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| Me, in the light blue |
I did a bike race (the Taco Time Volunteer Park Criterium) yesterday. What follows is what it felt like. For those of you who don’t follow racing (i.e.most of my friends), a criterium is a race where cyclists go around a half mile to mile loop for a set time period. My race was 35 minutes long.
The only bikey words I use below are:
Interval: A short, hard effort used to train speed.
Peloton: The main group of riders during a race.
GCN: A Youtube channel that has, among other things, cycling specific training videos.
Dropped: The act of losing contact with the main group of riders. This is bad because drafting other cyclists makes going fast easier. You can go 25 MPH in a group with the same effort as going 20 MPH alone.
Over a month ago:
4:00 AM-Wake up. Go to the basement. Do intervals for half an hour. Try not to quit after the first few minutes. Succeed in not quitting. Begin to hate the people on GCN for their insistence that you need to push yourself to get better. Sweat profusely.
4:45 AM-Hobble upstairs for a shower.
Repeat twice a week until one week before the race.
Last week:
4:00 AM-Do not wake up. Skip intervals to rest. Enjoy not stumbling into the basement at 4:00 AM. Stop hating the GCN people as much.
Yesterday:
4:00 AM-Wake up to make breakfast.
5:30 AM-Wake my wife up so she can get ready.
6:30 AM-Leave the kids in Gigi’s capable hands. Drive to Seattle.
8:00 AM-Register for the pre-race clinic as they’re still putting up their tents. Try to decide if I’m shivering from the cold or nerves. Decide on both.
8:30 AM-Attend Jessica Cutler’s beginner’s race clinic. Try to absorb years of racing knowledge in an hour.
9:30 AM-Leave the clinic calmer. Note: Calmer does not equal calm. But it’s a step in the right direction.
9:50 AM-Hug my wife. Give Ken several awkward fist bumps. Remind them both that my goal is to make it one lap without getting dropped and to not crash. Emphasize this is not a joke. Worry that I’ll have trained for weeks and woken my wife up at the crack-of-dawn to get dropped seconds into a race. Begin to sweat despite the cold.
9:55 AM-Line up at the start line with 43 other guys. Breath. In. Out. In. Out. This is fine. This is going to be fine.
10:00 AM-The whistle blows. Holy crap. Everyone is moving. I should move too.
10:00:30 AM-Listen to the hiss of the chains, the rumble of the tires, the noise of the peloton. I can feel the noise crackling around me. The peloton is alive, and I’m a part of it. We fly around a sweeping right hand bend, dive around a tight left, roar faster and faster along the downhill, tracking the road as it drifts right. The speed-induced-wind whips us, roars past our ears. We surge up the hill, the sounds of gears shifting pinging like so much machine gun fire. We round the last bend and fly up the false flat to the start line.
10:02 AM-Lap one done. I’m in the main group. At the back, sure, but in it. I throw my wife and Ken the shaka, the hang loose. I got this. Goal one done. Secret stretch goal unlocked: Finish with the bunch.
10:03 AM-Everything hurts.
10:04 AM-I’m staring at the wheel in front of me, mesmerized as I pour everything I have into the pedals to stay with that wheel. Remember that Jessica said I’m supposed to be looking four wheels ahead. Look up. There’s a gap between the peloton and us. I’m getting gapped. Surge around the wheel in front of me to latch back onto the peloton. Remember that Jessica said that if you’re not moving up, you’re actually moving back.
10:05 AM-I’m pretty sure I’m dying. This is what dying must feel like.
10:06 AM-I feel like I can’t make forward progress. I’m constantly jumping to wheels at the back of the peloton that drift off the back. I feel like I’m running the wrong way on a moving sidewalk. The peloton is slipping away.
I'm in bright blue, a few seconds behind the main peloton.
10:08 AM-It’s worse to hurt alone. There are no wheels to watch. No draft to catch. Just the course snaking out in front of me. Too much time to think. I can feel my lungs burning. My back tightening up. Discard the stretch goal. Finishing with the bunch is not an option. New goal: Go fast enough not to get lapped. If I don’t get lapped, I won’t get pulled from the race.
10:08:30 AM-The race clock says 25 minutes to go. That has to be a lie. This is only a 35-minute race. I’ve been racing for years now. All of my life has been racing and suffering in solitude. Decide that racing is a time-vortex where the only sensation available is pain. Grimace. Carry on.
10:10 AM-Hear a rumble and then watch a red-jersey-clad cyclist blast by like a spandex-clad cannon ball. Surge to catch his wheel. Do not succeed.
10:11 AM-Pedal.
10:12 AM-Grimace. Pedal.
10:13 AM-Grimace. Pedal. Grimace.
10:14 AM-Pass a cyclist. Feel a surge of strength. Fly.
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| To be fair, I can't remember if I'm passing this guy or he's passing me. |
10:14:30 AM-Grimace. Pedal. Grimace.
10:18 AM-Hear the roar of the peloton behind me as I climb the hill. For an instant, think that I’m ahead, that I’m leading the race. Surge to keep from getting passed.
10:18:02 AM-“Slow bike!” Listen to the call echo through the peloton as they blast by me. Realize that I’m the slow bike. Deflate a little inside.
10:18:30 AM-Feel the draft of the peloton pulling me along, sweeping me up like leaves behind a car. Allow myself to drift out of the draft, convinced that drafting the pack while being a lap behind them is wrong. Doubt that conviction as soon as the peloton is too far away to chase.
10:20 AM-Hear a whistle. See the line judge waive me and two other cyclists to the side. Roll to a stop. Done. Feel the conflicting emotions of relief and pride and disappointment.
10:21 AM-Recount the race to my wife and Ken too quickly and too loudly.
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| Pictured: Exhaustion |
11:00 AM- Lunch.
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