What color are your butterflies?
January 20, 2017 § 4 Comments
Tomorrow is the big day. The big ride. The one you’ve been training for. Planning for. Buying lots of new everything for, especially carbon that is always pure carbon, made with 100% all-carbon fiber fibre.
“The hay is in the barn,” as G$ likes to say, “so relax.”
BUT YOU’RE NOT G$.
So you lay out your clothes and man are you selective. Those shorts with the white rear panels that give everyone a view of the gate when the sun hits them right? Out.
That beloved-but-stained heroine’s jersey from your KOM up Kidneystone Pass? Not tomorrow. Tomorrow you have to look fresh. New. Perfect.
And you’re not ashamed to sock measure, either, laying out your six pairs of identical socks and making sure that the right and left are exactly the same height.
Bike? Buffed and spiffed, chain redolent with the smell of fresh Wend chain wax.
Tars? New front, new back, filled up with brand new air, two spares and two cartridges in case Ms. Very Bad Luck strikes not once but twice.
Glasses washed, helmet wiped, phone charged, wallet crammed with money and credit card, Barbie food laid out, bottles topped off with super power drinky stuff, Garmin charged, alarm set, you climb into bed and lie there, eyes wide open, heart pounding, butterflies fluttering without rest.
Yep, it’s those darned butterflies, and the more you skip and hop around with that big floppy net the less you catch ’em. What color are yours?
Are they gray butterflies of dread, certain that the whole thing is going to be a massive catastrophe?
Are they little pink butterflies that anxiously flap up to the door of the blast furnace and then skip back with their butts singed?
Are they terrified yellow butterflies, deeply concerned about falling, flatting, getting dropped, knocking someone down, getting lost, bonking, and pretty sure that it will be all of the above?
Are they blue butterflies of unavoidable fate, destiny locked in, the exact result unknown but who cares because it’s going to be bad?
Are they bloodshot butterflies of exhaustion, wondering how you’ll complete a 118-mile beatdown that finishes up Balcom Canyon on two hours of sleep?
Well, here’s a little secret.
It doesn’t matter what color your butterflies are.
Because everybody has ’em.
END
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Cycling in the South Bay 
I thought sock doping was legal
Oop.
Brown: will I be able to take a dump before the race …
Brown + color of chamois: Oops.