With just two days to go before the highlight of the early season for virtually every racer in the Northeast, as well as from many other regions, there's no time left for any doubt. If you don't yet know what you are doing it for, you are in serious trouble. Whether you are in it to win, or simply to give it your best shot and enjoy the ride, it makes no difference. At a race like this, there is undoubtedly more than one way to be successful. But you better know what that is for you. You better be toeing that line and pushing those pedals with a clear focus in mind, because nothing else is going to get you through. Nothing else is going to lift you up over climb after and crushing climb, drag you over dirt road after drudging dirt road. If you have a purpose, whatever it may be, and you focus intensely and singly on it, you are going to be OK.
And I am going to say it right now, here in the open for all to read, that my purpose is to win. That's all I want. That's I will accept. But that's just me, and that's just my choice. Here is a little more on that from today's Daily:
http://www.tuftsdaily.com/the-wheel-and-chain-a-cyclist-s-tale-deadlines-and-finish-lines-1.2216126
"No one looks forward to the day a paper is due. You know well in advance when it is coming, you usually know what it is going to be about, and you know how long it is going to have to be. You go to class (maybe), do the reading (maybe) and, as time goes on, you are hopefully closer to being ready to write that paper. But even the most studious among us can’t really claim to look forward to the deadline. It looms like a storm cloud, growing darker and more ominous with each passing day.
Bike racing just isn’t that way.
At the start of every season, riders sit down, either on their own or with a coach or mentor, and look out over the season ahead. They mark off a few races that they want to win the most — races that suit their strengths and racing style — and they build their entire year with those goals in mind.
Just like writing a paper, there is a process that goes into getting ready for one of these races. You set a due date: the race day, obviously. Then, you start to train. This is like going to class or doing your reading. Hopefully you don’t miss too many important workouts along the way. Sure, a few missed days here or there won’t spell defeat, but unlike writing a paper, you can’t just cram at the last minute and expect to come out on top. In fact, that’s about the worst thing you can do.
So you put in your time on the bike, pedaling away hour after hour. You ride when you want to. You ride when you don’t. You ride when it’s raining. You ride when it’s a fresh spring day. You ride out of joy. You ride out of anger. Whatever it takes, you train. The more you want it, the harder you train. It’s a little like that paper, right? The more it means to you, the more time you seem to be willing to put into it. But no matter what, you still don’t want the day that paper is due to come. It’s always, “Can’t I get just a little more time? An extension?”
But not with bike racing.
That day can’t come soon enough. You hang posters on your wall. You pour over previous years’ results, analyze the start list and memorize the course map.
Two weeks to go. One week to go. Come on, come. Let it be the weekend already. Yes! It’s finally here.
There’s no dread, not in bike racing. No emotion other than excitement, heightened by a touch of apprehension and angst. This Saturday can’t come soon enough. I’ve done my homework. Now I just want to take the exam.
The test is the Tour of the Battenkill on April 10. The biggest single−day race in the United States, it has been the focus of my training since I started riding my bike again with any purpose way back during the Boston winter, when snow was still falling and I otherwise might have just gone skiing. But I knew this was coming. I wanted it to come. Finally, it has. All I want to do is race.
Eighty−two miles. Twenty−five percent dirt roads. Hills. Lots of hills. In short, this is my kind of race. Tactics simply go out the window, and teams lose their advantage. On a course like this, it’s all about who can ride the hardest for the longest. It is a race of attrition and a race of luck. It is a race about desire. Every last one of us knows that from the moment we clip in to the moment we cross the finish line, probably about three−and−a−half hours later, all we are going to know is pain. It’s racing at its purest, suffering at its finest. But you know what? I really can’t wait.
So what makes this different? Why am I literally jumping out of my chair to get to the race on Saturday, but at the same time moaning and groaning about the paper I have due next Wednesday? I knew that both of them were coming. I know that my race is 82 miles long, and I know that my paper needs to be eight pages. I know that both of them are going to hurt, though in markedly different ways. And I’m equally ready for both: I put in all my training ,and I went to all of my classes. So what’s different? What makes the searing pain in my legs from laboring over climb after climb more gratifying than the burning in my retinas from staring at the computer screen all night long?
The answer is purpose. Simple purpose. Each one of those hills has a purpose — namely, to get me one step closer to the finish line, a line that I can point to and visualize. It is a line that I know exists and a line that I can define. It is a line that I want to get to first. But the paper? Sure, handing it in gets me one step closer to a decent grade (I hope) and one step closer to graduation. But where that leads, I have no idea. The finish line is nowhere in sight, and if anything, it is even more complex as it draws near. But not in bike racing. Not on Saturday. The finish line is there; I can see it right now. I know exactly what getting there first means, and I want to get there now."
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