Cyclist Interruptus

I've been having bad luck with my long rides lately. It just seems that every time I try to do a long ride, something happens and my willpower is to squishy to deal with it. First, there was the day of the many flats when I missed the last control point and was listed as a DNF. Then there was the rainy day when I drove all the way to Santa Rosa before dawn only to find that I had a slow leak and decided not to risk it. Then there was the day when I found myself alone with the most confusing part of the ride ahead of me. This weekend I decided that if I wanted something done right, then I was going to have to do it myself -- or by myself.

The first double century of the California Triple Crown is on April 30, and it's got tons of climbing. So I not only had to ride long, but I was also going to have to ride long over hills. So I designed a punishing 170-mile ride that left out my front door, rode 80 miles south, and then turned around into the mountains to come home. For the most part, they were roads I'd ridden before and they were nearly all numbered country highways, so I thought I was safe, right?

Right?

Right?!

I rolled out the door at 7:18, only about 18 minutes after my projected leaving time and headed off into the world. Only about 9 miles into the world, I was riding along happily on my highway when suddenly I found myself on a freeway on-ramp. I didn't even realize I was headed for the freeway until I was already on it! I slammed on the brakes and tried to figure out what had happened, then I backtracked. There was a bike path that I could see only a few feet away to my right, but there was a barbed wire fence in between me and it. I rolled back until I found a spot where the top wire was torn, then I hiked my bike over the fence, through a bog, and onto the bike path. An old couple out for their morning walk looked at me like I was swamp thing emerging from the murk.

Eventually I found my way to where I needed to be and rode on for a few more miles until I found... a detour. Goddammit motherfucker! I thought as I rolled down a steep hill and then back up the other side. This detour went on for about 10 miles. How far off course was I riding? It was pretty, but 'pretty' wasn't what I was after. I wanted simple and flat at this point in the ride, since I was going to have to ride back over these roads in the first few miles home when I would be blind and foggy with fatigue. Eventually, though, I got back on track and I zipped along in wonder at how good my body felt. Then I realized that I'd only gone about 30 miles. Of course my body felt good now!

At mile 50 I hooked up with Highway 1, the coastal highway that has been thrice bad luck for me in the past. Back in college, this was the stretch of road where I used to yell at the wind, but I was going south, so the wind was at my back and I enjoyed effortless supra-20mph speeds. I'm so glad that I'm not riding north on the coast so that this wind can't come back and bite me in the ass, I thought and rolled along merrily. I thought I'd outsmarted the wind. You never outsmart the wind.

The hills started at mile 80 when the elevation goes from 60' to 2500' in 8 miles as you climb up from the beach into the Santa Cruz mountains. Since these roads were just behind the UCSC campus, I had glossed over the particulars of the route on the cue sheet (that was written in Sharpie on my arm). These roads were my old stomping grounds... sorta. I mean I'd been there once or twice. Then I reached a fork in the road. Pine Flat Rd or Bonny Doon Rd? They both sounded familiar. I tried to check the map on my phone, but I had no reception (reception would be the problem again and again on my ride as I rode farther and farther into the sticks). A man was walking down the road toward me, "Which one of these goes to Empire Grade?" I asked.

"Es lo mismo," he said, making a big circle with his hands to indicate that the roads came back together.

I switched to Spanish. "Well then which one is less steep?" I asked. He shrugged and pointed at Pine Flat road. "Gracias," I said. "Que vaya bien" (have a good one).

"You're welcome," he said in English. That pisses me off. You ask a question in Engish and someone responds in Spanish. So I assume, alright, this guy's not comfortable speaking English. I speak Spanish. This is fine. Let's communicate. Then they clam up and refuse to speak Spanish and respond in English. WTF is that all about. You started it! I would have liked to ask him which one was shorter, which one spit me out further north, and was he sure, but he didn't seem to want to talk to me. Instead I stopped at every bus stop along the way to make sure that he hadn't given me wrong directions. And in case you're wondering, Pine Flats road is not flat.

When I got to the top I made a right on a road that I'd forgotten about and hated with every fiber of my being. It's a twisting, narrow, one-lane back road through the woods that is so steep that I couldn't stop my bike even if I needed to. In some 3 miles it drops almost 2000'. As I descended every muscle from my wrists to my shoulders and down my back to my hips ached from pulling on the brake levers and shivering like mad as the wind cut through my sweat-soaked clothes. The climb up from the beach had been sunny, but now that I was under the redwood canopy, it was pretty damned cold today come to think of it. I fucking hate that road.

