It’s been a busy past few days for sure. As I explained in my previous post, I stayed home from Syllamo in order to train in a hard but less brutal environment. It wasn’t a bad choice, because with a several-hour deluge immediately preceding the race start, the course conditions were characteristically treacherous. After having a hard time with the wet rocks and a wheel-swallowing rut, Ryan ended up with a DNF at the first aid station, and Matt gutted it out for 4th in his age category, finally getting his “rock” (the large, engraved stone awards) after 6 years of competing. Luckily, all Ryan took home was a few scratches and a flat spot in his rear rim.

Since Ryan and Matt were gone Friday evening, I decided to go over to my parents’ house and make dinner for them since my mom was still just mostly recovered from surgery (and I owed her home-made ice cream since I’d told her that my black eye came from a crowded yoga class). I started the day by dropping by Jack’s Farm to pick up some duck eggs in order to make the ice cream extra-rich. While I was there, he gave me a quick tour…

I can already tell I’ll be really sad in the winter when there’s no delicious fresh vegetables from the farm.

Dinner was pretty boss. I roasted some chicken thighs to go with turnip greens and baked sweet potatoes.

Mom, Dad, and Penny:

Saturday morning was chilly and damp. It was a perfect morning for going to a yoga class to stretch out and pass the time before everything dried out a little. Afterward, I came home for lunch and intervals before going down to Southaven to meet John and the other guys from the gym to watch the Bellator MMA fights. The fights were fun to watch, though the best part may have been when the lady in front of Trey suddenly turned around and threatened to beat him up if he touched her hair again (I’m somewhat certain that it was getting caught in the seam of the seat cushion and that Trey wasn’t actually touching it).

That may be the latest I’ve stayed up in more than a year.

Sunday morning was another wet/rainy one. Luckily, it cleared quickly, and I started on my long ride (6 hours) around 9. I’ve got a nice route that hits several short pieces of gravel. All of them are road bike-able, but I figured I’d go out on the new Cysco and get some more time on it before Kanza. A quick report for anyone in the area that likes gravel roads- Braden Road, despite what the signs say about the bridge being out, is clear, and the bridge is fixed:

Lambert Road is OK, though as you get further east, there are a couple of wet low spots and a couple of chunky spots. It warmed my heart to see road bike tracks out there ahead of my own:

There is also a fence that’s partially down near the east end. I navigated cautiously around a pregnant cow who was wandering around, doing cow stuff:

The other gravel I hit (Wilson, Fowler, and Mockingbird) were in good shape and mostly hardpack. Despite stopping for a few photos as well as two water refill breaks, I rode pretty hard for the duration. The last couple of hours were pretty painful, though I found myself tapping in to the power still left in my muscles despite the hurt. I spent the remainder of the evening either eating or sitting on the couch using the Elevated Legs.

Now, it’s on to tapering. I’ll have a little intensity sprinkled throughout the next couple of weeks, but the training for Kanza is now fully loaded into my legs. If all goes as planned, I’ll feel like bending cranks by about Wednesday next week.

This weekend essentially put the wraps on everything I can do to thrash myself prior to the Dirty Kanza 200 at the end of the month. I was growing weary of structured intervals, so I enlisted the help of Strava- the social media that everyone loves to hate. A week or so ago, I’d received several “SO-AND-SO STOLE YOUR QOM!” emails. All of them were in an area where I don’t ride often, and I wasn’t sure if I’d actually been riding with any sort of impetus when I’d set my original times. So, to change things up from my normal interval regimen, I decided to pick a route that would hit a string of the QOM spots.

(Matt’s finger added for extra “everyone hates Strava” effect)

My top tube que sheet worked pretty well except for one, where I totally missed most of the segment. The only other screw-up was a close head-on encounter with a large truck hauling oversized farm equipment on its trailer. I decided that pulling off to the shoulder and soft pedaling while it passed was a far better idea than playing chicken. Otherwise, it was a successful training ride in both intensity and QOM achievement- Reverse Enduro Strava Terrorism Fartlek

Sunday morning, Turbo the old, deaf Malinois decided to give me a mother’s day present.

