The Dalmation and The Clydesdale…
I’ve been staying with JZ and Mark the past few days. They were kind enough to offer to let me stay until I returned to Atlanta next week. This seems like a normal summer now in many ways; I stayed with them the last 2 summers of Boulder training stints …. so being here again seems almost like coming home, or even deja’vu…
It’s funny, the more I am with them, the more these two really feel like family to me. Living with them is a riot – I am not kidding. The three of us are equal attention-whores so fighting for air time is common around here. 
It’s pretty funny. Often, if there is a rare moment of silence, I’ll jump in and start talking… it doesn’t take long for one of them to literally interrupt me and start their own blabbering.
“Heeeeeey! I’m telling a story!”, I’ll scream, melodramatically.
They’ll smile and say, “Oh, sorry…”
“It’s MY turn to get the floor!”, I’ll laugh.
Or, Joanna will be on the phone while Mark and I continue talking in decibels that get obnoxiously loud… soon we’ll hear JZ admonish us, “Sssssshhhhh! Can you two please shut up!” We’ll smile and roll our eyes at her, as if Mom has just scolded us.
It’s been great to hang out with them at night watching the Olympics, too. With those two there is constant commentary going on, great analysis, and “who is hot?” voting. This morning I was teasing Mark that we should have considered polygamy long ago! “When you get sick of one of us, oh look, there’s another to be sick of!”, I teased as he laughed. Poor Mark has dealt well with the surge of estrogen around here… although I guess it’s safe to say both JZ and I have enough testosterone to add to the mix so it’s not complete lack of balance.
On Tuesday I rode with JZ for a while. At one point she noted the difference in my riding, “You’re so much stronger now, I can’t tell you”.
I smiled. It was nice of her to say, but I also knew she was right.
We went on to reminisce about a ride I did with her just year ago at this time. We both remember it clearly. My cycling had slowly deteriorated to an all-time LOW, a combination of horrific bike fit, wrong frame size, no glut strength and chronic back issues that were about to intensify. I started that ride with her (key word: started) and lasted no more than 7 minutes on her wheel before I was about to blow. This was WARM UP, people. I’m not diminishing JZ’s strength on the bike but even she later admitted to me she knew something was seriously wrong. No one gets dropped in warm up.
So today she said, “Remember THAT ride? And look at you now.”
“Yeah, but you’re taking it easy today”, I answered.
“WHATEVER. I was taking it easy then, too!”, she balked.
I laughed at that. And she was right …. totally out of shape me in August 2008 is stronger than I was last year right before the bike crash in October. That’s amazing to me, and has really hammered home the fact that if you’re on a bike not right for you, or are poorly fit on your bike, you just won’t ride well. Period.
The day before, while watching the Olympics, we saw that great Budweiser commercial from the Superbowl – the one with the dalmation and the clydesdale.
It’s worth a view, even if you’ve seen it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug6Me4hboTU
While riding I told Joanna she was the dalmation to my clydesdale, and she smiled.
I then said I had two goals:
1) To be able to do the whole Horsetooth ride with her and not get dropped. (This is a great 100-mile ride starting in Boulder that I did one time with JZ in 2006. I lasted 3 hours and 58 minutes with her before I completely imploded. She had to stand down 4 times to wait for me during that ride, too.)
I then told her my super-second goal:
2) To do that ride with her and when we had 30:00 left, hearing her say, “Ok, Carole. Get in front and pull my ass home!” She would say that not because she was tired, but as the final Apollo gesture to Rocky — preparing me for battle, fully confident and ready to ride.
She smiled and said, “Well, ok. We have a year. Let’s get to it.”
I love her for that. She didn’t laugh and tell me there was no way in hell that would ever happen. Instead, she was right on board, totally supporting me and wanting to help. And I will tell you one thing for certain — if you ever have a dream, or something really important to you, you could have no greater ally than to have Joanna Zeiger on your side. If I can make a comeback, she will no doubt be the instrumental piece that makes that happen.
Thucydides:
“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out and meet it.”
That’s what we’re talkin’ about!!! Love it, go get ‘em girl.