racing | 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.

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.