The weekend with the least amount of travel and the most fun
and exciting, but also the weekend with the least amount of sleep, most work
and most stress. Generally home race crit day is my favorite race day of the
season and this year was no exception. Alex did a fantastic job this year directing
our third annual on-campus crit and an overall wonderful weekend of collegiate
racing and shenanigans. Lucas also did a great job managing the hundreds of
volunteers for the weekend. And of course a HUGE thank you to everyone on the
team, all of our volunteers, parents, friends and other team supporters,
without which this weekend would not be possible. THANK YOU!!!!
For the last two years it’s been absolutely amazing to play
a significant role in the home race, especially the on-campus crit, and watch
it all come together. This weekend and through the past months I’ve found it
difficult to step back a bit and let Alex take control of the home race. It’s
not that I didn’t think he could pull it off (quite the contrary), but old
habits die hard and this race holds a soft spot in my heart. I’ve found one of
the most difficult yet rewarding aspects of leadership to be the process of
delegation and mentorship. Being able to give someone a task/project/position
and then stepping back and allowing them the space to figure it out and do it
themselves. Watching small mistakes and fumbles occur, realizing that there is
more than one way to get things done and providing moral support (and some few
nudges in the right direction) without stepping in to do it myself are all much
more difficult in practice… However, watching someone step up to the task,
problem-solve and become more confident through the process gives me so much
joy and satisfaction and pride. It truly is the rewarding side of leadership.
Now for the races.
The road race was a big personal growing experience for me.
In the 30-60 minutes before my race start I just couldn’t seem to find a good
mental space. I passionately didn’t want to race and could feel the negative
emotions building in the back of my head. I was aware of this yet couldn’t seem
to do anything about it. I’m not new to this experience: this has been pretty
common in the past couple years, especially sophomore year. I did what I always
did and hoped against hope that it was just nerves after all and that it would
go away once I started the race. But of course it didn’t: it just got worse. It
was a nice day and I was riding with a group of female cyclists and yet I
wanted nothing more than not to be in the race. I was consigning myself with
dread to the upcoming two laps when I had a thought that I’ve never followed
through with before: I could just pull out. I
can pull out after the first lap and I’m not going to catch on fire or get
struck by lightning. And then I wouldn’t have to endure two more laps
regretting that I ever started the race, trying to make myself be happy about
racing, mentally beating myself up for feeling this way, and then beating
myself up for being hard on myself. On the other hand if I pull out early I’m
going to have to answer over and over again the ‘what’s wrong?’ question and
‘why did you pull out?’ and I’ve pretty well internalized the saying that no
matter how bad I feel or how terrible I do in a race, the important thing is to
finish and give it my best. And now I’m considering not finishing… And then
I had another thought: this is my
race and my life and I should know
better than anyone what I need and should be able to make a decision for myself
without weighing in everyone else’s response or outside pressures (even if I’m
putting them on myself). Nevertheless that made me feel better all of a sudden:
I could be done with the race at the end of the lap! And I did it. I pulled off
after the first lap, told Miles not to send people to look for me and then spun
off to join my sister who was corner marshaling and we had a dance party for
the rest of the race. I was so unbelievably happy as I rode over to join my
sister: something I never expected to feel after quitting a race. I felt like
this massive weight had lifted off my shoulders. My mood had done a 180 in
about 3 seconds. It was a freeing and enlightening feeling to go through with
that kind of decision. As I take on more and more leadership roles, I’ve found
it easier to put everyone else’s needs before my own: felt obligated even to
put my own needs last. I grind myself into the ground with mental and physical
fatigue for the team and everyone else I care about. And most of the time I’m
happy to do so. But I’ve been starting to realize lately that to take good care
of others, I must also take good care of myself. If I’m in a bad place, I don’t
have the energy or enthusiasm to take care of others and besides of which
everyone deserves to put themself first sometimes. And to me this race was
proof that I could follow through with a decision to take care of myself (something
I hope to make more of a habit in the future).
On the flip side of the racing experience, the crit on
Sunday was awesome! Like last week’s crit, I felt in control and in good
position pretty much the entire time. Unlike last weekend however, this race
was much faster paced with more shuffling of the group, a larger group, more
attacks, and plenty of tight corners that made good positioning crucial. After
the first couple laps I realized I wanted to be in the top five of the peloton
in order to avoid the majority of the slinky effect. So I maneuvered myself up
and pretty much stayed in the top five the entire rest of the race. I was able
to counter all the attacks, never felt as though I was struggling to stay on,
took some turns on the front and even gave Dessie a couple lead outs for
primes. It was pretty much all I could want out of a crit race. At the end,
another woman managed to squeeze onto Dessie’s wheel ahead of me going into the
final corner and instead of fighting for the wheel while being on the inside of
the final corner, I dropped back marginally and got squeezed out of position.
But that’s racing for you and given how good I felt during most of the race,
the final sprint not panning out great wasn’t that big of a deal.
And then to top it off, during cool-down Dessie suggested we
go into the fountain and that suddenly seemed like the best idea ever. So we
ran over, hopped into the giant birdbath and gave our legs an ice bath.
Relaxing with a friend and teammate after a satisfying race in sunny warm
weather, on campus, and surrounded by the sounds of bikes and laughter felt
like the epitome of summer and what biking means for me.
Congratulations to all my teammates this weekend! Helping
put on a race and also racing is a lot of work and yet you all performed
fantastically and even sported fairly chipper faces in the wee hours of the
morning while setting up the courses. A couple specific shout outs: Our new
senior Dino got 3rd in the crit after crashing in the road race the
day before and kept a good attitude throughout the entire thing! Zander had his
first weekend as an A racer, which is always a somewhat brutal transition, but
he put in amazing effort! Josh was an honorary member of the men’s A TTT team
and he looks supa fly in the skin suit (apparently his contribution to the team’s
speed was also supa fly)! Maddie and Adam both made good decisions to
ultimately not race the crit due to sickness (feel better!)! Fiona raced the
TTT!!!!!! (so glad to have her involved with the team again)
Full results can be found here.
Next up is Tour of Walla Walla, hosted by Allegro Cyclery,
one of our big sponsors. Some of us will be racing, others will be taking a
much-needed break, but we will all be out there on Saturday with our team trailer
for the crit in downtown Walla Walla. Come seek us out! Races start at 8.20am
and go through mid afternoon. We will be promoting our new fundraising project
at the races-stay on the look out for more details about that (also check out
our FB page for more information). Also Saturday is admitted student’s day so
there might be some future team members poking their faces around the vicinity!
All very exciting stuff.
-Mackinzie
“Enjoy the
little things in life because one day you`ll look back and realize they were
the big things.” Kurt Vonnegut
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