Crazy Is As Crazy Does

There may not be a force on earth strong enough to fix my cycling skills in time to race Mt. Tam next weekend, but I signed up anyway.  Haha...  Wish me luck!

I'm a Fixer Upper

Red Kite Racing hosts cycling races all year, but most of them take place on Sundays and, unfortunately, BART doesn't run early enough for us to make it to Pleasanton in time for the 8am starts.  The championship, however, is a *two-day* event where the Women's Cat 3/4 final falls on a Saturday *and* since BART has morning service starting at 5am on Saturdays...

Flash forward to September 5th at 5am.  We were wishing we had never even heard of cycling.  It was more like a race to the snooze button.  LOL

Billy and I were still rubbing the sleep out of our eyes when we got to the Fruitvale BART station and almost had side-by-side matching his-and-hers heart attacks because the BART station signs were displaying the wrong destination for the southbound train.  We breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief when doors opened to a Dublin/Pleasanton train.  Phew!

I'll admit that the start line for this race might've been the most intimidated I've felt on my bike to date.  All the biggest dogs in the pack were there donning team threads and looking pretty mean.  Then there was me in my short shorts and streamers (which I removed as a precaution - wah!).  Turns out that day I didn't even come close to breaking my top two times around this flat smooth one mile loop around the Clorox campus.

I was feeling pretty comfortable hanging on to the back of the pack for the first eight laps.  After a little break away, trying to get into the group another cyclist piped up to reprimand me.  She was like, "You cornered waaaaaay better that time."  Since what she said was actually super constructive and nice *and* she delivered it in a British accent it was actually kinda wonderful hearing from her!   I'll take what I can get!  Hehe.  However, for my next race I think I will install a comment box on my bike in the shape of a middle finger.  What do you think?

Thirty minutes into the race.  We've gone around in circles ten times....  No crashes.  No flats.  I wasn't dizzy, tired, or winded!  My legs were going, "Would you go already!?!!"  Oyoyoy.  A friend made her move to the front of the group, but I wasn't on her wheel.  In that moment I was 100% sure that if I wanted to have a chance at the top five I needed to be up there with her, but I just didn't go for it.  I was afraid if I moved from the back of the pack, I might not make it back in with enough time to corner safely.  Ugh!

I got 10th.  Here are the official results:
http://ontheday.net/2015/redkite_finale/women_cat34/results/

With 54 points overall I am actually 24th out of over 100 cyclists in the series even though I only raced twice.  So, that ain't bad, but better luck next year, right?!?!  Ahaha.  So, I guess I'm a bit of a fixer upper:

Mt. Tam Calling

Oh, Amy?  Here...........  It's for you...............  Oh, it's no big deal.  It's just Mt. Tam.

Climbing Mt. Tam was a lofty/unrealistic goal Billy and I set for ourselves back in 2012 when we first started riding bikes more seriously together.  That year we ventured to do a few slightly less leisurely rides like climbing up to Skyline and riding the American River Trail from Sacramento to Fair Oaks to visit my parents.

We have hyped Mt. Tam FOR-EH-VOR.  We watched youtube videos.  Discussed getting our brakes changed.  Went back and forth about tentative dates.  And thoroughly psyched ourselves out completely about this 12 mile climb until finally Billy got it out of his system the day after Thanksgiving 2013.  I remember him skype-recapping this experience with mixed emotions (smiling and swearing and smiling again...).

Since returning from France I've invested even more time in the saddle alongside Billy and dreamed of making the Mt. Tam trek...  to the point where it seemed like every time I crossed over the Park Street bridge I heard Mt. Tam whispering my name in the wind... "Amy!  Amy!  Come ride me!"  Ha!  Maybe I built it up a little too much???  Well you can imagine my surprise when an impromtu Saturday morning ride with a friend who races for Dolce Vita turned into a group ride up to the *tippy* top of Mt. f#$^*ing Tam!  OMG

So.......  I get off BART at 16th & Mission Street to meet my new *fast* female friend who I had been emailing with all week about doing a long-ish endurance ride (3 hours/50 miles-ish, but I was thinking easy, maybe Tiburon loop or something like that).  Uhhhh.... First thing she says to me is "Did you get my email?!"  I was like "I'm sorry I didn't" thinking to myself "Well, *that's* because you were in bed like a granny at 8pm last night," so.....  She was like, "Well, Mei - [Ding!  Bright orange synapses fired full-speed strava signals to my pleasure center like I'm about to meet a celebrity...  ALL HAIL!  Mei, queen of San Francisco segments!] - invited us to join her on the Bespoke ride, but they are taking off from Pac Heights in fifteen minutes."  Well, ignoring every alert my body was sending to go ahead and abort this mission I jumped on her wheel and we jammed up the wiggle to meet the group.

