April Is The New January

I've been meaning to write this post since the DINO Spring Tune-up was cancelled, essentially pushing my first race of the year all the way to DINO BCSP on June 5. Actually, I'd decided not to race a couple of days before the cancellation, due to the fact that Adam wanted the car to go to a road race day, I'd forgotten to renew my USAC license and hadn't accounted for an extra $60 in my April budget, and frankly, I just didn't feel ready to race yet.

I planned my season knowing that I would be behind for the spring and summer, and that I would be okay with that, but this April has felt much more like January than April. Many factors are contributing to this: the fact that I just completed my first base training cycle, the fact that I'm still five weeks away from my first "race" and even that doesn't feel real, and the fact that I've not been on my mountain bike the entire month. I was lucky enough to get one ride at French Lick in February and one at BCSP in March, but between the weather and trying to get reacquainted with intervals, mountain bike riding fell by the wayside in the last month. I'm actually feeling a little paranoid about my lack of trail time, but I have 17 weeks left to prep for The Unnamed Epic. Perhaps I'll take more advantage of the drier months of July and August this year, rather than being burned out by then like I normally am.

Here is one more January-like sign:

Yes, I've actually been on the trainer a couple of times. Of course, I usually won't get on that thing even in January, but I'm trying an experiment. I've been wavering back and forth about trying intermittent fasting (IF) for a couple of months, but I finally took the leap a couple of weeks ago. I've done quite well at making it until lunch time on just a couple of tablespoons of coconut oil around 8:30 or 9. Since I no longer need to take the time to prepare and eat breakfast, I have an additional half-hour or so more free time in the morning than I used to. Three days a week, I use it to get extra sleep. However, on Tuesday and Thursday I'm playing on the "fasted endurance in the morning, strength in the afternoon" paradigm from the Strength Training for Cyclists blog series that I mentioned in my last post. I basically get up and pedal easy for 30 minutes before I get ready for work, so that I get an extra boost to the efficiency of my fat metabolism. Hopefully, a few months of this result in a killer diesel engine to power through 75 miles of Wisconsin hills in August.

I'm actually finding the trainer more tolerable than I have in the past, probably due to the more relaxed effort. I really do just spin and check my email on my phone while old episodes of Full House play in the background. Ironically, the first morning of this routine involved an episode where DJ decides to starve herself to look good a pool party and is inundated with sorts of CW advice from the family. And Michelle crawls up on a table and shoves a bunch of cake in her face. I can only hope it was the Olsen twin that later developed an eating disorder playing that scene.

Anyway, things seem to be going pretty well, despite the feeling of being behind. The coming training cycle will be hard and fast, and hopefully the weather will start allowing me to do some Sunday rides on my mountain bike.

One Less Skinny Cyclist

So I guess official cycling training for 2011 is under way.

As I've stated before, my plan was to spend 12 weeks focusing on Crossfit, with a little bit of base miles, and then go back to "official training" in May. I think I've discussed the reasons for this a bit, but I don't think I've ever discussed the real reasons. Yes, I wanted a chance to build my muscle back after my surgery, but it's a little more complicated than that. I really just couldn't see myself going back to cycling training as I knew it before I switched to a primal/paleo/whatever diet last August. I had struggled through the first few weeks on the diet, which is likely due to the fact that I was transitioning to a fat-based metabolism. Then the pancreas drama set in and gave me an "out". I hadn't really wanted "out" in the middle 'cross season, but as I've stated several times, I've been glad for the opportunity to step back and figure out what I want to do.

The fact of the matter is that I definitely still wanted to race bikes, but I didn't want to go back to my old way of doing things. What has been seen cannot be unseen, and what is known cannot be unknown. I've spent all these months hearing how "chronic cardio" is bad for me, and how too many carbs will make me fat. I also know it's not just hype, because for the first time after over 10 years as an endurance athlete, I sleep through the night without getting up to use the bathroom, my ankles don't swell up at work nearly as much as they used to, and I'm generally less irritable and unmotivated. The answer, my friends, is in the cortisol. Life is much better with less of it.

Unfortunately, for quite some time I struggled to figure out how to live a lifestyle where I could enjoy these benefits and still be somewhat fast on a bike. All the advice I was getting from the paleo-sphere was eat more sweet potatoes and that Robb Wolf really, really didn't care about endurance sports. I won't even get started on my thoughts on "The Paleo Diet for Athletes". So I figured I'd stall with a few months of Crossfit and maybe get my body composition where I wanted it before I threw myself to the cardio wolves again.

Then I saw a Twitter post about Jamie Scott's High Fat Diet for Cyclists and Strength Training for Cyclists blog series, and was hooked. He was saying that eating the diet that I was already eating could actually boost my aerobic efficiency, and he ranted on skinny cyclists. At 113 pounds, I'm still pretty skinny, and don't really want to gain more total weight, but I've long regretted the fact that I was a weak cyclist (even when I weighed quite a bit more). Reading these posts gave me hope that I could actually become a lean and strong cyclist (and even be able to do a pull-up??), and maybe not feel like I had to spend every minute of free time on my bike, either. The only thing I was missing was the specifics of how to implement these principles.

So a few weeks ago when my Crossfit workouts starting causing me to wake up in the middle of the night, I emailed Jamie to ask. As of last week, I'm on the "Paleo 2.0 for Cyclists" plan. This involves two days of intervals, two days of heavy but short lifting, and one day of endurance riding. The strength training is pretty bare-bones heavy stuff, and I'm able to keep doing it at the Crossfit facility, since I hate traditional gyms and like being able to play on the ropes and rings a bit after the heavy lifting. Weekend workouts are done in a fasted state before breakfast. This is kind of a struggle, but I think it's more mental than physical. It's more of a matter of wanting to eat before I ride than actually needing to, because my metabolism is in pretty good shape. It does make breakfast ever more enjoyable once the ride's over, though. My power kind of sucks right now, but it's no lower than it was when I started my 2009 "official training", and I was 25 pounds heavier then, so power-to-weight isn't terrible.

I guess we will have to wait until August 27 to see the full results of this experiment, but I'm feeling pretty good so far.

'Til the Cows Come Home

This is completely not cycling related, but not all adventures are. Instead, I spent a sunny Saturday morning away from both bikes and Crossfit to expand my horizons and get a little a little closer to my food.

Real grass fed dairy is hard to find in this area, but for the warmer half of the year, The Swiss Connection brings top-notch raw grass fed dairy to the Bloomington farmer's market. However, the downside of their all-natural (and not the grocery store marketing kind) approach is that they don't produce year-round. So since November I've been getting by on Kerrygold butter and waiting for spring. When I saw a posting on Facebook that they were looking for volunteers to help move their cows from their winter pasture to the main farm as part of their bi-annual "cattle drive", I jumped at the opportunity to help out and maybe give the girls a pep talk to get the butter and cream flowing.

