When To Quit a Bike Race

Posted on March 30, 2017 by Syd Schulz

Last weekend’s Enduro World Series in Rotorua was hard.

You saw the pictures, so you know it was an unbelievable mud fest. You saw the stats — 8 hours, 64km, 7 stages, 6300 ft. So yeah, you know it was hard.

But what you couldn’t see — the mental game — was harder than all that. Yeah, the distance and the climbing and the horrendous conditions, they were all hard. And kind of more than what I was prepared for after having taken three weeks off to rehab my knee.

But, beyond all that, this was a race to see how hard I was willing to push myself simply to finish a race.

Not to do well — that was out the window within three hours after a mechanical on stage 3 and a missed start — but just to finish, most likely in last place. Physically, I was done at the bottom of stage 5. My equipment was also calling it quits. I had had a second mechanical on stage 5, or rather, a continuation of the same mechanical. To make a long story short, I made some poor equipment choices, as I expected the conditions to be similar to what they were in practice, or at least in the race in 2015. Which is to say, slippery, not clumpy. But we got clumpy, nasty, sticky clay and I had chosen a tire with not enough clearance in the front or rear (I wanted those big knobs for traction in slippery mud, and hadn’t thought about clearance), which resulted in both my tires clogging up and my chain guide getting so full of mud and pumice pebbles that it jammed with my cranks stuck at 12 and 6 o’clock, i.e. not what you want if you want any hope of navigating a technical trail with deep ruts. Then, to make matters worse, I crashed and my handlebars got stuck about 45 degrees off center, and I couldn’t ride at all, so I literally ran the last half mile of Stage 5. And by run, I mean, run five feet and then fall over, all while dragging my now 90lb bicycle, and being caught by the pointy end of the pro men’s field. Not my best moment on a bike, to be sure.

So there I was, at the bottom of stage 5, with one of the longest climbs of the race between me and stage 6, and then yet another climb after that. I had already missed my original start after stage 3 (and incurred a 10 minute time penalty), and I was in serious peril of missing the cut off and being told to go home. If there is something more demoralizing than hammering up an hour long climb, on a bike with an extra 20 lbs of muck, with only two functioning gears, being passed by the fastest men in the world, all without knowing if you will actually be allowed to continue the race if you do ever make it to the top, and knowing that they do let you drop, you will inevitably be the last finisher in the race — well, if there is a scenario less motivating than that, I have not encountered it (and I hope I never do).

A lot of shit went through my brain on that climb.

Why are you doing this?

What are you trying to prove?

Are you wrecking your knee?

Maybe you should just quit now so you can be be a DNF instead of last again.

You’re so much more prepared for races like this, why did everything still go to hell?

What will you do if they don’t let you finish?

Do you think they’ll let you ride all the stages after everyone, just to say you could do it?

For god’s sake what would be the point of that?

Would you really suffer that much for a result that wouldn’t count, just to prove you could make it around the course? What kind of fucking idiot are you? Are you really that stubborn?

Again, what the hell are you trying to prove here?

I thought your goal was to have FUN in this race, how’s that going, eh?

There’s no way you’re going to make your cut off, just stop now.

You just need to go a little bit faster, c’mon. Eat something and get it back together.

Am I lost?

No, there’s some tape. Just keep pedaling. You got this.

And then, finally, silence. It all just kind of went away. All my energy just went into turning the pedals.

I rolled through the aid station and passed most of the pro men while they got their bikes tuned up by their mechanics (must be nice, ha). I stopped only long enough to stuff my mouth and both fists with garlic bread, which I proceeded to half-eat, half-choke down on my way up the rest of the climb. I made my cut-off and actually almost made it back up to my original drop time.

That climb was the hardest I’ve ever done. Not physically, although it was up there, but mentally, because half of me was screaming “THERE’S NO POINT WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS” while the other half just kept saying “this is important, I don’t know why, but this is really fucking important.”

Sad drive chain :(

And ultimately, as I tried to explain to Macky at the finish line, I just seem to be willing to work very, very, very hard for the pleasure of being last in a bike race. I don’t think anyone would have blamed me for dropping out. After all, a quarter of the women’s field did, and I certainly don’t blame them. I could have said my knee was hurting (it was), or that my shifting wasn’t working (it wasn’t) or that I was afraid of hurting myself because I was so tired (also true). Or I could have just said I didn’t see the point because I had had two stages wrecked by mechanical issues and a time penalty on top of that. And it terms of results, yeah, there was no point. In fact, if I were thinking forward to my next race, it probably would have been smart to can it. My knee is definitely pissed this week, although I think it is doing fairly well given the circumstances.

In general, I’m trying to be more understanding of DNF-ing. I have had a tendency in the past to race through injury, or concussion, or sickness or any number of other un-safe circumstances. And ultimately, it’s a bike race — it’s not worth doing serious harm to yourself, or putting yourself back weeks in terms of health. This year I want to be smarter about that — I want to race with a long term perspective, and not feel like I have to prove something by dragging my broken body across the finish line.

And that was going through my head this weekend — maybe this is one of those times where it would be smarter to quit, my brain kept saying.

But it wasn’t. I wasn’t injured. I wasn’t sick. Nothing on my bike was broken except the shifting (and who needs that). Things just weren’t going my way. I was bummed. I was frustrated. But none of those are legitimate reasons to not at least try to finish the race.

If I had missed my cut off, I would have stopped. I wasn’t going to fight anyone to let me down the trail, and even though I entertained the possibility of riding the rest of the stages by myself, I was smart enough to realize that would have been unwise (and probably unappreciated by course marshals and medics who were undoubtedly just as eager to get out of the weather as we were). But I needed to at least see if I could make it. If I was going to go down, I was going to go down pedaling.

And yeah, I made it. Barely, but I made it. I finished the race. I was 29th out of 29 finishers (and 43 starters).

