So I was wrong

Last night, while at Rich's party, I took time away from the commotion to write down my feelings about the upcoming race.  In that post, I may have said something like "God, its gonna be nice to race again".

Uhh...yeah...let me put that a different way.

Today was the actual race.  What started off as a cool morning (60 degrees at 7:30am) turned into an unseasonably hot day (85 degrees at 10:45).  In fact, my Garmin was reading 95 degrees during the race.  And me without an ice pack to stick down my shorts.

As always there was a big crowd in the 35+4 category.  Today, everyone who owns a bicycle turned out to race 35+4 in the hot hot sun.  Final count was 6.0 X 10^23 riders.  One of them was me.  Another one of them was Rich.  There was not very good representation of the Frites team in the race.  There was good representation of the Frites team from the sidelines.  But, as the saying goes, "those who can't do, teach.  And those that can't teach, stand around and jibber-jabber".

I can't remember too much of the race.  Good thing I have my Garmin to let me know what happened.  Here's what it had to say:  "You are dying out here."

That's pretty much what I figured it would tell me.  My average heart rate for the race was 170bpm which is right at my sustainable effort for the duration.  So, even though I was slow, I was going as hard as I could manage.

But the pain of the race was nothing compared to the the pain of the taunts from the sidelines.  I'm already embarrassed of my fitness and inability to be competitive in the slowest category of the day.  But to endure the taunts and jabs and insults from those who aren't even racing is just humiliating.

 Really, if you have time to come out to the race to point and laugh, then bring your bike the next time, ride in the 35 open category, and show us all how it should be done.

So that ends the race day.  Its about 3:00 now and I'm still feeling pretty irritated with my performance and the performance of the hecklers.  Race again?  Of course.  I'm not gonna quit just because a few people are better at insulting than I am at 'cross racing.  Its not over.

I'll see you at Alpha Cross.  And bring your "A" game, all you insult comic wannabes.  Because I'm bringing a squirt gun filled with my own urine and I'm a REALLY good shot.  How do you think I fill the thing, anyway?

Cap'n