When you have Diabetes, you get to spend a lot of time visiting your doctor. Every three months, I get to visit the office of my endocrinologist - a woman with a bedside manner so dry it is almost painful for the both of us - and have a blood draw to check my HbA1c (or A1c), which is a measure of my average blood glucose over the prior three months. A typical A1c for a person without diabetes is about 5%. The target is a bit higher for a person with diabetes...though the matter is up for a bit of debate. The American Diabetes Association recommends an A1c target of less than or equal to 7%. The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists recommends a level of 6.5% or below. I'm pretty conservative when it comes to my diabetes management, so I aim for around 6%.

With all that in mind, I went in last week for yet another visit with Dr. Bland. On the appointed day, I made my way to the check-in desk, where a semi-medical professional conducted a thorough examination of my health insurance ID card, and made me sign a form stating that I have a right to privacy, and they have the right to abduct my first born in the dead of night should I fail to remit payment in a timely manner. I was then left to mill about the waiting room with three or four dozen other patients (several clearly deceased) and old Woman's Day magazines for a period ranging from one to four hours.

Luckily, I managed to find a stack of these to occupy some time.  >>> 

After a really long time (how long, I cannot say), dehydrated and sufficiently demoralized, I was placed in a stark examination room furnished with a plastic chair, a paper-covered examination table and a large, detailed color diagram of the human endocrine system. The semi-medical professional took my blood pressure and checked my pulse, no doubt to ensure I had not gone the way of the patrons in the waiting room. I was then left alone to stare at the diagram and thumb through old issues of TIME. The minutes tick by. Fifteen minutes. Thirty minutes. I begin to wonder if I have been forgotten...

At last, Dr. Bland appeared, obviously in a hurry to ensure other patients were not...uh...kept waiting? The good doctor moved at the speed of a ninja. I got a .016-second pleasantry before she started madly penning things in my chart. I can only imagine what might be contained in that manila folder, but no doubt it has nothing to do with my general awesomeness. Then, with the speed of a kamikaze pilot, she disappeared.

A phlebotomist came in to do the blood draw.  As I sat down in the chair and rolled up my sleeves, the person taking the blood politely inquired, “Which arm would you like me to use?”

Someone else's?

Truthfully, I have never had issues with needles. Even as a kid, I was pretty low-key about the whole business, and having been diabetic for five years now, I'm better still with sharp things and skin. The crappy parts of having diabetes have nothing to do with shots and needles, and everything to do with trying to manage numbers...the numbers we are about to check. It's not about getting stabbed a bazillion times. It's about making sure I can live long and well. Before every check of my A1c, I reflect on the morning I got up and found my blood sugar was sky-high, or all the times on airplanes when I was running over 300, or the time I forgot to correct for a cookie.

With the blood draw done, I checked out and set up another appointment in another 90 days. And then I wait...

Yesterday, my results came in the mail:

Tiny font, you say?

My HbA1c was 5.4%.

That, I might add, trumps my non-'betic better half, who had an HbA1c of 5.6% at his annual physical. In short, my blood sugar is the same as a person without diabetes.

I should point out here that this kind of number may or may not be ideal for all persons with Diabetes. Two studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at the benefits and risk of intensive blood glucose control in persons with Type 2. The results of both studies suggest it may be more harmful than beneficial to target the A1c less than 6.5%, especially if the person with Type 2 has elevated cardiac risk factors (which many do) as attributable to excess weight, hypertension or hypercholesterol. These same studies did not examine persons with Type 1, and it is only intuitive to me that my risk factors for things like heart disease (CVD), peripheral neuropathy, amputations, retinopathy, and kidney disease would be the same as the non-diabetic population with a similar HbA1c.

Really, though, the point of all this is control. No one knows "the magic number," and no one can say when you cross the threshold of "safe."  What I can tell you is that I work really hard to keep my blood sugar as normal as possible. I test often. I eat well. I exercise every damn day, whether I feel like it or not. And the natural result, for me, is normal. I feel good. Plenty of Type 1's strive to lower their A1c, only to swing from high to low...correct...end up high again...send their blood sugar to the basement to try and keep that percentage under a certain predetermined goal... That's not control, either. Control is when you have managed down your risks insofar as practical, and you still feel healthy and fit and empowered and unafraid. It's the place where you are comfortable with your physical being, where you wake most days feeling pretty good, where you are best able to do the things you wish to do with minimal interference from diabetes. It's not about a number...it's about balancing the demands of your life with the demands of staying healthy. I'm there, and it rocks.



