Two nights ago, I made the most marvelous chicken. It was a joint effort, actually, between my friend Suzie Weir and me. We were cooking up some protein for our racers at the Downieville Classic—my boyfriend Anthony, her husband Mark, and assorted others—and somehow we stumbled upon the perfect barbecuing technique to make moist, flavorful, just-right chicken.
We have no idea how we did this. At our hotel here in Downieville, we have limited resources, so we marinated the chicken in whatever was available, struggled to work the grill, and then forgot about it. Did I mention that we’d both had a couple of beers?
But the guys raved about this chicken; we took the accolades and congratulated ourselves on being awesome cooks. All was well until the next night when the boys wanted THE EXACT SAME CHICKEN.
Of course, it wasn’t the same. It was good, but not as great as the marvelous chicken of the night before.
I thought of the chicken situation as I sat here in my hotel room in Downieville (a room with so much wood paneling it feels like I’m living in a tree) and started to write this column. I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about this year, but I’d just finished re-reading last year’s column about Downieville, and it was pretty darn good.
When I wrote that one, I was on fire. Every point made was made well, the right mix of serious and funny. This time around, I started to feel the pressure. Like the chicken, I didn’t know if I could match my previous efforts on the same subject.
So I took a break, had lunch, and came back with the conclusion that I was being silly. It was, after all, just chicken, and this is just one of many columns that I’ll write in my lifetime. But it did get me thinking about this race, and the pressure that the riders must feel each year.
The Downieville Classic started more than 10 years ago as a small race with a few hardcore riders. In the last few years, it’s gotten big. Not big in numbers, because the forest service limits the amount of competitors to a slim few hundred, but big in scope. Big in importance. More world-class riders show up every year, and the field is getting tough to beat.
Riders who have done well here in the past may have a hard time repeating their success. The competition is getting intense.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this race, or didn’t catch last year’s awesome column, the Downieville Classic is held in a tiny town of 325 people high up in the Sierra Nevadas.
The soul of this race has always been the long, difficult downhill course. Unlike most courses, which are only a few miles long, this one is 14 miles. And, unlike most courses, this one doesn’t always go down; there’s some climbing mixed in there as well. The best riders take on the downhill and the cross-country course for the title of All Mountain Champion.
I am here on vacation and as support
staff for my boyfriend, Anthony. Mixing the two has always been a bit of a challenge, but this year I think I’ve nailed it. I was on time at the feed zone, where I gave him his electrolyte drink during the cross-country race, and I was at the finish of the downhill this morning, writing down split times so he could compare right away instead of having to wait for the official times like the rest of those suckers who don’t have a great girlfriend like me.
Apparently I dropped the ball on breakfast, but I’m not dwelling on one minor misstep. Still, doing well just means I’ll have to meet or exceed my performance next year. This is a slippery slope.
I’ve even gotten better at the vacationing part of this trip. This year, I entered stores I’ve never been in before, went to the museum, and actually swam in the river. This is different than dipping in the river, which I’ve done before. I actually swam to the deep part—multiple times!
That’s pretty good for me, since I don’t like any deep water that’s not in a pool. (You never know what could be swimming underneath you in the wild.) That I did this after last year’s water snake incident makes it an even more impressive feat of bravery.
While I’m having fun, though, there are men and women who are here to win. And I know they want to do well each year. That’s the real act of bravery: to come back again and again and try your hardest, not knowing how it’s going to turn out.
And sure, it’s great when an underdog takes the race or an unknown comes into his own, but I think it’s more difficult to be the one who’s living up to past performances. That’s the pressure felt by the winners.
It’s the nature of competition. Sometimes it’s easier and more fun to be the up-and-comer. Once you’re at the top, you have to stay there or move on down. But athletes keep trying. These guys ride because they love to, and every once in while they go on a great ride that makes all the pressure worthwhile.
I write because sometime the words just flow and everything I type seems to be golden. I don’t know if these words are golden—and I know for sure that this column is not as funny as last year’s—but I’m still writing it.
It’s either that, or rest on my laurels and never try again. That’s not what winners do.
Sports Editor Sarah Thien is a winner, though she’s been known to catnap on her laurels. Contact her at sthien@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 17-24, 2008.