My career as a high school student was a little spotty. I started out in 9th grade all bright eyed and bushy tailed, striving to make the honor role every day and wishing I had made the cheer leading squad. By 10th grade the 70s were in full swing and, drawn off by the allure of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll my performance took a rather dramatic dive. I started turning on and tuning out and I got rather fat due the emotional stress of a bad break up. My junior year was a total disaster. Somewhere between the end of my junior year and the beginning of my senior year I had an epiphany that maybe I wanted more out of life than to live on a commune baking break and popping out babies and cleaned up my academic act, got on the high honor roll and started applying to colleges.

I did not get into to my first choice but I did get accepted to the University of Miami. No way was I going to a school where people wore bikinis all the time. Not with my fat ass. I decided to take a year off, reapply to better schools (in cooler climates), work to save up money and go to Europe to put those 4 years of high school French to use. Little did I know that no self respecting Parisian will converse in French wis ze ugly Americahn.

To finance the trip I got a job at a plastic bag factory. It was right near my house and it paid really well – $3.65/hr! I took that job a week before I graduated but it was a 6 PM to 6 AM shift, 3 days on and 3 days off at that time. Sometime after graduation they switched to a standard 5 day midnight to 8 AM shift. So – #2 is true. And Bolder – folding plastic bags all night in a hot factory is very memorable. Not a great memory but I will never forget the feel and the smell of having plastic dust up my nose 8 to 12 hours a day.

In June or July of 1974 I boarded a plane headed for Paris. I had no idea what I was doing. Far be it from me to read books or actually learn something about traveling before I took off. My worried Mom stepped up and found a local person who had a daughter living in Paris who needed a roommate so arrangements were made for me to go live with her. We had nothing in common and she didn’t really want to spend time with me – she just needed someone to share the rent. Fortunately, on the plane on the way over I met a guy from Germany. While in Paris he wrote to me and asked if I wanted to come hang out with him so a month after arriving I took off to spend time living on a houseboat on the Lahn River.

While I was there an American girl named Bernie showed up and we decided to hitchhike to Amsterdam. We stayed at a Youth Hostel that would give you free board if you went down to the train station every day and passed out leaflets directing young tourists to the hostel. One day I got picked up by the police who didn’t arrest me but they did frighten me and warned me not to solicit at the train station ever again. So #1 is false and Dori and Greyhound both get the honor of the right guess for the wrong reason. I didn’t actually get arrested and I dare say that passing out leaflets for a Youth Hostel isn’t really more sexy than passing out political leaflets.

Since you were both equally right and wrong I will happily make you each a mix CD with whatever style of music floats your boats and makes your workouts more pleasurable, assuming you are part of the iPod generation. If you would rather listen to a book or some Fresh Air let me know because I can accommodate that request as well.

I finally went home in November of 1974 partly because I was out of money but mostly because 21st CenturySister had been in a rear end accident and was suffering a ruptured disk and she wanted me home. At first I resisted the idea of going come because I had started to fancy the idea of staying overseas, blowing off college and becoming an ex-pat (Nixon had just been booted out of office) but then I felt loved and needed and off I headed to airport. Having arrived at the train station a little late I ran on to a train going the opposite direction I needed to go, missed my flight and was delayed a day but I did get home. By the way – back in those days if you missed your plane they just put you on one the next day – no charge even for a cheap ticket.

By then I had applied and been accepted to a couple of colleges including my first choice which had given me deferred admissions to start in February of 1975. Off I went and because I was SO OLD (all of 20) I barreled through college in 3 and half years and got accepted to graduate school at UC Berkeley.

During my first year I met a man who really, really liked me. He was good looking and fun and I was lonely and stressed. We dated for 8 months which were characterized almost exclusively by going out to a local bar, getting pie eyed and shooting pool. I was a pretty decent shot in between the second and fourth Vodka and Tonics. The man was a full on drunk and there was a fair amount of abuse in that relationship but my Mom had been an alcoholic so it all seemed pretty normal to me. When he wasn’t drunk he was fun so eight months after meeting we started cohabiting and the following summer we got married.

