hello, 2013

It took a little mental arm-twisting, but it happened. My first outdoor ride of 2013. It took a while [a whole six days!], but colder temperatures and shorter days tend to reinforce my conviction that sometimes, it’s okay to never want to spend too much time outside the dimensions that enclose your bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and whatever room your bike and trainer might be parked in. Because it’s cold out, and that means layers. And layers make me look fat, and this time – or at least these past few weeks – that just hasn’t been okay.

My addiction to air popped popcorn and the resulting inordinate amount of time I spend in front of the microwave is most likely a contributing factor to my voluntarily letting go of reality/responsibilities/sanity. I do like spending time outside. Love it, in fact. Just not when sucking in exhaust fumes for hours has me coming back from rides sounding like Lauren Bacall after chain-smoking 40 cigarettes [“anybody have a match?”]. Compromising my lungs for the entirety of my winter vacation didn’t seem like it would be worth it. So I just moved all that shit inside.

I was also running away from the sometimes distracting nature of rides, where I’ll think up reams of ideas to write about, but also chide myself for all the things I’m supposed to do that day, what errands I have to run, how many hours are left before the inevitable resumption of office life. Spinning inside to Jeremy Renner’s lickable face in “The Hurt Locker” means there’s no room for muddled and unnecessary anxieties. It’s like Warren Buffet worrying about money: it’s just not possible.
As frustrating as it is to have my cardiovascular system spontaneously shut down at the mere sight of a 5% grade while my brain will mostly refuse to chill out, hitting the “less than 24 hours to go until I’m back in my cubicle” deadline kind of freaked me out. I put on a baselayer for the first time since early November, plus my first ever long-sleeve jersey.

It was everything I’d hoped and predicted. My legs were alright, I was cold until I started sweating, and there was a lot of stopping, then starting, then stopping, then slowing, then spinning back up to speed again. I didn’t feel like I was breathing in a lot of exhaust, but when I got home and called out to my dog, I sounded like Humphrey Bogart. There was the distraction, too. The seed of this blog post, and a few other ideas, some guilt trips for being so lazy the past ten days, and that anxiety about going back to work.
But there was also sunlight and a view that was familiar but far more engaging than the front of my microwave. It even made up for the last thing I wanted to see 20 minutes into a three hour spin:

…If only I’d stayed inside.

saving fitness

In any good action movie, some lesser spy, when captured, will grind his teeth into a hidden capsule of instant death upon capture.
“Ha ha ha ha, you will DIE! You cannot stop us!!!” He laughs at the hero through his clenched teeth while foam bubbles up from a corner of his mouth.
It’s a scene that plays through my head when events convene to remind me of the importance of being delusionally optimistic. Things like empty bank accounts, too few days off, and a crash might have happened for a reason, I like to tell myself. Some cosmic purpose other than to make my own mouth froth in jealousy at the sight of bike commuters or roadies headed out on weekend rides. There must be, I’ve internally claimed, life points gained in the purgatory of injury and the special hell of lost fitness that follows. It’s optimism born of desperation, but sometimes fish oil and vitamin D isn’t enough to keep me on the right side of hopelessness.

Unfortunately, that uncharacteristic cup half full mentality which had made itself quite comfortable on the figurative couch of my psyche, had just about overstayed its welcome. Negativity was trying to kick it to the curb. Dropping temperatures and shorter days weren’t helping the slow, inevitable march into a winter promising an exploding waistline and weaker legs. By mid-November, I knew that my version of “taking it easy” was simply a justification to watch more TV. The worst part was that I was starting to not give a shit about not really giving a shit.
It was paralysis by not-so-much analysis. My tempo speed of the past summer is decidedly no longer extant, and my heart rate tends to skyrocket on anything more demanding than quick, easy spins on the trainer. Hills? Mountain passes? Sprints? Call me [next summer], maybe.

Pathetically, I even had the audacity to feel sorry for myself. As if a crash that had happened two months ago was keeping me from spinning something harder than my little ring. I was no longer trying to do that thing where I try to stay on the trainer for as long as I could possibly stand. I skipped out on a few days of scheduled riding, for no reason other than because it was just easier not to.
The problem is, no matter how much easier it is to let some more evil force destroy the world, we all identify with the hero. You know, the fight against certain evil, success against all odds, the shadow of the phoenix that can rise from your coach, dust off the cookie crumbs, and snap off the TV to go ride for once. It’s harder to do – because holy hell is TV entertaining – but the dividends promised are at least more physically appealing than a fluffy butt and a blubbery belly.

The fun thing with regressing, I’ve been telling myself, is that there is no way but up. You really have no choice but to give it your all, even if it feels like your body is trying to kill you in the process. I gave myself heartburn and a leg-beating so bad I saw spots in the last two minutes of a semi-sprint up a small mountain pass last weekend. I tried to keep lemon-lime Nuun water down while spitting up thick saliva at the top. I could barely function on the way home.
It’s the spoiler to the terribly unattractive way in which I’ll be training this winter. Snot will fly, drool will dribble everywhere, and I expect to be generally useless after any substantial ride. But hey, though I’ve often wished otherwise, I’m no superhero; and no one ever said saving a cardiovascular system was going to be easy.

the red bull mini drome!

It’s been all ‘cross, ‘cross, ‘cross around here lately but I got a refreshing taste of my first love, track, last Friday. With Austin Horse in town for a race on dirt and on the first Red Bull Mini Drome event held in Tokyo, it promised – and delivered – on good times.

