Fatty hates me

I have been reading the Fat Cyclist's updates on his amazing Livestrong accomplishments. I left a few comments this morning, and went back to look later today, and my comments weren't there. Hmmmm, I thought. Let's try a "test". So I did. Still, no comment.

I think he's blocked me. Phun tells me he's anti-swearing of any kind. So I guess that's why he doesn't want my comments, that would link this blog, to his. I think that sucks. Really. I mean, come on! I have supported him ALOT! I donated many times with money I didn't really have. I bought not one, but TWO Fat Cyclist jerseys, and did a 65 mile Breast Cancer benefit ride for Susan. I was even considering Philly next year. If I could afford the time off.

So I guess I am just bummed. He must be all clean and holy. I must be like the devil to him or something.

Whatever.

You want a little cheese with that whine?
* I am not feeling too hot today/tonight. I have thrown up twice, but am not coughing or having flu-like symptoms. If I ever do get the H1N1, I'd be fucked.

*I also have some serious sciatica going on in my left ass cheek/hip area. I need a Hot Yoga class soon. My cycling seems to be egging it on - I remember feeling it after I got off the bike at IMLou too.

Gun Club
Looks like it's going to be a tough race. Like, really tough. The course is all mud. I don't see much riding happening except in a few spots. Now, if I can just remember to pick the bike up when I run, maybe I won't look like such a tool.

Fall riding and CX racing

Damn, a lot of dudes read this blog. THANK YOU! I appreciate all your comments! I love your reasons for being on a team, and your reasons for not being on a team. I think some local girls and I have some ideas brewing. I will let you know what happens. We need an all women team. That's obvious.

I am getting psyched to race again this weekend. Gun Club CX. Tomorrow night I am riding the course when they open the club for practice. Dominic is going too. I can't wait! And Sunday I will be rockin' some pink argyle knee socks with my non-team-kit wearin' ass.....

As far as Halloween goes we will not be participating this year. Dominic has to work a 15 hour shift with no break (bartending at The Dily - and then racing Sunday morning) and I am working from home. It's going to suck being home alone on Halloween. This neighborhood is scary, even more so on Halloween. I gave out candy the first year I moved here. Never again. The 19 year old g-boys who come around looking for candy aren't even dressed up. They fucked it up for all the little kids we do like around here.

We have been having some gorgeous fall weather. I went riding with Sandi yesterday. The leaves are beautiful this time of year.

















I hate this bridge! I always have to get off my bike and walk across it.



Sandi has IMLou arm warmers on.



There's a pitbull in my window!

Team stuff again

I love riding my bike. I always have. I was a bike messenger in SF in the early 90's. We rode everywhere on bikes. I always had a bike. In the halfway house, after treatment, I had a bike to get around on. I even rode to the methadone clinic everyday.

Then I got my driver's license back. And I got a car. And a job. And some normalcy in my life. And I forgot about the bike for about 9 years and joined a gym instead.

Nowadays I love to race. I really, really, love racing. Everytime I race, I have a HUGE goofy smile on my face. Ask Amanda. She always mentions it. It doesn't matter if it's a triathlon, or the marathon of IMKY, I enjoy it.

I ride for me. I ride for my own happiness and joy. Not to be on a team. Or to win. I like the way it feels to do a time trial and make my lungs burn. I like to go out and climb hill repeats just for the fuck of it. I like to hurt.

Why is it so imperative that I join a fucking team?

I have thought about it. I even got to be friends with some guys from a team I was considering joining. So I joined their google group list and started getting the team emails.

HOLY FUCK there are some douche bags on that team. Hell fucking no I am not going to buy your uni-sex jersey and a pair of ugly shorts with money I don't have! Is this the way it always is? New kits every year that you have to spend big bucks on? I already have nice gear. I can't afford more right now.

Dominic is totally not into it either. He rides for the same reasons I do. Cuz we love bikes. We don't have to be like everyone else and join a team, do we?

If anyone is interested in starting an all women's team, let me know. I would be all over it.

Movie Night!

Dominic and I went to see Race Across the Sky last night. It was about the 100 mile MTB race in Leadville, Colorado. I have read about it on Fat Cyclist, but never realized what was involved, until I saw the movie last night.

And all I dreamt about mountain bike racing.

The scenery was awesome, the cycling intense, and the lead racers - UNREAL. I cried several times.

It reminded me of the Ironman in a lot of ways. The reaction when some cyclists didn't make the cut off - one man bawled his eyes out. How horrible would that be, to train so hard, and not make the cut off. The finish line reactions were much like IM finishes too, lots of tears, relief, happiness, pain, all of it.

