Live and Learn

Sometimes I decide I should do crazy things.

Last summer I decided I'd like to try racing crits. Everyone I spoke with told me I should try road racing first so I could get the hang of riding in a peleton. After about the fifth person told me this, I bought into the idea, and figured it couldn't hurt.

The problem is, the more I improve, the more I'm aware of my weaknesses, and how those points of weakness will fail me in racing. There's probably a technical name for this as an actual cognitive bias, but for my intensive purposes, I'll call it the Impostor Champion Bias.

In the past, I was overly sure of my abilities. Paul would go out with the faster folks on a Saturday, and I'd say, "Oh, hey, I think I can keep up with them." Because I had seen my speed hit 20 mph. On a false flat downhill. With the wind at my back.

Looking back, I cringe at my previous indiscretion in appraisal of my ability on the bike. Anymore, I feel like I am fairly aware of my strengths, and how they play into certain situations on the road, and where I struggle, and what that means to me as a rider. I work hard (kind of...) to improve where I need to. I try to ride up more hills, and to be mentally present when I'm on the bike.

I'm still growing and learning. I know that. I also know when I'm not ready for something, but should probably try it anyway.

Over the past few months, some folks close to me have encouraged me to try a road race.

Over the past few months, I've come up with a million reasons not to.

These include, but are no limited to:
*What if I get dropped?? Shame of the city!!!
*What if I wreck??
*What if I suck it up big time??

Only one of those actually happened when I tried racing last weekend. I got dropped by the group, but I wasn't the lone girl off, and that helped me feel a little less like a bum. I rode hard the rest of the way, and was actually pretty pleased with my performance, given that I'm still in base training mode. (I started late, in January, prepping for later summer races I thought I might try.)

When I got dropped it was as much my cluelessness about riding in a race group as it was the fault of my training that left me in the dust. I learned a lot that day. Get into position as you take off. Do not get stuck at the back, because the slinky effect I experience in a group ride pace line is magnified in a race group. Also, a slight surge up a hill is going to happen when you least expect it. Be ready, and pay attention.

What else did I learn? They're all really cool, really talented girls. They didn't eat me alive, and when I fell off, it's just what happened. It was neither good nor bad. I have a baseline now, and I know the points I need to work on the most (hills, just like always), and where I'm strong, and I have a little experience in hand to work from when I try to race again later on.

I'm not some wunderkint girl cyclist who goes out and kicks ass and takes names in her first race. That's okay. It was fun anyway, and I'll do it again.

A Change of Focus

What if you spent your entire life focused on merely one half of something.

A glass half full or empty. A half eaten Clif bar in your jersey pocket. Dirty dishes, but never the netity that follows. Noise or silence, obsessively. Happiness or sadness, only one worth experiencing.

There has to be dichotomy in our lives.

What's more, we have to look at the other side of the coin, the yin to the yang.

I've spent my life perpetually focusing on the inhale of my breath, and never noticing the importance of the exhale.

I think that's what the yogi and meditation instructor was working to teach us at Bonnaroo last year with his fire stoker breathing method, in which you create billows with your lungs by reaching your arms into the air.

All this time I've spent, my thirty-two years and some odd days, worried more about dragging in oxygen, than clearing out carbon dioxide. Rather than creating space for life-giving oxygen, I've been refusing to let go of the harmful chemicals.

I need to let go, to breathe out, to cleanse. To let go, to make space for the new. In breathing, in life. I need to expel to make space for life.

Growth and Fake Baobab Trees

I saw something strange on my bike ride on Sunday. And cognitive biases being what are, I'm seeing them all the time now. Strange, intentionally (maybe?) deformed Bradford Pears (who plants these allergen inducing suckers anymore???). Their long limbs have been chopped, leaving them with an over cropped appearance, like that guy I had a crush on once who always had a bad haircut. Unlike the fellow, though, they appear to be masquerading as my favorite tree, Adansonia, more commonly known as the Baobab.

Unfortunately, the resemblance is not very strong. Between the guy and the Baobabs and the local hyper-cropped pears and the Baobabs. The Baobabs also remind me of the prickly pears of the Galapogos... completely deformed from the typical form.

This is all to say, sometimes things grow funny. Environmental factors (prey, like on the Galapogos, or humans wielding sharp, pointy things), can change an organism. Whether it's purely a visual change, like the chopping of the limbs on ornamental trees used for landscaping, or the genetic change to create a new species of tree that is unlike its relatives, change has happened. Change is part of growth. Maybe the inverse is true, too.

On a ride a few weeks ago, I was talking to a ride companion whom I've never met before. We were riding along, talking about my mountain bike experience, and how I felt my handling improved because of it. She made a comment about how we all should keep growing.

I've recently come into contact with people whom I've known at different times in my life. I sometimes wonder if they could have guessed I would be who I am now. I couldn't. Ever. Ten years ago, I would have laughed in your face if you had told me I'd love anything and everything to do with a bicycle, or that I'd be increasingly passionate about math and science, or that I'd become such a flaming liberal. Five years ago, I would never have imagined I would actually want to stay home after the Hobbes-it goes to school, that I'd be through with triathlons entirely, or that I'd be willing to walk away from what I thought was my dream job. I've been trimmed like a bonsai, and maybe the encoding that made me who I was changed, too.

I'm cool with that. I like who I've become (more Lent reference here for you...), this little piece of life which I've carved away and made all my own. It's a life I share with those around me, proudly. To those who pruned me gently, and those who wore away at me hard, thank you. I continue to grow today, in strange and different ways, because of you.

Outside the Cocoon

I referred to my period of Lenten sacrifice as a cocoon. But that cocoon didn't produce a butterfly.

I'm not sure it even produced a more reverent me. A better me.

I am good as I am. Not perfect, but that's okay. I'm a good mom, who likes to bake, loves to be on a bike, to help others. I enjoy the time I spend with my family and friends. I love beer, wine, and merriment, and I have a lack of willpower when it comes to food. I'm sweet to almost everyone, to a fault. I curse too much, but I'm fine with that. I'm real, I'm legit.

What Lent produced in me is mindfulness and introspection. Those things I seek so much.

I learned I was missing out on moments with my child because my time suck of a phone was stealing preciousness. It's a lesson I can't stop learning.

I failed to flex my willpower with sugar this time. I had good weeks and bad ones, good days and bad days. That's life. I just know I can't sit around and blame the food because it was sitting there. I picked it up and ate it. It's my own fault. If I don't get to a decent race weight, it's my problem for making poor choices.

And you know, I didn't do yoga every day, or meditate every day. I got sick, had an ankle injury, and got sick again. I focused efforts on yoga when I was able, and when I wasn't I didn't self-flaggelate. Things were simply as they were... I let go of control, and pretended to be a little more like water.

Finally... my fowl mouth. I failed, on some level, if you quantify success by a perfect record. If success is quantified simply by a change in mindset and approach to self-expression, a willingness to work to improve appropriateness, while still preserving Who The Hell You Are, I'd say I won on this account. I cleaned up my language to a moderate degree. Sometimes the only good verbage is the spicier variety of verbal seasoning, but I suppose I should work to improve and be publicly presentable. I mean, if you piss me off, I can't guarantee things aren't going to be really (really, really effing) inappropriate.

What do you want? A complete turnaround? That would imply that I don't like who I am.

To quote The Madre Monster, "I'm on the right track baby, I was born this way..."