Catastrophe after catastrophe and at the end a happy ending

These play-by-play posts are boring even me (although they're serving as a good training journal, I guess). This weekend --for reasons that you'll see later in the post-- I decided that I'm going to turn an eye back to my cycling and do a bike-specific block. The high running miles are trashing my legs, so I think that I'm going to cut down on the junk runs (treadmill jaunts just to get in miles) and train a little smarter, not harder. So unless there is an overwhelming outcry, I'm going to continue with the traditional race report and rant style that I've used in the past. Please donate to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation anyway. (The previous sentence is a link, don't know why it's not showing that way on my screen.)

Monday: Run 3 mi and Spinning (boring entry)

I have to surrender my Mondays to a Higher Power lately because they are beyond my control. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to swim, I brought stuff for a treadmill run which I would have to break into two chunks in the time between morning clients. The first workout was about 25 minutes of balls to the wall sprinting. I set my tabata timer and ran 10 minutes straight of 20s on 10s off at 9 mph (about a 6:30-ish mile?). The 3 miles does not count the time I was straddling the treadmill letting the belt run underneath me. I was going to repeat the workout in my second 45-min break, but I decided to get breakfast instead. Why beat myself up?

Monday I usually go swimming before Spinning, but this time I had a client right up until the very last second that I could be at the studio before I had to leave for class. That's alright, I'd be able to jump in the drink Wednesday and Thursday.

Tuesday: Run 6 mi

This blog is not a "bitch about work drama" blog, so I'll just say that a chick who was apathetic about her job and didn't want to go out of her way to fix a simple problem that may cost me $1000/month. After meeting with said road block on Tuesday morning I was fuming and furious. I had about an hour to run and went for some trails that I haven't run in awhile because the uphills are too long and the downhills not long enough. I had never been able to run these trails without walking, but this time I had only a little time and a lot of pent-up stress and frustration to work out.

I hit the hill and started running, and then I never stopped. I gained and lost about 1000' over 6 miles, including some 18 switchbacks on one climb. Finally! Evidence that I was getting better! I was never a good hill runner, but I've had nothing else to run around here and it finally seemed to be paying off slowly but surely. I really needed some affirmation at that moment. I've felt like I've been stuck in place with my fitness for months now, with all the terrain and training being so different. Maybe I was getting stronger than I thought.

Wednesday: Run 6.7 mi, Spinning

Wednesday is my new day to have a big open gap in the middle of the day, but today my big open gap was filled with a stupid meeting at the Y. Afterward I had 4 hours before my class -- not enough time to go home. I planned to go for a quick run till the pool opened again (they close it in the afternoon so that they don't have to pay lifeguards at off-peak times), then go for a dip and get some work done. I ran an easy rolling hour on the treadmill, going only as fast as my legs wanted to take me and staring at simulated trails in Utah and North Dakota on the treadmill screen as I ran. Then I rinsed off and went down to the pool.

The pool had opened about 20 minutes before and already had people circle swimming in all the lanes. I looked at the fast lane and there was no way. I couldn't have swum a length without having to pass two other people. I asked the lifeguard what he thought I should do. He pointed to the medium lane. I looked at the guy wriggling down the pool reaching his arm way across his body and moving at an impossibly slow pace, then at the side stroker, and the dry-haired breast stroaker and left the pool. I HATE swimming sometimes!

Well at least now I had about 90 minutes to get some work done. I grabbed my laptop and took it to the kitchen. No sooner was I settled in, but a troop of about 15 wild teenagers came in and sat all around me. I picked up my computer and went to a classroom. The teenagers followed me there. At least they would be having a workshop and couldn't all scream at once. I tried to pull up the wifi and I couldn't. I went to the community center room. Couldn't find the wifi. Fuck, I had so much work to do and needed to get to the company blog and e-newsletter software. I went up to the room that the offices come off of, which was now being used as a nursery. Among screaming children I tried to resolve my wifi problem. After an hour of trying, I was no closer than when I'd started. My life was beginning to feel out of control and I wanted to kill someone. I slammed my laptop shut and flounced away with a shocked-looking 5-year-old staring at me. On the way to the locker room I put my laptop on the floor as I went to grab a drink. A slimy little kindergartner came by and stood on my fucking computer to get to the fountain next to me. "Don't stand on that!" I growled, pointing at the computer under her light-up pink shoes. She gave me a shocked look and backed away slowly. I gave her the same dirty look I would have given an adult in the same situation and flounced off to teach my class.

Thursday: Spinning

Thursday was really going to be the day that I finally jumped in the soup. When I was packing in the morning for my day: work stuff, swim stuff, stuff for spinning, change of underwear and socks, stuff for Girls on the Run, food... I looked at my swim suit sitting with my dirty laundry and I thought, don't forget that, Claire! So naturally I thought that I hadn't forgotten my swim suit. Still, before I left to go swimming, a sneaking suspicion snuck over me and I checked my backpack. Not only had I forgotten my suit, but I'd actually even pulled my spare suit out of my bag.

NO SOUP FOR YOU! was all I could think.

Friday: Run 10 mi

This week had been one endless string of one minor annoying task after another and I couldn't be more excited that it was Friday. I was driving to work when I got a text from Judi. "Are you alright?" What the fuck?! I had no clue what she was talking about. "They say a tsunami is supposed to hit California at 11 am." It's 6 in the morning, I thought. How the hell am I supposed to know what will happen in 5 hours?

Once I got into work there was no way to get around the tsunami news. Both TVs were showing shocking footage from Japan, but in general the attitude about a tsunami here at home was pretty much a joke. The apocalypse had been moved forward to about 8 am for the Bay Area, but they were only predicting 6' swells, which didn't really matter since it would be low tide and most of the coast is cliffs anyway. I was slightly worried about getting home since the only way to get to my street is by going along the coast, but I drove home right when they said the tsunami was charging toward me anyway. My exit is a steep hill that drops down about 600' to the freeway, and beyond you can see the ocean (see left). People were lining up along the side of the hill to stare down at the ocean from a safe height and take pictures. No one seemed too worried about the end of days. By lunch time pretty much everyone in San Francisco had forgotten about the tsunami, including me.

Well, everyone had forgotten except the San Francisco police who had blocked off the most direct route to Golden Gate Park, which was where I'd decided to squeeze in my 10 mile run. I took an extra 30 minutes to cross the city on surface roads and park at the far end of the park and started running the trails that snake through the perimeter. When I got down to the ocean, I could see that they still had the Great Highway (the road that goes along the 4-ish miles of coast on the ocean side) blocked off with one lonely cop and one of the pope mobile looking things that meter maids use. They weren't letting traffic through, but they were letting pedestrians and cyclists through to the beach. Smart.

I continued running, and at one point I looked down at my Garmin to see how much further I still had to run and saw that the whole face had come off of my Garmin! What the...? I backtracked along the trail and found it lying there on the ground all in one piece. I tried to snap the pieces back together, but they would hold together no more. What's amazing is that the thing had worked right up until the moment that it had fallen apart on my wrist. I wanted to be pissed, but instead I was impressed. What would suck, though, was that I would have no GPS for the 200K I had coming up tomorrow. (Which would prove an even bigger pain than I anticipated).

I ran what I guessed might be about 10 miles, and then hopped in the car and sped off to work. I had an hour and a half to shower, eat, and drop off my bike at the bike shop to get some new tires and minor work done. I decided to drop by the bike shop first because I now know better than to leave anything valuable in my car, even if it's in the trunk. "Can you just adjust the limit screw in the rear so that I can get into my hardest descending gear in the back?" I asked. Then I turned toward the door.

"It'll only take a second," the guy said. I sighed.

The adjustment should have only taken a minute, so when he started looking like he was just fucking around with it I tried to distract him. "And can I get a decent training tire? Mine are falling apart." Even more to my dismay, the guy came around the counter to the tire display rack. I was very aware that I smelled like sweaty crotch and all I wanted was to get into the shower, I did not want this dreamy-eyed bike mechanic standing 6" away.

"Whatever, this one will be fine," I said choosing one that looked similar the tire that was already on my bike and was cheap.

"But it doesn't match your bike," he said.

"I'm stuck with a white bike now. I'm so pissed that I don't care if my tires match. Do you mind putting them on for me?" Now for sure that would get him off my case.

"You've worked at a bike shop and you can't put on your own tires?!" he asked.

"I can," I said. "But I don't feel like going through 3 tubes trying to get them on while they're still stiff. I'll pay the $10, can you just do it for me?" Not being able to get new tires off was how I met Lindsey.