So, no, the result was not impressive. But the part of my brain that kept saying “this is important” was right. It was important. Why? Because we are capable of so much more than we think. When the brain turns off and we just keep going — the human body is amazing and can handle an incredible amount of pain and discomfort. Almost always it’s our minds that quit on us. That’s why finishing this race was so important. Not for the result, but because I thought it was impossible, and then I did it anyway.

Why I’m Reframing the Way I Think About Results

Posted on March 10, 2017 by Syd Schulz

I spent most of my 2016 season hung up on my bad luck. Every time something bad happened (and enough bad things happened for me to notice this pattern), this same refrain would flash through my head: “it’s not fair, this is not how it is supposed to go.” I knew this wasn’t the healthiest thing to be telling myself — after all, what good did it do? But I struggled to not go there, to not find myself constantly thinking about all the work I had put into my training, racing and preparation. I had invested an incredible amount of energy and self-worth into racing my bike — and I got…well…not much to show for it. I deserved better, I really did. I deserved results. I deserved at least one race that didn’t go to shit. I deserved to see something for my efforts.

But, of course, deserve has nothing to do with it. Everybody deserves to be able to put food on the table for their family, but not everybody can. Everybody deserves access to basic rights — clean water, healthcare, food — and yet, millions of people do not have access to these things. Lots of people deserve promotions or pay raises or sponsorship. Not everybody gets those things.

Spend five minutes on the internet (especially in the fitness arena) and you will probably find someone telling you that all it takes is hard work. Work hard, and you’ll see results! 100% of the time!!

And yet.

For every five professional athletes who put in the work and won races, there are ten who worked hard and didn’t.* Maybe they didn’t have the same opportunities. Maybe they had bad luck. Maybe they were simply not in the right place at the right time.

(*I made up that statistic, but you get the point).

Lots of people put in the work and never win races. A lot more people never even get the chance to try.

The fact that I have, in my life, almost always gotten what I deserve is undoubtedly a mark of privilege. I grew up well-fed and well-loved. I worked hard in school and got into a good college. I started racing professionally and grew a following on this blog and I found sponsors who understood what I was trying to do and wanted to support me. I’ve also gotten a lot of things I probably didn’t deserve. Like when I was pulled over for going 40 in a 25, and only got a warning.

Deserve is complicated. Success is complicated. I believe in hard work as much as anybody (more, even), but there is no such thing as success in a vacuum. It’s always an intricate web of privilege and opportunity and talent and hard work. When we succeed, we think we deserve it. When we fail, we think we deserve better. And maybe we do. The point is that’s not the point.

For 2017, I’m done thinking this way. Things have already not gone entirely my way in the new year, but over the past year and a half I’ve undergone a slow but steady paradigm shift. I’ve stopped thinking that I deserve results. I haven’t stopped wanting good results. I haven’t stopped thinking I’m capable of achieving them, and I definitely haven’t stopped being annoyed about the things that have gotten in my way. But I’ve stopped thinking that just because I’ve put in the work, I’ve earned the results. That’s not how it works, and it doesn’t pay off to think that way.

I’ve realized recently that even if I had a crystal ball and could see into the future, and that that future showed that I would never, ever, ever win a bike race, I’d still be doing exactly what I’m doing now. Why? Because I enjoy this. I enjoy putting in the work. I believe in it, and I love it. I enjoy improving and learning new skills, pushing my limits on the bike and becoming a better athlete. This isn’t about winning. It never was. If it were, I probably would have quit a long time ago.

I’ve always enjoyed training. I’ve wanted to be an athlete my entire life. Yet, somehow, I’m just now realizing the significance of that. I’ve always wanted to be an athlete, not the best athlete in the world, just an athlete. When I think about what I love about racing bikes for a “living,” I think about the weeks in the off-season where I spend almost all day training, the days where I go to the gym AND do a long ride, where I’m too exhausted from sprint intervals to do more than lie on the couch and read a good book. I think about those days. I don’t think about the times I’ve stood on the podium. I don’t think about races at all. Ask me what I’m most proud of, and I’ll tell you about drops I hit that seemed impossible three years ago, about trails I rode twice as fast the second time as the first, about the times I told my whiny inner-self to suck it and rode something that terrified me.

And yet, last year, I let racing get under my skin. I let it undermine the things that I love about riding bikes and training and being an athlete. I let myself think that I deserved better, when in fact, I have so much already — the opportunity to travel, to race, to train. That is enough. It is all enough. I am grateful, and happy, and excited to race this year because every race gives me a new opportunity to challenge myself and ride amazing trails.

And that is enough.

So, if you’re looking for me this year, I’ll be here, putting in the hours because I want to, because I love every minute I get to spend riding my bike. Maybe someday it’ll pay off in a race and I’ll see some decent results. But then again, maybe it won’t, and that’s okay, too.

Ask Syd: What Should I Expect at an EWS Race?

Posted on February 17, 2017 by Syd Schulz

Hi Syd :)

Thanks for keeping your wonderful blog. I am a rider from Egypt who has been dreaming big for years despite that I have been riding for only 4 yrs. I started racing local enduros only two years ago and tried an EWS [Enduro World Series] qualifing event last year which was not successful. The racing conditions were terrible with a thunderstorm and I think mentally I wasn’t ready for it. This year, it’s different. I have an amazing mtb coach and I’m working on skills and fitness. Doing at least 1 local race a month to get better. I live in Israel by the way which makes it easier! So the plan is to try more EWS qualifiers this year! To make things more exciting I won the EWS lottery for Madeira, Portugal in May :))

Here’s my question: I am focusing on skills, fitness, mental preparation and nutrition… but I need to believe from the bottom of my heart that I can make it in EWS Madeira? Any advice?

After blatantly disobeying Rule #2 on this list and going dust bowl swimming at 2016 EWS Round #1. Don’t be like me.

