200 Jitters: A Psychoanalysis of Why We Ride

Survivors of the May 8th, 200 -- Andre, Ben, Charles, Susan, Andrea, Moi, Chris

I couldn't have gotten a better Mother's Day gift than to have my Ex and my parents be willing to watch my children while I went out and rode my bike a ridiculous amount of kilometers starting at a ridiculous hour of the morning just a week after I did a half marathon at blistering effort from which, by all assertions, I was not yet recovered. Just the day before I climbed three flights of stairs at work at a normal pace and arrived at the top gasping like I weighed 300 lbs. 

I knew ahead that I would likely write something about this ride but the whole 200 km I kept waiting for something eventful to happen to spur my creativity because I knew I didn't want to write a straight-up ride report. Unlike the last time, Ben kept his ass in his shorts and on his bike seat. No one got dropped. And other than the precarious 6.6 km right before Beausejour where after doing a pull and I worked at race pace and beyond to hang on the back desperately waiting for recovery to happen, and THANK GOD we were stopping because I was ready, I felt pretty damn good through the whole ride. There was some minor calf cramping in the last 8km after we stopped to wait for Andre to fix a flat, a bit of a stiff neck and back, all to be expected. but my quads are in perfect shape, even today, a day later. Check out the Garmin Data.

Our stunning scenic view for approximately 192km of 208

By about 170km I was pretty bored to be honest.  Pedal pedal pedal, farmers field on the right, farmers field on the left. Wind everywhere coming from every direction except behind us.

So I started thinking, because over 200 km you have lots of time to think, about why I do these things, because frankly, everyone (except for the other equally crazy individuals who do these things with me) thinks I'm nuts. I think I said it out loud at various points along the ride that only people with a certain degree of psychosis actually think this kind of thing is fun. I couldn't seem to stimulate any deep introspective discussion on that topic from anyone on this ride, because we are all likely in denial about that. So I'll do it here, where I may or may not have an audience.

Substitution

A U-tube video crossed my path the other day via another blog I follow. It was the trailer for the movie Bicycle Dreams which chronicles the adventures of participants in The Race Across America -- the race where the true psychotic endurance crazies come out and play. The best endurance cyclists ride 3000km across America in the shortest time possible sacrificing sleep, a regular meal, and a comfortable place to sit. Half drop out before finishing, the trailer states. And a few other quotes caught my ear:

"We have more people in society now that describe a feeling of missing something. 'There is just something missing in my life'."

"Lance Armstrong said that endurance athletes are running away from something inside of themselves and that is one of the reasons they do what they do."

So could it be that crazy rides like yesterday's is a replacement for something? Masking a dissatisfaction with ones self? It might be a replacement for lack of sex (Not for the people on THIS ride, OF COURSE). Or an escape from an unsatisfying relationship or marriage. A lot of the separated, divorced, or single people I know have told me they started into their athletic pursuits because they were dissatisfied with their home life. I would say for the majority, it was running that came first and then it branched from there as the addiction took hold. Their spouses or S.O.'s stayed home and vegged out on the couch in front of the TV with a bag of chips. I would say that I fell into this category too. And then the whole thing just escalates out of control until it becomes this huge uncontrolled monster, equally as real as addiction to cocaine or heroine. But hopefully less harmful. Maybe.

Rush

There is nothing better than outdoing yourself and if you can outdo others in the process this is a bonus. The 200 km ride I did last year was purely a spur of the moment thing. Ah what the hell, I'm free, I'll show up. This year it was planned and manipulated. Last year I was shocked I could do 100 km in May. This year it was 200.  And it was frankly at bit anticlimactic -- been there done that... NEXT. The Randonneurs group, who I did this ride with, also have 300, 400, 600, 1000 options. There are time limits on all the rides. They are generous times, but they are done continuously over a weekend, which I've heard means on the longer options you ride overnight and catch cat naps in ditches and on park benches. If you ride the 200, 300, 400, and 600 in one season you become a Super Randonneur and if you do it two years in a row it will give you a good chance of getting into the Paris-Brest-Paris 1200 km in 2011 which is limited to 5000 riders and, I believe only happens every 2 years.

Has it crossed my mind to do this? Yes. Do I think it is realistic? Well I can't do everything. And I have a half ironman to do in August so I have to keep running. And I have children to consider. And a relationship I'd like to keep and, while he rides too, he is training for Ironman so he can't do this with me. Not this year. And given that Ironman training is time consuming enough, I would like to spend SOME time with him over the next few months.

Are the people who do these things Crazy? Absolutely. But the adrenaline rush is addictive and to get the same rush you often have to up the anti a little bit. There are pathological comparisons that can be made: Maintaining two (or more) relationships simultaneously might be one (think Tiger Woods). Embezzling money from your company  might be another. You dip your toe over the line into naughtiness and it is exciting and you're getting away with it so it takes a little bit higher risk to get the same rush (you are more and more affectionate in public; you steal bigger and bigger sums of money per transaction going beyond those small unnoticeable sums). How far can you go before you get caught?

Or maybe getting caught is the point? Maybe this is a cry for help?

So you've done 200 km, how about 3, 4, 600? How far can one  push ones body before it gives out? Like these nutty dudes attempting to complete 5 ironman distance triathlons over 5 days on 5 different islands of Hawaii. Heroic or Stupid?

Lessons

I'm still learning a lot of new things. Like this:

I love the fact that there are girl riders in this diagram. Look closely for the pony tails.

These are riding formations. The first is the single pace line where when the lead rider, who is taking the brunt of the wind, drops to the back of the pace line and into the draft of the other riders and takes a rest while the the rider behind takes over. The second is the same principle but in a double pace line formation for larger groups or lower traffic zones. Great in headwinds and tail winds, but what if there are cross winds or worse yet, diagonal winds, like the NW winds we faced yesterday?

For those we use formations 3 or 4 or a mixture of the two. The third is the rotating eschelon which we did for 25 km yesterday and it was my favorite part of the whole ride. And if you check out the Garmin data, you will notice a section where my heart rate stayed pretty stable and that was during the eschelon, as opposed to jumping high when I pulled and dropping down when I was in draft.  A rotating eschelon is a combo of the single and double pace lines but each lead rider only pulls for about 30 seconds, just long enough to get in front of the previous lead rider and into the "slow lane" where they drop back until they reach the last rider of the fast lane whereby they move back into the fast lane and then rider by rider get back into pull position. The slow lane is on the windward side. More riders is better because there is more wind blocking. The fourth is for cross wind and is a combo of the double pace line and the eschelon. It is hard to do when you only have one lane of traffic to contend with but works on the same principle as the V formation of birds flying south.

Criterium: short tactical bike races with crazy-ass cornering sure to get me killed.

Or cause me to kill others.

