I feel a stupid idea brewing...

Some of you may remember my suicide ride, and how I like to punish myself every once in awhile to cleanse not only my body, but mostly my mind. Well, my mind needs an emergency trip to the dry cleaner lately and it's beginning to hatch a really, really stupid idea. Maybe you've been reading this blog for awhile and you know that stupid ideas are pretty much the only ones I follow through on.

On October 27th fellow blogger and dear friend The Angry Runner is coming up to Beantown from The Constitution State so we can both run the 5k Trick or Trot in dresses. He will be dressed as a prom queen, and I will be running in a 3-lb bridal gown. Good times will be had by all, and I'm sure there will be great pictures and blogging as a result.

...But then...

...then another exciting idea occurred to me...

When I was on the Cape last weekend I kept seeing all these spraypainted arrows on the ground with the letters CCM underneath. I started to wonder what CCM could possibly stand for. The answer seemed pretty obvious, especially since I saw big numbers painted on the ground in the mid-20s and counting down... I didn't know Cape Cod had a marathon. I've been toying with the idea of running Boston next year as a bandit (since I could never qualify), and I thought maybe I should look into alternatives. But this morning, just out of pure, innocent curiosity, I looked up "Cape Cod Marathon" just to see when it was. Just to see if it would fit into my Vineman buildup. I swear I didn't know it was going to be the day after Angry's and my race, October 28... But really, what's a 5k? Would it really have that much of an effect on an untrained marathon? That little devil on my shoulder's starting to whisper in my ear.

So... what should I do? What do you think? For more evidence you can read about marathon 1 and marathon 2.

Team Blogger Victory!

My day started at 2:00, but I would be lying if I said that I even slept that long. As I ate breakfast I printed out both Mapquest directions and the directions from the race page. I walked out of the house as the clock was striking 3:00. First stop: the gas station to fill up and get my Gatorade for later in the day. I pulled up to the gas station and was pleased that I guessed correctly about which side the gas tank was on (remember this was a rental). I opened the driver's side door to find the lever to pop the gas cap thingy and didn't see anything, no matter how close I put my face to the seat and looked (maybe it was really tiny...). So I did what I've learned to do when I'm at my wits' end: ask a boy for help and try not to look feminine while doing it. The townies who work the graveyard shift at the 24 hour Exxon station are not masters of diplomacy, and even as I asked him if he had any idea where the lever might be I realized the answer, there WAS no lever, you just opened it with your hand. But I'd already started talking, so I finished asking my stupid question to the slack-jawed obese attendant anyway. Sure enough, we went outside and he flipped it open with a disinterested flip of the wrist and said, "It's automatic. You going to fill up?" Yeah. "You paying with a card?" Yeah. "You can just pay at the pump." Of course. I'd forgotten that. I haven't pumped gas in 18 months, you forget little things like that.

Getting settled in for the long haul I realized another problem with the car, I could not, for the life of me, find the dome light. Crap! How was I going to read my directions? 93 to 95 to the Mass Pike to 84, I knew that, but then what? I looked at the directions from the race website, "Take the exit for Rte. 10". I looked at the Mapquest directions which had a little symbol that looked like this and next to that it said "Merge onto CT-4 W / FARMINGTON AVE via EXIT 39 toward FARMINGTON", only I didn't read the part after the picture because I'm an idiot and don't read things, nor did I look closely at the little "West" over the 4 and thought it probably said "exit"anyway. Like a real sleuth I looked at none of the clues and deduced that I would be taking exit 4 to rout 10. When I got to Connecticut and the exits started counting down it seemed to make sense that I would take exit 4. Wasn't I going to the western part of Connecticut anyway? So it would make sense that I would cross the whole state before getting off the highway. Yeah, that's it. Only around 5:45 doubt started to creep in and the sun had crept over the horizon and I could see my directions clearly, and I could see that that little word above the 4 did not say "exit" and then I read all the words next to it and I saw "exit 39" and I looked up and saw that I was at exit 23 (a couple of exits past where Angry put me back on the freeway several hours later) and realized that I had gone 16 exits too far, that I had 20 minutes to backtrack, and it was getting dangerously close to 6 o'clock.


Thank god I didn't get any more lost, but I still had some 30 minutes to drive on the back roads to get to the start, and even though I told myself to relax, that there was nothing I could do except keep driving, I knew I was screwed. I convinced myself not to panic, but that didn't stop me from having an anxiety attack which makes me shake, makes my joints ache, makes my mouth dry, and gives me tingles all over my body. I found the start at about 6:45 and yelled at the guy in the orange crossing guard's vest, "I GOT LOST! WHERE CAN I PARK?!" He pointed me down to what I later found out was volunteer parking right next to the beach "There should be spaces down there," he said (Angry and Bob had to park a good mile away at the top of a hill). I threw my front wheel on my bike (forgot to fasten the quick release on the brakes) and sprinted to the transition with precious little time. "Where's regestration?!" I yelled to the first person who I saw.
"Over there," she said pointing about 100 meters away back towards where I'd parked. Shit! (I'm not quite sure that this was under my breath) and I started to turn away. "Why don't you leave your stuff here?" she suggested. Good idea! I racked my bike (on what I would later notice was the relay rack), started to unpack my stuff and realized I had no bibs, caps, or anything. I ditched my stuff as it was and sprinted to registration.
"Hi. Myname'sClaireXxxx. Spelled X-x-xxx. Idon'tknowwhatmynumberis..."
"Okay, did you fill out one of these?"
(Whining, pleading) "What?!" She waved some kind of release slip in my face and I ran over to the other table to fill it out. I don't even think I spelled my name right and definitely didn't date next to my signature. They sent me over to get marked while they looked for my packet and chip. I ripped off my shirt and stood there in my bra and shorts while 2 women wrote all over me.
"How old are you, honey?" one asked.
"24, oh God, PLEASE hurry. I still need to change!"
"Don't worry, honey, I'm sure they'll wait for you." Then I heard the announcer calling everyone to the beach for a pre-race meeting. I grabbed my race packet and dashed into a changing room without closing the door to put on my tri-suit. I shoved my dirty undies in one pocket, threw the suit on with reckless abandon (those things aren't easy to put on under any circumstances due to the built-in bra that has to fit over your hips first) and ran off with my bra in one hand and clothes in the other to set up my transition area. Either I was so anxious or so thirsty that I had cottonmouth so bad that my tongue was sticking to my lips and the back of my teeth as I ran back to transition. I'd left my nalgene bottle in the car. They'd already cleared transition when I got there, but the kind souls guarding it let me in. Bike shoes, sock in each shoe, sunglasses... sunglasses... where are my sunglasses? Screw the sunglasses, helmet on top of shoes, Gatorade open... "Hey, you! Excuse me? Can you give me a hand?" I yelled to the grandfatherly volunteer guarding transition. "Can you please open this?" I asked, handing him my Gatorade bottle. Running shoes, headband, water bottle, CRAP! I forgot my running water bottle! Race belt, oh no, have to put number on race bel... Grandpa was handing my Gatorade bottle to me with a smile. "I think there's a tab inside under the cap," I said, wrestling desperately with my race belt and bib number. "Can you please pull it off?"
"By golly, you're right!" he said, pulling out the plastic tab.
"Thank you so much. I'm sorry, I'm just so late, I don't mean to be bossy, it's just, I'm afraid I'm going to miss the start."
"It's okay, that's what we volunteers are here for!" he said good naturedly, and somewhere an angel got its wings.
"Thank you so much, really!" I yelled, already dashing back towards the beach where they were clearing people out of the water. With my heart going the way it was, I didn't need a warmup.