"Yeah, I'll show you some tricks." I'm never going to get out of here!

He started trying to show me how to put tires on with your hands, which I know how to do, and when he couldn't even do it without a tire lever I said, "Do you guys sell any food around here?" If I didn't leave right now then I wasn't going to get anything to eat, and I really needed to have my carbohydrate stores topped up before tomorrow.

"No, but hold on, we have some Gü Chomps upstairs. Then he disappeared before I could say that I was going to GO AWAY and pick up the bike in an hour. I ate five sample packets and he still hadn't gotten the tire on. Finally I just came out with it, told him that I had to go shower before my client came in and I'd be back in an hour. When I came back to pay for it I joked, "Now it won't go flat again tomorrow, right?"

"As long as you ride it on French roads," the guy told me.

Saturday: Bike ~120 mi

The Moss Beach 200K started in downtown Santa Cruz and followed Highway 1 nearly the whole way back to my house. I showed up with plenty of time to put my bike together, check in, and go to the bathroom. It had said on the website that there would be bathrooms at the start, so once I got my brevet card I went over to the public bathrooms across the street which were... locked. Goddamnmotherfucker! I have yet to go to a brevet here that has a fucking bathroom at the start of a race that lasts 6-13 hours. I went behind the building and was about to drop my shorts in a secluded corner when I saw a woman walking toward me on a hiking trail. Fuck lady, hurry up and pass! I thought. She was walking slowly and it would take her a good two minutes to get out of sight. Then she saw something on the ground that interested her, stopped and crouched down to get a better look. Fuck it! I thought and pulled down my shorts anyway. I got back to the start just in time for the pre-race meeting. "Don't do anything stupid," the guy said. And that was it. We left.

The guys took it slow getting out of Santa Cruz, but once we hit the first slight incline they poured it on. Highway 1 isn't "hilly," but it's relentlessly undulating. Without my GPS, I had no way to gauge whether these guys were fast or if I was just riding like shit. One thing was for sure though, I was going to be in a tight spot if they kept up this pace for the whole 200K. Since this road had been my one and only training route for my first triathlon, I had a rough idea about distances for the first 28 miles: start at the spot where Shane and I used to drink 40s and talk about heartbreak, 9 miles to the naked beach where we dropped acid and mushrooms next to masterbating naked men, 11 miles to the tracks in Davenport, 25 miles to where I tore my tire that one time and had to wait with a homeless Hawaiian man for 3 hours for Lorraine to get off of work and come pick me up, 28 miles to Pigeon Point and then I was in uncharted territory.

Only we didn't get to Pigeon Point and instead turned off into Butano State Park instead, and now there were real hills! And suddenly... the boys slowed down! The pack splintered and I found my way among the stronger guys gliding up and down the hills at a conversational pace. When we came back out onto Highway One, we were in a group of three guys on TT bikes who looked too good on their bikes to be randos, and a guy with funny teeth and a SF Randonneurs vest who kept falling off the pace and then shooting past us.

As soon as we crossed the town line into Moss Beach I heard a funny hiss. Noooo! I thought. Then I felt the telltale vibrations from the road that meant I had a flat. I could count on one hand the number of times I'd had a flat on the road, and three of those times had happened on Highway 1. The first was the aforementioned time when I was stranded all afternoon waiting for Lorraine. The second was a few months later in my first half ironman when I flatted 5 miles from the finish and my spare tube had a faulty valve.

I was so pissed. I would have been better off with my 2000-mile-old tires that had been falling apart at the seams. Sure, it wasn't really the bike shop's fault, but they were already on my shit list for adjusting the front derrailleur (which I hadn't said anything was wrong with) to now rub against my chain every time I was in the small ring, and not putting lube on my chain which I thought was standard practice every time a bike was in the stand. I sat down in the middle of the field to take off the tire. It was so stiff that it kept flinging my tire lever into the middle of the field. The third time this happened, I flung the wheel into the grass and screamed.

Finally I got the flat fixed, and I hit the road. I found the triathlon boys only about a mile up the street at the turnaround checkpoint. I asked them to wait just a second, ran in and got a receipt, and came back outside ready to hit the road again. But no sooner had we hit our stride again and I felt the road underneath me again. Nooooooooooo! Another flat. I had had to use a tire lever to get the tire back on, and it looked like I'd nicked the tube after all. I came to a halt and watched the boys disappear down the road.

Now I had no more tubes, no more cartridges, no patch kit, and I was all alone. I stood at the side of the road trying to decide what to do. My house was only 8 miles away to the north. My car was 55 miles away to the south. What could I do? Finally I trudged back to the checkpoint where now the crowd was all weirdo randos with holes in their shorts and suitcases on their bikes. "Does anyone have a spare tube and a pump?" I asked dejectedly.

I had tried to fix it myself, and so when a guy offered to show me some "secrets" to not using a tire lever, I just let him do it and pretended to care about his tips. Once the tire was on, he took off leaving me to pump it and put everything back together. It was fine, but now I was alone and without a cue sheet. I knew how to get back to Santa Cruz, but not what turns to make in Butano Park to get to the fourth checkpoint. I told myself that if I met up with someone before the turn-off then I would do the whole route, but if not then I would just continue straight along Highway 1 back to Santa Cruz. I'd only be cutting off about 4 miles anyway, and they were hilly miles.

I thought I'd be throwing a mental temper tantrum once I was by myself, but I didn't. I actually felt fresher going my own pace. This was me at my best: just me alone with my bike over long distances. The wind, which had been at our backs going north (which never happens) had turned some time while I was fixing my flats, and I had another tailwind coming home. As I approached the turn-off I saw another rider up ahead and found myself staring down at my top tube, hoping that I wouldn't see where he or she turned so I wouldn't have to do the extra riding. It was irrational because I was feeling great, but I wanted to be alone. There was no avoiding her, however, and I was relieved to see that she was a mountain biker; not part of our crew. I rolled into Santa Cruz around 2:00, 7 hours after starting, and realized that I had no idea where the finish was. At the boardwalk maybe? I thought. When I hit the car (before the boardwalk), I decided that since I was going to be a DNF anyway, I might as well pack up the car and look online to find out where the finish was. It was actually over 2 miles behind me.

So by my reckoning, I probably did at least 120 of the 125 miles, but since I hadn't been to the final checkpoint there was nothing that I could do. I drove to the brevet director's house, told him I was alive, and tore up my card while he wrote "DNF" next to my name. Then I went back out onto his street of million dollar homes and pulled off my shorts right there on the street to put on underpants and jeans. Hey, it's Santa Cruz after all; they have a 'clothing optional' ordinance. As I was cowering ass-out behind my passenger side door (I am a little bit modest) the rando guy with the funny teeth who had been riding with us at the turn-around rolled up to the house. So I hadn't even finished that badly, even though I didn't finish at all!

What annoyed me most of all was that I think I had ridden well in spite of everything, but I would never know how well I'd ridden. By my reckoning, I was off the bike for about 30-40 minutes (5 min at checkpoint 1, 10 min for flat 1, 3 min at checkpoint 2, 20 min for flat 2), giving me a finishing time of somewhere between 6:30 and 7 hours for 120-ish miles, 55+ of which I'd ridden by myself at no special pace. What the hell kind of shape was I in? Good or bad?!

Sunday: Bike 13.2 mi

While I was riding I had spent a lot of time thinking about how I needed to get my climbing together. I always get dropped on the climbs, and although I can usually claw my way back up to the pack, I'd tire out a lot less if I could just stay with the big boys on the climbs right from the beginning. I've never been a strong climber, but ever since I moved to San Francisco and haven't been able to ride outside much, what climbing gains I made with Eric last year seem to be eroding flat. I also thought that I should probably start scouting the climbs for the double centuries that I was targeting over the next few months.

The most famous climb in the three double centuries in this year's California Triple Crown was Mt. Tamalpias, or "Mt. Tam" which dominates the horizon when you look north from the City. I didn't need to be doing another long, tough ride, but I did want to do some reconnoitering for the next time that I had to put together a solo ride, so I drove over to Stinson Beach (a drive that proved more dizzying than the climb itself) to ride the most direct way from sea level to the 2500' peak 6.5 miles away.

In the first fraction of a mile I felt like I was going to die atop my bike, but as my legs warmed up the climb wasn't actually so bad. I only encountered 3 cyclists going my way, but I passed them all easily. One of them was a woman from the Dolce Vita team who had not invited me to join when I asked for a late entry. I make it a point to drop them like they're hot every time I pass them on the road. Bitches.


