Stop This Train—I Want Off

It started on Wednesday. It was a recovery week this week and Wednesday was one of the few days I was scheduled to ride. For some reason, though, the fact that I had to be at work at 6 a.m. to ride shotgun on a garbage truck had made me incredibly tired. So, instead of doing my 1.5 hours of training when I was supposed to, I just went to bed.

Then came Friday morning's weigh in. I knew I hadn't been perfect, but my indescretions had been fairly minor and I figured I'd come out of it okay. However, those slip ups, combined with fewer hours of training due to the recovery week, resulted in a 0.4 pound gain.

I should have eaten conservatively on Friday considering I knew I was going to have house guests this weekend and I probably wouldn't eat well. But someone came into one of the meetings I was in and passed out ice cream cookie sandwiches. I didn't have time to protest before the ice cream fairies left the room and so I ate it, instead of just letting it sit there like I should have.

The day only got worse. Chris and I went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, where I proceeded to drink a margarita, eat almost an entire basket of chips by myself and then eat shrimp enchiladas loaded up with sour cream. When I got home I (un)wisely decided to finish off the box of Samoas I bought from some evil Girl Scouts earlier in the week so they wouldn't be around to tempt me.

Saturday I was supposed to do my training test, but I spent the entire morning cleaning for my house guests, which I should have done the night before. I ended up skipping the test. That's the first time all year I've missed two days of training in the same week. It's not a good precedent.

As anticipated, Saturday was a free-for-all of eating and drinking. It started with lunch (General Tso's chicken), moved on to an afternoon cocktail at a bar in Old Town, included four or five more cocktails during and after the game and dinner of a cheeseburger and fries and one more drink at about 10:00 at the bar down the road. The evening culminated with a serving of chips and salsa con queso at home. That last one doesn't make sense because I wasn't in any way, shape or form hungry, and should have just gone to bed.

Today I'll hopefully get back on track. (I haven't had any indiscretions so far, but it's only 8:30.) It's strange how much can go bad in a mere week's time. A week ago, I was so energized and determined to do everything right. This week, I'm falling apart.

I see a glimmer of hope, though, and that hope comes from the fact that I have control. It may not have looked like it in the past few days, but I can make this thing go the way I want them to. I found that out at Barry-Roubaix. I'm not destined to suck like I always thought I was. If I put the time and effort into it, I can improve. It's not out of my hands at all. And that's a good feeling.