>>BONK!!<<

It was all right today until Colmenar Viejo. One of us was hung over, one of us was tired, and then there was me, who blew out after twenty kilometres because I didn't have enough to eat yesterday.

Oh God, I hate bonking. I really do. There's nothing that makes me angrier than that feeling of energy evaporating, of feeling dead and useless against a hill that would have been nothing a week before. And on top of that, the battery died in the heart rate monitor band and I have no stats on what I actually did.

They say you learn by making mistakes. They also say that disasters are never caused by one mistake alone, but by a series of mistakes. How close did we come to having a disaster today? Probably not that close. We only did 80km. But I certainly learned my lesson about not starting the day with coffee, and making sure that I eat more than I probably need in the morning.

And the first outing of the Chamartín is tomorrow......

Peso-dilla

Joder. Here we go again.

There's a reason why I don't particularly like canned tuna. Canned tuna, to me, is deprivation food. There's sacrifice. And there's deprivation. Sacrifice is working hard to reach your goal. Deprivation is desperation when you feel like nothing else you've tried is working. And when I got on the scale this morning and saw the weight - 73.7 kg (162 lbs) - I thought. Oh, God, here we go again. Six months of tuna and Wasa bread to get down to weight for Quebrantahuesos.

You're going to be at 72 kg at the end of the month - no ifs, ands or buts, Yago wrote the other day. And I thought I was on track. Looking at my watch, which also records estimates of the number of calories I burn when I work out, I've burned just under 12,000 calories - and there are how many calories in a pound, 3500? I haven't had any huge, disgusting meals since New Year's Eve. I haven't had a drink since then either, and I can count on one hand the number of cans of full-on sugary drinks, like Coke, I've consumed (and it's always to rehydrate and get more sodium in my system on Saturday and Sunday rides.)

So what's changed? Well, I certainly eat more carbohydrates than I did before. A LOT more. And supposedly, I need these, and I've made more conscious choices to burn "clean carbs", as Chris Carmichael calls them - but hell, does this mean that I'm going to have to manage a perennial tango between getting just enough food and trying not to bonk every time I stand up?

I guess it's back to the Weight Watchers rigamarole of writing down EVERYTHING I eat. And I mean everything. I thought that controlling the quality of what I eat would go a long way towards helping, but it's obviously not enough. So: butter (and I thought I was being a lot better with the butter) goes in the freezer, only to be used for cooking. Cut back on the Nesquik. (I know that that was a big one right there.) More brown rice, less white rice. More veggies to snack on. Buy a food scale (and DON'T get me started about how expensive food scales are in Spain!)

I didn't want to be obsessed with food but it's looking like there isn't any other option. But I draw the line at canned tuna. Fresh tuna? Fine. But canned tuna has too many bad memories of deprivation and self-hate and depression. That's a line I just don't wanna cross.

A GREAT cause to help fight against doping in cycling....

No doubt there are a lot of cyclists, both professional and amateur, who've had it with being accused, however jokingly, about being dopers. Finally, somone's standing up and doing something about it.

BIKE PURE is a new organization, based in Ireland, that aims to work towards getting cycling cleaned up by advocating clean riding on all levels and in all disciplines. Teams such as Garmin-Chipotle and the new Ouch-Maxxis crew (which Floyd Landis is riding for this year) have made clean cycling a condition of employment for their riders. Up until now, to my knowledge, no organization has made an effort to bring anyone and everyone together to fight something that pisses us all off.

The website hasn't been live for very long, but it already boasts an impressive roster of riders who support BIKE PURE'S aims, and every donation to the organization's cause gets you a head set spacer and a wrist band.

http://www.bikepure.org

Ouch (part 1 of........)

Oh boy, I sure feel it this morning. My forearms are fairly stiff from gripping the handlebars - something I tried really hard not to do. There are two knots of muscle in my lower back that were pulsing with my heart beat when I woke up. I went to bed at eleven and woke up just after 8:30, pretty much eliminating any chance of being in time for today's Chamartín ride. I don't even remember the alarm going off at seven.

