"I Like Pain", He Said

I had planned to ride the Dirty Girls mountain bike series on Saturday morning...until I got the text at 7am that the ride was canceled due to weather.

As I lay there sleepy-headed, having fallen back asleep after Jay left for work, I tried to think of rides I could jump on at this late start.

In my sleepy-headed delirium, my road bike was on the back of my car as it usually is when I head over to Jay's.

As it was, I had taken it off the night before when I took Ty's bike over to get him re-fit.

This didn't dawn on me as I thought about the group that might be riding over in IL (a short 15 minute drive from Jay's).

I contacted Patrick to see if they're riding there.

Nope.

He tells me they are riding out in Ballwin.

*thinks quickly in head*

Hey! I live there!

(Some days, things make sense to me.)

They are rolling out at 8am.

DOHHHH!

I tell Patrick I'm south ask him if it's going to be a hammer-fest and he assures me that it won't be.

He says he's not sure which route they're taking, but that they'll wait for me.

saWEEEET!

Sooooo...I spring out of bed and fly out the door to the garage.

Double DOHHHH!

No bike on the back of the velo wagon.

I haul ass to Ballwin and charge through the house grabbing things I will need.

I make my PowerBar water and grab an extra water bottle and my Hammer gel.

I am fairly confident that there will be no girls on this ride and that makes me nervous.

I run out the door forgetting my gear bag and my morning kyo-green smoothie.

(This cute little fact will later smack the F*CK out of me!)

I roll up to Aaron's house and the Big Shark posse is there awaiting my late and frenzied arrival.

Holy hell!

I realize I am about to be tortured by Hawley, Klages, Hinni and Gray.

*gulp*

I am happy to see Klages, since he is already familiar with my special brew of "issues" and although Patrick is somewhat aware, poor Hinni and Gray are clueless to all of this.

We head out from Aaron's and I feel OK.

We head toward Castlewood and I am aware that I am about to (for the very first time) ride up "that hill".

*thinks in head..."WOW! I really wish I was getting a massage right now instead of attacking this hill on a wet road with a bunch of boys!!"*

I'm the last one up.

(This shocks you, yes?)

Patrick prepares me for the fast and furious (and friggin' WET!) descent to Kiefer Creek.

I don't wreck.

(This shocks you too, yes?)

We head uphill again and I am behind, but within view.

At some point they wait for me and by the time we reach Old State Road, I tell them to go on and that I am just going to ride loops so I don't hold them up.

I get a bunch of "PSHAWS!" and they tell me to stay on with them.

David tells me to tuck in and how they will protect me as we ride.

Needless to say, we are no longer in Ballwin...

We soon find ourselves in Wildwood...

...and Eureka...

...and while somewhere along the way I managed to not die on those effing hills, when I realized that we were in Eureka, I almost cried.

My body was screaming, but no one other than Jim would know this...and he would only get it if I told him, which I didn't.

I know he knew.

He waited for me on one huge ass hill that went on for days (in Wildwood...I think), until I told him to go on.

I assumed that he knew I wanted them to roll on and leave me, but those guys waited for me at the top.

I would have said, "Dammit!" but it was so friggin' nice that it just made me push myself harder.

I shut up and tried to hold on.

There was a sprint for an imaginary City Limit sign in Eureka, but that city is pretty much a blur to me.

I let Patrick know that I didn't have it and wondered how long my walk home would be.

I hung on (barely, because they were being nice to me) as we made a left turn and headed up the grandest road this ol' girl has ever been on.

Wow! What a monster!

That bitch just sprawled up, up, up...and around...

I see the guys glide up this beast as if they are pulled by some invisible force that thinks girls have cooties.

I think I am about an eighth up it before my body bails on me.

No amount of Hammer gel is going to save me.

We have been riding a couple hours and I have taken in under a hundred calories.

(By the way, that is NOT wise, nor was it my plan.)

Food doesn't work out for me these days and I didn't even have the previous night's dinner in me anymore.

I was screwed.

I try all the yoga breathing in my vault and still, I am trembling and feeling the stabbing pains of a thousand daggers in my kidneys and chest.

