my history of cycling prior to New England

The long story about how I came to race my bicycle

I love to ride my bike. I started exploring on my bicycle when I was 8 years old. I had a bright pink bike with a banana seat. I lived in rural Illinois and took my bike around the neighborhood to get out of the house. I love to be outdoors and explore. In junior high, we moved to the town of Pekin, Ill. I took my three speed out to explore the new neighborhood. I can still see each street in my memory, smelling like freshly cut grass. Many older folks would sit on their porch swings or lawn chairs and watch the evening come in. In high school, I took my sister's bike (a too-big 20 speed she built from parts found on the curb) to explore neighboring towns. There are some nice summer rides there, if long straight roads bordered by cornfields works for you.

During my sophomore year of high school, I joined the track and cross country teams as a way to get out of the house and to find an outlet for my competitive nature. I thank my coach, Don Merrick, for all of the support he gave me during my years on those teams. I loved to run and I still do. I bet that every person in town saw me at one time or another out on the roads. As much as I loved running, I had very little idea how to get better at it or how to be an athlete at all. My abysmal diet and sleep schedule were a major hindrance to effective training. By graduation, I had two injuries from overtraining and no results. I decided to not to walk on to a college team. It was going to take all my efforts to get through my college coursework.

That didn't stop me from enjoying running for fun. One of the reasons that I decided to attend Iowa State was that it had many safe areas for running. My sister wouldn't let me take her bike to college, so I bought a red Schwinn. I rode that for transportation in college and occasionally for fun. One day my freshman year I decided to ride it from Ames to Ledges State Park. That is around 15 miles. It was a very windy day, but I was undeterred. After all, it was a tailwind out there. On the way back, I was on the side of a highway and the wind really whipped across the prairie. I had to forcefully push the handlebar to keep the bike straight, and my back ached. I had a dinner engagement with my roommate's family and just could not pedal fast enough. Of course I had no food which probably didn't help. The little trip was so rough that I don't think I went far out of Ames after that.

I did have some great experiences exploring off the bike when I was in college. I spent 3 semesters abroad in Australia and Mexico and had some great hiking trips. I thank Dave Noble

Dave Noble's web page

for his great canyoning trips and backpacking advice. I would have been happy to keep on hiking and backpacking around but the allure of financial stability was too great and I took a job for Big Pharma instead.

My new boss was a great help to me as I found my way in the "real world." He invited me to run with him during lunch breaks and got me into running local races. The first race I ran with him was the March Madness half marathon in the Chicago-land area. It was madness alright, it was quite cold with a touch of snow. My legs were killing me, but I completed the race, the farthest distance I had run. Next up was a 30 k. I referred to this as the "big race" and felt serious trepidation. It was an out and back on a flat, unpaved course. You can't have an easier course than that. I felt great for the first half...and then wow, I never knew my legs could hurt so much. A little group of marathon runners encouraged me to keep going and I finished with a 3rd place finish in my age group. Although that was the most painful experience of my life, the marathoners had told me that I could run a marathon. The following summer, I started training for the Chicago marathon. Training was tough and all consuming. I had a 3rd shift job and also taught ESL classes in the evening. When I wasn't asleep, I was running.

I loved running through the neighborhoods of Chicago during the marathon. It was awesome to feel the spirit of so many runners as they met their personal goals. I was surprised by how well the training had prepared me for race. Not only did I finish, but I didn't feel too bad at the end. I had qualified to run the Boston Marathon, which worked out well with a job opportunity I had in Worcester, MA for the spring. I learned then, the difference between training in the summer and training in winter in New England. Hello, treadmill and skis. The highlight of the Boston Marathon was seeing the photos from my new boyfriend, Patrick. He watched runners stream by for hours to get a few photos of me looking like a very sweaty, angry, tired stick-figured runner.