When I squeaked up on my ten-year-old death-metal-bumper-stickered Specialized tank to 20 geared-out astronauts in their fancy pants kits straddling some of the nicest bikes I've ever seen I looked like such a newb and - I tell ya - the oops-I-pooped-my-pants smell coming from my worn out spandex didn't help much.  About ten seconds after we arrived, Justin, the apparent leader of the pack started to explain the route.  He never actually said "Mt. Tam".  Oh no.  While he dropped names like "Pantoll" and "East Hills" and "wait - did he just say Alpe d'Huez - what?!?"  I focused most of my attention on keeping my breakfast down...

We took off and, oh you know, just that feeling when you are all the sudden on a group ride and you have to quietly ask your friend if he was talking about GOING UP TO THE TOP OF MT. TAM!?!?!

LOL





Once we started climbing we didn't stop.  The road just kept going up.  For an hour.  Between expletives I managed to cough questions at cyclists passing me by about how much further it was to Pantoll.  They just laughed or told me to not worry about it or pedaled faster to clear the stench.  I couldn't even believe it when I arrived at the top, though - I gotto say - can't beat the view!

While the rest of the group rode down to Stinson Beach and back, I climbed at a conversation pace the rest of the way from Pantoll with a few other ladies who agreed that tacking another .5 miles of vertical climbing was insane (but not Mei - no way!).  Haha!  The three of us split up about half way down the hill and my new friend (who turns out is the sweetest woman in the world - and she speaks French!) picked up lunch and a coffee together in SF.  I didn't get home until after 4pm!  What a beautiful ride though.  Oh man.  Though I was overwhelmed and beat, I actually don't think I've ever felt better.

Crazy Critter!

I fished a daddy long legs out of the tub yesterday morning and it didn't dawn on my until just now how my little power animal was paying me a visit before my big race.

With all the foot problems I've been having this year it made sense for me to focus my energy on cycling for a while so I did my first Criterium race a few weeks ago.  I got a flat on the second to last lap and my front wheel was a mess, oh man, but boy was it exhilarating to be out on a closed course with a bunch of other fast females!  So inspired!

After a disappointing DNF I finally built up the confidence to sign up for another Crit on Saturday, June 20th.  My goals, in order, for that race were as follows:

1.  stay upright
2.  stay with the peloton (ie don't get dropped from the group)
3.  suck wheel
4.  maintain a competitive position into the last lap
5.  sprint last 200m at 30-34mph

My lovely sister Sarah let us borrow her car this whole weekend.  So Billy was up at the crack of dawn on Saturday to drive me to the race in Pleasanton with time to register for the race and attend a clinic (where seasoned Berkeley cyclist Meredith Nielsen was instrumental in helping me find the right gear and avoid crashing)!  This race was Cat 3/4 combined, so I didn't experience the same problem with overlapping wheels (the field was so much faster!).  It was an eventful race with a crash and a flat.  I accomplished all my goals, but didn't finish even close to the podium...  15th out of 28 riders.  :(

But, hey look, I'm on the board!

Criterium racing has humbled me on the bike for sure.  Crits are risky business and winning requires strategy, skill, and speed.  Road racing season is right around the corner and I kinda can't wait to sink my cleats into those!  I've got about a month to work on my front wheelie.  ;)

Swimming Milestone #2

This Monday marked the first OTC swim practice *ever* that actually felt like a recovery swim.  I swam 1500m (including a warm up and cool down) and was never really winded even though we did four 200s at 70% for the main set.  All this can be attributed to the Total Immersion online swimming tutorials and the outstanding OTC coaches at these Monday night Mills practices.

Oh - haha - something hilarious happened at the start of this workout.  There was this little boy (maybe 6 years old??) getting out of the shallowest lane and I asked him if he was done swimming there (I knew he was - I just felt like modeling politeness for some dumb reason).  He was like, "You shouldn't swim here.  It's better practice down there where you can't touch!" LOL...  Doh!  I was like, "Okay.  Thanks!"  ...and then slunked into the kiddie lane anyway.  Ha!

It's true that it's pretty lazy to stay in the stubby shallow end of the pool, but OTC considers it the "slow lane" and I'm preeeeeeeetty sure I'm the slowest swimmer there, so......  PLUS, I rely on the floor of the pool to be there for me if I need to stop swimming to cough up a mouthful of delicious pool water or whatever (yes, of course, this still happens occasionally).  I intend to get into the deep end soon, but *that* - my dear little boy - is a milestone for another day.  ;)

The next swim goal on my horizon is to swim continuously for 10 minutes. That may entail getting into some open water soon where there's nothing tempting to hang on to....  Eeeek!  Alright.  That's all for now.  More later!