I hate it.

This happens every year – the weight of the weather pressing until everything seems too difficult, too uncomfortable, too awful. Cyclocross, my favorite racing season, has just ended and with its departure all the weekly glory, anticipation and competitive transcendence that has bolstered me is gone.

Life is normal and slow and gray. It’s winter training time. Time for base miles and building camaraderie with riding buddies. Time for learning to suck it up and suffer through the conditions. For racers, it’s an important time in the training calendar when we log slow, long miles that will add up to speed and stamina months later when the days are longer.

We grit our teeth and sit in stoically, returning home covered in mud and the smell of suffering. We layer strategically, huddle under technical outerwear and still manage to end every ride soaked to the bone and shivering.

It’s awful and we’re stupid. And yet? We can’t help ourselves.

Winter dishes out a specific brand of suffering. It’s different than the searing pain of racing or hard group rides. It’s about tolerance, patience and perseverance. It’s a quiet iteration of discomfort.

It’s three hours with raindrops on your eyelashes and numb lips that refuse to form a smile. It’s three hours alone with your thoughts. Contemplation enhanced by physical distress. Meditation mixed with misery.

There’s a reason we ride in this weather and it’s more than a blind commitment to miles. The dark days of winter give us necessary pause. Where joy and exuberance are missing, our heart’s our filled with a different kind of understanding. Life is beautiful and also, sometimes, excruciating. The bicycle understands this and honors it.

There is a dose of clarity that only comes when your Gore-Tex overshoes fail and the icy rain begins to pool in the bottom of your shoes. This isn’t going to feel good, baby, but we’re going to get through it.

Winter pedalstrokes become my cyclist’s prayer – an appeal for mercy, guidance and grace. An exercise in tough self-love and self-examination. Dark skies and difficult internal dialogues.

I ride through this dim and dingy Oregon winter because I have to. Because there is wisdom in the spray of water off the roadway and insight in the pain of de-thawing frozen fingers around a post-ride hot chocolate. We are students of suffering and there’s a lesson in the cold stinging red skin and damp riding gear piled next to the shower door.

We’ll learn that lesson. And we’ll love it. And then some day the sun will come out again and we’ll be stronger for it. Not just our lungs and legs – but also our hearts.

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I’d feel bad for myself if I didn’t know that half of the rest of the cyclocross community was also sick. And racing through sickness.

Sal reported this morning that I am coughing less and less during the night so I celebrated with a hot, steamy mug of delicious Courier Coffee Roasters coffee. (Holy shit, that stuff is out of this world delicious.)

About a week ago the Oregonian ran a column I wrote about being sick. I think their headline said something else, but I titled it “Lung Butter”. Scroll to the bottom of the post to skip the fluff and check out a few general guidelines for dealing with illness when your cycling brain just wants to force your legs to make pedaling motions (and to contribute your own secret remedies/tactics)

Lung Butter (It’s what’s for breakfast)

Lung butter.

It’s about as appetizing as it sounds. As a normal human being it’s the kind of stuff that keeps you up late at night hacking. As a cyclist, the soft vibration of respiratory liquid is a veritable death knell.  The sound of your fitness fading. The inevitable reversal of months of hard-earned progress.

Changing seasons bring a fresh rotation of viruses, bugs, and flus. Traditionally, I wait until the early winter months to acquire something dramatic but this year I decided to dive in right away with a standard-run-of-the-mill early Fall flu.

When the lung butter is this good, why wait?

I took my usual approach to the threat of affliction: outright denial. I rode with a friend in the debt of a chilly morning, raced in the weekday series, and worked late on a deadline. “I am invincible”, I repeated internally.

Despite the fact that this particular tactic has been proven ineffectual (repeatedly), I employed it with absolute confidence. Mind over matter. The headache would surely subside, the general achiness would fade. That scratchy throat? That will go away.

It didn’t, of course. And I woke up a few mornings later with a three-alarm fever, a chest full of mucus, and a head that felt like I’d been mashing it against a street post. Denial gave way to a wave of self-pity followed by fits of sobbing.

So much for invincibility – time to hit the medicine cabinet.

My boyfriend Sal displayed his usual compassion (“You’re weak! How could you let yourself get sick!”) and gentle care-giving tactics (“Don’t come near me.”) and I wallowed in my misery. Meanwhile, the bike sat idle. And the first major race of my cyclocross season approached.

Then came my Michael Jordan moment. Remember when he played with the flu in the 1997 NBA finals against the Jazz? I do. He threw up before the game, had a 104-degree fever, still managed to play 44 minutes and then collapsed in exhaustion after making the game-winning three-pointer at the buzzer. I watched that game live. He was superhuman.

And I’m going to let a little case of the sniffles keep me out of the local B-league bike races?  No way!