We were greeted by a neighbor of the farm, who does event catering with his chuck wagon and served up coffee brewed over an open flame.

This is me on the hay wagon that took us out to the winter pasture.

The cows awaiting round-up.

Farm owner Alan Yegerlehner giving instructions as the volunteers lined up.

Basically, they had a tractor and trailer with a movable corral panel on the back. Their were strings tied to both sides of the corral panel and the voluteers spread out about ten feet apart on each side and walked behind the tractor, creating a moving fence all the way back the farm, which was about three miles.

Moo-ing along.

This is near the end of the walk when the cows started getting spread out. It's a little hard to see the line running between me and the guy in front of me.

The cows seemed pretty excited to be back at the dairy. It's hard to see in the picture, but the ones in front started running about the time they got the barn in the distance.

After the we got back to the farm, we were treated to a nice lunch and lots of free ice cream. I had a good time meeting the farm owners and the other volunteers. Definitely a worthwhile morning, and I'm looking forward to trying the fruits, err butter, of my labor at the farmer's market in a couple of weeks.

Never Had It So Good

Now you can do what you want to

And never feel sad

You've never had it so good, babe

I've never had it so bad

I'm not really sure who the singer would be in this situation, but the chorus of this song has definitely resonated with me the last few weeks. In total, I'm three weeks into "Project Crossfit", and I did my fourth post-surgery bike ride this afternoon. I had a nice little plan laid out, but my body is really dictating my schedule more than my plan. And when you're the person who "can do what they want to and never feel sad", it all works out just fine.

For example, last weekend my Thursday Crossfit session left me completely trashed, so I decided to take the weekend off and just go in Monday instead of Tuesday. I rested Friday and thought I would ride both Saturday and Sunday, but when I woke up Saturday morning it was grey and in the 30's and I just did not feel good. So my workout was this, plus this:

Rather than forcing myself to ride when I was carrying a bunch of fatigue and no desire, I compromised by still getting in some physical activity by walking a couple of laps around the park and even playing on the swings a bit. The next day was sunnier and warmer, and I had no trouble getting myself out for a short road ride.

I'm still working my way up to the planned schedule of Crossfit on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, with cycling on Wednesday and Saturday, because managing my fatigue level is my top priority right now. I like feeling healthy and motivated for the first time in months, and I'm not about to mess that up for some short term gains. I've set a goal of peaking for the The Unnamed Epic on August 27, to which I will commit 16 weeks of dedicated training after I complete my experiment in achieving as much Crossfit mastery (and hopefully some visible muscles) as I can by May 8th. However, unlike years past, my real goal for the season is to maintain the "never had it so good" feeling that I have now, and not getting bogged down with burnout silliness.

Was I Really in the Hospital Seven Weeks Ago?

Earlier today I was in the shower in the ladies' locker room of the French Lick Resort golf clubhouse, struggling with the awkward hand-held shower attachment. There's a shower head, but the water always seems to be switched to the hand-held thing and I have to figure out how to switch it to the shower head. Regardless, while I was doing this I was thinking about how pointless hand-held attachments are when I looked down and noticed the fold down bench, and had a memory of another awkward hand-held shower. Seven weeks ago this afternoon, I was sitting in a rickety plastic chair in shower trying to wash myself for the first time in nearly a week with a hand-held shower attachment. I was really pumped on the shower and the fact that the doctor had finally removed the disgusting piece of plastic tubing that was still protruding from my left side earlier that day.

Considering the events that today's awkward hand-held shower concluded, it's hard to believe that just seven weeks ago today, I was still in the hospital.

My name up on the big board

I started the day off with a trip to Crossfit Southern Indiana. I had my first session there on Tuesday, and was still sore when I got up this morning after a crash-course in lots o' squats. This particular facility requires newbies to do three sessions one-on-one with a trainer so that they learn good technique before they are thrown in with a big group. I'd already scheduled today's session before I saw that the weather was going to allow for rare February mountain bike ride.

I wouldn't normally double up like this, especially since I'm still in the gray area about whether I'm really even supposed to be "training" yet, anyway. The fact of the matter is that I wasn't really told an exact timeline for my return to physical activity, but I've definitely been wanting to do stuff again the last couple of weeks. I just tell myself I'll stop when it hurts. It took a lot to hurt me today, which is a good thing.

I wanted to do one long lap and one short lap at French Lick, but I ended up only doing one big one. In some ways I feel like I'm in way better shape post-surgery than I ever expected to be, but riding today was hard nonetheless. The climb up from the creek was kind of torturous, even with the granny ring, but it's always hard. I'm guessing it would be extra hard anytime after doing a Crossfit session in the morning, even if I was in good shape, so I don't feel bad.

Seeing trails in middle of winter with no greenery at all is weird. How many times have I ridden past this old car and never seen it before?

I knocked off after one lap, because I really couldn't imagine another one of the sustained climbs that even another short lap would require. Plus, I was getting achy in the torso region while descending Buffalo Trace, so I decided it was it time to thank my body for the resilience that it offered me today and reward it with some rest before my luck ran out. It was supposed to rain tomorrow, but now it's looking like it will be nice again, so going out for another ride will be tempting. I guess I will just have to see how I feel in the morning.

First Ride Back

About a week ago, I noticed that the pain in my abs was much improved, and that I could move pretty freely without feeling like I was going to tear something. Then the weather forecast called for weekend temperatures in the 40's and lots of sun. So it was time.

Today I rode my bike for the first time in nearly 11 weeks. Nothing too exciting, other than the fact that it happened. I went out for an hour and kept it pretty easy. Only a few minor aches in the abs here and there, but no big deal. The rest of my body felt weird being stretched into the unnatural position of riding a bike again, and it took me a few minutes to remind my legs how to turn in circles. It was good to be back, though.

I'm hoping to have my first Crossfit session on Tuesday, and guess at point my 2011 comeback will officially be rolling.

Waiting to (Fully) Exhale

We thought a break would be good

For four months we sat and vacillated

We thought a small time apart would clear up the doubts that were abounding
At that particular time love encouraged me to wait

At that particular moment it helped me to be patient
That particular month we needed time to marinate in what "us" meant

Okay, so the title is a little bit of an exaggeration. I can fully breath in and out without pain, as long as I do it slowly. Coughing and sneezing still feel like being stabbed, though, so I tend to minimize that action. The fact of the matter is that I have reached the point where I feel very little pain during normal "get up and walk around, cook some food, take a shower" activities, so I'm getting a little restless.

