Bubba #7 St. Vincent/ Are you there 2008? It's me Matt.

This season has not been like last season. First of all, I have had no forced period of inactivity at the beginning of the Bubba series, I am now racing the A's and up until yesterday, was faking any motivation for racing. A variety of external stresses and circumstances have left me unrested, unmotivated and somewhat at wit's end with a great deal of things, including racing. Those factors aside, I had underestimated the positive effect that the post race cheering and camaraderie had on my overall CX experience and with the upgrade, the festivities associated with the Sunday ritual have all but vanished. By the time I'm done racing and cooling down, everyone is on their way home. Last year, I had my teammates to cheer for and this year I am struggling to get some Tofurkey on the grill before it's shutdown time. And then there's the suffering, which has been thorough throughout, so much so that I had even considered turning CX season into beer season. But this was all before St. Vincent and what was the most satisfyingly enjoyable course of the season. With the bonus of raucous woodland cheering section audible from the whole course and some legs that almost felt decent, I think I may have finally turned a corner in time for the waning races of our humble local series.

I started poorly, missing a pedal, but the aforementioned malaise led me to decide to sit in for a bit and feel things out. Things were turning over relatively well and though I had poor positioning, the nature of the course allowed me to move up a fair amount about a third of the way through the race. The course had everything from snaking, carving descents to a double sandpit (why didn't I try to ride that?) to a couple of grinding climbs, to a legitimate mud bog through the woods, to a screaming fast pavement descent that transferred onto the course. Perfection. It doesn't really matter how the race unfolded as I'm sure many others have provided in depth analysis, but for me, I had a blast for the first time all year. Not just going through the motions, I felt the fire again and although I finished in my now familiar 12th, I felt some hope for the last few races. I stayed consistent, had some decent battles with various competitors and at no point thought about how nice it would be to quit. Personal victories one and all. I'm hoping this wasn't a one off for me, but I think a real turning point has been reached and just in time. The external factors are still very much in play, but I can now look forward to some release for at least four more weeks and there will be a smile behind the pained grimace for each of them. Here on out, that's the goal. Pix are from Dennis Fickinger, Mike Dawson and Chris Creed.