Learning new things is fun. I have last year's Randonneurs 200 medal sitting on the frame that houses my University Gold Medal. I dare say, at this stage of my life,  I am more proud of that first 200 medal than of my Gold Medal. But the connection with learning is obvious. I like to learn. Maybe I'll learn how to bike race next but I dare say that my need to do endurance rides might kill my skills in a short race like a criterium. I might need to go out and ride 50 km before my body is prepped to show up at the starting line of a fast short race such as that. I might also have to gain some bike handling skills.

Attention

I actually like when people say to me: "You actually rode your bike for 200 km? In one day?! Your nuts!" 

Thank you very much. Yes, I did, and yes, I am.

I complain out loud about how big my quads have gotten and how I have difficulty finding pants to fit my legs. But I actually like my legs. They are solid muscle. I can out leg press half the guys at the gym. And I'm the only woman in the world... oh yes, I don't believe this is an exaggeration.... who actually likes her own butt.

My Ass on a bike seat. A view I will never see in person. 

I like being solely responsible for several cases of bike envy. I like when people walk into my office and fondle the bike. I like when I ride up the universal access ramp to my building and hear several people mutter...Nice bike. I like when people talk to me about bikes. I like when non riding people want to know what crazy thing I did this past weekend. Like, like, like. I like it even more when someone tells me I've inspired them to make a life change to exercise.

Peeps

I like riding with other people. I like the talk that happens. I admit that yesterday after about 150 km I didn't feel  particularly chatty. But I've had some of the most interesting conversations in the middle of a cycling pack with the wind gusting around my ears. You can talk about just about anything and it is like a private secret conversation that no one else can hear. And I'll tell you a secret.... get my exercise addrenaline flowing and it is practically a truth serum. You never know what I might say. Just don't talk with your hands, as that could be deadly.

I like meeting up with other cyclists in non cycling environments and you look at each other with a nod and with complete unspoken understanding that you would rather be riding.

And the last thing I'll say about my riding peeps is that I stole a few of these photos from Andrea who was also on the ride. I must give credit where credit is due. She is more talented than I when it comes to taking riding photos because I have this difficulty with taking my hands off the handle bars and it is incompatible with taking photos, especially given it seems that only my left hand comes off comfortably and I can only operate a camera with my right. We won't question, however, why Andrea was taking a picture of my ass on a bike when there were clearly options more to her taste.... (wink).

The other thing I must say about Andrea is that she has recently started up her own blog that you really should check out. The link that I've directed you to is her version of the same ride. She posted first but any overlap in discussion points is purely coincidental as mine was written already and I was waiting on some of those pictures I stole. We were in the same place at the same time and given that we have the same obsession we likely think alike too. Well, I'm pretty sure I know so, actually.

I must thank her for this photo most of all:

I'm still eating, by the way.

And this one of course:

And I'm still smiling too.

The BIG Capital D

Once upon a time, long long ago, in a land not so far away, I knew nothing of Divorce. No one in my family was Divorced. OK, not true. EVERYONE in my father's family was Divorced but it all conveniently happened before I was given life so I knew all my aunts and uncles with their second husbands and wives, and we didn't see anyone very often anyway so how did this affect me? And I believed right there on the top of the list of people least likely to get divorced, was my name. 

In my family, my brother fell first. It lasted less than 2 years. He married his high school sweetheart and after 8 years of dating, what was left to do in that relationship except get married? Once when I was about 19 and taking a summer course at the University, I had a conversation with one of my older classmates, who was about 23 and working already as a teacher and married. I remember asking her, as we awkwardly strolled to our cars and attempted to make conversation, "What made you get married so young?"  I thought I was asking a benign question.

I interject here to say that I remember it as a question but knowing me I didn't ask it as a question. I probably made a statement of observation, You're pretty young to be married. I would have been too afraid to ASK.

Our relationship got to the stage where only one of two things could happen, she said, we either got married or we broke up. Breaking up wasn't an option, so we got married.

I didn't understand this at the time but it struck me enough that I know I wrote it down in my  journal. I don't even know what it was about her answer that left me cold. What about love? What about shared plans and passions? I doubt I knew much about either of these things beyond fantasy at the age of 19 while asking such a loaded question, given I don't think I'd had a relationship up to that point that lasted beyond 5 weeks.

This is not an enviable state

Several years later, married with one kid,  I was sitting at one of our "couple" friend's houses having a heart to heart with the sister of the female half the couple. She was Divorced and had been for what I think at this point was nearly 10 years. She poured out her heart to me about her relationship struggles, as people tend to do. I have this knack for having people, completely out of the blue, tell me profoundly personal things without my even asking. Over the course of this conversation, or perhaps over the course of many conversations with this person, she also told me about another friend of hers who had recently left her husband. Her friend cornered her just prior to making the big leap into singledom and asked the big unanswerable question:  What's it like being divorced?

Well I don't know. I wouldn't recommend it, was her response. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any regrets. But if it could have been different I would have wanted it to work out.

The version of me who believed herself happily married for life, took these words and tucked them away inside me for a time in my future when I might need them. I did not understand at the time. And who knows if the words I quote here are exact. They could have become MY words now, because what I remember most vividly is not the words, but rather the sense of bewilderment I felt in my friend's sister. How could someone actually be envious of her state?

I have felt other people's envy. I very nearly wrote, I have felt other women's envy, but there is at least one man I have experienced signs of envy from too. I haven't done anything worthy of admiration. I've heard that word used often to describe the steps I took to change my life and make it what it is.

All I can say to that is: Please. Please. Don't.   Being Divorced is not romantic.

Don't Assume, Please Ask, I'll Tell

Who is a Divorced women?

You want to know what I picture: overly skinny, perfumed, too much lipstick, excessive hairspray, leopard print skirt so short that butt crack is nearly revealed, stiletto heels, shallow and stupid in mind. I wasn't any of these things. At least I'm not those things now. I may have gone through a bit of a phase before I realized I was about to jump ship where I was a little bit of some of those things. 

But you have people in your life before the change who carry through till after the change and, trust me, there will be moments when some of those people will look and speak to you as if you are all of those things. I've felt judged, I've walked away from interactions with people and felt stripped naked and scarred from unspoken thrashings, and I've watched with my very own eyes and ears how people who know nothing about me or who I am, take sides as if one party is to be blamed more than the other. And none but the bravest ever dare ask. In certain cases, where I could feel certain individuals wanting to turn me into the evil party, I've gone so far as to offer to tell ... but the people doing the most judging are generally the people least interested in hearing.

Things I Didn't Know

When it comes to Divorce I must admit I've spent the last three years flying a bit by the seat of my pants. But I can identify several things about my state that never popped into my mind either before or during that initial separation period. I will tell you those things now.

