That Other Kinda Racing

At lunch time today, my co-worker and I went over to the race track.

I was suposed to run at lunch today and do some strength training. I figured missing one little tiny 3 mile run at lunch, once during the week wouldn't really hurt my fitness.

How often do you get a chance to go to the track on a beautiful winter day. Right?


I bet a few bucks at the betting machine. Apparently you don't have to go to the window with a live person to place bets anymore. You can bet electronically. Then we grabbed a hot dog and some, um, sodas.


Then we went outside to check out the scene. Not very many women, mostly little old men and alcoholics and some suits on their lunch breaks. Lots of smokers.

While we were waiting for the first race we talked about the dog adoption process. Bryan's friend is trying to adopt a dog. She had to fill out all sorts of paperwork and then the social worker came over to the house to interview the occupants and see what the environment felt like. Then she applies and waits for an answer. All this for a dog?

A man standing next to us heard us talking and proceeded to tell us about how his dog had just died of cancer last week and how he was having a hard time dealing with it. He showed us pictures on his cell phone and had tears in his eyes. I think he was drunk. Crying and getting drunk and betting his life savings on a Thursday afternoon because his dog had just died.

I felt like hugging him, because I could see myself doing the same thing. But he kinda smelled.

Bryan mentioned something about a famous jockey racing, who was breaking some record for the most jockey wins. I guess that's why the media was there. They were waiting. Like when Barry Bonds did his thing. Although, I don't think the jockey takes steroids. He looked pretty small.


I bet on the horse below, #6. She came in third. I won 6 bucks. Then I bet on some other horse and lost it all. Bryan won some on both races and went to the window to collect.

We only stayed for 2 races. We had to get back to work after all. Lunch break is only an hour.



I wonder how many people actually call this phone number from the track.

Little Green Men

I keep stepping on those little damn plastic army men that Sam leaves laying around. In my bare feet they don't feel so great.

I have a friend who is getting a divorce. He's a father of 2 young kids. He told me the other day that he feels similar emotions to a time in his life when a friend died in a motorcycle accident in high school.

There was a time in my life, early on in my kid's lives, when I wanted a divorce. We worked through it. It was hard. A therapist I was seeing at the time likened divorce to death - major in the way that it affects us in life.

I give a lot of credit to Morgan and to cycling. It's sounds silly, but lots of long rides and thinking and working through it with him picked me up out of it. It's when I became hooked on cycling. I rode a bike and it was like a pill and gradually the fog lifted and the depression dissipated.

I don't necessarily excel in any one thing I do. I spread myself out and try lots of little different things. And I don't take myself too seriously at all. I feel very balanced this way.

My goals have never been to have a fabulous career or the perfect family or have the perfect hair-do or win every race. My own goals are to maintain balance and be happy. From there lots of good things can happen. (Goals are different then daydreams. Of course I daydream about winning a silly cross race.)

So there are parts of my life that I'd like to move away from now, maybe divorce from. Not my marriage or my kids or cycling, but the other large part of my life. It's time to move on. But I'm having a lot of trouble doing it. I'm unsatisfied and unhappy lately. I've been doing it for 13 years and I have no idea where I want to go or what I want to do now. I can't figure out why my feet are so cemented in the ground.

Cranky Pants

That's me today.

I wish I could complain here about work - just get it off my chest sometimes. But that's not a good idea at all.

Instead, I'm singing "daydream believer" over and over again in my head thanks to x-bunny. I still think Davey Jones was the hottest.

Last night I dreamt that I went back to high school and tried to open my locker but I couldn't remember my combo. Over and over again I tried ferociously getting more and more worked up over it. Then, as I looked around, I realized that everyone looked so young and here I was standing in front of my locker in my late 30's.

Rain and Riding and Dogs

We never made it down to Prundale yesterday. Morgan woke up sick with a stomach bug.

While convalescing in bed during the day he watched cyclocross videos on his laptop and sighed a lot. (I watched for a little while with him. I was especially interested in how they ran and rode through the thick sand.) It was a copy of one of the world's videos in Belgium from Saturday. Man they're fast.

While he was in bed and the kids were reading, I snuck out on my own for a mtn bike ride. I figured it was a perfect opportunity to ride for an extended period of time and not worry about having to pick anyone up or get back to work or make dinner or wipe a nose or something.


It started raining within 5 minutes of my departure and it rained the entire 3 hours I was out. But I was warm and happy to have some time. I saw more mtn bikers out there riding in the rain then I've seen on those trails during any sunny day in the past year or so. Bunch of hooligans. A good wet muddy ride.


