It’s April Already?

This is my title picture for two reasons: I want to demonstrate how glamorous it is to live on the road and I don’t have many interesting pictures to choose from since my camera broke last week.  Need to work on my spitting out the window skills.  Meanwhile…

 

Today when I was tutoring, I asked a student to use my fingers to subtract four from five, putting them down as she went. Thumb, pointer finger, pinky… That’s when I realized I hadn’t thought it through.

Anyway, tutoring means I’m home again, and I’m very happy to be home!  I haven’t posted for a week because, I’ll admit it, I haven’t been in the best spot mentally speaking.  These last two months of racing were tough.  On top of all the traveling and the bad weather, I didn’t get results and, even worse, I wasn’t able to help my teammates very much.

I came home from Redlands and recovered for a few days, catching up on my TV and assuming the life of the average American (minus all the bad food).  When I realized I’d been wearing the same clothes for three days and hadn’t showered in just as many, I got back on my bike for an easy spin.  Finally my legs were going to feel rested!  That’s what you’d think.  Nope.  I knew it before I even touched my bike that my legs were going feeling WORSE.  Ugh.   When I say they feel bad, I mean it hurt to do 50 watts. Can muscles rust shut?  Because mine don’t wanna move.

The one day in Europe when I did make the break, I sat on hoping that the peleton would bring it back so my teammate, Megan Guarnier, could capture some more precious UCI points.  As a country, we need a select few people to get more UCI points so we can move up into the top 5 ranking.  I am not one of those few.  I never, ever regret working for a teammate, especially one as dedicated as Megan, but part of me would like to have had an early-season success to look back on to get me through weeks of wondering what’s going on in my legs.

I did and easy ride on Thursday and openers on Friday to prepare for Tampa Twilight on Saturday.  During the openers, I began to wonder if I’d forgotten how to ride a bike.  What am I even doing on this thing?  Should I even go to the race?  Am I getting sick?  Maybe I’m dying!

Come the start of Saturday’s race, I still didn’t feel the greatest, but my legs began to come round by the end of it. It came down to a sprint finish (which was good because I don’t get much practice field sprinting).  Here is the podium: myself, Valeria Galeano, and Elizabeth Morse Hill.

I am happy in the above picture because:

A) I won

B) I get a super-pro, zip-up-the-back jersey

C) I must not have mono, cancer, lupus, or fibromyalgia after all!

D) All of the above

But then when USADA came to take my precious bodily fluids away from me for the third time this year, I began pinching myself.  Maybe I didn’t just win.  Maybe I was dreaming.  USADA isn’t supposed to be at a Florida race!  Florida is supposed to be the safe zone where I can just get in my car and go home after the race.  Not anymore.  Apparently since I’ve been out of the Florida scene, they’ve started to crack down on the Florida’s dopers.  Thanks to the dopers, I was once again sitting in my sweaty chamois waiting to pee in a cup, but this time there was a party going on outside that I was missing!

Until next time…