THE CUMBERLAND DINNER JACKET

It had to happen sooner or later. And no matter when it happened, it was going to hurt. My first race back. Almost a year now. But what better way to hurt than on some local Vancouver island trails. I chose the Cumberland Vancouver Island Cup race as my comeback race. 3 x 45min loops of the best singletrack around. Norm was supposed to race with me but he lost the coin toss after our friend Erin called in sick for babysitting duty. Welllll thats not entirely true. She said she could still take care of Tycho but when she called to let the germophobe (me) know she was sick, her voice was so scratchy she sounded like a pack-a-day-princess and she described 2 year old Parker as having snot running down her face. Hmmmm. I decided to skip the fight with the common cold because I knew I would lose that round. So Norm got to ride up island in the sun and play super-dad-supporteur while I raced. 

I wasn't sure how the body would react to the harsh reality of a race after such a long hiatus. I have been able to get out riding at least 2-3X/week for the past month but race efforts have definitely not been in the program. As a result, the metallic taste of blood in my mouth after the first 200m was a bit of a shock. My Hei Hei Supreme was still pretty nimble on the technical trails and my legs were still pretty solid on the flat sections but I had to back off a bit on the climbs for fear of a giant mushroom cloud on lap 3. I had a great battle with Joelle Guynup for most of the race but lucky for me the race ended on downhill so I managed to lead the way on the last lap. Apparently a few of the local boys were pretty pumped I was not on form....yet. Norm hasn't lost his touch as super supporteur, even with a tot on his belly. While our handoff was sub par the bottle was full of cold coca cola to get me through to the finish. 

Norm and Tycho donned their Cumberland "dinner jackets" for the race and lucky for me our 2009 Kona kits were based on the dinner jacket (although no royalties were paid out to the town of Cumberland) so I fit right into the family portrait.

The morning of the race I wondered why my arms and back were so sore. I had only done a short spin in the afternoon the day before. Ohhh yeah. Then I remembered we had taken my nephew Torno to the Nanaimo BMX track in the morning and knocked off a bunch of laps before we (the adults) all got tired and had to drag him home. Wish I was 8 again.