240:

I am sitting at my desk after the baker’s dozen. By all accounts, the race was a glowing success for the coalition. We raced hard, we brought home the bacon, and had our teams in the thick of things through out the day.

I’ll admit it my memories of the race are dark. E-town was not having a great day, he really had to dig deep into his bag of courage to get through this. 5th place for he and Auer, was a strong performance, despite many challenges. I have raced with Buddy for god I can’t even remember how many of these things, and I remember sitting with him around 9pm and him just starring into space. He said to me, “ I don’t know if I can keep this up…”

I have never heard him utter a word like that, even though I know that he, with is partner BLRich would push through for a strong 8th place. I watched myself bark at my wife as she told me she thought she’d have to take the last lap likely at 11:59pm. My teammate Rik looked exhausted, and tired. I think to myself, “jesus, what have I done to these people, I’m yelling at my wife, she’s riding her best, Rik had gotten away from this, and I, I brought him back in…”
I see my friends, my family laying on the ground suffering trying to get some food in their stomachs to stick. Everyone is trying to get something to power the effort we are putting forth. Wes’s grime covered face, and sheer exhaustion at the finish line. Tom’s lost dazed look as he wandered around the course. “this is a recovery lap” he said to L-Web before leaving.

The course itself, was not that difficult. Smooth fast single track, that was fun to rip, with some rocky sections. You ride over a clump of rocks, around a clump of rocks, through two large boulders. But overall the course was brutally fast, no sections to just glide and roll, no time off the gas. It was attacking, pedaling, pushing the entire time.

Jeff was hurting, a little after 10:00 he had lost his stomach. Gu’s and Gatorade, any solid food had become kryptonite to him. The ever jovial duo of Wheelie Ted and Breyla la had grim determination in their eyes. As defending champions, they were in a battle and trailing by 18 minutes as the sun had set. Doyle Rules, who regularly abuses everyone at this campsite on the toughest of hills, and on the hardest of rides, seemed to incessantly moan and whine. He was hurting like I suspect he had never hurt before. At about 10:15, sitting in a huddle of my friends and teammates, I think to myself, “this is fun? Why the hell are we doing this?” Here I see all my friends looking like death, sunken eyes, veins popping out of legs, grimy faces, and just tired, worn out people.
Dark thoughts parade around my head, as my arms and back still throb with pain. Despite drinking as much water as I could get down after the race, my urine looks like it should be lighting up a neon sign saying “eat at joes.”

The coalition has gotten very good at the team endurance race game. We know how to stratagize. we know how to prepare, we know how hard it is to just finish one of these events, let alone dream of winning. As I looked around the campsite seeing my friends in agony, I question why.

I will admit to you, that at the end, when our plan came to fruition, when the object of my spring focus was over, I did not feel exhilaration, or a rush of excitement, I felt relief. For years, I would always cry when one of these things was over. The tally on me, on my soul was that great, the emotional and physical demand of the race was too much and would regularly leave me balled up somewhere on the ground, crying for joy that it was over, crying out of pride of what we were able to accomplish. These are so hard.

This time, I shed no tears, only felt relief. Relief that the pain was over, relief that we had survived another of these things. I swore right then that these team endurance races are the stupidest thing we ever do, and I for one, am done.

Once again I had look around our compound, and the faces that just two hours ago were long and broken, seemed to have perked up, some are even smiling. Some beers are shared, as well as pizza eating techniques. It could be described as a small celebration.

We’ve done it again, pushed ourselves, our relationships, our trust, our abilities to the brink, for no other reason than we can. I believe that we are all stronger for it.

At lunch today, I stopped by Henry’s to share some of our pirates treasure with truck stop gavigan, the mechanic for this group last weekend. At the shop, I found Rik, Lauri, and Tom. We all complained of hurting, but laughed and smiled about our experience. We talked about how much we loved the venue, how fast the course was, and shared racing stories with each other. Later, I caught up with Buddy, who was all smiles. We shared more stories, and talked about how much we missed Peaches this weekend. It’s never the same without peaches, next year my friend, next year…

Finally, I understood why we had done it, why we’ll do it again. The experiences, the friendships built in the crucible of pain that is these endurance races, are strong. You know no matter how shattered Rik, Buddy, or I am, we won’t quit, we’ll keep driving, we won’t let our teammates, our friends, our brothers and sisters down. I find that much like Napoleon Dynamite, when you are experiencing it, it may not be that fun, but talking about it, it feels like the greatest movie ever made. The suffering is great, but in the end, these events are always worth it. Scheming about next year has already begun.

Perhaps when I think my soul has finally turned black, and I am at the end of my rope, I am wrong, there is light, hope springs eternal…

respect

faticus