Suburban Hippie

For the past three months I had been doing what folks who are used to pushing their physical limits are trained to do; pushing feeling to that dark place in the back of your mind. When training, this is normally space reserved for pain in the body. For the last several months I had been using the same technique to push off that nagging feeling that what I was doing wasn’t fun anymore. What once was fun and stress relieving, was now stressful and sometimes dreaded. The constant analyzing of training data, adjusting workout plans, and stressing over results had taken its toll. The pressure I was putting on myself to have results and live up to the expectations I felt others had of me was making me miserable. Truth be told, it was depressing. Even my wife didn’t like watching me race because she knew the ranting that would follow if my performance wasn’t up to my own expectations. 

The reality of my situation hit me at my road race team meeting in January. I was sitting at a table with a group of fast guys that were brought together by a new title sponsor focused on growing their brand and winning races. I was listening to our de-facto captain talk about training plans, race programs, his expectations, and all the money our sponsor was pouring into the team. I’m not sure what did it, but it finally hit me that I didn’t want to be there. I started racing on the road 2 years ago when I was recruited over from the mountain bike scene where I had won two state championships and the overall off-road title. A good friend of mine raced on the road and asked me to join the team. After a successful first season I turned away from racing mountain bikes and focused on the road. Now after two more seasons I had to accept the fact that I was done. Road racing is the only sport where the results are for the individual, but they are achieved with a team. That means you are carrying the weight of other people’s hard work, faith, and trust on your shoulders. I do this every day at work and I wasn’t looking for a second job. The only problem was that I viewed this as quitting and I am NOT a quitter and I DONT let people down. I also knew that I would be doing the members of this team a disservice if my heart wasn’t fully in it. I wasn’t going to just occupy space. 

As luck would have it, I received two offers (at the same time) to ride for different teams while I was struggling with my current situation. One of them was thanks to a training partner of mine who saw how unhappy I was and mentioned me to a mutual friend who helps run a regional MTB race team. I got an offer to join their elite team and come back to mountain bike racing. The team has three expectations: 1. Ride your bike fast 2. Have fun 3. Represent the sport well. After hearing this, I jumped on board. Im a no BS type of person, so I decided to shoot straight with my current team. Thanks for the opportunity, I appreciate the support, but I have to enjoy what I am doing. The owner of my road team was more than gracious an appreciated my honesty. That was it…two years of racing on the road was over and I was back on the mountain bike. Back to the place where I always had fun, raced with passion, and was happy just to be there.

So here we are. I’m excited for a year of riding my mountain bike and being surrounded by a group of people with the same goals. More dirt, more mountains, more fun.