For obvious reasons, this picture is called "The Gun". Anyway, I clearly remember the guy that starts these cyclocross races saying that we would be doing six laps. So after four, after I had told myself at the top of the steep mo-fo climb, that I only had to do it two more times, I saw the lap card saying that we had three more laps. Through the lactic acid hell, with blurry vision and screams of horror that only I could hear (although I later came to learn that others were hearing similar variants of the same thing), I wondered why it was only two more times up when the card said three. And my heart sank as I realized I had miss counted my laps. So I plowed on and at the top of the hill I said to myself as loudly as I could so I could hear myself through the internal screams coursing through my body that now I only had two more times to go up that hill. And I smiled. Or at least I think I did--well internally I did and it confused the screams so they screamed louder. And when I came across the finish line for the last time, I was happy that it was over. Jon Suzuki was dry heaving and I saw a guy tumble over because he couldn't get out of his pedal. Most were in no hurry to move anywhere. This morning I see we did seven laps. Oh the hell. The very devil himself couldn't have come up with this shit if he tried. Cyclocross--only you can make it stop. Hope you are well.

Johnny GoFast