A Heartbreaking Tale of Gut-wrenching Disappointment:
That's what I already had this post named in my head while I was still riding in the race. In fact, the title popped into my head only about an hour into the 24-hour race. This gives you an idea of what sort of frame of mind I was in to start the day, while I was still fresh. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, a warning: some feelings may inevitably get hurt as I write this post, or people
might want to get defensive. I will be talking about other bloggers (all of whom shall remain anonymous), and people who are very, very good friends of mine. I would like to stress that no guilt tripping is intended, and no harm is meant by anything that I choose to share. These people are great friends to me, and I in no way put responsibility for a shitty day on anyone but my own mindset. I simply cannot explain why I had such a bad day without also explaining some of the disappointments leading up to the race - disappointments involving other people. I'm also going to get a bit mushy in parts of this post. I apologize in advance if I make anyone vomit. Still, it may be wise to keep a puke bag around.As most of you know, I put this race in my crosshairs back in early winter, planning to break the 24-hour record by riding over 440 miles in 24 hours. I began talking to a prospective support team and assembling a crew. Selecting a crew is no easy task. I wanted to find people who I could trust to make good decisions, be attentive, and most importantly, know what to say to me at just the right time. They would have to be thick-skinned. They would have to pick up on non-verbal cues and be another set of eyes to tell me what I needed when I didn't know it myself. They would need to know what it's like to push yourself to extreme limits. And there had to be no way that they were going to piss me off. I talked to three people and one alternate, and was pretty sure I was set and ready to go by March. All I had to do was the training.
And then something happened. I fell in love. Okay, well it's not like love at first sight or anything, cupid's arrows, googley eyes, and hearts bubbling out of my head. I just met someone, and life isn't ALL about training. Ultradistance anything is a pretty antisocial thing to do, and suddenly I had a damned good reason to get off my bike. Maybe my eating suffered a bit too. And... well, all my training. But I was happy. I was even happy despite races rolling around without my being very ready for them.Then something else happened. I sent out an email to my carefully-selected crew (plus one alternate) one month before the race, saying that it was time for me to start getting my shit together. They'd all made other plans. I guess maybe I hadn't actually shared the date with them, or emphasized it enough. I'll admit, I had fallen off the face of the earth since falling in love (cue: vomit!). I started going through all my friends one by one trying to replace my first crew and piece together people I at least trusted not to piss me off or run me over. Then I started going through acquaintances. I even offered to fly one person in from far away. Everyone was very sorry they couldn't help, but in mid-July everyone has weekend plans. With every phone call I made, and every "sorry, I cant," I started to expect less and less from this race. For a minute it looked like Grease Monkey's best work friend was going to be able to do come out with us, but then their asshole boss wouldn't give both the day off at once. And even Grease Monkey could only get one day off, so we were going to have to drive down the night before... after her shift, cutting it awfully close on sleep time.
I was also worried about Grease Monkey. There are people who are good on sleep deprivation, but she's not one of them. I worried that she would get a migraine, or that she'd fall asleep at the wheel, or that she'd get bored out of her skull and decide she didn't want to be with anyone with such antisocial tendencies as this ultracycling business.
The week before the race I went to visit some friends in DC for the first part of the week. When I got back,I had 2 days to arrange everything as best as possible to make it as easy as possible for my "crew": Grease Monkey and her dog. I kept meaning to sleep in, or take a nap, or do some yoga, but I just never got around to it. I also kept meaning to eat lunch, but I never got around to that either in the 5 days before the race. A little tired and hungry, but with everything finished satisfactorily I brought the dog into the bike shop: the final chore so that we could leave for New York right when Grease Monkey's shift ended. If we made good time, we could still be in bed by 10, in time to get 7.5 hours' sleep.
I went up to the workshop to pick up the other half of my "crew" at 5:15. Grease Monkey took one look at the dog and said, "Shit! Why is one pupil bigger than the other?! How long has she been like that???" What? No! This can't be! I looked at the dog. It was true. One pupil was huge while the other was little more than a pinprick. And come to think of it, hadn't she been a bit lethargic the last few days? How else could we explain her losing interest in the ball this afternoon? And Grease Monkey HAD slammed into her ass with a mountain bike yesterday morning. What if it was head trauma? "I've got to take her to the emergency room!" Grease Monkey said, already on her cell phone and grabbing her car keys. I nodded and walked out the door.
I walked straight out the shop, hoping I could get to the parking lot before I started crying. Why is it that whenever you want to be alone that's when everyone wants to follow you? As I walked out the door, the pervy roommate was in the parking lot, just coming in for his shift. He yelled something inappropriate about licking pussy at me and I gave him the finger and kept walking. When I hit the next parking lot I started crying and kept walking. When I finally thought I'd found a private place behind some dumpsters, the pervy roommate's girlfriend and my best bike mechanic caught up to me at the same time. I screamed at both of them to leave me the fuck alone. I just needed a minute to sort it all out.I'd spent all that money. I'd done all that training (alright, not as much as I'd planned, but still). I'd done everything in my power to get a crew together for this race, and now everything was STILL falling apart. It wasn't the dog's fault. It wasn't Grease Monkey's fault. It wasn't my friends' fault. It JUST WASN'T FAIR! I thought about going alone, but she loves that dog so much that if there was anything wrong, I couldn't with a clear conscience leave her. Because I am in love after all (cue: barf!). And there was no way I was making her leave the dog at the vet for the weekend, even though she'd said she would. I just needed to figure out how to tell her that I wasn't racing without busting out crying. I knew it was what had to be done, and I knew that she'd never let me drop out if she saw me crying. And anyway, all my stuff was in her truck speeding towards the animal hospital at this very minute as I sat feeling sorry for myself behind the dumpsters. I couldn't leave without her, she had my bike.
