a blind, bland, divided, and dangerous bunch

That's how I feel when I don't get out as much as I'd like. And I don't mean out to the pubs, clubs, or crusing around so peeps can see my sweet ride rolling on dubs.

I'm talking travel. The bike, and as a racer, is how I've been enjoying travel. Seeing people and places from this (or that) perspective has been invaluable to me. To see it as a complete outsider...there will always be time for that. But when you're racing in an area, be it Ruston, La, or Rio de Janerio, Brasil, or Juarez, Mexcio, seeing it from inside an event integrates you with the community, the people, the environment in a far more intimate manner than you would ever see as a tourist.

I usually call it the "bubble" when we're traveling somewhere as racers - because we're protected, shielded, and removed from much of what goes on whereever it is we find ourselves waking up ..these bikes unify us, and our habits smooth out the incongruent features that separate my neighborhood from yours.

That's what's rad though - keeping a constant, something you can measure against, compare, and keep in perspective. I missed those pieces of feed back the last three months - and last weekend's trip back to the OG - one of my all time favorite events, in Ruston, La, reminded me of it all.

At an event, when you compete, you're a part of what's going on, integrated into the fabric of the (racing) community. Not the community of Ruston so much in this (or any) case, but the community that makes up the scene. Of course there are the locals. There are the regulars. There are those you only see at that one race and have been seeing at that one race a year for the last 10 years. That's what I missed, and that's what keeps us coming back for more.

Well that, and a unexplainable desire to push ourselves to places most wouldn't dare go. Over time, the usual events become less and less satisfying from a competitive perspective. Whether you're expected to crack the top 50, or win, sometimes to do less is a failure, and to do the expected, is only mediocre. Eventually, the carrot wilts, and even though its in the same breath that we speak of how fantastic the travel is and its that exact experience that puts the breath in our lungs, if something's missing...then that gaping hole won't go unnoticed.

Last weekend I lost a non-National mtb race. That hasn't happened in years. The irony is that winning those events wasn't much to speak of other than for the fact that I'd say to myself at least you didn't suck, and I'd made some lunch money.

Losing last weekend was actually quite satisfying.

The plan all month was to race in Moab...when that fell through, Ruston popped up on the radar as a chance to compete in the off road duathlon national championship. Talk about an obscure event in an obscure genre of sport. If you can't win what you do, do what you can win, right?

I last ran in, hmm, 2002, but I remembered the plot - one foot in front of the other until it hurts.

Running assassinates my legs. The disparities in leg strength, imbalances in my hips, and weakness in my back combine to form a trifecta of pain unlike no other. Enough to put 4 years between any thought of jogging.

But, since running is all the rage (just ask Shonny or lance) I signed up. And like clockwork, walking or riding on Sunday was basically an impossibility. I'll put it to you this way - I took the golf cart taxi at the airport. Literally, I was disabled.

Which brings me back to the mtb race on Sunday in Ruston...pushing myself beyond total muscle failure, gritting my teeth, and square pedaling with the fury of a stair master workout, I was caught and passed a few minutes from the finish and loved every minute of it.

Sure, winning is less bad than losing, but biting off more than you can chew has a satisfaction level that I love. There's something quite fullfilling about finding your limits, and pushing through them, yet still failing. I don't want to get too hippy free love here, but as sit here, 5 days later, still limping, I know I did something last weekend. And I missed that feeling.