Women’s Wednesday: Cross Goals and Farrah Fawcett Hair

By Cheri Felix

My butt hurts. Like, to get up, sit down, to lay on it. Even going to the bathroom reminds me that on Sunday as I tried to pass a woman on the off camber grassy and slippery hill, that I fell. Holding my bike (two points for that), flat on on my butt and right under the course marking tape. While holding the bike with one hand. Yep. That’s what happened. But I was working on one of my race goals; pass, pass, pass. See, I always have race goals. I’d like to say writing goals for racing started when I started racing but I didn’t start writing goals until I started racing cyclocross. I also used to have a normal number of gloves and base layers. And then I started racing cross. So, lots of things changed.

When I started racing cross it probably pushed me in a way that other types of bike racing had not. With a 2-3 hour race in the mountains, the goal was simple; stay on the bike and finish. With short track, possibly simpler yet. With fat bike racing in the dark snow? Mostly for me, it’s don’t get lost. But back to cross. It’s hard. Even if you have a strong engine that doesn’t mean you’re good at the technical hills, switch backs or in my case, getting yourself untangled from the course tape. If you’re like me, good at the technical piece but don’t have a strong engine, you have to find other ways to make up the time. But the part that puts the humble in my humble pie, is the getting off and on the bike. Remounts and dismounts. It’s my nemesis. It’s the boy from junior high. It’s that failed attempt at the Farrah Fawcett feather. It’s math class in 7th grade. It represents everything I’ve never been good at. Like figuring out how to NOT end a sentence with a preposition.

Remounts and dismounts. I worked on them a lot in my first year but now, like a woman new to match dot com, I have not committed to them this year. I’m just not ready. It’s like I get off the bike and I turn into a very failed, untrained, kid who never took ballet lessons, ballerina. If it wasn’t so funny it would be sad. But when you almost take out the photographer at the barrier or when you run the bike past the top of the hill just a little too far, you know you have work to do. But outside of what my training needs may be, race goals for me, help center me and they help me decide where to work. They remind me to take that 45 minutes as seriously as I can when I do actually take the donut hole or the beer hand-up mid race. They remind me that since I took the time to prod myself into a Lycra onesie that I really should give it my all. So my goals have been the same for each race this season:

• Be serious
• Race hard
• Pass pass pass
• Strong start
• Strong finish

I think sometimes -and stick with me here- we think, “Oh, I’m just out here to have fun.” Or another one is “I just want to finish.” The thing is we can believe both of those things and take it seriously enough to write goals. But (and this is my life coach brain talking) I think sometimes we don’t think of making a plan because we don’t want anyone to say “Who does she think she is?” Or “If she takes the time to write goals how come she never wins?” It’s like we’re afraid to take ourselves a little bit seriously. I don’t know about you but I don’t hang out with people who think I’m silly. I also don’t hang out with people who make fun of my dismounts and remounts. I think people like to see my race goals or they pretend that they do. Although not everyone shares them like I do. Putting them on Twitter and Facebook and such.

Pick 3-4 things, write them down and see what happens. Just try it.