Conversation with Sparks after Book Club

S: Dude! Did that really just happen?

C: (Innocent sounding) What?

S: The last five minutes of pure torture!

C: Um…..I guess it did.

S: When I was hiding under the bed, why would you poke at me with that long stick?

C: Cause I needed to get to you.

S: When I hide under the bed it means…STAY AWAY FROM ME!

S: When you pushed me out from under the bed with that dumb long stick I quickly got under the couch. Why couldn’t you just leave me there?

C: Again…I needed to get you.

S: Then this strange lady starts to poke at me and the only place I have left to hide is the bathroom. I know that was a weak place to hide but that was all I had left. There were tall people everywhere. Why were they in my room.

C: They were there to try and help me clip your nails.

S: (Most disdainful voice) I do not NEED assistance with my personal grooming. I am fully grown. I don’t see anyone clipping your nails.

C: That is because I have opposable thumbs and I can hold the clippers.

S: I know the bathroom was a weak place to hide, but why did you pick me up and hand me over to the mean lady.  Wasn't she was the one who poked me with needles last month? I don’t like here and I NEVER want her in my room again.

C: She was helping. She snuggled with you real nice while A trimmed your nails.

S: I do not call that snuggling. That was suffocation.

C: Look at how nice your back paws look. They did a great job. I know there is one nail that didn’t get cut but that just gives you character.

S: I guess I will have to rub that on the side of the leather couch until it matches my other nails. (Revengeful meows escape)

Blunt Force Trauma

OMG…I had an epic biking accident on Monday night.  I decided to do a difficult route by myself in the evening and midway through the ride things went terribly wrong.  The problem came when I got to the bottom of the second hill in a series of three back to back hills.  I was having a hard time down shifting into gear 1.   I rode around in some driveways while I tried to resolve the problem and I finally managed to get in the proper gear.  A few moments later I got to the end of the hill Spur, I turned around and rested for a few minutes before doing it all over again.

I started off strong and I flew down the first hill and then I started to make my way up the second hill and then bam!  My chain popped and I started to fall.  I tried to remove my cleat from the pedal, but it all happened so fast I wasn’t able to remove it and I began to descend to the ground.  Then the real issue occurred.  My handlebars began to turn sideways and I ended up taking the brunt of the fall into the blunt end of my handlebar.  I got hit in the center of my chest on my ribcage.  I took a photo but I decided I really didn't want to post it;)

All the wind went out of my body.  I could hardly breathe and I almost vomited.  I held that back but I was defiantly dazed.  I sat on the pavement for a few minutes and tried to clear my head.  I was in shock at how painful the fall was.  All of my prior falls involved hitting my knee and elbow.  Those were both painful but I was able to recover quickly.  This was not a quick recovery.

I stood up and tested out my body.  I waked around and despite the intense pain in my chest I didn’t think I broke anything.  I decided to check out my bike.  I got the chain back on but the gears no longer worked properly and my rear brake was stuck on.  Eeek!   I managed to get the brakes unstuck but I could tell that it was no longer quite right.  I felt that the bike was damaged but it could endure the ride back to my car.

Did I mention that I was in the middle of my ride and 12 miles from my car.  I picked up my bike and I started pushing it up and down the remaining hills as I was no longer interested in climbing them on my bike.  I considered calling someone to come and rescue me but I quickly dismissed that idea.  I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone and I thought it would be silly to wait for someone to come and get me.  I knew my brother was busy with his children and he probably didn’t have the time to come and get me.

I believe this was the biggest mistake of the day.  I never should have decided to ride back to my car.  I was in pain and my bike was in pain.  This was the time to call in a favor and ask for help.  I seriously hate asking for help.  I had already felt like I called in a favor three days before that when I discovered a flat tire the night before an important bike event.  Also, I wasn’t convinced that I knew how to tell someone where I was.  I knew the route on my bike but I didn’t know it by car and I wasn’t sure of road names.

Being an independent and single women I have learned to rely on myself, even when in duress.  I just never want to bother anyone with a real or imagined crisis.  I also wasn't sure this was a real crisis.  Duh it was but at the time I just thought I would deal with the pain until I got home.  I did and it worked out but it wasn't the best decision.

