Race report: Providence Cyclocross Festival—or fear and loathing in R.I.
By Ian Landau
Ian Landau. Photo: Valentina Izaguirre
Wise man that Napoleon.
Do you think he ever rode cross?
I traveled this past weekend from Brooklyn some four hours slightly north but mostly east to Rhode Island. The purpose was to contest the Providence Cyclocross Festival, a two-day affair at Roger Williams Park, site of the 2006 and 2007 U.S. Cyclocross Championships.
The festive aspect of the weekend was a mini Interbike, with MTB demos to try out and booths from major manufacturers— including Kenda, Cannondale, Specialized, Yakima—as well some local New England people like October bicycles and the incredible Embrocation magazine looking to grab the attention of cross fans.
The idea was to give folks in the Northeast who couldn’t get their butts out to Vegas a chance to connect with consumers and to watch some hot UCI cross racing all in one spot.
Although there were two days of racing this weekend about an hour from the city in Newburgh, N.Y., and a large contingent of NYC area racers were making the shorter trip, I opted for Providence.
One, my aunt and uncle have a house about 35 minutes from the Rhode Island capital. They wouldn’t be using it this weekend and that meant if my wife was into it, we could schlep the kids over there for a weekend in the country. If I did the Hudson Valley race, there was little chance the family would come. It’d mean getting on the road fairly early with my 4- and 7-year-old kids, driving for a while, then having them hang out and watch me race, possibly going to do something fun after the race—apple picking!—the driving back to the city, everyone knackered.
In Rhode Island, we’d be 40 minutes away from the race venue, and my race didn’t start until 12:30. It all seemed so civilized. The wife agreed it was a good idea. We invited some other friends with kids along, too, and off we drove Friday night.
I was happy on the drive up and looking forward to getting it right, racing in a quality race with the family there to cheer, finishing up, then spending the bulk of the day hanging out with the kids in the country. Perfect!
As a bike racer with a family, I have long dreamed of having my wife and kids come along to spectate. Cross especially always has seemed so appropriate as a family outing. The races are in parks, with playgrounds or zoos, and other such kid-friendly amenities. The little ones ring cowbells and get to yell, “Go, Daddy!”
I’ve witnessed these idyllic familial scenes through the years, wondering just what these other guys—and women, too—have done to convince their families that spending the better part of a weekend day attending a cross race was a good idea.
Last year, I persuaded my wife to come out with the kids for the weekend of racing in Southampton, aka Whitmore’s Cross. It turned out to be 20 degrees F and they all froze and miserable at standing outside. It was a semidisaster, even though I actually raced well those two days. It just wasn’t that much fun for them to be cold; and it wasn’t fun for me to worry about their being cold.
Even so, I would never say my wife is unsupportive of my cycling habit. She has endured my being gone for hours at a time, having left her to deal with our two youngins, so many times in the past seven years it’d be impossible to say I don’t have her support.
Ian Landau. Photo: Valentina Izaguirre
But support and understanding are very different things. And I think it’s safe to say she doesn’t get my cycling habit. I don’t blame her either. Training and racing take up huge amounts of time by comparison to other “hobbies.” A tennis player might take a lesson once a week for an hour, then maybe play twice a week, also for an hour—for a total of three hours of hobby time.
Sure, a golfer may be gone for five or six hours on a weekend day to travel to the course, play, then return home. But chances are he doesn’t spend another five to six hours during the week practicing.
As I’ve gone on in the sport of cycling, in many ways I’ve become more and more jaded, as opposed to more and more jazzed. I’ve bitched, whined, moaned, and complained about not having enough time to train to be competitive for so long that I’m sick of hearing it.
“I can’t train enough to be competitive,” I always think. But nor can I mentally adjust to some sort of “I’m just out there to have fun and results don’t matter” idea of racing.
I’ve seen the racers who have kids and take a hiatus. I’ve envied their mental strength to walk away for a while. Why can’t I do that? It’d be the smarter thing to do, after all. Cut my losses, put racing on the shelf until it fits into my life more easily.
Just walk away for a few years and not worry about it. Just ride and enjoy the breeze.
Because let’s face it, bike racing is a huge time commitment, and one that isn’t really all that compatible with having a family. I can’t really blame my wife and kids for not wanting to get in the car with me at 7 a.m. on a Saturday to drive to suburban Philly, for example, to watch me ride around a field and through some woods. Especially after I’ve already been gone in the early mornings a few times during the week, rushing home from training in time to help make lunches and get the kids out the door so they’re hopefully on time for the 8:30 start of school.
I started bike racing in spring 2003, about six months before we adopted our first kid in September. Pretty much my whole time racing has been while I’ve had a kid at home. It has worn on me for me years that while I’m out doing something selfish (racing my bike) my wife is at home caring first for one kid—and now for two. When I’m at a race, I wonder about what mayhem is going on at home, how much going to the race is going to “cost” me when I return. It sucks. It’s mentally exhausting. Why do I even bother?
