10.7.2013 | 6:17 am
A Note from Fatty about today’s entry: This is part 10 of my Salt to Saint writeup, for crying out loud. It’ll make more sense if you read the earlier installments first:
I want to tell an accurate, honest story here. I want to describe what it’s really like to ride your road bike for 423 miles, nonstop, with your wife. Paradoxically (I think), though, part of being honest and accurate with my storytelling means that I have to confess that there is no way I can be accurate about a big chunk of the nighttime hours of the race. They blend together, muddled up in my mind. I’ve lost track of what cities we went through, or in what order, or where the climbs and descents happened.
My clearest recollection is staring at the white line, aware that The Hammer is close enough behind that I can see the wash of her light directly ahead of me.
I remember being grateful for that fact, because my neck was too sore, too stiff, to turn around and check whether we were still together.
I remember losing all interest in speed, distance, and time. Those were all numbers that I figured would be relevant again when it got light.
I remember that we were almost always going uphill. Just barely uphill, but uphill.
I remember thinking about RAAM — the Race Across America. I thought about how the idea of it, once intriguing, was now completely abhorrent to me. Not because I thought I couldn’t do it. Just the opposite: I got a pretty good sense that maybe I have exactly the right gifts for this kind of race, both mental and physical. But I didn’t want to. I couldn’t, in fact, picture how anyone would want to ride the RAAM. A week-plus of this? No thanks.
Also, I spent several minutes considering what a stupid acronym “RAAM” is.
But more than anything else, I remember how I learned to hate food.
New Rule
When we were planning for this race, The Hammer and I had agreed: we’d never stop except to pee or change clothing. We’d do all our eating, all our drinking, while riding our bikes.
And to our credit, we had stuck with that plan for a big chunk of the race. At least half of it, I’d say.
But as we crossed the line into Saturday, The Hammer suggested that it was too hard to eat every half hour now; we should try to eat every hour, instead. And also, we should stop while we ate, just for a few minutes.
That was fine with me. That was an easy decision, in fact.
It was, however, much harder to decide what to eat.
What to Eat?
I love Honey Stinger energy chews. Love them. I could eat three packets of them, right this second. But I had been eating nothing but them for the past seven hours or so — meaning I had eaten around fourteen packets.
I was ready for a change.
The problem was, nothing sounded good. Nothing at all. It wasn’t so much that everything sounded bad, either. It was just that my mind was so scrambled that I couldn’t do what I normally do when it’s time to eat. And what do I normally do when it’s time to eat? Why, I make a call to the special place in my brain where I can ask myself, “What sounds good to eat right now?” and expect an immediate list to come to mind, cross-tabbed by closeness-to-hand, ease of preparation, and best taste. A matrix of deliciousness, if you will.
Now, however, just when I needed it most, instead of a list of things I’d like to eat I was getting a 404 – Not Found message.
“How about a turkey and swiss cheese sandwich on a dinner roll?” Blake asked, digging through the ice chest.
Was he kidding? Was that really an option? I had no idea.
“That would be fine,” I said. “With plenty of extra mayo, please, because I’m pretty sure that I am currently not making any saliva at all.”
(This may have been due to the fact that I had secretly stopped drinking anything while riding about four hours ago, about the time it had gotten dark. Nobody could see my bottles, though, and I wasn’t volunteering the information, because I knew I’d be scolded. Besides, every hour or so I was drinking a Red Bull, and that was enough liquid when it was cold and I wasn’t sweating [much], right? Right?)
The Hammer wanted one, too, but without the obscene amount of mayo.
This Behavior Must Stop
Blake made his mom’s sandwich, then made mine. This was how things had gone, the whole day: take care of The Hammer, then take care of Fatty. Ladies first, you know. Plus, the crew had been stacked with The Hammer’s side of the family. And so I had gotten used to waiting, and I was fine with it.
Except for one small detail.
Once The Hammer had finished eating, she would go. Regardless of whether I was finished eating, or not. Without even checking, really. Two or three times during the day, in fact, I had just had my first bite of whatever I was eating when The Hammer started riding away.