With all the coffee and water I'd drank on the 3 hour drive over I'd had to pee since the state line and now with everyone clearing out of the water, I had no idea how I was going to relieve myself. Then I heard a voice far above my left ear, "Claire! No Wetsuit Girl?" I looked up and saw a face that was not entirely unfamiliar, but nor would I have recognized it in a crowd. "I'm Craig, the Angry one." Only his name's not Craig.
"Just like how I write in my blog, I'm really that angry," Angry said.
"Just like how I write in my blog, I'm really that dumb," I said and explained how I hadn't gotten lost so much as missed my exit by a long shot. I asked where Bob Almighty was and we had a bit of smalltalk, but it didn't take me long get to the tactless speech that makes my friends cringe. "I have to pee so bad I think I'm going to burst!" I admitted to Angry, a guy that I'd really only met about 2 minutes ago. Angry pointed out where the porta-poddies were. "Actually, my suit's all one piece, I was kinda just thinking of going in the lake..."
"It's all the same to me," said an uncomfortable Angry, to whom it probably WASN'T all the same.
Angry introduced me to Ken, who was volunteering, before they corralled his angry self back into the water. "Where's your wetsuit?" asked Ken.
"I don't own one!" I said, proudly.

The Swim

Waiting for my wave to start I deliberately got int the water WAY to the inside so that I could have some privacy to relieve myself without anyone else having to wade through my considerably-sized warm spot. This put me more on the inside than I usually like (I was the inner-most girl), but I was still having an anxiety attack and was just glad that I was there at the start before the gun.

The start was uneventful. I was so far inside and so far forward that hardly anyone was around me and they all fell quickly back or pulled up right away so I found myself in no-man's-land immediately. I was uncomfortable swimming alone since I had no one to follow and had to sight way more often. Luckily, even though Saint Bob was kind enough to bring an extra wetsuit for me just in case, and even though I arrived too late to take advantage, it didn't matter since Lake Waramaug was comfortably warm and beautifully fresh (as in not salty). I found that I was actually within bounds and not too far to the inside of the buoys after all and everything was going well until we came around the second turn buoy and faced back towards the beach. Do you know that Ani Difranco line, "Virtue is relative at best, there's nothing worse than a sunset when you're driving due west"? It was like that, only it was sunrise and I was facing east. I couldn't see buoys. I couldn't even see girls 25 yards in front of me. I couldn't see ANYTHING when I looked up except the blinding sun in the sky and its blinding reflection in the water. I felt my way along, looking up every once in awhile and hoping to spot some shadow. I managed to find heads some of the time, but I would come up on them fast because they were treading water trying to get their bearings, and then they were behind me and of no use to me. Finally the sun ducked behind some trees and I stood up prematurely to run in thigh-deep water just so I could see where I was going. Coming up off the beach I saw Ken and yelled (loud enough so that others could hear me and therefore know that normally I'm pretty badass, really!), "It was so bright, I couldn't see a damn thing out there!"

Swim time: 15:31, 1:43 per 100m (could've been better, but it could've been worse)
3/7 in age group (43%), 31/110 overall (28%)

T1

Ouch! Those plush astroturf mats could have gone all the way to transition, there are little ROCKS here. OW! I passed the bleached-blond announcer and she yells at me, "You go girl! Top 10 women." Really? I'm pretty sure she lost count.
Helmet, Shit! Should have put it on between when I rented it and right now, this thing is going to choke me. Left sock, left shoe. Right sock, right shoe. That sun was too bright on the swim, I'm going to look for my sunglasses. I wasted a good 2 minutes turning my backpack inside out looking for my sunglasses. Fuck it, I'm out of here!
T1: 3:23... and I would have spent another 5 minutes there if I could have found my sunglasses. Alas, they never turned up.

The Bike

Since I'm here with Angry and Bob who talk Big Man talk about the big ring I wanted to do it in the big ring just like them. Only the big ring screwed up my cadence and I was breathing hard already and who needs that? So I clicked back down one and started picking off anyone within sight (and in the end changing gears didn't turn out to be too big a deal since my bike split was within 57" and 1'36" of Bobby-Boy and Angry respectively). In the whole bike split only one person passed me, and he was a dude, so he doesn't even count.

I was sailing along like nobody's business when suddenly I saw a little hill ahead. It didn't look like much, and I didn't think anything of it until I started climbing and my bike stopped moving. Down through the gears I went until I got to the smallest gear on my small (but not granny) ring, and still I wasn't getting anywhere... and I was feeling way more uncomfortable than I like to be in competition. A recently picked-off guy was breathing like a freight train behind me so I knew I wasn't alone. "Where did THIS come from?!" I said out loud.
"There's a bigger one after this," said the freight train.
"You've got to be kidding me!" I said. "Flat and fast" my ass, Angry!
I hardly pedaled coming over the top trying to get my breath back and just when I was getting my game again I came up on the second hill. It didn't look like much. It looked nice and gradual, but then when I got on it I thought my bike was going to tip over I was going so slow. Down to the granny ring, down to the easiest gear, and still on some of the ridges in the pavement where a bump made it even steeper (if only for a foot) the grade threatened to stop my pedaling altogether. I'd ridden grades like this tons of times before, but I wasn't ready! (said in petulant child's voice). I blame Angry.

Coming down the Monstrous Surprise Hill at a million bajillion miles per hour I heard something fall off my bike and clatter to the ground. Crap! I hope that wasn't something important! I thought, imagining my bike deposit disappearing. Then I looked down... MY GATORADE!!! I'd been so busy breathing that I'd hardly had a chance to drink and I was concerned after my morning cottonmouth. Again, I blame Angry, it's his fault I was on this stupid hill in the first place.

Despite some unfortunate grades, the course really was beautiful. Apart from the hills the road clung close to the lake, which still had wisps of the morning's fog sticking to the surface like little cotton balls. I really wished I had my camera on me, but there were "bitches to stomp" (as Bob says) and I was really a bit chilly to stop now.

