Race4AReason

Riding With Lance

Vu Nguyen rode in the Livestrong Challenge in Portland Oregon on June 29th.  Read about Vu's experience and his short lived attack on Lance.  For readers who do not cycle, "attack" is a cycling term that describes a sudden acceleration of one's bicycle rather than a physical altercation.

Vu also describes his fundraising efforts, his enjoyment of the event and the importance of continuing to support the fight against cancer.  Thank you Vu for your hard work.  Cancer has no friends on the Starbucks/SCCA Cycling Team!

I’ve done many bike rides and LiveStrong wasn’t a ride, it was an event.  There were of course a lot of bikers and runners, but that didn’t really define the event.  It was everyone coming together to remember their love ones and celebrate their lives, a showcase of how you can take back your life after cancer, and of course a fundraiser to help survivors.  I’ve lived in the Portland area for many years and have fond memories of visiting friends at Nike during their Friday unwinders.  As a patient at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, myself, and coming back to Portland for the ride, it felt a bit like completeness.  But the weekend was a roller coaster of emotion and labor.

My wife and I had a hectic week.  She told me she had the hardest work week in her life and on the Friday night before the event, it wasn’t over.  She had to work really late, think several hours into the AM on Saturday, which meant we didn’t leave town until the afternoon on Saturday.  We barely made it to registration and we had errands to do, including a bunch of bike maintenance on my part.  I ended up sleeping late, think again AM, after catching up with friends we were staying with.  The next morning, I underestimated what it would take to get into Nike campus for such an event.  I got to the campus an hour early, or should I say on the road next to campus an hour early.  After 30 minutes of waiting in a left turn lane, where only 3 cars made it through the light because the traffic into Nike was backed up, I called Darol.  Who told me I should meet them on the ride course.  I was thinking man, I guess this is going to be solo day representing Starbucks and SCCA. 

I drove a couple of miles from campus and parked my car and road down to the main entrance to Nike.  I get a friendly shout from a girl saying, “Are you a hundred miler?  They are about to roll.”  I looked around and all the roads that lead to the front of the hundred mile staging area was packed with people, solid layers of people that seems to stretch beyond what I could see.  I’m a bit confused but I obviously was well positioned, so I didn’t complain.  I looked around and there were people taking pictures of two guys in the LiveStrong yellow and black.  The announcer said go, the photographers weren’t quite done taking pictures yet, meaning they were still in the middle of the road.  I was amazed no one got not knocked down as they tried to dodge the photographers, leaving Nike.

I quickly learned that the guy I’m riding with is Lance Armstrong.  I rode next to Lance and his buddy for several miles.  I didn’t try to talk to him, since he was talking to his friend and people who were trying to get his attention.  I just thought, how luck was I.  I was soft pedaling and found myself probably a good 10 feet off the front of the entire pack.  Then I see some guy shoot by me and I said hi and got on his wheel.  This was where it gets fun.  Lance has an entourage of police motorbikes as his motorcade, where one crashed almost immediately out of the gate.  From what I can tell their job was to stay ahead of Lance and block off streets as he rode by.  Me and this guy were now probably a few hundred feet in front of the pack and Lance.  I did the classic Lance look back, hoping to see him chase us down, but alas no.  But now the motorcade of motorcycles also had to block off the streets for us and since we were so far ahead it caused them some logistic issues I was guessing.  However, for a few minutes I was able to feel how the king of cycling felt, streets being blocked and traffic stopped as you past.  Ahhhh, the life.  Not too long after that I looked back and Lance’s group was chasing us down.  They quickly caught us, but another guy shot by to ride with the guy who originally shot forward and they stayed ahead for a while.  I was in the fold again and riding within a bike distance from Lance.  I was just enjoying the pace that picked up and riding in a peloton with Lance Armstrong leading it.  Can’t complain about that.  But alas all good things have to come to an end.  Lance took an immediate right that made the peloton scramble to figure what way they were suppose to go.  I guess he was riding out with the 100 milers but was only doing the 70 mile ride.  I was anxious to try my first season climbing legs against the 7 time winner for the Tour de France, but that was not meant to be.

