golden

it's been a long season and when you train and train and train, sometimes you forget why you do it... the love fades and it becomes an obsession of miles of monitors and of minutes. but the love's not gone, no sir, it's right there, under the surface... and all it takes is a great finish or a nice bout of golden legs to bring it back on!reading from harry's blog, seems a bout of golden has him thinking the same thing. nice.

i'd planned to race the final 4 weeks of the season, but since making that decision i've already cut one race. i'm not feeling burned-out, but also not feeling a need to race. you have to eat right, sleep right, wake-up early, drive a long ways, warm-up, stand around, race hard, cool down, hopefully wait for awards, drive home, eat right, sleep right... and completely blow-off everything else, friends, chores, etc... what i haven't done all season is an epic ride with friends. EBDB as Daren would say (epic black diamond biking). GG24 was kinda of an epic w/friends, but the pressure to race was also there. then, right as i'm thinking about all this racing and riding stuff - where it needs to go until the snow flies - 2 epic rides drop flat into my lap. nice! races called off, some epic riding is on!

tomorrow got an all-day epic in daren's backyard (near madison, nh). might include a hike-a-bike up mt chicora. yeah, yeah! the climb-up will be fine, it's the trip-down w/andy and daren i'm scared shitless of. those dudes can ride ANY line - i'm on a v-brake hardtail and don't have 1/3rd the skills. but that's what makes it epic - getting challenged.

next wknd been invited on a 6hr technical ride on the north shore called the "Big Kahuna." Beverly to Gloucester, with beers, lobsters and all that good shit to follow. then the weekend after that we've got the Foliage 400 race, staged on some of the best technical race trails in new england. bunch of the fella's going (brad, andy, daren, george, rob, harry) with others (dave a!, roz, dan w, etc) from the crank team showing - nice! what a way to finish-off the season right! it's important to find the love again. to feel refreshed before the season is over... otherwise the drive it takes to sit on the indoor trainer for 3 hours in january just isn't there... got to put money in the bank, to make a withdrawal.