Bike time (for 9 mi):30:43, av. speed: 17.6 mph (damn! and I thought I was faster than that!)
Bike stats:2/7 in age group (29%), overall 39/110 (35%)

T2

Change shoes, put on annoying but useful headband, no Gatorade to grab, off I go. Pooh, do I really have to run?
T2: 1:24

The Run

(Teeth clenched) Stupd fkng rnning! Stupid, dn't wnt to do ths... I left the transition and immediately my right pinky metatarsal and my left tibia hurt. Stupd rnning, no good for nythng but gtting injured... 100m up the road I hear feet behind me, "Do you know where we're supposed to go?" I let the girl pass me so I could see where she was pointing: which was UP. StOOpid hlls nvr did nybdy ny good... And the hill didn't relent it just kept going up and up and up. Screw this! I'ont need to be no hero now. And I started walking. You don't have hills in triathlons, at least not like this one. Bob had tried to warn me that the first half of the run was "tough", but I thought, it's only a mile and a half... in a triathlon, how hard can it be? The first 1.7 miles were pretty much solidly uphill, and I was pretty universally unhappy about it. I blame Bob. I ran past a couple of women standing at the side of the road. One of them started clapping and said, "And you're the one who was late. Now look at you!" What? I thought. I knew I looked like crap. I was giving out places like Halloween candy letting women pass me without giving up a fight, but hell, it was better than making the effort it would take to catch them.

I came around the turnaround where Ken was cheering something I don't remember. It was all downhill from here, literally, and it was nice to be running faster than a speeding bullet without any real effort. At this point I'd pushed past the T2 stiffness, warmed up most of the aches and pains, and only my shins were bothering me. Shins are a bad thing to be bothering you when you're running down 400 feet over 1.3 miles. And then I was running past transition and across those inadequately astroturfed pebbles again, "Ouch, ouch ouch, OUCH!" (my foot twisted just so in that way that really hurts).

I crossed the finish line and the crowd roared. I didn't even think I was going to puke this time around!
Run time: 30:05 (I'm actually surprised it wasn't slower for all the walking I did), av. speed: 9:42 min/mile (with how much I hate running I'm thrilled with anything faster than a 10:00 min/mi).
Run stats: 5/7 in age group (71%) ~ OUCH!, overall 85/110 (77%) ~ DOUBLE ouch!

Post Race

Angry found me scavenging around the food tables and we looked at the results. It didn't look like Bob had placed, he was going to be pissed. I counted more than 5 20-24 chicks ahead of me and decided not to look too much closer, it might be depressing. I started to complain about the hills and started to rebuke Angry for getting me into that situation. "Oh, come on! You can handle it. The Claire went over the mountain, right?" It was weird to hear my words being quoted by someone else, and I tried not to give him a sullen dirty look for catching me.

We went to transition and I met Bob. Bob knows EVERYONE, man. I could hardly get a word in edgewise to introduce myself before he was off talking tri-geek-speak with another competitor. I understood all the triathlon talk, but all those funny names of places and races in Connecticut were completely beyond me and I couldn't follow. Angry and I left Bob to his mingling and went back to get some grub.

They started announcing the winners. After the initial REAL male and female winners (*showoffs*) they started with the under 19 boys and girls, then the grown-ups. "And third place of the men 20-24: Angry... Run?Runn...e...r?" Said the blond MC with the ditzy accent.
"What the...? Holy shit!" said Angry, dropping his cookie and going up to accept his prize.
"And in second place, Robity-Bob Almighty!" she announced, and Bob coolly went up to accept his prize, since he, unlike us, never doubted that he kicks ass.
I ran up and tried to take a picture of this moment (Angry in his famous Barloworld hat, Bob in his suave new Timex visor) but my camera was low on batteries and I couldn't replace them in time. New battery in place and ready to snap a photo of the 2 blogger victors I heard, "And for the women 20-24, in third Place, Claire... New Wit Soot Carl?" What the...?! I went up there, and none of the other girls whose names were called appeared. I tried to smile, but since I prefer a good candid shot to a bad posed one, I stopped paying attention to the camera at just the wrong time.

TWO THIRDS and a SECOND! Go team blogger!

Angry Runner: "You aren't as small as I thought you would be." Are you kidding?!
Left to right: Bob Almighty, me, and Angry Runner

Overall results: 1:21:06 (PR, but that hardly counts since the bike was shorter than usual).
4/7 (57%) ~No, I know, run more. I have no idea why I was 4th on the results and they still gave me a prize packet. Probably because the REAL winner already got one. Go Claire with another Booby prize! Well I'm not driving back to Connecticut to give back the water bottle they gave me, so ha! Overall 50/110 (45%)

Then we all drove to Waterbury, CT to have breakfast and rehash our victories. Angry turned out to be an impatient driver (no surprise there), but Bob-O the speed demon is actually a really cautious driver. Who would have seen that one coming?

Over breakfast Robidy-Bob revealed to us his plan to win IM New Zealand on his very first try. Bob was crunching projected race times with an optimism that I only allow myself in my most private moments. I think that Bob is of the McCormack school of talkin' the talk so that later you have no choice but to walk the walk, and that works for him because he's fast consistently places. I've learned the hard way to shut my trap (see last weeks profanity-riddled post for an example), because I've learned that no matter what, there is always a moment in a race where I think, "screw this, this hurts!" and back off and later I have to eat my words. Bob, though, means business, and he is going to will himself to a Hawaii spot, just you wait and see!

Angry had a much more reserved kind of boasting, "I could do better if I trained more." But who has time to train more? I KNOW I'll never run a 3 hour marathon... and certainly never after a 112 mile bike. Leave the hard stuff up to the REAL tri-geek competitors like Bob. Finally meeting Bob and seeing his face, his passion, his love for the sport the thought occurred to me, 'Bobby Boy wants to win an IM tomorrow. I don't care about winning, but I'd love to keep finishing funky stuff like IMs, swimming the English Channel, the Race Across America, Badwater, or a 50 mile pogo stick hop. There'll be time for Kona when I'm 90'. It's okay not to be Bob, it's okay if I'm a triathlete that sometimes does okay and sometimes sucks a big one. It's okay to swim without a wetsuit, bike on a rented bike, and run really slow (or even walk) if that's what I want to do. It's okay to do a swim race today, a bike race tomorrow, and DNF a running race on Thursday as long as I'm having fun. I haven't been having fun lately because I've wanted to WIN when I hadn't been down for the training to win.

... And today was really fun! Robity-Bob had to bring his pit crew (2 sisters) home after breakfast since they were fading from the early wakeup and sprinting after his breakneck pace to cheer him on on the course. Angry and I stopped by a Barnes & Noble for coffee before I took off and chatted some more. Without fawning all over him, let me tell you, ladies, Angry is one hot piece of ass... and even I might have swooned a little bit. We shot the shit awhile talking about anything BUT triathlon and (maybe he'll kill me for telling you this) Angry is actually one of the most easy-going guys I've ever met. He was pretty concerned about how I was going to judge Connecticut (what? like I've never seen a Dunkin Donuts, shopping mall, or awful highway interchange before?) and made a real effort to make sure that I had a good time while I was in the Land of Steady Habits" (really, it's called that, it's in wikipedia!).

