Robbed! These pictures crack me up

There is a woman who bike commutes in my neighborhood, and we have almost the same work schedule and we live and work very closely to each other. When I leave work to walk to my bike, there she goes, pedaling by. Sigh. This woman vexes me to no end.

I am faster than her on the flats, because I am fairly speedy on the flats. But she is faster than me on the hills, and because we have the same route and she is not particularly friendly, when I see her, I drag my feet a bit so our commutes don't bump into each other. Otherwise we'd be a tag team of passing, being passed, passing, being passed. No fun. 

Yesterday, I rode in to work and I was a bit late, so I saw her in the morning for the first time. I was already done riding, showered, dressed, and crossing the street to my building when she pedaled on by. I nearly threw a fit on the street: she gets to work later than me, she leaves earlier than me, she is faster than me, she is younger than me, she is prettier than me, she has the sculpted biker calves I crave, while I need to go buy new fall boots to fit over my monster calves. Seeing her pedal by rocked my apparently fragile commuting state of mind, haha!

So I know the angst this runner is feeling when she is about to celebrate her finish, only to be blown past by some fresh-faced dynamo who obviously still has a lot of gas in the tank and wears cool shades, to boot.

Oh, I feel your pain, sister!

I was telling a friend this morning that my family is probably about to revoke my biking privileges, anyway. School is about to start, and school + bike to work is a tough combination. I am wracking my brain trying to figure out how to make it work, ugh. I think I can do it. My goal is to extend my bike commuting season by at least a couple months this year: last year I exhausted myself and bailed early, really too early in the season. This year, if I can figure out a workaround for getting my youngest to school, I will be okay. It is a challenge, though.

My privileges will be revoked though, for a variety of reasons:

• Football season is upon us, and my 13 yo does not trust me to bike home and get his butt to practice on time;
• Soccer season is upon us, almost, and I will have to run my youngest to and from practices, too;
• Back to school is always such a busy time with lots of commitments;
• Frankly, my bike commuting gets on my family's nerves in a way that I do not fully understand. I think they are all jealous;
• I have been very busy at work and leaving a bit later, which is adding to their inconvenience factor at home as I collapse post-ride unable to focus on dinner and bored summer children;
• I wiped out on my bike yesterday, thus proving that it is in fact a death trap. It wasn't a bad wipeout: I hit a patch of fresh gravel unexpectedly and my tire sunk into it and I was thrown from the bike at a low speed. Road rash and some bruises. A sore shoulder where I clonked into my cross bar. One of the hazards of logging so many miles on the same stretch of road and path is that it becomes overly familiar, and that's what happened. You can ride it like a mind-wandering zombie if you aren't careful! And that's pretty much what happened, I took the little shortcut from bike path to roadway and as I pedaled onto what should be a potholed dirt driveway mess, my brain thought, "hey did they put gravel in these potholesssssssssss..." and BAM! thrown off my bike. Oops!
• Today I rode my bike to work in the rain (yay, me!). Not rain, really, a warm drizzle. Dark and rainy enough that I am shopping for fenders for Jake and clear-lensed bike glasses for me today. It was rainy enough that G was surprised I was biking in, and he was a little disappointed, too, because rain = no motorcycle and no motorcycle = no carpool lane bridge unless he has his little woman by his side to commute with. I will not pretend that I won't be under some carpool-with-me-not-Jake pressure, there, too, as the weather changes.

Me, me, me. I need to think of me.