On the Road Again
Monday, April 23, 2007
Yesterday, the weather was finally nice enough to take my bike outdoors. Until now, I've been stuck on my trainer in front of the TV. Thanks to the suggestions from a few devoted fans of the show, I started watching LOST on my long, long weekend bike sessions and am now totally and completely addicted (and if by addicted you guess that I'm watching it before and after work, before I go to bed, and any other chance I get to be in front of the TV, and that I was kind of actually hoping that yesterday's thunderstorm warnings were for the afternoon so I wouldn't have to bike outside and could watch LOST instead, you'd be correct).
In any case, the first obstacle to biking outside was figuring out all of my gear. Unfortunately, the only piece of equipment that I bought last fall that came with any sort of instructions at all was my helmet. Yes, seriously. Bike computer? Nope. Air pump? Nada (They likely thought that a hand pump isn't that hard to operate and wouldn't need instructions. They were severely mistaken). Bike? Not a chance.
Now, just for the record, I've biked before. But I don't kid myself about being mechanically-inclined in the least. That's why, in the past, anything at all that needed doing with my bike (changing pedals, putting air in the tires, changing a tire, etc.), the handy people at the bike store took care of. For one easy payment of $35.99, I could have my bike once-overed and it would be ready to go.
The Ironman, however, has thrown a bit of a wrench in that practice on two different levels. First, on the course on race day, you are not allowed to accept any kind of outside help. You have to be completely self-sufficient and at one with your machine. If you blow a tire or drop a chain at mile 87, you better be ready to fix it, and have everything on you that's required to do so. Second, on weekend bike rides of 5, 6, or 7 hours that inch toward 100 miles, you cover a lot of ground. To put it simply, you're usually a hell of a long ways out of town, and away from anyone who might be able to help you. On a long stretch of farm road in Verona that sees more bikes than cars, it will help immensely if I can simply attend to whatever malfunction my bike is having and not have to interrupt my workout (which would require rescheduling the workout -- almost impossible to do when you think about the available time slots one has each week of 5+ continuous hours in daylight). All in all, it's just best that my bike and I get to know one another really, really, really well.
And that, as I mentioned before the above tangent, started in earnest yesterday.
We headed out on one of the city's myriad of bike paths starting at Machinery Row Bicycles and headed toward John Nolan and out toward the Wingra Creek path. It was beautiful out -- almost 80 and sunny -- but almost unbearably windy. This was a frightful combo for someone with, at best, rusty bike handling skills. Gobs and gobs of little kids with metallic ribbons streaming off their handlebars weaving all over the trail like drunken midgets...their moms or dads pulling those kid-trailers behind the bike and barely crawling along...and me, stuck behind them and almost getting blown over because I was almost at a standstill.
Before I knew it, though, I was out of Madison and headed into the country via Seminole Highway. Talk about a bike path! Freshly-paved road as far as you can see, wide shoulders, relatively flat. The only problem was that the wind seemed to increase in intensity and velocity out there. I was in a gear I normally only reserve for hills, and could barely make a go of it. I started to obsess about how maybe I wasn't in good enough shape, and maybe I hadn't prepared well enough on the trainer, and now how was I ever going to finish an Ironman? -- and that obsessing grew worse when a fellow biker with calves the size of my neck zoomed past me like I was standing still (which, really, I almost was).
Slightly depressed about my performance, I eventually turned around, only to find that with the wind at my back, I had no problems whatsoever. I clipped along on the big chain ring, and by the end of the ride, was even spending a fair amount of time in my aerobars (until, of course, I hit the city bike trails teeming with the drunken midgets again).
I never before understood biking, and why/how people could love it oh-so-much. Even at the start of this little Ironman undertaking, I told myself that learning to bike would be great for my knees as I grow older. I never expected to become a real, honest-to-god biker, but I think I might be on the edge of a conversion. Running is freeing in a gritty, painful, make-your-body-suffer-to-free-your-mind sort of way. Biking is pure adrenaline...similar to ski racing, but more fulfilling. Clipping along, seeing the scenery move past you, knowing that your own two legs are powering the trip. It's a great feeling. Even better, I discovered yesterday, is going downhill in aero position. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!
After I returned home -- 3 hours after I had left -- I switched to my runners, donned a hat and my Ipod, picked up Leonard, and hit the road for what was supposed to be an easy 2-miler (which felt like anything but at the onset)...wishing all the while I was still on the bike.
Posted by Erin 9:19 AM
And if you've read ever some of my posts from about a year ago this time, you'll see the theme: those are the days - when riding full face on against the wind, when your very best is netting you only a few miles an hour, when if you stop pedaling even downhill you might come to a wind-induced stop - those are where Ironman is forged. Relish them. Look for them. Choose to run in thunderstorms. Don't put off your scheduled 80-miler because it's cold. As you learned by the end of this ride - this is where you fall in love with the Becoming. This is where you learn what you're made of, and Who You Really Are. And this is where the most important elements of Ironman are sharpened, and toughened - your mind, and your spirit.
Good for you.
Glad to be checking in here.