I feel kind of bad about not going out with the Chamartín club this morning, but every time I think of it, I keep thinking the same thing: Ooooh, that's probably NOT such a good idea today.

I really overdid it yesterday. Not out of any raging desire to kill the rest of the group (OK, in all fairness, not MUCH desire) but just because riding into a headwind like that is so damn taxing.

I'll do penance this afternoon in the form of Pilates and an hour or two on the static trainer. Right now I'm not even sure I should be sitting upright.

Sporty vs. Mental (part 2)

mental (adj)

1. of or pertaining to the mind: mental powers; mental suffering.
2. of, pertaining to, or affected by a disorder of the mind: a mental patient; mental illness.
3. (Informal.) slightly daft; out of one's mind; crazy: He's mental.

You know that it's going to be a mental day when you're biking to the train station and one of the first things you encounter is a bunch of cops putting a cow into a police van.

"Bunch of kids," muttered one, "decided to be funny and ran into the cow with a scooter." The poor Cow Parade Cow wasn't even a "real cow", in the sense that it didn't even look like one of the horned, hoofed pseudoruminants that dot Madrid these days: it was shaped like something like a four-year-old would draw, with bubble-round head, a body like a bag of flour and soup-can legs. None of which made it easier to put in the paddy wagon. It may have been an omen. I'm still too tired to work it out for myself.

It was a mental day all around. I wanted to convince myself that it was sporty, and in some ways, it was - there wasn't anything with road conditions or weather that I didn't have to deal with while I was on the Trans-Iberian. But on the Trans-Iberian, I was only doing about sixty kilometres each day (and most days, not even that). I wasn't training for anything specific. But it reminded me that there were a number of things that I did recall today: If you have to stop to pee, do it on an incline, on grass, with the wind in your face. (And don't tell the guys. They get REALLY weird about girls needing to pee.) Don't fight the wind - you're gonna lose every time. Stay small. Keep pedalling. Remind yourself that, whatever happens, you're going to be in bed by a certain time and that nothing lasts forever - not wind, not good days, not bad days.

Sporty, indeed, with some fun climbs and some re-surfaced roads which made the going a lot easier. And being able to drop Pilar on every single climb was certainly good for my ego (and my pedalling.) At the beginning, coming out of the Henares Valley and going towards Tórtola de Henares, the secondary highways were still pretty crumbly, but the CM1103, which we'd had so much trouble with over the October long weekend in the fall of '07 was delightful and smooth - both for us and the tumbleweeds. It's not that I haven't seen tumbleweeds blow among Spanish highways; I've just never seen them become AIRBORNE over Spanish highways.

Our weekly Spanish tortilla stop took us to the town of Caspuñas, in the deepest Alcarría region - honestly, why there aren't more cyclists who take advantage of this gorgeous area's proximity to Madrid blows me away. The landscape was gorgeous, the hairpin turns were challenging (OK, Chris Carmichael, now I see what you mean about cantered turns) and while we were in the valleys, it wasn't such a big deal because we were basically protected from the wind while we were down. But when we were above the valleys, on the plains that hadn't been excavated by earthquakes or rivers, we got blasted. And I mean blasted. No matter what we did, we couldn't get the wind to work with us: it came from the sides, it got into the front wheels, it sent drops of snot flying horizontally from our noses and set distance records for loogies horked. (Disculpa, Yago. I will explain "horking loogies" the next time we go for coffee.) But it tested us. It tested our patience with weather and ourselves and each other, frankly, because in a situation like this, I would normally have expected being able to count on teamwork to save us the need to fight individually against the wind. But not this time.

For some reason we don't know (and have been too ashamed to ask), Pilar doesn't see stuff. Oncoming cars, overlapped wheels, things falling off her bike: I don't know if it's just a lack of observation skills or if she suffers from some kind of vision impairment, but it's the bane of any outing she's on. Admittedly, I'm no master at group riding, but I hope that I know better not to overlap wheels or close a gap in a pace line that's going along with the wind. I know Juan tries hard to show her how things work. But at one point, as we were riding down the Valle de Ungría towards Caspueñas, she got her rear wheel to within four inches of my front wheel and I had to jam on the brakes to give myself enough space. I tried hard not to snap too loudly - "Pilar, be CAREful!!!!!" and Juan looked back with one of those "what's-goin'-on-back-there" looks, but he didn't yell at me for yelling at her, which surprised me. It soon became pretty obvious why: she stays parallel with him because that way, she gets constant input on what to do and what not to do - which has its logic, to a point, but which makes me nervous as hell.

