The long road ahead

I haven't logged onto my blog for many, many weeks; I feel a strange sense of personal guilt about my hiatus, and I didn't want to actually confirm when I last made an entry.  But upon finally taking the plunge today, I see that I haven't visited this site in almost four months.

Since running my half-marathon in March, my miles have gotten slower and much fewer in number.  The weather is often oppressively hot and humid, which doesn't help matters much, but mostly it's just hard for me to find the time and motivation to do much more.   I feel blessed that I have 30-40 minutes each morning for a run -- a claim my poor husband can't share.  I also know that, if only I could tear myself away from Ryder a little more quickly once his nanny walks in our door, I might even have 20 minutes more on the road.  Alas, I cannot.  I simply enjoy every moment I get with Ryder, and especially in the morning, when he's not yet exhausted and either crazy or cranky at the end of a long day.

Watching Le Tour and then the Olympics for the past several weeks, though, has left me yearning to train for a running race and/or get back into good cycling shape.  I feel less like a "runner" these days than simply "someone who runs."  Watching the women's Olympic marathoners collapse after crossing the finish line yesterday actually made me wistful.  It's been a very long time since I've been able to run long and hard enough to "leave it all on the road," and I miss it.

Perhaps my longing to train again is a good sign.  After all, when I asked Zdenek -- a former competitive swimmer -- whether watching the Olympic swimming events made him wish he could be back in the pool, he thought for about two seconds before replying, "Nope."  Yet, I countered, watching Le Tour does make you want to go for a bike ride, right?  He agreed.  It can only mean that he's spent too many years in the pool.  He had a finite number of laps in him, and they're spent.  The bike, on the other hand, is still relatively novel for him (and even more so for me).   When it comes to biking, we still have skills to master, times to improve, and, maybe, races to ride.

The fact that I miss running and cycling so much can only mean that, given the time and freedom once again, I will be back.  There are still a lot of miles left in me.  Perhaps I should be thankful that I'll have something to turn to when Ryder can't wait for me to get out the door.

New obsessions

We’re now a few days into July, which marks the beginning of both summer and le Tour. Alas, my days of being able to stay up until late, intensely focused on that day’s Stage, are behind me: while I’ve always been a pretty early-to-bed kind of girl, my attention span these days is markedly shorter than it ever was. It seems that if I am not actually doing something with Ryder (i.e. holding, hugging, kissing, changing, feeding, cleaning, etc.), then I am always thinking about him or how to care for him. After a few minutes of cycling action on tv (and yes, we’re in high def this year), I find myself inexplicably drawn to the plethora of baby-related books and manuals on my coffee table. Recently we started Ryder on solids (avocados, bananas, oatmeal, and watermelon are all huge hits so far -- clearly he’s my boy!), and so while I’ve just finished learning everything I need to know about baby sleep patterns and developmental milestones, I’m suddenly having to learn all about making and freezing homemade baby food and just how much iron my little guy actually needs in a day.

Ryder clearly rules our roost. I’m sure (or at least I hope!) that it’s a first-time parent thing, but too often I catch Zdenek and me having a conversation at the dinner table that might go something like this:

Parent 1: Do you think his second nap was long enough today?
Parent 2: Maybe, but then he also had that short catnap in the morning, don’t forget.
Parent 1: Right. Maybe we shouldn’t have taken him out in the stroller at
that time...
Parent 2: Perhaps. But how many hours of sleep did he get
yesterday?
Parent 1: Let me check the log.

And so on.

In fact, this past weekend, I managed to detach for a minute and listen to Zdenek and me, and it was obvious that we are both (a) obsessed, and (b) completely boring.

It’s therefore nice to know that we have at least a few other things in our lives that are completely unrelated to Ryder. For one, I’m still running 4-6 times each week (Ryder could be related to this if he so desired, but he’s made his dislike for the running stroller pretty apparent), and though the miles are short, they are always sweet. Zdenek has recently been getting back into the habit of crawling out of bed at 5:30 am to take his bike for a spin in Central Park; I’m happy he’s doing this, because running is a bit tough for him in the sticky summertime. And when we were watching le Tour a couple of nights ago, we did manage to have a conversation that had nothing at all to do with Ryder -- namely, we discussed whether Garmin-Cervelo had anyone worthy in the GC and debated whether Team Radioshack is full of dopers (I say “yes”). (Let’s forget, for the moment, that Ryder is actually named after a member of Team Garmin…)

I’m really, really looking forward to the day that Ryder is a bit older and he can run and cycle with us. To be sure, there are many times that I want to stop time altogether and savor every morsel of his adorable six-month self, and when it makes me want to cry to think how quickly he’s already growing up. But once he’s able to share the fun of running and cycling with us, maybe Zdenek and I will be able to spend a little less time talking about Ryder and more time engaged with him in the activities we love.

