Bike Fit, Schedule Insanity & 100 Mile Ride

Dateline: Overwhelm City.

Okay, that's as conceptual as I'm getting. I don't have time for brain things. Today I will talk about:
-how busy I am with tri and with the things that I wanted to get motivated on, hiding from which and getting pumped for which were the reasons I signed up for tri
-getting a Not-New New Bike
-and oh yeah that century ride this weekend

So. How did I ever get signed up for Ironman? I was walking along, doing my desk job, minding my own post-collegiate beeswax, thinking about my dreams and goals and how I have a lump in my throat about how to start achieving them. I felt like I was cresting the hill of not being scared, but wasn't quite there, and I needed to prove something to myself. Creepily, Danielle Hinde IM'd me pretty much RIGHT as I had this realization, and told me I should do Ironman. And that folks, is how 9 months of body mutilation happens!
But. It worked!
I'd barely started training in December when I started pursuing the insurmountable dreams in the rest of my life. I met the kids I've been waiting and wanting to meet in my LA life, and wrangled a few of them into a directing / producing / whatever group - still finding its feet, but that door became more doors, and understanding what I'm good at and want to do out here in Hollywood. So now I find myself planning to make a pilot in the fall. That's interesting! That's real stuff!
What it brings us to is how full to the brim all my minutes are...work is 9-6, working out bookends my days, and when I can fit it I'm making plans for the big stuff after the finish line. And this week I am having to get my fundraising party together, to close that last $2000 gap. Even while I know I need to keep Ironman up top for just another month and a half, my mind is moving beyond it to the things I feel really ready to tackle after the experience it has given me. Again: it worked! Tah dah! The metaphor lives! The girl struggles to breathe!
PHEW!

Next thing: I got a new bike! Except I didn't! This is a very good time to acknowledge how much I have or haven't abandoned the "on a shoestring" premise I originally had for the training and the blog.
I've spent a lot more money than I wanted to on this. I've spent a lot less money than most people would have. I've spent money only when I couldn't justify not doing it any longer. All this adds up to my having spent a lot of money much later than I should have, and giving myself a lot of indecision headaches in the meantime. I still don't have a wet suit, because a teammate has leant me theirs for so long I've forgotten I still have another $160 to lose. I'm not going to Vineman training weekend, because I saw the course so intimately last year that I can't justify the cost of travel, hotel and a day off work one month before I do it for real - even though this will probably be an excuse for anxiety in one way or another. I run without a water bottle more than I should because I don't want to buy a jersey or a run belt that will let me carry it - I toss it in bushes along my route. Etc.
The most worrisome thing I've put off has been the bike fit. When I bought the bike in December, the shop roughly fit it to my body and expected I would be back for a fit quite soon, since the shop is run by people with enough experience that they are sensible and believe no one would put their own discomfort above shelling out $100 for a fit. I sure showed those jerks. And then they showed me back by actually charging $175. I don't know where I got $100 from, probably made it up.
As our mileage has crept up, the pain in my knees has gotten increasingly excruciating. Touch the back of your knee with your leg extended - feel those sinewy bits on each side? Those - on both knees - feel like they want to snap after about mile 70. It was scaring me, along with how bright red the fronts of my knees would get. I'd noticed that each time a teammate got a bike fitting, they seemed to really improve. All of this = Sunday found me at Cynergy cycles, biting my lip about the 200 bucks.
Usually in a fitting, there are a lot of pretty small adjustments that get made - the seat post goes up or down a couple centimeters, a new seat post or handle bar stem goes in that brings it forward or back a couple centimeters, etc. We ended up raising my seat two inches. Extraordinary. I've been told I'm effectively riding a new bike, and boy does it feel like it.
Full disclosure forces me to mention that I also traded out my half-platform pedals (for commuting in pedestrian shoes) for, uh, I don't know what they are called - here's a picture:

And of course you can't get Speedplay Light Action Pedals (looking for a picture necessitates actually figuring out what they are called, ironically) and plan to use them with your ancient mountain biking shoes that you have been using all season in the name of not spending money...especially when the last pair of Specialized BG Pro Road Shoes with Body Geometry Engineering and Lightweight FACT Carbon Soles are on "sale" for $190 and every time you touch them in the store a new employee or customer walks up and goes "OH! Those are AMAZING!" OF COURSE YOU CAN'T DO THAT! OF COURSE YOU MUST SPEND THIS MUCH MONEY! Your knees!!! NEED IT. Oh, did you want a picture?

I'm trying to remember if I've ever, in the style of a cartoon Rich Guy funding his Young Beautiful Mistress' every shopping whim, actually felt faint when receiving a total before. Oh wait, it was in December, when I paid $1,600 for a bike. You would think that would have toughened me up for Six Hundred Dollar Sunday. It's an investment in my future / continued ability to use my knees, right? That's what she said.

