NOVEMBER
I dug this little ditty I found up from one of last years messages.
I think it applies to our race philosophy and explains the reasons for this
year’s success.
It's amazing how much can be accomplished when you heckle in the
face of adversity with motivated spirits and strong legs and the best laid
plan.
It is your will that determines who you are, not the other way
around. The responsibility for your entire world rests on your shoulders. Your
shoulders, not the government's, corporate
Of course, once you make this realization, along with it comes the sensation of the horrifyingly heavy responsibility
you now bear. You alone are responsible for your destiny. The weight of this
might make you sick to your stomach. This sensation is called nausea its also called dread.
Most people don't want to feel nauseous. They don't want to live in
dread of the repercussions of the choices they might make or refuse to make. So
they go along with the herd, take in the TV adds, and head on down to the mall
to buy what they're told to buy, and so carefully defend themselves against the
sickening realization that they themselves are responsible for their squalid,
shallow lives, and the entire responsibility of making something special of
their lives rests completely and only on them.
But we at AFD are different. We tolerate nausea. Indeed, we
befriend it. In the last 100 meters of the last time up the climb, or the
final, beyond anaerobic jump across to the break that finally stays away, we
are alone with our nausea, exercising with every lactate overloaded pedal
stroke our own choice about where we want to be and who we want to be.
And we know dread. We jump solo from the complacency of the pack by
a bike length, straining toward the finish line banged with terror and the
dread of being chased down, swallowed up and shut out as an abject failure. How
much easier and less dreadful it would be never to choose, never to separate
oneself, but to hold nice smooth lines through the corners, get lots of
compliments, and finish with the pack. Not us.
So far this year, we at AFD made obvious what we can do if we
choose to do it. It is far, far beyond what it would be safe to imagine. To me,
the responsibility that this awesome potential brings is frightening, dreadful,
nauseating. Fascinating !!!!
Black Sheep: a discreditable member of a respectable group.
(Webster's)
Yes we in some ways are black sheep, a discredit to the complacency
of the group. Constantly reminding them of the dangers of
their unawareness.
Unaware of their deficiencies and the price they have to pay. They
pay with pain and the sickening realization of the choice they made.
This nauseating sport we've chosen rewards the bad ones. To be good
we must be bad. So keep up the bad work and good things will happen. They
already have.
Pappy