Signs of progress

Four from our team drove down to Elma to race in the shadow of a deactivated nuclear power plant (in fact, it's the actual nuclear power plant that inspired Homer Simpson's vocation since Matt Groening went to Evergreen).

None of us had major expectations for the two 13 mile laps; it was being treated as a fun training race, esp after recovering from Walla Walla. I hung with the main pack the whole race during all the attacks, surges, and the first climb up the big hill, which was my one goal. On the second, final trip up the big hill I could feel my lack of hill training as the pack pulled away a few hundred feet from the finish and I had nothing to respond with. That was fine by me, I was getting "on the hill training" and quite satisfied to have hung with the main pack nearly the whole race. I crossed the finish line with a huge grin on my face, completely happy that I felt so good, blessed with putting another spring race under my belt.

My teammates were extremely happy to see me do so well staying with the main pack, pretty much what I did in Walla Walla (ok except for the being dropped in the road race part). They see sure signs of progress in my racing and all important recovery.

This week marks the 2 year anniversary of my battle with chronic fatigue and I really couldn't be happier with where I am. To have made it this far this year is monumental for me. It's one week at a time. Slow, but sure signs of progress.

Vitamin Deeeee-lightful!

Does it get any better than 70F and sunny in Seattle? (Well, yes I can think of a few better places...mmmmm....salt water.... but that's for another time.) I spent most of the day rolling around the track with friends and making up for lost time in the sun just lounging around afterwards. Sunburned lips? Check. Bike shorts tan lines? Check.

The track bike felt soooooooooo good under me! There is nothing like the feel of real track geometry to make you appreciate what FAST really means. Just sitting on it instantly propels you forward as fast as possible. Take away all the silly gears and brake doo-dads and glue on super skinny 19mm tires and you're set to hit light speed.

Not that I was anywhere near light speed today. It was just a fun time to get the legs spinning and do a final gear check before Tuesday's official, inaugural Kenny-Bot workout. My lazy days of Zone 2 are so over. And that's ok with me because track season is upon us and it's time to go FAST!!

I declare it officially SPRING!

Why? For many reasons, I say:

1) I got the first work email about putting together a team for the Bike to Work Month Challenge. May is Bike to Work Month and that = SPRING!!! Commuting is the easy part - now we have to think of a witty team name.

2) I got to ride into work this morning with Dave Hiller who never ceases to crack me up with his mix of cynicism and brilliant wit. The sun was shining and birds were chirping, so that meant a zillion MOMZ and their baby strollers on the Burke. He spent much of the ride quietly beoytching about them walking two abreast and told me about Asshole Dave's #1 Rule: If you don't have at least 6 punches in your punchcard from riding or walking outside in January, then you don't deserve to be outside on a nice spring day. Outta my way!

3) Springtime happy hour with my coworkers. Granted, we were inside a dark hole, but I got to ditch work early, ride in the warm sunshine to and from so that counts for something. And in addition to all the other random run-ins today, I saw Miss Michele looking mighty bodacious and fine with her friends and also enjoying the beautiful evening. I swear I'll go to my grave only being identified by the bicycle crap attached to my body.

4) Taking advantage of the warm weather and late sunset to finish the day's errands sans lights. Riding around town w/o looking like a spaceship reminds me of the careless days of being a kid when you weren't conscious of visibility or traffic rules, you just rode your bike to have fun and get around. More people need to embrace that. Bikes are not that complicated, people.

5) Watching dusk creep over the Ballard Bridge on the way home and turn the water different shades of blue and black with the loud hum of the cars vibrating around you. If you put your ear up to one of the metal beams it's like a thousand seashells calling your name. It's one of my favorite parts of living in this city.

Welcome, Spring, we've been waiting for you!

Stage races are HAAAAARD

Especially when you don't train for them! Somehow despite spending the past 5 months in Zone 2 with a handful of intervals thrown in I managed to finish the Walla Walla stage race this weekend. And when I say that I "finished", I mean not in epic form, but not DFL either. My performance was greatly effected by the cold, dry (!) weather and my nervousness, which led to my asthma acting up when the going got really tough. Of course, not training for this kind of insanity could have even more to do with it.....

