El Tour de Tucson 2006: The Center Does Not Hold
by Brian McNeece

Performing an event four times usually means that you arrive with enough experience to pull it off with excellence.  Third time the charm must mean fourth time the guarantee.  In the case of a 109-mile bicycle race, however, the long duration of the intensity can still leave one searching for answers when things don’t go as planned.

That was sure the case for me.  My training partners Fred Fischer and Todd Hansink had put in a four month regimen designed to get us ready to break the five hour “platinum” barrier once again.  Fred, who hadn’t yet broken that barrier, had put in extra hill sessions climbing the yawing Mt. Springs grade to make sure that he had the legs to stay with a strong group at key points on the course.  We all had become knowledgeable about nutrition and hydration for a five-hour effort.  But despite our preparations, in each case, something happened to disappoint us.

An Auspicious Beginning

Saturday, November 18 in Tucson broke with temperatures in the low fifties and just a hint of a breeze.  By dawn, most of the 4000 riders for the 109 mile race were already in place.  Todd had arrived earliest to be well-positioned in the second row of the platinum group.  David Bailey, who was racing for the first time, had to settle for another 30 yards back in the gold section.  I waited until 5:30 but still was in about the 7th row of platinum.  Fred was a little behind David Bailey.  Friends from Mexicali had also arrived and were excited as the sun rose to the tune of Queen’s “I Want to Ride my Bicycle.”

Even though I had prepared for the cold by dressing for snow and handing my extra layers off to Todd’s wife Pam.  Even though I had tapered for two weeks prior to race day.  Even though I had dug deep into my reserves on my training rides.  Even though I was an experienced racer with three tours under my belt.  All these even thoughs didn’t keep me from slipping into a sort of dull stupidity as I rode the first 8 miles to the Santa Cruz wash.  I could have passed a few people in that critical section.  But instead I just held my place and took the wheel of the rider in front of me.  Of course, the pace was fast.  We were going a consistent 27, and without a moment of warm-up, I wasn’t in sprint mode. But still, in retrospect, I’ve told myself over and over that the key to this race is to ride as hard and as aggressively as possible in the first 30 miles.
 I’m getting too critical already.  For in fact, my starting position itself put me way up in the ranks.  And just sitting in with this group meant that I was a couple of hundred people ahead of David Bailey and Fred Fischer.

After the Wash: Push Until Tetanized

At the Santa Cruz Wash, we dismounted our bikes and began to jog them through the three-inch pad of coarse brown sand.  Some cyclists carried their bikes; I found that I needed to lean on my bike for support simply to keep moving through the thick sand.  By the end of the quarter-mile crossing, my shoes were filled with the stuff, and my lungs were burning.  As usual the wash strung out the bunch of riders into a broken line with one, two or three rider clumps.  I was at my physical limit at that point and just struggled to keep a wheel.

Heading south on the Old Nogales Highway the strung-out lines began to congeal again, but now into a single file group that began to work together a little.  A group of ten began to grow into a mass.  Up ahead I could see another group forming.  Some stronger riders came by me and took the lead, raising the pace from 21 back to 24.  By and by we caught a group and were again close to a hundred strong and five or six wide on the roadway.  We surged and slowed at speeds up the 30 miles per hour.  My breathing was labored but I didn’t feel I was out of my league, didn’t feel any possibility of being dropped like I often do during a criterium with my own age group.  In fact, I took a pull to bridge my section of the pack when a strong attack over an overpass created a gap.  I had no problem bringing us all back together, though I was definitely looking for recovery as we approached the right turn on Irvington that led up the first incline.  Around this time, I felt a tap on my chest.  It was David Bailey passing on my left.  “Man, you’ve been working,” I commented.

I was surprised that he had already caught us (it was about mile 27) for as I say, we had been hitting a torrid pace for the last ten miles or so, and the sections before that were not conducive to passing.  In other words, David had been extra fit and very aggressive right when he needed to.
Turning uphill on Escalante, I noticed my legs were already very tight.  Not a good sign.  I stayed with the crowd up the hill and by the time I got to the top, I was worrying about cramping.  Damn. What’s up with that?  Cramping in the first 30 miles?  I would have another 80 miles to ride.  What did I do wrong?  Not enough water?  Too many calories in the bottle?  My oatmeal that morning had not been very well cooked in the paper coffee cup I’d used and the old motel microwave.  Did that undercooked oatmeal soak up my water ration?