That summer I had a great group of runners I met with in the morning. And once or twice a week I took the Schwinn out for recreational group rides with folks from the Appalachian Mountain Club. Patrick wanted me to do an triathlon with him and encouraged me to upgrade from the Schwinn. I went to the store and bought the sale special - a steel Lemond Poprad cyclocross bike. Patrick packed the bike up and off I went to a new work opportunity in Puerto Rico.

I found a Puerto Rican recreational cycling group, cycloturismo, on the internet and met them one cool, wet Feb morning. The planned ride was 50 miles through the mountains. I cannot tell you how gracious these riders were towards me. My Spanish was poor and my riding was worse. Prior to meeting with the group, I had given the clipless pedals a practice run, but I didn't have the hang of them and I fell in a gas station parking lot. Also, I was the last rider going through the mountains. I had no idea how cold it could be in Puerto Rico. I didn't any jerseys and hadn't I thought to bring a jacket. I was fantasizing about soup for a few hours on that trip. After we made it back to the cars (yea!!!) the leader invited me to join the group for their planned ride around the island that spring. He told me where the local bike store was and suggested that I buy a set of road tires.



Every weekend the group met in a different town to train for the ride around the island. Those weekends rides were the highlight of my week. We went through beautiful areas, and the riders were very supportive of each other and social. We had a sag wagon and stopped for long breaks. The ride around the island was a great trip. We rode about 300 miles over 3 days and it was a most awesome adventure for me. I got to learn intimately every cuesta and bajada on the island's coastal lands. We rode in a group, behind a large truck blaring Puerto Rican tunes. This is how I came to know every word to Daddy Yankee's Gasolina. The trip had such an impact on me that rode around the island again the following year. Patrick and I am going around the island soon in Feb 2009. If you are interested in riding around Puerto Rico, I can refer you to a good group.

After the trip, I continued to ride weekly with the club. I really loved the rides in the mountains. I'm fairly small, so climbing is where I have an advantage. I had a lot of fun leaving guys in the dust. One very happy day for me was a club ride up the rain forest mountain El Yunque.

During this time, I ran the local races in Puerto Rico which were great fun. Patrick decided that he wanted to run a marathon and we met in Minnesota for the Twin Cities marathon.

Some folks in the cycling club used the rides to train for triathlon and encouraged me to try triathlon. I was interested, but didn't know how to swim well enough. I was trying to learn how to swim in the hopes of doing a triathlon the next year. A local bike shop owner had seen me climb a few times and asked me to join his cycling team for the 2006 season. I started riding with the guys on the team and got my butt kicked in a number of training sessions. I still didn't have a race bike, but I was looking forward to getting a cheap carbon-fiber frame through the team.

The winter and spring of 05/06 was tough as I dealt with a an injury to my neck and shoulder. I was very frustrated to have to stop riding my bike. After a few months of laying on the couch, I started trying to get in shape again summer 06. I wasn't able to race that season and I didn't get motivated to as much as go watch a race. After my friend was in a bad crash, I decided maybe the racing wasn't for me.

I spent the summer working to improve my fitness. The folks that I loved so much from the cycloturismo group had pretty much split and gone their own ways. I knew the island well enough then, so I planned my own rides and had a personal goal to climb to the ridge at the center of the island. I did not manage to achieve this goal on my own, but did so with a group that winter.

I did an Olympic triathlon with my friend Connnie at the end of the summer. That was exciting. I was 2nd to last out of the water, but passed enough folks on the bike and run to finish mid field. Connie made a wrong turn and joined some other people on an off course detour which helped my results even more than my pedaling. I raced the local duathlons and had great fun with those. I was so excited for my 2nd triathlon, sprint distance. Connie loaned me her Lightspeed for the race and I was raring to go. That didn't last long as I got waaaaaay behind after I hit a 100 m stretch of jellyfish. The top women swam right through those, but I decided to prolong the discomfort by treading water and screaming for a while. Since that, I've been staying on land.

The winter of 06/07 was great for cycling and running. Patrick and I had gotten married, and I was planning to leave my job and return to the U.S. I was taking full advantage of the sun and warmth while it lasted. I raced several local duathlons, which were great fun. I had the running part down, but lost all of the races to a woman named Sara who was stronger and also smarter on the bike.