Finally I pulled myself together, grabbed the stuff that she'd left at the shop, was rude to all my friends on the way out, and sped towards the animal hospital myself. At the animal hospital the previous girlfriend (who had given Grease Monkey the dog) showed up, and I had to meet her for the first time with puffy eyes and the headache that comes after crying. In the end the vet said that although they couldn't figure out what was wrong, they could rule out any serious conditions and we were free to take the dog home. "But bring her back in or call us if she gets any worse, or doesn't seem to get better," she said. Death sentence to your race, I heard. Finally it was decided not to leave the dog with the ex because she didn't have time to keep a constant eye on her, and we took the dog with us. "Come on, there are vets in New York," Grease Monkey insisted. "I am NOT going to get in the way of your race." I gave in, and 2 hours later than expected we piled into the car with both of our heads pounding from emotion and the despondent dog in the back seat. The whole ride down I knew I should be drinking water, but decided that minimizing bathroom breaks was paramount, so didn't drink despite my headache. And I hardly ate dinner as well, since that would have been another stop.
Are you SURE you're ready?"I don't know," I said helplessly. Finally Grease Monkey suggested that maybe it was the medicine, and insisted on bringing me to the race. "I'll check the side effects on the medicine when I get there. If I need to go to the vet, I'll let you know and I'll leave drop bags along the course until I get back." I didn't even know what I wanted anymore. I was already so tired from the ordeal of getting here that I didn't even want to ride my bike anymore.
Lap 1 (Miles 0-32)
And that's how I found myself riding in this race that I had been looking forward to all year that I wasn't even sure I was supposed to be doing anymore, planning to call it "A Heartbreaking Tale of Gut-Wrenching Disappointment." My legs weren't feeling that great, and I had all but checked out of the race. There was a chick with a pink helmet, and I decided to mark her for conquering. I passed her in the first quarter mile. Now what?I didn't see Grease Monkey in the whole first 32-mile lap, and I was terrified that she'd gone to the vet without telling me. I was afraid that she would have to spend the whole day attending to the dog, and that I would be out here alone, thinking about the dog rather than my race. What I did see, though, were cows, and goats, and sheep. After seeing one flock of sheep I had "Baa-baa Black Sheep" stuck in my head for the next 7 hours. Despite my rotten mood and rotten legs, I managed to hold 21 mph for the first half of the lap, which dropped down to 20 mph by the end of the lap on the uphill, upwind side of the course.
Lap 2 (Miles 33-64)
Much to my relief, Grease Monkey was parked at the start and I gave her a great, big smile as I rode by. Soon she pulled up next to me with the dog hanging her wall-eyed face out the window and asked if I needed anything. I asked for an Accelerade and an ice water with some Nuun, and she rode up next to me about 2 minutes later, holding a bottle out the window. It took us a minute to figure out how each of us would handle the hand-off, adjusting speed and switching bottles from cages to mouth to hand to hand to mouth to cages. She asked if I needed anything else, and then sped away. It wasn't until the next lap that I was able to ask about the dog and whether she was staying.
My legs still felt crappy and it was getting hot. It was humid, humid, humid, but only in the mid-70's. The problem was that we hadn't had a sunny day over 70 since April, or not one that I could remember anyway. Still, despite the fact that my legs felt like someone else's, I was feeling pretty good. Again I was flying for the first half of the lap, but then dropped to 19 by the end of the wind and the hills.
My legs still felt crappy and it was getting hot. It was humid, humid, humid, but only in the mid-70's. The problem was that we hadn't had a sunny day over 70 since April, or not one that I could remember anyway. Still, despite the fact that my legs felt like someone else's, I was feeling pretty good. Again I was flying for the first half of the lap, but then dropped to 19 by the end of the wind and the hills.
Lap 3 (Miles 65-96)
I had planned to only get off the bike every 4 hours, and the 4 hour mark hadn't passed yet, so I set out on my third lap still without having stepped off my bike. As I was heading out I saw pink helmet girl coming in. I looked down at my watch: I was over 3 miles into the lap. That meant that I was 6 miles ahead of her in only 60 miles!!! When Grease Monkey caught up with me again I told her the good news.
If this pose doesn't say "I love fisting!", then it must say "I'm going to beat yo' ass to a bloody pulp!"
On the back half of the loop I met up with a guy with an aero helmet and disc wheels. "You're doing pretty good," he congratulated me. "My coach is the reigning women's champion of this race and she's about 7 miles back on me."