Now I was riding through the giant redwoods and sequoias in Big Basin state park on a 15-mile loop. In a well-intentioned but misinformed attempt to see more scenery, I turned off the main highway and took a back road. While this road was "paved," the neglected asphalt was about half way through its transformation to gravel with squishy, wet blobs of old pine needle pulp covering half the "road." Even when I crested the climb and started coming back down the other side, I had to slow down to zigzag my way over the real pavement and pray that there was nothing sharp hidden in the shadows. I was beginning to see that even though I can usually polish off 220 miles (50 miles more than my route today) in the 12 hours of daylight that I had, time was still going to be an issue today. If you were looking at my speed profile, the downhills were barely distinguishable from the uphills. At 120 miles into the ride, I could feel that I was right on the edge of losing it. But luckily, I only had a few more uphill miles and then it would be a long, gradual downhill home.

Right?

Right?!

When I turned out of Big Basin, I saw that I only had 6 miles left on Highway 9 before I turned onto 35. I knew that the intersection of Hwy 9 & 35 was the summit of the ridge, and then there was nowhere to go but down. Right? Six miles seemed like nothing, until I looked down at my watch and saw that I was riding along at about 6 mph. At this rate I'd never get there! Somewhere in there I started to crack. Just 6 miles, and then another mile or 2 on Skyline (Hwy 35), and then it's down, down, down to go home, I kept telling myself. I tried to hold it together.

Then I turned onto Skyline. Skyline is not named because you can see the San Francisco skyline, it's called "Skyline" because you're riding along the spot where the land meets the sky. I'd thought I'd dodged a bullet by not riding back north along the coast, but what I'd neglected to think about was that if there's one place that's windier than the coast, it's when you're the tallest thing around. I was met with an icy full-faced headwind that felt like it was in the high teens to low twenties mph. The problem with the wind wasn't so much that it was slowing me down, but that it was fucking cold up here! I was still in the shade, some clouds had rolled in, and it must have been in the low 40's.

And that part about the hills? Well I was wrong. For hours and hours and hours I crawled along as the ridge undulated up and down 2-500 feet at a time. Through the trees I could see the bay way down to my right and the ocean way down to my left and the sun shining on the buildings on each side, but I was stuck up here in the cold and the wind and the hills, hills, hills, hills, hills! I wanted to check how far I was from home, but I still had no reception. By this point I'd lost it.

"LET ME DOWN OFF THIS FUCKING MOUNTAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I yelled out loud. I yelled it again and again.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I screamed every time I came around another bend and there was more climbing to do. "NO MORE FUCKING CLIMBING! I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"GIVE IT BACK!!!" I yelled when I came around another bend and I found that I had to keep climbing. ("It" being the elevation. I wanted some free miles already.)

I was sort of crying, but not crying tears, the kind of crying that 5-year-olds do when they're looking for attention. I wanted out of this ride. I wanted to go home. "I WANT TO GO HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I yelled. Still, whenever a car came around I tried to put on my poker face so that no one would see me throwing a temper tantrum. It was fine only so long as I was alone.

Somewhere around Palo Alto I was riding along an exposed section of road with a sign that said "Windy Hill" when I got hit face-on by a mighty gust of wind. "I'M FUCKING COLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I yelled at the wind.

Just then another rider came around. "Cold up here today, isn't it?" he asked cheerfully. I wanted to disappear. Luckily I was in no mood to be trying to keep up and he wasn't around for long.

I realized quickly that I wasn't going to get home before night fell, and that I was pretty much fucked. I decided that, pride be damned, I was going to pull over at the next gas station or coffee shop that I saw, order something warm, and call someone to come pick my ass up. My legs felt fine, but I was cold and miserable and had no lights. I wondered if when I got home there would be a genuine way to kneel down and kiss the ground that wouldn't look overly dramatic. And still, for what felt like hours I didn't pass a single business and my phone had no service.

Finally the mountain let me go. Before I realized what had happened, I was in San Mateo, only about 20 flat miles from home with about an hour of light left. But with this headwind I knew I wasn't going to make it.

There was a Starbucks.
With a fireplace (Starbucks, please sponsor my blog).

I pulled over. It was over.

In less than a month I have a double century coming up with over 18,000' of climbing. What did I learn during my ride this weekend?

1. If I go my own pace, then my energy will last but I have to be prepared for hours of speeds under 10 mph.
   
2. Even if you have to pay $3/bottle of Gatorade, the electrolytes will save your ride. Time to start springing for Nuun again.
3. Go your own pace on the hills and you won't blow up, idiot!
4. I'm fucked.
   

Starbucks, please sponsor my blaaaaaarrrrggg!

This race report may or may not be related to my last post about not feeling too well. For those of you unlicensed doctors out there who love giving advice, that's the post for you. This one's mostly about barf because barf is funny, as is anything that belongs in the toilet but didn't quite make it.