It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.Confucius

So, in my mind, Mother's Day would go a bit like this: Wake up around seven or eight, saunter off to Cafe Luna for a vegan brioche and cappuccino, read the paper with my little darlings, and then troll about on the bike (not training, mind you, but playing).

Dennis's version went something like this: Wake wife at the crack of dawn, and pile her and the kids in to the car to go run the Title 9.9k race first thing on a cold, wet morning. Fight our way through scores of women and children to get back in the car and drive home, shower, and then fight our way through crowds at Petra for some homemade tabbouleh and hummus with extra tahini.

Dennis won.

It's not that I didn't want to race...it's just that...well...I didn't want to race. I race every week, and I have traveled every other weekend for the last 90-some days. Add to that six days each week of training and, well, I was thinking I might be due for a little respite. My husband was quick to remind me that I could just run the race without trying to beat times or score some personal best...

But yeah, if you know me or read this blog, you know that's not really how I roll. Everything is a competition - from cleaning the house to making birthday cupcakes for the kids to, yes, getting out of bed and running a race I couldn't care less about doing. So, with that in mind, I was up at 5:00 on Mother's Day, trying to convince myself that I was about to have fun.

Truly, I run about 14-16 miles each week for the purposes of diversifying my training, so a 10k is really no big deal. I do that just about every Monday morning, in fact. It's a little less than an hour of my day...and generally, it's a pretty painless hour. But this particular race on this particular morning was a whole other ball of wax. For starters, it was cold. I mean, really, really cold. And damp. The forecast high for the day was 50, and it was in the lower 40s at the start of the race. Moreover, the course is pretty miserable. It's loose-packed dirt and gravel, with the first 7k all uphill, and then 2k of rollers until a final ascent, followed by about 100 meters of downhill. In the days prior, the rain had turned the whole of the course into mud, save a section of slick rock that was, as implied by the name, slick.

Normally, I take pains to prepare for any race or event....but, you know, this was supposed to be fun. I was not supposed to be taking it seriously. I literally just got up, grabbed a Clif Bar and a cup of coffee and threw on my running clothes. My kids were racing first, so I spent most of the morning readying Henry and Midori.

At 7:15, Midori's race commenced. Five minutes later, Henry was off and running, too. Both kids had good races. Henry had a solid lead through most of his, only to give it up at the end and cross the finish in fourth place. Midori kept a nice even pace, and had a great time. Mostly, she was pleased to receive her Clif Bar prize pack at the finish line, along with a scoop of chocolate ice cream.

About ready to line up for my run, I did one last check of my blood sugar. I had given my meter, strips and lancing device to my husband (he is my race-day sherpa)...which might have been a mistake. Dennis was so busy crowding his pockets with free samples from vendors that he had dropped my poker. I borrowed a pin from Midori's jersey out of necessity.

I like to start a race with a blood glucose around 160-175. I prefer to begin a bit high so that I don't drop too low. Generally, I will reduce my long-acting insulin, and then cut the amount of short-acting insulin I deliver after I eat. In this case, though, I was doing a casual run. I gave myself the full amount of long-acting insulin the night prior, and only slightly reduced my short-acting to cover the Clif Bar. My starting blood glucose was 103. I saw the number, and was instantly worried. I grabbed a handful of Sport Bean packages, and stuffed them in my pockets.

For the first kilometers, I felt pretty good, and pretty competitive. That's right. "Casual run with no personal goal" had morphed into "run as fast and hard as possible because there is no way I am not doing well today." The runners were tightly bunched at the start, but there is a hill series about 2k into the race that separates out the different abilities. This was even more true on the soft, wet dirt. It was like running in sand at times, with mud sticking to my shoes. My calves were tight, but I had a nice, even pace and was settling into the run at a comfortable speed.

Around the fourth kilometer mark, I realized I was low. I have generally poor hypoglycemia awareness when I exercise because activity, in my case, masks the symptoms of low blood sugar. Usually, by the time I feel low, I am really, really low. I reached for my meter....and then realized I had left it with my husband. I sent him a text: "Low." Then I realized he would worry, so I quickly followed it up with, "But ok." In truth, however, I had no idea if I was ok.

