*** Update *** The Wednesday after the race I took my bike to the Wednesday night time trial, ready to ride. I gave my rear wheel a spin and it stopped spinning almost immediately, as if the brakes were rubbing. But the brakes weren't rubbing, nor was the wheel rubbing on the frame. After checking in with some bike geeks, and some troubleshooting on the phone with Grease Monkey we figured out that there was no quick fix. The bearings in my rear wheel are shot, and apparently they've been that way for a long time. Turns out that at this race and probably every race I've done this year, I've been riding like the brakes were on without knowing it. This makes me mad, but not really for the reasons you would expect. I've been satisfied with my races this season, and I've been at peace with the "what if's?". Now I'm wondering how much my wheel slowed me down, and if it would have meant something different in each one of my races so far this season. Damn... I really need to learn to be more observant about my bike.
"You know you need your instrument,
"But does your instrument need to be mic'ed?"
-Ani Difranco, "Here for Now"
-Ani Difranco, "Here for Now"
I don't really remember how the whole thing got started and who put whom up to it, but at some point I agreed to do a 12-hour bike race in Ohio with Judi. When I packed my shit in the car to drive all the way out to Columbus, I was really looking forward to the race (the first race in awhile I've been looking forward to). And it wasn't just because I was going to get to meet Judi face-to-face for the first time. I needed the 14-hour drive (in each direction) to think, and the 12-hour ride to sort some of my thoughts out. I was also really looking forward to jumping head-first into something that was way over my head. I hadn't tested my endurance and mental strength in a very long time.
Yes, I've done some pretty epic rides in the past, but I haven't ridden anything longer than 4 hours in six months. Twelve straight hours in the saddle was definitely over my head. Adding to the adventure, I had only put my aero bars on for the first time in six months right before leaving Boston. So much for training as you race. I rode the bike to work on Thursday to make sure that everything was in its proper place, and it turns out that my saddle was about an inch too high. Being the bright bulb I am, I didn't bring a multi-tool with me, and had to ride like that for 18 miles round-trip. I hoped that the adjustments I made in the parking lot at race registration would be good enough. I mean, riding around for 30 seconds is a pretty accurate depiction of what'll happen after 12 hours in the saddle, right? After the race Judi's boyfriend Dominic would tell me, "I don't know how you could ride at all with your saddle that crooked. My junk would've been all messed up."
"My saddle's crooked?" I said. Yep, that's me. If they used to call Lance "Mister Millimeter" for being so picky about his bike set-up, then you can call me "Miss Meter," meaning "as long as it's within a meter, then I probably won't know the difference."
The woman in front of me in line at registration was about 150 pounds overweight, and when they asked her if she was doing the 12-hour or the fun ride she said, "No way, I'm just doing the fun ride! I take my meds!" This last part cracked her up. She seemed to be thinking, Hardy-har-har, 'I take my meds!' Isn't that funny? Because all you people are crazy who do the 12-hour race. Lunatics! Harharhar. Meds. Ha. You crazy fuckers. No one around her seemed amused though, so she said her brilliant joke again. "No, I'm not doing the 12-hour! I take my meds." Still no response. The race volunteer cut through the awkward silence and started explaining the course to her, pointing out where she could take a short cut since she wasn't doing the 12 hour race. "NO! I'm definitely not doing the 12-hour race... because I take my meds every day!" she tried again. I wanted to point out that A) everyone had heard her the first two times, B) most populations don't take kindly to people calling them maniacs for doing what they love, C) getting in shape to do 12 hours of exercise might do a big girl like her some good, and D) she should get her fat ass out of my way. The next day I did notice that the well-medicated fun rider was at the race, but her meds also apparently kept her from riding in the rain. Apparently the difference between people who can make their dreams happen and those who wind up being unfunny fatass couch potatoes is that effective people "don't take their meds."
