I really hate lemons

Sometimes life gives you lemons.  And pretentious people with no perspective or frame of reference will say "make lemonade."  Screw that.  Who want's lemonade at a time like this?  If I wanted something to drink, I'd go get a beer.

Instead of making lemonade, I prefer to put those lemons in a tube sock and beat life over the head with it.  Take that!

Today at Frisco, was all lemons.  I didn't want to go in the first place but I had already committed to racing and any further shenanigans on my part would have caused some concern as well as unleashed a torrent of heckling from the team.  Can't have that, so, unprepared for racing, I went to Frisco.

I got there in time but had to walk about a mile from the parking area to the registration booth.  On this walk, I met Brian Graves who was warming up on the long hill.  He stopped, smiled, and recommended that I just take this day as a training day.  I asked why and he said it wasn't really a course that suited me.  Lots of off camber, loose stuff.  Was he ever right.

I managed to get registered in time for the start.  But, by the time I found a place for my daughter to sit, and unloaded all her stuff, there was only 7 minutes before the start.  Words of advice:  give yourself more than 5 minutes of warm up before trying to sprint up a hill to start a 'cross race.

 

I lined up in last place at the start and stayed there the entire 45 minutes.  No, I didn't just sit there at the start for 45 minutes.  Please try to keep up, OK?  The start of the race was savage and I couldn't believe the speed at which everyone climbed the start hill.  Is everyone in 35+4 on EPO or something?  It was unbelievable.  At the top of the hill I was about 8 seconds behind.  I never saw the pack again as we turned hard left and started down hill thru some sort of fire road covered with wood chips.

Wood chips are NOT a surface that I recommend for high speed cornering but the worst was yet to come.  A few turns later, I found my tires buried in some sort of sand/gravel mix that has no reason to exist on this earth.  Mother nature condemns your usage of such substances.  Sand is OK.  Gravel is OK.  But sand and gravel together are supposed to be mixed into concrete which is a great surface, one I recommend.  Apparently the folks in Frisco forgot a few ingredients.  I call "surface fail".

A few more turns and I was into the barrier section, which was preceded by more gravelsand.  Three barriers to hop over and oh yeah...the made a 180degree turn out of them.  Just great.  Back on the bike and get ready for more, you guessed it, gravel and sand mother-earth abomination.  This section could only be described as "my dick" as it was both thick and long.  And try as hard as I could, I just couldn't find a line that was decent.  By the time I got out of that quagmire, I was gassed and the race was a good minute or two ahead of me.  Time to just drop into training mode.  Try to get SOMETHING out of this race.  Fitness fail.

But, training mode is not good enough when the race leaders come around.  Shouting and obviously very concerned about their chance at victory, they quite unkindly kept shouting at me to clear the course until I told them "Fuck off or go around me."  The chose to go around me.  But I'm really the one at fault.  I mean, they were about to go for the win in the most prestigious of all categories, 35+4.  And the winner of this race can then show up at his real job on Monday and, while dropping another batch of fries, brag to the cute cashier about his glorious victory.  So, the next time you feel like yelling at me to get out of the way, just remember that on Monday, she's not going to be impressed by your victory.  She's still going to consider you the tallest midget in the circus and nothing more.

And in the end, I finished where I started:  last.  It was a miserable experience.  I am not suited to such a course, especially when it resides at 9000' above sea level.  In fact, I'm not suited to ANY course at 9000' above sea level.  But...there were waffles, bratwursts, and beer and at the end of the race I partook of all that could be had.  Naturally there was no lemonade because who the hell wants lemonade when you can have beer?

The upcoming week will be very interesting.  There's a lot of uncertainty and the potential for either great "win" and happiness or equally great "fail" and sadness.  But just let it be said that if I get any more lemons, life is going to get one HELL of a beating for it.