I rode around the island again, this time with a faster and more competitive group. I also had
two amazing rides that winter with the San Juan Cycling club. This is a randoneering group that takes some long, punishing trips on the island. I have great memories of riding in the cool dark mornings along the beach or climbing with the sounds of the birds waking up. The most notable ride I had with that group was a 300 km brevet. That morning, I was climbing alone and took a turn without consulting my map. I rode from just below the mountain ridge at Aibonito to the coastal town of Salinas, before thinking it was odd that I had not encountered a sign of life on that mad descent. The reason was that the route of the planned ride did not go to Salinas until the afternoon. It was 9:30 am. I considering riding the route backwards, that way I would come apon the fastest riders in a few hours and could draft off them back to San Juan. That was the most sensible thing at that point, but it would be giving up on the ride. Instead I headed up the hardest climb on the island with about a quarter bottle of water. Several hours later I was thrilled to come upon the last rider of the group in the hills above Coamo. My legs were trashed, I was dehydrated, and I still had at least 100 miles to go. I'm happy to say that I did complete the ride, about 12 hours for 210 miles including getting lost a 2nd time and wandering around some hot God forsaken town for a while. Big thanks to a group of guys that pulled me from Fajardo in the dark.

I trained hard in Dec/ Jan for the Coamo half marathon which is in Feb. That is a race for very dedicated runners. It is crazy and if you have run it, you know what I mean. I think it is the hardest race of any kind on the island. It also involves running through crowds of drunks and for non-elites, non supported runners like myself, sharing the limited water supply by passing cups with the other runners.

The week before the half marathon, I felt strong on the bike and brought the Lemond to a training time trial to see what time trial was all about. It was about getting passed by some very expensive bikes with whooshing sounds. I came in last. It was a humbling experience.

After hearing my sad tale, Connie let me take the Lightspeed to a pre-season race the following day in the town of Coamo. If you are a Puerto Rican athlete you know Coamo means climbing. Hot, dry climbing. It was a mass start race. And I mean MASS START. All riders together, men, women, and juniors. I didn't even know how many other women there were. At the start, I did find out from one of them that bike races don't provide water like running races. That was going to be a major problem for me. I had gone to the race alone, so I didn't have anyone to give me bottles and I hadn't thought to put bottles in my jersey. And we were off. I didn't get clipped in right away, so had to work to catch the tail of riders heading up the hill. It was great fun to try to move through the groups of guys in the race. I think we had 4 laps of about 10 miles. Each lap involved a long climb, a steep climb, a fast descent into town and then through the tight town streets. I was passing on the climb, but getting passed cornering in town. On the 2nd lap, I passed another woman and I ended up the first woman. I was able to finish strong thanks to the goodwill of a junior I knew that gave me a bottle on the last lap.

The half marathon in Coamo went fairly well. I came in 10th and then a few weeks later, won a duathlon on the Teodoro Moscoso bridge when my rival, Sara did not show up.

I had one more wonderful group ride, in which I met my goal of climbing the ridge. Even better, we descended to the south coast of the island and climbed all the way back over again. Life was good and the winter had been great.

My enthusiasm had been high and I had overdone it by packing too many hard days into Feb. One key mistake was trying to get a personal best in the 10 K the afternoon after I won the duathlon and then not taking several rest days prior to a very hard ride the next weekend. I found myself with some injured tendons and forced rest to try to recuperate for my best adventure yet.

It was time to pack up my bike and take it on the plane, back the U.S. I sold my car and computer, and gave my kitchen appliances to Connie. Patrick and I set off to hike the length of the Pacific Crest Trail. 6 months on foot and living out of a tent. You can read about it on my previous blog

Patrick & Clara's Trailjournal



After our hike, I found work in the Boston area and bought a new racing bike. I was ready to get off my feet and back on a bike.