Epilogue (optional reading)

Finally I had to bid adieu to Angry and drive the 4 hours back to Boston. I had plenty of time to ponder Angry's paranoia about driving in Connecticut and think about how it couldn't even compare to how perposterous it is to drive in Boston. I hate driving in Boston. Have I ever told you that? I fucking HATE driving in Boston. Normally I like driving, or at least I used to when I drove all the time and never drove through Boston, but if there's one thing that is SURE to make me cry and scream and throw a temper tantrum it's driving in Boston. Yesterday I had to drive through Boston twice. On top of that I drove more today than I have in the past year and a half combined, and then some. And I'm driving this Dodge sedan that drives like a nightmare and it doesn't accelerate but the brakes are too responsive.

Driving home I was so tired I thought that I was going to fall asleep at the wheel and it didn't help that I didn't have my sunglasses and I was squinting into the sun for 4 hours. And there was an accident RIGHT in downtown Hartford and only one lane was open and that took forever to get through. Then there was tons of traffic on the Mass Pike and it was practically stopped for awhile. Then I fucked up and got on 93 SOUTH of Boston instead of getting on NORTH of Boston and had to drive through the central artery which now is a big ugly tunnel since the Big Dig and you can't see where you are and for some reason I find it really hard to stay in my lane in tunnels and I freak out and feel like there's nowhere to escape. (Angry's company is responsible for the Big Dig finally being finished. Sorry Angry, no offense or anything).

So I'd already driven some 8 hours when I called Tessa and she asked me to come to her apartment. Her apartment is on the other side of Boston (in Allston) and the one time I tried to drive there I got on Storrow Drive (which everyone in Boston will agree is a fucking nightmare... who the hell puts exits on the left?!) and found myself on an off ramp before I knew what hit me and then I was in the middle of MIT driving back and forth and I could see that I was driving OVER Storrow Drive, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to get back on it. It took me more than an hour to find her and in the end I had to call her from a Hess Station and tell her to come pick my ass up because I was sick of this shit. So tonight I said I didn't want to drive over there. I was scared of Storrow Drive, and I couldn't parallel park and what if my mom needed the car in the morning. But then she made the valid argument that for her it was double the distance to come and pick me up, and really, Tessa's so nice that you can't FORCE her to do anything when you know you're being an ass hole. So I wrote down the directions, studied them, read them several more times, double checked them, memorized what lane to be in at all times, and went out. Coming in to Storrow Drive on the freeway I saw a sign that said "Something Something Something Storrow Drive, Seek Alternate Rout", but I just thought there was a lot of traffic or something and that I would get through eventually. It took me 45 minutes to go 2 fucking exits and everyone was cutting me off which really pissed me off because it took 5 minutes to go a cars-length and they were just sticking their nose in in front of me and I wanted to be an asshole and not let them in, but I had nowhere to GO to block them and they just kept coming from all sides. They were having a free concert on the Esplanade next to the Charles river and they'd had the bright fucking idea of using the right lane of Storrow Drive (ie the through lane) as parking and all these people were coming and going to see some one hit wonder from the 60s who probably now are so old that they crap their pants on stage. And then when I finally DID get to the Copley Square exit, the SECOND FUCKING EXIT, after 45 minutes in this bullshit they had ALL OF STORROW DRIVE blocked off and I HAD to get off and just like the last time I knew where I was, but neither Tessa nor my parents knew how to get me to Tessa's house from there and my dad managed to get me back to Storrow Drive, but it was heading back home and I was crying anyway, and after all that headache and bullshit I just went back home and there I was with my head about to EXPLODE from anger and frustration and sadness and confusion and fatigue and stress (not all from the car, but that didn't help) and the only thing I had to do is bang away on the keyboard and write. Not that writing is not fun, but there are other things I would like to be doing on my last weekend night in the states.

Coming soon...

It is now 2:21 in the morning and I have been up for half an hour. In 39 minutes I will drive down to Connecticut where I will be doing the Nutmeg State Sprint Triathlon with Angry, North America's sexxxiest triathlete, and Bob Almighty, triathlon's biggest smack talker since Chris McCormack. If the earth trembles this morning, that'll be why.

You can expect a race report and pictures, and I can expect my page hits to skyrocket as I reveal the REAL faces of these two young tri studs.

... Stay tuned...

Incoming!

Did you know that I'm Italian? I've always been Italian in that my father's mother is Italian and his father had Italian blood from the Ellis Island era; but now, I'm Italian like from Italy. I have an ID number and everything, but still no document to prove it... but we'll get to that.

If you're pressed for time then you can skip over the small type and move on to the big news below...

As you may or may not know, for the past year and a half I've been living as an (whispered) illegal immigrant here in Spain. What I haven't shared with all you people is that I've been working for much longer, well over 2 years, to get my paperwork sorted out. When I came I thought, 'This is Spain, not Texas, and I'm American. No problem.' It IS a problem, as it turns out. Which is why I've been driving myself crazy and starving to death teaching English, because no other industry will hire an illegal.

I've had a couple of minor heart attacks in this time, like the time that the Spanish department of work came to inspect one of my classes, the time they questioned me for 20 minutes in the Amsterdam airport, and five uncomfortable trips through customs in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Ireland.

I tried everything to get my papers worked out quicker. I considered getting married. I tried to find a business that would sponsor me for a visa (there were a few that were willing to do it, but then called me back after a couple of days saying, "How about you just call us when you have your papers sorted out?" - Thanks a lot, assholes!). I thought about going back to school; went to the university to get some information about visas and wound up walking out with another English class. I talked to a lawyer (actually, no, I talked to friends who were talking to lawyers) and found out that unless I was a surgeon or civil engineer then there wasn't going to be any amnesty for me. I even tried the idea that was too simple to work, just renewing my ID from when I was a student here. No dice.

Meanwhile, since early spring of 2005 I've been trying to become Italian. With a passport from any EU country you can work legally in any other EU country. It's like having a driver's license from Montana and working in Florida. You see, Italy has this law that if you have Italian lineage on your father's side and you can come up with all the documents to prove it, then you can be Italian too. I told my parents this in 2004 and they laughed at me. Then, in beginning of 2005 my dad called me and said, "Did you know that if you have Italian family then you can get an Italian passport?" The conversation went like this:
Dad- I was just talking to Bill (Something Italian) from work and he said something about having an Italian passport. He said that you can get an Italian passport if you have Italian ancestors.
Claire- I know, I told you that last year and you laughed at me.
Dad- Oh, well I'm sure you didn't have all the information.
Claire- Yes I did, I told you just as you're telling me now.
Dad- Oh, well I was thinking maybe it would be a good idea...
Claire- I know, that's what I said last year. I even sent you a link to the embassy's web page, didn't you read it?

So we started the process. I planned to move in about 8 months, that's enough right? Some of the documents were hard to find though, and my parents wound up paying $150 per document to something like a private investigation agency to get some documents. Other things were hard to find too, such as:

• My grandmother's birth certificate from Milan, 1924. (This required a couple of emails and phone calls to our Italian cousins who don't like Americans and don't speak English).
  
