Waiting for Go

“To the most beautiful moment in life, better than a deed, better than a memory, the moment… of anticipation!”
-Jacques the Bowler, The Simpsons

When I first began racing I would get so nervous the night before an event that I would have trouble eating and sleeping. It would all come to a head as I sat at the startline, my heart beating in my throat, the tension tight in my arms, waiting for the word… “go.”

I feel a shade of that today. I am not having trouble sleeping, and certainly not having trouble eating. But the excitment, the anticipation that soon the temperatures will be warmer, the snow will be gone and the winter clothes will be packed away is mounting. Soon the sun will hang in the sky longer and sleeping in on Saturday will be a wintery memory.

“I will see you again…but not yet. Not yet!”
-Jubu, Gladiator

For now, it is still cold. There are yet more days in the basment on the trainer, or days at the gym on the stairmaster. But not so down deep I can hear the dirt under my tires and my chain whirring. I can feel the sweat sting my eyes and the ache in my legs that hours upon hours in the saddle will bring. I can feel the tension of the start line in the air and hear, faintly, the word “go”.

But not yet. Not yet.