I signed up for the Rhodes Race 5K in Oakland mostly to support the race director and fellow blogger ClaireB, and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. However, with my ride the day before getting cut in half, my legs were freed up to run a little faster. What "fast" meant today was anyone's guess. I've probably run fewer 5K's in my life than there are K's in a 5K, and with most of my training lately being on trails, I had no idea what my body was going to decide to do. As I told fellow Girls on the Run people (GOTR is where ClaireB works and Speedy Claire volunteers) at the start, I could either come in really slow, or I could run fast then crap my pants at mile 2 and have to walk it in. Hahaha, I'm so funny, right? Well if you've been reading this blog for awhile, you know that I was kind of serious.



The gun went off. Since there were 3 GOTR staff and volunteers around me and Claire B would also be seeing me suck or not, I made sure that I was out in front of our little cloud for at least the first minute of the race. Then I decided to try to figure out a plan. The plan was: don't look at your watch (which I suppose means "run on feel" but my "feel-o-meter" has never been calibrated, especially over short distances).

After ducking and dodging through the crowd to a pace that felt "comfortably uncomfortable," my watch sang. Thinking it was the one-mile alarm, I looked down astounded: "6:06" it read. Then I realized it was the six-minute time alert and went back to the race plan. Mile 1 felt good, and had I looked at my watch (which I didn't), I would have seen that my split was 7:22. (Exactly my 5K PR pace, but I had no idea at the time since I had to go look it up the next day.)



Then at mile 2 the Phantom Poo started its insistent rotting in my digestive tract. I'd broken Claire's No. 1 Rule of Public Pooping: Don't twice this morning to avoid this problem. I'd gone once at Starbucks (Starbucks, please sponsor my blog) before hitting the freeway, and then again when I got to the race venue. And yet I felt like a slippery, slidy turd slug would slough out of my normally iron-like sphincter if I didn't concentrate. And concentrate I did as the slight downward grade from the first mile turned to a flat road for the second mile and keeping up with the guy in front of me didn't feel so easy anymore. My split for mile 2 (which I didn't see) was 7:31.



The next mile I was searching longingly along the outskirts of the lake we were circling for the dock that was the start/finish. The pond had that festering duck pond smell and it was making me feel nauseous. Or maybe that was the running that was making me feel sick. I was continuing my campaign with the phantom poo, but the phantom poo had allied itself with my muscles to call an end to my race, and I hoped I could hang on for long enough to not have to slow down precipitously. I tried to lay ever so slightly off the gas.



As I approached the 3-mile mark, I had time to formulate the thought into words, The phantom poo wants out, and it's going to get out any way that it can. I just hope I can hold off until the finish. Then I crossed the 3-mile line (7:38), and suddenly, BLAM! The phantom poo said, YOU'RE GONNA PUKE RIGHT NOW!

"BLAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGG!" I said, vomiting up mostly Starbucks with little flecks of strawberry in it (Starbucks, please sponsor my blog).

"BLAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGG!" A little less Starbucks this time (Starbucks, please sponsor my blog).

"BLAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGG!" No product at all in this attempt, just lots of noise. This was not the silent, private kind of puking where the food silently leaps out of your throat. This was violent, yelling, vomiting from the bottoms of my toes kind of puking.

Then a guy came up behind me to pass. "Come on! You can do it! You're almost there!" he said.

I wanted to say, No, I clearly can't do it. I'll get around to it when I'm finished with this. Instead I said "BLAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGG!" and saw a little more Starbucks (Starbucks, please sponsor my blog).

I threw up a few more times, and just as quickly as it came on, I was fine again. As I turned around I noticed that a woman about my age wearing a pink top had just passed me. I couldn't let her go, and dashed off after her at mid-6 pace. But she got away. "Way to go, Molly," they said at the finish (her name wasn't really Molly). Then the guy who tore off my tag handed it to the other guy and said, "Hers goes after Molly's."

To Molly I wanted to say, "BLAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGG!" but I was finished puking. All told, I think that 23:38 had passed when I chased Molly into the finishing chute. Claire B later told me that that was good enough for third in my AG, but I'm not about to gloat since about half the people in the race were under 12, over 65, or dogs. Still, I wish I'd stuck around for the awards ceremony.

I was proud of my performance. This was the first time that I had pushed myself to vomiting in a non-hangover-related incident. The pride was slightly diminished by the fact that I felt ill for the rest of the day and into the next, but I have decided to see the sunny side of this cloud and call it a really hard run.

Go me!

Is it bad, doc?

Something is wrong with me -- very, very wrong. If it's not some ghastly parasite or illness, then at least a debilitating case of hypochondria complicated by a crippling unwillingness to take responsibility for my shortcomings.