“I guess I’m done,” I’d say, handing back whatever I was eating and burning a match to catch up with The Hammer.
By now, however, I was out of “catch up with The Hammer” matches. And I needed to fuel up.
So, as I took my first bite of my sandwich and The Hammer started rolling away, I yelled, “Just STOP for a second, will you?! Can I please eat, too?”
The Hammer looked startled, possibly due to the fact that I used more sarcasm than was necessary. It’s also possible that I yelled louder than was necessary.
“But I always do this,” she said. “I don’t want to hold you up.”
“I know,” I said. “But I am done with chasing. For the rest of this race, I am all about a consistent, slow pace. And I need to eat. So don’t leave anymore until we’re both ready to go.”
“Has this been bothering you for a while?” The Hammer asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “For around the past seven hours or so.”
“Well why did you wait seven hours to say something?” she asked.
It was a good question. And very soon, I expect to have a fantastic answer occur to me.
And Now for Some Electronic Geekery
“SR-14″ is not a particularly glorious-sounding name for an important milestone in the race. But it was, in fact, quite possibly the single most important milestone of the entire race, as far as The Hammer and I were concerned. Because that transition area marked the end of our giant, never-ending (like, ninety miles!) false flat of a climb.
For the next 22 miles, it was going to be nothing but downhill. Free miles! It promised to be the easiest, fastest segment of the day, though we had been warned that all this descending from a mountain pass in the dead of night would be brutally cold.
So as we ate our sandwiches — another turkey and cheese for each of us — we dressed extra-warmly, adding a jacket and heavy gloves to the layers we already wore.
We also took the opportunity to swap out some of our electronics.
First, we swapped batteries on our NiteRider 1800 Pro Races — the first set of batteries had lasted an astonishing 6.5 hours and were still going, but we didn’t want to have to change batteries during the descent. Also, we mounted the big guns, lightwise, onto our handlebars: NiteRider Pro 3600 DIYs. Which meant we each had a total of 5400 lumens of light available to us, so that when we rode beside each other heading downhill (we were very intentionally not getting on the side of the road; we were being as big and obvious as we could), we cast off considerably more light than a car does.
Is it obvious that I’m kind of in love with NiteRider?
Next, we swapped out our Garmins. We had gotten 17+ hours our of our 510s, but had gotten the “low battery” warning, so we switched over to our old 500’s.
My Garmin 500 would not, by the way, survive the descent. Somewhere along the way — the catch that attaches to the mount worn away from years of use — it popped out of the mount. I never noticed ’til the next transition, by which time my 510 was fully recharged anyway.
So if by chance you come across a Garmin 500 laying on the road somewhere between SR-14 and Kanab in Utah, uh, please feel free to keep it. Because it won’t stay on your mount anyway.
Maladies
The Hammer and I started on our big, long-anticipated descent. The one we were so excited about. The one we had been talking about.
And it sucked.
I was hurting in a big way. Or should I say “ways.” Because there were three things simultaneously going on.
First, I had heartburn. Bad. Searing, painful heartburn. This would be my companion for about ten minutes every time I ate for the rest of the race. I suspect this was due to the enormous amount of Red Bull I had been drinking. Probably it is not advisable to drink sixteen Red Bulls over the course of a day. I expect that Red Bull would probably concur.
Second, I was getting verrrrrry drowsy. Something that hadn’t occurred to me during the constant climbing for the past several hours was that the effort of climbing kept my heart rate up, which in turn kept me awake.
Now I was coasting. Hardly moving at all, really. And I felt a deep and pressing need to fall asleep. But I didn’t, because of the third problem, which was…
Third, Hiccups. Hiccups became my bane. Yes, they kept me awake, but other than that they were driving me completely nuts. And it wasn’t just an isolated case of hiccups that went away after a few minutes. Starting around 3:00am and for the rest of the race, I would get hiccups every time I ate something.
I was miserable. Much more miserable than this list would suggest.
