Pantani 2019: February 10th at 10 AM

MOTHER OF GOD.

The Pantani ride is Sunday, February 10th at 10 AM.
That's a scant 30 days from this very moment if you don't count Saturdays, which I don't, because on Saturdays I don't work, I don't drive a car, I don't fucking ride in a car, I don't handle money, I don't turn on the oven, and I sure as shit don't fucking roll.
Which leaves me only 30 days to "train" for Pantani, and by train I really just mean try to put enough miles in between my ass and the saddle to make at least the first 2 hours of the whole experience tolerable.  After that, not so much.

And, let's face it...turning 40 and riding Pantani as a 40 year-old probably means that very early in the ride, I'll start questioning the relative morality of the whole thing.  Why, indeed, do we insist on doing this to ourselves, every year, in February, with nigh-zero training, at maximum threshold for 4+ hours.  What difference does it make in the grand scheme of things?  Am I even here or is human life actually just a simulation?  What exactly does cheap whiskey produce at lactate threshold that makes my legs feel like this?    And so on.  Deep, existential shit that you only find at the bottom of the emotional hole that you dig for yourself on Pantani Sunday.  Hopefully I'm on the other side of Fox mountain before it happens.

The rest of you, I'm honestly not sure.  Every year we roll down Markwood Road at the start, all 100+ of us in recent years, and I look around at all of you derelicts and I think to myself, who ARE these people.  Like, literally, many of you I don't even recognize.  But you pile out of the woods for this thing, for whatever reason, and for that I...thank you?  Is that accurate?  Do you thank me?  I don't think so.  Realistically, we should give each other a loud, resounding, Fuck You given the circumstances.  But we never do that, do we?

Anyway, it'll go live on Feb 10th, Sunday, at 10 AM from the Paranormal Field, whatever it is, and what will be will be.  Go ahead and jot that down on your calendar.  Remember to dress fancy, pack whiskey, and try not to think too hard about what it is you're about to do to yourself.

More details to follow, so stay tuned.

Up, up, up.