Nearly 100 racers spun around the tiny velodrome – some flying off and making for great entertainment – in the first round of time trials, before progressing to the pursuit event. Austin flew around the track, making great time…until his front wheel nosed itself off the edge. With three more laps to go, he was unfortunately out of the second round of sprints. The crowd cheered regardless, and the press of people became nearly suffocating as we reached the final pursuit matches. Messengers progressed through the round robin to their friends yelling encouragement, as Red Bull girls – ever present – handed out gratuitous bullets of caffeine. I stood on tiptoes to catch a better view, but without much luck. The pictures I managed to take don’t do the event justice; I swear, it was way more amazing than my camera shots look.

Thanks to Ai and Arnie of Red Bull for putting on such an awesome event!!! And hopefully see you guys again soon!
[More pictures here.]

das pro und the rookie

Since I’ve started cycling, I’ve often wished for a cultured, sophisticated friend of the European variety. I imagine this well-connected friend, preferably reasonably attractive and trilingual, would never lack in single, male friends with chiseled features and lithe bicycles. This friend would somehow always have access to villas and chateaus, dispersed across the European Continent, in which one could crash for weeks at a time, conveniently located near spectacular riding routes. There’d be a flat in London, too, should the need for a Vivienne Westwood shopping spree ever arise, but the majority of our time will be spent in Italian cafes or the French Alps. Always in our respective kits.
Unfortunately, either birds of vastly different feathers don’t like to flock together, or, the more gentle explanation to my self-confidence would suggest, that this type of fun-at-parties, almost-annoying-cultured-in-that-European-way-but-doesn’t-come-off-as-a-total-douche friend simply doesn’t exist. Never mind that Europeans probably can’t see much charm in the cultural atrophy and addictions to reality TV that your typical Americanized individual has to offer. It’s much easier for me to explain this empty hole in my friend roster to impossibility.

Conceding that this friend can only truly exist in the confines of fantasy, it’s not a stretch, then, to imagine this individual handing you the cyclocross equivalent of the Devil’s Handbook. Except that it’s a DVD called, “Das Pro und the Rookie,” featuring lots of Belgian people, Tim Johnson, and Chandler Delinks speaking French.

It’s not porn, but as a ‘cross neophyte, the documentary is like a primer on what I need to know to most effectively pretend that I know what I’m talking about when discussing this particular discipline. Which is to say, it might be pretty close.
Because who doesn’t get off on sticky, slippery bikes races in exotic and freezing Belgian cities? If I’m honest with myself, the answer to that question would be, “mostly everyone.” But because a reality that doesn’t parse perfectly with my imagination disturbs me, I choose not to interact with the ‘cross-ignorant and thrill-deprived. It’s made for a markedly happier state of mind, and friends who would totally understand why LOLing on the trainer while watching “Das Pro,” is completely acceptable, and expected, behavior.

And this documentary – made by Chan and Todd Prekaski about Chan and Tim’s respective 2010/2011 ‘cross seasons – is that good. Not just “I’m friends with Chan and Tim so I have to say it’s good,” good, because honestly, after Chan outright ruined season three of “The Wire” two hours after I first met him, I don’t feel like I owe him anything. This was confirmed on Monday when he ruined “Dexter” for me. Thus, I’m arguably in the perfect position to rip Chan a new one…and this documentary is still hilarious, well-paced, and knows how to deliver the excitement of a ‘cross race through a video lens. I was actually disappointed that there wasn’t going to be another episode next week.

That’s not to say that it’s dumbed down entertainment a la reality TV [no cat fights are involved here]; it’s intelligent and interesting, and never regresses to macho-ness or over-analysis. “Das Pro,” gives you ‘cross as it is in Europe, raced by Chan in the Master’s World Championships, and by Tim and Team Cannondale p/b Cyclocrossworld.com in the World Championships, with the additional twist of Chan’s commentary and some great video editing. As any good documentary should, it also reflects reality – the ups and downs of racing, as well as the camaraderie between the pro[s] and the rookie. It’s not a collection of clips of how these guys would like to appear, either. The sarcastic banter between Tim and Chan, how genuinely nice Jamey Driscoll is [he told me with a straight face that no, Chan was really lying about that spoiler in “The Wire,” even though he wasn’t]; these are things that are, as far as I can attest, real. I almost wish I could pull a Chan here and give away some major spoilers.

But as the future of younger souls rests on the fact that I don’t, I’m keeping my lips sealed. Because proceeds from the sale of “Das Pro und the Rookie” DVDs go towards Tim’s Mud Fund, a scholarship set up for promising junior and U23 American ‘cross racers to take some of the financial stress of racing off of their shoulders. It’s what I’d imagine my fantasy Euro friend’s philanthropic father would be into, because he would surely love ‘cross.
Clearly, I’m loathe to give up my European friend aspirations, even if they’re of the modest, super-loaded-attractive-friend-with-hot-bike-friends-and-tons-of-connections variety. The footage in “Das Pro” hasn’t exactly killed my boner for Europe, either. There’s something inspiring, though, about Americans racing their guts out in this almost peculiar cycling discipline, going head to head with Belgians who look like they were genetically engineered to portage, mount, dismount, and run a bike through mud and snow. It’s almost enough to forgive them for that whole spoiler thing.
Almost.