Biker Chick

I must admit I never thought the above term would ever describe me in a million years. I enjoyed biking as a child, sure, and it helped me get to class when running late in college (though I was certainly a hazard to any pedestrians on campus, I'm a bit of a spazz on a bike). However, I never saw myself as someone who uses a bike as my primary mode of transportation. Over the past few weeks, I have discovered that biking is not only a blast and a great way to get around, but also something I am intensely passionate about. If I'd started biking earlier in life, maybe I could have been the female, drug-free and honest version of Lance Armstrong. I'd use a different comparison but I don't know the names of any other bikers.

I love biking because it feels like you are part of a community, at least here in Boulder. Bikers are all over the place due to the accessibility of getting around cycling. I was shocked that in construction zones, there are even bike lanes made of cones. I feel like that wouldn't happen anywhere else. Anyhow, I feel like us biker folk have a connection amongst each other that only other bikers would understand. For example, when a car completely blocks a crosswalk, we sometimes give each other an annoyed look to demonstrate our shared frustration. Bikers, in my experience, have been quite friendly in general, their kindness shown with a nod, smile, or other similar gesture upon passing.

So...much...community!

 Yes, I adore biking. I have already learned heaps about bicycles as well. For instance, my seat was far too low for far too long, and I learned that keeping the seat too low isolates certain leg muscles while pedaling whereas a higher seat promotes the unison of various muscle groups.

I've also learned that I am one of those bikers that really irritates drivers. When I drive, I feel on edge all the time about bikers and the swift, often unpredictable moves they make. Like, is this dude going to last minute switch from the bike lane into my turn lane? Probably. But you NEVER know! And I see how frustrating that can be from both sides. As a biker, I feel jazzed that we have so many "traffic rights," if you will. I already mentioned the cone lanes, and it seems like there is a never ending number of "yield to bike" signs. It's like, as bikes, we always win! As we should- it takes a lot of preparation and leg muscle to make biking all over a functional practice.

Let's all bike together!

Maybe we should all just get rid of cars and switch back ro bikes. Yeah... it must be obvious now that I haven't yet biked in the winter... 

This DOES look awful...

Track and Field, Japan Style

 So, my undesired training began on Thursday. My first erroneous thought entered my mind as I saw the jolly students slowly jogging around the track. How hard can this be? Famous last words.

I'm not worried!

Before I continue, a little background information might be helpful for my readers. Because many students were absent yesterday for sport tournaments, there was no school lunch served for two days in a row meaning teachers needed to bring their own. I sheepishly asked the vice principal if I could order Indian food and he not only vehemently obliged but decided to join me and asked if any other teachers wanted to. So, three of us ordered Indian and it was, as usual, delicious. I ordered the highest spice level and the teachers all found it very impressive. So, I got a wee bit cocky about my ability to handle spice the next day when even more teachers and I decided to order from the same place. I boasted that I could eat way spicier than their spiciest spice level and asked the ordering teacher to request the non-existent spice level 7. The teachers all gasped. When it arrived, it was tasty but just a little over the top. However, everyone was impressed and I felt special. During track and field, that curry would turn out to be my worst enemy.

Not...spicy...at...alll

So immediately post chowing down curry, I began running with the kids. No time for any good ol' digestion. As we began our stretching, the kids could hardly contain their laughter. How funny was it that Miss Marisa had decided to participate in their club activity? Pretty freakin' funny, apparently. I started feeling a bit guilty for joining, like with me around they wouldn't get much done. After stretching, we did drills where we had to run a certain distance practicing various aspects of our form. Because of my lack of Japanese, the teacher in charge of the club forced the one boy with perfect English to join the girls' line so he could translate for me. I wanted to melt into a puddle of embarrassment for making the poor kid do that. He was clearly not happy. 

That English teacher... SO pathetic

Eventually he could tell that I was picking things up by watching and he asked desperately "can I please stop translating?" and I felt even more terrible, I told him, much to his relief, that he didn't need to at all. So, I survived all of the drills. Now it was time for the four kilometer run. 

