The Dirt Field

So my racing season just ended for the year. Nine months, twenty-three races, eleven wins, five states, one hospital trip, and more memories than I’ll ever remember. I was counting down the last few races, just hoping to get to the end of the season with a pulse, and now that I’m there and there are no more races, no more warm ups, no more overwhelming pre-race jitters that make me want to puke and pee, I want to find somewhere, ANYWHERE to race my bike. Isn’t that the story of my life? I can’t wait to get to the next moment so I can spend it wishing I was back in the last one.

Truly, though, I am happy where I am at this very moment. (You should probably copy and paste that sentence somewhere permanent before it runs screaming off my blog; “I’m happy” doesn’t get a lot of mileage around here.) It was my first full season of racing and although I didn’t get sent to the Olympics this year – a huge shock to nobody but myself – I honestly believe I did the very best I could. And even though I finished out a season of cyclocross still being that total amateur on the mountain bike, I was that total amateur who never finished out of the top three. I’ll take that.

And then there was this, my first (albeit heinously unflattering) press photo.

I now have an entire winter to ride my bike indoors on the trainer, an activity that is roughly as exciting as alphabetizing grains of sand. In the dark. I have been brought to tears, reduced to yelling and banging on the walls, just to release the frustration that builds during hours of riding in the same place. But I know now that it makes such a difference in my racing and if there is one thing I learned this season, it is that the body can take so much more suffering that we’d ever imagine. And isn’t that another story of my life? I have had some pretty terrible patches this past year, but I’m here, I’m okay, and I’ve even described myself with the word happy without needing the “un” part. I guess our lives are actually a lot like racing; sometimes it hurts so badly but you just have to keep pushing because there is definitely a line where the suffering stops and the feeling better starts. Having been there twenty-three times this year (and then some), I can say with certainty – that line is a damn good place to be.