Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Cure 'de Bonk

The blessing and curse of being around athletes is that there is no place to conceal bad habits. We did another set of hill repeats in Williamsburg Sunday. Carol has 3 hills scoped out and on the return of a timed 3-hour ride, we hit the climbs at full speed, recover then repeat. What fun, but the last 2 weeks I have been heavily bonked on the 5-mile cool down return. This prompted me to babble about living wills, not a good topic since Sally and Mark surged ahead so that I would drop off their wheels, leaving me no decent draft.

Carol got right to the point: what have you been eating lately? Well . . . I did not have to say much because Mandy seemed clued in to one of my dinner dishes--Wendy’s single w/ cheese, mayo and extra tomatoes. There was a quick interrogation of what I eat for lunch daily (school cafeteria food) and breakfast (coffee and coffee) and of what I have in the refrigerator (umm). Recommendation: go grocery shopping.

Later, Food Lion greeted me with the smell of produce and the easy listening sounds so out of place in my Norfolk neighborhood. I filled one cart alone with just the (de) hydrating necessities (milk, half-n-half, Fresca, orange juice, cranapple juice, Gatorade, and wine) and stuff to clean up after cooking (Pine Sol, Cascade, bleach, green scratchies). I was going to split the 2nd cart into carb, protein and fat sections, but I could not remember the percentages. Feeling much better now.

Saturday, February 19, 2005

True Art, Man

Art, Ruberio, BJ and Annette drove to Charlottesville, VA this week to train on the Jefferson Cup Course. Here is Art Marks' account of the day:

I think ride-trauma caused me to suppress the memories of how we arrived at the hills of the Jeff Cup course yesterday – that, and lack of sleep. Roberio and I combined equaled one good night of sleep.

It all began with the cacophony of the two alarms it took to roust me before sunrise. Then I vaguely remember snapshots being taken of four clowns trying to pack themselves into the Conte’s Mini. It’s not that it doesn’t have legroom. It just doesn’t have room to put your stuff. We closed the hatchback quickly to keep anything from falling out. BJ and Anette climbed in the back and we were off.

Some hours later we were on our bikes riding the loop – some of us for the first time. There isn’t a hill there that can knock you out, but they all gang up on you. Except for close encounters with a pair of dogs and a pair of squirrels there were no incidents aside from the new max heart rates we may have reached. At one point BJ, who must have been suffering a little more than Anette and I, played the old “I’m a grandma” card abused by all too many a cyclist.

After five torturous loops we packed up. I sat down in the back of the Mini with a Mavic Krsyrium against one shoulder and a Zipp 303 on the other. I felt like some shoddy axel. Anette drove with BJ at her right, sure to keep her awake. We stopped for a decent meal in downtown C’ville and then headed home.

At some point I made the mistake of moving my leg, triggering a cramp. I don’t know who was driving at that point because when I stretched out over the center console four hands were massaging my leg. My next imbecilic mistake was telling them that it was my inner thigh and not my blissful calf. Roberio, beside me, made it clear that I was on my own which reminded me of that old joke about the two guys in the woods. One gets bit in the butt by a rattlesnake. His buddy gets hold of a doctor on his cell phone who tells him he has to cut the wound and suck out the poison. When the anxious victim asks his buddy what the doctor said, he replies, “Doctor says you’re gonna die.”

While Roberio and I made some feeble attempts at turning the conversation towards bike parts, we were no match for two up front. It’s not every ride that ends with home ec tips. Apparently that thick black coating on the silver in my dining room is not some slowly attained, protective, anodized finish, but a far more insidious oxidation that can cause pitting. This led me to two thoughts: the irony of silver getting cavities, and, you mean you have to polish that crap.

We got back after dark, still slaphappy as we divvied up our belongings and parted.

A whole day in such company and not one comment on my fresh haircut. I knew I was in need of a haircut because the last day marked on my Supercuts card was 12/8/04. Maybe it was a bad one. I did get the feeling that my hair got shorter and shorter not out of some image of perfection, but in an attempt to even out erroneous snips. I just hope next time the gal working on my hair doesn’t have to stop to get pointers from her co-Delilah. But hey, my card is full so the next one’s free.

Come join us next time and bring a big car.

--Art Marks, Virginia Beach

Monday, February 14, 2005

Drink and Don't be Merry

I have been told to keep quiet at the opera, during rosary, in yoga. But Starbucks? After our hill repeats women’s ride Sunday in Williamsburg, we all rushed over to the strip mall for sandwiches at Subway and coffee at Starbucks. It may have been bad form for us to eat Subway food in Starbucks and worse form to take over the table reserved for handicapped customers. But apparently our noise is what brought the snarky barista over to quiet us so that they could “hear the orders.” As Laura said, “Sell us coffee and then ask us to be quiet?” Hysterical.

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Touchdown Descent

The legendary Superbowl Sunday ride lacked nudity, a lost rider, singletrack packed with snow and ice. But 50 degrees, visible singletrack and a big crowd more than made up for it. Ride begins in Briery Branch west of Harrisonburg, VA, ascends to “flagpole” (~1000 feet elevation) on asphalt and jeep trails. There was snow and ice on these trails and a load of SUV-driver-type riders barreled down. Several wicked return routes pivot from the top, and the descent I took was free of ice, is super steep and winds through embedded baby heads. I about broke by arms braking and my shins were falling off as I suspended my whole body above the rear wheel behind the saddle.

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Circle Art

I get in the most miles in when I am most busy and January was one of those months. Since I have no trouble getting motivated to ride and some trouble getting motivated to do work, the more work I have, the more I exercise. Plus, I said “sure” three weeks ago when Susan asked if I wanted to write a bicycling piece for the Norfolk Quarterly. The editor had asked Susan, and she passed along my name.

I attempted to write a broad overview of cycling in Norfolk which turned out to be a killer task. It could be said that I did not properly narrow the topic, but I did not want to focus on just one group of riders—racing, touring, kids, commuting—since the Norfolk Quarterly has such a wide audience that writing about one of these groups would be informative but not really hit what affects everyone: safety for all cyclists in a developed city. Even though I know lots about cycling, putting all groups together under the safety theme took forever and it sounds awfully stiff. I don’t know how general assignment newspaper reporters manage to turn out multiple articles on subjects they are not familiar with.

The photo shoot for the Quarterly article was a scream. We chose the coldest night of the year, but had the best photographer. Wes had an elaborate camera kit mounted to his bicycle. He took shots as four of us were moving—well shivering. It was ~26 degrees, and since pics were being made we could not get any real speed going to get warmed up. The overcast night spoiled the plan to get shots of riders on Elizabeth River trail with a sunset background, so we did repetitive crossings on the Hague foot bridge and did circles in front of Chrysler Museum since both places are lighted. Wes said he still needs to get shots during day hours.