There are few things more frightening than being in a situation where you know you are perhaps dangerously hypo, but you have no manner by which to confirm that fact, and no idea how much food you need to ingest to raise your blood sugar. With nothing to do but guess, I crammed two packages of Sport Beans down my gullet, and took advantage of some Gatorade along the route. I struggled through the next mile, trying to figure out how I felt and trying to decide what action I needed to take.

Really, there was this moment when I knew that my head was never in this...that I had not really wanted to be running this race at all in the first place...and that I was now teetering on the edge of calamity. I thought, seriously, about calling it. But my ego has been known to write checks that my body can't cash...and I decided to plod on, and finish this race.

The next few kilometers were spent alternately feeling good and running well, and then feeling awful and trying to regain my stride. I would grab some carbs, then wonder if I had over-corrected...if I was bonking because I was now high. Still, I refused to slow down excepting those moments when my body refused to comply, or where the terrain demanded a more cautious pace. Really, by the time I had a mile or so left, I was running just to be done. I found myself pushing harder because I wanted to cross the finish sooner rather than later.

By the end, I could see runners stretching both in front of me and behind....and I had no sense of where I was in the pack. I decided that, so long as I finished in the top half, I would make peace with it. I had not run well, and I certainly felt slow.

I crossed the finish line to see my husband and kids shouting and waving. My husband noted, clearly, that I was looking rather shabby. "Rough run, honey?" My children seemed not to notice...they just like to see mom run...and were quick to toss their tiny arms about my tired legs. I grabbed my meter, and finally tested. Sure enough, I had over compensated for the low, and ended with a blood sugar at 259. I walked to the finisher tent to check my results, bracing myself for the worst. To my surprise, it was not as bad as I had feared. My average pace was 8:48. I was 498th of 2176, and ended up 46th in my age group. All things considered, I was pleased with the result.

I went home and grabbed a quick shower, and headed out to lunch with friends. We met up with our old real estate agent and her family, and had a delightful meal among good company at a Turkish restaurant near our home. Later that afternoon, I took Midori out on her bike for her first real road ride. I was pleased to see how well she controls her bike. She's got a good wheel.

In all, it was not my idea of a fabulous Mother's Day nor was it a fantastic race. Still, it was a good reminder that, no matter the extent to which I swear diabetes will not impact the things I do, it has it's place at the table.

Word to your mother! That's right...it's nearly Mother's Day!

In her day, my mother had many bits of wisdom that she imparted our way. Specifically, 1) if you are going to kill one another, you should do it outside so as to keep the kitchen tidy, and 2) you should never leave the house without first going to the bathroom. There was something in there, too, about running with knives...

I admit that my advice to my own kids might not be a whole lot better, despite my best attempts at this mothering gig. I have a lot of shortcomings. If you came in to my home right now, for example, you'd likely find that the bathroom needs cleaned and that there is a heap of dollies in the bottom of the tub having some kind of orgy near the drain. There are scraps of Band-Aids everywhere because my kids have it in their heads that any injury is Band-Aid worthy. My daughter also likes to play doctor, and plaster her brother with athletic tape. It's just the dynamic here, yo. And recently, my husband purged our home of all the picture books without words, because I kept making up stories like, "Plastic Bag Space Helmet and Other Fun Activities," and "The Day Mr. Fork and Ms. Electrical Outlet Became Friends."

Of course, I take comfort in the fact that I am a better mother than this woman:

Unless you've been in a spider hole somewhere, you've no doubt heard about this lady, who was charged with putting her badly burned 6-year old in a tanning bed. Clearly, she  is innocent. It's totally apparent that she was simply trying to uphold a family resemblance. I mean, if you were this woman's daughter, wouldn't you want to be just like her when you grew up?

...I digress...

Generally, I don't celebrate Mother's Day. In part, it's because I am afraid someone will buy me something like this:

Nothing like infuriating and confounding your birth-giver all at the same time.



But the primary reason is because, yes, I know I am loved and appreciated. I know that, despite my shortcomings, my children are still young enough to think that I know what I am doing, that I am generally right most of the time, and that their mother is pretty cool. (That will all change in time, I expect.) My husband has willingly and without complaint assumed the domestic duties while I travel with my bike, and my kids have been on the sidelines of more than a few races, cheering on their mother no matter where I am in the pack.

