The Dirt Field

For the past two years, I have marked the beginning of a new year by listing New Year’s resolutions and reviewing how I fared on those from the the previous year. I began 2008 with a single resolution: “Ride my bicycle until I cannot ride anymore, and then keep going until my legs fall off at which point I will use my hands to pedal because that is how champions roll.” Aside from the legs falling off part, I broke tradition and actually stuck to my resolution.

I started 2008 as a licensed USA Cycling Sport/Category 2 level racer. Throughout the course of the year, I competed in twenty-two bike races, won eleven times, took fifth in my category at the US Nationals, started racing cyclocross, and upgraded to the Expert/Category 1 level for cross-country racing. I also completed the Shenandoah Mountain 100, a hundred mile bike race/death march through the mountains. It only took me fifteen hours, five million complaints, and unspeakable chafing, but I did it.

Because this particular resolution was successful, I’m going to set my standards a little higher this time around and issue a daring three official resolutions for 2009. I say official because I also plan to learn to speak German, attend at least four live shows, have dinner at Minibar, pay my taxes on time, and several other lofty, unlikely aspirations. Here are the three official ones:

1. Win. Riding a bike to me is a wonderful feeling; few things are as natural or enjoyable. I love the sport. This is important to note because racing is an entirely different matter. I don’t love the pain, the pressure, the expenses, the nervousness; it’s hard and it’s exhausting and during almost every race I wonder why I keep going when stopping would be so much more fun. But then I cross the finish line and I’m in the top three and on the podium being rewarded for pushing it so hard and I remember why I do this: to win. I want to win, and win more, and then keep winning until I get to the top and there is nowhere left to go.

I know that winning isn’t everything and that I shouldn’t be doing this racing thing if I’m only in it to win. Especially because in 2009, I will be racing against some very tough competition. It will be a significantly more challenging field of riders and I don’t have a very strong chance of winning like I’ve had in the past. That makes me even more determined to win because I want this to be my career and my life, and to me that means I can’t just be good and progress at an average rate; I have to be exceptional.

Therefore I have to stay disciplined and work hard 100% of the time. Gone are the days where I’d have a late night out at smoky bars and come home only to pass out in my clothes with my face smushed into the carpet. Gone are the occasions where I’d eat an entire bag of conversation hearts in one sitting. Now it’s just about staying focused on riding and racing, while repeatedly complaining, “I want to [drink that second beer/skip that workout/eat that entire pizza], but it’s not what an Olympian would do.”

People tell me that I should be less worried about my results and more focused on enjoying myself, but I’m the kind of person that needs goals or I lose interest and drift aimlessly. If my goal isn’t winning, then how do I stay focused on training hard and not eating cheesecake all day? It’s easy; I don’t. Without being able to turn everything into a “this will help me win/this will make me lose”, I make poor choices that involve a lot of sitting around and eating. So for 2009, my goal is to win.

2. Stop thinking about tomorrow so much. I am constantly looking towards the future – I look forward to holidays, to major events, to accomplishing goals, to getting to a place where I will then be happy – but so often I pass right by those markers in my haste to look forward to the next thing. My biggest fear is that I will finally make it to the Olympics and wake up the day after realizing that it’s over and done and I’ve just blown right past it. I’d like to start getting past that tendency in 2009, and I can’t wait until this time next year to review how it went.

3. Write more. I know, I’ve only said that about fifty times in the past, but I think the biggest obstacle in the last year has been that my whole life is about biking while yours is probably not. Therefore, you don’t know what I mean when I say I raced on this awesome singletrack on my new hardtail, which means you won’t find biking stories particularly interesting or even understandable. The problem is that if I don’t write about my biking life, that leaves little else to discuss except maybe the fun times where Kobe humiliates me with his digestive tract. While that must make for some riveting reading, I think we’d both rather that I just start writing and explain as I go along.

For starters, I’d like to introduce my beloved bike:

If you’re not a biker, this picture won’t mean much to you. It’s just a bike, right?

Not exactly. This bike was custom made for me and designed with my gangly limbs and bad posture in mind. Riding it is like riding a unicorn through a sky filled with fluffy clouds (worst analogy ever). If you’re not convinced, let me also point out that in less than a few years my car and bike will cross paths on the “Monetary Value” chart. And my car is a Porsche. Okay, not really; it’s a 2006 Mazda. But you catch my drift. If it were Bobby or this bike, I’d miss Bobby a lot while I was riding.

I’m only kidding. I’d miss Bobby all the time.

Happy New Year!