• My mother's birth certificate, the long form. You can get the short form through the mail, but to get the long form you have to go to the hospital yourself. This chore took two day trips to Manhattan.
• My dad's birth certificate from the Hackensack, NJ town hall that changed addresses without leaving a forwarding address. It took 2 months to track them down.
  
• My grandfather's death certificate from Florida.
• My grandparents' divorce certificate, which hadn't been seen since the 1970's.
• My brother and I had to officially change our names since our middle names are our mom's maiden name. In Italy you can't have 2 family names, and therefore we had to officially change our names in a country that still had no official record of us.
• My grandmother's valid US passport, which hadn't been valid for 10 years. So my dad had to cart my her out of the nursing home to get passport photos, then to the US post office to order a renewal.
• My grandmother's naturalization papers, which she said were somewhere in the apartment she sold 4 years ago.
  

Finally we rounded everything up and took it in to the consulate where we found out 2 things:

1. I had to present the papers IN PERSON, so I would have to come home from "California" where I was on an "extended vacation".
   
2. We had all the wrong forms. All the certificates (birth, death, marriage) had to have an official stamp on them called an apostele (or something like that), so it was back to town halls in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Florida.
   

And then, in March we had it all together and I flew home for 3 days to hand in the paperwork. "You can probably come in with passport photos in about 10 days," the Signore at the consulate said. April went by, no answer. May: no answer. In June we finally got a letter in Italian. I can understand Italian, but I couldn't understand this damn letter. I understood the words, but not the content. There were numbers and acronyms everywhere and a bunch of ambiguous past participles. When my brother got the same letter later that week he went in to the consulate to get some answers. What they told him: we're finally Italian, we have an ID number, and only need to get the passport to have proof!

So last week my brother finally got his passport. My brother is now Italian and we know that there are no more hoops for me to jump through. So...

I ' M C O M I N G H O M E F O R 3 W E E K S !

That's right, folks! My neoprene-free ass will be in the United States of America from July 25 until August 14. So here's the real reason for me writing this blog: Who wants to do stuff with me?!

Unfortunately, for a place where I lived for 18 years of my life I have surprisingly few resources in the Boston area. I will have no pool to swim in (unless I find a masters team willing to take me in) and so I'm down for all kinds of open water swimming (Cape Cod anyone?). My bike will be my mom's old bike from the 1970s which I will deck out with clipless pedals, a bottle cage and nothing more. I have no idea where people go for long bike rides in Boston?! The only thing that I'll have that won't be ghetto is lots of lovely New England roads and trails to run through (and FINALLY a track!). I won't always have a car at my disposal since the car I learned to drive on, the Battleship (born in 1992) was just sold to some friends for $1 and I'll be sharing a car with my mom, but hey, I can get around that.

However I WANT TO TRAIN AND RACE! Does anyone know any triathlons/open water swims/running races in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island or New York in the next 3 weeks that still have open registration? Also, other than the car constraint, I can be flexible about schedules since my only commitment in those 3 weeks will be 2 mornings in the Italian consulate.

My parents' house is in Winchester, which is a small town about 20 minutes north of Boston (inside 495), so if you are within like 100 miles of there, let's get together. Who's coming with me?! C'mon, it'll be fun!

"Up, up, up to the top of Mt. Crumpet"

This weekend I did the "3 Nacions" (3 guesses on what that means) bike race in the Pyrenees. The race gets its name because you start in Spain (Puigcerda), go through Andorra, and finally come through France before crossing back into Spain for the finish. But there's one catch, the frigging Pyrenees! Actually, the race is pretty easy except one climb in the middle: to the summit of Port d'Envalira, the highest mountain in the Pyrenees, about 1,700m (5,577 ft) of altitude gain over 30k (18.6 mi).


Most of the course is downhill, meaning that the first 70ks went by like a breeze, and the final 40k's you were able to hang on... just barely. They did a good job on the web site of warning you of what you're getting yourself into, but really, little blue spikes on my screen don't mean that much to me...


Left: full course profile

Bottom: profile of the main climb (green = <4%, blue =" 4-8%," yellow =" 9+%)" style="text-align: center;">

Let's just remember that I've been really quite inconsistent with my training this spring, so even though this was marked as a B+ priority race in my book I was really unprepared. This is not to make excuses, merely to explain background information. This past week was exam week for all my kids, so I've been working double on top of that. Let's just say I was "well rested". So I came into this looking only to survive, which is fine because I still have a lot of that adolescent "I can do anything, who says I can't?" arrogance about me. But then 2 weeks ago I heard one from the club talking about it. A goofy guy named Josep Maria (a different Josep Maria from the one you'll hear about later) who's a strong cyclist and always has a smile on his face said, "Dude, you're climbing that thing forever, and I thought it was never going to end. So when I got to the top there and the people are yelling Allez, allez cuz you're almost in France at that point, you know? I have to admit, man, I started to cry. It was just so emotional to have gone through that and it was finally over..." And I'm thinking, oh shit! I decided to approach the thing remembering that it was an important race and that I'd finish at all costs, exhausted, ripping it if I could, so I'd have nothing left at the finish. Oh, if I only knew...

The first 70 km, in fact, the first half (distance-wise) was a breeze, we were averaging something like 40kmph and rolling down through the mountains
like it ain't no thang and my biggest concern was that somehow we'd wound up in a group of about 30 people. Bikes were flying all over the place, into my personal space and within inches in front of me. That makes me really nervous, especially when I don't know the guys. I really enjoy taking off on the downhills, I don't know why others don't do the same. Zoom! Zoom! I went down the downhills. At one point David (my Jimminy Cricket) cought me and said, "Why is it that when you're with the club you hang back, but when there are others around you take off?" It was kind of accusatory and I wanted to be defensive, but I watched myself for awhile. I think I'm just really scared of groups, and if I can get away, I will!

Coming in about half an hour from the border with Andorra it started to rain, then it started to pour. When we passed through customs at the border David said jokingly, "Do you have anything to declare?" "Yeah," I said, "I'd like to declare that my chemie is soaked!" Squelch, squelch went my crotch, squelch, squelch responded my shoes.

