In two days I leave to the final race of the season. To be honest, I debated for a long time about even going. Yes, this may seem surprising considering the race happens to be Elite Track National Championships, an event at which I have excelled at every year. After much contemplation I decided to make the plunge, book my plane ticket, and hope for the best.
The reason my decision process proved to be tumultuous was because this year has been quite strange. Why? Because this year I raced more than I ever have in my life. All said and done I raced 127 out of 365 days. There have been numerous ups and downs, and the hardest part of it all was having to be on the road away from home so much. This is what it all comes down to: I am ready for the off-season and want to take some rest, but, instead, I have to attend the hardest race of the year.Let’s just say the pressure is on. I have some demons to hash out. Last year at National Championships (which was also the Olympic Qualifiers) I missed the Olympic time standard for the individual pursuit by 0.7 seconds. I think the let down of putting so much time and effort into training for an Olympic possibility, and then to miss this dream by such a small margin, has been haunting me.
The combination of experiencing first hand the amount of time and dedication it takes to be a professional athlete, combined with the numerous shortcoming inherent with racing a bike, I have begun to reflect back on why I actually do this, why I race my bike. The daunting “Why?” is nipping at my heels, and I have to arrive at an answer.
Without doubt, it is very easy to focus on the negatives: crashing, missing the Olympics by the blink of an eye, the long times away from home, away from friends and stability, the crappy pay, the constant pain and dirt and grime and long nights of waiting in airports. But, still, these negative reasons are not why I race.
Going past the negatives I recall the hilarious moments hanging out with my best friend and fellow teammate, Adrian Hegyvary, after races. Racing with my close friend and winning Madison on the velodrome is quite an exhilarating feeling. In a word, we dominated the National Madison Cups this year. But, it was not the winning that made it worth while, rather, it was the sense of unity and teamwork of sharing a common goal of kicking our competitions ass that drove us to work so hard.
For me, racing is about the people, the people who I race with. It is all too easy to get caught up in the wins and losses—and the disparity between the two. But, at the end of the day, this form of thought will not be able to keep me motivated to race. In two days I leave to LA for National Championships, and there I will get to see friends, fellow racers, and people involved in the race community. Bike racing as a sport needs all the support it can get, and what better way to support the sport by facing my demons, getting on a plain and racing my bike as hard as I can? Because, after all, sometimes there is not always an answer to those daunting “whys?”
