Fulfilling Frame of Mind and the Summer Time Warp

From 36,000 feet in the sky, the world below appears flat as it pans by slowly through my window.  'Another way of seeing the world through a screen,' I think to myself as I scroll wanderingly through photos on my phone.  Gazing back out the window, far below I can make out the fuzzy shadow cast by our airplane, a silvery penumbra hurling across the landscape.  I focus on this fuzzy spot and contemplate the conflicting perspectives, one slow, one swift, and me, sitting still in my seat. I’m going fast and slow at the same time, and it makes me think how time and experiences have passed during this race season. Fast or slow, depending on how I see it.  The images on my phone are proof.  Many megabytes of moments, but all it takes is the swipe of a finger and they turn into a psychedelic blur.  

It's the perennial summer time warp, kicked into turbo mode and made so rich by two-wheeled adventures.  There have already been many, from back yard to distant country.  After nearly two decades of bike racing, there has always been something novel about every season.  From one perspective they might blur together, but I can recall something distinctly special about each one.  

The 2015 has been especially unique because it is my first year as a “full time” Professional Cyclist.  That is, no 40-50+ hours per week committed to energy development work, which had been the case since 2008, and full-time college before that (I became an Elite in 2007).  I’ve always believed in playing the long game with my sporting career, and have been truly fortunate to work with such supportive employers and sponsors.  Over the years they have enabled my big aspirations, professionally and athletically, which has provided me with amazing experience, and spurred me to achieve the best I can in all my endeavors.  At any rate, I've been enjoying this year tremendously.  It’s nice not to always be doing the dance with fitting in training and travel amidst weighty deadlines and a storm of emails and conference calls.  Ironically, I do somewhat miss the challenge and fulfillment of pulling it off.  But most of all, I am appreciating the chance to savor this cycling adventure a bit more than usual. If anything, life is less of a blur right now, and that’s nice.  Since the spring World Cup campaign wrapped up in May, the summer film reel goes something like this:

Life may be less of a blur this year, but not the trees back home…they are blurring by almost every day...

Most days are dedicated to a vigorous training curriculum…ride, replenish, rest, rehash, repeat...

More time for rewarding extracurriculars, like mornings and afternoons spent volunteering with local community organization like the Whatcom High School Mountain Bike League, working with the next generation of shredders; or and Ride Run and Dig (RRAD), hosting “bike rodeos” and teaching grade-schoolers some bicycle basics, safety, and environmental stewardship…it’s inspiring and rewarding to see the flame ignite in some of these kids when they discover the fun of two wheels...

Getting more plugged in to the local community, co-leading a multi-week Functional Fitness for Mountain Biking Course at CorePhysio with my fiancee, Sarah, DPT...

Working in depth with the Kona Bicycles Product Development team testing and designing our new wave of awesome 2016 cross country bikes, like the Hei Hei Race DL and Kahuna DDL...

Then, of course, there's the racing...

ProXCT, Missoula - Getting tuned up for a big summer...sprint eliminator victory...5-star accommodation with the Clapp family…an ice cream problem...champagne chugging…jumps off stumps

BC Bike Race - Coming into form...ultra dry & hot weather…yellow jersey...some missed turns and missed glory…tasting blood...getting a bit too keen for the win…seven days of singletrack paradise...a memorable runner-up finish (Photos: Erik Peterson, BC Bike Race)

Pan Am Games - First major games…Team USA…inspired...first-lap-mechanical-disaster-to-comeback-success...determination to the finish...from DFL to 6th…finding the silver lining in knowing I was one of the fastest despite nothing to show for it…(Photos: Sean Scally, below; Canadian Cyclist, bottom)

 

US Cross Country National Championships - A venue thick with heritage, but not oxygen…feeling sharp as a knife and poised for something big…so were the rocks…podium trajectory impeded by a puncture...another test to the perseverance...over the last 6 years I've been 7th or better, and this year was a disappointing 7th...