With only 5ish hours of sleep the night before, the early morning TT was 7 miles of mental anguish, in which I quit riding and sold all of my bikes to begin a sedentary life of plant husbandry and chocolate devotion. But then the race ended, I took a nap in the car, and felt much better about living my existing lifestyle.

The road race was 38 miles of rolling hills and 2 big, long climbs. I managed to hang on to the crazy fast pack for about 20 miles, but just as I predicted when we pre-drove the course, I got popped on the rollers on the way back to Waitsburg. Hills and long tempos haven't exactly been on my training plan so I knew my legs and lungs would be shot by then. The pack was super strong so I'd start to get dropped on the uphill, then catch up on the downhill, but they never slowed down enough for me to bury myself in the middle, and with my asthma making me wheeze I didn't want to push it. Having an attack in the middle of nowhere was not on my list.

I was actually quite relieved to finally get popped. I slowed it down a bit, the stress disappeared, and I got to enjoy the wonderful scenery! The puffy clouds, the bright green wheat fields, the random horses and cows. I pretended that I was on a lovely tour of the French countryside.....only I couldn't stop by the side of the road to snack on bread and cheese. Damn. On the big climb back to Waitsburg I heard a small voice behind me say, "Jill B! It's Ellen! Jill B! It's Ellen!" It was like a little angel came up behind me. It was my teammate Ellen, who had also been dropped (there were many of us scavenging the countryside), so we rode together at an easy pace up the big hill and chatted. Towards the top we found our team's amazing support crew cheering for us and ringing their cowbells and encouraging us on. I almost fell over laughing as Jane ran up next to me ringing her cowbell. All she needed was a devil costume and pitchfork and she'd fit right in at The Tour.

Ellen and I were later joined by Amara, who also made the ride back to the finish much more fun. She'd gotten popped by the 1-2-3s, but being a crit and track specialist herself, she was just fine to get in some base miles. It was so great to know I wasn't the only trackie out there suffering! We finally hit the 3k climb up to the finish. Again, I predicted that I'd be in trouble because my cassette is a lowly 12-23 and the last thing my legs would want is to grind up this climb. But I did it. Slowly. My asthma was still restricting my breathing so I kept it a slow, methodical procession. It seemed like an hour later I made it to the top. Our whole team was up there cheering for everyone and I could finally stop pedaling, calm down my lungs, and relish in the ridiculous accomplishment.

The next morning was the crit - my first one! Somehow I'd managed to recover from the day before, and I figured that I could deal with 30 more minutes of pain. It turned into a really fun race with lots of turns that I managed to hold and no one went down! I did my best to hang with the pack, but again the cold air was effecting my lungs so I was wheezing hard after only 5 laps. I did a good job controlling my breathing, but it was enough for me to hang on. There would be no efforts to move up in the pack or epic sprint finished for me. I was at the tail end across the finish line, but I knew that many others had dropped and been pulled so I was thrilled that I managed to stay with the lead pack of 20-ish very fast girls. My teammates were extremely proud that I managed to hang and I have to admit so was I. Maybe I'll do better if I can breathe the next time?

All in all our team did great! Ali and Lori was absolutely amazing in their weekend accomplishments. They both stayed up front with the lead pack in the road race and took 8th and 12th! I'm SO PROUD of Ali for how well she's doing in this crazy new pursuit of hers. In the crit, they again stayed at the front and Lori took the win in a roaring sprint finish! Way to go girls!

For me, even better is that after the weekend my energy levels are really good and my body seems to have forgotten what I put it through this weekend. Hoooray for recovery!! And I have to give big loving thanks to The World's Greatest Boyfriend who was our team's lone Boy Wrench and put up living with 13 crazy women for 4 days. He's recovering by taking a well deserved ski trip to the mountains today. I love you, babe!

Catharsis

I hit my mental and physical wall this past Saturday night. I spent most of the day freaking out about what else I could give my body to quell its impending breakdown. Blue Box Tea? Organic beef? Sunshine? Jane's stash of Dragon Poo Tea? I was literally shaking from the anxiety that I couldn't control anything and that nothing was helping to turn my body around. I had a dream about racing at Boat Street (although it was me being at the start line with flat tires and I couldn't fix them in time so I watched everyone else race), but there was no way my body could perform without crashing my system for good.