We stopped at an aid station where they had nothing but melon, chicken, and ham sandwiches. I was already getting cold, and decided to go on without the boys. At least it had stopped raining. And the road went Up, Up, Up. And up. Fuck. I thought this was just going to be slow and steady, but I was on my double small chainring and I had to stop at a gas station to catch my breath. Miguel Angel stopped with me. "Listen," I said, "it'll be better to leave me alone cuz I'm gunna be pretty bitchy from here on up." Why wouldn't anyone listen to some sound advice like that? "I like to see you bitchy, women are more attractive when they're bitchy," he said. I think Miguel Angel gets a kick out of seeing me react to some things. But if there's one thing I hate almost as much as being in a big group, it's climbing with someone in front of me talking to me and cheering me on. I don't want to know how well I'm doing, I don't want you telling me what gear to be in, I don't want you telling me to slow down, and I DEFINITELY don't want you there getting in my way either to the side or in front. It's irritating and it distracts me from my inner monologue. I feel much stronger sitting there repeating "You'll-get-there-even-tu-a-lly" with every petal stroke than someone going, "only 3k to go!", especially when there's only 1 or more than 5k to go. Leave me the fuck alone and I'll get there eventually! If you're so bent on waiting for me, just go to the top and take my picture when I get there! No, no, but David and Miguel Angel had to leap frog babysitting me. At one point David was there and said, "You see that white building? That's where we're going." "I don't want to fucking know! I don't want to know anything. Go away!" I said. Later, I stopped at the side of the road to rest. Miguel Angel stopped with me. "I can give you a little push now and then," he said. "I don't want to see you, I don't want to hear you and I don't want you touching me or my bike! Leave me alone! I want to do this alone." I think David got a little butt-hurt because he did eventually go on, but Miguel Angel stayed pretty close (but not within striking distance) and I didn't even so much as look at him in the last 5k. Here you can see a picture of me climbing alone, what you can't see is that in my head my mantra has changed to "go-to-hell-go-to-hell!" I mean, look at the incline in some of these pictures, then imagine 2 and a half hours of that!



I was cold. It was 8 degrees C (46 degrees F) at the top, and at some points I couldn't feel anything below the knees. I hadn't felt my feet since Spain. Being at the highest point for millions of billions of miles around, the wind was BRUTAL, it must have been 100 miles per hour because a couple of gusts came along and I felt like I was almost swept off my feet! Also, the wind carried tiny little particles of sand that stung my face, arms and legs. Moments before this picture was taken I was standing with my back to everyone to keep my face from being pummelled by a sand blaster. Look in the lower right-hand corner and you can see the camera's wrist strap flapping away in the wind. Can you see how miserable I am? I'm crouched over like that because I'm shivering. I stuck some newspapers under my shirt to cut the wind on the descent, but I was scared because of the wind and those crazy descents like you see in the Tour filled with dramatic hairpin turns. I couldn't feel my hands and I was shivering, and didn't feel so confident about my bike handling skills at that moment. Miguel Angel and I stepped into a gas station to warm up and David stayed outside to wait for the others. "Hey, we're still in Andorra!" said Miguel Angel. What does everyone buy in Andorra? Cigarettes! Andorra's one of those tiny little places whose economy is based on people from other areas coming in to buy items like cars, cigarettes, and booze that are cheaper in Andorra where they're not heavily taxed (same as Oregon or New Hampshire). The guy in the gas station looked at him like he was crazy as he stuffed the carton into the front of his jersey and tucked it into his pants.

Then we started down the hill. It was windier than all get-out. Wind is stronger in France than it is in Spain, I guess. I was hanging on to my brakes like my life depended on it, and the wind was blowing at me like it was time to go back to Spain and God was giving me a push. There was one point when I let go of my brakes and coasted past a sign that said 8% grade, I looked down at my speedometer and I was going 25 kilometers per hour (15.5 mph). But that’s not to say the wind was saving my life the whole way down. For every turn that the wind was to my face, I would go around a bend and it was pushing me along, sometimes straight into a curve. The most frightening part of all of it was that they didn’t have guard rails, just these stubby little stone nuggets about 8 inches tall next to giant thousand-foot drops to the green, lush valley below. The wind was grabbing me and carrying me off to certain death. Now I don’t like to be dramatic, but you know how it is when you’re totally terrified and you know that, although remote, the possibility that you might actually die is real? Panic is not good for descents.

My bakes were making funny noises, like maybe there wasn’t too much rubber left and just when I thought they weren’t slowing me down any more and that I’d never stop if need be, suddenly I came around a bend and there was a whole line of cars, all stopped. ‘What a strange place for a traffic jam,’ I thought as I squeezed my brakes like there was no tomorrow. We wove through all the cars until I saw the toll booth of a border crossing. For a minute we had to stop because there was a car pulling aside for inspection blocking our path. The cyclist that came across the traffic jam at the same time as us went through the border as soon as an space to pass through opened up. Miguel Angel (with his cigarettes hidden away in his jersey) and I (as an illegal immigrant) stopped with our guilty consciences. The French customs official smiled at us and waved us a friendly “come on through”. “Adios,” he yelled. Safely out of hearing distance Miguel Angel yelled, “Adios suckah! I had a pack of cigarettes in my shorts, chump!”

Suddenly, once we were in France it was finally warm again. The terrain flattened out and I could concentrate on what was important, like how tired I was. Maybe I hadn’t eaten enough, maybe I was out of shape, maybe a 30k climb is a really long frigging way, maybe I just wanted to go home, maybe it’s that my feet were still sopping wet. But for whatever the reason, the heat or the shoes, I sat there in France with the woe-is-me blues. Okay, that was lame, but I’m a big Dr. Seuss fan and one of my climbing mantras is “up, up, up to the top of Mt. Crumpet, the Grinch went to the tip-top to dump it” (or something like that). Anyway, I guess I’d left it all at the top of the mountain, and although nearly everything was downhill from here on out I was getting worried. I didn’t want to leave anything out there, but the last little bit of “leaving nothing out there” was a bit too much to bear at the moment. I clicked over to 120km on my odometer and I still hadn’t seen any sign that said Espagne and I was beginning to wonder if they’d done that thing that they do so many times that I’m suffering: mis-measure the 140k course. We got to 125 and I still hadn’t seen any sign of Spain, or even the name of the town where we were staying. Spain is really good about marking how far away France is, but the only thing that I could find were signs to Barcelone - really fucking far away. 130… 132… Why does it still say gare and not estacio? Why are they selling crepes and not bocatas? 138… And finally we crossed a little bridge, and after all the hoopla of crossing in and out of Andorra there was only a tiny little bridge over an even tinier little stream on a country road and the word España with a circle of stars around it. And here we come into Puigcerdà, but the fun wasn’t over yet. We still had this tiny, itty-bitty little minuscule climb to come up to the finish. It was a climb that I’d done in my small, but not mini chainring this morning when I wasn't warmed up. But still, it took my teeny-weeny chainring and my biggest gear to get to the top of the darned thing. Another guy was riding with Miguel Angel just ahead who asked, “What’s that in your jersey”. “Cigarettes” said Miguel Angel. “We boutght ‘em in Andorra, and that chick behind us got a liter of vodka and put it in her camelback.” “Really?” asked the guy and looked back. There I was weaving around trying to get up the hill. But I got there, and Miguel Angel and I had a fake sprint across the line. Really, he let me go, but we crossed in that order, Claire and Miguel Angel, boom boom! “What are your numbers?!” a race official yelled. “206 and 208”, how sweet that we remembered each other’s numbers and yelled it more or less at the same time!