And also, I needed to poop.
Comments (38)
10.7.2013 | 5:20 am
A Note from Fatty: My friends at Shimano are currently doing a sweepstakes, called “12 for 12.” It takes only a minute or two to answer the survey to enter, and you can win some really nice Shimano prizes — full-on group, wheels, or gift certificates. Allow me to recommend you click here to enter. And allow me to further recommend that maybe “other” is a good option for the “favorite online cycling site” question, and that perhaps you might want to write something in. What that something might be is of course entirely up to you.
A Note from Fatty about today’s entry: This is part 9 of my Salt to Saint writeup. It’ll make more sense if you read the earlier installments first:
We’re on the Road to Nowhere
It’s a strange thing, to be around halfway through a 423-mile bike race, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, on a road that just…ends. No way forward. No idea how or where you missed a turn.
It makes you question the wisdom of recent decisions you’ve made.
“So, where now?” I asked The Hammer. I was not being rhetorical.
“I don’t know,” she replied. She, too, was not being rhetorical.
The only option, it seemed, was for us to turn around and head back the way from which we had come.
Wonderful.
We rode back, slowly, looking for a way to get back to the highway. And in less than a mile, we found a turn, apparently heading toward a cluster of cabins and houses. We assumed that there must be a road from the houses back to the highway. Which, now that I think back, was a terrible assumption.
As it turns out, however, it was correct. We were back on the highway, and — we hoped — back on the course.
(Later we’d look back at the turn-by-turn directions for the race and discover that we should have stayed on the bike path for only 0.3 miles, as opposed to the five or so miles we rode. I’m not sure how we missed the course marking, though it’s likely because we just weren’t looking for a course marking directing us off the path so soon after we had gotten on.)
In any case, we were glad to be back on the highway. Now all we needed was to be reunited with our crew.
Again.
A Difficult Question to Answer
You know, I’m tempted to end right there for the day; leaving The Hammer and me in the middle of the night on a lonely highway with no idea of where our crew was would be a pretty dramatic conclusion to a chapter.
But it’d be a kinda short chapter. And besides, Zac and Blake found us within about two minutes of when we got onto the highway, as if we were carrying a homing beacon.
We were now beginning what we both knew was the real test of the race.
When it’s light out, the primary sense — and indeed, the primary pleasure — of cycling is a feeling of motion. You’re going somewhere. You can see it. Every minute you’re on a bike, you have something new to look at. Something you’re getting closer to. Something you’re passing.
When it’s dark, that all changes. You’re just riding, with your vision restricted to what your light reveals. And even when you’re using truly fantastic lights — and the NiteRider Race 1800s we were riding with were truly fantastic — you see at best the road ahead of you and perhaps a little bit off the shoulder.
Your universe gets pretty darned small.
And that was how it was going to be for the next long while.
I stopped looking at my Garmin; the distance we had gone, the speed we were going, the time we had spent on our bikes — none of those held any meaning to me. The only metric that mattered was that, eventually, the sky would lighten. And when that happened, we’d be in a much different place. And that place would be pretty close to the finish line. Maybe we’d have only a hundred miles left to go.
Yeah. “Only” a hundred miles left to go.
Because my job had pretty much consumed my life for the past few weeks, I really had no idea of what we were in for during our night hours of this race. So I asked The Hammer.
“I think we’re climbing, gradually, for about twenty miles,” she said. “And then we have a big descent.”
I told her she sounded unsure.
“I can’t remember for sure,” she said. “It’s all a jumble now.”
I knew what she meant. I was having a hard time putting sentences together, and often was slurring words.
“Let’s ask Blake how far we have to ride ’til we’re at the summit,” The Hammer said, and waved the truck toward us (for the whole of the night, Blake and Zac essentially idled behind us, giving us a measure of protection from any vehicles that might be approaching from behind).
“Yeah?” asked Blake.
“We have about twenty miles ’til we reach the summit and have the big descent, right?” asked The Hammer.
“You have to climb as far as you have to climb,” Blake called back.
