Not Quite Caned

The aero helmet makes me fast in time trials, right?

Last year when I signed up for the Harpoon Indoor Time Trial I was placed in the elite heat. Although I fluffed my ego a bit thinking that they had placed me there on purpose, the reality is that they probably just put me in there to round out the heat because I'd signed up early. Either way, I was so intimidated by riding with half a dozen elite and world-class cyclists and triathletes that I totally blew it trying to ride beyond my means. It was a learning experience, albeit a painful one.

This year they let us choose our own heats, and you can bet your ass that I wasn't putting my neck out in the elite heat again. My non-elite heat wasn't slated to start until 8:15 p.m., so I was able to put in a shift at the Y and still get home with plenty of time to get my bike and drive into Boston for the time trial. I was leaving with plenty of time to get there and warm up when I reached into my pocket and... hey, that's not my key chain! ...Oh... Fuck! I'd walked out of the Y with the master key set in my pocket. The Y was half an hour to the southwest, and the Harpoon brewery was about half an hour to the southeast. So much for my warm-up. I tried not to freak out too much as my GPS sent me into parking garages and the wrong way up one-way streets trying to find my way to the brewery. I'd panicked last year and it hadn't worked out for me. I was not going to panic this year!

To anyone trying to ruin my mojo, this is all I have to say to you!

When I got to the brewery I snatched my bike from the car and sprinted into the building. "Just so you know, we're running about an hour behind schedule," the girl told me. Phew! In the end I wouldn't ride till after 10:00 at night, but all I cared about was that I had more than enough time to warm up and chill before the race. No reason to panic this year.

Chick on a Pink Bike wasn't registered this year, but Dede Griesbauer and Jarrod Shoemaker were there, along with (of course) Karen Smyers. In reality, I don't really feel either way about Smyers, I'm neither a fan nor routing against her. It's just that our paths cross from time to time, and in my blog sometimes others make something of it. I tried not to stare, but she seemed to always be standing near me. I piled my stuff next to someone else's backpack, and wouldn't you know, it was hers. When they put me on my bike, she (as the leader) watched the race from a podium directly across from me. She walked past me half a million times. I swear I was trying not to stare, but I guess I was doing a pretty lousy job because about the 10,000th time our paths crossed, she smiled and said hi. I pooped my pants.

Shortly after Grease Monkey and Teen Idol showed up to cheer me on and drink my free beer, I set up my trainer and the guy next to me struck up a conversation. It turned out that he had been a pro cyclist, winning the US Pro National Championships in 2003, the 1997 US Cyclocross National Championships, the Tour of Denmark and a few other notable national races. He didn't mention any of this, he just mentioned that he'd raced pro in the past and a google search turned up the rest. He couldn't have been friendlier or more humble. The guy on the trainer on the other side of me, however, was an ogre. Before he even went to race, he'd already dumped a liter of sweat on the floor, he couldn't stop griping about the delay, and when I asked him a question he waved an arm at me as if to say "shut up." I don't know his name, but I bet he didn't do as well as the friendly ex-pro who got fifth overall. Maybe I shouldn't have been so scared of Karen Smyers after all. Anyway, it seemed that my cheering squad were celebrities in their own right. They seemed to know everyone, and had worked on half the bikes that people raced that night. I started to feel like one of the cool kids.

Yep, these are the cool kids.

There was only one other woman in my heat. The last time I'd seen her she'd been on a brand new Kestral or something with her name painted on the side and had been talking the talk like she was all that. That day (a time trial) she'd come in dead last, about 4 mph slower than me. This time she was pushing a brand new S-Works and was talking the talk all over again, how her power output had gone up 40 watts in the past 3 months. "Don't worry, Claire," Teen Idol said. "She's had so many kids that her ass can swallow that bike."
"Oh, I'm not worried about it," I said. "She's got all the gear and no idear." I knew she wasn't a threat. All I was worried about was holding it together better than last year. This year I didn't know what kind of shape I was in, but I knew my body a lot better. My biggest goal was to pace it right.

You think maybe I should have rested coming into this thing?

During my warm-up, my legs had loaded up with lactic acid really quickly, which made me nervous. I knew that I was coming into this race tired because I'd forgotten to remind my coach about this race until Thursday. This week had been a hard week of training. I figured that if anything, it would keep me from taking it out too fast. It's not like this race counted for anything anyway.

They put me on my bike and I began to softpedal. I was pushing about 100 watts, as was the guy next to me. I started spinning faster. This is what going 20 watts harder feels like, I told myself. I could count on one hand the number of times I've been able to measure my power output, so I was interested to see how everything affected it. I had also only ever ridden a Computrainer once before, and I was thrown by how hard it was to start pedaling and build up momentum (way harder than on the road).

3... 2... 1...

The race started and we began pedaling. Even though I'd started in an easy gear, I had to mash down on the pedals to get the cranks turning. For a second my watts shot up above 300 watts, just like they had last year. Oh shit! Keep it under control, Claire! I fixed my eyes on my heart rate monitor and focused on reaching a steady heart rate and sitting on it. Within a minute I'd shot up to 180 bpm (less than 5 beats above my threshold). Breathe. Keep it here. I saw it creap up another beat and I let off the gas ever so slightly. Stay within yourself, Claire. I exhaled and relaxed my arms. When I'd held the same heart rate for about a minute and my legs didn't blow up, I looked at the screen. I was pushing about 240 watts. My average power was still in the high 270's because I'd busted out of the blocks so hard, but I felt like I'd found my spot.

Grease Monkey came up beside me. "Remember to pace yourself." I tapped my heart rate monitor and gave her a thumbs-up.

