Till the bitter, bloody end...

If you are squeamish...stop reading here.

Ok...if you're squeamish, you probably don't read my blog anymore, because between surgery pictures, race reports with references to "tampon transitions", and graphic portapotty reviews, this is not the place for the faint of heart.

But consider yourself duly warned.

The reason I'm writing this at all is because I didn't want to. I was embarassed. And I have this thing about embarassment where I know if I experience it someone else does too. But unlike me, maybe they don't choose to go ahead and live life/compete despite regular humiliation. So I have to let them know that they aren't alone, and they should just say screw it and at the end of the day have a good laugh instead of wasting another moment on mental self-immolation.

Hell...that's the biggest reason I write these damn ramblings...because in an increasingly isolated world, we all need to know that there are other people falling down, picking themselves back up, and laughing about it afterwards...in other words we are not alone.

Anyway, I had done a workout with Jeremee and a hard bike yesterday. And I'd done a hard run the day before. So today I did an easy run and a swim and then I went to hang with Phil at Seaside Cycle as he helped me figure out why my power on my TT bike is so consistently lower than my roadie.

It's common to be a little underpowered in TT position as you are positioned to optimize run speed off the bike...it's not that I was just losing a bit at Vo2Max. I was consistently riding 15-20 watts lower at threshold heart rates...not cool. Not cool at all.

I could actually time trial faster on my road bike that I could on my TT...never a good sign!

My old bike fit was pre-surgery and I knew a lot about my body had changed. I also knew that my road bike fit was even far from optimized, so I hit the shop with both bikes.

Phil is chill and the fit is wicked detailed so the day was going well...we ID'd HUGE problems with my positioning on Armstrong (my TT bike's name)and were well on the way to correcting when...frame/seat post problems struck. I will not elaborate...I will wait for a final verdict which should come tomorrow. But let's just say Armstrong might not be my training partner much longer.

:(

So we switch over to Scotty (my road bike) and Phil makes some major adjustments. I left with Scotty stem ripped out and handbars hanging pathetically, while Armstrong was crippled in the corner. No bikes!!! Yikes!

Meanwhile, my friends Pete and Scott had been searching for an ECV Team TT partner for days and I'd tried to hook them up with a bunch of people. I'm just not frankly up to the challenge these days, so I didn't want the punishment of trying to hang in at the 27+/- mph that I figured they would pull. I hate not pulling my own weight, and I just can't haul anybody at those speeds. I'd be nothing but a hanger on.

But they kept coming up empty. People had to work. People had coaches forbid it. People had their training partner die the day before (I shit you not). I started to feel bad.

Pete had been training hard and had DNF'd a couple weeks ago after a flat and a wrong turn. He really wanted to do it, and you need three folks to enter.

So since Phil was able to get Scotty back together by late afternoon I agreed to take the third seat on a non-aero road bike if they wanted. My legs were tired and I had no idea how the brand new fit would ride, but I'll be G-d damned if I'll ever let friends down. And I knew if we were smart about tactics I could hang off their wheels for 11.3 miles.

So I show up and we register. I see my friend Al and we chat while I started getting my stuff out of the car. As we're talking I realize something is wrong.

Very, very wrong.

My shorts are all of a sudden VERY wet. And no...I didn't pee myself.

Muther FUCKER.

I excused myself, grabbed a tampon from the car, and prayed the HS was open. It was not.

I started to run around back to the woods when I realized things were BAD. VERY BAD. As in no way I could ride on a white bike seat without a murder scene BAD.

FUCK me.

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know that my Aunt Mary has HAUNTED me for years. She stole 17 minutes from me at IMWI. She ruined my first overall tri win when I was too busy sprinting to the restrooms to enjoy my sprint across the finish line.

I am blessed with an anemia-spawning, relentless, pill-proof case of menorrhagia. I believe that's latin for "is it a period or are you bleeding to death?" I have considered some brutal fixes including uterine ablation and just rippin' the whole damn thing out. But so far I've just lived with it.

So live with it tonight, I did. I waved Pete and Scott over and did the deed, telling them that I had to abandon them IMMEDIATELY, and grateful for the fact that they are good friends, married with children. They know how this shit works. I bolted, and they talked the good ECV people into letting them ride as a two-fer.

And they rocked the house I might add. Ever humble, they went sub-27 minutes.

Maybe I'm glad I didn't get to ride.

Who am I fucking kidding. No I'm not!!! That woulda been a sweet pull and no one would have known I didn't do any work!!!

Thank God for my bestie Melissa (Scott's wife) who I could call in an absolute state of HORROR on the way home. She's an awesome antidote for humiliation, and I could even text her the photo of the paper I sat on on the way home and she got that I had to provide evidence and wasn't (openly) grossed out.

I just have this thing...I never want to quit on ANYTHING. EVER. So the fact that I did...I just. Needed. Someone. To. Know.

And now YOU know. So whether you just needed a laugh, or needed to know that another athlete suffers like you do, there you have it.

Let's hope a better day dawns tomorrow...I'll certainly be armed with a box of OB Super-plus Ultra and overnight pads with wings when it does.

And I'll still train on, damn it! So you better too...

a