There have been a few moments over the years when I’ve thought about quitting the competitive side until my kids are older. But I’ve always kept at it, thinking that if I can just muddle through these years when the kids are young, maintaining some element of fitness, then down the line I’d be in that much better shape to make a push to be something better than average. I’ve always had my eye on the 45+ years as when I would finally kick some ass.
Ian Landau. Photo: Valentina Izaguirre
And then I narrowed my season to just caring about cyclocross. I had a good cross season last year, in 2008, and that only seemed to confirm what I’d thought: Not only did I love cross the best, I was actually pretty okay at it.
Back to Providence.
Since I was, like, the 98th guy to register, I knew I’d be starting at the back of a giant Cat. 3 field. Going into the race I figured if I could finish in the top half, that would be a success.
The day started great. I left for the course about 9:45 a.m., reveling in the late start, which meant enjoying a normal breakfast and not rushing around to get out on time. I had my number pinned on with a full two hours to go till race time. I set up the trainer and got in a good warm-up. I did a one-lap preride of the course between the 45+/55+ and the 35+ masters’ races, then continued to warm up.
I was calm.
Starting as far back as I was, there was no pressure at all. Just riding hard and enjoying myself was the order of the day.
The course was beautiful. Truly epic. It had everything you’d ever want in a cross course: two sets of stairs to run up, one dirt and one concrete; a fast barriers section; steep climbs and descents; tons of tricky technical stuff; and the right amount of flats. There was no mud to speak of, although the course was a bit slick in spots from some rain the night before. The temperature was in the low 60s with very little wind. Just a great day.
Finally, with about 20 minutes to go till race time, I dropped my spare wheels off in the pit and made my way to the staging area. When we were all lined up, I was on the absolute last row, with a hundred guys ahead of me. I felt the usual prerace nerves as we waited for the whistle, but I still managed to joke out loud about how far back me and my fellow late-registering racers were.
The whistle went and it was utter chaos. You could barely move up, as the entire start-finish stretch leading to the hole shot was wall-to-wall riders. We snaked through the first off-road sections in en mass. I was careful to watch for dodgy bike handling and to avoid crashes, moving up quite a bit through the field that first lap. It took that entire time for things to shake themselves out, and starting the second lap I finally had a little group to keep pace with.
I wondering when I’d see my kids shaking their cowbells and yelling, “Go, Daddy!” Then the wheels came off my race.
A few guys passed me, and I cursed myself for not having the legs to hold their wheels. But I know that I’ve been tending to start strong, blow up a bit, then recover for a big push in the last third of races.
I was fine with it all, just hoping not too many people would pass me while I regained my strength, and wondering when I’d see my kids shaking their cowbells and yelling, “Go, Daddy!”
Then the wheels came off my race.
It was near the end of the second lap, on a long painful paved stretch of wide road that led to the last technical section before the start-finish. I could feel that I was close to gagging on some mucous in my throat. I tried to put the thought out of my head, but it didn’t help. Soon, I was heaving like crazy. I slowed and soft-pedaled, hoping it was just a minor hiccup and that I’d be able to continue.
But the heaving just continued. I didn’t vomit but my body was a quivering mess. I rode to the end of the paved straightaway, stopped by the course tape, briefly considered continuing, then ducked under the tape and dropped out. I looked at my watch. I had ridden for 14 minutes and 27 seconds.
This gagging thing while racing is nothing new. Two seasons ago, I struggled with it. Last season, blessedly, it was not a problem. This year, it didn’t occur in my first race of the season in late August, but it did happen at my second race—the MAC Series opener at T-Town. After Nittany CX I thought I’d diagnosed it as some weird postnasal-drip syndrome, and at the WhirlyBird race in Pennsylvania, I rode with gum in my mouth to keep my throat lubricated. That did the trick—although I did swallow my gum while racing, nearly choking myself. With the problem seemingly sorted, I rode Providence with a stick of Trident original. This time it didn’t help.
I can’t say I know what the problem is, but I’m now damn sure it’s psychological and that postnasal drip has nothing to do with it. Actually, the same thing happened to me as a kid when I played basketball in middle school. It was nerves then, for sure, and no doubt it’s nerves now. I’ve spoken to a shrink about it in the past, and she agreed it wasn’t a physical problem. Of course it doesn’t make any logical sense. It’s just so damn frustrating to think I’m somehow sabotaging myself at the one activity I like to do most. Why? It’s a mystery.
Of course I Googled “gagging exercising,” and wouldn’t you know it, I’m not alone in my problem. But most of the folks on the Net talked about postnasal drip and how to control it—not cure for being nuts.
After dropping out of the race Saturday, I walked to the pit in a haze of demoralization, got my wheels, called my wife, got her voice mail, said I was done, and asked where were they.
