I’m still working on race reports from the Boise crit and the Cascade stage race; they’re coming (probably), but in this moment, when I’m freshly home from this last trip and sitting at my own kitchen table, I’d rather say this:
Being a professional cyclist has made my life. I love it. It’s hard, the travel is sometimes exhausting, and the learning experiences keep coming, but it is so wonderful. I see places all over the country that I might otherwise have never seen, I travel with people that have become my family, and I get to ride my bike so much that I never want to see it again and then miss it instantly when the race ends. Sometimes I whine the entire way to the airport because I don’t want to go away again blah blah boo hoo but then I do and it’s always fantastic. This past trip was no exception. Being part of a team, surrounded by awesome people who all work together towards the same goal, sharing ridiculous moments together as part of life on the road – there is nothing like it.
You might see the results from some of these races and be like, “huh? dude, you finished 56th. did you die?” I used to do that…I’d look up results and see somebody I considered strong all the way at the bottom of the second page and wonder why they’d had a bad day. But now I get it. Sometimes your job as part of a team is to die early for your teammates, sometimes your job is to soft pedal a race to save for the next one, sometimes your legs just suck because it’s been a long season. I used to feel like I needed to explain – “I was 48th because I was part of the lead out!” – because I thought you’d care and maybe judge me since it didn’t look like I was doing very well. But now I don’t give two shits about explaining, because the smile on my face should tell you that everything is going well. I’m happy. I finished 73rd at the last stage of Cascade on Sunday, but what the results don’t show is that I helped a teammate with a mechanical and then spent the last lap riding with a friend, spinning just to get across the line, throwing water at each other, and pretending to race the sprint and KOM points. It was fun and I laugh even now when I think of her yelling, “Wet chamois is the worst!!” and then emptying a water bottle over my butt. It was a great 73rd place finish.
My goals haven’t changed. I still want to be the best, still want to claw my way through every race and push as hard as I physically can. But I also have realized that the path to getting there is so much better when you’re part of a team and enjoying the ride. It’s so much better to have a group goal and a support system, somebody to stand on the start line with you and hand over a fresh bottle mid-race and tell you “BUCK UP!” when things get tough. I’d burn all of my matches for any one of my teammates.
When I get around to posting those race reports, you’ll see talk of results and team plans and suffering and learning experiences. That’s why I do the reports – to record what happened so I can look back and remember. But what you won’t see is how much I enjoyed every minute of the experience and how grateful I am to Mary, Whitney, Laura, Leah, Maddi, Jen, Tina, Iona, Jordan, Ronnie, O’Neil, Kim, and our host families for making these last races so worth remembering.
