OVERLAND: BWR RECAP WITH AMITY ROCKWELL
OVERLAND: BWR RECAP WITH AMITY ROCKWELL
Words: Amity Rockwell | Photos: Wil Matthews
I anticipated this going a little differently. I’d hoped that I’d be regaling you all with tales of battle and overcoming various hardships to end up on top, or at least within reach of it, ideally with a large cardboard check in my possession, but it’s five days later and all I have to show for racing BWR is a sunburn and a few days of depression.
We’ll come back to that, but I owe you a basic play-by-play:
The morning was insane, as I expected. A truly overwhelming number of people jostle for position in the corral, and I’m at once grateful for the call-up and wary of the pressure it puts on my shoulders. Someone once told me that everything I have now is because of things I’ve already achieved, and I repeat that to myself and smile at the crowd. Booming loudspeakers, some too-quick hellos and hey you’s!! and we roll out. It’s civil, and not as sketchy as a true mass start with the men, but I miss the anonymity a large pack gives me.
Thankfully the police escort stays with us till the dirt, and before I know it, the race is made. Maybe that’s not the case but it feels that way— a few forced dismounts, a mis-shift, a delay in my body and mind acknowledging the race has started, and just like that I’m already chasing. Most races this wouldn’t matter much, but the beauty of BWR is that it does. Gaps grow longer, matches are burned early, and piece by piece, things fall apart. On a better day, maybe I could have rallied, maybe I could have picked my way through the field as I’ve become known for, but the strength and the conviction would only come to me in waves, unraveling shortly after they pushed me a few places up.
It was somewhere around the top of Black Canyon that I began to admit the futility of digging a deeper hole. Something was not right with my body, and in a rare show of racing maturity, I acknowledged it. I limped home, sun-beaten and disappointed, but accepting of circumstance.
It’s rare that I ever ask myself why I compete. It seems obvious when I’m getting results. It’s easy to love what you’re good at, easier still when you get to do what you love. But when my efforts put me in a place of no longer wanting to ride, it begs the question. Why push myself so far that even the thought of riding is unsavory? Why empty myself of everything, honestly everything, and spend days in a black hole of lethargy, unable to get up, uninspired to even make a coffee?
I don’t know. I can stab at reasons— exploring the depths of my human capability, probing places in myself I’ve yet to touch— but they all seem silly when I sacrifice a week to sadness. I’ve always been a person of extremes and I don’t know any other way. Sometimes I laugh it off as the Gemini in me, and sometimes I think if I gave myself more room to understand my own mind and body, these truths would reveal themselves. At the very least, I can understand that the highs need the lows to bear contrast, and I hold out hope that the view from the top step is as good as I remember.
Words: Amity Rockwell | Photos: Wil Matthews
I anticipated this going a little differently. I’d hoped that I’d be regaling you all with tales of battle and overcoming various hardships to end up on top, or at least within reach of it, ideally with a large cardboard check in my possession, but it’s five days later and all I have to show for racing BWR is a sunburn and a few days of depression.
We’ll come back to that, but I owe you a basic play-by-play:
The morning was insane, as I expected. A truly overwhelming number of people jostle for position in the corral, and I’m at once grateful for the call-up and wary of the pressure it puts on my shoulders. Someone once told me that everything I have now is because of things I’ve already achieved, and I repeat that to myself and smile at the crowd. Booming loudspeakers, some too-quick hellos and hey you’s!! and we roll out. It’s civil, and not as sketchy as a true mass start with the men, but I miss the anonymity a large pack gives me.
Thankfully the police escort stays with us till the dirt, and before I know it, the race is made. Maybe that’s not the case but it feels that way— a few forced dismounts, a mis-shift, a delay in my body and mind acknowledging the race has started, and just like that I’m already chasing. Most races this wouldn’t matter much, but the beauty of BWR is that it does. Gaps grow longer, matches are burned early, and piece by piece, things fall apart. On a better day, maybe I could have rallied, maybe I could have picked my way through the field as I’ve become known for, but the strength and the conviction would only come to me in waves, unraveling shortly after they pushed me a few places up.
It was somewhere around the top of Black Canyon that I began to admit the futility of digging a deeper hole. Something was not right with my body, and in a rare show of racing maturity, I acknowledged it. I limped home, sun-beaten and disappointed, but accepting of circumstance.
It’s rare that I ever ask myself why I compete. It seems obvious when I’m getting results. It’s easy to love what you’re good at, easier still when you get to do what you love. But when my efforts put me in a place of no longer wanting to ride, it begs the question. Why push myself so far that even the thought of riding is unsavory? Why empty myself of everything, honestly everything, and spend days in a black hole of lethargy, unable to get up, uninspired to even make a coffee?
I don’t know. I can stab at reasons— exploring the depths of my human capability, probing places in myself I’ve yet to touch— but they all seem silly when I sacrifice a week to sadness. I’ve always been a person of extremes and I don’t know any other way. Sometimes I laugh it off as the Gemini in me, and sometimes I think if I gave myself more room to understand my own mind and body, these truths would reveal themselves. At the very least, I can understand that the highs need the lows to bear contrast, and I hold out hope that the view from the top step is as good as I remember.