B**** on a Bike

Many things have happened since I last posted, very few of which are interesting to anyone but me. As usual, that will not stop me from sharing them.

On Memorial Day weekend I had back-to-back days of group training fun.  Saturday I did a group ride with 5 other triathlete types--people who don't get all worked up about riding in a paceline with aero bars. I was pushed more than if I had ridden by myself, without the kind of testosteronefest that seems to happen in some group rides.  The next day I did my first open water swim of the season with an overlapping group of local triathletes. Here we are getting ready to practice some starts after we swam about a mile:

I have the pink cap. Here we are right after we started our mad sprint to the buoy line:

You can't see me here. Because, as the 2011 version of triathlon me, I am being Aggressive in the Swim.  With a pink cap, just to be all ironic about it.

The post title refers to this phenomenon of mental aggressiveness, more specifically, to its lack in my biking. The next time I met with my coach (who is sporting the yellow cap above and whose feet I chased around that pond--if by "chased" I mean "lost sight of after about 20 yards"), she told me I need to be more of a b**** on the bike. And as usual, she's right. I have no problem being aggressive on the run. I may get beat, but I start out the run in a triathlon assuming I'm going to pass everyone I see, and then I work hard to do it. I don't pass nearly everyone, and there are all kinds of people I can't even see, they're so far ahead of me after the bike. But I am a b**** on the run. Also at home sometimes, but that's not really relevant here. I need to have that kind of attitude on the bike as well. I think I'm starting to get it on the swim, and to be honest, it's easier to develop that attitude when people are whacking you in the face and swimming over you. We are all b****es on the swim. But on the bike, as my coach astutely realized, I don't really think I'm all that good. I am not sure I deserve to pass people. This is ridiculous, because objectively speaking, while my run still tends to be better than my bike, I'm not that bad on the bike either. So I'm getting in touch with my bike b****.

And in that spirit, last week I did the club time trial and, for the first time, broke 22 mph. OK, it was the short TT (only 9.2 miles), but this is a start.

In between all this b****iness, I did stuff like go to soccer games, where I got a horrifying glimpse of the future 8 or so years from now:

That's Charlotte and her friend Greta, waiting out a thunderstorm in my car.  Here is Charlotte running in a track meet--she's doing a youth track program that has a little meet every week. She is running the 400.

Charlotte is not so much a b**** on the track--in one of her 800's, she ran for the second lap alongside a little girl from another team (in the second lane the whole way! what is she thinking?), and after they crossed the line together, she jogged over and told me proudly, "I made friends with that girl from the purple team!"

Last weekend I went to NJ to visit my good friends Cherie and Marcus. The youngest of their children was recently diagnosed with leukemia, so I went down to visit and also to run in a 5K that was a fundraiser for the cancer center where he's being treated. I had a great time with their family. Here I am doing some serious crafting with the kids:

Here is Team Lukie, which includes both runners and walkers.  I'm not in the picture, because while I was totally in the spirit of this being a charity run and all, I did need to get in some kind of warmup.

Cherie has a big family, and I consider them like my 2nd family, only without all that baggage you get from actually spending 18 years living with people. It was awesome to have her parents cheering for me during the race, just like back in college when Cherie and I were teammates. Here is a picture her sister-in-law took of me during the race:

It feels a little gross to say this, given that I was running in honor of a 21-month old with cancer, but yeah, I was kind of happy with my time. Here is Luke, who couldn't come to the race because his little immune system is being blasted by chemo, with his mom:

He was very excited to see all the "Team Lukie" t-shirts with his picture on them. He also gets very excited by his father's ipad:

And that pretty much covers it! Except that I also got pink handlebar tape on the cow bike. This weekend I am off to a conference in Montreal, assuming I can figure out where I've stashed my passport. Next weekend is my first triathlon of the season. I plan to be a total b****.