Finding My Way

It is a well-known fact that sense of direction is not one of my many talents. I truly get lost in shopping malls - no, not just in the parking lots, in the mall itself. My very first post on this blog mentioned my gps (Jack - he's British and sounds like he knows where he's going) and how my friends and family lobbied me to please get a gps as they were tired of getting calls from me asking them to "google me here".

I remind my dear readers and friends of this fact to brag - more than a little. I did a ride this weekend with an un-named companion that had never been on this ride. I planned on checking the route in the morning online (map my ride and map it pronto are awesome as long as you can deal with the advertisements). Of course, my internet was down in the morning ... thank you yet again, Comcast.

We set out on the ride with my caveat that it could get a little interesting as it's been at least a year since I navigated these roads. Thankfully it was a gorgeous day so we figured that worse comes to worst, we could always do an out and back.

My bragging starts here: I remembered the route - all 65 miles of it. I'll admit to one minor detour that we corrected in less than a half-mile ... but otherwise, the route was golden. The ride itself is pretty challenging and believe me, I knew I did a hard ride. But the whole way home I was smiling through the suffering - because I was so damn proud of myself for actually finding my way.

Ah, it's the little things, isn't it ?

TGIF - 11/12/2010

I honestly have no idea how we're in the middle of November already. Didn't it seem like we were all wearing shorts and complaining about the oppressive Mid-Atlantic humidity just a couple weeks ago ? Now we're less than two weeks from Thanksgiving.

Promptly on Nov 1, I saw my first Christmas TV ad of the year. I know it's all downhill from there. I have a coworker that is pretty much finished with her holiday shopping. I can't even comprehend that concept right now. First, I am not a fan of buying gifts for people simply because there's a certain date on the calendar. I am a fan of random gifts - you know, just because you thought of someone, just because you saw something they'd like. Second, the thought of fighting traffic and crowds at the mall makes me throw up a little. People forget that whole "spirit of the season" thing and will run your ass over with a cart or their stroller or whatever else they're wielding to get through the task at hand. I liken it to riding my bike on Sunday mornings ... people are so intent on getting to church on-time that they're willing to run over any obstacle (like, say, someone riding a bike) in their way. All's fair in Christmas shopping and getting to church on time.

On a more positive note, I recently discovered Netflix. If you haven't discovered Netflix yet, go forth and do so. It will change your life. I am almost (almost) looking forward to those indoor training sessions this winter. Between the e-motion rollers (that I heart) and the option to stream any kind of distraction I please, I may survive another winter. Due to my work schedule and dwindling daylight, I've already caught up on Grey's Anatomy and finished the final season of The Tudors. I'm telling you, it will change your life.

As for questions I've had about the bike: Yes, I plan to race next year. Yes, I'm back on the bike, though I'm still running a couple times a week until I finish the Rehoboth half in mid-December. Yes, I am masochistic and hope to have the guidance of the Slavedriver for my winter of 2010 super-secret-training plan. Oh, fine, it probably won't be super-secret. It just sounds better that way.

Friday couldn't come soon enough this week - this weekend I'll put my Vespa in storage for the winter. Sad day, though necessary. I'm thankful that I was afforded the option to store it in the Meidhof garage last year - the poor thing would have been buried in all that snow.

Yeah, I said it. The "S" word. In November, no less. Take that.

One Sport Short of a Triathlete

Ah, yes, it's been a while. The last two months have been a bit of a whirlwind for me with a century and a half marathon (my first!) intermingled with Ravens games, a trip to NC, a trip to Rehoboth, rediscovering my bike a couple weeks before the century, re-kindling some old friendships and oh, working, eating and sleeping.

The Seagull (part deux) - again, I let priceline make decisions for me and wound up at the same hotel I stayed in last year. Actually made the start with the DC Velo train (thanks to them for humoring me!) I was more than anxious seeing as my longest ride in the past 3 months had been 55 miles and here I was, starting off with the big-dogs. Away we go and I was pretty pleased that I stuck with them for about a half hour before silently crying uncle. I settled in with a little more civilized group and picked up another friendly face (ie another "train" castoff). The guys we were riding with were fairly strong and very quick to explain to us what it meant to take a pull - they were also quick to show their surprise when I pulled off by exclaiming "that was a great pull". I just smiled and said thanks.