After that the peloton was unleashed.  It was casual at first with some joking and small talk about Lance Armstrong then one or two people shot ahead and drawn back.  At the first little bump, the peloton was decimated and the racers asserted themselves.  The hills were solid hills with great 1000+ climbs on average for the two major hills for the course.  I was likely one of the first twenty people to crest the top of the second hill.  I was hoping to see some Starbucks arrive, but didn’t see any.  When I took off on the course again, there was no one to ride with as most people where just beginning to get to the top.  It was an extremely fast decent, reaching speeds of around 50 mph.  I was lectured by a friendly guy who said I was going too fast especially on roads I didn’t know.  He couldn’t believe that I was continuing to gap him on the decent.  It was funny because he was obviously trying to chase me down and was upset it took longer.  I was glad to have the company and road with him for 10 miles until I stopped to get my cleats fixed.  Off on my own again, I road until I notice a bunch more people.  Finally the route lined up with the 40/70 mile loops.  I caught some people and rode with them for a while, but one after another dropped off on the hills of Hagg Lake until I was alone again.  My only consolation was that I met Deb, one of our survivor team members.  I apologize for not having the opportunity to meet her before.  She was doing really well and was really strong.  We departed a few minutes later, hoping to see her at the finish line.  The day was getting blistering and I can’t take the heat (and wanted to get out of the kitchen).

With 25 miles left to go, the sun was oppressive and I was beginning to suffer a little from heat exhaustion and dehydration.  I drank tons more water than normal and the max my body would take in, but not fast enough to counter that water loss.  I never do well in the heat.  It was about 95 degrees with a dry wind that vaporized any moister almost instantaneously.  At the power stops, there were people spraying us down with water and I would stand there until I was completely soaked, but only a few minutes on the bike and it was completely dry.  I was fortunate to have a guy pull me for the majority of the last miles.  It helped motivate me to finish sooner.  He was also the guy who lectured me earlier about descending too fast on unknown roads.  I finished a little over six hours total time.  At the end of day after a bunch of food and drink, I was still down by 7 lbs, which was amazing.

Immediately after the ride as with during the ride, I was approached by other bikers asking if my teammate was OK.  I was really confused because I’ve not ridden with other Starbucks rider all day.  So I didn’t have any information to give them.  At first, I thought it was a mistake, but after the 4th person asked me about it I was sure it wasn’t a mistake.  After the ride I was able to get the whole story.  It was a Starbucks rider that went down.  Fortunately, nothing a few weeks of recovery can’t heal up, but it did involve a broken bone, a major laceration, and a bunch of road rash.

I personally would like to thank all the people who sponsored me in such short notice, with my registration setup less than a week before the event, I was able to push pass my personal goal of $400, hitting $465.  Thanks for helping out the survivors!

Livestrong

I, like most people, know about the Livestrong Challenge because I know about Lance Armstrong.  In early July, 2003, I had barely heard of Lance Armstrong.  A friend encouraged me to watch that year’s edition of the Tour de France.  I laughed,  There is no way, I said.  Guys in lycra?  Ha!  But, I relented at his insistence.  After ten minutes, I was hooked.  There were crashes and sprints.  Agonizing climbs.  Bike racing (that tour in particular) is simply courageous.

It was the guts of it all that changed me. Before 2003, I had not ridden a bike in over a decade or two.  Since 2003, I have ridden a bike five days a week.  I wanted to be like Lance.  I followed his career and was anxious about the 2004 and 2005 Tours.  Turns out, there was nothing to worry about.  By the time Lance retired, it didn’t matter. I was hooked.  I followed all of the races, scouring cyclingnews.com every day.  I followed the careers of other cyclists:  Leipheimer, Ullrich (poor guy), Boonen and, my favorite, Jens Voit.  I am still disappointed by professional cycling to some degree – Landis and Tyler Hamilton in particular.  It is scandals like those that make me miss Lance.  But, I still love the sport.  I won’t compare amateur bike racing to the professional circuit but all bike racers feel like there is a community. 

