The Race Nobody Was Watching

Last month, one of my athletes — let's call him Charles — had a racing weekend full of highs and lows. Second place in a fast, sharp criterium on Saturday. Real fitness and speed, no question.

Sunday, in a different race with some fatigue in his legs, the heat wouldn't relent, the hills got steep, and the pace turned spicy fast. Charles got shelled out of the main group, his chance at another result going up the road without him.

Here's the part that matters: he didn't quit and ride back to his car.

No one would've blamed him. He'd already banked a great result for the weekend. There was no podium left to fight for, no reason to suffer except the one he gave himself. He finished anyway — alone, off the back, in the heat, up climbs that had already beaten him.

When we debriefed, Charles didn't obsess over a list of excuses. He knew there were a couple things he could have done differently, given the chance at a re-do. But on that day, with his competitors disappearing up the road, Charles had the perspective that finishing the race had value unto itself.

And it certainly did. Josh Waitzkin — chess prodigy turned martial artist turned learning theorist — has a line that resonates here:

"The grit that matters most is learning to be your best when you're at your worst. This is really the difference between elite-level performers and everyone else. And you have to train this kind of grit on its own, as a separate skill."

Most race-day grit gets tested when a result is on the line. Charles's got tested with nothing on the line at all — which is the more honest test. It's easy to dig deep when the payoff is right then and there. It's a different thing to dig deep when nobody is watching, reasonable excuses abound, and the payoff is uncertain.

That's the skill Waitzkin's pointing at. Not the ability to suffer for a result — the ability to hold your standard when no one, including the results sheet, is asking you to.

You don't get many chances to practice that on purpose. But when one shows up — a workout gone sideways, a blown race, rehabbing through an injury — it's worth treating like the opportunity it is.

See you next week,
Steve