Restless, as in I'm not physically tired enough to quickly fall asleep at night, despite the fact that I really need to do so that I can produce some sweet human growth hormone for mah belly. During those times my mind goes strange places, like trying to remember the lyrics to old Alanis Morrisette songs, which results in consulting the ol' Ipod and rediscovering old Alanis Morrisette songs that I had forgotten altogether. That resulted in getting a little irrationally weepy for a bit (it happens sometimes these days) and a good opening for today's post.

During the last week I have officially hit the "waiting" stage. Aside from the sleep thing, I feel generally decent, but the little tests that I conduct on my abdominal muscles tell me that they are still a few weeks out from being able to do anything besides holding me upright while I walk a slow, careful lap around Bryan Park. Still hurts to sneeze, still hurts to touch the incision area, still can't really stretch and bend very well.

Since I can't do much physically, I've been making plans to do stuff physically. That doesn't sound like typical Lindsay behavior at all, right? Extrapolating potential outcomes and laying out plans to try and control the situation? (At least I'm not trying to control The Situation. What a mess that would be.)

The plan is, when the abs are ready, to spend 12-16 weeks devoting myself to "general fitness", rather jumping on the bike and being all "OMG, I GOTTA GET MY THRESHOLD POWER BACK NOW!!!" This is going to sound trite, and I hate trite, but I feel like this whole surgery mess is really an opportunity for a fresh start for me. When I think about the "four months we sat and vacillated" in the lyrics above, I think about July-October of last year, rather than my recovery period. I sure as heck did some vacillatin' during those months, and the doubts were abounding. I changed my diet, lost some weight, and got happier, but I had to pull away from a full devotion to cycling to do it. When I found out that I was going to have to take a major break, I saw it as a opportunity to fully let go of cycling for a bit and make all of the changes that I wanted to make, rather than feeling pressure to hurry and come back.

Losing weight was the one of the changes I'd hope for, and I've more than exceed that goal according to the scale. However, due to the circumstances, I'm still not as lean as I would like, but that is where the other change comes in. For quite some time, I've been bothered by the fact that, aside from the ability to ride a bike for a really long time, I'm pretty freaking weak. I can't really do more than one or two real push ups, and even then my form is pretty bad. I've been Crossfit-curious for a long time, ever since my former coach had me do Olympic lifts and linked videos to their site. It's not really the kind of thing one can just throw on top of an intense cycling training program and keep their sanity, though.

So I've decided to take a few months and satisfy my curiosity. I've shopped around and found a local facility (sorry, I will neither say "box" or ever refer to my food as "blocks") that will teach me the basics, but won't force me to stick to a rigid group workout only format. Once I learn what I'm doing more, I can focus on the elements that best help my cycling strength, as well as my general conditioning. No random going 'till I puke without a plan involved (the major criticism of Crossfit). The plan is Crossfit Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, base miles on the bike on Wednesday and Saturday, and keep my usual off days of Monday and Friday. That should give me a good foundation for late May or June when I feel ready to back to full bike training with a little bit of maintenance strength training so I don't lose what I've gained.

In preparation for this plan, I bought some new running shoes to replace the 5+ year old super-padded, ultra stability Asics that are a relic of my triathlon days. You might guess that I picked them for the color (which I love), but they also come highly recommended in the crazy Paleo ultra trail runner community, or at least among those who favor regular shoes over Vibram Five Fingers. I figured since I'm out of practice on running anyway, if start back with my Bryan Park walks in minimalist shoes that my feet will slowly grow stronger along with the rest of my body.

Finally, for the sake of another picture, my other project while I'm "waiting" is learning embroidery. I kind of procrastinated on this one, as I didn't lay down my first stitches until Friday, two and a half weeks after getting out of the hospital. Now it's underway, and easier than I thought so far. Of course, as you can see from my "Stitches I Know" sampler, I know only know about two stitches so far, but hopefully I can buckle down and finish the thing before I have to go back to work.

Free and On The Mend

The long-awaited surgery is finally behind me and I am on the mend. They ended up just taking out half of pancreas, because once they got in there, they discovered there wasn't enough tail left to do the funky double pancreas thing they planned. No big deal, I still have enough left to live a normal life once I'm all healed up, which may take a while.

A lovely shot Adam took the day after surgery. He got me a stuffed cat to keep me company since I had to be away from the real ones.

The first couple of days after surgery weren't too bad, because I was on so much morphine that I didn't feel a lot of pain. I made a lot of early progress and was cleared for "full liquids" (blended soup, pudding, ice cream, etc.) two days earlier than planned. However, a sudden onset of nausea and a drop in my white blood cell count set me back enough that I had to stay in the hospital until the morning of Day 6, as predicted by my well-read "surgery book" that they gave me before hand.

I felt pretty awful when I arrived home, but I have made small bits of progress every day since. I haven't made it through a night in bed, as I get really bad internal pain in the pancreas area when I lay too flat for too long. For some reason, I can sleep on the couch much better, so I usually end up there from 2 a.m. until Adam wakes up. Then I usually toddle into the kitchen for some food, and then go back to the couch and sit there upright while I have my breakfast. I don't spend a lot of time away from the couch yet.

Eating has been my other struggle since I've been home, since all but the tiniest portions make me feel sick and bloated after eating. I had this great plan to bring my own food and maintain a strict paleo/primal diet in the hospital, or at least avoid gluten no matter how bad things got. Unfortunately, there was even less in the way of refrigerator/microwave access for my caregivers than I had expected, and with the arrival of my nausea, those plans were thrown out the window.

When Friday rolled around, I knew I they wouldn't let me out if I didn't start eating, even though I felt really nauseous. The doctor finally just said to eat whatever looked good to me, which turned out to be some homemade Chex mix that my grandma had sent with my mom. So I pretty much lived on Chex mix and boiled or scrambled eggs from the cafeteria until I got out on Sunday. I know it sounds weird, but those were the only things that didn't make me sick. After that, my barriers were down, and I had no problem eating the homemade chicken noodle soup that my mom made when we got to my house (with saltine crackers even), and finishing off the Chex mix. I finally finished the soup off yesterday, and woke up today with a little bit more appetite for meat, so now it's time to raid the freezer and get back on the straight and narrow.

So now for the "scandalous" pictures. I know, this is even more risqué than the time that I posed in my sports bra and bibs. Yes, I am in my underwear, but it covers more than most bikinis, and I wanted to show my scars, as well as the weight I've lost.

I've secretly always wanted to get down to an even 50 kgs, to not only be "mountain goat waif-ish", but to make calculating my watts per kilograms easier. As of this morning, I'm more or less there, but I'm much more skinny-fat than I'd planned to be that weight, and my threshold power would definitely suck right now if I had one. (I'm guessing the inability to ride a bike equals a threshold power of zero.)

