OUTSIDE THE CYCLING BUBBLE
MOLLY WEAVER ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FINDING THE LOVE FOR RACING AGAIN
Last year I announced that I would be taking a break from professional cycling. In the 12 months preceding this I had gone from riding for one of the best teams in the world and being the fittest I’d ever been, to barely being able to leave my apartment to train. I’d overcome a lot in that time, and to the outside world it probably looked as though I was back on track. I had returned to racing after a serious accident in which, among other things, I broke my back and neck and it appeared as though I had stayed positive and happy throughout.
Looks can be deceiving, though. In reality it had been a slow downward spiral which had led to the depression that derailed my career. I couldn’t see myself ever stepping back on the bike. It felt as though I had lost everything I had worked for.
What I couldn’t see at the time is that I gained something potentially more valuable: the time and space to discover who I really was; to learn from my mistakes and come back stronger.
I grew up in the bubble of elite sport, and I was comfortable there. I had become a version of myself that I believed was compatible with this environment. I was hardworking, unemotional, willing to sacrifice anything for success. I never went out for a ride and saw it as anything but work. As soon as I stepped outside of this bubble I found some perspective.
I could look back over the years I’d spent in the peloton with an awareness I’d never had before. I could see all the mistakes I’d made, all the moments I hadn’t truly experienced, how all that had mattered to me in the end was not failing. I could remember good times and proud moments, but equally I could see all the times that I’d robbed myself of these.
After a few months off the bike, I finally let myself experience all of the emotions I’d been denying. I allowed myself to be sad about everything, to regret some of my choices, miss the life I once envisioned, and be jealous of those I could see still living it. I let it all in and it hurt. Then I let it go and picked up my bike.
I didn’t have a destination in mind, but I knew I had to go back to where it all began. To a time when I fell in love with cycling. It didn’t take long before I remembered all of the reasons why I wanted to
be a cyclist in the first place – the dreams I had in the early days that went beyond winning and losing. I realised that what I really wanted was to try again, and do it right. Be the athlete, and the person, I now saw that I could be.
The big difference when I first stood on the start line this time around was that I was doing it for myself. I’d always fixated too much on what everyone else thought. What everyone else’s idea of success was. I would anticipate failing people before I had even pinned a number on. I now don’t see success as such a black and white concept. It’s personal.
For my first race back, I just needed to love it again. And I did. I knew I wasn’t going to be in peak shape. I’d worked hard all winter, but after more than six months off the bike I knew I wasn’t race fit yet. In the past, this would have stopped me from getting on the start-line. But instead, I took a deep breath and let go of the fear that others might be unimpressed by my result. At the finish I felt motivated to get stronger, to get back to the sharp end of the race, but for all the right reasons this time. Other goals will come later. Fitness will slowly return. But it would all be irrelevant if I didn’t rediscover those feelings that made me a racer in the first place.
It would be easy to wish I could go back to the beginning and not have lost all this time, but I can now see that nothing was lost. Sometimes good things fall apart so that better things can come together. Enjoying the journey is the only way that I’ll get to the destination and be able to enjoy that too.