As time has gone by, however, I have begun to disassociate Lance with bike racing and have associated him with survivorship. Lance and his foundation have brought the issue of survivorship to the cancer community. In fact, the foundation has brought the issue to the mainstream.  I am not in the medical profession so I will not describe the term “survivorship” in a way that is completely accurate.  However, to me, survivorship is about the new lifestyle that one leads or should lead after cancer.  Too often in the past, cancer patients were successfully treated and discharged with the instructions “go live.”  Nearly dying of cancer is life changing.  Simple instruction to “go live” simply left an emotional void.  Research also began to show that different life practices could also reduce the re-occurrence of cancer.  Survivorship is about following best and healthy practices in order to “go live.” 

Lance brought another value to the table.  One could not only go live.  One could live stronger than before.  Before cancer, Lance was a good bike racer. He would have won some stages in the tour and other prestigious one day races.  After cancer, he could win the Tour de France.  A lot.   He learned to live strong.  His foundation is, like competitive cycling,is  a community of survivors who embrace this idea and live their lives by it.

 In 2007, the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance agreed to sponsor our bike team and the  idea for race4areason came to fruition.  Race4areason’s mission is to help survivors bridge the gap from illness to not only health but fitness while raising funds and awareness for survivorship and the Lance Armstrong Survivorship clinic in Seattle.  We meet this mission by leading bike rides with cancer survivors and teaching bike handling skills. 

To raise funds, this year we formed a team to participate in the Livestrong Challenge on June 29^th in Portland, Oregon.  Our team is made of race team members and cancer survivors.  Our goal was to bring 20 members and raise five thousand dollars for Lance’s foundation.  I am proud to announce that we have exceeded our goals and, of over 150 teams, we are in the top 20 in terms of membership and fundraising.  Check out our results here. On Sunday, we will proudly wear the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance jersey with race team members and cancer survivors and will pedal 10, 40, 70 or mile courses. 

I know that Mr. Armstrong will never read this.   But, if I ever met him, I would probably have nothing to say.  I am a 44 year old attorney who has argued cases before federal and appellate judges but I would probably be completely star struck if I met Lance.  That aside, I think it is a strange thing.  I never intended to help.  At first, I just thought cycling was cool.  However, I became inspired.  First, Lance inspired me to ride.  Then, he inspired me to actually care.  Now, he has inspired me to do something about it! For that, I am very thankful.

EnumCrash

Special guest blog from Vu Nguyen.  Vu is a first year racer with Starbucks Cycling and competed in the Mutual of Enumclaw Stage Race this weekend. Check out his tale along with video, to include a harrowing crash here

My first race day of the Enumclaw Omnium was just chaos and my prediction of rain coming in after the criterium was completely off.  Never to see the second day of the omnium.

It was a very pleasant morning with comfortable conditions for a TT, partly sunny, not too cold, and only a slight wind.  I was really pumped for the time-trial.  It was suppose to be pretty fast and for the most part flat.  I just love time-trials and this would be a good one.  Going down the first straight stretch to the first corner, two corner marshals in the middle of the road talking to cars turning right from the side street.  Knowing that I have a right turn sometime soon, no signaling from corner marshals, and they are blocking my way, I took the right turn.  It took them what seems to be forever to call out to me after I made the turn.  I think I realized things looked a bit off before they even called out.  After trekking back and trying to get around the cars blocking me from getting back on the course, I probably only lost about 20-30 seconds.  But after that I was tentative at every corner, waiting for acknowledgement from the corner marshals, which definitely shaved more seconds off my time, sigh.  It would have really paid off to know the route well.  Overall, I think I finished in the middle of the cat 5 pack, 18th, nowhere close to the top 10 finish I was hoping for.  But even in light of all that, it was fun morning talking to the crew and watching my teammates go off and ride back to the finish.  As the women were finishing the TT, we had a few drops of rain.  Bart said my job was to make the rain go away before our crit.