There will come a day when the only Ryder-related log will be the one tracking his daily miles. I’m sure of it.

Newton!

This past summer, watching le Tour, I was always amused when the cyclists would gripe about having to take two rest days among the grueling, 20-day competition. One would think, after being in a saddle for four or more hours daily, climbing hills and sprinting to finish lines, that 24 hours of scheduled rest would provide welcome relief for the body and mind, and that any sane rider would spend the time off of his feet, getting a massage, and generally trying to do as little as possible. In fact, though, very few of the cyclists rest at all on the designated days, opting instead to go for a long (albeit easier) ride; they claim that even a single day of inactivity results in decreased performance when the competition resumes.

I could never understand this. In all of my marathon training plans, I’ve been told to take one, if not two, rest days per week, and that one day of complete inactivity is absolutely essential to allow muscles to repair and rebuild. Either the riders in le Tour are a different breed altogether (probably true), or they were simply lying (they've been known to do that, too). But today I was humbled to experience the perils of rest.

I have not had a day off from riding or biking in 23 days. Granted, some runs have only been 30-40 minutes long, which is nothing compared to a five hour ride, but I’ve been working out with some regularity since (and including) our time in Spain. Yesterday morning, however, I had a scheduled medical test that required an overnight fast, and I knew there was no way I’d be able to exercise in the morning without coffee and yogurt in my system. I therefore skipped the usual run or ride (which turned out to be fortuitous timing since the rain was coming down in hard sheets, anyway). Today, however, it was business as usual, and though it was again raining hard and I was exceptionally tired, I got out of bed, hopeful that, within 30 minutes, the skies might dry up while I might perk up.

I ended up running just under six miles this morning in warm, muggy weather, and only the occasional spit of rain with which to contend. But this run felt horrible! For the last few weekends, I have been running 10 or 11 miles in one go -- sandwiched between days of 30 mile bike rides and five mile runs -- and I have felt ten times more energized than I did at 6:30 am today. I have contended with fewer hours of sleep and warmer weather and still managed to run easier than I did this morning. Yes, today’s run was a struggle from start to finish -- heavy legs, slow climbs up hills, and the feeling of just wanting it all to be over. (The only saving grace was that I forgot my watch at home, so I wasn’t able to track just how slowly I was moving.) And although I did feel better and eventually more energetic for having completed the run, this morning I was certain that I had lost three weeks worth of fitness overnight.

It seems that Newton had it right all along: a body in motion really does want to stay in motion, and a body at rest quickly becomes, well, lazy. I may never be able to compete like the boys of le Tour, but today, I felt their pain.

Who invited us?

Somewhere between my leather pants and my Lululemon shorts, I think I became old. I’m not sure when, exactly, the transformation took place. I’m pretty sure it was after I got married, because I think I still wore leather pants up until that point. In fact, I did a lot of stuff until a few years ago that, looking back, clearly fit into my “youth” phase: chief among these was skipping dinner before a night of drinking with friends, only to head out for late-night pizza at 2 am. Sadly, I can’t remember the last time I indulged in middle-of-the-night pizza because, frankly, I am home asleep in my bed in the middle of the night. Every night.

My age was brought into sharp relief last night at Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball concert at MSG. Zdenek and I headed down there after watching our pre-recorded Stage 3 of Le Tour. (This has been the most exciting three days of cycling I’ve seen in a long time, and, happily, my man is now back in the maillot jaune. This seemed like a worthy reason to post another photo of him looking resplendent in yellow.) We arrived just a few minutes before Gaga took the stage at 9 pm. The concert was quite the spectacle, and we did enjoy ourselves, but it soon became painfully obvious that we were a bit out of our element. Some of the concert goers were dressed like Gaga herself -- the woman behind me had stripped right down to her bra -- while I looked sporty in Lululemon shorts, a tank top, and flip flops (it was, after all, stiflingly hot). Everyone around us sucked back $8 beers throughout the show, whereas Zdenek and I had to chug back our $1.50 bottle of water before being allowed to enter the stadium. We stood most of the time in order to see the stage, but not necessarily because the music forced us up and out of our seats. And while we did sort of move around in rhythm to the beat, we also had our hands in our pockets a lot of the time. And at some point, with teenage girls screaming around us, the smell of pot wafting through the air, and a couple a few rows down “performing” in their seats, Zdenek turned to me and asked, “Who invited us to the Monster Ball?”