"Yeah, well we have a long night ahead of us," I said. "We'll see how it all shakes out." I was already starting to feel a bit sick and my feet were a little sore. My legs were finally coming around though. As is my style, it was taking me 70 miles to really feel right in my legs. Then suddenly Aero Man got a flat, and I rode on alone. The wind for the last 8 miles was really starting to pick up now, and I was beginning to see average lap speeds that I wasn't planning to see until late afternoon. I finished the third lap with an average speed of 18.6 mph - one tenth of a mile per hour lower than I would need to average to hit my goal.
I had now been riding for about 5 hours, and hopped off the bike for a quick pee break. I had expected to meet my "crew" at the start/finish area, but Grease Monkey was nowhere to be seen, so I filled up a bottle with water and hit the road again, after only about 4 minutes off the bike.
If this pose doesn't say "I love fisting!", then it must say "I'm going to beat yo' ass to a bloody pulp!""Yeah, well we have a long night ahead of us," I said. "We'll see how it all shakes out." I was already starting to feel a bit sick and my feet were a little sore. My legs were finally coming around though. As is my style, it was taking me 70 miles to really feel right in my legs. Then suddenly Aero Man got a flat, and I rode on alone. The wind for the last 8 miles was really starting to pick up now, and I was beginning to see average lap speeds that I wasn't planning to see until late afternoon. I finished the third lap with an average speed of 18.6 mph - one tenth of a mile per hour lower than I would need to average to hit my goal.
I had now been riding for about 5 hours, and hopped off the bike for a quick pee break. I had expected to meet my "crew" at the start/finish area, but Grease Monkey was nowhere to be seen, so I filled up a bottle with water and hit the road again, after only about 4 minutes off the bike.
Lap 4 (Miles 97-128)
What I didn't realize was that Grease Monkey had been told that she wasn't allowed at any of the rest stops or anywhere on the course with the dog. It didn't matter that residents along the course had dogs... off leash. Grease Monkey had to keep the dog in the vehicle at all times. So when I came around the corner out of the aid station, there she was again, offering me a sandwich. "I don't feel so great," I told her. "Solid food's not going down so well, and I feel like if I eat anything sugary I'm going to puke. Can I have a Red Bull and a ginger ale?"
"Do we have Red Bull and ginger ale?"
"Nope..." She started to drive away to the nearest convenience store. "HEY!" I yelled after her. "How's the dog?!" The dog was fine. The vet had called and said that all her tests came back normal, so she just LOOKED like a crazy dog. That was a relief, all that stress for nothing. Then Grease Monkey drove to the convenience store and was back in 10 minutes with my order. Wow, she really does love me, I thought, getting a little choked up. I was already a bit emotional from the ride, but my crew was doing a fantastic job, despite the conditions.
I hit the 100 mile mark in about 5 hours and 15 minutes, and was holding a pretty good pace despite feeling like crap. On the first part of the back half I was able to hold my own against the wind, but once I hit roughly the 24-mile mark the wind was unreasonable. I was traveling on what seemed to be flat ground, going about 14 mph. Still, I hadn't slowed down from my last lap and I managed to hold 18.6 mph for the lap. If the wind stopped blowing right this very second, I might still be able to make my goal. I rolled through the start/finish area at the end of the lap without stopping again.
"Do we have Red Bull and ginger ale?"
"Nope..." She started to drive away to the nearest convenience store. "HEY!" I yelled after her. "How's the dog?!" The dog was fine. The vet had called and said that all her tests came back normal, so she just LOOKED like a crazy dog. That was a relief, all that stress for nothing. Then Grease Monkey drove to the convenience store and was back in 10 minutes with my order. Wow, she really does love me, I thought, getting a little choked up. I was already a bit emotional from the ride, but my crew was doing a fantastic job, despite the conditions.
I hit the 100 mile mark in about 5 hours and 15 minutes, and was holding a pretty good pace despite feeling like crap. On the first part of the back half I was able to hold my own against the wind, but once I hit roughly the 24-mile mark the wind was unreasonable. I was traveling on what seemed to be flat ground, going about 14 mph. Still, I hadn't slowed down from my last lap and I managed to hold 18.6 mph for the lap. If the wind stopped blowing right this very second, I might still be able to make my goal. I rolled through the start/finish area at the end of the lap without stopping again.Lap 5 (Miles 129-160)
"Where have you been?" Grease Monkey asked as she pulled along side me again.
"It's SO windy on that back half!" I whined. "It just takes away all the speed you've built up through the whole lap!"
I refused solid foods again, and asked for drinks without calories this time too. Rather than eating handfuls of gum drops and Sweedish Fish, I was only getting down one piece of candy when my watch beeped every 20 minutes. Grease Monkey offered me a gel with caffeine, and I thought I'd vomit just at the thought of the sticky, jizzy stuff in my mouth.
On the back half the wind was getting really strong now. The last 8 miles seemed to take just as long as the first 24, and twice as much effort. Tree trunks were bending from the force of it. I knew that there was no way that I could hit 440 miles in the 24 hours, so I tried to re-evaluate my goals. The course record was only 413 miles, still very doable. If I went over 400 miles I could appeal to qualify for RAAM. And if those didn't work, I could still just go for the win.
I was now just past the 8-hour mark, and although I had planned to go 4 hours from my last break, I decided that averaging a break every 4 hours was okay too. I had only averaged 17.6 mph on this past lap, and I was thinking about dropping out already. "You're doing great! You could win it overall," the volunteer writing down splits told me. "You're in second overall. You're only 7 minutes down on the lead guy."
