Let’s start at the end and work our way backward. It’s easier that way. Or, at least I think it will be.
I crossed the finish line solo. Chris was on a hill taking pictures. Marc was cheering for me. Jackky was on the sidelines clapping. I was relieved to be done with 24 miles and 3000 feet of climbing but I was also despondent. And I don’t know why.
My best guess is that I wasn’t just physically fatigued, but I was mentally drained as well. Having just raced Wednesday at the Highlands Ranch race series and crashing my bike, I had a lot of mental chatter the entire winter park race.
After 23 miles, the last mile of this course is riddled with slimy rocks and roots, scattered just enough to make it difficult to maneuver around, especially when you’re exhausted. And that might have been what tipped me over – literally and mentally.
I found myself unable to clear sections I was able to a couple of weeks before when Marc and I previewed the course. My right cleat lost a bolt so the few times I tried to unclip, I got stuck in my pedal and tumbled.
Never mind the intrusive thoughts that were louder than the singing of Robert Palmer‘s “Bad Case of Loving You.“
Even as I caught up to the Clydesdales and the 60+ men and the 50+ men and single speed women, I kept telling myself I wasn’t going fast enough.
See, when you’ve dropped your competitors at the start, you have no idea how far they are behind (or, in my case on Wednesday, you don’t know if any of them snuck around you when you crashed and you didn’t notice).
I had no one to chase. I was being chased. So, my goal was to try to catch up to Jackky and Marc. Marc was only starting about four minutes ahead, and Jackky started about 18 minutes.
My goal finish time was 2:30:00. Why? It sounded good. I didn’t have a previous race time to compare it to so I chose a time that was realistic, yet challenging.
But in this random choosing of 2:30:00 finish time I forgot to do the math to figure out how fast I needed to go to get there. I guess I assumed it’d just happened. But that’s also why that time was meaningless. If I really wanted to finish in 2:30:00, I should’ve planned – and I didn’t.
I did care about winning the race, of course, and catching up to Jackky and Marc.
While being chased, I know I started slowing down a lot because I was tired. Another thing that bothered me. I mean, in racing, whose legs aren’t on fire? What bothers me the most is that it felt hard yet I wasn’t going as fast as I wanted. What kind of fast was that? About as fast as this 2:30:00 time I didn’t plan.
I think I burned a lot of my matches when I passed people at the start.
They had the Sport women start last, not sure why. Like, behind the Clydesdales and 60+ men. You don’t want to put your slow ass group at the end, right? Because that’ll make for a really long day, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was passing all these dudes who started ahead of us. And when you’re passing, you can’t just keep your pace, you have to surge around them and then stay quick enough you don’t end up leapfrogging. I can’t even tell you the number of guys I surged by — and that was probably a contributor to the fatigue I felt later.
I’m sure surging at the start line also contributed to the fatigue later because how could it not? As we lined up, Katy Perry was playing on the speakers, and one of the 60+ women said, “Now who is sprinting off the start line?”
We laughed, but I also knew I’d do something similar to that. It was a surge. The guy counted down Five… Four… Three… Two… One. I surged from the group, maybe a little harder than I should have. My tactic has always been to drop as many people at the start of the mountain bike race as I can so I have a big enough gap for the downhill. Unless I get stuck behind people and then my strategy is shit.
I posted about this race the following day, talking about how hard I am on myself, that even coming in 10 minutes faster than second place still didn’t feel fast enough—trying to be totally real and transparent because we see too many athletes post only the rose-colored recaps and that isn’t life. And I think some of them missed the point because they told me I needed to upgrade to expert instead.
We live in a culture, especially in Colorado, where we always have to do more, be more. More. More. More. Like, it’s not enough to win a race, you have to obliterate the entire field.
It’s not enough to finish a grueling course like the Tipperary Classic, you have to also PR all the segments and get trophies on Strava, otherwise, what’s the point?
You can’t just have a run-of-the-mill mountain bike, you need top-of-the-line, costs as much as a car kind of bike.
You can’t just enjoy a downhill at your own speed, you have to rail down it like you have a second life.
I was talking to my therapist about my self-worth as a mountain biker (among other things) and how I don’t feel good enough, but when we live in a culture like what I just described, you’ll never feel like you’ve done enough because the bar is constantly raising. I’m trying to learn to be “good enough.“
I am enough the way I am. Imperfect.
During the race, as I was second-guessing myself, my skills, and my self-worth, I came up with a mantra that felt incredibly unnatural (I’m not a mantra person):
“I am strong. I am skilled. I belong here.“
I’d repeat that over and over until I got bored with it and the self-doubt disappeared. Then I started singing Robert Palmer‘s “Bad Case of Loving You.”
And while I thought it was a little too woo woo for me to repeat self affirmations, it did help.
And maybe if more of us repeated shit like that, we wouldn’t fall into the self-loathing cycle after (or before or during) a race or group ride.
For the data/detail nerds 🤓, here are some things:
– Race name: Winter Park Tipperary Classic (formerly known as King of the Rockies)
– Category: Sport Women 30-39
– Field size: 8
– Average speed: 9.5 mph
– Time: 2:38:00
– Course: 24 miles, 3,000’ in elevation
– Snacks: Skratch Labs raspberry energy chews before the race. UCAN gel midway through.
– Hydration: 3 scoops of Flow Formulas Endurance Drink in my bottle + water in my hydration pack
– Clothing: Borah
– Bike shop: The Bikery at the Brewery
– Bike: 2020 Scott Spark RC 900 Team Issue AXS
– Tire pressure: 17 front, 20ish back
– Tires: Ardent Race (front and back)
– Affirmations said during the race: “I am strong. I am skilled. I belong here”
– Song on repeat in my head: Robert Palmer, “Bad Case of Loving You”
– Breakfast: Muesli + cereal + walnuts + pepitas + soy milk
– Recovery drink: Flow Formulas Recovery Drink
– How I felt afterward: 💩💩 my stomach was not happy. Head and lungs weren’t thrilled but not as bad as Wednesday night’s race.