Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

You could tell me all you want that things will be better but as it was for me last week, they were absolutely rock bottom.

How could things be good when:
Your sweetheart and one of your babies are all the way across on the other side of the Pacific Ocean? You are always the only woman on the intense team training rides? You said hello to the riders who you had been riding with for a few times but they acknowledged with their chins up in the air? People never introduced themselves but instead they wanted to comment on just how huge your thighs are by yelling, "Look at how big her thighs are, everyone!" People gathered the ones with the same team jersey for a photo while you were the only one that didn't have it? People asked if you were going to dine with them after the ride but you just felt you didn't belong? You showed up for a ride that you had been going to for weeks and they decided to ask you why you didn't ride with your own team? You got dropped on every single ride and worse of all, ended up getting lost? The list could go on and on.



I finally had it! Last Thursday as I blew up trying to go with the one-man break for a couple of minutes, managed to get dropped by everyone after that, and then got lost trying to ride solo for the CCK Airport loop, I broke down into tears and sobbed my whole rest of the ride. I told everyone I had to go. I couldn't take it any longer. I went on to ride WangGaoLiao trying to clear my head out. "Things have to get better! I just cannot ride when I am not happy.", I thought to myself.

My family and I went to pay Dad our respects as the military held a ceremony Friday morning. It was a nice break from my lousy cycling week up to that point. On Sat., I decided to go to my team training ride knowing that I would be dropped maybe from the get-go as on Sat. it is always much more intense than any other days. I stayed with the 2-men break for 9 minutes before I got dropped. That was the beginning of me seeing my silver lining despite the comment of "You only stayed with the break for 9 minutes?!" by a teammate. I got done with the 70k ride in 3 hours and home before little Sean-sean was even up for a Saturday together.

After talking to Andrew on Facebook, well, mostly whining about how things had sucked for me, he nicely offered a ride together on Saturday to show me some nice routes and climbs around Taizhong. We rode to ZhangHua (彰化), climbed BaGuaShan (八卦山) on Route 139 all the way to SongBoLing (松柏嶺) and took Route 137 on mostly flats home. Once we started on Route 139 after BaGuaShan, the traffic was very manageable and the sun wasn't too brutal with the trees along the way. Andrew is a good climber so he went up the hills fast and easily; but he constantly checked on me to make sure I was still back there working my way up. Once we got to FengShan Temple (鳳山寺), it was a long descent and then nice flats on Route 137 home.

Photo by courtesy of Andrew Kerslake.

Photo by courtesy of Andrew Kerslake.

I was sure that "Every cloud has a silver lining" as my Garmin alerted me for hitting the 99k ride mark and burning 2000 calories mark. I had not been able to do any rides over 100k since moving to Taizhong. That was very encouraging to me. The slower and much less busier traffic on Route 139 was encouraging. Being able to see Andrew on the whole ride instead of riding solo was encouraging. Riding on Route 137 where the temperature was manageable was encouraging. Getting home right around noon for lunch with little Sean-sean and my family on a Sunday was encouraging. Things were starting to look up and I was no longer feeling so rock-bottom low all because of the rides this weekend. Thanks to my team in ZhangHua (彰化) and thanks so very much, Andrew!

For Sunday afternoon, my sister-in-law and I took the kids to the Rock in Taizhong Music Festival. The kids got to try out the drumming set up at a tent. My sister-in-law and I had a Red Bull they were giving away for sampling and I even had a cup of Vodka/lemonade wine cooler. The kids and I got some tattoos at the festival too. And then the fine day ended with a fine hot pot dinner with family before we headed home.

I think things are beginning to look good. I am going to put myself out there for a good fight. Go on ahead and knock me down all you want because I am just gonna stand right back up. If Sean-sean can do it, I can too!