Bittersweet night...

Tonight is something of a bittersweet night for me; tonight is the opening night of our Tuesday night racing series here at our velodrome... and I'm not there racing.

I was kinda hoping to be there to race, even if I only finished one race in the B's or even the C's- just to complete the recovery since the crash. See, this month- the 29th- marks one year since the crash at the velodrome that changed my life. I am SO blessed to even be alive, let alone well enough to ride again and complain about not being able to ride as much as I would like. On 4/29 of 2008, I came close to never doing anything again and a lot closer to dieing than I hope I ever get again.

Instead of racing, I'm at home doing laundry and working on some of the projects that are behind and need to be worked on... which is a lot. I did not know that opening night was tonight until this past weekend, since the velodrome website had not been updated with the racing schedule until last week- a friend of mine told me that racing was starting tonight and totally caught me off guard. I was drifting around in my own world of belief that racing would not start for another week or so and that I still had time to get in a few training sessions on the track before the start of the season... but I was wrong.

Track racing, even though it nearly killed me, is still something that I love very deeply. It is my hope that I will get back on the track this year and finish what I started last year and retake my place among "the fast guys". I would like that a lot. What I fear, like many people who suffer a traumatic experience, is that I will get back on the track and be consumed by the fear of a repeat incident. I am reasonably confident that I can get back on the track and work through that initial jitteriness. I've crashed many times in the past and I've always managed to get back up and get back into my slot in the paceline... and I plan for this time to be no different... but only time will tell.

So, even though I am healthy again and riding as much as my schedule and life allows, I have not yet completed the cycle of my recovery... but it will hopefully be soon.

Tim