Warning: This post ends a little gushy

Today we shall delve into the dark underbelly of the relationship between Dave and myself! Dr Phil-like material is going to be coming straight at you so strap yourself in!

Dave was not born with a sense of urgency. My first encounter with this aspect of his personality occurred after a few weeks of dating. We were in the laundry room in my apartment complex emptying my clothes from the dryer when a huge summer monsoon storm hit. Lightning was crashing; thunder was crackling; rain was beating down; streets were flooding. In order to get back to my apartment, we had to walk down a couple of flights of outside stairs and across a courtyard.

I left the laundry room in a full sprint, with the awkward basket in hand, dodging rain drops, trying not to slip on the pavement, my heart skipping a beat when the lightning brightened the sky and the thunder rumbled. At one point I paused under an overhang and glanced back, expecting to see Dave right behind me. However, to my surprise, he wasn't on my heels -- he was barely two feet from the laundry room! -- strolling along with the basket in hand as if it was a pleasant spring afternoon and he was on his way to a picnic - a picnic that he was wading to in ankle deep water and arriving at soaking wet.

I shook my head in disbelief and yelled back at him, (and said words that I would utter many a time over the course of our relationship), "Do you think you could move with a sense of urgency?" He slightly picked up the pace but boy oh boy that was my introduction to being in a relationship with someone who takes the phrase "living in the moment" literally.

Additionally, waking up early is at the top of Dave's list of dislikes. I don't love waking up early, but I don't mind it, and once I am up (even if it takes a couple of hits of the snooze button) - I am UP. I get dressed for running, biking or walking the dogs - or on the rare occasion when I don't do any type of activity - I get up to make coffee and read the paper (my absolute favorite moment of the day). For Dave, waking up is a prooooooocess. As he repeatedly tells me he likes to wake up sloooooowly. He always expresses disbelief how I can just wake up and "function."

Therefore, take the lack of a sense of urgency and couple that with hating to wake up early and there's a definite hurdle to overcome in sticking to any kind of regularly scheduled morning bike ride. Most of our weekend ride mornings went something like this:

Me: Honey, get up we need to get going.

Dave: My eyes won't open.

Me (5 minutes later): Honey, It's 6:45 we need to GO - I don't want to be stuck riding in a bunch of traffic like last week or the week before that.

(In the first couple of months of bike riding we talked about TRAFFIC with the same gravity as one might talk about a medical diagnosis).

Dave: My eyes are glued shut.

Me (7 minutes later): DAVID! GET UP!

Dave: Go without me.

Me: YOU SPENT 2000 DOLLARS ON A BIKE - WE NEED TO BIKE 1800 MORE MILES TO GET OUR MONEY'S WORTH! GET OUT OF BED!!

(one mile=one dollar).

Dave: Kiss my eyelids. They're so heavy.

Me: Oh my god. I can't take this. I'm going alone.

(I then stomp off to the kitchen to bang some pots and pans and to annoyingly grumble to myself under my breath about how I am "codependent" and "enabling").

Dave: My eyes are so heavy I can only open one eye....

Me: (more muttering)

Dave: Who are you talking to?

Me: (more muttering)

Dave: Are there any crazy people in your family?


With that charming little domestic scene etched in your brain, I think it is a good time to dovetail this post with the timely allthingstriathlon.com word of the week - yes - aptly chosen by IronShane- it is CHANGE.

I am absolutely fascinated by how people deal with change. F-A-S-C-I-N-A-T-E-D! Why is it that some people seem to navigate life's changes better than others? Why can some people move through an event like a divorce or a job loss or college graduation and create a new life, while others get stuck? How do some people go from being non-athlete to athlete? From non-cyclist to cyclist? From couch potato to finishing an Ironman?

Lots of models of the change cycle exist but the one that makes the most sense to me is in a book called Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck in which she delineates four squares of change that everyone goes through when an unexpected change happens (winning the lottery), a natural life transition occurs (graduating from college), or when a change occurs because of an internal desire that rises within (riding a bike):

Square 1: Loss of Identity....Confusion...Rebirth
Square 2: Identity realized at the end of Square 1 - Dreaming and Planning
Square 3: Down and Dirty Doing - Execution of the Plan
Square 4: "The Promised Land" - Goal Achieved

Each square requires certain skills and abilities to navigate and as Beck says in her book most of us have a natural preference for only 1 or 2 of the squares. (She also says that those who are a natural at all of the squares are "extremely wealthy"). Lucky for all of us, we can all learn to navigate the stages - or at least understand the skills and strategies needed to navigate each square so that we can successfully make it through points of transitions and not get "stuck" or end up in what we think is "The Promised Land" but still have feelings of confusion and frustration (and - hey - in the end- perhaps become wealthy - if not very, very wealthy).

For Dave and myself - in moving from "non-cyclist" to "cyclist" we were/are firmly entrenched in Square 3 - "doin' the work to make the dream a reality" (my favorite square to hang out in but not Dave's) but in many ways -as is often the case in Square 3, the dream didn't match up to reality. When you are in Square 3, it takes a lot of hard work and reassessment of the Square 2 "plan" to overcome the challenges that Square 3 throws at you - and for us, one of those issues was adjusting to weekend morning rides together.

I had to let go of my compulsion to get out the door immediately and Dave had to let go of waking up as slooooooowly as he desired. We now set the alarm earlier so that Dave can still go through his waking up process, but on his part he is really appreciating what bicycling is doing for his life and his health, and though he doesn't like the alarm ringing at 5 AM -- the motivation to get out on the bike overrides the impulse to stay in bed for a long period of time.

