I cant believe I'm doing this. It's literally been years in the making, the constant persistance from my brother has finally worked I guess. I am going to race my bike this coming saturday and sunday. I chose this race for a couple reasons. (www.triplevalley.com) The first reason is that Eric is going to be racing in it too...at a different level of course, but we'll be doing the same race which helps me a lot. The second reason is it is a stage race, in it I will experience a road race, a time trial, and a criterium, all this in just one weekend. The way I figure it is that if road racing is something I might enjoy in the future, I will experience almost all its aspects at once. I may like it, I may hate it. Problem is, if by some act of God I actually win at least one part of it, I will be motivated to continue and win more. The next problem is that if I win nothing and get totally worked over, I will want to continue to redeem myself. Thanks a lot Eric, I've avoided this for so long and I feel the addiction already, I haven't even raced yet. To top it off I'm registered to do another stage race the following weekend, in Arizona. Kind of wierd that my first two races are out of state...I guess I'm justifying the spandex by using it as an escape from CA (which I do love). Anyways, I'm knee deep now, there's no turning back. I just hope that the power that Eric naturally has is somewhat in my DNA also. I've trained hard but I feel it's not nearly enough. Saying that, it ultimatley comes down to this. I never raced before because the prospect of failure. It's easy to ride my SS on El Prieto, to be called the second fastest rider there over a 25 year span, etc. but through these rides I'm not finding my true potential. I feel almost a fake when I pass absolutley everyone on the fireroad who started within 30 minutes of me. All I can think of is that Eric would put me to shame along with so many others who race. I can't ever take the compliments on how fast I am seriously because I know I'm not fast, at least not yet...it's all relative. These two race will be an awakening to me and thats exactly what I need. Hopefully my support crews in UT and AZ;) will be motivation enough for me to push myself to a limit I've never seen before...but we'll see what happens.
Another big fear is that through racing I will become that pretentious f*&$ working in a bike shop. I know I'm not that, but I hate those guys, I don't want to be that.
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3 comments:
Good luck! We're pulling for you!
Let me know when and where (in Utah) and I'll be there. I'm so excited to see you!
Don't worry--you can't become a "pretentious f*&$ working in a bike shop" as long as you're working at Performance.
And don't worry about the race, either. You'll do fine...or else.
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