Long ago Silvia had started calling, a sure sign that I was taking a long time (it wouldn’t be the first time she called the police to find out if I’d been hospitalized when I didn’t show up right at the time I said). I was fiddling with my phone a bit trying to call her, then I made my way to the food table. There was no food left (we’d taken that long) but Miguel Angel managed to score me a lemon Fanta and Lluis (who had finished an hour before) gave me a granola bar.

They were handing out finishing certificates fresh off the presses and Miguel Angel, who didn’t have a jealous girlfriend left alone in a hotel for 8 hours, had already gone to pick up his. “Hey, they’re giving you another trophy,” he said. “Yeah right.” But then there was this guy sticking a microphone in my face with a trophy in his hand, “And here’s Claire xxxxx, number 206, let’s all give her a round of applause!” Then he stuck the microphone in my face and handed me a trophy and gave me a kiss on each cheek. And what did I say in my moment of glory? “Estás en serio?! Are you serious?! What’s this for?” “You’re the youngest girl to finish. You’re almost the last one to get your trophy, except the guy, a 17-year-old kid”. Yeah, that makes me feel special, the last person to claim my booby prize that I won just for signing up.

Coming back down the hill towards the hotel I saw my arch Nemisis, Wonder Woman. I call her that because she's always wearing minimal clothing and she's got the same hair style as the comic book heroine. She's a triathlete and I see her at every event that I do (and usually beat her). What annoys me about her is that she's always surrounded by guys and strikes me as the kind of chick who does sports to get laid. She's got a big butt. I felt better knowing that I'd beat the tri slut by at least half an hour. Hmph!

So meanwhile, more phone calls were made. Josep Maria, David, and Xavi were still out there somewhere. We got back to the hotel where Silvia had been asleep the whole time (until I was well into France) and made some calls. Xavi, who had had a crash the week before, had had his two biggest cogs fail on him part way up the mountain. He’d gotten in the sweep car which followed the slowest guys around the course. We called up David, who was probably still waiting like a real sucker in the cold and the wind to tell him Xavi wasn't coming and to get a move on. No answer. I called Josep Maria, who no one had seen since the starting line (he's a weaker cyclist who doesn't usually come out with the club) it rang several times and then I got a recording Bonjour, blah blah blah blah (blah pronounced with a French accent). I hung up. "He's in France. He'll be here soon," I said.

Josep Maria, who had prepared himself to be out there for 8 hours and come across the finish line while they were tearing it down had an ambulance behind him for most of the climb and was sure he was in last place (they could have been trailing him because he has turrets and a guy twitching away on his bike is a bit disconcerting if you're not used to it). At one point he stopped to rest and the guys in the ambulance yelled, "You still got 45 minutes on the last guys, keep going!" That gave him the strength of ten men to finish. Meanwhile, Xavi had some tales from the sweep car. Apparently there was a fat old guy and not-so-fat, not-so-old guy back there throwing shit at each other like they were sparring for the podium. "Your ass is grass, my friend." "Eat my dust, fatso!" The guys in the sweep car were egging them on, "Attack! Attack!" And whaddaya know, the old fat guy attacked and managed to get away!

I was totally toasted. All I wanted to do was eat about 15 sandwiches and a 3 course meal after that and then take a nap. By the time everyone finally got their shit together, showered, walked to the center of town for some sandwiches (finding food at 5:00 was an ordeal in and of itself), worked out the money for everyone, paid for the room, and piled into cars it was 6:30. I'm not one to sleep in cars, but I slept almost the whole way home. Whether it was the cold, the effort, or the altitude I couldn't keep my eyes open and I've never had a more refreshing sleep in a car in my life.

"You suck, go home!"

Saturday was my first big cycle race of the season: Transcollcerola. Collcerola is a string colls directly behind Barcelona. If you don't know what a "coll" is from the Tour de France, it's a hill or a mountain depending on where you're from. I'm not from Nepal, so I'll call them mountains. This particular event offered an 80k "short course", and a 150k "long course". In keeping with last week's "I can't do that. Sign me up!" attitude I signed up for the long course despite a phone call I got a couple of weeks ago from Miguel Angel (the fastest guy in the club) asking, "Are you sure? All that way? The whole 150 kilometers?!" Cavalier, I said, "Well, it's all above Barcelona anyway, if I die, then in all likelihood I'll probably roll backwards downhill and wind up at home anyway." So I signed up. No problem.

Below you see the short course profile (for reference, the tall one on the right is about 500m tall):
And the long course, seen above (the second picture), looks like two tits, with one hill just below 500m tall and the next one just above 500m tall. See, if you are intelligent you would assume that the long course map was in addition to the short course map, and you would be right. I'm not so bright, though, so I thought, 'only two climbs, up and down, up and down the hill I do once a week anyway? No problem! I love tits, this is going to be great!' I was, of course, wrong, but we'll get to that.

All 450 or so participants started facing downhill on a short decline with a 90 degree turn about 50 yards away at the bottom. Generally I'm not too comfortable biking in crowds so I was freaking out right from the start. It didn't help that people shot out the gate at about 100 miles per hour and kept going 100 miles per hour through the first several miles of the course. Here's what it sounded like in my head, 'uhhh huff, uhhh huff, get away from me, uhhh huff, get away from me, slow the f&%# down, get uhh away huff from uhhh me huff!" And then there was another sound, *clang-cla-clang tickaticka...(silence)* as my chain fell off the outside of my big chain ring. I pulled over to put it back on and watched the back-of-the-packers fly by. Thus, right from the beginning I was relegated to the chunks of people who are constantly questioning if they're going the right way because there are no other cyclists in sight. And there I stayed.

I bought my bike with one of those "granny gear" chainrings (I'm sure it has a real name, and you're screaming it at your screen right now, but I don't know what it is). In the name of "saving my energy" I immediately switched to this chainring every time the road headed for the skies. Well, Saving My Energy was my excuse anyway. I passed a couple of chicks on the first coll, and then came the first white-knuckled, heart-in-your-throat descent. There's something unnerving about how your bike naturally swoops a couple of degrees closer to the pavement when you go around a turn at 30 miles per hour. I know I have good cornering form because it usually works out pretty well for me when I have the balls to trust myself, but I always second-guess myself and feather the brakes, which makes me swerve ever-so-slightly, which makes me freak out, which makes me go rigid... and if I'm lucky the turn ends before the freaking-out process smears me across the pavement. And you know when you're flying down a hill (and you're barely in control) and a car swings around a curve in front of you? And they're usually not even in danger of hitting you anyway because they're on their side of the road and you're on yours and there's plenty of time to avoid each other? I always jump out of my skin and swerve when that happens. Not good, kids. Well, we got to the bottom and the guys that were with me said, "Did you see those beautiful views?!" No, actually, I didn't really notice.

