Saturday, February 28, 2009

I should really go to bed right now...

A couple updates, since I'm sure you are just DYING to know...and I wouldn't dream of disappointing my reader(s?)!

1. I sold my mountain bike!!!!! Craigslist still sucks, but a little bit less than it did. Guy #2 that I met in Fremont came down to my work on Friday and gave me money and took my bike and my helmet that I was selling as well. I then did semi responsible with my money, and something that's not as responsible...which brings us to...

2. I got a track bike!!!!!!!!!!!!! Actually, I got a frameset, bars, and a crankset, so I'm pretty much just wheels short of having a track bike. But it's cool and I'm excited. Once I figure out my Powertap situation I will outfit the trackie with wheels and I'll go round and round in circles. Weeeee!!!!

Earlier tonight I went running with my friend Teresa that I have known since junior high, which was cool because she is in decent shape so we just ran along talking about all the random people from high school. We compared some stories and I'm somewhat happy to note that some of the stupid shit I have done is not unique. Glad to know I'm not the only one.

Yesterday I got a massage back at the original place I was going to last year with my original girl. I hadn't been since November or so, and apparently she hadn't been there either, as she had fallen off a ladder while feeding her fish and broke her ankle. The fish later died. It was good to catch up with her and she remembered all my weird stuff. I told her my psoas(?) muscle was tight and she did some weird wavy thing on my belly and it felt like she was inside my abdomen. Apparently the wavy thing was her moving my organs out of the way so she could get to the rebellious muscle. She worked on it for a little bit and had me move around while she applied pressure and all of a sudden it popped and was all relaxed. It was magical. But now I feel like someone punched me in that spot. Small price.

I'm supposed to go ride in Berkeley with the VeloGirls in the morning, so I guess I should be on my way.

Bye!

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

CraigsList is Driving Me Crazy

Pretty much, I hate Craigslist and the people on Craigslist.

I'm not sure if I hate the whole thing more because I sell crap all day and I really don't want to do it on my time off, but GOD. It's retarded.

I listed one of my mountain bikes on Friday. Saturday I got two responses. Guy #1 asked for pictures and brought up some problems that some of the bikes had when they first came out. Not problems that mine had. I figured if he's being that picky he's not worth it. Guy #2 says "I have cash. When can I meet you?"

Guy #1 then proceeds to:
-Set a meeting time
-Not show up
-Not call, email, or answer call/email/text to tell me so I wait for 45 min in the rain.
-Disappear
Then, Monday I go for a 2 hour and 15 minute bike ride. NOT a long time. Guy #1 leaves me 12 messages while I'm riding. TWELVE. Messages along the lines of "I have less money than I thought...I'm going to a shop to buy another bike for this price" (which, by the way was a completely different bike than mine, not at all the same price or anything)...I'm going to the shop right now...you have 20 minutes if you want me to buy it..."
OMFG!!!!!
I called him and he agreed to buy mine for a slightly discounted price and we set another meeting time. He wanted to meet IMMEDIATELY, but I told him he had to wait until I got back. A whole two hours. Really not that big a deal.

I get out of PT and he had left me another message: "I looked at the components and the bike is only worth $1000 to me"

Ummm...fuck off. No.

So I was all upset and like an hour later guy #2 emails me that he wants the bike. No mention of price or anything. Tonight I drove up to Fremont to 1) meet with him, 2) meet with another guy wanting something else I had listed, and 3) meet my friend DDT for dinner.

I get there and guy #2 doesn't have the money because he's waiting for his tax return but he gave me some to hold it for him but he wants a different stem and can you throw anything else in like a helmet (NO) and I brought my buddies to look all tough and pretend like we know things about bikes. Dork.

And the other guy I was meeting only wanted half of what I was supposed to be selling him, but I at least got 2/3 of the money.

And some dude in New Zealand wants my helmet and some guy in DC wants my saddle. I told them no. I don't have the energy for this shit.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

I'd take pleasure in guttin' you, boy!

Sorry, I'm watching The Rock on tv right now. My brother and I have a tendency to repeat that line over and over when we are together. I'm not really sure why.

Today is kind of stupid. I woke up late and missed my group ride. It's raining again. I've been sick so I didn't go ride in the rain, but I probably should have for mental health reasons. I told someone that I actually enjoy as a person that I can't do it anymore because he just has too much crap going on. I cried. I'm still sad. Yuck. I did laundry and cleaned and stuff and then looked at my bank account vs my bills and freaked out so I listed a bunch of crap on Craigslist.

