Alright.  Time to regroup here.  Saturday at Gloucester was an absolute atrocity.  I knew it would be, and I went down there anyway.

I’ve been sick for over half the month of September.  I should be resting, but the problem I always have this time of year is that…I don’t.  There is so much great stuff happening every week, and I’m too stupid to stay away.  What a waste of a month.

Gloucester is particularly frustrating.  I haven’t had one big event all year to look forward to.  And in the days preceding this, the biggest ‘cross weekend in New England, I’m out of work & riding the couch, enduring a cold made 10 times worse because of the 5k/SBC double I pulled the week before.

I had to at least give it a shot.  I was marginally better by Friday, finally had new wheels under me, and figured if Saturday went to shit, I’d bag Sunday anyway.  Unfortunately, I got about 20 minutes down the road from my house and knew today was going to suck.  I could tell I was still sick.  But I was packed up, committed, had a good breakfast, let’s see what happens.

It was all bad.  I smashed my nuts on a remount 15 minutes before my start, and that was pretty much how today was going to go.  All of the work I put into racing 1/2/3s for better Gloucester staging was pointless, as once we got into areas of the course where actual bike racing could happen, I couldn’t.  I had almost no energy.  It was actually quite sad.  This course was an absolute mess – perfect for someone with more technical ability than power – and I was useless.  At times, I’m not sure I’ve ever ridden a bike so slowly in my life.  In spite of praying for catastrophe, somehow I finished the race.

Missing out on Mt. Washington has been such a killer.  I can see now how much fitness I get from that.  Whether it’s the training, or the two trips up the mountain, it’s a huge deposit in the bank that I don’t have this year.  A lot of other deposits are missing too – White Mountain rides, Kanc, Prouty.  Shit – I haven’t done anything this year.  It’s little wonder I can’t race a bike right now, and this is actually a good moment of reflection.  There are good reasons for not doing all of that stuff; I should be more mindful of that.  Were I at least healthy, I’d have half a chance, but I don’t even get that far.

Somewhere around halfway through the race on Saturday, I pledged to stop racing for the rest of the season.  Of course, I also mouthed the words “pull me” to a race official and that didn’t happen either.  But I’m dropping out for a while.  Maybe I’ll pop my head out at the end of the month or something.  But I need to do nothing and get right again.  So enjoy the picture, and by the way – that was the end of lap one, and we’re all lucky it wasn’t later, when I was drooling, nose running, picking dirt out of my eye.