Rest week, kind of.

I had a few hard workouts on Monday and Tuesday. Monday is always gymwork, and a short run. I made my own thing up just to switch shit around.

I alternated between 5 minute sprints on the treadmill and weights. I went with low weight, heavy reps. I ended up with 6 x 5min sprints (sprinting for me is now something like, just under a 9 minute mile, don't laugh). I ended the two hour sweat session with 3 x 2min planks which I am so stoked about. My goal was to be able to do 3 x TWO full minute planks by Feb. HOLLA! Slash that one of the list.

Tuesday's are my "hard" day since I have two workouts. It's hard to believe I used to train 2x a day 3-4 days a week and it was never an issue, haha!

First I had an hour sweat session on the trainer. After Sunday's two hour session, this was a piece of cake. That night I ran the steps at Crosley, 16 flights, 10xs up. Every week, I dread this workout the most because it hurts. ALOT. It wasn't so hard to get them done this time.

I HAVE to be getting stronger. Ten weeks in a row of running steps once a week, and my ass and quads have stepped it up a bit. It's getting easier to hold the harder HR zones too, for long periods at a time. I am learning a lot this year on the trainer. Coach OB's trainer workouts are so specific, it's impossible to get bored.

Sam's are coming back though.

More rest days coming up Friday and then on Sunday, early, I am headed to PHX. I'll be staying about 2 miles from this trail.













Dirty Biker and my girl Lar (a DC reader/commenter) are picking me up at the airport at 8am. Then we will be off to Sedona to ride some beautiful mountain bike trails. We are staying in Tempe with Dirty Biker. Lar heads back down to Tucson on Monday. Monday nite we head to Flag to see The Gnome. I don't know what else we're doing except I was told to be prepared for both road and MTB. I have 3 full days and 2 nites to enjoy some time off.

I do feel bad about going. The typical guilt of a jew, haha. I mean, I don't deserve to go, we're broke as shit. I should be staying home and doing my usual shit. But, I was having a pity party for myself and decided to just say fuck it and go, especially when Dominic said it was cool. I think it'll be good for me. Good for my head.

One last bit of news. My Voodoo 29'er is built. This bike, I am just not worthy of. I hope I can make the cut offs for Mohican 100m on this baby.

BSL Sucks Ass

If you own a Doberman, Pit-bull, Rottie, or GSD, you have probably experienced breed specific discrimination at some point. Maybe it's something simple like, people who cross the street when they see you and your dogs. Or, maybe it's something really bad like, your home owners insurance gets canceled.

I had an incident in the last week that has put me over the edge.

In the winter, the trails in the woods where I exercise my dogs are closed due to deer hunting. So in the same vicinity as the woods, is a huge 5-6 acre dog park. We don't frequent the park often. Only when I don't feel like trudging through 5 inches of shoveled snow for an hour, walking them on leash. The dogs also need to run off leash.

A couple weeks back one morning, we had the park to ourselves. My dogs ran down to the fence when a car pulled up and a man with a black lab mix got out. My dogs barked at the fence. I ran down to get them and apologized to the man, I could tell he was afraid. I was on my way out anyways and told him so. I grabbed my dogs and at the same time, told him "they aren't aggressive". He in turn says to me "uh, I disagree, those dogs are vicious". Then I went a little crazy, and told him maybe he should consider taking his dog for a walk instead of being a lazy ass at the dog park. He then said he was taking my plates down.

My dogs weren't like snarling and foaming at the mouth trying to get at his dogs. They were doing what most of the dogs do, they barked at the fence to say hi.

I leashed up the dogs and walked down to my car where the man was still standing. I told him about my therapy work, training, how my dogs had never hurt any dogs inside that park, etc. Then I am sure I told him to fuck off.

Picture by Ben Popper.











Fast forward two weeks to today. I ventured back to the park, hoping no one is there. We used the smaller dog park. I stayed away from all the dogs, wondering if that man was going to show up again. The dogs played alone in the smaller park and after a while we left.

At the same time we were leaving, a man who knows my dogs was also leaving with dogs. We spoke about the incident with the other man, and he tells me, "oh, yea, he had a BEWARE sign put up about your dogs being vicious, with your license plate #.

I was like "WHAT???" "He did WHAT?" I couldn't believe it!

There isn't a whole lot I can do about the situation now. It's done. The sign is gone.

Breed specific legislation, aka, BSL.

That link is to an anti-BSL site with tons of information. Read the facts. You can't judge a breed on what the media puts out there. It's all about the owner. Not the dog.

Tooth extraction and N2O.

I just got home from the oral surgeon. I had to have a tooth extracted. They gave me nitrous. I got very high.