Of the "8-mile" course, the first six are nearly flat. I found my rhythm and although my legs were burning, I found a groove I could keep up and just sat in it. Every time my heart rate went up a beat, I'd take a deep breath, relax my upper body and try to relax into a spin. Every few minutes I stood up to clear the burning from my legs and noticed that my power dropped about 50 watts every time I did. That wasn't what I was expecting at all!

Not quite a Tour de France ass yet. Photo taken by Teen Idol.

Behind me, Grease Monkey and Teen Idol were cheering encouragement. Grease Monkey came up every once in awhile to make sure I was okay. When she was that close, I felt like there was less air and that my attention wasn't on my pedaling anymore. Not that I didn't appreciate her being there, but it was a bit distracting. Apparently I waved my hand for her to go away. I don't even remember doing it. "Mrrmfph rumphing hrumney!" I heard Teen Idol yell. I looked over my shoulder. "Did you just say I'm making you horney?!" I asked. I'm pretty hard of hearing, and trying to understand what people are saying when there's already that much screaming going on is pretty hard for me.

I needed a bit more personal space during the race.

When I turned back around, I'd hit the hill at mile 6. Instantly my power dropped to 200 watts and below. I stood up, it stayed below. I sat down and my legs loaded up with lactic acid in an instant. I clicked into an easier gear than I would have normally chosen and spun away till my legs burned at a tolerable rate. I couldn't believe my legs were burning so badly and my power had dropped off so significantly. I looked back down at my wrist and ignored the numbers on the computer screen. Just stay at 180 bpm, just get through it! When I looked up, instead of looking at the screen, I just stared straight ahead at Karen Smyers who was up on a platform directly in front of me. There wasn't really anywere else to look. I was the only bike with a clear view of the platform and we stared at each other, although I wasn't seeing much of anything.

My view from the bike.

Finally, I got over the hill. My average power had dropped to about 220 watts now and the hill had sapped me of everything I had. I had about 3/4 of a mile downhill to go. I tried to push, but I was at capacity. "Come on Claire! Bring it home!" Teen Idol was screaming behind me. I tried to push, but whatever was coming out of my legs, this was all I had. No matter how hard I pushed, my heart rate was dropping. I was at 178 bpm now and I had tunnel vision. I watched the last few yards tick down to zero and then collapsed over my handlebars.

Grease Monkey came over to congratulate me, but I couldn't talk. Having someone stand that close still made me feel like I couln't get air, and if I was going to puke, that was the shoulder I was going to have to puke over. I held up the "just a sec" finger and waved her away again. "You killed it!" she said, patting me on the shoulder. I tried to smile, but it probably looked more like a gasp.

Racing my ass off.

Across the way, the woman with the giant ass was still pedaling. She looked like she was dying too. When she finished, she collapsed over her bars and then I decided it was okay for me to get off. Only then did I notice that the pro rider was sitting next to me waiting for his heat to begin. "Congratulations," he said, high-fiving me. Last year I was crushed with my effort and wouldn't accept congratulations. This year I smiled and fist-bumped him.
"Thanks," I said. "Good luck." He wound up taking fifth overall.

For being the first female in my heat I got a case of Harpoon beer, which I gave to my cheering squad. We hung around for a little while longer, listening to the elite men's race while they finished their beers. I stared at Karen Smyers, she said hello to me, and even though I shit my pants a bit, at least I knew that I'd ridden a strong race. Last year I'd been so afraid of what she and the other elite women would think that I'd fucked it up when they weren't even looking. This time I'd practically raced face-to-face with a former Kona champion, and I felt like I'd put my best face forward: red as a tomato, jaw dragging on the floor, and a bit green around the gills, but I'd put together a solid race. That didn't mean that I was about to introduce myself, though.

It took until today for them to post the results, and when they did my numbers were ALL wrong. The official time was over 40 seconds slower than my watch time, and the watts were at least 30 watts too low. Either the computrainer registered my cooldown, or there must have been some other hiccup. However, going by the time on my watch (23:53), here's what I think things would have looked like:

Women's place overall: 12 (not counting teams, unofficially 16th)
Place of non-elite women: 2, not counting teams (who were allowed to draft)
Number of elite women I out-rode: one
Time ahead of last year's time: about 2 minutes
Time ahead of CoaPB's time from last year: about 4 seconds
Time behind Karen Smyers: about 2:50
Time behind Cait Snow: about 35 seconds

Update: I had them check on my results, and my time is now right, but my watts look astronomically high. Like 265 high. Like unless I was pushing about 400 watts for the last mile when I had my eyes closed, that's probably wrong too. Oh well, at least they got the rankings right and now anyone stalking my results will be frightened of me, the big bad monster who pushed 265 watts. By the way, Karen Smyers' average wattage? 265. Homegirl is about 6" taller than me! I feel fat!

Le dopage

With my recent month's focus on strength training, I've been spending time in GNC and the GNC aisle of Rite Aid looking at protein powders and other supplements. They have ferocious pictures of men looking like their limbs are being torn off with overblown claims in nonsensical language that calls up images of biting the heads off bunnies and pencil-like nerds. Words like "warrior," "beast," "unchained," and "monstrous" promise to turn you into a behemoth in language that seems better suited to a comic book than a supplement a few feet away from the Mylanta and diurrhetics that promise to fight kankles. They also have derivatives of words that I recognize from stories about doping cases in the news: "anabolic," "androgen," sterol," "testosterone"... I know that many of these products contain substances banned by cycling and triathlon (not by law), and it's tempting to try them out and see what they'd do to my power.