The rest of the day we lounged around the house and read and ate and lulu did crafts and sam did puzzles and blah, blah, blah.



I'm reading a book called Women's Best Friend. Short stories written by women about their experiences with their dogs. It's hilarious. I bought it the other day thinking it would sort of help push me back into really wanting a dog again.

Lulu wants a chihuahua, Sam wants a golden retriever and I think I want another lab. I want a nice, fit dog we can take hiking and riding and running and swimming and stuff.

The stories in the book remind me a lot of our chocolate labs, Darla and Joodie. More so of Joodie, the one who died recently. She wasn't too smart but was oh, so loyal.



Joodie was a human garbage compactor and would eat anything and everything - including diapers. One morning she was dragging her butt around on the ground in the kitchen and I lifted her tail up to see what was up (or in) and there was a diaper wipe hanging halfway out of her ass. Grabbed a paper towel and yanked that wipe right out of her butt. Yum.

Another time, I watched her from the window as she walked across the yard to our neighbor's newly blooming tulips and gently plucked each tulip petal from each plant and gently laid them down on the ground near the stem. Like an offering.

(And me watching idly as my dog plucks tulip petals from 6 blooming tulips from my neighbor's yard - should probably be listed in another lunch time confession entry)

Anyway, I don't think I'm really a chihuahua kinda girl.

Bottom of the Barrel

I hate it when there's no good Halloween candy left and all the milkyways and reeses have been long gone and it's all sweet tarts and m & m's and I keep scrounging around in the bag, hoping for the lone magic milkyway.

One More Thing to be Thankful For...

...for trampolines. So that parents can sit around for hours and hours talking and drinking and laughing and eating without really having to attend to any children.

Unless, of course, they get stepped on or start beating on each other. But even then the situation seems to resolve itself before any of us has to put our beer down, get up out of our chair and actually walk over to the trampoline.

Giving Thanks

My sister's kids spent the night last night. We're going over to her house in a few hours for a thanksgiving party. She's having about 30 people over.

Just five kids in this tiny house is chaotic. I can't imagine what it'll be like over at my sister's house with 10 or 15 kids. I am thankful that my job is to just bring a salad and 3 bottles of wine.

Five kids and 1 mom ranging in ages from 1.5 years to 9 years is crazy fun. They're having fun. I'm having fun. We're all very silly today. We're going for a hike in a bit. Gotta get some of that crazy energy out and let them run wild. I'm thankful for having such silly and fun kids.

Morgan left at 7am this morning to go do a mtn bike ride over in Marin - the pine mountain loop with kegs at the bottom of repack. I"m a little bit jealous. But, mostly, I'm very thankful that I have such a cool husband who loves to ride as much as I do and appreciates my silliness.

After Morgan left, all of the kids woke up. Me, being the only one in our family who loooves to sleep in, actually slept in. By the time I got up at 8:30 they'd all fed themselves (cheerios and bagels & cream cheese), gotten dressed, changed diapers and were watching the Flintstones (today they're showing every single episode ever made, in order).

I am so, so thankful that these kids were sweet enough to let me sleep in and held off on the craziness until I woke up.

I gave one of my sister's kid a mohawk this morning. Hope she doesn't mind. He's been asking me forever - ever since Sam had his done last year. Sam's had one for a while, but it needed some updating. I updated it. My sis' kid had longish curly hair. I'm thankful that the new doo looks as good (phew!) as it does.

I think they both look pretty good...




Happy Thanksgiving!

the Aftermath

Kelly Clarkson is playing on one side of the house and Green Day is playing on the other side of the house and they're both playing really loud and there's some really loud singing going on.

I like that both kids are into their own music and like to play it, but they've been playing these cd's over and over and over again for the past few weeks.

I like playing my own music loud and dancing around the house and singing, but you know, Kelly and Green Day for the umpteenthed time is making my head want to explode. Besides they're hard to dance to.

I'm trying to encourage their interest in music. Trying to be open and cool about it. Trying to let them find their own tastes. And of course trying to influence them a little with my tastes.

I tried to ride at lunch today, but just sitting on the bike and riding around in a few circles had my back in a spasm. It seems to be a little jacked up.

The "endo aftermath" is feeling a little worse then I anticipated.

I'm waiting until 7pm to have a glass of wine to try and relax my muscles or something or I don't know. I don't know why 7pm means anything. It just sounds better for drinking then 5pm I guess.

We spent 3 hours at the park this afternoon, after I left work early. Ran around and played soccer and swung on the swings and climbed the waterfall and floated the lego boat in the stream and hiked into Joaquin Miller a little bit. Felt good to be out running around, even with a sore body.