1. There will be days when you do not see or speak to your children. Are you shocked that I never thought about this? Maybe it was purely out of survival that I never considered this reality in the process of ending my marriage. It just might be if I had thought about this too much I could not have gone through with it. And I had to go through with it.

2. Be prepared to redefine "family." I grew up in a traditionally married household. This is always what I envisioned my life would be like too. My parents are still married. I went to Toronto on a run-away vacation about three months before my now ex husband moved out. While wandering up in the CN Tower, I watched a young family, mother, father, two kids similar in ages to my own, and it hit me that I would never ever have that again.

3. You will lose friends. People want to hang out with people like themselves. They don't want to hang out with people who set up awkward situations like, "Which of the two do we invite?"  But no worries. You will make plenty of new ones. And the true ones stick around.

4. I didn't leave because I was unhappy. This is hard to explain. I wasn't unhappy being married. I did however know that there were certain aspects of my marriage that would forever prevent me from being my true self and in order to stay with him I would have to continue to be something I wasn't. But divorce is NOT the magical key to happiness. Figuring out who you are is.

5. Being a single parent is hard. And it is exponentially harder than the one weekend or week, you spend every few months without your spouse while they go to a conference or on a girls weekend or a fishing trip. Contrary to item #1, there will be times when you can't WAIT to not see your children.

6. He will always be my (ex) husband. I still slip and forget the new prefix.  This isn't like the transition from boyfriend to fiancee to husband where you eventually get used to the new terminology. In a small way, I will always be married to him even when I am actually truly Divorced. So when I speak of him, I tend to just use his first name or call him "the father of my children."

7. I dreamed about it endlessly but relationship perfection does not exist. There are flaws in all of them.

8. You will develop a split personality and you won't always get to be the person you want to be when you want to be. There will be days when you are supposed to be Mom and you would rather be the wild single girl you are inside. There will be days when you are supposed to be the wild single girl and you'll wish you were being Mom. 

9. There is no question harder to answer than: "Why can't you and Daddy just live together, ALREADY?"

10. There is no perfect age to split when there are children involved. When they are young they are resilient and adaptable and accepting of new people as long as they feel loved by you, but scheduling of kid activities is difficult and switching households is a bungling logistical nightmare and you don't have a built in babysitter. Try that 9PM phone call, when you've already switched persona's, and someone with half your genetic makeup is in bed crying because some toy is still at Mom's house. When they are older they have an opinion but at least they can get themselves around and they are responsible for their own stuff. I know Divorced people who's older kids said, "It's about time!" and I know Divorced people who's older kids won't speak to them. It all rests in how honest you are. And in terms of honesty, age is irrelevant.

11. You will wonder if your parents feel responsible for the fact that both their children got Divorced.

12. You will be poorer than you were before. I didn't care. I still don't. Money was never one of my reasons to stay but then again, I am financially self-sufficient. 

13. You will have astonishing lapses in judgement to rival anything you did between the ages of 13 and 22.

14. For a long while and maybe for forever (because I am not past this stage yet) you will wonder why anyone would be enamoured with marriage and weddings. Why did I fret and stress or even consider walking down some church isle with a white gown on as something that I wanted? I see brides and I want to scream:  DON'T DO IT!! There are better things to spend money on. Like bikes.

15. You will feel weak and cowardly while saying words and taking action on things that require more guts than you knew you had.

16. It is just as stressful and difficult to be the leaver as it is to get left. You still mourn.

17. Be prepared to know instantaneously with simply a glance or a vague sense of intuition when you've crossed paths with someone who is experiencing the same despair that you have now survived. Be careful about pointing this out. They may not know it yet.

18. Odds are that your first (few) relationship(s) will be disastrous. You are one fucked up cookie even if you think you aren't.


Are there legitimate reasons to get Divorced? Absolutely. There are the three A's: Abuse, Addiction, Adultery. I would add one other: Crazy. Let me be more specific... uncontrolled crazy. But then again, not everyone experiencing these things sees them as reasons for Divorce. My Divorce involved none of these things and that is much harder to explain. Even to myself.

All I know is this. I have no regrets and it was the right choice for me, but if I could have made choices that would have made things turn out differently, I would go back and make them.

At Arms Length

For a while now I have wanted to write about this particular topic and I haven't been able to get a handle on how to verbalize what I want to say. I've started it twice and abandoned it. I knew that something would happen at some point that would tell me EXACTLY how to handle this topic without forcing me to get too personal or too woeful about it. The event that finally got my creative juices flowing occurred when one of my friends told me that when we first met, she thought I hated her. My reaction to this news:

Yikes!


Really?!

Hmmmmm.

I've always been wary of women. Groups of women, talking about what women tend to talk about (all topics to which I generally have nothing to contribute) make me want to shrivel up and hide in some corner. I will gravitate to men in a group any day. The idea of a "girls night" bores me. It always has. One on one with one close friend is one thing but I will always prefer mixed company. I can't remember a time I didn't feel this way. I've always felt a lack of kinship with women. Especially new women. And I've always wondered why.

So in light of being recently told that I don't give off the most welcoming vibes on first meeting, I've done some reflection. I am going to tell one story to represent the MANY stories I could tell. And some of this story might be true, and some of it might be coloured with 24 elapsed years of additional life experience, and some of it might have elements of other stories I have chosen not to tell all mixed in. And of course, as always, it is my one sided version.  So, to begin, lets,

Rewind.

I spent a lot of time at the lake when I was a kid. I had a friend out there who was a year older than me and we were different from each other in many ways. I was a school geek and she was not. I loved to read everything I could get my hands on and she did not. She liked to cook and I definitely did not. She knew things and I was naive. But our parents were close enough to each other that their property was our property. Their stuff was our stuff. We borrowed back and forth regularly. My parents were her pseudo aunt and uncle as hers were to me. We were both water babies and sporty girls and she inspired me. I wanted to be able to do everything that she could do. She was just enough older and just enough more worldly that I wanted to BE her. I copied her openly. We had our own little world out there and we played well together. We told each other we were "best" friends but she lived in one town and I lived in another for the majority of the year so, really, we were actually seasonal and weekend best friends.

Being a year apart is not much of an age gap. We are actually a year and 3.5 months apart to be exact. But there comes a time in girls' development when that one year turns into about 5 years in terms of psychological and physiological maturity. I'm going to say that in this case, it started when she was 12 and I was 11. We were good with each other one on one even at that age, but that all changed when she brought friends from her real life into the mix.

Most of her friends that she brought down to the lake were really cool and just as fun as her but there was one that I could never figure out. I will call her Ruth-Ann.  Ruth-Ann was constantly pulling my lake friend over and whispering stuff in her ear or dragging her around some corner to tell her something and then never letting me in on the secret. One day we were all together playing some game or having some conversation in the guest cabin and out of no where Ruth-Ann pipes up, "Kim, I think I hear your mother calling you."

