Sunshine and Light

A national breakdown

Funny, we were talking yesterday about…the breakdown…at natz last year. Even now it's only something we refer to peripherally, and never head on.

To back up a little, I’m not a cryer. A few sniffles here and there at a particularly touching movie or hallmark commercial, but genuine crying because of something in my life is rare. I think in 5 years of knowing me Chris has seen me cry about 5 times:
When I was in the hospital
When I was shot up with hormones (but only once!)
Chris’s Dad’s funeral
When we lost Fred overnight one time
And…
Natz 2005

I was really looking forward to Natz last year. I was looking forward to the experience, but also I was looking forward to having a day in a strange town with no demands on our time. Chris’s race schedule was awesome – Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. In addition, Sunday was our anniversary. Chris’s work schedule and training schedule, and my work schedule often conflict, so the luxury of a whole day of hanging out with my husband and seeing something besides a cross course was enticing. We could sight see! Newport has those fabulous mansions, and that wouldn't have been far away. Then we’d have a great dinner, and be up for the next day’s race. The perfect weekend!

Things started going off the rails around Thanksgiving. Between sleeping on a sleeper sofa bed at my parent’s place and Chris running a high fever the whole time, there wasn’t much sleep. Chris was really sick, so I drove part way back on Sunday, then we drove another half a day of day on Monday, and then I went into work. Work going absolutely nuts. For the whole time from Thanksgiving until I left for Natz, I didn’t have a night that I didn’t wake up around 3 AM and stare zombie like at the ceiling trying to forget the 1000 things I needed to do. In addition, we got back on Monday after Thanksgiving, then headed out for bike races that weekend. Then it was back to work on Monday, training sessions on Wed & Thurs, fly to Rhode Island for the following weekend. Because of Missing Wed-Fri of natz week, a lot of deadlines had to be met early. Then, while we were dealing with travel and work, Fred had been limping for 6 weeks for unknown reasons, despite our best efforts to do what the doc told us to do, and keep him quiet on a leash. As the pain was making him more morose even with Rimadyl, we finally decided that when we got back, he was going to have to see some sort of specialist.

So when I got to R.I., I was a little…tense.

Anyway, Friday we got to the course about 3 hours early. It was POURING. It had snowed earlier, then warmed up and it was raining. Important Lesson: Resist the temptation to use the hood part of your hoodie in the rain. It turns into a sodden weight hanging off of your neck. Even my bulky Columbia jacket was starting to get soaked through, so after a while I made my way through the disgusting weather back to the car where I planted myself until Chris showed up with similar ideas. Screw warm up, just stay warm. About 30 minutes before his race was scheduled to begin, I ventured out of the car to take his bike through the driving sleet to the pit. It sucked. But I wanted to be sure that I understood the Byzantine pit system rules that were listed in the rule book. (I found out later that it wasn’t an issue, they didn’t enforce them for non-elite races). About the time I got to the pits, 10 minutes across the fields, they cancelled the race. I stopped briefly to cheer from one of the guys from the races we attend and talk to his very brave wife. Then it was back to the car. By the time I got there in my wet clothes, my face was numb and I was shaking. Late that night, we found out that Chris’s race had been scheduled to early afternoon on Saturday.

Saturday bright and early, was at least sunny. This time Fred came with us, and I spent the pre-race prep with the usual Fred duties (Keeping Fred from approaching everyone on bike or off for lovin’, keeping Fred from killing other dogs so that he could keep all of the loving for himself, keeping Fred from dehydrating because he was marking every tree in the park, keeping Fred from getting impatient when little kids wanted to hug him around his head, and finally, loading Fred in the car for the race…). Chris headed off to the course 10 minutes before I did. I made it to the pit about 5 minutes before the start, and went to the starting line. No Chris. He should have been VERY easy to find because he registered about 20 seconds after registration opened so he could get a front row start. As time ticked by, I started grinding my teeth and could feel the blood rising in my neck, I was really worried that he’d had some freak fall or he was sick. When they announced 30 seconds to start, my husband rolled over the horizon. So as the whistle blew, he was taking off shoe covers, and his front row start, and all of the other rows as well, rolled off before he was even on the bike. Fear had turned to anger, and I just could not calm down.. When he came through on the last lap I RAN to the car with the bike, yanked Fred out, and went for a long walk. I vaguely remember seeing one of his teammate’s moms, but can’t remember what I said, or if it was even civil. I knew I was over-reacting, I knew I needed to calm down, but 20 minutes of walking Fred, while holding one of those heading bobbing talking to yourself sessions did nothing.

When I got back to the car, I was trying to be cool, calm and collected, asked “What happened?” Now my husband knows me well, and without a doubt he knew something was wrong. Unfortunately he picked the wrong answer. “Well, I realized I hadn’t really been enjoying the natz experience and stopped to talk to so and so, and then ran into so and so, and I just didn’t hear them call the racers up.”

At that point the top of my head landed 3 football fields away.

Now I know that it didn’t mean that he didn’t care about the race, he just screwed up and was probably trying to play it cool. What I heard at the time was that after everything I had invested in time, money, inconvenience, and discomfort so that he could have as comfortable, fun, and worry free race as possible, he didn’t care enough to make the start. Three weeks of stress and sleep deprivation had worn the control completely down. And that’s when the tears fell.

Chris was traumatized, and I was mortified. The only positive thing out of the whole experience is we walked around the park letting Fred chase squirrels against all doctor’s orders. And he didn’t limp again after that.

posted by MyHusbandRules @ 10:52 AM