I decided to post my response to Yasmine, because I think there are a lot of people out there who are interested in trying an Enduro World Series race, or maybe just got into their first one via the lottery this year and are curious what to expect. While I don’t really consider myself to be an EWS racer, I have a raced a handful of the events and I certainly know what it feels like to be unprepared for the challenges of these races. (See here and here for tales of woe from my EWS exploits in 2015.)

Here’s my advice for taking on your first EWS race —

1. Don’t set expectations/goals for finishing in a certain position. The competition is incredibly fast and there’s really no way to know how you stack up until you try. So try to release yourself from any pressure on that front — once you’ve done at least one EWS you can set a goal of improving your position at the next one. Thinking about it any other way is just going to add extra stress. So wherever you finish, just think of it as a learning experience. Even though I’ve done 6 EWS races at this point, I still never set any goal position-wise — I just shoot to finish and stay calm, competent and upright for the entire race. I’ve been last, and I’ve been top-20. Shit happens at these races, and sometimes it’s out of your control.

2. If you are unable to ride something in practice, don’t ride it in the race. Running/sliding-on-your-butt is almost always faster than crashing. I have learned this lesson the hard way a few times. The trails change a LOT between practice and the race at an EWS, especially for the women as we race after all but the top 30 men. This means that some 400 racers shred up the trails before us. This makes everything harder, and it’s really important to remember that and not get discouraged if you are having more trouble during the race than you did in practice.

3. Accept that the pre-ride schedule might be very physically challenging and you might be tired before you even start the race. This is a hard one for me because when a race is important to me I want to show up refreshed and at my best. Unfortunately long practice days are part of EWS racing and everyone is in the same boat. Every race is different but for Chile last year we rode 30 miles both Thursday and Friday for practice, and then again Saturday and Sunday for the race. So, 60 miles and 10,000 feet of climbing before the race even started. I was EXHAUSTED. This can be demoralizing but remember, everyone is in the same situation and they’re all tired, too, even if they pretend they aren’t ;)

4. Try to keep in perspective that these races are hard AF. EWS races have been some of the hardest mountain bike events I have ever done. Actually, come to that, hardest sporting events of any sort I have ever done. Part of this is physical, with very long days out on the bike. Part of this is skills based, as sometimes the stages are as hard as world cup DH stages, but four times as long. Part of this is mental, as the whole scene is very amped up and can be stressful. So, it’s important to keep all that perspective. You will be racing against women/men who have done 7-8 of these races every year for the past three years, and some of them raced world cup DH for 10 years before that — these people will make things that are hard for you look easy. But they didn’t get to where they are overnight. Just by showing up and giving it a go, you are doing awesome. We all have to start somewhere.

Ultimately, what I tried to tell Yasmine is a lesson I wish I had learned way earlier than I did: these races are a very different experience to pretty much any other bike race, and your first attempt is not a measure of what you are capable of — it is simply a starting point. And an incredible experience racing your bike on some of the world’s best trails. So enjoy it. And remember that you’re lucky to be there.

How Do You Train for Enduro?

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Syd Schulz

Hi Syd,
Since you just wrapped up a series on skills practice, I would like to see a post about your overall training through the year. Like, what kind of fitness training (both on and/or off the bike) are you doing leading up to your season and what kind of training do you do in between races when you are in the heaviest part of season.
I always look forward to your new posts, and I find them much more interesting than the normal “this is what happened at my race” reports that many riders write.
Thanks,
Lindsay

This question from Lindsay made me realize that I’ve pretty much neglected writing about my training on this blog. This isn’t because I don’t think training is important — obviously, it’s super important — but more because I don’t consider myself a training expert. I have a coach and a strength trainer/PT who write all of my workouts and basically save me from myself on a weekly basis. It’s really, really hard to train yourself, especially if you kinda know nothing about sports physiology. I tried to do it in 2014/15 and it was a total disaster that resulted in jacked up knees and me being sick like seven times in one year due to effectively riding myself into the ground.

I started working with Daniel Matheny (Matheny Endurance) last winter and I cannot express how great it is to have someone writing your training plan — having planned workouts eliminates all those nagging thoughts of “am I doing enough” and “is this even the kind of workout I should be doing” that plagued me before I started working with Daniel. Now, I just put my head down and do it, and it’s great. Also, Daniel’s really good about figuring out when I need more rest, just based on the power/HR numbers he’s seeing, so even if I’m lying and saying I’m fine, he tells me to rest more. While I had plenty of other mishaps this year, I managed to make it through the season without that miserable mid-August cold that caught me out the past few years. Recovery is key!!!

Since 2016 was (apparently) my year for dealing with shit I should have dealt with ages ago, I started working with Dane Delozier from Revo PT and Performance in May, trying to heal up my persistent knee tendinitis. Since then, I’ve been working with Dane to build strength generally and to keep improving my knees (and a few other grouchy body parts). Through this process I’ve discovered some serious areas of foundational weakness and bad movement and have been working to address them. (If you’re interested in how different movements affect mountain bikers, Dane writes a column for MTB Project and it’s worth checking out.)

Today's workout was rough. Nothing really went as planned, from mechanicals right off the bat, to the batteries on all my electronics dying from the cold. And also the fact that it was really freaking cold and I felt like my toes were going to fall off. There are so many athletes and fitness gurus on IG acting like every workout leaves you feeling amazing and full of endorphins and covered in just enough sweat for a sexy glisten but not so much that it's gross. But screw that. Training isn't supposed to be pretty or photogenic. It's supposed to be hard. It's supposed to make you tough. It's supposed to make you suffer. So bring it on. #trainingselfie #idoitforthegains #mtb #mtblife #nofilter #onthewords #thephotototallyhasafilter

A photo posted by Syd Schulz (@sydgschulz) on Jan 7, 2017 at 3:09pm PST

Training for enduro in the off-season is all about training your weaknesses. For me that means strength work and high power work. I’m naturally an endurance athlete, so I don’t worry about being out on the bike for seven or eight hours a day. While having some base is great, I can always pull a big day out of my ass if I have to. However, before I started training with Daniel, my peak power for anything from 10sec to 5min was pretty poor. I had also really never done any strength work at all before last fall, so while I was “fit,” I wasn’t very strong. And enduro is all about strong.

