Keeping my day job!

Yesterday, despite it being Saturday, did not feel like much of a break!  It was, however, a change of pace from usual Monday-Friday schtick, to which I'll happily return tomorrow!  To give some background, I've been a lackluster member of a "triathlon" club since January, attending the occasional run and on an even rarer basis doing something like an open-water swim or a bike ride with a group.   Despite my limited participation, when they were looking for volunteers to help raise money, I thought "Oh, why not".  The money will go to the Challenged Athletes Foundation and probably a local food bank, so this is all for a cool cause.  I did not love the idea of spending most of a Saturday at a UCLA football game helping to man (or woman?!) a concession stand, but they needed volunteers so I signed up!

Knowing the WHY did help me rouse myself out of bed on Saturday morning - after a fun night out, which made the getting up even more difficult - so that I could meet up with the volunteer group.  We all looked quite professional in that food-service-sort-of-way: black pants and a white-collared shirt.  Once we put on a black apron and and a hat, our transformation was complete!  I won't go into the details - much of the day reminded me of some of the stereotypes I have of the military - fairly bureaucratic, and not very efficient with a "hurry up and wait" mindset.  The company that "generously" allows groups to earn money was fairly incompetent - we were supposed to have cash registers, but the company did not give them to us.  They did give us calculators - none of which worked, so all of the people working the registers needed to rely on old-fashioned mental arithmetic.  This would have been a royal pain, but at the very least every item was a dollar amount.  You know, five dollars for a coke, five dollars for a hot dog, seven dollars for nachos, six dollars for water.  The prices were, of course, ridiculous, and my favorite part of the day was the fact that customers complained to us about the price point.  As if we were owners of the concession stand?  Couldn't they tell that we were doing not much more than menial labor?  (I don't mean to belittle the food service industry - this was definitely not high-end stuff and it wasn't a challenging task.)  About Sodexo, the company that actually does own the concession stands, I was more than happy to help out the club and raise money for a good cause or two, but it did bother me that I was helping this company earn a huge profit margin because they were obviously not paying us jack shit!  I'm very skeptical about their fair labor practices.  We were just volunteers, and they stipulated what we could eat - one soft drink, one bottle of water and one hotdog!  Despite the fact that watching the food prep all day totally grossed me out, I was more than happy to scarf down the hot dog.  Probably the worst part of the day was the clean-up - at that point, I was hot and tired (we all were) and ready to go home, and having to account for all of the hotdogs and hamburgers that we made but didn't sell was quite depressing.  Also, the "cheese" that accompanies the nachos is one of the most disgusting non-food processed items that is sold as food that I've ever seen in my life, and trying to clean it up when you don't have soap, water or a rag/sponge is a Sisyphean task!

Fortunately, we were out of there at 4:00, like they had promised, which came as a relief.  The other major relief for me was that I didn't see any of my students or any of my students' parents while I was serving this terrible food and swindling people out of their money as they paid too much for everything.  It wouldn't have been the worst moment of my life, and I've certainly seen students outside of the confines of the school yard, however I always think about that moment from the movie Mean Girls when some students see Tina Fey's character who is working at the mall and one of them says "Oh, I love seeing teachers outside of school. It's like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs."  


So, not my "ideal" Saturday, but it was a good experience.  It does make me appreciate that I work at a place that I like, where I can dress more or less as I choose (as long as I look presentable), and where I'm treated with dignity, on the whole.  I'm glad that I did my part, but everyone carpooling back agreed that we don't need to do that again this season!

Saturday group ride!

Can I state again that one of my major goals for the year is to be become a stronger and, hopefully, faster bike person, and time in the saddle is obviously a crucial step to achieving that goal.  Honestly, it would be hard for me to not become a better cyclist since I'm still pretty weak and almost anything counts as improvement to me.  Besides the physical challenge, another part of this goal is to ride with people - gasp!  I've realized that I do gravitate to the solitude of running, and I am more than happy to clock in miles doing solo rides, but I also think that the bike can offer a shared experience, whether it's a great ride with Michael or pushing myself to step outside my comfort zone and ride with other people.  That would also mean socialize with other people - definitely not one of my strong points.

In order to do these more 'social' rides, I begrudgingly joined a facebook group but until today was reluctant (nervous) to go on one of the group rides.  This morning, however, seemed like the perfect opportunity - a nice loop that was fairly close to home and great weather.  What was I waiting for?  But, when I woke up this morning, I admit that I seriously thought about putting my head in the sand or going out on a solo ride, but I managed to motivate myself and arrived just as everyone was leaving.  I confessed my nervousness in the leader who did reassure me, saying "It's a ride, not a race".

And what a ride it was!  I am pretty psyched that I joined the group for it because it was about 35 miles for me (adding a mile or two on the way to meet the group and then one or two to ride home), but it took us on a nice long climb for many miles, and then we flew down the Angeles Crest Highway, a road on which I'm beginning to feel comfortable, especially on the descent!  I was able to enjoy some of the scenery on the ascent, when I wasn't huffing, puffing and cursing myself and the climb, and I discovered, again, that I don't totally suck, in particular when I'm climbing.  I certainly didn't ride with group A, but I was a strong member of group B.  Cheers to that!

It definitely made me appreciate the group leaders who took time to ride with us slowpokes, and one in particular rode with me when I was so close to one of the many 'summits' (I felt that there were many!) but slowing way down!  I am also questioning my plan/desire for a new bike.  A few of the other people in group B had much nicer bikes than I but it didn't seem to matter that much?  Not only in terms of how I performed on the bike, but no one made fun of me because I have a violet-colored bike with flowers on it.  Big relief there.

I did feel quite awkward socially on occasion, and I would like to blame it on feeling shy and new and nervous and also fatigued from the climbs.  The cycling/tri crowd still intimidates me, but I'm working on it.  Hopefully I didn't sound like a total dingbat.

On a final note, I thought about running after the ride, but when I got home, my legs were pretty shot.  Good call on not running because I hopped in the shower and then I totally bonked.  Kind of crazy - I've never had the experience when I felt nauseous and could barely stand after a longish workout.  Michael was awesome and cooked up some eggs and toast to revive me.  Voilá - I soon bounced back enough to walk to the yogurt place for an afternoon snack.  That was, of course, after a nice nap - just what I needed!  It did, however, make me pause.  Obviously I need to focus more on how I fuel myself.  Speaking of which, Mexican food tonight?  Please, thank you!