Now for sure we are not in "The Promised Land" yet, however the banging and the grumbling in the kitchen has lessened, and I no longer badger Dave with "honey its time to get up"! He knows he'll miss one of his highlights of his week if he doesn't get up -- and if it is taking longer than usual -- I just remind myself that I am "Codependent No More!"

We're kind of proud of ourselves - but isn't that what marriage is about? Adapting? Compromising? Learning and growing? Meeting each other halfway? I need to bask in this glow for a moment - this doesn't happen everyday for the Newbies!

Oh yeah - and sometimes, even if he doesn't ask, I kiss his eyelids. He says that helps them become less heavy.

I warned you this was gushy!

They say it's all about the fit...But is it?

Dave and I are on our way to being fully inaugurated into the Cyclists Club! We just had our first roadside mechanical emergency! I'll save the details for another post when I can actually compare and contrast what you should and shouldn't do on the side of the road ('cause right now I only have expertise in what shouldn't be done) -but to whet your appetite to keep you coming back for more of the Cycling Newbies, I can let you know it involved a gashed tire, reading directions on how to use a CO2 cartridge, an exploding tube, frightened pedestrians, a broken tire lever and lots of "Try this." "No, Try this." "Leave me alone I know what I'm doing." "Why did you do that?" "Cause you told me to." Well I don't know how to do this, why did you listen to me??"

(We could've used this guy's help a few weeks ago!)

Anyhoo, before you get the pleasure of standing on the side of the road in the 110 degree heat (or freezing rain or gusty wind or pick your weather condition 'cause you know it won't be a pleasant, partly cloudy 72 degrees the first time it happens) trying to figure out what to do about giant holes in your tube and tire, you need to actually buy a bike - which is an endeavor and adventure in and of itself.

The bike buying journey reminded me a bit about going through the whole bureaucratic process of applying to grad school years ago (in Ancient Times Before The Internet and E-Mail) - filling out application after application, writing essays, tracking people down for recommendations, making copy after copy of all the application packets -- at times I would think, "My god, I've worked so hard to try to get into grad school I don't see how the actual program can be as hard as this." "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA," laughed the universe, "Your work has only just begun!"




Decide what kind of bike you want before you hit the bike shops - do you want a tri bike or a road bike? Tri bikes and road bikes have completely different geometry - so as you begin looking for a bike and going on test rides, stick with one or the other and have a good reason for picking the kind of bike that you want.

Example Right Reason: Pick a road bike if you think you someday might want to compete in triathlons but just aren't sure - you'd like to just get used to riding a bike first.

Example Wrong Reason: Pick a tri bike because you "like the way it looks."



Sigh. As you might have already guessed, Dave wanted to get a tri bike because of the Wrong Reason.

Go out to the bike stores (we've already established that while they can be intimidating you will survive) and ride lots of bikes to find one the one that "fits" you best. Bike Shop Guys (BSGs - includes both men and women) will help fit you and help determine what size frame works best for you.

Do NOT buy a bike because of the color.

Sigh. You know what's coming. Dave called me up at work one afternoon. Yup, he was at the bike shop and yup, after several days, multiple test rides, and lots of conversations with BSGs, he found The Bike. "Well," I say, "What kind is it? Is it the Trek? You found a 52 cm? You know that's what you need."

"Ummmmm......It's red, white and blue."

"Okaaaaaaaay - but what kind is it?"

"Ummmmm....Its red, white and blue."

"Aaaaah....honey............"

"I like it. I'm getting a good deal. I'm gonna get it. Let me check on the rest of that stuff."

To be fair, Dave reaaaaally loves the red, white and blue combination. Dave likes George Hincapie as a rider and this year George was the U.S. Professional road race champion so he was decked out in Red, White, and Blue splendor at the Tour de France -- which I think made Dave admire George even more. While watching the Tour, on one occasion he saw George tuck his gels in the bottom of his shorts rather than in his jersey pockets - so what does Dave do now? He does what George does! (The first time he did this he forgot where he put them and got all upset as he swore that they fell out of his jersey - but that's another story).




Luckily, the BSG took good care of Dave and before he presented him with the red, white and blue bike, he did make sure the bike actually fit him.

I didn't have it as easy as Dave. I went to almost a million different bike shops and got information overload. None of the bikes fit me right due to my freakishly long legs and freakishly short torso - which many a BSG commented upon -- (thank you Eastern European farming ancestors)! I definitely got frustrated - ladies, it felt like I was shopping for jeans! The only thing that kept me from drowning my stress in chocolate was the looming prospect of having to put on Bike Shorts! I finally figured out what I needed after spending some time in the bike shop poring over the Trek top tube geometry (let me tell you, when I decided to buy a bike I never pictured myself doing that activity) with a very helpful BSG.



Unfortunately, the bike frame size that we decided I needed was nowhere to be found in the metropolitan Phoenix area. I was going to have to order a new one and no one seemed interested in cutting any deals.

I can always count on Dave to come through in a pinch (he once found us a hotel room in San Diego when the entire city was sold out because of the half marathon and a bunch of other events - we paid 200 bucks for a room at the Motel 6 but at least we weren't sleeping on the beach the night before I was supposed to run the half) and he came through yet again.

"I found your bike!" he told me. I confirmed it was the the size I needed. "And," he said, "I'm getting you a heckuva deal!"

FINALLY! I found the perfect bike at a great price. I was relieved and grateful and happy - I was going to have a bike. Of course, I said none of the things when I heard the news. I didn't express my relief, my gratefulness, my happiness. What were the first words that popped out of my mouth? Not "thank you"........ Not "when can I pick it up"........ Not "My dream is coming true"........ After all the research and searching and work, the first thing I asked Dave, the first thing that popped out of my mouth was.....

"What color is it?"

Note: Next post coming September 28th.....stay tuned!