My Motivation

Everyone’s gone through it. Something bad happens during a race, and you never seem to recover. You might as well take it on to the house, because you’re done. Sometimes it’s your goggles filling up with water or a getting a flat on your bike. The typical response is to blow up. You’re pissed, and why not? You’ve worked really hard to get to where you are only to be held back by something out of your control. Or lets say you’re way off your expected pace. You’re not “feeling it” and you’ve realized you’re not going to put up the time you’d hoped. These events can all lead to you mentally breaking down and losing focus.
I’ve been worrying about this very thing all week. There’s a lot of anticipation building up for me in my first race of the season. I’ve worked hard and paid my dues. What happens if I tire? What happens when people start passing me? What happens when my expected time is starting to look like nothing more than a pipe dream?
Well, I ran across this video below and it reminded me of a story from “Every Second Counts” by the great Lance Armstrong. In 2003, Lance was going for his 5th straight Tour title. Throughout the tour Lance struggled mentally and physically to maintain the yellow jersey. Everyone was saying his was too old, too rich, or too American to win the coveted 5th title. Over the last couple of days, Jan Ullrich had begun taking big chunks out of his lead. With just three stages left, Ullrich was set to win it all. The press was having a field day with Lance’s demise. Ullrich’s team manager had made a snide comment to one of the Postal team’s staff about taking the Malliot Jaune after today’s stage. It was relayed to Lance who’d finally had enough. Lance told his teammates that the Tour was over. We will win it today.
At the foot of Luz Ardiden, the last major climb, Lance took off. Ullrich couldn’t keep up and Lance had dropped him by 20 seconds. Lance was literally breaking Ullrich when the unthinkable happened. As Lance passed the crowd, a young boy was waving his souvenir yellow Tour bag when it got caught in Lance’s front tire. Lance flipped over his handle bars and crashed. Ullrich took advantage and sped past to take the lead. A defiant Armstrong fixed his biked and took off like a mad man, screaming every profanity he could think of, and chased down Ullrich. What ensued would be one of the greatest recoveries ever in the Tour. Lance wound up winning the stage and putting Ullrich a full 1:07 behind him in the Tour thus virtually locking up the win. “How do you like me now! How do you f-in like me now?” shouted Armstrong to his teammates. Victorious! Check out the video clip. I’ll be thinking about this on Sunday during my race. I’m not giving up or giving in. This is my motivation.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RRJQoUVe2I