People walking into supplement shops are already vulnerable. They've come in with the intention of dropping $40 on pixie dust that will give them more of an advantage than food alone. And what makes one substance "bad" and another "okay" anyway? It's pretty arbitrary. I heard an interview once with some anti-doping specialist that said that caffeine was the single greatest legal performance-enhancing drug, and that if it weren't already so entrenched in our culture, it would have been banned long ago. And yet athletes have their careers terminated over traces of some chemical that's found is way into their blood through cold medicine. Sure, caffeine's natural and EPO isn't, but testosterone and HGH are natural and they're not allowed. Alcohol is way more dangerous than EPO (even back in the days when guys on EPO had to set their alarms for the middle of the night to do jumping jacks so that their blood didn't congeal in their veins), but alcohol is perfectly legal. If these drugs are banned, it's not necessarily because they're "bad" for you (or worse than any other pharmaceutical anyway).

The drugs aren't banned because they're unsafe, they're banned because they make you bigger/stronger/faster. Athletes spend hours every day busting their asses to get a leg up on the competition. They eat food that tastes like sand to optimize their power-to-weight ratio and muscle recovery. They take artificial supplements to pick up where food left off with electrolytes, protein, and even some vitamins. For a female athlete who takes iron supplements to fight exercise-related anemia, for example... how different is it physiologically to increase her red blood cell count with a few red blood cells from another person's veins? It's different ethically, but physiologically? When Greg LeMond was shot in a hunting accident, it was okay for him to get blood transfusions (he didn't). When Floyd Landis's hip was necrotic, it was okay for him to get cortisone (a steroid) shots. For those whose livelihood depends on it, the pressure to take that extra step to the other kind of enhancing supplements must be astronomical; especially in sports like cycling that have the perception (true or not) that everybody's already doing it.

So back to me standing in the aisle at GNC staring at the tubs of monster dust. I'm here because I want to burn fat, build muscle, improve explosive power, and I'm willing to pay for it. These bottles are saying they'll give me what I want. Running through my mind over and over with each outlandish claim on the side of a bottle is: I'd never even be tested!

I'm not doping. I have doubts as to whether this monster dust even works for meatheads who only care about bulk (not performance), let alone a spritely little cyclist like me who could care less about getting "shreaded." I'm not about to drop $58.99 on Andro Nitro X Triple Anabolic Formula and Penis Enhancement! If they had something proven to improve my performance though, like EPO, blood transfusions, or human growth hormone sitting there between the Incredible Hulk and Jillian Michaels pointing and smirking at me, I can't guarantee I wouldn't shell out the big bucks and take it home.

I like to ride my bike (and swim and run) because I really like putting the hurt into other people. I love the feeling when someone thinks, I can take her, and then I just blow them to pieces. I hate being on the other side of that story too, and it haunts me for months when I am. In short, I hate it when people think I can't do something. I have classic Little Man's syndrome, and I'm willing to go to great lengths to prove I have bigger balls than all y'all. If there were a button I could press, or a mantra I could say... or a magic pill I could take to never be shown up again... come on... yeah, I'd do it.

I've been watching a lot of old Tour DVDs during my trainer workouts lately. I personally believe that many–if not all–of the major players over the past decade are dirty. Do I care? Not really. Does it make me mad that Lancey Pants is probably a huge drug cheat and possibly a huge hypocrite for his professed dedication to anti-doping measures? Yes. Does it make it any less exciting when he schools Ullrich, Pantani, or Mayo (all of whom have their own sketchy pasts)? Not at all. Hey, all the EPO, HGH, anabolic steroids, and blood transfusions in the world would never make me a Lance Armstrong. Those guys are still fantastic athletes and genetic freaks. So what if there's a little Hollywood in there exaggerating their prowess and making a better show? It's not my career. If they want to gamble with their reputations in order to dazzle me a bit with a thrilling 200-km solo breakaway, I'm not going to object. Sure, I wish the sport were clean, but I also wish that all parking were free and plentiful, organic produce were cheap, and it were sunny every day. It ain't gonna happen and there's nothing I can do about it, so I'm better off not worrying about it to begin with and enjoying what I've got: lying, dirty cyclists who combine two of my favorite things–scandal and cycling!

And don't y'all act like you're better than me and that you would never consider doping. A couple of years ago I asked who would eat food that tasted like sand for an opportunity to be the best athlete in your sport. For those who placed athletic performance high on their list of priorities, many of them said that they would. The rest lied. Rumor has it that many triathletes with the means to do so choose to use performance-enhancing drugs in their quest for elite goals like Kona. With any reward that's tempting enough, a sport that requires so much single-minded dedication, and no consequences for cheating, can you really be surprised that it's happening? I'm not saying that everyone's doing it, but the fact that it's rare gives the athlete who chooses to cheat even more of an edge over his competition and makes doping even more attractive.

So yeah, if I were in the best shape of my life and in a position where I were just on the cusp of true greatness, and then my manager came up to me and said, "Here's a new drug that will enhance your performance 8%; enough to go from also-ran to sporting great. They won't be able to detect for another decade," I don't think I'd hesitate for long before dropping trou for the needle.

Story Time

I have this story that I never told you guys. Gather 'round, children. This fairy tale takes place (as all fairy tales do) in Europe, and spans three years.

After about two weeks in France only speaking to each other, Shane and I were ready to be in a country where we could speak the language, so we crossed the border into Spain a couple days ahead of schedule. Puigcerdà is a little skiing town smooshed right up against the French border. I had been here before to ride the Tres Nacions bike race in the summer of 2007. We planned to ride the Tres Nacions route the next day: an 85-mile loop through Spain, Andorra, and France that took us over the Port d'Envalirañ at 2408m (7900') it's the tallest peak in the Pyranees and the highest mountain we'd be climbing on the trip. It was also my birthday.

