I write today not from a place of utter despair, because that would be dumb. SO, I am not doing that. I am not in despair. But I will warn you, I will unabashedly talk of feelings in this post so don't say I didn't warn you CAUSE I DID.
Okay then.
Over the weekend, the lizard ventured to Charlotte, North Carolina for the renowned Presbyterian Hospital Criterium. Here are some things I heard about this race before I could even wrap my brain around the fact that I would be doing it:
"It is fast."
"It is really, really fast."
"IT IS THE FASTEST RACE EVAR OOOOOMMMMMMMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG."
Etc., Etc., in an unending variation of permutations. I heard these people. It wasn't that I didn't believe them. Maybe it is like that DailyGrace youtube video. THAT ONE! The word fast had essentially ceased to mean anything. What is fast? Fast fast fast fast fast. How many times can you type a word before your brain forgets what the characters mean?
But yeah. I will begin, as things should (or so I am told): with the beginning. At least, standardized testing and an english degree have led me to believe this. But, ya know. English degree.
So. The all powerful RB squadron (one lizard and one laura) were to depart Fort Lauderdale airport at 6am Friday morning. I worked Thursday, and upon completing my workerly duties, I retired to complete one last set of vo2 intervals. This took me until about eight. I got home and remembered that I possess the mechanical skills of a furry rodent, and set to the task of breaking down my bike for travel with much panache and wherewithal.
I swore. I shook my fist at the sky. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth. I mean, really, it's not even that hard, right?! It's not!! I blame my sausage hands. Sausage fingers?!
So by the time that was done, it was almost ten. Rather than drive to Miami at a reasonable hour, as a sensible human might have done, I decided to simply "nap" from about 11-3. This, I thought, would be brilliant and limit my exposure to cats to those of the nap variety. Here is a point-by-point replay of my trip. YOU ARE WELCOME.
2:50 AM, FRIDAY.
I awoke from a dream about canoeing with a flaily gasp and promptly realized my error in judgement. The world was a saucy mishmash. The road was twisty and devious. Survival, I realized, was tantamount here; my driving was like that of a weird drunken uncle. I drank 3 large red bulls and blared needly dubstep songs, but even these measures could not keep me from driving basically on the rumble strips for 110 miles. BUT WHAT CAN YOU DO.
4:45 AM, FRIDAY.
I engaged in all the gobsmackingly fun activities airports have to offer: mean old people!!!!!! long lines!!!!!! TSA agents stealing treats!! WAITING OF EVERY POSSIBLE FASHION!!! In this six hour period, lp regaled me with much knowledge and I discovered that many of the pillars of my life are actually lies. LIES!!
11:00 AM, FRIDAY.
We arrived at Charlotte to find that it felt something like 5pm despite the fact (Siri said so) that it was earlier than noon. I was taken with the yawns. BUT, we were pleasantly surprised by our Charlotte-based teammate, Vanessa, and her boyfriend diego! Yes! We had thought that we would need to catch a mysterious green bus, but Vanessa and Diego rescued us with a Honda Odyssey (! ) What classy people! Truly. There was more talk of the race and the crushing that would occur there. I felt less and less like a participant in this sport and more like a baby bird abducted from its nest and thrown into a fishbowl.
12:40 PM, FRIDAY.
I ate a pita pit. It was pita-licious.
3:00 PM, FRIDAY.
Laura and I ventured out into the wilds of charlotte for some pre-race openers. When I say "we" and "pre-race openers," I actually mean that I followed laura stalkerishly through the streets of Charlotte and tried to keep her within seeing distance as she did some sprinting things. Fun fact: we have seen probably every industrial park in/near vicinity of the city of Charlotte. God, we are so pro. On our way back into town we happened upon a bikeshop (I think it was called Uptown Cycles, but these details escape me), and the nice people there gave us free water and made laura's bike shift better! Good samaritans! Y'ALL GOOD! Also, the girls from NOW Novartis from MS were present at said shop; I do not know this because I recognized them, as I was not wearing my glasses, but because 1) laura said it was them and 2) the lady captaining the register area of the shop told me so. So there.
We then hit up trader joes, where we were told that bikes are NOT allowed inside (that is racist!) and also a vitamin shoppe, where a new dad helped laura select the most economical beta alanine.
7:00 PM (maybe?) FRIDAY.
We agreed that we had accomplished much wandering; with this, I was pleased. Like in the bible. 'Let there be wandering,' and all that. We hungered, and set out to find sustenance. The end result: delightful enchiladas, and a nice waiter who brought me many water refills. I send that guy many internet thanks.
9:30 PM, FRIDAY.
By this point, it felt like I had been awake for my entire consecutive life. We discovered things that I forgot (pajamas! toothbrush! etc.) and laura marveled at my unwordliness. This was a theme of the day, actually; laura would discover a dumb thing that I do and then go "LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIZ!!" This happened when I told her that I ride my tubulars at 140 psi, and when I told her that I thought sunscreen caused cancer. She face-palmed many times. The day ended with my face in a nice pillow.
8:30 AM, SATURDAY.
This was it. The day. THE BIG DAY. The day I presumed to be at least partially mine. We got up and went for a recovery ride. You know, for the muscles! Then, we headed to registration to meet up with Vanessa and collect our numbers and race bible. I saw Ashley T., from whom I abducted a timing chip (accidentally...) at Delray beach and she was quite forgiving. We also saw laura van gilder, who is super pro and awesome. She had just come from the airport, and had yet to assemble her crushin' machine. So....pro.