Sitting in the sun at Qwest Field listening to the Dalai Lama did nothing to reduce my fears. I talked to Jane afterwards to get a report from the Volunteer Park crit, but that turned into talk about how I was feeling and the layers of a giant meltdown began to peal away. I could barely ride my bike the 5 miles home. My body weighed 300 pounds, my heart was heavy, my legs were encased in concrete.

When I got home, the full-on meltdown let loose as I collapsed on my bed. However, as I was bawling my eyes out and gasping for air, an epiphany came to me: these tears were for what I was so desperately afraid of losing with Zack. I realized that I'd been repressing all my feelings and concerns about where we are going together and when we'll finally live in the same city again and WHERE will we live and will I be away from everyone I know or will he elect to move to the mountains or desert and what about my job and when will our life together really begin and I'm tipping the age scales so will I ever be a mom? It all came bubbling out of the fountain of my face. I don't know how the poor guy understood a word I said, but being the Best Boyfriend in the Whole World, he listened and we talked as I mumbled and we talked some more and after a few hours we finally understood more of how much we mean to each other. It felt very, very, very good. I'll be washing the snot out of my pillows for the next month.

The next day, I slept in until 10 a.m., but woke up with more energy than I'd had in a month. I didn't feel any desperation for special tea or mass quantities of iron. I couldn't believe how wonderful I felt, but it shouldn't be that shocking. Stress and depression are the leading causes of disease. I'm glad I worked it out this time. We went out for a fun ride in the rain and I felt GREAT and I began to plan my adventure at Walla Walla this weekend. Game on!!

Concerned

I've been feeling pretty crappy this week and now my neck glands are sore and swollen while the rest of me is chilled and lethargic like the days before the flu sets into your bones and holds you captive. But this isn't the flu, it's the other incessant virus that lives in me that may be winning this week's battle. I skipped my vitamin cocktail shot last week, thinking that I could get by, but it appears my body is too vulnerable for even a week without the shot and that's all this virus needs to take control. I had signs of this happening the last time I skipped a shot a few weeks ago, but I took it as a fluke......and now my teammate confirms that this is exactly how she relapsed.

Luckily tomorrow is Happy Shot Day. I really hope it's not too late.

Pure AWESOME

This is what "balls to the walls" is all about. Dressing up like parents strolling with a baby carriage along the GG Bridge and then whipping out your flags and climbing equipment from under the baby blankets and scaling the bridge before anyone knows what's going on. Fucking awesome.


Can you hear us now China?

TTs are HAAAAAAAAAAARD

Part 1 of my Walla Walla Shakedown was to do my first TT in aero bars. Since I conveniently won some the other weekend, today's Carnation TT was to be my testing ground. A few things occupied my mind over the 12.5 mile course:

1) Relax your shoulders.
2) Get your hoohoo more forward on the saddle to be in a more powerful position (delicate, but doable).
3) Why am I doing this.
4) This freakin' sucks.
5) Where is the damn roundabout.
6) That bitch passed me.
7) Oooooooooh.......tailwind. I love God. Thank you God for tailwinds.*
8) I take back everything good I said about you, God. I now I have a wicked crosswind, a long way to go, and you suck.**
9) Races where you can't stop pedaling or draft behind someone are STUPID.
10) My teammate, Barb, is CRAZY to do TTs on purpose. And she does much longer ones. And wins medals. She's CRAZY.
11) That wasn't so bad.

Other than the torturous 40 minutes or so, it a very fun affair warming up and cooling down with the guys on our team. Races with epic amounts of laughter are what make it all so worthwhile. I really enjoy being surrounded by my new big brothers who can't take themselves or this silly racing business too seriously. Part 2 of my Walla Walla Shakedown is next week's criterium where I will hopefully complete my first crit and walk away unscathed. Laughter, guaranteed.

* Not a common use of the word "God" for me. More like one of those moments of extreme pain or ecstasy when giving praise to a deity kinda blurts out.
** Most common use.

My warning label

"Lunch box for the Ore Ida Stage Race 92" by Jackie Phelan.

Godmother of Cycling

I was cruising around another site today when I found a link to none other than Jacquie Phelan's blog. Poking around her entries, Flickr site, and WOMBATS site sent me back about 20 years when I first picked up a mountain bike and heard of this eclectic woman who wore dresses and pearls and lace and kicked the men's asses in big mountain bike races out West. To encourage more women to embrace dirt and mud as proper athletic ladies should, she formed the Women's Mountain Bike and Tea Society, putting on skill clinics around the states, forming charter clubs, and holding annual gatherings where women would ride the trails all day and always break for afternoon tea.