There’s only about three things wrong with this logic. 1. I am not Michael Jordan. 2. I am not getting paid mutli-millions (or anything, for that matter) 3. This is not the NBA playoffs. (It’s a few loops around the Alpenrose Dairy.)

I went to the race, but I didn’t ride. I watched. And you know what? It sucked. In fact, I’ll risk melodrama by admitting that it was the tiniest bit agonizing.

But that night, as I lay in bed hacking up the last of the lung butter I knew that – for once – I’d done the right thing. Next to me, Sal tossed and turned. He woke up the following morning with The Affliction and promptly stopped speaking to me.

I returned his previous care-giving tactic of exaggerated avoidance and headed out into my day to enjoy a feeling of rapidly returning wellness and smug superiority.

Tips for Cycling Through the Cold and Flu Season

“When in doubt, throw it out.”
That’s the old adage. If you question your fitness or fatigue levels, even just a little bit, throw out your workout or ride for the day. It’s better to err on the side of caution when dealing with sickness – by dialing it back, you won’t lose as much fitness as you think and you might prevent the evolution of a more serious illness that could have you sidelined for weeks or months.

Head and Shoulders
One quick guideline seems to be universally agreed upon when it comes to athletes and sickness. If symptoms are above the shoulder only (a head cold and maybe a light sore throat) it is ok to do an easy workout if you’re feeling up to it. If you have achiness, fever or your lungs are affected, keep your hands off that bike for a few days.

Make recovery a priority
My coach, Russell Cree of Upper Echelon Fitness, once told me, “Cycling success is a three-legged stool of physical strength, mental capacity, and health.” That sounds simple, but many cyclists don’t treat recovery with the same priority that they do training (making for a very wobbly stool). Rest days are just as important, if not more so, than hard interval days and when you’re sick that becomes truer than ever. Make the effort to get quality recovery.

Ready, Set, Wait
Once you feel like you’re ready to get back at it again, wait another day (a full 24 hours). It can take your body up to a week to recover even just from the common cold – and over-exertion was probably what got you sick in the first place. It’s always better to be under-trained and healthy than over-trained and sick. When you do get back on the bike, resist the urge to go hard right out of the gate.

Secret Weapons

I’m no medical doctor, but I have gotten pretty good at taking care of myself when the sickies come knocking. Here are two of my favorite products for increasing comfort when the lung butter is on a rampage.

Throat Coat Tea by Traditional Medicinals contains Licorice Root and Slippery Elm – it’s slightly viscous which means it truly does “coat your throat” offering pretty amazing relief from scratchiness and soreness.

Olbas Oil contains extractions of essential oil from six medicinal herbs including eucalyptus, peppermint and clove (it’s strong!). Breathing it in enhances breathing passages – try adding 20 drops to a bowl of hot water, place a towel over the head and breathe vapors in deeply for 5 to 10 minutes. (I’ll also often inhale this stuff from a small piece of tissue before a race – it feels incredible!)

Acupuncture If I hear one more thing about how good acupuncture is for the early stages of colds and flus, I’m going to scream. That said, enough smart and healthy people have told me to go get punctured for me to believe that they’re onto something. I just got health insurance that covers acupuncture treatment so I plan to finally go find out what all the hype is about.

Herb/mineral treatments If you are self-aware (I am extremely NOT self aware) and catch an illness creeping up on you, there are a few great solutions that may smash it down dead in its tracks before it has a chance to round-house kick you in the head.

Yinchiao: A smart Chinese herbalist/accupressure practitioner that I frequent recommends this. I managed to use it effectively twice this year to stop bad stuff before it started.

Gan Mao Ling: Same Smart-Lady recommends this in case you don’t catch your sickness early enough to use Yinchao. When things get full bore, I eat the Gan Mao Ling like candy.

Wellness Formula: A different smart lady (traditional western nurse with hippy-natural-medicine leanings) recommends this stuff. She takes it in small doses all winter long and manages to stave off The Crud. I am currently preparing to employ this tactic.

What about you? Have secret weapons to share? By all means, leave a comment!

*

PS: Don’t forget to add yourself to the contact list so I can letcha know what is going to happen with this here blog in the very near future. (Things are changing.)

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I went back to the gym.  And not just for some stupid squats and lunges.  I went back and started lifting upper body again.

I have been sucked so far into the cycling vortex that I can no longer see out of it.  I say “pull ups” and the cylcosphere gasps collectively and lunges to take me out at the knees before I can grab the bar.  “Noooooooooooooo! You might develop an arm muscle!”

I used to call Sal T-REX because he would ask me to move heavy things for him: “I don’t want to get any muscles in my arms.” (Sal – you are officially called out.) TVs, boxes, furniture, you name it.  He called me Musclehead and I kissed him on the forehead after pounding my chest triumphantly.

In the morning I ran in darkness along the Esplanade 5 or 6 miles before meeting my trainer.  I was pulling more weight than most of the guys around me.

Lats, chest, arms.
Bam, pow, bing.

