Thursday, May 12, 2016

I've fallen and I can't get up

I was talking to my dad today and he reminded me of something I hadn't thought about for at least 4 or 5 days.  

Actually it was funny that he brought it up.  He didn't think I'd remember it.  But I did.  I was pondering it on my way to Des Moines last Sunday.

Dad was telling me that he was happy with the way his children turned out having jobs for the most part and stuff.  He always says it wasn't important to him if his kids excelled at sports (good thing). He always wanted us to focus on education (oops).

While I think that education should definitely take a priority over any sort of athletic endeavor, I believe there is a lot to be gained from being involved in sport.

The story I was thinking about on the way to Des Moines goes like this:

The whole family was at a picnic. It was some sort of big party thing.  The people were organizing different competitions.  There were foot races for all age categories.

At the time, I believed I was the fastest runner in the world.  I believed that even if I was slower than someone, I had the will to go fast enough to win.

I believed this based on results.  I was by far the fastest runner of all the kids in my neighborhood.  I could always outrun any of them.  I hadn't factored in the fact that I was only counting kids younger than me.  I wasn't considering kids older than me.  They were essentially adults or something.

So I lined up for this picnic race of kids my age and we took off at the whistle.  I must not have gotten a good start because right away there were 2 kids beating me.  Well, no problem.  I'll just run faster and get past them.  I was pretty excited about this because this was one time I was racing and my dad was actually watching.  My whole family would see how fast I was.  As I switched into high gear to overtake the others, something bad happened.  They went even faster and pulled farther from me.  Then horror of horrors, some other kids started passing me.

I think I ended up 4th or 5th out of about 10 or 12 kids. I was devastated.  I spent the rest of the afternoon heartbroken about what I had just learned.  I was not a fast runner.  At all. And now my whole family knew it.  I went back to them ashamed and they wouldn't look at me.  They just sat there absentmindedly chewing on their potato salad.  

So I went to a far corner of the park, sat at a picnic table alone and pouted. After a while, my aunt came up and asked me if I wanted to go throw rocks at the people at the swimming pool.  There was this pool that was fenced in. It was next to a forested area.  We could throw stuff at people from the forest and they'd never see us. That cheered me up a little.

My dad's version of the story is a little different so maybe he's right about me not remembering it.  In his version, I came in dead last.  His dad gave him some crap about it and my dad said that it wasn't important to him.  My education was the only thing that mattered.

As much as I can't conceive of the conversation between my dad and his dad going anything like that (they would have both been drunk, for one thing.  They were both truck drivers, for another) I'm sure my dad is right about the part where I came in last place.  I may have rationalized myself up a few spots or something to ease the pain. I don't know.

Oh wait, I remember what happened.  Seriously, I just remembered just now.  The entrants of the race were not arranged by age, but height.  I was a really tall 6 year old, so I was racing against 8 and 9 year olds.  Ok, that makes me feel better.  After all these years of carrying that pain, I finally remembered something about it.  Except, that's bullshit too.  Nope.  I'm just slow.

Anyway, on my way to Des Moines, the memory popped into my head because I was headed to a bike race and contemplating my ongoing dread of racing. Why am I always so nervous about every little part of a race?

In 2007, I decided to quit racing for good.  A few years later, when I gave up golf to get back into cycling, I figured I'd never race again. Just get fit enough to hang with the more challenging group rides.

The problem is, all of those people race and when you start seeing your equals winning races, you think, maybe you should ...

But then the fear creeps in and more often than not, I chicken out.  I've usually got a pretty good excuse that sounds believable to me.

I get so nervous about doing a race, it will effect me for days in advance.  This is not true of cross racing.  It was at first, but after my first 2 or 3, that shit's just fun.  And - I suck at it.

No - road racing is what I'm best at.  Also, what I'm most scared of.

So I've been wondering for years (literally), where all this apprehension comes from.  I've been trying to pinpoint an event or place blame somewhere.  I did that in 2007 when I crashed completely through the fault of another. I told everyone back then that I quit because you can crash and it's completely not your fault.  Though this is true, it's not a good reason to quit.

Another fear, though pride related, is getting humiliated.  I've been humiliated (at least felt that way) so many times that I never want to try again. One time I got pulled from the Papillion crit on the second lap because I was immediately dropped as the race started.  I could not get clipped in and sat there in front of everybody while the whole race rode away.  By the time I clipped in, it was too late.  Afterwards, Shim told me it was the funniest thing he ever saw. If there was YouTube back then, I'd be famous. 

The good news about all of this is that today, I found out what my problem has been basically my whole life.

Now I can move past it and just get on with the racing.

My dad was telling me another story.  I have absolutely no recollection of this one though.  My fear of crashing goes way way back.

Dad was telling me that I could walk when I was about 6 months old.  I would take steps here and there.  But then I fell hard.  After that, I would only walk while holding on to furniture or something.  I wouldn't even try, though it was obvious I'd be fine if I did.

I was over a year old before I started walking without holding onto something,

That was it.  Not the falling while I was learning to walk.  Just me.  That's how I am. That's how I've always been. It's probably why I was born 3 weeks late.  Unwilling to take risks.  It's apparently always been with me.  It's just who I am.

Now that I know that, I can ignore it - because as I've already pointed out, I'm insane.

So I will see you at the races this weekend.  And it's going to be a blast.  Because even though I'm nervous, I now know that's just what I do so I will shut up about it from here on out. You're welcome.

P.S. I would like to mention that I did "win" the race last Sunday in Des Moines.  In the end, I had the fastest sprint.  I felt pretty good about that for about 5 minutes, but then I realized that just like my former glory days when I thought I was a fast runner, all of my competition was way younger than me.

Maybe I should pick on somebody my own age for a change.

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