“How far is that?” asked The Hammer.
“It’s as far as it is!” Blake answered.
“Your son,” I muttered to The Hammer, “is an obstinate obstructionist. You’re asking for some simple information and instead he wants to play verbal volleyball.”
Then, louder, I yelled to Blake, “Just tell us how far we have ’til we hit the big descent!”
“About ninety miles,” Blake replied.
The next day, he’d tell us, “I just didn’t want to say it. Ninety miles of climbing. How do you tell your mom, in the middle of the night, that she’s at the beginning of a ninety-mile climb?”
A Plea For Help, Reluctantly Answered
I don’t want to make that ninety-mile climb sound more dramatic than it should, because while — sure — the next ninety miles ahead of us trended upward, they barely trended upward. So slight, in fact, that we opted to ride this big chunk of the race on our Shivs.
In fact, the slight uphill was welcome; the extra little bit of work helped us stay nice and warm.
Even so, however, it eventually got cold enough that it was time to put some extra clothes on. Here’s what we layered on top of the cycling clothes we had started the day in:
- arm warmers
- long sleeve jersey
- wind front tights
- shoe covers
- warmer gloves
I’d like to point out that while we had made a lot of mistakes — and had a lot of bad luck — in this race, our clothing was one thing we absolutely nailed. We started from the premise that the shorts and jerseys we started the race in would stay on, and we’d add and remove layers as necessary.
Neither of us were ever cold. Neither of us were ever uncomfortable. Well, except for the way my tights would bunch up in the crotchal region when I’d get low on the aero bars, which would pinch a bit. And I cannot believe I just typed that sentence.
That, however, was nowhere near as awkward as the incident during which The Hammer needed a little extra help as she got layered up into some warmer clothing.
It was dark. It was getting cold. It had been a while since The Hammer had peed. So, before she put on tights and a long-sleeve jersey, she grabbed a tube of DZ Bliss, went behind the car and took care of her bathroom business.
Then she called out, “Zac, come back here and help me.”
I have never, ever, in the history of my life, seen such a look of panic in my life. Zac looked over to Blake, the question of “Should I make a run for it?” clearly on his face.
Blake just shrugged.
Zac looked to me. I looked away.
“Hurry up!” shouted The Hammer.
Bracing himself, Zac walked back behind the truck, fully expecting to have to help his mom in a way he would never have expected to.
Imagine — if you can — Zac’s relief to discover that The Hammer merely wanted help getting her long-sleeve jersey on.
Comments (27)
09.30.2013 | 8:23 am
A Note from Fatty: Looking for earlier installments to this series? Here you go:
- Part I: The Things that Hurt
- Part II: Meet Your Competitors
- Part III: Team Fatty Cannot Seem to Catch a Break
- Part IV: Support from a Unicorn
- Part V: Life as a Domestique
We had just finished the first hundred miles of a 423-mile ride. So, not quite a quarter of the way done. Still, I had decided that anytime I hit a hundred mile mark, I was going to celebrate.
“We’re 25% done!” I shouted to The Hammer. “We’ve got a good start!”
She agreed, nodding her head. I wondered if she was thinking about the strangeness of what I had just said in the same way I was: calling a 100-mile ride “a good start.”
But in our heads, that’s the way it was. Normally, by the time we reach the 100-mile mark, our bodies and minds are ready to get off the bike. But we had thought about the distance and the time for this race long enough, and had told ourselves that getting to Nephi — kind of our outer-limit-distance for training rides — was where the ride really began often enough, that I didn’t expect to feel tired at this point.
And, amazingly, I wasn’t tired. I was just fine. So much of endurance racing is a mental game.
Oh No, Not Again
Within five miles of swapping out to our road bikes in Nephi, I could tell something was wrong.
My bike felt squishy. Sloppy. It’s a very distinct feeling.
It felt…the way a bike feels when a tire is slowly going flat.
“Maybe it’s all in my head,” I said to myself, knowing that this is not something that is ever all in my head.