It gave me great joy to watch them take weight off when I left a station. I worked up to 10 pullups, then 11.  I hit my pullup PR of 13 one morning after a 6-beer bender.

“What got into you?” Keith asked.

“Carbs, I guess.”

Being a gym rat wasn’t something I was proud of, but it worked at the time.  I was done with 2.5 hours of working out by 6:30 or 7am and I could shower and still be at work before everyone else. It was predictable, rhythmic, and comforting.

And when I stopped I missed it.

Not just the routine of my morning gym arrangement, but the feeling of my arms trembling as I tried to hold up the hair dryer after a good session.  I missed the wobbly feeling of pounding out 60 consecutive pushups.  I missed the “gym zone” where the headphones go in, the death-anger rap goes on, and everyone else disappears.  I missed wife beaters and balance boards and bosu balls.

So I went back.

And it kills.  It crushes.  Or, as Taylor Phinney would tweet, “It slays!”

Upon my return, I nearly wept to find that I could only lift at 25% of my former glory.  No pull-ups.  No benching my bodyweight.  No forcing the boys to take weight off when I step away.

Yet.

Men of Portland, you’ve been warned. Swifty’s bringing the heat.

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It’s springtime – group rides are in full swing. Get in on one and watch what happens – you’ll ride faster, further and have more fun than you’ve ever had on a bicycle.

You don’t have to be on a team to ride with a group. Ask your local bike shop if there are any standing rides you can join. Chances are, if they don’t have one of their own, they’ll know where you can find one.

Also check www.orbike.com; the “Events” section has weekly rides starting from locations all over the state. Oregon Cycling Magazine’s calendars page also provides a long list of links: www.oregoncycling.org/calendars.

For newbies
Riding in groups requires a bit of etiquette and some handling skills. Most rides have options for a variety of riding abilities; if you’re new to group riding, check in advance to make sure the organization has a group to accommodate beginners.

What to bring
Be sure you have a good flat kit (including a pump) and at least one spare tube. Carry enough food, energy bars and water to get you through the entire ride in case the group does not stop along the way. Finally, if wet weather sets in (hello, Oregon spring!), be sure that your bike has a full fender — it will keep the rider behind you from getting hit with the spray off your rear tire (and a fender on the front tire will do the same for you).

Around Portland
Hook up with the Portland Velo cycling club on any day of the week for one of many standing rides. The Saturday Series leaves from Hillsboro and offers rides of varying intensities; www.portlandvelo.net.

The Portland Wheelmen Touring Club offers up to two dozen rides on a weekly basis including many in the evening; www.pwtc.com.

Drafting 101

As a runner coming into the world of cycling, the concept of drafting was lost on me. I didn’t get it and, frankly, I didn’t believe it could really make that much difference. It does. If you learn how to do it effectively, you’ll be able to ride farther, faster (and have more fun on big group rides).

How much energy do you save? According to a landmark study by Dr. James Hagberg at the University of Florida, you use as much as 30 to 40 percent less effort than a person riding solo at the same speed. The closer you are to the wheel in front of you and the faster the pace, the greater the benefit.

Getting started: Pick a steady, smooth rider of similar fitness and ask if it’s OK if you practice drafting on his or her wheel. The quality of the wheel you follow is crucial — your drafting guru should have a smooth pedaling cadence and steady pace. Make clear you’re new to this. Ask for help.

Work up to it: Start about three feet back. As you gain confidence, begin to move closer. Once you are able to get within about a wheel’s distance away, you’ll begin to enjoy the benefits. Ideally, you want to ride about a foot (or less) away from the wheel in front of you.

If it makes you feel more comfortable, ride a few inches to one side of the wheel in front of you. But don’t let the front of your wheel creep past the back of the wheel you are following: When you overlap wheels, a swerve by the rider in front could take you out.

Look ahead: Don’t fixate on the wheel in front of you; instead look through the lead rider about 20 feet (or more) up the road.

No brakes: If necessary, modulate your speed by soft-pedaling or sitting up — stay away from your brakes. Better yet, find a steady cadence so you don’t need to slow down or speed up.

Smooth it out: Don’t make sudden movements or let your bike wobble. Being squirrelly puts everyone in danger.

Take your turn in the wind: The fastest way to alienate your riding buddies is to sit on the back for the entire ride. Even if you can’t pull for as long as your riding partners, your effort will be appreciated.

Being on the front means that you’re responsible for calling out hazards or debris in the road. Point at and announce these hazards (“gravel!”). Hand signals for slowing or turning are also crucial when you’re in this position.

Advanced technique: When several cyclists ride in a long line taking turns on the front, it’s called a pace line. Participating in a pace line comes with its own set of skills, etiquette and techniques. When you’re comfortable drafting, find a group of experienced riders and ask them to show you the ropes. We’ll cover pace-linging in a follow up post within the next few weeks.

