Oh Lord its April!!!! Time for Heidi to go skipping along through alpine pastures following a goat herd, intoxicated with flower perfumes and the new-air of the season. If you were farmer John you'd be sowing corn, the fine smell of green diesel, earth and hope in your nostrils. If you were fifteen again, life would be busting out of every corner, possibilities firing off like an electrical storm in your brain.
Ah... I must be dreaming!!! I'm a cyclist. So far Spring has hidden like Bin Laden, petrified to peek out. I never remember having a race cancelled because of snow. I never remember watching the weathergirl as she tells me the roads will be too dangerous to drive to an event. Even when she is dressed just this side of cute and gives a smile that has led people to do stupid things, she can't make the roads safe, can't melt snow. A decade ago I had sunburn behind my knees and arms on Paddy's day. What's going on????!
I've been looking for signs. Leafy trees. Grass growing. Ivory-legs in shorts. The need for sunglasses. Muffin-tops. Beer bellies cascading over waistlines. Pink foreheads from beer gardens. No chance! Instead I've trained in full winter gear until mid-april , managed to get to one race, disintegrated a rear-wheel, blown two sets of bearings, sucked up a whole damn month of Ozzy flu and it's aftermath, and nearly, not quite, but nearly... actually called it a day.
So what, I'm writing nature blogs now? No! I'm one of hundreds in the same situation... kindred souls hamstrung by a damn-near nuclear Winter in terms of length. So when I rock up to a race I'm up against it. Everyone is firing a salvo of what they've developed over the off-season. Missile after missile of strength, endurance, frustration. Serious energy and fire-power.
I've picked one hell of a year for a final season. On the grid, the joules bursting forth from likely, Lycra lads, would power a town. The season will be shorter, as will tempers, recovery, odds for a win and length between hospital/ Physio visits. And packed into that will be Joe the slice of Gouda cheese, looking razzled already before being placed in the sandwich of race-winners and hardy bucks that spit the likes of me out daily.
That long winter hit me hard. I am, in my fiftieth year, a finite element. Winter training is a beautiful thing with an endgame. The endgame is racing from March 1st. That's a reward for turning yourself inside-out in grey, S.A.D.-inducing dead months where the fields look the same and you are alone to test your will and sanity. So to not get to race hurts. And now, finally back racing, everyone is taking their frustration out in earnest. Closure, revenge, rage, catharsis... call it what you want... but it hurts real good. It seems I'll just have to get on with it. Make that hurt pay dividends.
Heidi would have skipped along, avoiding goat shite in her patent leather shoes and smiled up every mountain. Farmer John would look at the thunderheads gathering, spread slurry for soakage and laughed in the face of failure.
And the fifteen year old boy with a head and heart full of possibilities? Well, that was me. And it's been one helluva ride!
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