Go Home 2016, You're Drunk.

Look, I know tomorrow is just the same as today, in the big scheme of things. A year can't be given a depressing level of ignominy unless we imbue it ourselves. We're just little people, spinning around on a pale blue dot, floating in a mass of dust, in the middle of a grand expanse of nothing and everything. We, we are nothing and everything. We, and our world around us, are what we make of it.

But 2016 has been a bitch at times.

From persistent, hard-to-explain ickiness in my body, to months off the bike (goodbye, years of work...), to an election cycle that managed to pique my bullying-induced PTSD (I'm owning this and calling it what it is.), things have been tough. Especially following last year's Midas Year that was a bit like a year long version of Robert Earl Keen's "Feelin' Good Again", any year might feel like the dumps. Also, my clothes don't fit.

My experience hasn't been singular, however. So many I know have expressed the same sentiment:

2016, you've been bad. Do not pass go, do not collect $100, go straight to jail, bad.

But in the midst of the no-good, the rotten, the despicable, there has also been so much sweetness, so much good. New, wonderful friends, without whom I don't think I could see myself making it through this year with a smile on my face like I have.

A new resolve to do the right thing and live altruistically and empathetically in a world that seems mired in apathy. The birth of new ideas, born of time off the bike, in which I had freedom of thought in a whole new way. New, fantastic ideas, full of beauty and just waiting to be executed when my hands, mind, and heart become skilled. Free time spent under canopies of trees, with dirt and dust underfoot, experiencing the world not on two wheels, but on two feet.

Time dedicated to yoga, to stretching my mind and body, learning to truly relax, in a deep, fulfilling way. I've decrypted some of my mystery symptoms, and found solutions. I learned to creatively problem solve, often on the fly, with little notice. Improvisation has become one of my greatest tools. I've learned to be silent and cultivate peace within, even when the world around is going batshit crazy. I've learned to judge less and listen more. I've read, and read some more.

This isn't a new year, new me program. The evolution of our personage happens organically, sporadically. Often, that growth happens in unexpected, unplanned ways. I wish my clothes fit, but I can buy new ones. I wish I hadn't lost a year of fitness on the bike, but I'm fit in other ways. I wish events had transpired differently, but I can't control the world around me. It's a carpe the diem every damn day until you're kicking up daisies kind of program.

This year has been uncomfortable. So fucking uncomfortable. But that's when beautiful new things happen within us, when we learn to protect our joy from change, to explore, explore, and explore some more, to find the new us, just as beautiful as the iteration before, but different, built for battle, built for peace, built for whatever the sea sends. This year spent at harbor has been hard, to me, but it simply is. And I simply am. I am dust on the dot in the sky full of stars.

Happy New Year, and cheers to a better, badassier 2017. I know we all need it.

The Trouble With Being Awake

"I can't keep pretending that I'm still asleep..." Local Natives

I've always been an empath. But I wasn't always awake. This awareness feels like a heavy mantle when I look at the world around me, especially on days like today. I usually keep things apolitical on here, staying to bikes and training, sometimes books and music, family and friends. Today though, I am gutted. I can't let this moment pass me by without a frank and honest statement.

If I am to make any difference in the world around me, I have to let the news of the day flow over me, not through me. Fear has no place in my heart if I intend to send love out into the world as my response. I have friends who are rightfully afraid. My heart aches for them. My strength goes out to them. We are not strong if we do not share that strength. Hatred is no better founded in my actions than those of the other side. I can't hide.

This is the moment for us to be gentle-hearted activists, to care for others who live on the fringe. To give love to those who are scared. Protect those under threat.

The time has come to live our lives awake, to avoid numbness brought on by too much time worshiping our screens, excessive moments out of contact with the world around us. If we devote our energy to goodness, hopefully those vibrations will reverberate and exact real change in our communities, states, country, and world. Meet the brutal force with a torrent of empathy, beauty, kindness, love.

Go do something nice today. Take care of someone who is afraid. Drive less and walk or bike more. Let your fear drive you to seek the best things, and use your privilege for the betterment of your sphere. We can only do these things and hope our raging river of kindness manages to awaken others. Be a real gangster of love.

Overtraining Syndrome Update: Improvements, Lessons Learned

Three months off long rides. Three months of no intervals. Three months of missing out on something that has become a big part of my personal identity. Three months of embarrassment at having let myself dig a hole so deep I couldn't seem to climb out. I know I have so much further to go on this walk-about.

