PAIN BY NUMBERS

I remember an episode of the X-Files long ago where Mulder is poring over an old baseball box score. Scully walks in and asks him what he is doing, and he waxes poetic about his ability to visualize the entire game purely through the information drawn from the numbers on the paper, and feel the energy and excitement of the action. While probably exaggerated, and likely derivative of some other baseball cliche I am unaware of, the basic tenet of his talk with Scully probably holds true for most MTB racers checking their results. Knowing only that I placed 4th at Mansfield is like knowing only the outcome of a baseball game; it does not account for the score or the people behind the home-runs and no-hitters. It lacks specific information, which bicycle racers, probably far more so than baseball fans, desperately crave. Which is why I checked the OCA website at 5 minute intervals for the 18 hours it took them to post the results. I need the context and the raw data so that I can (over)analyze every single facet of my riding that day, even though virtually none of it has any value moving into the future.

I entered my first ever bike race at the age of 13 (about the same time that X-Files episode aired). It was late April 1996, and I was recovering from a case of strep throat at the time. My mom did not want me to race but I would not be deterred! (The same way I wasn`t deterred at the end of that season wanting to race a week after concussing myself, but that is another story all together) What I found after competing in this event was that there were seven people faster than me in the 13-14 age category that day. They were (and I swear I am doing this from memory, though I have looked back at those results in the past year): 1. Michael Hendricken 2. Sean Thrush 3. Derek Thomas 4. Tristan Galbraith 5. Ryan Schonauer 6. Taylor Martin 7. Shaun something (?) (may be reversed with #6). The point of this exercise is not only to display my memory's incredible capacity for entirely useless knowledge (which is pretty intense) but to illustrate a greater point about the racer's tendency to STUDY and OBSESS over their results and those of their competition. Had you asked me a week after the race exactly what the time gaps were that day I probably could have told you to the second. I thought I was alone in this phenomenon, having always been a pretty big nerd who likes to lose myself in insignificant thought. And though I may obsess harder than everybody else, I am fairly certain all of these years later that everybody else has been obsessing. This point was hit home today when my co-worker Simon (who hasn't raced at all in some time, but was my competitor in 96) said he was checking my Mansfield results. "What hapenned on your last lap? Looks like you really lost it....."

YES! I totally lost it. But I was so overcome with joy that all of these years later Simon still has the knack of STUDYING results, that I didn't mind explaining once again that my endurance sucks and I didn't even really put up a fight for a podium position. But I really needn't have explained myself in the first place, because Simon had already figured it out, plain as day: Lap1 25m, Lap4 29m. And in hindsight, it is very easy to look back and say "Dammit! Why did I not go faster on lap 4? Am I some kind of apathetic loser or something?" And the guys who I beat who had consistent 28m laps are thinking to themselves the same thing about lap 1. But is it really so easy to dissect our own performances and those of our competitors simply by looking at lap times and splits?

Probably not. (This is why Garmin and Powertap are in business) But the results allow us to relive the race, and eagerly anticipate the next one with even greater fervor, because the numbers in the results do not account for PAIN. There is an excellent chance that the last place beginner racer hurt as much or moreso than the top pro for their time between the tape. I know that I certainly FELT like I was literally killing myself in my first couple of years racing as a 14/15 year old (concepts like 'pacing' and 'riding smart' do not appeal to competitive adolescent boys), and even in my first sport class races in my early 20s. (Sport class behavior approximates that of adolescent boys pretty closely) And since time and distance cannot in themselves tell the story of each individual's suffering, we can always comfort ourselves with the possibility that, in spite of our results, we went out there and TRIED harder than everybody else. Because all those other suckers in front of you (or me), they probably have years more experience, or superior genetics, or a more expensive bike, or a cheaper bike and better mechanic, or time to train, or pre-rode the course, or any other variable that would allow them to out perform us. But dammit, there is no goddam way that they went out and raced as HARD as we did! Their legs and lungs didn't BURN like ours. If they had any idea what it felt like to SUFFER like we did surely they would tuck their tails between their legs and shamefully walk away from the sport for good. And maybe, just maybe, if we stare at that matrix of lap times hard enough, we will some how find the wherewithal to suffer just a bit harder next weekend and reel that sandbagger in.

That is why I compulsively check for results.

And that is why I'll be back next weekend.

Andrew

"I've been first, and I've been last,
Look at how the time goes past,
Now I'm all alone at last,
Rolling home to you"
-Neil Young