But even though I recognize that I’ve become an old, boring, thirty-something, I guess I don’t mind so much. I really do enjoy getting out of bed before 6 am seven days of the week in order to bike or run. I know that we’ve actually lost certain friends in New York because we prefer to be at home and in bed no later than midnight (and even that’s pushing it), whereas most of the New York crowd only gets going at around 11 pm. I don’t feel funny wearing flip flops and shorts to a concert because, frankly, I’ve done the leather pants thing, and it’s just not as comfortable. (In fact, I wore a 4-1/2 inch pair of heels to a wedding on Saturday, and though they looked great, by 9 pm I was cursing every time I had to get out of my seat to make a trip to the bathroom.) Yes, age has taught me that my feet feel best in runners or clipped into bike pedals; that oatmeal, not pizza, is the ultimate early-morning food; and that it is more enjoyable to run a few miles before the crack of dawn than to stumble out of bed to down a few Advils for a pounding hangover. We may not fit it at the Monster Ball these days, but somehow, that seems okay.

Tests of endurance

Sunday marked the conclusion of the nine stage Tour of Switzerland. Zdenek and I should have two weeks of television freedom until Le Tour begins. (Sunday also represented my first rest day after two straight weeks of running and biking, culminating with a tough 13 miles in the Saturday morning heat. I rewarded myself on Sunday by going for a delicious brunch with Caitlin and then splurging on two new pairs of shoes. Well, technically the shoes didn’t really have anything to do all of the running and riding I’ve done, but it seems better if I can say that I “earned” them in some way.)

One of the things I’ve learned to appreciate about cycling races is that they really have a way of separating the pack and allowing the most deserving winner to emerge. It seems that, after days and days of time trials and sprints and mountain climbs, the best man (and hopefully not just the most EPO’ed one) really does win. (I contrast this with football/soccer, in which the one of the highest rank teams can go up against one of the lowest rank teams, and yet still barely eek out a winning goal. Something seems remarkably unfair with a scoring system like that.) In cycling, I can’t imagine a scenario in which the lowest ranked rider (in the case of the Tour of Switzlerand, Noe Gianetti, whoever that is) would stand a chance against any rider finishing in the top 10. Indeed, no offence to Mr. Gianetti, who could kick my ass any day, but he finished about 90 minutes behind the lead group.

While Zdenek and I seem to have some sort of cycling event recorded on our DVR almost every day of the year, this year’s Tour of Switzerland made fantastic viewing for many reasons:

(1) Fabian took center-stage, at least for the first couple of days that he wore the yellow jersey, and even after that given that he was riding in his home turf. The camera took many long shots of him riding, eating, smiling, waving, giving the thumbs-up, etc. This is how all cycling should be televised.

(2) The field was outstanding. All but three big names (Contador, Basso, and Evans) were in attendance, and performances in Switzerland gave a good glimpse of who will be the big contenders in Le Tour. In fact, there are so many good riders this year that, on our ride yesterday morning, Zdenek excitedly talked for three or four miles about the strength of each team and who might stand a shot at the podium in Paris. (On miles 15-18, Zdenek relayed the saga of LeMond and Fignon for me, which certainly helped take my mind off the burning pain in my legs while climbing Harlem Hill.)

(3) The Swiss countryside is positively breathtaking and makes for beautiful screen shots. Unfortunately, every time Paul Sherwen commented, “We hope you’re watching these pictures in high definition,” Zdenek said, “No, we’re not, we’re watching it on a 1998 Sony Trinitron.” It seems certain that our July 24 move (which happens to be the final weekend of Le Tour) will entail the purchase of a big screen television -- a just reward for what I know will have been three weeks of dedicated viewing.

Burning!

Last night I dreamt about a professional, although fictional, bicycle race. In my dream, this race was two weeks long, though it wasn't clear in which European country it was taking place. What was clear, however, was the daily play-by-play of all the cyclists and their strategies. The first week of my dream race was all mountain stages, and the second week was mostly flat with a few time trials (inexplicably, Fabian wasn't there). It was all very exciting -- like having my own little sports channel playing in my brain. Lance Armstrong was competing, and he adopted an unusual strategy of riding as hard as possible, burning up the course on every single stage until he had nothing left. This would probably be a poor tactic in a real race, though it would no doubt make for exciting spectating. In my dream, after one of the mountain stages, I interviewed Lance Armstrong, who only wanted to talk about one thing -- Lance Armstrong (likely an accurate representation). In any event, I'm not sure what all of this means, and I don't know why I'm mentioning it here, except for the fact that it affirms one thing: I have officially become one of the cycling-obsessed.

