Overcoming My Fears: Inspiration 100 Pre-Race Blog

It happened again...

It doesn’t matter which race it was, but it had just happened again. I was in another race feeling good.  My legs were feeling just fine, riding in the lead group, when suddenly the leaders were riding away.  The worst part?  We were on a downhill section and all I could do was watch them go.  I jammed on my brakes repeatedly trying to carefully maneuver the rocky, washed-out terrain, while any hope of a top result rode away.

For the 3rd time in 3 gravel races, I was coming undone on a Minimum Maintenance Road (MMR).  My legs weren’t betraying me but my mind was.  

The road where I came apart

You see, I have this problem, it’s a simple scientific excuse.  I have a fear, it’s maybe not even on the surface but at a subconscious level.  Here is my problem.  I am not and have never been a mountain biker.  So I never learned how to bomb a descent on dicey terrain and therefore I never learned to be reckless on a bike.  I’m not in the mold of Vittorio Brumotti. (seriously this is worth clicking)  I’m 33 years old and according to science, which I happen to believe, my brain is past the point of learning to do this.  Essentially old dogs, or in this case fully formed brains, can’t learn new tricks; too many safeguards have been built.

My problem, my built in fear, is that in every gravel race, there tends to be at least one really dicey MMR double-track section.  Instead of nicely grated gravel, these sections of “road” tend to look more like something featured on the Oregon Trail.  (the real one, not the 1980s computer game)  The good riders roar through these sections and blow the race apart.  Those of us who are less skilled tend to get dropped and have to spend energy chasing back, if we are lucky.

My experience this past May in the Burleigh County Cup frustrated me to the point of deciding I needed to do something.  I was spending a ton of time preparing for these races and making a lot of sacrifices in order to be fit and I kept coming undone on these sections.  Even during a race that I won two years ago, I crashed 5 times during two separate double-track sections...so yeah, it was kind of a BIG problem, a problem that would honestly keep me up at night as races approached.

In late May, as I planned my summer training and build-up to my fall races, I decided to ignore brain science for two reasons: 1) I wasn’t going to stop racing gravel events anytime soon  2)  My kids really like hearing about my races and if I don’t do well or reach my desired goal, it is pretty rough explaining to them that their dad didn’t finish with the leaders because...well...he gets scared when the road gets bumpy. (not a life lesson I want them learning)

2 mile double-track near my house

I talked with a couple friends who I consider my go-to people when it comes to training, racing and all things bike advice.  Their advice was more or less the same: “find MMRs near you and ride them...really hard, really fast, at least once a week...oh and learn to not use the brakes.”

I scoured area maps until I found 3 separate sections of nasty MMRs, 4.5 miles in total that stretched over less than 10 miles of road.  These MMRs were either double-track, sand, baby-head rocks or all of the above with lots of climbing and descending.  The best part was that these roads were within 6 miles of my house, and so on July 6th, I began tackling my fears or sub-conscious fears head-on.

The first ride was embarrassing.  It took me over 13 minutes to get through that first 2 mile stretch of MMR.  I was a wreck, jamming on my brakes at every opportunity and scared of every bump and drop as I rode along.  And the worst part...I crashed, multiple times in the first few weeks. 

Sand MMR

I would come home and my kids would look at my scraped leg or dirty jersey and ask what happened and I would respond with “I crashed...again...”  One of my daughters continued to encourage me with words like “just keep trying dad, you’ll get better.”

I kept coming back to these roads and by the end of the month, I had lowered my time to just under 10 minutes for the same 2 mile section...I know...world beater!  But my confidence was growing and the crashes were no longer happening, and more importantly, I was starting to look forward to these “skills” rides each week.  I was also now searching out double-track MMRs whenever I could find them, changing other rides mid-route when finding an MMR, just to test a new section.   

The Vergas Trails

My true day of growth came on August 4th.  A large gaggle of my family was staying at 5 Lakes resort near Vergas, MN.  Vergas or I should say, the Vergas Trails provide some of the most rough, backwoods, hill-billyesque paradise via ATV trails, double-track MMR roads and as my oldest daughter says, “roads that aren’t roads”.  I took the long way there and by the end of the day I had tackled roughly 16 miles of double track and MMR within a 65 mile ride.  I realized at the end of that day, that I wasn’t scared anymore and wasn’t gripping the brakes but rather letting the bike drive itself over the terrain.

By this past week my fastest time over the 2 mile section near my house was somewhere under 8 minutes and I’ve even grown confident enough to hammer intervals on these sections.  Tomorrow, I will race the Inspiration 100.  It’s a race that is pretty important to me and one that has been circled on my race calendar for some time.

Since May, I have ridden over 3,000 miles and lost a lot of weight in prep for this one and while I don’t believe I will ride away from everyone or anyone on the very selective MMRs in the second half of the course, I am confident that I will be able to manage these sections.

So why am I saying all this?  In regards to the race, sharing this does nothing for me.  If guys like Charlie Schad or Nick Vetter read this, tomorrow they will be gleefully rubbing their hands together as they approach the MMRs if I’m in the group.  I’m sharing this because I think we all have fears that keep us from doing what we are trying to accomplish in life. 

Unlike bike racing, most of the time those fears are keeping us from things that actually matter in life, like career decisions, family choices and financial decisions, from what we were created to be and to do and that is a tragedy. 

You shouldn’t let being scared of the unknowns of a new better job keep you from leaving a crappy job.  You shouldn’t let a fear of not knowing how to be a parent keep you from becoming one. And you shouldn’t let fears about your relationships with people keep you walled in your whole life. 

It’s good to have friends who you can go to and ask important questions and more importantly sometimes tell you to just relax and work at something because with some hard work and a calm hand, you can get through this.  Our life is a total grind but to know that you have a purpose and don’t need to be held back by fear is something worth getting excited for. 

I race tomorrow (Saturday) in Garfield, MN and I know I go to the line as fit as I’ve ever been.  I will sleep easy tonight knowing that now there is one less thing in my life that scares me.