As I was driving home I pondered the necessity of visiting an ER.  I called my friend GH who is a nurse and an EMT and I enlisted her medical advise.  She told me I probably bruised ribs and doctors don't have a remedy for that injury.  The biggest worry I had was weather or not I had an internal injury.  She gave the waring signs and I promised I would get to an ER pronto if I had any of them. Thankfully, there has been no warning signs and I appear to be on the mend.  Today was the turning point where I really began to feel better.

Whoop!  Today was also the day I got my bike back from the repair shop.  I messed up the brakes, bent the derailleur, bent the handle bars and the wheels were out of alignment.  $60 later and she is all fixed up.

I think I learned an important lesson from this accident.  Call for help when I need it.  Don't be brave or think  an accident is minor. It is more important to be safe than sorry later.

Dieting Progress Report

I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker today and it made me think about my current approach to dieting and living a healthy lifestyle.
I have been able to lose 25lbs since the beginning of June. Since I have started this dieting and biking thing 2.5 years ago I have lost a total of 50 lbs. Please please hold the applause. I feel good about this progress. What I like even more than the actual number is that none of my clothes fit anymore. They just hang off of me. Even my shoes. Really my shoes are too big. The other part is that I now weigh less than my younger brother. I assure that hasn’t happened since we were children or maybe ever. I loved his competitive response to this news. He was all “let me starve myself for a few days and reweigh myself”. No sucker! I beat you!!!!

There are a couple things that have made this experience more successful than past attempts to lose weight. The biggest one is that I haven’t put any pressure on myself to succeed. I want to succeed but I don’t perform well under pressure. I have always lived this horrible cycle of failing and then being so terribly hard on myself. I then completely give up because the whole endeavor was just too hard. I never thought I could be successful in this area.

I am not keeping a food journal. You heard me right…I am not recording my food intake. I just can’t. This was one of the things that used to destroy my self-confidence. That doesn’t mean I don’t evaluate what I eat. I look at my daily intake before dinner and I determine how much I should eat. I want to keep my calories at 1800 or less per day. But this is a flowing number and I don’t beat myself up when I don’t achieve it. I just say to myself perhaps eating crap at the fair shouldn’t be repeated the next day. I try to make better choices when I eat out. I try to eat only two pieces of pizza and not four. I try to not stop for ice cream on a daily basis and I am strictly regulating the amount of dessert allowed into my house.

I have stopped pressuring myself to cook healthy and nutritious whole foods. That never really worked as I am usually too tired to cook when I get home from my fun evening activities. Instead I have filled my freezer with Lean Cuisines and Smart Ones and other such frozen delights. It isn’t always great but it fills me up and it prevents me from stopping at Taco Bell on my way home when I am most vulnerable to the hunger and exhaustion. I realize that this isn’t the best nutritional choice but it is calorie controlled and way better to the alternative (Taco Bell).

Last month a friend wrote a blog that talked about how bike riding is not the key to weight loss. I completely agree with her. It is more about the food than the exercise. But the combination of both has enabled me to be successful. The other part is I haven’t looked at the biking strictly as a weight loss tool. I look at is as fun first. My goals surrounding biking had zero to do with weight and more to overcoming mental blocks about what I can and cannot do. Yes, I can ride 1000 miles in a summer (I am way over that BTW), yes I conquered Riley Hill, and yes I can ride 50 miles in a day. I actually completed a metric century (62 miles) a few weekends ago. All of these things help tremendously with the weight loss but they are not the key factor to my current success.

I feel the key to my current success is to relax the pressure on myself. I think I will always struggle with the eating thing but if I can continue having a positive attitude and give myself a break every now and then, this could work for me.

The specific question that the co-worker asked me was did I have a weight loss goals. The answer is NO. I don’t want to lose XX by a certain date. I cannot look at it that way. I just want to continue to make positive progress. I feel if I decided that I wanted to lose 10lbs each month it would kill me if I didn’t achieve that goal and prevent future progress.

I prefer to look at it this way. The less I weigh the easier it will be for me to climb the hills on my bike and maybe one day actually pass one of my friends on the ascent. That will be worth celebrating.