“Is my rear tire low?” I called back to The Hammer.
“I don’t know. Maybe?” she yelled up to me. Which was less than confidence-inspiring.
So I pulled over, twisted around, and pressed my thumb down on my rear tire.
Yup. Going flat.
At which point I began softly weeping.
A Quick Change
I barely had time to climb off my bike before Scott and Kerry pulled up behind us. “Well, at least I can use the floor pump to inflate the tire,” was pretty much all I thought.
The Hammer, though, had an idea that would get us on the road sooner. “Have them change the tire while you just switch over to your Shiv for the time being.”
“Hm,” I replied, looking for a way to put my objection delicately.
“What’s the problem?” The Hammer asked.
“I don’t think Scott or Kerry, you know, ride,” I said. “Do either of them know how to change a road tire?”
“Scott used to mountain bike; he knows how to change a tire,” The Hammer assured me.
“You’re OK to change a tire?” I asked Scott. “You’ll need to be sure to use one of the tubes with an 80mm stem, OK?”
“Sure,” Scott said.
“OK, let’s do it,” I said.
I told The Hammer to go on without me; I’d catch her as soon as my bike was unloaded. Within a couple minutes, I had the Shiv off the rack and was on my way.
A “Quick” Change
With The Hammer a couple minutes ahead of me, I was breaking one of the main rules we had set for ourselves at the beginning of this race: we stay together.
Now, in order to catch up with her, I broke another of our primary rules: stay out of the red zone. I stood up and went as hard as I could, figuring that once I caught up, I could back off for a few minutes and recover.
And that worked out just fine. Within ten minutes, I had caught up with The Hammer. “Let me draft behind you for a few minutes, OK?” I said.
Then, just about the time my breath was back to normal and I was ready to start taking turns at pulling again, Scott and Kerry drove past us, pulled off the side of the road, and unloaded my road bike.
“This will take less than a minute,” I said. “Just keep going and I’ll catch you after I hop off this bike and onto my road bike.”
So The Hammer kept going while I slowed down, dismounted, grabbed my road bike, shouted my thanks, and got riding again.
And then immediately stopped.
Something was seriously wrong with my bike. I could barely turn the cranks. I climbed off, lifted the rear wheel off the ground, and gave it a quick spin.
The wheel did not budge.
As I climbed off my bike, I noted that The Hammer was disappearing from sight; she didn’t realize I was having bike trouble.
Should I get back on my TT bike? Or fix my road bike? I decided to fix my road bike; this was a climbing section; I’d be standing often. I wanted my Tarmac.
So I looked down and noticed two problems I was going to need to address:
- One of the brake pads was halfway out of its track.
- The brake calipers were tweaked hard to port.
I couldn’t help but ask Scott and Kerry, “What happened here?”
“We had some trouble getting the wheel back in place once we changed the tire,” Kerry told me.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. Honestly, I just didn’t want to hear any more.
“So, could you go get my hex wrenches out of the blue bin in the back of my truck?”
I took the rear wheel off, got the brake pad back in place, and then re-centered and tightened the brake calipers. That pretty much takes me to the outer limits of my mechanic skills, so I was glad it wasn’t any trickier to fix than that.
“OK, I’m off again. See you soon!” I hollered.
I didn’t know how right I was.
I Love My Tarmac
Look. The Shiv is a fantastic bike. It’s amazing, frankly, at doing what it does best: go really fast on straight, flat roads. I mean, The Hammer and I had just knocked out seventy miles with hardly any effort at all on those bikes.
That said, I was so happy to be back on my Tarmac. I love that bike. When I’m on it, I just feel great. I can get in the drops and descend like a hawk. I can get on the hoods and ride forever. I can stand and climb forever.
It was the “stand and climb forever” part that came in handy now, cuz I figured The Hammer was at least eight or ten minutes ahead of me. “Miles,” I thought to myself. “I have miles to make up.”
And so I stood up and rode. Hard. Riding like I was going to be out for another hour or so, instead of for another twenty or so. Knowing that what I was doing was stupid strategy, but not really caring.
