Thursday, September 18, 2008

Psychlocross Is Sooo Fun

My favorite bike club, SRV, is hosting a Cyclocross Training Series this fall. I made it out for the first in the series of four a coupla weeks ago. I bruised my inner thigh so bad that if I had taken a picture, I could have easily made you throw up. It was purple and gross and in a bad place. I would never do that to you. I also bruised my shoulder from carrying my damn bike instead of riding it. Everthing else hurt from doing totally unnatural stuff, and I walked with a limp for 10 or 12 days. What the hell is up with this sport.

I missed week 2 because I am old and I can't recover from that kind of abuse in 7 days.

Tonight I was back to give it another go. Apparently my subconscious had been working on an inventive new dismount technique between weeks 1 and 3, that involves slamming your body into the gravel. Eager to impress my classmates, I waited until they were all watching and then I dazzled them with my bestest performance. I came a away with a souvenir to remind me once again what a great sport this is.



I can hardly wait until we can add some truly miserable weather to enhance the suffering. Then this whole thing will get super duper fun.

When I got home, nurse Patty graciously hid her rolling eyes. "You okay?" (She had asked me late in the afternoon if I should really be doing this.) With full-on-for-her-and-the-rest-of-the-world-to-see rolling eyes of my own, I proclaimed, "what, this little scratch?"

When the shower water hit the dirt-road-rash, well . . . "cried like a little girl" is such strong language. But when I got out of the shower, Patty asked me if I had heard any 'strange noises'.

"Like what?", I said.

"Well, . . . like maybe some neighborhood cats are mating", she said.

"Oh. Yeah. I think I did hear it. It's those damn Siamese", I said, without missing a beat.

A good wife won't rub it in. A great wife will help you save face. Baby, you're the bomb.

All kidding aside, I'm having a blast. The organizers and instructors are awesome and can't hide their passion for this rad sport and we students are all feeling it, too.

Can't wait to see how I try to kill myself next week.

5 comments:

Hank Greer said...

You don't make this look as fun as John does. What's up with that? ;-)

Pat S said...

Oh, John is suffering with the rest of us. But he's discovered the joy of tight-fitting cycling shorts and as a result he's in this euphoric state where everything seems fantastic all the time.

Anonymous said...

'Cross is almost upon us Pat! I missed your dismount last night but appriciate the aftermath. I'm right there with you. Sitting here tonight, getting ready for the first 'cross race of the season tomorrow. I happned to look down at my hip and notice the scar from a the very same race exactly one year ago. There's a gravel section at Ft. Stellacome that nagged me every lap, and I crashed going pretty fast once. I'm hoping some of my newly learned gravel skills will get me through it this year.

joe said...

I'm traveling at the moment so I won't be doing too much cross this season - so I'm crossing vicariously (sans the pain) through your posts.

Pat S said...

Sounds like you have a busy schedule, Joe. Hope you can squeeze in race or two. At any rate, I'll keep you posted on my misadventures.