This is a race report of a DNF, but it is also a big, fat, protracted excuse. And this excuse picks up from my last post 2 weeks ago. My slothfulness has not improved. Mom came to town for 6 days last week, and in those 6 days I slept 10 hours per night and did nothing but sit on my big, fat ass for all but 2 of those days with a headache and feeling like I could curl up and fall asleep in the first available doorway or park bench. The one non-work-related workout that I did was a 9.75-mi run up Montara Mountain. Parts of this trail are steep, but never you fear, I walked those parts as well as a great deal of the more "runable" sections. I felt like the batteries in my legs needed to be changed and I was breathing through a fluffy towel. I stopped on an easy bit to shed a layer and almost threw up in the brush at the side of the trail. After that 10 mile run I felt like I'd run 18 hilly miles without a walking break. My calves were sore. Stairs were a chore. I was stiff. My knees hurt and my quads hurt.

Then there was the crushing, blinding fatigue. Despite all the sleep I've been getting, I felt like I could fall asleep at any second. I had headaches. Smells were making me dizzy and nauseous (like the old lady soap and halitosis smell coming from my mom in the passenger seat of the car). It felt just like a hangover when an hour after you wake up, your eyes are closing on their own and you feel like your limbs are filled with concrete.

Flash forward to Friday. Insomnia was back and I'd only slept about 4 hours, but at least I didn't feel hung over anymore. It was a beautiful day so I went on a hike with two trainers from work in lieu of a run. We hiked five miles over trails I run all the time, but afterward I woke up sore after my fitful nap. My calves felt like rocks and my feet hurt. The tops of my calves never get tight. My feet never hurt. I ran a marathon in racing flats a week after buying them and another in Nike Frees when I'd never run more than an hour in them in training, and even then my feet didn't hurt, but they hurt after a 5 mile hike?

Alright, alright. I'll get to the race report.

Another night of insomnia later, I got up at 3am to make the 6 o'clock start of the Santa Cruz Randonneurs 300k. I made it to the start early, pissed, checked in, pissed again, and then waited for the start. I was planning on riding conservatively, but fell in comfortably with the lead group. "Were you at the ride a couple of weeks ago?" a SMO40 (straight man over 40), or "SMoFo" asked me. "You were the one riding with the lead guys who kept getting dropped and then catching back on, right? And then you just disappeared."

A quick look at his ass and I recognized him. I explained about the flat tires and how I'd covered the distance but DNFed all the same. "I won't be riding that fast today though," I explained.

"Me neither! Those triathlete guys were pushing 25 mph all the way to Half Moon Bay and then they just dropped off some time after you disappeared," he explained. Well no wonder then! I thought. And here I was beating myself up for being out of shape, but when they said we were still holding 24 mph at mile 50, they had meant the average pace, not the current pace. If you remember, I was riding blind without a computer that day. Then the SMoFo and I made the usual excuses about how little training we'd done in the rain so that we could be friends. "I haven't been training," means, "be nice to me and I'll be nice to you. We can work together to get through this easier rather than dragging each other's asses through the dirt."

SMoFo and I eventually found ourselves in a group of six guys at the front of the race. Every once in awhile that thing would happen where I would realize that I was sitting on a wheel that was dropping off the pace and have to come around. Then I'd catch another wheel just as he also fell off the pace and I'd have to come around again. "Thanks for pulling us up!" one guy said.

"Pulling?! I've been sucking wheels this whole time!" I said.

I was sucking SMoFo's wheel when suddenly I heard a nose noise and got a wet spray all over my face. "Gaaargh!" I yelled. Nothing says "I love you" like a snot rocket to the face. He apologized profusely and I said it was okay, these things happen. Because what else can you say when someone is genuinely sorry and getting mad won't get the snot off your face. So now he was obligated to be nice to me out of guilt, and I was obligated to be nice to him just to prove that I wasn't the sort of person who could hate you forever for blowing mucus straight into my face. I could imagine a romantic comedy starting this way.

The course went 50 miles north, turned back to Santa Cruz, then went 50 miles south of Santa Cruz to Marina before heading back again. About 5 miles shy of the first turn-around in Half Moon Bay we hit a 1-mile gradual climb. As I do, I slowly, slowly fell off the pace, despite riding so hard that I could taste the ocean in the back of my throat from snorting my own sweat (I don't do snot rockets). At the top of the hill I was probably about 15s down (a difference that I can usually make up, but not in today's stiff headwind.) SMoFo hand fallen away a few miles back, and the 200-rider-strong pack had long ago whittled down to the 3 men ahead of me who I just needed to ease the fuck up a second! I sat there bitching and whining at them in my head. What fucking gentlemen! You wait up for other riders, but you won't softpedal for half a fucking minute for me. But they weren't listening to the thoughts in my head and before long they were gone up the road.

