I’m sitting in a parking lot right now in La Crescent, Minnesota.
8:18 AM on a Saturday. Quiet and calm…now.
Sol and Beric rolled out a few minutes ago, making a bid for the stars and stripes jersey at USA Cycling Gravel Nationals. After all the preparation, packing, flying, driving, carrying, worrying, chanting “helmet, shoes, gloves” like it’s the only song on our race-morning playlist, and generally making sure another human being gets to the start line with everything he needs…
I have nothing to do.
This is race support.
It’s a funny role because, technically, I’m not racing today. But somehow this race day still feels like an event—maybe even more of an event than when I’m the one out on the course. There’s this feeling that I need to be on, too. That I need to remember the things, anticipate what they might need, be in the right place at the right time, stay calm and collected, and somehow perform my role well so they can focus on performing theirs.
In all the rush of the morning, there are multiple alarms set to make sure everything runs smoothly. Encouraging words to get food in the belly when the butterflies make it hard to eat. Bikes to check. Bottles to fill. Food to pack. Numbers to pin. Start times to remember. Questions like, “Did you eat?” “Do you have your Garmin?” and, inevitably, “Where are your gloves?”
And through all of it, there’s a delicate balance: being the helpful reminder without becoming the nagging mom. Knowing when to ask, when to remind, when to help—and when to just get out of the way.
And then comes the moment when he rolls away.
The heart rate spike when the whistle blows and all I can do is watch him go.
For all the things I can do before a race, once Beric heads toward that start line, my job changes completely. I can’t turn the pedals for him. I can’t make the decisions for him. I can’t make his legs feel good or fix a bad moment out on the course.
So here I am, sitting in a parking lot.
It’s super hard. But maybe this is also one of the things I love most about what DFA2 Racing represents.
Being on Beric’s team won’t always mean riding beside him. In fact, we are steadily marching toward a world where I won’t even be in the same zip code unless it’s a super recovery ride for him. More and more, being on his team will mean getting up early. Carrying the extra bag. Making sure he covered every inch with sunscreen. Standing on the side of a course. Yelling embarrassingly loudly when he rides past. Being there when the day goes exactly as planned—and being there when it absolutely does not.
And sometimes it means sitting alone in a parking lot, staring at his little penguin avatar tracking its way through the course, waiting for my son to come back from doing something hard that he chose to do.
There is something pretty special about that.
Today, Beric gets to race Gravel Nationals.
I get to be race support. And that is a pretty cool position on the team.