It was a cool, blustery day and cold raindrops started falling as I reached the summit. I was tired and dehydrated and my chain was making a terrible noise against my derailleur, and yet I couldn't shake the feeling that I was the luckiest person in the world. It hadn't always looked like I would land on my feet, but here I was doing what I love to do in the most beautiful places I'd ever seen. If you'd told me a year ago that Lindsey dumping me would be the best thing that ever happened to me, I probably would have drunk a liter of Drain-O at the suggestion that life would go on without her. But all I could think as I came around a corner and saw the Marin Headlands below me and then the sun breaking through the clouds over San Francisco, all I could think was that Lindsey dumping me was the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

Boo-boos

With my confidence flying high after last weekend's 200K, I was looking forward to another flat and fast 125 miles from SF to Point Reyes, which is... north somewhere. A 7:00 start, between 6 and 7 quick hours in the saddle, and I'd be back in SF in time for a late lunch. I found parking near the Golden Gate Bridge at 6:30 and started getting ready. This race hadn't even provided parking suggestions, so I knew better than to hope for a bathroom after last week's fiasco. I took advantage of the fact that the sun wasn't up yet to duck behind a leafy tree and eliminate. Since the urge struck me right at that exact second, I did something I have never done before in my life and... went number 2 without a toilet. I'm sure those of you who have been reading since the days of Claire's No. 1 Rule of Public Pooping: Don't will be amused to know: Does a Claire shit in the woods? Answer: If she needs to.

There was no missing the clot of about 150 riders sitting at the base of the bridge. Registration had been closed when I tried to register on Thursday, but I didn't really care. I went to the guy handing out the brevet cards and said, "I wasn't able to register and I don't really care about the card, but I fully plan to take advantage of any food at rest stops, so why don't I pay the fee anyway?"

He looked confused for a second and said, "Keep your money, you're going to need it."

The reason for his confusion became clear as I made out some of the words that the guy was announcing at the center of the crowd. "...water at check points... only enough for everyone to have one bottle... enough to get you out of the state park... receipt is your signature, so buy something... not gonna be repaved anytime soon... know from personal experience, it hurts!"

I hopped right in with the front group before we had even cleared the bridge, and concentrated on keeping up with the big boys through the endless stop signs of Sausalito and surrounding towns. I knew the first 20 miles or so of road, but soon we were out on the open road and I was in new territory. Contrary to what MapMyRide's all yellow (less than 4% grade) elevation profile had led me to believe, the route was not flat. Instead, there were endless rollers that would climb at a 5-15% grade for about a mile or so, and then come back down, which I suppose would average out to look like a 2% grade over 125 miles. From the ground though, it was draining me dry. My muscles were sore and aching, and despite my best efforts to catch up on my hydration last night and this morning, I felt like I was playing catch-up on my water and food right from the very beginning. I had trained a lot this week, and was feeling it.

Point Reyes National Park was marshland meets cow pasture, with ever-steeper rollers and never-ending cow-catchers at the bottom of each hill. I was really beginning to feel shitty, and when we hit the final climb up to the first checkpoint (a hill that I estimate started at about a 15% grade), I was FRIED. I realized too late that I was already over the red line, and had no lower gear to shift into. I thought for long minutes that at any second I was going to have to get off my bike. At the checkpoint they weren't kidding about the one-bottle policy, and I was starting to get a bit worried about my hydration.

I decided that there was no way I was staying with those guys, and I would rather just pedal along at my own pace until I found someone else to lead me through the route (I had no cue sheet again) rather than try to keep up with the lead group. Eventually a tall Latvian who sounded a bit like Boris and Natasha fell back and we began riding together in our mutual half-bonk to the next checkpoint at mile 85. I was feeling terrible and I was sure that if I didn't get my hands on some salt soon, things were going to get pretty nasty.

The rest stop was an oyster-bar-in-the-rough/convenience store, and there was more of a selection of beers than there was nonalcoholic fluids. There was no Gatorade. I bought an Odwalla, 2 Pepsis (probably the first colas I've had in several years), and a giant jug of water. I planned to slam the juice and sodas, and then fill my bottles with water, but no sooner had I finished the juice and cracked the first Pepsi, when Boris and another guy that we'd picked up in the line for the cash register said, "If we leave in the next minute we can still make it in under 8 hours!" I filled up my bottles and ditched the water jug for the next group of riders and went outside. I started fiddling with the zippers to pull my sleeves off my jacket, and I heard, "Go! Go! Go!" I looked up and Boris and Natasha were already 10 seconds up the road. That's when I did something stupid.

(Word of advice: Never do a Google image search of 'bike crash.') Normally I would have moved my bike up into the street and out of the gutter more, but I threw my leg over my bike where it stood, clipped in with one leg, and pushed off with my free leg. As I began to roll I realized: 1. That I was riding right on the edge of a drainage ditch that dropped off 8" to the side of the road; 2. That I was in too hard a gear to get the pedal all the way around and build up enough speed to be able to maneuver my bike so close to the danger of the ditch; 3. There was one of those sandwich board-style signs right in my path. It said "CRAB" but I thought it said "CARB." That was the last thing I thought before I made that noise that my mother makes when she trips on something and came down on my elbow.

This was my karma for all those times I was unsympathetic to people who couldn't get clipped out in time.

I have no idea what hit what, because a millisecond before I hit the pavement, the nose of my saddle rammed so hard into my hoo-ha that I didn't even feel my elbow hit. Without getting into too much detail, it hit "downtown," right over the pubic bone where your weight sits when you ride. For a second, I sat there on the pavement looking at all my M&M's and gum drops on the pavement around the upturned sign. A group of Team in Training riders rode by and asked if I was okay. I continued to sit. It needed to stop hurting so much before I could move. "I'm... composing myself," I told them so they would leave me alone to my blinding crotch pain.

When I got back on my bike, it was really painful. It was like I had a really bad bruise... if you can bruise on your cho-cho. Later, when I finally did get to take my shorts off, there was blood everywhere, and not for the same reason as last week. Without getting into too much detail, it seems that the pressure caused the skin to just... rupture.

I didn't notice my top tube for another 5 miles. At first it didn't register. I thought, Huh, that's funny. When did I chip more paint off my frame? Other than my painful no-no place, I had already completely forgotten about falling. It didn't even occur to me at first that it could have happened in the crash. Slowly it dawned on my foggy brain, What if it's a crack? Cool, then I'll get a new frame. Wait... but to get a new frame it has to be manufacturer's defect. What if I broke it in the crash? But I was only going half a mile per hour, and I didn't even fall hard enough to get dirt on my elbow. I checked the face of my Garmin, which I knew had hit the ground because it was stopped when I got up. The Garmin wasn't cracked or even scratched. It was too far back on the frame to be from my handlebars. Was it the sign? No, but I hit the sign on the other side, right? I couldn't remember.

Boris and Natasha stopped to exchange electrolyte pills and I checked out my bike. The scratch went all the way down the side of the top tube, and underneath I could see carbon fibers sticking out. "Fuck you guys, I think I cracked my frame."

We inspected it, and after ascertaining that there was no crack in the down tube, Boris produced a roll of duct tape. "Are you serious? Who rides with duct tape?" I asked.

"Duct tape is great for everything, even if you get injured," said Natasha. "I have some too." We reinforced my $3000 frame with some $3 duct tape and I prayed that it would get me the remaining 40 miles home. As we rode, I started to come back from my bonk, but I was despondent. I felt like I was in that turning point in Million Dollar Baby where it goes from being a happy movie to a very, very sad movie. All those rides I'd taken on this bike, and now best case scenario I'd have to give the whole frame back to Specialized to get a new one. Worst case: I was going to have to come up with money for a whole new bike. What would I do without a bike until I could afford one? And all this because these guys couldn't wait 5 extra seconds for me to mount my bike. I was getting grouchy. Really, really, really grouchy.

And I was nervous. We still had the biggest hills and the biggest descents coming up. It hurt to sit, but I didn't want to stand and tax my frame either. I tried to sit up and spin up hills with a light hold on my handlebars to keep from torquing the frame, but on the descents there wasn't much I could do. You put a lot of torque on the frame when cornering, and I kept imagining my bike snapping in half if I hit a pothole on a long, poorly paved downhill.

Coming up the final steep hill out of Sausalito and up to the Golden Gate Bridge again, we came across another rider in a Landry's jersey. Landry's. I know Landry's. Is that in Boston or San Francisco? I couldn't remember for the life of me. "Are you from Boston?" I asked.