Scar

My belly is still pretty swollen, not to mention the lack of usable abdominal muscles. I'm going to have some serious postural issues to work out when this over. My back is killing me about as much as my incision is.

Thinking of getting a gansta tattoo to cover up the scar. What do you think?

December 27: It's a Date

I'm going to start off with kicking a little scientific knowledge, Lil' Emily style.

This is an normal pancreas.

This is my pancreas.

This will be my pancreas (or double pancreas) after December 27.

After two months of testing, examining, and above all, WAITING, I finally have a date for my surgery. In my last post I mentioned how I was worried that this thing would turn in major abdominal surgery, and the powers that be would continue to drag their feet resulting in the surgery not being done before Christmas. Unfortunately, I was correct on both counts. I underestimated my worst case scenario the seriousness of the surgery, but the date only missed the Christmas deadline by a couple days.

So here's the deal. Due to the size and location of my cyst, I have to have the middle part of my pancreas removed. Once that is done, the orphaned tail piece is going to be attached directly to my intestine, so that it can continue to produce pancreatic enzymes. Supposedly everything will still work pretty normally once it is all over, but healing is going to take a while.

I will have to be in the hospital for about seven days, and for the first three I will be all cracked out on a morphine pump with no food or drink. After that will be the starting to drink, eat, and walk enough to prove that I can survive on my own at home. After that, I will spend another 5-ish weeks recovering at home before I return to work.

As for the timeline for my return to cycling, I'm just going to play it by ear. I don't really expect to be able to mountain bike until late March, but really no one in Indiana gets to mountain bike more than a week or two before that, anyway. The difference is that I will have lost a lot of muscle and fitness. Since it's highly unlikely that I will be anywhere near healed enough for the Spa City 6 Hour or the Ouachita Challenge, as I had been planning, I might not rush into the beginning of XC season, either. I may take this spring and summer to work on building back lost muscle mass, strength, power, flexibility, and all that jazz, before I get serious about cycling again and give New New the proper CX season she didn't get this year (and some new wheels with tubies). Of course, that's pretty far out to be planning, and I may find myself dying to race in April. We'll see.

I Wanna Be Sedated

One, two, three more hours to go, I wanna be sedated
Nothin' to do no where to go-o-oh, I wanna be sedated
Just get me to the OR, give me something for the pain
Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane
I can't control my fingers I can't control my brain
Oh no no no no no

Not much to report in my world. The biopsy went okay, although it was nearly three hours late getting started. (Thus the lyrics above, which were going through my head all morning.) Unfortunately, it will still probably be another week or week and a half before the full lab results come in and we can proceed. I think surgery is still going to be the conclusion, but things are getting fuzzy about what kind of tumor I have, etc. Hopefully, the lab analysis will reveal something helpful, since I feel like there's more going on that just have something pressing on my internal organs. After nearly five weeks of rest or very light riding, as well as a super clean diet that is claimed to reduce systematic inflammation, my muscles and joints are still stiff and achy and I'm still pretty weak. I'd hoped that getting the cyst taken out would allow some sort of full-body healing to take place, but the doctor sort of looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if the cyst could be causing more systematic problems. So now I'm worried that I will go through surgery and then not really feel any better once it's over.

Additionally, I'm starting to be afraid that by the time the lab work is all finished, that all of the super special cyst surgeons at the IU Medical Center will be booked up until after their four week long holiday vacations to the Caribbean. (Okay, that's mostly making an assumption based on what the orthodontist that my mom works for does.) It's also looking like it might turn into full abdominal surgery, which I think would keep me from even riding outside again until sometime in April.

Needless to say, I'm getting very frustrated and worried. I keep hoping for the best case scenario at each stage of the process, but it then it turns into something worse. I'm crossing my fingers that my luck will change soon.

Last Dance With New New

The pancreatic situation has been moving pretty slowly since my last post. I have to have a biopsy on Wednesday, and then hopefully we will finally get the surgery on the books. The good news is that after two weeks of complete inactivity post-Berryman epic, I actually started feeling better on my own and I've started doing a little bit of easy riding and some simple bodyweight strength training at home. I'm not really training because a) I don't want to push myself too hard to and start to get weak and sick again b) I know I'm going to have to take more time off after the surgery, so even if I'm feeling better, trying to mount a comeback is impractical until after the surgery. I'm basically just trying to maintain my strength and muscle tone until I'm fully healed and ready to start my 2011 base training.

That being said, something was niggling at me to race one more cross race if I was able. I remember feeling bad for New New as Adam was loading his 'cross bikes up for the USGP Louisville and I was loading up my 29er for the Berryman Epic while she sat in the back room of the basement, all dressed up with nowhere to go for the weekend. So I felt like she needed one last run before winter.

This weekend provided the perfect opportunity with Backyard Cross, presented by Adam's team, the Speedway Wheelmen. The race was at Adam's teammate's property, which was intended to be a housing addition, but currently only contains one house. So making the best of a bad economic situation, the place has been turned into a very large cyclocross course until the housing market picks back up. I wanted to participate in this race, which is part of the Indiana Cyclocross Cup, the younger less-attended sibling of the OVCX series, which the Speedway Wheelmen are trying to get going. With no other Cat 3/4 women entered, I was able to boost their attendance numbers a bit, and get a "win" without blowing myself up. Of course, once the gun went off, I had a hard time "riding easy", but I would make myself back off when I felt like I was going super hard, and I didn't allow myself to try to pass the one junior who passed me. So I got my last race in and don't feel like I pushed myself hard enough to do any damage, plus I got a sweet bag o' swag for my "win".

Don't Call It a Comeback

"Don't call it a comeback; I've been here for years" - the cyst on my pancreas

The reason that I haven't posted any news since the Berryman Epic is that I've spent most of the time waiting on news myself. As I mentioned in my race report, my stomach was messed up the week before the Berryman Epic, and I think the lack of proper nutritional intake was what slowed me down so much. The week after the race was spent waiting and hoping my digestion would come around and I would get my strength back for the Storm the Greens CX race. When I didn't, Jason's pre-race pep talk call turned into a discussion of gallbladder symptoms and I spent the weekend waiting to talk to my doctor on Monday. I spent Storm the Greens camped out in the Shamrock Cycles tent, which is fun, but not as fun as getting to race first and drink after. (I figured whatever was wrong, I probably shouldn't pour hard cider on top of it.)

