Now I’m coaching myself. Here, I’ll share with you my schedule. It is fascinatingly scientific. It goes like this:

I alternate swimming days with biking days because I love swimming and I love riding my bike. When I feel good, I go hard. When I’m tired, I don’t go hard. Sometimes, I’ll go many days in a row, trying to become more fatigued.  And when I reach a near breaking point, I slow back down. Sometimes, I go many days going slow. It all depends.

I do lots of fartleks or intervals or whatever you want to call them. Sometimes, I use a watch, and sometimes, I’ll pick a landmark up the road to try to race to. It is 100% dependent upon my mood in that given moment, save for a spin class on Tuesdays at my gym with Alan Atha. There, I just do what he says.

See? It’s very scientific.

I don’t write any of this down. I did, but kept losing the notebook.

You may be asking, what about that all important scheduled week of rest? This is so simple, but I am reluctant to share this information, because it might qualify as too much, but what the heck: when I’m about to get my period, and I cry over every silly little thing, and I want to sleep for twelve hours a day, then I back down during the week.

Can I say this is helping me as a bike racer? Aw,  heck no. There is a high possibility that I am in for my slowest season ever, but my arms look incredible, and I cannot recall ever having this much fun riding my bike.

Why did it take me so long to figure this out?

I still felt like I wanted to throw up at the end, so it was a good day.

So today I tried my second Sunday workout with Pac West, and the other first was that I rode my bike to the pool in Mill Valley from my place in San Rafael, in the rain. Last week it didn’t rain, so this makes today a first.

Pac West Athletics is this triathlon club that I had never heard of until just a few weeks ago from a friend of mine who’s a pro triathlete. I want to keep this group on the low down, because I don’t want my swimming friends to know about it, because I think it’s going to be my secret weapon in my big comeback.

As I typed that, I questioned my wording. “Comeback?” To what? But anyway.

Today’s workout was much more difficult than last week’s. We swam 4500 yards, in what seemed like one continuous main set of a series of 200s, 300s, 150s, and 100s on a 1:20 per 100 base, mixed with either build up or sprint 50s. I swim 4500 during the week, but never like this. Not in twenty years. Today was a first!

I have not done a workout this challenging, and well-organized, I should say, since I swam in college. It turns out today’s coach was Chris Hauth*, a pro triathlete. He never let us rest between sets, but he kept the lane pace in check. Like one guy suggested that we swim the 50s on a more “challenging” interval, which is so typical of masters swimmers out to push that envelop of sanity, and Chris said, no, that 50 seconds is fine, because we need to be able to swim slow on the slow 50s.

I thought that was a very nice thing for him to do. I love swimming slow. I embrace it.

I liked my lane mates. They were patient with me. I made quite a few rookie moves that irritated first the lane that I had been in, and then this one, but they quickly forgave me.

Then I rode my bike home in the rain, up and over Camino Alto. I’d never done anything like this. Ride in the rain, yes, but I was riding in the rain to go swimming so I could ride back home in the rain.

When I was twenty, would never do anything like this. At the start of today’s practice, I thought it’d be all I could do to maybe swim the warm up, but I was not only able to survive the workout, but thrive. Who started that whole lie that once you turn 24 or whatever, you start to slow down? That you get all weak? The phases of decay would start at 24, it was said, and then 30 would be the next milestone, and I would have to look in the mirror daily and get used to this aging, sagging woman, and embrace my growing behind, the flabby arms, because that’s just how it is and there’s nothing you can do about it, other than eat Healthy Choice frozen dinners and wear lots of foundation to hide all the wrinkles.

Now I’m forty, and I’m telling you, it doesn’t have to be that way. I want to go back and find those people who told me those lies and tickle them and tell them they were being very silly.

*I just looked up Chris Hauth on the Internet. Hello, he’s a former Olympic swimmer. Oh my. Please, please, don’t pass this on to my swimming friends!

The trick was to launch yourself with as much gusto as possible before sticking your tires into the mesh to gain adhesion, and then catapult yourself over the top, but in my clumsiness, it was all I could do to dismount and climb the landry bag by foot, lap after lap, with my cleats sticking to the mesh as hundreds of people screamed at me on the sidelines, telling me I’ll never upgrade from Cat 3.

I had to go to the bathroom badly.

Well, after the race was over, they changed the surface back to pavement for the pros, and also lowered the degree of pitch to something more reasonable, like 23%, using a system of pullies and levers, which I thought was a great invention, but to the detriment of the growth of the sport in the long run.

I do not know what this means.

John Schmier and me at last Sunday's "Levi's Gran Fondo." Photo by Bob Cullinan.