By then the partying had taken a huge toll and in addition to that I wasn’t that enamored of the studies I was doing. A PhD program in science is somewhat like a marathon or an IM in that you really need to want it bad to finish and by that point I really didn’t care much about it. If I had had my wits about me I would have done what another guy in my lab did and switched to exercise physiology but alas, I was a total mess. My self esteem was in the gutter and I didn’t really know who I was. I quit graduate school. So #3 is sad but true.

Not to worry, though. That not so great marriage resulted in me having 3 very fine children who I adore so I believe that the trajectory my life took was perfect. The ex has been sober for almost 10 years now which is a very a good thing and my kids are perfect. Herky jerky as my life has been it seems to be working out just fine.

Thanks for playing!

First of all I will be telling my story soon. It pales in comparison to Greyhound’s but it’s all I’ve got. I figure if he is going to take days to get his story out I can wait a little while longer.

Here is a question that has been on my mind for a while. Not too many IM contenders read my blog but for those who do please riddle me this – why is there so little running in IM training? Compared to trianing distances for people who are ONLY doing a marathon, the IM training seems really light on the running. Is it because you need to spend more time swimming and biking to make that work at all? Is it because you just need to do enough to tough it out for the run when you are already totally used up? It seems like the longest run people training for an IM do is 90 minutes or maybe 15 miles – maybe. So what gives?

Thanks in Advance!

Thank You Stevie Nicks

When I look at my blog traffic and see how people got directed here I find quite a few entries that originate with a photo of Stevie Nicks I used for an old post about how only beautiful women can make it in the rock ‘n roll business. The link actually takes you to the full page for that post. I decided to Google Stevie Nicks and then look at the images page and see what came up. The 6th picture on that page shows a location of edition.cnn.com but if you click it you get linked to my blog. Weird but good because otherwise I’d have very little traffic, particularly after my little rant the other day about the military hiring dancing girls who can’t spell and then following up with the Big Bummer post about how sad I am to have my kids leaving the nest.

WHERE IS THE LOVE, PEOPLE!!?? Geez. If don’t have some comment love in my gmail box tomorrow morning I might go out for a run to jump in front of a train.

Two Truths and a Lie
TriGreyhound (who at least loves me for my intellect) is perpetuating a little game Trisaratops started with her class, in which you tell 3 things about yourself. 2 are true and one is a lie. Your job, people, is to guess which one is the lie. You then play this game on your blog.

Here are my fun facts (one of which isn’t quite true):
1). When I was in Amsterdam in 1974 I got arrested for distributing political leaflets.
2). When I got out of high school I worked in a plastic bag factory on the midnight shift.
3). I was working on getting a PhD in physiology but got sidetracked when I hooked up with my now ex-husband and turned into a party girl, instead.

Please post your guesses in a comment. I’d like to promise some schwag like Trigreyhound but I’m not sure I actually have any. I could, however, make you a mix CD.

Car Update
The clear favorite in the blogosphere is the Subaru wagon with the bike rack. I think it’s the bike rack that did it but a lot of people really like those cars so maybe not. Here’s the thing, though. I like my old car. It gets more than 20 but less than 30 mpg depending on the kind of driving I’m doing so that’s not great but it often sits in the driveway all day as I sit in my jammies working. In other words, I don’t really drive it very far. Second of all it has real bumpers – the kind that actually do some good in a slow crash. I’ve been rear ended about 4 times and whereas the other car sometimes folds in half, my car suffers not a bit. Third of all it has a turning radius like no other.

I think I’m just going to hang on to it until it totally falls apart which might not be for a few ears. It’s an ugly old Mom-mobile but I can fit my bike in the back and that’s good enough for me.

The Cell Phone Industry is Evil.

My son’s phone just died. We got these phones as AT&T customers. Cingular bought AT&T and they are telling us that we can’t replace the phone without changing our plan. They don’t ‘have that plan’ any more and they don’t sell those phones. Clearly the phones we have work with the infrastructure they have and we all know that you can buy an ‘unlocked’ phone that will work SO WHY DO THEY MAKE US JUMP THROUGH THESE HOOPS! Of course the answer is that they want to sell you a phone and put you on a contract. Very, very irritating. I have no interest in upgrading or changing the 3 other phones on the plan and I don’t like being strong armed so it’s off to eBay to find a phone. So HA! Take that Cingular!