Back in 2007 when I did the 3 Nacions with the dirty old men, I had been drinking like a fish. It was June and I hadn't been riding in months. I was smoking a pack a day. But I really wanted to do this ride, so I pretended I was in better shape than I really was and got on my bike next to the boys. Half way up the mountain I got off my bike and refused to move until I'd gotten my breath back and every drop of lactic acid had cleared from my legs. I was like a wounded ferrel animal. I threatened to bite anyone who came near me or tried to encourage me to keep going. Once we got to the switchbacks above the treeline I was in such bad shape that I was screaming swears at anyone who tried to come near me. "Llegue cuando llegue, puedo hacerlo yo sola, ¡cono!" I'll get there when I get there. I can do it alone, fuck! "Déjame en paz, ¡hijo de puta! No te necesito. Vete a la mierda." Leave me alone, you son of a bitch! I don't need you. Go to hell... That sort of thing. When I finally rolled into the finish line I was exhausted and passed out with my head back and my mouth wide open for the whole ride back to Barcelona.

This time around, I didn't have to prove to the dirty old men that a girl could ride a course like this. I didn't even have to prove anything to Shane. On the Alpe d'Huez, we'd figured out that it was always best to be prepared. On the Col de la Croix de Fer I'd proven that when it came to long, long climbs, I could hold on to a hard gear for longer than Shane (I didn't have much choice! I was riding a compact and he a triple!). On the Col de Izoard, Shane showed me that he could lay the smack down when he wanted to and I wasn't such hot shit after all. And on Mt. Ventoux we had figured out how to work together in the wind, and how to each ride our own pace and experience the mountains in our own way. I also had to admit that on the downhills, I couldn't touch Shane, who was used to riding the hills outside San Francisco. (Right: I never got to catch Shane on the Col de Izoard because half way up the climb, the road looked like this.)

Going up the Port d'Envalira we decided that we would ride together on the flats, but each take the mountain at our own pace. The first 30 miles were downhill, so we swooped into the valley together and then stopped at a cafe to get some breakfast. "Shane, did you bring your passport?" I asked.

"My passport? No, why?"

Oh shit! "We're going through Andorra!" I said. "I don't think Andorra's part of the E.U. We're going to have to go through two customs checks, and you don't have your passport!" They hadn't checked my passport three years ago, but that was because I was part of a race. Who knew what they did the other 364 days of the year.

"Andorra's like the size of a postage stamp. Do they even have a jail to put illegal aliens into?" Shane asked. We decided that if they stopped us, then I could ride on alone since I knew the route, and Shane would ride back the way we'd come and we'd meet up later that day. I really wanted to ride this course again now that my body was clean and my legs were strong. It was my birthday and I could ditch Shane in an Andorran holding cell if I wanted to.

The border is a big, mean-looking tollbooth-like structure with men in uniforms standing around checking ID's. As we approached the gate, another rider came up and passed us as we hesitated. He didn't even slow down as he rode through the arches. "Just ride through like you know what you're doing. If they look at you, just smile, wave, and keep on riding," I told Shane. "They're not going to get in their cars and chase down a bike." He didn't need my advice, but it made me feel better to give it anyway. He thought I was crazy for even worrying in the first place. The Andorran officials didn't even bat an eye as we rolled through.

As soon as we were in Andorra, the road started to climb. I remembered one stretch of road that was so steep that my lungs burned and my legs felt like jell-o when I reached the top in 2007 (left). When I hit it this time around, it really wasn't all that bad. I stopped at the top, but it was to take a picture of a weird sculpture in the middle of a traffic circle, not because I needed to get off my bike. We kept riding, and before I knew it, we'd hit the gas station where I'd stopped three years before. That day we were riding in the middle of a cloud and I couldn't see where the road went in front of me. Today it was sunny and I could see that the grade was relatively mild. I wasn't even in my hardest gear. I waited for Shane and pointed the spot out to him. "What the hell was wrong with you?" he asked. "This is nothing!"


On we rode. We passed signs for the Andorran University, the Andorran penitentiary (guess they do have one after all) and rode by smiling, waving police men on every corner. As we climbed higher, the discount outlets, car dealerships, and liquor stores gave way to skiing chalets. Riding through the last town, two old ladies and an old man were picking their way down the steep sidewalk. "¡Venga! ¡Ánimo!" they cheered. "Eres muy fuerte," You're very strong, one of them said to me. Then to the other woman she said, "Vaya, una nena delante del hombre," Would you look at that, a girl in front of the man. It made me snicker. The Spanish of that generation are still stuck in the era when they thought that if a woman ran more than a mile, her uteris would fall out. If women rode bikes, it was of the sort with a basket in the front. Come to think of it, the dirty old men weren't too far from that attitude either. "¡Es mi cumple!" It's my birthday! I yelled over my shoulder. I wanted to share my party with everyone, even the little old Spanish ladies in their orthopedic shoes that I passed on the street.

Just outside the last town we went above the tree line.

I still felt great. We were up above the snow line now, and about to hit the bald part of the mountain with the switchbacks. I told Shane I'd see him at the top and we both attacked the last chunk at our own pace. "Mush! Mush! Mush!" I would yell down to him when I saw him on the road below me. We'd adopted the dog sledding chant somewhere in the snow on Alpe d'Huez. It made a good mantra, but I didn't need anything to get me to keep pedaling. I couldn't have been happier. The mountain was disappearing under me and I barely felt myself pushing the pedals at all. I really didn't want the climb to end, I just wanted to keep winding up, up, up into the sky. Last year at this point I wouldn't let anyone within 100 yards of me.

