"ATHLETE"

This athlete word has been tossed around a lot lately in my life in sentences such as "I never thought I would see the day Caitlin would be an athlete." or "You are an athlete now, whether you like it or not." or "I HATE athletic sunglasses. Hate." (OK that last one was me...) My point is this: I am NOT an athlete. I am not an innately athletic person. I hate sweating, I hate discomfort when it does not come in the form of high heels and "athletics" do not come easy to me. You can bet that if it takes the average person a day to get the hang of something, it will take me a week.
Case in point: clips. I have watch people learn how to use them, fall twice and then ride off into the sunset and go home and make out with their bikes (or whatever). Not the case with me. I don't know if it's that I am the most nervous person on earth, or am the least athletic person on earth or both, but clips + me = disaster. My first day attempting to ride with clips ended in several bloody wounds and not getting out of the parking lot. That was the case several times...until finally I decided to put the freaking bike away until someone could help me before I permanently maimed myself.
The Bike Whisperer gave me a little clip tutorial this weekend and I think that helped a lot. I rode up and down the drive way like a 4 year old, but I kind of got it more than I had before.
Today I went out and rode up and down a quiet street in my neighborhood. I did not want tons of people watching me and trying to call all kinds of ambulances every five minutes. I did better today then I have thus far, so I consider it a triumph. I was even able to get my non-clipped foot far away from the ground enough to pedal. I have not clipped in both feet yet, but whatever. As far as I'm concerned I will just ride 600 miles with one foot clipped in. It's better than falling all the time. I did fall twice today pretty hard and have a pretty scary looking bruise that will most likely be with me for some time. To wrap up...I am not an athlete because as I was going down all I could think about was "I am going to have to wear boots this weekend in Vegas to cover up all these bruises, or maybe I still have time to get spray taaaaaaan." boom. I rest my case.
-Caitlin