So, it’s getting warmer out. I mean, it’s shitty out now, but weather.com tells me we’re going to have an awesome weekend [starting Thursday, of course]. This also means layering and hiding behind coats is no longer an option. Time for everything to start getting shorter and tighter!
Wait...shorter? Tighter? Um...I am pointing to my still extant muffin top and...hi, wait, what???
A part of me kind of wants to tell spring to fuck off for a little longer. I’m pretty sure I haven’t lost any of that weight I gained the first year of law school which was...oh...like...THREE YEARS AGO. I mean, I can stay in denial for at least another 3 years, but with every women’s magazine on the planet touting ways to get into shape for “bikini season” [cue massive internal groaning], I’m well aware that I’m falling short.
To say that I started cycling to stay become fit would be like saying Tiger Woods is unfaithful. Not entirely inaccurate, but in both cases, we’ve managed to find something else along the way that piques our interests and addiction ensues. Unlike Tiger, I’ve been a willing participant in broadcasting my lack of game cycling skills, but honestly, guys, failure is exhausting.
And when you only have hardcore training plans and/or Chris “Imma make you do intervals until your heart feels like it’ll pop, then you can rest for 3 seconds before we do it all again because you want to be like Lance, don’t you?” Carmichael available to whip me into some semblance of shape, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. And while I’m completely okay being the slowest cyclist on the planet, I still finagled my way into a meeting this past weekend with a coach.
Enter Dave Sommerville. One of the handful of Cat 1s in NY, and one of three [yes, three] Cat 1s that work at NYC Velo. His UCI card has two “1”s and a “2,” which he wants to turn into a “1.” This would make him a triple Cat 1 in road, cyclocross, and track. His training plans are like from another universe of fast and painful.
I know this, and he knows this, which is why he’s not really my coach [more like my faux-ch]. But because DS is an awesome guy, for the price of dinner, I got a good two hours to form some sort of structure to my crazy pedaling. The man’s been racing pretty much as long as longer than I’ve been alive, so a lot of dinner consisted of me shutting my mouth and just listening [and scribbling]. He made most of his suggestions to me sound easy, but I suppose that comes with the territory when doing 1400+ laps around a 50 degree banked velodrome is your definition of fun.
I was sent home with some solid advice on where to start, reasonable goals to strive for [even without a road bike! Yay!], a stack of literature, some goodies [not that jersey though, more on that later], and the assurance that I have yet another pair of eyes looking out for an affordable, geared “hobbit bike.” I spent a good chunk of the rest of the night scouring ebay, though not much is popping up in my size. Of course, a little more digging revealed quite the beaut, but if I had $3k to blow, I’d like to think that I wouldn’t still be pulling at my pudge and pouting [but it’s not about the bike...right, Lance? RIGHT?!].
Okay, it's not about the pudge, either. But if I'm going to show up to my graduation in Lycra, I'd like to at least look fast doing it.
So I got some new goals, some more body fat to lose, and a motherfucking training plan, son! Now let's see what I can do with myself by graduation...