"No, but I ride there a lot. I do the Pan Mass Challenge every year. Have you ever done the Pan Mass?" I didn't want to talk to him, I just wanted to know if my brain was working right. "This year my brother's trying to put me up to doing the whole thing, all the way from the New York border. Over 200 miles over 3 days."

I'd been here before. My whole rivalry with Big Red had started over how much more badass the AIDS LifeCycle was than the Pan Mass, and here I was signed up for the LifeCycle again and having the same damned conversation. I had been thinking about how my broken bike must be some cosmic way of telling me not to be so arrogant, but right now I wanted to punch this guy in the forehead. Instead I said, "Alright, have a good day," and dropped him. Or so I thought. It turns out he drafted me the whole way up the hill. Fucker.

I was so irritable at this point that I was sure that I would throw somebody off the bridge if they got in my way, but I made it across with relatively little effort. I eyed the potato chips and pretzels at the end, but I just wanted this day to be over. I went back to my car, parked illegally at a burrito place on the way home so I wouldn't have to walk more than was absolutely necessary, shoved the burrito in my face as I drove (getting cheese and sour cream on the steering whee)l, got home, took a shower, put my legs up the wall, and went to sleep. I still had to run a long way tomorrow.

We're in... Ohio?

*** Update *** The Wednesday after the race I took my bike to the Wednesday night time trial, ready to ride. I gave my rear wheel a spin and it stopped spinning almost immediately, as if the brakes were rubbing. But the brakes weren't rubbing, nor was the wheel rubbing on the frame. After checking in with some bike geeks, and some troubleshooting on the phone with Grease Monkey we figured out that there was no quick fix. The bearings in my rear wheel are shot, and apparently they've been that way for a long time. Turns out that at this race and probably every race I've done this year, I've been riding like the brakes were on without knowing it. This makes me mad, but not really for the reasons you would expect. I've been satisfied with my races this season, and I've been at peace with the "what if's?". Now I'm wondering how much my wheel slowed me down, and if it would have meant something different in each one of my races so far this season. Damn... I really need to learn to be more observant about my bike.

"You know you need your instrument,

"But does your instrument need to be mic'ed?"
-Ani Difranco, "Here for Now"

I don't really remember how the whole thing got started and who put whom up to it, but at some point I agreed to do a 12-hour bike race in Ohio with Judi. When I packed my shit in the car to drive all the way out to Columbus, I was really looking forward to the race (the first race in awhile I've been looking forward to). And it wasn't just because I was going to get to meet Judi face-to-face for the first time. I needed the 14-hour drive (in each direction) to think, and the 12-hour ride to sort some of my thoughts out. I was also really looking forward to jumping head-first into something that was way over my head. I hadn't tested my endurance and mental strength in a very long time.

Yes, I've done some pretty epic rides in the past, but I haven't ridden anything longer than 4 hours in six months. Twelve straight hours in the saddle was definitely over my head. Adding to the adventure, I had only put my aero bars on for the first time in six months right before leaving Boston. So much for training as you race. I rode the bike to work on Thursday to make sure that everything was in its proper place, and it turns out that my saddle was about an inch too high. Being the bright bulb I am, I didn't bring a multi-tool with me, and had to ride like that for 18 miles round-trip. I hoped that the adjustments I made in the parking lot at race registration would be good enough. I mean, riding around for 30 seconds is a pretty accurate depiction of what'll happen after 12 hours in the saddle, right? After the race Judi's boyfriend Dominic would tell me, "I don't know how you could ride at all with your saddle that crooked. My junk would've been all messed up."
"My saddle's crooked?" I said. Yep, that's me. If they used to call Lance "Mister Millimeter" for being so picky about his bike set-up, then you can call me "Miss Meter," meaning "as long as it's within a meter, then I probably won't know the difference."

The woman in front of me in line at registration was about 150 pounds overweight, and when they asked her if she was doing the 12-hour or the fun ride she said, "No way, I'm just doing the fun ride! I take my meds!" This last part cracked her up. She seemed to be thinking, Hardy-har-har, 'I take my meds!' Isn't that funny? Because all you people are crazy who do the 12-hour race. Lunatics! Harharhar. Meds. Ha. You crazy fuckers. No one around her seemed amused though, so she said her brilliant joke again. "No, I'm not doing the 12-hour! I take my meds." Still no response. The race volunteer cut through the awkward silence and started explaining the course to her, pointing out where she could take a short cut since she wasn't doing the 12 hour race. "NO! I'm definitely not doing the 12-hour race... because I take my meds every day!" she tried again. I wanted to point out that A) everyone had heard her the first two times, B) most populations don't take kindly to people calling them maniacs for doing what they love, C) getting in shape to do 12 hours of exercise might do a big girl like her some good, and D) she should get her fat ass out of my way. The next day I did notice that the well-medicated fun rider was at the race, but her meds also apparently kept her from riding in the rain. Apparently the difference between people who can make their dreams happen and those who wind up being unfunny fatass couch potatoes is that effective people "don't take their meds."

Judi showed up about an hour later with the famous Dominic and began describing how nervous she was. I didn't know what to say. I mean, in a 12-hour race you can ride 2 miles, or you can ride 300. It's the only race that you can quit when the going gets tough and not DNF. I didn't much care HOW far I got tomorrow, and fully recognized that I might quit before 100 miles if things weren't going well. I had no intention of gutting through this race on willpower alone, just in case burnout really is the reason I haven't been loving my bike lately. I did my best to reassure Judi as we grabbed some pizza, then it was time to go to our respective hotels and get some sleep.

The weather forecast was looking pretty ominous. The weather channel app showed an angry grey cloud with a thunderbolt hanging out of it next to every line on the hourly forecast starting at the same time as the race. When I opened my hotel door at 6 am, there was a giant flash. The area that the hotel was in reminded me of East LA, and for a second I wondered if it had been a gunshot before a big, fat rain drop fell on my head and I figured out what was going on. Left: They made us wear mirrors. The mirror that I attached to my sperm hat had fallen off by half way through the race.

At the start, the rain was unenthusiastic. While Judi had been so nervous that she ralphed up all her breakfast on the way to the race, I was pretty lackadaisical about the whole thing. Meh, I'll just start pedaling and keep pedaling until I don't want to anymore, I thought. The rain wasn't boding well for my waning motivation. I took my time finishing my coffee and rocking up to the start, even though this was a draft-legal race, and therefore it would have behooved me to move closer to the front pack. I only muscled my way half way through the crowd that had already formed at the start, and Judi and I settled down next to an HPV (human-powered vehicle: with all kinds of aerodynamic accessories to reach the fastest speeds recorded by any non-motorized vehicle) that looked like a penis in a giant yellow condom. And I thought that I was a dork in my sperm hat!

I'm the one in the blue coat in the background. You can tell it wasn't a pretty morning.

Once the race started, I did my best to catch up with the lead pack, but where I'd seeded myself at the start made that pretty much impossible. Instead, I settled into the second or third chase pack and tried to figure out the best way to draft with aero bars in the rain. Almost as soon as we started riding, the skies opened up, my glasses clouded over, my socks got sopping wet, and life got miserable. It was damned windy out there, and every time I let the gap grow to more than about an arm's length, it became a huge effort to catch back on. As the second hour was approaching without my having a chance to eat anything and barely drinking a drop, I decided that group be damned, I had to eat. I dropped back as I shoved a bar in my mouth and tried to catch back on to the pack that was moving along at 20 mph. It took me a good 10 minutes to whittle the gap down to nothing again, and I realized that I couldn't keep this 20 mph pace up for the rest of the race. When we got back to the start/finish area after 50 miles, I hopped off my bike to grab more bars and liquids and decided to ride my own race.

"C'mon blue!" yelled someone as they rode by me standing ass-up over my cooler. Yeah, whatever. Fuck off, I thought as I mounted my bike and checked over my shoulder to make sure that I really was alone. Within a couple of miles, I found myself riding with a guy on a fixie, and like a snowball rolling down a hill we picked up more and more riders until we'd formed a group of about six. The wind had picked up to about 10 mph (if you trust the weather report) or 20 mph (more likely), and the whole course was exposed. The crosswind blowing through my spokes was making a maddening low whistling sound that was practically driving me to tears, and the headwind wouldn't let us break 15 mph.