I went to the car, changed, and looked in my jacket for my iPhone to call my wife again. The phone wasn’t in the pocket of my warm-up jacket, where I’d sworn I put it. I threw around the clothes in the backseat of my car, expecting the phone to drop out onto the faux leather. It didn’t. “Fuuuuuuck!”
I retraced my steps from the pit back to the car. Nothing. Now I had dropped out of my race because my mind betrayed me and I’d lost my phone and was unable to contact my family. Awesome.
The Cat. 3 race was over by now, but I couldn’t care less. I strolled the race grounds looking for my wife and kids and our friends who we’d brought with us. The panic of being unable to find them dampened the disappointment of my aborted race. They were nowhere to be found.
The pro men and women were preriding the course, and I made up my mind to watch at least the women’s race while I found someone to let me borrow a phone to call my wife. I ended up seeing someone I kind of know and used his phone to call the wife, ending up with her voice mail again. I went to the Interbike office trailer that supposedly had a lost and found. Nobody had turned in a phone.
The women’s race started, and Luna’s Katerina Nash took the lead early and just crushed it. I stood near the pit, and it was cool to see all of the folks in there shouting encouragement not just to their own racers but to everyone they knew. Good camaraderie on display.
But it also was hard to enjoy watching the race. Again, knowing that my entire season looked to be fucked and my family was missing was just a huge, huge drag. Indeed, I pretty much made up my mind as the women’s race unfolded that this whole bike-racing thing was a damned waste of my time. I’d traveled four hours, lost my phone, lost my family, and for what? To race 14 minutes and have a bad time? What the fuck was I doing? It just didn’t add up. It wasn’t worth it. It was time stop until the totality of my life was more manageable, say, for five or six years.
I knew as I was thinking this that if my race had gone differently I’d never be considering these things. If I had raced well, without incident, I’d be pumped for day two of the festival and planning how to do even better. But that wasn’t what happened. Things were a disaster.
My choke was real and figurative. Choking under pressure. But what pressure? The pressure I’d put on myself? Why I’d pressure myself to the point of being so stressed I was choking is a damn good question.
But what seemed clear was that I didn’t need this. It seemed the better part of valor to admit defeat and walk away. I wouldn’t be walking away forever. Just for a few years, until the kids got calmer, more independent, perhaps more into wanting to start bike racing themselves. Hey, I can dream.
After the women, the elite men were off. I stayed around, figuring I’d just have to drive back to my aunt’s house and, eventually, my family would head there, too, in our friends’ car.
In the main event, Tim Johnson put on a master clinic on competition crushing. He was so far ahead it seemed like minutes before his teammate Jamey Driscoll would come past, cruising solo in second place. Johnson didn’t even look strained, while behind him the other guys pulled the appropriate contorted facial expressions one expects to see in cross.
On Johnson’s final lap, I stood next to my car, parked alongside the course on a slightly uphill paved stretch that served as a transition into a technical section. As Johnson rode by, I yelled out, “Way to go, Tim! Way to go!” Totally cool and not even seeming to break a sweat, he said, “Thanks” as he rode past me.
I waited for Driscoll and gave him a “Nice race, Jamey,” a compliment he failed to acknowledge. Then I waited for the other guys in the top 20 or so to come through. I got in my car and left, wondering if the next time I raced I’d do so in the 45+ class.
Ian Landau. Photo: Valentina Izaguirre
About a half-hour after I arrived at my aunt’s house, my wife and kids and my friend and her kids rolled up the driveway. They’d missed my race entirely. They were at the zoo in another part of the park and the kids were being difficult (that is, they were being kids), and when they finally got their butts to the course to try to watch my race it was already over, and they were told they’d have to pay $10 to get in (because of the Interbike demo). They tried to call me, got my voice mail, then left to go apple picking. So much for trying to bring the family to experience cyclocross racing in a beautiful New England park on a warmish fall day.
They had fun doing their own thing though, and once again that seemed more important than my petty concerns over my race. I had a big dinner Saturday night of pasta with chicken sausage and plenty of Ravenswood old vine red zinfandel. I was feeling more and more at peace with my decision to give up racing.
But then I decided I needed one more try. One more race to test things out and see if this early-season bad patch was just that—a spell of bad luck.
I’d try to chill out, put less pressure on myself. It’s just for fun, I thought. I can do it. Even Sven Nys was off to crappy start this year, right?
I complained a little to my wife about my predicament. “You know, there is a middle ground,” she said. She’s right. There is some middle ground between quitting and obsession. I just haven’t found it yet, in seven years of doing this.
This coming weekend is Granogue. At the moment, I am planning to go. And what is now my “coveted goal,” as Napoleon called it? Simply to finish without incident and to enjoy myself.
It’s a modest goal, but my rebuilding has to begin somewhere.