Already I began riding in protect mode up the next section of uphill.  A few people passed, but for the most part I was keeping up with traffic.

About mile 35, just at the top of Freeman Road, where the course yields its first lovely downhill, my legs stopped working.  They hadn’t reached the state of total tetanizing, but pretty close.  I pulled to the side to let anyone behind me pass and stopped pedaling.  I needn’t have bothered, for I was already the last guy in the swarm.  I watched the pod glide ahead.  No one turned around.

Painlessly Alone

 And so I coasted a little and pedaled a little down the hill.  No longer needing to concentrate on the wheel in front of me, I sat up and looked at the spectators looking at me.  At the bottom of the hill, the traffic control was kind enough to stop traffic for just one rider.  Before the left turn onto Speedway Boulevard, I looked back up the hill to see if my pursuers were bearing down on me yet.  No sign of anybody.  Just an empty road.  Suddenly I felt like I was no longer in the Tour de Tucson.  Might was well just cruise now.  I’m not going to fight like a dog in no man’s land for another 70 miles.  My race is over.  No chance at platinum now.  I tried; I failed.  I pondered all these thoughts, but not with any desperation.  That was that.

Again I came to an intersection where the volunteers blew whistles and raised their hands to guard me against the automobiles.  “Thank you,” I called to them, and kept rolling.  My legs were more comfortable now.  No imminent freeze ups in the thighs and calves.  So I just kept up a reasonable pace without strain.  I looked back.  Another giant swarm of riders was now visible.
My Gente to the Rescue

I took a right on Houghton Road. After another mile or so, the trailing group came up on me.  A bunch of them passed me, and I found a place in line.  My pace went up a couple of miles an hour, but right away, I noticed that the intensity level of this group was below the one that I had cramped up in.  In fact, compared to the skittish, surging character of the first group, this one was almost soporific.  Ah, my gente, I thought.  I can keep up with these guys to the end.

I stayed relaxed all the way into mile 48 at the Sabino Canyon crossing.  Unlike Santa Cruz Wash, which is a wide open sand wash, Sabino Canyon is approached by a meandering dirt trail through a dusty wooded area.  Some parts of the trail are firm enough to ride. But many patches are very soft.  At the platinum meeting the Amazonian babe at the lectern admonished us to get off our bikes and hoof it through there.  But I tried to keep one foot in the pedal and use one foot for stability, like a scooter, through the soft parts.  My strategy was successful as I was able to clip back in halfway through the trail and ride to the actual dried creek bed where sand makes everyone get off.

The hubbub there is always impressive.  Organizers have set up about 10 porta-potties; numerous volunteers man orange and banana tables, while others stand on both sides of the trail with one-gallon jugs and two-gallon containers of water.  The two-gallon containers are a bad idea because the spigot offers but a thin stream of water.

Riders scatter pell-mell here depending on their plan of action.  I sought a guy with a wide mouthed gallon jug.  “I got your bike,” he shouted, as I fumbled to open the top of my water bottle.  I had thrown away an empty bottle already and drunk two of the others, which I now refilled.  That meant I would have three more full bottles for the last 60 miles, or six total.  Incredibly, Fred had told me that he could complete the race on three water bottles.

I pushed my bike through the rest of the sandy crossing, up the embankment, clipped in and headed up hill nearly alone.  The off-road crossings split people up.  The next section includes a short but very steep incline lined with cheering, exuberant spectators.  Even with my 26 cog in the back, I labored up the hill.  At the top I passed a few riders and tried to keep a nice effort going down instead of yielding to the urge to rest. A couple of guys passed me.  I saw that we were a fairly evenly distributed line of riders quite a ways up.  Since my legs felt better but still not particularly powerful, I felt I had to ride tentatively.

Dog Day in Them Thar Hills

As soon as we turned uphill again on Snyder and then Sunrise, people were passing me.  Thus began the hilly section of the course.  Sunrise to Skyline to Ina and Oracle.  Rolling stretches of probably 4% hills of about a mile each.  Some of it must be downhill, but for some reason, it all seems up.  Nothing too demanding but it gets your attention and usually keeps cyclists single file and humble.  I got passed there when my legs tightened up again.  I basically felt weak and unable to ride aggressively.

