The Big Dance

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream.” -Paulo Coelho

Can't remember where I found this quote. Some punk kid's web log, I guess?

So. I've been racing for about half a decade now. Not quite long enough to know stuff about things, but long enough to have developed a pre-race routine. A freak-out, if you will.

It starts the day before the race. I pace around, I pack and repack my bag interminably, I run through checklists out loud in an empty room. When it's bed time, sleep does not come. What little rest I get is fitful, and I can't stop picturing the race, predicting what's in store for me. My heart rate surges with each imagined hill.

Knowing this about myself, it was a fascinating study in contrasts to observe my behavior the day before the thesis proposal. There was almost no overlap whatsoever between my pre-race and pre-proposal neuroses!

At 11pm, I forced myself to just stop revising the presentation. I'd reached the point where I was only making the most minor of revisions, so I closed the laptop and watched TV with my roommate. By midnight, I was in bed. I slept like a baby.

Looking back, the only intersection between the pre-race and the pre-proposal happened in the few minutes before the talk began. While pacing around the podium area, I found myself shaking my legs, snapping them straight to shake the quad muscles about. As if I was going to use them. I do the same thing immediately before the gun goes off! Nervous habit, I suppose.

Why do I freak out before a race, but not before the biggest day of my career thus far? There are two possible interpretations:

1. It very well may be that I take bike racing way too seriously. Maybe I have delusions of athletic grandeur that keep me awake at night, while grad school is just a humdrum way to earn the dollars. Might as well be a barista.
2. Alternately, it's possible that I love cycling not in spite of, but because of, the inevitable suffering. The night before a race, I brace myself for the impending agony, week after week. Before the proposal, though, I didn't expect any undue problems, so I was correspondingly relaxed.

Over the years, Option 1 has been the fly in my ointment. When I started racing, I'm sure my family and friends were convinced of it. To this day, I wonder if my adviser might suspect that my priorities are off.

Nevertheless, I'm certain that the truth of the matter is Option 2. I want to do well at bike racing, but I am just not a bike racer, and I know it. If I freak before a race, it's because I've experienced enough nightmares of under-preparation to fear my own absent-mindedness. I overcompensate, and it makes me freak.

Before the proposal, on the other hand, I'd put in months and months of work, all in the name of that one hour. I was over-prepared, and I knew it. At a certain point, you just have to take a deep breath, smile, and realize that there is absolutely nothing left to be done.

Pat's blog talks about how this year, he's in the big leagues. It's fascinating to watch him grapple with the giant leap from Bs to As, from racing a bunch of Dons to lining up with national champions. This post rips off his latest for exactly that reason. I'm at the cusp of a leap to the next level, and I have to believe that I belong with the big boys.

After much thought, and with the (implicit, and purely preliminary) agreement of my thesis committee, I've reached the following conclusion:

I don't just belong at the next level of Motor Control research... I'm Sven Motherfucking Nys.