The Grand Loop
In all her infamy, I finally made an effort to try. Intentions and reflections PRE race.
The race starts tomorrow morning, and I’m sitting in the camper. It’s a generally normal day: wake up, reply to text messages, read the Washington Post, and check Instagram messages. Except it’s not really normal, and the pre-race nerves are lumped in my gut like a watery shit.
It’s like this just about every time I line up to race my bike. Even before I got here (La Sal, Utah), I considered what racing meant to me. Feeling fatigued from a busy racing and filming year last year, in the months leading up to the race, I contemplated my approach to this year’s event. At first, while Johnny was still considering riding the Loop as a pre-Tour Divide training ride, I’d agreed to sleep six hours a night and try to approach it as “healthy” as possible. It seemed as though I had no racing bones left in my body. The idea of the race maybe sounded appealing to me when Katie suggested I should join them in the race while the act of racing seemed repugnant. She extended the invite just after the Arizona Trail Race, and I was somewhat exhausted and unsure I could commit, but the idea sounded new and entertaining, at least. Plus, when Katie or Andrew invites me somewhere to do something, I inherently trust them that it will be a good ride. They are both so invested in the bike racing culture, and the idea of missing out on a chance to try hard alongside some of the people I respect the most in the world is an opportunity I’m not keen on shutting down.
As more of my close bike racing friends signed up, I became full of missing out fears and went ahead and got on the waitlist. Surely enough, I got on the roster, and still the race wasn’t real to me.
I considered trying hard for most of the day, sleeping well, bringing loads of food and a heavy shelter, and making it like a fast tour. But as Johnny backed out to preserve his body for the TD, I had to redefine what I wanted my effort to be. And low and behold, the effort is now going to be an all-out sacrifice.
Because I ultimately respect the idea of what a race is, despite emotional strings telling me that a race is a community event, I still think they are pure competition at the foundation level. If it weren’t a race, I would tour. If I didn’t want to try my best, I wouldn’t sign up for a race.
The single-speed thing is maybe becoming more beautiful to me as I age. As I wax and wane with my fitness, as the competition among geared-women racers blasts off, I’m left crawling into the pits of my mind to comprehend my “why.” Why choose one gear willingly hope to soar, and be inconvenienced simultaneously?
Some of it is to foster connection. The reasons, motives, and parallels to regular life run deep. In many ways, I feel like I don’t truly relate to men, or male-bodied individuals, to white folk, to fit-bodied folk, to people with socioeconomic privilege, to elite athletes, to skilled athletes, but I can relate to the dum-dums who also think there’s something innately special about opting out of a cassette and stripping down their privilege to keep it simple. The concept of being “in relation” is kind of the most important part of my life. So, I try to constantly decipher the ways in which we share a common thread. Sometimes, I feel like choosing the singlespeed is a dismissal of the mainstream and an act of anarchy. It’s choosing to do the harder thing, dive into the unknown, and commit to a battle without easy retreat. I relate to that, a choice to have less. It’s kind of how I’ve always felt about my own ability. Less.
It’s really intimate to me, and I agonize over my gear ratio, I scan the course for elevation stats, and pack as minimal as possible so that I can actually pedal a heavy ass singlespeed over wild terrain. I give up items, I keep it simple, so that I have the ability to move forward. It’s impossible for me to believe that other singlespeeders aren’t at least agonizing a little bit over their choices and insecurities. Again, in this agony, I feel connected to them and recognize their… bravery… stupidity… in showing up to race in the first place. A beautiful amount of both insecurity and confidence is wrapped into the cog a person shows up with. There are just too many metaphors for me to put the singlespeed to rest, and for the foreseeable future, I will stick to the single cog.
I am also reflecting on the beauty of having friends who see me and are deeply invested in the sport I care about. Several of my friends have reached out to me to offer some sentiments about the race. Some with insight, some with support, some with eagerness to watch my dot again. I feel loved, seen, and perhaps even more nervous in this act of human connection. These people know how much I care about these efforts and being accountable to my truth is intimidating. I have a responsibility enveloped in the contract of signing up for an event to try my absolute best to cross the finish line. When I know people I love and respect carry that same sentiment, it feels like an invitation and commitment to leave it all out there. I don’t know what my life would be if I didn’t care so deeply about something I choose to show up for.
So, I’ve decided to leave everything out there and channel my Arizona Trail 300 2021 Spring Effort (the Potato Sack Race). I think I will be clinging to the idea that Andrew and Katie are out there and they’re trying their best. My respect for them is beyond comprehension, and my return of that gift is to dig deep within my pits of ability to move forward with everything I have.
As much as there are still parts of me that want to race for glory (fuck, winning feels SO damn good), I know that I care infinitely more about my relationships in ultra-racing land and relationship to my self/ego/brain/spirit, and there is nothing on this Earth that feels better to me than pure human connection and self-truth. Win, lose, or draw; I get to try my absolute best to beat my friends and my own mind to the finish line.
I’m deeply nervous, incredibly excited, and humble going into this experience. It’s the first time in a very long time that I get to see a race with new eyes. I intended to tour the route to be the most prepared. However, I was not totally stoked about the idea of gassing myself on the 360+ mile route before the race even started. As exhausted as I was coming out of the Triple Crown Challenge, I kind of thought that if I toured I may not have enough energy to properly race. So, I’ve resorted to a few day rides, a few long runs, and ample sleep.
Most of all, I’m interested in sharing here my intention for this effort:
While trying to be my absolute best, despite deep, penetrating insecurities, I am leaving Nucla, trying to move as fast as I can, given the conditions. I am also embarking on this journey for emotional and spiritual growth. I’ve only recently realized that I was using my mother’s experience as a cover for dealing with my own trauma regarding the dispossession of my spiritual and cultural identity. It was easier for me to be angry at the injustices that shaped my mother’s life than it was for me to recognize how the injustices imposed upon my mother informed my life. As movement and fitness were integral parts of my ancestors’ survival, I intend to flex that part of myself in the quest of feeling, just simply feeling, the painful feelings I have for my own cultural loss as a child. I hope that grieving my losses will allow me to move on toward my cultural healing, reclamation, and well-being. It is with this effort that I aim to explore the contemporary effects of cultural genocide while delving into my ogichidaakwe curiosities. I want to be able to celebrate the things I get access to, like my language, culture, teachings, ceremony and community that so many never got/get the opportunity to participate in. I’d like to bed the shame and guilt I feel for not knowing these things but embrace the truth that I have the opportunity to do so.
Further, I aim to find peace with the ways I am trying to be a Good relative and the security of knowing that I am enough.
Alexandera