Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Monday, June 24, 2002

Keeping the Rubber Side Down

Well, race weekend is over and I got through it OK. Actually I did better than OK. I managed to take 4th in the time trial and 18th in the road race. More than that though, I met all of my goals. I rode the time trial at lactate threshold and set a personal record with a speed of 24 mph over the 8.5 mile course. In the road race I really animated the race. On the second lap I spent ten miles on a solo breakaway. I moved up and down the peloton with ease and I sprinted well into the finish. Most importantly, I kept the rubber side of the bike down.

The interesting thing was when I called my Dad. I told him about the race and he was really excited for me. But he was perplexed too. I had done OK resultswise but I hadn't won. How could I feel so good about things? He didn't see it terms of goals but in terms of results. If I didn't win then, well, didn't I lose? Everytime I think about it I have to smile. Then I have to think about why I'm smiling and that's when I realize that the weekend is a metaphor.

Life is the same way. There's two ways to look at life. You can count wins and look at everything else as loses or you can look at it in terms of goals and progress. A year ago I could barely ride 8.5 miles solo at 20 mph and now I can ride it at 24 and that's on a tough course with wind. Yeah I lost but man what a great way to lose. I could say, "Yeah well 24's Ok and all but there were guys who rode better than that. I really suck." Or I could say, "Man, one year ago I couldn't have dreamed of doing this and here I am and I've just done it. Cool!" There was a guy in grad school I knew that had the first attitude about everything anyone ever did. He wondered why he couldn't get to sleep at night.

When we look at things in terms of win/lose we get ourselves in trouble. It all comes from comparing ourselves to others. No matter how hard we try to be objective we always find someone else who we think has done more than we have and then we look at ourselves as losers. Man, what a bummer. Lance Armstrong rides the bike a whole lot better than I ever will, than I ever would have if I had started racing when I was 15. Does that mean I'm a loser as a bike racer? Well, if I compare myself to Lance and measure my accomplishments by his, yeah I am. But if I set my own goals and use Lance as an inspiration that a person who works hard can achieve what he or she sets out to do then I don't think of things in terms of winning and losing. I can take joy in my successes and I can learn from my failures. When you think of it, there's probably a little of each in most of what we do. Could I have done things better in the time trial or the bike race? Sure. But I can learn from those and get faster and I can have a lot of fun getting there. What's my next goal? Watch out 25mph...it's the new holy grail.

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