I need order in my life.  Not tidiness, necessarily (that’s pretty much nonexistent at my house), but a sense that actions and activities have a beginning, a middle, and an end.  When I read a book, I start with the title page, and read through to the end–no skipping bits.  When I assemble a piece of furniture, I read the directions first, then follow them carefully.  I know where I’m going before I leave the house.  I like routines:  the making-breakfast routine, the packing-lunches routine, the getting-ready-for-a-bike-ride routine.  And I tell stories in strict chronological order.  So this blog is bothering me.  I feel like I’ve told you bits and pieces of my sketchy history as a cyclist, and it’s time to come clean, and tell the whole story.  So here’s my confession:  I’ve been to PBP before.  I went in 2003, but didn’t finish.  I quit and went shopping.

Earlier that year, though, when I started training, I wrote a few pieces about my experience, and the owner of my bike shop (thespincycle.com) posted them on his website.  I’ve tracked them down (well, actually, my very helpful husband has), so in the interests of chronology, I will begin here with the first one, which I wrote in March, I think, of 2003.

My name is Lisa Rosen; I’m 35 years old. I’m fairly new to sports in general, and even newer to cycling.  I have a lovely Serotta Peleton Ti, which I adore, but I’ve had it less than a year.  However, I tend to have a rather extreme personality.  What I lack in experience, I attempt to make up for with enthusiasm.  And I do love to go for a bike ride.  So when my husband pointed out, on December 31st, that Paris-Brest-Paris is coming up this August, I somewhat brashly announced that I intend to go.
 
P-B-P is the original organized ride.  First ridden in 1891, it is a 1200 kilometer randonnee, which basically means a self-supported long ride.  You carry all of your own stuff, and ride from Paris out to Brest, on the Atlantic coast, and back again.  There is also a time limit.  It’s not a race, because there are no prizes, but if you don’t get to the finish line within 90 hours, you don’t get your medal.  Incidentally, you also don’t get your name put into the big book of anciens in Paris. For whatever reason, the whole picture appeals to me—the camaraderie of thousands of cyclists flowing over the French countryside, the zen of solitary pedaling through sunsets, sunrises, forests, fields, the pull of an old (and very French) tradition.  Plus you get to eat anything you can get your hands on, you get a medal at the end, and it means ten days in Europe without my children.  Count me in.
 
So I spent New Year’s Day on the Internet, reading accounts of past P-B-Ps, as well as other really long rides (there’s are North American versions, such as Boston-Montreal-Boston, which is held in non-P-B-P years—talk to me in September!).  I called my mother-in-law to see if she’d go with me—if I’m going to do a borderline-suicidal sporting event in a foreign country, I want someone I know to be there when I collapse.  I sent checks to all the organizations I’d have to join to be allowed to enter.  And I emailed my coach.  I use an online triathlon coaching service, and it was about time for them to send me my new quarterly plan.  I think they think I’ve lost my mind, but to their credit, they scrambled and wrote me out a plan that, so far, seems to be working.
 
The second weekend in January I rode 3 hours on Saturday and 2 ½ on Sunday and, just for a moment, wondered what I’d gotten myself into.  I’m guessing that thought will cross my mind again at some point, but since that first back-to-back weekend, I’ve developed a lot of mental strategies for keeping the doubts at bay.  I’ve also developed endurance and strength that amaze me.  All things are relative, of course.  Realistically, I’m kind of slow and plodding.  But weekend before last I rode about 50 miles on Saturday, then turned around and rode my first century on Sunday.  Given that the first time I got on this bicycle I fell off before I even started pedaling, a hundred miles in one day really made me smile.

A wonderful friend of mine, a triathlete who works with my husband, has promised to do all the long rides with me, even the qualifiers, even though he doesn’t want to do P-B-P for fear of disrupting his Ironman training.  And he’s as good as his word—in the last three months, we’ve put a lot of miles on our bikes. We’re taking it kind of easy this week, because I’m running my first marathon next Sunday.  But we’ll start cranking the miles back up by the end of March.  I’ll keep you posted.