Go With Your Gut/The End of Mourning

I had a phone call with Wifey this morning went like this:

Me: Not sure what I'm doing tonight. I have the bike, so I think I'm gonna do a road ride. The more I think about it though, I don't know if I feel recovered enough, so I might just come home.

Wifey: I think it would do you good to get out and enjoy it finally NOT raining here.

Me: Yeah, maybe you're right. I'll see what I feel like come 5 o'clock.

I went. The plan was to spend as much time as I could in my little chaining and work on going ssslooow. I was spinning along the first few miles just fine. Then I hit the first moderate climb. Eeeesh I felt like I had frozen hams stapled to my thighs and midget on my back. Not good. I stuck with it though, avoided as many hills as I could and just went slow and easy. I feel so stupid when I'm just putzing along like that. I feel like every car could be a potential enemy. I feel sort of like a target for jag-offs when I'm not riding aggressively. But I knew it was a mistake to have gone at all and was in damage control.

I think I thought "hey I didn't ride the whole 12 hours, I should be good to go". How quickly we forget that the reason I didn't ride the whole 12 hours, was that my body was a dried up, exhausted, dehydrated ball of salty human suck. I did what I could, cut out a couple of the steeper hills and took a few flat roads. In the end I did a VERY slow 23 miles.

Wifey was right though, it was nice to be out in the sun and mid 70s temps and I think it was good to get my legs loose. But maybe I should have just done a rail trail ride or some time on the trainer. I'm gonna take it easy until the long holiday weekend and then try to get some miles in. Hopefully in the dirt.

The final insult to tonight's ride was when I got home. As I was getting the bike off the rack, I heard the unmistakable sound of a tire going flat. I checked the Campeon's tires. They were fine. DOH!! It's the SOOB!! Freaking nail in the tire!! Sheeeit. Luckily J&K down the street had someone there and I got the epher plugged PDQ. At least I didn't have to change a road tube!

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OK, OK, the "mourning period of race suck" is now officially over. No I didn't have some kick ass ride, or see ghostly images of Bob Roll in my cereal telling me that everything is A-OK. It's just time to come up with a plan. Yeah, it's been a suck season so far, barring good legs/bad gut at Leesburg and the M.A.S.S. French Creek 6 Hour (reduced to a 5 hour) Enduro. But hey, dems the breaks. Shit happens. You work with what you can control. Outside of that you just have to let the feecus fall where it may.

I'm done with "what if's" and crying in my craft brew. It's time to move on. But NOT just yet. I was THIS close (imagine my fingers doing the "this close thing") to laying out the casheesh for the Wilderness 101 today. I want to do the race. I dig the N.U.E. vibe and love the idea of riding for 100 big ones. BUT it's obvious that things aren't "gelling" right now for me. In the past couple months, I've had a f*cked up back, pink eye, strep throat, had to bail on Granouge, a Big Bear' suck fest, and finally a fun, but hot as Satan's taint, cramp filled, Cranky Monkey that resulted in a disappointing finish.

Through all of this I've tried to stay positive. BUT I've doing the mistake that just about every endurance athlete makes at least once in their racing. I've said "hey, I'm really sucking, I need to train MORE, I need to race MORE." NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! I need to take a break, regroup an focus on what I really want.

What do I really want? I want to do a good, respectable job at Seven Springs this year. I want to have enough desire left in me come October to FINALLY do Iron Cross. I want to do some of the Month of Mud races and let my local XC brothers kick my aging, sagging endurance racing ass. I want to keep the desire going to race, ride, and do my best. There are too many other things in life to burn you out and bring you down. I don't want something I love to become a chore.

So I'm taking a break from racing. I may not race again until Seven Springs. If I do it will be an XC race or more than likely The Six Hours of Power. If not, no big. I have some long rides planned up on the mountain, maybe take a trip somewhere new to ride, and hope to get together with some other riders.

I want to thank many of you for letting me vent my frustrations with myself over the past few days. Nobody wants to read about somebody bitching and moaning about themselves every day. Thanks for letting me think/write out loud, and also thanks for your many suggestions to end the funk. All appreciated.

The odd thing about this whole race was that, on race day after I threw in the towel. I felt good with my effort. It wasn't until I started for home the next day that it set in that I've yet to REALLY achieve that satisfied race feeling this year. I'm not taking about placing or winning. Just that feeling that I had good legs, and had fun pushing myself for 6/12/24 hours. I sort of had it at French Creek, but since then it's be funk-tastic.

Time to get out of this funk, recover this week and then focus on the rest of the season. There's too much riding and racing left this summer and fall to sit around crying about stupid race results.

Finally I found out that Dos Niner 2.2 is due in the hood come Thursday. So by this time next week I should be rolling a spanky new Salsa hoopty. Sucks to have to get a frame warrantied, but it rocks to have Salsa stand behind their frame and help me get a new one. Thanks. More on this later this week.

Later.