Hydrate or Die! (Aka- How I came to love my Camelbak)

Due to some setbacks, I wasn't able to take part in any group rides this weekend and was instead resigned to two more low key rides around the Charles. As much as I love my new bike, I had some doubts about its ability to navigate the somewhat unpredictable terrain around the river, so I decided to show some love to my old, hybrid bike. Only thing is, I recently transferred my water bottle holder from my old Trek to my new Giant, leaving me with a bit of a water flow problem- no minor issue since we all know that you either hydrate or you die!

Luckily, I remembered the Camelbak hydration system that Betsy and Sarah so kindly gave me for my birthday. Thus far in my training I have resisted wearing the Camelbak and have even engaged in my fair share of trash talk- convinced that it would detract from my otherwise badass biker look. But this weekend I really didn't see any alternative, so I dug the pack out of my closet and lemme tell ya, my attitude instantly changed.

First of all, I had forgotten that the pack was neon green- automatic bonus points:


Some of you may not be aware of this, but neon green is the Color of the Millennium. This term was coined by myself and my good friend Stephanie Farkas after years of close observation and field research confirmed that neon green was not only the consistent clothing color choice of Jersey shore beachcombers, but also showed no sign whatsoever of decreasing in popularity. Essentially, this Cambelbak gives me instant Jersey street cred (which I can only assume translates to the trails of Massachusetts).

On top of just looking good, the pack was also incredibly functional. Its convenient over-the-shoulder drinking nozzle kept me wonderfully hydrated, even allowing me to drink WHILE biking, something I've never been able to do before since I have yet to master retrieving my water bottle while my legs are in motion. What can I say, it really is the small pleasures.

All in all, I will never ride without my Camelbak again and I take back all of my unfounded trash talk. I was young and naive and I will never preemptively judge biking accessories again.

In other news, my bike short-, ipod band-, bike glove-, and Camelbak-tan lines are developing nicely. I will be quite the sight to see at the beach this summer- that is, if it ever stops raining.

LOST! (And not the fun version involving Smoke Monsters)

For those of you who haven't already heard, Les and I bought those sexy little road bikes. Actually they're not little, they're Giants and they were worth every penny.


We took them out for a short test ride the other weekend, but their first *real* ride was this Saturday. Since we don't have fancy GPS systems, and there are only so many directions we can keep in our heads or scribble on our arms, we decided to join a Quad Cycles Bike Shop ride, which is "a rolling loop through Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, Concord, Carlisle, Chelmsford and Billerica" - basically, a nice little tour of the beautiful Third Middlesex District.


The nicest part of these rides is that while everyone starts off together at the shop in Alrington, you break off into personalized groups based on what kind of pace you want to maintain and how far you ultimately want to ride - anywhere between 1 and 60 miles.

Unfortunately, when we got to the shop, Les ran into some technical difficulties trying to get her pedals switched out, so I ended up leaving with the first wave of riders and Les caught up to the group a little later. I hadn't been planning on biking without a riding buddy, but I wasn't too worried- there were about 40 other bikers there who stayed in a pretty cohesive caravan, and the Quad Cycle employees kept looping around to check on stragglers.

The first 30 miles of the ride leading to the lunch spot - Fern's in Carlisle - were great. We biked through some beautiful portions of the Minuetman Trail, and I started to learn some of the vernacular and hand signals that are second nature to seasoned riders. There's this one move that I've labeled "The Monkey," which looks like you're tossing a ball behind your back (Try it. Congratulations - you just looked like a monkey). This motion warns riders that there's some obstacle to the side that's causing the group to veer into the center of the road. When someone in front of you does a certain hand motion, you mirror it, and the message gets sent down the line - like a big game of sign language telephone. That way you're adjusting your ride for obstacles you haven't even seen yet. It's very cool.

Anyway, we hit the lunch spot and everyone refuled with cold water and power bars. Then it was decision time. Some of the riders were heading back, but another group - most of whom had been in a pack with me during the first half of the ride - wanted to continue on another 5 miles to Hanscom Airforce Base. That way they could cover about 50 miles by the time they returned to the shop. I decided to go with that group, but after about 2 miles it became clear that these cyclers had done CRACK during our lunch break. I mean here we are 35 miles in, on the hilliest part of the ride, and they were maintaining a consistent 19mph speed. Un-freaking-real. I was giving it my all but the gap between myself and the group just kept getting wider and wider. It got to the point where the others were just specks in the distance and I was barely able to keep track of the turns they were making.