I pre-rode the crit course and hit the turns good to get the lines right.  The course was dry, but if it started raining I was thinking it was going to be treacherous.  Literally as I stepped off the course to the Starbucks tent to watch the juniors race, the rain started to come down.  Not the light sprinkles that evaporated as it hit the asphalt that we’ve had since the TT—it was finally raining.  The rain didn’t really last long, but the road had enough water on it keep it completely wet until about the master C/D start.  The race started fine, I usually can get off the line pretty quick, but had problems clicking in on a relatively new pair of shoes and cleats.  I ended up in the middle of the pack and around the first right turn, a Cucina guy who’s wheel I was on goes down, splitting the pack.  Pushed to get on the pack, but around every turn I was tentative and put more effort to catch on the straightway, wasting energy put didn’t want to risk crashing.  In the third lap, again a guy in front of me crashes going into the left turn before the starting line stretch.  After this, I think I’m in the 3 chasing group, but not feeling too bad.  With less than 2 laps to go, I wanted to push a bit harder to get a bit more training in (the whole day of racing was less than 40 minutes).  Well on the first left turn after the finish line, my tires lost traction and bam I was on the road skidding on my hip, elbow, and knee like a baseball player sliding into first.  It took me a few seconds after the slide to realized that there was another rider caught on my bike.  I’m not sure how he got there, but he must have been behind me and ran into me when I was sliding across the road.  Well on the “bright” side, I crashed right in front of the Starbucks tent and plenty of other spectators were there to help.  If you are going to crash, might as well make it exciting for the people watching.  I don’t know how many crashes happened in the cat 5 race, but from the first aid tent there was at least 3 more that I found out about for a total of 6 crashes.  I don’t know if there were more people that didn’t come to the tent.  They had a continues stream of people coming in after I was all bandaged up.  The nurse manning the tent said it was the worst that she’s seen and she’s been helping out the race for a while.  Well I can say I got my first crash out of the way and it wasn’t too bad.

On the healing side, all’s well, but I probably won’t be on the bike for a few days.

Not surprisingly it took a full day for my body to realize all the problems.  My left shoulder is really bruised and I can barely raised my arm.  My left hip to upper thigh looks like someone took a cheese grater to it.  The rest of the thigh is also bruised up and my inner knee is sore when I raise my knee.  Of course I lost the most skin on my elbow and knee, which will likely take the longest to heal up.  But I got the magic of Steve’s Tegaderm to help out there.

Still itching to get back on the bike, get back to training, and see what kind of damage my bike took other than the more obvious stuff like missing saddle.  A fun and exciting weekend no less!

Fun in the Sun

I spent the weekend in Wenatchee at an omnium.  An omnium is a bike race with three events: a time trial, criterium and road race.  Unlike a stage race, it is not required to participate in all three events.

The weather was unbelievably hot.  For the morning time trial, the weather had to be in the 80s.  A stiff wind blew down the time trial course making for a fast trip out but a brutal trip back in.  Truly, on they way out, I rode faster than anyone has ever ridden a bike.  Faster than Lance Armstrong on his best day.  It was at the turn around that I ran into trouble.  The wind caught me and the suffering began.  During the warm up, I had seen a dead rattle snake in the bike lane.  I knew how he felt. I pushed against the hot wind. It felt like a blow dryer.

The weather had a funny effect.  After the TT, we all sorta ran back to our rooms.  This Spring has been unlike winter.  No one was acclimatized. We just waited in air conditioned room until the start time for the criterium.

The criterium is a timed race.  The course in Wenatchee is just wonderful.  It has four sharp corners.  One corner is a small little descent into a corner with ruts and potholes.  The other corner is a small climb with a rail road track.  Oh, and did I mention it was hot? When we arrived, the entire team sat in the shade and waited for their category to race.  There was no pre-race jitters. We were too hot for that.  We didn't talk about much.  We just sat and drank water.

After my race, I rode off the course and noticed the temperature.  My race finished at about 5:00 p.m. and it was 100 degrees.  By the time I snapped the photo of the reader board with the temperature it had risen to 101 degrees.  I think I am still de-hydrated. 

Never Cry Wolf

One of the great things about commuting from Tacoma to Seattle by train every day is that the trip takes one hour.  That is one hour to rest, work on my laptop or read.