When I went to the doctor on Monday, she poked around on my abdomen and made the initial guess that it was, in fact, my gallbladder. I had blood work and an ultrasound done and then spent most the week waiting for results, and worrying about a future of compromised ability to break down dietary fat, just when I'd really started to fall in love with dietary fat. (Butter is my methadone and without it, I might go back on the hard stuff: Ben & Jerry's). As it were, I was nearing three weeks with compromised ability to break down dietary anything, and the ~1000 calories a day I was able tolerate weren't really cutting it.

On Thursday, I finally got the long awaited call with some unexpected, but not really surprising news. I get to to keep my gallbladder, but a baby pancreatic cyst that discover during a previous abdominal incident after my first Ouachita Challenge is apparently all grown up and pressing on the organs around it. No wonder I feel more full than usual after eating. So I still have to have an MRI next week, but the upshot is that I will have to have surgery of some sort and my CX is 99% likely to be over.

I'm disappointed but not devastated. I was looking forward to one more month of racing, especially since I've been enjoying 'cross much more than I have in a couple of years and placing better, as well. I spent the first half of the season waxing nostalgic about the old days when I was a 'cross devotee, but lost the love when I was repeatedly handed ass-whoopings by every new girl who rolled each weekend during the early explosions of the American Cyclocross Boom of 2007. When I started this season and realized that I could hold my own better than in the past, the famous opening lines of L.L. Cool J's "Momma Said Knock You Out", came to mind. Unfortunately, my threshold power isn't the only thing that's been growing since 2007.

The good news is that I should still be healed up in time to still get a good base for spring, and with the 11 pounds that I've lost since August, and the weight I will continue to lose until I get a full-time appetite back, I will likely be a much better climber next season. So I guess I will report back with my progress once all of the tests are done and the timeline has been established.

"I'm gonna knock you out, Momma said knock you out." - Lindsay to cyst

The Berryman Epic: Even If You Don't Have The Legs, There Are Still Worse Places To Be

Over the weekend I traveled to Steelville, "the floating capital of Missouri" (although I'd say it's more of the four-wheeler capital of Missouri from my experience) for the third iteration of the Berryman Trail Epic. It was my first time at the race, since it always conflicts with the Louisville USGP, but this year I decided it was worth missing the USGP to see what the Berryman was all about.

Unfortunately, my stomach had been out of whack for the week prior to the race, and the lack of good digestion was throwing the rest of my body out of whack. During my mid-week sprints, I knew I was feeling awfully weak, but all I could really do was eat lots of protein and sweet potatoes and hope that my muscles would get what they needed by Saturday morning. Unfortunately, whatever it was that my muscles needed, they apparently did not get it, because when I got on my bike Saturday morning it felt like 100 pound foreign object beneath my labored pedal stroke. I realize that my bike is, in fact, actually a foreign object, but on a good day it doesn't feel that way.

So when the race organizer set off his "big fire cracker" that was used as the starting gun and sounded like a cannon, I set off into the unknown. I just pedaled as best I could, but I was quickly in nearly-last place. It was three miles of relatively tame dirt road to the singletrack, and I was surprised to find the opening stretch of singletrack easier than I had expected. While it wasn't screaming fast, it was gently winding and mostly flat, if a bit rough.

I still had to work to keep my ragdoll legs turning my middle chainring at any sort of decent clip, and the occasional short, rooty climb was a struggle even in the granny gear. It didn't take long for me to doubt my ability to keep going at that rate all day, and started calculating whether I could be back home in Indiana by dark if I dropped out at the first aid station (and maybe stopped for a piece of foot-high pie in Illinois). Then I saw Zeke Lilly on the side of the trail with a flat. His tire was cut so badly that the tube kept popping out of the hole, so he couldn't fix the flat. I tried to convince him to take my tire so that he could finish the race, and I would have an excuse for quitting. He wouldn't take my tire, and in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't have to do the 2-3 hour hike-a-bike it would have taken to get to the aid station.

After that, I started feeling better, and while I wasn't fast, I felt like I could make it through the day. I kept going past the first aid station, but my spirits started to sink again as I dragged along to the second stop. I had myself about 80% convinced that I should quit at the next stop, but while I was discussing my options with the volunteers at the checkpoint I heard someone yelling my name. Sarah Miller was at the aid station, and after stopping for a quick chat with her, I was compelled to go on.

Sarah had told me the next loop was 15 miles and had some road in it, so it shouldn't be too bad. However, an hour later I caught up to a guy who was walking up a hill and I asked if he was okay. He said he was just tired and was debating about whether he would go on after the next aid station. I said that I was going through the same thing, but if we'd come this far we might as well finish. Then he said that we had ten miles until the next stop, which would mean that I had only covered five miles in the previous hour. I decided that the guy's computer was wrong since that would be the only way I could console myself.

Not long after, I was teased by an intersection of the trail and a dirt road where I saw a rider about to cross my path. I then suspected that I needed to get to the end of the trail and a reasonably easy dirt road ride back to the aid station would await. Unfortunately, I crossed, or at least saw, the road three or four more times before I was able to collect my zip tie and head on down the road. Unfortunately, that section concluded with a mile-long paved climb to the aid station that felt like the longest paved mile I've ever ridden.

I made the final cutoff by about 15 minutes or so, and after eating, refilling my hydration pack, and washing some of the sticky grime from my face, I committed to what I expected to be 2-2.5 more hours on the bike. The last section of singletrack was probably the most technical, but I liked it. There were several fairly big drop-offs where the trail had eroded beneath a root, and I enjoyed riding off of those and pretending I was some sort of freeride badass or something. Nevertheless, I spent most of the section looking at my watch and bargaining with myself about how far I'd probably gone and how much I probably had left to go.

I finally reached the dirt road to the finish and was accompanied by numerous locals on four-wheelers and other all terrain vehicles. Some were polite, some seemed to try to choke me with as much dust as possible, and some tried to joke around with me, although I couldn't hear much over their roaring engines. I have to say I saw way more four-wheelers than people floating down the river, thus my opinion on the appropriate namesake recreational activity for the area.

And then at the bottom of hill, I once again reached "river level" as evidenced by the super-soft gravel that was hard to ride through. The only upside of this was that things were starting to look familiar and I realized I was at the far end of the campground where the race started and finished. The last five or ten minutes of riding the soft surface seemed like forever, but I finally rode into sight of 200 or so clean people sitting around eating barbecue and relaxing after finishing quite some time before. Although it took me two hours longer than I'd expected it to, I was happy to be off my bike and that I would return to Indiana without another scarlet DNF on my record for the year.

Triple Race Report All the Way!!!

I was so tired after my Java Johnny's CX and Brown County Breakdown weekend that I put off blogging for a few days. Then I got really busy the last half of the week. Then it was time to race again at BloomingCross, so I figured I would just roll it up into one big TRIPLE RACE REPORT ALL THE WAY. (What does it mean???)