Judi showed up about an hour later with the famous Dominic and began describing how nervous she was. I didn't know what to say. I mean, in a 12-hour race you can ride 2 miles, or you can ride 300. It's the only race that you can quit when the going gets tough and not DNF. I didn't much care HOW far I got tomorrow, and fully recognized that I might quit before 100 miles if things weren't going well. I had no intention of gutting through this race on willpower alone, just in case burnout really is the reason I haven't been loving my bike lately. I did my best to reassure Judi as we grabbed some pizza, then it was time to go to our respective hotels and get some sleep.
The weather forecast was looking pretty ominous. The weather channel app showed an angry grey cloud with a thunderbolt hanging out of it next to every line on the hourly forecast starting at the same time as the race. When I opened my hotel door at 6 am, there was a giant flash. The area that the hotel was in reminded me of East LA, and for a second I wondered if it had been a gunshot before a big, fat rain drop fell on my head and I figured out what was going on. Left: They made us wear mirrors. The mirror that I attached to my sperm hat had fallen off by half way through the race.
At the start, the rain was unenthusiastic. While Judi had been so nervous that she ralphed up all her breakfast on the way to the race, I was pretty lackadaisical about the whole thing. Meh, I'll just start pedaling and keep pedaling until I don't want to anymore, I thought. The rain wasn't boding well for my waning motivation. I took my time finishing my coffee and rocking up to the start, even though this was a draft-legal race, and therefore it would have behooved me to move closer to the front pack. I only muscled my way half way through the crowd that had already formed at the start, and Judi and I settled down next to an HPV (human-powered vehicle: with all kinds of aerodynamic accessories to reach the fastest speeds recorded by any non-motorized vehicle) that looked like a penis in a giant yellow condom. And I thought that I was a dork in my sperm hat!
I'm the one in the blue coat in the background. You can tell it wasn't a pretty morning.
"C'mon blue!" yelled someone as they rode by me standing ass-up over my cooler. Yeah, whatever. Fuck off, I thought as I mounted my bike and checked over my shoulder to make sure that I really was alone. Within a couple of miles, I found myself riding with a guy on a fixie, and like a snowball rolling down a hill we picked up more and more riders until we'd formed a group of about six. The wind had picked up to about 10 mph (if you trust the weather report) or 20 mph (more likely), and the whole course was exposed. The crosswind blowing through my spokes was making a maddening low whistling sound that was practically driving me to tears, and the headwind wouldn't let us break 15 mph.
It would have been wise to ride in a paceline with the guys, but they all had the worst bike handling skills I'd ever seen. They were weaving all over the road and had no idea how to behave in a pack. At one point they formed a beautiful five-man echelon (the most efficient formation for a crosswind) clear across the road, leaving me trailing behind and fighting the wind by myself. No one was trading pulls, and I was starting to get cranky and was afraid that I was going to tear these guys a new asshole if I rode with them much longer. When we got to the far check point at about mile 77, I let the zig-zag boys ride on while I got off to refill my water bottles. I would continue to run into these same guys throughout the race, and it often took more effort not to ride with them, but it was well worth the extra pushing to get rid of them.
RAAM veteran Terry and I ride through the crappy, crappy rain. I'm hidden behind the big guy in the back. He couldn't handle his bike worth a damn, and he was the main reason I wound up riding alone after mile 75.
Now that I was by myself, I could set my mind to more important matters. I had to pee. I knew that since I was soaked, if I stopped for too long I would get cold and it would be impossible to warm up again, so I figured I'd just pee all over myself on the bike. Hey, I was already wet. One problem though: the course was completely flat. It's next to impossible to pee on the bike while you're pedaling. It took me thirteen miles of pushing so hard on my innards that it made me burp to finally find a downhill where I could let loose. Pee ran through my shorts, down my legs, over my seat and onto my wheel, which flicked drops of pee every which way. Not a minute later, two guys came up behind me when I hadn't seen a soul in half an hour. To make it worse, I noticed for the first time that it had stopped raining. Oops! It never did rain again to wash all the pee off of me, and I wonder if that had something to do with the giant boil that has formed in my crotch since the race.
