Training Day

The reason I sign up for a race is to give me an excuse to train. I love my 5 hour training rides more than showing up to the start line on any race day. Race days suck. They are full of nerves and catastrophes. I’ve decided that if you don’t love to train, you shouldn’t race. On May 29^th I will race from Durango, CO to Silverton, CO. This is my 4^th year either riding or racing the Ironhorse Classic. It would be my 5^th, except one year the race got cancelled at the last minute due to snow, which only emphasizes my point.

I spend all my free time in March, April and May, jumping on my bike any chance I can get, just to be ready for Ironhorse. All of the time and money spent on babysitters and ignoring other duties puts a lot of stress on race day paying off. But the secret is, I don’t care what happens on race day. I am just so damn excited that I got to spend three months on my bike preparing for it.

This attitude is a helpful perspective when racing, because I find races are more often a disaster than not. One year I locked handlebars and wheels with another cyclist in the pack while cruising along at a mere 30mph. Amazingly we both stayed up right, but I had to finish the race with my front brake released and a 1 inch wobble in my front tire. I did better than the guy in front of us who was taken out by a large cone in the road. I hope he enjoyed training more than racing as well.

Last year, my husband and I both spent all spring preparing for the race. He left early in the morning to get to his race start. On the way to my race start (an hour later) I passed my husband on the side of the road ripping his tire off his bike—he flatted on the way to the start, and missed his race. He still rode the 47 mile and 5700 ft of climbing course for the fun of it.

So as I was doing a training ride up Squaw Pass the other day and the blizzard came upon me, I thought it is sure a good thing that I love training more than racing, because a race is just one day. Training can go on forever.

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