"Oh I am, huh?" I asked. As excited as that information would have made me normally, I just couldn't care less today. "That's nice. I'm going to go lie down for a little while."
And that's what I did. I rode around the corner, found my lovely crew, and stuck my feet up in the air. This was the turning point in my race. I lay in the grass and ate a boiled potato, then a banana. I chatted with Grease Monkey. "You're doing an awesome job," I told her. "You're hired. I couldn't have hoped for a better crew!" Finally after 25 minutes I was ready to get on my bike again. Now that I'd made sure that 440 was completely out of my reach, there was no real hurry.
"How many miles have you done?" Grease Monkey asked. "You're only about half an hour past the time goals that you put on your sheet."
"Yeah, throw that sheet out," I said. "I don't want to hear about it again."
"It's SO windy on that back half!" I whined. "It just takes away all the speed you've built up through the whole lap!"
I refused solid foods again, and asked for drinks without calories this time too. Rather than eating handfuls of gum drops and Sweedish Fish, I was only getting down one piece of candy when my watch beeped every 20 minutes. Grease Monkey offered me a gel with caffeine, and I thought I'd vomit just at the thought of the sticky, jizzy stuff in my mouth.
On the back half the wind was getting really strong now. The last 8 miles seemed to take just as long as the first 24, and twice as much effort. Tree trunks were bending from the force of it. I knew that there was no way that I could hit 440 miles in the 24 hours, so I tried to re-evaluate my goals. The course record was only 413 miles, still very doable. If I went over 400 miles I could appeal to qualify for RAAM. And if those didn't work, I could still just go for the win.
I was now just past the 8-hour mark, and although I had planned to go 4 hours from my last break, I decided that averaging a break every 4 hours was okay too. I had only averaged 17.6 mph on this past lap, and I was thinking about dropping out already. "You're doing great! You could win it overall," the volunteer writing down splits told me. "You're in second overall. You're only 7 minutes down on the lead guy."
"Oh I am, huh?" I asked. As excited as that information would have made me normally, I just couldn't care less today. "That's nice. I'm going to go lie down for a little while."
And that's what I did. I rode around the corner, found my lovely crew, and stuck my feet up in the air. This was the turning point in my race. I lay in the grass and ate a boiled potato, then a banana. I chatted with Grease Monkey. "You're doing an awesome job," I told her. "You're hired. I couldn't have hoped for a better crew!" Finally after 25 minutes I was ready to get on my bike again. Now that I'd made sure that 440 was completely out of my reach, there was no real hurry.
"How many miles have you done?" Grease Monkey asked. "You're only about half an hour past the time goals that you put on your sheet."
"Yeah, throw that sheet out," I said. "I don't want to hear about it again."
Lap 6 (Miles 161-192)
I felt much better after my break and decided that under the conditions I was just going to have to do whatever I could to maximize my on-the-bike time while still maximizing my comfort. I stopped pushing, and I was feeling pretty good. At the far checkpoint I called out my number and rolled through, and Kathy, who was holding her log sheets to her chest against the wind yelled after me, "IT'S GOING TO RAIN ANY MINUTE!"
"THANK YOU!" I yelled, and picked up the pace. Maybe I could get back to the start/finish area before the skies opened up.
I only made it another few miles before the rain caught me, several minutes before Grease Monkey caught me. I stopped for a few minutes as we dug out a raincoat, a reflective vest, some lights, and my clear glasses. Stopping, stopping, stopping. Always stopping. What's the point?! I thought. If I'm going to spend half the race off my bike, is this even racing? "Do you need anything else?" Grease Monkey asked me. "I'm getting a bit loopy, I think I need a nap."
"I'm fine. You get all the sleep you need," I said. "I'll call you if I need you." I could tell that she was pushing herself really hard. The last time I saw her push herself this hard into exhaustion, she got a migraine. When I rode into town about half an hour later, I saw her parked at the side of the road with her eyes closed, but then when I rode by again in the other direction about half an hour later, she was awake again.
I felt much better after my break and decided that under the conditions I was just going to have to do whatever I could to maximize my on-the-bike time while still maximizing my comfort. I stopped pushing, and I was feeling pretty good. At the far checkpoint I called out my number and rolled through, and Kathy, who was holding her log sheets to her chest against the wind yelled after me, "IT'S GOING TO RAIN ANY MINUTE!""THANK YOU!" I yelled, and picked up the pace. Maybe I could get back to the start/finish area before the skies opened up.
I only made it another few miles before the rain caught me, several minutes before Grease Monkey caught me. I stopped for a few minutes as we dug out a raincoat, a reflective vest, some lights, and my clear glasses. Stopping, stopping, stopping. Always stopping. What's the point?! I thought. If I'm going to spend half the race off my bike, is this even racing? "Do you need anything else?" Grease Monkey asked me. "I'm getting a bit loopy, I think I need a nap."
"I'm fine. You get all the sleep you need," I said. "I'll call you if I need you." I could tell that she was pushing herself really hard. The last time I saw her push herself this hard into exhaustion, she got a migraine. When I rode into town about half an hour later, I saw her parked at the side of the road with her eyes closed, but then when I rode by again in the other direction about half an hour later, she was awake again.
