Mindfuck

This week I came back to Boston for the first time since I moved to San Francisco about 16 months ago. In all that time I had never had the desire to visit, especially since I was afraid that seeing many of my old friends would reopen wounds that were still tender. But it had to happen eventually, and so last Friday night I boarded a plane to revisit the site of the worst 6 months of my adult life. I had mostly put the past out of my head (fresh starts are good for that), and it wasn't until the week before my flight that I even let my mind return to everything that's happened over the last 2 years. I hardly recognized myself in that confused, anxious, downtrodden version of Claire that suffered through January until June 2010. I was happier, optimistic, much more self-confident, and richer. I had also started wearing "girl bras" rather than walking around with the sports bra "boob loaf" all the time, which makes me feel like a lot more of a grown-up (even though the bras come from the girls' section of Target). Life was good and I had moved on.

One of the first things I did once I'd landed was to contact Michelle for a trail run. Talking to her and then Big Red the following morning gave me the warm fuzzy feeling that you get from hanging out with people who truly love you and bring out the best in you. Red, Michelle, and I had a synergistic summer in 2008 where we all pushed each other to the best fitness of our lives, and reliving those days was nothing but sweet. Once I saw Michelle and Big Red again, I couldn't believe how much I realized that I missed them.

That night I went out to dinner with the Rockstar Housemate who kept me from cracking up completely in those months after the break-up. It was an unseasonably warm night, and I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that Rockstar Housemate was one of the people who had seen me at my worst and still seemed to enjoy hanging out with me. "How's the house?" I eventually ventured to ask. "Is it still a shithole, or have you guys done some work on it?" To be honest, I didn't even know if he still lived with Lindsey. Did I care?

"That ratty blue couch is still in the living room. With the third housemate came another dog, so there's room for two people in the middle of the couch with a dog on each side." It didn't take a genius to deduce that Lindsey's new girlfriend had moved in to the shithole house. I decided that what I was feeling was more than not caring. I really, really didn't want to hear anything about it. Not that I was jealous that her new girlfriend had slipped right into my spot in the shitty life that Lindsey was stuck in, but more that hearing anything about her filled me with so much revulsion that I wanted to run out of the restaurant screaming. I changed the subject.

But the flood gates had been opened. As I visited people over the next few days, everyone wanted to tell me about her, talk shit on her new girlfriend, and in general relive my former disgraces without my even asking. "Have you been seeing Lindsey since you've been back? Because if you have, I'm going to punch you in the face," said her former housemate (the one she lived with before we moved in with the Rockstar. I find it gratifying that people who lived with us in both houses all came down on my side.) "She really downgraded on her new girlfriend," he offered. "Have you ever seen Pink Floyd's The Wall? You know those people with no faces that they put into the meat grinder? She looks like one of those. NO! You know what she looks like? Did you ever watch the Muppets? You know that Muppet with the long blonde hair that sings in Animal's band? She looks like that!"

"I don't care, Rich," I told him (I don't remember what nickname I gave him in the past).

"Have you been to the shop yet?"

"I don't want to go to the shop. No one works there anymore that I can't see outside the shop." He paid me no mind and called. "Hey, is 'One-Bike Lindsey' working today? No? She's off till Tuesday? Great! Thanks."

So despite my protests, after pumpkin shopping Rich took a left out of the parking lot rather than going straight back to the house and dragged me to the shop. I hardly recognized anyone on staff other than twiggy and an annoying little compulsive liar that they called Gnome. Not to let things go by unnoticed, Rich gathered everyone around and said, "This is Lindsey's ex. Isn't she hotter than the new girl?"I wanted the earth to swallow me up.

"Yeah, her new girlfriend is weird. So you dated Linsey, huh? How did that go? I thought you moved out of state," said the new retail manager. Really? After all this time and all the hours in the saddle with all these people, this is who I am? Frankly, I was surprised that I'd come up at all. I was under the impression that I was a subject that just wasn't brought up around Her Royal Highness anymore.

"I came out ahead in that transaction," I said. "I got to move to California and be happy and she got to stay here with her shitty life." And then I refused to answer any more questions. It came out bitter, but sheesh, is there a way to come out of that situation sounding classy and gracious?

When you haven't seen someone in awhile, it turns out that they don't want to know about all the cool things that are going on in your life since you left, they want to fill you in on what's been going on in the place that you left in your absence. Piece by piece, people started telling me more and more about Lindsey. Slick told me that he had seen her at a cyclocross race and she was interested in buying a cross bike, but then had wandered off when he was trying to introduce her to reps. Typical, half-baked ideas and no fucking follow-through, my mind griped before I noticed how pissed I was getting and changed my mental subject. King of the Bike Geeks asked me if I'd seen her, and then told me it was probably a good idea that I'd called ahead to make sure that she wasn't working that day. Do you still believe the fucking ridiculous lies that she told about me? Do the years of riding next to you and chatting with you over a work bench mean nothing to you? You used to respect me and be one of the biggest advocates of my riding back in the day, I thought, and then made myself stop before I got too upset. Michelle told me that she'd named her new dog after Michelle's own dog. I don't know why this made me furious, but it did. Teen Idol told me that after his bike accident a year ago that put him in a wheelchair, she had basically dropped him. How can someone be such a fair weather friend that they can't even come see their best friend every once in awhile, just because he's in a wheelchair? She didn't even spend her dad's last Christmas with him! What kind of soul-less person does that? my mind screeched. Instead I gave him a hug and told him to keep on his physical therapy because the next time I was home, I wanted to go on a walk with him. And when Rockstar Housemate told me that her new girlfriend is a personal trainer I absolutely lost it. "Listen! I don't want to hear about her anymore! I don't want to hear that she's doing well, I don't want to hear that she's doing badly. I have moved on, and I just don't want to go there anymore!" It was true. I really, really didn't care what she was up to, but hearing that she was the same old flakey, lazy, condescending, unreliable, entitled, retarded douche that she'd always been just put me back into a head space that I never wanted to revisit. The thought actually crossed my mind to egg her house, although I knew it would be more fun to fantasize about than to actually do it. It just didn't seem fair that someone should be allowed to hurt another person so much and then have absolutely no repercussions on her life, and just replace me like an old iPod. I had to get out of here!

On my second-to-last night home it was all getting to be too much. I'd been hanging out with people nonstop since I landed and I just needed some quiet time. While we were visiting my grandmother, my mom must have asked me 5 times over the course of the afternoon whether I was coming home for dinner. "No, mom, I don't think so."

"Oh? Who are you going to see?"

"I don't know, Mom." Which she heard as, 'I'm still free, why don't you invite me for dinner again.' Finally I told her, "Tell you what, if I haven't called by the time you've made dinner, then just assume that I'm not coming." I'd hung out with her every day since I arrived, and my mom's not the kind of mom that you can be best friends with. You've always got to filter what you say to her so that she won't worry or pry.

I finally broke free from my mom, and ignored the 2 voicemails she left in quick succession, "So will you be coming home for dinner?" A few hours later drove to the Whole Foods to get a salad before I hunkered down in the hotel to watch some Netflix. It was 7:45, so I figured she would already be at home cooking or eating, so there was no chance I'd run into her. And then I looked up and... there were my mom and dad coming right for me. Are you serious?! I had to get out of this small town as fast as I could. "Hi hon," mom said. "What are you up to tonight?"