When I finished the second loop I had 100 miles behind me, and set out for my last loop of the long course by myself. By the time I got back the 7-mile short loop would be open, and I was
hoping it would be more sheltered in town. I told myself, Just 27 miles into the wind to the far point on the loop, then the next 23 miles are free into the tailwind. So I battled through the headwind by myself until I caught a tailwind about 7 miles early. I didn't let myself think about what that meant until I had already turned around and my tailwind was gone. The wind had turned! Fuuuuuuuck! At the halfway checkpoint I asked how many women had come through on their third loop.
"There were three women who were riding together, but the last time they came through they'd lost one of their riders."
"And they were on their third loop?" I asked.
"I think so."
So I wasn't winning... maybe. Damn! Oh well. I still had my tailwind (that would never be) to look forward to, so my spirits were high.
Finally through the crosswind that was not a tailwind, I rode through the start/finish area and headed right out for the first of several 7-mile loops. I couldn't wait to see what this short, sheltered loop would look like; Not sheltered at all, as it turned out. The winds felt stronger on the short loop than they had on the long loop, although the cycles of highs and lows were shorter. On my second loop I easily passed a girl who looked strong enough to have maybe been ahead of me this whole time (turns out she'd take second to me in my age group). Then I caught up to the guy on the fixie. "Go blue!" he said. He had such a southern twang that he managed to make these two words last for about 10 syllables. I hunkered in next to him for a chat.
"So is that fixed or single speed?" I asked.
"This one here," (this 'un hey-yere) "she's fixed" (she's fi-ixed). I asked him where he was from (Noahth Car'laahna), and how long it took him to get here. "About eight hours. Normally I ride, but this time I drove." So he was one of those super anti-social randonneurs. Clearly he didn't take his meds. I noticed that his helmet was held on with climbing rope rather than regular flat straps. "Oh you have no idea how anti-social I am!" he said. "You ever think of doing the grand-daddy of 'em all?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"RAAM." It wasn't till long after I'd told him that I was going to be there as part of a crew this year, and then finally asked him whether he'd ever done it that he revealed his experience. "What? You mean crewing? Yeah. I done that a coupla times."
"No, I mean ride it."
"Yep. I done that a coupla times too. Everybody at RAAM's got a Droppin' Terry story."
I looked at him. "How many times have you done it?"
"I done four, but I only finished three. And I come in third 'mercan each time," he recalled, thinking about it. "I'm trying this race to see if I want to do it this year on a fixie."
"They're sure going to tell good stories at your funeral," I said. I was impressed not only that he had finished RAAM so many times, but that it had taken him so long to boast about it. As I've said before, the people who deserve to brag are the ones that never do.
"You're in the lead," Terry told me.
"I thought there were 2 women ahead of me?"
"Not anymore they ain't," he said with such certainty that I believed him.
RAAM Veteran Terry drafting off of me.
I lost Terry as we turned out of the wind and I could use my bigger gears to my advantage. For the rest of the race, my mind had turned to mush. I couldn't remember where I was, in Ohio, or Mississippi, or maybe upstate New York, or perhaps the moon. I couldn't remember what the long loop looked like, or even how many of the short loop I'd done. My head hurt and I'd felt like I could fall asleep at any second for hours. I knew I was dehydrated, but it was so late that I could never catch up, so I just kept drinking at the same rate. Time stretched out, and it took me forever and ever to hit 200 miles. I knew that if I really stepped on it, I could set a PR and break my 12-hour record of 220 miles, but I didn't care enough to push it.
