kerry-litka.com|small things considered

From Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary:

1 : a deranged state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder (as schizophrenia)
2 : such unsoundness of mind or lack of understanding as prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or as removes one from criminal or civil responsibility
3 a : extreme folly or unreasonableness b : something utterly foolish or unreasonable

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein, (attributed)
US (German-born) physicist (1879 – 1955)

The highlight of my attempt at racing Gloucester today was when I heard Ryan Kelly screaming my name at the top of his lungs as we sprinted off the line at the start.

The course, well, sucked goat testicles. Really. I hate this course in dry conditions – it’s all bumpy and windy (as in, lots of wind, not lots of turns) and puts power at a premium. Basically, in dry conditions it’s a grass crit. In wet conditions, it’s another story. As I stated earlier, this course does not suit me (and now I am beginning to think none of them do). I warmed up on the trainer and got in one lap during course inspection. Course inspection lasts 30minutes, but seeing as 1 lap took 20 minutes, I didn’t get a lot of quality time to dial in my lines. I was doing my warmup lap with Lyne Bessette and we were riding the muddy serpentine descent and she dropped me in about .05 secs. Seriously. I get dropped going downhill in mud.

I did a lap and hosed my bike off. I noticed that the barriers were not run-over-able. They had huge ditches forming on either side and they are set into a hill. I could not walk over them. On my warmup lap I had to stop, and crawl over. There was also this Wall of Mud that was, well, a wall of mud. No place to get footing and you were not running up it, you were walking.

Brilliant course, I tell you.

So, the start. Well, having 0 points means lining up at the back. Ok, fine it’s an uphill paved start – probably the best thing for me. I felt pretty good there and was in a decent place and then we hit the grass and about 3 turns into it I lose contact with everyone. I tried to be positive. I told myself that I would ride this course better in the wet muddy conditions. I told myself that this was a great opportunity to see what my new bike really could do in a cross race. I figured it was a great way to get some bad ass pictures of me all muddy, doing the cross thing – shouldering the bike, covered in mud, looking, you know, fierce.  I thought of this as I road along, on my own, plodding along going as fast as I can, brakes rubbing, mud everywhere..get to the wall of mud, barely make it up, remount and HEY my contact lens falls out. It’s stuck to my face, I can tell it’s there. Look around with one eye. I am in beyond DFL place and cannot see. My depth perception is bad enough when I have glasses on…going without one eye and losing a lens and not being able to drive home seems, well, like a bad idea. Exit course right. Game over. Eric Marro and a bunch of his teammates were standing there and one of them said “I can see it! I see the lens on your face…should I grab it?”

Umm…no. I’ll fix it.  Then I couldn’t put it back in because my fingers were covered in mud. I went to the restrooms, but the door was locked. So, I washed my hands off in a puddle and tried to put it back in, but I really can’t do that without a mirror. I stuck the lens in my mouth and wandered off to the car, where I painstakingly tried to clean off my hands enough so that I could reinsert the lens.

I started thinking about my cross racing on the drive home. I have raced maybe 100 cross races in my career. I have won exactly two of them, and probably taken home a total of $750 in prize money over the years. Then I thought about how I quit cross after 2005. In 2007 I decided to spend cross season training for a marathon. I have raced exactly one marathon in my life, and I won it. In that one 3 hour and 7 minute and 27 second effort, I made $1750.

So, why am I doing this again?