Thursday, April 23, 2009

"These are only your limits because you haven’t pushed them farther yet"

Les and I have been in serious training mode these past 2 weeks, attending every spin class possible, and we’re starting to see the payoff. Not only between classes, but within classes themselves, I can feel my form improving, my legs getting stronger, and my breathing staying more consistent. This is serious progress.

Of course, the sessions are still a bitch to get through, cause like Mike says: The class never gets easier, you just get faster. But this initial improvement is noticeable and it confirms another of Mike’s go-to lines: These are only your limits because you haven’t pushed them farther yet. A great motto I’ve tried to use on my current LSAT students, though, admittedly, with mixed success.

But even if my students aren’t drinking the Kool Aid, I sure as hell am, so I’ve started applying this motto to as many aspects of my life as possible. And this weekend I discovered a different kind of limit that the Pan-Mass is helping me to push- my credit card limit.

Saturday afternoon, Les and I took a little joyride over to Farina’s bike shop in Watertown – an official sponsor of the PMC – so that I could buy some bike shoes and we could collectively drool over the brand spanking new road bikes.

And that’s when it happened. We fell in love:


30 speed drivertrain, Kenda Kriterium tires, ALUXX SL frame, road-smoothing carbon fork (whatever that means). Damn, that’s one sexy bike. I wanna take it home and ride it. My butt wants to be up on it. I could go on.

Lust, love, call it want you want, but that bike will be mine. The only hitch, unsurprisingly, is that all that sexiness comes at a hefty price. I won’t even go into the exact figures, but Senate Prez Terry Murray would definitely have yelled out an emphatic “Cha-Ching!” had she been with us on Saturday.

But hey, someone’s gotta stimulate the economy and I intend to do my part- Time to take this training battle to the streets!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

"Just keep pedaling"

Mike kicking off this morning's rogue a.m. spin class: "Don't slow down just because it looks like I'm taking it easy. I have stitches in my abdominal, so I'm not really sure how this is gonna go. But even if I'm slow, keep pedaling. If you see blood streaming down my leg, don't worry. Just keep pedaling."

Luckily, Mike survived (and blood free!). As did Les and I. Morning spin accomplished, training now seriously underway.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Pan-Mass Cha(lle)nge

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Paid for by viewers like you.

Even though I'm pretty sure Les and I are collectively responsible for half of our blog's hits, other people are apparently reading this thing as well, so I just wanna take a minute to say THANK YOU. Whether it's conveyed through words of encouragement, comments to our posts, monetary donations, or just a silent increase in this page's view count, your support is incredibly important to us and we are forever grateful.

To keep this dialogue going, I wanted to post a little graphic love that just came our way from our most consistent commenter, the infamous Neel Chaudhury:

Thanks Neel!

If you find *yourself* doodling about me and les (in relation to the Pan-Mass Challenge, not just cause you're drawing hearts around our names in your trapper keeper), send your drawings our way and we'll put them up! In fact, if you've got anything you wanna throw into the mix- a story, a photo, an animation, you name it - we'd love to hear from ya.

Thanks again!

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

1st Ride of Season Results in Skateboarder Attack!

Sunday afternoon, the bike is all geared up for the first ride, my legs and lungs however were not, but I pushed through the 20 flat miles anyway. On the last mile of the ride, I was headed down Comm Ave in Brighton. Off on the side road to the right, where all the cars park, I was coming down a hill when out of the blue a pack of wild skateboarders uncontrollably fly out of a side street!
I try to remain calm, and attempt to think quickly. It’s pretty clear that one of the ten is going to hit me, and sure enough I hear one start to yell “oh shit, oh shit.” At this point I realize that if I slam on my breaks I risk being thrown from my bike or being hit by one of the other nuts in the pack, so I brace myself and keep straight.
The skateboarder jumps off his board and the board runs between my front and back tire…..I’ve taken a few minutes to give you a little re-inaction of the event.


skateboarder attack

Mr. Skateboarder, If you are reading this, I hope you are ok. You seemed ok as you hopped out of the way and said “yes, I’m fine” but maybe that’s just you being a big tough skateboarder in front of your skateboarder gang. Thank you for not crashing into me, and next time you should be wearing a helmet!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

"When In Doubt, Look Good"

Here’s another gem that Mike loves to whip out at that midway point in every class when heat and exhaustion start to take over. The theory behind “when in doubt, look good,” is that no matter how tired you are, you’ve gotta remain in good form. It’s the difference between slumping over your handle bars and looking like you’d welcome death; and keeping your arms loose, your butt back and your legs strong.

But let’s get serious- on Pan Mass Challenge weekend, every rider is going to be showing off the impeccable form they’ve been working on for months. If I really wanna stand out (which I always do), I need to focus on the true essence of looking good: A kickass jersey and a pimped out ride.

Which makes this a good opportunity to talk a little bit more about why this ride is so important to me. Come that first weekend in August, I will be riding in memory of my Grandma Murray, who died of pancreatic cancer last year.

My Grandma was my favorite person.

She was also a witch. In fact, she was one in a long line of witches that currently ends with my sister and myself. Now, don’t go getting the wrong idea- my Grandma was a good witch...unlike her sister – my Great Aunt Lorraine – who we were always told had a streak of black magic in her. While my Great Aunt never embraced the wicked witch title, even by her own account it would be fair to describe her as a retired psychic turned animal healer.

I am not even kidding. Here’s a rough family tree:


Lemme give you a little example of what this all means: A few years ago, my cousin was preparing to celebrate her bat mitzvah and sent out invitations to the entire family telling them just that. Well, when my Great Aunt received the invite, she RSVPed that she would be unable to attend the ceremony – at this point, 3 months away – because she KNEW that her cat would be sick. Again, I am not even kidding. To make up for her absence, my Great Aunt sent a check. Not surprisingly, this response was poorly received by my cousin’s family, who proceeded to rip up the check and mail the pieces back to my Great Aunt. Rinse and repeat this absurdity a couple of times and what ensued was a cross-continental, snail mail battle the likes of which this country has never seen before. Of course, come bat mitzvah day, my Great Aunt swore her cat was even sicker than she had foreseen…

But, okay, I just got way off track. My Grandma was not that kind of witch, at least, not for the most part. There was, of course, that one time when my Grandma and Grandpa had just started dating and my Grandma got wind that my Grandpa was seeing another girl on the side. Well, like any love-struck witch would do, my Grandma found a picture of the little hussy and stuck some pins right in her gut...

...within a week the girl was in the hospital with a burst appendix, or at least that’s how the family legend goes.

Then there was the time that my Grandma – a dedicated figure skating fan – made a voodoo doll of Michelle Kwan and proceeded to stick needles in its knees for politically incorrect reasons I won’t even get into...

...now even though Michelle didn't meet the same end as Nancy Kerrigan, she did have enough stumbles to keep her from the gold, and my Grandma never stopped happily taking credit for that fact.

Yep, like I said, my Grandma was a badass witch, and when she passed away last year, I was the one to inherit her witch’s hat and spell books to carry on the tradition. So when I was thinking of ways to personalize my PMC riding outfit, it didn’t take long to land on a witch theme. Thing is, my grandma’s witch’s hat is about 3 feet tall- not exactly the aerodynamic accessory I had in mind.

As a substitute, I’m gonna use the next best thing and glue a *mini* witch’s hat right onto my helmet. And for my jersey, which is still very much in the design phase, I’m going to incorporate my favorite photo of Grandma.

Basically, this is what I'll look like on PanMass Challenge weekend:


So forget the doubt. I'll definitely be lookin' goooooooood.