At Half Moon Bay I had to pull out my cue sheet (which I had this time), and finally my SMoFo caught up. Together we rode right by the control and had to turn around.

The three fastest guys pulled out of the control point as I was refilling my bottles. If I had arrived thirty seconds earlier then I would have been with them, but instead SMoFo and I set out alone. Over the next 50 miles I would go over and over in my head how I could have made up that 30 seconds to stick with the 3 other SMoFos. Not that Mr. Sniffles was a bad guy, just that there was only one of him, and I'd already proven myself stronger. I would much rather be the weakest in a strong pack than the strongest in a weak pack over this kind of distance, where I could usually count on my legs giving up more slowly than the big boys.

We had a tailwind now, so SMoFo spent the next 10 miles riding next to me and telling me about why he hadn't been training. His brother the lifelong smoker had gone in for bypass surgery. Then he'd developed blood clots in his legs in the hospital. They became gangrenous. They cut off toes, but then they had to cut off one leg, then the other to save his life. SMoFo had had to sign off on all the amputations and had gone to the hospital every day for 45 days to visit him. After a month, when his brother finally came out of his stupor and discovered his legs were gone, he'd told SMoFo that he should have just let him die. Neither of us really wanted to talk after that, so I pulled for a long while.

When SMO40 rolled up next to me again at mile 70 I told him, "I'm already counting down the miles."

"My legs don't feel good," he confessed. "I think I'm going to stop when we get to Santa Cruz. Do you want me to pull you until then so that you can save your energy? How's this pace? 20 mph?"

"Feels good," I said. Then he took off at 21. Before I'd realized it, a gap had opened up and when I couldn't even make myself care, it was the first hint that I was already cooked. I knew that I had to keep eating if I expected my legs to continue to work for me, but now that I thought about it I realized that I was nauseous too. When SMoFo finally noticed that I was gone and let me catch up, I told him that I didn't think I was in the right frame of mind to concentrate on staying on anyone's wheel.

For the rest of the ride back we leapfrogged along in silence, me opening big gaps until I thought that he was gone behind me, then 20 minutes later there he'd be. All I kept thinking was, Please don't leave me here alone! I intended to keep going, but I had no idea how I'd negotiate the next 2 pages of turns alone with no handlebar mount for my cue sheet. As we crossed the Santa Cruz town line, SMoFo said, "half way there!" I looked at my watch: 94.67 miles. I wanted to cry. I was already sore and tired like I had 200 miles in me already, and now the wind had turned again. I felt like I could curl up and fall asleep over my handlebars.

"SMoFo, can you do me a favor before you go? Can you stop off with me so that I can get a Red Bull and go to the bathroom without leaving my bike alone?"

"Of course!"

When I stood up at the 7 11, my eyes wouldn't focus. I almost wandered right into the stock room before I realized that I had to ask first. The clerk looked like another lifetime smoker -- unsympathetic. No bathroom. "Fuck it!" I said when I came out, handing my brevet card to SMoFo. "Will you give him mine too when you throw in the towel?"

We said our goodbyes and I went back to the car, frustrated. I couldn't work it out. Was I just out of shape? No, can't be. I've ridden 1 century, 3 200Ks and a trainer century in the past 3 months and all have felt better than this. Nutrition? No, by now I've got my routine down. Overtraining? How could it be? Everything indicates that I'm getting stronger since my training got cut by 50% because of the African Sleeping Sickness. Pacing? No! I'd been watching my heart rate and breathing all morning.

Which leaves only more drastic hypotheses: chronic fatigue? adrenal burnout? anemia? B12 deficiency? parasites? cancer? some rare genetic disorder? There are 199 possible causes for "extreme fatigue" on wrongdiagnosis.com and 99 if you add a second symptom of "low energy."

I wish I could just get a full blood panel, but I can't afford insurance. So I'm turning to the common knowledge of the Internet community, because how could that be wrong?!

Stay tuned, the race report for the next day is even more interesting. Rather than snot, this one is all about vomit-- MINE!

Zzzzzzzzz...........

Sick is all around me. Two weeks ago, one of my clients missed the whole week because she was flat on her ass with strep, so her husband (who wasn't feeling much better) took her sessions. Then last week my housemate sat down on Sunday, fell fast asleep on the couch for 5 hours, and then went to bed. He left the house twice over the next 7 days: once to go to the doctor and get diagnosed with the flu and pneumonia, and once to drive down to the drug store in the rain -- a short trip that wiped him out for another 2 days.