Lap 7 (Miles 193-224)
Grease Monkey and I drove back to John's house for the post-race breakfast so that I could fulfil my sponsorship responsibilities by handing out samples and also so I could see how everyone had done. Pink Helmet was sitting at the table looking smug. "I braved it through the night," was the first thing she said to me as I walked up to the table.
"Wow, congratulations," I said. "I had a great night's sleep!" It was a lie, but I had made up my mind the night before that I was absolutely, under no circumstances going to mention the lead that I had when I quit. I wanted to be a gracious loser and didn't want to sound like sour grapes.
I knew a bunch of the guys from last year, and they wanted to know how my race had gone. I did my best to explain my mental state in the race, and my reasons for quitting. "I thought that if I pushed myself through the 24 hours feeling the way that I did, that I would never want to ride my bike again. I think it's more important to keep a good relationship with your sport than to push through one stupid race when you're really not into it." They were experienced athletes. They got it, or were at least polite enough to act like they did.
"I don't sign up for races just to quit," Pink Helmet butted in, and then proceeded to talk about her glorious win, where she had wound up completing only 90 miles more in 24 hours than I'd finished in 13.
I got up and walked to the other end of the table.
A little later she cornered me and started talking at me, telling me about this race and that race that she'd done. She'd been slow in all of them, and when she told me her distances in other 24 hour races I was tempted to say "That's it?!" just because she was so damned pleased with herself. I knew that if I'd been in the right mindframe for this race, then I would have beat her and I wouldn't have to be listening to this lecture. "I'm going to have to check in with myself and re-assess my goals before I decide on my next race," I confessed to her. "If I don't want it bad enough to finish a race when I feel good, then maybe I'm just not on the right track."
"Maybe next time you shouldn't bite off more than you can chew," she advised, condescendingly. Grease Monkey was standing next to me when she said that, and later she told me that she could see me turn red and shoot daggers out my eyes. I wanted to say, "Listen, bitch, the only reason that you 'won' this race is because you were such weak competition that I didn't even think it was worth it to beat your ass! You're slow, and I'd DOUBLE lapped you in the first half of the race! I don't sign up for these races just to post mediocre performances and brag about just finishing!" Instead I just flushed and gritted my teeth.
"I was in 2nd for awhile," I said in my defense. It didn't really have anything to do with the conversation, I just needed to find SOMETHING to say that would save my ego. "But I just couldn't get myself fired up." It wasn't till later that I realized that I hadn't said second OVERALL. Bitch probably thought she was ahead of me the whole time. Stupid whore.
Kiss my sun burnt ass, you stupid, arrogant, slow-rolling, pompous cunt!
While I was disappointed that things didn't work out the way I wanted them to, I don't think that I made a mistake dropping out of the race. However, Pink Helmet's comments made me so furious all weekend that I felt sick. I couldn't sit still and was in a rotten mood for the rest of the trip. This seems to be a theme lately: my motives never seem to be good enough for everyone else. I'm treated like a DNF in one aquabike, and made fun of by the MC in another for having "too much energy" at the end when I hopped on the podium. And now, because I wouldn't settle for a performance that I knew was going to be worse than what I was capable of, everyone was assuming that I wasn't capable of finishing at all.
Early on I had decided not to try to break the record officially at this race, all I wanted to do was hit the number to be able to say that I did it. While the world might not know, I would know. When things started going wrong, that cemented my decision not to chase it officially. UMCA has strict rules about crewing in record attempts, and it would cost me lots of money that I didn't have to ostentatiously pay for the right to attempt to be "the best in the world". But I wanted this bitch to see that I wasn't useless. As soon as I got home I looked into what I would have to do to break the record officially. Although I am confident I could handle the riding end of the deal, I couldn't finance the certified land surveyor, the 3 UMCA officials' hourly pay for 24 hours, and the gas it would require for a crew car and an officials' car to shadow me for 440 miles. I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure out which goals are more worth my time and money to pursue. Ironman Cozumel? RAAM? Moving west ASAP? Focusing on shorter distances for awhile so that I can catch up with all my friends who might have been more available to me if I had been more available to them over the past 4 months?
Check in with later posts to see where I decide life is taking me...
I rode through the start/finish area and back out for my next lap. I was way ahead of my pace from last year, and I wanted to see just how far I could go in 12 hours. When I rode by Grease Monkey again, she came and asked me if I needed anything. We stopped again to put the sleeves on my rain jacket and adjust some of the lights I was using. "I'm going to ride hard until 8:00, then I'm going to stop and have dinner with you," I told her. "Why don't you go pick up something you want for dinner, and then drive the course backwards until you find me. OH! And can I have a hot coffee?!" I asked.
Then I went out and rode like hell. I caught up to the girl in the pink helmet and passed her quickly. She was dressed like a hobo with a huge windbreaker billowing in the wind. "How are you doing?" I asked.
"Alright, how are you?"
"I'm pleased as punch that the wind seems to have died down now that it's started raining," I said. I slowed down so that I could talk to her a bit and get her story. Hopefully I could find out how far ahead I was. "Are you doing the 24-hour?"
"Yep, how about you?"
"Yep."
"Is it your first one?" she asked, a little patronizingly it seemed.