It's then that I realize that Mr. Hawley has waited for me.

I reward him with a giant set of dry heaves and snot drainage in the foliage as I grasp the side of the rock wall and hope that I don't die or worse...pass out.

I ask him where we are so that I can figure out a plan of escape/rescue.

He and Klages agree that the best thing is to get me to St. Albans.

(Heck, even I can find my way home from THERE!)

I watch David and Aaron fly down the hill like two little kids with roman candles strapped to their asses and it makes me laugh...but I am a bit jealous too.

At the bottom of St. Albans, we make a plan.

We are all going to ride out.

We are all going to follow the same route.

Patrick is going to take my key and the boys are going to hammer back to Aaron's to get my car and I will be picked up.

*Hello, Loser!*

We head out of St. Albans and up Hwy T.

David checks with me before they take off to make sure I'm OK.

I tell him that I am and I watch them haul ass up that hill as if it was a descent.

I look at my power tap and it is blanked out.

*Dammit!*

I screw with it and call Ty and Jay to let them know where I am and what the plan is.

I get back on and start up that awful hill. (Which will now be my nemesis and I will absolutely get the hell up that hill without stopping/dying one day VERY soon!)

Once I cross Hwy 100, I feel fine.

I pick up the pace and continue my workout while keeping an eye out for my car.

I turn onto Hutchinson and wonder if I missed the guys and if possibly I was supposed to stay on Hwy 100 instead of Manchester...

I figure I'll just call them when I get to Lone Wolf.

As I turn onto Clayton Rd from Hutchinson, I see Patrick and Aaron in my car.

Holy hell!

I made it way far and didn't miss them!

I look down at my power tap and although my average for that last 8.83 miles was a sucky 111 watts, at some point it shows that I put out a max of 577 watts...which is more than I put out in my crit last week...and that makes me smile.

I was never so happy to see the velo wagon and was happy to let Patrick drive while my legs spazzed out and Aaron fondled the cx saddle he found in the back of my car.

I feel like I have been stabbed in the kidneys and wonder if I should skip brunch and simply have them cut out to ease the pain, but the whole "down time" off the bike discourages me...

Later that night while Jay and I are discussing the next day's MTB race at Lost Valley, he decides that he will do the marathon race. (3 hours of hell and pain that I wouldn't even wish on my ex!)

"Really?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says. "I really like pain."

I look at this strange man whom I love and am suddenly fully aware of the yin and yang that is us.

I spend my days (and LOTS of dollars) trying to get out of pain.

He spends his days trying to find new and interesting ways to be in more pain.

At that moment...

(...and only for that moment...)

...I think that the next time he takes me out on a hill ride, I'm just gonna kick him in the ding-ding with my cleat while he's making a wee-wee and see if he feels the same way about pain.

Knowing him, he will.

And I sort of have to admire that.

Karma and the Chain Snap Bitchslap

Saturday morning I had planned to to the Maplewood Bicycle shop ride with Stephanie, since we haven't ridden strictly for "fun" in a while.

Unfortunately, my littlest had come down with a bug the evening before and was still running a decent temperature in the morning. I didn't feel I should risk being gone long or far, so I canceled my ride with Steph and was unsure of an actual ride plan at that point.

Jay, who normally leaves early in the morning for his ride too, stayed back until I could leave to get some spinning in as well. Ty agreed to watch his sister while I rode as I had agreed to taxi him to and from his girlfriend's house later that evening. (Negotiations are fun, yes?)

We decided to roll out from my house and hit The Lone Wolf Coffee Company for some pre-ride nutrients and head out West on Clayton Rd to hit some hills.

(This was Jay's idea because secretly...on some days...he is the Devil. I am certain of this.)

*blows kisses at Honey*

We head up Valley Rd. and head out to Orville Rd, which boasts an interesting hill for which I was unprepared...at least mentally.

It was one of those long spiraling climbs that I need to be more on the mark about because I won't always know what's ahead of me, and I sure didn't on this one. It mentally screwed me. I thought bad words.