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My face was smeared with chocolate covered Gu and my hair was matted to my head.  I’d just been nursed home into a howling headwind by three men who were kind enough to rescue me and my shattered legs.

Remember this.

Remember it.

Remember the finish.  What it feels like to be done.  What it feels like when the oxygen returns and the blood flows normally and your thoughts come in streams instead of fits and starts and you realize that you’ve killed it.  Your self doubt.  Your perceived limitations.  They’re all dead.

Remember that part.

What’s happened in the last three weeks has to do with forgetting.  Long, insane work hours – sure.  But the gap in riding leads to a kind of athletic amnesia, in which you forget why you ride, and that you will see the other side of this particular pain, and that a light exists within the agony.

On Saturday I joined the team for a ride.  We went into the west hills with a gaggle of guests – cat 1 and 2 male riders.  Welcomed, yes.  But their presence changed things.  When the fitness disparity involves cat 1 male racers all the way down to mid-pack cat 4 racers (me), really bad things are in store.

Especially when you point the bikes up a few good hills.

I floundered.  I gasped.  I climbed and got angry.  I quit cycling 5,000 times in my head and once out loud.  I’ve been on the bike 4 times in three weeks and it showed.  I suffered.  And not heroically.  I suffered pathetically.

We split from the group after doing 3000 feet in 18 miles.  Sal and I pressed on and I sucked his wheel (pushing threshold power) around Sauvie Island in silence.  The wind blew and we exchanged words only when we passed a goat napping on top of a pile of manure.

“Billy goat!” Sal said.

“Billy goat!” I replied.

And that was it.

Well, not quite.

Halfway through he called back, “Everything ok back there?”

And I said, “YES.” through gritted teeth.

I did not say, “I am riding threshold on your fucking wheel!”  I did not say, “I am not as strong as you, Sicilian-boy!”  I did not say, “Slow down.”

When we got to the bridge I told him that if he rode me off his wheel on the way back, to just keep going and meet me at home.  I meant it.

The pace slowed considerably.

I’m going to be honest with you – and this is not drama – it just is what it is.  I wanted to cry.  For almost the whole ride.  I actually visualized how I would walk into the house and put my bike down and go into the bathroom upstairs and sob.  I planned on big, heaving sobs.  Waves of tears.  I had it all worked out.

What happened instead? Sal suggested we hit Laughing Planet for a post-ride meal.  He carried the brown bag home, riding with one hand, and I chased him singing, “I am chasing the burrito boy!!”

We ate like starving people and then showered and fell onto the sofa.  I didn’t sob.  I didn’t even cry a little bit.

But the day still stung.

Then today I rode over to the coffee shop to meet the team again, despite my better judgement.  I hoped and prayed that yesterday’s shelling had hurt the others as well.  That a social recovery ride was in store.  That we’d talk and ride together like a team.

Brubaker and Beckaboo came up from Salem to join us which boded well.  We headed off in the direction of Oregon City, zipping through streets in a pack. We talked and then climbed and then flew out up and over rollers.  I hurt, I recovered, I climbed again – and the legs felt good.

(Good bad like hurting ache but it’s gonna be ok, little mama.)

The difference was we were talking.  The difference was we were laughing.  (It may have also helped that we were not climbing in the west hills.)

We were riding bikes together. As a team.  For fun.

And I remembered.  I remembered why I bother with all this crap – the gear and the pain and the miles and the preparation and the spandex hanging out to dry in the basement.

Because of days like today.  Good days – when things go well.  And you feel like you’re in the right place, doing the right thing, with the right people.

Remember this part.  This is why we ride.  Days like today.

Remember that.

No related posts.

I took 3 days off (the longest I’ve been off the bike since December) and then backed off training a little, cutting my hours almost in half despite the fact that I should have been putting in two solid weeks in preparation for next week’s stage race.

I keep reminding myself (and being reminded by others) that I won’t magically lose all my fitness over the course of a few weeks. I know that. I do. I know it – I’m just not a fan of setbacks. That’s fair, isn’t it? I’m allowed to be impatient, right?

The fatigue is a deep aching everywhere. The kind of pain that emanates from nowhere and pulses.

I’m over hearing myself talk and think about it, to be honest. But I figure it’s important to mark these moments – to remind yourself how good you have it when things are status quo.

In the middle of this mysterious never-ending tired ache, I went to a previously scheduled appointment with my massage therapist for some accupressure work. Hearing her suggest that perhaps I was actually just “tired” was both a shock and a wake-up call.

Maybe I am just tired.

The truth is that the bike is the least of my concerns at this moment. Sometimes, that’s just how it goes.

Life is a monsoon right now. Powerful and kind of awe-inspiring, but a little out of control. A little hard to predict. I’m spending a lot of time standing at the window admiring the frenzy but hoping that the wind doesn’t rip off the rooftop of my well-being.

