Bummin in Seattle

I hate this place! Every year about this time I say that and the timing is right around the coming of the rains and the turning back of the clocks. Yuk. The light summer drizzle has turned to a cold steady rain and the leaves in the streets make it ungodly, and this is an ungodly place to ride a bike. There is no God. Or maybe God just forgets about us once we get terminally shrouded in clouds and the dark sets in.

The first cyclocross races of the season were dry and dusty, remember? A beautiful thing that was! But yesterday the course was uber-saturated with standing water and the mud that formed was not only all-pervasive and all-knowing, but thick and mucky. And deep too. At the call-up ceremony I realized that I'd forgot to register, d'uh! I'd been hanging out at the course all day long supporting riders and taking photos and getting ready to race, and there I go and forget to register. The officials radioed the booth and quick as that I was in. Started in the back row, and it turns out my most memorable move of the day was shooting up the inside into first place by the first run-up, that was pretty slick -- you gotta want it and you gottta go get it! You wouldn't know that was my motto by watching me in the rest of the race. So, slick as it was I went down in a mucky off-camber and landed on my bad shoulder which was the beginning of my slow downward spiral to doom. During my 3rd lap, in the Forest of Muckingdom I gave up... it was too thick, my back and shoulder was throbbing, and I had no power to give to the pedals, and so the best, no, ONLY option was to pull out and retreat to the RV for a beer. I endured some spectator jeering and my pride took a sting, but there are bigger fish to fry. USGP and Nats.

Seattle Cyclocross sucks! Its a not cyclocross, its junglecross, and racing here doesn't prepare you for racing with the big boys. This is slow, technical, run-uppy singletrack courses and so you don't develop the speed and recovery you need at a National event. But by saying this I am denying my own roots as I am made of Seattle mud. I've actually been called a "mudder", someone who excels in the stuff, and its true, I usually do pretty well in it, but the other equation here is that my heart just isn't in it because I'm thinking of these bigger races and the whole series feels trivial to me. And I feel guitly about this as I'm now a fair weather crosser, the worst kind of crosser, and one that doesn't last too long in the NW scene.

I need to take the cue from all my newbie cyclocross friends who are full of the spirit and excitement of cyclocross: they are a reminder of what cyclocross is all about which is the fun, the mud, the comaraderie, and digging deep, but not the results. And not some other ideal, or some other bigger race someplace else: be in the moment, be here now, be in the mud!