fuel

yesterday I got on my bike for an easy ride.
the first few minutes were uncomfortable. then the first few kilometers were a bit challenging. before long, I decided that maybe eight minutes would be long enough, really, for a recovery ride. okay, maybe ten minutes. and finally, I started to feel like I would be able to ride longer than twelve minutes, that I might possibly even make it to my goal of an entire hour.
I rode to sugarhouse park to do laps, as I couldn't bear the thought of riding through town and dealing with stop signs, stop lights, and traffic. (riding up a canyon was definitely out, as that would be way more work than my little heart and muscles needed.)
for weeks I have been meaning to mention this, and it always slips my mind when I actually sit down to write: it is a glorious year for hibiscus around here! I have never seen so many looking so happy, and sugarhouse park has a beautiful display of them near the entrance. each time I drive past I grin, and slip momentarily to a beach on hawaii's shoreline.
ah.
so the hibiscus are tall and regal, the sun is shining over the entire valley, and the air is fall-morning crisp as I turn into the bike lane to start looping the park. I feel good. and directly in front of me are three very nice looking men (from the back, anyway, which is all I can see of them) on roller blades, skating together in perfect rhythm. I am spellbound, watching them, as they embody strength and grace in motion. they are moving quickly, and I am perhaps ten or twelve feet behind them, wondering if I will pass them or not. soon we start down a hill, and the gap between us increases, the three of them tightly packed together, drafting off the lead man. then comes the incline, and they separate slightly as their arms and legs swing from side to side and their muscles pump them up the hill. it is beautiful and I am enthralled: I am almost close enough to touch these athletes, and I see every aspect of their process. when they draft their skates are within inches of each others; when they climb they alternate direction of their swings and miraculously do not touch the others' skates or arms.
I, of course, am caught up in the thrill of watching them, which means keeping up with them, and my recovery ride is getting tossed out the window as my heartrate climbs. but I'll be damned if they're going to get too far in front of me.
one takes a lap off, they trade leaders, they hook up with a fourth skater. I have no idea if they came to do this together, or if they connected with each other by chance.
I ride my laps, and after the fifth lap I do pass them, and somehow manage to stay ahead of three of them, but the fourth has accepted my unspoken challenge and pulls back in front of me, beating me to the top of the next rise.
soon he drops back to reconnect with the others, they are behind me, and I am riding on my own.
I don't know if these men use the skating as cross training for cycling or some other sport, or if they do this for its own sake. but they were so graceful, so confident and lithe, so very powerful. it was pure joy to watch them, to admire their athleticism.
it was just one more form of fuel for my own path.

09.06.08

I'm sure you all are just aching to know about my ride last saturday, so here goes.
I survived LOTOJA 2008, my second. once again the universe conspired to give me a perfect day . . . from my incredible support team (that would be three of my kids, a friend of theirs, and my kid's dad bob) to my great riding partner bill, to the absolutely exquisite weather, to my incredible workhorse of a bike.
completing lotoja is a team effort. no one is completely on their own out there, even though they may be the lone soul on a given stretch of asphalt.
which many of us had at times.
but you can feel the energy of all the riders, all the supporters, and possibly even that of those who have ridden before us.
I had help along the way, as I sat behind many people's wheels and benefited from their draft (bill's, quite often). and I helped others at times in the same way. but the most glorious help I had was from Liz Johnson.
a little history: back in june, Liz mentioned that she and her family were going to be riding lotoja, and I remember her mentioning riding the relay. [ many people form teams of 2-5 people who split up the ride.] then the day before the ride, my friend connie sent me a text, saying that Liz's family members were riding the relay in her honor.
so as I was riding a stretch of road coming into star valley (which is not my favorite place in the world), a group of guys passed me slowly enough that I could stay with them. I noticed that many of them wore jerseys that had the initials of Liz's dad's firm on them. I then asked the two cyclists in the back, nearest to me, if they knew Liz. one of them turned his head back toward me, and said, "she's my wife."
oh, God, oh, should I have said anything?
as I type this I'm not sure I should be sharing this story because even though it's mine, it's also his. and I think I have intruded on his life enough. but the rest of the story impacted me so greatly, that I need to write about it, so the part of me that wants to share this wins out over the part of me that respects his privacy.
we talked for a few minutes, and I told him how I knew Liz. I wished him a good rest of the ride, and then dropped off the back to let him be.
for the rest of the ride (which might have been 80 miles or so), we played leap frog with his group, finishing the race just a few minutes behind him.
why I am sharing this is that Liz was with me ~ and thus, I guess, him as well ~ for that entire portion of the ride, all the way to the end. I could feel her all around us, above us in that beautiful white-dotted blue sky. I could feel her joy, see her smile, feel her sadness over the fact that her husband was aching with loss.