One of the best lines in the movie was from a girl who had been hit by a car on her bike the year before. She had healed up and was determined to do Leadville. She said "it's not my body that got stronger, it's my spirit".

I have a huge respect for endurance cycling. It is definitely something I am going to involve myself in next year. I am looking at Calvins Challenge (can I break my a/g record of 249 miles?) for May.

Wordless Wednesday (stolen from Lily and Missy)

getting on

about that post below, i am sorry i was so down. it's been a rough time but things are on the up and up. thank god.

a few updates -

* my mom is doing great. she has improved so much this last week. her memory of the hospital and the weeks before are totally lost. she doesn't remember much about coming home from the hospital either. but she's getting back to her routines minus the dog. i still have the dog. but he goes home in a couple days. and we let her drive to dinner last night but she didn't do so well, so that worries me. but she isn't doing any driving yet.

this is my mom's dog when you wipe his paws off. you'd think i was killing him.

* my temper has been a bit of an issue recently. i've made an ass of myself, more often than i'd like to admit. i skipped acupuncture this month and am feeling it. today i blew up at the y because the swim director hadn't updated the schedule. i was swimming along, and was kicked out after 1000y because the lap lanes closed due to a class. the schedule did not reflect this. i had a huge hissy fit and stomped out the door.

* i got on the scale today for the 1st time since IMKY and was happily surprised by a 6 lb weight loss. i am guessing it's because of the shorter, more intense workouts - verses the hours of IM training that included 300 calories an hour. i think i have only had maybe 4 gels since IMKY. my workouts don't require them now.

* dominic and i rode our CX bikes on the MTB trail yesterday. i got my ass handed to me. it is crazy hard to do. i went down twice and he went down once. not hurt though.

* my next race is Nov 1st - gun club CX (sorry Julie and Suzanne, can't make USGP, missing out on the green monster bums me out!).

have a great week everyone.

Relapse

Did you hear Chad relapsed?

Chad was a pro-cyclist who raced on the US Postal team w/ Lance. He fell into addiction but with the help of the TV show "Intervention", he went to treatment, got clean, and got back to racing. He's back on the street again.

Did I ever tell you about how one of my best friends, Aaron, OD'ed? He was the kindest person I had ever known. A talented artist. He turned me onto all kinds of cool music when I was just 17 and we experimented with heavy drugs together. We had a special friendship. He struggled with heroin addiction too. In 1999, he had about a year clean. He was living out of town with his girlf and we were in touch. I was still struggling to get clean, and he was helping me via phone calls and letters. Then I got the phone call. He relapsed. They found him with his head in a garbage can. He didn't mean to die! He loved life! But in the end, none of that mattered. Heroin took over. He's been gone 10 years now and I miss him everyday. Rest in peace Aaron. See you again someday, I hope.

I have been thinking about relapse a lot. My overwhelming hate for my father and sisters has been eating me alive. I sat in the DR's office with my Mom today, thinking why do I have to be the one to take care of her? Why can't they be here too? Why do they get to live in cool places, do the work they love and get paid big bucks to do it? To make matters even worse, the DR was 80 minutes late, spent all of 5 minutes with her, and then forgot to re wrap her bandage before he left the room. I didn't realize it until we were home and I had to go back to the DR's office, where I proceeded to break down in tears in the lobby, when the nurse handed me some bandages and sent me on my way. I had to call the home health care nurse to walk me through wrapping her incision.

After that I went to run Nancy's dogs. She lives in a scarier neighborhood than me and I thought about what would happen if I got shot and killed. I was actually hoping for it to happen. I wonder why GOD allows me to feel so much pain. The hatred inside me is scary. Maybe I should take up boxing. I need something. I don't know what. I know a needle full of dope, coursing through my veins would feel good for a few hours. But that's not a solution.

I am scared for my Mom's future. I am scared for my brother's future.

I am a piece of shit daughter.

Harbin Park CX RACE!

I raced my second CX race last Sunday at Harbin Park. It was AWESOME!!! It was a TOUGH course but I learned ALOT.

1. Don't speed on your way to the race and get a speeding ticket. This will prevent you from pre-riding the course and then you won't get a practice lap in and you will have no idea what you are in for.

2. Don't ride around before your race and get all muddy. You might get mud on your kit, or even worse, in your shoes. Then you might fuck up at the starting line and have a hard time getting clipped in. Your foot might slip and you might end up the last one off and then you will have to haul ass to pass some girls.

