The View from 58-inches High

I don’t get a chance to write as much as I would like so, often, these posts end up filled with thoughts from throughout the week. The first time I thought of posting this week was when I heard of the passing of Erica Greif of the Zoca-Halo sports team. Rather than being killed on her bike (as one might expect) she was killed in a head-on collision on her way to a bicycle race. She took an exam at her University early in the morning, then gave a presentation, then she packed up and drove from Reno to Highland, CA. Sometime after midnight, her car collided with another head-on.

When I first heard this I felt terrible for assuming that the accident was Erica’s fault. As I spoke to others I found the same assumption was common. The thing is, it takes a certain type of person to be an elite athlete. You can’t believe there are any limits to what you can do and what you can ask of your body. Perhaps she took a long nap between her test and the presentation. Maybe she was well rested when she hit the road; but maybe not. The thing is, she wouldn’t have stopped even if she was too tired. Winners can’t have limits. They just can’t. There’s a fine line between having excuses and knowing your limits. To win a race you have to ask unbelievable things of your body. I have lined up for races 18-hours after getting off of 26-hours of international travel. I’ve raced on 4-hours sleep. The risks are less but still high and the mentality is hard to dismiss. I morn for all those who knew her.
The day after hearing this, I lined up to race. Me, Kate, Kirsten, Julie, and Ash. I wore my camera to document what the race looked like. I had been really disappointed in the race before and was determined to redeem myself. In the end, I documented for all time some complete bone-head moves on my part. I lost it during the race. I didn’t race smart and I was desperate to make up for it at the end. I took unnecessary risks and didn’t even use the outcome wisely. The worst part was having to listen to Kate’s critique of my race. While I know I’ll be better for it in the end, it was a very bitter pill to swallow.

Finally I ended the week with Nadia’s wedding. It was so much fun to hang out with everybody. She was beautiful and totally Nadia. We had fun dancing and talking and taking lots of photos. It rained heavily but only during the actual ceremony (which was only 20-minutes). The rest was perfect!

 

Well here I am again, on the last day of my 2-week break wondering where it all went and trying to quell that rising panic that this is my life. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. I’m so grateful that I enjoy what I do and the people work with. But still, how does two weeks without 50-hours a week of scheduled time get away from me? Well traveling is one way. Unfortunately one week of that time is spent away from my house and surrounded by others. This is not time that I could spend knocking out those projects I always well myself will get done at Christmas.

Second, sleeping. I don’t know how I find myself sleeping 10-hours a day and still feeling like crap. I know I would do better to just get out of bed and claim those two extra hours but I just can’t make myself do it like I can when I have work bearing down on my. It’s almost like you can have too much time. The urgency isn’t there until the very last day when the loss of my own time is inevitable.

Third, New Years. I know this sounds odd but think about it. We typically leave for the New Years party around 6:00PM. We’re there until midnight or longer (2AM this year!). Then I need to sleep for at least 8-hours (see above). While I only stayed in bed until 9:00 this year, I wasn’t actually functional for the whole day.

Finally there’s the fact that we live in the middle of nowhere so everything, EVERYTHING takes longer. For instance, if we want to get lunch, that’s a just over an hour ordeal minimum for something simple like tacos or hamburgers. It’s 20-min to get there, 30-min to order and eat, then 20-min home. This is time that is completely wasted in my opinion. This is true on the weekends as well. I’ve really stopped thinking in terms of New Years resolutions but this would be one of them. I want to be smarter with my time when I’m home. Some of this is driven by Brian and I’m just going to have to deal with that. The fact is that lunches are rarely quality time so I don’t know why I feel like I have to go with him.

Anyway, Happy new year! I make no promises about actually posting here anymore than I did last year. It’s a great outlet but I’m still uncomfortable with my writing and it often feels daunting to think about all the grammar and spell-checking I’d need to do for each post. Still, I’ll try to do better.

Well here I sit, the day before my first race of the season. Last year, this was early as I opted to skip New Braunfels this year because of my trip to Duabi. Every year, I spend days trying to psych myself up.  Every year I struggle with the motivation to do this all over again and every year I love it. This year I’m even more nervous knowing I’ll be racing against pro’s and semi-pro’s. I just need to keep reminding myself that it’s not about how I do, it’s about the team and we have some very strong women contending.

Also, I’m finally getting promoted to manager on Tuesday. You’d think that I’d be really nervous about this but I’m really more nervous that it means I cannot crash! There’s an email and a meeting and the whole thing lined up for Tuesday and I have to be there. This year has started out badly for crashes. It seems like I go through this every year and every year I question how my teammates and friends can be so excited about lining up for the opportunity to end up in an ambulance. I tell myself that crashes are really rare, and not usually bad. But then something happens like Mineral Wells where 4-women get air-lifted out.