Thank You Stevie Nicks

When I look at my blog traffic and see how people got directed here I find quite a few entries that originate with a photo of Stevie Nicks I used for an old post about how only beautiful women can make it in the rock ‘n roll business. The link actually takes you to the full page for that post. I decided to Google Stevie Nicks and then look at the images page and see what came up. The 6th picture on that page shows a location of edition.cnn.com but if you click it you get linked to my blog. Weird but good because otherwise I’d have very little traffic, particularly after my little rant the other day about the military hiring dancing girls who can’t spell and then following up with the Big Bummer post about how sad I am to have my kids leaving the nest.

WHERE IS THE LOVE, PEOPLE!!?? Geez. If don’t have some comment love in my gmail box tomorrow morning I might go out for a run to jump in front of a train.

Two Truths and a Lie
TriGreyhound (who at least loves me for my intellect) is perpetuating a little game Trisaratops started with her class, in which you tell 3 things about yourself. 2 are true and one is a lie. Your job, people, is to guess which one is the lie. You then play this game on your blog.

Here are my fun facts (one of which isn’t quite true):
1). When I was in Amsterdam in 1974 I got arrested for distributing political leaflets.
2). When I got out of high school I worked in a plastic bag factory on the midnight shift.
3). I was working on getting a PhD in physiology but got sidetracked when I hooked up with my now ex-husband and turned into a party girl, instead.

Please post your guesses in a comment. I’d like to promise some schwag like Trigreyhound but I’m not sure I actually have any. I could, however, make you a mix CD.

Car Update
The clear favorite in the blogosphere is the Subaru wagon with the bike rack. I think it’s the bike rack that did it but a lot of people really like those cars so maybe not. Here’s the thing, though. I like my old car. It gets more than 20 but less than 30 mpg depending on the kind of driving I’m doing so that’s not great but it often sits in the driveway all day as I sit in my jammies working. In other words, I don’t really drive it very far. Second of all it has real bumpers – the kind that actually do some good in a slow crash. I’ve been rear ended about 4 times and whereas the other car sometimes folds in half, my car suffers not a bit. Third of all it has a turning radius like no other.

I think I’m just going to hang on to it until it totally falls apart which might not be for a few ears. It’s an ugly old Mom-mobile but I can fit my bike in the back and that’s good enough for me.

The Cell Phone Industry is Evil.

My son’s phone just died. We got these phones as AT&T customers. Cingular bought AT&T and they are telling us that we can’t replace the phone without changing our plan. They don’t ‘have that plan’ any more and they don’t sell those phones. Clearly the phones we have work with the infrastructure they have and we all know that you can buy an ‘unlocked’ phone that will work SO WHY DO THEY MAKE US JUMP THROUGH THESE HOOPS! Of course the answer is that they want to sell you a phone and put you on a contract. Very, very irritating. I have no interest in upgrading or changing the 3 other phones on the plan and I don’t like being strong armed so it’s off to eBay to find a phone. So HA! Take that Cingular!

I started to write a post the other day I was going to title ‘Glued To My Bed’ because I was. I was waking up every morning to an early alarm and a routine that involved hitting ‘snooze’ repeatedly and finally just lying there – inert and unwilling to swing my legs over the edge of the bed and get going. The bed monster didn’t win every day but in the first 4 weeks following my marathon I ran once a week (3 miles) and made it to the pool once a week. Not exactly kicking ass in the training department. Fortunately I had a 65 mile bike ride to prepare for so I did get out at the crack of dawn on Sundays to train for that.

Then the ride was over and I was on my own and there I was – glued to the bed. What was wrong with me??!! It all came to a head on Friday when I was just overcome with a pain in my heart that held my whole body down like Gulliver tethered by the Liliputians.