"Just chilling." Now this is the point where my mom should have figured out that I was here in Whole Foods getting food for myself because I would rather spend the night alone than come home and have an uncomfortable dinner with her and dad.

"Are you coming over for dinner?" she asked. Oh my god, I'm never coming home again! I thought.

After three days of revisiting my old life, it was time to check out of the hotel and spend my final day at my parents' house. The hotel was about 8 miles from my mom and dad's house and right smack in the middle were Lindsey's house and Lindsey's work. I couldn't avoid one without passing the other. My luck couldn't hold out. After checking out of the hotel I stopped by a Starbucks that I never go to. I swung into the parking space, and in the second before my car came to a complete stop, I looked into the car facing me, and there in the passenger seat not 10 feet away was fucking Lindsey with her girlfriend in the driver's seat. In a flash my eyes registered her smile and the familiar way that she sipped her coffee and then my fight or flight instinct kicked in.

Before my eyes even had much time to focus, I threw the car in reverse and gunned it out of the space and across the parking lot. I didn't know what to do, but priority number one was not having to see her or have her get a good look at me. I couldn't be trusted not to be a total bitch and my hands couldn't be trusted not to shake. In fact, they were already shaking like crazy as I threw the car into drive and floored it across the parking lot to where I hoped there was an exit. There was no exit, so I just parked in the far corner of the parking lot with my hands shaking until I was pretty sure they would have left. Who cared if she recognized me, who cared if she walked into work and said, "I think I just saw Claire," and someone said, "Yeah, she's been coming by all weekend." Had I run away because I was ashamed of anything that had happened over a year ago? Hell no, she was the one that owed me an apology.

The reason why I sat in the car behind the dumpster in that parking lot was because if we were face to face and she asked me, "How are you?" Or even if she saw me at a distance, there would be no way for me to express to her how well I'm doing and how much I now despise the despicable life that she's still stuck in. And I realized that until I can face her without shoving in her face what a loser she is, I wouldn't be fit to face her at all. So what if I make three times what she does? So what if I live in this beautiful place? So what if I'm out doing all the types of events she only talks about? There is absolutely no way to express all that stuff without undermining it by being obviously boastful and bitter.

Hiding out in the Starbucks parking lot made me realize another thing, too. That I still wasn't as confident as I would like to be. You can make all the money in the world and your phone can be ringing off the hook with people who want your time, but until you have the confidence to walk past your ex girlfriend and not even care if she's looking, then you've still got some work to do.

Another break-up, another 50K

I apologize for my last post being boring. My housemate has this annoying habit of talking to me constantly whenever I'm awake, whether I'm clearly trying to concentrate on something or not, weather I'm a grumbling bear first thing in the morning or not... I get easily distracted. The result is crappy writing like my last post. Oh well.

This week was a rest week, and while in some ways I'd planned it perfectly (it was rainy and shitty all week and I was on the rag), it also would have been a great week for a crash week. The reason will be clear in a second... If you read only parts of this week, read Monday and Sunday.

Monday: Nothing

Valentines Day. Fuck Valentines Day. Last year Lindsey and I had joked that we were going to break up on Valentines Day. We didn't but she didn't even buy me a card, and broke up with me 2 weeks later. This year, I really did break up on Valentines Day.

Scout had been out of town for almost 2 weeks on a trip to Belize with her brother and his family (they pay for her trip so that she can watch the kids). Since she couldn't be reached by phone, e-mail, or any other means for 10 days, I had all my free time to myself. No having to pack 6 changes of clothes (2 days' worth of working and work-out clothes) and drive around her neighborhood for half an hour looking for parking so that I could stay over her house for the night, going to bed at midnight and waking up at 5 to get to work. No more having to go out to eat when I couldn't even afford gas because she keeps no food in the house. Having my whole weekend free and not having to give up my one precious morning off. No missing an opportunity to race because we never had time together. I realized that I really, desperately didn't want to answer to anyone but myself when it came to my free time.

I had been breaking up with her in my head for a week before she finally came home on Sunday afternoon. When she called, I didn't pick up because I knew that my voice would betray that something was up. When I listened to the message, it was filled with "I've missed you"s and "I can't wait to..."s. I felt so rotten I wanted to disappear. I got in the car and sent her a text to say I was headed into the city and did she have a minute. She didn't respond. I got to her neighborhood, parked and called her. No answer. She's got this annoying habit of turning off her phone when she's not using it that always makes me want to scream at her. It's the only thing that really annoys me about her. I sat around waiting for about 15 minutes, and when she didn't call back I turned my phone to airplane mode so it wouldn't even ring for the rest of the night and drove home. I was so frustrated that I was thinking about doing it in a letter or over text message. In reality, I was just scared and wanted to do it in the most yellow-bellied way I could think of so that I wouldn't have to deal with her pain.

I had some morning appointments, and then a Spin class, and then I was going to have to dump her. It was rainy and ugly out, which put me in an even worse mood. I didn't know how I was going to get all cheery for a Spin class in this state of mind. Then a Valentines Day miracle happened: no one showed up to my Spin class. I packed up, got in the car, and drove to her neighborhood.

I had her meet me in the Starbucks. She came in and smiled when she saw me, giving me a kiss. I immediately dropped my head into my hands and couldn't speak or even look at her. After several minutes she asked, "What is it?" I couldn't get the words out. I shook my head and was silent for several more minutes, at a loss. "Is it cancer?" she asked. Whaaaat? The first thing you come up with is cancer? What the hell is wrong with you? I thought. It was so far off her radar that even cancer seemed more likely. I shook my head. "Are you leaving me?" she asked slowly. I nodded and burst out crying.

There were several uncomfortable parallels between what was happening right now and what happened with Lindsey, so I wasn't taking any of this lightly. I felt terrible for blindsiding her, and it broke my heart to see the waves of realization crashing over her over the next hour or so. One minute she'd be fine and try to change the subject, then she would realize something else and start crying or say something desperate or walk away with her hands in her hair. I wanted to hug her and protect her from anyone ever hurting her again, but I couldn't. "It has nothing to do with you," I promised her, but that means nothing when someone's breaking your heart, I guess.

We walked around for about an hour in the rain talking and not talking. Right before I got in my car to leave she told me, "While I was gone I had a dream that I was trying and trying to call you and I couldn't reach you. I was searching for you frantically in my dream because I thought I'd lost you..." The desperation in the dream and the defeat in her voice broke my heart all over again. I kissed her, told her I loved her (something I'd never told her before, but it was true... but not like that. Whoever coined, "I love you but I'm not in love with you" should be shot) and got in the car. Ever since I've wanted to go back over there and take it all back, but I can't.

Tuesday: Nothing

Every moment that I wasn't working, I was in bed. I'm a rotten piece of shit. I didn't want to work out, I didn't want to work, I just wanted to curl up in bed and be comatose.

