Cross Racing Week 6: The excuse factory is open for business
First, let me just state this for the record: I categorically sucked ass today. I pulled in a top 20 in a huge field in the 35 Opens (I heard there were a 100 in an earlier cat's race) which saw us lapping guys by 3 to go, but seriously, I had nothing today. More suck ass drama in a minute.
Todays race was at Interlocken, just East of Za Reepoobleek of Boulder. Brian H, Todd Carver and the Boulder Racing crew put together a Euro-style course that saw us race on mostly grass course with plenty of twists and turns.....and included a 'feature' of a muddy river run through/up as well as a volleyball course's sand you had to run through. It was by all definitions a very hard course. The grass was super thick and moist and draining of energy every lap you ticked off (excuse no. 1...the course did me in. More excuses coming up!)
OK, the race: I got the call up today as I was sitting in 8th in the series overall. Standing there, the badness was already in my head. The voices saying, "...shit man, you feel like ass." Fair enough, evil voices. I still toed the line but I new it was not going to be a good one from the get go (excuse no. 2: No fair! I had demons in my head!) and my plan was to just cherry pick and sit in for the day. Ha! Right....
I won the hole shot with the intention of getting through this nasty corner at the start and then wanted to to group with some dudes who'd eventually bridge so I could sit in and just pace myself for the day. I kept looking back and had this huge gap after the first 1/2 lap. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Whatever. It was what it was. Then, the fire lungs set in early. I'd been hacking and sort of feverish since I came back from May-hee-co (yup, excuse no. 3....Gweggie has a cold virus) and never could feel like I could cycle a full chest full of air the last couple of days. So by lap two, the burning was utterly intense from the depths of those pink air bags.
With each lap, it was like being in quick sand. The captain's bridge was commanding the engine room to throw on more coal but the engine room was on strike. Legs like lead which I got the sensations of while warming up (of course, excuse no. 4...Boo hoo, my legs hurt, mommy).
OK, silver linings:
a) Beautiful day! The weather was epic. 70 degrees, sunny and a HUGE crowd!
b) OK, another thing for the record: THANK YOU FAITHFUL MUD AN COWBELLS READERS! Holy crap, you rule. EVERY lap there were faces I've never seen before yelling my name and I S-W-E-A-R to you that with each yell, a few more watts came out of the legs when nothing was technically there. Thank you thank you thank you!
c) The WB pulled in a top 10! Not sure where in the top 10 but he was rolling while suffering like everyone was and that is RAD! Sweet work, Ward.
d) The bikes were dialed! Given my comical track record of tire implosions, I can not use the bike as excuse no. 5 today. The Rock Lobsters ruled and the Griffos at 45 p.s.i were spot on. It was the body's turn to shit the bed....and it was messy!
So, I am now drinking a beer as I type this. I am turning into the 'people's racer'. The hack who has that phlegm and snot cascading into about a 16" string below the chin while he races. I do it all for you my peeps.
OK, I do it for me too and a wee bit of pride.
Training week coming up with no racing this coming weekend. Yee-haw! It's my beautiful parents 50th (yes, 50th!!) wedding anniversary and the kids are all flying to the East coast to celebrate that unbelievable milestone.
'Cross on (just not like me these days).
Thanks for reading (and cheering!!!!)
Digital celluloid of the suffering from my main man George! Thanks man!!
Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 2:36PM
Reader Comments (12)
Greg-
I was one of those random guys cheering for you today...I was also the guy who gave you my bike for halfa lap in Gunny. I somehow stumbled onto your blog a while ago, and it's now an addiction.(Obviously, I just got done racing 2 1/2 hours ago) You're quite the inspiration for a cat 4 like me after all of the mishaps at the beginning of the season, you still get after it! I may have just given up at that point. Great holeshot today, awesome entertainment value. See you out there!
Hey Greg,
I took a few pix of you going through the sand pit area today. If you want them, drop me a line at gnscott1,
then the at-sign,
then comcast then dot then net. (Sorry - been getting sp*mmed a lot lately.)
Hope you're back at it tomorrow!
George
ADAM!! Man oh man I could see and hear you every lap, home boy. Every lap through the picnic area you would help me giddy up just that bit more to preserve whatever pathetic place I was in today. I'm indebted...probably a lot now given you let me race your bike as well for a bit! Ha! (see that vid from last week?? Rad! I'm stylin' your steed.).
I appreciate the words. This whole blog thing too has helped my mind with things as well along the way. I'm like a 14 year old girl with her diary. HA!. I can not describe the love I have for this sport. It's ridiculously cool to be able to be out there hammering weekend in and out with some of the arguably best racers in the country and I never forget that. Ever. There are too many chumps in life who just skate that cause me to deeply gut laugh. I meet 'em all the time in business, in sport....life in general. My little boys will never experience life-skating. As long as they do it (whatever 'it' is) with a giant shit eating grin, my job is done.
Thanks my brotha from anotha mutha.
GK
George! I have already emailed you but now seeing your profile, I know exactly who you are!! Ha! Whatup man! Thanks for the pics. I can not wait to see which one will invariably have me displaying that 16" long phlegm string from my chin.
See you soon!!!
Greg,
I came across your blog after the Breck race - enjoy the posts. Cheered you on today. That was a sweat string of drool coming off the face with two to go, good motivation for me as I was warming up for the 3's race. In the long run, sometimes it's more about pushing through the pain and bad breaks then it is about finishing high up on the results, just to know you can finish and suffer for what you want. Keep turnin the pedals of anger.
my brotha, at least you finished, snot and all. i pulled out in the 7th w/stomach cramps. couldn't even sit up. weird.
tomorrow should be epic: high of 30 degrees, snow, and winds 20-30mph.
keep on keepin on.
j
hey man, at least you manned up to race.
i, on the other hand, had my kids wake me up at some unearthly hour and used that as the foundation for a day-long whiney pissy grumpy-ass mood that helped me say "i don't feeeeeeeel like racing today." pathetic.
i did motivate to get out for a 45 minute easy trail run late in the day. felt like crap the entire time, though.
undecided on tomorrow...might be fun to slog around in the slush.
man i can't get my body working this cross season either....
breck was mechanical issues but since then it is food poisoning, cold/allergies, now a sinus infection......
i would pack it in if i didn't love cross so much.
good to know i wasn't the only one who felt like crap from the word go...
Here's an excuse for ya, Get a flu shot the day before a race and blame the implosion on it. At least that's the one I'm using...
At least the mechanical gremlins are gone.
Whatup fellas! Man we are a bunch of whiny bitches. Next race I plan on dousing myself in kerosene or some sort of napalm concoction I'll whip up in the garage and light myself on fire after call ups, win the hole shot and proceed to TRULY entertain the masses lap after lap.
That will be rad.
Just for perspective, here's a rough schedule of my last race day:
12 midnight: give newborn a bottle
3 am: change newborn diaper
6 am: change newborn diaper
7 am: load bike on car
8:30 am: register and begin warm up
9:30 am: race; finish roughly 10th from last (a 5 place improvement from last week)
12 noon: arrive home, unload, change newborn's diaper.
And it's all good. Kids, work, racing -- the yin needs the yang and vice versa.
Greg, get out there next weekend and throw down that holeshot for the rest of us. I will be cheering and ringing my power stick of cowbells for you from the back of the bunch here on the left coast. Hup! Hup! Hup! Hup!