Stoking the competitive fire
Ruminations on sucking, sandbagging, and surpassing
Dave Carr, August 2000
 

How do  you get motivated?	How do you get motivated for a race?   Maybe you listen to your favorite tunes on a Walkman while warming up. Maybe you do some confidence-boosting visualization drills that you read about in Sports Psychology, repeating to yourself a mantra: “Imagine yourself effortlessly striding over the barriers. You are a strong, confident cyclocross racer…”  One of the things we’re told not to do is to use results as motivation.  Sure, it’s easy to feel good when you’re doing well--but what do you do when the results don’t come?  Well, I was about to find out.  The last couple years I’ve been moving steadily upwards in ‘cross.  My first year, let’s face it, I sucked.  The next year, I did OK in B races, and topped off a good season with a medal in Seniors at a poorly attended district championship.  Then A’s and a whole new learning curve…you get the picture.  National cyclocross coach Clark Natwick gave me a  warning once: Don’t be dismayed at mediocre results in Surf City.  You’re lining up against national and even world champions a lot of the time.  But I didn’t listen. A friend of mine, J.T. in New York, told me of another strategy, which he used for managing his expectations in road races.  In a local cat 2 race, he’d expect to get a top 5 finish most of the time. If it was a regional Pro-1-2 race, perhaps top 10.  If it was a national calendar race, he’d be happy just to finish in the main pack.  What a great system.  The point is to set your expectation level so you can stay motivated regardless of the competition.  But again, I didn’t listen. Fortunately for me (I guess), I didn’t need to listen.  I had a breakthrough year, upgrading to a Cat. 2 on the road and getting a few top 10’s and 20's in A’s at Surf City--the standard measure of success in NorCal 'cross, I think.  Not to bore a reader with my resume--the point is that I was getting a steady supply of motivational, ego-boosting improvement.  Until last year.
The  plateau: I suck	Last year, I hit a plateau.  I still got good results, but I was stale. It wasn’t exciting just to do as well as the previous year.  This, dear reader, is why you should never use results to motivate you.  What do you do when the results stagnate, or worse, drop off? At times like that, reality starts to set in.  It’s hard not to notice that even on my best day, I’m still a humble peon compared to the guys who are winning those A races.  Maybe those guys think they are the best.  But those guys, when they go to Nationals they get beaten by another class of strong guys. Then those other guys go over to Europe and get blown away by huge bunch of even better guys.  As Mark Weaver has eloquently pointed out: In the grand scheme of things, we suck.  We all suck. This particularly forceful bit of wisdom makes it a lot more difficult for me to use results as a basis for race day motivation.   The year I first started to do well in the A’s, a top 20 finish was enough.  I could go out and suffer for a whole hour just on the thought of how cool it was to be racing up there with the big boys.  And that attitude usually paid off with a good finish. But last fall, after a summer of getting shellacked in Pro/1/2 criteriums, that “I’m pretty hot” idea was wearing thin. Even though I was just as fit as the previous year, I was having a hard time pushing myself to the same level.  I was grinding along without much competitive fire.  I was going through the motions.  Have you ever felt like that?  It takes a lot of motivation to put out the kind of suffering required for ‘cross, and it’s easy to just grind away, especially when your’re in the middle of the pack.  Guys would pass me and I didn’t care.  I was washed up, finished.
Redemption	Then I went out to Sacramento for a little local ‘cross race put on by my friends John and Linda Elgart.  A long way from Santa Cruz, this one would just have local riders, perhaps a cut below the best in the region.  As it turns out, the best riders there were two guys from Sacramento, one of whom gets top 20 at Surf City, and me.  We had a great, tactical race, exchanging attacks and counters the whole race.  The result wasn’t decided until the final sprint, where Justin Morgan nipped me at the line.  What a great race.  Suddenly, without even trying to be motivated, I was riding harder than I had all season, riding smart and aggressively too.  And having fun instead of plodding along.  Uh-oh, I thought.  I’m using results again, motivated only because I was leading the race. Plus, in the back of my mind I heard the voice of a snobby race winner saying: You were just sandbagging. Who cares how you place in some out-of-the-way race. But wait.  Here I was, feeling washed up and stale, but by going out to do a race where I could get a taste of riding at the front again, I re-filled my reserves of motivation.  I finished out the season with a couple more good results, and most importantly with good attitude.  So here’s the moral of the story.  Don’t go by results.  And don’t sandbag, which tends to happen when you only care about your placing.  But do treat yourself once in a while to that feeling of winning, whether at a local race, or a training ride, or whatever.  Feed on that feeling of competition, whatever the venue, whether you’re going for first, tenth or sixtieth.  Just go fast!

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