She's been known as the Godmother of Mountain Biking, but that could easily be extended to all of cyclingdom given that her range includs road, cyclocross, and commuting as well. In the past few years she's been inducted into the Cycling Hall of Fame, too. I remember reading an interview where she was asked why she started riding bikes and she said that her mother wouldn't drive her or her siblings to school so they had to ride bikes, no matter what the weather, year round. Now THAT was tough and someone I knew I wanted to emulate.

Being stuck in Ohio and one of about 3 girls in the state who raced mountain bikes at the time, I never actually joined the WOMBATS, but in a pre-Internet era I cut out pages of their ads and articles from magazines and hoped that one day I would live out West and rides bikes with the same obsession as those free spirited, mud-soaked women. If I ever meet Jackie I'd say that she'd be pretty happy with what she managed to culture inside me.

Oh - and that early 90's photo of her nekkid and covered with mud playing a pair of early RockShox like a lute? It's in her new calendar. I've been on a quest to have that photo in my possession again for a long time. Sold!!

Feeling Sequimy

If you asked anybody who showed up in Sequim today, the most exciting thing about the race was the weather. Twelve hours ago it had been snowing fat flakes in Seattle and pissing rain and 35F in the rain shadow of Sequim, but we woke up in our hotel this morning to find clear skies and dry roads! Race on, baby!

So five of us from our team spent the morning rolling 36 miles along Kitchen Dick and Woodcock Road with about 35 other women, about half of whom wore that ubiquitous shade of turquoise known so well around the Puget Sound area. It was a good fast pace, much faster than last time, with lots of attacks that went no where, yet par for the Cat - all too much braking for no damn reason. They brake at the bridge crossing, they brake going up hill, they brake going downhill, they brake in the middle of no where. And what results from all this needless braking? Why wheel overlap and reckless swerving, dontcha know!

By the last few miles I was ready to leave the braking behind and take this pack home, but after an attempt at pushing the pace up front, I pulled off and watched the pack zip by me, quickly getting boxed in towards the back. Frustrated that I wasn't up front to help my teammates for obvious sprint finish that would be forming, I wanted to get around the mass of turquoise ass around me, but riders started braking, wheels and bikes started wobbling, and right in front of my eyes we went down like a herd of alloy elephants under a poacher's rifle. Luckily it was one of those slow motion events, but completely unavoidable from my doomed position. I landed on one piece of turquoise, but quickly got up and remounted my bike, knowing that it was a fine piece of Columbus tubing and didn't have to worry about catastrophic failure. My brake levers were bent, but I pushed off in time to see the pack a good 1/4 mile ahead. With less than 2 km to go I knew there was no time to catch them, although I did have a superhero headline flash in my mind: "Downed rider with heart of lion catches up to pack at the finish and zooms past to take the win". Yeah right. Don't waste your energy! Save it for another day.

Turns out that 1 other teammate went down in the pile up, but 3 of our team made it out front to continue our consistent placing. I have no doubt if I hadn't gone down that I could have led them out for an even better placing. But that's racing. I can't complain - we had amazing weather and dry roads! Our new girls also did a great job and everyone finished safely. That's all I ask for. Staying healthy and trying again another day.

Why oh Why....

....Is Kristi Yamaguchi on Dancing With The Stars? She's an Olympic and World Champion ice skater....lots of TIMING and CHOREOGRAPHY that goes along with that little hobby. And yet she's competing against the likes of Penn "& Teller" Jillette, Adam "The Man Show" Carolla, and Priscilla "Airplane" Presley for the championship title? When confronted about it she whined that she's been "retired" for 15 years (not sure if that includes the years of touring with Stars on Ice) and had 2 little pumpkins. Hey Kristi: Once a skater, always a skater. If Lance decides to come back in 10 years and race as a Cat 4 do you think his competitors might have a valid gripe?

Yes this is what I'm doing on a weeknight. This is serious Walla Walla training. Must be the chocolate pudding talking.

Go Penn! Go Adam!

