Jesus, these are some serious issues.

Eating has always been a sensitive subject. I love to eat, and while I have a generally healthy diet, I also have a sweet tooth and the periodic inability to stop putting food in my mouth. Add in all of the training (which increases my appetite enormously) and the pressure to be competitive on the bike (the more I have to carry uphill, the slower I go), and I struggle constantly with my eating. Am I eating enough? Am I eating too much? Am I feeding my muscles or overstuffing my gut? Am I actually hungry or am I just craving? AM I OUT OF MY MIND?

The answer is most certainly yes.

Within an hour of getting an iPhone a few weeks ago, I had found the Fitness Tracker app that allowed me to track every calorie consumed and burned. Fitness Tracker and I went from zero to sixty instantly; within a day, I was logging every nibble, avoiding restaurant food because the nutritional data was harder to find, and working out extra hard just so I would be allowed to eat more calories for that day. On the days where I ate more than the application said was permitted, I was miserable.

Bobby finally asked, “Why are you so mean to yourself?” and it made me want to both laugh and cry because it was so true. I am really mean to my body; every time I eat too much or eat something I shouldn’t, I berate myself until the next workout. It feels like shit and I can’t stop.

Lest you think I’m starving or Karen Carpentering myself into an early grave, I will say that my core diet is both healthy and sufficient to meet my body’s needs. I’m not withering away or skipping meals – I just devote far too much head space and guilt to this topic. I had a wonderful dinner tonight with a dear friend, but because I had an extra piece of bread and a big dessert, I feel like I need to go ride or run or carry around a sack of bricks. Hey! This guilt is a dead weight! Maybe it will burn some calories.

It is very difficult to change my thinking process when it comes to eating. Fitness Tracker and I finally broke up a week ago when Bobby put his foot down (for the third time), and I was willing to concede because the application said there wasn’t enough left in my calorie budget to afford the tacos I wanted. Sadly, dropping that insanity doesn’t seem to have fixed the underlying problem.

My new job may be willing to help in this area. In the words of my new colleague, “I try to get to the gym, but during the week I’m too busy with work and by the weekend I’m just too exhausted. However, I think the stress of this place keeps me thin.”

On the bright side, I’m starting a new job tomorrow! At least I won’t stick out or anything. As my father kindly tried to rationalize, it “just looks like [I] put my makeup on wrong.” Great. People won’t think I’m injured; they’ll just think I’m stupid.

So totally weird. Three years ago I was racing in board shorts and a cotton tank top on a bike that could have doubled as an anchor for an oceanliner. Now I live on nothing but gelatinous energy products and coffee and my bike is made out of starlight and dental floss – unwaxed, of course, because that wax really adds on the weight. I also track every morsel of food that crosses my lips using an app on my iPhone that makes me feel neurotic and yet so dedicated to my sport, and I attend private Pilates lessons with a man who wears ballet slippers and enjoys pain. Well, my pain at least.

It has been quite a journey to get to this point, moving from category to category in my quest to become a pro-level racer. I have spent so many hours riding back and forth on small stretches of the W&OD Trail doing intervals that I’m pretty sure I own part of it through squatter’s rights. You wouldn’t believe the looks I get from people as I sprint by them, gasping for air while hunched over my bike like I’m trying to take flight. They look at me like I’m crazy and I want to be like YOU try sprinting up and down this freaking hill ten times as hard as you can and then see how stupid and ugly YOU look.

Don’t worry. I always say “on your left” as I pass. Sometimes it comes out as a faint gasp and sometimes, if a person has made the selfish mistake of thinking they own the entire path, it comes out as “On your LEFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTT!” but it always comes out in some form. Getting to this point in my racing career has made “on your left” and “my bike is making this weird noise” the two phrases I have probably said more in my life than anything else.

Now I get to start an entirely new challenge, the task of moving from being a bottom-feeder in the pro field to winning the World Championships. The good news is that with the HUGE pool of pro women that show up at local races, I’m practically guaranteed to take home a cash prize as long as I can drag my bike across the finish line in some manner. And after all, that’s why we all do this sport, right? The fat stacks of cash are too hard to pass up.

Well, I guess there is one other perk to being a world-class pro rider. The other day, while hanging around with some racers and talking saddles, somebody mentioned that a famous pro man was nursing a really bad cyst on his ass. And I’m thinking to myself, “Aww, Linds! Someday you TOO can be famous enough that people stand around and talk about what’s happening in your shorts.” A girl can dream.

So green, so cute, so freaking bright
Standing on my car, this sight!
A bug of some exotic flavor
Upon my car bestowed his favor.

I was filled with joy and so delighted
Surely he had just alighted.
No passenger just clinging lightly
Would survive me taking turns so tightly.

He stood there cleaning his antennae
Crap, words that rhyme with this aren’t many.
I snapped pictures; he seemed so chill
Despite a camera up in his grill.

After photos, I went inside
For all I know, he baked and died.
But later on last night his kin
Chose my outdoor dinner to drop in.

And led to the sharing of this story
About a green bug and all his glory.
But now I think I’ll take a breath
This horse is officially beat to death.

