Courage

I always liked that word, courage. I liked it more after looking it up:

Middle English denoting the heart as the seat of feelings, from Old French corage, from Latin cor 'heart'.

It takes a lot of heart to race a bicycle. I'm reminded of it every time I pin on my number with trembling fingers. Some of that is from excitement. But some of it is simply fear. Fear of the failure to perform, of not having the guts to endure more pain, of losing, of not making the podium, of not making payouts, of being dropped, of crashing, of finishing DFL.

It's silly, I know. I'm like forty something years old. You'd think by my age and with all the experience I've had, I'd have it figured out by now. Well, I haven't.

Now imagine being this kid.

Or this one:

If you look closely, you might spot her pony tails.

Imagine being that small and facing the daunting task of getting to the top of the very long, steep, and muddy hill known as "Mt Krumpit" at the Iowa State Fair grounds.

Do you remember when you were nine years old and everything seemed bigger? Being shorter/lower to the ground certainly makes things appear bigger. But a nine year old's stride is also about half that of a grown up's. It follows that it'd take a child nearly twice as many steps to cover the same distance as a typical adult. Now add the disproportionate weight of a kid's bicycle, easily weighing up to a third of their body weight. In comparable terms, it'd be like me dragging a 50 lb clunker up a hill twice as long.

Take a moment to imagine the courage it must have taken them to get up that hill.

Only moments before these juniors appeared on the scene, I had a knot of fear in my stomach thinking about that greasy hill. But when I saw these little half pints approach, dismount and shoulder their bikes up that hill, not only was the knot in my gut become eviscerated, but in its place, I became inspired.

Suddenly I began hearing my voice shouting at them, "FIVE MINUTES AGO I WAS AFRAID OF THIS HILL. SEEING YOU TAKE IT HAS CHANGED THIS OLD MAN. NOW I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO IT. THAT'S RIGHT. AND WHEN I DO, I'LL BE THINKING OF YOU."

Not only did those little halflings inspire me, but they taught me a thing or two. For starters, many demonstrated how to shoulder a bike with good form.

The second lesson received was in showing me the best line to take up the hill. For the first two laps, all the junior riders went up the left side of the hill. It made sense. It was the most direct path to the top. However, on the third and final lap, a rogue racer took the longer, right-side ascent. In doing so, he passed two riders along the way.

As he approached me, I asked him why he chose the path less traveled.

"The left side is getting all mucked-down and sloppy. The right side is the way better path.Way better," he squeaked as he went by.

And you know what? He was absolutely right. That tip helped me pass more people than anywhere else on the race course. Thanks kid.

So here's to courage and the free tutelage on Mt Krumpit last weekend.

Happy Friday. Thanks for reading.