the next-to-last section of the ride is up Snake River canyon, which is the most gorgeous section of the ride, for me. looking down on the river, seeing huge rocks through the stunningly clear green-tinted water, left me awestruck. (you know this happens to me sometimes.) It is such a beautiful stretch of road that I wanted time to stop, I wanted to just live there, in that time and space, for as long as I needed.
but I couldn't, could I?

we stopped there by the river on the way home, and walked down a path to the massive rocks at the river's edge. we sat on the rocks, soaking in the sun and the river's strength, until enough absorbed into our souls so that we could return to everyday life.

Liz carried me through to the lotoja finish line,
and the snake river is part of what will carry me through this fall as I slowly transition to a winter off the bike.

iotas

Camp Kostopulos is located up emigration canyon, just past Ruth's Diner. It has been there for over thirty years, and is a place for kids, teens, and adults of all abilities to go have a "camp" experience. I first came to know it as the place my church held its "vacation bible camp." our church rented the facility and used "camp K" staff and amenities in the mornings, and did its own program on the grounds during the afternoons.
There is a pond for fishing, a pool for swimming, a barnyard full of animals, horses for riding, and a ropes course for building trust and relationship. there is a lodge for indoor gatherings, and apparently sleeping facilities for the overnight campers and staff.
Yesterday as I rode up the canyon I noticed parking signs for the "united way day of caring" at camp kostopulos. the lots were full of cars, trucks, and two buses, and I could see people in bright yellow tee shirts working away within the camp grounds. having now done a little bit of research, I see that this was an organized effort of our United Way to do an improvement project for a local non-profit.
I've written before about what moves me: camp K moves me, as I think about all the people who benefit from its existence, both those with disabilities and those without. this is close to home for me, being a parent of a child with many special needs. I think my reactions would be different if I didn't have my son, and hadn't been through all that we have. but the reactions would be just different, not nonexistent. people with special needs and those who work with them all tug at my heart, and I'm sure this would happen whether or not I had my son. but because I do have jake, the tug is just a little more intense, a little brighter and stronger. and the tears are just a little closer to the surface.
I don't know what physical work was actually being done by all those people at camp K yesterday. but I know the emotional and spiritual work. these people were donating time, effort, and generosity of spirit with their presence. and whether they signed up as individuals, or were in some manner coerced by an employer into going, I know that they could not have been there giving of their physical bodies without somehow giving of their spiritual side. we all have this humanity within us that understands the gift to ourselves of giving to those who are seemingly (at least in a physical aspect) less fortunate.
our world is full of good souls.
as much hate, violence, war, and crime that exist, there are myriad examples of human beings giving of themselves. these all touch me, and reaffirm my faith in us all.
these are difficult things to put into words without sounding trite. for me, the philosophy of which I am trying to speak is very simple: we are all connected, and part of our reason for being is to be of service to others. in great ways, and in small ways. in authentic ways.

