Biography:
I could list all of my "accomplishments" here, but they don't add up to a hill of beans. And who cares anyway, right? There are a million guys out there with a better resume than me. What I really want to address is not where I got to, but rather how I got there.
I guess the first thing I will say about how I got to be how I am, is that I have a facial scar. I can't even begin to explain how that has shaped me. It has been a constant in my life. Whenever I meet new people, it's usually one of the first things they ask me: "How'd you get that scar?"
I used to make up stories about how it happened. I took a lot of teasing about my scar. Kids can be hurtful and nasty. I will say that having a facial scar did help me develop a quick wit; but, not a thick skin.
I also got fat. By the time I hit 8th grade, I was about 5'6" and about 260 lbs. How many people can say that they hit their highest weight by age 12? Anyway, I still have that self-image. No matter how much I ride, or how much weight I loose, I still see that fat kid in the mirror.
It was around this time that I started riding. I can't say which came first, the chicken or the egg, but I lost weight. Over the summer between my freshman and sophomore year I sprouted 6 inches (from 5'6" to 6' even) and I lost a staggering amount of weight: perhaps 80 lbs. Because I started riding at such a pivotal time in my mental and physical development my identity will forever be intertwined with cycling.
And because cycling was such a huge part of my identity, my beliefs got intertwined with cycling as well. It is hard for me to start anything new in my life without filtering it through cycling: how will this new activity affect my cycling. And, once an activity is ingrained in you like this, it's hard to view anything outside of that context. It's like my football coach said, "typing is like football." What? I know, that's what I said. Now, if he would have said that typing is like cycling, that I could have understood.
Anywho, I ended up with something to prove. I spent a lot of time in my life trying to prove "it" - - - whatever "it" is- to other people. It took me a long time to learn that I only have something to prove to myself. I guess that's what makes me so tenacious in my training.
Now I think that "what" I have to prove is a much more interesting question than who I have to prove "it" to.
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