I started re-reading Never Cry Wolf by Marley Fowat.  What a great book.  I recall seeing the movie when I was younger.  The movie is not nearly as good as the book but it is a Disney movie so great for kids. I rented it a few nights ago and watched it with my two kids.  My son is 7 and my daughter is 10.

The story of Never Cry Wolf is sad.  Two of the wolves in the movie are killed.  Being a Disney movie circa 1980s, the killing of the animals is only implied but the message is clear. I wondered how my daughter would handle this. 

After the movie, I checked on her.  She was at her desk in her room.  She wrote intently into her notebook.  She indicated that she was writing a poem.   It is not Robert Frost but I was surprised.  This was my daughter who wrote this.

We worked on some graphics and put her poem on her now two page website.  Here is my daughter’s poem. 

Suffering in the Valley

This weekend I suffered through the Green Valley Time Trial.  I don’t know what it is exactly.  I am really bad at time trials.  Really bad.  Knowing this, I decided to try clip on aero bars this year because everyone told me that you can actually go faster if you use them. Something about wind resistance.   I bought some “clip ons” and installed them on my bike.

Here is my first complaint.  Putting clip on aero bars on a road bike is a monumental pain.  My handlebars are wider at the stem and then become thinner a few inches from the stem.  So, I couldn’t install the aero bars in the best position on the handlebars.  Next, it took forever to fasten them.  My clip ons uses an old fashioned system of nuts and bolts.  The bolt falls out because you have to screw from below the bars.  Note:  if you install clip on bars, use your bike stand.  Duh.

Next thing, just because you install bars, doesn’t mean you are more aerodynamic.  The clip ons rest on top of your handlebars.  This means you really have to lower your bars.  Otherwise, you are really upright in your supposed “aero” position.   

At my first time trial with aeros, I came in second to last.  The weird thing is that I had a good day.  My average power for 30 minutes was 10 watts higher than the last 30 minute test I had conducted.  I felt really good.  However, as you can see from the photo, I was not very low in my position.  Further, I have an enormous head.  Coupled with the Rudy Project helmet, which is larger than other race helmets I have worn, my head alone probably drug in the air enough to cost me 30 seconds.   If you look at the results, thirty seconds can cost you a few positions in the rankings.

The next time trial I did was worse.  It was the TT stage at Tour of Walla Walla.  About a seven mile course, the course was uphill into a headwind to the turn around point.  I came in second to last.  This time trial was a disaster because I had come out entirely too hard.  By the time I reached the turn around point, I crawled around the cone and gasped for air.  My mouth felt like the Sierra Desert.  Why am I doing this?

This Saturday, I did the Green Valley TT on the Flaming Geyser course.  It was a beautiful day.  Beautiful, that is, until the guy said “5 – 4 -3 -2  - 1 GO!”  Then, the weather didn’t matter.  My vision narrowed as I began the next 30 plus minutes that constituted one of the worst days I have had on a bike.   

One thing about TTs.  It really is a race against yourself.  You can not compare yourself to the guys who pass you.  At my level, guys pass you.  Women pass you and even children pass you.  But, you can not possibly know who they are.  They almost always have TT bikes and TT helmets.  With no discernible body fat, they whiz by with the pulsing of their rear, disk wheel.  Their legs look like anatomy charts.  When they take your soul, their bikes sound like the warp coil on a Star Trek episode. 

But, you don’t know who they are and they are not your competitors.  You are your only competitor.  On Saturday, the first guy who passed me was Alan Klug.  He ended up placing first in the Cat 3 category and posted a time of 25:18.  About 12 minutes later, the next guy who passed me was his brother, Malcom Klug who placed sixth in the Cat 4 category. 

At the turn around point, I was determined that no other riders would catch me.  My 3 minute man, unfortunately, was Ian Tubbs who went on to win the Cat 1 category with a sizzling time of 22:19.  All I saw of Mr. Tubbs was a red blur and the vague words “Carter Suburu”.  It is pretty impressive to see your goals whiz by like that. At this point, I felt demoralized.  How was I to know that among the fastest competitors in the entire race were stacked immediately behind me.  As far as I knew, they were TT rookies, too.  My spirits sagged as did my power. 

