Ah! Freak Out!

John was just as terrified as you'd expect, to see me with a megaphone.

When John and I first started dating, 4.5 years ago, he used to worry that being in a relationship would isolate us. He said it happened to him in the past, and he was afraid it might happen again. I thought that was strange, because I have never been socially isolated in or out of a relationship before. Maybe it's because when I was younger I worked at bars, restaurants and coffee shops, and they were such social jobs that I have usually been more overwhelmed than isolated. I have also lived in the same town where I attended college since 1991, and so I haven't had to make a completely new group of friends, like John had to do when he moved to Boston.

I have wondered how people made friends when they moved to new cities as an older adult and worked in offices, where they may or may not have things in common with their co-workers. Since I'm not a big bar culture person...Well, I don't mind going to bars, but I hate going later at night, when everyone is drunk and I get tired of bar chat, where no one really has more intimate conversations, than trading drunken witty barbs. Being in my 40's and 50's in a college town and still trying to hang out in the same bars for decades, doesn't appeal to me all that much either. It was especially bad when I was still single. If I met a guy hanging out in a bar later at night, usually he was a guy who liked to hang out in bars often, and that wouldn't work for me. I don't want to waste my weekend days, sleeping or recovering from staying out too late at night. So, if I moved to another city and wasn't into the bar scene, maybe I would feel more socially isolated than I do here...

By the time John and I started dating, my girls were almost out of the house and I had started doing running races here and there. Of course, it's not a lot of fun to hang out afterward by yourself, when you don't know anyone, so I would run and just head home after  my race. I found out two years later that I had won a 2nd place medal for my age group at a race, but didn't stick around to find that out. Now, though, racing with John is such a different beast. We go to races and usually race at different times, so we stick around long enough to meet people. We have discovered a whole community of racing freaks, like ourselves. Sure, some of them are super uptight and all about winning, and I may not have tons in common with everyone, but in general, it is a great group of people, who like to have fun and drink, but they like to play outside all day and get home at the old people hour of 9 o'clock. My people!

The cool thing is, I have met awesome racing folks in Iowa City, but also Des Moines, Omaha, Minneapolis, Chicago and different towns in Wisconsin. So, I guess I answered my own question. If I moved somewhere else now, I would just get into racing wherever I lived and meet my fellow freaks that way.

All of this leads me back to John's fear of us being socially isolated in our relationship...He hasn't mentioned it since. In fact, this weekend we are invited to a rollerskating rink party in Wellman, followed by eating/drinking at the Kalona Brewery on Friday night, CX country skiing with friends on Saturday morning and a cruiser ride around town where we stop at all the dive bars on Saturday afternoon. I'm not sure how much of any of that we'll do,but it's fun to contemplate our options. I know I've said it a million times and it isn't always easy, but I do believe that the key to a happy relationship (besides a lot of hard work and good communication) is to find your fellow freak...And fellow freak friends are the key to a happy life in general.

Now's the Time to Roll the Barrel. For the Gang's All Here.

We had a lovely after work CX country ski session last night. Since it was just John and I, we were able to ski about twice as fast as we did with our friends on Sunday, and get a real work-out. We ran into a bike racing friend who was skate skiing, in training for the Birkie and chatted with her for a minute, but other than that, we kept moving. I don't think I'm anywhere near the speed I was at last year, but I got to ski almost every weekend last year and this is the only the second time this year.

Because it is supposed to get bitterly cold here for the next day or two, I thought I'd escape into another great bike ride post. In June, 2013 my niece graduated from high school. We went to Madison to celebrate with my brother and his family. I told my brother that John and I would bring our bikes up and try to ride them around on Sunday, if he had some good cue sheets we could look at for fun routes. He did us one better. He scheduled a ride for us with some of the guys he races canoes and cross country skis. They were mostly professors at UW and one of them was an ice speed skater and was telling me about some of the insane crashes he witnessed in races.

He decided we would ride from Madison to New Glarus - a 60'ish mile, hilly route. It sounded great to John and I. The wonderful thing about Wisconsin country roads, is that there is very litte car traffic on them. It was so nice to be able to ride without getting buzzed by cars.

