Baggage

When two separate friends on two separate occasions asked if I was doing the Chapel Hill ride on Saturday, I gave them each the same response: I can't, I have to work. But as the day approached, and the weather looked increasingly springlike, I decided to ask for the day off since the hours were made up elsewhere so I could join in.

When my wish was granted, then it was time to actually consider what I had gotten myself into:

1) 100 miles = not too worried about this one. I'm pretty fit for the time of year, I've done a few 50-60 milers, and I did two centuries last season (albeit one accidentally).

2) The Group = this was where I was most nervous. Six guys, all local strong riders, some of them the strongest I know. While the pace was advertised as Winter a la 17/18mph, I had doubts. I so so so didn't want to be that girl who tagged along only to drag the whole pace down because the guys felt bad about leaving her behind.

3) My condition - this would have been the third day in a row riding for me, having already done hard intervals on Thursday and an endurance ride + run the day before. I wasn't going into it 100% fresh.

But. All of that aside, I was also curious, and excited. Could I "hang" with the big boys? Could I handle it?

Saturday morning, after a night of sleep cut short by a recent Netflix addiction, I awoke, downed a bowl of cereal, suited up, and met the group. We all said our good mornings, hit the start buttons on our Garmins, and were off.

The ride down for me wasn't tough at all. The pace was 18mph with a slight tailwind/no wind, riding in pairs, having pleasant conversations with whoever you happened to be riding next to. I took two longish pulls, and had high hopes for the ride being not as hard as I first thought.

We arrived at CH, ate at Panera, and once again suited up, this time for the ride back.

Things were not fine from the very start. My legs didn't want to respond. My heart rate didn't want to drop. I was at the end of the single file line, and thus subject to the constant yo-yo effect that comes with such a position. The wind was a brutal 10-20 mph.

I was in trouble, and we were only 10 miles into the 50+ mile ride home.

My inner monologue started to sound thusly: I'm not going to make it back with the guys. I can't keep up this pace. I can't ride up one more hill. My legs are not going to be able to keep going. I am out of my league. These guys are regretting that I came along. I am holding them back.

I told my friend that should I fall back, not to wait for me, that I was hurting and probably wouldn't make it.

The response? Encouragement.

So instead of giving up, I started digging deep. I took some advice on how to draft more aggressively, made sure that my placement in the pack was smart, made sure I ate, and didn't take any pulls. Was I still hurting? Yes. Did I want to throw in the towel? Sure. But something else told me to keep going, I was going to make it, I was going to finish the ride with room to spare.

Cycling is full of expressions, many of them stupid. One such stupid expression is the Suitcase of Courage. The thing that you pull out when you're ready to quit.

By the end of this ride, my suitcase of courage was so empty that I was finding old ticket stubs and mini hotel shampoo bottles. Does that matter? No. I still finished. I went into some not so great places, and came through them instead of giving into them.

Does all of this sound a bit melodramatic? Perhaps. But these are the same types of struggles, the same dark places that athletes at the elite and pro levels face. The deciding factor? They face them at elite and pro races, not on centuries to Chapel Hill.

I took doubts and trepidations and preconceived notions my fellow riders perceptions of me with me into this ride. I also used determination and strength and acceptance of help to get me out of this ride. The big picture outcome?

Some of my negative baggage has been left at the gate, while my suitcase of courage just got a matching carry on, so that the next time I'm in a dark place, I have more to dig into.

An Enabling Relationship

As the cold weather hit, I bravely bundled up, determined not to let the frigidity of my surroundings stand in the way of riding my bike outside. As the temperature slowly dropped, though, so did my resolve. Later sunrises, 20 degree temps, and a few near misses with morning rush hour cars decked out with foggy windows drove me inside for not only my intervals, but also my endurance rides.

Eventually, this indoor last-resort became the norm. Now when I wake up in the morning, it's with a sense of dread. Not so much that I have to ride the trainer, but more that I don't have the guts to go outside. Intervals? Forget it. Who wants to suck in that much cold air? My lungs hurt enough doing them inside.

And so today when I looked out at the sun, I still rode the trainer. The temperature wasn't prohibitive. It was a chilly 43, but not a crazy 23. I could have simply warmed up on the trainer, banged out the intervals (only 3x5 minutes) and then suited up for an hour or two on the road.

But I didn't.

The trainer has become a safety net in a way. An enabler. A way for me to avoid being uncomfortable at the expense of not truly riding my bike. Part of it is that I just hate the cold. Hate. Despise. Loath. Death Ray Eye Cold Weather. Want it gone, out of my life, over.