"the essence of sport is the duel between the spirit of a person and the limitations of matter” F. Beckey

The world is still going by slowly outside, but I know the end of the season is rushing near.  Up next is a trip to the East Coast for the last chapter of the 2015 season: Rounds 4 and 5 of the World Cup, then a strong push for the World Championships in Andorra.  I’m hungrier than usual for a clean race, and am chomping at the bit to be on the start line again.  This year was about going in deep, and I’m certainly there, despite not much to show for it in terms of wins or medals.  I still care about “the win”.  The recent misfortunes and mistakes certainly sting, but for me, there’s still a big sense of fulfillment that spurs me on.  I’ll look back at the the heart of this season proudly as representing the strong performances I purposed for, just not the fortune I would have hoped for.  Better that than the other way around. 

While some people may dismiss sport as trivial and superficial by nature, I would argue that, ironically, it is precisely this proximity to triviality that can make sport so profound.  In a realm where the conflict, defeat and disappointment seem to carry real consequences, at the end of the day, they don’t (notwithstanding the fact that some sports are objectively more physically dangerous than others).  That’s the beauty of endeavor through sport.  Underneath the failure and disappointment, there’s always a reward for giving your all at what you love to do.  That reward is simply connecting with yourself and knowing yourself deeply.  

Sport can incite a distracting, binary attitude towards the things we do.  Indeed, racing is about being fast and not being slow.  But, paradoxically perhaps, there’s much more to it than that.  There is more than just being good or bad, winning or losing.  Just like the view from the airplane, I guess, it’s not sufficient to just think about the rate at which the world goes by, but your orientation to it.  It’s about something in between and beyond at the same time, that fuzzy realm where you beget your own fulfillment, no matter which end of the spectrum you find yourself on any given day. 

“The views earned by long hours of toil are more wonderful than those gained in comfort.” F. Bekcey 

(Photo above: Margus Riga/BC Bike Race)

If I was Mick Jagger I'd Say I "Got What I Needed" at the World Cup Season Opener

One of the many rock gardens on the Nove Mesto course.
This photo used with permission from Rob Jones/canadiancyclist.com 

Scene: Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic, UCI Cross Country World Cup season opener.  

The Nerd – 

What’s involved in finishing on the lead lap in a World Cup XC race in 2015? Something like this...the last time you raced here (2012) you got pulled with two laps to go and didn’t even crack the 100s.  This time you blast off the starting line at over 30 miles per hour amidst a pack of 150 snarling, spandex-clad bike racers and into 6 laps on a 2.5 mile course, adding up to 15.4mi and 3,700’ elevation gain, with your heart beating within 10% of its maximum the whole time.  The whole field goes careening into the woods, mud everywhere, across jagged rocks and wet roots, up climbs exceeding 20% grades, down drop-offs and jumps, with 20,000 fans screaming in your face, making the woods sound like a battle scene out of Braveheart.  You burn up 1,600 calories, or over 900 calories per hour, power output normalized to over 5 watts per kilogram for one hour and forty-five minutes. Amidst churning out the biggest effort your legs and lungs can muster, you’re busy passing at least 50 racers from the back of the pack, and the higher you move up, the faster things get.  The day is going well!  Meanwhile, the “fastest guy in the world” is kicking your ass by about a 5-6% margin.  You ride from 115^th on the start loop to finish 65^th. 

Mid-packin it! Race Analysis! - Lap time splits and overall positioning through the course of the race.   

The Realist – 

A personal best World Cup performance in terms of placing, lap times, time down from leader, etc.  In the grand scheme of bicycle racing, finishing solidly within the top 50% at the highest level of the XC racing on the planet is pretty nifty…but in the applicable context of World Cup racing, there is some work to be done.

The Satirist –

Last time you were 100-something, now you are 65th...congratulations, you have now progressed to “average World Cupper”.

