(A Little Life Update)

It’s crazy to think it’s been nearly a year since my last post about anything.

So much has happened – two job changes, buying a new house, selling our old house and moving to a different part of Southeast PA. Then there are the not so good things, like health issues for me and my family and the world pretty much going to shit.

Sadly, writing was one of the first things to go, but recently I’ve been diving back into it.

The world going to shit has had a silver lining: specifically, e-racing on Zwift. While I’m still a Cat D, being over 70kg and my watts to kg ratio is under 2.4 (but climbing!), that hasn’t stopped me and thousands of others from kicking butt!

Eight weeks later I’m a solid Cat D and don’t see that changing much. I’ve lost a bit of the menopausal 15 that creeped onto my frame, but I’m okay if I don’t see 70kg (that’s 154 lbs btw). I’m 4 months shy of 50. I don’t really care  I do kind of care. I’m finally seeing real definition in my legs. I have quads – on both legs, not just my right. I can stand to climb or hit a sprint on my Kickr. Couldn’t do that before.  

I joined an Irish women’s team time trial league (WTRL) and we race on various courses on Thursday nights. This was a real eye opener. I have all this knowledge about strategy and coaching but I found out real fast I didn’t have the legs or the stamina. Joining up with 7 other women has also taken some time for our varied strengths to gel. Three quickly found they’re not Cat D’s and two jumped to C – one went to B, but they can still race with us slower riders. (It’s taken a lot of patience to convince them the key to TTT is for the stronger riders to go longer not harder.

One of my teammates posts our TTT on Twitch. Search for Mediocre Zwifter and you’ll find videos of her battling it out in the Tour of Boudicca this past weekend.

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In my first ever race, I took third over 50 other women in my category in a Fearless Women’s short course race.  I won a time trial on the UCI Richmond course, just like Loren, my main character in #WheelerNovel.  I was first in a Clydesdale/Athena race on the Innsbruck KOM Afterparty course (Ok, so I was the only woman in my category but still came in 7^th ahead of 65 MEN).

Next challenge: Alpe du Zwift.