Jitters

I feel like if I write about this maybe my jitters will go away.  But right this second my hands are shaking so badly that I keep typing an “f” when I’m looking for the “g” key and an “m” when I’m looking for the “n”.  It’s hard to spell “shaking” without the n and the g.

I haven’t raced since October, during which my lackluster performance at Track Nationals left me with a pretty sour taste in my mouth.  The answer probably would have been to get back out and do another race immediately, but being that it was October and that I live in VA now, there were no races left.

My last road race (and, coincidently, first ever road race) was back in July of ‘08.  Again, a lackluster performance left me with a bad taste in my mouth for crits.  I came in 23rd out of maybe 33 people?  Lovely.

So here I am, about to race my first bike races of the season.  I’ve got one triathlon down so far, and did well in it, but that’s a whole other world away from bike racing.  Bike racing is in a pack, with other people, head to head.  Triathlon is a race against the clock.  I can race the clock.  Racing against other people scares the shit out of me.

I reached the conclusion yesterday while out riding that your second race is the easiest race you’ll ever do.  This is especially true in Triathlon.  During your first race, you’ve been training for months, and you’re biggest challenge is just finishing.  Once you cross the finish line you’re overwhelmed with joy, excitement, and incredulousness over having completed this momentous feat that you’d been training for for so long.  Then you turn around and sign up for your next race, and you do it again.  Wow!  I’m good at this racing thing!  I didn’t come in last and it’s only the first or second race I’ve ever done!

Then comes the tough transition.  You start to wonder what it takes to get faster.  You start training with more focused purpose.  You start eating better.  Trying to lose weight. Working on strategy.  Reading books and magazines.  And racing, either bike or triathlon, becomes a way of life.  It becomes a focus in your day and you devote more and more time and energy to it.

When you start setting aside time every single day and preparing for a race months in the future, or setting even longer goals like transition or preparation seasons or years, the stakes become higher.  You’re no longer racing to see if you can finish, you’re racing with these specific goals in mind.  Goals that, you’ve been told, you can accomplish if you just do the work.  If you do the training and eat right and stay healthy.

So the fear of failure becomes immense.  It becomes consuming.  It takes the fun out of racing.  What if I didn’t do enough?  What if I’m not as fast as I think I am?  What if the two to five hours I’ve spent every day of the past 4 months is not enough to make me faster than Girl X, Y and Z?  What if I come in last?

For me, the fear of failing in a bike race is tangible.  If I come in last everyone will know because I’ll be the last person across the finish line.  If I drop off the back everyone will know because my family will be wondering where the hell I am when the pack comes around the corner.  In triathlon, there really isn’t such a thing as failure.  If I’m 40 minutes slower than my last olympic distance race, no one will know except me.  If I walk up hill, no one will know but me.  If I get passed on the bike, no one will know but me and the person who passed me.

I love triathlon.  I love racing against myself.  It’s much harder to fail when your goals are only time based.  When other people’s performances can’t swoop in and ruin your perfectly planned day.  The only one who can ruin my perfectly planned day in Triathlon is myself.

In a bike race, there is no such thing as a perfectly planned day.  Every race is different.  There is no set distance that you can compare from race to race to race.  There are people who have to be taken into consideration; people who may be having good days, who may be peaking for this race, who may be way faster than you.

I like control.  And planning.  I like to know that I’m taking a gel 20 miles into the triathlon’s bike ride and finishing 2 bottles of liquids before the run.  I like knowing that I’ve done it that way in training and that I’ll do it that way again come race day.  I like knowing that if I finish the swim in under x number of minutes I’m already building a cushion later in the race to beat my time goal.

There is no control in bike racing.  There are very few well laid plans in bike racing, especially when you don’t have teammates in the race with you.  There are fast corners and unseen gravel and shaky riders and gaps and breaks.  I like the predictability of Triathlon.

But I really like the feeling of winning a bike race.  Along with the increased risks comes the heightened feeling of satisfaction when it all DOES go right.  Unfortunately for me, right now, the day before my second ever road race… all I can think about is the risk.  I don’t remember that feeling of satisfaction.  The glory of winning a race.  The feeling of accomplishment.  All I remember is gasping for air up a hill that I’d already climbed 20 other times that day, falling to the back of the pack and trying to catch back on.

Ugh.  I think I hate bike racing.  It’s way too easy to fail.