WINNING THE BIGGEST RACE OF MY LIFE

By Lee McCormack

The Hollywood movie goes like this: A sickly kid is born to intellectual parents. He’s constantly told his body is weak and sinful, and that he will never be an athlete. He should get good grades and please people in power. That’s the only way to get by.

At 18 years old, he discovers mountain biking. It becomes an obsession, then an addiction. While he gets married and develops careers, his heart and mind are obsessing about riding better and faster on the bike. His marriage is faltering. In the quiet moments, his critical inner voice screams, “You stink!” and “I hate you!” and worse. The only way to shut it up is to win something. Then do it again.

In 2004, his mountain biking journey culminates in a U.S. National Cat. 1 Downhill Championship. He realizes his greatest racing dream: to race Masters Downhill Worlds in the stars and stripes. In the race, he hears he’s on a winning time, chokes and hits a tree. “Tick-tock!” screams the clock. He fights to eighth place.

It’s a successful season. The stuff of dreams. He decides to stop racing and become a teacher. This is where this movie ends.
In these movies they don’t show what happens to the hero after he slays the dragon. He goes home to an empty life. Because he’s been focusing on kicking butt outside the house, he has no relationship with his wife. Because he’s been drowning out his inner voices, he has no relationship with himself. He obsesses about his Worlds mistake, wishing he could go back for another try. He wants and needs to be a world champion of downhill mountain biking.

In my case, that’s when things started to fall apart. My shoulders had already seen surgeries, and they were starting to fail. My first marriage ended amicably. Because I didn’t address my own garbage, I focused on riding and teaching, and I went directly into another marriage. The universe offers us lessons. When we miss them, the lessons get harder.

While my first marriage was a sad union between two young people who didn’t know how to care for themselves or each other, my second marriage was straight-up abusive. I put myself there, and I kept myself there. In hindsight, I see that my codependence was a perfect fit for her narcissism. My masochism (common in cyclists) was a perfect fit for her sadism. I see this marriage as a testing phase in my life; kind of like the hard climb before the sweet descent.

Surgeons told me I needed to take time off to repair my shoulders. Wife #2 said, “No, you can’t. You need to make money.” I was already so broken, I went along with it.

Over time my shoulders lost all range of motion but basic riding movements, and the pain—wow! We’re talking about white-hot excruciation most of the time, and it was way worse on the bike. That’s tough when you’re a full-time mountain bike skills instructor, but here’s the craziest thing: That agony was a relief—a relief!—from the emotional pain I was enduring. I started believing what she was telling me. I felt like a worthless piece of garbage who will work until I can’t, then I’ll just disappear. I envisioned jumping my bike off the cliff on Portal Trail in Moab, Utah. I wish I was the only man to ever feel this, but I know I’m not alone, which is why I’m going public.

Through a ton of personal work, I gained the strength to leave that marriage and stay away. In the ashes of my ego, I started rebuilding my sense of self. I started feeling that I was part of the greater world. I started connecting with my energetic essence, like I’m a crumb from the Holy Oreo here to serve. From there came joy. From joy came the first sprout of loving myself, then I attracted the love of my life, a polymath genius nerd warrior named “E.”

E told me, “Look, bro, I love you, but I didn’t sign up to take care of a man with no shoulders or arms.”

I got my shoulders X-rayed. Dr. Hatz said the cartilage was gone 20 years ago. Since then, I’ve worn 1.5 inches of bone off each side. Oh yeah, and my right collarbone had been broken for 20 years, and the shards were embedded in my trapezius muscle. He said, “Most people stop long before this point.” That was not a compliment.

Hatz said he can install some working shoulders, but that I would never ride a mountain bike again. I agreed. Those X-rays were seared into my mind—20 years of literal self-destruction. I swore I’d never hurt myself like that again.
Soon I had the first of a recurring dream. I was at the bottom of the Masters Worlds mountain bike downhill course, happy and healthy, hugging E. I said, “We did it, baby. It is done.” The dream repeated a dozen times, always with a sense of finality.
I got the surgeries without pain pills because I’d gotten addicted to them over those 20 years. We mountain bikers know about pain, right? Well, this was a Strava PR of misery. Wow! The physical pain was insane!!! But, like before, it was easy compared with the emotional pain. Since 2002 I’ve been playing a character some of you know as “Lee Likes Bikes.” That guy kept me motivated, gave me some fun and literally kept me alive. Losing that identity was very, very painful.

As my rehab progressed, I started riding the road and pump tracks. One day on a green trail ride that honestly pushed me to my limit, I heard the message: I must race Masters Downhill Worldsin May 2024. This will be 20 years after my first worlds bid, 18 months after my right shoulder replacement and 12 months after my left shoulder replacement.

