Another one bites the dust, this was just one of probably 50 crashes at this spot.
I need to thank Dejan Smaic today for a brief moment yesterday during the Boulder Racing Lyons race. My race was a shit show, from getting caught up in two crashes before we even hit the first run-up, to having the wrong shoes to even contemplate making it up the frozen tundra of Lyons, to ill advisedly bumping my tire pressure up just enough to beat myself into submission for 45 minutes of slobber knocking Cyclocross racing just prior to racing, there was a moment. I can’t say I’ve ever felt sorry for myself while racing cross (all though I was close in KC at Nationals four years ago), but I was on the verge today. The Cyclocross God (does he have a name?) was in the midst of battering me into submission in Lyons, and I felt like Gerry Quarry after fifteen rounds of left jabs from Muhammad Ali, when on the last run-up of the race, on the final lap, I caught three of the Cat 4 women whom were racing at the same time as my group, this also happened at the same spot the lap before with a couple of other women racing, and per order of our ACA race officials I just floundered up the hill behind them until I had a good place to get by. It did not matter anyway, I probably looked like a street bum scrambling for a wind blown dollar bill trying to get up those frozen fucking hills so I could remount my bike and prepare for the next crash. Well there at the top of that last run-up, with his camera in hand, was Dejan, and I looked at him and he was humored and laughing at my circumstance, because it was funny, really funny. I mean I had fucked up so many times previously in the race that I could have been relegated to the Stupid Ward. And when I saw Dejan laughing, all I could do was say “fuck this” and keep on rolling, I was done, but had to finish, and I was miserable, but I did manage to smile at how funny the entire debacle was. When I got back home to Eagle, as I limped to my front door, muddy, scabbed up and bruised, (understand that this was not one big crash, as I did not have one of those, but a 45 minute fist fight with my bike and the course which left me running, dragging my bike in all kinds of strange positions, busting my ass on nearly every run-up and simply having one hell of a grand time) I literally laughed out loudly at the absurdity of this great day. There have got to be some fantastically funny photos or video floating around of all of us from that race, and the Benny Hill theme song would not even do it justice. It’s good to be humbled by the CX Gods as it is inevitable if you race it long enough. Yep, 1000 jabs from Muhammad Ali, and we get to do it again next week at the State Championships. Gimme a day and I’ll be ready. There is no crying in Cyclocross, all though there almost was, kind of.
