Take It To The Limit One More Time

It's finally here.  This weekend is the first race of the Georgia State Championship Series by Gone Riding.  Sounds really dramatic when I type it out like that.  I know it's not as big as the Florida Series and it's sort of a subset of the Southeastern Series but hey, it's been something to work for.  My guts feel all squishy just thinking about it.  Am I ready?  Have I prepared properly?  You can have all the confidence in the world but all that really counts happens after that starting whistle blows.  Man my hands are getting sweaty already.

I've read that being nervous before an event is just your body getting ready to do something difficult.  I have raced so many events (mostly moto) since my first one in 1974 you'd think I wouldn't get the pre race jitters.   I can think of many nights spent staring at a hotel ceiling waiting for the alarm to go off, so nervous I hadn't slept a wink.  I remember being in South Carolina near Charleston as it flooded and thundered all night.  It was still raining when we went to the start the next morning, praying they would cancel the race.  No such luck.  I pushed that motorcycle more that day than I rode it, finished at 4:00, loaded up in the rain, then drove home 7 hours with South Carolina sand stuck in places it was never meant to be.  If you've ever raced much you've got stories like that, those are the ones you remember.

Let's hope there's some of this

And very little of this

I sleep good now a days before a race.  MTB races don't have quite the element of danger that moto races have.  At least not at my speed.  Anyhoo, yes, I'm excited about this weekend, and a little nervous.  The day it stops being that way for me is the day I know it's time to quit.