That said, if you’re interested in training for enduro, I really do recommend working with a coach to tease out your weaknesses — if you come from a power sports background (i.e. DH racing, DH skiing) you might need to work on your base more than I do. Even though enduro racers don’t actually race for seven hours, being out that long is no joke.

This winter, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the gym focusing on big-muscle movements, like squats, deadlifts, etc. and really dialing in my movement to make sure my knees are doing what they should be doing. On the bike, I’ve been doing a mix of short sprints (20 – 40 sec) and longer lactate threshold work to make sure I can punch it for an eight to 12 minute stage. Also, I’ve been riding fun trails, because fun is important too. As it gets closer to the start of the season, the intervals will probably get shorter, and once the season starts my strength work will probably dial down to more of a maintenance level to avoid too much fatigue going into races.

Training for enduro during the race season is tricky because between racing and pre-riding you sometimes end up with very, very high volume weekends. This makes it hard to fit in adequate recovery AND training between races. This is where having a coach is really key, as they are able to give you some perspective on when you should be training and when you should be resting and preparing for the next race. Left to my own devices, I tend to over do it.

Basically, training is all about balance, addressing your weaknesses and consistency. Sometimes you have to get out there and get it done when you don’t want to or the weather is nasty. That’s just life. Having a structured plan (and someone to keep you accountable) is a huge part of this.

Thanks for the question, Lindsay, hope this helps! :)

When You’re Tough Enough

Posted on August 23, 2016 by Syd Schulz

You are tough enough. You’ve done good. You have nothing left to prove.

These words spontaneously popped into my head while I was finishing a training ride in Frisco last month. This was about two weeks after my concussion in Sun Valley and I had just pulled out of the Keystone Big Mountain Enduro. So, You are tough enough, you have nothing left to prove. It became like a mantra while I was cooling down on the bike path and before I knew it I was bawling my eyes out while dodging tourists on cruiser bikes. Awesome. As you can see, I’ve really got my shit together this year.

I don’t really know why those words hit me so hard, but I think it was a sort of sudden emotional release of everything I’ve been holding onto since things started going sour for me this year. Or maybe longer than that. It was like I suddenly realized how much pressure I’ve been putting on myself to be tough for the past three years, or maybe my entire life. I’ve been slowly working my way towards this conclusion for a few months now — I touched on it a little bit in this post when I was talking about how riding through my knee pain caused me a million and ten problems, but my crash in Sun Valley, as well as my mishap this past weekend in Steamboat, really drove the message home.

Mountain biking has made me tough. And that is, for the most part, a good thing. I think there are a lot of people out there who could benefit from the high tolerance for scrapes and bruises that mountain biking affords you. Case in point, I have raced with a torn hamstring, a MRSA infection, a sprained hand, food poisoning, numerous head colds and the usual bumps and bruises (ranging from minor to downright alarming). In 2014, I raced the day after I got seven stitches in my face and earlier this year I got up and finished a race even though I had zero idea wtf had just happened. Some of these things were minor inconveniences, and others were downright stupid. And that’s the problem — sometimes stupidity looks a lot like being tough. The line is blurry, especially in a mountain bike culture where we idolize ridiculous crashes and cheer people on for racing through injury.

The lesson I’ve been learning this year is that being tough, while admirable, does not make you fast. And also, and perhaps more importantly, I’m already tough enough. I can gut out long transition climbs, even the ones that seem impossible. I can make it down some pretty gnarly terrain when I’m exhausted. I can get up after a crash in a race run and nail the rest of my lines with my handlebars 15 degrees off center. I can buckle down and finish just about anything no matter how jacked up my body and bike may be. And that’s great and all, but while I may be tough enough, I’m still not fast enough. And I want to do more than finish races. I want to do well.

After crashing on the second stage of the Big Mountain Enduro in Steamboat this past weekend, I was furious. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been so upset with myself over a mistake in a bike race. I just felt so dumb to have crashed on something that was entirely within my ability due to…I don’t know…being a millimeter off line, being a nanosecond off on my timing, my body position being a eensy-weensy bit unbalanced… or maybe just having the shittiest luck ever. It was really upsetting. And even though it wasn’t a high speed crash I managed to chuck my bike ten feet down an embankment into a creek and smash my arm into a boulder. I finished that stage, and the rest of the day, but I wasn’t entirely sure my arm wasn’t broken at that point. It swelled up massively, and while I could technically hold onto the bars, it sucked. I felt better the next morning — until I started riding, where every bump was excruciating. I had full range of my motion and some grip strength, so I knew nothing was broken, but I almost wished it was. On the first transition, I tried to give myself a pep talk. Like, you just have to finish, who cares if you’re last, you can ride through much worse pain than this — Just think about what you can learn from this, how tough this will make you.

And then it hit me — that same mantra that made me cry a month ago in Frisco. You’re already tough enough. You’ve done good. You have nothing left to prove. And I realized something — I already know I can finish the damn race. I already know that if I can physically ride my bike, I can finish just about anything. I already fucking know that. The only thing I can possibly learn in this situation is when to walk away.

So I raced the first stage of the day. And then I walked away. I’ve never DNFed a race before, not like that. (Technically, I was a DNF at Inca Avalanche in 2014 but I was vomiting uncontrollably and got carted off the course by the police escort vehicle, so there wasn’t much decision involved.) It was devastating. I felt like a failure. The hours after that decision might be the lowest of the low for my season, and fuck, that is saying something this year.

