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| Brilliant! Socks and Caps to come! |
I’m not high.
However, if I used your bathroom this morning, I may be more inclined to
ransack your medicine cabinet looking for pain killers, eye drops and Q-tips. It hurts to lift my arms. I have a friend that when exhausted will joke
that his skin hurts. It’s sort of like
that. Between the numerous bike carries
at the OVCX Lexington cyclocross race yesterday and pulling on my bars to dig
the rear wheel into the cross-arhea mud, I feel like I did the Muscle Beach
curling workout. “I work owwwwt!”
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| Malissa, Terri & Gerry courtesy Sherri T. |
All night my wife kept saying I had mud on my face. “You showered didn’t you?” I had, but the specs of dirt on my cheek were
in fact coming out of my eyes. They’d
roll down my face with my tears. I keep
blinking. I’ve been crying in one eye
for the past 15 hours. I blinked while I
slept, which turned out to be a good way to see the score of the Packers game
on the ESPN recap since I fell asleep with the TV on. There are still a few gold nuggets left in my
left eye. I’m sure I’ll be panning them
out for the next day or two.
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| Courtesy Steve B. |
Just when I start to feel good about my performance
yesterday, 21st, my best yet but one spot out of the money, I remember the
speeding ticket I was awarded on the way down to the race. The business like officer clocked me at 68 in
a 55 on Lexington’s New Circle Road. I
guess 3 bikes on top of an SUV make a pretty good sized radar target. It was a simple transaction. I handed him my license and registration, he
handed me a $168 ticket, court costs plus the fine.
At the start, the official said lap times were running
about 12 minutes for previous races and getting slower. Granted I took what we called “Math for
Creatives” in college, a 100 level course officially titled Elements of Math in
the UW system, but I calculated with certainty we’d do 6 laps tops. I’m still trying to figure out why the cards
at the start/finish read 3 to go at the 45 minute mark. As I mashed my way back into the hairy mud,
stiff crab grass with ice cream soup mud underneath, I kept saying that can’t
be right. I assured myself I’d get the
bell the next lap. Maybe I messed up my
computer out there, but I swear I was on the bike and in the mud for a good
hour and twenty minutes and still on the lead lap.
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| Adam courtesy Lindsay R. |
“Everyday I’m Sufferin’.”
I parodied the LMFAO song in my head the moment I felt the effects of
the pre-race GU wear off. I was naked
inside and running on empty with 2 to go.
Uphill U-turns, rideable in early laps, became peg-leggers in the Saag
Paneer mud. I’d plant my foot at the
stake and fling my bike around. Rideable
climbs disintegrated into dabs at the top which morphed into hoofing it from
the bottom. I’m not sure I used my
brakes most of the race. Like driving a
river boat, you just slow the paddle wheel.
Even on the slickest steepest descents, the mud at the bottom would
scrub enough speed to keep you from going into the tape.
It’s comforting, the feeling of letting go at the end of a race,
first ending the pursuit and then putting our defenses down. While I can’t put an exact time on it, I
distinctly remember switching my focus from chasing my teammate Nate and
turning it toward keeping the guy behind me…well, behind me. With two turns left before the finish, I
churned through the peanut butter and cat snot.
Sam Dobrozi was nearly two turns behind.
Done. Pavement. Nirvana.
I rode into the light.
1 comment:
Joe,
This post is sufficiently boss to earn you a free entry to the cross race in Lexington in 2012.
Big ups to KY mud.
Brendan
PS: You will need to remind me about this promise next year.
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