Bizarre Day

I had the most bizarre day. I've been on a terrible sIeep schedule
since I've gotten here, so last night I couldn't keep myself from
falling asleep at 8pm, too early apparently because I woke up at 12:30
am wide awake. I did some intervals between laying in bed for 45 min,
getting on the computer for a while, back and forth until it was
nearly 4am and I still wasn't asleep. Ecstatic that my honey had just
gotten online on the other side of the world so I'd have someone to
talk, all of a sudden I couldn't see parts of the computer screen. My
vision was blotchy, could this really be a migraine coming on?? I
hadn't had one of those since like 8th grade and had never intended on
getting one again. I excused myself and managed to fall asleep before
much of the pain set in. Unfortunately it was waiting for me in the
morning.

I rolled out of bed at 7am, head pounding, stomach nauseous, and
experiencing a super-sensitive sense of smell. Good morning,
migraine. I force breakfast down, hobbled back to my hotel room and
could do nothing but lay down. Today's time trial was more of an
exhibition event with good prize money and had no effect on the
overall standings for the stage race, that starts tomorrow. The only
thing that kept me from going upstairs to ask director Mike Carter if
I could skip the race was the fact that I seriously doubted my ability
to make it to his room without puking somewhere along the way. The
motion of the elevator probably would have been bad enough to do it
but coupled with that sweaty/musty fish smell, I didn't think I stood
a chance. Finally I mustered the strength to stand up and as I was
walking to leave our room, I didn't even make it to the door. I
detoured left into the bathroom and immediately started puking my guts
out. I mean everything came out. First the french toast and then the
raisin bran (tho I had not eaten them in that order, I figure the
french toast was lighter than the dense, chewed up bran which must
have settled at the bottom of my stomach... science!).

Ty heard it all and was thoroughly grossed out but my tum tum felt
better right away and I couldn't have been happier. I can race with
just a headache! Luckily it lessened some as I got closer to my start
time and the 2 shots of espresso and a donut from the Dunkin Donuts we
had discovered in town did wonders for me (even tho maybe most
cyclists wouldn't approve of me eating it just an hour and a half
before my start). That's one thing I forgot to include in my previous
post, NO COFFEE! We can't even get black tea at our meals so every
morning I'm a mess until I get to Dunkin Donuts.

Next gross part, sorry I gotta include this cause its so nasty: I had
my first experience with a public Chinese bathroom today before the
start. Yes, I had to poo otherwise I woulda just found a bush to pee
on. I disregarded the homeless man living in the bathroom closet and
ventured into a stall. Their public commodes are kinda like normal
toilet bowls but they're built in to the ground so you don't actually
sit on anything... you do the "third world squat" hovering just above
the whole. The aim was a little tricky for me at first as I've never
had to poo from the air onto a target. Here's the gross part: no
toilet paper. It's not just that they were out, I guess the people
that use these bathrooms just don't wipe. Or maybe they all know to
bring something disposable to wipe with. Either way, luckily I still
had my wallet in my jersey pocket and this had me searching
frantically through it for all the receipts I could find. The one
that worked the best was a bank deposit receipt cause it was on
courser paper than the normal slippery restaurant receipts. Yep,
pretty gross.

So I do the TT, whatever, I didn't puke, I felt ok, my head still hurt
a little, and think I may have even done an ok time. There's no
doping control today so I head back to the hotel by bike to get
showered and go to lunch. It's not until after lunch that the rest of
my teammates who had later start times informed me on all that
happened while I was gone. Apparently I managed to get 2nd place in
the TT by a mere 1 second! The funny, tho slightly embarrassing part
is that since all us riders were already gone by the time they
announced results, director Carter had to throw on a jersey, get up
there on the podium for me even attend a little press conference (as
brief as he made it) pretending to be me.

I really didn't expect such a result after the morning I'd had, but
I'll take it. Makes me look forward to what we can do in the next two
weeks.