I met up with my friend Bob Cullinan at the first rest stop at yesterday’s “Levi’s Gran Fondo,” and ended up riding the rest of the way of our “Medio Fondo” (100km; the “Gran Fondo” was a full 100 miles) with him and his pal John Schmier. He’s posted some pics from the ride on his website CycleTo.com, and I’m in three of them!

If those signs hadn't been there, you would not be seeing me here in this photo. Photo by Bob Cullinan.

The ride itself was spectacular, but although it was also for a good cause (to support the City of Santa Rosa’s quest to host another stage of the Tour of California, which takes boucoup bucks), I can’t say I’m game to ride with 3500 people all at once ever again. I have enough problems staying focused in races with fifty riders. 3500 people was just a whole lot. We had to start at the same time, and there were many times that I felt aggrivated by some riders’ aggression.

Look,” I said, many times. “Your legs are hairy and your gut is huge. You’re not going to ‘win’ the Gran Fondo. Get over it.”

As the ride progressed, it became clear that some of the women on the ride didn’t take to kindly my outbursts, so I eventually opted to just let them all drop me.  

Then again, I couldn’t imagine a more splendid way to ride through Sonoma County. The Medio Fondo bypassed the King’s Ridge, which I’ve never climbed before, but I’ve heard stories of its difficulties, but we still were able to climb Coleman Valley Road from the coast back to Occidental, which was just long and steep enough to feel like I deserved all that food and beer at the expo afterwards.

Anyway, I am pilfering some of Bob’s photos until he tells me to take them down immediately, because I may never make it into a cycling news outlet again. Before he does so, I just want brown nose a little bit and reiterate that CycleTo.com offer’s a unique perspective into the world of professional bike racing, as Bob, although a strong cyclist himself and a steady wheel (except when he’s chasing down cars and Allison Starnes), only took up the sport just a few years ago, after a knee injury ended his amateur running career. Talk about turning a lemon into lemon aid. Now he travels the world covering bike races, and sometimes, they even let him into the VIP tent.

My Urbal Assault Vehicle in its Fully Loaded with Groceries state.

Well, now check out its latest accessories, also from Paradigm: the bike rack and grocery panniers made by Breezer Bikes. Notice the red fabric groceries bags, made by Specialized, which I got from entering a couple of bike races this past year. I’ve also used them for carrying laundry to and from the laundry room, and my cat sleeps on them. These are very versatile bags.

While I’ve made a few grocery runs on this bike, today I thought I’d extend myself and take the long way via China Camp to the San Rafael Farmer’s Market at the Civic Center. Along the way, I made several observations:

• Empty panniers can fall off the bike when riding over big bumps, like rail road tracks. Annoying.
• People do look at you funny when you walk around a farmer’s market wearing lycra, even if it’s lycra without writing all over it. I am going to have to work on my grocery getting wardrobe.
• Unless you are starving and have extra money to burn, stay away from the Afghan food booth. Otherwise, the lady there is going to corner you and force feed you spinach bolani bread with a variety of toppings and she’s not going to stop, no matter how loudly you protest, and a crowd will gather out of concern, but no one is going to help you, they’re just going to stare at this lady wearing big black sun glasses and gold accessories as she stuffs more bread with toppings down your throat, telling you, “You need to eat, honey, look at you, in your little outfit, you are too skinny honey, eat more eat more,” and then you will end up spending half of your allotted grocery money at this booth alone, just to help assuage the guilt that will overcome you as you realize she has just stuffed so much free food down your gullet, and you’ll ride home on your Urbal Assault Vehicle loaded to the max with Afghan bread and sauces, only to realize that you forgot the strawberries.

My reasons for riding to the farmer’s market, and not just the grocery store, is that I’ve heard, from various sources, that shopping at farmer’s markets reduces one’s global footprint. By purchasing goods produced closer to your home, by local farmers, you help eliminate the need to expend more fuel to transport goods. It also helps keep these local farmers in business.

Other benefits they say are that the food is fresher, and will last longer in your refrigerator.

I found shopping in this way enjoyable because it gave me an excuse to ride my Urbal Assault Vehicle around China Camp, where it runs along side the bay, and pretend that I was on an actual mission. This was such a pleasant way to go, versus riding to train, which is what I’ve been doing for so long now, and for what? To get free fabric grocery bags made by Specialized? I need more from cycling than this if I want to feel satisfied.

Today, I got in a ride probably just over an hour, at an aerobic base-building pace, and I brought home some groceries, enough to last me several days even. I feel very productive.

Would anyone like some bonani bread? I have about nine too many packages of it.