Walla Walla or bust

It's officially spring so just as the petals fall off the cherry trees so do the members of our team drop out of the line up. We started in November with 17 women. Let's count who's on the sideline now:

- 1 recovering from EBV since last year
- 1 reactivated case of EBV
- 1 more elbow surgery
- 2 mental health breaks
- 1 pulled hammie since last year
- 1 recovering from breast cancer (but doing very well)

That leaves us with 10 teammates in various forms of fitness and commitment. One of our team's big goals this year is the wonderful Walla Walla stage race in mid-April. It's a beautiful setting and well run event. In fact, our field sold out in less than 2 days. I didn't bother signing up because I figured that I'd be taking it easy and rallying the stronger troops along the backstretch while sipping some good local red wine. I like my races short and fast, not so much these drawn out, 3-stage productions that favor little people who sat on their trainers all winter while watching LOTR. But now that we're looking a bit thiner (sadly, not that kind of thin) I'm stepping up to fill the ranks. I won some sweet time trial bars at Dung #1 so I took that as a sign. As usual, I'll go in with zero expectations and not come away too disappointed. And besides, when you're off the back you get to enjoy the scenery that much more.

Pray for Tibet

And for all those whose expression for freedom will cost them their lives under the unforgiving hand of China. This video shows peaceful protesters being arrested in India. It's only a fragment of the brutality and terror faced by those who will be punished for protesting in Lhasa and other areas in Tibet.

Darfur and Lhasa....China, this is what the world sees as you are blinded by the glare of the Olympic torch you polish so vainly.

First loser!

Today marked my first race in 11 months and 1 week since coming back from being sick (again). In fact, the last time I popped my head out was in Sequim for the last Tour de Dung in 2007, so my return was the first TdD in 2008. It's one of my favorite courses because it favors lazy, large-boned sprinters like myself who don't hold any particular fondness for hills. It's a mostly flat course in Sequim, WA, with a few friendly rollers to make some fast descents and hard right turns.

Our team had the biggest showing ever, with 12 girls in the bunch. It was the first official "team race" and time for a few of our newbies to pop their racing cherry. I was high on anxiety while warming up, thinking that my months of base-only training would promptly get me dropped in the first big pack surge. For 3 laps I was constantly amazed that I was able to bury myself and stick with everyone, even during the many futile attacks. At about 2 miles to go I realized that it really would come down to a sprint finish so I thought, "THIS....I can do." I held a good position about 3 rows in and we blazed down towards the finish and once the 200m mark fell and the road opened up it was just me and my 54x15 (am I NUTS!!!) that took me to the end, nipped by a spunky 22 year old college student from Western. Not bad. Absolutely amazing compared to where I've been the last year.

This whole past week I told myself that I'd be riding this race for all those who can't: my teammates who are also battling chronic fatigue, pulled hammies, bronchitis, and breast cancer, and for all those at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance whom we'll be working with this coming year. My pounding heart, labored breathing, and legs full of poisonous jello are all of you.

And another best part? Being able to eat ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in my kitchen tonight with no second thought. YUM!!

Not cool

The hot water heater for my condo unit lives in my bedroom closet. I had it replaced last year. Yesterday afternoon when I walked into my bedroom I thought I smelled some "ozone," but it went away quickly so I dismissed it. Around dawn this morning I woke up to a loud POP, but half asleep, dismissed it as Momo doing something mischievous in the outside room. After another quick POP I finally got up to see what's going on, but couldn't find anything and thought I was going crazy, but a few minutes later I heard it again and saw a flash behind my closet door. I threw the doors open knew it had to be the hot water heater. I frantically pulled all the bedding and blankets away from the shelves around it. Then it POPped again and I saw the actual sparks shoot out and small flames rise up from the top of it. Momo and I jumped about 10 feet and I ran out to the circuit breaker and shut off everything because I couldn't tell which was just the water heater. Still completely stunned, I inspected the top of the heater and saw that the electric component on the top of it had obviously developed a short since there was a hole burned through its metal lid and the copper grounding wire arching off of it was also burned. I eventually called my building manager and he came up to check it out. He'd never heard of anything like this and was stunned also and glad I was ok.

Who thinks of a hot water heater being the source of a bad wiring disaster? Granted it's a large appliance that has to heat up mass amounts of cold water so there must be some electronic component to it with as much a chance to fail as any, but hell it's in everyone's closet with all their flammable clothing too so it must be all good, right?

