "Hop on!" I yelled as I came by him and tried to make myself big to block the wind. But I turned around and he was gone too.
Later he would tell me, "I stood up and tried to grab your wheel, but you were already gone."

So I finished the whole last half of the race time trialing. I was so far behind the lead pack that I didn't even hear their bell for the final lap. By the time I finished, the marshal had turned his back to the road to check in riders for the next race. Oh well. At least I wasn't the lanterne rouge, or the gatto nero, or DFL (whichever language you want to say it in).

I was surprised to see that my average speed was over 20 mph for the whole race. Not bad for a windy time trial with no aero bars. I'd hardly been breaking 16 mph during the warm-up, and once I'd realized I'd been dropped I'd hardly pushed more than about 80% effort. If only I hadn't been such an idiot again, I probably could have hung with the pack and finished close behind the leaders. Oh well. Live and learn. At least I hadn't finished DFL and I didn't have to deal with the pack too long. At least in this race I'd pedaled my bike.

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.