Week Two - Day Four

TIME THERE: 26 min. (boo yeah!)
TIME BACK: 28 min.
WEATHER: clear, 8C, 6 km/hr wind there; sunny, 26C, 20 km/hr wind back.
WHAT I WORE: dress pants, t-shirt, waterproof shell (put shell in panniers on the way home)
NOTES:
I'm a competitive person. I always have been. I enjoyed being the youngest person in my intermediate horseback riding class, the top mark in my classes, the only sibling with the straight-A's, the author of the essay that was always read aloud as an example of how things should be done. Even despite my childhood obesity, I still managed to be among the top competitors in track and field for the 100m dash and - of all things - high jump, in my grade at elementary school. Had I not hit puberty and been crushed by self-consciousness, perhaps my competitive spirit would have pushed me towards sport and I might have been able to lose some of that weight in high school. As it was, I ended up wearing baggy clothes to hide my shame, never breaking out into anything faster than a quick walk for fear of jiggling, and turning my attentions to writing. No regrets here, but I do wonder sometimes what I could have done if I'd taken up a sport, especially given the athletic prowess of my brothers (who played baseball at the national level in high school).

My competitive spirit is seeping out of me unabated now that I've started bike-commuting. This morning, for instance, going over the big steel bridge that crosses the river valley, I was sailing along at a good clip, passing other people and feeling very good about myself. Then a woman on a rickety old makeshift hybrid (road tires on a bike with an upright body position) passed by me about halfway into the bridge - without ringing her bell (lawbreaker!!) - and my inner voice immediately started agitating. "Hey! What the hell? How is she passing me on an old bike like that, being as non-aerodynamic as that? CATCH HER!!!"

The motto that I've been chanting to myself like a biking mantra is "come on, work those little legs!!" (I have disproportionately short legs - thanks Dad!). When that woman passed by me on the bridge, my internal voice started whipping that mantra at me like a jockey whipping his losing racehorse. I worked my legs as best as I could, but there was no way I was going to catch her - we were getting to the hill coming off the bridge, and hills are my Achilles heel. Luckily for me, the incline seemed to be slowing her down too. Here's my chance to catch her! I just started to pull a little closer to her when she reached the stairs, where she dismounted and walked her bike up and onto the university campus. I pulled up and dismounted not that far behind her, but lost a lot of momentum on the stairs and fell farther behind again. As I got to the top of the stairs, panting and sweating, I swung my stiffening leg over the saddle and settled in, ready to really catch her this time. My thighs were burning as I pushed off and started pedalling away from the stairs, and as I looked up my heart sunk as I saw her pedalling away at light speed a full block ahead of me. How the hell did she DO that?

"That little bitch!" said my inner voice, "Go get her - work little legs, do it!" I picked up speed again but we were already on campus, having to deal with frequent stops and pedestrian traffic. Though whenever I caught sight of her ahead of me I would continue to chase her across campus and call her names in my head, she kept weaving in and out of my field of vision, pulling farther and farther ahead, and I quickly realized she had definitely won our little competition. By the time I pulled up to my building, I didn't know where she was anymore. That competitiveness sure got me to school in good time, though - 26 minutes! - so I can't complain. And although I lost, it was a nice change of pace trying to follow a faster biker, making a little game out of it.

"Yeah, well, she's not carrying around an extra person's worth of weight," sniffled my battered ego. Suck it up, buttercup - you did very well for you, and that's plenty enough to celebrate for today. Though I have to say, you could definitely work on being a better loser.