Time Trial (12 miles)

What? Time Trial? You mean I have to go fast? Uphill, flat road, fast is not a problem. It’s the entire downhill portion that comes with living in such a beautiful, and incredibly hilly, part of the country that terrifies me.

Pretty Darn Lucky 

So Time Trial, eh? The purpose of the time trial is to split our large cycling group into smaller, similarly paced ride groups. Okay, I understand the point of this as I had a similar experience when I was training with a group for two Mini Marathon seasons in Indy—except, I knew how fast I could run. No time trial needed. And running downhill isn’t quite as terrifying. And there aren’t any hills in Indianapolis.

For those of you who know me pretty well, you probably know that I’m typically a risk adverse person. 

Examples below:

• In first grade, I found 15 cents on the playground. Instead of pocketing the finding and going on my merry little way, I avoided any chance of getting in trouble and turned the money into the office. If no one claimed the whopping $0.15 by the end of the week, it was mine. Come Friday, I was 15 cents richer. Yes!

• In high school, we had an amazing donut shop a few blocks away. One of the best things about this was the fact that students not so infrequently left campus to take a mid-morning donut break. Not me. I always gave my donut money to a friend who found thrills in being sneaky. I may have not wanted to get caught leaving campus, but I wasn’t ever giving up a donut.

• I don’t even like driving fast. I try to stay 5-10 mph over the speed limit—most of the time. In fact, the only ticket I’ve ever received (knock on wood!) was for a rolling stop. Behind a parking lot. From a VA Hospital police officer. Ugh. And maybe enough parking tickets to thoroughly fund my coffee habit for the rest of my life—but this is neither the time, nor place to delve into my unique ability to receive parking tickets

Now that I seem like the most boring person of all time, back to the Time Trial. As we learned, the time trial is meant for us to ride at a comfortable pace so we can be appropriately placed with others who ride like we do. Hmmm, well, I think I’m the only cyclist here who actually goes faster uphill than downhill, so this time trial thing should be interesting.

Knowing that we wanted to train together this season, Emily and I rode the time trial together, only getting separated by stoplights and a few moments of “OMG I DON’T WANT TO GO AS FAST AS MY BIKE WANTS ME TO GO DOWN THIS HILL!” 

Side note: when I was little, and I was doing something that scared me, I would sing Hakuna Matata to myself to help alleviate some fear: Hakuna Matata! Hakuna--It means no worries for the rest of your days--It's our problem-free philosophy--Hakuna Matata! It didn’t seem to help me out here. At all. Thanks a lot Timon and Pumba!

Looking back, it was a great ride through Portola Valley (incredibly beautiful!) and Emily and I finished strong together.

While I’m learning to fight my body’s, or more like my mind’s, fear of going downhill fast, I have to remind myself that I’m riding to help those with cancer—who are fighting a much scarier and much longer battle than the brief moments I spend descending these hills. This is what keeps me going.

GO TEAM! 

Please take a moment to visit my fundraising page and consider donating to help CURE Cancer:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/ambbr12/kabbottlix

Kick-off and Team Ride #1 (16 miles)

Today is a big day—Kick off! It’s the first official TNT ride of the season and time for me to show others my stuff. Or lack of stuff (like my inability to pedal fast while cycling downhill. Little hills. Really little hills).

This ride is an opportunity for everyone to meet our large cycle team, rally around The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s mission (Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families) and most importantly, hear from some of our Honorees (those who are blood cancer survivors, are in remission, or are currently fighting cancer). Oh, and cycle a little. Only 16 miles. Nothing too challenging.

One of the incredible things of hearing such personal and touching stories from our Honorees, which we will do before every Team Ride, is the fact that some will be training right along side us! Talk about inspiration. Hearing stories from our Honorees before a ride not only gives me inspiration to ride strong, but it grounds me and reminds me that life is precious and what we're doing is pretty darn cool. 

The stories we heard during Kick-off and during our first ride remind me a lot of my dad’s experience with cancer. 

At first, something just seemed off. My dad had cold-like symptoms and when he couldn’t seem to kick it, he went to the doctor who suggested an x-ray to check for pneumonia. Boy, wouldn’t pneumonia have been a better diagnosis at age 41. 

After having a lobe removed from his lung, entering remission, the cancer coming back, and finally chemo, the cancer had spread to his liver and treatment was no longer an option. The thing that continues to perplex me is the fact he died of lung cancer, but never even smoked.