The Modernist – 

#DoYouEvenEnduroBro #HuckingIsTheNewXC #TallSeatTalent #KonaBikes #pinned

The Thinker – 

Sunday’s experience was very satisfying at a core personal level.  It wasn’t a medal, it wasn’t a podium, it wasn’t even a top-10.  But it was a good race, and the best I had done in Europe so far.  After this I’ll only be hungry for more, but for now, it was a healthy dose of how great and fulfilling this whole pursuit can be.  Putting together a good ride in Europe, much less having the opportunity to compete in some of the great sporting events of the world, always feels good.  According to the physiologist Vladimir Issurin, the single overall objective of competitive sport is “attaining excellence in a selected sport.”  While that may be true, I believe there is an aim beyond the sport itself.  I think it has something to do with “attaining excellence in living”.  After all, hasn’t it been said that sport is great because it is a proxy for real life, but better?  And moreover, there is more to life than sport, not the other way around! 

The last time I was in Europe in 2012, I was what I like to call "wrapped around the axle".  Sometimes we athletes get wrapped around the axle as we become myopic about our situation and morph the “pursuit of excellence” into “pursuit of perfection”.  The same may be said for anything that we care about doing well at...sports, jobs, relationships.  In the ever-advancing world of advanced training processes, measuring this and that, posting this and that, it’s easy to fall into a reductionist approach to achieving perfection ergo excellence.  It’s easy to become obsessed with theoretical perfection. But as the 18^th century thinker Edmund Burke reminds us, “be wary of over-reliance on pursuing theoretical perfection.  The accompanying principles can take you to the extreme, because you pursue the vindication of those principles and cannot stop short of total success.” That sounds like a recipe for not being able to enjoy the things that can make life so good.  In other words, don’t get too wrapped around the axle, otherwise it might be harder to accept a good thing even if it’s right there in front of you.  Like Mick Jagger says:

You can't always get what you want

But if you try sometimes well you might find

You get what you need   

I needed that.

Next stop is Round 2 in Albstadt, Germany.  Stay tuned.

Wayne Gretzky at the Duffer League, Bonelli Park #2

"Bonelli is like the 100 meter Olympics of mountain biking," proclaimed a fired up, dust-crusted Kris Sneddon. 

"It seems like a crazy way to ride a bike," replied endurance connoisseur Cory Wallace as he listened to the other three Kona boys describe the events of the previous weekend. 

Fast, crazy, frenetic, aggressive, exciting - there are many words that can describe Round #3 of the US Cup at Bonelli Park in San Dimas, CA. Thanks in no small part to the organizational efforts of Scott Tedro and the Sho-Air Cycling Group, some 85% of the world's top-twenty ranked XC mountain bikers (and 100% of all top North Americans) were on the start line for Saturday's cross country race. This included reigning World Champion Catherine Pendrel in the women's race, and perennial heavy hitter Nino Schurter in the men's race. 

"It's like having Wayne Gretzky show up to your Duffer's league," jokes Canadian Kris Sneddon. "Actually it's more like showing up to a major swim meet with Michael Phelps, or having Michael Jordan at your basketball game...that was the most competitive field I've raced against in a regular season North America race since the NORBA days in the early 2000s"

With the literal momentum of these early season races, it's easy to forget that the 2015 is race season is just getting underway. The Kona Endurance Team now has three major Olympic XC events behind them, with much more racing to go. I brought it home this weekend in Bonelli with a satisfactory 17th, 5th for the U.S.  Barry and Kris battled from back row starts and churned out finishes in the top half of the internationally stacked field. 

Up next is the cycling industry mega-show at the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, California, where both the Endurance and Gravity Team riders will be on site to shred some sunny California hills and the odd trail. The same international fields will be at the start line, and it's sure to be another good show. 

Conjuring the Indicative - Pan Am Continental Championships

The Team USA Super Suit certainly aided in braving the thin air at the Pan Am Continental Championships in Cota, Colombia. The climbs seemed steeper than the descents.
Photo Credit: Maximiliano Blanco, Shimano Latin America - www.maximilianoblanco.com

Last weekend I spent about 80 exciting, merengon-fueled hours in Cota, Colombia with the US National MTB Team.  Our 20-rider crew flew to Bogotá, Colombia to compete in the 2015 Pan Am Continental Championships, a major championship event for the Americas, held every spring, typically in Central or South America.  This was my second consecutive year attending Pan Ams.  Last year took place in Barbacena, Brazil.  