"What? Really? I don't," said I.

"I heard her too," said my Lake Friend. "You better go check it out."

"Oh. OK."  I didn't want to leave. I loved being with this person. She was my childhood idol. It was the best thing about being out at the lake.

So I ran through the worn paths between our cottages, I knew them so well I could walk them barefoot without a flashlight in the pitch black. I was thinking I would be right back. I found my mother and asked her what she wanted and she said, Nothing. She hadn't been calling me. And I'm not sure who had the insight, whether I realized on my own, or if after a conversation with my mother she told me what had likely happened.

I didn't go back. There is nothing more disheartening in childhood than to realize that you've been hoodwinked into leaving because someone didn't want you around. I knew it wasn't my Lake Friend who didn't want me around. It was Ruth-Ann pulling the strings.

Sometime later, the same weekend or on some other occasion, Ruth-Ann apologized to me and said that she didn't really know me and she'd been nervous of me but now that she had spent some time with me she thought I was really cool and fun. And I was relieved and I accepted what she said at face value and I was just glad it was fixed.  

***Fast forward***

Me, age 13. Them age 14. We are on a boat on a lake. This time there are boys. Was I really allowed on a boat on a lake with no parents at age 13? We were experienced water kids and I'd (and they'd) been driving boats for years. The guy driving the boat is Ruth-Ann's boyfriend and he is sooooo cute. But I'm 13 and I am terrified of boys and it is 1984 and the big hair trend is just revving up and it is windy on the boat and my hair looks like crap and I am completely out of control with self-consciousness.

Ruth-Ann's boyfriend seems to like me. He talks to me A LOT. At least, a lot more than boys at school talk to me. And I talk back, shyly and politely. I'm thirteen. I'm self-conscious. Boys don't like me. Ruth-Ann glares and is rude every time she opens her mouth.

Or maybe I wasn't so shy and polite. There are things I know now about myself that I didn't know then. Could I have been flirting? If I was, I did it without knowing it. Did I even know what flirting was at 13?

***Fast Forward***

Me, age 15. Ruth-Ann age 16. We work together at a restaurant in the lake town. She doesn't work that often and she refuses to work night shift and she tells me in private, with superiority, that she could work night shift but she just gets her parents to say she can't so she doesn't have to. I think this makes her spoiled. We are sitting at the staff table and there are other staff around and a few adult staff including Lake Friend's mother, and Ruth-Ann is gushing over me. I have great hair, great clothes and a fast worker and she is so glad to be on shift with me and not with anyone else. I smile and I am glad for this because Ruth-Ann is actually a really nice person. But I haven't forgotten that day at the lake in the guest cabin when she lied and told me my mother was calling me. I don't trust her.

Thirty minutes later we are in the kitchen and we are alone. I say something friendly to Ruth-Ann. She snaps at me and is rude back. And this is how she treats me when no one is watching. She tells me I didn't do something right and I need to do it again. She criticizes me every chance she gets. She says she's sparing me from getting me in trouble because if she didn't tell me then she'd have to tell on me. The problem is that I could never see what was so wrong with what I'd done in the first place. I am stunned and flabbergasted by this audacious change and still I still prefer to believe in the version of Ruth-Ann that is sweet and charming when others are watching. But the REAL Ruth-Ann was alone with me in the kitchen.

***

I estimated once that it took me 7 years to warm up to women in my circle but once I warmed up you were in for life. I think now I've managed to narrow that gap. There was a period of time from about the end of high school until I began my spiral of catharsis while writing my novel and watching my marriage fall apart where I cannot think of a single woman that became a new close friend. That is about 16 years.

I came closest in nursing school as a student but once I started working, the atmosphere and experience of being a new grad only firmed up my stance on keeping women at arms length. Nursing in certain areas can breed this environment of continuous levelling and personal sabotage. And I don't know if I can talk about this. There has been a lot written about it as a problem in nursing and it goes by the name of horizontal or lateral violence or bullying. I met more Ruth-Ann's working in a hospital than anywhere else in my life. All I can say is I couldn't wait to get out. Sometimes I suspected it happened because I was more educated and a product of the university they despised and disrespected. And I was working on a Master's degree. It seemed that particular individuals were far nicer to me before they knew this information. It got to the point where I stopped telling people these things. Or maybe it was because I was smarter and more self confident. So being envious of that, they would exert their power over me with the one ounce of control they did have -- experience. I wasn't allowed to make newbie errors with some people. I wasn't allowed to have crazy days and leave things unfinished. And I wasn't allowed to ask for help. There were circumstances where I felt like I'd been set up to fail. I got yelled at in front of patients and other coworkers. It was only a handful of individuals but they were the ones that had me scrutinizing my schedule and losing sleep and dreading certain shifts. And I didn't become friends with anyone.

Everyone knows of someone who's suffered really bad heartbreak or went through a particularly tumultuous relationship with a crazy, difficult, or abusive person and they never allow themselves to get into another relationship again or, at the very least, never give themselves wholly and completely. Everybody seems to understand and excuse those that make that choice because of these experiences, I don't blame him, they say. But it is difficult to make people understand the roots of my reluctance to develop close friendships with women. I told one story, but it is definitely not the pinnacle story of stories that I could have told. Ruth-Ann was a minor blemish in my history of appalling and negative interactions with others of my gender.

I have learnt over time that women experience this kind of treatment from other women purely because of envy -- because you carry some unnamed X factor that the other person covets. They despise themselves and have no faith in their own gifts so instead of learning from you, they attack you and try and steal it away. Like the way Ruth-Ann thought I was stealing her best friend and then her boyfriend of which I was doing neither. But I guess she didn't like herself enough to be confident that our mutual friend could be friends with more than one person, or that her boyfriend was just being nice to the guest and would still be with her when I left. After all, reality was, I was a temporary problem. Soon I would be getting into the backseat of my parent's car and driving back to my own town where I had my own friends and my own teenage insecurities.

I have always been reluctant to believe that anyone could be envious of me, as if somehow thinking someone could be jealous of me speaks to my own arrogance and self-importance rather than acts as rationale for rotten unnecessary and hurtful behaviour. Jealousy is an interesting emotion. It's a taboo emotion. People would rather tell you they hate you than admit to being jealous.

And I'm not going to say all this from up on my high horse and then tell you I've never been jealous. I have been. And I'm sure I've been snide (my attitude of defence, I find), and perhaps occasionally snubbing. But I've never set anyone up, and I've never started rumors, and I've never tried to sabotage. I could never live with myself.

