I did another bike race today (the Poulsbo Twilight Criterium). It was super fun. It was also awful. I’ll try to explain how those two statements can be true at the same time. This is how it happened.
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Taken from the cheering corner. It's entirely possible I'm in this picture.
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I woke up today feeling underprepared and nervous. I became convinced that I was going to get dropped in the first lap. This race was harder than the last one, and I only lasted three laps before getting dropped last time. A few friends, my mother-in-law, my wife, and my kids were coming, and I was afraid of wasting their time. I was going to pop instantaneously and then they’d have come out to Poulsbo for nothing. What a waste of time.
I couldn’t decide if that narrative in my head was clear-headed pragmatism or unreliable negativity. It felt like I was trying to talk myself out of racing by being so dark internally that I’d have no choice but to call it off. I decided it was just negativity. I made decision approximately 100 times between waking up and lining up at the race. The negative voice in my head is nothing if not tenacious.
There’s something about racing that is deeply exposing. There’s this stated goal hanging out there like a neon sign, and if you fail to live up to it, you fail. And having support is awesome. But failing in front of your awesome friends is… well… not awesome. Because then you’re not just failing yourself. You’re failing them.
But enough thinking about failure. Let’s talk about the race.
I lined up with around forty other guys. The line judge gave the traditional speech. The clocked ticked down. My heart attempted to beat its way out of my chest. Then the whistle blew.
Lesson from my first race: Fight for position. Losing the draft is losing the race.
That lesson pounded in my ears as we rode off the line. Fight for position. Stay in the pack. Losing the draft is not an option.
As we approached the first corner, I could hear my family and friends cheering for me. We took the first corner and started climbing. Gears popped. Chains whirred. Lungs chugged. I moved up in the pack.
Little known fact: A good cheering section is like a tailwind.
A wide left turn lead to a gentle downhill that grew steeper and steeper as it went. I was losing position in the pack.
Lesson from my first race: If you’re not actively passing people, you’re going to fall out the back.
I spun my legs, tucked into the draft. We flew at thirty miles an hour down the hill and it steepened. Another left turn at the bottom. I took the inside of the corner, trying to take the best racing line. The rider immediately in front of me slowed, his back wheel inches from my front wheel. I tapped the brakes and grimaced at the wasted energy. I fought hard for that speed.
Another left turn led us back to the start/finish straight. It was a gentle uphill, and I let the draft pull me forward, mentally chanting, “Fight for position. Fight for position. Don’t just sit in. Don’t lose the draft. Don’t you dare lose the draft.”
The hill was steeper this time. That is a physical impossibility, but my legs assured me it was true. I passed a few people on the hill, but fewer than the first time. At the top, I took the left hand turn wide, allowed myself to drift to the right side of the road. I put in a small burst of speed and drifted up on the right of the pack, passing more people.
Lesson from the watching YouTube videos: Allow your momentum to carry you up through the pack.
I stayed wide right for the next turn, determined to avoid getting pinched on the inside again. It worked beautifully. I slid up the right side of the pack using my speed from the downhill. I tried it again on the next turn. Success again. I smiled internally. This was going great. I was in the middle of the pack coming to the end of lap two.
Lap three started with me brimming with confidence. Sure, everything hurt. But I was in the pack. In. The. Pack. Not dangling on the back. Not in some fractured group that was getting left behind. In the pack like I knew what I was doing. Like I belonged there. I gave my cheering squad the shaka. I had this. I was doing awesome.
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| Pictured: Doing awesome. Side note: This picture is from the second lap, so I'm not in the middle of the pack yet. Trust me. I totally got there. I think. |
As we started the hill for the third time, my legs assured me that I did, in fact, not have this. I started losing position. Riders slipped by on both sides as I struggled to find the right gear. There was no right gear. It was going to be fine though. It didn’t matter if I lost some positions on the hill so long as I stayed with the pack. Anywhere in the pack. I could make up those places by slinging around the corners just like last lap.
Just before we crested the hill, I glanced over my shoulder. The road was empty behind me. I looked forward. There was a gap between me and the pack.
Crap.
I went to sprint, to close the gap. But my legs refused. The gap went from feet to yards to yawning chasm in seconds. My heart sank.
There’s a decision that needs to be made when you get dropped: Do you quit, or do you suffer alone for as long as possible? I want to tell you that quitting wasn’t an option. That I didn’t even think about it. That, in fact, I did not obsess on it for lap after lap. Certainly, that I didn’t long for it and the sweet, sweet release that it would bring.
I did all of those things. But I didn’t quit. So that’s something.
Lesson from YouTube: You can quit now and feel better physically in a few minutes. Or you can suffer until the end, and feel better physically and emotionally after. Growth comes from not quitting.
Response from me to YouTube motivational speakers: Shut up. It hurts, okay?
The pack passed me after a few laps. I don’t know how many. I stopped counting laps after I got dropped. I just kept riding as hard as I could. Alone. Well, alone except for the cheering from my friends and family on the corner before the hill and the random encouragement from spectators.
Lesson from my first race: Riding alone is hard.
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| Pictured: Riding alone. |
I was alone until I wasn’t alone. I started the hill for the millionth time (probably an exaggeration), and I saw a pair of cyclists struggling up the hill in front of me. I did not know where they came from, nor did I care. I cared that they were in front of me and getting closer to me. I pushed to catch them, rode the hill in a harder gear. Put my head down and suffered for the chance to catch them.
As we crested the hill, I latched on to one of their wheels. I followed him down the hill, reveling in the free speed of the draft. I stayed behind him as we rounded onto the start/finish straight.
“Thanks for the draft. Pull me through here, and I’ll see if I can pull you up the hill,” I said, surprised I had enough air to form a sentence.
“Okay,” he grunted through the exertion. “Don’t know how much gas I have left.”
“Me either.”
After we rounded the corner to the hill, I slipped in front of him, and went to work. This was going to be great. We were going to be faster together than alone. I looked over my shoulder as I crested the hill. I didn’t see him. Crap. I rode on alone again.
As the laps ticked by, I caught and worked with a few other people. They would pull. Then I would pull. And we went faster together. Then one or the other of us would fail to keep the pace and the other would slip away. But the brief contact, those islands of human support in the sea of suffering, gave me a second wind. I stopped thinking about quitting. Unless the line judge pulled me, I was going to finish.
The lap counter ticked down. Five to go. Four. Three. Two. One to go. I was three laps behind the pack at this point, but I was still in the race. I was only there because the line judge was generously allowing me to continue, but I was there. I heard the pack round the last corner. I was heading for the hill, trying to get one last lap in, and they were sprinting for the finish.
As I struggled up the hill, their momentum took them next to me. I listened to their banter, the congratulations, and the “did you see that”s, and then they drifted behind me. They were cooling down. Soft pedaling. But I was racing. I was the last one racing. The race was done. But I was racing anyway.
I tucked into the descent, my chest on my handlebars. I railed around the corners, spinning furiously. I shifted up, pushed harder. Last corner. Hands in the drops. Wind blasting. Everything blurring from the effort. People were milling around the finish line. I looked for a gap, stood, sprinted for last place.
Finished.
I rolled to my friends and family. Received hugs and smiles and congratulations. I tried to express to them the ebb and flow of emotions. The interplay of race and heart. I failed. Mostly I coughed and talked loudly.
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