This March 17th, Jake is in Ireland, I am in El Salvador. So not only do we miss out on the American tradition of poaching other national holidays, but my “in case of emergency, contact:” info isn’t that helpful.
Ahem! Back to El Salvador. Again the airplane/locomotive nightmares for us on the top floor. Pete and Jorge’s ceiling tiles continue their migration.
We head out early (hate those late stage/early stage back-to-backers) to start at the MultiPlaza mall in San Salvador (hopefully avoiding those damn silver cantaloupe speed bumps). The Schick girls show up again. Pete is a tad useless as a result, but we still love him. Why? Because we get off our bikes and don’t have to touch them till the next stage. Not even to carry them into the INDES. That’s pimpin service!
Megan attacks from kilometer 4. She has a good time, but it doesn’t stick. Boo. I am hanging on for dear life once again. The QOM sprint drops me, and I fight my way back on using the caravan’s draft. I am pissed.
It’s now flat and windy and I am trying to protect Anna and Kathleen. The Ukrainian is railing it on the front and I’m getting madder by the moment. The peloton winds up for some sprint points and I’m dropped AGAIN! I battle back on, and discover that I have exercise-induced Tourrette's because I yell (how unladylike!) “You f-in bitches!” as they wind it up AGAIN for some sprint points.
A few teammates told me that they always knew when I’d caught back on because there would be a big ruckus from the back as I yelled obscenities. I’m telling you, people…when you’re blasted, your brain does not use the “logic” function. You are raw emotion. Which sometimes goes hand-in-hand with curse words strung together in a most creative manner. The good thing about the foreign peloton is that a lot of people don’t understand you and assume you are shouting “my country has more nukes than yours!” or “our GDP kicks your ass!”
I calm down a bit as we enter a more-civilized section of the course. We know that there is a climb in here SOMEWHERE, if the race bible is to be believed. I recover my composure and lung-function and patrol the front. We begin a bit of climbing and I surprise myself by hanging on. I am on the front for my Tour de France moment: I lead the peloton up a cobbled climb in a small village, and the streets are lined 10-deep with people. I’m not sure if they are fans or merely trying to cross the street to get to the fruit stand on the other side…but I’ll take the fame. It felt like Le Tour. And I was on TV that night, pink bartape and all. Aw yeah. No Basso, but I’ll survive this time.
The real climb begins, and I hold it for a kilometer. Then gravity kicks my arse and I’m going backward. Pete hands me the obligatory bottle, and I trudge on. I know Megan is behind me somewhere, and hope that she is doing okay.
Victor passes me in his Yaris and tells me 15k to the top. I tell him he’s full of crap and he smiles. Okay, just 8 k; and about 25k to the finish. I can manage this, I think.
It’s a solitary climb when you are dropped. No glamour in the vacant stares of the kids wandering the roadside. You have no idea if you made the right turns. You just hope and are glad you speak Spanish (In my case, anyway. Maybe THAT’S why the rest of the team finished higher every day?)
What the race bible forgot to tell me is that once the big climb is over, you still have to make it over about 30 more. SUCKY! I encounter a 70-year old all kitted up in his local colors. I give him my TARGETRAINING water bottle as a souvenir. He sucks my wheel for 5k. I am embarrassed for being so slow.
I finally make it into Santa Ana, many minutes behind the leaders.
Megan has a worse time of it. She arrives at the finish in the back of a truck, screaming in pain. Her core muscles had completely seized up on the climb, and she was suffering from severe heat exhaustion and various other maladies. She receives a few shots in her derriere (and is put on national TV) while the rest of us girls try to keep the gathering crowd away. Anna is pissed and yells at one cameraman to have some respect. He gives her a bullshit line about “freedom of press”. Yes, freedom of press is good if you’re covering politics or the economy of something. Not a scared American girl getting needles stuck in her on a 110-degree day. Poor Megan.
We are shuttled to a secluded courtyard for lunch, and are amused by the “no guns” signs everywhere. I don’t know who they are directed toward, but nobody obeys. Maybe the chickens; they aren’t packin.
Ahem! Back to El Salvador. Again the airplane/locomotive nightmares for us on the top floor. Pete and Jorge’s ceiling tiles continue their migration.
We head out early (hate those late stage/early stage back-to-backers) to start at the MultiPlaza mall in San Salvador (hopefully avoiding those damn silver cantaloupe speed bumps). The Schick girls show up again. Pete is a tad useless as a result, but we still love him. Why? Because we get off our bikes and don’t have to touch them till the next stage. Not even to carry them into the INDES. That’s pimpin service!