My brother is a year older than me and I think he was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up. I was still recovering from the Noro Virus, but was getting my strength back. On the hilliest sections, my brother would ride next to me to make sure I didn't get dropped. John almost never does that, unless he thinks I'm not feeling well, so it was kind of nice not to have to worry about riding by myself down roads I didn't know. There was one long, climb in particular that my brother kept telling me he'd wait for me on and not to worry if I couldn't keep up.  Luckily for me, it was long, but it wasn't particularly steep. I'm pretty good on the long climbs, so by the time we hit the top, I had not only kept up, but we had dropped a couple of guys we were riding with. My brother told me over and over how proud he was of me for riding so strong on that hill. Hell, I'll take all the props I can get when it comes to riding hills.

My brother and his friends have a very different idea about social rides than John and I and our friends. My brother's friends are in it to race to every town sign and see how hard they can push themselves and not stop for very long in fear of losing their legs and most importantly, they don't really drink on them.

I know they always say it's not about the destination, but the journey. Well, in this case they were wrong. The journey was great, the route was beautiful, but New Glarus was like a little taste of Wisconsin heaven. I'm sure it didn't hurt that we got there on a day when they were having their beer and cheese festival, complete with euchre tournament and live polka band. See what I mean? Wisconsin heaven.

My brother's friends were just planning on getting something at the bakery and heading back to Madison, but I wanted to stay and check out the spectacle. So we talked them into going into the beer tent for one and I got to meet the head of the polka band and he told me about how he met his wife and cracked me up with a few more stories before my brother's friends had had enough and were ready to head back home. I'm glad it's so close, because I definitely want to do that ride again sometime during their next Beer and Cheese festival, when we are with our friends who will want to hang out in New Glarus forever.

Pump it Up. Until You Can Feel It.

I can only assume that cat tormenting would burn so many calories, the Map My Run people couldn't even count that high.

My training season officially starts this week. This year, I'm doing something a little different. I am going to try and get computers for all 6 of my bikes and I'm also trying to get as many of my work-outs as possible recorded on Map My run. That doesn't include the at least 2.5 hours a week I spend bike commuting, because I usually don't go that hard...Unless, of course, I'm riding after 11 inches of snow fell the day before and I have to be in my easiest gear just to get up a hill.

Anyway, I was going through the Map My Run field of options for work-outs to make sure I could time a bike trainer work-out and add my lap and open water swims as well. I found out they have more options than I can imagine. I can even choose cyclo-cross racing. Cool.

The other day, I was reading aloud some of the more ridiculous options to John and we were laughing our asses off. As examples, lawn mower riding, rest days, playing a musical instrument and insanity are all options for work-outs. Huh. I wonder how many calories they think you burn per hour of being insane. Would depression burn less calories than a delusional disorder or schizophrenia? If you had a multiple personality disorder, would you multiply your calories burned by however many different personalities you were dealing with?

My favorite category, though, was "intimacy". We wondered if that meant emotional intimacy, and if so, many men would be losing tons of water weight sweating that out. If it meant physical intimacy, John wondered which positions would burn the most calories. I thought it would be hilarious to invite all of your family members to be your Map My Run friends and only log your "intimacy" work-outs. Then when you showed up all cranky at Christmas, they could check Map My Run and give you that knowing look of, "Only two work-outs this month? No wonder!"

Girl We Couldn't Get Much Higher.

The Buddha statue on my 8 mile run on Saturday.

This weekend couldn't have been more amazing...Okay. It probably could, but it was amazing enough for me.
 

Saturday night dinner.

John used to always tell me that I can't be really good at one thing, if I try to do too many things. I am okay with that. I know I'm not going to be the best bike racer in the world. I started in my late 40's, so even if all I did all day was ride my bike, I'm not going to be in the Olympics anytime soon.

So, I will also run and swim and ski and hike and besides all the active stuff, I will still write and take photos and read books and draw and paint and work on my house and socialize and cook healthy food and giving Archie enough attention alone, is about five full-time jobs, and if that means I'm not particularly good at any one thing, I am fine with trading that for balance.

