Psycho-Cross

It's official.

'Cross has made me neurotic. Don't believe me? OK, check out this dream I had the other morning:

I'm in a hotel lobby in NJ located at the start line for the USGP. The lobby is full of racers and gear, including my bag with all my stuff for the race. I find I am wearing my kit under my street clothes, complete with my bib number (#20, a good call up). A race is about to begin so I wander down to the start line to check out the course and watch the start. I quickly realize they are getting ready to start MY race! Not only that, the promoter says that they intentionally re-ordered the numbers to make it seem like they were assigned randomly, specifically mentioning #20 is not the 20th number and will be lined up further back, figures. Off I go back to the hotel to quickly take off my street clothes and get lined up. It's bad enough that I am all stressed-out about not having gotten a warm-up, but to make it worse, I realize I have no idea where my bike is. As I try to remember where it is, I realize I can't remember anything since I packed the bike up in Portland. My memory is suddenly like a foggy dream within a dream. I see Erik Tonkin and think to ask him if he has seen my bike, but I am too embarrassed to admit I can't find it! So I get the bright idea that maybe it is in my hotel room, and all I need to do is ask the front desk what room I am in. On my way to the front desk I start talking to some other racers, and explain that if my mom didn't live in NJ I wouldn't have come this far. That's when I realize I was going to stay with my mom and borrow her car to get to the race. That's where my bike must be! Only where's her car? Why don't I have keys for it? I can call my mom, but I can't tell her I lost her new car. I look out the window and my race hasn't started yet! I need to hurry! Where's my God-Damned bike?

Luckily I woke up at this point. It was like one of those dreams when you can't run no matter how hard you try. Maybe it says too much about how caught up I am in all of this stuff. For God's sake it's just a recreational activity. It's supposed to be a hobby I do for fun, not something that gives me freaky dreams. Sadly enough it is not the first time either. Before the season began I had a dream that I was in a race and I just could not remount the bike. No matter how hard I tried I kept jumping over it, or bouncing off it, and when I went to practice in the dream, as I remounted, there was no bike under me and I fell on the ground waking me up.

OK, OK, maybe this is all TMI to be putting on the web. Hopefully you all get a good laugh at my expense. You don't need to be Sigmund Freud to realize I am stressed about the USGP start position and the bike mishaps I have been having. Two things I have little control over. Just gotta remember I am not racing for a World Championship here, or a National Championship. Hell, I'm not even racing for the local series win! Time to lighten up. And if I think I have it bad, I was looking over the results and I saw that Daviney had 4 DNF's, that's not a typo, 4. That sucks, seriously, he's a really nice guy and I read on Laatste Ronde that Daviney crashed towards the end of the race and may have needed stitches. Heal well man.

Here's a little clip from the race on Sunday thanks to Ms Adventure (finished 2nd in her race, nice!)


That's all I gots for ya. Still calling for rain by the weekend. Not sure if that is good or bad, but I'll make a prediction. I have (good/bad start) fight for a lap or so then(crash/mechanical) think about quitting then ride real hard to finish the race for a disappointing end to the series. Oh wait, that's negative thinking and will get me nowhere. How about, I get the hole shot at the start and drop the hammer leading the race from tape to tape, demolishing the competition. Well, however it turns out you can read about it here on Monday.