I hear people say things like "I am a warrior at heart" and I always think that is pretty corny, but I guess I do identify with it. I guess the Charles Bukowski title says it best: "War All the Time".
It isn't that I hate people or want to cause them pain or even that I want to make them feel like less than me. I have just tapped into the primal instinct to push myself as hard as I can and I can best achieve that in competition. There is something great about knowing that you really gave something your all and see where the chips land. Of course, I am happiest when I win, but I am still happy when I gave it 100%. I was once asked in an interview: "would you rather do your best or be the best?". I answered "do my best". I didn't get the job.
Two things have caused me to back off from my competitive standpoint recently. The first is that I decided to stop racing cyclocross this season so I don't risk further injury to myself - even though I LOVE racing it. The second was the bike marker yesterday.
The bike marker is a time-trial that is used to get an idea of improvement over the season. You do the same course over and over and see what happens. I was kind of excited to do this - I love to time-trial. That morning, before heading out, I decided to leave my timing equipment at home. I am pretty decent on a bike and there is no reason to be an asshole and blast everyone else in my mentor group. I decided to go on the ride to support my team-mates and do the marker on my own a different time.
Thank God I had that in mind. One of my team-mates is not a strong cyclist yet (actually, the same could be said for MANY of my team-mates). She couldn't get out of the parking lot without falling over in her clipless pedals. We tried for a while and eventually had her put on running shoes. She used a trainer to calm down and get used to the bike a little. It is obvious that she either never learned how to ride a bike or hasn't ridden one since being a kid. Either way, she has a lot of work to do. I felt really good staying behind with a couple other team-mates to help her out. Ultimately, she made the marker and now has a baseline to work off of. We all made it there and back without a crash and then had a nice little bonding lunch.
In a way, it was nice to experience that with her. It let me know that it is OK that I can barely swim. We all have our own journey to go through and our own challenges. It also let me see that our challenges are meager compared to the challenges that our honoress are going though. It put things into perspective for me.
Overall, I am glad that I am able to see the bigger picture here and make it about the cause and not my own victories.
You know, that makes such a difference when you see someone really struggling with something that you can do - like you said, you could blow the doors off lots of us in biking and then it's hard to turn around and realize that instead, you can be an Angel. I guess you are an Angel in a crazy purple and green cloak, huh? That's kinda cool. I wish I lived closer because I'd love to help you with the swim and would love to be able to have you help me with bike confidence, too. I bet you have bike drills that seem silly but allow you to do things like, oh, use the shifters (smile) like I do with, oh, say, floating. We're both going to get there - I really do wish I lived closer because I would love to get that 'Angel' feeling. The only sport I have the "eye" for is definitely Swimming - ok, and pole dancing, but I don't think that's going to be one of the legs any time soon :-) Thanks for being there for us!
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