This weekend I had the surprise opportunity to line up for the Leadville Stage Race which typically breaks down the infamous Leadville 100 into 3 days of more bite-sized (but still challenging) races of their own. This year, however, with the devastating fires leaving much of the typical Leadville course closed, the stage race would offer primarily new routes and a chance to see a new side of Leadville.

I hadn’t originally planned to do the Stage Race at all this year. I had some different races on the calendar, which I ultimately decided to forego in order to favor preparation for Leadville. Leadville requires such specific preparation that leaving elevation (even for a race) can create a bit of a hole in your preparation.

But the moment I saw a blank space in my calendar; I started to squirm. I love racing and I knew I needed to get to a start line. But how could I do that while continuing to move forward with a focus on Leadville? What better way than to do, what Clayton and I labeled as, “Leadville Mountain Bike Camp” in the form of the Stage Race!

Nowadays it feels like every race is so hard and so competitive that virtually everything starts to feel like an “A” race where you agonize over every decision. It was a little refreshing actually to line up to race with learning and pressing being the biggest goals.

I actually believe that these are the opportunities where we grow the most.

When we have everything optimized, we are attempting execution, which is its own kind of beauty, but when we dive into the known with eyes wide open to learn we are able to gain much more from the experience.

Instead of trying to predict the race ahead of time, I entered in with a completely open mind and challenged myself instead to use my experience and instincts to react to the dynamics and terrain accordingly. Leaning on this experience showed me more clearly my natural tendencies (both good and poor) and left me with some real takeaways to hone in on.

Not knowing the exact course ahead of time also gave me the opportunity to work with the equipment and decisions I had made ahead of time, rather than relying so heavily on an optimized set up to cushion my riding. Instead, I was more aware of my surroundings, more aware of the set up I had selected, and better able to ride my strengths. It left me with an enhanced appreciation of understanding of my equipment settings as well as an increase confidence in being able to manage my equipment regardless of the terrain.

Finally, this opportunity reminded me of the purity of racing. By that I mean, to race like a kid on the playground who wants to secure the best bouncy ball for recess. To just fly. Sometimes when everything is optimized there are a lot of expectations. “I expect to feel good.” “I expect to finish in this position.” Etc Etc. Instead, without any extra rest going into the event, I didn’t know what to expect of my body for 3 days at 10,000 feet, but that gave me the opportunity to be curious. Curiosity is one of the greatest tools that we have.

The longer we do this, the easier it is to feel like a story is written, but my goal is to constantly create new and exciting chapters.

A swim coach I once had would say, “How fast would you be if you didn’t know how far you are?”

Are you willing to surprise yourself?

I finished up the Stage Race in 2^nd place in the women and 8^th overall (men and women!) It was such a fun weekend, filled with so many learnings and so much great community.

We still don’t know what the official Leadville 100 course will be in a few weeks’ time, but I know I’m more prepared now than I was.