There was a car that kept stopping on every switchback. Whenever I passed them, the guy in the car would be filming me. Then he'd drive past me, his wife filming out the window, and wait for me at the next turn. "¿Quién eres?" I asked the first time I passed him, giving a bit of a scowl. The next time I saw him I tried Catalan, "Qui ets?" Still no indication that he understood me. "Qui êtez vous?" I tried in my attrotious French. "Who are you?" I tried in English the next time I saw him. He gave me a smile and waved. I only knew one more language to try, "Chi sei??" I asked, dredging up what remained of my Italian from the dark corners of my memory. Still no sign that he understood me. I have no idea what he wanted to film me for, but if it was a lesson on how to say "Who are you?" in five European languages, he got it. I just pretended like I was going to be famous.

Getting to the top of Port d'Envalira again wasn't just a victory over the mountain. It was a victory over my past, and it was perfect symbolism that it happened on my birthday.

Finally I reached the summit and sat at the side of the road to have a snack. Of all the mountains we'd climbed on this trip, this had been the highest and the easiest. The cameraman came over and said something to me in a language I didn't understand. I smiled at him and waved. He was only three feet away, and I was supposed to say something back, but I had no idea even what language to speak to him in, so I just stuck my hand in his face and wiggled it around. He looked confused and walked away.

Shane came over the crest behind me, and we snapped a few pictures before launching ourselves down the other side. Riding downhill for some 10 miles is pretty chilly business when there's still ten feet of snow on the ground. As we descended, my muscles tightened up from shivering and my eyes watered from the wind. Up ahead in the road I could see someone walking. With my eyes watering she looked topless, but as I got closer I could see that she was wearing a flesh-colored skank tank. Still, it was 40 degrees up here, there was snow on the ground, and she was wearing a skank tank. She was obviously a hooker but how the hell did she get up here?! She was 5 miles from the nearest village on the French side, and about 10 miles and a mountain peak away from the nearest village on the Spanish side. I mean, I know that hookers in this part of the world hang out at the side of the highway, but shouldn't mountain hookers wear a parka or something?

We came around the final sharp corner and nearly rode up the ass of a Citroen as it slammed on its brakes for the border control. The Frenchies were much more diligent about checking incoming cars than the Andorrans, and if Shane got stopped now, he'd be stuck in Andorra until I could ride back to the hotel, get his passport, and ride 40 miles back up the mountain. We rode around the cars through the lane where they make suspicious vehicles pull over. Three French officers were staring suspiciously into one car's trunk. Doopy, doopy, dooooo... we rolled through the border trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. The French officials didn't even look up at us as we rolled through. I breathed a big sigh of relief and my muscles tightened a fraction (not much though, it was still cold!).

One final small climb and it was straight down for 20 miles back into Spain. Three years ago it had taken me almost eight hours to cover the 85-mile course. This time (not including stops) it had taken me less than five and a half. Later, when I told one of the dirty old men about it, he told me that I had only been about half an hour behind the girl who won the 3 Nacions this year. "And she rode in a pack!" he told me.

I knew I was stronger than any of the dirty old men gave me credit for, but now I was going to get a chance to prove it. Back in the day they had seen their role on our club rides as practically carrying me over the distance. It drove me nuts! As I'd gotten to be a faster rider stateside, I'd checked in with the club's web master from time to time, telling him my results. When I told him about one race, he told me I must have the conversion rate wrong. "34 kmph for 93 kilometers sounds too fast, but congratulations for doing so well," he told me. I was so mad I could spit, I sent him the results, but I don't think he ever checked them. Now I knew I was stronger than they'd ever seen me, and I couldn't wait to show those boys what a nena could do.

We drove into Barcelona that night, and the next morning I got up early to go on a club ride with the dirty old men. "You're not riding that old Decathlon anymore!" one of them said, sizing up my carbon bike and clapping me on the back.

"You've lost weight," said Domingo, who I don't think ever even knew my name.

"You came on the perfect day!" the webmaster said. "Today we're doing a hill climb time trial for club points." Perfect! This was my chance.

We rode about 20 miles outside of town. A slimy toad of a man named Miquel who was always grabbing his crotch and making cock jokes over lunch kept trying to break away. He did this all the time, just to show the rest of the club what kind of balls he had. Every time he did it, I would shoot off after him and pass him. I could never get much of a lead, though, because I had to stop at every intersection to make sure I went the right way. "Hey, Clara," a guy named Salvador told me, "slow down, we're all a bunch of old men!"
"Save it for the climb," the webmaster advised. I know how to save it, old man! Just you wait and see! If he thought he was escorting me up this whole hill, he had another thing coming.

Eventually we reached the spot. Everyone stopped at the bottom of the hill, and the webmaster counted heads. There were twenty of us, including me. "The first person who gets to the top tells the person behind him what number he came in and so forth," he explained. Remember your number and we'll write it down over lunch.

"Hey! Where are they going?!" Salvador yelled, pointing up the road. The club president (a 70-year-old ape of a racist troll) and crotch-grabbing Miquel had already taken off up the hill. "Disqualified! Cheaters!" everyone yelled. "GO!" someone else yelled. I was already clipped in and took off like a shot.

"Hey, wait up Clara!" the webmaster yelled after me. "Remember, this hill is 4 km long!"

The hill was a steady 6% grade from bottom to top, and I found my rhythm almost right away. Quickly we passed the two cheaters, and by the 1km mark, it was just me, the web master, and a guy named Lluis huffing shoulder to shoulder. Lluis had the reputation of being one of the best climbers in the club, and he had finished hours ahead of the rest of us three years ago at 3 Nacions. He was the one driving the car where I passed out and snored the whole way home from Puigcerdà.