I cannot get sick! I get paid for my time and I don't get sick days. My mom's coming into town next week, so I especially especially can't miss any time. So I've been ditching out on everything to go home and curl up in bed at the first sign of heavy lungs or swollen glands. Even if it's just a hint of a hint of a hint of getting sick.

But if you want to know the real truth, I don't think I'm going to bed to fight The Sick. If that were true, then I could get out of bed after 10-12 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period. I recognize this feeling, and I don't like it. It's not overtraining. My training's going really well and I'm really enjoying it; even the boring shit like sitting on the trainer for 5.5 hours. And still on a sunny day I just want to pull the pillow over my head and disappear.

Warning: This post is a whiny, bitchy pity party about nothing that should be interesting to anyone.
I just need to get it out here, because I have nowhere else I can vent.

I am so, so, so stressed out by work that many times I just can't face the day. I love my job, I love my clients, I like most of the people that I work with. It's just the long days and all the running around that tires the hell out of me. When I'm out there doing it, jumping around to four different locations over 12 hours, it's not bad and I enjoy each station in my day, but it's when I'm lying in my bed first thing in the morning with the cat poking me to be fed and thinking about the entire day ahead of me that I just want to disappear. And it's the fact that this scene repeats itself twice a day sometimes, as my time off occurs in the middle of the day. It's driving to work at 6am when I left work at 8pm the night before.

There are a lot of pieces to keep under control in my life, making sure that I have all the equipment, workouts, shoes, underwear, changes of clothes, food, and other knickknacks that I'll need throughout the day. Most of the time I pull it off, but when it's all laid out in front of me in the morning and my Things to Do List just keeps getting longer, I just keep running back to bed to hide from it all. It's really quite counter-productive. And I promise you, while I'm out there doing it, I'm having fun. Every day I have at least one moment where I think, I love my life! I just wish that I could shut up the voice that says, and first chance I get, I'm going to lie down and shut down.

Enough boo-hooing and on to the solution. On Sunday I didn't change out of my pajamas all day. I just lay around fighting the fake sick and watching the L Word, because you're supposed to spend sunny Sundays watching bad Showtime dramas (and the L Word is so, so bad!). Usually I don't watch dramas about sex and relationships, I prefer to watch shows where someone starts out dead like CSI, Law & Order, and Dexter. But now I've seen all the "dead body" shows and I needed to broaden my horizons, so the soft core lesbian porn on the L Word seemed as good a place as any. I polished off all of Season 2 in one 24-hour period as I folded my laundry and wrote my (clients') workouts for the week.

The last time I watched a lot of sex and relationship dramas was in high school when I used to be obsessed with Ally McBeal and Party of Five, wishing I were skinny like the stars, had sex appeal, and had a group of friends with endless free time to hang out in coffee shops and have long conversations about nothing in particular while a parade of B-class musical guests flowed through for extra long musical interludes. Now, over a decade later I found myself in my pajamas with exactly the same feeling. I so want to be one of the cool kids!

Sure, some things are different now that I'm all grown up. Like I realize that my fascination with the actresses' bodies isn't about being skinny. (By the way, where do I find the real-life lesbians who look like Jennifer Beals and Sarah Shahi? Just another example of the magic of Hollywood, I guess). I realize that I've got much more appeal when I'm being myself than when I'm imitating some actress or fictional character. But right now I've got the same lonely I-don't-fit-anywhere, who-do-I-want-to-be confusion that I had when I was a moody teenager.

So I decided that the reason that I can't get out of bed is because I need friends; Really attractive, incredibly cool, rich, complex and outgoing friends with an abundance of free time who are knock-your-socks-off cool. But where does one find these incredibly cool friends when you go to bed at 9:00 and don't drink?

So I gave myself a dose of reality. I need a group of really attractive, incredibly driven, fast, adventurous, and witty friends with an abundance of endurance and free time to move over all the coolest roads and trails. In the past I've had little trouble finding my Rachel, Monica, Joey, Chandler, Ross, and Phoebe by just doing my thing and snowballing friends along the way, but these days I do my own thing all by myself while everyone else is busy. At all the races I go to, I talk to everyone that I can and try to be my usual witty, ball-busting self, but California flakiness is even mightier than my charm. I've thought of joining a tri club or something multiple times, but what I want to be doing is always more interesting than what they plan on doing, so I do my thing instead. I have actually said to a woman in a trail running race, "Please be my friend!" and she ran away.