Whatever happens, when my body returns to its regularly scheduled programming, I’m going to remember this. And I’m going to be thankful. And I’m probably going to be out to rip a few legs.

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I try but I can’t.  The sun.

The blue sky.  Swooping roads.  An attack of medium-sized black birds with red shoulders.  A lake.  A glisten.  Hills and green.

According to my schedule, I’m supposed to turn around right now.  I should go back home, duckwalk into the garage, pull off the blue-black spandex and call it a day.  I should go home to pasta and cookies.

But I keep riding with the red-shouldered birds hot on my heels.

I don’t live here, but I used to.  San Jose: a sprawling and massive suburb full of mall-shoppers and car drivers.  Flanked by overflowing freeways and packed with the glint and glimmer of wealth.  Or remnants of wealth. Or tokens of wealth.

We’re not sure anymore.  No one is sure.

I lived here during a time that was similar – the dot com crash full of anxiety and uncertainty, a crumbling and volatile economy.  We were young when the walls came down so it seemed less terrifying then than it does now.  We downsized and moved into the little rambler on Pearl Avenue with Sal’s family.  We slept under a shiny gold cross and I woke up to an image of Padre Pio every morning at 5:00am to catch a train to my job in San Francisco.

I commuted 5 hours every day.

It didn’t matter.  We were safe.  Safe and tucked in and sheltered away.  We kept our heads low and went for long runs in the warm evening air.  We ate homemade pasta and told jokes in Sicilian and drove out to the ocean on the weekends.

Safety.

I cannot help but feel comforted when we return.  It’s the touchstone.  The grounding point.  And we need it right now.

Flying out on McKean Road I can feel the frenzy of South San Jose falling away.  I’m 15 minutes into my ride and rolling fast toward farms and hills and horses. It’s 65 degrees and sunny and I’m shocked to feel the breeze on my arms for the first time since Arizona. There’s a resounding quiet.

I’ve been worried.  Maybe we all have been.

I’ve been worried and working too much and wondering.  Straining to see what’s ahead of me, taking deep breaths and telling myself not to worry about it.  Long rides now feel like luxuries I can’t afford.  Time that could be spent working, or planning, or budgeting, or willing the economy to turn around.

But, really, the long rides are necessities that I cannot afford to go without.  A physical reset button.  A place of uninterrupted joy or pain or both.  A well of calm and certainty.

We came here to San Jose this time for work.  To tie up loose ends and have hard conversations and do things that we weren’t looking forward to.

But we’re doing them.  And we’re regrouping.  Circling the wagons.  Planning an attack.

I should turn around now, but this road keeps rolling forward and my bike won’t let me stop.  I keep chasing the red-shouldered birds around corners – out of dappled stretches and into sunlight that arranges itself into long beams.

I’m sun-powered and calm.  And when I do finally decide to turn this bike around, I’ll be ready for what’s next.

I’ll be ready for everything.

No related posts.

There are 17,000 feet of climbing already in my legs and 3,000 more to go today.

I am writing the script of my imminent demise as I turn the pedals over in wobbly, jagged squares:

She was found 500 feet from the base of the climb.  A comrade reported her death quiet and inglorious.  Her body was removed from the road as vultures circled above.  The support van drove the remainder of the climb in haste, eager to deliver nutrition to the remainder of the group. Perpetuem and HEED was consumed in her honor.

You could say that my mental game could use some work.

I’m angry.  I’m riding my bicycle with a feeling of disgust and surrender.  I hate it.  I’m over it.

I cannot hold a line to save my life, so I apologize out loud into the desert air: “I can’t hold a line.  I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok.”

The voice is behind me, slightly to the left, in my draft.  My wheelsucker.  My partner in suffering.  Vice President of the Vulture Club.  Javad Simonson.

I’m surprised that he might still be alive but I am too tired to turn around to confirm that the voice is coming from a real person.  If I’m hearing things then I’m glad, at least, that my imaginary friends are ok with my inability to ride in a straight line.

20 minutes earlier, the ride had started in earnest.  A tired gruppetto pulling away from a gelato shop.  The pace rose and my coach called out, “Swift!! Get that wheel!”

The gap was opening against my will.  I stood up and took two strokes.

Nothing.  Nothing nothing nothing nothing.

The group rode away.

When I looked around moments later they were small figures up the road – little wavy specs.  One group smaller than the other.

My love is in the medium-sized group, I thought to myself. God help him in the chase.

It was the last positive and unselfish thought that I would have for 13.5 miles.

I found Javad and set my jaw.

Now here we are.  With the buzzards circling. In the desert, surrounded by cacti.

Dusty brown expanse in every direction.  A mountain up ahead.  Dry, arid hills.  There is a grade waiting for us up there that is going to try to break us.

Javad comes around.  “I’ll try to pull us for a little bit.”