One of my favorite photos

My dad did not have a blood cancer, but I can’t help but wonder if his, and our family’s, experience with cancer would have been different if he had cancer now. While The Leukemia and Lymphoma focuses on blood cancers, the wonderful research and and amazing treatments help treat and cure many other types of cancer as well. 

I am so honored to be riding with such an extraordinary group of people and for such an important cause. GO TEAM!

Please take a moment to visit my fundraising page and consider donating to help CURE Cancer:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/ambbr12/kabbottlix

Want to learn how much your donation will help? Watch the video below to find out.

Pre-Bike Ride Bike Ride

Well, now that I have officially signed-up to cycle hundreds of training miles and 100 race day miles, I guess I should purchase one important thing: a bike.

Thinking about the distance I will be putting in over the next 4 months, I know my sturdy, and incredibly heavy, hybrid—think fat tires, straight handlebars, basically a two-wheeler for big people, complete with a bell that I frequently rang at “lovey dovey” couples making out on the canal in Indy—will not cut it. While my lovely Trek was completely functional for say, going to the grocery store or riding to feed Joe’s kitties, it is more than completely impractical for such a long, mountainous ride.

Great. So not only do I need to figure out how to become an expert fundraiser and train hard for 4 months, but I am also lucky enough to need to buy a new bike. 

Oy! What did I sign-up for? Oh, to help CURE cancer! That’s right!

Let’s start by calling a spade a spade: I know absolutely nothing about bikes. So how, then, might I go about making sure I’m not completely ripped off while making such a purchase? I enlist the help of an expert—enter Corey.

Corey’s been a family friend for quite some time, more like a brother really—endurance sport extraordinaire and most importantly my voice of reason so I don’t walk out of the bike shop owing more than I paid for my entire college education.

After spending some time chatting with the nice folks at bici SPORT in Petaluma, testing a pink and black bike at another location, really not wanting to be “the girl with the pink bike”, coming back to bici SPORT, putting the bike on hold, calling back in the middle of the week to make sure my bike was indeed still on hold, so I didn’t lose my “maybe I’ll buy it, I really like it, but I don’t know if I’m ready to make a final purchase” bike, I FINALLY made the decision!

I am now a proud owner of...yet another Trek. If my red hybrid Trek had a baby with my blue road Trek, I’d end up with some awkward looking purple bike (and I’d be right back to my childhood, attaching cat ears to my helmet—and probably not so popular on the road as I’m learning that not all cyclists are as nice and accepting as my mom was of me when I was 5).

Now to the real reason behind the post: the very first ride, aka the “Pre-Bike Ride Bike Ride”.

My coworker, Emily, and I decided to enlist our in-house expert and reason we both ended up with TNT, Laura, to help us learn more about our newly purchased, self-propelled convertibles, er bikes, before our first official TNT bike ride.

After work one lovely evening, the three of us were stopped at a red light, on our bikes, in the middle of rush hour traffic with Laura teaching us very basic bike things (think: your bike has two wheels. You sit on the seat to ride. You must pedal to move).

As we’re chatting, a cyclist pulls up behind us and cheerfully asks, “Are you helping these new cyclists?". Before Laura could answer his question, the man proceeds to ask, “did you hear about the nasty bike crash during lunch today?! It was so gnarley! One lady even ended up in the Emergency Room with facial contusions!”.  As soon as he was done, the light turned green and he cycled on his delightful little way. Meanwhile, being paralyzed with fear, eyes as big as saucers, I slowly hop back on my bike thinking, “Bike crash?! Facial contusions?! The last thing I want is for my face to hit that road. EVER!”

This photo was included for dramatic effect. This would never be me as I always wear my helmet. 

And I'm not a boy with brown hair, a striped shirt, and pink socks. 

His bike looks as though it may or may not be made out of felt too. Mine is not.

We successfully finished the ride, learned quite a few things about riding our bikes both efficiently and safely, and returned without any facial contusions.

Instead of setting a New Year’s Resolution, I’m setting a Forever Cycling Resolution: face stays off the ground. Period.

Until next time, GO TEAM!

Let’s Cure Cancer! One mile at a time! Please visit my fundraising page to donate: 

http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/ambbr12/kabbottlix