Hi guys, it's been a while. Been kinda busy.
I'll cut right to the chase here, the white flag is up for good right now. I'm giving up. Any notion that I can remain the same competitive biker with everything going on has finally sunk in as futile today. I don't want to hear the silly stuff about not giving up, or HTFU, or whatever. I just can't do it. The NYC reality is/was a ton of bricks. I can maintain a few pieces of it, but if I continue on this path I'm going to be jobless, single, and out of shape. So I need to focus more on keeping the job and the family. I'm just not going to be able to race like I did last year.
On that note, the Bearscat is out. I offered my spot to Freddie and if he doesn't take it I'll move down the line and offer it to the next teammate who might want it. I was looking forward to riding it with Utah as just a ride, but when it struck me that I'll be gone again next week for another whole day, it just doesn't add up. I'm done.
The race prep was beyond a lot of work. I'd estimate that the last 10 days before the race I put in a solid 80-100 hours of time. In all, it probably cost me in the realm of 200 hours to put it all together. I think it went off pretty well but the more we discuss the whole day the more and more I realized I fucked up a lot of things. Nothing was so big that it made the overall experience bad for too many people. But it turns out that too many things went wrong for my OCD to be comfortable with. Live and learn, and hopefully I can address them all for the next race.
So that's it for this blog, and the idea of starting another isn't of interest to me this week. I'm sure in a week or so I may get tired of not posting, or maybe the discussion here will creep through the week and I'll roll into next week with a new blog. But right now, I'm pretty much taking this week off the bike because I have training in the city and I'm gone from 6:30-6:30. Hopefully I get some riding in next week. I did ride 3 times last week but I haven't even uploaded them to the Garmin site yet. I'm that far behind on life.
For now, I need to get some down time, try to get some saddle time, and grow my damn leg hair back. I've got a good, solid stubble going on now. In a few weeks I should be half the caveman I once was.
Finally, thanks to all you guys who came out to support on Sunday, both racers and volunteers. It was a good day. Hopefully the first of many to come.
PS. I expect to be back in some form of slaughter condition for cross. I just need to take an adjustment period of downtime right now.