Taking it all too seriously

The last couple of weeks on the bike have been nutso - all getting way too serious. I realized that this morning. Maybe that's the price you pay towards the end of your first year of racing; hours in the saddle, too much time at threshold (kinda like hanging at 13,000+ ft too long), screwed up diet (i.e. elephantine amounts of GU and Heed) and then all that lactic acid seeps up, up into your brain, where it feeds cyclodragons, that rear their 53-toothed heads and lash out. Maybe that's why its best to do this racing thing when you are 17 or 22. I mean at that ripe old age most of the people around you are just as screwed up as you are so probably don't notice whatta total dumbshit you are being or don't really give-a-shit because they are equally in the mental dumper too. At the Masters 45+ age taking yourself that seriously and starting to let it enter all the other aspects of your life - relationships, friendships, health - is just frigg'n stupid. Ah, but recognizing it? Not so easy with cyclodragon roaring about breathing fire and torching everyone you care about.

That doesn't mean I love racing less or need to be less competitive - just need to look at the Jens Voigt socks more often and say to myself, "Vroom Vroom Vroom" and smile.

I don't regularly quote others blogs, after all the idea of a blog to some degree is to write your own crap, not spread everyone else's, but I bumped into "Jim" of The Unholy Rouleur when I was trying to understand the upcoming cross season from the eyes of crossers - and to make sense of Judd's bubbling-over-5-year-old-excitement about the first cross crusade race of the season Oct 4 here in Pdx. I'm trying to make sense of it because I'm planning on giving it a whack and see what all this mud and beer is about - and maybe just that - mud and beer - and that's why it's so fun? Anyway, the the following struck me for multiple reasons, but the most important was it reminded me the past couple weeks were starting to get "wayyyyy to serious" and with the upcoming Everest Challenge it was time to regain my sanity before I go to California and annihilate myself on some slope of the high Sierras.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Crash Like a Child

"Beppo said something really interesting to me riding back from 'cross practice today: "Cross is nice and different because it's about the only thing you can do on a bike where you're riding along and you crash and then you sit there laughing."

That's true. There's something nice and child-like about cross. We take to it in innocence, like a 5 year-old wants to race everywhere. You don't need to have a reason for it, you just do it. It's fun to do it. So you act like a kid and that's just what you do.

I'm thinking about this today because maybe we cyclists are about to dick up cross like we've dicked up mountain biking and dicked up road riding and maybe track and just riding to work.

At times, we take ourselves wayyyy too seriously. "

Click on the title if you want to read the rest - it's a nice reminder to stay connected to the fun-factor in what we do. Maybe even draw on my French lessons and read it outloud so the words stick with you a little longer and seed themselves under that bike helmet for a later date when they need to be called upon.