Jun 16, 2007

i am my own worst enemy

well, the bliss came back & it came back big ... but not before i had a couple of shitty runs & an even shittier bike ride. worst ride ever, in fact ... so lets start with that:

thursday night i went on my second club ride with husband & friend ... it was the worst ride in all my 499 miles so far. (but lets pause a moment to reflect on the fact that i have ridden 499 miles in about 3 months!).

but back to my miserable ride:
there's a hairpin turn in the park & very early on in the ride. and when i say hairpin, i really mean hairpin. and when i say early on, i mean first 5 miles. (of a 25 mile ride). my trouble began here. i fell off the back (way the f off the back) due to my white knuckle death grip & fear of the turn. once i fell off, (the back, not the bike) i just plain didn't feel like putting it into the big ring and hauling ass to catch group. in other words, i was lazy, and i was struck by a serious bout of wussitis. and now here is where i am my own worst enemy: it was here that i did an amazing job of messing with my own head by convincing myself that:

  1. i had no right to be on these rides - for god's sake, i can't even turn without feeling like i am pulling a few G's - which sends me into pathetic panic mode.
  2. my legs were tired from morning 6 mile run and i would have been better off at home, i am after all "recovering".
  3. slowing down to about 10 miles an hour to chat with other girl (also dropped at that damn turn) & was perfectly acceptable.

my husband had to turn around to come back for me so we could chase the group. i had already messed with my head enough & convinced myself I was tired & wasn't feeling the love for the chase. i kept trying to yell after him " i don't want to do this!" ... and then, "i'm not feeling the love tonight honey" ... and then the whiny "my legs are tired" ... all of it bullshit, of course. when he told me at some point after going through a neighborhood that we were going slower than training rides, I almost died - mostly, because i felt like i was gonna die. i was just all jacked about:

  1. my breathing -- it was all crazy - am quite sure i was close to hyperventilating - i probably could have talked myself into it if i tried hard enough.
  2. the fact that we were chasing the group for the second damn club ride in a row.
  3. about the fact that i just felt so out of control & it pissed me the hell off. and why couldn't i just be good on the damn bike. wtf was i so scared of???? (i'll tell you in a minute).

lets just say my husband had to pull my sad, sorry, whiny ass for about 15 miles - we saw the group at the turn around ... we were all of about 3 minutes behind them - the whole damn time. there was a brief shining moment in the ride, when it occurred to me that my legs were not actually at all tired - this realization came when i pulled my husband up a hill, into the wind, in the big ring, at 20 mph. but that was the end of the ride ... took me that long to get my mojo back. too bad it didn't come back earlier.

later that night at home - i am beating myself up over my biking inadequacies (again, i am perfecting the art of being my own worst enemy - i could hold seminars i am so good at this) ... my husband wants to know what i am so scared of. i'm not entirely sure, but mostly i am freaked out that i'll fall & get really hurt - in which case, that means more time spent not running. so my husband says, the why don't i just quit the bike & concentrate on the running. when he sees i am considering this option, he says, jesus - reverse psychology doesn't work so well on you. i'm not hanging up the bike. if i could just tell my head to shut the hell up, i think i could be really good at it. so its just a challenge.

i thought it was a challenge between me & the bike ....
but now i know that its a challenge between me & me.


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