We pushed harder and harder, and between two and three kilometers, the webmaster cracked and blew out the back. At three kilometers I started to pull ahead of Lluis, and slowly opened a 50-yard gap on him. I knew that the end must be near, so I thought I had it in the bag. My lungs and legs were on fire, so I decided to let up just a bit in the last 500m. Suddenly I looked behind me and Lluis wasn't there. I looked over my other shoulder and there he was, closing fast. We sprinted for the line, but he already had more momentum than I did and won by a couple of bike lengths.

"¡Me cago en la leche!" I gasped, patting Lluis on the shoulder. Me cago la leche roughly translates to 'I can't fucking believe it,' but literally it means 'I'm shitting myself in the milk.' "De verdad," Really, I said, clutching my stomach and gasping for air, "¡me estoy cagando!" I'm shitting myself. "That was a dirty trick!" "Quizás te hubiera ganado," Maybe I would have beaten you, I joked with Lluis, "si no hubiera hecho el recorrido de las Tres Nacions ayer" If I hadn't done the 3 Nacions route yesterday.

"The whole thing?" he asked.

"The whole thing."

Luckily I didn't shit myself, and I was feeling better by the time the webmaster turned up about two minutes later. "¿Quién ganó?" Who won? he asked.

"I took Clara in the last few meters," Lluis told him. "But I had to fight for it."

"I was leading most of the way up!" I made sure to let him know.

Everyone asked the same thing as they crested the hill. "¿Quién ganó?"

"Lluis, but the girl was right behind him," they said. "Lluis almost lost."

"¡¿La nena ya está aqui?!" The girl's already here? slimy Miquel said in disbelief when he saw me.

"Nos ganó a todos," She beat us all, the webmaster explained.

Now that I was recovered, I leaned on my bike watching the last of the riders reach the top. At one point I looked over my shoulder up the road and saw someone going off down the hill. It was slimy Miquel who didn't like losing to a girl. I got on my bike and went after him. "I'll meet you at the bottom!" I yelled over my shoulder.

Miquel was always one of the stronger climbers in the club, but where he always beat everyone was on the downhills where he was drunker and more fearless than everyone else. I pounded the pedals till my gears spun out and then crouched down over my handlebars and started closing in on him. Soon enough I passed him on a straightaway and swooped across his path to cut into a tight turn. When he got to the bottom of the hill I was already standing at the side of the road leaning against my bike. He gave me a look and rolled by to find the restaurant. I had him.

Victory was oh-so-very sweet. At that point in the trip I was desperately homesick and really didn't want to be in Barcelona, but to have zoomed up the Port d'Envalira so much faster than before, and then to have dropped all the boys who had been so adament about always trying to be footmen rather than teammates, it was the best birthday ever.

Back in action

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Careers

I found a job. Sort of.

A few of you know that in college I worked at a gym and eventually got my personal training certification. The problem was that after working in a gym for a year, giving introductory workouts to new members, I didn't want to use my personal training certification when I finally got it. I realized that so much of personal training was people with more money than me paying gym rats like me to work out for them. Anyway, the program I went through (ACE, because the study materials were in my gym's staff library) was more about covering your ass legally than it was about training people. Furthermore, it was a job that involved touching fat people. So I let my personal training certification expire and moved on with my life moving onto a couple of other low-paying, unrelated, and ultimately doomed career paths.

That was in 2005-2006. Flash forward five years, and here I am living off unemployment for eight months. The only calls back I seem to get are from companies who are interested in my athletic knowledge, not the jobs I apply for that would use my fluent Spanish, editing experience, or writing skills. I begin to pass myself off as a "fitness expert," even though secretly in my head this makes me snicker. I feel like more of a fitness iconoclast than an "expert." Imagine, me-- someone who does things differently than how they tell you to do it, just because I can't stand being told what to do--offering advice on how to train. It's a farce!, Finally, after revising my resume until it is so threadbare that I can't even see my errors anymore I walked into the Y where I'm a member and filled out an application. Within two days I had two callbacks, one even came from a club that was under a hiring freeze. I guess this is a good sign.

But to get started I have to renew everything. I'll be working on getting my CPR certification, Spinning Instructor certification, and American College of Sports Medicine Personal Training certification. In the meantime I'm working a few shifts as a "floor instructor" (you know, the person who Windexes the Nautalus machines and teaches old people how to do low back extensions). Floor instructors are the serfs of the gym kingdom. My pride is bruised.

On the path to the $50K/year that the Internet promises me I could be earning as a personal trainer, I got my Spin certification on Saturday. That was... interesting. I was shocked at how little most of those people (including the instructor) knew about exercise physiology, and thus how easy the certification was. The test was like 50 true/false questions, and since you took it online, it was open book. All the questions were taken verbatim from the manual. But back to the course...

The instructor told us that we would want to do most of our training sessions in the "fat burning zone." The "fat burning zone" is probably the biggest bullshit myth in fitness, up there with the "spot training theory." I was shocked!
Then she asked us if we knew in what order the human body used its fuel sources. "Glucose, creatine..." a girl with a masters in exercise physiology started to say.
"Whooooooa, you're getting way too specific!" the instructor said. Then she gave us the right answer: "First the body uses carbohydrate, then fat, then it starts to cannibalize itself for protein." Ummm... not exactly. Seventeen heads bobbed in agreement and the girl with the masters in exercise physiology and I shook our heads in disbelief.

Later, talking about music she asked, "What music might you guys use?"
"Bon Jovi!" said the exercise physiology girl. She was from New Jersey.
"Okay, maybe some Bon Jovi, but not the whole CD."
"Why not?" asked the exercise physiology girl. She was really from New Jersey. She said "wooter" rather than "water" and obviously had a thing for big hair.
"I like Yani," said the instructor.