Wednesday: Swim 2100 yd and Spin class

I can't avoid workouts when I'm being paid to be there. After teaching my corporate bootcamp class outside the city, I could have gone home and taken another nap, but that's what I'd done all morning. I could have done some work, but making my head work seemed even more painful than making my body work, so I went to the pool before my spin class.

To be honest, I wasn't all that depressed over the break-up. I was mostly depressed because the sun was gone and because no matter what happens, money doesn't grow on trees and everything always feels like a fight. Suddenly I wanted to curl up with anyone and everyone just so that someone would give me some attention. I swam lots and lots of drill, and for the first time since I started swimming again in December I felt like I was "swimming on my side" again. Maybe, just maybe I'd be able to swim again someday.

The Spin class had grown even more than last week, and I had designed a workout to explode everyone's hearts in the room. When I want to do that, I alternate between accelerations and higher-resistance high cadence sets that somewhat approximate outdoor climbing. It turns everyone's ears off and means I don't have to talk much during the class. So that's what we did.

Whenever I do really high-cadence pedaling in my classes (at a cadence fast enough that the "official" Spinning literature tells you not to use because someone might get hurt), I always take a minute to explain safety. "If you're a beginner, go as fast as you can without your butt bouncing and keep your pedals in control. Intermediate, try to hit 120 rpm..." (we've got electronic consoles on our bikes). "If you've been riding for at least six months, try to make that top number on your console disappear..." (which happens at 140). "If your feet come off the pedals, hold your legs out to the side and use your resistance knob as a brake like this."

I had given that talk, but that was before 3 teenagers came into the class 12 minutes late and sat in the opposite corner of the class from everyone else. I usually scan back and forth, but I guess I hadn't looked at them in awhile, until I saw that the girl was off her bike and limping around. Aw fuck. I went over and made sure that she was okay, helped her stretch out the charlie horse, and told her to take it easy. Then I gave the safety speech again. Next acceleration set you know what happened? Another one of them bashed himself in the leg. His damned basketball shoes were too big to fit into the toe clips and he'd ramped his pedals up to about 150 rpm. Idiot. I hate teenagers.

Thursday: Spin

This time there were no accelerations and everyone survived.

Friday: Swim 1900 yd

With the weather alternating between hail, cats, dogs, and cold winds, I wasn't in much of a mood to do anything outdoors with my 8-hour break between clients. I still had some 1900 yards to swim to meet my quota for the week, so I went to the high school pool in Pacifica. This is a real 50x25 yd pool with at least a dozen lanes, diving boards, and blocks. It's also not a salt water pool like the one I swim in at the Y, so it feels like I'm swimming through corn syrup. I wasn't really in the mood to have to fight through another workout where everything feels harder than it should be. I know that the best way to get back to where I have been is just to be patient with my body and not compare myself to where I have been in the past. But there are days when you don't want the adjectives "patient" or "forgiving" describing your workout. I wanted something "punishing" that would squeeze out anything yucky still buzzing around inside my head. If I tried to swim some fast hard freestyle sets I knew I'd just be more frustrated with myself than ever before.

So what to do? These lanes are nice and wide, and I felt like doing something that involved a lot of thrashing and kicking: butterfly!

This is what I used to think about butterfly: there is absolutely no rational reason to do butterfly. It's the most inefficient stroke, taking massive amounts of energy to cover a distance that you could cover much easier with any other stroke. It's not the fastest stroke either. It's a short axis stroke, deriving its power from bending rather than twisting in the water, giving it almost no carryover to freestyle. Unless you are a specialist or an IM swimmer, there is no reason to swim butterfly. This is why I swim butterfly: because it creates a lot of waves and you are likely to get smacked if you try to share a lane with someone doing a fly workout. I felt like smacking someone today. And it makes me look cool.

After a couple of 50's, I had the lane to myself. I bobbed at the end of the pool until some old lady thought that she might want to share the lane with me, and then I would do another 50 and by the time I got back to the wall, she'd be gone. I did a total of 625 yards of twitchy, sloppy, gasping, thrashing butterfly before I'd hit the number of yards I wanted to swim that day (1900). Then I went into the locker room and I looked into the eyes of each one of those water aerobics ladies thinking, You wanna fuck with me? I'll fucking eat you. You better tell your friends that any lane that I'm in from now on is off limits! Then I went home and shirked more busy work to climb into bed and make the world go away for a few more hours before I had to return to work.

Saturday: Trainer 1.5h

It was pouring with rain, but I had about 20-25 miles to make up. I was feeling droopy on the inside from all the rain, and for once I didn't want to watch crappy reruns on hulu, so I did something that I judge other people for doing at the gym. I brought a book.

I set up Mark Allen's Fit Soul, Fit Body on the handlebars and I read that book for the next 90 minutes. The book isn't wonderfully written, and having a rather low opinion of both of the writers' personalities, I wanted to think that I was better than them. But my head's been my biggest rival lately, and my newest project is to end the constant state of crisis in my life, so I read. What I read about will become relevant in the race report to follow.

Sunday: Run 29.25 miles

I had a problem. I had a big black hole in my thoughts and I had a marathon of running to make up this week-- a rest week. Swimming isn't tiring enough to have an effect on a rest week, I was already ahead on my cycling and the Spin classes would take care of the rest, but what about the running? The Claire answer: a 50K.

We will go through the first part of this race report with a focus on clothes:

It was cold as I drove out to the East Bay for my race. It being February, I suppose that I should admit that "cold" is a relative term. It wasn't mid-winter Boston prep series cold where your snot freezes to your face at 19 degrees, it was a California 'should I or should I not have worn shorts' 36 degrees. I'd gone for the shorts and a tank top, with a light jacket to go over it. As we started running, the jacket got warm, and when the sleeves started sticking to my arms like shrink wrap, I peeled it off. Then the shade came back and my nipples and goose bumps were hard enough to poke your eye out. It would be like this for the rest of the day, too warm for a jacket but too cold for a tank top. There are worse things in life than being moderately too hot or too cold, but this was a long day to be uncomfortable for any reason other than running.

I tried to get this pic without anyone in the frame, but it looks like I just caught this guy red-handed coming out of the wrong bathroom or something.

It had rained all week, turning the trails into slippery sludge. It wasn't as muddy as the last time I'd tried to moon walk up these hills, but the back portion of the first loop brought us through some fields. We kept having to open and close these heavy gates where the springs on the latches were all rusty and I had trouble opening them. On about the third gate I noticed the sign; something about cows. Then I realized what I'd been seeing. In the past half mile I'd seen as much volume of shit as three entire horses. And not that straw-y dry horse shit that I was used to seeing, it was this wet, black shit that looked like horse diarrhea and the horse had been eating Odwalla Superfood bars. And it was everywhere. I wondered what they were feeding their horses out here, and now I realized that this was cow shit, over the trail so much that you almost couldn't avoid stepping in it between the puddles.