I'm trying really hard to like Craigslist, but it's not easy. Everyone thinks CL is better than eBay. I've usually had good luck with eBay, and selling things on CL has been like pulling teeth. I listed one of my mountain bikes on eBay and no one bid on it so I put it on CL on Friday night. On Saturday I got two responses. One of the guys wanted to meet Saturday night so I made the bike all shiny and nice and took it to Peet's at 7:30 like arranged. The guy never showed up. I waited for 45 minutes, texted, emailed, and called the guy. Nothing. WTF.

It wasn't a total loss though, I did sell a pair of pedals while I was waiting for the bike guy.

But seriously Craigslist, throw me a bone here.

Ugh.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The Whose-Idea-Was-This?!? Ride

As some of you may know, this week is the Tour of California. Last year, we held a ride from the shop to the top of Sierra Road to watch the pro's come over the top. It went well. It was cold, but really not that bad.


So this year we decided to do it again.


Only this year, the Tour of California apparently coincided with monsoon season. But we still did it.


It was a dark and stormy night....


Well, really morning, because I got up at 5:30 am to give myself enough time to lug all my stuff to the shop, hit the grocery store to buy plastic garbage bags, ice and water (HA!!), and other miscellaneous crap, and stop by Peet's to grab some hot caffeinated beverages. All the while I was getting emails from customers bailing on the ride.


Instead of just having people ride with us this year, we had a bunch of bikes from Specialized on loan, so most of the people who came along were borrowing bikes. This added a nice little bonus layer of stress for me, because we were definitely on a schedule for the first part of the ride (make it to the top before Lance does!!) and it was one more disorganized step we had to take. Eventually, we got it handled, and myself, Jen, and 11 unwitting customers donned our many layers and rolled out.


I stayed dry for about three minutes. We took the bike path all the way to Hellyer, which was nice because everyone could socialize and it was empty save for some random dude walking in the rain. Everyone pointed out the big puddles and we went around them like good little riders.


Any one who has ever taken the path all the way up surely knows the spot where the path dips down low and the creek runs over the pavement if there is even a little bit of water in it. Usually not a big deal. Because of the monsoons, the creek was about 15 feet wide and 8 inches deep at this spot. I'm fairly certain the only way my feet were going to stay dry was if I had put them on my handlebars. My shoes filled up with water, and my nice "waterproof" shoe covers made sure all that water stayed put. So nice of them!


We made it off the bike path after one potty break for the boys and a little bit of debating which way to go. We headed up Silver Creek. As I was sitting in the back with one of the slower climbers I saw one of the girls pull over and start staring at her bike. She had a flat. I rode up to her and tried paging Jen on the walkie talkies I had her bring for this exact reason, but got no answer. The walkie talkies didn't work. I had one of the slower riders keep riding and flag down the rest of the group while I changed the flat. Cold, wet hands don't work particularly well for that job. We got rolling again, and someone else got a flat not very long after the first one. I changed that one too.

FINALLY, we made it to the base of the climb, with very little time to spare. The first part of the climb is ridiculous. It's straight up. Not even any turns to break it up visually. I had opted not to take my jacket off at the base, but pulled over pretty quickly to change. Miraculously, the sun came out for a little bit, making the climb a little better. I toodled along for like ten minutes of sunny goodness until WHAM!!!! the headwind from hell smacks me as I'm turning a corner and angry rain starts pouring down. I stopped again to put all the clothes I had just removed back on. We all kept riding, sometimes stopping to take a breather or adjust some piece of wet clothing. I tried standing up since I was out of gears, and the wind caught me and I felt like I was going backwards. Freaking lovely. At one point I dropped my glasses that had been hanging on my jersey and I used it as an opportunity to not feel like I was dying while some random spectator got them for me. I'm very lazy if you haven't picked up on that.

When I finally got to the top I was greeted by a ton of people and our brand-new shop tent, which was open but not pulled up all the way so as to provide a wind-free zone. There were a bunch of legs under the tent so I propped my bike against a fence and ducked under the tent to say hi. Aaaaaaaaand my tent was full of strangers. Ooops. I'm pretty sure I said something retarded. Apparently all of my people were either huddled in the truck running the heater (mostly the people who took the truck to the top who were neither riding bikes nor wet....babies!) or in various states of undress near the truck trying to get warm clothes on.

