Goal Is A Four Letter Word

Goal is probably the only four letter word in my mental athenaeum I didn't use during Gravel Worlds on Saturday. Just like your supposed to do if you want to improve, I had set goals, I had done the prep work and put in the miles and I was as ready as I'd ever be to try to achieve the goals I had set for Gravel Worlds...


And then in the midst of the driest, hottest summer in recent years; the skies opened up late Friday night and saturate Lincoln and the surrounding area with upwards of 3 inches of rain. I knew when I opened the garage door at zero dark thirty on Saturday morning, and saw that it was still raining, that any goals I might have had were out the window and there was a possibility that riding might not even be an option. To be honest I'm not much of a rain or mud fan, don't like it and have DNS'ed on other events when it seemed like a shit show was imminent. We honestly just stood in the opening of the garage staring at the damp world beyond for 2-3 minutes, neither of us saying much of anything. Finally we decided, after looking at the extended forecast and seeing that the showers were to end shortly, to loaded up the bikes and headed out. Rain and mud be damned. There aren't too many pictures from the race because it was still raining at the start so I opted not to bring the camera for fear of it meeting with an untimely death. Cameras and water don't much like each other and water always wins, I've experienced this first hand on a Guitar Ted Death Ride some years back and did not want to repeat that mistake. Since I was still going to race and was still attempting to do well that was alright with me, no camera to distract or take the focus off of going fast... and turning left. 

Right out of the gate as soon as we hit the gravel road on 1st street I knew it was going to be bad at least at the onset. Instead of skating over thick piles of gravel attempting to hold your line, you were slip sliding on mud the consistency of walrus snot on an ice flow... attempting to hold your line. This one section of MMR, pictured above, will for sure go down in Gravel Worlds lore and be talked about for years to come, the whole event will likely be known as the rain year but this one road was so much shoe and soul sucking mud. I lost my damn shoes twice carrying my bike on that road, twice! Yet I digress because as much as it sucked for those of us brave/dumb enough to to be riding it, you know who it sucked for even more? The race directors, the volunteers, the SAG stops and everyone who had a hand in planning and organizing the event. I can assure you with almost 100% certainty that nobody felt worse about the rain and this road than those who have been living, breathing, eating and sleeping Gravel Worlds for the previous 364 days. While there was a wet course given out, this one stretch of MMR needed to stay in because there was no other way to get to the check point without it. 

So, here we are in the middle of this muddy mess of a road, cursing to whoever would listen, carrying our bikes as best we could for the solid mile that this MMR existed and in the midst of it all there was a moment of humor to be had. An old farmer in an older F-150 had made the same mistake many of us had made and thought the road was okay to navigate by wheeled vehicle. He soon learned like we all did that riding/driving the road was near impossible. With bike firmly in my grasp and slung over by back I hear the roar of an engine and turn to see the old farmer white knuckling the steering wheel of his red pickup truck, a look part fear and part bewilderment on his face. He couldn't stop or he'd be stuck, he couldn't turn around, there were not options to take a shoulder to the left or the right and he couldn't give it full gas either because in addition to the clay mud on the road it was littered with dozens of mud zombies shuffling along carrying their bicycles. RAINS..... RAINS..... RAINS.... you get the idea. Rather than honk and yell he saw the situation as it was, neither of us wanted to be there on that road if we could have helped it but here we were, all of us up to our undercarriage in slick, slimy, momentum stealing Nebraska mud. So with much consternation the farmer slip slides his way down the road trying to not stop, to not end up in the ditch and to not hit anyone of the dozens of cyclists on the road, dodging us like traffic in the expert mode on Need for Speed. To his credit he piloted his truck with violence and grace, didn't get stuck and didn't flatten any cyclists. The whole time we were thinking what kind of lunatic drives down a road like this?, the whole time he was probably echoing that sentiment with a similar what kind of lunatics ride a bicycle down a road like this?



Despite the trying and exhausting conditions if you look at the pictures of riders on the course, the one thing not absent are the smiles. Most of the people I talked to and interacted with were upbeat and positive and honestly seemed to be taking things in stride and enjoying the race. 


While my time goals went down the drain like runoff from the deluge I still wanted to push myself and see if we couldn't still make a go of it and in the end I did alright. First and foremost I not only stayed the course and started the race but I also finished and on that day finishing was something in and of itself. I was a full hour plus over what I had hoped to be but for a brief time it looked I took third in the 75 mile men's single speed category... and then they found a guy that slid down from the 150 mile single speed category and that put me into 4th. He must have been a last minute switch as he was still listed in the150 mile race, even worse he was fast and ended up with the top spot. The single speed category was a pretty close race looking at the numbers. The top 4 of us were all within 10 minutes of each other. The gap between 1st and 2nd was about 4 minutes, 2nd to 3rd was less than 3 minutes, 3rd to 4th was about 2 minutes. A race is what I had decided I was going to try for and in the end a race was what I got even if I was third loser. Good times were still had though... 


I got hugs.


I gave hugs.

I got to hang out with good friends.

And I got to see Jackie kick ass and take third in the women's 75 mile single speed race!


Gravel Worlds 2023 will be one for the books for sure, it was probably the single most difficult race I've ever done in probably the worst conditions I've ever raced in but at the end of the day it was also one of the most rewarding races I've done to date.

 
Through adversity we discover things about ourselves that maybe we didn't know before, misery and miles provide plenty of time for self reflection and introspection. It's what you do with those thoughts that help to mold who you'll be in life. There is a distinct difference between physical discomfort and a physical injury, one tells you that you should stop and the other requires that you do. Knowing the difference between the two and not listening to that voice in your head trying it's best to convince you that things are much worse than they are goes along way when things get dark.

There was plenty of physical discomfort to go around on Saturday, every single person who toed the start line on Saturday experienced that collective discomfort. Legs get tired, lungs gasp for breath, butts get sore and sweat happens... physical discomfort as daunting as it seems at the time isn't as powerful as drive, determination and positive mental attitude. If you chose to dwell on all the negatives that surrounded the rain you probably had a negative experience, if instead you chose to focus on the positives you probably had a positive experience. 

Not everyone you know can ride their bicycle at a high level over large distance, fewer yet will ever try. Push yourself, step out of your comfort zone, tune your mind out and embrace the suck. It likes hugs and it's always waiting for you over that next hill, make a frienemy out of it and just keep pedaling.


Big thank you to the Gravel Worlds crew, you all are amazing people that put on an amazing event. 

Emporia is the self proclaimed Gravel Capitol of the World and they certainly have earned the right to claim that title but you can't talk gravel history in the modern era without including Lincoln, the Pirate Cycling League, Gravel Worlds, Corey Godfrey, Craig Schmidt, Chris Van Ooyen, Elizabeth Grindcore, Randy Gibson, Matt Wills, Aaron Gammel and so many more who I have forgotten to mention but they were there at the beginning of this grass roots gravel movement we are in today or at least responsible for our little piece of it here in Nebraska.