As it was, I ended up spinning up the sweet little cutie more than I usually like.

Once I reached Jay at the top, I asked him if he was trying to kill me. I told him that I wasn't "ready" for hills like that all day.

He reminded me that:

A) I won't always know the type of hill or terrain ahead of me and

B) That I have to get ready some time.

(He's so unimaginably adorable when he does this!)

*smirk*

Dammit!

He's right and I know he's right, but at that moment, I had dreams of never doing anything but flat time trials for the rest of my racing "career".

I told him to just warn me next time. He agreed he would...and he did.

We continue on and I am feeling pretty good. I have worked up a nice heat and I am toasty in the cloudy and brisk 30 degree air.

As we turn onto Hwy 109 (I think), I start to hear and feel a knocking on my bike. I can feel it in my stroke and since Jay had been having a knocking issue since last week that no one seems able to figure out, I tell him.

Then...

...mid-revolution...

*SNAP!*

There goes my chain and the pull on my groin muscle is so acute that I'm pretty sure I made a high pitched, only-heard-by-dogs type sound...

There went my chain.

Luckily Jay has a chain tool and luckily I have a spare multi-tool. I make a mental note to grab my other multi-tool (the one with the chain tool) off my desk when I go to work on Monday. Jay fixes it and we roll on.

I am enjoying the open road of BA and feeling pretty good by the time we hit Pond Rd.

We start talking about architecture and what we would or wouldn't do as we assess the houses we pass.

The road has some nice rollers and I'm regaining my confidence after that one wicked climb schooled me, when...

*SNAP!*

There went the chain again.

[insert choice vocabulary here]

I'm not sure if it was because we were in a "nice and conservative" neighborhood, or because most days I do have the sense not to curse at inanimate objects, but I didn't actually cuss.

I'm frustrated because it was effing cold and every time we stopped we lost our heat...plus this nonsense kept making the ride longer than was intended which was stressing me out a bit with a sick one at home.

I am frustrated because my stupid chain is screwing up both of our workouts.

Jay works on the chain again and it is looking gnarly...even to a mechanical noob like me.

He tells me I need to go easy with the shifting and I agree that I will likely spin up the hills from here on out...

(That part will be tough for me as I have somehow sort of forgotten how to spin...at least effectively.)

We have a hill directly as we start rolling again...maybe 100 feet or so.

Jay is next to me and I hear something clink to the ground and I say, "There it goes again..."

However, the chain is still on and we continue up the hill and just then...

*SNAP!*

This time, it is toast. Done. Finito.

We attempt to call Mark from Ballwin Cycles to see if he is on his way to the store. Voicemail.

I tell Jay to roll on and come back with the car to get me later.

He decides he is going to push/pull me home.

*scratches head*

Ummmm...oooooookay.

I clip in and push off the wall, we nearly wreck and then we are up, up, up...

Oooooh! Look! There's Hwy 100! This should be REALLY super fun to cross with one cyclist pulling another without a chain in the the wind.

(Love you, Honey!)

This ride home was a true test of our communication skills as motorists zoom by at 55+ MPH, we managed to safely get to Westglen/Manchester before Jay flats his rear wheel.

I am at this point frozen because I am not working. My fingers and toes are numb.

We pull over to address the flat.

An SUV stops and its owners ask if we are OK.

We are dumbfounded.

We are used to motorists aiming for us or gunning their engines to prove that their machine is more "powerful". We are not used to them actually pulling over to assist.

We look at them gratefully but tell them that we are OK.

We decide that they are cyclists.

We have 2 good climbs ahead of us, so Jay decides to call Barry from Ballwin Cycles and since he is on his way in to the shop, he can come grab me.

Jay changes his flat and I slip on my cleat covers and cross Manchester to start walking toward home on the shoulder. I move fast to get the blood going again...Hello toes!

Barry picks me up and Jay meets me back at my place.

At this point it is actually funny...at least to me.

I can't figure out whether I got the Karma bitchslap for bailing on my ride with Steph or for riding at all while The Sass was under the weather, but either way, I got it.