"Yeah, I've never ridden more than 19 hours. I'm just not feeling that great today. I don't know how it's all going to go." Note: I said TODAY. I never once doubted I could ride 24 hours on a day that my mind wasn't everywhere BUT on my bike.
"Well you just go as far as you can then," she consoled me. "And I hope you have good lights."
Yeah thanks, Einstein, I thought and decided that she was no fun to talk to, so I rode away. Looking back, I'm not even sure she realized she was being lapped. Dumb broad.
I rode another 8 miles or so, and had just one minute to go before the twelve hour mark. Suddenly, the railroad gates went down in front of me, and the world's longest, slowest cargo train started chugging through. I watched as 8:00 came and went, and the train was still going by. Three and a half minutes later, the dozens and dozens of cargo cars had finally gone by and the gates lifted. I heard a honk behind me, it was Grease Monkey with the food. We fiddled with my bike some more, made some food, and were just settling down into the car to have dinner when Pink Helmet rode by. I was frustrated! Now she might think that she was faster than me or something, just because she'd passed me. Never mind that I'd put some 8 minutes into her in just 8 miles! I sat and ate an egg salad sandwich with Grease Monkey and sipped my coffee for about half an hour. It was the greatest meal I'd ever had. We made a plan for the night so that she could stay in the car sleeping, and finally I got back on my bike. With the whole night ahead of me and a cozy, comforting 30 minutes with my girlfriend behind me, I couldn't imagine how I was going to convince myself to keep pushing.
It had looked like it was finally clearing up, but now it started to rain HARD again, just as the sun was setting. There was the slightest tint in my glasses, so I decided not to wear them and had to squint into the rain. When I reached a short 40-mph-descent into town, my brakes hardly slowed me down on the wet road. I simply wasn't having fun anymore. I did not want to be on my bike anymore. I've mentioned before that usually I'm in a good mood on my long rides until suddenly something will snap, and after that nothing is the same. That point had happened 60 miles ago when I was lying in the grass with my feet up.
Come on, you didn't come here to quit! I told myself. But I just couldn't make myself care. In the car on the way over with the dog looking stoned in the back seat, maybe the last part of me had let go and I had come here to quit.
You at least owe it to your crew and your sponsors and everybody who lent you lights and Garmins and their time. Those people have put you in the lead and you owe it to them to win this race, I urged. That made me feel really, really sick. But I don't want to be riding for anyone else, I decided. And what do they really care anyway? I don't want to be doing ANYTHING if I'm not doing it for me.
I have this rule in workouts where if I'm ever in the middle of a workout and I really, really, really don't want to be there, then I have to quit. I'm NOT ALLOWED to finish a workout that I'm hating. Because if it's a chore, then I'm not going to want to come back tomorrow, eventually I'll burn out, and there's just too much at stake if I lose interest in training. That's not to say I quit every time the going gets hard, I just quit when there's nothing to be gained. I could think of nothing that could be gained by riding through the night in the rain and the hail and the thunderstorms. Riding back into town, I saw other riders heading back out. The thought of it made me sick, like the thought of a swallowing shot of tequila with no chaser in the middle of a really bad hangover.
I pulled into the rest stop at 9:00. "Am I still in the lead?" I asked. I hoped I wasn't. If I had given up the lead with all those stops I'd made in the last couple of laps, I decided that I wasn't going to spend the effort chasing anyone down.
"I'd say so," the scorekeeper said. "You just finished your 7th lap, and the other women are... on their fifth... fifth... fifth..." he read, scanning down the sheet.
"You've got over a 60 mile lead," John, the race director told me.
"Don't tell me that!" I whined. "I think I'm going to drop out."
"Why don't you just take a break and rest for a little while?" the scorekeeper suggested. "You have highs and lows throughout the night. You'll come back around."
"You won't be threattening your lead if you take a couple of hours off and take a nap," John assured me.
But what was the point?! I could have taken a 4 hour nap and the next woman STILL wouldn't have caught up to me at the rate she was going. That kind of comforatble lead wasn't going to get me back on my bike when I took rests, and it wasn't going to keep me from taking rests every chance I got. There was simply no reason to push, and if there was no reason to push, there was no reason to ride. Normally winning motivates me to trounce the competition even further, but I just couldn't care tonight. What was the fun if I was averaging 5 miles per hour faster than the runner-up? My legs felt great, my ass was still smooth and unchafed as a baby's behind (thank you Aquaphor! Now recommended by Lance Armstrong's coach, Chris Carmichael), and even my neck and shoulders felt good. My head simply wasn't in it today. And anyway, if I didn't want to be out here, what was the point of dragging Grease Monkey through a sleepless night?
I went and spoke to her. Tears were shed. "Why don't you just go out there and try another lap?" she suggested.
"Because I do NOT want to be on my bike anymore," I said. "And I'm not GOING to want to be on my bike anymore tonight. It's just not going to happen. It's not my day. I'm not in the mood to put myself through this. I don't want to play anymore. I like suffering, but I'm just not having fun tonight."
