Ass Whoopin'

I've spent the last three year trying to stay away from anything this painful. I think I used easing myself back into riding the bike and rebuilding my engine as an excuse for never doing any short and hard efforts. Sure, there were legitimate health reasons involved. I've dragged it out long enough. Well, no more. No more I say. It was awful. Tell me I'm gonna 'race' for 6 hours and I'm happy. Not really into 2 hours either as of late, but I'm much more comfortable at 2 hours than 40 minutes. Tell me 40 minutes and I'm terrified.

I showed up early on Saturday to the short track course because I had no idea what kind of gear I would need. I did a couple of laps and knew I needed the easiest gear in my arsenal for the snotty fresh cut. I changed my gear in front of a bunch of men who stood there staring at me. That was fun. Stacey showed up and realized I was having an episode and told me I'd be fine once I got out there. She told me in so many words to, "get my shit bag legs on the bike and just pedal my crappy one geared bike around the damn course." So I did. It sucked. My best move of the day was taking the lead from the start and then crashing on the most asinine of objects: a plastic pipe. Yeah, I'm good.  My cyclocross mutant friend fell on top of me. We were all tangled up and we were cheek to cheek. We looked like we were making out. Of course, we were laughing and calling each other names. Took me a second or two to regain my composure after what felt like 100 people zooming past me as I was trying to get it together enough to get on the bike. I worked on just trying to remain upright. I didn't do this very well. Apparently, I'm not used to handling my bike at these heart rates. I was a complete jack ass. I kept crashing. It got better. I'm just not used to the nerves and the urgency anymore. I also remembered how nasty I get when I'm in that kinda pain. It's like stub-a-toe-kinda pain anger for me. A guy rammed me off of a rock bridge and I went off and was standing in the sewage mud holding my bike and I wanted to rip him off his bike and punch him in the face. He ended up in a tree so I felt a little better. Oh, the memories.



Hating Life



Happy to have lived and still be in the Queen's good graces

I was afraid that on Sunday I was going to wake up and not be able to move. I thought for sure I was going to have to hire someone to brush my teeth. I actually felt pretty decent. I pulled on my big girl pants and slapped a decent gear on my bike and went for a long ride at Stewart.

If I show up on Saturday I promise to not crash. Well, I take that back. I promise to try and not crash.