WTF???

I am officially terrified...and in way over my head. Or at least that's how I felt on my ride today. I had so hoped to make this post a triumphant recounting of an amazing ride that settled all my remaining anxieties about this race. I intended to give a proper retirement post to my trusty old touring bike, the General and introduce my younger, sexier bike to the world. Instead, I finished my ride in near tears, white faced and on the phone to my mom, hoping she could make it all better. I had such a run of good luck last week--a scholarship from MGH, a great apartment in Boston that's mine as of today, and finally taking possesion of my new Trek, outfitted with all that I thought I'd need to make the biking portion of this endeavor more manageable. I guess I was a bit unrealistic in my expectations. The bike is great, and light and quiet and new and shiny...all those things. But it also required me to stop 4 times to readjust the seat, only to find that the stem is still just a bit too long and whatever was wrong with my seat positioning, it caused my feet to go numb. Do you know how hard it is to ride 40+ miles with numb feet? But still, I was being patient with it all, accepting that it was my first ride on my new bike and it would take time. In the end, I find myself back at home, once again rationalizing all the reasons why my ride wasn't as great as I thought it should be--wind, frost heaves and potholes, crazy climbs, not enough food with me. What I realize now though is that this is just how it is. My ride will be filled with hills, frost heaves and potholes, and wind...all I can do is work with it. But I'm so terrified that I won't be able to do this. I mean, I know I'll finish, but I set the bar so high for myself and it's hard to accept that I might not be the badass that I thought I was. And I don't expect anyone to really understand, but while the rest of my friends are getting married, having babies, buying houses, I'm trying to train and prove that I'm more than I used to believe I was. I'm making life choices that might not make sense to people, but my life has brought me here and I have to go with it. I guess I'm just trying to find the words to express why I'm being so hard on myself, why I'm so scared and I'm coming up short. But I am nothing if not resilient, so on the plus side, I finished my ride and within minutes, felt that I could go out and run, so I suppose my recovery time is improving. And with a little bit of extra glucose and nutrients, I would probably not have felt so weak and pathetic at the end. And, I managed to use my aero bars a bunch and once I got comfortable with the relative instability, really loved that position.



I did manage to ride the rest of my race route today, so now I've seen all of it, including where I'll be running. At first I was psyched, riding this road along the lake. Outside of the wind coming off the water, the ride was great. The road had gentle hills and the view was amazing. But then, it started to get bumpy. Really bumpy. The view could no longer distract me as I rode along, bumping, thumping, losing power to the road, wondering what all this bumping was doing to sensitive parts of my body that, should I ever find myself in a relationship again, I'd like to still have fully functional. And then I saw the sign, "Frost Heaves". Well, what the f- had I been riding on?? How much worse could it get? Fortunately for me, frost heave signs up here are about as informative as deer or moose crossing signs--they're everywhere and there's no guarantee that they mean anything. What would have been more helpful would have been a sign saying "Big ass climb approaching, eat your gu now." Too bad...I'm starting to go along well again, the road is smoothing out, and then... f#*k me! Sorry for the expletives, but that's what was going through my mind. I believe I actually said it out loud as well. Ok, low gear, switch back up the road, hope that no cars are coming, and hope like hell that there's a sweet downhill on the other side. To be honest though, the ride was really ok outside of that stretch of road and I should take comfort in the fact that in the entire route, there's only that one nasty climb and the rest of the roads may have actually been paved in my lifetime. And in one of my more lucid moments on the ride, I managed to have the thought that if there was no challenge, then this race wouldn't be worth doing. I later laughed at my naivete as my blood sugar bottomed out...

My sweet new ride...we have a love hate relationship thus far

And one final positive note...the lake has finally thawed out. Progress, in slow increments, is progress nonetheless.