So if I seem aloof or difficult to access, its not you. I'm still feeling you out for Ruth-Ann-like traits. And I'm gonna scrutinize you for a long time before I decide you're safe. One of my best friends was my office mate for 5 years before I even had a significant conversation with her. And it happened because during one of my greatest moments of need, she looked at me and said, We should go for diner sometime. And we did. And I let her in. And its been beautiful.

And if I see any hint that you are not safe, rather than try and run the other way, as I should, I will probably go to great lengths to win you over. I'm a nurse after all. I am, by nature, and by career choice, a rescuer. I've been fooled too many times but I still have too much hope in the deep-down goodness of other people that when I see deliberate sabotage now, I still react with dropped-jaw naivety and feel blindsided and wounded. And I always walk away with the same thoughts. Is it me? Is it something I'm doing? Because I feel I have an above average track record in bringing out the green-eyed monster in other women and enduring all the back-stabbing goodness that goes along with that.

And I know I'm not the only one who's lived through things like this, but there have been many times when I felt like I was. So please, feel free to share your stories.

What Happens When Girls on Bikes Can Beat Boys on Bikes

Sometimes I seriously lack self awareness. Sorry guys, I don't MEAN to do it. I really don't think a lot about these things. When I am riding to work my intention is just to get from one place to another and when I am leaving work, my sole goal is to get home, man.

Really.

There isn't a commuter on the road that I can't over take if I try. Most of them are on gigantic heavy mountain bikes with fully treaded tires wearing the least aerodynamic clothes possible. It's not hard. There was just this one time on Pembina Highway with a 30-plus km/hr wind behind me that some young strong guy on an ancient ten speed and no helmet, feet in running shoes and traps, took off at a red light and I couldn't keep up even at 47km/hr. He eventually cut between a bus and a line of traffic and I draw the line at potentially getting killed. Race over. You win.

So today, as I rode home down Berry, minding my own business, I didn't think too much about passing the guy on the mountain bike with slicks, wearing jeans and cycling bull-legged like there was no room in there to tuck his knees in (or at least, so he thought, -- that's foreshadowing by the way). I had been BLOCKS behind him and I caught up to him while riding at recovery pace. I have a rule for myself for my commutes, now that they are only 10k and I am not so pressed for time: No faster than recovery pace. I've done enough damage to my body going all-out under unnecessary circumstances. Save it for race day. So when I passed him just before the stop sign near Silver, I didn't think anything of it.

I carried along on my merry way, recovery pace, and sometime just before Ness, I noticed there was a shadow of another cyclist behind me, and perhaps a little heavy breathing too. A glance over my shoulder told me it was my friend Mr. Jeans.

Now don't get me wrong, I like when I can beat the boys. I have always liked when I can beat the boys, but I found this curious. I caught up to this guy without any difficulty at all when he didn't know I was there, and here he had been sitting on my tail for the last half kilometer or more. Something curiously fishy was going on here. Something that seriously reaked of male preening and ego.

At the lights at Portage Avenue. I stop close to the curb, unclip, and sit and wait. It proves to be a long wait -- long enough for me to contemplate rolling myself over to the crosswalk and press the button to request to cross. I don't because more interesting things are happening behind me. My friend has also stopped about 10 feet back and far off to the left. Ah. Pole position. There was a car behind him. I turn to see if this car has its signals on to indicate which way it is going -- left, meaning I am not in its way. Mr. Jeans, however, is.

When the light turns green, not needing to clip in, Mr. Jeans sprints cutting off as much of that turn arc as he possibly can (and probably pissing off and blocking that car that was behind him also turning left). Now with a tail wind behind him, he's cooking it down Portage Ave tossing little glances over his left shoulder the whole time. Me, needing to clip, and NOT in race mode, am slower to get started. I am gaining on him just as I reach my turn. He goes straight, I turn and I say good bye and good ridence to what is clearly a testosterone motivated act of prowess.

So I head on down behind the government building, down the ramp through the condo parking, under the St. James Bridge and down Wolesely. I am just reaching the entrance to the path when  I see Mr. Jeans also heading to the same path from off St. James Street. He's just taken a different route and he's cutting me off at the pass.

At this point the question needs to be asked.... has he seen me on this route before? I don't recall seeing him before on the road on my commutes but he wouldn't exactly be the kind of rider I would pay attention too. He wasn't a REAL cyclist. Where's the spandex shorts? The team jersey? The clipless pedals? The fingerless gloves and the bad farmer's tan? Did he know I was going to turn at the government building? Did he know I would end up on that path? One has to wonder because the route he took to the path would certainly not be the most efficient route. It wouldn't be the quickest either unless you were deliberately cooking it with the wind down Portage Ave just to beat a girl. Frankly, the last place I want to be riding at 5:30 at night is on Portage Ave. GET ME OFF. The one block I do is enough.

I give way and let him on the path first and the whole time, his head is doing the little twist to glance over his shoulder, no joke, probably about one glance every 3 seconds like he is being chased by an axe murder. I am full-on amused now. I also know what I am capable of. I've already won this race. I passed him like he was standing still without even trying way back on Berry and I got his goat. I got his goat good. There was no way he was going to let a GIRL, a SPANDEX laiden GIRL none the less, on a SINGLE SPEED BICYCLE overtake him.

I'm sure you can see my eyes rolling all the way through your computer screen.

But he is kinda in my way now. And he's pretty slow on this path and there is that short steep uphill at the end to turn onto the footbridge so I am hanging back because I know this dude is fatiguing is not strong enough to power up that little bit of hill as fast as me and, if I am too tight on his ass, I will be right in his back tire. And sure enough, I read his abilities correctly, even hanging 20 feet back, by the time I hit the top of the little hill and make the turn onto the bridge, I am right on his back tire. We both get held up on the bridge by other slow cyclists, dog walkers, and random derilicts, but at the down slope off the bridge, he tucks like a pro and and kicks up dust behind him at full speed, once again doing those little neck spasms that cause his head and eyes to glance behind. I wonder if he even knows he is doing this?

We both slow as we get closer to Wellington. I can see through budding leaves that there is a stream of cars coming close to where we need to cross. I prepare to stop. I'm already twisting my ankle to unclip. I sense determination in the pedal strokes of Mr. Jeans, screw those approaching cars, says he. I will risk it all to beat this chick. And without much hesitation he is gone.

I skid to stop in the gravel. As I said earlier. I draw the line at death.

I wait for about 8 cars, cross, and enjoy the wind behind me as I ride East. I am nearly running out of gear. My last sighting of Mr. Jeans is just before I turn on Oak street. I've gained on him but he's still a block ahead. His body is in a full twist now taking a good long glance over his left shoulder as he rides off into the sunset.