I leave this afternoon for logan, and the Really Big Ride is tomorrow. I will get on my bike and ride 206 miles and my riding will benefit no one but myself, at least in the short run. but hopefully, my determination, commitment, and completion of this ride will help me strengthen my own spiritual self. and the stronger my spiritual self, the more I have to give.
and the more I have to give, the better the world, if only by one iota.

your iotas plus my iota can re-landscape our world.

belief

I believe the universe gives us the experiences we need to experience.
this is my belief, and I don't expect it to be held by everyone out there. it's a belief that helps me make sense of the world, helps me stay calm, and enables me to retain my faith. it works for me.

the universe gave me snowtoja training monday, and today it gave me the polar opposite: a most gorgeous, perfect, mild, calm and stunning ride. I slept in (oh what an amazing treat) and didn't ride until mid-morning, after the sun had risen and warmed the air. it couldn't be a more perfect early fall day here, with barely a brush of white cloud in the sky and winds so peaceful I think they are just caressing our valley, giving it a little pat on the back for surviving this past weekend's weather.

I started my ride with a jaunt to my son's school, as he had forgotten his camera for photo journalism. a quick three miles down, camera delivered, and then I headed up emigration canyon, planning for a thirty-mile total on my last pre-lotoja ride. I haven't ridden up emigration in daylight for a while, and it was fun to actually see the bike lane the whole way. I also saw the cutest little bunny, but no deer or hummingbirds. I won't tell about all the dead creatures I saw, though I have to say this is the first time I can remember seeing a little white-bellied lizard lying supine, lifeless, on the edge of the road.

I crested the Little Mountain summit and looked down to Little Dell Reservoir ~ which is always one of my favorite moments on this route ~ and was awestruck. the reservoir was so still, not a single ripple caught the sun. the water perfectly reflected the surrounding hillside, yet gave everything a deeper green cast. it was as if someone had taken a huge piece of glass and pressed it gently down on top of the water, a glareless glass that echoed back a picture of the hills surrounding it. words fail me, here, for it was spectacular and so perfect as to be indescribable.

Little Dell never disappoints me. whether it is frozen as I see it during my first excursion of the season, wind-whipped and full of white caps, still and peaceful, or throwing out myriad shades of blues and greens, it is always a magnificent sight. restorative and refreshing, the sight of this small body of water always grounds me, pulling me back into what truly matters in this world.

I believe what I needed from today's experience is that grounding, the reminder that regardless of what comes my way, God is still God, and our world will always be full of visual reminders that what truly matters is simple, uncomplicated faith in ourselves and our own resilience.

on roads, ports, and lotoja

remember the other day when all I wanted to write about was the moon?
this morning, all I want to write about is being cold . . . actually, I should use the power of positive thinking and write about being warm. okay, blue skies, hot, powerful sun, sweating, heat, fire, baking, roasting . . .
I am still shivering, a good hour and a half after returning from my ride. yes, my house is on the cool side (someday I'll go into the joys and frustrations of radiant heat), but I think I chilled myself more deeply than I thought while riding this morning.
so I will keep thinking warm thoughts while I sit here sipping hot coffee, wrapped in a blanket, typing away on the subject of goals.
we're supposed to have them. right? they say if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there . . . which implies adventure to me, but apparently, to the focused part of the world, this means lack of direction results in lack of results.
another great quote is attributed to Montaigne, "no wind favors he who has no destined port."
that one makes me think. especially as a cyclist who pays attention to wind: what about the winds which do NOT appear to favor me? will they exist, as well? regardless of my destined port? so, truly then, am I any worse off to not have a port in mind?
I semi-reluctantly registered for lotoja last april after much thought, deliberation, soul-searching, and a few conversations with fellow cyclists. what tipped me over the edge into "yes" was what biking buddy bob had to say about it. I said to him that I wasn't sure I wanted to have to work so hard all summer in training for the event, and bob replied that he feared what he might do if he did not have lotoja to train for. I looked at it from that perspective and thought, he's right, if I don't have this huge thing to have to work for, do I trust myself enough to work hard at all? what will I choose to do if I don't have a significant goal hanging out there in front of me?
I feared I would slack off, and not push myself. that I wouldn't strive for better, faster, stronger anymore. that I would say a five-hour ride was enough. that I would stay at the same level, or worse, slip backwards.
and today, what do I think?
will I sign up again for next year's ride?

