You want to do this
The past couple of weeks have been rough -- lots of training. Why you ask? Well. Well. I was going to keep this on the dl, but in a flurry of spur of the moment decision making after Sprint Nationals, I decided to do my first half (-Ironman, mom). Big Kahuna in October. Whoa.
So.
Last weekend:
First, I did the Fort Ord road race on Saturday. It was going fine, except for the fact that my bike wouldn’t shift and the chain kept skipping and jumping and sliding, so I kept fighting with it and doing all the hills in too hard a gear. Fine, I thought. Until the last lap. Then, not so fine. My legs were shredded, torn apart. My gears jumped around again and I was off the back of the front group.
All of a sudden, I couldn’t get my legs to even turn over. On the last long climb, I could barely get the pedal over the top of the stroke. I was thinking about walking my bike up the hill when the motorcycle drove by and said I was the last one on the course. Fantastic. Also, he didn’t offer me a ride.
Still, despite being the last person on course and thinking about walking my bike, it was still one of my more successful bike races.
Then, Sunday, I did the 2-mile swim at Santa Cruz. Yes, I wore a wetsuit. Because it was 56 degrees. End of discussion. I did the 2-mile in 44:52! Two years ago, in what I thought was the most amazing time ever that I would never be able to beat, I did the same swim in 48:30. So there.
Then, I tried to drive home.
For a series of complicated reasons, that are perhaps unsurprising if I have ever told you a story about Steve and I, we were driving separate cars. This meant that I was supposed to follow the signs to Oakland, until I started following the signs to San Francisco, and then at some point San Francisco was the wrong direction and then I was supposed to follow the signs to Sacramento until I saw the signs for San Rafael. Shockingly, this went poorly.
When I did get home, it was time for a 11-12 mile run.
I was set to run this course around the lakes from a trailhead down the hill on the road. The trail was called The Flat Road. Naturally, it went uphill. Steve had told me to stay right as I made my way to the lakes. Apparently, “stay right” meant take an abrupt, right-turn, uphill. So, I missed that turn and ended up Five Corners, of course. All the miles and miles of trails in the Marin parks mysteriously end up at Five Corners.
Eh, I figured, it would just be extra miles. I missed one other turn on the run, but overall felt good. Then, I couldn’t find the trailhead going back to the entrance. I asked a couple. They looked me up and down and said, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe you should take the road over there, it goes back to the entrance. That’s where your car is, right?” I kind of waved my hand and was like oh my car’s on Fairfax-Bolinas Road. They said, “Oh no, maybe we should give you a ride.”
This happens all the time. Apparently, I don’t look like I can make it.
This weekend, after a week of some good stuff, some hard stuff, some less hard stuff, I did Masters swimming yesterday. Someone mistook me for a former collegiate swimmer. To that, Steve said ‘what college?’ But you know what, there are lots of colleges. So there.
Then, I was wrecked.
So, naturally, today I did the most miserable bike race ever. It was hot. It was windy. It was hilly. And after Steve started his race I fell asleep in the car on accident. I made it up two of the hills. Then I looked at the upcoming steep hill and I stopped. We were only 25 minutes into the race and I had already wanted to quit four times. Then i went back to sleep in the car.
When I was in high school, during cross country, my dad would always say, ‘You choose to do this. You want to do this.’
Sunday, August 9, 2009