Athlete in progress

So if one were to be eavesdropping on my life of late, one would unknowingly assume that I could quite possibly be a quasi-serious athlete, what with the two bikes in my hallway, the amount of times I visit prospect park in a given week, and the wet bathing suits that are always hanging in my bathroom.

Sadly for me, it is all merely an illusion.

True, I am training for a triathlon. I do work out six days a week. I have paid silly amounts of money for gear, and classes, and coaching.

However, there is still a motherfucking couch potato lingering inside me, and too often that fucker strays way too close to the surface.

Tonight I was supposed to run six miles, or more. We had a brutal class on Saturday, and I was still hurting from it, and decided that I was too sore to run and that I should take another day off...which, decidely meant that I was allowed to purchase a box of Little Debbie snack cakes on my way home, and chomp on a few during the walk down park place.

I am so hot I can barely keep my hands off myself.

ANYWHO, the guilt began to cripple me before I even got to my front door. For shame, I ate snack cakes, AND I wasn't going to work out? You would think my mother was standing over me with a wooden paddle, ready to whoop my ass for not taking out the garbage, I was so guilt-ridden. I decided that, since I was trying to take it easy, I would take my road bike out for a quick couple of loops in the park. Nothing crazy.

I am borrowing a road bike from my tri coach, because the hybrid that I own weighs about 5 million pounds and is just not going to cut it during a race {as many of you have commented that you know nothing about this stuff, I will just say that a road bike is the one where the handlebars curl under, and you are leaning forward when you ride. A hybrid is a cross between a mountain bike and a road bike, and is much heavier and slower. But you ride upright, which is much more comfortable}.

I am just getting used to the road bike, and it IS wicked fast, but it is quite a feat to ride. My biggest problem at the moment is the seat...my hybrid has a cushy gel seat with a hole in the middle for my girly bits.The road bike is more bare-boned, and when, I ride it I need to douse my crotch with Vaseline so my clit doesn't fall off. TMI, I know...

I decided that I was going to switch seats, I mean, how hard could it be?

So there I sat, in my Anthropologie sundress, sweat streaking my face as I took apart one bike seat with my screwdriver set from Ikea, that I have never used before...and as I tried to remove the other seat from my hybrid, realized that the screwdriver was too big. I couldn't remove the gel seat from the hybrid. Fuck.

Ok ok. So no big deal, I'll just go and put the road bike back together and voila, I'm ready to ride. Except that there were like, 3 little metal pieces that didn't seem to fit together anymore, and everytime I screwed it back together something seemed loose. It took me half an hour to figure out how to get it all back in working order. By then, I had black shit all over my hands, and smudged down my cheek. I looked like I'd just come back from the mines.

I certainly didn't trust my own handiwork, so fuck it, now I have to take the hybrid out, and it's already 73O, so I doubt I'll get more than 3 loops in, if I'm lucky.

Of course, I'm cruising around, sitting upright, coasting down the hill, braking a lot, certainly not looking like I'm prepping for a tri. I look up, and I see one of my coaches, Shane, not far ahead of me. Fuckin' prospect park. You can't escape, there's always some coach or another hanging around, and they ALWAYS see you, especially when you're slacking. Last week, one of the other coaches, Danny, apparently saw me cruising around like I was on a senior citizen's vacation--at our next class he called me out on it and was like "yea, you weren't exactly kicking it, but your form looked good." aye.

so yea, now I gotta hide from shane, cuz I'm on my hybrid, and I'm going slower than a turtle in a rowboat.

I'm pretty sure I was able to evade him, but then I got yelled at by a perfect stranger.

It's always the same thing, "YOUR SEATS TOO LOW."

This dude happened to be on rollerblades. What the fuck dude? You're on ROLLERBLADES? And you think you know my seat's too low? {it is}. "thanks man.. I know." I responded. I know, because once a week, someone yells at me that my seat is too low, but I'm too much of a wuss to fix it, because I need my feet to touch the ground or I think I'm gonna fall.

"It's bad for your knees" he continued. Why oh why is everyone a friggin know it all?

For some reason unbeknownst to me, I decided to take his advice, this stranger on rollerblades who yelled at me.

I raised the seat.

I tried it out. Lo and behold, my bad knee stopped creaking. I felt like I was riding a different bike. Wow.

What I wanna know is, how do people KNOW these things???