Saturday some friends and I did what we called the Soup Chicken Triathlon. We called it that because we are too old to be Spring Chickens so we must be soup chickens. Of course compared to Mary Streobe, the 88 year old triathlete we are Spring chickens but that’s another story.

We rode our bikes for about 10 miles, stopped for coffee, rode back, swam and then the other ladies walked half an hour, stopped for bagels and walked back. One of the women claims it was a Pentathlon – bike, coffee, swim, walk, bagel. I had to leave early to take my CASA kid to a picnic so mine was really just a triathlon, of sorts. In any case it was fun and I enjoyed the company and I felt a lot better for having done it.

It didn’t exactly scratch my itch for a good workout, though, since we took the ride at about 10 mph and I really felt like I needed to go out and handle some hills on my bike to make up for my failure to ascend Ink Grade the weekend before. My other biking friends were not around and I was on my own and found myself playing dodgeball with my drive. I really wanted to go out and ride but I was afraid to. It wasn’t that I was afraid of getting a flat or falling down and being all by myself (although I did manage to do that), I just wasn’t sure I could find the inner drive to put on the biking gear and get in the saddle. I had nothing pushing me out the door but me so I had to stare myself down and say, “Go! Get out there”! It worked.

Once I got on the bike I remembered that I have a real triathlon to train for that is coming up in 3 weeks. I rode a hard 19 miles and I thought about going for a run when I got home but it was Sunday and I decided to be at least a little bit lazy. Today I went to masters workout at 5:30 AM and then I ran 4 miles.

I feel better. I feel less hollow and more buoyant and a lot less like poor Gulliver. I’m pretty sure that the problem I’m having is that my nest is getting very empty and I’m not really ready for that. Raising my kids has been my only real focus for the last 14 years. That’s how long I’ve been single. I’ve had to work but work has always just been a means to an end – paying the bills. I don’t really care about my work at an emotional level. Up until about 5 years ago I had lots of boyfriends but frankly I didn’t really care that much about them, either, except for the one stupid @#!@ who broke my heart and even he only got a little sliver of me. I’ve been a Mom (that’s Mom with a bolded, capital “M”) for a long time and I still am a Mom but the babies are grown up and mostly out the door and now I’ve got to fill that spot with something else.

Enter Triathlon! Bring it on, baby – fill me up.

When I was 19 I went to Europe to go backpacking and just travel around. My original intent was to hang out in France and put those 4 years of high school French to some use but when I quickly learned that Parisians have no use for Americans with lousy French accents and that they would rather just speak English my plans changed. I had met a guy from Germany on the plane on the way over and I went to hang out with him on his houseboat on the Lahn River. While I was there an American girl he’d made friends with at some other time showed up and we hitchhiked to Amsterdam to hang out there. While I was there, staying at a youth hostel, I met people who had gone to England and gotten work papers and jobs. By then I was low on funds so off I went, across the Channel in search of money and yet another experience.

And thus it was I ended up living in a seedy Bed and Breakfast in Bayswater working as a chamber maid. All of the other live-in employees were from Egypt and I worked all day with a guy whose name I forget but let’s just call him Ibriham. Ibriham kept grabbing at me every chance he got and I kept slapping him away and telling him to stop it and then I finally just looked him in the eye and asked him if Egyptian men were always so rude with women. He looked a little stunned and told me he would never do that with an Egyptian woman so I asked him how he felt at liberty to do that with me and explained that he understood that it was okay to do that with American women – that they liked it. I told him he was wrong and then pressed him to understand where he got that idea. From the movies, of course. In particular he had seen a film called ‘The Secret Life of An American Wife” (this was a Walter Mathou film, no less) and he understood American women to be promiscuous and ever willing. I got him straightened out and we had no more issues but I never forgot that when one culture gets a view that constitutes only a very thin slice of another culture problems can ensue.

The New York Times reported today that there is a dance troupe of sexy women called “The Purrfect Angelz” traveling to Marine Bases around Iraq. They dance a little in fairly provocative clothing and then hold photo sessions, letting the boys pose with them. Seems innocent enough and why not do something nice for the boys serving our country? You won’t get an argument out of me that these men deserve some entertainment and some relief from the rigors of war but I do take issue with this particular format.

