Doubt is a Dirty Little Word

A few weeks ago, I bought a new bike.  Saturday was my first real ride.  I was so pumped.  I had a cute new jacket to wear (with THUMBHOLES- yay!)

I loaded up my new bike, and I was SO pumped.  I couldn't wait for our 10 mile, "easy" ride to see how going from a heavy hybrid bike last year to a feather-light road bike was going to feel.  I just KNEW it was going to make me tons faster.  After all, last year everyone kept telling me I was going to be unstoppable once I switched up to a road bike, and I believed them.  I was soooo hyped for this ride.  I had a new bike rack for my car, and my new girl was all loaded up (I'm still trying to come up with a name for her).

It was COLD at 7:45 that morning. 37 degrees and kind of windy- or at least windy when you're riding your bike.  I don't know.  I think I blanked out for the first few minutes.  It's hard to see in the picture, but I put pedals with "cages" on them on my bike.  When I was practicing with them in my neighborhood, it was a bit tricky at first to get my second foot in the cage while riding.  The foot you start off with is not hard, because you just shove it in there as you push off, but then you have to coordinate getting your other foot into the cage while riding.  The point of these stupid things is so that you get some movement and power from when you pull your legs up as well as when you push the pedals down, hence, making it easier to go faster.  I chose pedals with cages because I thought they would be easier to get in and out of than pedals that you clip into with your special bike shoes.  Also, I didn't really want to spend more money on special bike shoes, and, I like biking in my running shoes because that's one less thing to have to change out of during transition in the triathlon.

Anyway, I guess I just freaked out. The ride started out on a pretty busy main road by the bike shop.  I panicked and basically never got my right foot into the cage the entire time.  I was not in a good state.  Fortunately one of the awesome guys from the bike shop was sweeping (basically, he was escorting me while everyone else rode off into the sunset).  He told me it was no big deal that my foot wasn't in the cage and just to take it one pedal at a time.  He reminded me about changing my gears when I couldn't focus on anything other than the fact that my left quad was on fire- partially from spin class earlier that week, and that fire was totally stoked by the fact that my left leg was working harder since it was the one I kept in the cage.  There were hills.  I was an emotional mess.  I was mad at myself.  I was FAR more out of breath during certain points than I thought I'd be (though I think a lot of it was the result of nerves).  At one point, I considered just falling off my bike into a ditch and pretending I couldn't go on, but I'm not very good at lying, so I didn't want to make even more of a fool of myself. I finished the ride exhausted, in pain, and super annoyed with myself.  And by the way- cages SUCK.  I might as well get the stupid shoes and put the pedals back on my bike that I can clip into.  They can't be nearly as hard as squeezing my running shoe into a small wedge of plastic, and well, if I can't get unclipped in time and happen to fall off my bike- well, they say that you're not a true biker until it happens, so bring it on I guess. 

The spiral of doubt started on Saturday.  It was briefly interrupted when I attended the kick-off meeting for the new athletes on Saturday and got to meet and greet and see all the excited faces.  I got to talk and give tips and be excited for them.  Briefly, the doubt left my mind.  I did this last year.  Not all of the training that let me there was fun and fantastic- a lot of it was exhausting and challenging.  I guess I had forgotten that.  Sunday, we did the swimming assessments for the new athletes and I brought my swimming gear so I could get in a swim workout.  I felt out of breath.  My goggles were fogged up the whole time.  My new swimsuit is cut lower than my old one and there were several instances where I thought my boob might have popped out. 

I have skipped working out Mon-Wed of this week.  Why? I don't know.  I guess because of the doubt.  I started thinking, "What if I just don't do any freaking triathlons?"  Then I would feel awful and would be a failure.  So this afternoon I looked up all the courses and read about them and ran through the lists of people who had already signed up to see if I saw any familiar names.  I looked at the race results from last year, and you know what?  My time wasn't terrible.  1:14:00.  And I remembered that I did that with what was the worst case of swimmer's ear I have ever had.  Where I had a stick of cotton wedged in my ear by an urgent care doc to open up my ear canal.  I could not hear out of my right ear AT ALL.  Losing one of my senses really threw me that day, but I did the best I could.  And it wasn't terrible.   I think maybe the person who got first place did it in something like 45 minutes.  I also think she was 15.  I am cool with being 29 minutes behind a 15 year old for my very first tri.  All this made me very excited to see what I can do this year.  What if I got better at each and every race?  You know, assuming no dreaded flat tires on the bike route, this is entirely possible.

So, I am still shaky.  I still have no idea what's going to happen on that bike the next time I get out there.  I a still rattled that I had such a bad ride on Saturday.  I really am at a point where I feel like I am TOTALLY NOT READY.  I guess I didn't feel like this last year because I knew I had the whole 12 weeks to get ready, and this year I feel like I should be "born ready" since I've already done a triathlon, and the truth is, that is not the case.  Especially since I spent most of the winter only going to the gym very sporadically.  A lot of my training buddies have been on their bike trainers all winter, or running with special run training groups, or swimming every week all during the off season, and I didn't do all that.  There is nothing I can do about it now. 

All I can do is get out there and train hard until May 5th.  That's 41 days from now.  It's a lot of time, but also not much time.  I have to make the rest of my days count.   That means the rest of this week will need to be packed with workouts.  No more days off.  No more pity party.  I've got this.  No more doubt.