However, a week and a half later I don't remember a lot of what I was going to say about JJ's and the BCB. Basically, Java Johnny's had the big, intimidating 60ish person field that I mentioned in my last post. Unfortunately, I couldn't muster Adam's swagger, and I found myself REALLY intimidated on the starting line. I would say that my start was not great and not terrible, but with that many people, not great still puts you 20 places back at the first turn and near stopping through all the little chicanes leading to the first sandpit. I did pretty well at getting off, running the sandpit as fast I could, and taking off again, but I messed up going into the steep ridge that we had to ride over twice in succession early in the lap. I just couldn't power myself up, and had to run it. We hit the mid-lap twisty section and I was determined to use my cornering skills to make my way back to the upper mid-pack, but there were nuts all over the bases of the trees and I ended up crashing not once, but twice, before the middle section of the first lap was complete. By the time I got myself upright and going the second time, I well behind the group of racers I wanted to be with and had to motivate myself to pick through the back of the pack. I made up a few places, but I still ended up 22 out of 27 which was disappointing.

I seem to be doing pretty well here, but this was before I fell in the nuts. Twice.

Much further back post-nuts. I am ahead of everyone else in the picture, though.

In the background making my barrier face.

The next day I did the 60 mile route of the Brown County Breakdown. I'd never done this ride before, because it always conflicts with the Cincinnati UCI 3 weekend, but this year I gave up racing on my old favorite CX course at Harbin Park because I knew I needed to get in a long training ride before the Berryman Epic. It was hot and dusty to the point that the trails were kind of slick from dust instead of mud, but overall it was a pretty good day. I overcooked myself a bit early on trying not to slow down the long train of riders making their way through the North Tower Loop, Aynes Loop, and up to Hesitation Point. I have a fun moment going up Hesitation Point when I rode the S-shaped rock garden and most of the guys around me didn't.

After the first aid station at HP, the traffic got a lot more sparse and I settled in for a few hours of riding by myself at a comfortable but solid pace. My goal had been to go under 7 hours, mostly because I figure that going under 7 hours at the Brown County Breakdown is an important step to my long wished-for sub-7 hour finish at the Ouachita Challenge. I did okay through the ride, but I did struggle some during the last two hours. I ended up going about 7:25, but I also spent more time at the rest stops than I would have in a race, so it wasn't too bad. It was at least enough to make me feel confident that my riding once or twice a week plus racing CX on Sundays training plan of the two months hasn't left me too under prepared for the Berryman Epic.

It really is looking like what I told Jason back in August: Even if I train really hard, I probably won't get on the podium at the BTE, and if I focus on 'cross and just do a couple of long rides I'll still probably do okay. That may seem like a little bit of a defeatist attitude, but I'm actually mostly happy with the way things are going now. I'm not highly motivated to train, but I'm enjoying racing. So if I can't just squeeze one more month of fun out of my residual fitness from earlier in the season I will be happy. Then I'll buckle down and start getting into serious preparation for the spring endurance races again.

Spinning on some dirt road at the Brown County Breakdown.

Finally, Sunday was my first opportunity to race "above ground" cyclocross in my hometown at BloomingCross, since I missed the inaugural BloomingCross last year when I was at the Pisgah Stage Race. Besides being a home race, I was also excited because a lot people were taking the weekend off between the Cincinnati UCI 3 and the USGP Louisville. That would mean a smaller field and a shot at a top 5 or, on a really good day, podium for me. Regardless, I was looking forward to being able to tell what was going on in my race after the previous weekend's giant jumble. I pre-rode the course on Saturday and I determined that while all of the wide, flat straightaways weren't going to help my case, that if I could get a good start and make it the rideable sandpit about a minute into the course with good speed, that it could still be a good day for me.

Unfortunately, I must have spent too much time thinking about this plan, because standing in the staging area, I was ready to throw up. When the whistle blew, I stood to sprint to the front, but I seemed to be going in slow motion. I was just pedaling and watching racers come around me from the row behind, and thinking "Noooooo!" By the time, I hit the pavement downhill before the sandpit, I was in next-to-last out of the women and had several of the juniors that started behind us clogging the way. I still tried to get enough speed to ride the sandpit, but it's hard to do with that many people in front of you. I had to dismount and run the rest, at which time was I passed by the last place women putting me DFL with some juniors preventing my immediate catch-and-repass. In the end, I did get my top 5, but that was because there were only 7 starters in my class, one dropped out after I passed her, and I passed another for next-to-last. I was pretty bummed about my missed opportunity, but hopefully two weeks away from 'cross and a 55 mile trip through the Ozark mountains will bring me back to Storm the Greens in costume and with my head on straight.

Tour de Louisville

The Tour de Louisville went a whole lot like Kings CX, with the exception of being a lot chillier. It was actually just overcast and in the 50's, but since it was the first even remotely chilly day of the year, it was still a shock to the system. A guy had a bad crash during the men's 4's race, and the rest of the schedule was delayed while they got the ambulance down the course to pick him up. That meant that our field spent a lot of extra time standing around the staging area getting cold. By the time the whistle FINALLY sounded, my legs were pretty blue.

The good news is that I was at least listening for the whistle this time and had shifted into my big ring for the start, but I was still a little slow to react and was already 10-15 places back by the first turn. I shoved my way back through the twisty section up to the barriers, but my first time over sucked pretty bad. I messed up my remount as my bike wobbled over into one of the stakes holding the course tape while I tried to clip back in. I lost back nearly as many places as I'd gained in the turns while I got off, backed out of the tape, and did remount number two.

Once I was on my way, I made up a couple of places again, but then I was back to trying to catch the only girl in sight through the next couple of laps. Once again, I was faster in the turns and she was faster in the straights. I got in front of her right before the second pass through the barriers, but she quickly repassed me and was never really in striking distance again after that. I ended up 9th out 15 AG and 13th out 23 overall, so it was a lot like last time place wise. Unfortunately, it seems that I keep burying myself with the 35+ field, so even though I'm close to the top half of my field place-wise, I think I have a pretty big time gap I need to overcome. Hopefully, this will get a little easier as the season progresses and I start to learn to who look for in the opening melee.

Speaking of melees, the Cat 3/4 women will get our own time slot for the Cincinnati UCI 3 races this weekend, and we will be the first race of the day. I'm only doing the Saturday race, but that's going to be the biggest field, since there are already 27 women pre-reg'ed in the 3/4 Open class and 29 in the 35+ for a total of 56. Add in a few day-of registrations, and there will likely be 60 women on the starting grid. I get a little nervous thinking about this, although I can't explain exactly why. I'm not really afraid of the bumping and jostling at the start, because I'm usually the bumper and jostler. I am a bit of afraid of having to work my way through a lot of traffic if I'm less than on point during the opening frenzy, as I have been the last two times out. Mostly, I think I'm just intimidated because 60 is so darn big (and sorta awesome). It's almost like being a dude for the day.

