In summer 2021, I showed up to a mountain bike race untrained, with no prior knowledge of the terrain, on hacked together equipment that I’d never used.

My wife and my kids had come along on the 5 hour drive to the remote camping weekend outside town. My brother-in-law and his wife were around, so they came out to support. My sister-in-law was passing through the area, so she planned to visit.Big, grand plans for a family weekend.

What was meant to be a four-hour jaunt on great singletrack became…Well, six hours and seven minutes later – 7 minutes 1 second longer than the cutoff, meaning my results weren’t recorded – I dragged my sorry, sweaty, cramping body across the finish line. It took me so long and I looked so bad that the race volunteers didn’t congratulate me on the finish or tell me I had done a good job. I heard one of them say, “oh thank God, he made it.”

It was, by far, the hardest and dumbest experience I had ever had in sport. I slept in the car that night instead of camping with my family and I was too depleted the next day to help with the drive home. I had wrecked my wheel and my body to ultimately get a DNF.

No credit for showing up at all.

So I signed up the next year.

I rode a lot more and practiced my skills. I showed up on a completely different bike setup, ready for vengeance. But the course had been reversed.

I did better, sure, but I was on different equipment (my choice) under different circumstances (race director’s choice).

It was still extremely difficult, but it was a good day… Yet I was notably dissatisfied.

If we’d run the original course and I’d done better on different equipment, was it me or the equipment? If we’d run the original course and I had the same outcome, had I fooled myself with my unstructured riding and alleged skill improvements?

So I’ve signed up again. On 27 May 2023, I’m going back on fundamentally the same equipment as my first attempt. I’ve already done 5 months of structured training and I have 6 more ahead of me.

I would climb better if I weighed less, so I’m cutting back on the booze and sweets. I would train harder if I kept better sleep hygiene, so I’m taking bed time seriously. I can bend my singlespeed to my will and keep my posture together if I get strong again, so I’m back in my garage banging the bells.

But even if I crush every goal and rearrange my entire life to get there…even if I devote hundreds of hours to training and planning…even if every possible thing works perfectly on race day, I’m doing all this to complete a mid-level course in an unsanctioned event firmly in the middle of the pack. There’s no prize in that.

So what’s the point?

The point is that striving and exposing weaknesses and continuing to show up is the victory itself.

And, you know, that’s why I coach amateurs. I don’t worry about professionals. I don’t seek out collegiates. I’m not chasing future Olympians.

I coach the people for whom victory means victory over themselves and their excuses.

I coach the people who need sport the same way that I do – as evidence that they can continue to overcome.

I have a tattoo that I got at 18 that says, translated, “conquer all.”It’s my reminder to overcome.

Gunnison Growler ’23… I’m coming for you. And I’ve got a bone to pick!