A blog entry by an amateur racer you've never heard of.
Colt promoted my first post here using that sadly true appellation. Doesn't that describe most of us? Searching for our name buried in the age group race results. Sneaking out of the house before the kids wake up. Snitching money out of the grocery budget to buy titanium bike parts.
Competition doesn't achieve world peace, nor reduce the size of the Pacific's floating plastic island. I'll never have my costs picked up by a corporate sponsor, nor enjoy beta version bikes. So, why do it?
Because racing simplifies a complicated life. There is no ambiguity in a marked course. Fear of getting spanked fuels discipline. Training in, results out. And, from an earlier post: begin, suffer, finish, enjoy.
Sometimes, though, the universe smiles on the little people. My anonymity has been granted a brief recess out in the playground of the glamourous. As I wrote about before, I won an essay contest to be flown to Colorado to race in the Sol Vista Nationals.
And, and, AND, because I showed up to the Racers and Chasers race series that sponsored that dream, I got filmed for a ChannelMTB and Wolfhouse Media documentary about grassroots racing here in San Diego.
Five years ago, mere days after I started training for my first race, I went to the preimiere of Off Road to Athens. Olympic athletes, world famous courses, personal mechanics and fifteen pound bicycles. Jimena Florit introduced the film. In person.
I don't pretend to ride like the stars. The filmmaker, Alan Villa, shot as much footage of my children and my urban chickens as he did of me dropping in.
But, like taggers claim, I'm up. I'm up.
Real theater, really REALLY big screen, premiere of Think Global, Race Local on November 12. And the rest of you racers that no one's ever heard of? Get your tux on for the red carpet photographer.