Then I rounded one final corner and collided with a Route 2A junction- a wideopen highway intersection and there wasn't a single rider in sight. I was officially left behind and lost in what I believed was Bedford. Now sure, it's not exactly the same as getting separated in Dorchester or Brighton, but still! It felt like anything could happen. I was imagining having to pull over and call Senator Fargo for help. I invisioned search parties and missing girl posters.


But then I channeled Mike, and I knew his advice would be what it always is: "Just keep pedaling." If I absolutely had to pull over and check my iphone GPS, I could, but if I kept going, I still had a chance to catch up (especially since I didn't believe those crack cyclers could maintain that pace much longer). I couldn't afford to lose any time. I had to just keep pedaling.

After about 15 minutes of riding down 2A without seeing a single cycler, the rest of the group literally ran into me as they pealed out of a side road. It was pure luck, but I'll take it.

Needless to say, for those final 5 miles - I made damn sure not to lose them again.

Door to door we rode 60 miles. Not a bad start at all. And hopefully after a few more of these rides, I won't have to worry about getting lost again- not only cause I'll know the routes, but because people will be fighting to keep up with me. Just you wait.

PMC Love

Attention Zipcar users,

Our awesome friend Paul R sent us this pic of a zipcar he saw zooming down the road with PMC labes smacked all over it. Looking into this I found out that Zipcar is also riding in the PMC [their 3rd year!] they've set out to raise 150,000 for the Jimmy Fund, and one way they are raising these funds are discounting all their strategically placed [there only seem to be a few-search here http://www.zipcar.com/boston/find-cars] PMC wrapped Scions xBs to 8$/hr and donating every 2$ for every hour to PMC. Awesome.

So, now I ponder how Danielle and I can work this approach into our fund raising. I initially thought we could give rides on our bikes, but would that require investing in pegs or some sort of carriage system?? No, I think we could pull off a combo piggy back/bike ride. So next time your intoxicated, bored, or just plain lazy, give us a ring. We'll fly on over and carry you where ever you need----for a donation of course.

That was one rough spin class

I pushed myself pretty hard, and Danielle and I were both hurting last night and this morning.

So I decided that today my tired body and mind deserved this:

half a delicious brownie and a chai from my favorite bakery, Flour....yummmm. to be honest, ill probably finish the other half by the end of this post.

"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!

"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.

Pan-Mass Cha(lle)nge

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!

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.




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!

"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.

Reform Before Revenue

Mind over matter - if you don't mind, it don't matter.

In what I can only describe as a shit storm of motivation, my spin instructor unleashed his full arsenal of inspirational quotes during last Thursday's class. And not just classics like HYDRATE OR DIE, but a slew of long-forgotten gems I haven't heard him utter in over a year. In fact, had I not been there to witness the spectacle firsthand, I wouldn't have believed anyone could pack that many catchphrases into a single hour-- which I guess is just another example of why Mike continues to amaze me for reasons that go far beyond his physical prowess.

I did my best to remember as many of Mike's phrases as I could, but by the class's 45 minute mark, I had switched into pure survival mode and was barely hearing - never mind remembering - what was coming out of his mouth. Still, I was able to recreate a pretty healthy list of quotes and will be using them to give some semblance of structure to my next few posts- starting with this one.

"Mind over matter- if you don't mind, it don't matter."

With 192 miles to bike over 2 days, the main focus of Les's and my training is physical- and rightly so. Just look at the core muscles we'll be exhausting from now until August: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SyLSEnYPv8&feature=related. As an aside, I think that clip might have been the inspiration for Robbie William's freaky Rock DJ music video circa 2000 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BOyvOsMqk4&annotation_id=annotation_690565&feature=iv). But I digress.

As important as our gym sessions are, there is a point in every long ride when your body wants to stop, when your leg muscles scream that they *can't* go any farther, and when the remaining miles seem downright impossible. It's at this point that mind takes over matter. During training, I use music to help overcome this critical juncture, but during official rides, ipods and the like are usually discouraged, if not straight up prohibited.