But it was quickly apparent that my decision was the only possible good one. I avoided injuring myself further and I was able to get the swelling down with some rest and a lot of ice. I haven’t tested it out on anything bumpy yet, but I think I’ll be able to ride for the Enduro Cup this weekend in Park City. And life goes on.

This season has forced me, brutally, harshly, to divorce my sense of accomplishment from race results. I’m riding completely differently than I was last year — I am fitter and faster. I don’t need race results to tell me that. I’m hitting jumps and features that are way bigger and gnarlier than I’ve ever hit before. I am looking at trails in an entirely different way, seeking out little opportunities to get air that I never would have seen before. I can actually hit corners and carry some speed.

And yeah, I’m still racing like shit. But racing isn’t everything.

I sat down last October and wrote down a list of goals — tasks, really, things I could control — to work on. I read these over this morning and I realized something — I’ve done them all. I’ve worked on everything I’ve said I was going to do. For the past ten months, I’ve poured every ounce of energy I had into being the best mountain biker I can be… training, strength work, representing my sponsors, working on skills, racing. I have done everything I possibly could. I didn’t give up on myself when I injured my knee in May. I didn’t give up after my concussion in June. And I’m not giving up now, either. The rest of my season could be a total disaster, but at least I will know that I tried, that I did everything I possibly could to make this work. I don’t need to prove that to anyone, because I know, and that’s all that matters right now. So, no matter how tired and frustrated and discouraged I am right now, I’m proud, too.

Why “Not Getting Last” is the Worst Motivation

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Syd Schulz

When I first started racing mountain bikes professionally, I lived with a constant, paralyzing fear of being last. Before every race I would scan the start sheets and try to identify people I could beat. If there wasn’t anyone slower than me on the list (which was a frequent occurrence) I would secretly hope for someone to have some sort of mechanical, just so that I wouldn’t have to see my name at the bottom of the results sheet. I’m pretty ashamed of this behavior, to be honest, but I doubt I’m the only one who’s thought this way. In fact, I know I’m not, because I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people say some sort of rendition of “I don’t care how I do, as long as I’m not last,” or “my only goal is to not be last.” This is usually accompanied by a nervous laugh, like it’s a joke, except it’s pretty obvious it’s not. Now, after two seasons of racing professionally, and racking up a pretty impressive resume of DFLs (but only one DNF, I might add), I cringe whenever I hear this. Cut it out, I want to tell people, please, pleeeeease come up with a better goal.

We’re conditioned from an early age to think that being last is the worst possible thing that happen to us. You don’t want to be the kid picked last in gym class, you don’t want to be the bottom of the curve. We’re constantly judging and critiquing ourselves based on the people around us. And while sometimes that can lead to improvement, being preoccupied with failure is almost always counter-productive. So I’m here to tell you this — don’t ever, ever (even just in your head) set a goal of not being last. It will not make you faster, and it will certainly not make you a better racer or human being.

Unless you’re racing against every single person in the world, “being last” doesn’t mean much, other than that you were the slowest person who showed up (and finished the race). There’s really no shame in that. None. All being last tells you is this — you showed up, you finished, and everyone else went faster. You will never do well and achieve your goals if you don’t show up or if you don’t finish, so you are 2/3 of the way to successful race. (And those are the harder parts, I swear.)

Here’s an incomplete list of what being last DOESN’T tell you — Whether or not you had fun, whether or not you raced better than last weekend, or last year. It doesn’t tell you if you improved, if you learned something, if you overcame something really challenging.

Being last in a bike race is hardly the worst thing that happen to a person. Living in fear of being last, however, can be actively harmful to both your well-being and your results. For starters, “I just don’t want to be last” is the best way to cultivate a big-fish-little-pond mentality. No matter how slow you are, you can probably find a race where you won’t be last. That won’t change the fact that you’re slow. Likewise, unless you’re the best in the world, no matter how fast you are, you can probably put yourself in a situation where you will be DFL. It’s all relative. If you consistently seek out situations where you’re DFL, you will get faster. You may still be DFL, but whatever.

“I just don’t want to be last” is the equivalent of wanting someone else to fail, instead of wanting yourself to succeed. It’s the whole “you don’t have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun your slowest friend,” thing, which is a horrible saying for all sorts of reasons. Over the past few years, I’ve realized that, at least as far women’s enduro racing goes, it is not a zero-sum environment. One of us does not have to fail for others to succeed. We share lines, we give each other tips and pep talks, we help fix other people’s flats, and we remind everyone to open their suspension before the stage (I have it on authority that the men do NOT do this last one). I’m friends with almost everyone I race against. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to beat them — it just means I want to beat them when they’re at their best.

I’m not saying you should be happy about being last — I’m just saying it shouldn’t determine how you think about a race (or whether or not you race). I have some races where I was last because I totally and completely dropped the ball and raced like an idiot. I’m not proud of those. I have other races where I was last because I dragged my broken body and/or broken bike across the finish line, through some really shitty circumstances. I wouldn’t say I’m happy about those results, but I’m still proud that they don’t say DNF.

So the next time you catch yourself thinking “I just don’t want to be last,” pick a different goal. Pretty much anything is better. Choose to have fun, do your best, avoid major mistakes, etc. Most importantly — choose your own success, not someone else’s failure.

Complicated Holes: Racing EWS #2 in Bariloche, Argentina

Posted on April 7, 2016 by Syd Schulz

“And there are going to be holes, which may be complicated for some.”

This was race promotor Matias’ rather understated assessment of the trail conditions in Bariloche the night before EWS Round #2 kicked off. What Matias called complicated, I was more prone to label terrifying. To be honest, I was pretty freaked out going into this race, although it’s difficult to explain why. These trails defied classification — there was nothing truly technical about them. At least, there were no technical features, no drops, no jumps, no particularly nasty corners. There were just, well, holes. And ruts. And sand. Complicated holes and ruts, filled with sand. You get the picture. It wasn’t that there was any one thing that I was worried about — it just seemed like a massive crash could occur at well, any moment, you know, when you and your bike were swallowed by a particularly complex crevasse.