The fields were sopping wet, and right before the nine mile mark I lost it. SQUELCH! Suddenly I was ankle deep in mud. No fighting it now. Squelch, slurp, squelch, slurp, squelch, I got to the other end of the puddle and felt the water sloshing around inside my shoes. Fuck! Only 9 miles in and my dry socks were a thing of the past. Twenty-two miles is a long way to go in wet socks. I hadn't been so covered in cow shit since my parents took me to a dairy farm when I was 5 and a cow lifted up its tail and projectile shit on me from head to toe (I didn't even get to eat an ice cream cone that day because my parents thought my hands were dirty). I got to the next gate and there was a giant mud puddle several inches deep right in front of the gate. I stood in the solid-ish mud at the hinge end of the gate and tried to pull on the latch. I couldn't get the leverage on it to move it, because every time I leaned my weight against it my feet would slip in the mud. I sighed. Splash!

Finally I managed to pull the gate open and started climbing the small hill on the other side. I was walking the hill, staring at the ground like you do when you're feeling sorry for yourself when I noticed my shoe. As I came up over the ridge there were three cheerleaders yelling and ringing cowbells. "WOOOOOOOOO! You can do it!" they yelled.

"Fuck that, I'm just wondering what the hell is on my shoe?" I said, pulling out my phone to take a picture. A minute later I got to the aid station, "I mean, what the hell is that?!"

"I've seen mud before, but I've never seen it foaming," the aid station guy said. It looked like sea foam was on my shoe, only it was cow shit foam and it took the next five miles to finally melt away into my socks.

Right around the time I covered myself in cow shit, I was starting to feel a pre-bonk wooziness. I had felt kind of hungry at the start, but had chalked it up to the caffeine. I was only drinking water, and when I ran out, all they had was more water. At the first aid station I'd been trying to keep up with a New Friend, so I'd just grabbed 3 Shot Blocks and 1/3 of a Payday bar and tried to shove them in my face as I trailed my New Friend up a hill. And I still couldn't keep up with my New Friend and wound up alone. At the cow shit foam aid station I could see nothing that I really wanted to eat: no cookies, no potatoes, no peanut butter sandwiches, so I just grabbed 3 more shot blocks and kept going. About half a mile later I figured out that I might be in a bit of trouble and thought about turning around, but I really didn't want to tack on an extra mile to what would already be a really long day.


I was all by myself now, not a soul in sight and I was starting to get the headache, irritability, and wooziness of a low-grade bonk. This was no good at all, I was only about 10 miles in, and there wouldn't be another aid station for miles. I tried to draw on the lessons that Mark Allen and The Voice had taught me in the book yesterday. I tried to concentrate on the sunlight and the nature around me, but all I could think concentrate on was how I wasn't quite warm and wasn't quite cold and how I wished they wouldn't put shooting ranges right out in the middle of my nature like this. I tried to concentrate on the bubble of my life force out in front of me, extending out from my heart. It drew me forward for a minute, but then it popped. I tried to feel lucky for being able to do what I was doing today, and give thanks to the Universe, God, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster for my body and my life, but the "Poor Me" was just too loud. I concentrated on how I would yell at the volunteers at the next aid station for not having enough food or any sports drink.


Fifteen miles in and I did lay into the aid station volunteers, but with a smile on my face and in that 'shucks this is hard, why in tar-nation did I sign up for this' way that aid station volunteers love. "Only 4.2 miles to go!" a volunteer told a guy that came up behind me while I was drinking Coke and eating as many cookies as I could shove into my face. He was doing the 30K.

"It's the .2 that'll kill you," said the other volunteer.

"So get the .2 out of the way first," I said around a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly, like it was the most normal suggestion in the world. The 30K SMOF (straight man over 40) and I set off together, and I even managed to hold it together for the next .2 miles or so, but when he began running up a short, steep hill I had to walk and I was alone again. I would be alone until mile 28.5.

I finished the 30K loop and at the finish line aid station I stopped again to get as much food into my face as I could. "It's just 10 miles to the finish, a short 20K." I must have been hearing things. I looked at him, confused. This was too good to be true, surely I was doing the math wrong. "The course is a couple miles shorter than we thought," he explained. I tried to do the math in my head, but all the numbers had already fallen out of my brain.

I felt so low, so tired. Ten miles was so far to go. I'm such a weak, pathetic loser. What the hell is wrong with me? My knees hurt so much, my legs were aching, my ankles hurt, I couldn't take another step. I felt like those terrible last 10K of a marathon when someone puts industrial strength magnets in your shoes and turns up the electromagnet in the ground. You're so weak! You're fucked! I told myself. What the hell were you doing signing up for this thing? Don't you realize that you're not in the same shape you used to be in? If you feel this way after... I looked at my watch. ...after 20 miles...

Twenty miles. It sunk in. I'd been so absorbed in the next 11 miles that I'd completely forgotten about the 20 behind me. Hang on a sec, this is how you're supposed to feel after 20 miles. This is how you've always felt after 20 miles. Do you realize that you just did it again, you rocked up on no training to speak of and you peelled another one of these things out of your ass? It set me to thinking, and I definitely had time to think. I started thinking about how everyone gets all worried about overtraining, but what is overtraining anyway? I mean, in some corners of the sport the only competition lies in getting to that uncomfortable state and being able to stay there. This was not a new thought to me, but one I hadn't thought in awhile. Fuck everyone who called this overtraining. I can be uncomfortable. I don't want to do these attrition races forever, but dammit, I was darned good at being uncomfortable and no one could stop me.

The last 10 miles were brutal. It was a slow death plod with feet barely clearing the ground, but slowly, glacially the miles started to spread out behind me. I thought I would never hit the "4.2 miles to go" aid station. When I finally did I asked, "Am I the last one? I haven't seen another soul for hours." It was okay for me to be last, but I at least wanted to be prepared for it. If you're going to be DFL, then you have to start preparing yourself for a different kind of victory when you're still out on the course. DFL is a very different thing when you don't find out until after you've finished.

"No, there are still people behind you," she told me.

Every time I started walking up a hill, my hips would seize up. Every time I ran downhill my knees and ankles would feel like they were being beat to dust. When I hit the last 1.75 miles paved road, I descended to another ring of hell. I started to trudge at a slow walk up another short roller when two older women came around me. I rallied and caught up with them. "How are you guys doing? How's your race going?" I asked.

"Great, really great. We aren't as trained as we like to be, but we got lots of leg up time yesterday, so things couldn't be better. How are you?"

"Having a tough day, to be honest. It hasn't gone as well today as I hoped and I'm hurting pretty bad," I admitted. I could draw myself out of my pity party, but only if someone was there to tell me that they were hurting too.

"Well you're almost done," she said. "Look, only .75 miles to go!" She pulled the pace up to 8:30 min/miles. Really? I thought. But if I wanted the company I was going to have to keep up and I was going to have to think of positive things to talk about.

"My depth perception is all off," I said as we came up on yet another family taking up the whole road and I had to figure out a way to get around them (very difficult). "I've been convinced that every cyclist on this road has been aiming right at me. Does that ever happen to you?"

"No, can't say that it has," The Cheery One said.

"Maybe it's just that I know that my reaction time is slowed..." I said. "If you hit a grown-up you're alright because you just bounce right off. You've gotta watch out for the kids, because if you trip over them they'll send you ass over teakettle." She pulled away from me after that, and then so did her friend. And I was alone again.

