Me: Hey there Tommy, do you want my super card or anything?
Tommy: huh, oh yeah, that would be cool.
Me: Yeah, hey there buddy, you doing okay?
Tommy, real squinty eyed: Yeeaah, man, I’m real fine…
Me: Looks like it.
Tommy, picking up my water ices: Dude, these things are good, I could eat an entire pack of them. Hey Matt aren’t these good.
Matt, equally squinty eyed, looking into space ignoring my groceries that he is supposed to be bagging: “___”
Tommy: Hey Matt, I’m talking to you!!!
Matt: Oh, yeah, I was just spacing…
Tommy: He, he, he …
Me: hey guys, I’m all for a little fun, but this is a little load, can we pick it up a bit? I spent more time in this line than shopping
Tommy, nodding his head at me: yeah, man, that’s cool, sorry, we’re just spacing know what I mean?
Me: Yeah, I get it; I just want to get home, okay…
Tommy: yeah, man, I know, I want to go home too, Hey JIM (the manager) can I go on break soon man?
Old Man in line behind me leaves and goes to go to self serve.
Jim, the white dread locked nose pierced manager, who amazingly held this place together: Tommy stay on target buddy no break until 8:30 Finally, Tommy finishes up hands me my receipt. Looking right through me, and kinda wobbling
ME: Hey dude, you have a great night now, thanks for coming in, it was great talking to you
Tommy: Oh, yeah, un huh, yeah… see you dude.
Mary Jane and good customer service experiences do not go together. Look I wasn’t looking for this dude to wash my bike, just to be nice, or on the same planet as me. I’ll tell you this, I have
never sampled the hippie lettuce, in my teens I was too scared of my parents, in my 20’s I was too angry, and finally when I was kinda interested I was in my 30’s and figure if I haven’t stared yet, why should I? You know, I have plenty of friends who smoke pretty regularly. I’ll say this they are some of the smartest, most intelligent, hardest working, most intense people I know. I almost think they do this as a means to turn off their brains for a bit, or maybe to just reduce the intensity levels of their lives, I can get that. My one buddy said, “some guys come home and drink a sixer to unwind, me, I take a bong hit and everything is good.” I'll even go with the tree as a means to expand your mind, to open you up and help you think, in a timothy leary kinda way.These are all successful people. But Tommy, Tommy is just a kid, and I’m guessing that he isn’t all that bright to start with so the idea of turning off his brain is really just a bad idea. Really bad idea, especially when all I want to do is buy some water ice, some TP, and some peanut butter. Damn, maybe that’s the strategy of the grocery store, if enough people have to deal with Tommy, then more and more of us will use self serve, and eventually, dirty hippy Tommy will just smoke himself out of a job. Yikes.
Went to the Iron Cross Lite today. Not such a great day for me. First lap, made the initial selection with Todd, Brewer, Zach, Mike, Me, Jared, E-town, and Morgan. We had a nice gap to the pack, and this group looked to stick. Then I stuck it into a trail lining log, up over my bars and a perfect dismount on to the ground. I rung my bell a bit, and as I laid there looking up I remember thinking, “wow, the tree’s and the sky are really pretty.” Then I remember thinking, “why the hell is that guy standing over me and yelling at me.” I started to come back to reality as I finally could hear what he was saying, “hey, man are you alright? Are you okay?” I snapped back to reality, jumped on my bike and tried to get going again, totally DFL. I was a little dizzy, and pulled up. Fuck. I DNFed. Aside from ruining a pink helmet, I am super disappointed. I felt good today, I have been working my ass off, and I’m not gonna say that I would have won, but I would have had a good ride today. I want to be Mr. Happy, have fun, great time at the races guy, but I also work very hard at this, I don’t expect to win or even get great results every week. I do expect to live up to my potential, and up to the amount of work I put out. That’s what hurts, my investment, my sacrifice, is high, so to fuck up two weeks in a row, is pretty damn near unacceptable. Too many people, 
my wife, slick rick, dan the man, e-town, wes, James, buddy, matt, brent at t-6, gregg at fort, Jessica at SPOT all of them have invested far too much time, far too much energy for me to squander their efforts. Yeah, I did have fun today, outside of my race, but hell I drove 2 hours to race. If this is gonna continue, I’m gonna cash in my chips and buy an overpriced Trek Madone or some outrageous custom road bike and start trying to win all the local bike tours. Hell, maybe I’ll get me an eight inch front and rear travel down hill bike and start free riding at White clay. Fuck I Suck. As Gregg said to all of the Fort riders, no excuses, just your best. I need to start living up to my end of that deal.I was very grateful to all the racers and spectators who stopped up and asked me how I was, and if I was okay. I really appreciated that kindness. Thanks to the folks that came over to check on me too.