Our front yard after the snow hit.

That having been said, my weekend was perfect because...BALANCE!

It finally snowed here this Winter. I love running in the snow. Of course, running in a foot of snow was a bit more of a work-out than I had in mind...It was still a lot of fun.

As you can see the winds were enough to make cheeks particularly rosy.

On Sunday afternoon, we met our friends out to CX country ski. I love classic Nordic skiing and could have gone on all day. Our friends aren't used to playing outside in the Winter, and after an hour and a half, they were ready to call it a day. We went to The Vine for lunch and drinks and then home to whack my trees to get some of the heavy snow off, so we wouldn't have them going down like so many other trees around town, and we got to shovel again.

I kept telling John how happy I was all weekend and he kept replying, "You're just high on endorphins." Endorphins...A great life...A great life filled with endorphins...It's all the same to me.

If He Asked Me to I'd Murder, I Would Gladly Lose My Soul.

John: I am so in love with you.

Me: That's good, because now I don't have to chain you to my bed...

John: Well, don't let THAT stop you.

(canned sitcom laughter)

I Made a Lot of Mistakes. In My Mind. In My Mind.

Mt Lemmon.

Even though it's almost 6 months away, I have already planned 4 bike rides, a couple of trail runs and some open water swims, for our South Dakota vacation. One of the trails we'll be riding was voted the 7th best bike ride in the world. I'm not sure about that, but It sounds pretty amazing and it got me thinking about all the great bike rides I've been on and I thought it would be fun to put them up on the blog from time to time.

Fueling up before the ride.

The most recent amazing bike ride I've done was Mt Lemmon in Tucson, AZ. last February.

Getting ready for the climb.

Over 20 feet of straight climbing, and then the same amount of descending...Obviously.

Cyclists descending, while we were ascending.

Of course, the morning we were going to do this awesome ride, I woke up with my period and a migraine. My favorite combination...Or not. I took meds and slept for a bit and wasn't sure if I'd be strong enough physically or emotionally to ride something that challenging.

Incredible scenery.

We stopped at the train station market for lunch and then headed over. I told John I wasn't sure if I'd be able to ride any of it, but that I'd try and if it got to be too much for me, I'd turn back around and meet him at the car when he was done. We were parked in a beautiful park where I could read/nap in the shade.

When we stopped to pee, I reminded John to listen and look for rattlesnakes.

I knew John wanted me to ride it with him. He had heard how intense the ride and the scenery was and he wanted to share it with me, so he was being very encouraging and telling me he was pretty sure it would be no problem for me. So, I tried it. I figured if I could at least ride the first 5 miles, I could turn back before the descent was too long and cold. Although, I was worried about the climb, I was even more scared of the descent, which I had heard people could reach speeds of over 60 miles per hour - where hitting a rock or getting a flat could be the end of you.

At this point, we could see where we had come and check out where we were going.

  I trudged along at the beginning of the ride and it didn't seem too hard for me. It was only about a 5 % grade all the way, but that can add up as you go. The key for me, was not to go too fast at first. I had to be all about the negative split. I also had to be careful not to look down. My migraine meds make me dizzy, and I didn't need any help spinning my poor, tortured brain. We started at close to 80 degree temps and went through about 3 different ecosystems by the time we hit the top, where the pine trees were.

Almost at the top.

By the time we got halfway up, I knew I would make it and started picking up the pace....Well, a little bit, anyway. John stopped to pee and take some photos, so I rode some of the later parts by myself. I stopped at the big scenic overlook and waited for him, so we could take a dorky photo together. Always important.

We made it to the first stop on the top. Apparently, there is another place a few miles up, but we were losing daylight and the last thing I wanted, was to be descending way too fast, dealing with cars, motorcycles, other bikes and even a couple of skateboarders in the dark. so we turned back around.

It was so cold, my nose was running faster than I was descending.