And the ride down to Iriépal. Iriépal is one of those hills that I have a seething resentment against, because, trying to ride it up it in 2005 (probably the first serious climb I ever had to do in a group ride), I came as close as I've ever come to dying of an athsma attack (not VERY close, admittedly.) It's four kilometres long and four hundred metres up, a broccoli-shaped regional road that hugs a Wild West-style valley. Normally, you can do the entire descent in less than five minutes. I don't think that we did it in less than fifteen.

So now: dinner, toothbrush, stretching, bed. EVERYTHING hurts tonight. Absolutely everything. The weather websites are calling for 95% chance of rain with snow in the sierra tomorrow, and I'm sincerely praying that it comes through, because I want a legitimate reason not to go riding tomorrow. Somehow aching and hurting and being stiff doesn't seem like reason enough. Who knows. Maybe the winds will get so bad that all of the cows in the city will start flying, the cops will freak out and the city will get shut down. Maybe that'd do it.

Sporty vs. Mental

Among the actual crews these missions are referred to as "sporty", as in "Boy, it sure was sporty out there last night." In general, sporty is good; it's what rescue is all about.

-- Sebastian Junger, "The Perfect Storm"

Boy, it sure was sporty out there. How sporty?

Sporty enough to look at the heart rate monitor, see that I'm working at 152 beats per minute ... and then looking at my odometer and realizing that I'm only going 11 kilometres an hour.

Sporty enough that we had to dodge tumbleweeds for most of the way.

Sporty enough that, on the way back to Guadalajara, we ended up riding at a 70º angle because of the wind.

I'm wiped, and I'm going to bed to get some sleep. Back in a couple of hours..........

Heart Rate Heaven

I never thought I would get to the point where I wanted someone to tell me it was all right to ride. But I find that, increasingly, I rely on Yago to have the "cold head", as the Spanish say, to haul me back and tell me to lay off. So it was a relief to get the green light to head out this morning. Two Saturdays in a row with revolting weather - thunderstorms on the 3rd and ankle-deep snow last week - were starting to give me really, really bad cabin fever. Jesús, who is living in Tres Cantos (north of Madrid) while they finish his flat in Arganda del Rey (south of Madrid) organized a relatively challenging route through the mid-sierras.

We started out as seven - AG, Paloma, Edu, Buje and a new guy named Mario, who has wild reddish hair and a very light cadence that allows him to flow uphill. Paloma, who hasn't been out since the beginning of December, decided that she wanted to start ahead of us but drove herself so hard that she was spent within five kilometres.

We met Jesús up in TC, blasted up to Colmenar Viejo, and headed up towards the Cerro de San Pedro - five kilometres that were so, so much easier than when we first headed up that way at the end of October. There may even have been an opportunity for a breakaway, had the Civil Guard not cut traffic because of a transhumance issue - fifty head of cattle decided to park themselves in the middle of the highway and not move. (Spaniards will go insane when the car in front of them doesn't move for two seconds after a red light changes; but when livestock decide to plonk themselves down in the middle of a road, they won't say a word.)

The downhill: light and easy. One of the advantages of working so much on the trainer (and I know, this is going to sound silly considering that I've only had the trainer for less than a week) is that I'm getting better at pushing the limits. I headed down from the Cerro at 55 km/h, about 12 faster than the first time, and managed to catch up with the guys before they reached the town limits of Guadalix de la Sierra.