When I was talking to Terry about RAAM, I checked in with myself. Did I want to do RAAM? Did I want to do things like ride to Ohio on my bike, just to ride my bike for 12 more hours and ride home? My neck hurt already, and although I wasn't making excuses to get off my bike, I still wanted the 12 hours to be over. Did I want to do RAAM? No, I didn't think so. I didn't want to be one of those "anti-social" crazy people, I kind of wanted to know what it felt like to be one of those people who "took her meds." I wanted to fit in again. I kind of wanted to stop making sacrifices for a little while. Even the fact that I was winning didn't give me much of a thrill or a drive to keep going. I forbade myself from getting off my bike unless it was absolutely necessary to refill on fuel or fluids, but the spark was gone. I was satisfied with where I was and didn't really feel like pushing harder. What I really wanted was to have someone waiting for me at the finish line, someone to give me a massage on clean hotel sheets after the race. I know I need to keep active to keep myself from going crazy, but do I really need to be doing these crazy competitions and beating other girls to be satisfied with myself? The answer I kept coming up with was, Not so much anymore.
I set out for what would be my final loop with less than 15 minutes to go. There would be a volunteer waiting at every mile marker to tell us when the race was over. The Grim Reepers (as I dubbed them) were already out on the course, calling out time checks as we rolled by. "You can fit in 3 more miles!" someone yelled at the start/finish area. "10 minutes to go!" one yelled at mile 1. "You've got about 6 minutes!" yelled the next.
I turned out of the headwind and rode like hell for the next Grim Reeper. He didn't stop the guy riding in front of me, so I yelled out, "TIME CHECK?!" as I rolled by.
"Three minutes!" he yelled. "Go for it!"
Three minutes meant that I would have to average 20 mph with a crosswind and up a slight incline over the next mile (plus a bit of a downhill to the mile marker at the end). I started hauling ass, and pulled in to the last mile marker with seconds to spare, gasping and coughing. According to my GPS I'd gone 216.6 miles. They rounded it up to 218.5. If I had just squeezed a little more, I could have pulled out that last 3.5 miles I needed for a PR. Oh well.
All in all I counted the race as a success. Not only had I won by about 13 miles over the next woman, I'd also spent about an hour more on the bike than I had in last year's race and had gutted it out in way tougher conditions. In 12 hours I had been off the bike for less than 15 minutes. My neck, shoulders, back and feet hurt, but my legs and contact points felt fine. Although I didn't want to, I could have kept riding.
They made us wait forever for the awards, and right after getting our medals (Judi got third in her AG), we had to jet back to Cincinati, about 2 hours away.
The next day I felt completely hung over. My head hurt like hell, and I felt like I could fall asleep at any moment. I had that heavy hangover feeling in my body like my veins had been filled with concrete, and I could barely muster the energy to participate in conversations... which I felt horrible about because I really wanted to prove to Judi and Dominic that I was a fun and interesting person. "You're not at all what I expected you to be like," Judi had told me on the night we first met. "I was expecting you to be all chipper and 'rah, rah, rah!' You're actually really chill and laid back." I get that a lot.
I've felt awful after races before with stomach upset, sore muscles and screaming sun burns, but I'd never felt like I'd downed a bottle of cheap vodka and a case of Red Bulls. It was probably the combination of not drinking enough, not drinking enough electrolytes (I foolishly went for water throughout the day) and tripling my season-to-date maximum volume. Instead of me being a fun and interesting person to entertain my hosts, we spent the rest of the day draped in dogs and watching movies on cable.
On the 14-hour drive home, I ran out of audiobooks to listen to and finally had the time to sort through my thoughts through Pennsylvainia and New York. By Connecticut I felt like I had most of it figured out. In the darkest corners of my brain, I still couldn't find my bloodthirsty competitive instinct. The thoughts that were firing me up were off the bike. I missed going out into the woods by myself or with the dog and dancing over rocks and roots. I yearned for a feeling of accomplishment from a job, not a race. Then "Here for Now" (the song quoted above) came on my iPod. "You know you need your instrument" (in this case, my bike), "but does your instrument need to be mic'ed?" Do I really need to figure into some national rankings to feel a sense of accomplishment? I do need to be active and constantly challenging myself, but do I really need trophies and upgrade points to be fulfilled? Lately the most satisfying victories are the ones that receive no recognition: not quitting in the face of tough conditions, being able to dig deep in order to push my body beyond its own limits (even if they didn't look like limits on paper), and just finding that rare and unexpected workout that makes me feel like life is better because of it.
