reinventingtracy

Every two weeks I have a scheduled phone meeting with my cycling coach. After not doing the CRCA race on Saturday I kind of expected a word of disappointment from him last night as we began our conversation. As I started making my excuses as to why I didn't race in the rain he stopped me mid-sentence to tell me that based on my goals it was not a big deal that I didn't race and what was a bigger deal was how to deal with the stresses in my life and know when to rest. He said I had had a busy and stressful week and that according to my stress chart I fill out racing would have been a bad idea. I can't tell you how shocked and grateful I felt from this. I immediately zoomed back to my 40 year old self, no longer the 10 year old that dialed the phone minutes earlier ready to be reprimanded. To understand what that means I guess I have to explain that for several years of my adolescent life I was a competitive gymnast who's coaches were not as understanding. The expectation to perform and compete and the discipline I had to adhere to took all the fun out of the sport for me. Up until the age of 14 I practiced 5 times a week for 3 to 5 hours a day in a gym that took over 45 minutes to get to. Most of my friends were from my team and the sport dominated all other areas of my life also. Although I never regret participating in the sport I do regret the control and authority I let my coaches have over me. For instance, I often suffered terrible headaches during practice to which my coach made clear that I was to stop having by saying "…and Tracy, no more headaches." Not exactly a nurturing environment for an impressionable young woman. And I'll not even mention how many girls on our team, including myself, who developed anorexia as they inched toward puberty.

Any way, fast forward to present day and you can understand my reticence over being coached again. I even have a hard time competing, not really enjoying or looking forward to it but feeling like I must in order to validate my time on the bike. Another left over hang up from the early days. But last night, it became clear, that my coach was different. He actually cares about my life and understands that the bike comes maybe 4th or 5th down the line. That my son, family and career come first. And for the next race he wants me to reach two goals; one, to actually enjoy the race and two, to get through the race and recovery migraine-free. Not win, not come in top ten, not even - don't get dropped. I have to say that after he said this something shifted in my attitude and I actually started looking forward to the race. As a 40 year old woman I have no intention of taking cycling as serious as some of my peers and now I feel like I don't have to apologize for that. All I ever wanted to do was have fun.