It would have been wise to ride in a paceline with the guys, but they all had the worst bike handling skills I'd ever seen. They were weaving all over the road and had no idea how to behave in a pack. At one point they formed a beautiful five-man echelon (the most efficient formation for a crosswind) clear across the road, leaving me trailing behind and fighting the wind by myself. No one was trading pulls, and I was starting to get cranky and was afraid that I was going to tear these guys a new asshole if I rode with them much longer. When we got to the far check point at about mile 77, I let the zig-zag boys ride on while I got off to refill my water bottles. I would continue to run into these same guys throughout the race, and it often took more effort not to ride with them, but it was well worth the extra pushing to get rid of them.

RAAM veteran Terry and I ride through the crappy, crappy rain. I'm hidden behind the big guy in the back. He couldn't handle his bike worth a damn, and he was the main reason I wound up riding alone after mile 75.

Now that I was by myself, I could set my mind to more important matters. I had to pee. I knew that since I was soaked, if I stopped for too long I would get cold and it would be impossible to warm up again, so I figured I'd just pee all over myself on the bike. Hey, I was already wet. One problem though: the course was completely flat. It's next to impossible to pee on the bike while you're pedaling. It took me thirteen miles of pushing so hard on my innards that it made me burp to finally find a downhill where I could let loose. Pee ran through my shorts, down my legs, over my seat and onto my wheel, which flicked drops of pee every which way. Not a minute later, two guys came up behind me when I hadn't seen a soul in half an hour. To make it worse, I noticed for the first time that it had stopped raining. Oops! It never did rain again to wash all the pee off of me, and I wonder if that had something to do with the giant boil that has formed in my crotch since the race.

When I finished the second loop I had 100 miles behind me, and set out for my last loop of the long course by myself. By the time I got back the 7-mile short loop would be open, and I was
hoping it would be more sheltered in town. I told myself, Just 27 miles into the wind to the far point on the loop, then the next 23 miles are free into the tailwind. So I battled through the headwind by myself until I caught a tailwind about 7 miles early. I didn't let myself think about what that meant until I had already turned around and my tailwind was gone. The wind had turned! Fuuuuuuuck! At the halfway checkpoint I asked how many women had come through on their third loop.
"There were three women who were riding together, but the last time they came through they'd lost one of their riders."
"And they were on their third loop?" I asked.
"I think so."
So I wasn't winning... maybe. Damn! Oh well. I still had my tailwind (that would never be) to look forward to, so my spirits were high.


Finally through the crosswind that was not a tailwind, I rode through the start/finish area and headed right out for the first of several 7-mile loops. I couldn't wait to see what this short, sheltered loop would look like; Not sheltered at all, as it turned out. The winds felt stronger on the short loop than they had on the long loop, although the cycles of highs and lows were shorter. On my second loop I easily passed a girl who looked strong enough to have maybe been ahead of me this whole time (turns out she'd take second to me in my age group). Then I caught up to the guy on the fixie. "Go blue!" he said. He had such a southern twang that he managed to make these two words last for about 10 syllables. I hunkered in next to him for a chat.
"So is that fixed or single speed?" I asked.
"This one here," (this 'un hey-yere) "she's fixed" (she's fi-ixed). I asked him where he was from (Noahth Car'laahna), and how long it took him to get here. "About eight hours. Normally I ride, but this time I drove." So he was one of those super anti-social randonneurs. Clearly he didn't take his meds. I noticed that his helmet was held on with climbing rope rather than regular flat straps. "Oh you have no idea how anti-social I am!" he said. "You ever think of doing the grand-daddy of 'em all?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"RAAM." It wasn't till long after I'd told him that I was going to be there as part of a crew this year, and then finally asked him whether he'd ever done it that he revealed his experience. "What? You mean crewing? Yeah. I done that a coupla times."
"No, I mean ride it."
"Yep. I done that a coupla times too. Everybody at RAAM's got a Droppin' Terry story."
I looked at him. "How many times have you done it?"
"I done four, but I only finished three. And I come in third 'mercan each time," he recalled, thinking about it. "I'm trying this race to see if I want to do it this year on a fixie."
"They're sure going to tell good stories at your funeral," I said. I was impressed not only that he had finished RAAM so many times, but that it had taken him so long to boast about it. As I've said before, the people who deserve to brag are the ones that never do.

"You're in the lead," Terry told me.
"I thought there were 2 women ahead of me?"
"Not anymore they ain't," he said with such certainty that I believed him.

RAAM Veteran Terry drafting off of me.

I lost Terry as we turned out of the wind and I could use my bigger gears to my advantage. For the rest of the race, my mind had turned to mush. I couldn't remember where I was, in Ohio, or Mississippi, or maybe upstate New York, or perhaps the moon. I couldn't remember what the long loop looked like, or even how many of the short loop I'd done. My head hurt and I'd felt like I could fall asleep at any second for hours. I knew I was dehydrated, but it was so late that I could never catch up, so I just kept drinking at the same rate. Time stretched out, and it took me forever and ever to hit 200 miles. I knew that if I really stepped on it, I could set a PR and break my 12-hour record of 220 miles, but I didn't care enough to push it.

When I was talking to Terry about RAAM, I checked in with myself. Did I want to do RAAM? Did I want to do things like ride to Ohio on my bike, just to ride my bike for 12 more hours and ride home? My neck hurt already, and although I wasn't making excuses to get off my bike, I still wanted the 12 hours to be over. Did I want to do RAAM? No, I didn't think so. I didn't want to be one of those "anti-social" crazy people, I kind of wanted to know what it felt like to be one of those people who "took her meds." I wanted to fit in again. I kind of wanted to stop making sacrifices for a little while. Even the fact that I was winning didn't give me much of a thrill or a drive to keep going. I forbade myself from getting off my bike unless it was absolutely necessary to refill on fuel or fluids, but the spark was gone. I was satisfied with where I was and didn't really feel like pushing harder. What I really wanted was to have someone waiting for me at the finish line, someone to give me a massage on clean hotel sheets after the race. I know I need to keep active to keep myself from going crazy, but do I really need to be doing these crazy competitions and beating other girls to be satisfied with myself? The answer I kept coming up with was, Not so much anymore.

I set out for what would be my final loop with less than 15 minutes to go. There would be a volunteer waiting at every mile marker to tell us when the race was over. The Grim Reepers (as I dubbed them) were already out on the course, calling out time checks as we rolled by. "You can fit in 3 more miles!" someone yelled at the start/finish area. "10 minutes to go!" one yelled at mile 1. "You've got about 6 minutes!" yelled the next.
I turned out of the headwind and rode like hell for the next Grim Reeper. He didn't stop the guy riding in front of me, so I yelled out, "TIME CHECK?!" as I rolled by.
"Three minutes!" he yelled. "Go for it!"
Three minutes meant that I would have to average 20 mph with a crosswind and up a slight incline over the next mile (plus a bit of a downhill to the mile marker at the end). I started hauling ass, and pulled in to the last mile marker with seconds to spare, gasping and coughing. According to my GPS I'd gone 216.6 miles. They rounded it up to 218.5. If I had just squeezed a little more, I could have pulled out that last 3.5 miles I needed for a PR. Oh well.

All in all I counted the race as a success. Not only had I won by about 13 miles over the next woman, I'd also spent about an hour more on the bike than I had in last year's race and had gutted it out in way tougher conditions. In 12 hours I had been off the bike for less than 15 minutes. My neck, shoulders, back and feet hurt, but my legs and contact points felt fine. Although I didn't want to, I could have kept riding.


They made us wait forever for the awards, and right after getting our medals (Judi got third in her AG), we had to jet back to Cincinati, about 2 hours away.

The next day I felt completely hung over. My head hurt like hell, and I felt like I could fall asleep at any moment. I had that heavy hangover feeling in my body like my veins had been filled with concrete, and I could barely muster the energy to participate in conversations... which I felt horrible about because I really wanted to prove to Judi and Dominic that I was a fun and interesting person. "You're not at all what I expected you to be like," Judi had told me on the night we first met. "I was expecting you to be all chipper and 'rah, rah, rah!' You're actually really chill and laid back." I get that a lot.

I've felt awful after races before with stomach upset, sore muscles and screaming sun burns, but I'd never felt like I'd downed a bottle of cheap vodka and a case of Red Bulls. It was probably the combination of not drinking enough, not drinking enough electrolytes (I foolishly went for water throughout the day) and tripling my season-to-date maximum volume. Instead of me being a fun and interesting person to entertain my hosts, we spent the rest of the day draped in dogs and watching movies on cable.