So, unlike the scores of moms waiting in line for bad service at family-friendly restaurants, or inundated with flowers requiring some kind of care that will no doubt be neglected among the myriad of more pressing maternal obligations, I will be on my bike with my favorite cycling partners, going for a nice, long ride. In fact, I am glad to just be home with them this weekend. Despite having a good time racing and riding, I've been missing my family.

And I am glad that they are mine, because it could be a whole lot worse...

For whatever reason, I had an extra special weekend of love from the TSA. They not only performed the usual screening when I was in Denver, but I got the extra special GATE screening that delayed my flight for a good 45 minutes. Then, I got the pleasure of having a burly woman with man-hands pat me down in Sacramento because she saw me give myself a shot of insulin. I don't know about you, but I feel safer already! In honor of the good works undertaken by the TSA, I thought I would issue the following sentiment for the commoners out there who might whine about a few pithy infringements on civil liberties and good common sense at the expense of our national security. To wit....

Dear TSA-Averse Airplane Travelers:

Admittedly, being patted down on your travels by an uniformed officer - perhaps whilst partially undressed, shoeless, beltless and devoid of personal dignity - in front of several long lines of total strangers might produce a sense of discomfort. Remember, though, that it is an experience far more unpleasant for the poor, dejected TSA officials doing the full-body grope.

Sure, you lament that they confiscate your holiday cupcakes because the frosting is close enough to a "gel like substance" to pose a threat. And yes, that bike box containing a velo worth more than your car - the one you meticulously packed the night before - will need to be cracked open, thoroughly inspected, and then thrown carelessly back into the case by an agent with the spatial reasoning of the average two year old, rendering him unable to close said box and leaving your fork sticking out the back as you, in your wing seat aboard the plane, watch in horror while the baggage handler tosses it in with the rest of the cargo like a sack of flour. And grandma in her wheelchair will have to find the strength to stand so the TSA can make sure there's nothing in those Depends but, well, Grandma. But you, the person doing the complaining,  have one of those cushy jobs, like being a neurosurgeon, or piloting a fighter plane, or fighting fires.  In order to keep their jobs, the agents of the TSA have been forced to cop a feel of your saddlebags, muffin tops, bat wings, and back fat as they graze their fingers through your rolls of pudge. Not just once, either, but hundreds of times a day.

The TSA is not trying to rub anyone the wrong way. It's their job to grab your junk. They are our last line of defense. If the FBI, CIA, Interpol and the entire US military fail us, who is going to be there on the front lines to ensure that your Dr Pepper is really just a Dr Pepper, and not an incendiary device that will take down a whole plane of passengers? That's right. The guys in the blue shirts with a high school education. Armed with their bins and your shoes, they are the last hope in detecting a terrorist plot.

So, when they take you into a little room...all alone...and snap on those blue gloves and tell you how they are going to touch you, you shouldn't feel the least bit uncomfortable. It is far more painful for them than you.

Sincerely,

Becky

Just yesterday I was in line for the porno-screeners at the Security Check in The Sacramento International Airport. I had literally gotten off my bike a few hours earlier, wolfed down a bagel and a three ounce package of Justin's Nut Butter (because, you know, it could be really super deadly to fly with a four ounce package), and had mere minutes to board my plane. I did a quick blood sugar check and - uh oh - I was high. Too high to enjoy my day-after-Cinco-de-Mayo in flight cerveza and complimentary pretzels. Armed with some rapid-acting insulin, though, I gave myself a couple of units and was ready to enter the phone booth for a quick invasion of my privacy.

What do you know? TSA was "Johnny on the Spot." They saw that insulin pen in the pocket of my sweat-stained jersey and thought, "Here she is...all clad in unflattering spandex...wearing a medical alert bracelet and shooting something in line.... This needs some further investigation." Of course, they can't just take my word that I am a diabetic. They need to confirm that I'm not plotting to bring down a plane using Apidra.

So, they kindly took me to a little holding pen where I was seated next to an elderly woman in a wheelchair. She looked pretty suspicious, too. Kind of like Barbara Bush. I would have given her a thorough once-over myself were I not so confident in the TSA's ability to manage the job at hand. When I asked why I was being detained, I was told that they were looking for a female TSA agent to come help me. Thank goodness! It's hard work carrying all this luggage to the gate... oh, wait.

