I didn’t ride in the Iceman for 5 years in a row… In fact, I swore I was retiring from my so-called racing career. Ask all my friends, I was adamant that I needed to quit racing altogether. I made them promise to not let me do it: It was no fun anymore, it took up all my time, I couldn’t take the anxiety, I hated race-day jitters, I always had a mid-race crisis where I hated my bike – and them, too.
But standing at the finish line of the Iceman last year again, I saw racing with more clarity than I have in the decade-plus since I’ve been doing (or dreading) it.
Here’s what I saw:
A clan.
To be a part of the Iceman, on the inside, tucked into the sweaty jerseys and helmet head pictures, only comes with riding it. The spouses and friends and sponsors are all essential, but still one step removed from the true experience. The years I didn’t race, I felt the separation, thin, between done and doing.
I realized that not doing it one year hadn’t cost me much. But two years off – and more – was distancing myself from what I was, had become, on my bike.
I couldn’t let it go. Biking has brought me new friends, new challenges, endless miles up d@mn hills, headaches, bonking and, always, satisfaction in getting it done. Biking also saved me from grief after losing my mom.
That first year when I fell in love with biking, I rode like a madwoman while the kids were in school and ran around with madmen, laughing and sweating and falling in Pere Marquette dirt. I couldn’t keep up that training pace forever, but that first year was a good one – a time and a willingness found, and for the first time since losing my mother, the heart to go out with (new!) friends and laugh again.
A new win.
After taking a break from racing, I saw that the race was not as big as I’d made it out to be. The nerves and anxiety were still there, but smaller, acknowledged but not all-consuming. I discovered that it’s good to feel small in a race, to fold into the crowd and ride for yourself.
The feeling of finding your pace, working a hill, shifting tight, pulling away with enough at the top of the hill to get back up to speed, not bonking, bonking and coming back? All those things (and more) play into the idea of “racing” in a new way now, with competition coming in “last” on the list of why to ride Iceman.
After 5 years off, I saw then that I wasn’t racing to win. I was racing for all the rest of it.
A bigger story.
I could see, with my break, that my bike life had become a story, a kinship, a thread through my life.
Last fall, standing at the finish line, with my friends cheering, I wondered, what if I hadn’t ever met them? It was my bike that brought me to this place in my life where I had them – lucky me! They are part of my story now, a good part.
The rides in the rain, the falls, the getbackups, the snow, the sleet, the mud … the beer at the end, the flat tires on the trail, the deer flies – omg the deer flies in the spring! – all of it has shaped who I am. With JOY.
Yes, I needed a break, a few years off. But that time gave me the perspective that I needed – to see what I had, what I loved and what I missed. And who knows, maybe there’s more to come, maybe even a good race or two.
Kandace Chapple is a writer and wrangles Michigan Girl, a women’s membership group that gathers to hike, bike and otherwise get out under that Michigan sky. She can be reached at kandace@michgirl.com. Join her Facebook group for women at Michigan Girl Bike (& Hike!) Group.