Last night I asked Sam - if he had to pick - if he'd prefer racing cyclocross with my field in the women's race or dad's group of men. He said the women, because they'd be softer when they crashed on top of you and they'd probably be nicer to him and stop and help.

Ok, now I can hear them trying to play the song flute and the clarinet to one of my cd's. Finally.

Pilarcheetos 4

While I was helping Lulu get into her pajamas after her shower last night, she asked me how my "pilarcheetos" was.

(My boobs look so perky in this start line picture, don't they?)

Single tracky and rooty and swoopy and some tight corners and sand.

I'm a bonehead in the sand and this time I did not disappoint myself. On my warm-up lap I didn't anticipate the thickness and took the line in the middle and the wheel turned and the first of 3 endos ensued. I'm smart like that.

Once back on the bike, trying to shift to get up the two little hills that followed I realized my little shifter was bent and stuck and yes, broken - so I rode the rest of the warm-up in one gear trying find Morgan.

When you can't find your personal mechanic husband, you do the next best thing and you find your friend, who finds her husband. And he rides around on your bike, trying to shift it and bend it and squirt it with lubricant and so on. But it's busted. And he does something that makes your day by lending you his pimp daddy bike - the one he wins races on, the one he uses to race on in his A races; he loans it to you to race on in your sloppy C race. And it rides like a 2007 Cadillac compared to a little 1960's Volkswagen. That Feix family made my day.


The race begins - but on each of the first two laps, again I eat it in the sand (shhh, Jenny, don't tell Tom), a nice full body contact position into the depths of the ocean, mouth in sand. And both times I watch all those legs ride and run past me, while I flop around on the ground, trying to swim out.

Finally on the third lap, I can ride the ocean on the edge without falling in and feel a little bit triumphant. Three more laps and we're done, and I'm happy I've made it without damaging the Cadillac.

On the way home, I have a very embarrassing silent epiphany in my head. I realize that when Tom and Morgan are pep talking me before the race and after my first endo, they mean - don't brake, power through it but continue to steer.

Me and my smart little peanut brain, letting the bike steer me - essentially almost letting go of the handlebars, thinking the bike would carry me perfectly through the pit. So of course the wheel was turning and of course I was going over the front of the bike into the ground and of course I was flopping around.

I need to learn to slice it like butter.

Pilarcitos "Get off Your Butt" Call

I have a hard time with a 2pm start time when Morgan has a 9:20am start time.

I have the old "I get unmotivated to go at 11am for my 2pm start time if I'm not forced to get up at 6am and go before I realize what's happening" type of personality.

I need a "get off your butt" call when races are at 2pm. Or maybe a "get out of your house call".

Saturday night we're going to the school (fundraising) auction. I signed up to tend bar. I figured that way I would only have 1 glass of wine and not be enticed to bid on too many things. And, I don't want to race with a hangover.

They serve alcohol for a reason at these auction things. Maybe we'll leave the credit card at home.

I did a lot of data entry for the auction. There aren't really a lot of things I'd bid on. Maybe the 16 hours of contracting work for your house. Or maybe the once a month dinner is made and delivered thing. Or maybe the disco dance party for 16.

I think if we pack the car for the race during the day Saturday before the auction, and then just roll out of bed on Sunday morning and Morgan stuffs us all in the car, I'll make it to the race ok. Then I can sit around for 6 hours with the kids and wait for my race.

Small Confessions during Lunch Time

Sometimes I wash bike clothes in warm water - sometimes even in hot water.

Sometimes I throw out my children's drawings. I keep the best, but in secret must throw out some. I stuff them down at the bottom of the recyling container so no one can see.

Sometimes I put the dishes in the dishwasher without rinsing them (sometimes I have to leave them in for a second washing).

Sometimes I sneak out of work for a 2 hour bike ride at lunch.

Sometimes I pretend I'm asleep at 2am when one of the kids is calling for a parent. If I lay there for a few minutes, Morgan will get up instead. Of course, if they're barfing I'll get up.

Sometimes I pretend I don't see my next door neighbor at Peets, so I don't end up in an hour long conversation about who's cutting what trees down and why so and so is doing you know what.

Sometimes I ramble and sing to myself out loud on long road rides, especially when it's cold. (I imagine this is common among other riders as well.)

Once I looked out my front window and saw a neighbor's contractor watering their front yard... naked. I went and got my glasses so I could get a better look at him.