So, the woman arrives (though you'd have hardly known the difference between she and her male counterpart...like, we're really splitting hairs here). They escort me to a private room, and then get all romantical. She tells me what she is going to do with the back of her hand and the front of her hand... She was pretty thorough, too. I mean, I'd only had a physical a few weeks earlier, and the woman put my doctor to shame. My husband and I are going to have some things we need to work through in marital counseling, too.

But before you start feeling pangs of sympathy for me, imagine the role of the TSA agent. Imagine her using those rubber gloves to grapple my sweat-stained bike shorts, inhaling the scent of my post-ride BO. Really, who had it worse?





“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” 

John Kabat-Zin

There was a time when I not only thought I could stop the waves, but was certain that I would be carried away by them were I unable to contain the tide. Life doesn't work that way. The truth, of course, is that we all have some spectacularly awful days, weeks, even months - and to try and pretend otherwise is folly, fundamentally dishonest and serves nobody.

The secret is not to prevent challenges. It's not to contain life in a narrow sphere of safety so as to cope with as few struggles as possible. The answer is to pull the rabbit out of the hat, and reframe the circumstance.

You will almost certainly go through illness, lose loved ones, have things go wrong at work, have arguments and days where you wished you’d stayed in bed. There’s nothing wrong with occasionally feeling down for a period of time. In fact, that’s a critical piece of living fully, and it’s perfectly good for other people to see that vulnerability. The problems occur when you allow that sense of loss to continue past the point of reason, and start thinking your baggage is worse than everybody else’s melancholy.

I read a blog post earlier in the week, penned by a woman who was talking about her experience after Lasik surgery, and the guilt she felt for having cured her poor vision when her diabetic son could not be cured of his disease. On the heels of this snippet, a medical journal crossed my desk detailing advances in the search for autism treatments. I wondered...

Would I cure my own diabetes were I able? Yes. But then, all these years, my husband and I have declined to seek any "cure" for our son's autism. We value those traits integral to his very self. We wouldn't want him any other way than the person he is right now, today. Would he feel the same? Would he wish life to be easier, and cure those "disordered" bits and pieces of himself?

Of course, it matters not. It's all hypothetical, anyway. But it got me thinking about the waves...

Much as I might wish to cure my diabetes, I wouldn't trade for a moment the experience of having this disease. It has made me healthier and more attentive to my physical self. It's made me stronger and more compassionate to those I encounter, struggling with illness of their own sort. Although I often wish I could not deal with the daily blood sugar battles - just as Henry probably laments at the occasional burden of autism - I have come to value the lessons and opportunities inherent in making this journey.

I can honestly say that when I look back on every single challenge I had, even the ones that knocked me off my feet, I realize they all played an extremely important role in my life. In the moment, of course, I really didn’t care about getting stronger or learning lessons. I knew only that things were not going the way I wanted them to go on that particular day, in that precise moment. Only later would I understand that everything - every experience - is useful in the right context.

Difficulties don't have to be a source of paralysis. At the time, what seems like an unwelcome intrusion in life can, in fact, serve as an opportunity to discover the self, our individual potential, and those things which matter most.

Instead of resenting the difficult times, you can step back, see those moments in another context and for what they are, and make the most of the circumstance you have been provided. You don't have to allow the unexpected, uninvited or painful to knock you off your feet. You just need to become a more adept surfer. 

"You stink like poop. POOP!" Raucous laughter from Henry. The word : Poop. And funnier still because he has proudly lobbed the insult at his younger sister who, I'm sorry to report, has a mouth far more filthy.

"Shut the fuck up, Henry."

I am the worst mother on the face of the earth.

I have to confess I felt a little proud of their verbal acumen. Henry, in particular, tends to sound a bit like a Twitter feed, and rarely undertakes the effort of producing a full sentence...and especially for the purpose of non-essential dialogue. His sister seemed to have a identified an often under-utilized anger management tool, albeit one likely to get her tossed from the prestigious confines of Bloom Montessori. And while I have been known to employ some rather crass language, I recognize that it is imprudent to let my four-year-old go through her preschool years dropping unchecked f-bombs, particularly since the main argument against swearing is more about showing off that you're classy if you don't swear - that you can control the vast waves of anger swirling inside you without saying a cuss word. I wouldn't want to be low-brow by allowing her to swear with impunity.

