|
|
THE RISING SUN: SELF-LOATHING
Lee Rodgers
October 2, 2009
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Eddy would be ashamed
(Photo: Yuzuru Sunada)
This is what I am experiencing, on this miserable Monday morning. Yet I look in two online dictionaries, one being Webster's no less, to be told that “the word you are looking for does not exist.”
So I looked up self…
Main Entry: 1self
Pronunciation: 'self, Southern also 'sef
Function: pronoun
Etymology: Middle English (intensive pron.), from Old English; akin to Old High German selb, intensive pron., and probably to Latin suus one's own —
Date: before 12th century
Then loathing…
Main Entry: loathing
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
: extreme disgust : HYPERLINK http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/detestation
So, put the two together and you get detestation of one`s own self, and I would argue that the esteemed gents and genteels at Webster's got this one wrong. Very wrong. Like when-Eddy-Merckx-was-really-fat-but-still -wore-lycra wrong. Because trust me, self-loathing does indeed exist, and anyone who has ever raced a bicycle will attest to that fact.
Heck, some may even argue that self-loathing is central to the reason we ride. I mean, we hate ourselves when we don't ride, when we know we should. And we hate ourselves when we are suffering on a hill, because we haven't trained enough. Like the pros we emulate, like the great and not-so-great adventurers who climb mountains for kicks, and those in history who got on leaky ships and sailed round the un-charted globe to discover new lands in search of immortality, we too have a screw loose. (But probably more loose than the pros, `cos they get paid…)
Not for us the comfort of a crackling fireplace and furry slippers, a thick cardigan and hot cocoa in the depths of winter – no sir! We`re out on our Selle Italias or Fiziks or whatever, mere millimeters of hi-tech fibers between us and a very blue corpse, out on our steeds riding along roads in gales cold enough to freeze mercury, snot plastered to upper lips, discovering and searching and working off that Xmas turkey and yes, dammit all, maybe even just a little of self-loathing is in the mix! Self-loathing hanging about us like a sickly aura! But dammit all again, because we are alive!
And that`s the rub, ain't it?
We kill ourselves to feel alive.
Odd that may seem to some. Seems perfectly rational to me.
But anyway, I fear that yet again I am beginning to digress, because I want to speak about another, far less glorious and altogether more miserable form of self-loathing that I am going through, and that is this:
The Self-Loathing Of Giving Up.
I had to pause and reflect for a second after I wrote that line. Because I don`t want to admit it to you. But it`s true, that`s what I did on Sunday, I gave up. I still had the legs, but I sat up, took the chain off the big ring, let the pack go, and soft-pedaled to the car park past spectators with my head hanging low, knowing immediately that I had done something shameful…
115km race, 11.5km per lap, 4.5km of which was up, the same down, the rest flat. The climb was pretty vicious at the top, but nothing too crazy. Anyway, I'd been training specifically for this race, hitting the longest, nastiest, meanest Sons of Bernard Hinault climbs I could find, doing them four, six, eight, ten times, eating well, staying off the sweet stuff, down to my best weight ever. I was, to be blunt, ready to tear the legs off any and all who dared to bare a shaven thigh before me.
We had the usual 10 hour drive to the race, slept in the car at a highway service area then had just a few minutes to warm up, but I wasn't to be fazed, felt oddly good, supernaturally sprightly, none of those cobwebs I usually feel. Hang on just a second - was this going to be one of those days? Could it be? Had I timed it perfectly?! That once-a-season day, when it all falls into place…
First lap… off up the hill and the Japan Tour Series leader attacks. The Nippo-Colnago team leader follows. The Shimano climbers go. And then I follow, just a steady, fluid motion on the pedals, computer says 14% but I`m pulling the pedals round like butter, breathing hard but contained. `Maybe I can't keep this up' I think, but we crest the climb then descend a hundred meters, then back up, long slow 7% for 1km and I'm still in it, I turn around and – no-one following. This could be the decisive break. It's me and 5 pros and no-one else.
Another kilometer up, someone shouts `One minute!' Wow.
Then the descent, it`s hairy, scary, super-fast and very tight, chestnut husks and dead leaves on the corners and overhanging branches to be dodged, we're whipping like hot-wired fish down spring rapids, I can descend alright but when you see a pro go, well, it's something else, they really go, I'm spinning in 53-11 between bends and still barely in contact, then we hit the final arching curve before the 90 degree right-flip and suddenly - PLINK!
Brain knows it before I can form thought. Front wheel. Spoke. Busted. Look down, wheel wobbling like a Japanese salaryman on Friday night after eight beers and enough sake to pickle a giant squid. Must be a hundred people gathered on the curb, an `Ooooh!' goes up but it's half-hearted, probably hoping for a crash, the heathen vultures, blood-suckers the lot, I yank out the wheel and hold it aloft but it's useless, the main pack speeds by and one guy even has time to look over and shout a `LEEEEEEEEE!', so infamous is my luck becoming that other riders can find time to commiserate mid-race - this is the fourth straight race with the busting before I do…
With no service car to be seen my teammate stops and we swap wheels and he pushes me off and I sense the uselessness of the gesture but I crank it up anyway, fighting past the stragglers along the flat then back to the climb, nuts out, I puff and strain up it, back on the descent, hit the flat, the hill comes again like a recurring nightmare and I sit on the edge of my seat and force the pedals round in the 23, lungs heaving, eyes popping, and suddenly round the next bend I see the back of the peloton!
I should be happy, encouraged, but something odd happens. I realize that the mad chase was one of abandon, one that I started never thinking that I'd catch the group and then have to go to the end. I was busting a gut for a slice of tarnished glory, the valiant attempt, thinking of the `well you did your best' commiserations to come afterwards. But there they were. It might take me another five minutes to catch them, but I'd still have another 7 times up the hill. I probably wouldn't be able to manage it at anything like a decent pace, after chasing so hard, but still, you don't give up, right?
But that's what I did. I was angry with my luck, annoyed that my form was good but that all the odds seemed stacked up against me, and I let that take over. I was suddenly faced with having to try to hang on til the bitter end, after the chase, on the toughest course of the season. So I stopped.
And I tell you, I can`t get it out of my head. No one died. No one's hurt. I didn't cheat on my wife. Or steal from a girl scout. Or punch that old lady for jumping in the line at the bank (I`ll get her next time…). But here I am, stuck in the Self-Loathing Lounge, Neil Diamond on the jukebox, drinking non-alcoholic beer, sitting next to an accountant who's reading monotone from a notebook of my failings. It sucks!!!
I'm hoping tomorrow`s dollop of agony in the form of a 240km training ride in the rain will help wash away the shame.
Forgive me Eddy, for I have sinned…
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|