Wavering

I have been wavering in and out of disappointment lately.  

I have a few new things on my plate to keep me occupied.  I am taking an intro to architecture class this summer, as that is something I have always had interests in and I keep returning to it as a career path.  I'm also working on a little animation project which is proving to be quite time consuming.  

I am still bummed, though.  Bummed to be missing out on the races, to be sitting at home while everyone else is out there killing it.  It isn't so bad because I am keeping busy, but it's hard not to look at this as a catastrophic failure.   I'm also not really feeling better.  I rode literally around the block this week, and that hurt.  The doctor's visit gave me no answers except that I need to do more physical therapy.

I'm not sure what my cycling future will entail.  I may go back to training the way I did during collegiate season last year.  This would provide a more balanced life, but I will have to reevaluate my goals.  It is hard to let go of the dream, but I have to be realistic or find a different way to make it work.  

Life is OK without Bikes

This weekend was nice.  On Friday we went to the velodrome to watch my teammates kick some serious booty on the track.  That was fun to watch and live vicariously through them.

Yesterday Erin and I went to U Village to go shopping, but I couldn't find anything to buy.  I am getting picky with my increasing cheapness.  Then we went to Greenlake to put our feet in the water/sand, but the beach has steps, which is a little anti-climactic.  Finally we went downtown and saw the Hangover, which was pretty funny.

Today I spent most of the day playing with my new colored pencils and making a stuffed octopus for the summer solstice parade.  He is almost done!   He is stuffed with plastic bags and fabric scraps.

My fingers continue to go numb pretty frequently.  It was better today because I didn't move very much, but yesterday just walking around made everything hurt a lot.  Looking forward to the doctor on Tuesday.   I thought about trying to ride my bike today, but I really just didn't feel like it.  

Quite a week!

This has been quite the week.  

On Tuesday I met with a bioengineering advisor at UW about some options there.  Upon more reflection, I'm not sure that heads down engineering would be the right fit for me.

On Wednesday I went to Lynden to explore a potential marketing side-project to eat up some of my seemingly endless free time.  Wednesday night I helped make sea critters for the Fremont parade.  It is part of the anti-plastic bag campaign, so there will be plastic bag monsters eating the pretty sea critters.  I'm now trying to figure out how to make a stuffed octopus.  Also feeling bad about frequently forgetting my reusable bag when I go to the grocery store.

Yesterday I was a supermodel at REI.  Not really, but I modeled some clothes at a buyers meeting at the REI headquarters.  That would be a cool place to work!  Lots of interesting things going on.

So in thinking more about my future, I'm back to this architecture thing.  I wanted to be an architect when I was a little kid.  My dream was to build a round house with a spiral staircase going up the middle.  I wasn't sure that this was the right direction for me, so I didn't go to U of Cincinnati for undergrad (#1 in the country at that time)  and I didn't use my preferred admission to Michigan's program.  Now here I am 5 years later thinking "damn, shoulda done that."  But shoulda woulda coulda, I had to explore my options.  

I am lucky in this sense, which Erin pointed out to me yesterday.  Most people are very limited in what they can do because they are either math/science people or humanities people.  I have never been one of those people, so it's been very difficult to narrow down my options.  While I often drag myself in the wrong direction because of this, it's a good problem to have.  Having a world of opportunity isn't such a bad thing.

On another note, I'm realizing that people misunderstand me for a number of reasons.  Erin politely pointed these out too.  I am often quiet and I have trouble jumping in conversations.  When I do jump in, it's often a sort of random non sequitur, and people are left thinking "that was weird."  I am also not very forthcoming with information, partly because I feel like I have to talk really fast and to the point to get people to listen.  Also partly because I don't think people really care and I'm not incredibly proud/comfortable with what I am doing at the moment.   This often makes me come off as a know-it-all.   This is all magnified around certain personality types.

Erin says that in the context of my family, I make sense.  Unfortunately, not everyone knows my family.   

Limbo

Life has been in a state of limbo lately.