Sometimes I tell my children to SHUT UP! And I do it out loud, not in my head. I've only done it a few times in the heat of the moment.

Once I introduced an acquaintance to my husband as my husband. I thought he was cute, we'd been talking for quite some time at a party and when Morgan walked over I said Morgan, this is my husband Brian. We all laughed and I turned red.

Sometimes I secretly give away toys from my kid's playroom. I collect them in a big bag and take them down to goodwill (we have too much stuff and waay too many toys). Sometimes they sit in my trunk for a few weeks, and every time I open my trunk they ask, why is so in so in the trunk?!! And I lie and say, I'm bringing them to the cleaners to be cleaned and fixed!

Sometimes I post on this blog during the middle of my work day and not at lunch time.

Back to the Pink

I'm going back to the pink for next season.

The pink has quite a few cyclocross racers. That'll be fun.

This past year I was green and white. Green and white was nice because I was on the same team as my husband and it was super low key. But a little too low key. And very small. Only two women raced this season.


Both Morgan and I are switching. He's not quite sure where he's going yet. He wants to race more road and track and have more teammates.


That road racing stuff just doesn't do it for me. I spend most of my time off the back of the pack. A few times, when Morgan was volunteering at a race, he'd follow me in the car with the kids and taunt me in Italian to try and get me to go faster.

Road racing is a little too serious for me. Maybe if I was a more serious about training I'd be faster and better.

I love bikes but was so depressed when I discovered I was so mediocre at road racing. Not that I'm a hot momma at cross, but at least I find myself actually improving with each race. It gives me some hope that I'll actually keep on improving.

Cross racers seem to be less serious about stuff and they're still fast and fit. I like that balance, fast but less serious.

I think that's a good mix for a middle aged soccer mom.

CycloCross Sadness

Surf City was cancelled this morning. It was so sad to make that final turn into the fairgrounds and see the giant "race cancelled" sign.

What a bummer for Sabine and Michael and Brent and everyone who worked the magic so hard to get it all set up. I imagine it was super frustrating.

I know I felt like crying once we got there - although mostly because we had 5 barf stops for Lulu up highway 17. After all those stops, we realized we were getting close to being late for a good warm-up for Morgan, so the last 2 barf sessions happened out the window along the road to the fairgrounds. Hopefully she didn't get the cars behind us too badly. Sam only had one barf session.

The other reason I really wanted to cry was because the women's C only race wouldn't happen without Surf City. (I'd been daydreaming often about my glory of finishing near the top and making it my last C race. Middle aged mom wins or comes in 2nd or 3rd or 4th or somewhere in women's C race at Surf City!) But there are plenty more races to come still.

So, we drove into Santa Cruz and had a nice leisurely breakfast at the cafe we frequent when in town. It was nice. It's been ages since we ate a leisurely breakfast all together on a weekend.

No barfing on the way home, I'm happy to report.

Once home, I called our neighbor's Rusty and Leka and told them to drop their kids off so that they could go for a bike ride. I figured since I was in a leisurely mood, someone else could enjoy some exercise together.

Rest Day

Today was Veteran's day and while it seemed that many people had it off from work and school, I did not. And since Morgan just recently started a new job and really couldn't work from home and I was remiss in finding childcare for thing 1 and thing 2, I took them with me to work.

Good lord, I'm exhausted. It was supposed to be my rest day.

There were a few other kids at the office as well and since I work in a gigantic photography studio filled with so many fun (oh yes - fun, fun, fun!) promotional products - and it's entirely closed off from anyone else, the kids all hung out in the studio playing.

They watched movies and rode scooters and rode skateboards and played with light-up balls and light-up pens and coconuts with zippers and foosball and tried on clothes and hats and watches and bounced on workout balls and threw stuffed animals around (yes, all promotional products) and ate candy and so on.

At lunch time we took them all to the park and made them run around a lot. By 3pm I was exhausted, but we hung on for another hour so I could finish up some stuff and feel like I got at least one something accomplished today.

Right now I feel like I need to go out on a bike ride so I can relax, but it's a rest day.

the Gym

Today, lunch time is gym time - run time and weight time.

But I'm sitting here, at my desk, staring at post-it note to do's and eating doritos - and surfing blogs -food blogs because I'm hungry, mom blogs because I'm a mom, bike racing blogs because I ride bikes. Bike blogs are the most interesting. Mom blogs get a little monotonous after a while and food blogs get old, fast.

I'm wasting my lunch time eating doritos.

Ok, off to the...

An 8 Year Old's View

We gave the camera to Sam to take with him on a recent school field trip.

