It pains me to not have been there on the beach again this year. A number of my friends made the pilgrimage to Za Motherland to race against the best, but it was no where near my deck of cards this year. It'll happen again some day. When the time is right for the family, I'll pack up the bikes again, set up a base camp and once again race harder than you think is personally possible.

Or will I make it back?

I've questioned lots lately. Can I keep this up...yet again? The mental cycles of build, try, suffer, finish, suffer (mentally) and repeat again are getting tiresome. This equally relates to revolutions on the bike we put in to get stronger, faster...with those revolutions on the merry-go-round we all get on to live and thrive.  Given the spinning that occurs and what it does to my head, I honestly don't know any other way to cope. So I clench my teeth and I go harder. I depend upon it as I love it so much, this sport, this suffering...this lifestyle of ours and our families.

So much is happening in my life. Some great yet some hard to pin an emotion or feeling on. Time will tell and I am forcing decisions...maybe nudging the universe again...but this time I am in greater control. My cross to bear.  My teeth to clench. My freedom to find. My hands on the stick.

A manufactured ethos is on the assembly line. It's an evolution that I can not believe is happening and shouldn't. And I need to hurl a wrench into it.

That is my revelation.