cracks me up.
i'm sorry. but i love coming home to this guy!
i'm sorry. but i love coming home to this guy!
(thank you to everyone for your kind words about stephanie. i appreciate being able to express my emotions and have such a supportive group around me. you guys are the best and it just adds to the many reasons why i love this community.)
after a rather horrible few days earlier this week, yesterday afternoon i knew it was time to get out there and grind it out on the bike.
after last weekend's 70.3 recon and a bismal performance on our TNGR (tuesday night girl ride).. i finally sat down with my coach and 0% and had a talk about a few things...
first of all we all agreed i've got quite the posterior chain.
for anyone who's ever walked/stood/sat/been in any existence behind me.. you'd know...
this ass is no joke.
and after a few years of crossfit, running and now biking...
its a powerful little (read: large) thing.
so WHY, exactly, does that not translate on the bike?!
.... GOOD QUESTION!
for one thing, i've never gotten off my bike and said "wow. my ass hurts".
nope. I MEAN NEVER.
my quads? hells yeah. my hamstrings!? sure..
but my ass... nope. nevah.
to this 0% sort of squinted at me like.. "really?!"... and then assured me.. "well when you learn how to use that thing.. we're all in trouble. nobody will be able to keep up."
.....YES!!!! finally, my derriere has a use!
all i had to do was figure out HOW to use it.
that, plus coach working with me on my timing and gear-shiftiness up hills...
well.
yesterday made for a HARD ride.
a hardy but a goody.
coach, 0%, massage guy and i all went out to ride THIS route:
and while i'd like to say it immediately clicked...
yahhhh.. not so much.
it took a lot of "shift down. shift down. SHIFT DOWN. spin up. spin up. SPIN UP" from my coach for me to finally realize i have a bit of stubborness issue with not wanting to shift down.
somehow i got in my head that i was being a pansy by dropping into my middle chain ring so i was forcing myself to mash up the hills.
ahhhhhh. it felt so good to NOT DO THAT ANYMORE!!!
i was able to get up the hill and not feel like i need a 5 minute time-out in order to recover.
THEN, once i had that under my belt... i worked on honing in on my ass.
and, judging from what it felt like going upstairs this morning to get dressed....
i do believe it worked!
i haven't worked that hard on a ride, i don't think... ever. especially to have such phenomenal results. as 0% put it...
"where's AJ?! you're not AJ. AJ rode on tuesday... who's THIS we're riding with!!"
and i'm not gunna lie... it felt goo-ood.
*so*
i have my work cut out for me.
i also know now, though, that i'm capable of riding, and riding HARD. we rode 30 miles yesterday in under 2 hours. that, for me, is a dream.
so the challenge is to repeat it.
which... i plan to do SOON.
do you ever have something bad happen to you.. .or not to you, but.. something bad happens... and to "fix" it you latch onto some idea. some memorabilia. some thing...!?
some thing that brings you back to a time or a place. it helps you remember, takes you back in the past to a time where everything was good, and bright, and hopeful, and well.
today.. right now..
that's what i'm doing. in my mind, i've latched on to this "thing".
except i can't find it...
i can't find the thing and i'm starting to lose it a little.
......
my best friend in high school, and really ever since then...
her name was Stephanie Briley.
she played the clarinet in band with me... was a section leader in marching band, joined the lacrosse team the same time as me, and in general was just my girl. and i was hers.
she was 5'2, had bright red hair, and the kind of personality that no matter who you were... mister popularity, mister too-cool-for-school.. mister stoner, mister athlete...
WHOMEVER you were... you were her friend. she drew you in, made you laugh, listened when you needed an ear, and ...
had freckles.
she had a lot of freckles.
and she let me borrow her clothes.
and she remembered my birthday. and she let me bitch when i needed. and we met cute boys together, went out and drank together.... she held my hair back for me when i barfed at the comedy club and filled me in on all my antics the next day when i'd be too hung-over to remember.
she taught me how to be cool. she brought me out of the nerdy-dorky-smart-kid-club that sat at the front of the class and gave me an edge.
a lot of my edge that i still have, today. SHE gave that to me.