Yes, I've done some pretty epic rides in the past, but I haven't ridden anything longer than 4 hours in six months. Twelve straight hours in the saddle was definitely over my head. Adding to the adventure, I had only put my aero bars on for the first time in six months right before leaving Boston. So much for training as you race. I rode the bike to work on Thursday to make sure that everything was in its proper place, and it turns out that my saddle was about an inch too high. Being the bright bulb I am, I didn't bring a multi-tool with me, and had to ride like that for 18 miles round-trip. I hoped that the adjustments I made in the parking lot at race registration would be good enough. I mean, riding around for 30 seconds is a pretty accurate depiction of what'll happen after 12 hours in the saddle, right? After the race Judi's boyfriend Dominic would tell me, "I don't know how you could ride at all with your saddle that crooked. My junk would've been all messed up."
"My saddle's crooked?" I said. Yep, that's me. If they used to call Lance "Mister Millimeter" for being so picky about his bike set-up, then you can call me "Miss Meter," meaning "as long as it's within a meter, then I probably won't know the difference."
The woman in front of me in line at registration was about 150 pounds overweight, and when they asked her if she was doing the 12-hour or the fun ride she said, "No way, I'm just doing the fun ride! I take my meds!" This last part cracked her up. She seemed to be thinking, Hardy-har-har, 'I take my meds!' Isn't that funny? Because all you people are crazy who do the 12-hour race. Lunatics! Harharhar. Meds. Ha. You crazy fuckers. No one around her seemed amused though, so she said her brilliant joke again. "No, I'm not doing the 12-hour! I take my meds." Still no response. The race volunteer cut through the awkward silence and started explaining the course to her, pointing out where she could take a short cut since she wasn't doing the 12 hour race. "NO! I'm definitely not doing the 12-hour race... because I take my meds every day!" she tried again. I wanted to point out that A) everyone had heard her the first two times, B) most populations don't take kindly to people calling them maniacs for doing what they love, C) getting in shape to do 12 hours of exercise might do a big girl like her some good, and D) she should get her fat ass out of my way. The next day I did notice that the well-medicated fun rider was at the race, but her meds also apparently kept her from riding in the rain. Apparently the difference between people who can make their dreams happen and those who wind up being unfunny fatass couch potatoes is that effective people "don't take their meds."
Judi showed up about an hour later with the famous Dominic and began describing how nervous she was. I didn't know what to say. I mean, in a 12-hour race you can ride 2 miles, or you can ride 300. It's the only race that you can quit when the going gets tough and not DNF. I didn't much care HOW far I got tomorrow, and fully recognized that I might quit before 100 miles if things weren't going well. I had no intention of gutting through this race on willpower alone, just in case burnout really is the reason I haven't been loving my bike lately. I did my best to reassure Judi as we grabbed some pizza, then it was time to go to our respective hotels and get some sleep.The weather forecast was looking pretty ominous. The weather channel app showed an angry grey cloud with a thunderbolt hanging out of it next to every line on the hourly forecast starting at the same time as the race. When I opened my hotel door at 6 am, there was a giant flash. The area that the hotel was in reminded me of East LA, and for a second I wondered if it had been a gunshot before a big, fat rain drop fell on my head and I figured out what was going on. Left: They made us wear mirrors. The mirror that I attached to my sperm hat had fallen off by half way through the race.At the start, the rain was unenthusiastic. While Judi had been so nervous that she ralphed up all her breakfast on the way to the race, I was pretty lackadaisical about the whole thing. Meh, I'll just start pedaling and keep pedaling until I don't want to anymore, I thought. The rain wasn't boding well for my waning motivation. I took my time finishing my coffee and rocking up to the start, even though this was a draft-legal race, and therefore it would have behooved me to move closer to the front pack. I only muscled my way half way through the crowd that had already formed at the start, and Judi and I settled down next to an HPV (human-powered vehicle: with all kinds of aerodynamic accessories to reach the fastest speeds recorded by any non-motorized vehicle) that looked like a penis in a giant yellow condom. And I thought that I was a dork in my sperm hat!