Geez blogging makes me tired! No, wait. Disorganizedly trying to jam three blog posts into one blog post makes me tired. No, wait. Planning my fundraising party while writing a horrible blog post makes me tired. No, wait. Planning my party while blogging while trying to get my work at work done so I can leave it time to make it to swim practice makes me tired. Yeah, that's it. No, wait. Planning my party while blogging ABOUT SPENDING ALL MY MONEY while working while swim practice looms makes me tired. Yeah. When do I get to be President? I'm ready!

In other news, I rode 100 miles on Saturday. Anaheim to San Diego. 6 hours, 26 minutes. Anything else I could say about it is going to have to be officially filed under "Fell Through the Cracks."

BYE!

More on Why the Bike & Grr the Bike

Alright. I laid out some basics, and am going to skip straight ahead to the shop talk,
as that's essentially what happened for me in buying the bike.

Tri bikes, when one gets serious, are alien spaceships.

I was glad to know I had no interest in one of those, from either a practical stand point - I'm not good enough for it to make sense; a financial stand point - $4500+ anyone?; or an aesthetic standpoint - the high forms of any niche are an acquired taste.
I knew a couple of things: I would pry use it for commuting a fair bit, and therefore wanted something that was almost shitty enough that I wouldn't mind locking up. This isn't the last bike I'll buy, so it didn't need to be top of the line for my price point, but should be an educational bridge from single/fixie world to road-land. I did not want a ladies bike, as they all seemed to have condescending paint schemes.

The original plan, owing to my budget, was to have Charles Spano, friend and son of a custom frame builder, help me ebay a great bike. For around $500. I want to be clear that this would have been totally possible, had I more persistence, time, and trust that everything would ultimately be okay. Even my coaches were alright with this plan.
In order to shop at distance, I needed to make sure I knew my frame height correctly, so I went down to Cynergy Cycles in Santa Monica to get a rough fit, and ride some Specializeds.

Long story short: I ride an Allez, which is the bottom of the good line of basic road bikes. It LOOKS H.O.T.

I want this bike. I want it. It costs $880.
That is $380 more than I had planned to spend.
I ride it. It rides well, but is a strange transition from my old Surly, which I think was too big for me, caused me to over-extend my upper body to the handle bars, but which I got used to, and I am still un-learning.
They urge me to ride the women's version of the same model, which looks like:

This is not a cool bike. It is almost pastel, and it has floral decals. The handle bar tape is THICK. This is rude.
I ride it, but I don't really pay attention to it, because I just can't make myself. This bike is $940. Hmph.

A week goes by, where I stress over whether I will be ROYALLY SCREWING myself by not getting a women's frame (mental freakout/hyperbole) and how dumb I am being to let aesthetics trump performance (mental abuse/hyperbole), and the feeling that if I'm dropping that much dough, I should get what I damn well want (clarity/sanity).
One day, driving on a random street, I go, You know what? Screw it. It's MY damn bike, lots of ladies rode man bikes for long enough, I'll be FINE, and then when I eventually get a ladies bike, I'll know whereof the differences lie.

I go back to Cynergy.
I ride the Allez again, and crazy Randall the world's ultimate salesman soothes my fear that I should be buying a women's, and says its okay to get the Allez. It's a nice bike. I say to Randall, just to be educated about this, let me ride the Dolce (women's frame) one more time. Except they don't have the Dolce I rode last time in my size. Now all they have is a Dolce Compact. This bike has nicer gears than the Allez or the first women's bike I rode. This is dangerous. This bike costs $1600.
I ride it, for about 5 minutes.
I didn't cry, but I could have.
It was a massively better bike, and you could feel it from the first moments. This is a machine I am going to be on for hours at a time, covering 100's of miles. I have no money, but I want to do this for myself. I want to go to the outer limit of what I am comfortable with financially, and get a bike that will make me love this race.
I buy it.
I go into overdraft, unwittingly (I thought I had $3000!) at that moment.

Possibly more troublesome, it looks like this:

Puke. Really. Puke.
Apparently the CEO of Specialized had been at the store 30 minutes before I came in to ride. That was my chance to let someone know. Instead, I'll probably just paint the frame. What's another $100-300 at this point, right?

I'm in deep.

Rest Day = Nail Biting

Here is a thing that rules: I did not work out today.
My coach told me not to.

Here is a thing that does not rule: buying a bike.
I am sure I'm going to spend $800.
And you know what happens when I tell other triathletes I'm gonna spend that much?
"Dude, don't worry, you'll be okay on it!"
:(

I'm trying to do this thought exercise: remembering the 9-month-long anger and agony of being on an entirely unsuitable bike (some sorta mountain-road hybrid), and use that as mortar to build a little brick wall around my weeping impoverished heart.
Itwillbeworthititwillbeworthititwillbeworthit.