Let me just say that I LOVE distance running. That's what I do. Just call me Forest Gump. Sorry, but I don't find sprints relaxing. I don't like panting and heaving to expend every ounce of my energy and then some to drag my exhausted self across the finish line. I prefer endurance; running great distances at a relaxing pace. So, when I found out that some of the kids run 4 kilometers in 15 minutes, a wave of panic washed across me. I became very thankful that the teacher placed me in the slowest group, which I was about to discover was significantly faster than me, still. The first four groups began, and it seemed like they finished before I could even start counting their 20 laps around the track. My adrenaline spiked. It was now my turn. As I began, I instantly felt winded by the pace of my group. Yet, I was determined to keep up. Then, my dreaded level 7 curry came back to haunt me in the form of killer stomach pain. Noooo! Not now, curry! 

I tried so hard to push through. I lost count of the laps, however, each becoming more painful than the last. Finally I was on the last lap. Or so I thought. I was still in sync with my group and even gaining speed. When I realized to my dismay that I still had two more laps to go, I spirits sank, I lost every care I once had about my form, and I fell behind the group. The second I stopped running, I collapsed on the ground, and thankfully my stomach pain vanished. I finished last, but I am still slightly proud that I ran 4 km in 21 minutes. I will probably never go back to track and field again unless I feel motivated to prove that I CAN run faster, it was just the curry. 

Mocked By Plastic Deer

After informing new acquaintances that I am from Colorado, the first question they ask without fail is "so, you do you ski or do you board?" This question never seemed just to me- where is the "neither" option? Yet, being presented with an either/or scenario, I typically opt with the former and identify myself as a skier. I usually leave out the part where I am one of those skiers that makes four-year-old children look like Olympic athletes by comparison and cause those with higher aptitudes for the sport (essentially, everyone else on the run at the time) to sharpen their senses in my presence as I tend to unintentionally cause a lot of accidents.

The motivating factors to actually get me to ski are scant. Usually, I am convinced by friends and begrudgingly head to the ski rental shop where my mind begins to cloud over with a sense of dread at the day to follow. The causes of the aforementioned dread range from fear that my hands and feet which already have poor circulation will incur frostbite and require amputation from the insane cold and wind to the simple fear of hitting an ice patch (which tend to comprise the ski runs at Eldora) and falling over dead. Of course, there is always the fear of hitting a renegade tree like Sonny Bono. The list goes on, but you can use your imagination to come up with the rest of my ski-induced fears. I'll just say I've thought of basically all scenarios.

I'm not sure of the exact basis from which my ski-related fears stem. I could trace it back to my childhood days, when my parents enrolled me in ski school. At some point during the lessons, my little 6-year-old self decided she had had enough and booked it out of there to find Mommy and Daddy- an excursion which failed and reduced me to a fit of tears and a sense of abandonment. If my timorous nature did not stem from that instance, perhaps it came from an incident which occurred a couple of years ago in the infamous "Fun Gully" run at Eldora. Things were going surprisingly well for me that day- I had not caused anyone to wipe out in a desperate attempt to avoid hitting me as I swerved down the runs and I had not injured myself. The combination of these two things led me to acquire a faulty sense of overconfidence. As you can likely infer from the name "Fun Gully," it is a green run designed for little kids with tiny jumps and creepy, plastic deer watching as you weave through the trees. 

My friends and I had gone down Fun Gully a couple of times without incident. At the end of our trip, when Eldora was about to close, my friend and I opted to take the Fun Gully path one more time. My confidence boosted by lack of negative incidents during the rest of the day, I decided to pick up my speed a little bit over the mini "jumps" along the gully (if you can even call them jumps- they were more like slight raises of snow about 6 inches tall. I probably shouldn't say that- it makes my situation even more pathetic). Well, it turns out my skills had not actually improved- I hit one of the bumps at a slight angle and went flying, landing directly onto my left shoulder. 

My friends laughing at me was only made worse as I could feel the steely-cold stares of the plastic deer as they mocked me while I was down. Anyways, the outcome was Marisa in physical therapy to try and set her shoulder straight and it never entirely healed. I cannot express how overjoyed I was when Fun Gully was closed during my most recent ski trip. 

Don't do it! (Photo from staticflikr.com)