Apparently, after pulling the giant rice bag out and spilling it all over the place, she found the taste of raw rice to be unsatisfactory and went back in for a ziplock bag of oatmeal, which she consumed most of, save the handful of oats that escaped to underneath the stove and cabinet ledges.

After cleaning that up and mainlining some coffee, I hurried up to get started on my prescribed 6 hours of riding. I picked a route I like a lot because of its remote-ness. My legs weren’t really feeling it when I started, and, though I hoped the cobwebs would work themselves out after the first hour or two, I ended up cutting it short at 5 hours, 25 minutes. I’m happy to say, though, I figured out that loading up on sodium before a long ride is making a noticeable difference in being able to maintain copious amounts of nice, watery sweat later in the day. My recently-adopted strategy is to drink a bottle full of Gu Brew Blueberry Pomegranate (contains 2x the sodium than other flavors) mixed with Elete Citrilyte drops and Pure Clean beet powder as I’m preparing for my ride. It should be a big help staying less overheated at Kanza.

After my ride, I laid around on the couch and snacked a bit before I visited my dealer for a sack…

The past two weeks, I’ve been getting a huge bag of just-picked greens and whatnot from Jack’s Farmacy. This week, the bag included several different types of lettuce, swiss chard, beet thinnings, onions, oregano, kale, and turnip greens. I picked up a half-dozen duck eggs and an extra bag of turnip greens as well. The turnip greens were for mother’s day dinner, and the duck eggs are for my belly… I just had a couple for breakfast, and good lord, they’re soooooo goooooood. If you’re a local reader, I suggest visiting the FB page I’ve linked to and getting in on it- all the stuff pictured above was $20. He does two different pickup days in town during the week, though I’m pretty sure you could go to the farm just about any time and buy whatever’s fresh.

Unlike grocery store lettuce, which I’ve always found to be a mostly flavorless vehicle for fiber and toppings, this stuff is good enough to stand on its own. I’d never had beet thinnings before, and I’d never cooked turnip greens because my experience with them growing up was a giant stinky pot that boiled away forever to create a green, sulfur-y mash. It makes me giddy to try new recipes with stuff that was still in the ground the morning before I cook it.

I’ve taken to cooking meals for my parents on Hallmark special occasions like father’s day and mother’s day. Who wants to fight the crowds for a mediocre-to-mostly-decent meal when what I can make in their own kitchen is more delicious, healthy, less expensive, and doesn’t involve waiting, crowds, or screaming babies? I did shortcut on dessert, though. Because of the hours of riding I needed beforehand, I bought a strawberry shortcake at Whole Foods. It was extraordinarily delicious, so I didn’t mind too much.

At some point early in the week, Poolboy Matt decided that he really wanted to ride at Syllamo at some point before Syllamo’s Revenge later this month (he’d been back and fourth about which bike set up how, and wanted to test geared/rigid). I had another hard-ish training week scheduled, so I told him I’d go with him if he had a day off of work to ride Tuesday or Wednesday. Lucky for me, it was Wednesday, because my legs were still recovering from the weekend on Tuesday, and I ended up trading that day’s scheduled interval ride for another recovery ride. Tuesday afternoon, once Matt was home from work, we GTFO’d to the cabin. The last hour of that drive when you’re a little tired and it’s dark will put hair on your chest.

Wednesday morning, after breakfast, we loaded up and made a cooler drop to the Highway 5 trailhead (about the halfway point, distance-wise, if you’re riding the Revenge Race Loop). We then drove over to the Blanchard Springs trailhead- not my usual M.O. for riding out there, but it’s where the race starts. I wanted to get a feel for the starting climb on my full suspension bike. Since the hardtail has been set up as my dedicated gravel racing machine, I thought I’d save the hassle of swapping parts around and try racing my Jet 9 carbon. I’ve become extremely comfortable on non-technical gravel climbs (like the race opener) on the hardtail, and I wanted to make sure that my comfort transferred to something that’s not as rigid in the rear.