First of all, given that we recently had to arrest 5 soldiers for the forcible rape and subsequent murder of a 14 year old Iraqui girl it seems a little inappropriate to use women and the explicit implication of sex with women as a form of entertainment and a sort of ‘spoils of war’ reward. I know the primary perpetrator was a sociopath but he managed to get 4 other guys to help him out. I also know that men like women and that being around beautiful sexy women who give a come on routine probably provides a lot of relief for these guys but at it’s fundament, to associate one’s just rewards for being in combat with hot women strikes me as very inappropriate.

Second of all we have this quote A small group of Iraqi Army officers who are being trained by the marines were so enthusiastic they all but rushed the stage and filled their digital cameras with this sampling of American culture. Of course I immediately flashed back to my days in London defending myself from my Egyptian co-worker when I read this. As a woman I’m not happy with idea that men oogling women constitutes “American culture” and I know just how easily that association is made . Just because it is what all men do and what no man is allowed to do openly in a fundamentalist Islamic country, doesn’t mean I want that behavior stamped “American Culture”. Freedom, including the freedom to have sex between 2 consenting adults is one of the better parts of American Culture but using women as a reward system is not. Appreciating beautiful women is fine but it’s not like they brought in a bunch of attractive female poker players and blackjack dealers and let everyone enjoy a co-ed casino night.

When will the military wake up to the issues inherent in using sexy women as a reward? How many female cadets and recruits have to be sexually harassed before that message gets through? For how long are women going to be blamed for male behavior*? It is up to strong, self assured, stand up people like you to speak out against these behaviors and quit justifying it as ‘boys will be boys’. The unfortunate reality is that some boys will be everything from obnoxious to dangerous under the guise of this behavior being treated as normal and justified.

Again, I am specifically responding to the American Military providing sexy women to soldiers as a form of entertainment and reward. It isn’t appropriate and it needs to stop.

—

* the argument is often made that these women were drinking with the guys and ‘just asking for it’. Let me assure you that wanting to have fun and wanting some guy to force himself on you are not the same thing.

I went, I rode, I …not exactly conquered – but I got there. Not without some early in the ride almost disasters but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

We got to the start, checked in, got armbands and hit the road by 6:15. Tried to, anyhow. About 100 yards into the ride I was still trying to get my left shoe in the clip and finally had to yell for everyone to stop so I could look at my shoe. Surprise, surprise -that shoe that lost a screw last weekend was once again minus a screw and the cleat was crooked. Terrific – we haven’t even gotten going and I’m having a wardrobe malfunction. I straightened out the clip, tightened the remaining screw as much as I could and started off again, hoping for the best.

It was still sort of dark and we weren’t entirely sure of which way to go but we managed to navigate a few corners and finally came on a guy who was just putting out the signs. We beat the sign guy but we were not alone. We met up with these 3 guys who rode along with us for a while. I thought I recognized one but we were moving along and I wasn’t sure so I didn’t say anything. At one point my friends decided to pass these guys which turned out to be really great because just as I passed them they started calling out – ‘Hold Up! Stop! You have a tire hanging off the back of your bike”. I had a spare tube tucked into some straps on my little seat bag and it had come undone and was just flapping around waiting to insert itself between a couple of spokes. I did my best not to think about how that would have stopped the bike short tossing me ass over tea kettle over my handlebars, choosing instead to just wrap it up, stick it in my pocket and ride on.

The first rest stop was a mere 12 miles into the ride. I was still keeping up with my friends so we all ended up at the rest stop with these 3 guys we had been riding with. I finally got a good look at the one I thought I knew and surprise, surprise, he is a guy I used to work with so I said, “hey – Steve” and he gave me a look that was blank as a freshly wiped white board. Very complimentary. I reminded him of who I am and then ducked into the port-a-potty which seemed like the only reasonable thing to do under the circumstances. I didn’t really need to pee.