Because I love the way I can go on the Tarmac.
And sometimes love makes you do stupid things.
So Close
For twenty, I pushed myself. Just rode myself into a hole. And then I could see her. I had The Hammer in sight. “Another three minutes,” I thought to myself. “Three minutes and I’ve got her. And then I can draft off her for ten minutes or so, and everything will be great.”
And that’s when my bike started feeling squishy. You know, sloppy.
It’s a very distinct feeling.
I pulled over, watching The Hammer disappear again.
Which is where we’ll pick up tomorrow.
Comments (41)
09.24.2013 | 6:18 am
A Note from Fatty: Part I of the report is here.
A Note from Fatty About the Salt to Saint Race Format: Quite a few people commented about the racer in the green shirt in the background of a couple of the photos yesterday. Sadly, I don’t know who that is. He does represent, however, one of the things I loved about this race, though: diversity of participants. The Salt to Saint allows soloists (like The Hammer and me and a few others), four-person, and eight-person teams. On an eight-person team, each racer does around 50 miles of racing, with plenty of time between turns.
Salt to Saint even has an open division, which allows you to propose your own number of racers on your team. For example, this year there was a nine-person team named “18-Wheeler,” which I thought was fantastic.
On another team, I saw a dad with a different one of his children on each of his legs of the race. This kind of team-size flexibility allows anyone to be a part of the race, instead of just people (like me) who have gone a little overboard with their biking (and racing) obsession. And with the reasonably short race segments (13-20 miles, if I remember correctly), most people don’t have to worry about whether they can complete their part of the race.
In other words, Salt to Saint is a total relay road race gateway drug.
Let’s Start Off By Going The Wrong Direction
So here’s what has happened so far, just to refresh your memory.
Our crew — and all our stuff — was stranded with a truck that had decided — for SECURITY’s sake — to not allow anyone to turn the key in the ignition. The race had started, and The Hammer and I had taken off after expressing our confidence to our crew that they would — somehow — either get the truck started or get someone else to the starting line, transfer all our gear over, and then find us on the course.
Well, at least that gave The Hammer and me something to talk about as we rode. Which was a good thing, because I have a problem when I race: restraint.
Or, more to the point, my problem is lack of restraint. Which is to say, I tend to take off as if the finish line is in sight, even — apparently — when the finish line is a ridiculous distance away.
Here, look:
Yep, that’s me on the left, standing up at the starting line, doing everything I can to not launch an attack.
Yeesh, what a dork.
[Side Note: You'll notice that neither The Hammer nor I have race numbers on these bikes. This is because our race numbers are on our Shivs, which we expected to spend most of the race on.]
But I did not launch an attack. No. We talked about the fact that we were in quite a predicament. And that it was incredibly weird for us because we are both planners and love to nail down every last detail of how we’re going to approach a race and now, here we were, at the beginning of the longest — by a factor of more than two — ride of our lives, and we couldn’t control anything. All we could do is ride, and trust that the people we had asked to take care of us…would actually find a way to take care of us.
And we were so absorbed in the discussion of what a strange start to the race this had been that two blocks after the start of the race, we missed a turn.
We Meet Russell
In our defense, we were not the only people to miss that turn. We were, in fact, just being sheeple racers: following the line of the racers ahead of us. And about ten of us had just blown through a well-marked turn.
Who knows what would have happened if someone with keener eyesight and less of an inclination to just follow the wheels in front of them hadn’t yelled out.
As is, we only went out of our way by fifty feet or so, and that would be the only wrong turn (OK, actually there will be one more) of our entire trip; the Salt to Saint guys did a fantastic job of marking the course.
As we rode, we’d look at people’s race numbers. The Hammer told me we should be on the lookout for other racers with race plates from 52 to 54 (we were 50 and 51) — the other solo riders in the race.
A moment later, we caught up with Russell Mason, racer 54. We wished him luck as we went by, then I said to The Hammer, “Well, at least we’re no longer in last place.”
