Wednesday, March 5, 2008

I Keep on Falling.....

Off my freakin' bike! Swear to God, I have spent more time in the past week ON the ground on the bike than I have vertical. And no, I'm not one of those clip newbies who didn't practice adequately on the trainer. My Look pedals have got me spanked. It takes an act of God to clip me out of these puppies, and even if I do, sometimes I slip when I put my foot down and DOWN I go again. You'd think I was on ice or something.
So I sit here today aching, in pain, because I smashed my right knee up last night during a brick. Was at a four-way stop, stopped, got my left foot down, and then it was as though I'd slipped on a banana peel. The entire bike and my body crashed down to the right, in the middle of the intersection. Aside from the many expletives and sheer pain spewing from my body, I was pissed. I love my bike. Absolutely adore the thing. And nothing pisses me off more than falling over and hurting my bike. Is this me? Is it the pedals? What can I possibly do? I am staring down another 2.5 hour ride this weekend, and quite frankly, I am petrified at the thought of falling over again.

I've never had a problem riding solo, so I'm thinking that perhaps group rides get me all flustered and I get distracted from the matter at hand. (clipping out) I highly doubt I'll one day have some sort of epiphany, either. Woe is me. Woe is me!

On the plus side, we found some gnarly hills last night and I ate them for dinner. We followed up our hour ride (which didn't cover much distance, but did go quite vertical!! so proud) with an easy 1/2 hour run.....much easier than I was hoping, but my training partner for the day is a run-walker who has panic attacks when she misses her interval. So I decided that after butchering my knee, it wouldn't kill me to pull 11-minute miles. Coach will be pleased, actually. She loves it when I am forced to go slower than usual. I don't understand that, but whatever! I finished up our 3 miles feeling like I could have gone forever and ever...a very cool feeling. It's not often I'm left wanting more out on a run, and here I was last night, full of energy and loving being out there. What is up with that?

My new purchases are in transit to my house as we speak. Rather than buy the Garmin cadence sensor for my bike, I got the Cateye Astrale 8 off eBay. The internet chatter seems good, so sign me up! Rear cadence sensor, and apparently the Garmin shouldn't interfere with it too much. So we shall see.... I think I'm going too slow these days because rather than seeing MPH on my Garmin, I see how many minutes it takes to do a mile.....and honestly, I can't do math on the fly like that. So fingers crossed the now-discontinued Astrale 8 is a superstar for me.

I also got a sweet deal on a sexy black cycling jersey from Skirtsports. I still can't get up the guts to buy a cycling skirt (I'm afraid of being laughed at), but I was in desperate need of a jersey that didn't look like crap and cost a ton of money. Now I just need the arm warmers and I'm all set!
So that's my news. Peak week, baby! Lots of pain and suffering. New toys. And huge, dark circles under my eyes. Why do I do this again??

3 comments:

Joy | Love | Chaos said...

Adjust those puppies! Sounds like they're are too tight!

Good for you for getting right back up and riding again! Not easy!

Amanda said...

WOW!! Your workouts simply amaze me. I only wish I had the kind of time you have to do so much working out. You are going to rock your race!

Unknown said...

You amaze me!! Keep it up you are doing awesome!!!