METRIC CENTURYPOWERED BY CHICKEN PARMIGIANA!!!

yesterday i rode my longest ride ever at the people powered ride in the goleta valley north of santa barbara.

i rode with my fellow aids marathon coach and la tri club member, cindy, who is prepping for the ironman 70.3 championships in clearwater, fl. we drove up the night before and checked into a travelodge in lompoc about 20 minutes from the ride start. let's just say, lompoc is a quiet town, not much to do, and the travelodge, well, our room was small.......

...so small, there was no place to lean our bikes anywhere in the room, so we had to take the front wheels off and cram the frames into the small closet!!!

i was dead set that since this was my longest ride ever, really only 10 miles longer, i was going to take it soooooooper easy. so we went to eat at some italian spot, and i said "fuck, it, i'm hungry, i'm having the chicken parmigiana...that'll definitely slow me down tomorrow!!!" seriously people, i'm rethinking the whole nutrition thing, cuz that parmigiana was off the hook, and i had a great ride the next day!!!

i was dog tired from coaching earlier that morning and then the 3 hour drive up north, so i read a chapter from "going long" and was out by 9:30pm. i was finally gonna get 8 hours of sleep!!! or so i thought......

10:30pm - cell phone goes off:

me (in a daze): "um, hello?"

mr. creepy mccreeperson: "hey girl, what's up?"

me: "huh??"

mr. c. : "what's up, what are you doing tonight?"

me: "dude, i'm in a hotel room, asleep. i can't talk...i'm sharing the room with a friend and she's sleeping too"

mr. c. : "oh damn, that's right, your ride up north!!!"

me: "yeah.... i'll call you tomorrow after i'm done"

mr. c : " hey wait, one more thing. you're never gonna guess what i did."

me: "i have no idea. what did you do?"

mr. c. : "i shaved my legs....."

me: "........"

mr. c. : "hello??"

me: "yeah, that's cool, i'm going back to sleep. talk to you later..."

mr. c : "ok, have a great ri...."

click.

cut to 11:30, my phone is now on vibrate for fear that it'll wake cindy up again.

phone buzzes and still wakes her up. this time it's not mr. creepy mccreeperson, so aptly named by the one and only kim over at locked and loaded (thanks for that one, kim). no this is a new one you all haven't been introduced to yet. oh, and rest assured that there will be many more in the cast of characters who perform in what is my aforementioned retarded love life. you'll meet them, you'll laugh, you'll cry, it'll be fun, i promise. we'll call this next one "mr. total opposite." yes, he is in every way my total opposite, but it's refreshing. he gets me, and he's totally in my corner. all i can say about this one is that we've just got bad timing. i'm so out of it by now, i can't even bare to answer the phone, so i let it go to voicemail. turns out he's calling to find out if i'm still coming to the party. oh damn, i forgot about the party. sounds fun, but so does getting up early and riding a metric century. once again, we've been struck by bad timing and my horrible memory......

it's now 2am, and i wake up feeling thirsty, so i reach for my huge ass bottle of water sitting on the nightstand, but instead i hit the remote and the tv goes on full blast, once again waking poor cindy up. i swear to god, she's never gonna share a room with me again!!!!

4 more hours to catch some zzzzz's. let's see if they can go uninterrupted....


we woke up early the next morning to get our breakfast in before heading out on the 20 minute drive to solvang. after eating the parmigiana the night before, i thought there was no way i would possibly be able to eat again, but alas, it wore off, and i ate the oatmeal i brought, but no bowl and no spoon, DOH!!!! so i had to mix it with the stirrer in this coffee cup and slurp it down. washed it down with some frs, and we were on our way.


the ride met at the firestone winery, made famous by one particular bachelor. it was gorgeous.

i've never been to such a beautiful packet pick up!!!

there were 3 different route slips, green being the 30 miler, blue the metric century (70 miles), and yellow for the full century. cindy and i both joked about just following the green arrows, but we agreed that it wasn't worth the drive and the hotel to just do 30 miles. so we headed out, keeping our eyes open for green arrows. they were tough to spot!!! there were 3 rest stops along the route where we converged with others doing different distances. they had such a great set up with homemade baked goods, sandwich stuff, lemonade, and bike support.

we rode through the wine country of solvang made famous in the movie "sideways", even past the hitching post restaurant which is prominently featured in the film. it reminded me a lot of the vineman course but with some more climbing!!! i felt strong the whole way, really trying to spin at between 85-90 rpm to save my legs. i was good for most of the route until just after we turned at the hitching post and met up with another group of riders. this one dude dressed head to toe in some spanish team kit went wizzing by me just a little too close for my comfort. since i knew we were just a few miles from the next rest stop, i decided to challenge him. so i chased him and then passed him and looked back for a second. he stood up and tried to challenge back just before a hill. i thought, "oh crap, i'm on a tri bike, he's gonna smoke me on this hill...." but no!!! he couldn't catch me!!! then came the downhill and i thought, "ok, now this hombre is gonna challenge," but no, i clocked 41 mph and gained even more of a lead!!! i nearly missed the blue arrows at the bottom of the hill and had to put some serious brakes on. i turned and saw mr. spanish team kit on my ass and yelled out a bob roll "sheeeeit!!!" struggling to get my momentum again. basically this guy was all tricked out but couldn't ride for shit, cuz i passed him again just as we turned into the rest stop at the park. poor guy looked so demoralized to get beat by a girl......even worse, a girl on a tt bike. if only i knew how to ride like the big kids without hands, i'd a flew my fists in the air like the polka dot jersey was mine!!!

as we sat at the last rest stop, my feet were burning up bad. still had my toe warmers on and my wool socks from the morning chill!!! i had to ride barefoot the last 10 mile stretch, and i knew i'd be paying for that pissing contest earlier. we slowed to an unbelievable 15 mph as we headed into an uphill grade with the wind coming at us head on. finally, the last mile long hill came just before descending back down to the firestone property and the bbq that awaited our return. i just dug in, realizing for the first time the entire day that i was actually riding my 12-25 cassette as my 12-27 sat collecting dust on my race wheel back home. nice!!! just split the hill into quarters, looking for road markers and next thing you know, i'm at the top. cindy's still behind me making her way so i just whizzed on into the winery and waited for her at the entrance.

most of the time i was ahead of cindy which is not usually the case. i think she's getting used to her new q roo tri bike coming from having ridden a road bike with a triple crank. i give her 'til clearwater, and i bet she'll be smokin' my ass again!!! we're great training companions, i'm faster on the flats, she's faster in the hills, so we push each other just enough. we're doing our im training together, me for im brasil and her for im germany just 6 weeks later. it's gonna be a blast!!!

ok, metric century = check!!! friday brings my last long run, a 20 miler for nyc and a 23 miler saturday for my runners!!! let's see if i survive........

i'm gonna lobby that hammer nutrition make a new chicken parmigiana flavored gel. mark my words, people, savory gels are the wave of the future......you read it here first.