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ninevirtuesRarely has a line from an old REM song been so appropriate.
I drove to the criterium race, feeling fine.
Lined up on the start line.
We started. Wha....? Why am I already behind.....? Aaaarrghhh!!! Within about thirty seconds I was gapped, struggling as hard as I could, and my heart rate was about 183. Whoops, when that happens, I have blown up. Okay, fine. I went hard again.... and blew up again.
A lady standing on the sidelines yelled, "The woman ahead of you is five seconds up, Gail. Catch her and work with her!"
Who the hell is that, I thought. Why is she giving me advice? "Shut..... UP," I snarled. I do not need advice from the peanut gallery.
Seven or eight laps later, I had had it. I got off the course, leaned my bike against my car, and went back to the DS (team director, who very kindly loaned me her helmet) so she could show me how to take it off.
Oh my God. I turned around and looked.... and my teammate was on the ground, crashed, and not moving. Two of my teammates went down in that crash, and one crashed on the backside of the course. No!
There was the long, agonizing wait for the ambulance, and the wait while she got loaded into the ambulance. (We later found out that she had a laceration on her face and a broken collarbone, but was otherwise okay. Thank God.) I went back to my car and.... there was a large, bike-shaped hole in the air where my bike used to be. Gone. Sto-len. Gone. No bicycle.
No! Not that! Anything but that!
Erk....
So the plan is:
File police report (tomorrow).
Check pawnshops (tomorrow).
The aforesaid team director, very kindly, will call all the local bike shops, because she knows people there, and tell them it has gone missing and what it looks like.
In the meantime, I will see if anyone has a frame my size, that they are not using, that I could borrow.
This is not the horrible disaster it might be, because I have a time trial bike that I can strip (that is, take the components off it and put them on a racing frame). I will still need to buy some parts (like handlebars) and get the bike built, and probably get it fit to me.
Bad day.
Oh, and the lady yelling irritating advice from the sidelines? That was the teammate who graciously agreed to coach me, and who was, in fact, helping me. Ooooh, way to start out the coach-trainee relationship on the right note. Oooh, you should have seen me act sheepish when I figured THAT out.
sigh...
I drove to the criterium race, feeling fine.
Lined up on the start line.
We started. Wha....? Why am I already behind.....? Aaaarrghhh!!! Within about thirty seconds I was gapped, struggling as hard as I could, and my heart rate was about 183. Whoops, when that happens, I have blown up. Okay, fine. I went hard again.... and blew up again.
A lady standing on the sidelines yelled, "The woman ahead of you is five seconds up, Gail. Catch her and work with her!"
Who the hell is that, I thought. Why is she giving me advice? "Shut..... UP," I snarled. I do not need advice from the peanut gallery.
Seven or eight laps later, I had had it. I got off the course, leaned my bike against my car, and went back to the DS (team director, who very kindly loaned me her helmet) so she could show me how to take it off.
Oh my God. I turned around and looked.... and my teammate was on the ground, crashed, and not moving. Two of my teammates went down in that crash, and one crashed on the backside of the course. No!
There was the long, agonizing wait for the ambulance, and the wait while she got loaded into the ambulance. (We later found out that she had a laceration on her face and a broken collarbone, but was otherwise okay. Thank God.) I went back to my car and.... there was a large, bike-shaped hole in the air where my bike used to be. Gone. Sto-len. Gone. No bicycle.
No! Not that! Anything but that!
Erk....
So the plan is:
File police report (tomorrow).
Check pawnshops (tomorrow).
The aforesaid team director, very kindly, will call all the local bike shops, because she knows people there, and tell them it has gone missing and what it looks like.
In the meantime, I will see if anyone has a frame my size, that they are not using, that I could borrow.
This is not the horrible disaster it might be, because I have a time trial bike that I can strip (that is, take the components off it and put them on a racing frame). I will still need to buy some parts (like handlebars) and get the bike built, and probably get it fit to me.
Bad day.
Oh, and the lady yelling irritating advice from the sidelines? That was the teammate who graciously agreed to coach me, and who was, in fact, helping me. Ooooh, way to start out the coach-trainee relationship on the right note. Oooh, you should have seen me act sheepish when I figured THAT out.
sigh...