.... and now she's gone.
she died yesterday. quietly, at home in dallas with her family around her.
she'd suffered, and fought, a really hard, long year, and i guess finally it was just too much.
and she's gone.
and i can't find the thing.
i can't find the thing, that i need, to make all of this okay.
i can't find it.
i can't find it.
ok first of all, yes. this is one of the most horrible pictures of me known to man.
i'm sorry but WHAT is going on with my hair? that's sticking out of my helmet? what is that?
and honestly... is THAT what my "be tough" face actually looks like? r-e-a-l-l-y!?
the above pic was taken out in lawrence this weekend at the IMKS 70.3 recon event put on by ENDURAcamps. at the time of the pic i'd been riding for about 1:30 and had just mouthed off to ProTriGuy... schloeggggggs!!! as i like to call him... about how he was showing off his mad bike skills by leaving me in his dust.
being the fun guy that he his, he turned around, had us make a "tough guy face" at the camera, and rode with me for a while.
quite clearly i couldn't stop laughing as i'm pretty sure i'm capable of looking tougher than that.
but ya never know.
AN-Y-WAY.
the day was a good one.
i arrived about an hour later than i'd hoped to and drove up to a completely full parking lot. from what i heard, there were over 100 athletes out there, so i definitely had those nervous-excited butterflies that you get when you roll up to an event like that.
it was AWESOME!
everyone was walking around, getting their bikes out, changing and re-changing clothes as the temperature rose.. i saw people i haven't seen in MONTHS because of the cold weather and it really felt like a homecoming of sorts, and the best ever way to start off the holy shit its finally warm enough to ride outside tri-season!
but m'kay. let's talk 70.3 bike course, shall we?! as i know that's what peeps wanna hear.
mostly, it can be summed up as... i dunno...
exhausting.
let me first tell you the negatives.
1.) no shade. none what-so-ever. absolutely zero.
2.) no matter what its gunna be windy, b/c youre biking over a lake at points. so... just be ready.
3.) half the hills appear out of nowhere. you're going across water and then BAM. flat and then BAM.
(either that or i was just really tired, so i felt like there was no prep. which is a definite possibility.)
now for the positives
1.) because everything is out and back, every hill you go UP, you will at some point go DOWN.
2.) um......
OH! i thought of one.
2.) because everything is out and back, you get to see people over and over and over. which is kinda fun.
(unless its over and over because they're that far ahead of you.. but still.)
so basically from what i can remember....
section one...
(from transition you get to the blue dot and turn right..)
BAM hill.
aaaaaaaaaawesome downhil.
sucky windy bridge over water.
BAM hill.
rollers.
good god will this never end?
turn around do it all in reverse.
section two...
(back to blue dot, turn right)
la-la-la.. not bad.
rollers.
la-la-la..
rollers.
turn around do it in reverse.
by FAR the best section.
section three
(back to intersection, turn right... )
ummm... this is where ProTriGuy decided to ride with me.
i was dying for breath, at my lactic threshold, not really thinking i could make it another mile...
and he was all... yadda-yadda-yadda-barely breaking a sweat-yadda.
i mean COME ON!!!
we then got to the hill and he shot off like a rocket and i crawled to a snails pace.
this section goes like this..
@$%&$!
fuck me two times.
weeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! down a huge hill.
immediately followed by the realization you're gunna have to go up it.
SHIT!
turn around, do it all in reverse.
but double the @#%$, cuz now you're more tired.
section four
(blue dot back to transition)
seriously longer than you remember it being coming out of transition. thats all i have to say about that.
and that's it!
its gunna be a HARD ass day, but having now ridden the entire course... i have good feelings about this.
scary, nervous, overwhelming feelings...
but good ones none-the-less.
so there ya go.
oooooh holly holy.
my legs.
OOOOOOH my legs.
i can't remember the last time i felt quite this spent. but i do know its been a long, long time.
full IMKS 70.3 bike course recon-story to come tomorrow, but let me just say...
OOOH holly holy.
i can't right now fathom exactly how it is that i'm supposed to ride that course, and then run a half-marathon.
that's frackin dumb.
however i haven't ridden that well, that hard or that long... (and definitely not all three at once) ... in like...
ever.
sooo, yeah.
we've got about a month left. and i have two things to say...
1.) i've got my work cut out for me and
2.) ... i am so doing this thing!