Without the aid of music, you've gotta come up with some pretty creative ways to pass the miles, but even though I think I have a pretty (overly) active imagination, this ride is going to be ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY TWO FREAKIN MILES LONG and there are only so many ninja fighting scenes and high speed chases I can dream up (Yes. That's what I think about when I ride.) Luckily, Les and I have come up with a solution: The Turntable Bike.

Hear me out. When a DJ is mixing at a club, he's got 2 turntables (and a microphone), right? Well when a biker is riding, he's got 2 spinning wheels (and a handlebar bell)... see where this is going?

It's no new idea to harness a bike's spinning power to create sound- I mean, kids have been attaching playing cards to wheel spokes for decades, but it's 2009- time to take this idea to the next level.

If we simply replace the wheel spokes with records, and rig the break clamps to double as turntable needles, well, we've pretty much created a party in motion.

Still not convinced? Here's a rough diagram for all you nay-sayers:



Problem solved. You're welcome.

Weekend Converstations

D: it's really nice outside!
L: yea, we should get on our bikes!
D: let's walk to Target, I need new sheets!
L: how far is it?
D: 3 miles
L: umm, ill just walk with you to comm ave. 3 miles is too far.

FYI- the PMC ride is 192 miles.


Place: Starbucks coffee line. Coolidge Corner
D: so, les what are you getting?
Random guy bumps into Les
L: Pissed off!

ER visit #1 [lets face it, there will probably be more]

Training has been non existant on my end.

props to danielle. Im pretty sure while i was up at 6am being sick, she got up and went to her spinning class. yea, I have some catching up to do!

I did spend 5 hours in the emergency room yesterday. All i wanted was an antibotic for what I knew was a sinus infection. So there I was, in the world renound MGH, feeling like my head was going to explode off my body with every small noise, surrounded by the freaks with missing eye balls and fingers, and after i explain my symptoms this woman insists that I put on this blue SARS-esque mask on my face.

All the breathing I was doing in this mask was being filtered back up into my glasses, fogging them. So, naturally I had to move the mask, and was then told multiple times "mamm, please keep the mask on."

I waited, and waited, and waited...because that's what you do, you wait for someone, and when this someone finally came, he did not want to hear my diagnosis, he had his own theory....I had the flu. Ok, buddy, you are not listening to me. I know whats wrong, just give me some antibotics and ill take my sudafed and be on my merry way. Nope, I got to wait some more, and have giant q-tips stuck up my nose which felt like they punctured the frontal cortex of my brain. After that brain rattling test, I was privelaged enough to be sent to another waiting space. It was an awful, overcrowded, HIPPA violating space, with uncomfortable faded blue wooden chairs, two teenage kids, [one pregnant] making out next to me, a man who looks like he's going to blow chunks everywhere, and an overweight man with an iv pole who insists on staring at me and my SARS mask..... and finally the results come back---negative for the flu.... Thanks

training delayed due to illness.

I have 2 questions:
1- can you take nyquil durning the day?
2- does moving from my bed to the couch count as cardiovascular activity?

Training has begun! (At least in theory)

With our blog launched and our facebook group live, there's really nothing left to do but start training, which makes today the official kickoff of Danielle and Les's super hardcore PMC training schedule! (Yeaaaaah- The crowd goes wild!) By my count, training season has been going on for ohh about 14 hours and so far has consisted of me drinking 3 glasses of water (but I totally chugged those glasses, so trust me, it was some pretty hardcore hydrating) and obsessively refreshing our new facebook group page, which at last count was a whopping 78 members strong! (Thanks for the support, guys!)

Now, some PMC riders might consider that *plenty* for the first official day of training and resolve to reward their hard work with a little Jack Bauer power hour and the promise of an even more intense training regimen tomorrow(dare I suggest 4 glasses of water!?). But not us. Come quittin' time I'll be heading over to my gym for some spinning, which could be a bit painful given my months-long hiatus from class, but hey, as my favorite spin instructor loves to say, nothing worth doing in life is ever easy. Great motto- second only to his other tag line- HYDRATE OR DIE! Which actually makes me think that maybe I will try for the 4th glass of water... I'll let you know how this ambitious plan pans out...

TRAINING BEGINS TOMORROW

L: hi my name is lesley!
D: and im danielle!
L: welcome to to
D & L: OUR BLOG!