A Peachy Ride in Georgia

Posted on by lindsay
Yesterday was a day off from racing, but not from riding. After a quick breakfast at the hotel (wherein I cringed and chewed through two patties of mystery meat in the name of protein loading), I set out for a 2-hour endurance ride out and back on a rural highway in Georgia. It was more noteworthy than anticipated: 1. At one point, a truck barreled by and what sounded like a gunshot echoed tremendously. I froze for a moment and then swerved sharply into the grass alongside the road and waited to die. Nothing happened, except I may have peed a little. 2. A few miles later, a pit bull came racing out of somebody's yard and chased me down the highway. It was terrifying, but I had the good sense to at least start sprinting while also shrieking and starting to cry. 3. I did stop to get some ...continue reading.

A Complaint in Every Paragraph!

Posted on by lindsay
The last thirty-six hours have kicked my [word redacted because my mother scolds me for obscenities and, based on the comments, she is 68.73% of my reader base]. Yesterday morning started when I jolted awake early after a disturbing dream about chugging Coronas at a dive bar while crying because I'd just met this waifish, creepy little girl named Lindsay who was into brutally slaughtering people and eating them. I have NO IDEA where this came from, but I woke up completely freaked out. Dive bars are gross! Then came an exhausting day at work. I'm managing a big proposal right now and sometimes I want to climb into the paper shredder, if only to make the emails and the phone calls and the questions stop coming. I understand that work is not supposed to be fun - people pay to do fun things, so it stands to reason that if you are ...continue reading.

ElliptiNOFINGWAY

Posted on by lindsay
The CEO of my company just walked by my office, paused, backed up into my doorway, and told me to sit up straighter because I was slouching. I told him I'm used to slouching over on the bike with a death grip on my handlebars. He said he does the same thing and that it leads to back pain, and then suggested that I try the ElliptiGO. "Well, I race bikes, so that wouldn't really work out so well," I replied diplomatically. He said, "Ahhh, so you're a bike snob. You probably see those things and laugh at the people on them." Of course not! (Yes, absolutely, without hesitation.)

Things A Competitive Cyclist May Want To Consider When Traveling For Work

Posted on by lindsay
1. A hotel towel can take the place of the Pilates mat you didn't pack. Do not touch the carpeting. There is a reason hotels choose dark, loud patterns; unimaginable stains are hidden on that floor pelt of filth. 2. You can adamantly intend to do a ride on a bike in the hotel's fitness center as much as your little cyclist heart desires, but if there is no bike in that fitness center, you're still screwed. 3. Bring snacks. Normal people who are not training eat three meals a day, not eight, so conference schedules are built around that structure. If you do not bring extra food, you will be stuck waiting hours between scheduled meals and will end up wanting to eat PowerPoint slide printouts or worse, the things office people believe constitute actual food (donuts, Peeps, Doritos, etc). 4. Practice shamelessness. Normal people do not drink 100 ounces ...continue reading.

All I Want For Christmas Is To Be Faster Than You

Posted on by lindsay
Over the winter, I obsess about other people's training. This is less of a concern during the racing season, because the very nature of racing lets you know where you stand in relation to your competition. If somebody consistently beats you, they are probably faster (or you are doing it wrong). The winter provides no such mechanism for evaluation. Until racing season begins, there is no way to know whose winter training plan was better, who was more dedicated, and who spent too much time snuggling with the fruitcake and eggnog. As a result, two things happen for me. First, training becomes more robotic and less driven by passion; each workout is little more than something to get done. If I could remain unconscious while plowing through every interval and rep, I would. There isn't the fire that's present during the racing season, where training equals brief periods of high ...continue reading.