The Mesh of Nursing and Cycling: Wait I have to Grow Up?

It feels great knowing that I finally enjoy what I'm going to school for. I've never felt comfortable knowing that I'd be a nurse. Clinical classes have been full of anxiety and points of near comfort, but never pure joy. Last night, or yesterday for my confused body, was one long moment of realization. Let me tell you, I'm happy to be working as a nurse (extern) this summer. Serving one little child made nursing school all worth it in a matter of twelve hours, changing my perspective of nursing.

I just came off my midnight shift and a three hour nap making for a bit of slap happiness. Yesterday I was dreading going in for a midnight shift. How was I going to survive and get enough rest for the Tour of Leelanau? I can't believe nursing is messing with my training... These are the thoughts that percolated from my nervous gut into my sometimes closed-minded brain, if that makes sense, yesterday at 6pm as I prepared to head to work underneath the dark, cloudy sky. One of my roommates and his girlfriend laughed with me as I talked about feeling like an adult and how much it sucks. Work, the feel of actual responsibility.

But I feel complete now. I feel like an adult. I feel like I have a purpose. I've had cycling for the past three or four months, which has been a glass half full, since I'm always optimistic, but I haven't been fully invested in nursing. The other half of the glass that has now been filled to the brim, after feeling the emotions of caring for a complete stranger in the wee hours of the night, has seemed to, for the moment, intensified my passion for cycling and all parts of life.

Enough of the mooshy stuff, right?

Now for cycling. The Tour of Kennsington was a good race with lots of stiff competition. I truly enjoyed the race and was glad to see Mattison Brady dominate the sprint just as he did throughout the collegiate season (we will miss him next year on the UofM team). I don't want to go in depth into the actual race, but I do want to talk about some ideas. There are a couple mistakes I've learned from:

Don't mess with your saddle height without riding hard or long on it as you would in a race. And eat long enough before hand. During the race, parts of my thighs cramped up like never before. My muscles were recruited in a new way since I had never trained with my saddle elevated to that level. Two days ago, before doing three time trial intervals, I lowered my seatpost by about two inches. I felt like a million bucks as I pumped out the watts while watching Lance Armstrong destroy one of the 1999 Tour De France Time Trials. My bike fit felt good for the first time in a month or so. I need to control my near obsessive compulsive fit changes.

With the eating, my food was not fully digested before the race. As we sleep, our bodies starve with no food input. This means, before an early race, you need to actually eat long enough before a race to digest the food for your muscles to restore the muscle glycogen that may have burned off through the night (at least, that is my understanding). Since my food was not digested before the race, making for a full stomach, I had trouble eating which made it difficult to replace the partly depleted muscle glycogen levels that would normally be full at the start of a race.

These are just two ideas that I came up with after reflection. They are not excuses; I'm more or less thinking out loud in order to learn from my mistakes. This way I'll be more prepared for the Tour de Leelanau.

As a side note, I can't wait to line up with BMC and other professional riders surrounding me at the TDL. South Lyon will be racing with a professional mountain biker, Mike Simonson, to add to the excitement. He will be lining up with us to test his legs on skinny tires.

That's all for now.