I don't know.

I'd like a slightly less stressful goal, but I don't know what that would be.
on the other hand, I like my sticker on the car and my "medal" for finishing, and would like to have another.
then on that third hand, the issue of balance arises, though I do feel less out of balance this year than last.
so.

I know where I'm going, and I believe that more than one road will take me there. I also believe that ultimately all winds favor me, for each experience they bring me ~ whether I like it or not ~ will just take me one step closer to being the best me possible.

riding the white line

there are fine lines everywhere. hairline splits, delicate fractures, cracks that let the light slip in. we draw lines, we eliminate them, and sometimes we cross over them.
most often, it seems, they exist between one side and another, and we ride them. figuratively that is, though many cyclists I know ~ including this one ~ prefer to literally ride that white one as often as possible. [an aside for those of you who don't ride much: the white paint fills in some of the roughness of the asphalt and thus is just a titch smoother than the non-painted surface.]
back to figurative lines.
one exists between good pain and bad pain, and this line is wide and wiggly, and I am not comfortable with riding it. given a healthy body part, I can navigate that line pretty well. my heart, for instance, is wonderfully healthy and I know enough about it to understand when I can push it and when it becomes too much. it hurts along the way, but I know it's good pain. another example is my triceps: I can work them, fatigue them, make them scream, and I know it's all going to be okay. they won't become injured before I have to quit from sheer exhaustion.
it's those not-so-healthy body parts that cause me to question the line.
the other day I wrote that my right shoulder was healing so well that I might be ready to return to power yoga. this morning in "gentle yoga" my right shoulder told me otherwise. I have been playing the "positive thinking" game, exercising and stretching my shoulder, and trying to be gentle with it when putting myself in positions that may stress it. I've been telling myself for months that "my shoulder is getting better," and I pretty much believe myself.
but this morning it was talking to me. and I'm not really sure which side of the line it was on. at first I thought it was just letting me know it was there, ready to work, letting me know that I was asking a lot of it, but a manageable lot. and then after about the 8th visit to "cobra," I started thinking it was telling me something different. like, "you know, susan, I really don't want to do this anymore, and I might just start going backwards on this healing thing if you keep it up."
or perhaps it was just saying, "ow, this is tough, but each time you make me do it I'm getting stronger, so keep it up."

how do I know?
the line is amorphous, and I am adrift.

this is when one needs a professional, I suppose. I can positive-thought myself right over the edge sometimes, or I can wimp myself right out of any activity.
when I first went to dr. jamie to have him assess my shoulder, I couldn't stretch my right arm up behind my back much further than my waistline. but then he told me it was okay to push myself, using a towel held by my both hands, to pull that stretch further until I could get my hand more than halfway up my back. this hurt! but the doctor told me it was a good hurt.
good hurt versus bad hurt: the line between is where I ride, and knowledge of where to stay is what I reach for.

snowtoja practice

alternate titles for this piece:

the wicked wind of the north
goosebumps on my sunburn, or, welcome to utah
sun and moon and rain
timing is everything
on toe covers and full gloves

preface:
lotoja is not a weather-dependent race: it happens no matter what the weather decides to do that day. a few years ago, the weather decided on a dramatic showing full of wind, cold, and snow, and thus the event that year was nicknamed "snowtoja." many cyclists had to quit before the end, and I've heard stories of those being pulled off the course, off their bikes, and treated for hypothermia. finish times were much longer than other years, and all in all, it sounds like an absolutely miserable day. to me, that is.