A larger part of it is that the trainer has become predictable. I know exactly how to get the heart rate up to exactly where it needs to be, I even know the exact songs to listen to as a guide for the exact amount of time. It is a training scalpel, allowing for an obsessive amount of precision (who, me? Obsessive?).

Unfortunately, riding a bike isn't precise. Or exact. You get a tailwind one way and a headwind the next. You get a hill one second and a decent the next. You are pulled along one moment and take a pull yourself the next. Things constantly change. Riding a bike is about adapting to what you encounter, having the strength and the fitness to crank it up when you need to without blowing up. Right now? I feel like someone who's constantly rehearsing, safely, from the sidelines.

But then, maybe that's what the winter months are for. I'm not going to be hammering it on any group rides anytime soon anyways, so why not stay warm and toasty and stationary? Hopefully all of this rehearsing will be well worth it once the main event rolls around, but until then, I'm stuck in this love/hate relationship with my enabler: the trainer.

Cycling: The Universal Language

When the weekend of niece visiting arrived, I of course decided to take my bike along with me. I have a cycling friend who lives in Arlington, and I thought it would be great to take advantage of my option week to ride with him on the Northern VA roads.

Unfortunately, he developed a raging cold the day before my arrival. I decided to bring the bike anyways, hoping that there would be some sort of group ride I could hook up with.

Was there ever.

A LBS directly across the street from my sister's condo, one which I never internalized until this very trip, gave me some good leads on local clubs and websites. A quick search revealed a ride that left literally around the block from where I'm shacked up. The weather report looked cold, but not prohibitive.

This morning I was tentative as I piled upon my many (many) winter layers. Where would we ride? Would anyone show up? What would they be like?

Quite soon, all my fears were laid to rest. Not only was it a solid turnout of 11 people, but there was also a well organized sign in sheet, cue sheets, and a plan to split into two speed groups.

The ride itself was unique to the area. We wound in and out and around local neighborhoods, past gorgeous houses, turning turning and turning some more. The cue sheet must have been useless to those not familiar with the route, as it literally made circles here there and everywhere. Since the main roads had way too much traffic, the only way to get a decent mileage was to wind (as in a clock, not head or tail). We made a rest stop not at a local gas station, but at a local McDonalds on an extremely busy city intersection. We zoomed through neighborhoods at a 22 mph paceline. We encountered not a single dog.

There were also unique to the area skills involved. Rolling through stop signs seemed to top the list. Also, we climbed hills only to literally turn around and bomb right back down them, which to someone who has never ridden the "roads" (think non maintained old residential streets) was super exciting, as potholes and sand from past snow storms made for some adrenaline producing sharp turns.

The best part, though? The people. Warm, open, smiling, joking, riding. In the midst of my training, the people have often been relegated to the side. Which is unfortunate, because the people is what I truly enjoy the most about riding. Being a badass is all well and good, but SHARING a badass ride with your fellow badass friends is even better.

It's also nice to know that no matter where I travel in the country, chances are there will be other warm, open, smiling, joking people to saddle up with. What other sport can you say the same for? Sure, you can pack your sneakers or your tennis racket and fly off on vacation, but can you hook up with a running group or a tennis group at literally a moments notice and not only be accepted, but welcomed? With open arms? I think not.

Which is yet another reason why I am so thankful to have found this sport. Cycling is a universal language that literally anyone can learn.

Back in the...shoes?

It's been almost a year to the day since I began this blog. In that time, I have literally run the gamut of experiences, from completing marathon to swearing off the sport. I thought that my bike, the elation and physical amazingness that I felt while riding it, would be enough to satisfy.

To be sure, I worked out harder and longer than ever before. I pushed my limits and improved, both strength wise and cardiovascular wise.

After the holidays, though, when the treats of the season started to show up in places other than my mouth, I decided that it was time for a jump start.

A running jump start.

My coach, Ashley, gave in to my request to lace back up, but fortunately for me, he limited my time in the sneaks to ten minutes: 5 walking, 5 running, 3 times a week.

This week is my first week back offnrunning. Today I ran for the third time. My total run time for the week is 15 minutes.

Epic? Not hardly. But had I been left to my own devices, I probably would have started out with running a mile, three times a week. In my mind, based on my former, normal 7.5 mile outings, this is chump change. It is also the most common mistake that runners coming back to the sport make: too much, too fast. On top of the 30 minute AT intervals on Thursday and my 3x5 minute "full gas" intervals this morning, not to mention the several endurance rides, 15 minutes of running was just what the doctor ordered.

Was it fun? I guess. It was hard to tell after only 5 minutes. Next week I'm thinking I'll get to stretch my legs a little more. The goal is to be able to return to the trails once or twice a week for a nice out and back jog.