I've learned a lot about myself though. I've learned that I won't give up on myself. That when I really care about the outcome of something, my work ethic is so good I will literally drive myself to madness. To the edge of sanity. I will give more than the expected 100%. If I can channel that sort of dedication into whatever I decide to do with my life someday, I think I can do big things.

I've learned to respect my body in a new way. My life on the bike taught me to respect my body as a well-oiled machine. Sometimes I forgot to perform maintenance like oil changes and tire rotations. Because when you're a person living separate from your body and what it can do, sometimes you don't invest in it like you should. So I'm up on the blocks now, getting overhauled. Expensive, time-consuming... But in my time off, I've spent time in introspection. I've given time to walks in the woods, to my yoga mat, to my family. I see a more well-rounded girl. I have a few extra pounds on me now, but I work hard to be gentle with myself and not berate my body. My body hasn't betrayed me. I betrayed my body, with too much work burden, and not enough time to relax and let it do the real work of repair, with not enough fuel to do so.

My respect for my body as a machine has evolved into respect for the body-soul complex. I'm more than a few pieces of bone strung together by muscle and sinew. I have a brain in my brain box, and I need to use it, and allow it to inform the things I do. In a way, I feel this taking me back to a paper I wrote in Intellectual History of Early Modern Europe, which dealt with the complexities of ideas of monster versus man, and the issue of AI, and questions of how one can tell the difference between man and machine. So what am I? Today, I say woman. I have come to accept my softness. But hopefully someday I can become the monster... An odd melding of (wo)man and machine. The perfect synthesis of humanity and mechanized parts. A monster can listen to its feedback; the machine can't do a thing but what it is told, until it breaks down. The monster can learn. The monster is more than a machine to be driven. It is driven.

But hey, I'm still a cyclist, still obsessed with numbers, data, and improvement. So where do I stand? My blood work improves, albeit slowly. Ferritin, hemoglobin, and white blood cells are slowly inching themselves into fair territory. While not at optimal levels, as long as I continue to make deposits into the Bank of Blood Health and TLC, I should be better in a few months. My hormones have a long way to go to be back to normal, and that'll be an ongoing effort on my part to eat well and relax. My Vitamin D numbers still aren't what they should be, but that will come around too.

So, at what I think it probably the half way point in my journey back to serious training, all I can say is, don't be the machine. Be the monster. Listen to the feedback and learn. Be smart, and be gentle when you need to be.

Overtraining Syndrome Update: Improvements, Lessons Learned

Three months off long rides. Three months of no intervals. Three months of missing out on something that has become a big part of my personal identity. Three months of embarrassment at having let myself dig a hole so deep I couldn't seem to climb out. I know I have so much further to go on this walk-about.

I've learned a lot about myself though. I've learned that I won't give up on myself. That when I really care about the outcome of something, my work ethic is so good I will literally drive myself to madness. To the edge of sanity. I will give more than the expected 100%. If I can channel that sort of dedication into whatever I decide to do with my life someday, I think I can do big things.

I've learned to respect my body in a new way. My life on the bike taught me to respect my body as a well-oiled machine. Sometimes I forgot to perform maintenance like oil changes and tire rotations. Because when you're a person living separate from your body and what it can do, sometimes you don't invest in it like you should. So I'm up on the blocks now, getting overhauled. Expensive, time-consuming... But in my time off, I've spent time in introspection. I've given time to walks in the woods, to my yoga mat, to my family. I see a more well-rounded girl. I have a few extra pounds on me now, but I work hard to be gentle with myself and not berate my body. My body hasn't betrayed me. I betrayed my body, with too much work burden, and not enough time to relax and let it do the real work of repair, with not enough fuel to do so.

My respect for my body as a machine has evolved into respect for the body-soul complex. I'm more than a few pieces of bone strung together by muscle and sinew. I have a brain in my brain box, and I need to use it, and allow it to inform the things I do. In a way, I feel this taking me back to a paper I wrote in Intellectual History of Early Modern Europe, which dealt with the complexities of ideas of monster versus man, and the issue of AI, and questions of how one can tell the difference between man and machine. So what am I? Today, I say woman. I have come to accept my softness. But hopefully someday I can become the monster... An odd melding of (wo)man and machine. The perfect synthesis of humanity and machine. A monster can listen to its feedback; the machine can't do a thing but what it is told, until it breaks down. The monster can learn.

But hey, I'm still a cyclist, still obsessed with numbers, data, and improvement. So where do I stand? My blood work improves, albeit slowly. Ferritin, hemoglobin, and white blood cells are slowly inching themselves into fair territory. While not at optimal levels, as long as I continue to make deposits into the Bank of Blood Health and TLC, I should be better in a few months. My hormones have a long way to go to be back to normal, and that'll be an ongoing effort on my part to eat well and relax. My Vitamin D numbers still aren't what they should be, but that will come around too.