I crossed the finish line about 50 yards behind the Silent Cheery One in about 5:47. Wait a sec! 5:47?! My best 50K time on a flat course was 6:01:03. I probably couldn't have run the 1.75 miles to a full 50K in under 14 minutes, but with all the hills and stopping that I'd done, this was probably the strongest 50K I'd ever done! Sure, I'd finished 31st out of 40 overall and 11th out of 14 women, but hey I was there at the end and I'd done better than your average Claire.

Relapse

Video for background music only.

There are other things to talk about: races, rides, ennui/burnout, but right now all that's taken a backseat. Basically, I relapsed. Hard.

I could go on for hours (and have) about all the gory details, but basically Lindsey (fuck protecting her identity anymore) fucked another girl from work and lied to me about it. Many times. Then the other girl lied about it, when I didn't even ask. Then when Lindsey finally told me, it was over text message ("We're sleeping together. You should know.") and refused to take my call, that's when I went out and bought some beer. She had lied just yesterday and told me I still had a chance with her with that slut's pussy still on her breath! I no longer cared about anything in my life except making the hurt stop. When she told me she wasn't coming home that night, that's when I started drinking the beer.

That is when shit really hit the fan. I called her after she got out from work and begged her to please come home and talk to me about this, that I was already drinking and she was the only person who could stop me (truth and manipulation at once). She came home, but said she was going to do whatever the fuck she wanted, and I couldn't stop her. I lunged for the beer that was sitting on the other side of her.
"If you drink that fucking beer, then I'll never respect you again for as long as I live," she warned. That gave me pause, and gave her enough time to leave the room. But once I was alone again, I decided that I would do anything, even ruin any chance I ever had of a good post-relationship relationship with her to have that beer back.

But as I was reaching this decision, she was stealing my beer to bring to the skank's house. I would have poured every one of those beers down the drain, but she could not take what was mine for herself and drink it with that whore. It was locked in her car, so I sat on the porch drinking the last beer in the house and thinking, Bring it on. This is what's going to finally make me over her. When she finally did come out, I calmly told her to give me my beer back. "It's mine and you don't have my permission to have it," I said. "I bought it legally, as an adult, with my own money and it's not yours to take. Give it back to me."

"What are you going to do, Claire? Are you going to smash my fucking window?"

The idea of smashing her window hadn't even occurred to me. It was mine and she was stealing. "No. You're going to give it back to me because if not that's theft."

"You owe me so much fucking money anyway, get the fuck out of here you fucking loser! You can drink till you kill yourself, I don't care. I'm leaving and I never want to hear about your fucking problems again. Leave me alone!"

"If I owe you money, then I will pay it to you. Make me a list of what I owe you money for, and how much, and I will pay you what I owe you," (I imagine that she planned on charging me labor for everything she'd ever done to my bike, at which point I was going to charge her for every coffee I'd ever bought her plus gas money for the delivery fee). "But you cannot take something that belongs to someone else without their permission."

"I'm calling the fucking cops!" she screamed. She pulled out her phone and I could see that she was dialing 911.

"You can't dial 911 for something like this, Lindsey. It's not an emergency. They're going to yell at you."

"Yes, hi, my housemate" (she pronounced the word with emphasis to prove her point to me) "isn't letting me leave the house."

"Lindsey, that's bullshit," I said. I knew that those 911 calls are recorded and I wanted to state my case. "I'm not restraining you in any way. You're between me and the car, I'm 3 feet from you, and we're on the passenger's side. You've just stolen something from me and I want you to give it back before you leave." I couldn't wait till the cops showed up and made her give it back to me and then told her to be on her merry way. I knew any arbitrator would be on my side. (Later my housemate said, "Hers was the only voice I could hear screaming. It's just so TRASHY to be screaming at someone on your front lawn in the middle of the night and calling the cops like that!")

"She's drunk and she's standing in the front yard in her pajamas," Lindsey went on.

"How drunk do you think I am?! I've had 4 beers in 4 hours, and you took all but the last one away from me 2 hours ago." Then mid-sentence, still on the phone, she just turned on her heels, got in the car and drove off to go fuck her skank. With my beer.

I was understandably furious. I had taken her shit patiently for 2 1/2 months, and now I'd finally snapped. She had taken away my last shred of dignity, and I didn't give a shit about what she thought of me anymore, the lying whore. I went inside and realized she'd left behind her crate of hard liquor. I found a bottle of $50 tequila that I'd bought her in Mexico and started drinking it. But I don't really like hard liquor, and it wasn't making me feel any less mad, so I went up to her room and I took back all the gifts I'd ever given her, love letters I'd ever written her, and sex toys we'd ever used together (and that she'd used on the skank, in my house, on my birthday I discovered). That still didn't make me feel any better, so I went through all her drawers where even her underwear was anally folded and stacked and I unfolded her shit. I threw some underwear on the floor, moved shit around in her closet, unalphabatized her CD's, unmade her bed, and poured the rest of the bottle of tequila on her comforter. Now I was feeling a bit better. I went downstairs and I saw the road bike that I helped her buy, the one that she was trying to sell to the skank for twice what she'd bought it for. Seat post plus saddle? That should be about $300; way less than my cut of the bike, I took the seat post out and pulled off the tape. Then I let the air out of her tires and went to bed.

That was on Tuesday. The next several days I was a wreck, especially since she didn't come home until Friday, but I didn't drink. I was mad at myself for drinking and figured I could forgive the extreme emotional distress as long as I never drank again. Then I found out that she'd fucked the skank in my house when I was away for my birthday, and lied about that even as she came clean about everything else. That's when I lost my will to live. When I found out about the birthday transgression from our other housemate, I waited 12 hours and texted her, "No wonder you were to exhausted to go out for my birthday. It must have been really tiring fucking that whore in my house all night. You'd better stay away for a long time you lying sack of shit. If I never see you again it'll be too soon." That's the day she started coming home and saying she was going to bring the skank to sleep over. The housemate had to step in to quash that one (I was so glad that I made sure there was a witness in the house each time we saw each other, just in case she tried some other bullshit legal bru-ha-ha).

More background music.

After that, I would just sit on the couch all day shaking and trying to sleep so that I could stay up late enough to make sure that she didn't bring the skank by. I couldn't ride my bike because I couldn't leave the house, and I had no energy anyway because I wasn't eating or sleeping. I only got about 2 hours' sleep a night. I lost more than 5 pounds in a week. Every minute I knew she was at work, I knew that the skank was at work with her. Then every minute that she didn't come home after work, I was picturing what she was doing with the skank: going on dates at our places, fucking her at her house, and telling her what a psycho I was. It was pretty clear from Lindsey's behavior and things that Lindsey had said that the skank was talking shit on me, turning Lindsey against me and I yearned for a chance to redeem myself. I am not the weak, loser you think I am! You cannot push a person that far and expect them not to snap! Come home and tell me that you love me and that you're sorry!

I knew that if they came by our house just once and squeezed me out, I would never be safe in my own home again. The skank lived about half an hour away on the other side of Boston, and we live about a mile from where they both work, making our house too convenient to pass up. So I had to stay home at all times to make sure the precedent wasn't set that they could come over and I would leave. I HAD to defend my territory! I made it through my vigil on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday without drinking, but Saturday when she didn't come home it was too much.