The good news is that Midori responds generally well to bribes and threats. We just explained that those are grown-up words used in specific circumstances, like when Daddy hears that the Broncos have drafted another stupid running back when they’re already loaded at running back and obviously need help on defense, or when the cop in the rear view mirror is stopping to turn around in the median and come back toward mommy and we’re not close enough to the house to hit the gas and make a run for it, plus your dad's not even home to open the garage door for us.

Henry, on the other hand, is a whole other ball of wax. Once he realized that the word "poop" is funny (and it is funny...just say it in a room full of grown men in suits, and watch the stifled giggles), he couldn't get enough. "Poop. Poop."

At first, it was just the acontextual use of the word. Then, he got clever with it: "Spongebob Poop Pants." "Hula Poop." "Can I have a lollypoop? Or some poopcorn?"

Sigh.

The school has taken it upon themselves to track the number of "inappropriate utterances" Henry produces in a given kindergarten day. Usually, he hovers around 50...about ten "poop" utterances each hour. Not so bad. But Friday, he came home armed with data and an angry note from his teacher.

Apparently, they showed a film depicting the good works of Heifer International, as they are undertaking a charitable project with the organization. In the context of the documentary, there is a lengthy discussion about methane produced from cow dung. You see where this is going, right?

To Henry, this must have been the funniest goddamn video ever produced. He was laughing so hard, in fact, he fell out of his chair and nearly knocked himself unconscious on the side of another child's desk. His teacher was not amused. Two hundred & seventy-eight utterances later, the letter and data sheet was followed up with a phone call.

What, exactly, are you going to do with him, because this has quite simply gotten out of hand?

What am I supposed to do, exactly?

After much discussion and several failed attempts to prevent myself from erupting in laughter on the phone with Henry's headmaster - a conversation, by the way, which probably involved another two hundred utterances of the word "poop," - Dennis and I decided to evoke a zero-tolerance policy for "poop talk." First offense: We tase him. Second offense: No college for you, little man. Third offense: You are no longer a member of this family. Please leave. Now. 

You'll have to excuse me. I need to go waterboard Midori now.

I will title this "Lost In Texas," because that pretty much sums up my weekend. I was either A) racing or B) meandering through Dallas wondering, "where the hell am I?" (Note that neither of those experiences involve eating or sleeping.)

I arrived in Dallas late Friday night, and found my teammate, Scully. We gathered our bikes and bags, and made our way to get the rental car. From there, we headed to the hotel to assemble the bikes for a seven in the morning race start. It was after midnight, we were both groggy and the blood sugars were a bit low (despite a full order of nachos in the Denver International Airport Lounge)...and neither one of us were really enjoying the do it yourself project before us. My handlebars refused to tighten, and with my small set of tools, I couldn't get any leverage. I fought with them for a good half an hour, and moved on to the seat. By that time, I was hurried. Ready to sleep. In retrospect, I rather wish I had given that seat post an extra three minutes of attention....but more on that in a bit.

Finally, with bikes ready, we headed to bed. Four hours later, we woke up and threw on our kits. (Oh, you unforgiving spandex. I hate you, you bastard.) I grabbed a bagel and some PB, and was ready to roll. We consulted the event flyer and it's hastily drawn map to try and locate the start, which was a mere two miles from our hotel.

Scully and I rode around, turning down One Way streets and alley ways, looking at signs pointing toward the Dallas West End Historic District. It took only minutes for us to realize we were hopelessly lost.

I sent Scully (who, luckily, has a better sense of direction than I) into a McDonald's in search of guidance and bad coffee. Armed with insight into where we were headed and a cup of joe, we rode another aimless stretch of Dallas pavement.

Finally, we spotted the start line with fifteen or twenty minutes before the race. We also spotted the Colavita Women's Cycling Team who, I might add, are FREAKISHLY fast. In fact, it was a pretty mean looking group of women, generally. Oh well. Can these fast girls polish off a full order of nachos in the airport lounge and still have room for vegan gelato? Yeah, that’s right, who’s the elite now?

After getting a ton of flack from a race judge about my number being "too high," and having her re-pin me with a good deal of irritation, I dorkily lined up at the start. Whistle blew, and we were off!