Finally, I saw the 1 Km sign.  I think they should put the 1 Km sign at 500 meters.  When they put the 1 Km sign at 1,000 meters, it is a little cruel.  I was done 1 Km before I saw the I Km sign so crawling another 1 Km took a really long time.  I could not see the finish and had to pedal about 28 miles to get through the next little bend in the road to the final straight away.  Finally, I saw something that looked like people at what I hoped could be a finish line.  But, like a Hitchcock movie, the finish line just kept escaping into the distance. 

In the end, my power averaged 20 fewer watts that the TT I had done at Carnation.  The only saving grace was that, even with lower power, my average speed was faster than the last time I had done the course and faster than Carnation TT.  It is hard to compare one day to another.  But, I had adjusted my position quite a bit.   I lowered my bars as low as they would go and still felt as comfortable as you can feel in a TT.  I wore a TT helmet for the first time.  My average speed was about 21.5 miles per hour.  I didn’t come in last or second to last.  I came in fifth from last and that was o.k.  What can I say? Bike racing is really hard.  Improvements will come little by little and very slowly.

_____________________________

Photo of me at the Carnation TT.  My very first TT with aero bars.  Notice the huge head and upright posture. Compare with my team mate Vern Cole. 

 

Compare my posture in Carnation TT above to a slightly  better posture at Green Valley. Smaller head with TT helmet.  Posture is better but needs work.

Tour of Walla Walla

I feel like I have been hit by a bus.  This weekend the Starbucks Cycling Team traveled to Walla Walla and competed in the Tour of Walla.  The Tour for our team was two days and three stages: a time trial, a road race and a criterium.  For me, it was all I had to compete in just two of the stages.  Most of my team mates fared much better.  Clayton Binkley placed third overall in his category but expressed the same sentiment.  He, too, had been hit by a bus.

The great thing about the weekend is that I brought my family. I have to say: I need to get my kids out into the country more.  I cannot believe this but apparently neither my seven year old son nor my nine year old daughter had seen a tumbleweed before.  My son and Ed Ahmdahl’s daughter, Annika, played with tumbleweeds like they were new toys at Christmas. It was great fun until a gust of wind took Annika's tumbleweed.  My son, Benjamin, felt so bad for her that he hunted down another one to give her.  I chuckled because I knew Ed was going to have a tumbleweed coming home with him.  Then, inevitably, I opened my own car and found a tumbleweed smiling back at me.  Ben named it "Spike".

Walla Walla is definitely not "the City".  Bitterly cold this weekend, the sky was dramatic above bare or new wheat fields.  I was shredded by the pack on the road race fairly early and powered on alone for several miles.  Against a fierce and cold head wind, I struggled against becoming freaked out when I looked up and saw mile after mile of empty fields.  Although the scenery was beautiful, it was unsettling to realize that I had no tubes, no pump and no cell phone with me. Just a bike, some water and two race numbers on my jersey.   For awhile I even wondered if I was still on the couse as I pedaled mile after mile.  My despair occassionally interrupted by a person or two standing along the road or in a field, ringing a cow bell, waving and shouting encouragement.  This always made me feel better, although memories of the movie "Children of the Corn" were never far away. Finally, I looked back to see how far I had come and saw two cyclists coming up from behind!  Thank goodness. I slowed and I have never been so happy to see two Starbucks jerseys coming up.  I was still on the right road and now had two team mates with whom to suffer.

It is not just suffering like an animal that makes the Tour of Walla Walla so great.  It is also - well, Walla Walla.  This great community just has a certain tempo to it that is different than what I am used to.  While watching the criterium that I did not qualify to race, I read that Walla Walla was the first settlement of any significance in the Washington Territory.  It boasts the first bank in Washington and the longest running symphony west of the Mississippi .  The town feels it.  It is a farming community with a tinge of urbanity and is set in its ways.  The people of Walla Walla were not numerous but they seemed to either welcome us or just considered us part of the April landscape.  Comforting.

