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Junque Miles:
By Mark Roberts Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Road Racing
No, this isn't one of those nauseating new-age-coffee-table-book-style
articles on how an amazingly sensitive guy (like myself) culled
poignant nuggets of wisdom from everyday experiences. They're
part of a new literary genre that seems to be flourishing at the
moment in the form of books with titles like "How Holistic
Real Estate Sales Let Me Find Inner Peace" and "101
Beautiful Thoughts I Had After Seeing My Infant's First Upchuck".
This is a manly man article about gaining poignant nuggets of
wisdom from racing motorcycles at triple digit speeds and running
marathons. I'd like to think it'll help you become a better person
and elevate your testosterone levels at the same time. These two
effects are usually considered to be mutually exclusive but that's
just one of the pieces of conventional wisdom I'd like to explode
in this column. (Another is how people who write columns for web
pages don't get fabulously wealthy from it, but I don't seem to
be making nearly as much headway on disproving that one.)
Coming into the running scene from years of road racing motorcycles
gave me a different perspective from the one most runners have
when they first get into competition. And not just because running
doesn't present opportunities to get thrown across the infield
of Pocono Raceway at violent speeds or spend enough time airborne
during a crash at Summit Point to qualify for frequent flier miles
before making a painful interface with the asphalt. There are
those who've suggested I have a "different" perspective
on many other subjects and have offered assorted theories as to
how I arrived at said perspective. We won't get into that subject
now though. I now present herewith some of my keen observations
arising from my varied racing experiences:
The slower you are to start with, the easier it is to improve.
When you tell people you've taken 5 minutes off you 5k time
in the past three years there's absolutely no need to tell them
what your old time was. Or what your new time is. (I mean if you
reveal one they can figure out the other. Even most marathoners
are bright enough to do math this basic.) Use this tidbit of wisdom
when you're trying to encourage someone to start racing or just
start running. Run your first few races even slower that
the snail-like pace of which you think you're capable. You can
have fun meeting great people at any pace. And you can have even
more fun annoying them a few races later when they expect to beat
you and you vanish into the distance before the half way point!
You can't win a race in the first mile, but you can lose it
in the first mile.
With motorcycle racing it's usually a matter of not being
aggressive enough at the beginning and losing touch with the people
you want to beat. With runners it's almost always going out too
fast in the first mile. Either way the result is the same: a poorer
result than that of which you are truly capable. Runners have
a definite advantage though because runners who overcompensate by
going out too slow will usually benefit enough later in the race to
make up for it. Motorcycle road racers who overcompensate by going
out too fast end up doing some off-track weed collection and
sometimes get to see what the inside of an ambulance looks like.
Never underestimate how bad the person in front of you feels.
I learned this in a 5k when I was less than a mile from the
finish. For most of the race I had been following a runner who
I'd always thought of as a lot faster than myself. I had pretty much
resigned myself to being pleased with at least finishing close
to him for once when, about a half mile from the finish, I decided
to just push a little and see what happened. What happened is
that he got closer. Then he got beside me and then he got behind
me. I kept pushing and just waited for him to come by. At the
finish I was far enough ahead that I didn't even have to kick
to beat him. (Admit it: that's your favorite way of finishing
a race too.)
Never overestimate how bad the person behind you feels.
This is a corollary to the previous gem. Most runners don't
have as much of a problem with this one though; most of us do it
instinctively. As Slartibardfast said in The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy: "Oh, that's just normal paranoia.
Everyone in the universe has that". So use it to your advantage.
Do or not do. There is no try.
Oh no! What have I come to? Quoting Yoda from Star Wars! Still, it's true. Most of the beginners who get
hurt racing motorcycles do so when they think "Well, I'll
sorta try this passing line (or whatever) and if it seems to be
working out part way through, I'll really go for it". If
what you're trying is worthwhile, put yourself into it completely
or you'll just increase your chances of failure. If I ever finish
ahead of you in a race and you think you're a better runner than
me…you're probably right. If you are I'll bet this is the
reason I beat you.
Most opportunities present themselves only once.
Especially the really good ones. Many times when road racing
bikes I spent an entire race behind someone I should have passed
because I hesitated when I had the opportunity. Fearing the forces
of friction and rapid deceleration (all right, crashing)
made me hesitant to act when I had a chance. If you want to run
your first marathon, or achieve any other personal goal that is
important to you, you should go for it when you have the opportunity,
even when you're afraid of the consequences should it go wrong.
(And with a marathon those consequences can be reeeally
unpleasant. Remind me to tell you about that some time.) When
I raced bikes I got to learn this lesson several times a weekend
until I found a way of dealing with the fear and taking advantage
of opportunities when they appeared. There are some goals for
which opportunities might appear only once in a lifetime.
There's still time to train for that fall marathon…Or whatever.
Copyright © 1999 Mark Roberts
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