The nurse comes in and puts the nozzle on my nose. I start to breathe in through my nose. I close my eyes and begin to relax. Then the doctor comes in and starts talking to me. He asks me if I feel ok. I laugh. Hysterically. He injects the lidocaine into my upper right gum, and again on the roof of my mouth. It stings. Then he says he is going to turn up the nitrous and leave me alone for a little bit. It seemed like 20 minutes, as I sit there, breathing in the n2o.

I laugh and laugh and laugh. And take pictures.

Hear I am, playing with my iPod, trying to take pictures of myself all giggly and shit.

















I used to LOVE nitrous back in the day. I remember once, a friend scored an nitrous oxide tank somehow and 3 of us sat there and did balloons all fucking night long until the sun came up. Yea, the good old days.


















Then the doctor comes back into the room and it's time to get this tooth out. He starts pulling and yanking. I feel pressure. I brace myself, holding the arm of the chair. I ask them to turn up the n2o. I close my eyes, breathing in the n2o, taking long deep breaths. He says I am blessed with a lot of bone. Then the drilling starts. A few seconds of that, a couple more yanks, and the tooth is out. Then he stitches up my mouth.

Now I am home and am hoping there isn't a lot of pain when the lidocaine wears off.

Done

My coach has been asking me to have a lactate threshold test for a while. He determined my heart rate zones last year with a hill test, but now he wants the real deal. We had a few extra bucks this month, so I agreed to do it when OB asked me about it again.

The professor in charge of the LT testing is also a cyclist. I don't know much about him. I did a century with him a while back when I was training for IMKY, but that's about it. I got a confirmation email he sent out to everyone. It had directions attached and he listed everyone's name with their scheduled time of testing. Mine was set for this Saturday at 10am.

Yesterday I called the lady who helps the professor with the LT testing. I had a few quick questions about the test and I knew she would know the answers. She is also a reader of this blog and knows I have Hep C. She mentioned she was learning to prick fingers during our conversation.

This morning, I got the following email and it was sent to a total of 10 people.

Please note for the safety and health of the students who are testing cyclists as well as other cyclists, we do not want to test any individual known to have blood borne diseases such as HIV/AIDS or hepatitis. In addition, if somebody has a flu virus etc. we ask that you refrain from being testing and we can reschedule you for another time. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, but we want everybody to remain safe and healthy. If you have any of the conditions above, please contact me to cancel ASAP so that I can make your time slot available to another individual who would like to be tested this weekend.

My LT testing cxld because of Hep C.
I immediately burst into tears and emailed him back. I cc'ed my own liver doctor as well.

Why did he handle it this way? He knew damn well I was the one with Hep C because he told me flat out a blog reader who was helping with the test brought it to his attention.

Then why email everyone? Why not just send me an email privately?

I thought Discrimination.




















My liver doctor responded back to me:

"This displays ignorance on the part of Dr. _____. If they are not drawing blood, there is essentially no risk to anyone involved in the study. If they are drawing blood, they should be using universal precautions because many (if not most) people with hepatitis, HIV, and other communicable diseases are asymptomatic and unaware that they are infected."

Yes, a prick of the finger is involved. I would hope they are wearing rubber gloves with everyone, and taking precautions as any professional would.

Just for the record, it is very hard to transmit Hep C.
Educate yourself before you start making judgements.

Where the hell have I been?

We finally joined the rest of the generation and bought an iPod with x-mas monies my FIL gave us. I can't put it down! WOW! I don't know what I was thinking using a shitty MP3 player all these years. I ordered a dock too. I am about to blow the house up with some loud music.

Oh and the apps! Dominic is having fun with the apps, dl'ing games, a flashlight, guns he can shoot, silly shit like that. I have the FB app, and am looking for a Blogger app, is there one? This iPod has Facetime too, haven't tried it yet, but I imagine it's fun.


















Music has come such a long way. I am always behind the times. I missed that whole vinyl thing, and the first time I even saw a CD was the winter of 1997. A friend of mine worked for a CD distribution place, and we got loads of free CD's. When everyone got their iPod nano's, I was still carrying around a bulky ass CD player to run with. Later when I learned how to DL mp3's and shit, I used Sony mp3 players. I lost so much of my music when Sony's software went away. Now I have to load everything into iTunes. It's going to be so worth it though.















The kitties are doing fantastic. I have really come to love these cats now! The garage and furnace room have been accommodated for the cats. They have heat, blankets, a big rug to lay on, and a perch to sit on to look out the window. We found testicles on both MoMo and JBox so tomorrow they are going to UCAN to be neutered. Then they can go back outside without adding to the population of homeless cats.

I've been sick the last couple days so I have no training to speak of. I have that puking, raw throat, coughing, stuffy, cant breathetastehearsmell, achy, shiteous kind of sickness going on. I am headed to the bathtub now.

Have a great week.

Feeling some progress.

