PMBAR-A-GO-GO

Well.

Huh.

PMBAR is tomorrow.  My 16th PMBAR in a row.  Not a shabby resume.  Earlier this week, I did wonder if my string of successive participations was in jeopardy.

If you don't get that reference, I don't care.

The back pain I was experiencing Monday morning woulda kept me from starting even a short mountain bike ride.

Me getting outta bed.

My day at work was, shall we say, uncomfortable?  I discontinued all morning roll-around-on-the-floor exercises, stretched, used a heating pad (until it died Tuesday night), took ibuprofen, and avoided the stairs at work.  Whatever I could think of doing, I did.

I feel better.  Not 100%, but I'm pretty sure I can fake it.  I'm sore, but I'm old.  Something is always sore.

Another PMBAR means another chance to over-analyze my gear and setup.  Lots of pacing about the house, picking things up, staring at them, setting them down...

To be honest, in the middle of making my pile, I decided to give myself a bad haircut, and in the process, cut off half of my right sideburn.  Distracted, unfocused and two beers in is not the time to cut your hair.

I'm still refining my approach to this race every single year.  Packless PMBAR can only get better IMHOMO.

Hey, and how about my teammate Watts telling me that he's thinking about riding a totally different bike than he normally does (with a drooper), and that he's piecing it all together this week just in time for tomorrow?

Seriously.  This is the text I got last night:

*encaps

He certainly knows how to say what I wanna hear, his words like a warm hug from a peculiarly large, hirsute stranger that smells of onions and chloroform.  Comforting but with a certain tingle of imminent danger.

I promised Watts that I would make route decisions based on logic and a desire to finish in the most efficient manner possible instead of what I did last year... avoiding trails I'm tired of riding and tossing all cares to the damp wind.  Not sure that it will make a difference anyways, at least podium-wise.  So many strong SS teams are coming, but it's PMBAR.  Anything can happen, and it always does.  Bikes and components fail, human bodies and brains fail, weather happens, loose cleats, barely passable river crossings, brake pads are destroyed, school pictures are taken...

Once more into the fray and all that.

Then...

Burritos and beer and the best time I have all year watching people finish all into the night.