Climbing Tucson: Part II

Well it has been a stressful couple of days since returning from Tucson. As you may or may not know, my bike took a little detour on the way home. I think he was pissed at me for not riding Mt. Lemmon again, so he pulled a rebellion and refused to leave Arizona. Hid from the baggage people and decided to not get on the plane and just make my life miserable with worry for a few days. But no worries now, he’s back. He just so indulged himself along the way I can’t lift him out of the car.

(And on behalf of my friend Mich who works for the other airline I am supposed to say: Damn West Jet.... damn damn West Jet. There you go! By the way when I picked up my bike, there was a gentleman ahead of me picking up TWO bikes. HA!)

But there were so many other rides to do and I was bone tired. Mt Lemmon is one of those rides where, especially the first time you do it, you should take a day off after and recover but with only a week in the town that has multiple rides you need to do before you die, there were a few other rides to be done. And one damn good hike.

Picture Rocks and the Saguaro National Park Tucson District (there are two of them as you will see)

Tuesday happened to be a stinking hot day. We drove to the West end of the city. The plan: Sonora Desert Museum with a little ride along the way. I set out with the fast boys again and lasted about 18km (admittedly downhill and with the wind the whole way). This was the day I got dropped because I couldn’t get clipped fast enough at a stop sign. I’m really bad for that. I’m told I need to be ready before everyone else just to be able to keep up. I think I do it on purpose though, to have an excuse for getting behind.

The roads were crap most of the way and there were quite a few stop signs. We did 62km total and I did about 40 of them by myself. This is the only ride I did where when I pulled into the parking lot of the museum at the end that I truly felt done. DONE! And it was 93F which is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 32C. There was a huge hill at about km 50 or so that was about 10-12% grade. It flattened out in the middle and then carried on. Neither section was very long but my heart rate was 178. I stopped in the middle. I hear rumors that I wasn’t the only one. But the truth of that will remain as legend as I was not a witness to this alleged event. Then there was this nasty looking kamaze piece of downhill that required both hands on the breaks and when you get to the bottom of that you’ve reached mile zero, according to the signs, that is until you turn toward the museum and ride that final 8km into the wind uphill. Oh yeah! I was DONE. Recall this was the day after Mt. Lemmon. Total ride time 2:20.

We paid $13 dollars to get into the museum after that and I felt nauseated at the start but I dare say I looked more healthy than Michael did at the end of the day. And I had my hair tied back which I almost never do so that meant that I neglected to put sunscreen on my ears. I’m still peeling the remnants off the tops.

The Desert Museum was a cross between a small scale zoo and any desert you can see in Tucson for free. Highlights of the day were mating doves and phallic cactuses. Stig and I politely walked around for about 30 minutes before, and I think it was me who spoke up first (because I am less polite than he is), “Alright, I’m ready for beer.” And so started the desperate search for beer. So in addition to stinking hot temperatures, animals that were hiding from the heat (why weren’t the humans also hiding?), all the restaurants were closed by 3PM and there was NO BEER TO BE FOUND. We eventually wandered into the coffee shop and found Kim W., Chris, and Sean in the same state (minus the search for beer for 2/3 of these folk). Michael wandered in about 10 minutes later looking like death and the consensus was, Why are we here when we could be in a bike shop?

Saguaro National Park Rincon Mountain District; Old Spanish Trail, Colossal Caves

Wednesday had us once again sleeping in and driving East this time to a Safeway parking lot. Total km for the day amounted to about 88 for me. I did not last long keeping up with the boys this day. They even tried to create a double pace line for me and put me on the leeward side of the wind in the back left corner. We had wind coming from the side and a little bit from the front and the whole way to Colossal Caves was uphill. Deceivingly uphill. I just thought I was losing my touch the whole way out because it really really looked flat. I was about 10 minutes behind them or so by the time we arrived. I batted my eyes and said I was with all those boys over there and they didn’t make me pay to get in. When I mentioned to the boys that I got in free and that it paid to be cute, Jim T. asked which one of them was I talking about. I knew then, officially, I had been accepted as one of the boys. It warms my heart to think of it.

We rode up a steep hill to get to the touristy part of the caves, fondled the statue of the cave worker who had the most humongous disproportionate arms – kinda like Barbie’s breasts.

I was done trying to keep up and the ride to the turnaround point contained some of the sketchiest roads yet with piles of asphalt crumble to dodge. The reward was the downhill the whole way back with bonus side winds to nearly blow me into the cacti at the side of the road. We ran into Jim M. On the way out and the boys decided to try and catch him but Stig and I turned around and went to Saguaro National Park and rode a loop of the coolest road ever. I would have loved to have done video but it was another ride where both hands on the breaks was pretty much a requirement. 

We rode back to the Safeway to find the van gone which meant we had to ride the extra 8 or 10 miles back to the ranch. I called Jim T. and the fast boys met us at Starbucks. On the trip back, I hung on for as long as I could and promptly got dropped again (but... probably only at the 2 miles from the ranch point). It is a good thing that I am well aware that comparing me to them is like comparing a rattler to a garter snake, or perhaps a better comparison, a Greyhound to a Chihuahua. Or I might have come home from this trip with no self esteem whatsoever.

It was a nice night of alone time for Stig and I which sounds all fun and romantic until I tell you that we did laundry and watched Sideways and could barely move all night.

Catalina State Park

On Thursday the gang had to move from the Ranch to a hotel. To make a long story short there had been a screw up in the booking and the ranch double booked itself. So they moved to a gorgeous high end hotel, the Hacienda Del Sol which was probably typically $400 per night. We did however spoil ourselves later that night by going out for dinner at the hotel restaurant which included free intermediate courses and dinner served in unison with 8 waiters. Wow.

It was truly a much needed day off the bike. As hard as it was to do that while in biking heaven, my legs told me a different story. But the day was spent hiking up a mountain. So much for recovery. It was so worth it though. We hiked to the pools on the Romero trail, described as a 7 mile hike with a 1600 ft elevation gain. I’ll say it in pictures. We had lunch at the pools and then lunch again after the hike at a happenstance found Danish Bakery conveniently located in a strip mall with two, count em, TWO bike stores. I told you I was in heaven.

Deja Vu

I really wanted to climb Mt. Lemmon again. I probably should have as Sophie and Margaret did and said it was far easier than Monday, but I had no legs. We went out instead and did a repeat of the Colossal Caves ride and Saguaro National Park part II..... and it was so worth it. I even did a brick after riding 60 km and it felt OK which was surprising given that the run was downhill on the way out and uphill the whole way back. I decided to do a 20 minute run and I was feeling so good at 10 minutes out I decided to run for another couple minutes, knowing it would take me longer on the way back.