So I have decided that I am going to get more aggressive about making friends. I'm joining my clients for their runs. I'm inviting some of my cooler clients out for coffee. I'm trying to get more of my work done outside the house in cafés. Yesterday I found myself with two free hours, so I went to the lesbian neighborhood and sat in a café that sells vegan bundt cake and several kinds of tea and watched people go by over my laptop. There were the old lesbians, who turned out to be straight European tourists. There were the fat hipster dykey types who seem to challenge themselves every morning to see how ugly they can make themselves, complete with fat roll hanging out below the t-shirt. There were the alternative types in some combination of skinny jeans, cowboy boots, scarves, and clown-like make-up. None of them looked like the kind of people that I wanted to mix with.

I'm updating my online dating profile and "winking" at girls. I'm looking for a good wing man to take me out to where the cool kids play. Now if only I could drag myself out of bed for any of this stuff!

So I am now open to suggestions. You networking gurus, how do y'all meet all the cool people that you have in your circles? Help an introvert out!

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.

Typical Week

The most interesting part of this post is skinning my ass on a trail on Tuesday. Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to talk about next week.

Monday: Swim 2700 yd

Another Monday, another 13-hour workday. Now that Girls on the Run has started again, my Mondays have become somewhere between exhilarating and suicidal as I get no time off during that time (if you count the 1 hour that I may or may not get to work out and the 45 minutes that I get to do admin stuff between 7:15 and 8:30). I managed to piggy-back a 2700 yard swim onto my Spinning class, doing a lot of drill. I can't even remember this workout, so I won't bore you with it.

Tuesday: Run 3.25 mi

Tuesday the sun was back and I had some time to go running, so I hit the hills hoping to find some new trails. This time I drove to a trailhead half way up the mountain with the plan to just keep making lefts and see where it took me. What I think I found was downhill mountain bike trails. The hills were so steep that I kept taking these prissy little mincing steps because it was really too steep for any human to try actually running on something like this. To be honest, I don't think any wheeled vehicle should be riding down something like this either, but I guess that's what full-face masks and body armor are for.

At one point I found myself standing at the top of what must have exceeded a 50% grade. It was only a short drop of about 30-50 feet, but the ground seemed to stop, and then start again about 5 yards away and two stories below me. BOMBS AWAY!!!! I got to the bottom of it with only a bit of knee soreness and quite a bit of embarrassing arm flapping, but I found my way to the bottom upright. Then I continued down the half overgrown trail.

No more than a minute later, I hit another short dip -- the kind that makes your tummy drop out when you're skiing but that's over before you know it. I started down it hardly breaking stride, until my foot slipped. I tried to dig my heel into the dirt, but it all slid down the hill with me, just like in a cartoon. My ass hit the dirt, and then I just kept going I sledded down that hill on my ass, feeling my spanky shorts pull up the hip level. The loose dirt and gravel dug shallow stinging cuts up my right leg from my ankle to the fleshy center of my ass cheek.

I got up more angry than hurt and no more than a minute later the trail was swallowed by a clump of overgrown poison oak, or what I think is poison oak but could very well be dingleberry bushes for all I know. I picked my way through the plants very carefully in my short shorts and ankle biter socks, and thought I got to the other side safely, but there were two whip-like spots on my ankles that burned and I couldn't tell if it was from the sting of falling or from the poison oak. My good mood on this run was spoiled.

I was hoping that when I reached the bottom of the hill I would find another trailhead that would lead me back up to my car on the main trail, but instead I found myself in a church back yard. (Why is it that every property that borders the wild wilderness has abandoned Big Wheels rotting under the bushes at the edge of the property? Just an observation...). This meant that I was going to have to go back the way that I came, namely straight up.

I huffed up the hill mostly at a slow walk. At many points the hills were so steep that my GPS simply autopaused and wouldn't resume until I'd reached the top of the slope a few minutes later. If the ass rash and poison oak weren't enough to piss me off, the fact that I was walking something steep enough to make my hamstrings burn and my Achilles feel like they were going to burst and my effort wasn't even being recorded made me want to sit down in a poison oak patch and pout.

Nearly an hour after I'd started, I ran down the final slope to my car with only 3.25 mi on my watch. Had I had someone with me, then I would have laughed at my luck but being alone in a Claire's head can sometimes be a stormy place.

Wednesday Run 3.7 mi, Spinning

There was no time to swim before my Spin class on Wednesday, but at least I could run. So I suited up, put on my racing flats (which are my only road running shoes these days) and hit the treadmill. I had enough time to run for about 5 miles, so I started at a comfortably hard pace and kept speeding up until I was running 7:30 miles at 0.5% grade (which is supposed to simulate running outside, right?). My legs were a bit cranky and I was flinging sweat onto treadmills 2 machines away, but my lungs and heart felt good.