I like it when Jesús organizes outings. He knows the outlying areas of the province well enough that he never takes us on the same ride twice. From Guadalix it was uphill and around through Navalafuente, where the snow on the ground and the frost in the trees was worthy of a Currier and Ives Christmas card. The climb from Navalafuente up to Bustarviejo wasn't particularly difficult, just long; the other blasted ahead (Paloma and Edu cut their trip short in Guadalix to head back to Madrid) to Bustarviejo, up a stiff but scenic hill into the town.

I don't suffer on hills as much anymore. It must be said that I don't exactly blow up them (yet) but I'm able to hold a much higher cadence for a much longer period of time without my athsma kicking in or my legs blowing out. (I love phrasal verbs, I tell you.) I see a hill and I know that it may take some time, but I know I'll get there. I see the guys heading up the hill and I don't worry too much about catching up with them because I know that I'll get to them sooner rather than later. I see the mountains and they don't scare me, because I know that when the snow comes off them I'll be ready for them.

We have the obligatory tortilla and coffee stop, we head to Miraflores de la Sierra (where I almost had a little contratiempo with the driver of a Ford Ka who had the pedal to the metal) and then we head home. I am determined to keep up with them. I do not want to be the red lantern any more. Let someone else take that job for 2009.

We get back to the Locademia. Ninety-eight kilometres in just over four hours (not including the coffee stop) and fifteen minutes. And I feel good. I feel like I have worked hard and I've done a good job, and that when we go back to do that route again, I'll do even better.

"You're getting a lot better," says AG as he drives me home. We talk about the need to work together as a team, how we need to stick together, and I sneak a look at my heart rate monitor: I've spent over an hour and a half at 80% maximum heart rate, and I feel great. (Admittedly, when I get home, I have a carb-heavy lunch and spend an hour's siesta snoring like a lumberjack...)

And tomorrow is the first ride with the gents from Chamartín.

Poco a poco.

Stuck

I'm stuck at home and getting a bit squirrel-ly. I did abs. I did stretching. I did try to go out this morning with Antonio G. and Edu but got a really, really bad feeling from the state of the Colmenar bike lane. The snow still hasn't melted enough to make the bike lane safe (I think we hit a glorious high of +3ºC today) and three kilometres in, I backed out.

Every fifty yards or so, it was the predictable mess: a stretch of ten, fifteen yards of crusty snow lying on top of scarred ice that was frozen solid to the bike lane. Had I been riding a hardier bike, I probably wouldn't have thought twice about plowing right over it, but it was not the job for a skinny tire. I kept thinking of the time Marty Vloet nearly scoured his left cheek off, wiping out on his bike behind the Kemptville Community Centre, Marty with the haunted eyes and precarious home situation, and how he howled in pain as my dad tried to help - and how Marty glared at me every time he saw me for the next two years, like I'd somehow caused him to hit the pack of ice on his low-slung, banana-seat bike.

No way, I thought. It's too early in the season to be asking for trouble like this and the last thing I need now is to do myself in.

"Sorry, guys," I said, thinking that, as a Canadian, my wasted efforts at trying to get through Toronto traffic in snowstorms might have given me a moral imperative, "I really don't like the looks of this. I'm going back to the Autónoma and taking the train home."

"I know what you mean - if this doesn't get better by Tres Cantos, I'm gonna take the train back," said AG.

"Okaybye," said Edu, pushing off.

I haven't heard from either of them, which means that it either went all right or they're both in hospital, too sheepish to make contact and say those words which would kill a Spanish man by instant strangulation: "You were right."

Not having heard from Yago yet (what was this thing about getting back to e-mail inquiries within 24 hours??), I assume that missing this weekend because of the snow and ice basically qualifies as force majeure. But I am going to buy a trainer tomorrow.

Which still doesn't help the problem of feeling like I'm sitting here, wasting my time. Which, realistically, I am doing. I have had four of my five meals. It's ten to eight and probably too late to go out and take a walk, which I've already done today. I could do something that's vaguely related to my wage-earning activities (like write those student reports for the Perfume Pump Company, or finish writing comments on the exams for the courier company guys), but that would mean surrendering to the fact that Tuesday afternoon at 1PM marks a six-month slog of juggling a full class schedule with the demands of training and that when classes wrap up, Quebrantahuesos will be over with.

