After I posted my race report for the Holland race, I started thinking about Chris' observations. He said I was trying to push too hard of a gear and I burned myself out too early and compromised my ability to beat the one person I had in my sights. The way my legs feel two days later as I'm climbing the stairs is a testament to the fact that he's probably right. And this isn't the first time lately I've thought there are far too many things about bikes, racing, etc. that I just don't know.
So it seems I have more than one challenge in my quest to be a racer who doesn't totally suck. Not only do I have to lose a ton of weight and train, I also have to educate myself. It really bothers me that I'm so ignorant about this topic. After all, I'm used to being the smart kid. There's a reason college seemed easy to me, just like there's a reason I stayed at a job that made me miserable for about two years longer than I should have. The truth is, I like and am comfortable with being the one who has all the answers.
I realize it's my fault that I don't know more about bikes. Whether it's laziness or some misplaced sense of reverse chivalry, I have no idea, but it seems I have always looked to the men around me for answers when it came to bikes. I let them fix things for me, I let them tell me what to buy and I took all kinds of advice from them. Now there's not really a problem with that except that sometimes (like in the middle of a race) I'm all by myself and I need to learn to do it on my own.
That being said, I don't think education is the silver bullet that's going to conquer my tendency to DFL. It's just one of the pieces. Looks like in addition to training and losing weight, I'm in for a lot of reading this winter.
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