I walked back over to the scorekeeper's tent. "I'm going to make somebody's night," I said.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Someone who's down 60 miles right now is about to get 10 and a half hours to catch up. I'm dropping out." They tried to convince me not to. They looked sad for me. "Listen," I said. "There are just days when it's right to quit. My body feels great, I'm not tired. Nothing is giving out on me but my will to keep going, and once that's gone, it's gone. I just really didn't feel like riding my bike today, and now I want to go home." And with that, I did.
Then I went out and rode like hell. I caught up to the girl in the pink helmet and passed her quickly. She was dressed like a hobo with a huge windbreaker billowing in the wind. "How are you doing?" I asked.
"Alright, how are you?"
"I'm pleased as punch that the wind seems to have died down now that it's started raining," I said. I slowed down so that I could talk to her a bit and get her story. Hopefully I could find out how far ahead I was. "Are you doing the 24-hour?"
"Yep, how about you?"
"Yep."
"Is it your first one?" she asked, a little patronizingly it seemed.
"Yeah, I've never ridden more than 19 hours. I'm just not feeling that great today. I don't know how it's all going to go." Note: I said TODAY. I never once doubted I could ride 24 hours on a day that my mind wasn't everywhere BUT on my bike.
"Well you just go as far as you can then," she consoled me. "And I hope you have good lights."
Yeah thanks, Einstein, I thought and decided that she was no fun to talk to, so I rode away. Looking back, I'm not even sure she realized she was being lapped. Dumb broad.
I rode another 8 miles or so, and had just one minute to go before the twelve hour mark. Suddenly, the railroad gates went down in front of me, and the world's longest, slowest cargo train started chugging through. I watched as 8:00 came and went, and the train was still going by. Three and a half minutes later, the dozens and dozens of cargo cars had finally gone by and the gates lifted. I heard a honk behind me, it was Grease Monkey with the food. We fiddled with my bike some more, made some food, and were just settling down into the car to have dinner when Pink Helmet rode by. I was frustrated! Now she might think that she was faster than me or something, just because she'd passed me. Never mind that I'd put some 8 minutes into her in just 8 miles! I sat and ate an egg salad sandwich with Grease Monkey and sipped my coffee for about half an hour. It was the greatest meal I'd ever had. We made a plan for the night so that she could stay in the car sleeping, and finally I got back on my bike. With the whole night ahead of me and a cozy, comforting 30 minutes with my girlfriend behind me, I couldn't imagine how I was going to convince myself to keep pushing.
It had looked like it was finally clearing up, but now it started to rain HARD again, just as the sun was setting. There was the slightest tint in my glasses, so I decided not to wear them and had to squint into the rain. When I reached a short 40-mph-descent into town, my brakes hardly slowed me down on the wet road. I simply wasn't having fun anymore. I did not want to be on my bike anymore. I've mentioned before that usually I'm in a good mood on my long rides until suddenly something will snap, and after that nothing is the same. That point had happened 60 miles ago when I was lying in the grass with my feet up.
Come on, you didn't come here to quit! I told myself. But I just couldn't make myself care. In the car on the way over with the dog looking stoned in the back seat, maybe the last part of me had let go and I had come here to quit.
You at least owe it to your crew and your sponsors and everybody who lent you lights and Garmins and their time. Those people have put you in the lead and you owe it to them to win this race, I urged. That made me feel really, really sick. But I don't want to be riding for anyone else, I decided. And what do they really care anyway? I don't want to be doing ANYTHING if I'm not doing it for me.
I have this rule in workouts where if I'm ever in the middle of a workout and I really, really, really don't want to be there, then I have to quit. I'm NOT ALLOWED to finish a workout that I'm hating. Because if it's a chore, then I'm not going to want to come back tomorrow, eventually I'll burn out, and there's just too much at stake if I lose interest in training. That's not to say I quit every time the going gets hard, I just quit when there's nothing to be gained. I could think of nothing that could be gained by riding through the night in the rain and the hail and the thunderstorms. Riding back into town, I saw other riders heading back out. The thought of it made me sick, like the thought of a swallowing shot of tequila with no chaser in the middle of a really bad hangover.
Quitting
I pulled into the rest stop at 9:00. "Am I still in the lead?" I asked. I hoped I wasn't. If I had given up the lead with all those stops I'd made in the last couple of laps, I decided that I wasn't going to spend the effort chasing anyone down.
"I'd say so," the scorekeeper said. "You just finished your 7th lap, and the other women are... on their fifth... fifth... fifth..." he read, scanning down the sheet.
"You've got over a 60 mile lead," John, the race director told me.
"Don't tell me that!" I whined. "I think I'm going to drop out."
"Why don't you just take a break and rest for a little while?" the scorekeeper suggested. "You have highs and lows throughout the night. You'll come back around."
"You won't be threattening your lead if you take a couple of hours off and take a nap," John assured me.
But what was the point?! I could have taken a 4 hour nap and the next woman STILL wouldn't have caught up to me at the rate she was going. That kind of comforatble lead wasn't going to get me back on my bike when I took rests, and it wasn't going to keep me from taking rests every chance I got. There was simply no reason to push, and if there was no reason to push, there was no reason to ride. Normally winning motivates me to trounce the competition even further, but I just couldn't care tonight. What was the fun if I was averaging 5 miles per hour faster than the runner-up? My legs felt great, my ass was still smooth and unchafed as a baby's behind (thank you Aquaphor! Now recommended by Lance Armstrong's coach, Chris Carmichael), and even my neck and shoulders felt good. My head simply wasn't in it today. And anyway, if I didn't want to be out here, what was the point of dragging Grease Monkey through a sleepless night?
