oubliette

George and the big tooth.


Its the time of year, we are well into cross, and the luster is gone. This weeks USGP in Trenton was a fulcrum. It rained hard, and there was lots of mud, so it meant running. Plodding along, pushing, pedaling so slow, only a few seconds of speed on the bike. Something happened to me. It made me love cross more. Maybe I just felt lucky to be on my bike so soon, seeing that it had been only two weeks since breaking two ribs and puncturing a lung. Maybe it was the mundane, simplistic, dumb way of suffering. At some point during my second day of racing I noticed the footsteps of the rider ahead of me pulling away. Two feet, five, ten, moving away. I had already drifted back some in my placing, I was comfortable in my suffering, but something happened. I guess that's why I love cross. I stared at those feet, I picked up my pace, I caught that rider and battled to the end. I passed him and one more in the finale mud bog, both slid out in the last corner, one to the right and one to the left, with a small 2" gap down the center, and I rode that thin line. Onto the cement and across the line for 11th place. Its absurd, but again I feel the yearning to race. On to the Hamptons I go! The absurdity of it all.