I'm the one in the blue coat in the background. You can tell it wasn't a pretty morning.Once the race started, I did my best to catch up with the lead pack, but where I'd seeded myself at the start made that pretty much impossible. Instead, I settled into the second or third chase pack and tried to figure out the best way to draft with aero bars in the rain. Almost as soon as we started riding, the skies opened up, my glasses clouded over, my socks got sopping wet, and life got miserable. It was damned windy out there, and every time I let the gap grow to more than about an arm's length, it became a huge effort to catch back on. As the second hour was approaching without my having a chance to eat anything and barely drinking a drop, I decided that group be damned, I had to eat. I dropped back as I shoved a bar in my mouth and tried to catch back on to the pack that was moving along at 20 mph. It took me a good 10 minutes to whittle the gap down to nothing again, and I realized that I couldn't keep this 20 mph pace up for the rest of the race. When we got back to the start/finish area after 50 miles, I hopped off my bike to grab more bars and liquids and decided to ride my own race.
"C'mon blue!" yelled someone as they rode by me standing ass-up over my cooler. Yeah, whatever. Fuck off, I thought as I mounted my bike and checked over my shoulder to make sure that I really was alone. Within a couple of miles, I found myself riding with a guy on a fixie, and like a snowball rolling down a hill we picked up more and more riders until we'd formed a group of about six. The wind had picked up to about 10 mph (if you trust the weather report) or 20 mph (more likely), and the whole course was exposed. The crosswind blowing through my spokes was making a maddening low whistling sound that was practically driving me to tears, and the headwind wouldn't let us break 15 mph.
It would have been wise to ride in a paceline with the guys, but they all had the worst bike handling skills I'd ever seen. They were weaving all over the road and had no idea how to behave in a pack. At one point they formed a beautiful five-man echelon (the most efficient formation for a crosswind) clear across the road, leaving me trailing behind and fighting the wind by myself. No one was trading pulls, and I was starting to get cranky and was afraid that I was going to tear these guys a new asshole if I rode with them much longer. When we got to the far check point at about mile 77, I let the zig-zag boys ride on while I got off to refill my water bottles. I would continue to run into these same guys throughout the race, and it often took more effort not to ride with them, but it was well worth the extra pushing to get rid of them.
RAAM veteran Terry and I ride through the crappy, crappy rain. I'm hidden behind the big guy in the back. He couldn't handle his bike worth a damn, and he was the main reason I wound up riding alone after mile 75.Now that I was by myself, I could set my mind to more important matters. I had to pee. I knew that since I was soaked, if I stopped for too long I would get cold and it would be impossible to warm up again, so I figured I'd just pee all over myself on the bike. Hey, I was already wet. One problem though: the course was completely flat. It's next to impossible to pee on the bike while you're pedaling. It took me thirteen miles of pushing so hard on my innards that it made me burp to finally find a downhill where I could let loose. Pee ran through my shorts, down my legs, over my seat and onto my wheel, which flicked drops of pee every which way. Not a minute later, two guys came up behind me when I hadn't seen a soul in half an hour. To make it worse, I noticed for the first time that it had stopped raining. Oops! It never did rain again to wash all the pee off of me, and I wonder if that had something to do with the giant boil that has formed in my crotch since the race.