On we went…. up the first incline. It really wasn’t bad at all. It was mostly up with a little down here and there and although it went on for quite some time it was never all that hard and I was able to the keep the front gear on the middle wheel (so what’s that called, anyhow?). I tried to practice the good stroke technique Bold passed on and I think it really helped.

The scenery was fabulous. I really wanted to stop a zillion times to take photos since I did have my camera with me. My friends had left me in the dust, though so I just kept pushing on past Lake Hennesy, gorgeous wineries and other historical monuments like the Hubcap Ranch

I didn’t know you could ranch hubcaps, either.

We hit the 2nd rest stop at about 8:30 or 9:00 and I looked around for my friends who I hadn’t seen in ages. I thought maybe they had already come and gone but then I saw Steve and he said they were down the road changing a flat. I had ridden right past them! I went ahead and got some food and they showed up and we ate and then hit the road again, headed for something called Ink Grade.

Now you know that when something is called ‘Anything Grade’ you are in for a climb. This climb was steeper and longer and harder than anything I’d ever handled before. When my speed dropped to 4 mph I got very afraid of falling over so I clipped out and stopped. Then I did a little walking and pushing the bike but that didn’t last long. It isn’t really any easier and it would have taken forever so I decided to ride out of the clips. My left shoe just kept sliding right in but I kept my right out and it made me feel better. I ended up getting off the bike to let my heart rate come down a couple times but I hung in there and rode to the top. I really wanted to take a picture at the summit where you can look down and see the whole Napa Valley laid out before you and I kept looking and looking for that view and it kept not coming up which should have told me I wasn’t to the top yet. Sure enough, there was one more section of up left and my legs were trashed and I just didn’t’ have ‘up’ left in me anymore but I hung in there. When the view finally showed up I was heading downhill and veeeery happy about it so no stopping to take pictures.

The rest of the ride was mostly down which I really enjoyed. Toward the end things got really crowded with the 65 and 100 miles riders joining the 35 mile riders who didn’t seem to get the rules of the road. This was especially annoying since we were now traveling a road with a 55 mph speed limit and a lot of traffic. Nothing like 2 gabbers riding side by side in the bike lane at about 10 mph. Very annoying but we worked it out and brought it home. There was a great BBQ at the end so we sat and ate and talked and then headed home.

I was really glad that I didn’t bail on this ride because I was afraid to go. How crazy is that? I learned an important lesson on this trip. I NEED MORE WATTS! I got no watts, baby. I am really slow and I run out of juice early on. My thighs were just completely trashed due in part I’m sure from running on Saturday at a 9:45 pace. I only went 2.5 miles but they were fast and that was a bad idea. The climbing did me in, too. I need more work on the bike so I’m glad I live in an area where more work on the bike = more beautiful rides. Yay!

I have spent way too many hours looking up this ride and freaking myself out. The last straw was getting elevation maps from my ride last Sunday to compare to tomorrow’s ride. Here’s what I found:

The bottom one is last Sunday, the top is tomorrow. The horizontal axis covers the same number of miles. The difference between them is that bottom one goes from 200 Ft to 900 ft whereas tomorrow’s ride goes from 0 to 1300 ft. Total elevation gain is the same. However, the grade is much, much steeper. But I can do this. I can do this.

The ride with the wild turkeys had a 2+ mile climb at 4%. I don’t think this one is any worse although it may be longer.

Can you spell O-B-S-E-S-S-I-N-G??

I can do this, right?? Just.keep.pedaling.

I’m nervous but excited.

Due to the wonders of modern technology – specifically the technology brought to you by Garmin (the Forerunner + MotionBased.com) I have been able to get a sneak preview of my Sunday 100K. I wanted to see how bad the hills are. The answer goes something like ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’. At least the start is close to sea level which is very important for an SLP like myself. Total climb is about 3,000 ft.

The Whole Ride (or pretty close to it)

A Hilly Bit

Coming up the Back Side of the Hilly Bit (which is where the big hill is)

A Pretty Part

All in all it should be a lovely ride and I’d like to give a shout out to our Triathlete Strategist and mentor, Bold, for giving me some good strokes for this. More later.