We were at the top for maybe 15 minutes before the official tour cars started rolling through, in which time I stuffed as much food as possible into my face as I shivered and made friends with a guy from Seattle who is friends with a guy who races for BMC (side note, why do all the people I know from Washington state look the same? Seriously, it kind of freaks me out.) When all the riders came by I took a ton of pictures - somewhere in the 138 neighborhood - and yelled and stuff. And then it was over.

Four of my riders went down the hill early because they were too cold to wait around, and Jen and I were the last two down. My too-large glove got caught in my shifter and I almost crashed into her on the way down. It was probably the coldest descent ever. We found the rest of our group at the bottom, and we headed back towards the Silvercreek Starbucks where the first four told us they would meet us. The girls all decided that we needed to stop before that Starbucks, because we all had to take a potty break, so we stopped at a closer Starbucks. If I had worked there I would have hated us, as we got water EVERYWHERE from walking around. The one kid (17 y-o I think) that was with us had his mom take him home. He might be smarter than me. The rest of us continued along, got a little lost, started cramping, and got another flat (spread out over 8 people, so it wasn't that eventful) until we got to our Starbucks destination. I stuffed my face some more and we got water all over the place again. The mop lady at this one was not nearly as nice as the guy at the first place. We all hopped on the bike path and hauled ass towards the shop.

While on the bike path I got tired of playing sweeper, so I took advantage when Jen drifted back to talk to someone and hopped on a faster wheel. By the time we got to the end of the path Jen was no where to be seen, so I told everyone to go on and I waited. And waited. In the rain. I tried to call her and dropped my phone in the gutter. I went to the ranger station to use their porch to dry my phone out and they invited me in because it was warm. I sat staring out the window looking for Jen and the customer she was with and never saw her. Crap. I lost my boss. I had all the spare tubes. It was raining and getting dark. Crap. I called Bruce and asked him to bring the truck. One of the rangers went looking for Jen. Bruce got there and told me he saw Jen almost at the shop. Somehow I had missed them. I made Bruce give me a ride back to the shop. Screw the last two miles, I wanted a heater!!!

That night I scrubbed my hair twice to get all the road grit out. I found rocks stuck to my head while I was in bed. I woke up in the morning with a head cold.

Pretty much, the ride wasn't that bad while I was doing it, but I am in no hurry to do it again any time soon.

Ugh.


Saturday, February 14, 2009

Back in the Water

I was a good little fishy and went swimming two whole times this week and it was awesome and I realized how much I missed it. I went on Wednesday morning (at 6 am) and it was far less painful that it should have been from a sleep deprivation standpoint. I felt like I could swim for about the first ten minutes until my swimming muscles reminded me that they are tiny and feeble and have been asleep since October 26th. The rest of the hour I felt like I was swimming through syrup. Swimmy Timmy (aka Coach Tim) said I looked good, so apparently I am a graceful flail-er.

I went again this morning and it was much better. Not only was the session at a decent hour (8:00 am), but I must have grown some guns since Wednesday. I stayed with the fastest guy doing the workout for like half of the main set, and still did fine after I had to slow it down. Swimmy Timmy told me he's proud of me, so that pretty much made it worth the screaming muscles and hypoxia.

And then a girl who came to the shop once gave me personally and the shop compliments, so that was pretty cool. She had a cute swim cap.

Oooh, and apparently I have developed swimming-induced amnesia or something, as I discovered this morning that I left my swim suit and cap at the pool on Wednesday (and they are no where to be found). Then today, I left my fins at the end of my lane and almost left without them, then got all confused when some girl was in the lane I was in. Ugh. Retarded.

I was also a good little bike girl and didn't miss any of my work outs. Next week I plan to do all my run workouts too. I wanna be a good little athlete!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Superbowl Sunday

Instead of being social I'm spending my Superbowl Sunday at home in my compression tights, good and tired from riding my bike this morning.

I always forget how much of a bad idea it is to not ride your bike enough (even if you are going to PT every week). And today we climbed a new hill. And it was not fun. It wasn't even a long hill, it just was steep enough to make me hate life for the duration (of the hill, not my life). Needless to say, it wasn't my favorite ride ever. There were lots of baby cows though. And someone bought me a chocolate croissant. But then we got followed by some weird guy with a trumpet.

I'm kind of bummed about my training so far. I haven't been able to stick to my training plan without making my leg or back bother me, and I really don't want to make it worse or back to how it was. Basically I'm re-doing the last three weeks of training, and that's lame. At least I should be able to get back in the pool relatively soon.

Hope all is well!