(I just deleted my post – and I’m starting again. Attempts to be positive will now occur….)

First off, today was a bad day on the bike for me. I didn’t ride like I can. I didn’t ride like I have in the past. Nope, I simply under-performed. I had a decent start and then things went south from there. I wasn’t aggressive, I backed off when I should have pushed forward, and then I went backwards. My crazy brain kicked in and I simply shut down. Yes, it was ugly. It was embarrassing.

But it is over. The first cyclo-cross race of the season is over and in the books. Good. Now I can move ahead and look forward to bigger and better things. Better rides. Better races. Races and rides like I know I can put together. Today was a tough day and perhaps the longest 40 minutes of my life. But maybe just maybe this is what I needed.

A literal kick in the head. I remember a few years ago when I was competing in taekwon-do, I was having a pretty good string of results – basically winning all the time. And then I lost. I lost in the first round – didn’t even make it to the finals. My taekwon-do instructor said “you have to lose to appreciate the wins”. This rings true for today.

Tomorrow I’m racing in Kirkland, NY and I vow that it will be better. It will be different – it will not be like today at Nittany Lions in Trexlertown, PA. I owe this to myself and most importantly to Marc. I let him down today. He has sacrificed so much to allow me to focus on my training and racing – and today was not the best way of showing how much I appreciate this sacrifice. Also, I’ve let you down. I’ve let my sponsors down. So tomorrow will be better. I really have no choice.

So there you have it. Not the blog entry I had intended on writing today. But it is what it is.

I’ll close off this post with some excellent racing news: Marc was 6th today! Awesome. He had a great ride – particularly since he has been quite sick all week. I was so excited to see him racing and riding so well. Also congrats to Mo Bruno-Roy for her solid ride today – 2nd place is pretty darn fine for a training race! Thanks to Matt Roy for pitting for me. Also huge thanks to Matt and Mo for the positive and kind words after today’s race. Huge shout out Rob Watt for his win today – just great to read his race report about his successful day.