the tao of cycling: 8842

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

8842

tomorrow is my last hope for an outdoor ride for a while, I fear. the weather channel is predicting stormy weather (that makes me want to sing "stormy weather" like ella fitzgerald) for five days beginning this friday. tomorrow, thursday, the predicted high is only 43, but that's the best looking day for a while.
and I've got this new itch, the number 9000.
yep, I am now a mere 158 miles from reaching this new milestone, and I am practically covered in a rash about it. I keep calculating the possibility of achieving this before the year's end, and with the current weather prediction I'm not feeling terribly hopeful.
even thinking about riding tomorrow is difficult, as a lot of bike lanes are full of snow and ice, especially if I am to ride somewhere I'd like to be riding. if I headed out west I could probably find some dry bike lanes, but I might also find myself frustrated by stop lights and traffic. I'm not that desperate to hit that milepost.
or am I?
hmmm.
158 miles is about 10 hours or so on my bike, which doesn't seem too unreasonable an accomplishment in the next 20 days, does it? last week was the first week I have ridden less than 100 miles since last spring. I'm renewing all of my weight-room/gym acquaintences, and as much as I enjoy that comraderie, there is just a little tinge of melancholy in my greetings. this will be my 2nd winter of elliptical and weight machines, free weights, exercise balls, bosu balance balls, and mats with my bright green ipod blaring through my earphones.
one thing I've noticed is that I'm more current with world issues when I hit the elliptical machine, as that's a good 20 minutes or so that I can read the closed-captioned news. when I'm out on my bike I am blissfully unaware of current scandals, market collapses, and negative health news.
as a matter of fact, I will end on this note: this morning I "read" on the television that 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. and that 40 percent less single men go in for screenings than do married men (gee, I bet we can all understand that statistic!).
so my message to you all today is, get that screening on a regular basis, guys.
and I will pray for enough sunshine tomorrow to get out on my real bike and lower that 158 down a couple notches.
and if that doesn't happen, I'll just have more closed-captioned news to share with you.

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the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.