Guess I need to channel my dude's attitude:

Kings CX: Imma Ride It, Dammit!

Sunday was my first 'cross race of the year at Kings CX in Mason, OH. Going into the race I was definitely in "let's see how this goes" mode, since I've only started to get my post-primal legs back since the DINO 6 hour, and last Wednesday was the first 'cross practice that I didn't feel awful. I still didn't feel fast, just not awful.

I tried to sneak out on the course for a lap between the men's 4's race and the 10-12-year-old race. However, I was confused about the course, and a guy showed me where to sneak in after the finish so that I could not interfere with the 4's but wouldn't have to wait until they all cleared the course. We rode together while previewing the course, and when we came to sand pit, I tried to ride through, even though it was very deep sand with no good line. I explained to the guy that coming from a mountain bike background, I feel like I'm more stubborn about trying to ride stuff, even when it might be faster run. Therefore my new MTBer on a CX bike motto: Imma ride it, dammit!

The course was bone dry and and had lots of swoopy bermy turns and I actually found myself whooping a couple of times through my practice lap. It was probably the best mood I've been in before a 'cross race in a long time. I was in my element. However, I didn't realize that they had already taped off the big hill for the juniors' race when I was preriding, so it was kind of a nasty shock during my actual race. My new joke is that the juniors' course at Kings CX is my favorite course (I liked the half-size barriers, too).

I came to line in a jovial mood, it may have worked to my disadvantage because I was a little too relaxed. I was joking around when the whistle blew and had a pretty delayed reaction time clipping in. I also realized that the medium-sized gear that I thought would be appropriate turned out to be too easy and I lost a lot places really fast. I was stuck behind a lot racers during the first swoopy section and was not able to make up the ground there. Then I bobbled the first time up the big hill, because I wasn't prepared and the 38 tooth small ring that New New came with is still kind of difficult for my wussy little legs on some occasions. A bouncy unclipped-in trip downhill and another trip back up left me redlined as I prepared for the first trip through the sand pit. I tried to gather as much speed as I could and thought, "Imma ride it, dammit!", only to bog down about a third of the way through and fall over as I tried to do an emergency dismount. Fail.

After I got up, I composed myself, railed some swoopies, and actually started to do okay. I passed a couple of girls, and battled with another who slower than me in the turns and faster in the straights for the most of the race, but in the end I got to the finish first and almost overtook another girl sprinting to the line. I ended up 8th out of 13 in my age group and 16th out of 27 out of all of the 3/4 women combined. I was still a couple of places short of adding a "Top 50%" to my page on crossresults.com, but I'm pretty sure I've never done better than next-to-last in a CX race so 10th from last is a big improvement. I feel like it might have even been my Bill Brubaker moment, and that I have a good shot at breaking the top half next time out if I just pay attention at the start, kill it on the accelerations, and keep the negative thoughts at bay.

This weekend is the last one without a race until December and I will be spending it my mom, who's coming to visit. I'm excited about hanging out with her, but I'm already counting the days until the Tour de Louisville, where I will get another chance to see if this is the year I really do stop sucking at 'cross.

Losing ground. I should really pay more attention at the start.

At least my barrier technique is better.

Race face.

5 Hours, 55 Minutes, and 6 Seconds of DINO (And 4 Weeks of Bacon)

Some basic math will tell you that's slightly better than 6 Hours (2 Minutes, 58 Seconds) of DINO, but you may be wondering about the bacon part. Every race report has a back story, right?

I'm not really sure where to start, which is probably why I've been blogless for four weeks.

Several times over the past few months, during my perusal of not completely cycling related blogs and general falling down the Internet rabbit hole, I have stumbled upon the website Mark's Daily Apple. My initial reaction was something along the lines of "So...what? These people just eat big hunks of meat and vegetables? I'm not really a fan of meat and vegetables."

Yet, I kept finding my way back usually through various other sources saying that grains are eevill. Then I would have to wonder about the fact that I was frequently struck with "I HAVE TO EAT NOW" urges in the middle of the workday, not to mention the sudden obsessive thoughts about cookies/cake/ice cream that would not go away until I'd eaten copious amounts of the offensive material. I also came to terms with the fact that my dislike of meat and vegetables came from my 'rexy days as a college distance runner where too many meals consisted of grilled boneless skinless chicken breast and steamed broccoli. All the sudden I was reading that I could eat the roasted thighs of an organic free-range chicken with broccoli sauteed in real butter and it probably would not kill me or make me fat. It actually sounded kind of tasty and I figured it couldn't be any worse for my health that what binge-eating would do when my luck finally ran out. (Luck is the only real explanation for why I am not severely overweight.)

I really can't remember what exactly prompted the trigger pull, but four weeks ago I got my butt out of bed on a Saturday morning and headed to the farmer's market to stock up on organic meat and vegetables. The next day was the pilgrimage to Chicago to see baby Ramona, so I had one last day of "non-primal" food consumption. Then I woke up Monday morning and replaced my usual oatmeal with two eggs scrambled with nitrate-free bacon, onions, mushrooms and bell peppers, as well as berries topped with real cream. I'd known I'd be sad about giving up the oatmeal, so breakfast became quite a "go big or go home" affair. I lost three pounds during the first week, and really had no carbohydrate cravings, except for the oatmeal-related sadness that passed after four or five days.

But then there was the whole "bike" part of the equation, and it took much more of a hit than I had expected. At the end of the first week I went for a night ride at Versailles with a group of people that I didn't know very well, but I'd received a Facebook invitation and thought it might be fun to get to know them. However, I really struggled on the ride, and bonked so hard that I was nauseous when I got home and it took four days off the bike before I stopped feeling weak and shaky. I heard that this was called the "low carb flu", and I started adding some sweet potatoes to my breakfast since it appeared that I'd overdone it a bit.

At the end of the second week I thought I felt pretty good and did the final DINO race at SWW Park. It soon became clear that I had a lot less gas in the tank than I thought I did, and I basically just had to force myself to keep going through the race. That was followed by another week of lackluster training that lead up to Labor Day, when I went for a 1.5 hour ride at Wapehani and came home shaking and exhausted like after the Versailles night ride. Then came super achey muscles, headaches, and sore throat to the point that I called in sick to work on Wednesday. Despite the fact that my emotional relationship with food was starting to look pretty darn healthy, I became very frustrated that my body was not feeling healthy at all, and I started to panic about the DINO 6 hour race that was just a couple of days away.

