Hi folks,
TC- I'm so sorry you had a bad week last week, but am SO GLAD that you reached out for help. Please also count me among the people you can reach out to if it ever feels like it'd be helpful. This week is a bad week for ALL my academic friends. It's like, we all got through the beginning of the semester, and we could focus on that and all the transitions, but now that we're settling in, so many of us are facing real, terrible struggles. I've been on the phone SO MUCH lately with friends who are at their breaking point. You're not alone in this.
As for me, I had my A race on Saturday, which was self-supported (with an assist from the hubs) and it was VERY HARD. It almost broke me. But, I finished. I'm just going to copy my race-report-like object that I posted on FB below. This week I've got faffery and lounging on the schedule. No workouts! YAYYAYAYAYAY!!!!!
(sorry for the nerdy music references...)
Mahler said "a symphony is a world. It must contain everything." There's a similar saying about ultramarathons, that you experience life in a day. I was thinking about both those things yesterday at some point. This is an honest post about how hard it was.
It started beautifully. The weather was perfect, and I was feeling like my legs had it in me just fine. The finger lakes region is so stinking beautiful, and while it's hilly, it ain't hilly like Binghamton, so I was feeling on top of my game. By mile 40 I was a half hour ahead of schedule, and mostly worried that I'd get slowed down if Andru showed up late to a pit stop.
But, by mile 50, the strongest headwind I've ever experienced, bar none, kicked up and it became a sufferfest. I was pedaling harder than I should have been, going slower than I wanted to (which meant the harder-than-planned pedaling would have to be longer-than-planned), and I was leaning over to get a more "aero" position and get out of the wind. A few times the wind almost blew me over. At my pit stop at mile 60, I prayed that wind would die down. It didn't. I started to get a stomach cramp from the leaning and had to sit up into the wind. I couldn't consume the nutrition I needed to. I was reduced to just making sure I was getting water and taking electrolyte pills, but I knew the finish wasn't close enough to stop consuming calories. The wind wasn't stopping. It was like trying to get it done in a hurricane. Next, my legs started cramping. Not just one muscle in my legs. All of the muscles in my legs started to cramp, all at once.
Then things got weird. I was determined, so I just kept pedaling, but eventually it hurt so badly that I was going impossibly slow. I had to speed up, or there was no way I was going to make it. Then, I got angry, and started yelling at the wind to stop. On my bike, dressed up in fancy bike gear, going like 5 miles per hour and yelling at the wind on route 89. The pain got worse and I knew deep down in my hurting bones that I wasn't going to make it, and then I started tearing, and then I started ugly crying. Sobbing. Weeping. On my bike, dressed up in fancy bike gear, going around 5 miles per hour. It STILL took me like 20 minutes of trying-while-ugly-crying before I called Andru for a pickup. I was only 1.5 miles from a pit stop, but I wasn't going to make it. I needed him to come get me right where I was. The day was over.
But, as he started on his way to me, I started biking again. I thought of another nerd quote: Satie's "I am compelled in spite of myself." He was making fun of Wagner. I was an idiot on par with Wagner, and I knew it deep down in my hurting bones. By the time Andru found me, I had 15 miles to go, and knew I had to give it one last try. So I had a break, drank, ate, and set off one last time. By then my body was wrecked, and my hormones must have been doing something weird. I started maniacal laughing. Nothing funny happened, I wasn't, like, entertained by the contrasts of the day. I was just full-on losing it. But I got faster and made it into Ithaca to finish that damned race. Yesterday, I learned that I'm more of a badass than I thought I was.
Thanks especially to those who donated to the Southern Tier Aids Program on my behalf. It meant something in the depths of my despair yesterday. Also to the world's best coach
Laura Henry
, who was affirming when things were going well, and on her phone texting advice when things started to fall apart. And the MVP of the day, my night owl husband, who woke up at 5 am and supported me so well, right up to pizza and ice cream last night.
Formerly GiantNewb, but not such a newb anymore.