So here’s to being brave and taking risks for something that I love that makes me happy. Here’s hoping I don’t regret this decision tomorrow.

Thinking back on it, it’s difficult for me to say what I expected of this trip. When I first conceived of it I was picturing a girl’s trip with Kim and Kate. I only needed my dad as a guide to help us figure things out. At some point, I decided we should bring our bikes (mostly so I didn’t lose an insane amount of fitness). The girls bailed one by one and I almost did too. So how did I end up here?

Well my dad got excited about the race. He was especially excited about the stage in Hatta (the furthest away from the city). At the same time, things got bad with my sister and my mom and I felt like I needed to find sanity in my life. I hoped my dad might give me that. These days, I find myself siding with him more than my mom on things; especially where my sister is involved.

But there were logistics to figure out. I still wanted to ride while I was there. Dubai has gone out of its way to build up cycling around the city and I was still concerned about losing fitness. Also, I thought it would be nice to ride with my dad.

I’ll start by saying the tour was awesome; so awesome that I will cover it in an entirely different post. As for the rest of it, I feel as though I am constantly reminded that things rarely, if ever, turn out as you expect. Let’s review things that went wrong and things that went right; as well as some things that just were.

Jet lag: I knew that adjusting 10-hours ahead would be tough but I did not expect to be sleeping in long naps for 6-days. I took this in stride because it’s not like I had to do anything. At any point I could have slept if I needed to. The thing is, I almost never needed to and still I couldn’t sleep through the night.

Race Access: As much as I told myself I was not going to be disappointed here, I completely lined myself up for disappointment. Early on, I just wanted to watch the race. At some point, Willis started talking about getting me VIP access with Castelli. This got me imagining a race expo sort of setup where I could get autographs and photos w/ racers. Well the VIP access didn’t pan out but I still had this image of hanging out w/ the riders in my head. This was only more exacerbated when Jana’s photographer friend Brian was going to get me access.  Unfortunately, my data plan ran out at the worst time and we never met up. I did manage to get autographs from all the racers I wanted but I didn’t get any photos and I sort of felt cheated. The worst was when my dad was absolutely set on getting my photo taken with Taylor Phinney. To the point where he was moving me through a crowed of people, yelling at Taylor to get his photo with me, and yelling at me to “get in there”. All of this while they were trying to move him out to the doping control tent. It was incredibly embarrassing.

My Dad: After seeing him in August, I thought I could hang out with him. When I saw him in August had been 6-years since I’d seen him. I think it was a little much to think that we could just be friends. When it comes down to it, my dad’s world revolves around my dad and there’s no room for anybody else. Further, my dad got old. He, apparently, has some strain of herpes that he has no problem talking about in public. He rides his bike w/ his underwear on and while we were riding he had a ton of spit on the side of his mouth that he didn’t clean off.

 

Well after everything, I did end up getting sick. I swear I always end up sick whenever I’m off from work. The result was that I spent 2-full days in bed and did not accomplish even half of the things on my list. I did clean out the garage but did not finish the attic. I didn’t get any crafting done and I missed 4-days of riding. Blegh. On the good side, I had a great team ride today. I’m sore and my lungs were on fire but I felt great otherwise.  I’m really looking forward to racing this year (though it’s hard to be motivated when you can’t breath without coughing).

On the 31st Brian and I bought a car too. We’d been talking about it for a while. In fact, we had spent quite a bit of time at the BMW dealer back in August. I love my truck and Brian got busy so we just never moved forward. Also, I think both of us had a hard time with the amount of the car. Surprisingly, I don’t really care for BMW. I think you can get better options in other cars for much cheaper. In this case, there just aren’t any other cars that meat my needs. Overall, I’m happy but I’m not as excited as one would expect after getting a new BMW. Maybe I’ll feel differently after we actually bring it home from the dealer.

In another display of unexpected purchasing, I bought a ticket to Dubai. I kept hemming and hawing waiting for Kim or Kate to commit and while I was waiting the ticket prices started to go up and I panicked. So I now have a non-refundable ticket to Dubai in Feb. Now that I have my ticket, Kim’s interested again. We’ll See what actually happens. 

So bring it 2014!! I’m ready!

Yesterday was the day of my stapedectomy. So I sit here now with almost no hearing in my right ear at all. I’m not too worried yet but it’s difficult to act like things are normal.  I hate post-op. no matter how much the surgeon tries to prep you for what it will be like afterwards it always feels different.

