Our society has a thing about labels. Some people spend their whole life and significant mental and physical energy trying to OBTAIN labels. Labels like CEO, CFO, President, Dad, Champion and KOM(lol). There are then those labels we spend significant mental and physical energy trying to AVOID. Labels like criminal, bum, loser, and quitter. Being a quitter in the endurance mountain biking world even has an acronym…DNF. These three little letters may as well be the worst label for competitive perfectionist freaks like me. The bad part getting this label of DNF, means along with that, you also get a small mammal….a monkey of sorts, figuratively speaking.
On a very cold and damp, December 15th, some 30 or so endurance junkies showed up to race the McDowell 60. Only 12 people finished and I wasn’t one of them. I pulled the plug at the base of Toms Thumb, giving myself that DNF label and attaching the monkey to my back. Over the past several weeks, that monkey laughed at me…mocked me for being so weak. Sometimes, the monkey looked a lot like one of my fellow single speeder friends who actually did finish that day.
Well, today I did some money flinging. On a brisk and breezy morning, I set out to fling the monkey off my back and set the universe in order (for me anyways). I rode the McDowell 60 course today; did it in just over 6 hours and had a blast.
I hope you can do some monkey flinging as well…
Well, hot dog! Way to go back out and take it down. It has been on my mind too. Six hours is a smoking time.
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