And let’s just say that my practice days had been somewhat sub par, with a few crashes that left me with bruised legs, bruised confidence and a general sense of impending doom. Okay, that might be a little bit dramatic but when I woke up Saturday morning I was not excited. In fact, I was pretty much dreading the whole weekend and if someone had given me an option of fast-forwarding my life for the next 48 hours, I probably would have gone for it.

Here’s the thing, though.

It was fine. I was fine. Like, totally fine. I even had fun, kind of, in a “fun-in-retrospect” sort of way. Here are a few highlights (because a blow by blow of this race would be like “started stage one, almost fell in a sandpit, narrowly avoided sandpit but then there was another one” on and on for six stages.)

1. For the first time ever in an EWS, people were getting in my way, instead of the other way around. This sounds bad, but this was exciting to me and I reveled in it. For like, half a stage, and then the novelty began to wear off, because I passed a minimum of three women on every stage (and on the third and longest stage, that number was more like seven or eight). But it certainly kept things entertaining and I really wish I had had a helmet cam running, because I have never encountered such chaos in race stages — people running, people crashing, people crashing while running, etc. It was a glorious, ridiculous cluster fuck and I loved it. I’m also just stoked to see so many women racing in Argentina — and not just racing, but really putting themselves out there and pushing their limits. I think some of the faster pro women were getting frustrated with the traffic jams, but I couldn’t help but find it kind of awesome. A lot of these women were, quite honestly, in over their heads, but they did it anyway, and I have massive respect for that. Plus, I’m hardly one to judge as I’ve done quite a few races that were leagues over my head and I’m better for it. (Like this one, and this one, and this one.)

2. I got really good at what my race buddy Kim termed “out-riggering,” i.e riding down a sandy rut at high(ish) speeds with one leg extended, a la an outrigger canoe. This technique bears a strong resemblance to “flailing” or “being totally out of control” but we all decided that out-riggering was a cooler name, and it was a totally necessary technique for the steep, loose and narrow ruts. I also learned that while one can maintain some decent velocity with one foot out, things deteriorate rapidly should one come detached with both feet.

3. I rode all of the things that freaked me out in practice with no problem whatsoever. Even one particularly complicated hole that I had decided to forego — in the moment, I just rode it anyway, which was a pretty major mental breakthrough, and also indicative of the fact that I was totally over thinking the piss out of this race.

4. While I had quite a few minor crashes (it was fairly inevitable in this race), I managed to avoid any time consuming trips into the bushes like last week’s face plant detour in Corral. My worst mishap was getting tangled in the course tape while trying to get out of Casey Brown’s way on Stage Three. Casey went on to finish 2nd so I don’t feel too bad about the fact that she went hurling past me at light speed on about half of the stages. (She was also super nice about it and skilled enough to take some fairly creative lines so that I didn’t even have to slow down. So major props to Casey.)

5. I was feeling some serious full-body fatigue by the end of Day 2, but still managed to put down some decent (or at least, consistent) times and avoid serious injury so I’m pleased with that. I’m realizing more and more that “keeping your shit together while exhausted” is pretty much the backbone of enduro, and definitely something I’m improving on with every race. In fact, my second day was definitely my better day relative to others, so I’m stoked to see the fitness work I’ve been doing with Matheny Endurance making such a difference. That said, my arms felt like they were one step away from rigor mortis by stage six. I knew I should be getting into a more aggressive position and being more fluid, but I couldn’t do it. I had to constantly remind myself to relax, and stop being so stiff, just to make it around the next corner. In sum, this weekend was HARD and once again, in a completely different way than Corral or any other EWS I’ve done.

6. I finished in 18th place, my second top-20 in two weeks. Sneaking into the top twenty at an EWS was a goal of mine for the year, so doing it twice early in the year is an awesome feeling. A part of me is tempted to devalue this and say that the level of these races was lower than some of the other EWS races I’ve done, but I’m trying to squash that and just be stoked on the accomplishment. Because honestly it doesn’t really matter — I set a goal and I achieved it. Maybe next time I’ll aim higher. I’m relatively pleased with how I rode these two weekends, but I definitely made some tactical errors, had some crashes and wasn’t always totally focused, so there’s room for improvement. I’m excited to get back to working on my cornering (which was maybe not at its best this weekend) and building some more strength in the gym and on the bike, now that we’re back in the US and have a few weeks of *relative* calm.

All-in-all, another challenging, frustrating, enlightening, empowering EWS weekend down.

Andes Pacífico: Five Days of Racing in Chile

Posted on February 15, 2016 by Syd Schulz

One of my goals for 2016 is to write race recaps in a vaguely timely fashion. Those of you who have followed this blog for awhile probably remember that all of my race reports from last year started with some excuse about “waiting to gain perspective on the event.” And before last year, I refused to do race recaps at all, because I thought they were the scourge of the devil, but I also swore I would never use Snapchat or have long hair, and well, here we are.

Of course, the problem with writing a race report the day after a five day race is that the overwhelming emotion is TIRED. In order to not dwell on that over the course of this entire post, let’s get this out of the way right off the bat — I’M TIRED. I’m wrecked. I’m exhausted. I actually slept through the post race disco party (like, in a tent that was literally in the middle of a disco party) that’s how tired. But it’s been a good tired, not a miserable tired, and overall, this week was one of the most awesome bike racing experiences of my life to date.

So here’s a day-by-day highlight reel. Plus some photos.

The start of the first stage of the first day looked like this. Whoa.