Later, we intermingled with a different group - one that was too big to stay organized. At one point a guy yelled at Steve for passing on the right - there was a second line forming on the right and Steve was just moving up to catch the draft. The guy continued to b*tch until I rode up behind Steve and said - look, we've done this before. You ride your bike and I'll ride mine, m'kay ? I heard the guy muttering a little while longer about how he was just sensitive to people who don't know what they were doing or something of the like. In that same group, I rode up to one of the few girls in the crowd, again in the right "lane". I looked over and said hey, how ya doin'? She responded by "I guess no one knows what passing on the left means". I should note that this girl was in her tri-bars part of the time in the big group (uh ... duh ... bad idea) and that later in the day, her group came past mine and passed - on the right !! Sigh.

Post-ride, I was invited to attend the DC Velo dinner - much love and respect for that crew, always a class-act and always welcoming to this orphan cyclist. Thank you for including me, it was a fantastic ending to a great day.

I was thrilled to see my auditor on the start line and I know my recruiter was there - both reported a great day on the bike. I consider these guys good friends and am happy to think I had some influence on their relatively new-found love of the ride.

As for the Baltimore half marathon ... a whole different ballgame. I've run a couple 5ks and 10ks back in the day, but once I found the bike, that was o-v-e-r. I diligently trained according to a schedule Mitch gave me. The goal: do the half in Baltimore and maybe be fit for the Rehoboth marathon in early Dec.

In running, things are a bit different with over-training and injuries. On the bike, I am well known to train or race through just about anything (barring a pelvic fracture, I wussed out on that one). You just can't do that running. If something is injured and you try to train through it, you just eff yourself up even worse. So, when I got a new pair of kicks (same model I've been running in for years) and they caused a foot injury (note: do not run 14miles in new kicks)I had to stop running. As in none. Nothing. Not one step. For three weeks before the half. Thankfully, I fared ok, sticking with Mitch for the first 6miles or so, then running at my own pace to finish about 6mins behind her. I was relatively happy with my time until Mitch put it in perspective: 4 months ago, I couldn't WALK. And here I am finishing a half-marathon in just over 2hrs. All of sudden that made the whole thing a little emotional: I woulda cried if I hadn't been so damn dehydrated.

As a note, I fail to see the logic on some of the running stuff. For the half marathon, we all parked at Ravens Stadium and had to walk over to the Inner Harbor for the start. Call it a warm up. Then we had to cross through the Marathon runners to get to the actual start. Not so smart - I saw a bunch of near-misses and I know a few of them actually had to slow down because idiots were crossing when they shouldn't have. Last, right after you finish, they funnel you through to get your shiny blanket (never understood these, now I do!) and your finishers medal. Then you go out of the corral and they give you tix for two free beers. Which brings me to my point of confusion: they give 2 free beers to people who just finished running 13 or 26 miles, are dehydrated and have no food in them. I'm not sayin' anything, I'm just sayin'.

I do admit that while I'm not a beer-drinker, I had no trouble downing one beer - I think I actually enjoyed it. By the way, I decided that I'll do the half at Rehoboth, not the full marathon. Running just doesn't captivate me as much as the bike does.

Big, huge props to all of my coworkers who manned up and did the half-marathon. Most of them are not obsessive athletes like our cycling brethren - but they diligently trained and all but one of them finished the event. I think I enjoyed seeing them discover the thrill of achievement more than I enjoyed my own achievement. How cool is that ?


On to off-season training - I made my decision last month that yes, I'm going to give road racing another whirl, though I'm still not sure what my race season will look like. Its the first time in several years that I haven't been running a club, creating a club or holding a club together ... it's rather refreshing just to ride when and how and with whomever you want.

And yes, I am one sport short of a Tri-geek. Too bad they don't have a water-wings division in Tri's, I might've actually considered it during my stay on injured reserve this year.