today I did some snowtoja training. it wasn't my intention, at all. I naively thought I could sneak a little ride in before the rain, and I was wrong. but being the determined, tenacious soul I am, I stuck it out. for a whole hour, for 17 entire miles. that would be about 8 percent of lotoja's distance . . .

at 9 this morning I was ready to ride. I'd slept in, had coffee and reading time, and now was ready for a 30-miler, up emigration and then probably down to mountain dell golf course and back. I had my new, long-sleeved cozy jersey on, capris because it was semi-cold, toe covers and full gloves and my bright neon wind jacket. I had two water bottles in my cages, and my sunglasses, and was ready to roll when I opened the garage door.

then a little brown spot appeared on my driveway, and then, another. spaced widely apart, they were friendly little things, soon joined by another a good three feet away.
I looked up into the sky, and saw gray. and more gray. and then, over there, more gray.
so I hopped on my bike, zeroed out my odometer and set off. I studied the clouds as I took off down the street, and they looked most threatening to the north. okay, well, I had decided I really didn't want to do city creek canyon anyway. the west looked ominous, too, but I never ride off to the west. safe there. south looked okay, but I really didn't want to go south.
east, now east, that was almost looking good. I could see pale blue sky, white clouds, and even some sunshine peaking through. east was good.
by this time I was close to foothill, heading up to wasatch drive. and emigration was looking, well, almost clear. and possibly even nice up there, and I bet the threatening, ugly dark gray clouds were just going to hang heavily in the valley. I would be fine, as long as I kept heading east.

uh-huh.

I did think that perhaps I should have checked the weather site a little more closely, possibly even looking to see which way the wind was blowing, and how the storm was moving through.

but I kept pedaling up the canyon, thinking how nice it was that I wasn't facing the huge headwind I usually do heading up. I was even sweating a bit, and thinking that it was colder at my house than it was up the canyon. I also noticed that my "clear to the east" observation had been accurate, but that it seemed to keep moving further and further to the east, and no matter how hard I pedaled I wasn't getting one bit closer to the clear part.

and then it started to sprinkle. which is just fine with me.
and then it started to rain. which is fun, refreshing.
and then it started to dump water in bucketfuls from the sky. which is no longer really fine or fun, and I really don't need to be refreshed anymore.

I reached the Sun and Moon cafe, and decided I'd better turn around. I'm all for fun and adventure and new experiences (see august 9, and "drowned rat at brighton" photo), but this appeared to possibly be crossing the line over into stupidity. glasses off, phone re-tucked into semi-dry pocket, I headed down the hill.
ow. (rain pellets striking my cheeks)
brrr. (everywhere)
slosh. (the sound of my feet in the swimming pools that were my shoes)

I am devastated, of course, to know I won't get my 30 miles in. or even a very long workout. so I decide I will ride for an hour, no matter what. which means when I get down to the mouth of the canyon I will hop on wasatch and ride south for a little bit. in the rain. with my soaking wet gloves, feet, pants, helmet, hair, face . . .
are you questioning my sanity?
I kept thinking of those people who rode lotoja three years ago, who stuck it out for as long as they could, some until the end. here I was, 50 minutes into a slightly uncomfortable ride, complaining to myself about 10 more minutes? I don't think so.
and I was really okay with it all, until I turned around to head toward home, and faced the wicked wind of the north. ARGH! I pushed and fought, water pelting me, puddles kicking back at my feet, wind wrapping itself around my soaking form and whispering "you're cold and miserable susan, you're wet and only 55 minutes into a wimpy ride." where's dorothy's flying house when you need it?

I made it home, where I managed to peel off my 10-pounds worth of cycling clothing in the laundry room, where they are still making a dirty puddle on the linoleum. my shoes may not dry out until wednesday.

so, as I sit here and type, I watch the gray sky just sitting there, having released its heavy burden. the ground is wet, but the wind has stilled and no rain is falling to earth.

timing is everything.