Coming back I came upon a stick in the middle of the path. That stick eventually caused me to stop dead in my tracks because it was moving, ambling, slithering, across the path. Rattlesnake. I let out a girlish shriek and ran back about 10 feet and gave it lots of space to cross. And he looked kinda like this dude right here. The next thing I thought was where is my camera. But no camera. You’ll just have to take my word for it. I haven’t gotten the hang of using my sixth sense to tell me that I need to have my camera with me because events will transpire that I will want to write about.

By the way. I negative split that run.

Climbing Tucson: Part I

As I write this, I am sitting at the desk in my hotel room in Phoenix. Everyone else has flown back to home. In fact, by my calculations the plane lands in about 30 minutes but given I booked into the training camp a little later than others, the cheapest flight home was leaving a day after everyone else, so here I am in Phoenix alone.


Every time I touch my ears I can feel the flakiness of them from when I sun burned them somewhere on the Picture Rock ride on Tuesday (which, by the way, has nothing to do with pictures or rocks, it is just a hole in the wall town) or from wandering the Desert museum. I’ve put in about 365 km of riding, the majority of that uphill, about 12 miles of hiking and running, the majority of that also uphill, and not one single lap of a pool – oh wait.... I did swim across the ranch pool once or twice and dipped in the hot tub.

Despite what amounts to about 20 hours worth of time spent with a heart rate above 135 bpm, I think I likely gained weight on this trip. Stig’s Garmin calculated that he burned over 15,000 calories. We figure we must have ate about 30,000 in return. Double sized breakfasts at the hotel continental breakfast (waffles, eggs, yogurt, friut, and horrid watery coffee), road food was our typical lunch, and we stuffed our faces daily at dinner because we were ravished from a day on the road. It is hard to imagine how one can gain weight after all that but I suppose anything is possible as you encroach on 40.

Today my legs feel recovered, but that is the one thing on this trip my body wasn’t prepared for – constant abuse with no recovery. How this training benefited me won’t be known for a few weeks I am sure. I’ll know when I get out to Bird’s Hill Park and do a lap and wonder what happened to the hills. I’ll know when I am riding to/from work into 30-plus km/hr winds on my single speed and it doesn’t feel so bad. I'll know when I pull off a sub 1:20 Olympic bike (HA!). I’ll know when I’m pulling the ride group at 35km/hr for 10 minutes straight into the wind and my heart rate stays below 160 (yeah, like that is gonna happen, but a girl can dream can’t she?).

That is one thing I can say about Tucson, there is no escaping the hills. There is no such thing as an easy ride. Often what looks like a flat section of road is really sloped very gently in one direction or the other. So riding in Tucson means this: you either feel like you are dying and something is majorly wrong with you today because you have no power in your legs, or you think you are having the best ride of your life and you are the fastest cyclist around and you could probably beat even Lance at his own game today.

We rode for 5 days with one day break in the week. Two days if you count today which was going home day. I rode hard. I dare say I rode harder and more to my max than anyone else on this trip. I was the only woman on the trip who wanted to do the distances. The other women had different goals. My goal was to ride as much as I could. But the guys doing the distance can also pull off 1:10 or faster (including transition time) 40km rides in Olympic distance triathlons. I busted my ass to keep up with them. And here is the thing. I was pretty successful at it by my standards. More successful than I ever imagined. One day I stayed with them for 17 out of 60 km. So what if Chris got up Mt. Lemmon 37 minutes faster than me with Michael about 10 mintues behind and Sean about 10 minutes behind that. I would have thought he could get up there a whole hour faster.

The problem was that there was no such thing as an easy ride when trying to keep up with riders of that calibre. I went into this trip with the attitude that I was going to do the distance and I didn’t care if there was no one my pace to ride with. I didn’t want to hang back with the women because, well, I’m a woman. I went into these rides expecting to get dropped and I did. Often quickly. Sometimes too early. Sometimes not because I wasn’t strong enough. A couple times I got dropped because I was too slow getting clipped in at red lights or stop signs. Sometimes it was because it was too early in the season and I haven’t reacquainted myself with riding as close as I could to get the draft. Once I got dropped because I was about 4 feet back and it allowed just enough room for a gust of wind on our windiest ride day to push me back and out of the draft. I got dropped several times because of my hesitancy on sketchy roads. But it didn’t matter. Most of the time I used getting dropped as an excuse to slow down and ride with some sanity. I was dog tired by Wednesday.

I didn’t expect Stig to hang back with me either. He did a much better job of hanging on in those guy’s draft and for far longer than either of us thought he was capable of and I would say that was thanks to Cervelo S2 and Troy Jacobson and maybe a little fear that his girl was gonna outride him (snort!). He did say all winter that he was OK with it if I was faster than him this summer, to which I just rolled my eyes and said, Whatever Mr. Ironman. But he did get dropped at times, sometimes because he was at his limit and sometimes by choice, and he would slow up and wait or... not.

Mt. Lemmon

I found out I was climbing Mt. Lemmon the following day on Sunday night just as I was swallowing the last mouthful from my 4th alcoholic bevy. Let’s just say I might have made different evening hydration choices if I had known earlier. (And may I add as an aside, if I had remembered to grab the itinerary from my work printer prior to leaving, I might have noticed the schedule change all on my own.) I didn’t know how I was going to handle 25 miles of climbing so I took it easy. Bob and Margaret and Sophie and Jim, who have climbed Mt. Lemmon about 5 or 6 times, in whole or in part, since they’ve been out there told us that the day we road Mt. Lemmon was the hardest it ever was for them. But given the wind factor on the next two days, I’m glad we did it Monday. Certainly up to about mile 5 you could feel that you were working against the wind in places. It was a warm day too. I was sleevless all the way to the top, only putting on warmer gear for the decent. And I am sure I was dehydrated.

I rode out from the ranch with the boys despite being offered a ride in the van to a closer starting point. And, may I add, I didn’t get dropped the whole way in but I was working pretty hard to be sure I didn’t. We did an 18 km warm up to the base of Mt. Lemmon and as Michael so aptly pointed out, Mt. Lemmon is like dying. It is just one of those things you do alone. I stopped a few times on the way up but my ride time, excluding stops, was 3 hours exactly. Stig figures I was only about 10 minutes behind him, including stops. My total ride time for the ride was 5.5 hours. My total time out on the ride was 6.5 hours and that includes a 20 or so minute stop at the top, another 15 minutes on the way down when we stopped to strip out of our long sleeves and pose for numerous photo ops, and about 10 minutes of stops on the way to the mountain when we lost Chris and Jim T. (due to technical difficulties) and stopped to wait.

I stopped at mile 5 to check on Jim S. who was having a bad day. As he was clipping in to start off and up again he lost his balance and ended up on the ground. He turned around to go back at that point. He knew he was done.