When I returned to work on Thursday, I started to tell my office mate about how I was feeling without any mention of my recent dietary changes. It turned out that she had the exact same symptoms at almost the exact same time as I did. It may sounds funny, but I was actually pretty happy to discover that I'd probably had an actual germ-related illness rather than an ugly carbohydrate-related slump. By Friday I was pain free, and I just crossed my fingers that my legs would carry me through Saturday's 6 hour race.

And they did. I had to be pretty careful to not overdo it on the climbs during the first half of the race, but luckily Versailles has enough flat twisty sections that I was able to still go relatively fast without having to produce mega watts. I was in a world of pain during the fourth lap, and slowed down a lot more than last year, but in the end, I completed my four-lap race about 8 minutes faster than last year. I was probably 30-40 minutes slower than I would have been a few weeks ago, but really I was just happy that I was able to keep going the whole 6 hours.

I know that wasn't much of a race report buried in the middle of such a long post, but I guess it was finally time to come out an say all the things I have avoided the blog for four weeks to avoid saying. I guess I'm just self-conscious, because I'm terrible about suddenly jumping into "big ideas" and then having to admit that they resulted in epic failure. I'd really wanted to keep mum about the semi radical experiment that I've been performing on my body, but I guess it's better to just tell the truth than to try to vaguely explain away four weeks of sudden lack of bike power.

My weight has been holding steady since the first week, but my sudden lack of interest in sugar is a victory in itself. I'm eating food that tastes good enough that I want to eat it but not so good that I want to eat too much, and that's pretty exciting. This weekend was a good indicator that I will regain full power in the near future, so I'm not feeling so bummed about being slow. So frankly, if a little real, honest-to-goodness animal fat helps me quit sugar and eat my veggies, I'm cool with it.

Non-Race Report

I haven't been blogging for a couple of weeks, because nothing really noteworthy has happened cycling-wise. Since Versailles I have missed both the Sub-9 Super D at BCSP and the DINO Logansport race. I wanted to do the Super D, because it would have been a chance for me to compete in a more downhill than up format, which probably would have been advantageous. However, it wasn't that high on my priority list and I thought $35 was a bit much for a 5.5 mile race.

I've also spent the time since Versailles working getting back to consistent training and preparing for CX and the fall endurance races. Rather than giving up the weekend for a short race, the crown jewel was a two full laps of Versailles at 6 hour race effort. I was 15 minutes faster than the first two laps of last year's 6 hour, but still a bit off of the pace for which I was hoping. Slogging through alone with semi-stale legs is much different than working under the influence of race day magic though, so I still think some faster laps on September 11 will be in the cards.

On the other hand, I was a bit more bummed about missing the DINO Logansport race. Even though I had bad races there the last two years, it was also the site of one of my top five best races ever back in 2007. I had a good feeling about this year. However, Adam's brother and his wife had there first child last week (Ramona Elaine Rodkey), and we spent Sunday going to Chicago to see her. Although I'm pretty awkward around babies, it's still exciting to be an aunt.

It all may be just as well, anyway, because I had a little too much excitement on Saturday and had a pretty painful road bike crash. It was really dumb - a short downpour early in the ride was enough to make the streets wet, but not enough for me to remember that the streets were wet. So I whipped into a side street at full speed, and ended up sliding across the road on my left side. Now I've got a grated elbow and hip, and still some lingering sore muscles from the impact. As it was I was worthless for any riding on Sunday even if circumstances would have allowed. I'm seeing chiropractor/ART guru Brian Murer at lunch today, though, and I expect to be on track to complete tonight's interval workout, even if I'm not 100%.

Four Hours and a Feed Bag

This weekend I got back into endurance MTB training, since the DINO 6 hour (I've settled on the 6) and Berryman Epic will be here before I know it. The plan was to ride four laps of French Lick at endurance race pace. Since French Lick has a nice wooden deck at the trailhead, I decided to ditch the pack and set up a "pit" on the deck.

The only bad part was riding from the parking lot carrying a fairly heavy bag, and I actually got off and walked the little steep pitch from the road to the deck, since my balance was bad. Of course, there was a big group of people sitting on the deck who watched me walk up and set up my bag, which was awkward.

The good news is that it worked out well and it was nice being able to ride pack free. I also tested out a new mid-ride food that worked out well: a Bloomington Bagel Co. soft pretzel bagel with Nutella, cut into quarters, and eat one quarter at the beginning of each lap. A good balance of salty and sweet, seemed to digest well, and didn't leave any weird aftertaste. (I hate the aftertaste of anything peanut butter or cinnamon flavored while riding.)

I ended up only doing 3.5 laps, because I needed to get home, but the three full laps that I rode were good. I did 1:03, 1:06, and 1:07, which were all significantly faster than my single lap at the French Lick DINO race (1:16). Of course, I had better trail conditions, a faster bike, and didn't have to ride the start/finish shoots nor the ridiculous fireroad section. Hard to tell if the DINO course was noticeably longer or if I was really faster, but regardless I was happy with my ride.

They Call Me New New

This is New New. She's a rich girl from a nice family. They wanted to send her to the Ivy League (Granogue), but in the end she got her way and was allowed go to the HBCU (historical badass cycling university) of her choice. Although they raised her to be elite, she's going to be slumming it this season trying to help me work my way out of Cat 4 in the OVCX series.

She can be classy and refined, with her subtle white and black paint job, but has a slightly more gaudy side, with her blue glitter-paint underbelly and pink highlights.

This is Jake, a poor boy from the 'hood. Jake did his best for a few years trying to make it as a 'cross racer, but he just wasn't very fast. Kona marketed him as an all-in-one entry level 'cross bike and commuter bike, so lately he's been working in the less glamorous commuter field. Getting used to the basket was hard, but it's satisfying to be appreciated again.

Then New New met Jake and they fell in love. I got home from work today she was leaned up against Jake in the back room of the basement. I just hope we can make it through 'cross season without the birth of any metallic blue push bikes.

~~~

Okay, so I remembered a little more about the character for which New New is named and I did my best to draw some parallels. Apparently, I only name CX bikes, but even Jake only has a name because he came with it. She's also the first "female" bike I have owned. Not women's specific, because my Anthem is women's specific. For some reason, though, I've always thought of him as a metro sexual boy, but I've never given him a name. My 29er is definitely a boy, as well. I'm not sure where I come up with these things.

Anyway, anthropomorphizing aside, New New is one killer bike. I took her out on a test ride yesterday on a mix of pavement, singletrack, and gravel road. She's so light (even lighter than my road bike), and just floats over the rough stuff. I'm totally looking forward to racing 'cross on my floaty bike.