Q: When was auto racing invented?
A: When the second car
rolled off the assembly line.
The key is to get sleep the night
before the night before your big race. Because you will not sleep the
night of the race. True to form, I woke up at 2:30 am on Friday night
and stared at the ceiling for a long time. Scenes from the movie Rocky
played in my mind.
This was my first Blackburn Challenge and, by
far, the longest distance I had ever set out to row in one day. I was
rowing in a double with a man who had rowed it annually for the past
five years. Every athlete has a goal in a race and mine was to not
disappoint him.
A consideration is this race is 20 miles long.
Hopped up on adrenaline and anxious, there's a real chance you will burn
yourself out early. This is especially true at the Blackburn. The start
is on a beautifully flat river. The rookie mistake is to think you are
invincible, pull hard for the first couple of miles and then limp along
for the next 17.
Before I started racing, I used to hear the
words "racing strategy" and laugh. "What strategy could there possibly
be?" I thought, "You go out and run, row, or bike as hard as you can
until you feel like you are going to puke."
What a foolish
thought. There are many strategies to contemplate in a race. Doing well
involves giving your maximum effort without burning out early yet having
nothing left over at the end. It is as difficult as finding perfect
balance on the head of a pin.
Another aspect to consider is
"strategic hydration." In a twenty mile race on a hot summer day, you
are going to have to stop to drink water. When do you take these breaks?
Early
in the race two singles were approaching us, pushing each other hard.
One kept looking over his shoulder. I could read his mind, he wanted to
pass us desperately. I didn't want to let him. I love passing and hate
being passed.
Sweat was pouring down my face. Even so, I didn't
want to stop for a water break, not with this single bearing down on us.
Being ahead is a huge psychological advantage. Another one of my racing
strategies is "It's better to maintain being ahead than scrambling to
keep up." This guy had a camelback, he didn't have to stop to drink from
his water bottle. All he needed to do was turn his head into his
shoulder and drink from a tube. No stopping required.
A wave of
relief passed over me when my partner steered a perfect line, cutting
the corner close, leaving the two scullers in our wake. At last a chance
to drink. My first drink since we started 20 minutes ago.
I'm
just scratching the surface of what went into this race. I mention
nothing of course conditions, heart rate monitoring, or the giant wave
that swept over our boat - flooding it - begging the question, "Should
we stop to bail it out?"
A lot of this thinking, planning and
drama is invisible to spectators. That's why it's always so nice to hear
cheers. I was blown away by the volume of the cheers at the finish
line, it swept over me like a wave. And there's nothing like hearing
"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" and seeing your two year old daughter waving to
you from the shore after you gave it your all.
I was talking to a
woman on shore after the race was over. She wondered if we even heard
them and I told her, "The cheers mean so much. I heard every one." Thank
you everyone who turned out to watch us compete and cheer.
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