3. Make sure you have a chain guard if you ride a single up front. You might drop your chain and end up having about 10 girls pass you.





So, all of those things are important. I had a nice lead in the beginning and it all went to shit when my chain popped off going down a HUGE hill. I finished 8th out of 12.

This race was the hardest thing I have EVER done. It was a sadistic course and it HURT like nothing I have ever felt before.

I also bunny hopped a barrier - a short wall into a little sand box thing full of wood chips. I rode right on throught it and yelled AWESOME at myself since no one saw me do it.



Suzanne and I were neck in neck for most of the race. This sand pit was a fucking BITCH - I could barely walk through it.




Me and Suzanne at the finish line.





Nani and Fausto reunite.



Katie Compton won all 3 days and is a bad ass.



The Poppers. Julie and Ben.

Steven broke his collarbone on the same hill I dropped my chain. Poor guy!

CX Clinic

Last night was Katie Compton's CX clinic. I am trying to juggle this HUGE CX weekend here in Cincinnati, with taking care of my Mom. More on that later.

This clinic was loads of fun. I learned a lot. She worked on dismounts and remounts, barriers, and cornering. There were about 30 girls and 100% of the proceeds went to animal rescue.

Notice I am, once again, the only one w/o a team kit on.

One thing I am super excited about is my remounts. At practice Tuesday nite, it just kind of came together. I was running along side my bike, I held onto my tops and just kind of jumped, swung my leg over, and landed on the saddle. I make some terrible "OOOMPGH" noises when I land though.

Here is Suzanne and I after the clinic was finishing up. I had to go back to my Mom's and spend the night.

This is Mark, Katie's husband, running the barriers.

This is me, running the barriers, looking like a tool.

Quick update on my Mom - my sister went back to CA so I am doing all I can. I slept there last night and have it set up so I can work from there if I have to. She's having some short term memory loss though and I am worried about her.

Thanks

I slept at the hospital last night and feel like hell. No training for me today!

It was a sucky ass night! No wonder she was pissed! They come in every hour to take your blood pressure! I guess she really fought them on Friday nite. They even wheeled her out to the nurses' station to keep an eye on her and she was ripping the nurses pictures off the wall! That's the night my sister stayed with her. Psychosis like that is very scary. She wasn't as bad last night since they had eliminated most of her meds. She knew I was staying with her too, so she felt safe.

She was released today and Dominic and I drove her home. It's a long road for her recovery wise but I am glad it's done and we can move on. I am going to teach her to swim this winter. It'll be good for her.

Thanks so much for letting me vent! I have been so uptight I cannot even take a shit! My belly is bloated and I keep guzzling water and nothing is happening! (I love being able to discuss this on my blog!).

A few short videos of my Mom's dog, a chihuahua mix, who is staying with us for who knows who long.....

I keep telling myself, this isn't about me. It's about my Mom.

Last night she started freaking out, paranoid and scared. My sister went back to the hospital and spent the night. She expects me to sleep there tonight. My Mom probably would have ripped out all her tubes and left, had my sister not been there last night. She was seeing some crazy stuff, like men with spikey hair carrying cameras and she thought they were filming porno's. She thought her feet were tied together. She thinks she can hear her friends on the loudspeaker.

She really thinks this is real, so it's scary for her. I don't know what is causing it but I think it's an elderly thing and once she goes home, she'll be ok. I just don't know.

My sister leaves on Tuesday to go back to CA so after she's gone, it's all up to me. I don't know how I am going to do this. I really don't.

Mom Update

Thanks for all your emails and messages on Facebook. Mom's surgery went well. She's on her way to a painfree life, I hope. The surgeon told me he fused her spine together with a rod and some screws. He also found a disk pressing on her nerve which he fixed.

I worked last night till midnight and then got a call from Mom at 6am, telling me to get to the hospital right away. She said they were trying to kill her. She also said she could hear my brother on the loudspeaker, calling her. I reassured her that no one would hurt her and then hung up and called the nurses' station. The surgeon was there and he got on the phone and told me my Mom was just having a reaction to the anesthesia. I went back to bed but couldn't fall back asleep. Later after the dogs were fed, me and Dominic headed over to the hospital.

Lucky for me I am working from home full time now. The hospital is about 10 minutes from my house. My bosses have been very accommodating with my schedule. For this I am grateful. I love my job, my bosses and my co-workers.

As far as exercise goes, I am lucky if I can squeeze in a 5-6 mile run. That's ok though. It's not about me.

Thanks again for all your comments. Have a great weekend....

XXOO