Due to the confluence of a family visit and the corresponding event the visit prompted, I have had to put my racing "career" on hold for the past few weeks. During this time I still rode my bike and tried to remain active by fishing and mowing the lawn, but there’s nothing like racing to maintain a high fitness level and allow one the freedom to display their backside to the public in a distressingly tight pair of shorts. My racing hiatus also included a trip to Hershey Park, known as "The Sweetest Place on Earth" or as I call it "Chocolate Disneyland". The visit left a lasting impression on me, and I still am operating in "theme park mode". For example, all of my maps need to have locations drawn in a bright, cartoonish illustrative style; I instinctively throw change into any open water (my daughters have already retrieved $1.63 out of the downstairs toilet); and I still view every event as an "attraction."

For instance, yesterday instead of dropping my daughter off at school, I took her to the "North Jersey Edutational Kiosk of Lernin’" (wait time approximately 6 and 1/2 hours). And a little while later I didn’t have a tuna sandwich standing in my kitchen, I had a "Captain Ulster’s Turbo Fish On the Go Meal"—hold the mobility, please. This effect should wear off soon, but for the time being I’m exhibiting signs of Theme Park Life Event Relabeling Syndrome (TPLERS). The condition is temporary, and usually goes away with exposure to work related memos and healthy food, but in the meantime I am allowing the symptoms to manifest themselves while slowly weaning myself off theme park food with a funnel cake drip. This race report from last Saturday is a part of my therapeutic process. Thanks for helping in the fight against TPLERS.

I awoke early to reenact my familiar early morning pre-race routine and was pleased to discover that I could still shuffle my way about my house in the pre-dawn darkness without falling down the stairs or whizzing into the sink by mistake (I typically void in the bathtub). I loaded up my self-navigated park transport shuttle (car), and followed the familiar route for my passage to the Misconception Jamboree (an amateur bike race). Luckily the line for tickets to the jamboree wasn’t very long; I got my park pass and made my way to Emperor Standaround’s Banality Meadow (the start line).

After standing in a queue, we started the ride. I was hoping for more of a "It’s a Small World" pace race, with a speed akin to a small boat ride causally careening its way through an attraction in a stream of liquid made of equal parts water, anti-freeze and child vomit. But this was not the case today. Apparently everyone on the ride today was tall enough to tower over the flat outstretch hand of The USACycling Sloth that decides who may ride and who may not. I wanted a trip to Kiddie Korner, but instead I was thrust into The Kingdom of Anaerobia.

Despite being thrust into a section of the park that I didn’t have tickets for, I was determined to make the best of it. I tried to get onto all of the rides. I tried Mr Funny Helmet’s Wild Ride at least twice, but found the pace caused chest pains. I retreated to the park aid station and after a bit of rest and a corn dog, I tried Professor Grumpington’s Heavy Breathing Exhibition. This too was very uncomfortable and I was forced back to the park aid station, where I recuperated with a Pepsi drip.

These repeated trips to the aid station eventually had their effect ion me, serving to bolster my confidence. After a final extended stay in the aid station, I was feeling optimistic and decided to try one last ride before the park closed. The park usually closes with The Parade of the Fast Twitchers, and after a passage through Delusion Acres, I believed that I could take part in the parade. I got a Fast Pass, and that put me near the front of the line as the Parade approached. But the sad truth was soon revealed, I was just a slow kid in cartoon mouse ears, fooled into believing that the artificial world constructed around me would allow a free ride to the front.