Team USA's new customary nutrition supplement: merengon! Scientifically proven to lessen the effects of high altitude! There were at least 20 roadside Merengon dispensaries between the race venue and the hotel. 

The Continental Championships is a bit of a wild card event.  It takes place early in the race season and typically holds lower importance for the North Americans, who are just getting things started. For those racers who live in more southerly latitudes, the race comes at the end of their summer, and they are typically more peaked.

Ripping through the start-loop.  I need to tighten up that start! Photo Credit: Maximiliano Blanco, Shimano Latin America - www.maximilianoblanco.com

Last year Pan Ams were in Brazil, and I pleased myself with a 5th place finish. The Colombian version would prove to be a much different beast. With a starting elevation of 8,500' and seven times around a frenetic ~4km race track full of extremely steep, punchy climbs, most of us lowlanders had to adapt our race strategies to perform within the effects of Boyle's law.  Adapt I did (or so I think) and finished a respectable 12th.  Definitely not great, but not terrible either...decent enough for me given the early point in the season, not to mention the challenging environment!

This place is deceivingly high elevation!  At 8,500' I am used to experiencing more arid environments, and colder temperatures!  Here the air even felt thick with car exhaust (maybe that was just the clogged roadways), and the temperature was a comfortable 70 degrees during the day.

At 8,500', there is approximately 26% LESS oxygen available compared to my sea-level home in Bellingham, WA.  Consequently, overall performance at this elevation is typically reduced by some noticeable percentage, no matter who you are.  Those who are more adapted (live/sleep at altitude, altitude training, anomalously high hemoglobin, etc.) can perform closer to their maximum. Lowlanders, on the other hand, must be wise about going into the "red-zone" for extended periods of time, otherwise the performance reductions may be proportionate (or worse!) to the reduced oxygen levels!  If you go too hard for too long, you blow up, and recovery simply won't come.  Since my engine spends 99% of its time performing at elevations with at least 90% of sea-level oxygen, I did my best to go fast, yet avoid a meltdown.

#LocalLine - met up with some kids from Cota on the way home from training.  They invited us to hit their carpeted dirt jumps.  I'm not sure if they thought we were ridiculous or genuinely interesting - but they were definitely excited to have us check out their "rampas".  It was a memorable encounter to say the least.  They chased after us on their bikes as we left, dragging their feet to slow down (no brakes).

For me, the trip to Colombia had a lot of positivity packed into it.  Regardless of its short duration, lots of time spent in a hotel room, and a fairly unremarkable result, what I took away was a great sense of refreshing affirmation that I feel will last me through the rest of the season.  I was there!  That is, affirmation for continuing to grow in this craft of bicycle racing, and all that it entails. Maybe it's because I spent the last seven years balancing this pursuit with a completely separate full-time career, and am just now enjoying the situation of being a "full time" cyclist.  It is now my "work".  Now that I'm "all-in", I have an even greater appreciation for the privilege of being free to enjoy a balanced lifestyle, or in another sense, the "payoff" of a hard-working, balanced lifestyle.  It was my passion for cycling that motivated me to put good fortunes to work (supportive family & friends, good education, good job) and design a financial and lifestyle situation that could afford me the freedom to always have "work" be as deliberate, inspired and fulfilling as possible.  From another angle, I decided years ago that if I had anything to do with it, I would integrate the things I was passionate about into my everyday life, and avoid the situation of looking back at this phase in my life with any regret...with any sense of "but if only I would have gone for it...what might have been..."

Content Cow

I had a funny realization about all this musing as I was trying to remember how to speak Spanish.  I was rooting around online to see if I could refresh my memory on conjugations, and came across a TED Talk about language.  This one in particular was Phuc Tran's, "Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive".  He talked about how harnessing one's use of the indicative and the subjunctive mood [in the English, anyway] can be used as a "lens through which to experience the world."   The indicative mood is used to express factual information - it is objective and certain.  The subjunctive mood is used to express everything except for certainty - it is subjective and about possibilities.  Mr. Tran explained how the subjunctive allows for creativity, but can leave us "mired in regret". On the other hand, it takes real courage to embrace the indicative, "do or do not!".

