039: no substitutions

I am a simple man. I love my rituals, and my routines. As cross season in the Mid-Atlantic swells and perches on the edge of opening I have felt some anxiousness this week. More than the normal fluctuation in confidence. As I move to a harder class, I fully expect to get slapped around a bit. The question is how much?
Certainly those all too familiar pangs of doubt have crept into my head and into my dreams. I’ve spent too much time on bikereg.com. I have argued out loud with the crossresults.com race stalker. Do you know what a bawler Dan Brill is? Chris effing Long, I've never even come close to Chris Long. How can Jan and Disco be listed behind me when they have dropped me on every ride I have done with them this year.
I ask myself: Have I trained hard enough? Am I good enough? Am I ready? All of that will be sorted out pretty damn quickly when the gun goes off Saturday and Sunday.
Perhaps making me most anxious of all, coming into this weekend, I don’t feel like I have my rhythm at all.

One of my favorite things about cross is the rhythm that shapes up as the season unfolds. Each week, getting to the race early, pre-riding, registering, following a consistent routine. As this season opens for me a new class means an entirely different game plan race day. With Diane not racing, and her race moved to 11:00, there is no need for us to be at the venue before dawn. My new race time of 1:15, will mean slightly altering my eating schedule. Do I eat twice? How about coffee? With this year be another red bull year? Am I a two donut guy now?
Through it all I pull upon one certainty that brings me some comfort. It was a tip given to me by my coach a few years ago. On my training plan for opening week that year, he scheduled my workouts. A couple of loose efforts to keep the legs open and supple. He advised that I pack early, and to get a few laps in before my race. But perhaps most importantly he wrote, “ two nights before the race, be sure to wrap your handlebars with new tape, And make sure it is white tape.” He continued “ Take your bikes with freshly wrapped white handlebar tape, and go race your ass off.”

For me, the start of every season since then, it’s been the same: Fresh White Handlebar tape.
Accept no substitutions.

Hope to see you this weekend.

respect.
Fatmarc
“game on.”