It worked out pretty well. The race start is always a ridiculous madhouse. There’s basically a 1 mile doubletrack climb before the course turns and dumps you in to another mile or so of descending before one of the more technical parts of the entire trail. So, it devolves into everyone going apeshit up the climb in an attempt to not get stuck in a conga-line of people who can’t ride the technical parts of the trail. I sort of hate it.

Once we were on the trail, we picked up a steady, but not-too-fast pace. Other than the big climb up the blue trail at around mile 26, the race course generally gets easier and faster as you go. So, starting out slow is not a bad thing, because it’s incredibly easy to blow yourself up within the first 1-2 hours. It went pretty OK- the trail is in decent shape as far as overgrowth and deadfall, but the recent deluge of rain has been really bad for the erosion on the steep parts (which, if you’ve ever been to Syllamo, you’ll know that “steep parts” make up about 99% of the trail). It took a good bit of time for me to get my rock-mojo back- especially on a bike that I don’t ride over there much at all. Somewhere near the Orange trail parking lot, Matt flatted. Not as a result of a puncture or tear, but from a rock hitting his valve and breaking it off.

Not long after that, I was going for it up a super tech rock section on the green trail when I spun my rear tire only a fraction of a second before my front tire lodged up against the next rock, making my bike shoot backwards from beneath me and jamming a pedal into my calf. That’ll leave a mark…

The remainder of the ride down the Orange trail to the Highway 5 stop was thankfully uneventful. That’s definitely one of my favorite sections of trail, because the couple of short climbs out there are some that I thought were impossible when I first started riding at Syllamo, and, with a little practice, they were provided me with some of my first “OMG I CLEANED IT” moments.

We had a little come-to-jesus moment at Highway 5. Matt sat on the ground and debated waiting there for me to ride back to the car and come get him. Before you think he’s nuts, realize that not only is Syllamo one of the most physically demanding trails you’ll ever ride, it’s also one of the most difficult places to take in calories without stopping. Since we’d been trying to do a race-simulation-ish ride, we hadn’t stopped for much other than the flat tire, and, as a result, he was behind on calories. He got his shit straight, though, and we ended up banging out the next section of blue trail to the next highway crossing and up the “big climb” at a pretty good pace. Since we were a little behind schedule, we decided from there that we’d bail on the remainder of the loop. Once you’re at that point, there’s nothing else technical, and it’s basically just rollers and short climbs until you make it to the finish.

We picked up the cooler, showered, and packed up the cabin with a quickness  before stopping at Anglers catfish restaurant for late lunch on the way out of town. Luckily, the drive back isn’t so bad since, like the trail, it gets easier as you near the finish.

So, I’m somewhat indifferent about the impending race. It’s bound to be a hot mess since it always seems to rain sometime in the 48 hours before the start. I’ll survive, though. In other, “coming up soon” news, there’s something huge that might happen mid July, but since it’s a big “might happen” event, I can’t talk about it any more until I get more information myself. Let’s just say that the prospect of this “might happen” wakes me up with excitement at all hours of the night. Stay tuned…

…Seldom make history.
-Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

I don’t know how many of my readers have kids (seeing as I somewhat regularly express my dislike of kids), but kids are a little bit of a motivator for today’s post. Last week’s Tiger Lane crit really made me think about how women are treated and plucked a bit of a feminist cord with me. So, what you’re about to read is just stuff that’s been running through my head during my long weekend of training.

After my race,  I was talking to a local guy while his daughter (teenage-ish… I’m not good at guessing ages) was longboarding around the parking lot. She came over to talk for a second, and we got on the subject of MMA (I’d seen them out at a couple of the fight nights here in Memphis, so I knew they were fans). She’s into Muay Thai, and we chatted for a minute before she was off again. It was the next day before I really started thinking about how cool it is to see a young woman who (at least, based on our brief interaction) isn’t afraid to come across as a little daring and assertive. In other words, she’s not listening to anyone who is telling her to calm down and act “like a lady.”