I am too tired to thank him.  The truth is that we’re going too slow for it to matter much, but the vision of his rear wheel is comforting nonetheless.  The pull does not last long.

“We’re going to die out here, Javad.”

“I know.”

“At least we have each other…”

Javad laughs.

“Car back.” I say.

The car is not a car at all, but the support van.  It passes us at something greater than 30 miles per hour with one of our ride leaders drafting on the back at a breakneck pace.  He’s heading up to regain contact with the lead group.

I am pissed to have missed the selection.  I am pissed to be in the middle of the desert.  I am pissed by this incredible feeling of fatigue.  This weight in my legs.  This lethargy in my heart.  I am pissed that I’m pissed.

Headwind and a 2% grade.  More menacing than you’d think.

“Where’s Mary?” I ask.

“She’s behind us somewhere.”

I look back and see nothing but a wide country road getting thinner and thinner until it ends in a sharp point somewhere off in the horizon.  Javad pulls off and  I am on the front again.  The mountains in front of us are not getting closer.  We pass mile-marker 8.  Only 6 more to go.

“Six more miles, Javad.”

“We’re going to die out here, Heidi.”

“I know.  Fucking shoot me – will you?”

Javad laughs again.  I allow myself to be confounded for 10 seconds about what could possibly be funny.  Certainly not this road.  Certainly not this ride.

I hit play on my shuffle again and my ears fill with Lil’ Wayne and then NWA.  NWA is screaming and swearing.  Angry and violent and wonderful.  Mason Jennings follows and when I hear his sing-song bittersweet love lyrics I imagine his smiling face and want to punch it.  I press the “next” arrow until I find more anger for my ears.

A few songs later, I press pause and look back at Javad and ask how fast we’re going.  I don’t display speed on my computer for this exact reason.  In this moment, I don’t need to see the single-digit numbers.  But I’m ready to make some calculations about completion.  I am ready to set up some carrots.

I need something to live for.

“Seven miles per hour?” I wonder.

“Yes… about that.”

This is a godless place, I think.  This is a hellish, horrible, barren place.  This headwind is the stuff of nightmares and every square inch of my body becomes a sail.  My heart rate is through the roof – and for what… for this?  For seven miles per hour?  For seven fucking miles per hour?  We haven’t even really started climbing yet!

I promise myself that I will quit at mile marker number 9.  At mile marker 9 I am going to step off my bike and lay it down on the ground.  I’m going to curl up next to it with my bottle of Perpetuem and enjoy the final 230 calories while the rest of the crew sits at the top of the climb, wondering where I am and if I’m dead.  Mary will pass me and I will call out to her, “I’m done!!  That’s it!  Tell them I will wait for them to come back down and then ride back.  I QUIT!”

In the interim, I preoccupy myself with the mathematical calculations necessary to determine approximately how long it would take me to summit if I was idiotic enough to make the attempt.  Around 45 minutes.

I reset the lap counter.  Forty-five minutes?  Ok, maybe.  I resolve to ride to mile marker 10 at least.

It’s not even steep yet, I reason.  I’ll stop when it gets steep.

Our progress is a death march and I wonder why I am here.  This is my worst day on the bike.  Ever.  Period.  Whatever character this is building, I reject it.  The price is too high.

Mile marker 11 comes as a surprise because I’ve missed number ten.  Eleven!  Eleven!  Three miles and change to go.  This is where the battle really starts.  This is where the grade will begin to tick slowly upward.  I could stop here.  I should stop here.

I keep going.

Javad is pulling off ahead of me.

“Are you ok?

“I’m going to stop to rest my legs.”

“I can’t stop.” I say, “If I stop I will never start again.”

“Ok.”

I ride away from Javad into the never-ending headwind, up the grade that rises and rises.  I think of Thompson and Old Germantown and Westwood and Greenleaf and all the climbs at home that I used to consider difficult.  I think of ascending Mt. Lemmon the day before.  The way the road just soared and soared skyward on a welcoming, soft grade.  Mile after mile – 10 then 14 then 18 miles.  Until suddenly there you were at the end of 21 uninterrupted miles of climbing.

Three more.  Three more miles today.  Three more miles of climbing in Arizona.  Three. More. Miles.

I resolve to climb as long as the pedals will turn around.  The Beastie Boys are screaming: So Watcha Whatcha Watcha want!?”  [You think that you can front when revelation comes?]

Finish this fucking climb, Swift.  Finish it.

[Well I think I'm losing my mind this time.  This time, I'm losing my mind. So Watcha Whatcha Watcha want!?]

There’s a black hole behind my eyes where I store my extra pain and it is overflowing.  Exploding.  White bursts of agony and suffering.  Color and the absence of color where my brain should be. The legs have long since surrendered.  The mind was not even in the game to begin with.  All that keeps me moving is that special brand of insanity that relies heavily on denial of reality and investment in madness.