Zdenek and I have been burning up the roads ourselves lately, and if I owned more cycling attire, we might actually be out there every single day. It's been burning hot in New York, too, so the breeze experienced during riding is far preferable to the hot soup sensation during running. I'm enjoying drafting off Zdenek as much as possible, since this provides both of us with a challenging workout. But try as I might, I've been known to get dropped from time to time, especially on the hills. I don't like having to holler at him to slow down, since that makes me look like a bit of a lightweight in front of the Central Park riding elite. But Zdenek and I have now come up with a secret code word that I can yell out from behind whenever I notice that the gap between his rear wheel and my front one is increasing at an alarming rate: burning. (And nobody needs to know that this refers to the fact that my legs are on fire and I cannot possibly push any harder to catch up.)

Yesterday it was another scorcher in New York, but Zdenek and I rushed home in time for a five mile run in the Park. We tried to stick to the soft surface and cooler shade of the bridle path, but it was still an extremely difficult, uncomfortable 40 minutes. With about one mile to go, on the last big hill of our route, I looked over my shoulder at my hot and sweaty husband. It was obvious that he was enjoying this run very little and would not be happy to pick it up a notch. But then I just decided to go for it. I shifted to a higher gear. It was very Lance-esque of me. And from behind me came a sound: "Burning!"

Old

Le Tour finally finished today, which means that I might finally get a bit of my life back. I am a bit surprised at how engrossed I became in this 21 day bicycle race, but I think I've found a lifelong addiction that will now have to wait another year for a fix. Obviously Lance Armstrong's return to the Tour this year was the favourite subject among the American commentators, and even though I'm not a huge fan of Armstrong myself (I throw my support behind Fabian), even I must admit that it's pretty impressive for a guy of his age to make the podium, especially after a long hiatus from the sport.

It's funny to refer to Armstrong as an "old guy" -- even though among fellow Tour riders he most certainly is -- because I'm not that far behind him (and Zdenek is even closer!). I guess that makes me an old woman, or close to it. Try as I might, I'm rapidly realizing that I am having a tough time keeping up with the younger generation. This morning, with a throbbing head and pasty dry mouth, I conceded that our six hour East and West Village drinking fest last night (with a couple of friends who were born in the 80s -- believe it!) had taken a serious toll. With every hangover, I age a little more quickly, and I recover that much more slowly. It took me until 2 pm today to get outside for my run.

Zdenek, on the other hand, found himself reliving the moments of his youth on our Saturday bike ride. At the Piermont cafe where we stopped to get a smoothie, a cute blond girl started putting the moves on my husband. When we got back on our bikes, Zdenek commented that it had been a "long time" since that had happened to him, so I'm happy that he got to feel like a young stud again. It must have been his Saxobank jersey; maybe she mistook him for Fabian.

This seems like as good an opportunity as any to post a photo of my cycling heartthrob

Will ride for food

An unexpected consequence of my new cycling hobby has been my growing and rather committed interest in Le Tour de France. In years past, I feigned excitement as Zdenek tried to explain to me the tactical moves and gruelling terrain that make Le Tour so thrilling, but it just didn't make much sense to me, and 21 days of 3+ hour televised events seemed like a colossal waste of time. This year, however, has been different, and I've been a dedicated viewer since the start (and not just to ogle Fabian, either, although his presence in the Tour certainly doesn't hurt).

I now realize that competitive cycling is rather difficult to appreciate without having experienced, first-hand, the joys of drafting or what a 7% grade really feels like; because I can finally relate in some small way, I view Le Tour as only a cyclist can. But one thing stands out about the professional riders, aside from their ability to cycle 100+ miles, day after day: their weight (or lack thereof). An interesting piece in this weekend's NYTimes highlighted just how regimented a diet these athletes keep to maintain their boyish, almost skeletal figures, and how post-workout beers are absolutely prohibited. In fact, the Tour riders sometimes need to be reminded or inticed to eat.

It is here that Zdenek and I part ways with the professional elite (assuming we hadn't already done so on a 7% climb). Eating and drinking may, in fact, be the two most important reasons that we run and cycle, rather than the other way around. This weekend was a case-in-point: we enjoyed a moderately difficult but gorgeous 55 mile ride with Caitlin and Adam on Saturday morning (which I hope will become our regular weekend event), and then rewarded ourselves with a bottle of wine, pizza, prosciutto, and pie and ice cream. Sunday morning saw us running a solid 12 miles, but spending the rest of the afternoon in the Bohemian beer gardens with friends, drinking Czech brew and snacking on bratwursts.

Athletes we might be, dieters we are not.

My first cycling picture

The peleton: Adam (l), me (c), and Caitlin (r)

Sexy Saxobank rider (just like Fabian)