If you are reading this, I am totally open to you buying me a bike.
Mom. Dad. momdad momdad mom ad dad anyone anyone anyone Michel Gondry buy buy buy!

On Truly Starting

I drank too much coffee!!! I've been sitting at one of Venice's loveliest outdoor cafés for four hours, compiling my fundraising list and belatedly composing my letter, and I drank 3 cups, after having cut coffee from my life for a couple months. As my old roommate Ali would say, I'm "doing" caffeine. TEETH GNASH TEETH GNASH TEETH GNASH

Okay okay okay, what are we writing about here today?
Ah ha!
First use of mileage tracking website (no hidden costs in THIS girl's triathlon) yields $4.78 in fuel to get to & from the first Training meeting, where we talked bikes and LSD (long, slow distance).
That's pry low, since I spent 30 minutes not finding the meeting - it was on Colorado Ave, not Montana, as I thought, which would be fine except I'm from Wyoming. Sorry Mom & Dad!
We almost had an additional mishap though! Bridget Jones 'R' Us!

I feel really elated to be starting this. I have moments where I can actually see myself on mile bajillion of the race, and in those moments I'm terrified. But luckily, never having experienced acute endurance pain like what I am in for, those are fleeting thoughts, and mostly I'm enjoying feeling as determined as I do.
I feel like I have a lot of big ideas that I completely back off from, which is part of why I'm undertaking this; millions of literal footfalls will take me, slowly but surely, towards an incredible goal, and I doubt the physical journey won't reap psychological dividends. That sounded sort of clinical, but I meant it.

I should be able to get my letter out tomorrow...could be today, but I feel like I want Granpa and Robin to read it, just to sort of...sign off on using Randy's name. Is that weird? I just want to make sure I'm honoring the guy I'm honoring.

My training schedule says today is a rest day, but the coffee is making me bonkers! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Casual Friday

I was all set today to write a bit of a retro-active report about my general haplessness, because I completely forgot to go to the Kick Off last Saturday. Err...I didn't forget, but I thought it was at noon. It was at 9. That + getting bike stolen + birds pooping on me (see three entries back) seemed like good enough evidence, and I had a whole charming thesis about being a romantic comedienne-type triathlete.
However, that has all been eclipsed.

I went to the gym this morning, and after a good mile swim and two mile run, I showered and found I had forgotten to bring my work clothes. I sit typing this, waiting for my boss, the Executive Producer of one of America's top commercial & music video production companies, to come and find me in sweatpants that say "Wolf Pack" on the butt.

In other news, first big training meeting tomorrow!
Bike fittings tomorrow!
Then bike searching on eBay!
First swim practice next Thursday!
Fundraising letters going out tomoorrrrowwww ek eeek eeek!

Ah, and in the spirit of tracking my costs:
new Masterlock = $4.99
LA Fitness membership = $29.99/mo. (I would NOT get this were it not for the pool....necessary cost)

Need to find a good gas costs tracking widget.

Goggles Mostly

Signed up on Monday for a free Tuesday am trial swim with LA Masters, but couldn't go because I realized at 10 pm that I don't have swim cap and goggles...

Wednesday went to Sports Chalet, after frustrating, fruitless Google search for specialty swim shop.


Tyr Socket Rocket 2.0 Goggles = $6.99 (JESUS)

Tyr Team Sprint Goggles = $5.99 (RIDIC)

The biggest insult of all:



Speedo Silicone Long Hair Cap = $11.99!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wanted two buy like 3 $1.50 cheapies, and this was literally ALL they had.

Practice was good, though for some reason Fly Day on my first day. Horrible.
If I want to swim with them, I think it's like $55/mo. Hard choice.

Socks & Registration

Well, I spent money on tri last night, so it's time to start keeping track!
I bought 3 pairs of Gold Toe sweat wicky, no rise socks from Target for, I believe $5.99.....no choice but new in the sock dept.

I also almost bought one of those ipod armbands. I have heretofore run with the ipod in the weird pocket on my running shorts, and kept it from banging around by rolling my shorts a couple times (a la Catholic School boxers-under-skirts) and then sticking it in the rolled band, but it needs adjustment more frequently than multi-mile runs will suffer. The other revolutionary thing I've done is run without music. And think. About life.

The armband was $14.99, and though I wanted to apply the "If I spend on it I'll feel guilty and actually use it technique," my inner nerd/Luddite decided I will make my own....I'm thinking at this point, knee sock/sweatband + pocket + zipper should do the trick. Oh, but not in the rain. Hmm.
I'm also tempted to just outsource this to Christy, and give her a sense of mission.
But would yarn be super gross?

Anyway.
$5.99 so far!
Oh also $100 registration.

UGH