Then the hills calmed down and I was once again riding in a group, where I took my place at the very back.  I stayed there for a good long time.  Just before we turned from Oracle onto Rancho Vistoso, I found that I could move up the group.  I took a turn at the front then dropped back four or five riders.
 Rancho Vistoso is a four lane boulevard with a planted median.  It’s at the highest part of the course to the north of Tucson.  We were strung out there again because of the climbing. I felt better because of the flat road and kept up a steady pace with a couple of people behind me.  Little by little our group grew with stronger riders coming from behind and weaker riders being overtaken.  Four miles of Rancho Vistoso is followed by about four miles of Moore, a slight downhill where we all took quiet turns with no one yelling like a maniac and nobody riding off the front. I’m writing this two weeks after the Tour, and now I realize that we had a fairly good group up there; everybody seemed to be on the same page.  No one was overwrought; it was a small group all keeping the same pace. I wish I had noted our rate of speed.  I still didn’t really think I was going to be platinum; I was just trying to ride as strong as I could, not cramp, and not spend more time than I needed to at the front.
Born Again

I remember that I led the group around the left turn that is a prelude to the long lovely downhill of Tangerine Road.  Looking over my shoulder, I saw that my group had dropped back, so I let up a little.  Of course, then they came right by me.  That was the last time I took the front until we hit the bottom of Tangerine Road at the freeway seven miles later. I was surprised because there were four or five guys in front of me, and if I remember right, only two or three of them changed places at the front for the whole ride down.  We weren’t ripping the asphalt up, and that surprised me too.  Last year I grabbed the wheel of a guy and a gal on a tandem that hurtled along at 33-35 mph and wouldn’t give up the front position for a bribe.  So this year was a similar pattern.  When I get in front, I pull and then I move over.  Not these guys.  On a ship they would probably strap themselves to the tiller.  Never give an inch!  Don’t tread on me! Pull or die!

Unlike last year, Tangerine Road in 2006 barely topped 33 mph on the downhill.  At the bottom, however, our lead guys were about stove in, for there I was at the front of the group as we crossed the railroad tracks and headed south east on the frontage road against the wind on bad pavement.  I was pedaling all of 14 mph for a bit at the end of my pull.  The group came by me and we naturally formed a double line rotation.  The group was still surprisingly small with only about 8 of us.  I took another pull.  I looked over my shoulder and saw two riders riding erratically at the back.  They both went down, and one began cursing. Somebody simply lost concentration at about 19 mph.
Group Groping for a Leader

Our group seemed to find an identity again and we were working well.  I realized that I felt pretty damned good. We were up to 20 mph again as the road swung west again and slightly uphill.  Moments ago the wind was in our face; now it gently helped us along.  We turn a few turns at rotation, with the fading rider in the right lane shouting “clear.”  Just like last year, however, this felicitous synergy soon dissolved as riders didn’t come forward to take their turn.  Were they unable or unwilling?  Did this reveal something about their character that they would not offer the group their contribution out of a desire to conserve their energy, out of fear, or just a selfishness that comes natural to some people? Do they say, if I don’t do it, somebody else will. I wonder what goes on in those other minds of these strangers all around me.  I have no recollection of any of them, not their jersey colors, their bikes, nothing.

I know one thing; I had plenty of ganas left.  I wanted to go as fast as I could, for about now, with less than twenty miles away, I was again feeling that platinum was possible. My complete collapse at mile 30 seemed like a long-ago story, and I had re-entered the valiant cadre of real riders.  We tried to re-form.  Somebody shouted, “Come on, you guys, pull through!”  But this job fell to about four of us.  Then one young buck rode away and didn’t look back for a minute.  Oh well. Finally he realized that his efforts were futile, and he drifted back.  Just like last year, I pulled the group hard left on Lambert that leads uphill west of the rocky hillside over a saddle point.  The young buck came around me, but nobody else.  So I got on his wheel, and when he drifted right expecting the relief shift, he smiled when he saw it was me and said, “I guess it’s you and me.”  I nodded and put my head down for the rest of the climb and led the group to the saddle where some firefighter volunteers held out bottles of water.  Don’t mind if I do.  I snagged one from a young woman who filled her uniform nicely.  Wished I had thanked her.  Mr. Young Buck passed me again and now I drifted back.

Semi-conscious on Silverbell

We were on Silverbell now, with 16 miles to go.  Our group now lapsed into that strange state of semi-consciousness that we all encounter on Silverbell.  The road heads southeast, trending slightly uphill with some very gentle undulations.  Magically, the groups coalesce into giant millipedes, two or three cyclists wide each pedaling zombielike at a much reduced cadence.  Fatigue, both mental and physical, has turned the body and mind into an automatic pedaling machine, and attention has compressed into a dull rotational dirge.

