It'll be FUN. You'll see!
Thursday, Nov. 03, 2005 @ 3:31 p.m.

A couple orders of business before I tell you about the race last Sunday.

First of all, we have a sign Nazi in our office. I don't know who it is, but she really likes to type up and post obnoxious signs everywhere. Currently there are four of them, all admonishing people to clean up after themselves or whatnot:

I've just fucking had it with the sign Nazi. There are currently four signs:

#1, over the water fountain: "Do not pour drinks down the water fountain!"

#2, on the microwave: "Please clean up any spills in the microwave!"

#3, over the trashcan (which is between the fridge and the microwave): "Please do not put food in this trash can!!! It causes major odor problems!!! If you need to dispose of food, use a small plastic bag and knot it tight!!!!"

#4, over the sink in the bathroom, "Please do not leave food in the sink!" (Note: I have never seen food left in the sink, but okay.)

If you tear one down another will appear in it's place with "please do not remove this sign" added, so I just removed the one over the sink in the bathroom for the second time and replaced it with one that reads: "We are all adults here. We do not need signs telling us how to behave."

**********

For those of you who read the entry about my jewelry nemesis, I have breaking news. I ran into her in the bathroom and she smiled and said hi to me in the nicest way. I fell apart, y'all. I simply fell apart and the next thing I knew I was chatty chatty chatty and complimenting her outfit. I am such a WUSS. Now what do I do? Does this mean I have to tell her about "asseccories?" Shit. That's my favorite.

**********

Aaaaand, the race. I haven't done one since the Spring Torture Cup so I figured I was overdue for some suffering. I just had no idea how much. �It's a fun course!� Everyone said. "It's really swoopy! You'll love it!" they said. They lied. Not only did they lie, they started changing their tune a few days before the race. "It's FUN!" turned into "Wow, it's much harder than I remember it being." Yeah, that figures.

It was probably the hardest race I've done yet. I had to do four laps of four miles each, which is really long for me as Sport Women races are usually only 12 miles. The course was incredibly tough. Most courses have hill climbs followed by flat trails that allow you to recover. This course was all very steep down, followed immediately by very steep up. I can't always go down hills fast enough to get the momentum on the up, so it was a lot of hard pedaling and lung-gasping work.

The bottom area of some of the hills had little slippery wooden bridges or holes or roots, so that made it extra fun. If by fun I mean gaaaah. It was like that for three out of the four mile lap. Like, basically three solid miles of straight up and straight down with no time to recover, so I was wheezing and panting until I got to the very small section of twisty flat trail. This picture from the race is a very good indicator of the types of hills we had to climb:

Dude, I know. Someone GPS'ed it and said that it was 1,100 feet of climbing PER LAP. Holy hell! I believe it. I'm not a great climber so I have no idea how I ended up in this race. Well, aside from listening to all the LYING LIARS.

There were seven women in my class (I think) and I knew three of them. I went out near the back because I'd decided to just pace myself instead of trying to keep up with the pack. I got dropped by three or four people immediately and rode for the whole first lap with another girl behind me. (Incidentally, she's the same girl who had a false finish and still beat me in this race.) She finally passed and I rode the second lap alone. In the third lap I caught and passed my friend Anne. She saw me coming and looked at me with an expression that, I'm sure, mirrored my own look of: why? So much of a race is mental, I swear.

Because it was a short lap race there were a lot of spectators and they'd yell and ring cowbells for their favorite riders. Then I'd go through and you could hear crickets chirping. I finally yelled at them and asked where the love was. I got cheered on a bit more after that but dag, you know? More cowbell for me! What does a girl have to do?

On the last lap my legs were cramping, my nose was running (as it had been for the entire two hours which is nice when the photographers are staked out taking pictures) and I was praying for a flat tire, but I just pushed through it (on one hill I was actually making this primal grunting yelling sound as I fought my way up the hill - freaky) and managed to cross the line in fifth place. Not great, but I'll take it. I even won a pint glass! When I got off my bike I instantly started to get shivery and thought I might puke. It passed and I got my McDonald's coke and fries on the way home. (Why is McDonald's Coke better than other Coke? Do they add crack to it or what?)

I know it's totally ridiculous but, pain aside, I like to race. There's something really affirming about pushing yourself beyond what you think you're capable of. Or, I'm just sick in the head. Or both. Whatever.

5 chatty monkeys

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