No Man's Land XC Funk

Man, what a friggin' boring my day at work! I was jumping out of my skin to get outside and ride OR run out into traffic. Whatever it would have taken to ditch the boredom. Of course a 'tall Starbuck's NFVL didn't help the "jumping" part either. But it was ggggoood.

It sort of sucked too, because I knew that I wouldn't be doing any "real" riding tonight. Jim The Siding Man was here to let us pick our color (gray) and kabitz about the job. When he left, and Wifey and B-Man split for B's swim class, I headed down to the Stankment® for an hour on the trainer. TRYING to simulate some of the seated climbs I would have done on my road ride. I won't bitch too much though. I did get a nice sweat on and still had time to cross train by mowing the grass. So now I will NOT to have to worry about it on my weekend time.

MTBS.cz has some great photos from this past weekend's Offenburg World Cup Race.

Between watching all the recent World Cup action, and reading the blogs and web sites about some of the recent local XC events (Greenbrier, Bear Bear etc.,) I can't help but think about where I would even fit in in the XC world. The last time I raced XC, I raced Sport Class. I THINK that was about 2001 or 2002 at a couple Month of Mud races. I raced a WVMBA Marathon in '05 and registered Expert, but it really didn't matter THAT much since there were really only 2 classes- Open Men and Open Women. They just needed to know what number plate to give me if I did the regular XC race the following day (I didn't).

So since the early 00's I've not done ANY XC. I've raced many, many miles for many, many hours and for all I know in the world of XC racing I should STILL be in Sport Class!!! I do appreciate XC for the reason that you can more often compete against folks your own age, and ability. And you can gauge your progress. Unless your a sand bagger.

Endurance racing can be so much different. Most of the time, shmucks like me line up against anyone and everyone who wants to throw down. I've done races with J. Bishop, Chis Eatough, Tinker, Hendershot, Kerkove, Rob. L., Ernesto, etc. And they've pretty much kicked my ass. It IS cool to race with these folks, but it CAN often feel like I'm not so much "racing" them, as I am riding the course while THEY'RE racing. Imagine a Cat 5 Roadie racing in the Tour de France! Sometimes I get in a funk and THAT'S what I feel like.

I know that I can NOT allow myself think like that. When I race, I HAVE to just race MY race. Race it for myself and the love of pushing myself. It can be difficult to gauge progress though and many times I find myself in sort of a "no man's land XC funk". Someday, I'd like to get back into XC racing (Beginner Masters?). For now though, I can't imagine racing anything other than Marathons and Solos. A race isn't a race until my nuts are numb, my ass is raw and there's some dry heaving. Right?? ;)

So funk be gone! Post work dirt time schedule for tomorrow for me and the Dos Niner. That will blow the funk out.

Later.