I cut a pretty blah date with a girl I was never going to fall in love with short, and I stopped by the liquor store on my way home. What was I even resisting the drinking for anyway, I didn't give a rat's ass about my life. At least if I drank then I could be alone comfortably and maybe even fall asleep. In fact, the only way to keep myself from hovering around her was to drink. I could hide from anything to keep drinking. She never came home that night, and I broke out my journal and just started writing and drinking; my favorite things to do in the world. The alcohol dulled the pain enough for me to face the really tough ideas (me having to finally get over her, the fact that she wasn't the Lindsey I fell in love with after all, the fact that my life was over), and quieted my mind enough for me to put my thoughts on paper without dropping dead from anger and grief.

But the next day on my vigil, I was alone and shaking from the anxiety again. I hadn't slept in days, I hadn't eaten in days, and I still had so much in my mind that I just couldn't face. So I went back to the liquor store and drank and wrote some more. On Monday I had to work, and since I hadn't slept more than a few hours in days I tried to take a nap after work, but my mind just wouldn't stop. So I drank all of her and the other housemate's beer to fall asleep, and when I went to replace it after my nap, I bought more for myself to get through the night. That night I spoke to Teen Idol, her best friend who moved away the same week she dumped me. He put it all in perspective, but he said, "You can't push a mule uphill. The only thing you can do is to leave and hope that someday she'll be willing to take your call."

When I thought that my world couldn't get any worse, here it was. She called me one evening at about my bed time and said, "I'm going to the package store. Do you want that 12-pack?"

I was already drinking, and couldn't figure out if this was an apology or a test, but the right answer seemed to be "no." "I don't want a 12-pack, I want that 12-pack. Never mind, don't even tell me the fate of that 12-pack. Just leave me alone."

"What the hell was that?" I asked her the next day. "Are you trying to fuck with me?"

"Well you'd made such a big deal of it, and I was thinking, if you want to drink yourself to death, then it's none of my business and I'm not going to stop you."

"So you thought you'd buy me beer?!" She was just as bad as the last psycho that made me start drinking again on purpose so she could manipulate me.

By Thursday I was up to almost a 12-pack a day already between my afternoon and evening sessions. Friday (my day off), I started drinking at 10 am, finally fell asleep for a bit, woke up, started drinking again, she came home unexpectedly and froze my bender for a couple of hours, drank more when she left, and went back to sleep. When I woke up that afternoon, I drank another few beers to get through the couple of hours before the spin class I had to teach. In the spin class I felt like I was going to vomit all over the floor and resented every soul who had shown up for even being alive and putting me through this. And then after the spin class I met up with an old drinkin' buddy of mine that I hadn't seen in about 5 years.

My drinkin' buddy and I have a long, sordid history, and as annoying and abrasive as he can be, he knows me well and he knows how to set a fire. The drinkin' buddy and I polished off about 9 beers apiece (and several cigarettes) as we set a fire in the woods and one-by-one burned every gift, every sex toy, and read and burned every letter. It was my way of saying goodbye and closing the book on this chapter of my life. There was no anger, just peace and sadness. "You were really in love with her, weren't you?" he said after I threw a particularly raunchy love letter on the fire.

"Yeah," I said.

"That letter was really hot. Do you remember that time when we got wasted and I convinced you to teach me how to have sex with a woman by pretending I was a woman?"

I groaned. That's another reason why I can't drink. I will fuck literally anybody, including my drinkin' buddy a couple of times. "That was some of the best sex I've ever had," he went on. "But you were always over it after just a minute or two and telling me to just finish up already. I'd always thought you just had issues with sex because of what happened to you... I guess you really are a dyke."

He had a way with words, but he was right. I'd been thinking of getting with a few guys just because they were easy and I needed affection, but I always regret it the next day, even if I'm sober (which has only happened once). Part of the reason that I'd loved Lindsey so much was that sex had never felt that meaningful with anyone else before. I don't think I'd ever truly made love with anyone, although I'd been with a few guys and gals I really, genuinely cared about.

(My feelings about sex with men are important for the next part of the story.)

We finished the beers, put out the fire, and headed out. "Can I drop you at your parents' house?" I asked. A side effect of my buddy's drinkin' problem is that he's lost his driver's license. I shouldn't have been driving either, but alcohol impairs judgment.

"No, my parents kicked me out for my drinking a few months ago. That's why I'm living in Everett."

"Well can I drop you at a bus stop or something?"

"It's too late, no busses running this time of night around here."

"Well I can't drive to Everett! I'm too drunk!" I protested.

"Can't I just stay at your place?" he asked.

(Now I'll remind you that alcohol impairs judgment.) "Fine, but I don't want you staying on the couch where Lindsey could find you in the morning. You'll have to sleep with me. But no touching!"

We went home and continued to talk deep into the night, waking up Lindsey. As we're getting ready to go to bed, I found a t-shirt for my friend, but no shorts that would fit him. He went down for one final leak and met up face-to-face with a very angry, very awake Lindsey. To make matters worse, he was holding her book about Spain that lives in the bathroom, which he had (understandably) thought was mine. "Where are you going with that?" she asked. Need I remind you that she hates it when people touch her stuff?

Then I got a text message. "I told you you didn't have to sneak around! I'm bringing over whoever the fuck I want! A good friend huh?! He's in his underwear!"

I told my buddy that he HAD to go down and sleep on the couch right now, and he had to get out of the house early in the morning. But by the time he woke up, she was already up and I was doing my best to explain the situation and begging her not to do anything to make things worse than they already were. I just wanted to talk to her in peace while she was in the house and actually listening to what I had to say, but I had the problem of an abrasive hung over man with no manners and no driver's license sitting on my couch.

He took a slug of her Kettle One vodka right from the bottle. Then he wanted a ride to the bus stop, but first he wanted a ride to his parents' house. He spend 45 minutes in his parents' house taking electronics and food, then he wanted a ride to Everett. All I wanted was to be go home and talk to Lindsey, then be alone. Getting caught up in his drama was exactly why I hated drinking so much. I would hang out with shady people because I didn't give a flying fuck, just as long as I wasn't the drunkest one in the room, then I'd get stuck being taken advantage of in these sketchy situations that I never would have put myself in if it weren't for the booze. By the time I got home, Lindsey was gone never to be seen again.

I had planned for the catharses in the woods to be my farewell to drinking, then I would stop staying in the haunted house as a birthday gift to Lindsey. However, she hasn't noticed my birthday gift because she hasn't slept at home since that night. She won't open the birthday card that tells her that the house is hers (although not her love nest) until I get back from RAAM. When she's home, she sleeps with her door locked and a baseball bat next to her bed. She won't speak to me or even be in the same room as me for me to tell her that I'm not drinking anymore, and that I'm back on my bike.

I know that at this point I shouldn't care what she thinks, but the reason that I fell in love with her was because she saw everything that I valued in myself – my independence, my drive, and my ability to quit drinking – and she loved me for them. As bad as this has all sounded, she was in love with me and acted as such as recently as Valentines' Day. How could I feel good about myself if the one person who valued those things in me now said she didn't care if I lived or died?

