Faith and Tom

I’m just going to come out and say it. I have a history of eating disorders. Whether it was using exercise to punish myself, or keep myself thin after eating too much, or throwing up to avoid feeling like a massive bolus of poorly chewed undigested food was going to burst through my abdomen (and keep myself thin-wait, wasn’t that myth busted in the 90s?), I had/have some issues.

I recently read Geneen Roth’s book titled “Women, God and Food” which I would highly recommend. One of her food “rules” is to eat in plain view. It is one thing to go to Amy’s Ice Cream on South Congress and eat on the sidewalk and have strangers observe. It is entirely something else to have friends walk by who have put you in a particular dietary box. There’s nothing like a dose of perceived (hmm…self-) judgment to induce a feeling of hypocrisy. So these days when asked if I am a vegan or vegetarian, the suffix to my answer is “today”. I am today. Or, not today. I sometimes wonder actually how many times I have to eat animal products to remove myself from the vegan/vegetarian club. If I eat meat, eggs, dairy, honey, white cane sugar, etc… infrequently, can I keep my membership card or is it null and void?

I sometimes feel tired of checking labels and asking waiters if the soup was made with chicken broth. And I also get tired from cooking every meal from scratch and just need a break. And sometimes I need to break the restrictions that I impose on myself that are required for me to be a good person. In a sense, I need to ignore the consciousness that sort of creates my own suffering. I just don’t want to think about it.

So, tonight for dinner it was a hopdoddy bison burger with cheese, French fries with ketchup (yeah, I went all out) and a Maine Root fountain drink. How normal is that? And I had to make sure to eat fast just so I could get it all down. But that’s not it. For dessert, I went ALL out and had Amy’s Ice Cream with Snickers (damn-I even supported a giant corporation. At least hopdoddy’s and Amy’s are local.). Holy Shit. And I’ll be damned if two friends didn’t walk by and confront my worst nightmare. They saw me eating dairy. I mean, I don’t even know where Amy’s Ice Cream gets their milk. Are the cows local? Are they treated well? Are they injected with hormones and have swollen udders? Are their off spring kept in tiny crates only to die a premature tender death? I don’t know.

I just wanted to relieve myself of the pressure to always make the best choice. I’ll probably have a belly ache tonight and I know that my choices didn’t fully support my physical health. But the one thing that I am certain of is that a greasy burger and some ketchup laden fries don’t define who I am.

What’s wrong with this picture?

faith on bike

Well, the first thing that’s wrong is that I’m not in first place.  But the women’s cross field is so small that we tend to spread out and race alone so how would you know? Anyway, it’s beside the point for this post.  The issue at hand is my position on the bike. This position has felt very comfortable to me for a long. Luckily I don’t have any injuries from riding in this position for so long but I have sacrificed performance to compensate for the poor fit. When you watch the Tour de France, the announcers talk about the racers’ legs working like pistons, firing pure energy in an up and down direction. Well, my seat was so far back and my hoods so far way that I was having to pedal forward instead of down and as a result, I wasn’t utilizing all the strength my thighs had to offer. Take a look at the new fit video after we moved the seat down, mounted the seat on a vertical post and put a new pair of bars on the bike.

Pretty dramatic difference, huh? We actually lengthened the stem by 10cm from what is on this video so it doesn’t quite feel like I’m going to catapult over the handlebars. So far, after one race, I have noticed my cornering skills improve along with overall bike handling. I’m excited for what’s possible now that I am actually properly fitted on my bike!

Well, the relatively unproductive cough that I’ve had for about three weeks now is finally generating something I can actually expel. Yum, right? So, what better time to binge on cookies? I had a hankering for chocolate chip cherry cookies and even though I can’t get the full tasting experience since my nose is all clogged up, I think that they are super delicious. I did, however, stop by The Herb Bar on Mary Street to pick up something herbal to help speed along the discharge process and to my further credit, I picked up some daikon and there is barley going in the pressure cooker right now for some kick ass miso soup. Figured I’d also make a fresh daikon and green apple salad.

I met with the Austinbikes Cyclocross Team today. There were only a few of us but I’m glad to have met them and I’m excited to get some training in with them. Seems like they know what they are doing and it feels exciting to be part of something bigger than myself. Not to mention, I’ll get to check out their shop and meet some new folks in the biking community.

Warning: If you are a fellow woman cyclocross racer stop reading here.

I picked up a few hints to focus on for the races in Sugar Land this weekend.
1) Accelerate out of turns. Get out of the saddle and crank for 10 seconds. You can gain seconds each lap like this and also test to see if the person on your back wheel can actually handle the pace. Ha. Kind of makes me laugh though because I have to wonder to myself if I can handle the pace!
2) Accelerate once you’ve remounted over barriers. I did well on the barriers in Mineral Wells but the other night at Dirt Derby I think I was going a little too fast and I biffed it. So, now I have a bit of fear and need to make sure that I can actually keep up at the speed at which I dismount!

I am feeling nervous and preoccupied with the races even though they are over a day away. I want to do my best. Hopefully, the respiratory stuff I am dealing with eases up soon.

Race updates to come…