Then, all of a sudden, I felt an old "problem" that I hadn't felt in a long, long time. The phantom poo! I have gotten quite good at running for long distances on the verge of a poo emergency, so I made myself finish at least a 5K. Then I tried slowing down to a warm-up pace to see if the prairie dog would crawl back into his den, but after another few minutes it was clear that some further action was required.

Leaving my water and towel on the soaked treadmill, I made a run for it. I dashed down the aisle between the treadmills and the wall of ellipticals that was blocking my path to the potty. I rounded the end of the ellipticals and all I had to do was go down about 5 machines and hang a right, go through a door, take another right, and it was the first door on the left. Suddenly a grandma pushing a stroller popped up in front of me. What was a stroller doing on the exercise floor?! I cut left, and granny drifted left. I cut right, and granny drifted right. I tried to pass her to the outside on the turn, but the buggy made wide right turns. I tried to cut to the inside... Fucking Asian drivers! (I'm sorry, I hate racist statements like this, but every time I get stuck behind someone going 45 mph on the freeway, cut off by some dumbass, or someone almost hits me on my bike they're always either on their cell phone or Asian.) I had to get to the door before this stroller-pushing granny. Have you ever seen someone try to open a pull door with a stroller?! This could take hours! "Excuse me," I said, nearly elbowing her in the face as I passed. She smiled at me politely like I was just saying 'hello, how's your week going.' I sprinted through the door, holding it open just long enough for her to catch it with the front wheel of the stroller and finally made it to the bathroom. This poo was not a "phantom" poo at all, and I'd made it not a moment too soon.

Thursday: Swim 2700 yd, Spinning

Both this swim workout and the one earlier in the week involved some "fast" free. As someone who used to be able to swim a straight 2000 yards in 30 minutes (1:30 pace), I now struggle to hold 1:35's for straight 100's. It's sad and frustrating. And lonely.

Friday: Run 9 mi

After my kiester sledding incident on Tuesday, I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of exploring new trails and having to hike around through the poison oak, so I hit the one runable trail I know (actually not a trail at all, but the archaeological remains of the old Highway 1 when it went through the mountains rather than along the coast). This is a relatively mild climb, but it's relentless, sitting between about a 4 and 6% grade for two and a half miles. After about a mile of it the phantom poo problem was back, and I gave myself permission to walk for a few seconds every mile until I hit the top. At the top what I should have done was run downhill and let the sourness in my entrails sort itself out, but it was all too much. I reached the top and stood with hands on knees for a minute until the burning in my tummy subsided.

I've been running in one of the most beautiful places I've ever run, but these solo excursions were getting increasingly lonely. Over my shoulder I could see the carcass of a car far down the steep hillside left over from well before I was born. When I was in Phoenix, I'd told Flipper about these cars and he'd asked, "Why don't they pull them out with cranes?" Taking pictures with my phone to post them later on the internet was getting less and less satisfying. I really, really wanted someone to share this stuff with. I am always trying to get people to come out on a run with me: clients, other trainers, perfect strangers, I don't care. But no one will come with me. It's all very frustrating. Lonely, lonely, lonely Claire.

Saturday: Run 11.5 mi

Friday's run was so great that I decided to repeat it on Saturday. I knew this trail went all the way over the hill back to (the new) Highway 1 on the other side of the mountain, but I had always had to stop short and turn around before the end of the trail. I took my usual walking breaks on the way up, about one for every mile, and then I started down the other side. I passed all the usual landmarks where I'd had to turn around before: the 5-mile summit, the 6-mile sinkhole, the 9 mile glade of trees, and I just kept running. I could feel the air getting warmer, thicker, and more humid. Finally I passed the switchback that marked my turn-around for the 10-mile route and kept going. Only another half mile down the trail I found another house with another rotting hotwheels marking a fork in the trail, and a quarter mile later I hit Highway 1 and the ocean on the other side. I surprised myself by running the whole way back, despite the fact that I was woozy and starving after only drinking 8 oz of water for a 2 hour run.

Sunday: Trainer 2:20

Sunday the torrential mist that characterizes mother nature's bad moods in these here parts was slumping down, so I set up the trainer in the garage. My motivation was somewhere between zero and negative two, and I was out of good watching on Hulu, so I grabbed a book. I should have ridden for 3 hours (at least) but I didn't. Sue me.

While I'm here, I'm going to give a plug to Matt Fitzgerald's Racing Weight. I love how Fitzgerald's brain works, and this book is what I haven't known I was looking for for years. Not only does he answer a question that we all struggle with --how do you safely lose weight to optimize your power-to-weight ratio without compromising your training and performance?-- but he cites really interesting studies that I hadn't heard about in other books. I credit the final 2:19 minutes I spent on that bike to picking up Racing Weight rather than trying to finish Fit Soul, Fit Body.