What to do, what to do, what to do....

Antonio G. sent me an SMS at 10:30 last night, saying that the bike lanes up to the sierra were too messed up with snow and ice, and that the Saturday ride was cancelled. Great. I know that I should be thankful to have the time off, to have some time to myself, but this was supposed to be my paliza week, the week where I really cranked and got some kilometres in before heading back to work on Monday (well, Tuesday, really; Monday's classes got cancelled.)

I wrote Yago asking for some advice. Yes, I know that the whole point of this weekend's group rides was to get used to riding in group formations, but I want the ass-kicking. I want to feel totally spent and done for on Sunday night, and I don't know if he's going to let me ride on Monday to make up for not having the chance to ride today (or last Saturday, for that matter.) I feel bad writing Yago. I feel bad reclaiming the help that I need because I don't want to bother him. But then again, I am paying him for the right to bug him. He's the expert. I'm not. I have enough common sense to know better than to go ripping up to the Sierra if the bike lane isn't much better than a curling rink. But I'm paying him to keep a cool head and tell me when I'm going overboard. In a sense, I'm paying him for the right to say, "Nah, weather sucks. And there are still six months until Quebrantahuesos. No big loss if one weekend ends up being too crappy to go out."

It's grey and blah out there today. I was up at 6:30 AM, for some reason I still don't understand, and I started thinking about how, basically, cycling is becoming a panacea for how...well, empty...my life is on so many fronts. Let's be honest: I take advantage of the holes in my life (no kids, no man, no regular job) to work on my cycling, but I know that I'm using cycling as a way of ignoring (or actively blocking out) the loneliness I feel because I don't have those connections. (Man, am I glad no one ever reads this blog.)

So now it's 11:37 in the morning. I'm resisting the siren calls of Facebook and taking €100 down to Calmera to look at trainers, and I'm trying to focus on getting ready for work next week. I'm listening to a BBC Sport report about FIFA's efforts to address problems with homophobia. I'm not calling Yago; he can write when he's ready, and it's not like I don't know what he's going to say anyway. But the minute someone tells me it's all right to go out there and cut myself off from society by going to train for a couple of hours, I am the hell outta here.

Oh. No. Snow!

So much for the accuracy of some weather forecasting websites. We've just gotten nailed with ten centimetres of snow.

It looks gorgeous, true, but I shudder to think about what the bike lanes are going to look like tomorrow. I've been given two group rides as part of my training and I got a bad feeling that they ain't gonna happen...

That's like hypnotizing chickens

The more I train, the more I'm amazed at the amount of cooking that I have to do. "Five small meals a day", They say, but They don't tell you that that also means an increased amount of shopping, perusing cookbooks, washing dishes, digging Tupperware out of the back of the cupboard to be able to save the leftovers in the hope that you'll have one less meal to cook some time in the future.

I'm not complaining, really. Five small meals a day also means that you get the opportunity to try new recipes, to diversify what you eat (you don't repeat recipes with five small meals a day, especially if they're recipes that require a lot of prep.) New fave: Chris Carmichael's black bean hummous (good thing that it only takes five minutes to make.) But on the bike, I'm thinking of food. Lying in bed in the morning, I'm thinking of food. What I can eat. What I can't eat. I hear "Lust for Life" by Iggy Pop on the iPod as I'm riding in the Casa de Campo, I think of how to prepare chicken breasts in some flavourful way so that I don't gag on the white meat. I smell meat barbequeing in the restaurants around the Lago and I start thinking about how I don't eat enough beef.

I think about food a lot when I go to the Mercado de los Mostenses and think about what a good thing it is that I only have one person to cook for. It's one of the things that makes me grateful that I live alone, that I don't have kids: I can eat things like liver and Brussels sprouts, food that would cause a minor revolt in most households.

In, out; in, out; in, out. Energy consumed; energy expended. That's like hypnotizing chickens, sings Iggy. I don't know where that line comes from (or, for that matter, what it's actually supposed to mean) but it always makes me think of food.