Suicide

"Joe, there hasn't been a car in sight for the past four hours; can we just go back to the weeds up on the north end of the lake?"

"Randall, be patient. I can sense something coming. Plus, you chickened out on the last car. You have to prove that you can make it across before the car comes without getting run over."

"But I'm bored."

"I think you're chicken. You just don't want to play chicken because you're scared to run across the street."

"No, I'm not! I'm just bored!"

"Chicken! Bak, bak, bak, bak, BAK!"

"No, I'm not! I'm not a chicken! Stop it, Joe!"

"Wait! What's that?"

"It's too small to be a car."

"There's two of them... it's two cyclists! They must be training for Wildflower!"

"Come on, Joe. Let's get out of here."

"No, here's your chance. We'll play chicken with the bikes. The last person to go and make it across the street without getting hit wins."

"No, Joe. Let's just go to the lake."

"Come on, you can do it. You don't want all the other squirrels to make fun of you for being a scaredy-cat, do you?"

"Joe!"

"Here they come!"

"Joe!"

"Get ready!"

"Joe!"

"Go!"

"Joe! Oh shoot!" That split second cost Randall his tail. As the two squirrels darted across the rode, they both slid in front of Sloan's tire with finesse; unfortunately, I did not see them coming. Cah-clunk!

"Squirrel!" Sloan yelled.

Before I had time to question, my front tire maimed the tail and I jumped in the air, my heart pounding madly. "Ah! Ah! Ah!" I screamed. How did I stay on my bike? I looked at Sloan, my eyes filled with confusion, fear and desperation. "What just happened," I asked, bewildered.

"Did you hit it?!" He asked.

I turned around, but didn't see anything in the road.

"Hit what," I asked.

"The squirrel," was his response. "It darted out right in front of us!"

(Back in the brush on the side of the road, Randall sits licking his wounds.)

"Oh, my tail! Oh, the agony," he wails.

Poor squirrel.

Moral of the story: If you are a squirrel, stay away from my bike. If you are a bird, stay away from Sloan's car hood (we won't even get into that). It is suicide.

Speaking of suicide, Sloan and I practiced the Wildflower bike course last Tuesday morning. I took the first part of the day off of work, stayed the night with my cousin, Torrey, and met up with Sloan to go hit Hertz hill. If you are an avid reader of my blog, you know that this hill was plaguing my nightmares. I figured it was time to climb my Everest. We got to the lake around 10AM and suited up.

The first hill was indeed brutal; however, the last hill before the turnaround was a beast. I was already tired, I mean, we had been biking for 12 miles! Thank goodness for Sloan! I found out I have been climbing incorrectly for the past year! I always stay in the big chain ring for hills. Sloan looked over at me on Hertz Hill. "What are you doing? Get out of your big chain ring!" That helped a lot!

The lake is beautiful. They already are decorating for Wildflower (if you want to call it "decorating").

On every hill, I just kept counting to myself: "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight" all the way to the top. True story, not gonna lie to you, there were some gnarly hills. There were a couple of hills in which I thought to myself, "I am done with triathlons after this year. I hate swimming and now I hate biking. It is time to commit to running events," but I can't give up on my Giant.

Me looking like a twelve-year-old after the ride beat me up

By the way, I need to think of a name for my bike. What are some giant names? Like from Jack and the Beanstalk... what was his name? I can't believe it's almost been a year and I haven't named my bike!

Back to the hills... they hurt! But I know I can do them now. That gives me some hope. I'm glad I went out to practice the course. This morning, Jennifer and Pat were trying to convince me to do a Century ride with them next weekend. As they spoke, I smiled and nodded, but deep down I was thinking, "You crazy lunatics, there is no way I am riding 100 miles two weeks before my race! Are you insane?!"

The hills really got to me, so I thought, what better way to challenge my cycle class than to simulate the Wildflower course on the stationary bike. Most of the class was spent climbing in zone 4. By the end, they were all drenched in sweat. "Hey, think of it this way, guys," I noted during the cool-down phase of the workout. "The rest of your day will be nice and flat. No more hills. In fact, you could say it's 'all downhill from here'." As soon as the words left my mouth, I wished I could reach out and put them back in. People were shaking their heads. Soft chuckles of pity fluttered through the room. "Wow," I commented. "I'm a loser." There may have been a couple of heads nodding in agreement.

After class, I drove in the rain to my new favorite coffee place. One of my boss' friend started a cafe that has the best cappuccino I've tasted in my town. It is smooth and delicious. All the cyclists in town go to this shop. Actually, I've seen a lot of runners there, too. It's my new home. Plus, it's super cheap compared to Starbucks and Peet's. I grabbed my new book and my wet, soy cappuccino and waited for Ben. Ben and I spent an hour and forty-five minutes talking about all the important things in life, aka coffee, that guy who is running for president and home group... oh! And how awesome Oregon is!

My  new book and my soy cap

The retirement home I teach at is still under quarantine, so I decided to run. During my cycle class, one of the triathletes informed me that the hill we run at Wildflower is worse than the biking hills. Uhmmm what?! "Yeah," she began. "You should definitely go out and practice that one before the event."

"But I don't have time! I had to take work off and I can't do that again!!!"

"Oh... You may want to start running some big hills," was her response.

View from my run

To conquer these hill drills, I decided to run this canyon yesterday. It was a decent climb. Not too bad. Unfortunately, my knee was giving me issues on the bike while climbing at Lake San Antonio and it acted up again on this run. I had planned to run out the canyon and back, but once I did the canyon and went out a little ways more, I decided I would just circle around and finish on a flat, grass course instead. As a reward, I went out to my favorite beach and read more of my book before work.

I taught some classes that night, then ended with Pure Awesomeness. So, my amazing personal trainer from back in my volleyball days (shout out to Rich Hummel!) created this cycle playlist in which there are several spots where dogs bark. He uses this for sprints during a spin class, I used it in Pure Awesomeness though. During our regular weight lifting workout, every time the dogs barked, we would drop down and do 10 push-ups. During the second round of weights, we would drop the weights and do 10 jumping jacks. It was hard, but really fun. Something new and exciting.

I used the dogs again in my cycle class today. Every other song, we would stand in zone 4, next song, we were seated zone 2. When the dogs barked, we would sprint up to 110+ cadence. It was one of the most difficult classes I've ever taken and I was soaked when class finished. "You're an animal," Dave stated. "Ashlee, you are insane."

I went to talk to Denise after class. She asked why she never sees me anymore. I told her all about my eight jobs, which are all fitness related, and the workouts I do on top of them. Next, I told her about the events I am training for. With every word that left my mouth, I realized more and more just how intense I am. No wonder I don't have a social life. No wonder I sit in front of the computer and make up stories about what squirrels are thinking before they decide to run out in front of my bike. Cough, cough. Loser! Cough, cough. Sarah and Sophia both sent me a photo of a Dove wrapper that reads, "It's okay to slow down." Is it? Or, like the squirrels, am I testing the limits? Cheating suicide? I wonder...