"Mature" Deciders: The Mooseman Story


Team Scrappy is not a team of quitters. Just ask Gered how many times he's gotten into a bath tub of freezing cold water so that he could get up the next day and continue to punish his body. (Though admittedly he seems to like it at this point.) Despite this fact, Gered and I both chose not to compete at Mooseman last weekend. Despite tons of preparation, and $200 spent on entrance fees, the circumstances of the day led us to the "mature" decision to save our legs for a race worth doing. Let me paint you a picture of race morning:

4:00AM not a creature was stirring, 'cept for Gered and Brett who were eating omlettes and packing the car.
4:30AM we're on the road - all seems quiet and gentle enough.
5:30AM we arrive at Wellington State Park amidst a light drizzle and some distant thundery rumblings. We head over to the transition area and split up. I head into transition, and Gered heads over to registration. Then... DOWNPOUR.
6:00AM the race director post pones the race an hour until 8:30, and orders everyone under a nearby tent.
7:00AM still pouring the race director pushes the race back another 30 minutes, to 9AM, cancels the swim and turns the race into a 17 mile bike + 10k run. At this point I exit the tent, I'm under and look for Gered.
7:15AM We connect and make the executive decision. The race is no longer worth racing. Why?

  • It's raining, and there's no sign of it stopping. No since in risking sliding through a turn in a half a race.
  • It's a half a race! We trained for a triathlon - not a bike/run. Lame man. No significantly comparable experience would have come from a time trial start bike/run race that we don't already get every weekend during our brick.
  • My shins are "splinty"... I didn't want to make that any worse running full throttle in racing flats, when we've got a race of real importance 3 weeks down the road. 
  • And lastly, 3 weeks away from Philly, we've got two more really hard weeks of work. Better to go into that build period fresh than already broken down from half a miserable race!
Sure we could have made use of the money we spent registering. Sure we could have made use of the trip out there at 4AM. But would that really have been productive in the long run. We thought not. So we packed up and went out for french toast and strawberry shortcake.

9:00AM At the time of the race start - the sun came out. No more thunder, no more rain, just sun. So we just sat there, drank our bittersweet chocolate milk, and shrugged our shoulders. The decision was made and there was nothing we could do - given the circumstances, we made the right choice.

The next day I woke up exhausted. I was drained all day. My hypothesis is that the day or two of adrenaline that built up leading into the race left me with a bit of an adrenal hangover the following day. All that preparation, all the excitement, and then... nothing. Gered very accurately equated the feeling with "blue balls". If you don't know what that is, I'm not explaining. If you're a guy, and you do know what that is, you know exactly what he's talking about.

Our only complaint with the way things played out was the decision of the race director to cancel the swim and cut the bike short so prematurely. That was a big oops on his part, I think, but we're over it. Also, I learned that it seems nothing good can come from New Hampshire, which is probably Gered's biggest win of the weekend.

Anywho - on to Philly! Definitely feeling really for this one!