Understanding Oz

There’s a time just before dawn when nothing is exploding in the distance and everything is still. During this time I almost forget that there is anything else other than this time, and maybe it’s because I can actually think, and I can actually make out the things on the horizon. All of the things that matter aren’t blocked by all of the things that don’t, and I don’t have any trouble deciphering what’s what.

SEBA #2 and likely SEBA #3 aren’t going to happen. A few unexpected events yesterday afternoon hopped into the mix, and I’m going to need to be here instead of being chased down the road by Cujo. And to tell you the truth, that’s really OK. At this point I don’t think that there’s much else I can do for Steelhead. I’ve come as far as I’m going to come, and I’m ready for whatever it has to show me. Maybe I won’t finish within the cut-off, but I don’t care. I’m going to show up and I’m going to finish what I started, and what I bring will have to be sufficient.

You know, I thought that I’d have a harder time with the idea of losing crucial training days, but I don’t. Not now, I think that maybe this is what's supposed to happen at this point. Nothing about this race really sticks anymore no matter how hard it’s thrown, so maybe this is what it’s like to be ready - or not ready. In the end I don’t think that it makes much of a difference because I’m showing up either way, and maybe it was just about that all along. Traveling down this long and winding brick road just to get to the end and pull back the curtain on the big, bad, booming voice of the seamonsters and hills and humidity, and everything else that I thought was intimidating.

Yeah, maybe that little, old, skinny man was all I ever really needed to see, after all. Heh, seems that I actually found what I was looking for out here.

And with that, my friends, the sun is starting to come up.

It's time to go home.