"Sufferfest"

Everyone in the local cycling community knows this man, right? He is as epic as the mountain range they named after him. Cycling is a family affair in his house. And look at that face... he always has that snarl on his face. He has shit-disturber written all over that look.

I happen to be employed at the same institution as him. I have coffee or lunch with him on a semi-regular basis and because our IQ's reach similar heights, the conversations always have staggering twists and turns with sharped-tongued flavour embedded within. It is entirely fate that brought us together as friends, though, because he works down testosterone ally and I work in the tower of power. We have a mutual friend that I knew from the gym who he used to work with directly and now, over 4 years later,  this "dude" in the picture and I are better friends than the original introduction might have predicted.

Yesterday we had coffee together and being he is probably the only person I know, and perhaps the only person in the universe, that I could have a conversation with that involved trying to complete the LA Times crossword (he knew answers like rebs and egocamp [WTF], and I got bologna -- he wins), discussing the magic of prime numbers, and George Orwell's 1984 (which I read in 1984), AND accuse me of being a bullshitter, all in a matter of 5 minutes.

I wish I was a bullshitter. I really wish some of the stories I could tell were actually bullshit. In fact, his favourite story about me is when he and the mutual friend we both know decided to tell me another guy in the office got fired and I believed it. Then the real fun started when I expressed my open opinion on that fact -- until of course I was told it was all BS -- then the joke was on me.

Damn my gullible-ness.

So we all know the pot was calling the kettle black on the account of being a Bullshitter.

Oh and he always manages to find a way to piss off my feminist sensibilities. He does it on purpose though so I still love him and I forgive him.

Anyways, our friend, so pictured above, in his characteristic cantankerous way, happened to comment that if he ever saw the word "sufferfest," again, in any blog it would will him to come out of blog commenting silence. So I informed him that I was happy to rise to that challenge. So he knows I'm going to write this. I doubt however that he realized HOW I was going to write it.

You see, his argument is that it isn't suffering if you are doing it by choice. 

Oh, and he also wants me to tell you he stole that from someone who knows true suffering and it isn't his own independent thought.

Did I paraphrase you right, sir?

Anyways, I adore this man, even if his son claims to have been "raised by savages" (it makes me belly laugh to think of that) and I thought I would grant him his 15 seconds of fame amongst the 5 people that actually look at my blog.

And if he invites you to his house this summer for a "hammerfest" -- it isn't what you think it is and you should tell him you're busy.

Are you for Riel?

Yes I am for Riel. But, that, my friends, is a really shitty time for a 100km, which was more than enough time and distance for me today and was the stop goal I had in mind when I started. But it was on a trainer so I will forgive myself. Or at least I will pretend that I spent the 100 km against the wind and gently uphill the whole way. Which my legs felt like I was from the first moment out of the hop.

The other actual goal was to stay aerobic because I need to do some serious fat burning to shed my waistline of it's winter insulation. I should start thinking about losing 5 or 8 (or 10) pounds before I have to climb Richter Pass in July.

The plan to stay in my aerobic zone worked well until Paul, our humble Are You for Riel host, and fellow Tribalistic teammate put in "Local Hero" the latest Sufferfest instalment, where I, Sufferlandian racer, had to chase down Fabian Cancellara in the the 2010 World Championship time trials (amongst other gem sprints from famous races past) - then it was bye-bye to aerobic zone for a little while.  Spartacus by-they-way, and by means of comparison, was able to pull off these max's in his recent TT in Oman... AND... he only came in 4th, thereby disappointing the world:

Stolen from Leopard Trek Facebook page. And, yes, that does say his max speed was 108km/hr.

Bye-bye to aerobic zone also meant bye-bye to my legs which were toast by 80km and the last 20 were the true "sufferfest" of the day. This, was thanks to a tough 2 hour bike yesterday at Pan Am Pool and me looking over at Jenn and announcing, "I'm going to stand for the last 10 minutes of tempo." Which made her say, "I'll do it too then." Which, of course, meant that I actually had to follow through with that. Me and my big mouth.

I really miss riding with people. These group rides seem to happen few and far between these days. I cherish them when they do, so thanks to Paul and the Wellness Institute for hosting a great (and cheap) event as always. Till next year.

Sex Sells ....

Got your attention? Naturally. I rode outside today and it was beautiful. It was warm and windy and it was coming from the south and I came home with mud caked in my hair. And I have NO pictures, which is really a good thing. Trust me. But damn I feel good.

Anyways I don't have the time to be all thoughtful and articulate in my blog these days but I can't resist tossing out these latest ads from Pearl Izumi. I tell ya. I'm ready to go shopping!