I wager that I am surrounded by beauty.  Hills and trees and a road that gets smaller and smaller as I climb.  Birds in branches.  Signs that say “one-lane bridge ahead”.  Sunlight through leaves.  The word dappled comes to mind.  There are probably people lounging and reading and bird-watching along the side of road. They must be happy and calm.  I reckon their heartrates are somewhere around 70 beats per minute.

But I see nothing beyond the few feet in front of me, and the trajectory of every next turn ahead.

Even when I know that it will not lead to the finish, I promise myself that it will.  When the truth comes out, I squash the pangs of disappointment with another lie.  Every time I convince myself to quit, I wonder how far off the top is.  Will I stop and push and then see them all gathered there and wish I’d stayed on the pedals grinding out 30 revolutions per minute?

I see the figure of my coach up ahead moving in and out of sunlight.  A skinny body on a bike, grinding slowly and with the look of agony.  His suffering validates my own.  I take a sip from my calorie bottle followed by a sip of water.

“Again With the Subtitles” by Yppah comes up in the headphones and I know I’m going to make it to the top.  When I get there, my coach is stopped and sitting on his bicycle.  His mouth is moving but I cannot hear him.  There is some clapping noises coming from off to the right.  I ride straight past my coach without smiling (it’s possible that I glare) and roll into the parking lot where the rest of the men are sitting on the curb like prisoners who’ve been beaten with clubs.

As I pause the music, they become real people with voices and things to say.

“Good job, Swift!”

“Great job, Heidi!”

“Good job, baby.”  I know the one that said that.  I think I like that one.  I will tell you later.

I want to say, “I did it!  We did it!  We’re great!”  but my cheerleader skirt is at home and all that comes out is, “Holy shit.  That is the stupidest thing that I have ever done in my life.”

Laughter.

“No, seriously.  That was the least amount of fun I have ever had on a bicycle.”

More laughter.

Then I walk across the parking lot, disappear behind a large, white van and vomit up a steady stream of warm, stringy Perpetuem.  As I cough and sputter, I consider this unique side benefit of 100% liquid nutrition.  Equally as good coming up as going down.  No chunks.  Was this in the marketing materials?  It really should be.

Still coughing, I stumble back to join the broken masses.  Men almost as crushed as I am.  Shattered after 5 days of hard riding and 20,000 total feet of elevation gain.  We’re haggard and ragged and ruined.

But, somehow, not defeated.  In fact, underneath the crusty, dried up streams of salt on our faces and the sweat-soaked headbands, there is the hint of something that is almost like victory.

Not the high-speed, shiny-legged, posted-up victory of crossing a finish line first – it’s a quieter version.  Disguised as survival.  But bigger, maybe, than a victory that is marked by a podium.  It’s a victory of guts and risk and doubt and vomit.

A long week whose reward will come later – maybe months later.  An investment, an act of trust.

Riding to the edge of delirium not for the promise of glory or recognition, but for the sake of suffering itself.

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I run out of gears.  Ty Lambert opens up the throttle and I am out of gears.  The compact crank – a blessing and a curse.  In a heartbeat, Sal comes through to my left – in the drops and grinding.  I jump into his draft, duck my head and spin out while we try to stay in touch with the lead group ahead.  There are 5 of them.  Or maybe 4.  I can’t remember.

All I know is I am out of goddammed gears so I am using Sal’s instead.

Arizona stretches out in front of us forever.  Every few seconds I peek around him to check on our progress, which is consistently miniscule.

His rear wheel is an oasis and a miracle.  A pocket full of nothingness where I sit like dead weight while he pushes 53×12 in pursuit.

We come together eventually and I sit up to catch my breath.

“Good job, Heidi” says Mr. Ty Lambert.  It sounds like he means it.

Owen Gue drips of PRO-ness next to me with impossibly long gleaming legs.  We’re on the west side of Gates Pass, ripping out loops on roads that are smiling.

I’m tired.  When the pace rises I convince myself that it will hurt more to be off the back.  I find wheels and hide and suffer and stick in.

Swooping down into a rolling climb with the boys I find my legs and stand up on the pedals, dancing off the front – a move that is met with vocalized approval from Owen and Ty.

I can hear Sal respond behind me: “Dude.  I think I’m about to cry.  I have never seen her ride like this.”

Owen Gue is rolling up his sleeves so I do the same. We chat and spin and roll.

He leads us out on Mile Wide road which turns to potholes and mayhem and adventure about a mile in. Cruising speed is 27 miles per hour but Ty reports he’s only doing 60 watts.  False flat and a tailwind.  Wooooosh!

Too bad this is an out-and-back.

The road turns into gravel so we turn around and point our skinny tires back into the wind.  Owen has the camera and shoots Sal and I riding away.  The journey back is a grinding, gritty chore during which I sit obediently just to the back and left of the Shecko’s wheel trying to be smaller than I am.

The wind is coming hard from the SE.  Paul is in pursuit and bridges to us as we approach the stop sign that marks the next left turn.

