When Cross Seasons Go Bad

I went into this cross season with high expectations. Really high. Maybe too high. I had been pretty focused for over a year and had seen reasonable results last season. I did the 4 a.m.'s that I had to do while I finished up school just to get any training in. I did some races on the roads and did ok... even brought home a few bucks and a beer t-shirt in primes. I hit it HARD at Great Glen and that went far better than ok. I took a break to recover and then started to ramp it up again. And then it was time to race. My master plan was working beautifully. And then it wasn't...

First I sucked, but I figured I was still a little dead from GG.
Then I sucked again, but I was doing it on 3 hours sleep so it was my own fault.
Then it started to get hard to get in workouts.
Then I drove really far to suck. And crash. And suck again (fortunately no link to that DNF).
Then it was still hard to do workouts and my motivation to get up at 4 a.m. had been used up.
Then I finally thought I had my shit together and my bike decided it didn't.
And then I basically said eff it and gave up the ghost on attempting to train.
So then I went and played in the mud and didn't care how it went.
And then I hurt myself.
And here we are.

Back in the beginning I cared a lot and I was really irritated that it wasn't going well. I think the most irritating part was that after the first two races, I didn't have a traceable reason for why it was quite as bad as it was. Guys I've competed with in the past, even this year, were kicking the crap out of me. My workouts were off, but not that far off. Unfortunately I also started to notice the motivation to train going downhill. Most times I should have gotten up early to ride, I just opted for the snooze. Hit the trainer late after football practice... no thanks. So by the time Providence rolled around, I really had it in my head that that would be the last straw. I'd either kill it and get my arse in gear or it would suck and I'd just pull the plug to avoid making me hate my bike. We know by now what the outcome was.

So am I bitter/disappointed/angry/happy? I dunno. Call it accepting. I chose to just give it up for this season rather than fight a battle the whole time with wanting to do well, but not getting there for a lot of reasons. I could have chosen to get up at 4 every day... it just wasn't in me. I'm still registered for Sterling and I'll still go even if it's just to shoot the shit on the line and tell jokes at the back of the pack. This of course assumes I get my calf figured out which isn't proving to be so easy. I may also hit up a small race or two if I've got nothing going on and it's not a miserable day. As far as working for results though, I think I'll just save that for spring.