For those of you who know me and for those that don't, I am a huge fan of the Cyclocross. Love that stuff. It is so much fun to watch. It is fast, and the PRO Elite fields only race for 60min. Full gas. Mud. Sand. Grass. Ice and snow and rain, wind, whatever, you name it they race in it. How can you not love 'cross? This brings me to the point where I actually race 'cross, or I at least enter, pay my money and line up for a race. If you see how fast I go, I would not call it racing. More like surviving. Racing 'cross is like a dare you make with your own body. "I dare you to go as hard as you can without puking." "oh yeah, try me." Why would anyone want to do this? 'Cause it's FUN. Right? Sure.
NO, it hurts like heck. But. We do it anyway.
I have not raced all season, so I decided to race a three day race this last weekend. I am a shell of a human, after. Not being in race-shape and then racing three days in a row is incredibly intelligent. "Race yourself into shape" -add that to the long list of Cyclist Lies. This is the most painful way to gain fitness, maybe. Three days down in the books and I'm shelled, beat, cracked, broken. So, I should enter a 50 mile MTB race. Great idea.
So there is that. I'm headed to Texas to hang out with the family and destroy my body one pedalstroke at a time. To paraphrase Tyler Durden, "we are dying one second at a time" it's how you spend those seconds that matter. I should spend close to 18,000 seconds of my life dying, riding in what I consider one of the most beautiful places (Palo Duro Canyon). What are you going to do for five hours on Saturday? Maybe, just maybe I'll let you know how this goes...