Digital technology is so great. I remember my parents getting pretty pissy about me wasting film whenever I took a gazillion pictures of my friends making faces or of my dogs and rabbits dressed up in baby clothes.


But now, who really cares what they're of...

the Middle

When does middle age hit? Not that it really matters, but if people nowadays live to be about 90 or 100, I'm not middle aged yet. But if the average life expectancy is like, say, 80 or so - then I'm almost middle aged.

I don't know what happens at middle age.

I just wonder, that if I'm almost there then maybe I should stop wearing pink glasses and pink vans. Sometimes I look in windows as I'm passing by, walking through Oakland and I wonder if I'm one of those weird ladies who's still dressing like she's 16. Like those people who still think the 80's style looks good and still have mullets and mustache's.

Morgan has become obsessed lately with his family history. His mother is dying of cancer and and he's trying to pull all the puzzle pieces together before she disappears. She's only 60, which in her case made middle age around 30 or so. Death is so sneaky, even when you know it's coming soon. Life goes by so fast.

And I'm so in denial, wearing my vans, riding my bicycle and worrying about my wrinkles and not thinking about mortality - not, at least until I get my kids through college.

It's a Slippery Slope

It's already slippery, knowing your race isn't till 2pm but your husband's is at 9am. So you decide to not get up at 6am to go with him and instead let the kids sleep in and tell him that you promise that you'll come, with the kids, later around 11 or noon.

And then it's beautiful out and there's so much laundry and dishes, so you think, we can hang around the house a little bit longer with all the doors and windows wide open and music playing and kids laughing and get this all done and still make it, but as each half hour goes by, it gets harder and harder to steer the momentum back to cyclocross.

Each half hour, the race becomes further and further away - until I finally call Morgan and say, sorry - I'm just not into it today, we're not coming. And he tries to talk me back into it saying it's super technical, and you looove super technical stuff, you do well on those courses and I think about it for a few seconds, but, nah, not today.

I should just get up and go early with Morgan during those mornings. Not let the sleep stuper get me. I'm such a weak person at 6am.

The further away a race is, the better chance I have of getting to it, because of course, we all get up early and go together. There's no second thoughts. We're all too tired to realize and whine about what we're doing and by the time I know I want to go back to sleep, we're already in Santa Cruz. At that point, Morgan has successfully guided me past the sleep stupor.

And so, in the afternoon, we make our own cyclocross course and when Morgan returns we all ride out to the horse arena to pretend we're racing cyclocross and look at the new barriers someone has made and eat teddygrams and pretend we're horses. Lulu rides the entire trail, yelling out to people in front of her on your left and riding over rocks and roots at full speed; things I couldn't ride when I first started riding in the dirt as an adult.

Weekend Fairies

I didn't really see Morgan at all today. We saw the same movie tonight. We were at different theatres and different kid parties, but it was the same kid movie.

We saw different soccer games today...


I didn't see these spinning girls today while they were spinning, but...


I did go on a nice mtn bike ride today. I saw one woman I hadn't seen in a year. She came out of hiding for this ride - a southern belle named Cayce. And Janet was there too. The weather was pretty perfect. The ground was nice and tacky, the fog was warm and the trees smelled like, um, trees.


It was quite warm and I think I was sweating on the camera. Hence the weird affect on the picture. We stopped some guy as he was running and asked him to take our picture, but by then the camera batteries had died.


Morgan and Sam did a ride today too. While Lu and I were at a birthday party, they ventured out into the great outdoors, up the road from our house.


Right now, I wish I had a "laundry doing" fairy and a "dish washing" fairy. I'm going to sleep and I'm wishing for them.

It's My Turn to Ride!

Morgan's working again. Which is good, sort of. It's good for finances, but it's not good for my riding.

We've had a good riding schedule for the past few years. We each ride certain days, and on other certain days we each take small people to school, pick-up, take to soccer, take to band, take to girl scouts, blah, blah, blah.


Now he wants to change it. He's got a "plan" from this "clark" dude (yeah, yeah, i know who he is) and he needs to stick to it. And since I don't have a plan, well, you know.

And now he has a job.


Now we must re-do the whole schedule. And we have to re-do it so that we both get equal riding time, but it has to fit around his "plan". And did I mention that we both have jobs?

I think as long as I get a few runs in and some gym time and some riding time on wednesdays and some spin classes and a pre race ride on Saturdays and a ride at least one morning before work with Marisa, then I'll be ok.

So that's what I'm doing right now, while waiting for people to show up for a meeting. I'm re-doing our riding schedule, because it's a priority you know.