Racing the Tour also involves quite a bit of time at a town North of Walla called Waitsburg.  This town was established in the late 1850s.   Very small, the race went through its corridor and people seemed to look up and wave.  In a world where cyclists often suffer abuse, it was nice to see that cyclists mixed with the people of Waitsburg and Walla Walla just fine. 

Another fond memory was a short trip into the Waitsburg mercantile.  It was awesome!   The little store had everything you would expect: toys, hardware, fishing supplies galore, dishes and other things I couldn't quite comprehend.  Best of all, in the middle of the store were a few small tables.  At them, men sat and drank bad coffee.  They chatted about what I imagine to be the weather, smudge pots and the men outside wearing tights.  My kids shopped for, of course, toys.  Little did they know so many tumbleweeds awaited them outside.  My wife just shopped and I tried not to eaves drop on the men's conversation.  I was to have a rough weekend ahead of me but at that moment, in the little store in Waitsburg, I was on vacation with my family. 

   

Morning Commute

Today I rolled out of bed at 5:17 am.  By 6:40 I was out the door, rolling on my Cannondale in the beautiful morning dawn.  Sounds poetic but it really was.  It is still cold in the morning.  Really cold.  But, there is something about a rainless, sunny morning.  The cold doesn’t matter. 

Every morning it is the same.  I ride to the train station at Freight house square in Tacoma.  It is an hour commute to Seattle, where I work.  The sounder has bike racks on most cars, wireless internet and a bathroom.  I love it.  I have an hour of peace and quiet. I get a lot of work done.  In fact, I am started this blog on the train.

As the Sounder progresses from Tacoma to Seattle, it stops at Puyallup, Sumner, Auburn, Kent and Tukwila.  At each stop, lines of people move orderly onto the train.  They don’t seem particularly happy.  My heart rate returns to a resting rate but my metabolism is engaged.  How do I put this?  Cycling makes me happy.  It is not just the endorphins.  I feel connected to the outdoors.  I know the weather and do not try to separate myself from it.  I see the roads.  Every road has a personality and I try to find roads that are friendly. 

I am probably just being superior but I wish everyone cycled.  As we whiz along the track, I look out and see the traffic related to the “morning commute.”  Car after car.  More accurately, car after SUV after truck after truck after truck – all of which have empty beds.  Every driver has the same expression as the people who sit around me. 

When we arrive in Seattle, I am always the last to depart.  The masses lumber to their jobs.  I whiz right by and beat them all to work.  There is no faster way to get from King Street Station to Queen Anne than by bike.  Occasionally, an empty truck tries to run me over.  Other cyclists wave. Today, I saw two bald eagles flying over Elliot bay. Life on a bike is good.

Training With Illness

Guest Blog by Katy Hayes. Katy is a competitive swimmer turned triathlete turned cyclist! She originally started to race her bike as a “training” tool for triathlons. She discovered she loved cycling and has since been using triathlons to train for bike races. This is her third season racing for the Starbucks team. 

18 months ago, I’d never heard of Epstein-Barr virus.  Now I know more about it than I ever wanted to. 

A little over a year ago, I competed in my first bike race of the season, and placed 5th.  It was my best finish ever in a road race, and I couldn’t have been happier.  Knowing I had a solid winter’s training under my belt, I was looking forward to a good season, with the possibility of upgrading if I did well enough. 

Two weeks after that race, I was feeling tired, run-down, and on the verge of coming down with the flu.  I figured I just had a virus, and needed to rest.  After another week, I still felt tired and run down, and was starting to wonder what was going on.  What finally sent my back to my doctor looking for answers was a trip to the Museum of Flight with my two boys.  45 minutes into our trip, I had to sit down because I was so dizzy and exhausted.  This from someone whose former nickname was “the Energizer bunny.”

I spent several days and nights wondering what was wrong with me.  I had always been healthy and active, so it seemed to me that my fatigue must arise from something serious.  My worst fear was that I was dying of some undiagnosed disease or cancer.  One night, my husband found me curled up on the kitchen floor, crying, at 3 a.m.  What was going on with my health?  What would happen to my kids if I wasn’t there for them?   At that moment, I was convinced I was dying.  I felt so awful, physically, that something had to be very wrong. 