On the 14-hour drive home, I ran out of audiobooks to listen to and finally had the time to sort through my thoughts through Pennsylvainia and New York. By Connecticut I felt like I had most of it figured out. In the darkest corners of my brain, I still couldn't find my bloodthirsty competitive instinct. The thoughts that were firing me up were off the bike. I missed going out into the woods by myself or with the dog and dancing over rocks and roots. I yearned for a feeling of accomplishment from a job, not a race. Then "Here for Now" (the song quoted above) came on my iPod. "You know you need your instrument" (in this case, my bike), "but does your instrument need to be mic'ed?" Do I really need to figure into some national rankings to feel a sense of accomplishment? I do need to be active and constantly challenging myself, but do I really need trophies and upgrade points to be fulfilled? Lately the most satisfying victories are the ones that receive no recognition: not quitting in the face of tough conditions, being able to dig deep in order to push my body beyond its own limits (even if they didn't look like limits on paper), and just finding that rare and unexpected workout that makes me feel like life is better because of it.

Solo

I've got many half-written posts about France still marinating and waiting for publishing, but I just seem to have too much to talk about. Last Thursday it finally looked like it was going to stop raining for at least part of the day, so I set out to do the longest ride I've ever done: 275 miles. All by myself.

But on Thursday morning everything went wrong. First, I hardly slept. Next, I was out of bread AND eggs, so only had half the breakfast I usually have. Then I discovered that my Garmin hadn't been sitting properly in its cradle, and somehow it had turned itself on and drained all the batteries overnight. So I sat there for 2 hours waiting for it to charge and watching precious minutes tick by. When I finally did hit the road about 2 hours later than expected, it was raining. On top of that, I couldn't find an open bathroom at 6:30 in the morning. Finally I found some somewhat private shrubbery and popped a squat. As I was watering the already-saturated ground, I dropped my sunglasses and one of the lenses popped out. I couldn't find it in the wet underbrush and wasn't willing to look too closely since I couldn't be sure what was rain and what... wasn't, so I threw the remains of my glasses into a bush and got back on my bike. Time was of the essence. I was certainly going to have to do some night riding on the way back, and even though I had a light on my handlebars, I didn't have a headlamp to read my cue sheet. After an hour of riding I had only covered about 14 miles, and I decided that it just wasn't going to be safe for me to keep with it at the rate I was going, so I went home and beat myself up all day for being such a failure.

Take Two

Now I was really determined to succeed. Saturday they were predicting "scattered thunderstorms," so I decided to take my chances and try my all-day ride again. I took some Tylenol PM at 5:00 and was out like a light and dreaming about doing yoga with Mick Jagger by seven. The alarm went off at 2:00 am, and I ate just the right amount of breakfast and hit the road at 3:00.

I've done embarrassingly little night riding, but it was nice having the road to myself. It's true what they say that you go much slower in the dark. I could only see about 50 feet in front of me, and with lots of shadows lurking about it was hard to spot all the potholes. I went at a snail's pace to make sure I didn't ride through some bottomless pothole. It was a warm and sticky night, and I was already sweating by the time the sun came up.

I'd already gone about 60 miles before I hit the first open store to refill my water bottles at around 7:30. It was the kind of convenience store you see in lemonade commercials and in Fannie Flagg novels with the three toothless old men sitting on the front porch stating the obvious and complaining about being old. "Getting an early start this morning?" one of the men asked me as I shoved a bottle of Gatorade under my arm. I didn't even know what time it was, it felt like mid-afternoon to me. "How far you going today?" asked another young guy who was putting out coffee pots.
"You don't want to know," I said. It sounds patronizing, but I've found that this is a safer answer than anything else. If I tell them the truth, then they either won't believe me, or they'll tell me to be careful. Both these things make me doubt myself. When you've got an all-day solo ride ahead of you, the last thing you need buzzing around your head for hours on end is doubt. Best not to share any information and make them keep their doubts to themselves.

Back out on the road, it was getting really hot. It was muggy from the 22 straight days of rain, and I was already sticky with sweat. I had been listening to my iPod overnight, but now that the world was starting to wake up I pulled my earphones out and just started listening to my own thoughts. Sometimes people ask me what I think about when I'm on the bike for that long. The answer is disappointing: I'm just thinking, "Turn left on Rte. 202 at mile 78. Turn left on Rte. 202 at mile 78..." until I get to the next turn, and then I start repeating the next direction over and over to myself. I couldn't tell you what I thought about as I rode the rest of the way up to Lake Winnipesaukee. My legs hadn't felt that great at the beginning of the ride, but around mile 70 I started to feel like myself again. The terrain was relentlessly rolling, and the pavement was pretty shitty in spots. The skin on my ass was already starting to bug me a little bit. I'm sponsored by a butt lube product, but wouldn't you know I completely forgot to grease up before I'd left the house in the morning. I still had about 170 miles to ride, and I was already feeling a bit irritable. How was this all going to work out?

I rode to the half-way point in Meredith, and when I realized that it was someone's house, and not a convenience store, I got downright PISSY. Then I realized that I was going to have to backtrack about 5 miles before going on, and I got even more grouchy. Pretty soon I hit a stretch of highway had regular frost heaves every 10 feet for about 25 miles, and I ended up whimpering and yelling at the road to lay off as I hovered my poor tucchus half an inch above the saddle.

And then there were the hills. I've heard from many different people that the hills in the northeast are far worse than those in California or Colorado just because they never stop. Out west you can climb 5,000' in 15 miles, but then the next 100 miles are pretty flat. You get it over with. Here in the northeast you go from 26 mph down to 6 in the space of a minute, and then you're back up to 26. Our hills are short, and they're steep, and they give you no sense of accomplishment. It's hard to build up momentum, you're all over your cassette, and worst of all you feel like you're not getting anywhere. I don't know which kind of climbing I prefer, but let me tell you a little story about hills while I battle my way up and down the next 50 miles or so till the next interesting thing happens:

John, the world's kindest race director, who runs the Adirondack 540 RAAM qualifier told me about the year that some big shot ultracyclist came out from Wyoming for the race. "I don't think this course record has ever been challenged," he accused. "Why, your course record is 8 hours longer than the Furnace Creek 508!" Clearly, this guy thought that us east coasters are soft. It's okay, I've heard it before.
"So did he finish?" I interrupted John.
"Yeah, he finished. But you should have seen this guy stagger off his bike when he pulled into the parking lot. He was one sorry sight, and then he fell into his wife's arms and started crying."
"And did he beat the course record?" I needed to know.
"No, he missed it by about 6 hours! He didn't even win that year."

So back to me fighting my way over our tiny but painful rollers which may or may not be worse than what they have out west. I was now in towns with names like Salisbury, Amherst, and Hopkinton. When I saw their names on my cue sheet, I'd thought that they were Salisbury, Amherst, and Hopkinton, MA, but when I got there I was disappointed to find that I was still deep in New Hampshire. All morning I'd been secretly hoping for a light rainstorm to cool me off and wash off some of the grime that was stuck to my skin. Suddenly I saw something that just didn't make sense: up ahead the road was dry, and then there was a line and suddenly it was WET. When I crossed that line, the skies opened up. It wasn't raining, it wasn't pouring, it was pissing. I thought that it couldn't possibly rain any harder, and then it did.

I still had about 90 miles to go before I got home, and I'd been riding for about 180 miles. I'd never ridden more than 200 miles in my life. I thought about calling for a ride, but I had no idea where I was, and there would have been nowhere to wait for 2 hours for someone to come and get me anyway. So I just rode and rode and got wetter and wetter. It was raining too hard for me to dig sugary snacks out of the zip lock bag in my bento box, and I didn't want to take my hands off my handlebars for long enough to take a slug of water. I almost got hit twice, even though I'm sure that I was still plainly visible to drivers (had they been looking). And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it started to hail. I was looking at the granules piled at the side of the road, thinking how strange it was that they would still be salting the roads in June when it hit me that rain doesn't usually sting. Luckily the hail didn't last long, but when it gave way there was lightning. I rode like that for a couple of hours, feeling pretty miserable, wondering if I'd get hit by lightning. But actually that time passed pretty quickly. I was so busy trying to ride safely in the rain that I didn't notice the miles ticking by. All I could focus on was that there was a sunny patch right over my left shoulder, and how could it be so sunny right there and pouring where I was?