I am now on my third day of being out of the house, and my third day of not drinking. To see how quickly I could fall into a booze hole (less than a week), it makes me realize that it will not be long before I lose what little life I have left. I know that my first priority has to be not drinking, and making all my decisions based on that priority. But when all the things that used to keep me off the sauce – riding my bike, running, hanging out with friends, drinking tea and coffee, cooking, working – remind me of her, then how am I supposed to do that? I tried going to AA meetings, but a bunch of booze bags sitting in a room talking about drinking only made me want to drink, and their stories made me realize that relapse was possible.

So I have decided to move to San Francisco at the beginning of July. I'm not crazy about San Francisco as a city, but it is the traditional home of people running away from something. Shane has agreed to put me up until I'm back on my feet, I have the remains of a support network there from living so close in college, and a well-connected trainer at work has agreed to make a few calls for me. Because of a combination of my promotion and vacation (for RAAM), I'm not on the schedule at work, so I have no job here in Boston. Because I haven't spoken to my Dad since Christmas and because I can't be in my haunted house that was supposed to be the beginning of the rest of our lives with my girlfriend, I have no home. Since my girlfriend is sleeping with some skank every night just to get away from me, I have no relationship. Since most of our friends are in common and I cannot hang out with many of them at events that she might go to, I have a shaky social support. I never really planned on staying in Boston anyway, so I purposely didn't put down many roots. What else is keeping me here? It looks like what I need to do to take care of Claire is to start completely over... just like last time.

The idea that I'm getting out of here and that this is only temporary is the only thing that is keeping me away from the liquor stores. I'll take it.

Choking on my medicine

Background

I'm still looking for a catharsis, or at the very least an escape... or at the very, very least to feel like a shadow of my former self again. At the 12-hour race two weeks ago I thought that I was getting there, or at the very least the race had calmed my nerves enough to let me think clearly. And when I got home, we had a wonderful week where it was almost like Grease Monkey and I were back together again.

All I needed was stability, but then Grease Monkey went out to dinner with this girl from work. The girl from work is the kind of lesbian who wants to be your friend just because you're a lesbian too. I don't trust those girls. In my mind, the only reason for behaving that way after high school is because you're constantly looking for new potential girlfriends. To make matters worse, this girl already had a girlfriend. But when Grease Monkey came home from dinner, I came down to get a cup of water and saw that she was dressed up. Then I noticed that she'd been doing her hair before work for the last few weeks, while normally she doesn't even shower often. Then this horrible girl got her a flower for fixing her bike... and a bottle of tequila... and a case of beer. "Do you like this girl?" I asked.
"Kinda," she said.
My world ended.

Now I know that everybody thinks that I just need to get over her, but I simply can't. I just can't make my mind go there. I'll be alright one minute almost thinking I'm going to survive, and then I see her, and every single fiber of my being just wants to curl up in her arms. People also think that she's treating me like crap. That's not true either. Things mostly get bad when I can't deal with the situation as it is and try to push her to get back together, which usually has the opposite effect of setting off a several-week tense period. And I know that some people think that we shouldn't be living together, but neither of us have anywhere else to go. And I think that if she made the (well-though-out, and triple-checked) decision to move in with me, and then dumped me 3 weeks later, then it's her responsibility to make things liveable. Neither of us are happy when I go crazy.

Race Report

But I digress... It was in the midst of all of this, and with an intense desire to get some perspective that I started looking for something to do on my birthday. There were no good bike races that weekend, so I started looking elsewhere. I'd kind of been itching for the simplicity of a marathon since the Boston Marathon last month. I've never felt as accomplished as I did after some of my marathons (such as Cape Cod or Disney). So seeking to recreate that sense of accomplishment, I went to marathonguide.com and looked to see what was going on in the area. What I found was the Sugarloaf Marathon in Maine.

Now mind you, I haven't run more than 5 times in the six months since the Ironman. More than half of those runs have been on dirt and trails, and all of them have been under 7 miles long. I knew full well that this could hurt me, possibly for the season, so I sat on my decision for awhile. But when the Other Girl turned up, I decided that it would be best to get out of Massachusetts for a little while. The final catalyst to my decision came from the very unlikely source of a Wal*Mart-shopping fat lady:

I was catching up on Biggest Loser while riding on my trainer on Thursday afternoon (the last day to sign up for the race). The week's challenge was for the contestants to run a 5K with a bunch of local unfit people in Houston (or was it Dallas?). Anyway, among all these people who took nearly 2 hours to finish a 5K, there was still one woman who was way, way, way behind. When the camera found her, she was closing in on her last mile and could only make it a few steps before she would have to stop and use her daughter's shoulders as a walker to relieve the pressure on her knees. But that lady made it to the finish line. She was sobbing and crying and everyone was feeling empowered when she blubbered, "I just walked a 5K. I can't even walk a mile! I have to take a kart in Wal*mart." That floored me. If this lady who only got out of her seat to reach for the Ho-Ho's on the top shelf could get up off her ass and walk 3 miles when her knees were about to blow out under her weight, then I, a young, physically fit healthy person could rock up to a marathon on no training. I hoped that it would be such a grueling challenge that I would achieve the quantum leap in self-image that the Wal*mart lady had achieved. I wanted to dig down deep into the silty bottom of my soul and find out what I still had in there. This marathon would hurt like hell, but that was the point.

So I did a quick google map search to see where this place was, and found this:
Why, that can't be more than 45 minutes from Portland! I thought. I can stay with Mindy the night before, and then have a nice, easy drive home afterward. That pinprick however is where the marathon took place. To my credit though, that region is mountainous.

Here's the problem. This is the Sugarloaf that this race was at (about 2.5 hours north of Portland):

Note: that squiggly line just north of the pinpoint is Canada. So I was closer to Canada than to Portland. Damn.

But it was too late for second guesses now. I was $80 of committed to this thing. So I drove up to Portland on Saturday afternoon, had some dinner with Mindy and Mister Mindy, and went to bed at 8:30. As soon as I lay my head down, though, I started picturing what Grease Monkey may be doing with The Other Girl in my absence. I was never a jealous person before all this, but the situation has turned me into a headcase. At 10:30 I had to text her under the pretext that I was worried whether my cat had been fed to make sure that she was home, and NOT with the Other Girl. Four hours later, at 2:30 in the morning I was up again to drive the final 2.5 hours up to Carabassett Valley to catch the 5:30 shuttle to the start.

It was a very small race. It wasn't even chip timed.

I took a Sharpie with me and wrote "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!" on both my arms before hunkering down to wait for the start. I hoped that the signs on my arms would have people cheering for me when I felt low. I need not have worried about the warning that shuttles would leave at 5:30 *sharp,* because runners continued to arrive for the next hour. I listened to a couple of marathon geeks talk about which of the 50 states they'd checked off their list. I listened to another woman say, "Did you see that there was a town called 'New Portland' on the way up here? Haha, why go to the regular old Portland when you can stay in New Portland???" I wanted to say, Yeah, and I passed a York on the way up here too. Maybe they'll have a New York someday and everybody will stay there rather than going to the old York and it will become a bustling metropolis! Basically, I had no desire to talk to anyone.