I was right about the descent. It was way more challenging for me than the climb. We had heard it was freezing going down, because the temps were about 50 degrees at the top and then you are going fast in the wind and not pedaling, so not getting the warming-up benefit of constant movement.

I feathered my brakes the whole way down, and we went about 30-35 mph. John had us stop at one point because I was shivering so badly from the cold. We made it all the way down, just as the sun was setting. I was exhausted, but so, so, so high from the ride and the scenery and the whole experience. I was really glad I womaned-up and did the ride. It was one of the most amazing bike rides of my life...So far.

Baby Hair. With a Woman's Eyes.

 I do feel sorry for my daughters. It must be hard to have me for their mom. When they were about 8 and 9, I overheard them talking about me and it went like this, "It's not like she's stupid, it's just that she's..."

"Spacey?"

"Yeah. That's it. She's just really spacey."

In my own defense, my brain doesn't always work like everyone else's, and most of the time I'm living in my own, little, world, and for your information, my own little world is wonderful. Anyway, the other day I was driving and trying to think of the movie I wanted to borrow from Coadster. The actual name was "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", but for some reason, my brain got it confused with "Saving Silverman" and turned it into "Saving Sarah Silverman". It's a damn good thing I caught myself, before I asked her for that...Although, I would be interested to watch the imaginary movie I thought up, just to see in what ways Sarah Silverman might be saved.

The Cup is Raised, The Toast is Made Yet Again.

My cat is more than a little unseemly.

Well, kids. I'm still trying to figure out if I'm well enough to run tonight. I ran twice this weekend, danced like a fiend on Saturday night and swam laps on Sunday afternoon. Except my calves being ridiculously sore from jumping up and down for an  hour and a half, I don't feel too terribly tired. So, I took yesterday off and will try to run tonight after work. As they say, baby steps, and if the sidewalks are icy at all that will be literal.

Since  Neither John or I ran yesterday, we decided to play a different sport altogether. First we had a pizza party at home, then we met our friend Burne for free pool night downtown. We just saw Burne at our party on Saturday night, but we didn't really get to talk to him, so we drank beer, played pool and talked and laughed so much, we couldn't always remember who was solids and who was stripes. I suppose, if you have to get through a Monday work day, it's kind of nice to end it playing with your friends.

Call It Tonight. The Party's Over.

Thanks to Adam H. for the photo.

I was going to post on Friday, but I wasn't feeling well and I thought my post would be even "crankier old lady" than normal, so I refrained. You're welcome. I missed a party I wanted to go to and I couldn't even run.

The good news is, that I got a shit-ton of sleep and felt a lot better the next day. John had asked me to do an almost 15 mile run with him and I really, really wanted to, but I knew I wasn't strong enough. So, he did that and I did a 2.8 mile run to see if I could even finish a couple of miles. I actually COULD do that and it felt pretty damn good. I'm still hoping that this time I won't relapse again.

 Later that evening, we had our RAGBRAI Announcement dance party. It was a lot of fun.I made Mexican food and a super ridiculously cheesy dance playlist. Also, my new dress came in the mail and it was the perfect dance party dress. Happy, happy.

Thanks again Adam H. for the pic.

I got to harass some friends of mine that I haven't seen for a while and the RAGBRAI announcement was pretty good. We'll be going through Coralville, so we'll get to actually sleep in our own beds. Plus, I think John and I can make it to Fort Dodge from our South Dakota vacation and meet the kids on Monday evening. Now, we'll just have to figure out what to do with our car for a few days...

As usual, Archie was the life of the party, but we might have to talk to him about when enough is enough. The beer is all gone, cat. You're drunk. Go to bed.

Moon in the Window; a Bird on a Pole.

So, this stupid cold continues to linger. You'd think all that extra lime I've been putting in my cocktails would be enough vitamin C to kick it, but I guess not... I haven't done any working-out except bike commuting to work since Monday. I'm going to give myself another day before I try to swim and/or run again tomorrow. Instead, tonight I am meeting some bike racing women at Brix, the wine bar here and then John will meet me there an hour later and I will get to take him out for dinner. Here's hoping to a good riddance of a bad cold.

