Jealousy

"Just tell me that no one's gonna have problems with any of you lot rooming with a girl. I know, you're all gonna tell me that your girlfriends and wives are going to be fine with this but I do NOT want some chick coming after me and giving me grief."

"There won't be a problem. Luis's wife won't care, Jesús doesn't have a 'chick' in his life and Raquel knows what the deal is, so she won't get jealous."

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A confession: I actually asked that question simply to find out if Jesús had a girlfriend or not. But in retrospect, I'm glad I did ask it. I finally met Raquel a week and a half ago, and it turns out that Raquel was NOT cool with it, in retrospect, especially since she did not expect her partner's room-mate to be a size 8 vamp wearing dark lipstick and red jeans. Raquel was SO not cool with it that I didn't have a chance to say goodbye to AG and have not chatted with him on Messenger since.

It's things like this that make me wonder about the usefulness of the Saturday group. Yes, it's great to have a group of people who can be counted on to go out every week. But I have that with the Chamartín. It's great to have a group of people who make me ask more of myself. But it's annoying to have to balance so many different needs and personalities when all I want to do is ride. It's great to have people to learn from. It's annoying when you never feel that you can measure up.

And now this. AG is basically the only real ally I have in the group. SuperLopez means well but there's something about him - the way he asks questions then doesn't shut up long enough to listen to the answers, the way he'll blast ahead then make a big deal of coming back to see that I'm all right - that makes me feel like I'm being protected as part of a big show, rather than out of any concern for my well-being. Luis and Juan hate each others' guts so much that it seems like they don't look for riding partners as much as they look for allies in their never-ending battle against each other. Agus has the ongoing drama, which may or may not exist, of not being let out of the house on Saturdays. Pilar has basically removed herself from the group because she's sitting exams in June; Paloma won't go out because she's out of shape; Edu doesn't go out because Paloma won't go out; Jesús won't go out if AG doesn't go out, and I'm beginning to wonder why I bother going out with anyone at all on Saturdays, especially if my presence is going to start causing problems.

Yago sent me my new training plan this morning. The idea is basically to work the hell out of the hills from now until ....well, probably forever. But for the next couple of weeks, I'll be doing a lot of climbing up in the Sierra, taking the train up to Colmenar Viejo, going over Canencia and Morcuera and riding to the top of Navafría (which is a mountain pass that I don't actually know.) And I guess I'll be doing it alone. I can't see the guys wanting to do all that much climbing, that much repetition, over the next couple of weeks. I know damn well what the reaction is going to be: "Oh, is that what Yago told you to do?" (Um, YEAH, it is - and WHAT, exactly, is your problem with that?) Unless I'm totally mistaken, this is what Yago does - provide me with a structured plan that enables me to get better and stronger.

And Yago has faith in my progress. The Saturday guys...well. Sometimes, I don't know. AG probably does, so long as Raquel doesn't find out. SuperLopez, sure, as long as I don't rip his legs off too often. The others, I don't know. I would trust them to call an ambulance if anything happened to me. I don't know that I would necessarily trust them to stick around until the ambulance arrived.

I was going to call this post "Splinter" because that's what it feels like: the group is splintering off into different directions. But in a sense, it has nothing to do with the group breaking apart. It's more about jealousy - about controlling people, about trying to make people feel bad for something they shouldn't feel bad about at all. And maybe that's the best reason there is to go it alone on Saturdays for the time being.