I don't know if this is good or bad, but when my legs are shaky from a climb (even if it's small), I like to keep them moving. So once the hill starts to tip down again I flip up a chainring and get the wobbliness out of my legs. It feels good. Most of the day I'd been floating along a few feet behind the boys, but once we were pointed downwards I would pull ahead. "Take it easy," David said, "we still have a long way to go!" David tries to be my Jimminy Cricket, always telling me how I should ride. "Stick yourself to his back wheel", "Slow down, you'll tire yourself out", "Stop at that stop light" (when no one else does), "Don't wear a camelback, you only need one bottle of water", "Do this bit on your small chainring", "Take the shorter rout today". As a general rule, I don't pay any attention to David. Maybe some of his advice is good, and some of his advice isn't so much, but I can't get the sneaking suspision out of my head that he's telling me to do this stuff because I'm a girl. Girls need to be protected. Girls don't know how to ride their bikes. So I ignore David. But today I was in a good mood and I paid attention to David and took it easy. I tried to enjoy the scenery.

In a flat section where everyone shook out their numb hands and reached in jersey pockets to try and find food we came to an intersection. The volunteers asked, "Are there many more behind you?" What the fuck kind of question is that?! How the hell should we know? Are we that far behind? Do we suck that much? Sheez. Gimme a break, I'm going as fast as I can. "No idea," said Patrick.

The whole event was circling around one town away from where I live, but until the third hill I didn't see anything that I knew. It was the hardest hill thus far, but at least it was something I had done before, and finally I came over a crest and the Barcelona skyline finally broke over the edge of a ridge. The climb seemed to last forever, and every time I thought it was over and we were barrelling downhill David would say, "Here comes a break". I was thinking "What do you mean a break? Isn't it over yet?!" But still, because I knew where I was, I was on an upswing. I convinced myself, I can do this. We stopped and grabbed some more water (which I mixed with Accelerade, "What's that?" David asked) and as we were picking our bikes up again two chicks pulled into the aid station. "Let's go," I said. And then we flew down a hill that I knew. Reluctantly I feathered the brakes. I knew every contour of this hill, and it frustrated me to stay behind David, but it didn't frustrate me so much that I was going to risk my life passing him on a hairpin turn.

And then we were gliding into Sant Cougat (where the race was based) again, and there were volunteers with flags waving us to the left. "We're doing the long course!" yelled David. The guy with the flags waved away and said something inaudable. When we were on a straightaway again I yelled ahead to David, "Are they kicking us out?" "I don't know, maybe," he said. Of course when we turned right and found ourselves face to face with the finish line at exactly kilometer 80 we knew the answer. We crossed the finishishing strip and the timers beeped as it registered our finishing times. Shit! Game over. We found Miguel Angel who was already in his street clothes and went to find out our results. The first chick, a girl that I'd beat easily a few months before had come in 8 minutes ahead of me. Right behind her was another girl, putting me in third. "Why were you dawdling so much?" asked Miguel Angel. "You could have won". "We stopped to eat, we didn't know that we were going to be classified on the short course,". "That's the last time I listen to David," I said. "Yeah, don't pay any attention to him," said Miguel Angel. "I won't," I said, and meant it.

David, Patrick and I were all in the same boat. We'd been sticking together, Taking It Easy for 3 hours, 30 minutes and 22 seconds (give or take), and essentially we'd all been disqualified together.
David: Why don't we get a snack and keep going?
Patrick: I came by train, I might as well be getting back to the train station.
David: Why don't we just ride home, the course takes us through the cemetary and then you'll be back in Barcelona.
Patrick (thinking about it): Alright, why not.

We took off back towards Barcelona again and someone pulled up next to me. "Hola," he said. "Hola," I grumbled and looked over. It was some guy (I don't know his name) from our club. "Dude! HI!" I said. "I waited for you guys at the top of X Coll. You never showed up," said... whatever-his-name-is. "They kicked us out," I said. "They wouldn't let us do the long course". After awhile whatever-his-name-is pulled up to talk to David and I found myself next to Patrick. "Are you sad?" I asked. "Well no, sad no," he said. "But if they wanted to have a competitive race, I wish they had told us and I wouldn't have signed up, you know? I can ride these roads anytime, why am I going to pay for it if they won't let the likes of me finish? It just leaves a sour taste in your mouth." He was totally right. That was exactly what I was feeling without having the words to say it.

The path through the Collcerola cemetary is especially steep on shitty pavement that eats all your momentum. I have never made my way over it except in my grannygear chainring, and that's how I got over it, watching the boys disappear in front of me. I lost sight of them and heard a car growling behind me. I hate that feeling, knowing that a car's grinding away up a hill in first gear behind me waiting for a chance to pass. I waved him around a couple of times, but he never passed. Finally I came to a fork in the road with no sign of David and Patrick in front of me. Left went down, right went up. 'Well fuck it,' I thought, 'what else has this course done all day?!' and I turned right up the hill. The growling car passed me and I got a chace to get a good look, it was a hurse with a giant three-foot wreath of red roses attached to the back of it and a whole train of cars following in the funeral party. 'Fitting,' I thought, 'I've been being followed by a funeral procession'.

I'd chosen the right rout though and the boys were waiting for me a little way up the road. "Wouldn't it be better to wait for me at the intersections?' I asked (ironically). "There aren't any intersections until we get to Barcelona," said David. I didn't feel like explaining the encounter with the funeral march, so I just shut up. "Maybe I'll go back into Barcelona with Patrick," I said. I was sick of this game, and I knew my girlfriend would be pissed at me for being away for so long. "Alright," said David, looking crushed. But when we got to the intersection where Patrick had to go down and David was going back up I realized that I'd left 100 euros in David's car so I went back up with him. It's amazing what money can do. I'm sure if I were a professional, sponsored athlete I would have even won this thing.

We were climbing and I clicked back down to my granny gear. I was totally over pushing myself. "You go ahead," I said to David. "I don't want you losing any momentum just to keep up with me, it's easier to go at your rhythm uphill than to slow down". "Don't believe it," said David, "I'll get behind you, you decide the speed". "Stop being a prince, I'll meet you at the top, anyway, you're making me nervous." He seemed a little hurt by that. Backpedaling: "No, I mean I don't want you to waste any energy on me, I feel bad, but I don't feel like pushing anymore". "Don't worry," he said, "I'm tired too". So we went up together and I looked at the worn-out part of his pants seat and wondered if he was wearing checkered underwear or if he was wearing something else under his shorts. Who buys checkered underwear? I was just so sick of climbing and descending, climbing and descending.

I know I could have finished the long course, my legs were fine, but I was so pissed that they wouldn't give me a chance. We were on track to do a 7-hour century which isn't anything to write home about, but with all the climbing I don't think it's anything to sniff at either. While we were riding to the parking space I clicked over to 112k at a total of 4 hours, 58 minutes and 59 seconds. I had spent the whole day hanging back, and the one major regret of the day was that I still had no idea how I could have done. I could have gone faster on the short course. I could have pushed harder on our course (equal except for one climb). I could have finished the long course. But I wasn't able to get any of those notches in my belt. I understand that we were on heavily-trafficked roads right outside Barcelona and they didn't want cyclists on the road after a certain time, but David and I went there anyway. There are always cyclists around in Barcelona. So, I mean, what the hell? You know?