Finally I caught up with the sunny patch and the rain stopped around the Massachusetts border, somewhere around mile 225. Sixty-five miles to go back home, but I'd already decided that once I got to somewhere convenient to home, I'd have someone pick me up and drive me the last few miles. As I dried out, my spirits started to buoy again. Surprisingly, my legs were feeling really good. What was sore were my shoulders, and my butt. While my ass had been dry and rubbed raw before, now it was wet and pruny and getting rubbed even more raw. Whenever I could, I rode standing up. But still, you can't stand up all the time, and Massachusetts is worse than New Hampshire about keeping their roads in good shape, and it was pretty painful. My bike was hurting too. The rain had washed off all my lube, and it was making some horrible sounds as I pedaled and shifted.

Finally, at a little before 8:30 I arrived in Concord center, only 15 miles from home, still with a little daylight to spare. I'd be at the finish of my cue sheet in less than 5 miles, then my girlfriend could drive the last 10 miles to pick me up at the start/finish at the air force base parking lot. I called her. "You're still alive!" she said.
"I am!"
"Where are you?"
"Concord center, do you remember where that is?"
"Of course I do. Oh shit, I rode in to work today. I hope you didn't need me to pick you up or something."
"No... I guess not. I'll be fine."

I thought briefly about calling my parents to come pick me up, but I'd already had to call my dad once that week to pick me up when my jacket had wrapped 3 times around my gears under the chain on my fixed gear and I didn't have the tool to fix it. I didn't want him to think that I wasn't able to do these things all by myself. So I dug my lights back out of my pockets, lit myself up like a jack-o-lantern and headed back home.

About 3 miles from the house, there's this one brief climb that's just steep enough to be a pain in the ass. You climb about 200 feet at a grade that's just steep enough that you can only climb it in the big ring on a really good day. Even though I'd climbed much worse all day, I had been dreading that hill since the depths of New Hampshire because I knew it was going to be the last push, and that it was going to hurt like hell. But when I hit that hill, it didn't feel any worse than it did on any other day. I guess it's true that nothing changes after 200 miles. I'd hardly eaten or drunk anything in the last 4 hours, but I felt okay. I finished stiff and tired, but still in control of all my bodily functions. I rolled into my driveway exactly 19 hours after leaving, having ridden 275 miles, and climbed 15,000 feet.

Ever since that ride, I've been one hurt unit. The skin on my butt is raw and irritated. I've been sleeping over eight hours a night and still feeling like I need more. There are knots in my shoulders and feet the size of basketballs. My triceps are sore and weak. And my legs? They feel fine. What the hell is that?! Now the only thing I have left to do is rest up and recover for the 24-hour race in a week and a half! The goal: 440 miles in 24 hours!

Yeah, but how many miles today?

Spring has finally arrived in Boston. It lasted some 30 seconds before we charged right on to one of the most beautiful summers I can remember. Ever since I stopped working about 2 weeks ago, the weather has been in the sixties, seventies, and even high eighties with beautiful, sunny blue skies. It's made it impossible to get anything done, including blogging, finding a job, or packing for my trip. (I leave tomorrow, eep!) What I have done, though, is ride my bike nearly every single day. Last week I rode over 425 miles all in one week, just because there was no reason not to.

On Monday I went out for a 45-mile ride with some of the bike shop groupies to watch the Boston Marathon. We took it easy, and rode up the course backwards to mile 10 to watch the wheelchair competitors, the elite men and women (wow, Kara Goucher is even hot when she's running!), and most of the qualified runners come by. Somehow I missed Cranky running by, which I was very disappointed about. This post is not about the Boston Marathon, but there is one thing I noticed while I was watching. I know that they say that elite men and elite women run at roughly the same cadence, but that's not what it looked like. The elite men looked like they were taking long, effortless, bounding strides. The women, on the other hand, were taking tiny, choppy strides. Their feet looked like they were moving about 6 inches per stride, and that they were able to maintain sub-6-minute-mile pace because they were taking about a thousand of those 6-inch strides in a minute. The Asian women, especially seemed to take short, choppy strides. It was all very interesting.

Volunteers setting up at about mile 22.

Riding down Heartbreak Hill.

The elite women. Do you recognize them?

The best picture I got of the Elite men. I'm a BAD photographer!

On Wednesday I took my Phyxie out for a training ride because I thought it might rain on me. I made it 55 miles before I gave up on the rain catching up to me and went home. It's amazing how having to pedal without a break for 3 hours really wore me out much more than riding a geared bike at the same speed. It took my crotch days to recover from sitting in that horrible saddle for so long.

On Friday it got up to almost 80 degrees, and I went out for a solo 130-mile ride. I rode out to the start of a local century about 15 miles away (Climb to the Clouds if you know the rides in the area), and rode the course by myself. The ride has TONS of climbing, but the weather was perfect, the roads were well paved, and it was the first day that the trees had started to bloom and the leaves were starting to spring out. I had a tailwind the whole way home. It was the kind of ride that reminds me why I love riding my bike. I didn't have a single low moment the whole ride. Here are more bad pictures of pretty things taken while riding:

I was very high up in the air. That's what this photo is supposed to show. It doesn't.

Pretty mountain in the background. Instead it looks like a picture of 2 dead trees.

These people must have been very rich because they had a huge house... but I'd passed it before the camera took the picture.

And this is what much of the road looked like. I'm so lucky! I think I peed in these woods, by the way.

Grease Monkey's butt.

On Saturday my Grease Monkey got her new Specialized S-Works Ruby, so I rode a whopping 4 miles with her to work, and 4 miles back. It was pretty intense.

And then on Sunday, I rode a 300K, or 190 miles: about 6 miles shorter than my longest-ever ride.

The ride started out in Schuylerville, NY (about 4 hours away) at 4:00 in the morning. To be there with enough time before the start, I had to leave my house at about 11:30 at night. I like driving through the night, and I was just thrilled with my life as I drove alone across MA and into NY, drinking coffee the whole time. The coffee probably explains why I was loving life so much, and also why once I got off the interstate somewhere near Troy, NY, I had to pee RIGHT THEN! No worries, it was about 2:45 in the morning and I was on a deserted state highway in cow country. I pulled over and began to relieve myself as nature intended. Of course, how could it have gone any other way, a pick-up full of rowdy men drove by right then. I tied it off, stood up, and tried to pull my pants up before they got too close... but what else would someone be doing standing with their pants open in front of their car on a deserted highway at this time of night? They all yelled and hooted and drove on. My day's humiliation over, I climbed back in the car and drove the rest of the way to John, the world's most generous race director's house.

I had never ridden at night before, not really. Sure, I'd ridden under street lights on busy roads for a mile or two, but never in night like this. Schuylerville is so rural that there are no street lights on its roads. There are no cities or buildings that have bright lights on through the night. The moon wasn't even out. It was DARK! We let John, the world's most generous race director lead the charge for the first 2 hours until the sun came up. We rode through an inky black vacuum where you couldn't see farther than 30 feet in front of you, or however far your light reached. I sat on the front next to John, because I didn't trust these other people in the dark. What if they turned into monsters or something?

We're riding along, 2-abreast, taking up the whole traffic lane with John, the world's most generous race director on the left and me on the right when suddenly a GIANT dark beast began moving on the side of the road, and moving FAST! I screamed and swerved. We all yelled and braked. It was Bigfoot! It was a grizzly bear! No, wait, never mind... it was... a horse that had gotten loose. It still scared the shit out of me, and I wasn't about to get too close to it and startle it in the dark. The horse galloped ahead of us for a few miles, and it kept looking back. I think that it realized what deep shit it was in trying to get away in the dark and it was using our lights. Finally it stopped running with us and we rolled along at a less cautious pace again.

I tried to take a picture of the horse, but this was all that came out. It's out there though, believe me.

Other animals I saw on my ride:
Skunk - dead
Beaver - living
Cows and goats - living
Porcupine - splat!
Wild turkeys - both living and dead
Lots and lots and lots of frog pancakes, many with one lone leg sticking up in the air - dead
Dear - deceased

When the sun came up, everyone was still together. Of the roughly 10 riders, there were two kinds: There were the experienced Brevet riders who spent the whole time talking to each other about how "Last year the Catskills 1200k was the only Brevet I did all year, and I don't recommend doing it that way..." and "Well the last time I went to PBP (Paris-Brest-Paris, the Kona, Boston Marathon, or Western States of ultracycling)..." These guys had all the attachments for the geeky reflective night gear, lacked just enough social skills to be into this kind of thing, and wore RUSA (Randonneurs USA) jerseys. The other riders were the ones whose lights hung limply off their snappy racing kits and no handlebar bags with handy plastic windows on top to put their cue sheets in. There were 11 checkpoints along the course, and by the third the two groups had sifted themselves out. I was surprised to find that the people who did most of their training by themselves and couldn't pronounce Randonneur to save our lives were the ones who wound up ahead. The experienced riders scratched together whole meals at each gas station checkpoint and sat around to take their time and eat them. Those of us who were used to riding alone grabbed whatever we could shove into pockets or bottles and got back to our bikes as soon as possible. At least for me, it was out of habit. Not only do I hate wasting time getting cold at rest stops (it just makes you stiffer and more sore), but when I stop on my own long rides, if I spend too long in a convenience store my bike could get stolen.

