Farewell to Arms ... and Legs and a Season Well Done

Near the end of October, I implored all of you to consider training for the upcoming cross season. "Consider" is not a word I take lightly, nor inconsiderably. Neither is "training" for that matter. Now three races into the ending season, two near downgrades and one DNF, I'm sure I overstated the case. Even the consideration of training negatively impacted my season. But all is not lost, as I operate in the biennium--feigning incapacity one year only to demonstrate actual ineptitude the following year.

After a full season of three races and as many days training, I consider myself among the finest honed athletes, ready for life's incessant challenges. When Sir Hilary mounted Everest, he must have felt something almost as oxygenated as this seasonal strategic victory.

We, however, shall not rest on these laurels, unless these laurels are comfortably stacked under YSCX World Tentquarters! We must march right into the prospect of equaling what we've accomplished here this three-race season.

Barton Park and Other Laughables

What happens in Barton Park, stays in Barton Park, except for half of its mass in muddy bitches. So it began with rain, as it so often does in the Northwest. In Southern California, there is no word for rain, textbooks have stopped using it altogether and only Hester Prynn will talk about it. True, this could be any day, any set in Oregon. For this, we give thanks. Just two weeks ago, Sarah was in sunny Italy, trying hard to remember how many r's were in the word "cycrocross" as she guzzled more sipping wine. On this day, though she was again fighting for first place in her sandbagged Women B category. Her win will live in both infamy and triumphany in the YSCX 2010 Yearbook. If we've learned nothing as a loose confederation of arrogant bastards flying the black-and-green-but-mostly-green (there is no good function key on the keyboard that will supplant all of the work it takes to type the black-and-green-but-mostly-green), it's that victory is no victory. Winning is only one direction beyond second place and a farther distance from the "learning" positions that we stake out like sages with the code.

To make a typical YSCX story short--and "original" in being terse--Sarah's case will remain in the Review pile for next season. If she were to fall out of favor, I volley that we consider add this Womens Double D category racer to our ranks. If no other reason, she has a great sense of color.

Back to the women who have more heart than chest. Here is the K-Bomber in a league of her own. As a rule, the K-Bomber's results are always the subject of sabotage, likely by a former patient whom Dr. O told, "You don't have emphysema, just an abundance of adipose tissue."

YSCX's favorite son, Seamus, here shows what he's best at: remaining grim and upright. Just below the surface, though, is a harder, more cynical layer. Underneath that is really nothing. All the king's yogis and all the king's shamen could not, in the end, find anything that resembled a heart. Many cognitivists have speculated that Seamus survives on cerebral cortex alone. That and legs. Seamus likely peaked at Barton Park with a strong 27th place finish among the Masters 55+ category. Further review of race tapes show that the slower half of the field left the course to go to the bathroom at least five times.

At long last, I bid you all a great winter. The most profound of mechanicals--a flat--will likely keep me out of valiant competition until nationals or until I take the class on how to fix it. Take it from someone who has been there: He who finishes last, laughs louder.