Another thing that made me cross were the commandments of Spinning:

1. Thou shalt not instruct "enthusiasts" to ride at a cadence faster than 110 rpm. While I would never suggest keeping up such a cadence in a race situation, there are definitely advantages to practicing some high-cadence pedaling. I take issues with many stupid Spinning exercises, but this is not one of them.
   
2. Thou shalt not allow "enthusiasts" to hold the handlebars in any position other than the accepted hand positions set forth by Johnny (the Creator). No aero bar position, no "hands on the hoods" position. If training is all about specificity, then why shouldn't people ride in the position that best mimics their outside riding position? I swear you could adjust those bikes to mimic a TT position. The bikes adjust in all the same places...
   
3. Thou shalt not take thy hands from the handlebars except to grab a drink or adjust the music. Psh! If I can take both hands off the handlebars on the road, I can most certainly do so in class. How stupid do they think that the people who participate in Spinning classes are?! Look, mom! No hands!
   

There's a reason that I decided to get back into the gym... and no, it's not the possibility raking in a whopping $50K a year. At the gym I worked at in California, all the trainers gave their clients lists of three sets of twelve. It was basically the same format as we serfs were giving, but with slightly more advanced exercises. At the gym I went to in Spain, the aerobics instructors were excellent, but the trainers all gave their sessions in a whisper. The trainers looked more like they were going to lean over and plant a big, fat kiss on gramps' lips before they would make him break a sweat. At the Y where I go now, the trainers do the same thing: they whisper as they walk the chattering housewives through their three sets of twelve. They stare at other members as they count, and then wander off to the next machine without Chatty Cathy missing a beat in her story. To these people, "cardio" is just something that clients do between sessions. Who cares if it's a walk around the block or gut-busting hill sprints.

No wonder people aren't losing any weight! Would you lose weight if your trainer had as much personality as dirty mop water and let you talk through all your sets? Now I'm not saying that all personal trainers should be like Jillian Michaels on the Biggest Loser (my new sick fascination). In fact, I'm glad that there's only one Jillian Michaels out there and that she's surrounded by off-camera EMTs every time she goes to work. But who ever decided that fitness belonged in the gym on an endless cycle of three sets of twelve should have a 45-pound plate dropped on his head from a great height. If a trainer were to step into my gym and offer workouts that were different from week to week, interactive, unpredictable, and didn't leave enough breath to talk about little Jimmy's science project, they could make a mint (or more than the $18K/yr that I'm making on unemployment). If someone were able to take people outside to the trails that are across the street from the gym and structure a workout ouside the plastic weight room... well they may actually be able to rake in the industry standard of roughly $46,700/year. I have a bit more of a business plan than that, but you all don't care about that.

And on a side note...
As I mentioned, I'm obsessed with the Biggest Loser lately. At first it was all about watching fat people crying on treadmills. Haha! Take that fatty! I would laugh and think about how fun it would be to stand in front of them eating Ben & Jerry's. I would never do this in real life, but these people agreed to have their fat asses put on TV, now they're crying, and therefore they deserve my ridicule.

What's even better is that the fat people crying on treadmills are being yelled at by skinny people who are calling them "pathetic" and telling them to shut up and stop crying. It's like my fat phobia is finally validated. And these fat people scream and fall over all the time. It's like watching a turtle flipped on its back. Just once I would like to see a pop challenge that involves sumo wrestling.

But as I started following the show (out of professional curiosity, of course), I started to feel for the fatties. I actually had my favorite fatties, and I got mad when the other fatties made them cry. (They all cry, all the time!) In a week, I watched the entire season 8 of the Biggest Loser on hulu while doing push-ups and sit-ups. It was amazing to see these normal-looking human beings emerge out of these giant lumps of lard. I was surprised to find out that many of them had become parents while being fatasses, because I had assumed that fat people didn't have sex. I wanted Rebecca to win so bad, and was so excited to see in the finale that she was still the only female contestant with knees. I hated her haircut though. It made me mad that I cared so much about her cutting her hair, but I just couldn't like her as much now that she was a blonde. It ruined the whole experience for me.

And Biggest Loser has inspired me to set my own goal for season nine: Figure out what the heck it is about Jillian Michaels' face that is just so damned busted!

The end.

...and now for something completely different

As I mentioned in a previous post, after a year of trying to one-up myself every weekend (and digging myself deeper and deeper into a motivation hole), for the first time in about 2 years I have no races hanging over my head. I'm going to focus on the farthest thing from endurance training that I possibly can. I've replaced my superendurance pills with creatine, I'm drinking caffeinated Starbucks whenever I want, and I've set foot in a weight room for the first time in almost a year. December 2009 is going to be the month where I focus solely on my lifelong goals of getting a 6-pack and a Tour de France ass. This month I behave like a bodybuilder. "Cardio is just for fat-burning and girlie men." That's my new (temporary) motto.

I made it less than a week from my Ironman before I started going crazy; literally. I was sitting at the computer trying to put together a fluffy, content-free Examiner article when my Firefox crashed. Long story short, I had to spend about 45 minutes backing my work up while my computer had a 2-minute lag time for each click. I am not a patient person. I started screaming and crying and banging my fists against my head. When I finially finished, I had a headache, I felt nauseous, and I knew then that my offseason was over. I had to go back to the gym. There are things that are more important than a well-executed offseason: like staying out of jail.

So the first day I went to the gym and did some back work, some core work, 10 sets of 10 push-ups and 10 sets of 20 sit-ups. Do you know what happens when you pick up where you left off with strength training after 8 months off? Paralysis.

