Check engine light - ON

Mile 42.   A left turn.   A deep breath.  A last moment to take in the surroundings, and now my raising head meets nothing but up. A swift ride through crisp air has brought me to a point of troubled thought, of unknowing, of hope and hesitation for I am now at the foot of the beast.

It's Saturday a month and a week from my first race of the year.  I'm somewhere near Bradley, CA, I'm 14 miles from Lake San Antonio and 1 and a half miles from the top of Nasty Grade. This is the test, this is where I get a glimpse of where my training is.  67 miles last week, 42 so far this week.

I'm still in a seated position at this point, gearing down like a truck losing it's breaks but I'm going up and I'm losing my wheels.  I come out of my seat, although this wasn't the first time in this position this ride it's the first time I needed to be.  My inner thought is it's too early to be in this position, but at no point do I retreat to the seat to spin, I just keep plugging away, the only thing in cadence is my breath and the sweat hitting my top tube.

Half way up.  

The road's incline settles a bit but never nears flat, I take this moment to return to my seat and attempt to catch my breath.  I've been up this road twice before and I'm very familiar with the fact that the wors...erh, best is yet to come.  The road ahead begins to bend left and once again returns to it's full and upright position. Out of my seat again.

Now I begin to rely on my weight transfer to push the pedals down, no longer concerned with lifting them up.  Sweat is beading, pooling, then rushing from my forehead.  If I lift a hand to brush it away I'll lose any momentum I've stumbled upon, nonetheless control of the bike.  I hear conversation behind me, two riders talking about the hill, the day and pressing on. It annoys the hell out of me. One voice approaches quicker than the other, my gaze hasn't left the pavement for 100 ft and continues this way until this voice is directly beside me, "Your doing great! Just a little bit more." In response I'm thinking more along the lines of four letter words and if I could get my foot out of this damn clip I'd kick you ....for some reason these thoughts left my mouth a bit differently, "Thanks, have a great ride". She quickly passed and I moved back to thoughts of "it's almost over," trying to hold my bottle of water in position of reward, telling myself that as soon as I reach the top I'm going to stop and recover for a second and get some fluids in.

At this point I see the crest of the hill and the green traffic sign just beyond.  The top is within shouting for help distance.  My stomach seems to be taking a great deal of pride in reminding me that I did not put enough in it, my legs are quickly losing the joy they had merely a mile earlier.  At this point I'm angry and just want to be done with this, I glance up through dripping sweat and frustration taking a peak at that glorious point where road meets sky, my head lowers once again and I force my legs through the motion.  Peddling slowly becomes easier, my heart rate returns to a state other than trying to escape through my ears. If I could grin in frustration I was doing it, but I was happy, I was done with this damn hill.... my soul kicked, beaten, bruised, but not crushed.  I was greeted by a right turn and another hill but nothing compared to what was behind me and I don't mind at all and I know what's next. DOWN!

I went from 42 miles of, "this is beautiful, as soon as I get up nasty grade I'm going to push it a bit." About 12 miles to finish line and a great point to see where I'm at and close a great training ride with charge to the line.  those thoughts were sheepishly put to the side and now I just wanted to get there.

I did get there and realized that I am not where I thought I was.  It was a great ride, a tough climb, but a reality check to say the least.  I'm a bit frustrated, but more happy that I have a feeling of where I am and where I need to be.  

Sunday closed two weeks of great training with some firsts to boot. This week is easy, a chance to regroup a bit, learn and move on.

Aside from this particular increase in elevation the weekend was awesome.  Campfires, hikes, great company, a dog who smells like a mix of lake and burning wood and road trip that, as The Tallest Man on Earth plays in the background, I feel like I'm still on. (thanks for passing that along Whit)

-d

Howling Beast

Sitting, staring, drifting...... this describes my attempt to begin this next posting.  I am quickly pulled from this far off gaze by the sound of two awesomely horrible hounds that seem to announce every waking moment. As always the two howling hounds are met swiftly by the tenacious sleep destroying mutt next door. As she viciously attacks the steel curtain that separates her from immediately turning into Miss Submissive my attention returns, I take a deep breath and look back on a great week.

This week I found myself venturing outside of where I've been before, grabbing a peak at personal fresh tracks.  Saturday was my first bike beyond the 56 mile mark and Sunday I happily returned to runs past an hour and 20 minutes.  Surprisingly I felt great on the ride, that is until about mile 55 where roads that moments earlier were flat and fast became tough, slow, climbs. Miles 55 to 67 were tough but got through them nonetheless.   What I don't recommend, however, is heading to the park a couple hours after your first ever 60+ mile ride for the basketball courts.  Saturday night I found myself much lesser of a man and struggling to move as it seemed some devilishly strong spirit had a strangle hold on my lower back.