When I finished the second loop I had 100 miles behind me, and set out for my last loop of the long course by myself. By the time I got back the 7-mile short loop would be open, and I was
hoping it would be more sheltered in town. I told myself, Just 27 miles into the wind to the far point on the loop, then the next 23 miles are free into the tailwind. So I battled through the headwind by myself until I caught a tailwind about 7 miles early. I didn't let myself think about what that meant until I had already turned around and my tailwind was gone. The wind had turned! Fuuuuuuuck! At the halfway checkpoint I asked how many women had come through on their third loop.
"There were three women who were riding together, but the last time they came through they'd lost one of their riders."
"And they were on their third loop?" I asked.
"I think so."
So I wasn't winning... maybe. Damn! Oh well. I still had my tailwind (that would never be) to look forward to, so my spirits were high.
Finally through the crosswind that was not a tailwind, I rode through the start/finish area and headed right out for the first of several 7-mile loops. I couldn't wait to see what this short, sheltered loop would look like; Not sheltered at all, as it turned out. The winds felt stronger on the short loop than they had on the long loop, although the cycles of highs and lows were shorter. On my second loop I easily passed a girl who looked strong enough to have maybe been ahead of me this whole time (turns out she'd take second to me in my age group). Then I caught up to the guy on the fixie. "Go blue!" he said. He had such a southern twang that he managed to make these two words last for about 10 syllables. I hunkered in next to him for a chat.
"So is that fixed or single speed?" I asked.
"This one here," (this 'un hey-yere) "she's fixed" (she's fi-ixed). I asked him where he was from (Noahth Car'laahna), and how long it took him to get here. "About eight hours. Normally I ride, but this time I drove." So he was one of those super anti-social randonneurs. Clearly he didn't take his meds. I noticed that his helmet was held on with climbing rope rather than regular flat straps. "Oh you have no idea how anti-social I am!" he said. "You ever think of doing the grand-daddy of 'em all?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"RAAM." It wasn't till long after I'd told him that I was going to be there as part of a crew this year, and then finally asked him whether he'd ever done it that he revealed his experience. "What? You mean crewing? Yeah. I done that a coupla times."
"No, I mean ride it."
"Yep. I done that a coupla times too. Everybody at RAAM's got a Droppin' Terry story."
I looked at him. "How many times have you done it?"
"I done four, but I only finished three. And I come in third 'mercan each time," he recalled, thinking about it. "I'm trying this race to see if I want to do it this year on a fixie."
"They're sure going to tell good stories at your funeral," I said. I was impressed not only that he had finished RAAM so many times, but that it had taken him so long to boast about it. As I've said before, the people who deserve to brag are the ones that never do.
"You're in the lead," Terry told me.
"I thought there were 2 women ahead of me?"
"Not anymore they ain't," he said with such certainty that I believed him.
RAAM Veteran Terry drafting off of me.I lost Terry as we turned out of the wind and I could use my bigger gears to my advantage. For the rest of the race, my mind had turned to mush. I couldn't remember where I was, in Ohio, or Mississippi, or maybe upstate New York, or perhaps the moon. I couldn't remember what the long loop looked like, or even how many of the short loop I'd done. My head hurt and I'd felt like I could fall asleep at any second for hours. I knew I was dehydrated, but it was so late that I could never catch up, so I just kept drinking at the same rate. Time stretched out, and it took me forever and ever to hit 200 miles. I knew that if I really stepped on it, I could set a PR and break my 12-hour record of 220 miles, but I didn't care enough to push it.
When I was talking to Terry about RAAM, I checked in with myself. Did I want to do RAAM? Did I want to do things like ride to Ohio on my bike, just to ride my bike for 12 more hours and ride home? My neck hurt already, and although I wasn't making excuses to get off my bike, I still wanted the 12 hours to be over. Did I want to do RAAM? No, I didn't think so. I didn't want to be one of those "anti-social" crazy people, I kind of wanted to know what it felt like to be one of those people who "took her meds." I wanted to fit in again. I kind of wanted to stop making sacrifices for a little while. Even the fact that I was winning didn't give me much of a thrill or a drive to keep going. I forbade myself from getting off my bike unless it was absolutely necessary to refill on fuel or fluids, but the spark was gone. I was satisfied with where I was and didn't really feel like pushing harder. What I really wanted was to have someone waiting for me at the finish line, someone to give me a massage on clean hotel sheets after the race. I know I need to keep active to keep myself from going crazy, but do I really need to be doing these crazy competitions and beating other girls to be satisfied with myself? The answer I kept coming up with was, Not so much anymore.
