I did not want to get out of bed to do this race.  It was raining and I knew it was going to be muddy and it was going to be a bitch to clean my bike and it was going to be a lot of suffering…

What I am good at is registering, getting excited for a race, getting all my stuff ready, then the day of not wanting to go.  Jessie on the other hand is great and saying “suck it up buttercup, you are going” and she is right.  If I make her get up early on a Saturday or a Sunday I have to pony up and go.  My ONE saving grace is the weather forecast showed the current rain pushing through and having a dry race.

Corn Cross has been going on for a couple of years now and I have heard so many great things about it but could never schedule it in.  While Sad to not race Krugers I was excited to try out a new course and it did not disappoint.  When we got there it looked a lot longer than it was.  I think they said each lap was 1.5 miles but it looked like 2 to 2.5 miles.  When you have a huge farm to spread out on you sure can make a course look intimidating.  I don’t think it really rained much out there as the mud was very tacky.  The thick peanut butter stuff that packs onto everything and is a real pain to clean since it drys so fast and is sticky.  High quality farm mud.  Since I never raced here and did not get to pre-ride my first lap was just figuring out where to go.  After that I could try and really “race” – HA!  Again just with the older guys that started behind us.  My main competitor (just like at Heron Lakes and Barton) was over 70, oh how the mighty have fallen.  I will not see the results until Monday but I know that I passed a few guys in my race.  Jessie got some pictures to document that.  This was the strongest I felt but god I was glad it was over.  Again Patrick made it out.  Shared suffering is so much better than suffering alone.

Now things are bittersweet.  I don’t have to get up early on the weekends and deal with a muddy bike and a muddy me and make myself want to vomit but Cross is such a mental sport (it is for me anyway) I was just getting my head back into it.  I listened to a podcast back in the spring, I think it was one where they interviewed Angela Duckworth that wrote the book Grit and she mentioned that her family has to do one “Hard Thing”.  I kept telling myself – go do your hard thing, and thanks to amazing support from Jessie, I was able to do my hard thing every weekend.  Now my “Hard thing” can just be to go mountain biking and have fun.  Most of the time I don’t want to vomit when I am on my mountain bike.  It is a much more relaxing event.

I learned a lot about myself this year and am looking forward to starting my training for next year.  All I can do is improve.

Barton is ALWAYS a brutal race.  Two nasty runups – it is long and hilly, always wet and muddy, and is a great finish for the Cross Crusade.  While a little bummed I did not do more Crusade races I am glad to have done Heron Lakes and Barton.  They are both great courses and really challenge you.  This course is so spread out Jessie could not run around too much and get pictures – PLUS I was pretty shot and did not make my last lap.  I was the cut off for our group.  While Heron Lakes was just a victory getting out there, Barton ( I knew it was going to be tough) was a severe blow to my mental state.  In the first picture I started way up at the front.  I have NEVER started that close to the front at Barton.  Going back over the years almost every picture shows me staging literally in the last row.  On the first lap I had so many guys go by me.  Very depressing when I used to be one of those guys that passed the slower riders up front.  That was one of the reasons I always liked starting at the back of Barton.  I was usually at my strongest by this race and it was fun to catch and pass people.  This time I was “that guy” in the way of the faster riders.  On my last lap I even hit a barricade and knocked it over into the racers on the other side.  My ego was more bruised than my body.  That shut me down for the rest of the race.  I did not want to do one more lap after that.  I just wanted to finish w/o hurting myself.  BUT I did have enough pride to beat the old guy in front of me.  Sort of a sad state this year.  All my battles have been with the 60+/70+ racers that start behind my group.  Really fitness has not been the issue the recovery from the vestibular neuritis is the problem.  I can turn pretty well to the right, the left is much more difficult, and anything really bumpy makes it hard to get a clear picture.  I hope I can rehab out of that.  Also great to see our friend Patrick Hunt out and racing.  It is always fun to share in the suffering.

Krugers, our traditional finishing race, was canceled this year do to Single Speed World Championships taking place in December so I will do Corn Cross the following week.  I have always wanted to do that race and now I can w/o the guilt of missing Krugers as I don’t think I could do back to back races.

Enjoy the pictures below.