Tonight was my first night with the team.
I signed up for a women’s bike team in the city. It is all inclusive, all you have to do is pay a hundred bucks and you get a jersey. But it is big enough so that racers find their place. Leisure riders find their place. Triathletes find their place. Crit racers find their place. Everyone has a place.
It seemed like my kind of place.
We met at a popular organic cafe in town that sponsors the team. People with fashionable glasses and fashionable plaid shirts and just-dirty-enough-to-be-fashionable jeans sat out front. I was in Lycra and I felt sorry for them.
There were maybe 30 people and everyone introduced each other but it didn’t matter. We were all wearing helmets and sunglasses and the exact same jersey. The only thing that differed were our bikes and the color of our pony tales. I tried my best to remember even those things but of course it didn’t really work.
The ride started a little after six and fairly slow through residential neighborhoods. I didn’t even pay attention to the route. I couldn’t take my eyes off the impressiveness of us. We were like a flock of birds gliding through the Minneapolis. Strong. Fast. All dressed in blue. People stopped and stared at us. But the pace remained pretty slow--maybe 19 mph. Maybe less.
We got to the High Bridge in St. Paul. I remembered the group leader--Annie-- a very petite, soft spoken, pixie-like person say that some tend to pull away on the bridge, but that everyone meets at the top to rest and see who wants to take the long route and who wants to take the shorter one.
This was my chance. I love hills. I’m good at hills. I’m unbelievably fast going up hills. I could finally show what I could do. My mouth started to water. I geared up and took off. Then I geared up again and started passing the others one by one. Then I geared up again and left everyone behind.
I waited at the top.
After about a mile Annie rode up to me. “Your power is amazing,” she said, “and... you would have no problem racing, actually. But you are a member of a team now. And it is rare someone just comes in and pulls away from the pack like that...”
I felt like an idiot. I nodded politely but wanted to die. I’ve never known a different way to ride. It’s always been about conquering. About impressing. About look at me look at me dear god show that you know I have worth. That you respect me. That you value me somehow, someway just communicate that to me that now, please, please, please.
But I never felt reciprocal appreciation. So through tears I kept going. Kept racing. Kept pulling away from the pack hoping this time it would work. This time the veil would be lifted and everyone would know I was somebody special. But now I didn’t feel special. I felt like a jackass. An embarrassed jackass.
“I didn’t know,” I said. “This is my first real group ride.”
She nodded.
“...and to be honest...” I hesitated, “I sort of just went through a break up... and... I just... I have a hard time stopping and controlling myself.”
Annie smiled. “That’s not a bad thing at all. You need to take whatever makes you angry and use it. I’m a terrible racer because I’m not a very...” she looked for the right word, “I’m not really a very angry person. I just don’t have that fire. You have that fire.”
I smiled.
“But,” she said, “you need to learn how to be a member of a team. How to ride close. How to be sneaky. How to work with your team members to gain speed and keep it. We can’t have you pulling away in the first 10 miles and not being able to finish. And most importantly, you need to learn to trust us.”
My shoulders drooped and I looked away. "After all that’s happened... after all I’ve fucking been through how the hell am I supposed to find a way to trust again? Trust anyone?"
She looked back at me calmly, “this is how. This is exactly how. Right here, right now.”
I took a deep breath.
She said, “and now you are about to learn how to sprint up a hill in a pack. Let’s go.”
No comments:
Post a Comment