Day 1: La Parva Ski Resort outside of Santiago, Chile. Epicly beautiful Andean mountain vistas, epicly sketchy Andean trails. They call the terrain here “antigrip” for a reason. It’s basically like riding through a combination of deep gravel and super fine sandy dust stuff, and when you use your brakes, you speed up. The fourth and final stage of this day was definitely the trickiest. The locals called it a “festival de la curva” which was a bit of an understatement, as “curve” implies something a tad softer than what was actually going on, which was steep switchbacks with no catch berms and infinite potential of pitching yourself off a cliff. About 5,000 of them. So, yeah, festival, my ass. Pleased to say I rode every turn and only got stuck in a bush once, although I was doing a bit more foot out, strider bike, seat-bouncing than I care to admit.

Macky and some horses on one of the transitions on Day 2.

Day 2: Farellones. Another day of wicked, sketchball Andean terrain. One of these trails I had raced in a local Enduro race here in 2014 and I am pleased to say that this time I made it down without crying. In fact, I didn’t even fall off once, which basically makes it a 10 fold improvement. On this day we traded the festival de la curva for the festival of the off-camber-clinging-to-the-side-of-mountain-and-hoping-you-don’t-die, which was equally festive, let me tell you. I enjoyed it thoroughly, even though I came unglued on the third, newly cut and disgustingly off-camber stage about a bajillion times.

Getting rowdy at the start of day 3 with some new and old friends.

Getting rowdy at the start of stage 3 with some new and old friends.

Day 3: Cajón del Maipo. The last day in the Andes. Things started to be a *little* tamer today, although the third stage had more sniper baby heads than I’ve ever seen in one place in my life. It took all my energy to remember to look ahead and not at every little rock that was getting in my way. The Defcon handled this terrain marvelously, especially when I relaxed and was able to let go of the brakes a little bit. I started to feel more comfortable on this day, and started racing a bit more aggressively. I even caught some dudes on a pedally section, so that’s always fun. Also, the race promoters met us at the end of the last day with baskets and baskets of empanadas, which is pretty much the best way to end a rough day of riding. (As a aside, if you want to lose weight, pick a different race. I could write an entire post about how delicious and ample the food was, but this is not that kind of blog, so back to bikes.)

Celebrating the views on Day 3

Grapes and sweat — Day 4 in a nutshell.

Day 4: Santa Cruz. Chile’s beautiful (but hot) wine country. Two long stages with even longer hike-a-bike sections and 90 degree weather. I’m not the hugest fan of hiking or hot weather, so this wasn’t the easiest day for me, but I managed to stay in a pretty good mood by going slow, taking breaks and eating a lot of food. (By the way, those three things may actually be the key to happiness in life. Bike racing is full of insights.) The stages were awesome, fast and finally the dirt had some grip. I had two cleans run, minus a little detour off the trail on the first stage and a plunge into a rut on the second. There was a jump over the rut in question, but not being a huge fan of hitting jumps that I’ve never seen the other side of, I opted for indecision and slammed on the brakes at the last minute, which was a bad plan. Indecision kills, kids. Turns out it didn’t matter that much, because the second stage ended up being cancelled after one rider crashed into the course tape and half the field behind him got lost. That’s one thing I love about races like this — you just really never know what will happen next.

Feeling tired? A popsicle and some kitten cuddles will cheer you up!

Day 5: Matanzas. Finally, to the coast. This day took us up, down and around the rolling coastal hills until we finally descended straight to the beach on the 7th and final stage of the day. Getting that first glimpse of the ocean was an incredible feeling of relief and accomplishment. These stages were calmer than what we had had in days past, but still challenging in their own way. You had to focus to make sure you didn’t miss any corners and go veering off course, and the odd rut or off camber ledge kept things super interesting all the way to the very end. We didn’t end up finishing the day until 8:30 pm, but luckily the race crew had choripan on the grill waiting for us. The chori was just an appetizer — a full on Chilean parilla followed. Lamb ribs, beef steaks, chicken. I ate so much meat it’s pretty amazing I didn’t turn into a cow. The parilla combined with two beers (we were getting wild), meant I struggled to stay awake for the award ceremony, which didn’t happen until midnight. And then the party started and despite my best intentions of celebrating, I found myself magnetically drawn to my tent, where I fell asleep on a deflated air mattress to the sound of 1000 decibel Chilean dance music and slept for the next 9 hours. It was great.

I made it!!!!!!

All in all, Andes Pacifico was an incredible experience and I feel that I raced well. I ended up 7th, which I’m super pleased with, although honestly I didn’t pay much attention to the results over the course of the race. This was definitely a race, but it was more about the experience, the people, the magic of being high in the mountains and riding your bike fast. I’m already hoping to come back next year!

Is Will Power Really Your Friend?

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Syd Schulz

The desire to have green boxes in Training Peaks is a powerful motivator.

When you tell people you’re a professional athlete, you often get responses like “wow, you must be disciplined,” or “I barely have the will power to make it to the gym once a week! How do you do it?” These kind of comments always make me a bit uncomfortable, because, um, me? Will power? Ha. Ha. Clearly you’ve never seen me eat chips and salsa.

Let me tell you a story. I used to be extraordinarily disciplined. As a high school athlete (and student), I was regimented, both in my thinking and my training. Things were very black and white and I was harsh on myself, my body and my seeming inability to achieve my (lofty and highly unrealistic) goals. I moved away from this thinking in college. And by “moved away” I mean, slingshotted to the opposite end of the spectrum. There was a long period of time where I couldn’t really be considered an athlete. In fact, being a serious athlete held for me a connotation of self-doubt and disappointment. I morphed into an extremely Type B person. Although I have changed a lot since college, I am still closer to that iteration of myself. Disciplined me was not a healthy or happy person, and even when I started moving towards racing enduro professionally, I knew I didn’t want to return to being that person.

