A mulligan is defined as such, on my first search:
- a stew made from odds and ends of food.
- (in informal golf) an extra stroke allowed after a poor shot, not counted on the scorecard.
Ok, #1 is a stretch but it's not entirely inaccurate. #2, however, yeah, that's what I'm looking at here. Remove the golf nonsense though. Actually, golf may have been a better idea today. I hate golf.
Gee, I wonder where this is going.
In the great game of "Norm Returns to Racing" this is what we would call a mulligan. The one caveat on this is the following. I don't want a do-over to do this race. I want a do-over to stay in bed and not do this race. What you see in the picture above is before the race. I felt ok, not great not terrible. My warmup consisted of 40 minutes or so on the trainer just breaking a sweat. I did not pre-ride the course. It was a total and complete disaster. Everyone I talked to said: don't bother. The 2 pieces of advice I got were to ride in the grass as much as possible, riding on the tape. And as soon as the bike slowed down, get off and run.
Great, running.
In the end I guess only 9 of us started out of 12 who registered. Race starts, and after not long, I find myself in the back with Ryan. We are occupying the 8/9 spots. I had made the decision not to explode out of the gate on this one. First of all, the way the race started did not lend itself to that. Second, with the race being a mud slog for 45 minutes, it didn't make any sense to me.
Lap 1 was as stated, Ryan and I just holding down 8/9. I said to him at some point, the guys are going to pop at this pace. He agrees.
Lap 2 I pass Ryan, and someone else, and someone else. Sorry I don't know the names of people out there anymore other than Ryan & Charlie & Vic & Brian. I feel great on lap 2, and this is what I was waiting for. The bike is doing fine. The running sucks. But I have jumped from 9 to 6 in no time. This is what I was hoping for on lap 1.
Lap 3 it all falls apart. My approach was to ride more and more of the mud pits, because I mean...well fuck it, because I can. I am riding past people as we approach the mud, because they are getting off way earlier and sometimes I am able to ride sections entirely where they do not try. I am good with this. Just take in on directly. I see this mud, I smash into it. This was all well and good.
Until it wasn't.
The problem with this, as I soon found out, was that I was coming out the other side with more and more shit stuck on my bike than anyone else. So I would gain a few seconds here and there. But as some point on lap 3, my bike was starting to get to the point where it refused to move forward anymore. I had seen Ed King break from the 50+ group because his bike just wasn't moving. I jumped off and just pulled out blobs of mud from the brake calipers and the bottom bracket area where it is just loaded with gobs of mud.
And this is where Ryan passed me back, and some other guy. I got back on the bike but any momentum I had was gone. Now sitting in DFL+1. At the end of lap 3 I ride up the gravel to get back into the main area. I had not seen anyone else do this in forever. This fact, plus like $2.50 will get me a coffee at Starbucks.
At the end of the lap, I see 3 laps to go. Fuck this race. I cannot do 3 more of these.
Lap 4 is more of the same. I cannot ride the gravel, and come out of the downfield area and Sean (on the mic) says something, and I wave, and he laughs and says I am checked out like a library book. Yup, I sure am. This course plays to everything I do not do well. As I named my Strava ride, the only way it would have been worse is if there had been a Thermal Physics midterm in the middle of it.
Lap 5 I am, by the grace of god, lapped by the front of the cat 3 field. Technically I was still on the lead lap of my race, but they pulled me anyway. I was passed by the 9th place guy at the bottom of the field, which tells you all you need to know that I got passed on the downhill-then-technical area. Sorry
@vanseggern1, I know you said that you would keep reading if I was DLF and I gave it my all. But I had no all to give. I was done, did not give a single fuck if I was DLF, and Joe Sailing lapped me doing cartwheels with a pogo stick stuck up his nether region. I. Simply. Did. Not. Care.
And the race ends. I accept my fate and cool down. Don't check the results because I am 100% I have lost.
Here is the big concern that I had running through my head the last 2 laps, and I still have as I sit here. What if I do this whole season and get to Louisville and nationals are like this? I don't mean bad weather. That happens and Lucky had a fair share of mud. This course, plus the weather, was beyond awful for me. There is no reality in my past, present, or future where I will excel at picking up my bike and running 50 yards, then riding 100 yards, and the running another 50 yards. And then running another 50 yards shortly after. And then running another 50-100 yards again all in the same half lap. Nothing I can do from now until the end of 2018, 2019, or 2099 will make me good at this stuff. When being able to pilot your bike better in the total slop is actually a disadvantage, I start to question the sanity of what I am doing.
As my late Uncle Bill used to say, this too shall pass. I know I'll bounce back and be ready to race again in a few days but right now I'm less than stoked about everything I have lined up for the rest of this season. On the bright side, I got to hang out with a bunch of my friends today and they actually trusted me with the mic to announce while
@seanrunnette was out on the course. I was told that we need to refer to the children as "juniors" and not "children" to which I reply: Did Whitney Houston sing that she believed that juniors are our future?