But that’s not how I felt.  My legs did feel weak, but I wanted to go faster.  Now that I knew I was well stocked with water, I drank of the elixir liberally, way back in the pack.  Then I rolled up to the front and took another turn, just like on a training ride, about a minute.  I picked up the tempo at least one mile per hour to about 21.  Then I drifted back, and the tempo would again slow, like a drill motor with a dying battery.  Bullshit.  I went to the front again and pulled.  When I drifted back this time, a big guy, a guy big enough that you wouldn’t expect to see him this close to five hours, gave me a pat on the back.  I guess that just about made my day.

Third Wind?

Around that time, four guys in yellow jerseys easily passed us and took their place at the front.  “Great,” I called out to no one. “Fresh horses.”  I go no response, no smiles, no nods, no amens or halleluyahs. For a time, the Mellow Yellows rode well.  I saw that their jerseys had Spanish on them.  When the pace again slackened, I went to the front alongside them and shouted, “Vamos, compas! Dale gas!”  When they said nothing, I become suspicious.  And when I picked up the pace at the front, I rode away from everybody.  If these guys had no gas left to give, it was over.  Well, that was fine, because once again, my heightened effort set my legs to cramping.  My ambition to be a hero was over too.

I drifted back into the millipede, downshift and pedaled more slowly, more softly and drank down the water bottle given me by the firefighting princess. No more the crusader, I accepted my place in the matrix, dropped my head and didn’t look left or right in case someone might catch my eye and ask me for an effort.  Not really.  I was hoping for one last recovery.
Mexicali Compadre Appears

Good news came when a familiar jersey passed me.  Hey Mexicali, I shouted to the green and red and white back.  ¿Quien eres?  He turned and I recognized Edgar Perea, whom we know as Garo.  “Hola Garo!  How are you?”  I stuck out my fist and he grabbed it.  He looked about as happy to see me as a San Diego Padre fan on a rainy day—in other words, morose.  But it wasn’t so.  He was just as tired as the rest of us.  Probably not one in fifty of us had actually ridden a full 109 miles nonstop as a training ride like we were riding today.  We were pedaling on fumes.  “¿Vamos bien por el platinium?” he asked.  “Are we in good shape for platinum?” By now, I knew we would be under five hours; that was why I was getting so motivated.  The only thing left to do was to better my time from last year.  “Si, Garo, vamos muy bien.”

To the Wire with Nothing in the Tank

Seeing Garo got me worked up again.  I realized that if I could work my way to the front of this swarm, I could save maybe up to half a minute over the stragglers.  So one more time, I moved forward.  There were about three miles left. It took me a while to find an opening in the heavy traffic so that I could “change lanes” and get to the left and pass people.  Unfortunately, once I got up to speed to pass about twenty folks, my legs cramped again.  Damn it!  I held my place as other folks had the same idea and passed me.  I spotted a woman in purple and black. She was a thickly muscled gal in her thirties who had passed me long ago on the hills of Ina and Oracle.  I was glad to see that I had caught her, and glad that she had done so well, for a time under five hours for a woman would put her in the top twenty female finishers.

The group’s energy level rose like the hair on your head as we entered the commercial area of that part of Tucson.  Cones in the road meant we were close to the finish and the danger level once again spiked. I gave up any idea of advancing in the pack and tried to be on high alert for weaving riders or falling cones.  Sure enough, a cone fell in front of me but I missed it.  We swung left onto Congress with one mile to go.  Speeds were now back to 24 miles per hour with riders intent on finishing at top speed.  I stayed on Garo’s wheel even as we turned right onto Granada.  Miss Purple was just in front of him.

A few spectators clapped and cheered as we crossed the finish line and coast to a stop amid the throng.  Garo and I shook hands and embraced.  Although he is a very strong rider, this was his first platinum finish after a few tries.  How coincidental that we who had ridden together in the Valley would finish in exactly the same time. 4:52:33.
Probably 60 riders from my group had finished ahead of me, completely filling one of the chutes.  The volunteers got panicky as we backed up.  I sized up the situation and diverted into the other chute, which was empty.  “Don’t worry,” shouted a kind lady.  “You’re times were already taken.”  I knew that.  I clipped back in and pedaled to the end of the chute, dismounted and expertly slipped off my timing chip and handed it to the Boy Scout at the end.