My Happy Yellow Cannondale

It’s a 1998 Cannondale F700, purchased on eBay in 2002 for $500, while I was recovering with my arm in a sling from my first broken collarbone (on the right side). My thought was that now that I’d been officially indoctrinated into the world of cycling and broken bones, I might as well go all the way and try mountain biking.

Then a little while later, I went mountain biking and rolled down a cliff cracked my helmet and gave myself a nice concussion, and reasoned that at least when I go down on a road bike, I can blame someone else.

Since then, I’ve tried riding in the dirt several more times, with the best friends in the world who’ve all told me I’d have a much better time on a newer bike. They are so full of it. I love them.

I dreamt of fenders over a year ago, but the guys at one particular shop who that I will not mention said that due to my Cannondale’s particular design in the fork regions, full fenders would not be possible; I’d have to go with a clip-on variety that seemed more suited for a BMX bike, not a rockin’ city bike like my own, and even that would require some adapter thingy, they said, which I ordered, and have since lost, but oh well.

Oh well, because in the middle of our last rain storm, I e-mailed my friend Tim Brennan at Paradigm Cycles in San Anselmo, and asked him what he thought of fenders on my Cannondale.

“Totally doable,” he said. “E-mail me pictures of the forks, so I can make sure.”

Which I did, and within a week, my new SKS fenders arrived from Quality Bike Products (QPB) in Minnesota. Tim spent a good hour fighting with my bike to put them on — it wasn’t as easy as he had thought! — and the result is the city bike of my dreams.

What was I thinking?

Well, it’s been a week and a half since I ran into that moving car that was illegally passing me in an intersection as I was turning left, and I will say one benefit from this trauma is that I can’t lift heavy weights in the gym — I mean, I physically can’t even lift the weights to put on the leg press, for example  – and so my legs are fresh, and that makes riding a bike fun and it’s giving me a false sense of confidence and I’m freaking out wondering how long this spring in my pedal stroke is going to last.

But a drawback to the aformentioned incident with the crazy lady behind the wheel of a rolling weapon is that my  tailbone and lower back are in discomfort, but not like last week.

So I’m sure you are thinking, Katie, if it’s that bad, just go to a doctor, and my response to you is, Would you get off my back. I have another point that I would like to illustrate, and that is how gosh darned good I have become at wallowing in my misery on group rides, better than most whiners. I get just enough sympathy without ever sensing that I have become annoying, which is a terrible feeling, and I think that this technique is worth sharing.

I first ask my next victim if I have mentioned my aforementioned brush with death and the pain that came with it. If the answer is in the negative, I proceed with explaining my saga, and then there is much commiserating and empathy and I start to feel better.

This all goes back to our primal need to be accepted and embraced by a community. There are healing properties in sharing our pain with others. We are a village;  we need each other.

If the answer is in the affirmative, then I shut up.

So it’s just good to put those feelers  out there. Because the last thing you want to be is obnoxious.

——–

I am feeling better, though. And thanks to everyone who knows my family and hasn’t told my mom and dad. That’d be bad. So glad they don’t read my blog!

——–

Let’s talk about dating now. I think it’s silly. So my confession is that for the holiday season, I signed up for an on-line dating site, and I’m not going to tell you which one, but it has to do with fitness and singles, but I signed up for it so I could feel pro-active during the holidays, which has traditionally been a dark period for me starting in 1996, when I learned there really isn’t a Santa Claus.

That was one of the worst days of my life.

Well, here’s the problem. Men were responding to my ad. Yes, I know! Nuts. And I was thinking, Oh, no, this isn’t going to work. What are you doing that for.

I wanted to write to all these otherwise decent human beings, I’m sure of it, and ask them if they were out of their minds. Like, Helloooooo. Did you not see that I ride my bike 100+ hours a week? Do you not see that I have no outside interests, other than pushing little circles around with my pedals?

Did you not read in my profile that I am not a family-oriented person? That I abhore romance of any kind, that the thought of motherhood makes me want to throw up?

No, I have absolutely no interest in all that this life has to offer. That’s the cliche I despise the most, by the way. “Oh, I want to explore this bountiful world and all it has to offer.” Gag.

Most of the time, I didn’t even respond. And I was finally met with blatant hostility by one fellow who calls himself BaseballBobby23, who really likes baseball. Oh, gee, we have so much in common.

I did look at his profile. His profile photograph was of a man’s bare torso, complete with six-pack abs and well defined pectoral muscles. His bio said, “I’m a helluva guy, interested in diving into this sea of love and absorbing all it has to offer. Give me a chance. You won’t be disappointed! Signed, your Love Sponge.”

Well, he expressed to me in an e-mail that I was rude and classless for not responding to his first e-mail, and I deserve all the loneliness I get, and he even called me the b-word.

We’re meeting for drinks next week.