So, at what I think it probably the half way point in my journey back to serious training, all I can say is, don't be the machine. Be the monster. Listen to the feedback and learn. Be smart, and be gentle when you need to be.

A Few Words on Feminism and The Femme Who I Am

I love all my girlfriends, girl acquaintances, girls I follow in Instagram and barely know, girls I don't know at all. I love them, work to encourage them, and want them to live fulfilled lives in their respective paths. I get this from my rowdy, "Mama Tried" badass kind of mother, an inherited mindset that we women should stand behind each other and be shared encouragers and enablers in the best of ways, because really, women need to be on each others sides. My mother is also a little old fashioned, southern, and well-raised, and would never complain about the patriarchy... Unlike yours truly.

This morning I found myself scrolling through Facebook (morning ritual, anyone? Chai and Facebook...) when I happened upon an opinion piece in Haaretz about French municipalities and their decision to ban burkinis from their local beaches. For the sake of brevity and avoiding arguments, I'll ignore the socio-political implications of this legislative action.

"Anyone who defends the rights of women to bare their shoulders, legs, and hair must also defend the right of women to cover them up. It isn't up to powerful men to dictate what women will put on their bodies." Allison Kaplan Sommer

I used to think feminism was bad; it tends to be given a bad name, especially in the conservative circles in which I used to run. The stereotype is wrong. Then I became a liberal, no makeup wearing, solve the problems of the world kind of girl, who thought her way of living might be the best. No one should feel like they have to get up in the morning and spend hours getting ready. If you do, I secretly judged you. Smugness clouded my vision.

In true late-blooming, perpetual-growth style in which I seem to function best, however, I've recently come to the conclusion that I've fallen prey to a particular level of bias that isn't good for my fellow women. As a liberated woman, it isn't my job to tell other women how to live their lives. I'm no better than a tool of the patriarchy then.

"I don't need to be kind to the armies of night that would do such injustice to you,
Or bow down and be grateful and say 'Sure, take all that you see,'
To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls and determine my future for me..." Fleet Foxes, "Helplessness Blues"

No. As a woman, it is my responsibility to respect how other girls choose to live their lives. Real feminism is more yogic and kind than I initially perceived, telling each other "Namaste" with intention. Namaste Feminism (I'm coining this... Maybe it is already a thing.) says, "You live your life differently from me, but that makes you beautiful and wonderful." As the years of my life go by, I realize we have to find common ground, and see what is amazing and beautiful in others. We have to see the beauty in how others choose to live their lives, or we run the risk of miring our hearts and minds in intolerance, which is toxic. Toxic to our innermost selves, to our relationships, to the world around us. The only things I won't tolerate are hate, violence, and ignorance. I won't tolerate the intolerance to which these things give birth.

As women, we have the ability to be game changers, problem solvers, people who can change the world. But we have to learn to work together, to communicate, to compromise, to care. We have to enable that in each other.

So... My friends. I lovingly respect your right to wear lipstick every day, straighten your hair, and go all out. I also respect your right to roll out of bed, throw on yoga pants and watch Stranger Things all day without showering. (Ehem...) I respect your right to work at an office, at a barn, in a field, at home in the kitchen, in a pulpit, anywhere that gets your heart churning and makes your mind vibrate with joy. I trust you when you decide to cover up or bare all. I respect your right to raise your kids any way you please, so long as you're raising kind little people who care for others. (even when the circumstances are uncomfortable. especially then.) People who live gently and with love. I respect your right to think and believe what you want (as long as your actions don't infringe on the rights of others). I respect the way you choose to show the love inside you, across the spectrum of relationships. I respect you, I affirm you, I send love your way. I love you, not in spite of who you are, but because of who you are. Namaste.

Into the Woods

As tends to be the case with me, I've spent the past few months failing to see the forest for the trees. As also tends to be the case with me, I took things one (or twenty?) steps too far. I dive into most endeavors with an attitude of reckless abandon, be it baking banana bread (I make a mean loaf...) or bike riding.

Sometimes that attitude works well. "Let's throw every modicum of free time at this one, singular pursuit!" I tell myself. What well-rounded person was ever particularly successful? Why would I take time to enjoy other things I like to do?

And then I read someplace that sometimes less is more? Preposterous.