I made a brief detour into one of the camp areas around mile 6 to look for water as I was one bottle done by then. No water to be found. I carried on from there all the way to mile 14 which is known as Windy Point stopped and took a self portrait, looked for water (none) as I had sucked the last mouthfuls at that stop. I had seen numerous spring run-off streams up to that point so I carried on hoping there would be others to use as a last resort, but all I saw for a few miles was snow. I stopped around mile 16 to fill my water bottles with the cleanest snow I could find. I stuffed one of them in the back of my shirt hoping my body heat would melt it quicker. No go. But just past mile 18 I hit my oasis. There was a spring run-off waterfall right by the side of the road. I filled my water bottles and all I can say is this:

BEST WATER I HAVE EVER TASTED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE

I drank down about half a litre right there. But don’t try this at home folks. Spring run-off is not to be trusted. I was desperate.

And from there I carried on right to the top. At mile 20 there was an information centre where I could have bought water and had I known, I would have waited, but I passed by without stopping. There was a brief reprieve of downhill for about 2 miles from about mile 20.5 to mile 22.5 which was a wonderful relief until you realized that when you turned around to go back, legs ceased from resting post 23 miles of climbing, that you had to climb that two miles to get to the downhill. Piece of cake.

I celebrated at the top with a Coke. Best Coke I’ve ever tasted. And, of course, a nice commemorative photo at the mile 25 sign.

And a word about altitude riding: we went up to 8000 ft after starting at about 2500 ft. At the bottom of the ride a heart rate of 165 was a manageable state to be in. By the time I was at 7000 feet, a heart rate of 150 was barely manageable. When I climbed up the short hill from the convenience store at mile 25 I was sucking wind so bad I thought my heart was going to burst. My heart rate there was 135.

And the way down was amazing if not a little nerve wrecking at moments on some of the switch backs. I had visions of myself catapulting over the guard rail and down the mountain. That was enough to get me to back off at moments. I did hit 60 km per hour or higher in places. I don’t know the exact max speed as I didn’t have that set to record on my Garmin. The wind wasn’t too much of a factor coming down. Chris went up again to mile 18 a couple days later and he said coming down was far more treacherous on that day with side gusts of wind. He couldn’t get over 45 on that day.

Stig, Michael and I rode back to the ranch together and there was one thing we all agreed on. None of us knew how we were going to top this ride. I would have liked to have done it again before we left but by Friday, the fatigue in my legs didn’t leave me with a whole lot of confidence. And there were other rides to do and other places to see. And a week isn’t enough time to do every ride available in the amazing Tucson area.

Jim S. did eventually make it up Mt. Lemmon. He psyched himself out (pun intended given he is a psychiatrist). He did get dropped on the ride to the base (uphill and against the wind) that morning and he mumbled behind me before starting into the ascent that he didn’t think he was going to make it. I think he had made his decision right then and there. He’d had a series of small injuries all winter that had killed his endurance. But he was the only rider in the group who didn’t make it to the top that day. So he went out the next morning by himself and he did it then. I asked him later that evening if he was happy with himself. His response: Well, Kim, I’m never happy with myself but at least now I can live with myself.

Yes. This is a sickness.

A Repost: 25 Things About Me

Posted Originally on February 6, 2009 -- Reposting only because I recently mentioned it.

1. It makes me anxious to “friend request” people on FB. I’m 37 years old and still afraid I won’t be invited to the party.


2. There was only one thing I ever wanted to do with my life and that was be a writer. I wrote stories before I could actually write. It is written on every page of my “school days” book from about grade 4 on. Instead I conformed and got a real job. At 34 years old I finally wrote a novel and it was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had. Ultimately it changed my life forever. But I still have a real job.

3. My marriage ended because I changed. Not because he did.

4. I am a huge romantic. I don’t fall in love easily but when I do I give myself wholly and completely. I’ve had my heart broken a half dozen times and I’m still willing to come back for more.

5. I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was 34 years old. It was because I was up until 1 AM writing a book and tea didn’t cut it for getting me through a workday the next day. I am now fully and forever addicted.

6. I never wanted to be a nurse growing up. I’m still not sure how that happened. I went through 4 years of nursing school and still wasn’t sure I wanted to be a nurse. I won the gold medal for highest GPA in my class. I worked in a hospital for no more than 3 months and knew I wouldn’t do that forever. I went back and did my masters to try and find contentment and ended up more disillusioned than ever. I still love health and wellness but my disillusionment with my profession is why I teach the least nursey subjects in the curriculum.

7. Women make me nervous. I guess I was backstabbed too many times in my adolescence. I am much more comfortable around men. Unfortunately the paradox is that I also believe that the essence of “When Harry Met Sally” is true.

8. In high school I never ran more than 100 or 200m at track meets. I was the kid who could show up to track practice two weeks before the meet and make finals in my sprint events. This attitude frustrated my coach. Today I still think like a sprinter (go out hard!). This is problematic when trying to race long events.

9. I am anal about words. I will edit this document for hours before I post it. I love: Type. Formatting. Commas. Periods. Spacing. Italics. I really do appreciate the details of APA. Conversely, I don’t care if my counters get wiped daily or if my floor gets swept.

10. I could never talk about #2. I didn’t think people would understand. Then I found a mentor who taught me how to talk about writing.

11. I am addicted to email. I check my email 100 times a day (or it is just always open). I usually always reply immediately. It will usually be longer than necessary and say more than I need to say. I will almost always have the last word.

12. I usually make the first move.

13. I look forward to when my children are teenagers. I may regret wishing that when the time arrives.

14. I am still proud of who my ex husband is even though I don’t want to be married to him.

15. Bending rules still gives me an adrenaline rush.

16. I have a recurring nightmare that I am trapped underwater and can’t get up to breath. Related: I frequently dream that I am swimming and my arms are so heavy I can’t move.

17. I enjoyed being in therapy.

18. As a kid I was annoyed by Sunday dinner conversations between my mother, my grandmother and my aunt about the latest Family Circus quick-fix diet. I vowed out loud that I would never get fat. They laughed and said, “we’ll see.” So far so good but I’m battling some pretty heavy duty genetics in that department. I want a tummy tuck. Can we start a fund?

19. My whole life I’ve wanted to find sport that I was better than average at. I think cycling could be it.

20. When I was in university, I thought every one of my classmates had the same work ethic as me. It wasn’t until I started teaching that I figured out the truth.

21. I eventually forgive anything. I have to be crossed dozens of times to finally walk away. I have no interest in revenge.

22. I remember the first and last names of every guy I have ever kissed and beyond. I regret none. Some of them I still think about.

23. I think being a parent is far harder than any day job.

24. Someday you might turn up in one of my novels. Maybe you already have.

25. I’m not very good at keeping secrets, including my own. But I won’t reveal anything that would hurt another person or cause harm.