Stayin' in the Black

Racing is like putting money in the bank. Each reason I race and each race experience is a deposit offered up to the Bank of Self—highest possible interest rates compounded annually. The quality of each Self-account-deposit can vary, but any and all are accepted and coveted because future interest rates are guaranteed to be huge and deep. Some of the reasons I race that offer the highest returns look like this: because I'm afraid, wanting to face the unknown, wanting to hang with my familiar friend: pain, testing my ability to be "in my head" for the duration, looking for the newest, biggest, and most foreign course. All yield huge earnings.

The above average yields also add up even if they offer only the occasional laugh or smile. Some of the modest ones might include: to look at the scenery, have fun with friends, get in a hard workout, break out of the mold of training.

If I don't feel like a race will present me a profit then I won't partake. This is very rare, but it happened this past weekend. I was signed up for a 50K trail race in Cool, CA and at the last minute I bagged out. Due to stresses and needing to attend to other life stuff, even the thought of the race felt like a big ugly withdrawal. If I do a race and take money out of the bank it sets me up to have a bad feeling about self. And that is something a dedicated cash hoard disciple doesn’t choose. If a race return isn't guaranteed, then I'll stay home, do a trot or mtbike through the redwoods, listen to Prairie Home Companion on NPR and crack open one of my best bottles of Zin.

That said it's important to differentiate between a deposit paralleling what we define as a "good" race experience, and, a brutal, heinous, race experience. Though they rank high, "good" races don't necessarily give us the highest yields. Some of my most noteworthy investments have come from events in which I literally and/or metaphorically face planted. You want some serious live lessons and personal growth? - go out and really blow it in a race. Then make out the mile long list of stuff you learned, and watch your Bank of Self account multiply.

But then there are the times when we need to opt out of the race because staying home, doing laundry, vacuuming dog hair, and organizing the books that have been multiplying on the living room floor, offer the highest returns to the Bank of Self. So that’s what I did. Opting out gave me the return I craved most; the desire once again to step into the bank of pain and see what kind of return I can draw...maybe this coming weekend...


Schneider takes this race to the bank...