Here’s what I’ve realized about will power — some athletes get where they are by pure force of will, determination and discipline. The rest of us have work-arounds. (And the former are not always the most funnest people ever to hang out with, but that’s just my opinion.)

Re-integrating serious training into my life over the course of the past two years has been a slow and deliberate process, in which I’ve tried to eliminate the role of “will power” wherever possible. Not because I can’t force myself to do something (goodness knows I can), but because I don’t believe battling my mind is the healthiest, smartest way to achieve my goals. I think there are other options, and if you’re like me and all that “ra-ra fitness just do it don’t be a pussy lift heavy shit” crap sets your teeth on edge, consider these bits of advice, instead.

Defer to the experts. (I.e. take it out of your hands).

I resisted serious interval training for the first two years of my professional career (pretty impressive run, eh?). Not because I didn’t want to do intervals, I actually kind of did, but because I was deathly afraid of over-training and/or working myself into a tizzy (a la my high school running career). Frankly, I didn’t know what to do. Starting last year, I started tossing around the idea of working with a coach. But oh dear, that would mean someone would be telling me what to do and part of the problem with being a very Type B person is that you prefer to decide your daily schedule you know, around 9am on the day in question.

In November of this past year, I finally pulled the trigger and starting working with Daniel Matheny of Matheny Endurance. Best decision ever. I quickly learned that the greatest thing about coaches is that they take the discipline out of your hands. If you know what you’re going to do ahead of time, it’s pretty easy to motivate yourself to do it. And if you’re feeling tired and sick and crappy, all you have to do is tell your coach that and they tell you NOT TO DO ALL THE THINGS. Whoa. Left to my own devices I gravitated between periods of being totally paralyzed by indecision and periods of “motivation” aka quasi psychotic training through injury and stomach flus and gail force winds. Working with Daniel has given me some much needed balance and peace of mind. And, actually, training is fun and feeling fit is awesome. (Go figure).

It’s a lot easier to train in weather like this if you go out the door with a plan.

Instead of forcing it, re-think it, and do it smarter.

I have a notebook where I record all my monthly goals and tasks. Since October I’ve been writing “do four parking lot skill sessions” and whaddayaknow I haven’t been doing it. I have plenty of excuses, mind, “it’s icy,” “it’s snowy,” “I don’t know where to find a parking lot” etc., but excuses shmooses, the point is, I wasn’t doing it. Previous me would probably have reacted to this with a slough of self-loathing, WHY CAN’T YOU MOTIVATE YOURSELF TO JUST DO IT WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU WHY DO YOU NEVER DO THE THINGS YOU SAY YOU’RE GOING TO blah blah blah. Current me is a little bit nicer to myself, so I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m not doing it, instead of just assuming I’m a failure.

When the opportunity came up to work remotely with Lee McCormack of Lee Likes Bikes on skills training, it was a bit of a light bulb moment. Ahhh, I haven’t been doing this because I have no idea what I’m doing, not because I lack the motivation. I want to do it, but I don’t have the direction I need, so it’s not satisfying and I don’t feel the payback, and there’s this constant self doubt of “am I even working on the right things.” In other words, basically the same reason I wasn’t doing intervals. With Lee’s program, I receive lessons that tell me what to do. After I complete the lessons, Lee takes a look at the video and gives me some personalized feedback. I’ve only just started, but I’ve already begun to think about skills work in a completely different way.

Use routines and incentives to your advantage.

You can’t always hire an expert to tell you what to do, of course. Sometimes you have to buck up and do it, whatever it happens to be. There are some ways to make this easier and most involve removing will power from the equation to some degree or another. (Hint: will power not your friend in this scenario.) The more you can make a task a given, an expectation, a routine — the more likely it is to happen. I’ve managed to do this with my morning “yoga.” By yoga I mean 2 -3 sun salutations. I’ve convinced myself to do this for the past four or five months by being very, very, very reasonable with my morning, un-caffeinated self. Which is to say, I only have to do my yoga until the coffee is done brewing. Yes, okay, it’s not a lot of yoga, but now it’s something that I’ve gotten so used to doing, I keep doing it without much whinging and it’s a great way to start the day. Routines like this take a bit of will power to set up, but then your brain accepts it as something that just happens. The key is to be realistic (don’t say you’re going to do an hour of yoga before you drink coffee looooool) and to convince your brain that it’s a routine and that there’s no decision making involved.

The other trick is to use incentives. I really only recommend doing this in extreme cases — the things you absolutely HAVE TO DO, that require significant time investment (i.e. are too difficult to fit into a routine) and that you can’t work around. Personally, I’m of the mind that if you really, really, really don’t want to do something, you should take a good, hard look at why you’re doing it and maybe, ya know, stop doing it. But there are some things that you have to do so that you can do the things you love — for me, these are my PT exercises for my knee. God, I have the hardest time making myself do them. I don’t know why. They aren’t exactly difficult. But they are kind of time consuming and I only really feel the need to do them when my knee is already hurting (in other words TOO FREAKING LATE). Luckily I’m sucker for gold star stickers, so for the month of December I gave myself a star in my goals notebook for every time I did the exercises. Terribly hokey, I know, but it worked, and my knee now feels 100% better.

I’m working on establishing a better stretching routine but it’s a process.

Realistically, of course, even with the stars, doing my PT exercises required will power. The good news is that because I had eliminated the need for will power in my other training, I had a lot to spare. Because that’s the thing about will power — it’s finite. It can work for you, if used sparingly, or you can drive yourself up the freaking wall trying to battle your mind over every little thing. My thoughts on will power, boiled down to the absolute basics, are these: eliminate the need for will power and discipline where you can, be realistic, have experts give you direction, and, if worse comes to absolute worse, play tricks on your brain.

I’d love to hear from your — how do you balance and conserve your use of will power? What’s your winter training motivation? Shoot me an email or comment below!