After a few months of training myself and struggling to pull together a decent workout plan based on a number of different training approaches/philosophies, I was directed to Alison Dunlap to get personal coaching from a true expert who had done everything I was hoping to do. I’ve been working with her since the beginning of 2008 and she has given me some real gems of insight, including:

“When you do it right, it’s easy. When you do it wrong, it’s not.”

“Try not to eat so much cheese.”

“The rides that make you win races are the ones where the weather sucks, you feel terrible, and you hate your bike.”

“One or two cookies is fine, but twenty?”

“Spin to win!”

All kidding aside, having a coach has made all the difference in the world with my riding. I have an experienced pro telling me when I need to work hard and when I need to rest, things I would otherwise struggle to manage on my own. It also helps to know I have a training plan for each day; there’s no ambiguity, no “I don’t feel like riding today”, no letting myself off the hook. Sure, I miss a ride on essential occasions and I’ll rearrange training rides if life requires it, but since I pay somebody to tell me what to do, I try to actually do it.

The training works. I’m a much stronger, more disciplined rider than I would ever have been without a coach guiding me. Alison has trained me from a Cat 3 mountain biker and a new cross racer to a Cat 1 mountain biker and a Cat 2 cross racer in just over two years, after I’d only been on a bike for six months.

My point is that coaching is the key to improving your riding, even if your goals are slightly more normal (stay in shape, kick that guy’s ass at your local race). Since Alison has helped me so much, I want people to know that (a) as a coach, she rocks, and (b) if you’re not into paying a lot for full coaching, she offers basic plans for $60 a month that will give you everything you need to get better. You can learn more about it here. No, I don’t get anything for referring you (she would probably blush if I mentioned that I’m blogging about her) – I just want people to know that Alison is an awesome, affordable option for a coach.

Just don’t sign up if you’re racing in my class.

We’re looking to give the Duggar family a run for their money. Nineteen kids? Pshaw. I plan to birth them in flocks, litters, herds.

Just kidding. We’re on our honeymoon and while Bobby gets ready, I’m watching television. We watch all of our shows on the Internet, so television is a weird thing to enjoy on special occasions. Right now I’m watching these freaks on TLC who have nineteen children. Dude. Nineteen children. You’re not a human at that point; you’re a factory trying to populate a small country.

But back to the marriage thing. I’m excited, to say the least. I still can’t get used to the idea that I married the guy I fell for over ten years ago. I keep thinking about random moments from a decade ago – when I got my first car and took Bobby for a ride in it, when I worked on the tattoo on Bobby’s arm – and then thinking that I married that same guy. So weird. So exciting.

I know this one will stick. It has to, anyway. My dad gave me away during the ceremony and I had to assure him that this time there were no refunds. And also, I’m changing my name and that’s kind of a pain in the butt. I don’t want to have to change it back. And finally, I can’t imagine my life without my wonderful husband.

I’m a lucky, lucky girl.

1. We fell asleep lying upside down on the bed with the lights on shortly after midnight. Sometime between 1-2am, Bobby turned off the lights. At 3:11am, Bobby woke me up to tell me to turn around so we could actually use the pillows and covers.

2. Kobe started pacing and grunting around 5am and did not take my attempts to ignore him seriously. He switched to growling softly and endlessly until I relented, got up, and took him and Scout outside. Commence gastrointestinal distress episode THREE MILLION. DOG! Why can you not digest your kibble!

3. Sometime around 6:30am, a piece of shit car parked in the spot directly outside our window and started blasting the best of Hispanic radio. This went on until Bobby peered out window and saw the driver leave the car, silencing the music.

4. This was short-lived. The music began again, followed by the enthusiastic DJ shouting god knows what with far too much enthusiasm. Apparently the driver was back and was reclining in his seat. I lost my mind; it was 6:58am on a Saturday. I put on sweats, stormed outside, and banged on his passenger window. He got out and stared at me. I explained that it was 7am on a Saturday, he was parked outside of people’s bedroom windows, and his music was too loud. He stared at me and got right back in his car without a word.

ANGER. ANGER. FURY.

I yanked open the door and snapped, “You could try being less rude,” and then slammed the door and walked away. A moment of silence and then MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC.

KILL. KILL. KILL.

I opened the door again – he had the decency to look startled, although not nearly afraid enough for my taste – and I snarled, “The alternative is that I call the police.”

Clearly the language barrier was not an issue; the music did not come back on. Instead, he drove away and I mentally congratulated myself for handling this situation better than the last one, in which I may or may not have called the neighborhood tow truck driver a “fucking douchebag” and possibly spit into the open door of his truck.

5. Sleep was no longer an option. We got up for the day so that I could write a post about how the local Chinese restaurant told us a dirty, dirty lie:

This morning, I gave him some suggestions for easy dishes he could prepare, but evidently he has changed his tune overnight because he shot down my suggestions, saying:

“I want to make something that people will try and be like, ‘Bobby, you made this?’ I want them to put me up on their shoulders and laud me for making the most amazing thing ever.”

He then went on to insist on making something complicated, using what he calls the “trial by fire” method. I hope that doesn’t mean he plans to burn the kitchen to the ground.

Also, I would like to point out that this is the same guy who looked at me kneading Irish soda bread on the countertop a few weeks ago, sighed heavily, and remarked, “Sometimes you undertake projects that stress me out.”