Mine and Lance's bikes in front of one of the checkpoints.

By about mile 50, John, the world's most generous race director and I were riding with a French-Canadian girl we'll call Canadian Spice (because she had the same name as 2 of the spice girls... sorta), and a guy we'll call Lance (because he was wearing a yellow jersey and resembled Lance Armstrong in that they're both white men on bicycles). As we rode the next 140 miles together, I got to know both their stories, and was impressed by both of their grit, and also their humility. It's important to respect someone if you're going to be staring at their ass or letting them stare at yours for over 12 hours.

Canadian Spice was from Montreal and rode a 13-pound (including pedals and bottle cages) beautiful Cervélo with Zipp wheels. "I didn't always ride such a nice bike," she said in her cute French accent. "A few years ago I rode across Canada on a big metal frame that weighed over 20 lb." She rode solo, completely unsupported, for 10 to 12 hours a day from one side of Canada to the other in a few weeks. "But then last year I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and I thought that I deserved to spoil myself. Why save money on a bike when biking is my passion? Life is too short!" And why did she ride a Cervélo, of all the nice bikes out there? "Because Cervélo means brain," she said. And they're Canadian. That bike WAS sexy... it even SOUNDED fast.

Lance was the quiet type. We hardly spoke until after the 100th mile when we finally began exchanging life stories. He had no idea what a brevet was, or Randonneuring, or PBP. He just loved the challenge of riding his bike long distances, and usually did so alone. He would just set out by himself before dawn and ride 200 miles or more, until it started to get dark again, then he would go home to his wife and kids. He hoped to get to 300 solo miles this year... and finish the whole thing before sunset.

In the beginning of the ride, my ass was dragging. I was still sore from the 130 hilly miles 2 days before. But later in the ride, I started to feel great! In fact, I felt better at mile 150 than I had at mile 50. Not everyone was quite so lucky in staving off fatigue. John, the world's most generous race director, kept cramping and getting dropped off the back. After the century mark he was dropping off the back more and more quickly, and at the rest stops he was getting grouchy. After a grouchy conversation with Lance about which side of the lake was the north side, he let himself get dropped for good. I was still on cloud nine. I had packed 2 nutella and almond butter sandwiches; 3 bags of a mix of spice drops, almond M&Ms, charleston chews, and banana chips; and 3 Kind bars. At every control point (gas station) I filled up my bottles with a different kind of drink. I started with Accelerade, but then moved on to Gatorade, root beer, orange juice, Mountain Dew, and the mother of all energy drinks: Red Bull. Lance and Canadian Spice were sharing ham sandwiches, and Canadian spice was stocking up on the best that the Land of the Free has to offer: Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut granola bars.
"We don't have these in Canada!" she said through a full mouth. "These are great!" she gushed, as she shoved one in her mouth and the other five from the pack in her pockets.

My pockets were so stuffed with food that I had to put my sandwiches in a backpack that I wore until about 130 miles when I finally had enough space in my pockets to take it off.

"How is that Red Bull?" Lance asked. "Does it taste good?"
"It tastes like jelly beans that someone's spit back into the can with some Lysol," I said, "but the sugar and caffeine help."
"It's kind of a funny color..." he made a face as I poured it into my water bottle. It reminded me of that scene in House where House is standing in front of a urinal with a can of energy drink in his hand and he says to Wilson, "Funny, it's the same color coming out as going in. Do you think they do that on purpose?"

Yes, Red Bull looks disgusting, tastes disgusting, and has so many questionable substances in it that I wouldn't be surprised if it's outlawed in 10 years, but it works. While Lance had been doing much of the pulling for the first part of the ride, I was now riding in front more and more. I guess it was noticeable enough for Canadian Spice and Lance to share a Red Bull at the next checkpoint. They each got paper cups, and split up a 16 oz can. "It doesn't taste nearly as bad as it smells," Lance said.
"Oh my goodness! I really like it!" Canadian Spice giggled with her accent that just kept getting more and more endearing. "I've never tried it. I eat all organic, all natural, but this tastes really good!"
"Really?!" I asked. I hate Red Bull. I'd moved on to Mountain Dew.
"Oh my God, yeah! I love it! I'm going to get another one before we head out!" And that she did.

We were now rolling through about 200K (125 miles) into our 300K, and Lance and Canadian Spice had their first Red Bull wings. "Wow! I can't believe how much better I feel!" Lance kept saying.
"I'm going to buy a whole case of the stuff!" Canadian Spice went on. At the next stop, which was at a pizza shop, they walked right over to the cooler together to look for more Red Bull while I got our cards stamped.

Meanwhile, while Canadian Spice and Lance were high on Red Bull, we were riding through the Adirondack National Park, and I was high on life. I should have been getting cranky at this point, but I wasn't. As cheesy as it sounds, all I could think about was how lucky I was that my body let me do this. I know I should have taken pictures, but I knew they wouldn't come out. We rode for about 25 miles along one road that rolled up and down like a roller coaster, each downhill would give you just enough momentum to get to the top of the next one. The scenery was beautiful, the pavement was perfect, there were almost no cars, and the riders I was with were of similar riding styles. My body even felt good.

At the next rest stop (you'll notice that this isn't exactly sequential... it was a long day, just bear with me) one of the ruddy-faced townies that looked like he spent his mornings drinking coffee at the convenience store and evenings drinking Budweiser at the local bar asked, "How many miles have you ladies ridden?"
Canadian Spice paused, trying to do the conversion from metric in her head. "One thirty," I told him.
"And how many of those have you ridden today?" he asked, with "little ladies" implicit in his tone.
"Those were all today!" Canadian Spice beamed.
He took a moment, trying to figure out if we were lying. "It would take me a week to ride that far!" he said, now genuinely impressed. Damned right it would! I thought. It was still only lunch time.

The rest of the day continued in much the same way. We would ride for an hour or two, and then stop at a gas station checkpoint and Canadian Spice would get more Red Bull. I had the cue sheet, so I lead more and more because my math skills were getting a bit fuzzy so I kept giving the wrong instructions to Lance. We would make a turn at mile 169.5 and the next turn wouldn't be until mile 174.9 and I would say, "Okay, now keep your eye out because it's going to be a quick right on bluebird lane in half a mile." That sort of thing. Canadian Spice never lead, but she was just so damned cute, it was impossible to care.

Finally, we hit the 24-hour course with about 17 miles to go, and a big tailwind picked up. I lead a paceline next to the Hudson river riding 23 miles per hour with 180 miles already on our odometers. We were cooking! We were going to be the first riders in to the finish by hours. "Now no sprint finishes when we get back!" Lance joked.
"No way! I'm too tired!" I lied. I kind of wanted to be the first one in, even though it was a non-competitive ride and the other two would be right behind me.
"A sprint?! Forget it!" said Canadian Spice.

We came down the final hill towards John's house and all tucked into aerodynamic crouches. And then suddenly my cue sheet and brevet card which had been obediently clipped to my handlebars for 189.5 miles flew off. "Nooooooooooooooo!" I screamed. If you don't have your Brevet card at the end, you don't get credit for finishing. I turned around up the hill, and my companions were kind enough to wait for me. "C'mon!" I called as I zoomed by them a minute later, touching my brakes, but just barely. I made the final right and started sprinting down Pearl St. towards John, the world's most generous race director's house. Just then Canadian Spice came around me and zoomed past to the house in the last 30 feet. "Nooooooooooooooo!" I yelled again for the second time in 2 minutes. I didn't really care, and we all laughed about it later as they accused me of dropping my cue sheet on purpose, but the coolest part was that 2 women were among the first three to finish. "I've never been in a group ride before where women were the strongest riders!" Lance said. "This brevet stuff is pretty cool."

I really look like a tool on the left. Am I sticking my butt out?!

After that I shoved some sandwiches in my mouth and hit the road. I got home almost 24 hours after leaving, stinky and sweaty and dog tired, but STILL in a good mood.

Okay, that's it for awhile. I'm off to Europe tomorrow night, so stay tuned to the twitter feed at the top of the sidebar. Have a great month, everyone. Happy trails!