Fuck me. All those sparks and short flames were just inches away from all my down bedding and blankets and sweaters and clothing. That entire closet would have gone up in flames in seconds and engulfed the entire wall with the door out of my bedroom. The only other way out is the window, which is 4 floors up. Based on how frantic I was just seeing those sparks and small flames, I cannot fathom what I would have been like had there been a real disaster. There would be no time to think or be rational.

I'm getting one of my old climbing ropes and tethering it to my armour. I also don't have a smoke detector in my bedroom. I'm going to get 12 new smoke detectors and even afix one to Momo's head. I don't care if the other kitties make fun of him.

But I did make the most of a beautiful sunny day and went out for a great ride with Heather. If my place wanted to burn down while I was out, that was fine with me.

Owww

My hammies have been extraordinarily tight the past few months so I got a massage last night to try and loosen them up and prevent any hammy pull disasters. But now my ass feels like it's been through a meat grinder and I can't sit down very easily. I don't know how that tiny woman and her elbows could inflict such pain in parts of my ass I didn't know existed.

But I know it's all good.

Epsom salts bath tonight.

Oh HURL

It's funny that a number of us are talking about stomach failure as our training programs begin to reintroduce intervals back into our soft, wintery lives. I had two 5-minute hill intervals on my agenda tonight so I staked out my route around the corner from my house in Magnolia.

You know how it goes....you start out completely charged eating up that hill and breathing deep and hard something fierce and then....you look at your watch and only 60 seconds have passed by. Shit. It must be broken! You continue on up as you try to entertain your brain with the cracks in the pavement or seeing how close you can get to parked cars while going anoxic, but the lunch that never really digested 5 hours ago has awakened and would love to revisit the land of the living. Oh no not now! Think of something else.....so you lean forward over the seat and into the hill and you're thankful that you pulled on your bibs so the winter insulation packed around your waist won't insult you any more than is necessary at this point. You push the thought of your lunch back down and continue up knowing that you can make it that much farther and you do. Rest. Repeat. Hurl.

NAHBS recap

In a word: awesome. What exactly was so awesome, you ask? Well I'll tell you:

- Seeing all the bike luv hovering around and locked up outside the Portland convention center. There was as much of a show outside as inside.
- 3,000 people stuffed into a convention hall and freaking out the fire marshal
- Steel, titanium, lugs, cargo, fenders, racks, painted flower hubs, wooden rims, singlespeed CX, etc etc
- Andy Hampston's 1988 Giro d'Italia bike
- My new pink wool beanie
- Running into everyone I knew and luved all while oozing with bike luv
- Riding all over Portland Sat night
- Bike trees everywhere you turned
- The magic carpet cargo bike we borrowed from the house we stayed at
- Zack taking me to the best Cajun restaurant after the afterparty and inhaling not just my bowl of jumbalya, but his as well
- Riding home after 2 bowls of jumbalaya, not so awesome
- Defying the laws of advanced aging and staying up til 3 a.m.

Hard to pick out favorite things. I'm a Vanilla groupie so I was digging the Speedvagen, Sacha's proprietary steel tubing CX rig. Thin, teardrop tubing for an ultra lightweight steel frame with lots of lateral stiffness. It's the new Vanilla team issue bike. I know there are other excellent framebuilders out there, but hey, they say crack is whack too.

The most talked about bike was the one that won Best in Show, President's Choice, and People's Choice - the Naked fixed gear.

Total hotness of black steel, chrome, curves, wooden rims, leather, White Industry cranks, integrated top tube bike lock hole, and beer tap handlebars. Rumour is that Lance Armstrong bought it for $15,000 after oogling it at the show. The framebuilder, Sam Whittingham, also hold numerous world speed records such as the one-hour record. He said that he made this bike as an homage to Portland and its luv for bikes.

NAHBS pre-show

Like a 6 year old kid at the gates of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, I am absolutely GIDDY in anticipation for this weekend's North American Handmade Bike Show!!! The past few years I've coveted all the bikes from afar, but this year there was no way I'd miss it being in the bike haven of Portland. Sacha, Indy Fab, steel, lugs, cargo, fixed, cross, hotness. We'll be there tomorrow and Sunday. The previews, as always, have me tingling.

You

will

be

MINE