Regret


There are good races and there are bad races. At the end of a good race, my body feels as if it is dying, but after a few minutes, I am happy. At the end of bad races, I feel unhappy, but my body feels more or less okay. The feeling of a good race is better than anything else in the world. The feeling of a good race is better than ramen soup and spring rolls. It puts you in an amazing mood for the rest of the day. 

During a good race, your muscles are burning but not heavy. Your body is tired but not hurt. You don't feel like you are going to throw up. No cramping. You are able to keep your head in the game. You are able to stop your thoughts from wandering. Keeping your head in the game is like apples in the winter; they are hit or miss. During a race, you can not let your thoughts wander. In a good race, by the end, you are thinking “I am never getting back on a bike ever again.” By the end of the race, you should be in pain, you should feel like you're going to throw up. You are redlining so hard you can no longer see the trail. By the end of a good race, endorphins are pumping through your blood, through your body, so you finish. But the endorphins are not the only thing that motivated me during races. Regret. 10 maybe even 5 minutes after I crossed that finishing line the regret starts. The thoughts crash down on me. “I feel fine now, I should have just raced faster”, “I should have pushed harder in that one part and that other part”, and “The pain is gone now I should have just worked harder”. Directly after the pain of the race subsides all of these thoughts take over my head. Then during a race, I remember the regret and try to race faster. 

In a good race, as soon as I cross the finish line I'm on the ground, nothing left in my tank. I can't see strain, maybe I throw up, maybe I drink a little bit of water to clear the gunk out of my throat. At the end of a good race, there are no regrets. No matter what place I came in, the race was so good that I have no regrets.

 

hike.bike.read

VT

16 years old