I set out for what would be my final loop with less than 15 minutes to go. There would be a volunteer waiting at every mile marker to tell us when the race was over. The Grim Reepers (as I dubbed them) were already out on the course, calling out time checks as we rolled by. "You can fit in 3 more miles!" someone yelled at the start/finish area. "10 minutes to go!" one yelled at mile 1. "You've got about 6 minutes!" yelled the next.
I turned out of the headwind and rode like hell for the next Grim Reeper. He didn't stop the guy riding in front of me, so I yelled out, "TIME CHECK?!" as I rolled by.
"Three minutes!" he yelled. "Go for it!"
Three minutes meant that I would have to average 20 mph with a crosswind and up a slight incline over the next mile (plus a bit of a downhill to the mile marker at the end). I started hauling ass, and pulled in to the last mile marker with seconds to spare, gasping and coughing. According to my GPS I'd gone 216.6 miles. They rounded it up to 218.5. If I had just squeezed a little more, I could have pulled out that last 3.5 miles I needed for a PR. Oh well.
All in all I counted the race as a success. Not only had I won by about 13 miles over the next woman, I'd also spent about an hour more on the bike than I had in last year's race and had gutted it out in way tougher conditions. In 12 hours I had been off the bike for less than 15 minutes. My neck, shoulders, back and feet hurt, but my legs and contact points felt fine. Although I didn't want to, I could have kept riding.
They made us wait forever for the awards, and right after getting our medals (Judi got third in her AG), we had to jet back to Cincinati, about 2 hours away.
The next day I felt completely hung over. My head hurt like hell, and I felt like I could fall asleep at any moment. I had that heavy hangover feeling in my body like my veins had been filled with concrete, and I could barely muster the energy to participate in conversations... which I felt horrible about because I really wanted to prove to Judi and Dominic that I was a fun and interesting person. "You're not at all what I expected you to be like," Judi had told me on the night we first met. "I was expecting you to be all chipper and 'rah, rah, rah!' You're actually really chill and laid back." I get that a lot.
I've felt awful after races before with stomach upset, sore muscles and screaming sun burns, but I'd never felt like I'd downed a bottle of cheap vodka and a case of Red Bulls. It was probably the combination of not drinking enough, not drinking enough electrolytes (I foolishly went for water throughout the day) and tripling my season-to-date maximum volume. Instead of me being a fun and interesting person to entertain my hosts, we spent the rest of the day draped in dogs and watching movies on cable.
On the 14-hour drive home, I ran out of audiobooks to listen to and finally had the time to sort through my thoughts through Pennsylvainia and New York. By Connecticut I felt like I had most of it figured out. In the darkest corners of my brain, I still couldn't find my bloodthirsty competitive instinct. The thoughts that were firing me up were off the bike. I missed going out into the woods by myself or with the dog and dancing over rocks and roots. I yearned for a feeling of accomplishment from a job, not a race. Then "Here for Now" (the song quoted above) came on my iPod. "You know you need your instrument" (in this case, my bike), "but does your instrument need to be mic'ed?" Do I really need to figure into some national rankings to feel a sense of accomplishment? I do need to be active and constantly challenging myself, but do I really need trophies and upgrade points to be fulfilled? Lately the most satisfying victories are the ones that receive no recognition: not quitting in the face of tough conditions, being able to dig deep in order to push my body beyond its own limits (even if they didn't look like limits on paper), and just finding that rare and unexpected workout that makes me feel like life is better because of it.
