Sometimes the best thing about bike racing is…not racing. Week in, week out, for most of the year, March through December, I like many of you am more or less in a constant state of bike race preparation or recovery. I get so used to it I don’t even notice that all or most of my spare time and thoughts get directed toward my readiness or unreadiness to pack/travel/race that weekend. How did I heal from that last crash? Do I have enough glue to re-glue that tire I patched? I need to re-cable my bike after that mudfest yesterday; it’s going to rain Wednesday so that means intervals on the trainer or else do them Thursday. Can I do them Thursday or will that trash my race legs for Saturday?
Even when we talk about taking a break, many of us who take our bike racing (too) seriously tend to contextualize our break-taking as simply an extension of our training and recovery program. While this is understandable, and necessary for someone attempting to achieve at the highest levels of the sport and make a living racing their bike, most of us aren’t realistically in that category of people. For us then, it makes sense to take a break from being athletes sometimes and to focus on the other, more sustainable elements of our lives like family, career, school, and a million other things we let go in the service of our two-wheeled ambitions. And if we’re lucky, that time can recharge our batteries a bit and remind us of all the things we love about racing. (See what I did there? All roads lead to racing.) Lots of times the races I enjoy the most and do best in are races that follow a layoff. It’s true; usually when I’m peaking I’m so immersed in racing and training that it isn’t really fun. There’s something to be said for knowing what you’re missing.
I heard Andre Agassi being interviewed about his new biography on the radio last week and he shared something with the interviewer that might sound shocking, but didn’t surprise me all that much. He said he hated tennis, had always more or less hated tennis and basically saw excelling at it as his only means of escape: the only way out is through. Lucky for him he was world class, and sadly most of us are not. But his sentiments ring true to me. Just about everyone I know who has ever ridden a 25+ hour week in 30 degree weather, or put in marathon base training sessions on an indoor trainer wants to quit. Yes we love bike racing, we live for it, that’s the problem: it blocks out the frigging sun. The trouble is, we can’t quit before we find out how good we really are/could be. And most of us, unlike Agassi or Lance Armstrong, don’t show enough talent early enough in life to find ourselves whisked away into situations where we can focus exclusively on the development of our talent. So we keep at it, and we wonder, and we sacrifice having a normal life, and our families/spouses/significant others/friends put up with it. But deep down, no matter how much fun we’re having, we all want it to be over.
Yeah I raced once this past weekend, but it was 10 minutes from home so I feel like that almost doesn’t count. I did spend enough time at home to become thoroughly stir crazy and to give my apartment its most thorough cleaning for many moons. Now at least the next time I stumble in the door late on a Sunday night carrying 6 wheelbags, a hockey duffel and a bike on my shoulder I won’t have to walk into a dump. I also kicked around my neighborhood for long enough to remember that I’m not in love with the city I live in, which makes traveling to races every weekend an attractive prospect. So yeah, I’m sending out resumes again this week.
I’m pretty psyched to race next weekend. The season is drawing to a close and while I’ve had my ups and downs and frustrations, all in all I’ve been having fun. It’s a masochistic, stress-inducing, nail-biting kid of fun though, and honestly I’ll be glad when it’s over. But like I said, the only way out is through, so I’ll be training hard tomorrow morning. Whitey will be fly fishing.