Also occurring after my race- the Category 1/2/3 men’s race. While the Marx-Bensdorf women had arguably raced a tactically more interesting race than the men, the owner of Marx-Bensdorf wasn’t on our sidelines writing out checks for $100-300 primes in an attempt to “spice things up.” Their ladies squad went out to kill it over the weekend at the Mississippi Gran Prix Stage Race- winning the overall GC and filling 5 of the top 10 spots.

Young women (and older women) experience those things on a regular basis- don’t be “bossy” (“bossy” being the female-shaming-word used in place of “assertive”) or aggressive, and we’re usually not encouraged to take risks the way a male would be. Those of us who do are often called “man-ish” or “lesbian” or something of the like (it doubly pisses me off when I hear “gay” or “lesbian” hurled as some sort of insult, but that’s a whole ‘nother rant). There’s a grown man in town who, in a conversation about the women who ride bikes in Memphis, once referred to me as “Mandrea.” While that doesn’t change a damn thing about how I personally look, act, or race my bike, think about how it might effect the woman who overhears it… “Oh, if I am a fast, aggressive bike racer, then people might associate me as being overly-masculine, so I’d better just stick to the occasional charity ride.”

The same goes for boys who want to do anything considered “feminine.” Teaching your son how to cook, nurture, or express a full range of emotions is taboo for a large portion of our society. To me, it just doesn’t make sense to keep following those contrived gender roles. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with teaching your kid to both kill and cook his or her own meals.

^Carey Lowery‘s daughter bringing home the (turkey) bacon^

I’m grateful that when I was young and wanted to learn how to shoot a gun, go hunting, fishing, roughhouse, climb trees, catch frogs, play in the mud, and do other “boy” stuff, my parents didn’t force me to “act like a lady.” I did occasionally get called “bossy” by my peers, which only partially put a damper on my personality at the time- I didn’t like that I was being made fun of, but in my mind, bossy didn’t register as a totally negative trait the same way as something else a kid could get made fun of for being, like “stinky” or “dumb.”

I was also somewhat fearless, and found great entertainment in things like climbing as high into any tree or playground structure as I could and running around on a glacier the one time we took a family trip to Alaska (I was a 9-year-old wearing sneakers and a pink London Fog windbreaker in the company of dudes in full ice climbing gear- no joke). While my parents tried to keep me safe, they never tried to discourage that sort of behavior by telling me that I wasn’t being lady-like.

^Clint Austin, another FB Friend of mine, posted this pic of his daughters just yesterday.

On the “older person” end of the spectrum, things get a little uglier. I dare you to read the “comments” section on any large cycling media publication involving a woman like Selene Yeager. While most people respect her for the strong, fast, and intelligent female cyclist she is, there’s always a handful of men who want to point out that they are very uncomfortable with the fact that she’s built like a brick shithouse (I mean that in the most complimentary way possible, of course). Again, like someone calling me “Mandrea,” men who want to try to bully Selene Yeager into looking like their version of what women should look like are obviously not at all successful in that endeavor, but it doesn’t mean that other women don’t see their sexist diarrhea of the keyboard and feel pressure to conform to that sort of bullsh*t standard.

Until we stop telling our girls that they have to be well-behaved (and stop raising boys to think that girls have to fit into that cookie-cutter look and personality type), we’re going to continue to see the product of that way of thinking. At the acute, local level, it’s things like unequal treatment of men’s and women’s bike races (and any other sport short of beach volleyball). At a larger level, it’s things like the lack of females in leadership positions and pay discrepancies between men and women.

^These Afghan female cyclists are acting out and making all sorts of history.

There’s not really a way of changing the current generation of male internet trolls and dudes who can’t handle mine and Selene Yeager’s awesomeness. There’s no way that you’ll turn on the TV tomorrow and see a floor cleaner or paper towel commercial that doesn’t portray a guy as being a clumsy, mess-producing dunce, either. However, there is a whole generation of impressionable young people who can be taught and encouraged that personalities, hobbies, and physical activities don’t have to have a gender. It’s us, as adults who have, will have, and/or will come into contact with those young people, who are responsible for setting an example and being good mentors. Otherwise, they’ll keep learning from the trolls and marketing departments who want to put them into neat little categories of what’s an acceptable look, behavior, and personality for their respective genders.