When my doctor told my I had EBV, I was surprised, and incredibly relieved.  I had an answer, and I wasn’t dying.   My life wasn’t in danger; my kids weren’t at risk of losing their mom.  I just needed to sleep.  I couldn’t ride my bike for awhile, but that was secondary to knowing that I would be back to normal in a few months. 

“Back to normal” has taken a lot longer than a few months.  It has been over a year since my health started going downhill.   Saint Patrick’s Day was the anniversary of my last race from last year.  I’m just now starting to work out again, getting back on my bike and starting the process of trying to get back into race shape.  I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to train the way I want to, but EBV is always lurking in the back of my head, making me wonder, “How much can I do?”

The past year has been incredibly difficult in many ways.  Exercise was how I dealt with any stress, and I’ve had to learn other ways of managing.  I’ve had to learn to cope with physical limitations, something I’ve never had before.  I’ve had to learn to listen to my body, rather than just ignore it and train or work through illness, lack of sleep, and stress. 

I won’t take my health for granted again, that is for sure.

And one piece of advice…if you’ve been feeling tired and run down for more than a couple of weeks, ask your doctor to test you for the Epstein-Barr virus.   

Fenders

I hate fenders.  I know everyone hates them, too. I know that because I hear frequently the term “rain bike,” which means we buy entire bikes with fenders installed just so we don’t have to change our fenders when racing begins. 

I, for one, am too poor to buy a rain bike.  Maybe I am not too poor.  Maybe it is the principle.  My rain bike is my bike when it rains.  My team mates who read this will promptly point out that I am also the guy with the dirty bike and a squeaky chain.  Tuttle, ever hear of chain lube? 

So, here is my fender rule.  They go on in October and they come off when race season begins.  They don’t go on again until race season is over.  There is only one flaw in my thinking – it still rains.  I don’t agree with that.  When it rains when I don’t have fenders, I get wet.  I do like watching the rain come off my front wheel, caught by my front head lamp in the dark.  Other than that,  I can not think of anything that is particularly fun about riding in the rain.

I do think I am tough when I ride in the rain.  Monday through Thursday, I commute by bike to the train station in Tacoma and ride the Sounder to Seattle.  Some days I jump off and ride the interurban.  Other days, I just ride the entire way.  The train has bike racks so you just jump on.  Here is what I noticed.  When the weather is nice, there is a lot of people riding bikes: mountain bikes, weird hybrids and obscenely expensive road bikes.  I even see race bikes ridden by people who don’t strike me as competitive cyclists.  They always have a lot of equipment on them.  Power taps.  I agree with that.  Lights everywhere.   BIG bags under the seats.  GPS.  DVD, wireless internet.

When it rains, not so much.  I guess the expensive race bikes don’t like to get wet.  On cold days, there seems to be two types of commuters on the train.  Me and the mountain bike type riders who seem to rely on the bike as their only source of transportation.  I respect that.  Imagine the miles they put in every year.

Today, on the commute, I rode in the dark and the rain.  I came into an intersection.  A SUV was coming on fast from behind.  In it, the driver no doubt listened to music, drank coffee, talked on the phone and had his heat on.  One problem.  There were tracks for the light rail that rain sort of diagonally across the road immediately after the intersection.  They smiled at me as I approached. “Go ahead. Just try it.”  I looked back and tried to make eye contact with my buddy in the SUV.  Clueless. I put my hand out to let him know that I was slowing and coming at the tracks perpendicular.  He just veered to the right.  I hit the brakes and saved my life by a few inches.

The stupid thing about people is that they aren’t going anywhere when they almost kill you. The next red light was a half a block away.  Hi.  Thanks for almost running over me.  I have knocked on plenty of windows. It is always the same.  “I didn’t see you.”  Thank god.  That just means you didn’t try to kill me on purpose.  I am so relieved that you are just reckless. 

Back to the rain.  Even though I think I look particularly tough when I ride in the rain.  Motorists don’t look. They don’t even see me.  Or you, either.  Especially, in the rain.  Depressing really.