I knew I had to prepare for the win I know I can achieve, and at the same time, release my ego and be totally cool with whatever happens. That second part scared me, which is why I had to do it. I assumed the sense of finality in the dream meant I was giving up mountain biking after the race.

The training journey will be detailed in my upcoming book “Joyride: A Mountain Biker’s Path to Peace.” In six months I went from barely being able to ride downhill to PRing my local trails, and I gained the ability to ride with dual awareness: 1) My physical Lee self, and 2) My energetic higher self, aka “Infinite Lee.”

It turns out, Infinite Lee is way faster than normal Lee, plus he has more fun. I committed to racing worlds as Infinite Lee.
We arrived in Cairns, Australia, and walked the course. Whoa, it’s way steeper and rougher than it looks on YouTube! I brought my first Mistress Cycles prototype trail bike. It felt awesome to race on my own bike, but it was a knife in a gunfight, and I was getting pounded in the tropical roots. But wow, no one was happier to be there than me.

Two days before the race, I received my final instructions. I must use the race run as a portal from an old, maladapted Lee to a new, purer Lee. The voice said I have to leave my old stories and identity on the course. I was like, “Does that mean I have to crash?” Oh well, I thought. I vowed to enjoy the ride no matter what happened.

At this level you get a seeding run to determine the start order. In the gate, I expanded to Infinite Lee. Beep, beep, beep, go! I drove my hips forward and felt something funny. It was a blur of falling and turning, turning and falling. When I went to pedal, there was no chain. No chain! Are you kidding? I laughed and laughed. “Good one!” I said to the Holy Oreo, then I sang and pumped like the master I am. Despite the uphills and the totally flat ending, I didn’t seed last.

It turned out I folded my chainring out of the gate. Who does that? Infinite Lee, that’s who. My racing mates straightened the ring, then secured the crack with zip-ties.

Back at the top of the course, I said some inspiring words to the racers around me, then I expanded my awareness beyond my skin to Infinite Lee. This place feels so peaceful, there’s nothing really to do except race worlds, baby!

Three minutes before the run, my body got noisy. My stomach tightened. I saw all these crooked, muddy roots smashing me to bits. My left shoulder joint started to hurt.

Infinite Lee said, “Hey, Lee, I hear you, man. Don’t worry. I trust you to do whatever you need to do to stay safe and have fun. I’m just gonna watch the show from the box seats. And, by the way, that shoulder no longer exists.”

Peace returned.

With one minute until my run, I rolled onto the wooden start ramp. I heard, “Hey, buddy, I’m proud of you. I love you.” Wow! What a thing to hear, especially at that moment.

The guy in front of me started 30 seconds ahead. I took off in pure, transcendent flow. Infinite Lee caught that guy one minute into the race at the worst possible spot. I had to brake in the mud, and blammo! I smeared my old victim codependence into the slippery roots. I made the pass, then resumed the business of being a world-class spirit warrior.
The Pink Mistress worked insanely well in the corners, jumps and rocks. I mean, I was twice as fast as the guy in front of me. I was hauling so much mail, I overshot a 40-foot double jump. Bang!!! I used the proprietary Pink Mistress’ one-time travel extender by way of bending the downtube.

Back in flow, I caught another racer in another bad spot. I had to sprint, then really boost a big step-down jump. Blast-off! I flew so high that time slowed. Spectators screamed their heads off. Infinite Lee said, “This guy is great!”

I landed that jump on the tangent of an immense berm. As I laid into the Gs, I knew I’d done it. Here I was, watching Lee ride his bike—the bike he made!—like a total hero, while Infinite Lee was enjoying the show. I knew what that sense of finality in the dream was. It was me finally saying goodbye to a broken aspect of myself so that I can live in peace and serve the world at full power.

As my bike got light out of that berm, I rocketed into the roots. In that moment something shifted. I felt lighter. Colors got brighter. I saw E at the bottom. I wanted to get down to her safely. I rode smoothly and beautifully. At the bottom I felt like an electrical corset had been removed from my entire body. I hugged her and said, “We did it, baby. It is done.”

I happened to finish in ninth place. I’ve won races before and still hated myself. On this day, I won the biggest race of my life—the World Championship of my own joy.

Editor’s note: Lee McCormack is a world-renowned mountain bike skills instructor, personal performance coach and motivational speaker. His books, articles, videos, and classes have helped millions of people ride and live better. You can learn with Lee via his Lee Likes Bikes MTB School in a live class or in a Zoom lesson. Follow “Lee Likes Bikes” on YouTube and Instagram. Follow the birth of his brand, Mistress Cycles at www.mistresscycles.com.