The View from 58-inches High

I kept saying I was going to do race reports and never did but I need to do this one. I always have a hard time lining up and I know I always feel great at the end; no matter how I finish. In fact, I relay on that feeling at the end, it’s the only thing that keeps me going. This week was VERY tough at work and at home and I almost didn’t race this week but I told myself how great I feel at the end and that got me there.

I stated warming up and tracking down my friends. I didn’t think I had any teammates so I just look for the girls I know and love who I’ve raced with for a long time. This week I noted that there were quite a few Colavita girls. They are strong racers and actually attack so I marked them early on.

On the second lap, Karla put in a strong attack that had me at 202bpm. I stayed with her though and the pack caught us quickly as nobody else was ready to work. There was a flat on lap three that broke things up and distracted us. The Colavita team used this as an opportunity to get a girl off the front with two juniors. It was a great attack that most people didn’t even notice. I chased my ass off for over a lap but every time I started chasing, Karla would work to get in front of me, cut my wheel, then slow down. She and the other girl continuously worked to impede our progress. They almost caused multiple crashes and at one point, I had to put my foot down to avoid crashing when they slowed abruptly at the top of the hill.

After this race, I’m having a hard time motivating myself to get back out there. The worst thing was that they denied that they were blocking to my face. I have never felt worst after a race.

I would love to say that I’m back and that I will now give this blog the time it deserves but I know that’s a lie. I often ask myself whether it’s better to live life or remember it. I have had too much life to live lately and have not had time to document the amazing things that have happened to me.

I have struggled with the form this blog should take on. I often find myself thinking about this blog as “snapshots” occur in my life. These snapshots are just small events that I think are worth mentioning. I would love to take a photo to go with each of these moments but sometimes a photo couldn’t even capture the moment and sometimes the moment moves to quickly.

Wednesday was “pretentious white-people book nerd rock” day. After a miserable ride on Saturday I showed up for a 75-mile extravaganza. I was pretty nervous about being able to hang. It was a good ride but very hard. I did make it to the end. After the ride, a few of us were hanging out at MJ’s when the following conversation takes place.

Jana: I could do without this music.

Vanessa: I like this song.

Jana: You know what this is? This is pretentious white-people music… No, this is pretentious white-people book-nerd rock.

Kate: What?

Jana: You know, like the Decemberists

Me: Ohh, or the Shins.

Jana: Yes, definitely the shins

Kate: I like the Shins!

Well, I think I can officially declare this blog dead. I hope to reincarnate it but I can’t figure out what it needs to be. I had tried to copy many of the blogs that I love and that completely failed. What I love about most blogs is that they write about a topic I am interested in. I think the real issue with this is that I don’t think I’m interesting at all. I have been giving thought to what makes me different. This year I have really started training and racing again and I think this blog will become the chronicles of a career cat W4. There’s a trick to training, working, and balancing life. I won’t talk about work or family except in the affect it has on my training. I’m hoping to get a GoPro so that I can post ride and race video too. So, Welcome back to life Blog!

This weekends training plan called for one 3-4 hour group ride. I had to pick Saturday or Sunday. Saturdays ride was a bit mysterious. It was leading a “charity ride” out of the shop. SG and KS were signed up to lead it. The ride was supposed to be only 40-ish miles but they were going to add more. Winds were out of the north and I had a hankering to do the Hutto route. I got SG’s text about adding more too late and ended up not going. Sunday’s option was for 54 or 63-miles but it was west, around the damn, and I hate that route. Not only that, but KP was the leader and I was not looking forward to that. My expectation was that only 3-4 people would show up, since it was mothers day, and I would get beat up. I was surprised to find that 9 women showed up and only 3 of them were planning on doing the full 63-miles.

The day could not have been better and, under different circumstances, I would have loved to do the full 63-miles. The ride was very difficult and we went hard from the start with no warmup. I tried not to pull on the front for too long, especially once the wind picked up. I was happy that I was mid-pack when we went up the damn-hill but I hated how we all broke up and looked pretty random compared to our normal semi-pro double paceline. I also feel like I missed out on some great conversation because nobody was talking! On the bright side, it turned out Saturday only a few kids were on the ride so it was slow and horrible. Of the two, it seems like I picked the right one. After KP split off to do the longer route, everybody agreed that Hutto would have been perfect. That made me feel good.

When I got done with the ride, I was feeling pretty good. It was a gorgeous day and my legs were sore. Heading home, I passed a girl changing a flat. As I passed, I noticed she looked completely defeated. I looped around to check on her and it was a good thing I did because she was out of tubes, C02, and patience. I offered her a ride, 3-miles, back to her car. She was so thankful!! It would have taken her forever to walk her bike back to her car. I love this idea of paying it forward. She was so thankful, I told her someday somebody else would need help and she could just pay it forward. I’m sure she will.

Life is good.

The holidays were on us before I even knew what was happening. I was still stuffing Christmas cards in the mail less than 24-hours before I needed to be on the plane. I took off a half a day on Wednesday thinking this would give me more than enough time to wrap things up, pack, and even relax. I still don’t know where that time went but I was still packing Thursday morning.

Traveling was uneventful (thankfully). We always jam pack the week and it started with meeting my Uncle for dinner straight off the plane. We hadn’t seen him since his wife’s funeral so it was good to get a chance to catch up. From there it was off to Philly.

The highlight of the trip was actually going to see Longwood Gardens, where Brian’s parents volunteer every week. I was not excited about seeing this initially because I’m not really into plants. The grounds are absolutely gorgeous and the conservatory was amazing all decorated for Christmas. The Conservatory is enormous in scope with rooms that keep climate conditions perfect for all different types of plants. There was an arid desert room, a tropical room, an orchid room, and countless others.

They also had a special Christmas display of two gingerbread homes; one of the conservatories and one of the Pierce-DuPont house (more like a mansion). We had fun guessing some of the ingredients like the rice crispy grass and the cinnamon toast crunch roof. We learned that they used beet-sugar for the glass and rock candy for the porch stones.

The next day we say Brian’s grandmother in the hospital. She fell and broke her hip 3-weeks ago and was still recovering in the in-patient ward. She was in good spirits and was moving her leg around quite a bit. His grandmother is a riot. Apparently she told the doctor that she fell because she was chasing the men down the hall and tripped over her walker. She and her roommate had so much to say about the male nurses too. It was nice to see her smiling and joking.