The next day I went back to the gym and decided that my legs had had enough time to heal from the Ironman. I did 95 burpees, 95 squats (45 lb), 95 deadlifts (95 lb), and I was going to do 95 turkish get-ups on each side but that was taking too long so they turned into oblique sidebends half way through the workout. Now I can barely get out of bed. I can't go down stairs. I can't even get out of the car. When I drop something on the floor, I just stare at it and try to look pathetic until someone else takes pity on me and picks it up for me.

This is going to be great!

I know that you're not supposed to just jump into weight training like this, but whatever. The soreness can't last forever. I also went to the supplement store and dropped a mint on creatine powder and Muscle Milk. I'm doing this up right! There will be updates between now and then, but check in around New Years to see before and after pic's.

Pictures and final thoughs

First off, the race in pictures:

This is my new favorite picture of myself ever. I had finally found a chair where I could sit down in the finishers' area, and this guy keeps bugging me to get up so he can take a picture. "No, man," I said. "I just want to sit." A few minutes he came back again. "No, leave me alone. I don't want to take a picture now." Finally, the third time I said, "FINE! But I'm not smiling." Once I stood in front of the back drop he kept telling me to smile. "Nope," I said. "I don't like smiling for the camera. This is all you're going to get." This face says, Alright, I'm here. Now what?

Here I am crawling out of the water like a giant sea slug.

... and getting to the top of the stairs before the other sea slugs.

There are like 5 pictures of me holding my goggles as I got out of the water. I don't know why I didn't just take them off.

What are they? Binoculars?

This is a picture of a very unhappy Claire riding about 5 mph into a coastal headwind.

Claire did her best not to draft. Other guys seemed all too happy to suck her wheel. One guy who would not let himself be chicked got a warning to back the fuck off from a race official.

Read this face: it says, "Poooooooooooor me!"

Man, are those guys still following me?

That's right, buddy, you got chicked. Deal with it.

Coming in for even more water.

What you can't see in this photo: I can't enjoy my surroundings because my rock-hard 140-PSI wheels are absorbing none of the impact of this chipseal, and my clit (that's right, I said it!) is being rubbed so raw by the seam of my chamois that it bled.

This was the one and only time I tried unscrewing my water before pouring it into my bottle. It wound up all over my legs and my bike, leaving the aero bottle empty.

No idea what's going through my mind in this picture...

Closer up: ... but anyone who can come up with a good caption gets kudos.

Passing another boy.

This doesn't even look like me! This is the only picture of me running, which is annoying. I really wanted to know what my running form looked like, but I think that this was coming over the timing mats out of T2, so it hardly counts.

But here is proof that my running form has improved. Note: Feet coming off the ground and no heel strike! I win!

Most of my finishing photos are of this guy. But notice the background: me! Do you notice anything else? No heel strike, and feet are still coming off the ground. Now the question is whether my feet were coming off the ground in the 26.2 miles in between?

This was the beginning of a triumphant fist pump. I got it about this high, and then realized I didn't feel all that triumphant. Just relieved. I let it drop. And then...

And it's probably a good thing that most of my finishing photos are of that other guy, because this was the face I was making. Believe it or not, that's not pain. It's Holy shit, oh fuck, oh my god, I made it! It's over! I'm done! I don't ever have to run another step in my life! I wasn't crying, I was just... relieved! More relieved than I've ever been in my life.

No catchers. I really just wanted a catcher to share the moment with. Oh well.

The other picture of me with my medal. I'm saying, Look. There it is. My Finisher's Medal. Can I go sit back down now please?

Coach Liz and I visit the ruins at San Gervasio the day after the race.


The giant salad I ate when I was no longer afraid to eat vegetables that had been washed in tap water.

The heat rash I got from being sweaty constantly in the 90% humidity. (If my neck looks funny, it's because I'm holding the phone on my shoulder.)

I had been satisfied with my effort (if not the results) until we found ourselves at the rolldown meeting waiting for the awards banquet. I knew that I wouldn't get a rolldown slot, and wouldn't have taken one if I had, but watching everybody claim their slots and trophies, I was green with envy. I started to think about which races would be better suited to my body, and how I would have changed my nutrition strategy to not have stomach problems on the run. I started doing the math to figure out what I thought I could realistically do at a cooler race. I was hardly sore anymore, and felt like I could have run much faster if my stomach hadn't held me back. Then I caught myself.

Would I do the race again? Yes. In a heartbeat. Will I do an Ironman again? No. In the end, I had a really, really fantastic time in Cozumel and when I looked back on it, I truly enjoyed the Ironman; even when my stomach was leaking out my anus. But for the first time in over two years I didn't have any events hanging over my head, and I didn't want to get myself involved in anything I would regret.

If I did another Ironman, or kept pursuing running and triathlon, then I would regret it when it came time to give up speed in favor of a long, grinding slog. From almost the beginning of my training, I was getting frustrating with the tepid speeds involved in Ironman training. I missed tearing girls' legs off. I missed riding fast. I missed heaving side-by-side with another girl, and then clicking into a harder gear and leaving her behind because my legs had a gear that hers didn't. Most of all, I missed racing every weekend.

This year my biggest barriers were the mental ones that kept me from giving it the old college try and mustering the chutzpah to stick it out to the end of long, long races. So next season is going to be all about short, fast, aggressive bike rides. I'm going to focus on road racing with a reach goal of upgrading to Cat II by the end of the season. Because I really do love the triathlon style of riding, I'm going to do some aquabikes for fun as well. I'm thinking of doing Rev 3 again, perhaps Timberman (does anyone know if that's still open), the Plymouth Rock Iron-distance race, and maybe Patriot again.

But for the next month, I am going to be doing some weightlifting. That's right. I'm putting the bike, running shoes, and swimsuit away, and I'm heading out to pump some iron. I'll see you in the gym!