Still no bike riding, but that is ok. It is a little sad to see my hard work go down the drain, but it's been good to get some time away from the bike to think about what I really want to do with my life. I do not want to be a full time bike racer. It is too unfulfilling.

I realized that I really miss math and science and biomechanics. I was already on that path before, but I had to wander away a bit to understand how important it really is to me. Now I know.

I'm exploring some very exciting opportunities, but I'm fearful that I won't be able to balance everything.

Meanwhile, the pinched nerve in my neck has returned and my hand is going numb.

Ode to Hamstring

Oh my dear hamstring,
How you have been nagging me for 4 whole weeks.

I've tended to your callings,
by getting physical therapy and altering my shims.

But you still call to me,
wail to me as I attack, climb hills, and sit.

I know you wail from being overworked,
While your neighboring muscles relax and drink lemonade.

Please get better fast,
so I can race without worrying about you.

Together we can dominate,
but without you, I'm just that gimp at home.

Swiss STOP

These new brake pads, these new rims...  

My training rims brake like crap.  They are worn out, have tons of grooves in them, and I'm lucky if I can stop when I slam on them.  Combine this with rain (frequent around here) and I'll often grab a handful of brakes and nothing happens.

Fast forward to today's race.  I had my fancy Edge rims, which contrary to what many people think about carbon rims, brake a LOT better than my training rims.  They also brake inconsistently.  No brakes no brakes all of a sudden BAM brakes.   I've only ridden these a handful of times in dry weather (in wet, forget about stopping quickly), so I'm not entirely used to how they brake.  It gets me in trouble because I occasionally find myself accidentally "slamming" on the brakes when I only intended to feather them.  Obviously this will get better the more I ride them, BUT that didn't help me today.

I was greatly outnumbered today, so I took a more proactive approach.  I knew the attacks would be fierce and relentless, so instead of slowly chasing them down like usual, I raced aggressively early in hopes of getting in a break and reducing the attacks.  It took a few laps for the break to finally get established.  I attacked a lot.  I chased a lot.  I tried to jump every time I started to chase to at least make it harder for the others ("ain't towing fatties", as my old Michigan teammates would say).  Hamstring started hurting, I told myself I'd stop in a lap if it didn't get better, and what to you know, I'm in the break.

It was different than any break I've been in all year.  We weren't going very hard, and it took me a little while to realize that this was ok; we had  good enough team representation that no one would catch us.  In other races, it's taken all my energy just to stay there.  On the last lap, the attacks returned.  TH told me to wait for the sprint because people usually go too early, so I waited... but it was too late.  Once again, I got 2nd.   Still 2nd in the WA Cup.   

Trudge, Trudge

We are moving on Sunday.  Exciting!  Our new place has a garage, but no dishwasher.  We will either have an exercise in responsibility or very quickly realize that we need a tabletop dishwasher.  I'm guessing the latter.  I will post pictures on Sunday! 

Racing has been going ok.  Last week was difficult.  70 mile state road race on Saturday and a 55 mile hilly race on Sunday.  Saturday was kind of dumb.  It was raining, we got neutralized for like half the last lap, and it basically came down to a 3k-to-go drag race.  It ended on a short, steep (14%) hill, and I was in the totally wrong gear.  There was also a crash at the line, i got a little distracted, and got 7th.  Sunday was better.  Sunny, hard.  People kept breaking away solo, and for a number of reasons, I waited too long to chase/attack.  I was in a group of 4 with 3 others up the road.  I sprinted so, so, so hard but got 5th, 2nd in my group.  It was an omnium, money went 5 deep, and of course I got 6th.  LAME!

My hamstring continues to be an issue.  It hurts during every race and every hard ride.  I did Seward park last night (also in the rain), and it's been hurting all day as a result.  I made some bike fit changes (took one shim out and flipped the other), which is helping fix the problem, but the hamstring is still strained and it still hurts when I ride hard.  Not as bad as it was at Cherry Blossom, though.