Scully and I had a fast few laps. The course was a figure eight with a slight downhill and a slight uphill, lots of turns, and only one real spot to move up in the pack. On the bottom of the downhill, there was a tight right turn. At every pass, I leaned in so far I could hear my pedal scrape the bottom of the road. 

By the fifth lap, I was fighting for position. I had gotten shuffled to the back. I made the mistake of coasting too far on a straight stretch where I really should have been pedaling hard, and I got dropped. With no chance to catch the pack until the next lap, I knew I was hosed. The continuous pedaling as I was stuck chasing basically felt like I was doing a workout on my bike trainer but pushing it much harder. At one point, I looked over and saw Dan Schneider from the Elite Team, as he yelled, "One long interval, Becky!" Indeed. Worse, my seat was shifting up and down through the whole race. Yes, it would have been prudent to have given that more attention the night prior. Jerry Willis from the Elites pointed that out, looking at the angle of my saddle as he said, "That's looks comfy."

Naturally, while riding I became a snotty mess, so I tried to occasionally shoot snot rockets but ended up just blowing snot all over my face and hands and feeling like a welfare child in Alabama. I was a snotty, tired, demoralized mess. Still, though, I was watching Scully a few meters ahead. She was having a pretty solid ride, and I the course itself was fun.

At the end of the race, I was disappointed with my performance but glad to get another crack at it the next day, and I was looking forward to watching the guys race later in the afternoon. Better yet, we had an event planned with Sanofi, involving kids and bike building. We made our way to another part of downtown Dallas - less scenic, in a lower income neighborhood.

We were greeted by a gymnasium filled with kids and volunteers, all busy assembling bikes for children in need.

It was an awesome event with a lot of wonderful, sweet kids and fabulous volunteers. We put together a few bikes, and spent a lot of time speaking with the kids present and the adults working among them. We devoted a good 20 minutes mugging for pictures, talking about bikes and racing...and soccer. All the kids were really big soccer fans. (I know nothing about soccer.)

I spent the rest of the afternoon lulling about downtown Dallas. We grabbed some lunch with the guys, and I went for a nice afternoon walk around town before the mens' races. Eventually, Scully and I made our way back to the start line (after getting lost again in downtown Dallas and ending up about 15 miles out of our way).

Watching the guys race was a ton of fun! Dan's dad was there, and we spent some time chatting about their impending move to Colorado. The weather was nice, and with the sun up, you could see the manicured lawns and parks surrounding the race course.

The guys had great individual races. Dan and Ben were fighting for position the whole time, and both won primes. Bradford nearly won his race, getting edged out at the very end. Dustin rode well but, in the end, lost position and couldn't fight his way back. Jerry and his brother Tommy were flying alongside one another for much of the race.

By this point, we were all starving. The guys needed to shower, and so Scully and I were stuck patiently waiting to eat. By the time they were ready to roll, we were ravenous. That was unfortunate, because we ended up at the worst pub in America. The only redeeming aspect of the experience was in watching the server crawl in and out through a WINDOW to retrieve our food, as there was no door to the patio seating. I’ve learned the hard way that certain foods will bite me in the ass once I’m exercising, and I don’t want to feel miserable riding around in circles at various intervals while stifling nasty-flavored burps. With that in mind, I opted for a veggie burger. It came out ice cold in the middle, but the waitress was kind enough to crawl back through the window, nuke the half-eaten slab of soy for a few minutes, and slap it back down before me. Good thing I was hungry.

The next morning, Scully I repeated the events of the morning prior...but we were maybe 10% less lost. The good news is that this left us ample time to get to the start, warm up on the course, and get prepared for the final day of racing. I was nervous given my fiasco of a race the day before, and really wanted to have a faster day. Scully seemed a bit more confident.

We lined up at the start, and the race commenced. I took a position near the line this time, because I knew from experience that playing chase was not going to work on this course. Apparently, the girl behind me was regretting not doing likewise because, less than a meter into the race, she attacked from behind. WHO DOES THIS??? Who surges a meter into the first lap. We are here for forty fucking minutes, Chief. You've got lots of time for your amazing breakaway. Only in a Cat 4 would you see this kind of stupidity.