I can't tell if that's a beer-belly laden (laid-en?) guy with muscular legs at the front of the conga line or a pregnant woman. Thoughts?

And if you have a foot or shoe fetish, this is the one for you. 

Make of this what you will..... But it is definitely memorable.

Design me, Draw me, Ink me

The other day I went on a graphic image hunt on a mission to help out a friend who didn't ask for my help but got it unsolicited because I meddle like that, and in the process of that image hunt I came across this picture which made me *chuckle* because if I was to make an image to reflect the various dichotomous parts that are me, this would be as close as it comes.

Thank-you Google Images for guiding me to this picture and, most of all, thank you especially for falsely inflating my blog stats during this period of time when my blog lies quiet. There sure are a lot of people out there searching for "Walmart Bicycles" -- which, actually, kinda scares me more than a little bit.

And yes, my blog has been quiet. I am freakinunbelievablebusy right now and suffering a touch of SAD that January and February always seems to bring. I can't stand the thought of another cold day. I feel I will lose my mind. The good news is that I got my first sunburn today and my first sunglasses racoon eyes of the year. I've missed my racoon eyes. How I got these, I'll save for another post.

But speaking of images.....  I've mentioned before that 2011 is the year I turn:

40

Yes. It is true. In fact, we are just a little over two months away from the special day itself. And this January and February I have felt every second of my 40 years. Good thing, inside my head, I am still 18. 

But I digress as always. To mark this momentous occasion, my plan is Tattoo #2... yes, if you didn't already know, I have another already and I'm always happy to show it off, assuming I am dressed appropriately to do so. 

And, I need an artist and I'm slowly collecting referrals. So if you can suggest a good Tattoo artist. Please share. 

Good to Know

The new Trenta cup at Starbucks (Availability in Canada, unknown). Holds an entire bottle of wine!!

Enough is Enough.... Let's look at some Art

Enough is enough. Some of you may have liked it, but I could no longer stand to see picture of a volleyball chicks ass in my face when I opened my own blog so it was time to replace it with something else.

And, yes, I chose that picture purely for shock value. But now it shocks me, so I'm over it.

What you are looking at is the artwork hanging in my kitchen over my back door. I kinda like it. It came from a place called Earth Studio in Moab, Utah. Yes, Moab. Home of mountain biking utopia. I have never been there but there is this little thing called the internet. It's kinda addictive. You can search and find out anything you want to know and buy anything you want to buy.

Damn internet.

I guess the other thing I could update you on is the situation with my calves which I first reported on here. After a visit to the Sports Medicine clinic, X-rays of both my shins, and about 6 tubes of blood work -- which, by my recollection, is more tubes than I would typically draw on any ICU patient I ever looked after when I worked in ICU once upon a time -- I decided to try the one and only calf repair treatment I have never tried over the course of 2 years since this problems started.

I stopped running. For 3 weeks.

And then the coach asked me to try. So the day I had to go back to the clinic for the follow-up I hopped on the treadmill and waited for that typical 5 minute onset of stumpy legs. Five minutes came and went .... and then 10 and ....   then 15.  Nothing. I stopped at 15 minutes. There is no better cure for any problem than making an appointment with the doctor.

But maybe stopping running is all I needed to do. I'd never taken any time off before. I just pushed through the pain.

So I am going to start running again and build slowly like I just got off the couch from doing nothing for 10 years.

And once radiology took an expert look at my x-rays they did identify what was likely also an old stress fracture on my left shin. Go figure. I can't tell you when that would have been. I can vaguely remember some shin pain from about 5 years ago but I likely just bought new shoes and it went away. The pain I remember very much predates my crazy exercise addiction days. It also pre-dates my half marathon training days too.

And my blood work showed nothing abnormal except for elevated white blood cells which can be explained away by the fact that the day I had it drawn was also Day one of the flu from hell which made me feel like Death through most of the week before Christmas. First year in MANY..... MANY.... that I have not got a flu shot and I got the flu. Let this be a lesson to me. Karma.

So there you have it. And thanks for checking me out again. At least I no longer have to check out the bikini clad butt when I open my blog. If you miss her, just scroll a little further.

Butt Cleavage, Celebratory Beer, and a Touch of Academic Geekism

The secret signal is..... ??

I have to teach a new course starting in a couple of days. This is a course I picked up to help fund my expensive "biking habit." It's on women and health. And while I'm excited to do it, I'm terrified too. What exactly qualifies me to teach this course when the person who taught it before me is a world renowned expert on women and sexuality in cancer recovery? I'm just the schlumpy college instructor who happens to be a woman and has published one article associated with the subject. That article is the second thing that pops up in google when you type in my full name and the word "nursing." (Or, at least, today it did.)