RIP Frank

I have some sad news.  My pet gerbil Frank died last Friday.  I was very upset most of the day and I wanted to give him a proper burial.  Since my schedule is always so busy I thought it would be necessarily to leave work at 3:00pm on Friday afternoon so I would have time to observe his final wishes.  He wanted his ashes scattered amongst the fields near my house.  So I wanted to leave work and ride my bike around the countryside near my house to give Frank his final respects.

You know what?  My boss said NO!  I couldn't leave work to give Frank his due respect.  Methinks my boss has no feelings or compassion.

I thought for a few minutes and then I told him this story:

Boss, my grandparent died in a car crash. While my boyfriend was driving, because he swerved and hit a bus full of orphans while trying to avoid a herd of penguins crossing the street.

It’s too outlandish to be false, right?

Apparently, I become a creative liar when I want to ride my bike.  (Que Queen please)

Darkness Rules my Life

I accomplished my final and third biking goal of the summer on Sunday.  Woot!  Except that it seems a bit anticlimactic to me.  I have met my goals but I am not necessarily happy about it.

These were my three goals:
1.  Bike 1000 Miles
2.  Bike 50 miles in a single ride
3.  Get up the hill at Crown Hill without walking

I made the 50 mile ride on July 6th. This was a good ride and my average speed was 11.9 mph.  I was happy with this ride and it was interesting to see my speed improvement in the last month.  My current average speed is usually 12.8.  I also have a few 50 mile rides scheduled later in the summer and those will not include any breaks and one of them has a hills.  Eeek.

I completed the Crown Hill climb about two weeks ago and it was hard.  My heart was beating out of my chest by the time I made it to the top, but I made it.  I was very excited but I have no desire to duplicate this accomplishment.  I would prefer to work on street hills and increasing my speed on something I would encounter in an ordinary ride.

Sunday was the big day for the 1000 mile accomplishment.  I was really hoping to finish up in July but my schedule just didn't allow it so I made it on August 1, 2010.  I was proud of myself as I had originally given myself until October to complete this goal.  I had no idea that I would become even more passionate about biking this summer than I was last year.

The real problem in this story is that my pride quickly faded away to self doubt and being hard on myself.  I always think that I can do better on a given task and then when I do better it is not enough.  I had thoughts running through my head that said I should have accomplished the goals faster or quicker or at a faster speed.  I just don't know why I cannot be happy with my accomplishments.

I want to be able to ride faster and I have improved but I don't think that it is fast enough.  I started out the summer with an average speed of 10 mph and I am currently at 12.8.  I want to be better than that without killing myself.  I then fall into the trap of comparing myself to my friends.  They can do things better and faster than me and it makes me feel inadequate.  These are the reasons why I have avoided all things athletic in the past.  I don't like feeling inadequate and if I don't even try then I never have to worry about measuring up.

Uggg...I just don't know what to do with myself.  I want to be happy with myself and my accomplishments while still pushing myself but I don't want to feel inadequate.  How am I to get over these dark and unproductive feelings?  I keep trying to stay positive but the bad thoughts keep creeping back.

I had a conversation with a fellow biking friend this week that while good intentioned and necessary made made all of these dark feelings creep up.  This conversation was about an upcoming 50 mile group ride (Hope Ride) that will occur in mid September.  There are several of us attending this ride and all of us have varying degrees of ability and aptitude.  Unfortunately, I am the slowest member of our group.  I was told basically that I was going to have to ride by myself that day as they wanted to complete this ride at a challenging pace for them.  I understand this and I respect the need to challenge oneself but it still doesn't stop me from feeling bad about myself.  I could probably keep up for a while but it would kill me and then I would eventually fall behind.  I don't want them to have to ride slower for me.  They should ride their bikes the way that makes them happy.

I DO NOT like to fall behind!  So what do I do?  I have been rolling this around in my head for days.  Should I just not attend and miss out on the fun?  Should I attend and ride by myself?  Or should I attend and try to keep up.  My initial desire was to not attend any of these group rides but that seems like the extreme option. 70% of why I like biking is I like the social aspect of it.  I understand that I cannot have a companion for every bike ride but these are the kind of events where having a companion is good.

I feel like my confidence is in an extremely fragile state these days and I would like to steady it out again but I just don't know how.