On a positive note I was also super stoked for my Fort Teammate Zach who had a huge effort today taking 4th in the race. Very well done. The saving grace of the day was on the way home
Diane and I stopped at a fine Amish farmer’s stand and picked up 4 wicked big pumpkins. We are having a little pumpkin carving party tonight I invited the entire B field at the start of my race, but I think just E-town is coming. Down but not totally out.Respect
fm
14 comments:
Glad to hear you're OK. Tell me you have another pink lid in reserve? dk
Marc, man it was a serious buzz kill to see you sprawled out in the woods like that. Glad you're ok though. It wasn't the same with out you on the remaing laps but that's how racing is... ya' never know how it's gonna' go down.
I'm attaching this picture to cheer you up. I think we got our pumpkins at the same place you did on Rt 15.
http://www.phattire.net/blog/gord.jpg
Mike O'Hara
ps: Get a new pink helmet... pronto!
sounds like your Batteries need charging.
ie;
Too much bowling means...too much bowling, do something else for a minute, y'know? do something you know nothing about to get your brain back into it.
Carve away and hang in there. Results are gonna come. Glad you're ok. -Jase
Marc,
Let it go. You know how strong you are and it will happen for you. I have know doubt.
Buddy
mr fats,
i know you know this already, but you are more than living up to your end of the 'give it your best' clause in your contract. there is no way around it, when you dnf it sucks hard, but you let it go and come back harder. rest up this week, amigo.
jempy
Hakuna Matata Fat Marc, you'll get it going again. I'd say do what I did after a shity weekend in ME, which was to eat some cookies and ice cream in attempt to get fat enough to blame my poor results on obesity, but, as your name would sugjest, your alredy fat. it's always the next weekend that matters anyway.
i'm with jempy. you don't Suck; you crashed and concussed yourself a bit. you DNFd bec of bad luck, not Suck. give yourself a break, dude.
and all those ppl you think you're disappointing? chances are, they don't give a shit. they just want you to be happy.
peace,
kk
First the pot--- I can't stand people who smoke pot in excess. That being said, 'grass' (as my dad calls it) is a wonderful drug. This is coming from someone who had scripts and instructions from doctors who specialize in chemo pain to take oxicotin and top off with percocet for break through pain. These legal prescriptions made me see shit that wasn't there. Also made me sick and could have been highly addictive. After one chemo cycle I was done with that shit. Mary Jane did none of this, and it helped with the pain. It is a very helpful drug if it is not abused. Recently I was at dinner in Moab with a dude who was so high he was catatonic. It was stupid and annoying to say the least. I had to sit on my hands to avoid slapping the dude.
On the race. Everyone has bad days. Think about this *You learn more when you fail* Let yourself feel it the pain and then see what you learn. I find that pain teaches the most important lesson of resilience. Get yourself up and back on the bike.
or just go get yourself a little high. It is never too late to slow your brain down a little.
peace.
Marc,
It's all about the journey!
First time to Kona, "Stacked" it
on the run!
Traveled....a gazzillion miles,
12 hours flying each way, spent
a ton of $$$$$ to DNF! What da!
.......had to wait 5 years to get back and to get the DNF taste out
of my mouth!
As they say in Kona......hang loose
brudda!
da' shark
Don't be so hard on yourself - your talented - great results will be only a matter of time
- WIcrosser
nice pumpkins you have by the way
marc, man, do you see how many people really care? You crashed, you didn't quit, and you didn't suck in the very least sense of the word. everyone has days like that. last weekend i traveled 8 hours one way to race in a stupid junior field, and i went straight from the front to the very back. 8 hours. but you know what marc? its one weekend of a long season. go indulge in something bad, that you put aside until the end of the season, drink a little bit, do whatever. wake up in the morning and freaking forget about it. go ride, and enjoy it. your always at the front and you kick some major ass. you'll come back and kill everyone. its all good. ill see you next weekend, we can have fun at a few primo races. Hard in the most sense of the word. Hang in there.
Confessions of a non-pot smoker. When I was in HS, I was working fast food and a guy I worked with, who I absolutely hated, told me that they would have me smoking pot by the end of the summer. I thought "Fuck you, no I won't", and I never did.
Not exactly a "just say no to drugs moment"...
oh btw, that picture of you is fantastic. its like you created your own new persona...the orange lantern. I'm not too creative at the moment and can't think of anything better. But you look like a super hero.
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