And as for getting in the way of cycling, I think that my outlook on this also needs to have a dose of flexibility. Duathlons wouldn't exist if the two were incompatible. And all of those friends who insisted I buy a road bike all those months ago? I met them all running. They do both. They are stronger riders than I am. Why can't I do both, too? Especially since I don't plan on doing sprints or tempo runs or hill repeats. I just want to jog along, chatting it up with my outing mates.

So here is my formal re-announcement of lacing up and hitting the pavement. I am back offnrunning in GSO.

The (wo)Man in the Mirror

Yesterday, I stared at my blank computer screen, starting and stopping about 3 different blog posts that were meant to wrap up 2010 in some sort of meaningful way. I tried to do an entry about the super fun impromptu Thursday ride, the last ride of the year. I tried to do an entry about the super fun Polar Bear ride yesterday, the first ride of the year. Both of them wound up sounding campy and, well, irrelevant. The general gist was "group rides are fun!"

Duh.

This statement is not to belittle the fun I had, or the wonderful company with whom I rode. It's just that riding with your friends stands as one of the pillars of Bike Riding Enjoyment.

So this time, I'm going to write a post that focuses on one thing that I rarely discuss in this blog.

Me.

As in my actual physical body.

Which has undergone a lot of changes since a year ago.

For the majority of the population, good/bad correlates pretty closely with healthy/unhealthy. The average person, if they maintain a certain weight in relation to their height, is also healthy.

For athletes, though, this relationship isn't so cut and dry.

When I ran, I only ran LSD. No, I didn't run on psychotropic drugs. I only ran long steady distances. Even my not so long distances of 5/6 miles were run at a long steady pace. I never broke the 10 mph mark, and knowing what I know now, I doubt my HR ever went above 150. As such, I had super long lean legs. My body fat number was 16.71, and my weight number was 115. And I was "good." I clung to these numbers like awards.

In reality, I probably wasn't as healthy as I could have been; it was a Looking Good sort of weight. If I'm 100% honest with myself, the ultimate end to my running means WAS Looking Good. I didn't run to push my limits or test my strength. I ran to fit into a skinny pair of jeans. It just happened to be more fun than hours on the elliptical.

Then I started cycling.

And stopped running.

My main goal on the bike? Become a Badass.

My trainer has definitely been pointing me down that road. I do intervals. I suffer. There is pain and sweat. There is improvement and strength and endurance.

There is also this recent conversation, taken place shortly after my AT intervals became "established":

Trainer: So how have you been feeling?

Me: Good! Great! Excellent!

Trainer: Are you ok with where you are weight wise?

Me: (60% truthful) Yeah, I don't even really get on the scale anymore.

Trainer: Ok, good. I would imagine that you've been seeing a significant weight loss over the past few months with the ATs, I just want to let you know that this won't be so much the case for the coming months.

Me: ..............

Truth be told, I had been stepping on the scale. It went up. The last time the number read where it is now, I was depressed and living in DC teaching riding lessons and barely getting out to run and eating way too much office cake and sugary things. I even went out and bought an elliptical machine so I could make sure I exercised no matter what the weather outside was.

What's worse, the old "just see if your pants still fit" rule of thumb also had to be thrown out the window, since last winter I was LSD-ing without eating enough and, truth be told, was probably underweight in terms of my muscle tone for what a long distance runner SHOULD be. So none of my pants fit my thighs and butt (where did that come from?).

The one thing I cling to is the body fat number, which at last check was 15.9%. Ok, I'll round up, even though 15.9 sounds better. 16% Same exact ball park as last January. Which means that I know the weight gain is muscle.

So why was that 40% of me untruthful when I said I didn't worry about my weight?

Because of these truths:

I am at a healthy weight for someone who does what I do and wants to improve.

I could still lose some weight and still be healthy.

I love Starbucks coffee and usually put in a lot of cream. <--40%

I love sweet things and often take a bite of this or that treat during the day. <--40%

These are truths that many amateur athletes like myself face every day. The third/fourth ones can be replaced with Starbucks frappacinos, or salty things, or icecream, or what have you. But there are tons of people out there just like me, who are above average for a normal person, but still average for an athlete. To take that next step would mean giving up that third thing, at least in its current form. As of now, only 40% of me wants to take that step; the 40% that's not happy with my weight.

So here I am in 2011, completely different from 2010. I'm healthier, have more muscle, and am stronger. I can honestly say I am in the best shape I've ever been in my entire life.

I'm also about 10 pounds heavier and none of my pants fit.

Those two facts make for a tough, 60/40 scale to balance.