Disciplines

What I do, I like to do well. I’ve had some success racing bicycles on the road, the track, and in cyclocross. I’ve won elite national medals on road and track, and a masters national medal in cyclocross.
Last year, I got back onto the velodrome after a decade of absence, and I combined that with road racing and cyclocross. I had some success. But I learned – the hard way, as I seem to learn so many things – that, though I can do any of those disciplines well, I can’t do all three disciplines at a high level in one season.
“Discipline” has as much to do with punishment and domination as it has to do with devotion, understanding, and a life of faithful practice. Depending on its inflection, “discipline” can give a life structure and purpose, or, like in an abusive relationship, it can leave a person broken, fragmented, shut down, wandering, and lost.
So which discipline is it going to be this year? Well, cyclocross. That choice has more to do with timing than anything else. After a three-discipline season in 2012, I was hammered, overtrained, molested by a long string of injuries and illness, burnt out, and sick of cycling. I tried to quit racing for good in April. By June I had discovered (the hard way) that I love and enjoy and want and need to race my bike. It’s the end of July and I’m just toeing my way back towards the discipline of riding. Cyclocross happens late enough in the year that I can still hope to get all the way up to speed before the season ends.
The pure intense physical endeavor of racing is fun and games and punishing pain and grim hard work and serious indolence and satisfaction. I’m, tentatively, stoked.