Well what now??
As always I have had time to look back at the race and find some regrets. Maybe I should have pulled in two more laps? Maybe I should have stuck around for the awards? Maybe I shouldn’t have told my pit crew that if I ever talk about doing another 24 hour race they are to come and take all my bikes from my house so I can’t go? These kinds of things.
I am already thinking about what I am gonna do next. How can I top this year? Was this as good as it ever will get? I threw around the idea of taking donations for “Team Walmart Solo” for next year’s Burn 24 hour race. The theory is that I have enough people reading my blog that if half of them threw in $1-5 I could have an operating budget of $500 or more. Then I would go to Walmart and buy EVERYTHING I NEED. Bike, shoes, shorts, T-shirt, long johns, food, lighting(flashlights and duct tape), and so on. I would see how far I could push that crap through the woods in 24 hours. Afterwards I would donate everything to Goodwill. Don’t send your money yet, it is an idea in its infancy.
Tommawicki-wicki-wicki came uptown the other day to get some final footage for her “dickymentary” she was shooting at the Worlds. She reminded me of something I said during the night that I still don’t recall. She asked me how it was going and I replied “The devil’s out there….the devil’s out there”. Maybe I wasn’t as clear headed as I thought.
Peter Rajcani commented about a moment when I came up on him on the granite wall climb. There was a group of people at the top and they were cheering me on as my brain was coming out of my ears trying to reach the summit. When I arrived they said I was the only SS they had seen climbing that section. I replied “Then that is the last time I will climb that section”. I was only doing it because I thought that was what all the cool guys were doing. Doh!
Lots of love coming this way, and I appreciate it. Email, phone calls, and comments. I think a lot of people realized what this meant to me. I managed to start the season right with a win at the Cohutta 100, and then slip into a summer of mishaps and mayhem all over the continent with some success sprinkled in. To bookend it with one more win (the one I wanted more than anything) was just too sweet. Real storybook crap. I’ve mentioned it before, I love underdog movies. From “Zulu” to “Rudy” to “The Last Dragon” I get all verklempt during the big moment where the underdog realizes his destiny and perseveres. I got to be that guy, just once. That’s as good as it gets in the movie of my life.
My next challenger
“Who’s the meanest, prettiest, baddest, mo-fo, low down around this town? Team Dicky? Oh hell no! I am the Shogun of single speeding.”