I seemed to have missed the memo telling me to chill out. And so I didn't. I kept hammering away. But what I was building with my hammer was falling apart faster than I could nail it together. I've always been terrible at proper hammering. Ask anyone for whom I worked as a farm hand. Do not let this girl have the hammer. Seriously, though, I was beating myself up. Mentally. Physically.

"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life." - John Muir

After what felt like my millionth sleepless night this year -- not sleepless, however awake at an hour no person should see -- I decided to take some time off. To rest.

Rest is hate speech for me. I was working with a friend to help build workouts at the beginning of the year, and he reminded me of the advice I always ignore: If your legs or head don't feel right, don't do the workout. I started out training with dead legs, as the result of some suboptimal winter riding choices, which resulted in a surprisingly low score on my first test. I can just train that out of myself. Right? It's a perfect recipe: continue to train my clearly exhausted body, add in a large splash of parenting stress and sleeplessness. And try to lose weight while eating this soup.

These woods in which I've found myself in these past couple of months seems hard to navigate at times. My compass spins and whirs. I am as inept at orienteering as I am at hammering. Metaphorically and in real life.

But what I've found is that there's life outside of my bike. (What? I promise I'm right. Right? RIGHT?!? Ahhhh!) I can change the way I respond to stressors. (I guess I don't have to turn into the Momster and thrive only on wine and beer after 4:00PM...) What's more, my hyper-emotionalized reaction usually ends up negatively impacting any situation, whether it's a bike race, tough parenting situation, or any other tricky situation. It's the same lesson I've been learning since I started writing this blog: breathe in, breathe out, be here, be now, stop trying to escape. Everything will work out.

Will I ever be the girl I was a year ago, before I beat myself ill? I don't know yet. And maybe my current evolution is better. Perhaps this new branch on my tree will be the strongest, most fruitful so far. I only know that change is the precursor to growth.

"It's not forever, it's not forever, it's not forever."

It's an incantation I often recite when an interval hurts on the bike. Just a little longer. Just one more spin of my wheels. Just a little more effort.

"It's not forever, it's not forever, it's not forever."

Things have been kind of crappy for me lately, I guess. My health nose-dive affected my plans for the beginning of my season, and really scared me in general. Obviously, I've done my fair share of worrying. If I had tied a knot in a rope for all the sleepless moments, the days spent frenetically worried for my future as a human being, much less a cyclist... well, I'd have a knotted mess.

Alternately, I've been working hard at managing how I feel inside. Each moment spent unknotting the mass of twists and turns, ripping out the seams, has been nearly therapeutic. I feel like from this experience I've learned to go inside myself and be okay even when things aren't quite right. To tell myself, over and over, that what I'm experiencing is transient. It isn't overtaking me. And if it is, I'll learn to grow into it.

"It isn't forever, it isn't forever, it isn't forever."

Like Kimmy Schmidt turning away at the handcrank ten times, ten times, ten times, because "anyone can handle anything for ten seconds..." I've found myself working through things in the same way an elephant becomes a feast: step by step, bite by bite.*

"It's not forever, it isn't forever."

I wish someone had told me this five years ago, when the early mom days felt endless and a lot more like work than I could have expected. I think people did, though, and through the blur of bleary eyes and tired heart from too much love, I just couldn't hear them, or didn't understand the language they spoke. But it really wasn't forever, and part of me feels like a sweet little part of my life is slipping away like little grains of sand. I'm trying to enjoy that bittersweet moment in time, too, though, because all things are beautiful in their windswept movement, this perpetual chasing of life in the face of entropy.

"It's not forever, it's not forever, it's not forever..."

On and on I'll say this to myself. When I feel frantic, restless, like a stranger lost at sea, or a wanderer in a neverending land that has no map. When I feel happy, loved, full. One incantation.

"It's not forever, it's not forever, it's not forever."

In the moments when parenting feels hard. In the moments when parenting feels rewarding.

"It's not forever, it's not forever, it's not forever."

After the pedal strokes begin to burn my legs and heart and lungs. After the summit comes.

 "It's not forever, it's not forever, it's not forever. It's not forever."

It's just a moment in time. On the edge of the precipice, hanging on tight.  I don't remember the darkness that hovered over me. I remember the triumph. I remember the moments where I gave that little bit more effort. I remember the reward. I see the end product, and I remember that I got there by telling myself one thing. One incantation, one sweet refrain...

*No elephants were harmed in the making of this post. Just tons of Lucky Charms. I'm not so sure I'd want to eat an elephant anyway.

A Gentle PSA About Getting Your Dang Vitamins and Minerals In.

I know, I know. It seems trop obvi.: get the right nutrients to fuel your body. Right? Wrong.