Speaking of being lesser of a man, this was an fantastic moment on my bike Saturday.  I have just made it up my last big climb of the day (not that big of a climb, but still some tougher peddling), I let myself coast a bit down El Toro as it turns into Chapman road.  I'm approaching the light where the 241 exits to Chapman just beyond Irvine Lake. A sense of accomplishment is slowly creeping in as at the light I'm going to turn around and head home.  The light is red, which I'm somewhat happy with because I'm going to take a moment and grab a drink before heading back toward the finish line.  I unclip from my left peddle and begin to slow.  I'm just about at the light and go to unclip the right shoe so I can stand for a second and catch my breath, take a drink and turn it around.  This sounds easy enough right, nope... I can't get out of my right peddle and now I HAVE to stop because I'm at the intersection.  One more last ditch effort to remove my stubborn foot from the peddle, nope not happening... and now, with my weight on the wrong side of the bike, I begin a slow.........awkward...... unavoidable....fall to the earth.  Bike hits the pavement, half on the road, half into the rocky ditch just past the curb, my foot still attached to right peddle.

Lucky for me there were vehicles at the intersection.  One waiting to exit the freeway on to Chapman, others approaching from the same direction I had just come from, all most definitely loving what they just witnessed.  See, my fall was one of those falls that you know I'm not hurt, I'm just dirty and embarrassed.  I slowly pick my self up, take a bow and head back home with a sheepish grin that won't remove itself from my face.

After my ride and after I learned He really doesn't have game, I reveled in the the therapeutic giggles and playfulness of Miss Mya Velazquez and the back pain slowly slipped to a mild inconvenience....the advil, ice pack and cinasticks may have helped as well.

Sunday the howling beasts greeted me early in the morning and I awoke for the day to sore but functioning legs and lingering stiffness in my back.  I managed to scoot through an hour and 35 minute run in and around raindrops, a good morning gust of wind or two and a bit of the Southern California sun peaking in and out of the clouds that earlier were in a much worse frame of mind. The run felt great as if a nice cool down from a long grueling Saturday ride.

The rest of the day had me at Target to pick up paper towels and a few other necessities for the house. Apparently it's impossible to pick up just what you came for at this establishment they refer to as Target (it's a soft "g"). I exited Target with the following necessities:

• Air Mattress
  
• Comforter for my spring break road tripping sister
  
• Starburst Jelly beans
  
• Pump for the air mattress
  
• Turbo Tax
  
• ummm......Tent? (come on, they're right next to the air mattresses, and I AM camping soon)
• Paper towels

Learning: Stay on your bike and away from Target

More to come.... 

**note: heeding advice from someone who tends to constantly leave me with a smile on my face, I ask, I beg, I solicit your every thought. Your comments and encouragement are most welcome ;)

 

learnings..

As I sit here, drunk on pool water and looking back on a good week of training and my first 50 mile bike of the year I am constantly reminded of the opportunity in front of me.  It's ever so apparent that, if I can manage to heed the words of a very wise woman and stay quiet just long enough, I might just find that that true message, that insight into who I am.

It's something that I struggle with as my brain is always on....and, not necessarily ON what it's supposed to be on.  I'm constantly wondering is this right? Is that right? Where am I supposed to be, what am I supposed to be doing? I feel like I'm supposed to be great but I have no idea what I'm going to be great at. I want to love something, I want someone to love me. Who could love me? Well, other than the Mother, Father, Sister who...um, HAVE to love me.  Will I find what I'm looking for? Will I know it when I do? Have I found it?

See, that's exactly what I mean.  

50 miles on a bike, 8 miles on the road with one foot in front of the other, the attempts to "slip" through the water quickly past the water aerobic girls has a funny way of shutting things off. And there, in the "off" position do you finally find some insight.  You can go only so long with the attempts at figuring out proper peddling technique or tackling that work issue before silence, rhythmic and defining silence. The hard part is getting there.

So, as I look down the barrel of the next week of training, my first swim in the books and my first 65 mile bike coming into view I take pause and a breath and look forward.

until next time...

Bloggerific

What is bloggerific you ask?  Well, I'm certain it is not me.

As I sat 3 rows back from a man shoving himself into a giant condom so he could  have a smoke I realized I was seriously slacking in my blogging efforts. If I have time to roam the halls of the magic castle, I have time to blog.

This past week was a bit strange as the training unexpectedly lightened.  When I was training it was at the same level, but there were less days and less 2 a day's or bricks.  This kind of threw me off a bit and I lagged in other parts of my life.  For example I did FOUR loads of laundry on Friday.....FOUR.  Sweet, now that I write this it kind of indicates that I was letting that slip for a while.

Although there were fewer workouts I had a long..ish bike on Friday, followed by a 50 minute run. The run seemed somewhat easy but in the middle of the bike it hit me how much improvement I have to make as well as the mental adventure I'm headed towards as I get to longer training days and especially, race day. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges for me is to figure out how to not get bored on the bike.  It's tough to play "I Spy" by yourself....and, it's a little freaky when you get frustrated, snap and tell yourself "NO, WE are NOT there yet!"

With that said, I'm re-focused and will keep up the communication.  At the very least I'll provide my training log.  

P.S. The gentleman in the upper right of this posting spoke not a word during his on stage expression of "excuse me...what?", just cries of "eerrhhhaaaah" and "Whooooouup!". The weird part wasn't necessarily the witnessing of his act, it was sitting at the bar having coffee after the show only to have his Whoooupness and his lovely assistant Fermeldihyde post up next to us as I attempt to gather my sanity.