Did I Mention That I Am Out Of Shape?

It was icy cold and extremely foggy again yesterday. I woke with a sore throat and emailed one of my riding buddies and told him I was wimping out because of my oncoming cold when my friend, Noah McBride called and managed to convince me to get on my bike. He insisted that we'd head out on a moderately easy ride through Graton and Forestville and though I was apprehensive about the cold, I headed out to meet him in Sebastopol.

From Sebastopol, we continued west through what he promised would be mostly bike trails with no steep climbs. I, being the wimpy old lady that I am was relieved at the thought of a leisurely ride through the redwoods and vineyards on this chilly Sonoma County morning. What I failed to take into account was the fact that Noah has been racing for over 15 years, goes on several long road rides and mountain bike rides every week and is just generally more motivated and confident on a bike than I am-therefore considering 50 mile rides to be easy and fun. Before I knew it, we were careening down HWY 116 from downtown Forestville toward Martinelli Road, where we turned left onto Old River Road and proceeded to climb what I considered to be some decent hills. From Old River Road, we headed north onto Westside Road and over Wohler Bridge and back out to River Road to Mirabel Road in Forestville.

I am not sure that I can even begin to articulate how god damn cold I was or how wobbly my legs were on some of these climbs- particularly the hills on Mirabel Road. There was a short Twilight Zone period when I was sure that I would start crying, puking, coughing blood from my lungs and strangling Noah (if I could have caught him) and I just hated being on that stupid f*cking bike. I wished that one of the giant trucks en route to the rock quarry would just flatten me so I wouldn't have to endure the humiliation of crawling painfully up the hills ahead of me. I felt like an idiot for trying to do this and thought for sure I would fail, both legs snapping and falling to the side of the road. I had never ridden more than about 25 miles through mostly flat trails and this, I was sure, would definitely kill me.

By some miraculous stroke of luck, the gods were on my side and I managed to make it back to Sebastopol, where I swear the temperature had dropped from the 45 degrees I felt earlier to quite possibly hovering at freezing level. Noah fetched me some soup from Whole Foods and we headed to West County Revolution Bike Shop to chat it up with Rob Dillion and tried to warm our shivering bodies. I spent 20 minutes cozied up to Noah before forcing him to take the last trek back to my Santa Rosa home with me, where we drank hot tea and utilized snuggies to bring our body temperatures back up.

As Noah headed back to Sebastopol, I filled my bath with Epsom salt and hot water and submerged myself after some serious stretching. I managed to ride 46 miles on that ride, which is the longest ride my weak little body has ever experienced and though I hated myself through most of the ride, I couldn't believe that I had it in me to complete it without actually crying, without vomiting my mushroom soup and without stopping once. Today, my right elbow is sore from the tension of holding my arms still and my legs are aching in places that haven't had attention in months. I also have bird poop on my jacket, yet I'm feeling fairly confident and definitely excited about dong it again soon!