Last night I went to dinner with Kim, Kate, and Kate’s parents. That’s not how the night was supposed to go, but we’re overachieving women so why do one thing in a night when you can do ten. The night was supposed to be a happy hour to discuss the possible Dubai trip. Then we decided to through in a workout first because, why not. I mean, we’ll through a workout into any get together. Pre-bookclub, pre-wedding, post graduation, post-labor, whatever. It’s really almost like drinks for most people. “Let’s do dinner, ohh dinks first. Why of course”. Where for us it’s more like “Dinner, yes sure. But how about some threshold efforts first?”

Then Kate’s parents, in town for Thanksgiving of course, wanted to do dinner downtown AND it’s Kim’s birthday. Do you see how efficient we are with our time? We’re knocking out like 5-events in 4-hours! This is why women will rule the world. So, now the plan is Kim’s at 5:30, Ride class at 6:00, back to Kim’s by 7:00 to shower and get to dinner by 7:45. Luckily, Kim has an amazing place at the W so we’re literally 1-block from Ride and 8-blocks from dinner. Again, we are master planners.

We get to dinner and order a bottle of wine. Kate waives off the wine with a joke about running the next day. Well our waitress wanted to hear all about Kate’s big Turkey day run. “Ohh my! Five whole miles!!” Our waitress was all about making sure Kate had the best run possible at the Turkey Trot. It’s awkward but we realize not everybody is as athletic as we are so we figure this is just us being completely disconnected.

After dinner, Kate ordered a dessert for the table. When it arrived, the waitress placed the plate right in front of Kate and loudly wished her the best of luck on her race and leaves. Kate, bright red in the face, is all “I think there’s been a huge misunderstanding here!” The dessert plate had “Good Luck” written in chocolate around the rim. After we all stopped laughing, Kim’s all “Yeah, You better fucking win this thing!”

Now that it’s officially February, I suppose it’s safe to talk about my new year’s resolutions. Committing to something for a whole year is a little overwhelming so let’s just call them goals. I’m going to take a quick moment here to reflect on last year’s resolutions.

1. Walk the dogs at least twice a week – I stopped doing this after Fozzy was diagnosed with cancer in January. Sadly I only put this on the list because I noticed Fozzy favoring one leg and thought it was because his hips were getting bad. This resolution was part of my plan to rehab him.
2. Work less than 45 hours a week – Looking back, this goal was not aggressive enough. I worked about 43-hours a week and I was over worked. The plan should be 40-hours on average and I should be taking my comp time where it’s owed.
3. Have my hardware removed – Nope! I did finally get the cyst removed from my foot though.
4. Go paperless – I mostly achieved this. We still get a ton of paper mail and I have not been great about scanning it all but I’m getting there.

So what’s in store for this year? This should be the point where I admit that I am stretched too thin and talk about paring things back to focus on a few things I enjoy; but it’s not. If anything I want to take on more this year but be smarter about it.

1. Cycling – I want to race my bike and be a competitor this year. I want to love it instead of feeling tentative and nervous. I want to get enough sleep that I don’t feel too dead to do my workouts. I want to cat up but we’ll see if that’s really in the cards. I also want to win a driveway or two.
2. Work – I seem to be such a turning point in my career. I should be more ambitious than I am but all I really want is some balance here. I want to do well and be recognized for my work. That goal is not very SMART at all.
3. Family – I want to feel close to Callie. She is no Fozzy but I still feel like there is a relationship waiting to bloom. I want to spend more time with Brian but I also feel like we’re in a really good place.
4. Crafting – I really need this to happen again. I don’t think I made anything this year except my Christmas cards. The craft room was kind of off limits for the 5-months Jen lived with us so I just didn’t craft much.

This year I feel change is in the air. I can’t say how or when but I’m exhausted by certain facets of my life and I know I need change. I think that much of this comes down to my inability to be close to people. I have acquaintances but I don’t really have friends. Being a part of social groups I know I don’t fit into is incredibly difficult.

I finally felt a little piece of normalcy today; whatever that means. Maybe there will just be a new normal since it’s been so long since the old normal. The new normal certainly doesn’t have Brian traveling to Malaysia twice in two months or me working 55-hours a week. I’m still getting used to new the normal not having a Fozzy Bear. That one still kills me.

But today, it was just Brian and I in the house. That has not happened in a very long time. Of course, we did nothing together. Brian watched Battlestar and I watched the penultimate day of the tour but it felt normal again. Brian gets on a plane in 4-hours so it’s short lived but it’s hope.

Wow, this kind of turned into a downer. The reality is that I’m just tired; very, very tired. I know something has to give but I’m unwilling to give anything up. It’s a constant balancing act.
The ride today was a risk. It was meant to be a sprinting and attacking drill but when we all showed up, most of the crew looked worse than I did. In the end, we split from Kim, who wasn’t extremely attached to the workout anyway, and did a much chilled 3-hours. By “chilled” I mean 17mph instead of 18.5mph. It was pretty conversational and we got to see the F1-Track progress.