Megan attacks from kilometer 4. She has a good time, but it doesn’t stick. Boo. I am hanging on for dear life once again. The QOM sprint drops me, and I fight my way back on using the caravan’s draft. I am pissed.
It’s now flat and windy and I am trying to protect Anna and Kathleen. The Ukrainian is railing it on the front and I’m getting madder by the moment. The peloton winds up for some sprint points and I’m dropped AGAIN! I battle back on, and discover that I have exercise-induced Tourrette's because I yell (how unladylike!) “You f-in bitches!” as they wind it up AGAIN for some sprint points.
A few teammates told me that they always knew when I’d caught back on because there would be a big ruckus from the back as I yelled obscenities. I’m telling you, people…when you’re blasted, your brain does not use the “logic” function. You are raw emotion. Which sometimes goes hand-in-hand with curse words strung together in a most creative manner. The good thing about the foreign peloton is that a lot of people don’t understand you and assume you are shouting “my country has more nukes than yours!” or “our GDP kicks your ass!”
I calm down a bit as we enter a more-civilized section of the course. We know that there is a climb in here SOMEWHERE, if the race bible is to be believed. I recover my composure and lung-function and patrol the front. We begin a bit of climbing and I surprise myself by hanging on. I am on the front for my Tour de France moment: I lead the peloton up a cobbled climb in a small village, and the streets are lined 10-deep with people. I’m not sure if they are fans or merely trying to cross the street to get to the fruit stand on the other side…but I’ll take the fame. It felt like Le Tour. And I was on TV that night, pink bartape and all. Aw yeah. No Basso, but I’ll survive this time.
The real climb begins, and I hold it for a kilometer. Then gravity kicks my arse and I’m going backward. Pete hands me the obligatory bottle, and I trudge on. I know Megan is behind me somewhere, and hope that she is doing okay.
Victor passes me in his Yaris and tells me 15k to the top. I tell him he’s full of crap and he smiles. Okay, just 8 k; and about 25k to the finish. I can manage this, I think.
It’s a solitary climb when you are dropped. No glamour in the vacant stares of the kids wandering the roadside. You have no idea if you made the right turns. You just hope and are glad you speak Spanish (In my case, anyway. Maybe THAT’S why the rest of the team finished higher every day?)
What the race bible forgot to tell me is that once the big climb is over, you still have to make it over about 30 more. SUCKY! I encounter a 70-year old all kitted up in his local colors. I give him my TARGETRAINING water bottle as a souvenir. He sucks my wheel for 5k. I am embarrassed for being so slow.
I finally make it into Santa Ana, many minutes behind the leaders.
Megan has a worse time of it. She arrives at the finish in the back of a truck, screaming in pain. Her core muscles had completely seized up on the climb, and she was suffering from severe heat exhaustion and various other maladies. She receives a few shots in her derriere (and is put on national TV) while the rest of us girls try to keep the gathering crowd away. Anna is pissed and yells at one cameraman to have some respect. He gives her a bullshit line about “freedom of press”. Yes, freedom of press is good if you’re covering politics or the economy of something. Not a scared American girl getting needles stuck in her on a 110-degree day. Poor Megan.
We are shuttled to a secluded courtyard for lunch, and are amused by the “no guns” signs everywhere. I don’t know who they are directed toward, but nobody obeys. Maybe the chickens; they aren’t packin.
Tell the chickens "no guns"
Two hospitals later Megan rejoined us at INDES, and her race is over. She spends the rest of her El Salvadorian tenure in bed, eating salty snacks, and watching TV. We miss her.
Oh yeah, KB got 9th and Anna 10th. Sweet!
The landmark mechanic, 2k from the INDES. Notice pimped-out taxis
7 comments:
Your stories have me ROLLING!! Good thing i pee'd just before reading them!!!
this was a masterpiece. the corporate world does not like out-loud-laughing, but i gave them a heavy dose today. bravo lozano.
the stories are perfect....like I was there! Thanks for the props. worked my ass off pleasing you girls
marvelous.. just marvelous
next time just yell out "PINCHE PERRAS!" and they will know that you are not talking about GDP.
...great stories. but what's with the serious lack of san francisco/nor cal events on the race calendar?
brian brian brian
1. enable public access to your profile. how am i to know who i berate?
2. what the hell are you talking about? isn't the privlege of living in norcal/s.f. reward enough?
or so i hear. i am not a fan of living there myself. and i AM allowed to say that because i was born there, lived there till i was 8, then moved back for 2 years after college to the humboldt nation. so any grief that part of the world gets from me is well-earned. hence my opinion that just living there is a privilege for most.
but i digress.
glad you brought up your baggage about norcal on my blog, though it had little to do with el salvador. hey, man: i work for YOU. anything else you wanna air?
:-) smiles...
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