Sometimes a race is more than a race.

2009 has been rough. It started well enough, sitting in an ale house with a few teammates, with our newly sworn in president's inaugural ball in the background. For a change, we were determined to talk about anything except bikes. Good times.

That night, my father woke up with pressure in his chest. Within 18 hours, a small tear in his aorta had, in the doctor's words, "opened up like a zipper" and he was gone.

The following week, I lived in a hotel in Michigan, sorting things out. I spent a lot of time on the exercise bike, sorting my own things out, the only way I knew how. One day I held 350 watts for 30 minutes. My offseason plan peaked then and there, I never matched that feat again.

If you think it's hard to put yourself in the pain cave, imagine that when you get there, the first thing on your mind is, "What exactly is my heart doing right now? Is it good or bad for me?" We all have to suffer loss at one point or another, and we all have to figure out how to get through it. Little by little, I bounced back in different ways; you get through life, and I pushed myself a little harder, without the question marks looking back at me from the heart rate monitor.

You do what you have to do. I raced, a lot. Probably too much. Results weren't really the goal, but at some point, you get tired of discovering all the factors working against you. I'm not young, I'm not a sprinter, I don't have a lot of time, I don't have hills. When cross season comes, I may not win, but I can settle some scores. I'm certainly not a ringer out there, but it's nice to see some top roadies ten, twenty spots behind mine in the results.

I built up a solid cross bike, and for the first time ever, with ten whole speeds to choose from, though I ended up using two or three max. Word gets out that there will be an "Officially Unofficial" single speed cyclocross state championship. I'm thinking about this race more than I'll let anyone know.

I know that no one is owed a win in this world, and I'm lucky to have a fantastic family, great friends, a solid job, some change to spend on candy for the bikes...but god dammit, it's been long enough. I know it's just a little sub-category of a bastard discipline on two wheels, but single speed cyclocross is what I am. I don't want to win. I want to stamp my authority on it, to leave it a race for second, and post up without looking back. Barring that, I don't mind losing to a better man (god knows there are a couple guys lurking out there that can do the job). I just didn't want to fuck it up.

There were two sides of this race. The race report is one, and this is the other.