Jorge the Road Warrior

In two shakes Angie was there to greet me and take my photo.  Jorge Arredondo from Mexciali suddenly appeared.  He reported his time of 4:32 with quiet satisfaction.  I was apoplectic.  “4:32!” I shouted.  I think he was too stunned to speak. Later he learned that his true time was 4:42, which still put him as the top finisher for the Imperial and Mexicali Valleys.  Shortly afterwards, Joel Hernandez said hello; Garo reappeared with another fellow from Mexicali whom I didn’t know.  Again, how strange that we would all see each other with no effort amid hundreds of riders and spectators.  Angie took a picture, and then we went off to the results area to find Todd and Fred.

Four Musketeers Debrief Their Disappointments

Todd was there already.  At the first sign of him, I could tell he wasn’t happy.  A crash with 3 miles to go foiled his plans of finishing at the front of his group.  But even with a severe impact to his left hip and road rash on both arms and shoulders, he lost just three minutes to Jorge, David Bailey, and Joel Hernandez’ group and finished in 4:45.  “No Mas” was the title of Todd’s Tucson narrative, a result of his double disappointment.  Aside from his homestretch crash, Todd had tried to bridge a gap early in the race and failed.  Like me, he had to recover during the middle section of the course.  Unlike me, he was the victim of circumstance and had gotten gapped by a faster group when he had to slow for a fallen rider.  Despite a ten minute sprint to regain the fast guys, he couldn’t bridge.

As Todd and I commiserated at the results board, Fred and Mike Thompson arrived.  Mike, a great hill climber from S.D., hadn’t trained much, and found he just wasn’t in a good position for platinum.  He missed it by four minutes.  Fred joined our morose debriefing with his tale of being stuck in an uncooperative group.  “I pulled these guys for about 40 miles,” he muttered.  The result of his group’s recalcitrance: 5:09, another tough day for our man Road Tuna Fred.
Cool down, Rub down, Melt down.

We went our separate ways.  Angie and I got back to the Inn Suites, where a hot bath and last night’s leftovers beckoned.  Salad and pasta for the second time tasted mighty good.  Then it was off to the Jacuzzi, where I hoped to trade stories of battle with other veterans of the campaign.  I wasn’t disappointed.

Jacuzzi Stories

Joe, a suave looking 50+ from LA, related that his only sub-five hour ride had been in 1983, a year before they instituted the platinum classification.  He’d lost 30 pounds since January and had pulled down a 5:30.  The glint in his eyes told me that 23 years since his first El Tour, he was on his way back to the knife edge of ambition.

Dan, a wiry 46-year old, didn’t mind repeating his time to anyone who asked:  4:41:55–ten minutes faster than his previous best.  Joining us in the spa was the coach of a hockey team from Tennessee and an innocent bystander, both of whom sort of listened to the talk of Arnie Baker, Landis, cramping, and race dynamics.  Dan also related that he had fought through cramps and was saved by a little white pill, which turned out to be the very familiar E-Caps product that Fred and I eat like candy to no avail.

 I told Dan, “But cramps basically result from overexertion,” my point being that water and pills, vitamins, electrolytes won’t prevent or cure them.  You ride beyond your muscle capacity and they freeze up.  Training at race effort must be the only solution. He demurred, admitting that overexertion causes cramps (duh), but the magic pills were the answer.

Later I brought up the subject with Tony Darr.  His answer: “Motor pacing. You’ve got to get your legs going at race speed.”  And so began a Tony pep talk on the great team we’re going to have next year, how Monty has designed a jersey for us and will provide helmets, glasses, matching shorts, maybe shoes, even.  Sure Tony. And we’ll have massages daily, with the crew washing and adjusting our bikes while we lay in bed with our legs elevated. Sure. Order me a groupie, would you. Christine Armstrong will do.  I hear she’s free right now.Just give me a Jacuzzi and a few like-minded middle-aged maniacs to talk to.  That’s enough for me.

Slowing to a Crawl

Our Tucson stay ended pacifically.  Saturday afternoon Angie and I drove up the hill under the giant A cemented in place about 80 years ago.  We took in the panorama of the great city of Tucson, lulled into sleepy inaction by Mexican music from families lolling nearby.  The lights of the convention center reminded me of the excitement at the Expo the night before and the anticipation that very morning: race day at the Tour de Tucson.  In the distance, the low tan hills dotted with saguaro and sage made for an expansive tableau.  I love the openness of the desert.