Stupid girl goes flying into a tight opening between the girl on my right and another woman to the right of her. Only, there is no opening. She completely misjudged the gap, and of course NO ONE is expecting this kind of reckless surge at the beginning of the race. The woman on my right has lost all balance, and is just trying to maneuver away from the careening stupid girl about to take her out. In a moment of panic, she grabs my bars, all the while yelling, "Whoa, whoa!" I look over and raise my elbows slightly and calmly but urgently instruct her: "Dude. You need to let go of my bars. What are you doing?" That was the last thing I said before I keeled over and ate pavement in front of a group of spectators and friends who quickly went from “Go Rebeccaaaaaaa yaaaaayyyyyy” to “…..oh.” As I lay on the ground, I looked up and immediately saw a concerned volunteer stick his face an inch away from mine and shout, “ARE YOU OKAY?"

The girl next to me had pulled to the right, and flipped me and my bike. I skidded and rolled a couple of times (thanked her for breaking my fall), and then found myself mysteriously under her bike.

I hopped up and started inspecting my bike and kit. (I had wrecked earlier in the week on a training ride, and had to get a new kit sent to me for the race. I didn't want to have to make another call thanks to a torn bib and jersey.) Good news was that the bike seemed mostly okay, despite my bent bars and my wheel that was no longer tracking so neatly...and no holes in the jersey or bibs. I looked at the volunteer, who pointed to the pit, and I started making my way to a guy gingerly shaking his head. "Good news is you get a free lap," he told me as he loosened me up on the bike and prepared to shove me back into the paceline. "Just don't stand up or pedal. When I push you, you just coast and catch. You got that. Let's not do this twice." Right.

Meanwhile, the girl who'd taken me down was on the sideline, having a heated discussion with her coach. She was sobbing, "This happens every fucking time. I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore. Every time." Uhhhhh...maybe if you are rolling people EVERY TIME you should re-evaluate your race strategy. Just sayin'.

I got back in the race, and actually fought my way to the middle of the pack. The whole time, I heard the sound: "Thwup, thwup, thwup..." Every rotation. My back wheel was no longer true, and it was hitting the brake with each revolution. Awesome. I was trying to decide whether or not to go back to the pit and risk having it judged as something other than a mechanical failure...and playing chase for a second day...or just riding against my brake. I chose the latter, mostly because I was having an okay race despite the mechanical issues. Somewhere in the middle of the race, I managed to win a t-shirt prime. I was pretty pleased given the crash and the brake situation.

I kept it up until the final two laps. At that point, I saw Scully who I knew had been behind me with three other girls. She passed me, and I realized that I had lost a ton of ground in the last couple of laps. Fighting fatigue and my brake, I finished about a second or two behind Scully. Still, it was a good race considering all that had gone wrong.

In fact at one point in the middle of the race, I saw an unattached rider leave the course and take a DNF. She had been slow...I, personally, had lapped her three times. I was disappointed to see her quit. I was thinking, "You got here. You showed up. Finish it!" Same goes for the tearful trainwreck who grabbed my bars. Yes, it's harder to keep at it after you crash...your more careful, it's a tough race mentally (and more so when you crash a meter into the start)...but not finishing is an option reserved for true injury or total mechanical failure. Not a bad day of racing.

In all, it was a fast, fun course with lots of awesome turns. A beautiful day in Dallas. No complaints.

Scully and I went out for a ride thereafter. We got lost. AGAIN. We rode about 50k, and 20 of that thinking we were headed back to the hotel when, in fact, we were going the completely opposite direction. Luckily, this guy stopped and got us back on track. (You don't see a lot of spandex-clad cyclists in Texas. This dude knew right away we were from out of town. When he told us we had gone a "long, long, long way" in the wrong direction, he added, "I don't know how you'll get back. It's more than TEN MILES." I can do that in my sleep, chump. At least, I thought so...)

Meandering back through confusion, low blood sugar, tired legs and the entire right side of my body locking up after the morning carnage, it was the LONGEST ten miles of my life. This is Scully, low and about to die:

By the time we got back to the hotel, we were ready to pack the bikes and head home. In all, it was an awesome, busy, fun and fast weekend. I had a great time. I made it home with some mystery chafing on my back as well as a nice bruise on my left knee from the fall, and then a host of cuts and scrapes. Most of my friends have been polite about the mishap, but the hilariously mean ones have been giving me shit nonstop. I'm tired. But I race again on Wednesday...