Right after Christmas, I started feeling lousy. All. the. time. allthetime. Legs always swelling, grumpy, weight out of control, appetite out of control, sleeping terribly, waking up at 4:00 am starving. And then, as January became February, and my training began to really ramp up for spring races, came the most debilitating exhaustion I have experienced since Hobbes passed the six month mark, heart palpitations/PVCs popping up like dandelions in my yard in spring, and legs that constantly felt like I had just finished a century, even with a couple of weeks rest. I was struggling to get out of bed, much less hit numbers on the bike.

I thought I was overtraining, but my hours on the bike indicated otherwise... and if I was overtraining, a couple of weeks of rest should have put a lot of change in my energy bank. And it didn't. My nutrition was off, for sure. I was trying to lose weight (see my previous post), and I was consuming massive amounts of caffeine because I was so exhausted. I know I have a serious caffeine sensitivity, and really should have been smarter. On the other hand, I was in a serious brain fog in which I could barely remember my own name; I can't say I blame myself.

Where am I going with this? Get your blood panels done regularly, especially if you're an athlete. Mineral and vitamin deficiencies often mimic the signs of overtraining, and if you're killing it on the bike, in the gym, or on foot, you're more at risk than the general population. If you're overdue for a wellness check, go as soon as possible. I found out I was seriously iron deficient/anemic, deficient in vitamin D, and a laundry list of other issues. While sure, it's better to glean all nutrition from whole foods, there is no shame in supplementing. The hit to my fitness is troublesome, but deficiencies are also bad for overall health, and can be dangerous. Not only do I want to be insanely fit and fast, I also want to be the healthiest, best me I can be. That is at the root of what I do for fun: the adventure is secondary to what has always been a health booster for me.

My legs and body are slowly coming back to life from being oxygen- and nutrient-starved. I have good days and bad days. I have a long way to go to being race-ready, but I'm enjoying the more relaxed atmosphere I've been able to create for myself under these conditions. I have no expectations for any ride, or long term expectations. I hope in the end I can come back with a stronger body, mind, and soul for this experience, and I'm sure I will with the freedom I'm giving myself.

Things That Have To Be Said

"Oh, but the difficult is coming..." Dave Matthews

I've been quiet lately. I've had my nose to the grindstone on the bike. I've had my nose to the grindstone trying desperately to lose this very elusive five pounds. I've managed to grind myself right into dust these past few days. All because of a number on the scale and in the waistband of my jeans. Yes, yes, I know... when I'm training hard isn't the time to try to magically lose the weight I managed to gain over the holidays. I should know better.

But all those years of being nagged about my weight as a kid came back to haunt me, like ghosts knocking at the door of my mind. This is hard to write, hard as hell to tell. It's hard to think of those days, and even harder to live my life trying to prove people wrong twenty years later. Why I think I should have to prove wrong a bunch of small-minded idiots whom I haven't even seen since I graduated high school, and have long proven them wrong, is an encrypted mystery. (If you don't think there need to be mechanisms - clubs - to protect people outside the norm from bullying, I'm here to tell you that you're wrong. Those words that supposedly bounce off are the sticks and stones that break your heart and stay with you forever.)

But some days, I can't look at myself and see the strong, smart, funny girl I've become. Some of the days, I wake up, and all I see is the jeans that fit too tight on my thighs built thick from thousands of pedal revolutions, squats and dead lifts, and steps on trails. And so I say, "Just a little more wattage... or maybe just a little less food." Because I'm a person who lives at the extremes, and usually it serves me well. But it can never get the chip off my shoulder.

The years were long, trying to erase the past in less healthy ways than spinning my legs on a bike. I was at war with my body, trying to beat it into submission, to just get it to do what I wanted it to do. Then I discovered the bike, and the magnificent monster-machine-body that I live in and what it was capable of doing if I was good to it. And I worked hard to be the best monster-machine that I could be. I didn't realize, though, that along the way all those adaptations would make it harder for me, with my past and the body image that resulted from the words that rained down on me, to continue that self respect.

Food is very much back to being a give-and-take. It's a gentle tug-of-war, to fuel right and not over or under the line in the tank. It's a fight some days to not give into the voices from my past. On those days, I need to learn to be gentler with myself. I'm not perfect. I can't expect that, in my appearance, on the bike, as a parent, as a wife, friend, daughter. I can't continue using up my glycogen stores on the stress firing in my brain instead of in my legs. But I can be good to myself, and excellent to those around me. I think that kindness is how the chip goes away, or at least hurts less.