From there we quietly, slowly drove to El Torero, a family Mexican restaurant in Old Tucson, stuck in an ancient two story building at the back of a dirt parking lot.  El Torero had been serving food since 1956, with some of the original waitresses still carrying trays.  We noticed right away that this was not a cycling crowd.  The building, servers, and patrons made for an Imperial Valley ambiance. Thick men in flannel shirts and jeans, a Mexican family with the chubby daughter, Mom and Dad with Grandma and the college going son—it was hometown at El Torero.

Next morning at the Inn Suites breakfast buffet, the contrast couldn’t have been greater.  Lean, sharp-eyed cyclists wearing their trophy t-shirts from this year’s Tour and other events lined up for the fruit and the waffles.

Where Do We Go From Here?

All of this makes me very reflective about this big chunk of my life.  Training for the Tucson effort is more than just riding four days a week.  It also means avoiding caffeine so that when I use it, I get a performance boost.  It means conscientiously doing my stretches and strength exercises for the back and arms, taking my vitamins and glucosamine for the hip and knees, keeping the pull-ups going for upper body strength, not drinking wine or beer with friends prior to a big training session or a race.  All of this is the life of a serious athlete.  It’s keeping the center tightly held together.  But it’s a healthy lifestyle–one that goes against the grain of the mainstream in this country.  In today’s America, it seems most natural for a man my age: thick and solid, not easy to move.  We are becoming a nation of squat, low-speed, high torque bulls.  Powerful but low to the ground and unyielding.

Meanwhile, we cyclists seek the trim, svelte, quick-response look, ready to react, accelerate, and pounce on every opportunity. Or perhaps we do so just in our fantasy world, which lives on the bike.
 Even after a training ride, I ponder my reactions to events.  When Benjamin attacks a mile from the finish, why do I chase?  Don’t I know he will fade in another 200 meters, and I will catch him all the same at my steady pace?  Why did I let up after the hill and lose a gap of 20 yards?  I need to teach myself to hold that effort, keep the faith, struggle on.  Do I appear to be making too much of this simple activity of big boys riding bikes?  Probably so, but just as card players say that one plays a poker game the way one approaches life, the same goes for cycling.  Perhaps more so.  It’s a marvelously rich allegory, or metaphor let’s say, for the way we conduct our lives.  Or the way we would conduct our lives if we could only throw ourselves into the business of living as we throw ourselves into the somewhat make-believe world of cycling.

No Full Time Pack Fillers Allowed

I wonder about the guys I rode with those last 20 miles of El Tour de Tucson.  I wonder about the slackers in Fred’s group, who, even though they stood an excellence chance of being platinum riders, didn’t make the individual and collective decision to test their limits, to launch off full tilt boogie for their shot at what had to be their goal. What do they do for a living?  Are they living like they ride, or escaping their pressurized life on a bike?
Just being in the race, in the hunt for a sub 5-hour 109-mile bike ride shows that they had the right stuff.  They had already set themselves apart from the ordinary humanity who live and die by the TV remote control.  Yet they couldn’t take the logical next step and take the risk of trying too hard and failing.

If I can ride a sub 5-hour 109-mile event through a cooperative effort with complete strangers, if I can communicate with these strangers and rotate my turn through a leadership role, well then I can also do the same thing in any social venue.  Start a business, run for office, write a book, lead a community organization.  Lead means knowing what the pack will do, knowing how to shepherd the flock as the flock helps shepherd you.  Another metaphor from cycling.  But the point is that the individual discipline and constant effort that anybody puts in on an event like El Tour and the tacit cooperation that allows riders in the 40s and 50s to average 22-23 miles per hour are the same ingredients for success in any endeavor.

Unlike Tony Darr, I don’t see cycling as such a consuming activity on its own merits.  Being part of a racing team and maybe winning a race or two is exciting, sure.  The adrenaline on the starting line is a powerful stimulant.  The strategy during the race and the outcome can keep one’s mind in gear for weeks puzzling over what could have been. But when it comes right down to it, racing feeds the child in all of us.  The man or woman in us desires something more.  There’s that social and moral imperative that I certainly feel: one must make a difference.

