Driven, impassioned, charged, motivated, enthralled, consumed, and focused. I love bike racing. Going fast, feeling the burn and then turning the screws even harder. It’s empowering to lead, rewarding to chase back on, and a pure rush to rally hard on a race course with the fastest riders the area can produce.
I’ve done five consecutive weekends now, having toed the starting line no less than nine times in those ten days. Each successive race I’ve gone faster, felt stronger, and ultimately more prepared for the next to come. And in a timely fashion, the next to come is the Big One, the Chequamagon 40. Ever since ’97, at the age of 14, I’ve lived and breathed this race for the entire month of September. It was in the Chequamagon Forest that I first set my teeth into the racing experience and I couldn’t have asked for it any other way. I was stoked for it in ’97 and now again in ’07 I’ll return with an equal vigor, this time aiming for the front end of the big race.
Sunburst was one of the final pieces of the Chequamagon puzzle. You have to be fit, you have to be fresh, you have to have the course dialed, the equipment spot-on, the motivation topped-off and the giv’rator fully ready to go. All systems have been checked with just five days to go.
Yesterday confirmed that the fitness is here, I can be fresh when I need to be, and the motivation may have been upped a notch when I couldn’t quite get around Jesse for the mad dash to the finish line. On Thursday I did a course reconnaissance to confirm the equipment set up, rolling over the 40 miles at a 2:40 pace. It was just enough Chequamgon air to bring about those time and place memories that boil up emotions of years past.
Though a win would have been big, I still got the boost I was looking for in my Chequamagon preparations. Jesse is extremely fit and I was happy to be the internals of the LaLonde sandwich. I’d imagine that there are a lot of guys out there who can only hope that these two pick the wrong gear one of these times…
So with that, I can’t wait for Saturday. It’s been an awesome lead in to this one remaining event and the experiences along the way have been second to none. WI and MN racing is hard to beat. Is it the journey or the end result that counts the most? I’m hoping that it can be both.
TJ
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