To Race or Not To Race

Competition scares me. Or rather I'm hesitant to compete, and that sucks even in my opinion. Damn stupid childhood. I can only question myself in this and try and understand why I dislike it.

I guess I can see parts of it back in High School, especially during team stuff in Phys. Ed. I can clearly remember how frustrating I was in thinks like volleyball and soccer, with how I performed inconsistently, or when my teams would slack off. Funnily I remember not being upset for things like running competitions, or physical work.
In recent years, excluding perhaps Kendo/Iajutsu I've found myself avoiding competitive activities.

So where am I going with this you ask, today after work I headed out intending to ride. As I was driving away I had a random thought that it could possibly be the first Wednesday at Wakefield, but I dismissed it and headed on. Low and behold. I pull in and it's bike city, I head out to the far softball lot and gear up, a quick trip to the race area and I determine that I don't have any cash, so no racing today, which might have been better if I had! Less of a chance to wimp out!

So instead I rode about 16.7 miles of accotink. Nice hills and a few descents that are a bit fun. All the while pondering what would it be like to race, if I could fully set aside expectations and just go out with a desire to win, to ride my butt off and try and do as well as possible without getting frustrated at my placement. I still don't know if I can, I do know I WANT to and thats half the battle.

Afterwards I did go back to the race area to hang out. I got to see the kids awards ceremony and I saw a few folks I know but they were mostly talking with other people, the experts were riding when I was there but they were running fast and I only saw a few groups pass through.

I'm not even going to look at the results for this week regardless. And as of right now I am PLANNING on racing next Wednesday, but we'll see.

In beer news, the beer appears to be fermenting nicely, with a nice foamy head and the airlock was bubbling, pretty well.