And we can make a difference.  Somewhere.  I’ve never wanted to be an administrator at IVC for the very reason that I didn’t feel that I could make a difference.  The constraints of the bureaucracy, I’ve always felt, would reduce who I was to just the place I occupied.  That may not be true, but that’s how I’ve felt.  John Anderson told me he ran for Superintendent of Schools for the County because he wanted to make a difference.  Again, I wouldn’t feel that way.  But there are other places to make a difference, and I think it’s up to all of us to apportion a part of our time, at least to that kind of goal.

Last weekend I climbed our local Mt. Signal, an iconic peak rising 2500 feet from the desert floor.  It was my 15th ascent.  I’ve become sort of the hometown expert on this mountain.  Though it’s not so high, it’s nothing but a pile of loose gravel, pebbles, and boulders that keeps footing tricky and quite rugged.  For most folks climbing it is a one off event.  But over my many trips up, I’ve noticed that the mountain keeps shrinking on me.  What once was an imposing, confusing set of climbing options has become an integrated whole in my mind.  I’ve memorized most of the mountain, at least on the northern approach, and analyzed that whole into sections that each I see now to be just short, easy transits.  Though I still require four full days for my quads to return to normal, it’s not painful.  Climbing Mt. Signal is like El Tour de Tucson in that after facing both a few times, they come into sharper focus and become more doable.

My personal goal for El Tour?  Did I mention that? Last year I finished 28th in my age group—way down the list from the front runners among the 50+ set.  In my idle fantasies, I hoped to rise into the top 15.  When I cramped up, I abandoned that dream, but that didn’t stop me from counting off the + symbols on the results page that indicated 50+.  After all, I did ride more than a minute faster than the year before.  Did I reach 25th place after all?  No luck there.  I actually dropped down to 34th place way, way behind Wayne Stetina, age 52, who came in 17th overall in 4:19:06 and averaged 25.6 miles per hour.  But I can take solace that 8 of those 50+ riders finished less than a minute in front of me.  Motor pacing…  Maybe Tony has something there

A Little About Teaching Writing:

I’ve never thought myself to be a great teacher, though I have aspired to be one.  Numerous flaws have kept me from that goal.  I am naturally disinclined to organization or consistency, both of which are necessary for excellence in teaching.  I am forgetful to the point of scatterbrained.  In a teachers’ conference once, I met a guy in much worse shape in that regard.  His sisters told him, “You’re like a goose; you wake up to a new world each day.”  I could relate.  Even my handwriting has many variants.

I am creative, true, but that doesn’t go very far when it comes to creating and implementing coherent lesson plans.

But enough confession.  Sometimes I am very good at teaching.  When I fail, my students seem to be forgiving because, I suppose, my sincerity shows.  I would like to articulate some of the things I have learned about teaching my students over more than 30 years of the attempt.

One very good book that I used when I taught English 101 is The Writer’s Way by Jack Rawlins.  Students voiced their approval.   I haven’t taught English 101 in many years, but a nice picture of how to learn comes early in the book.  Rawlins says that learning requires four elements: motivation, a model of what is to be learned, practice, and feedback. 

I have passed this simple description onto students in all my classes.  It applies to any learning, whether it’s dance, guitar, carpentry, or writing an essay.  So let’s take them in order:

Motivation.  It’s no secret that our students won’t learn unless they’re motivated, and we teachers are too familiar with students who are not motivated.  In this morning’s paper, I read about how 1 in 4 applicants who take the military entrance exam can’t pass it.  And that’s after 75% of the applicants have been disqualified because of poor physical fitness, criminal activity, or lack of high school diploma. 

Clearly our young people are not very motivated to learn what school has for them. 

How can we motivate them?   We could write a book to answer this question.  Some don’t seem to be interested in anything that takes concentration, for concentration is effort, and effort is for saps to many of our young people.  We can repeat the usual litany of amusements that draw our young people away from satisfying work: film, video games, social networking, texting, etc, not to mention drugs and alcohol. 

Despite these many distractions, in a writing class, motivating students should be easier than math, for sure, and even psychology, which interests most people.  In a writing class, we should exercise our freedom to choose what our students write about.  That is, the students should be able to choose.  In some classes, the process of choosing interesting topics might take some time.  A good writing teacher is sensitive to the topics of the day and can pick ones to get things rolling, but soon after the class starts, students should be assigned to develop lists of topics.  I have had great success with this in English 101 and English 111. 

So one piece of advice that I would give new teachers is to, as far as is practicable, let the students choose what they are going to be investing their attention in learning about.