The course was a point-to-point, starting at about 1000 feet and climbing about 600' between miles 7.5 and 10.5 before it dropped about 1100 feet over the last 16 miles. I had no pacing strategy other than never to run hard. I figured that as long as my breath was under control I'd be alright.


Miles 1-7 It's funny how biking and ironman training has warped my sense of time. These miles seemed to be over in a flash, and I was surprised how easy they felt. I mean, I figured the pounding would have for sure started to bother me by this point. I felt like I'd just started the race a minute ago and here I was already over an hour into it.



Miles 7.5-10.5 (the hill) Starting at about mile 3 I had tempered my over-enthusiastic 8:15/mile pace, and people had started passing me. Now I saw the group pull ahead slowly up the hill. I didn't mind. There was nothing that was keeping me from running my own race today. I didn't really care if the road went up or down, and when it finally started to turn down again, I couldn't believe how fresh I still felt.

Miles 11-17 I was only now beginning to feel the miles in my legs, just like I might in a regular marathon. There was a twinge in my right plantar fascia, but nothing to be worried about. I tried to stay on the soft shoulder of the road whenever possible to spare myself from the pounding. I couldn't believe I crossed the 13.1-mile mark in about 2 hours. I had fully expected to run a 5-hour marathon today. Well, who knew what was going to happen up ahead.
By mile 14 I was thinking, Only one more mile until 15, and then it's only 3 miles to 18, and from 18 it hurts no matter what. But this is a piece of cake!
At mile 16 I remember thinking, Ten more miles? I can do 10 more miles. I started counting them down, but not because they were dragging on forever yet. No, I was counting them down because under 10 miles felt like a short way, and I was bored.
Mile 17, as predicted, was my last fairly comfortable mile.

Miles 18-21 Starting at mile 18, the miles felt longer and longer, and the wheels started to fall off. The constant downhill had my left quad burning with every step, and my right foot and calf were starting to feel really tight. But still, I didn't feel like I had to walk. I still didn't feel like I'd been running for very long. Mile 19 was exponentially harder than mile 18, and mile 20 exponentially harder than that. But what marathon doesn't feel like that? Mile 21 was the last mile that I didn't feel the temptation to walk. At this point I had realized that no one could read my arms, and I wasn't going to get any birthday wishes.

Miles 22-23 Now I was in a world of hurt. I was tempted to walk for a minute at each mile marker, but I realized that I wasn't in that much pain. I wanted this to be over more than I wanted to walk, so other than the aid stations I just kept running. I wished someone would talk to me and distract me from all this, but all the people who passed me were either wearing headphones or didn't want to talk.

Miles 24-26.2 I really, really wanted to walk at this point. I wanted to be out of my head so that I could dissociate from the pain. I knew that I had a terrible marathon shuffle going on, and could feel myself waddling like a lame penguin. But still, I was disappointed to find that I didn't have to dig very deep to find the motivation to keep running. All I wanted was for this to be over, I wasn't getting anything rewarding out of the experience. To occupy my mind while the miles disappeared at a glacial rate behind me, I started reciting the only poem I've ever memorized start to finish:

When the Pawn hits the conflict he thinks like a king,
What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight,
And he'll win the whole thing 'fore he enters the ring,
There's no body to batter when your mind is your might.
So when you go solo you hold your own hand,
And remember that depth is the greatest of heights,
And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land,
And if you fall, it don't matter cuz you know that you're right.
(Fiona Apple)

But still, the poem was wooden in my head. I would recite it rhythmically 5 times to myself, then check my watch and start over. I recited that damned poem the whole way to the finish line. I hadn't spoken more than a few sentences to anyone in over four hours. I'd only gotten about 3 Happy Birthdays. I hadn't reached any ground-shattering conclusions. I hadn't learned anything about myself except that marathons weren't a challenge to finish anymore, under any circumstances. I just wanted it to be over. When I crossed the finish line in 4:13 and change, all I felt was relief. It didn't even feel epic, just painful. It was actually over rather quickly.

I suppose I could have been happy about the race. I think I might have beaten my Boston time from 2008, a race that I'd trained all winter for. I could have been proud that I finished the whole thing without walking (except maybe 3 or 4 aid stations), but not even that had done it for me. Despite my lack of training, this marathon had felt exactly the same as every single other marathon I've ever run. The deterioration felt exactly the same, and the pain felt exactly the same. I'd only run 15 minutes slower than my best marathon time ever. The only thing that was missing was a sense of accomplishment. I felt more like I'd bought a giant chocolate bar to make myself feel better, and instead had given myself indigestion.

The whole way home I continued to work myself up about Grease Monkey. I had hoped that my being away would recharge our delicate relationship, but when I called her from the finish line to see what her plans were for the evening, she seemed bored with me. The whole 4.5-hour drive home I worked myself into an insecure frenzy to the point where when we finally got dinner (my request), I couldn't help but force her to tell me where we stood. I begged her to give me one more chance, I cried, I restated my case for the millionth time, even though I knew that these were the surest ways to push her away. She ignored me with an uncharicteristic calm.

It wasn't until I was already laying in bed trying to process everything that it hit me. Something that she'd said about the Ex that Came Before Me came back to me. "It's because I'm not Sandra, isn't it?" I asked.
"Yeah, I guess you're right," she said in that way that I knew I'd finally hit whatever she hadn't had the balls to say.
All the puzzle pieces came together at once: she'd been excited to start our lives together until she unpacked all her (their) stuff out of storage, how she'd told me the day she dumped me that I wasn't the girl she wanted to marry so it was pointless to lead me on, how she hadn't needed space until I made a fuss about not liking her (and Sandra's) headboard on the bed, how she said she didn't want to be in a relationship with anyone right now (anyone that wasn't Sandra)... And like an idiot I'd just pressed and pressed and pressed until she was so sick of me that who can blame her for not wanting to get together with me. You know she didn't even actually say she wanted to break up until I asked her a million times if she was trying to break up with me and she answered with an exaspirated "YES!" (Then I kept pressing, trying to make her take it back.)
"You know, I can never be Sandra," I said. "But I made a pretty great Claire for awhile." That made her laugh, but it wasn't enough. I need a good, long time of not being psychotic for either of us to be okay with me again.

Lying in bed, sore and bloated from the marathon I now felt worse than I ever had before. How could this not be something that would blow over? Surely she would get over me Not Being Sandra pretty quickly, right? I mean, she'd been in love with me for a year without Me Being Sandra. But I'd gone crazy when she dumped me, when she didn't get over it fast enough, I just kept pushing and pushing. And now this little hoochie gets to be the next Not Sandra rather than me. And how am I supposed to stand by and watch her date the Other Girl or anyone else without going berzerk again?

To make matters worse, the hoochie is now single and Grease Monkey's spending more and more and more time with her. I feel as bad as I did when she first dumped me. And now all I have is a growing list of things that aren't helping me move on, and aren't making me feel better. I did drop about a tablespoon of salt into the water that The Other Girl's flower was sitting in, though. That helped me feel a little bit better. Who buys lillies for someone you like anyway? That's a funeral flower...

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.