You and I Have Memories Longer Than the Road That Stretches Out Ahead.

My first "road" bike - really a CX bike.

 Soooo, this year is my 50th birthday on July 16th. It just happens to fall on the Thursday before RAGBRAI. If it were only up to me, I would just skip RAGBAI and do something else incredible. If it were up to me and I were rich, I would head to Europe to see The Tour in person and then find some cool road rides or go on that bike/pasta/wine tour in Southern Italy that I have always fantasized about...What I will do instead, is sit down, take a bite of that reality sandwich and make plans with my best friend and partner, with the money we can scrape together.

What that looks like isn't too damn shabby at all. On my 40th birthday, I went to the Black Hills with my pubescent'ish daughters and swam and ran on trails and saw buffalo, and climbed around in caves and had an amazing time. So, what I think John and I will do is a mix of a couple of different things.

Stinky on our frist trip to Sylvan Lake.

 We will head to South Dakota with our bikes. We're still trying to figure out if we'll camp or rent a cabin, but we'll figure that out either way in the next week. I think if we drive out on Wednesday night and stop about 6 hours in (the border of Iowa and South Dakota), we can spend the night there.

Me and Coadster in the Badlands.

 We can head to The Badlands on my birthday and ride the roads with reportedly wide shoulders around there and then head to The Black Hills for that evening.

There we will spend the next few days frolicking in the majestic beauty of the park and I can finally show John this place I keep telling him he has to see.

We haven't decided which day for sure, but either Sunday or Monday, we will head back to Iowa and join our friends for the rest of RAGBRAI. Apparently, I'm really going to need my Geritol to gear up for all of this, but I'm already as giddy as a 49 year old school girl.

One Day to Come Together to Release the Pressure.

John takes a lot of photos, but doesn't put them up anywhere, so on our vacation, my phone was full, and he took a bunch of photos that no one will ever see. I got him to send me a couple more from our vacation and I love the colors and the seahorse in this one.

People give John and I a lot of shit for "working-out" so much. They keep telling us we're so good to be doing that. Of course, we both laugh because neither of us is very well behaved or good about anything. We're just addicted, which is probably the opposite of good. I tell people saying that about us is like telling the town drunk how good it is of him to sit at the bar drinking all day. The big problem with being so compulsive about playing outside, is that when we get sick or injured it is really hard to take more than a day or two off. This has been my problem with my stupid mild cold, that doesn't seem to ever want to leave me. I was trying to take it easy last week by doing mellow, shorter runs or bike rides or swims, but by Saturday I was feeling a lot better. I ran my 6 mile route and felt so strong and good and thought I could do a double work-out on Sunday and maybe even a triple work-out on Monday...Until my cold symptoms all came back on Sunday morning. Crap. I took Sunday off, for the most part. John and I did a townie ride to get brunch and run errands, but nothing too hard or too far.

Later on Sunday we met our RAGBRAI friends to bowl. It had been forever since we all got to hang out together,  and it turns out that we're all still weird and probably drink too much. Hmmmm. I lvoe consistency.

John and I stayed out at least until 8. He had to work on MLK Day, but I didn't. At one point, we were talking about getting up at 5 am to swim, but I still wasn't feeling that well, and I decided it was more important for me to sleep in.

I did try to run my 6 mile route. I thought if I went slow it would be okay, but I was sadly mistaken. I went really slow, and I still couldn't run more than about 5 miles without stopping and being tired out the rest of the day. So, I spent the rest of the day reading White Fang, getting a few things done around the house, and giving the cats some love.

When John got home we had dinner, a cocktail and fun conversations like this:

Me: I love your brain, your sense of humor and your a$$.

John: That's funny, because you're only touching my a$$...

Me: Well, I can't really cup your sense of humor now, can I?

My Baby, She Wrote Me a Letter.

