Butterflies for Breakfast?

It's a cold Sunday morning in November. I try to follow my regular morning routine - coffee, Greek yogurt, English muffin with honey. I pack up the Truck load up the bike, change of clothes and of course chocolate milk! Driving with a weird sense of excitement , determination and self doubt. "What the hell am I doing here?" "You don't belong here!" I'm headed to my first Cyclocross race in over a year. I put on some rocking music to silence the voices in my head. I know it's going to hurt! I get registered and do my warm up laps. By now the coffee I had earlier is running through like a faucet. I head to bathroom one more time. Guys are all ready starting to line up - I'm last to line up in a field of 60+ racers. I get lined up and I'm feeling the butterflies dancing in my stomach along with a slight taste vomit.

 The race starts and all that goes away as I settle into the race as it gets strung out. I'm thinking about 1,000 different thoughts now. Catch that guy in front of you, Hit that line, Miss that root, Downshift here comes a hill, brake, pour on the GAS, take this corner wide, more speed, SAND!, stay away from the guy behind, push, push, push. I push harder and harder on the pedals pushing too big of a gear up the hills. My legs are straining, my lungs are burning even though air is a piecing cold 40 degrees, I cant feel my toes, and my hands are numb from the cold and vibration, my mouth is wide open gasping for air, eyes watering, and my nose is running! My race is 30 minutes and after 10 I'm wanting to quit! I push on and try to recover before the heart rate redlines again. I finish the race - There is no other option!

Why would I put myself into that kind of position? You should be waking up late, relaxing, drinking coffee, reading the morning paper in my bathrobe on a Sunday morning! I've done a 5+ hour charity ride but a 30 minute cx race is way tougher!  Yes, life would be easier laying in bed. Sure, I would also be fatter! I'll be honest I SUCK at racing, so again WHY? I love racing. Don't get me wrong IT SUCKS DURING THE RACE but after I feel so good! Endorphins are flowing, and I have an overflowing of emotions. I've most of my adult life doing the easy thing. But I long for the days of adventure (and/or stupidity) of my youth. I want to feel alive and not just exist. Suffering during a race makes the relaxing after so much more ...... relaxing. I want to test myself. I want to feel the pain and suffering and over come it! I want a challenge!

The Road Not Taken TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. -Robert Frost