We’re out of water so we rendezvous with the van and fuel up. Three endurolytes and a calm determination to get me up the west side of Gates and we’re off.

A few miles in I pop and wave Ben and Mark through to close the gap that’s growing in front of me.  The gruppetto gets smaller and smaller ahead of me and I plod on methodically.

This is not like before.  This is not getting shelled relentlessly by a huge group of hammers.  This is me finishing my ride – a really good ride – at my pace.  I can hear Tina Brubaker in my head: “Ride your ride, Swift.”

Ride your ride.  Ride your ride.

I know the next two turns and I believe that Owen will make good on his promise to keep me from missing them. All that’s left for the day is a climb up the west side of Gates Pass.  A very steep but fairly short climb.

That’s it.

Sal comes back to me.  I make a sweeping right and see him there, sitting up, looking back at me.  I bridge and pull up alongside, smiling.

“I’m fried.” I say.

“Me too.”

I know he’s not lying.  I know because we’ve been burning it up all day long together.  I’ve ridden with him today for the first time ever.  Until today, he was always riding with me.  Today I rode with him.  Legitimately.

The importance of that is not lost on me.

“Let’s just ride steady.” he says, “Get on my wheel.”

We find Owen and Mark at the left hand turn to climb the pass and the four of us start up together.  The climb rises steeply and stretches across the hillside out front. We can see the switchback ahead.  The way the grade kicks up.  Off to the left, way, way up ahead, the rest of our group, who’d headed back earlier, is visible.

They are red and blue and black and a little bit of pink, nestled in the crook of two mountains where the road will dump us onto the long descent back into town. Mark drops off the back a ways and Sal, Owen, and I climb rhythmically and slowly toward the waiting group.

Reaching them is a tiny triumph, followed by a gliding descent during which I attack Javad despite the fact that I only have a 50T ring on the front and he is known for his exceptional ability to go downhill in a hurry.

He counter-attacks, as I expected, and I’m dropped. Spinning out my big gear on a dry mountain road with the afternoon sun on my skin and the taste of salt on my lips.

Back at the house we tear lunch apart like starving animals and then stand in the icy pool water with beers and the kind of smiles that only 50 fast miles and 4114 feet of climbing can produce.

I could get used to this.

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Night time means cozying up in the living room for talk-time.  It’s kind of like singing around the campfire except without the campfire or singing.  I spotted two acoustic guitars here and suspect that Owen Gue probably plays, but I do not yet have definitive proof of this.

Russell Cree led our discussion last night and covered seven essential tips for eating right on the bike. There was some great new learning and I think everything came away with a revelation or two.

(These tips are straight from Russell’s notes, edited and tweaked a little)

1.  Drink plenty of water during the day. (Not just while working out!)  Half your body weight in ounces is a conservative estimate. This amount is in addition to any coffee, juice, or soda and also in addition to anything consumed during exercise.
2.  Eat 3 hours prior to the start of your event. Avoid fiber-rich food in the meal. If the event start is early in the morning, sleep is more important. Wake at a reasonable hour and then eat. Professional triathlete Brendan Halpin also added that he’ll sometimes wake up, eat, and then go back to sleep for an hour or two.
3.  During exercise, break nutrition into 3 categories: hydration, electrolytes, and calories.  We discussed this in length including general guidelines for how much of each (see below).  To control each component separately, consider doing a bottle of calories (like perpetuum), a bottle of water, and electrolytes in pill form (like endurolytes).

• Only take in what you can absorb and digest, not what you are burning!
• Hydration: 17-28oz maximum per hour, on average.
• Electrolytes: 600-800mg of sodium per hour, on average.
• Calories: 220-280 calories per hour, on average.
• Numbers are unique to each person depending on their size, sex, body type, and the race environment.

4.  If exercising more than 2 hours, the body begins to burn protein; 10-12% of calories come from protein. If planning to exercise more than 2 hours, introduce protein from the beginning: 10-20% of calories from protein, with a 7:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio. This is where a product like Perpetuum comes into play.  Halpin puts together a stacked calorie bottle for his longer unsupported rides, loading 4 hours worth of Perpetuum into a single water bottle for slow sipping throughout the ride.
5.  Recovery nutrition is most important for day-to-day training

In the initial 15 minutes post-exercise:

• Consume 10-15g of protein & 30-45g of carbohydrate.
• Then 60min post-exercise do it again, for a total of 60-90 g of carbohydrate and 20-30g of protein.

6.  Whole foods are always better then supplements if possible. Eat a healthy diet!

7.  Don’t try anything new on race day! Test nutrition changes on your training days.

For more information on endurance fueling, Hammer Nutrition is a great resource.  Check their website for a wealth of free knowledge.  Other products work, too, but Hammer is a favorite here at the Cycling House and the pros and ex-pros here swear by it.

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