I went and spoke to her. Tears were shed. "Why don't you just go out there and try another lap?" she suggested.
"Because I do NOT want to be on my bike anymore," I said. "And I'm not GOING to want to be on my bike anymore tonight. It's just not going to happen. It's not my day. I'm not in the mood to put myself through this. I don't want to play anymore. I like suffering, but I'm just not having fun tonight."
I walked back over to the scorekeeper's tent. "I'm going to make somebody's night," I said.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Someone who's down 60 miles right now is about to get 10 and a half hours to catch up. I'm dropping out." They tried to convince me not to. They looked sad for me. "Listen," I said. "There are just days when it's right to quit. My body feels great, I'm not tired. Nothing is giving out on me but my will to keep going, and once that's gone, it's gone. I just really didn't feel like riding my bike today, and now I want to go home." And with that, I did.
Post-Race (Bitch needs to be kicked in the teeth)
Grease Monkey and I drove back to John's house for the post-race breakfast so that I could fulfil my sponsorship responsibilities by handing out samples and also so I could see how everyone had done. Pink Helmet was sitting at the table looking smug. "I braved it through the night," was the first thing she said to me as I walked up to the table.
"Wow, congratulations," I said. "I had a great night's sleep!" It was a lie, but I had made up my mind the night before that I was absolutely, under no circumstances going to mention the lead that I had when I quit. I wanted to be a gracious loser and didn't want to sound like sour grapes.
I knew a bunch of the guys from last year, and they wanted to know how my race had gone. I did my best to explain my mental state in the race, and my reasons for quitting. "I thought that if I pushed myself through the 24 hours feeling the way that I did, that I would never want to ride my bike again. I think it's more important to keep a good relationship with your sport than to push through one stupid race when you're really not into it." They were experienced athletes. They got it, or were at least polite enough to act like they did.
"I don't sign up for races just to quit," Pink Helmet butted in, and then proceeded to talk about her glorious win, where she had wound up completing only 90 miles more in 24 hours than I'd finished in 13.
I got up and walked to the other end of the table.
A little later she cornered me and started talking at me, telling me about this race and that race that she'd done. She'd been slow in all of them, and when she told me her distances in other 24 hour races I was tempted to say "That's it?!" just because she was so damned pleased with herself. I knew that if I'd been in the right mindframe for this race, then I would have beat her and I wouldn't have to be listening to this lecture. "I'm going to have to check in with myself and re-assess my goals before I decide on my next race," I confessed to her. "If I don't want it bad enough to finish a race when I feel good, then maybe I'm just not on the right track.""Maybe next time you shouldn't bite off more than you can chew," she advised, condescendingly. Grease Monkey was standing next to me when she said that, and later she told me that she could see me turn red and shoot daggers out my eyes. I wanted to say, "Listen, bitch, the only reason that you 'won' this race is because you were such weak competition that I didn't even think it was worth it to beat your ass! You're slow, and I'd DOUBLE lapped you in the first half of the race! I don't sign up for these races just to post mediocre performances and brag about just finishing!" Instead I just flushed and gritted my teeth.
"I was in 2nd for awhile," I said in my defense. It didn't really have anything to do with the conversation, I just needed to find SOMETHING to say that would save my ego. "But I just couldn't get myself fired up." It wasn't till later that I realized that I hadn't said second OVERALL. Bitch probably thought she was ahead of me the whole time. Stupid whore.
Kiss my sun burnt ass, you stupid, arrogant, slow-rolling, pompous cunt!While I was disappointed that things didn't work out the way I wanted them to, I don't think that I made a mistake dropping out of the race. However, Pink Helmet's comments made me so furious all weekend that I felt sick. I couldn't sit still and was in a rotten mood for the rest of the trip. This seems to be a theme lately: my motives never seem to be good enough for everyone else. I'm treated like a DNF in one aquabike, and made fun of by the MC in another for having "too much energy" at the end when I hopped on the podium. And now, because I wouldn't settle for a performance that I knew was going to be worse than what I was capable of, everyone was assuming that I wasn't capable of finishing at all.
Early on I had decided not to try to break the record officially at this race, all I wanted to do was hit the number to be able to say that I did it. While the world might not know, I would know. When things started going wrong, that cemented my decision not to chase it officially. UMCA has strict rules about crewing in record attempts, and it would cost me lots of money that I didn't have to ostentatiously pay for the right to attempt to be "the best in the world". But I wanted this bitch to see that I wasn't useless. As soon as I got home I looked into what I would have to do to break the record officially. Although I am confident I could handle the riding end of the deal, I couldn't finance the certified land surveyor, the 3 UMCA officials' hourly pay for 24 hours, and the gas it would require for a crew car and an officials' car to shadow me for 440 miles. I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure out which goals are more worth my time and money to pursue. Ironman Cozumel? RAAM? Moving west ASAP? Focusing on shorter distances for awhile so that I can catch up with all my friends who might have been more available to me if I had been more available to them over the past 4 months?Check in with later posts to see where I decide life is taking me...