12:00 PM, SATURDAY.
The rest of the day was spent in convulsive torment. I found the start list on Facebook and out of the 73 names penned, about five had been in the Olympics and another ten were major badasses. The rest were just regular bad asses.
There was a lot of sighing, I remember. I thought I should try breathing a lot, but this did not help. I imagined the race in my mind; I played it and played it going well. I recalled feelings of suffering I have felt and I told myself that it is not necessarily a bad feeling. I felt a compulsive need to half-cry and half-throw up for much of the day.
I decided that not smothering these feelings would probably lead to an epic freakout, and so I set to compartmentalization. I watched Miranda Sings, and giggled. I felt better.
5:00 PM, SATURDAY.
The course opened for lady warm-up time, and so down we went to do just that. I was very pleased to be able to ride on the course before actually racing it, and as we wound around, I saw many faces I recognized--some friends, and some acquaintances, and some people that I think probably hate me...I asked people repeatedly whether they had done the race before or not; I received a variety of answers. Well. Not a variety. Just yes or no. YA DIG!!
I made a point of watching people I knew would do well (lp for one) take the corners. Though her wisdom regarding tubular pressure certainly had helped, I still felt a lack of confidence while doing this. How hard can it possibly be!? You just look somewhere and the bike goes there, right?! ISN'T THAT HOW IT WORKS.
It was surreal. I felt like I had never raced before in my life. I was like a little cycle baby swaddled in someone else's jersey and left out to dry. The throw-uppy feeling persisted and I rolled through the dumbbells of the course for the next forty minutes or so.
5:40 PM, SATURDAY.
With 20 minutes until the start, I decided it would be a good idea to line up. Maybe. Is it better to start closer to the front, or start a bit warmer? I cannot say.
Row by row, jerseys I recognized filled the street. Imagine just muscles, all over the place. Muscles, saturated with an overall feeling of taut anticipation masked with this weird bravado that seems to possess many cycle ladies. I will not lie; intimidation had begun before I even got to the line. "They are just ladies," is what I told lp; unfortunately, I sort of suck at taking my own advice. I started next to cari higgins for the love of god!! THE BICEPS!!! ALL THE BICEPS, OKAY?!??!??!? That is all.
5:55 PM, SATURDAY
The announcers fiddled with a microphone and 80 something ladies all wiggled around with their bicycles and helmet straps and water bottles. There were twenty-five call ups (some of whom didn't know they were getting called up, this was good fun watching them wheedle their way through the million ladies). This placed a substantial number of ladies in front of an already large number of ladies starting in front of me. When you are going 35 on a straightaway, moving up is difficult, and i had been told repeatedly that the back was not the place to attempt to race this, the fabled Presby crit.
I think I talked myself out of anything before I even tried. Which is weird, because as George Hincapie (what) blew the horn and the washed out whine of spokes flooded the air, my only thought was a question, and the question was a simultaneous "What?" and "why???" I had read that the things that demand the greatest performance from a human were pain, fear, and ambition. Why then, with the lizard filed narrow with fear and what I thought to be ambition, did I punk out so utterly?
The first fifteen seconds of the race were enough to finish any hope I had of completing it. I had been told to drill the first five laps, but truthfully, I think I was afraid. We wound through the first corner and screaming carbon spit a sour smell into the air, and it did not quite register. But now, I am sure: I was afraid, not so much of hurting myself, but moreso of hurting another person. And this earnest thing crippled me--the thinking. Too much thinking.
I slung through the third corner still on, probably in about fifty-fifth or sixtieth place; I pedaled and I set up the fourth turn. Then, suddenly, there was a gap. it looked to be only ten feet, I moved forward to close it--and it just never happened. One by one, a few of us who had been at the back honeycombed into a little group and we rotated for about a lap before being pulled. Nobody said anything.
I was filled with a familiar misery. Again, I had done this idiot thing. Again. What am I!? What is my life if not the bicycling!??!!? HUH!?
Honestly, I wallowed. I smacked my head against a wall. I aired my shame on facebook (and then decided it was lame and retracted it.) I watched the pro 1-2 men's race as they blinked through the dark, and I felt taken with sense of regret. A sense of the hours I have spent, of the dollars sent to line registers somewhere in the retail ether. I thought of the stories people told about riders who are lame or un-good and I wondered--is that me? Is that what people think of me? I thought about going back to work tomorrow. I thought about facing all the people (real, or imagined) who consider me nothing. In summation, I had a lot of thoughts. THOUGHTS. IS ANYONE STILL READING AT THIS POINT. I have life confusion, basically. I cried with much sorrow.
The nature of this sport, I think, gives one rider glory and another this despair and that to me is very disheartening. Even in success, you achieve only comparative success. I write this and there are others who didn't even get listed on the results sheet--does my reaction to my performance demean theirs? I think it does, but that doesn't change the way I feel. And the more I talk to other, stronger, more accomplished riders, the more I find this feeling pervasive through the minds of these ladies. There is a cutthroat thing that lives inside us, and the thing hungers for the blood of others. I did not feed the thing this weekend--but, I wonder, will it grow hungrier? Or will it shrivel, and die?
I am certain now that this thing I am doing, whatever it is, is not enough. There are things boxed and unopened somewhere and I must seek them. This does not mean quitting; rather, a reinvigoration, a new angle, another outlook, another day.
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