So there it was.  Cycling as a "career" for me had originated positively from a subjunctive mood - Should I do this?...I could achieve this...I might have done that - and eventually it went through enough life-processing and emerged on the other side with a strong indicative mood - I am...This is.  I feel fortunate that now the worst the subjunctive mood I will experience is thinking about what I might have done differently during or in preparation for a given race.  As an athlete, such things can be vexing, especially when you place high expectations on yourself, as I've experienced.  But luckily the negative tendency of the subjunctive can be countered by the positive realization of the indicative - that this is what I am doing, that I love what I do, that I belong here.

Photo Credit: Maximiliano Blanco, Shimano Latin America - www.maximilianoblanco.com

Entangled at the 2015 US Cup Season Opener

Once again, Bonelli Park in San Dimas, CA played host to a microcosm of the international cross country mountain biking scene at the 2015 XC Season Opener - the US Cup.  Nearly 800 racers were in attendance, ranging from from amateurs to seasoned professionals, juniors to masters.  In the elite fields, twenty-two nations were represented amidst the blur of tall seats and highly coordinated outfits.  Forty-seven elite women and ninety-nine elite men.     

Barry Wicks and I made the journey to San Dimas to shake things out for the 2015 season, which will last until September.  As with any long commitment, we made sure to start things off conscientiously with two visits to the time-honored Bru Bar at Klatch Coffee San Dimas. Stimulating brew and Barry's colloquy on quantum entanglement proved to be the perfect warmup for our pre-race testing.  And as quickly as the interaction between entangled particles occurs, the 2015 race season was underway.   

The perennial first scene of the season-openers in Southern California - Klatch Coffee

Bikes assembled (and tuned) at the Holiday Inn Kona Endurance Team HQ, we dusted a couple warm-up laps to shake down the new equipment.  For 2015 the Endurance Team (Barry, Kris, Cory, Helen and Spencer) will be using 1x11 drivetrains and wheels from Shimano components, electronically adjustable suspension from Fox Racing Shox, Maxxis Tires,  Pro-Bikegear cockpit, FSA headsets and ODI grips.  

We decided we were warmed up enough after Barry had left sufficient amounts of sweat and blood on the course.  He liked his new bike so much he showered with it at the end of the day.

As I took in the first sight of the venue, I appreciated the familiar scene of race tape strewn across the hill and all of the trim cyclists zipping around aboard their fresh bikes and fresh coordinated outfits.  I thought to myself that we bike racers are like many entangled quantum systems.  We are all entangled in a system of behaviors which are highly correlated, if not linked.  For the last several months, most of us have had zero direct interaction, yet in March, our quantum state as racers may be taken as a whole, given the preparation we have all undergone during the winter.  Legs and lungs are primed for maximal performance (or at least pretty close), and at the start line, none of us can necessarily be described independently.  The energy at the first start line of the season is greater than the product of each of its individual parts.  Then it all blows apart, and we're all disentangled, and highly measurable.   

I measured in at 18th overall in the Elite men's field, 3rd for the US.  Barry had worked his way up from a back row start and lots of "handlebar entanglement" but suffered a flat on the penultimate lap, relegating him to the 30s.  In any case, the race was fast and furious, and left us both feeling motivated for the season to come.   

**RESULTS??! PRESS COVERAGE?!? Throughout the events last weekend, it became clear that water was not the only thing in short supply in California.  So was the press coverage of the race.  While ShoAir Cycling Group and Ride Biker Alliance did a FANTASTIC job of race coverage DURING the event, there was a drought of press coverage from major news outlets.  

Velo News, CyclingNews, where were you? Thanks to CyclingIllustrated.com, CanadianCyclist.com, and CyclocrossMagazine.com for getting race reports and a few photos catalogued.   

Check out the VIDEO REPLAY HERE: http://uscup.net/us-cup-tv/ 

Race Results are HERE: http://shoaircyclinggroup.com/events/race-results/