A model of what is to be learned.  One of my favorite recent works is called Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a report on what constitutes enjoyment.  For decades, Csikszentmihalyi studied people who seemed to be the happiest in their work or recreation.  He outlined about 8 requirements for a person to enter this state of “Flow” that also he called, in a somewhat technical way, “enjoyment.”  One of the key ingredients was that a person clearly could see what it was they were trying to accomplish.  Surgeons, he found, enjoyed their work more than almost anyone else.  In the world of sport, rock climbers reported a sense of near bliss as they scaled a slope, and painters and sculptors too.   Even as a lay person, we can see that a surgeon always has a very precise and clear vision about what he is trying to accomplish, whether it be to set a bone or replace a hip.   Does the Intermediate algebra student have that same luxury?  Or a student facing an assignment to write a research report?  Not necessarily.  

So in a writing class, any assignment should be accompanied by a good example of an answer to it. Of course, our books have model essays and research papers, but why not one written by a peer of theirs: a student from your last semester’s class.   

But don’t just provide the model; provide the analytical play by play of the paper showing how the writer did well in the many levels of good writing.  I compare this to watching a movie with the director’s commentary.  Maybe you enjoyed a movie very much, but when you watch it again with the director’s commentary, you become aware of so many more elements of the work:  they may mention how pieces of a scene pay homage to other movies; they mention something about the actor and the preparation he put into his role.  Elements of the music that were simply pleasant to you may contain pointed references and value to the director. 

Your commentary on a sample work can do the same thing for your students.   And it gives them a much clearer target for them to aim at.

Practice:  Csikszentmihalyi says another element for achieving the enjoyable state of Flow is that we are well-matched to our task.  It is neither too difficult nor too hard.  We are neither bored nor frustrated.  If we are motivated, and the task before us is clear, and is well-matched to our ability, we have the elements in place for an enjoyable focus of our concentration.   That’s our goal as teachers, for it’s in that state that students are learning—in fact they are teaching themselves.

Now, how to achieve that?  Remember that most of your students do not read for pleasure and certainly do not write for their own enjoyment.  They are not like you—at all.  I know that when you teach the 200 level classes, you will meet some kindred spirits, and your spirit will quiver in joy.  These students will also suffer at your hands in the traditional manner, but for the others, the seething majority, being asked to read and writes is pure torture.  The Russian psychologist Vygotsky did foundational work that affirms Csikszentmihalyi’s assertions.  Vygotsky also recognized that students must be supported as they move from ignorance to mastery through tasks that are not too frustrating.  Your job is to find that zone for your students.  If you simply ignore their current state, they will not learn. 

I have friends in my bicycle club who are loquacious, articulate storytellers about their cycling exploits and foibles.  But they would never dare, not even consider, writing me a note in an email or posting their thoughts on a discussion board.  They are terrified of that prospect.  They fear the certainty of embarrassment because of absolute insecurity about the written word.  That’s where a lot of your students are as well.  So step back two or three places from your assumptions about what your students know and can do.  Let them do a lot of free, ungraded writing that you simply check off.  You don’t even have to read it.  Any kind of writing at all is a HUGE change in their day to day world, and a great pressure on that world.  Your assignments from English 96-201 should all include a significant amount of preparation to tune them to the model of correctness and give them practice before the final draft is submitted.

Feedback: How can a person feel satisfaction unless they know how close they are coming to their goal?  The surgeon sees how his cuts go, how the bleeding is controlled, the layout of the muscles and organs.  He immediately knows if he is doing well or needs to correct his actions. 

Your students need your feedback too.  But not via a grade, because then it’s too late for him to take corrective action on his work.  Instead, try to incorporate peer reviews into your writing classes.  You’ve shown them a good paper; now show them a bad one.  At the same time, give them your grading rubric—and a peer evaluation form which includes questions that guide them to use the rubric on each other’s papers.  Let the students grade the paper themselves.  During the next class, put it up on the screen and do what you do when you grade a paper.  Again, this is like the director’s commentary, but this time not as a guide to producing the paper, but as a guide to revising it.   You are training them to review their classmate’s paper, but you are also training them to revise their own as well.   

If the topic is of intrinsic interest to a student, he will be motivated.  If the model of the task is clear, he will understand what to do.  If the practice is matched to his abilities, he won’t get frustrated.  And if he gets timely feedback on his performance—with room and freedom to make revisions—then the product will be more to a teacher’s satisfaction.