Three outdoor rides in the last 5 days.

Amanda and I rode on Sunday again. She had ran 13 miles prior to our ride so I expected an easy time of it.

Not so much.

First off it was COLD, 23, maybe. It was sunny but the wind was whipping and the headwind was pure pain. Amanda was in front, and on occasion she'd scream out at the wind. I was sucking her wheel and just hanging on. I did offer to pull, though, just sayin'. She told me later that at times she'd push it and look back and not expect me to see me there, but I was hanging on. Last year that wouldn't have happened. We did some climbing in KY and then headed back to the city via Ft. Thomas. My legs felt very strong. I did some climbing in the big ring, surprising myself. It was fun but a very very cold ride. I need to look into embrocation.

Today I went out solo, with just my music and my thoughts. I headed out downtown going the long way via the viaduct that's just been paved. That fucking viaduct used to scare the shit out of me but today I actually liked the the excitement. My heart raced as the traffic soared past me to get on 75N. I hung in, taking the lane, finally turning off onto Central pkwy. I rode through downtown to the PP bridge and then to route 8 going west. The wind was whipping again but at least it was damn near 40 and the sun was shining. I took the ferry home. The ferry was FREEZING. I need to remember how fucking cold it is to stop, wait, ride the ferry, then try to warm back up for the last 7 miles home. It sucks. Then the Fairbanks climb and home.

OB gave me that kickass jacket. It is so warm and it also cuts wind.















Somehow I have fallen back in love with my road bike. My confidence is growing as I am able to push it much harder, using a HR monitor.

Speaking of which, I am all geeked out on my HR #'s now. Tonight I wore it with me to run steps so I could time my recovery. The 1st time up, my HR was in the 170's. Within 30 seconds it had dropped 30 bpms. Within a minute it was down 50-60 bpms. It seems like I should recover faster than that. I don't know.

Tonight was the first time I didn't cough after running steps which was awesome. Either the acupuncture is working it's magic, or the symbicort. Or both.















Dominic is busy doing some flooring for OB and also trying to swing about 50 other projects. His bike shop is a huge mess of wood and drawings, and of course bikes, and just shit, everywhere. He is making OB a set of motion rollers. Right now, my husband is pretty far up my coach's ass. OB sends him home with things like Campy 1st gen record brake levers. Dominic has never owned campy anything so he was shitting himself when he got home. He was so excited.

He looks like he was on crack or something.















This month's training schedule is grueling but I am loving it. Tonight my body is sore and feeling all sorts of accomplishments. That always feels good.

Progression.

I don't want to do a gay ass review of my year in races.

Here is a low down of my top 5 best's from 2010:

1. I became Mrs. LoPresti, sealing my future with Dominic. My marriage has been on my mind a lot recently. We didn't make a huge deal out of getting married. I just felt like, because I was 40 years old, it was too late to have My Big Day. So we did it in Vegas, and had a fucking blast. At least I waited around for the right guy and know I won't be getting a divorce in ten years. I love you Dominic!



2. I hired a coach! The smartest move I made was to sign on with OB Forbes. I am lucky to have this guy telling me what to do. After over training for so long, it feels good to take rest days and not feel guilt. OB keeps me on track, in the cycling community, and on my bikes. He takes so much shit from me too, sometimes I wonder why he sticks around. You are too good to me OB, thank you for all you've done!



3. Bike racing has taught me a whole new meaning of humility. I trained all year and raced 20 races and never stood on a podium in a USAC race. I've had enough people come to my blog this year and tell me I suck. Maybe I do. But fuck them, I will keep training hard and hope for better results next year.



4. DrunkCyclist.com. I still have no clue why they asked me to write over there but I am glad they did. Hanging out with the DC writers at Interbike was some of the best fun I've had in my life. I will continue to promote women's bike racing and bitch about their payout's on DrunkCyclist.com. Thanks to the DC crew for letting me do my thing.



5. My true friends. I have made quite a few new girlfriends this year and it's super rad to have them in my life. Christa, Jeni, Sherri, Polly, my bike racing idiot friends, you are the ones who accepted me for me, and you like mud too. Amanda, even though we had a rocky friendship throughout the year, we ended it on an excellent note! Susan, you are the real fuckin' deal and you are like a big sister to me. Sandi, my IM training buddy, you always come to my bike races and cheer, thank you! My oldest friendships of 28 years, Emily and Laura, you guys know me better than anyone, I love you!

Jeni signing the marriage certificate in Vegas

Sandi and I before a CX race.

Amanda and I yesterday!

Me and Sherri before the Madeira Crit

Me, Christa and Polly.















Susan!

Emily, me and Laura (sorry to use the same picture as below)

Happy New Year and thanks for reading.
The holidays are over! Let's move the fuck on!