Dear Impending Three Day Weekend,

I need you more than I can say. I do realize that I just got back from vacation, but if  you know me at all, you know I am not one to take relaxing vacations. So it was, that I came home tired and weary and fighting a cold. This week I have struggled to get back to normal, but I need more time. You, Impending Three Day Weekend will give me that and I'm crazy about you for it. I know it won't last and I'll have to wait until the end of May for you to return again, but I plan on appreciating you while I have you.

Love, Churlita

P. S. The cats WILL be attended to. They don't let us get away with anything...

Amongst the Treasures That Still Remain There.

And on Saturday, it rained....And rained, and rained, and rained. The rains were fun for some and not as much for others. The rains created all kinds of issues for the races on Sunday and Monday, but I won't go into that here, because you can read about that in a million other blogs and cyclocross forums. I will say, that people keep asking how to grow the sport for women and I will keep responding, "quit  making us 2nd class citizens to the men in our races". I know I am a rabid feminist, but you don't have to be, to get upset about what happened in the junior women's races on Monday.

We watched the 11/12 year old juniors race on Saturday in the mud and that was crazy. Some of those kids could barely walk up the muddy hills, let alone ride them. Our Iowa kid in the race got caught in a crash and basically got his head run over by the bicycles behind him. Thank goodness for helmets. He still had a very respectable finish. What a kid!

After standing in the rain and mud, John and I finally got to go to Pinballz, this crazy place with over 100 pinball/video game machines that are all in great condition and don't cost too terribly much to play. We were in hog heaven. We even found a Gorgar machine, like the one they used to have at the Mill when we moved there. We spent a great couple of hours there, but then had to go and clean-up before our next fun thing.

A couple of days before, John's ex texted him to see if we wanted to go to a concert with her and the guy she came to Texas with. Having no other info than that, I imagined a midnight show at a bar with a bunch of drunk people and felt like it might not be my thing. Later, when we were finally at home and not driving somewhere to meet people and had more time to talk, I asked John if his ex mentioned who's concert it was. He said, "Alejandro Escovedo." Wait. What? Where?! He didn't know, so I looked it up and it was at Austin City Limits and started at 8. Well, that obviously changed everything. That was exactly the kind of older person show I could handle.

I was luckily able to get tickets and we met them at Torchy's Tacos for dinner and then headed to the show. Since we got tickets so late, John and I were seated in the back of the top balcony, but that ended up being perfect. We could see everything on stage (okay, once I put my glasses on. Whatever) and the show was lovely. It was a little sax heavy, (albeit, the sax player was great, but after the 80's most of us are pretty saxed-out) with the jazz band. I kept saying the band was over-saxed, which caused John to continually roll his eyes. Anyway, it was the perfect way to spend our last night in town.

On Sunday I tried to run again. It was the first time I ran since I got sick on Wednesday. I wasn't very strong, but I wanted to get on those amazing trails one last time before we headed up to the frozen tundra. I saw egrets and great blue herons and a weird looking duck that had a white head with red blotches. Hmmmm.

When we got back from running, we started hearing murmurs of the weirdness going on with CX Nats. The town of Austin closed down the venue because of muddy ruts possibly hurting the tree roots. At first they canceled the last and biggest day of racing. Not only that, they brought cops with tear gas into the park to arrest any cyclists who were at the venue. Talk about your biker gangs....So bizarre. Then the USAC folks talked them down and got them to hold the race the following day, to give them time to mulch the course and let it dry out a bit. It sucked for us, because we had to leave on Sunday afternoon. Oh, well.

Instead, we went to the graffiti walls and took a bunch of dorky photos. It was pretty cool. It was hard to find any space uncovered.

We headed to Chuy's for our last Texas meal before wen went to Oklahoma City for the night.

I was all migrainey, so when we got to our hotel, I had to lie down for a minute and rest. We figured out that there was a restaurant/bar downstairs in our hotel room and so we just ate down there and chatted up the bartender and another guy who was hanging out at the bar. We were both pretty fried, so this time, instead of checking out all the bars in restaurants in Bricktown, we opted to go back to our room and watch an episode of Freaks and Geeks. We were both more than fine with it. We had a great week, but we were so exhausted, and socially overwhelmed and happy to be going home to harass our asshole cats.