If you happened to have imitated that google search you'll find, yes, I have an academic life. This explains why I frequently can flip into academic geek mode. I do it anywhere, including in the middle of a bike shop, as I did the other night when I stood around in my favourite bike shop (you know which) with my favourite bike boys and chatted about exercise addiction. This happened about 2 minutes after I brought them beer as a post Christmas and New Years "Thanks" and cracked jokes about girly drinks and whipping cream. So I can flip that switch into academic nerd pretty quickly, anywhere, with anyone, under any circumstances.

Live with it.

Exercise addiction in endurance athletes, if I may digress for a moment, is what I figure, once I get my ASS in gear -- or when someone pays for it, whichever comes first -- I will eventually do a PhD about. We talked about the depression that results when you stop exercising, even for a few days. The other part of the conversation was about that fine line you hover around knowing that you need to exercise to still be upright when you are 80 or 90 and the damage you cause to your body when you don't  [CAN'T] stop when you are injured.

Anyway, I geek out quite frequently in my blog too so if you don't like it, I suggest you stop reading right now because it's gonna get worse. But I'm drinking wine as I type tonight so, that might help a bit.

I also flipped into academic geek mode pretty easily here in the comments on this tongue-in-cheek blog entry. My new course has a pre-established assignment where they have to find an advertisement that focuses on something related to women's health (tampon, birth control, diet pills and plastic surgery ads are likely what I'll see a lot of) and the first advertisement that popped into my mind to use as an example was the one my friend the Cyclechick shared with us a couple months back.  Graciously she has allowed me to use that blog entry in my class as a fine example of how my students should be thinking when they look for their own ads.

Achhk. .... I made my point in the comments about how disgusting those ads are, you can go to the link and read them there. If you care.

Or even in nursing itself. This predates me, but nurses used to wear little white caps and white pressed uniforms and clean pantyhose and said things like "yes Doctor" while bowing and averting their eyes. Walk into a hospital today and see if you can tell the difference between the doctor or the nurse. Better yet, can you tell the difference between the nurse and the housekeeper?  Good luck.

Of course, I suggest, neither is a good image. So nurses still aren't getting it right.

But I could probably walk into my first class on Tuesday and spend the entire class ranting about the invisibility of women in sport. Yeah we gotta sex 'em up to get anyone who watches sport (meaning men) to pay attention.  Best example? Beach Volleyball. Show some cute ass and, still, no one notices we have some pretty fantastic female athletes out there, but some great butt crack goes on permanent record in our brains.

Go to google. Type in "beach volleyball images."  Ignore gender ......  or don't.... type in "men's beach volleyball" it is still 90% women in those pics.

You can't tell me that dressing like this helps their play when.......

.......when the men get to dress like this. 

And of course, heaven forbid women celebrate when we succeed. How un-female of us.

But you get that this is how women survive? We find a way to behave a little like men so we can at least feel we are on the same level. And then we get told we are not allowed to behave that way, because obviously, we don't do it right.

And if we can't feel like we are on the same level or get the same attention then let's take some clothes off and play on their sexual fantasies.

And I won't go any further than that. But I do have to THINK about these things in order to teach this course.

And feminism isn't about bra burning and man hating. I love men. I love them a little too much. I've done every naive, desperate, stupid, cliche thing in the book to get them to notice me.

But I do have to figure out a way to get a group of about 40 women to not automatically want to think of menopause as a disease -- the way the medical model does.

Tougher yet, I've gotta get their instructor to think that way as well.

Anyways. In other thoughts, I've considered quitting the whole blog thing. I'm writing but I'm not doing productive writing and I bet, if I printed out all the blogs I've done in the last year, that the page numbers would total greater than both my novels put together. And that excludes the pictures.

As well, it's January. I struggle enough to get through January without trying to find ways to be entertaining or academic or inspirational. Today I don't feel like being seen and would like to dig a huge hole and just crawl into it and stay there till spring. Just like the bears. I actually can't believe I'm bothering to write this at all.

But, as I've said, writing sustains me. And, believe it or not, this post was actually inspired by a Facebook friend who posts a lot of items related to the horrible abusive treatment that women face in war-torn Taliban ruled Afghanistan......... so we've got it pretty good.

But tomorrow is another day. And this women's course is going to consume me. So maybe you'll see me and maybe I'll take a break.

Time will tell.