“Yeah,” she said, “But I wonder if he knows something we don’t. Maybe we’re going too fast and we’re going to blow up before we’re halfway done with the race.”
“I don’t feel like we’re going too hard. Do you?” I asked.
“No. And no matter how slow we go, we’re going to be sore and tired by the end of this race. So we may as well go at least at a medium effort. Let’s just try to never go into the red zone.”
We Meet Jacob and Jason
The Hammer and I kept on going at our nice medium pace, talking about how odd it was to be riding where we trained, but as a race. “We won’t really start counting it as a race ’til we get a hundred or so miles into it, OK?” The Hammer said.
We climbed up Wasatch Boulevard, a popular road for riding in our area, and that’s when we came across racers 52 and 53, Jason and Jake. “Hey, check us out. 80% of the solo riders are bunched up together!” I exclaimed.
“Are you riding together?” The Hammer asked.
“Sure, let’s work together, either Jake or Jason answered, misunderstanding her.
Still, it was a good idea, and we would have been happy to be part of a rotating paceline of four solo riders.
Except The Hammer’s chain chose that moment to fall off.
“Go on, we’ll catch you in a little while,” I said as they went by, although I had no expectation that we would actually catch them.
It took The Hammer only a few seconds to get her chain back on, although the fact that it had happened at all made me nervous. First the truck, then the wrong turn, then what could well be a problem with her front derailleur.
“This day isn’t starting out at all well,” I said. “A whole day’s worth of bad stuff has happened during the first hour of this race.”
And five minutes later, another whole day’s worth of trouble would begin.
Comments (2)
09.18.2013 | 7:40 am
My second of two major reports I’m writing for my day job is due today. So, today’s post is going to be first draft, brief, and mostly pictures. And I don’t have time to sit and stare at the screen, thinking of a clever and quite possibly metaphorical opening. So: this was my opening paragraph. I apologize.
The thing is, though, I did want to post, because I did something really cool last weekend: I actually volunteered at a race.
Yes, that’s right. I went to a race, and — instead of racing — I helped out.
It’s possible that part of the reason I volunteered at this race — the second time I have done so in my whole life — is because it was a NICA high school MTB race, which means that I am roughly three times the age of the average participant.
Part of the other reason is that — like a lot of people — I’ve been inspired by the movie Singletrack High, and I wanted to help.
And I’m not the only one in the family to get inspired by that film. When we were in Leadville, The Swimmer went to a screening of the movie with us, and — as soon as we got home — she signed up for the MTB team.
So this is the story of our first NICA race. A little bit about The Swimmer, and a little about me.
Before the Race
What astonished me when we arrived at the parking lot near Corner Canyon, where the race would be held, was how many people were there. 500 racers, most with family.
I get the sense that mountain biking is going to be seeing a massive surge in popularity in the next few years.
The Swimmer went to find her team, I went to the volunteer tent, and The Hammer went to go buy waffles at the Saturday’s Waffle stand. She got The Benny (a poached egg, lemon hollandaise sauce and a giant pile of bacon pieces on top of a waffle) for me, and now I’m a fan.
I had signed up to be a course marshal, but when I got to the tent they asked me if I’d be a roving marshal instead: basically, ride my bike around a certain portion of the course, looking for anything that’s amiss.
I said I’d be happy to, and they gave me a “Roving Marshal” race plate, a walkie talkie, a first aid kit, and an awesome bright orange vest.
I look rather fetching, if I do say so myself. Though I probably would’ve worn something different if I’d known I was going to be on the bike all day (But yes, I did have a helmet and bike shoes with me…I always have a helmet and bike shoes with me.).
During The Race
Shortly before the race began, I headed out onto my section of the course and began my routine. I’d ride for a while ’til I found a spot that had a good view of a big chunk of the course, then I’d stop, pull my cowbell out of my backpack, and cheer the racers on.
Of course, I may have been guilty of cheering The Swimmer on a little extra.
The Swimmer was racing in the JV group of girls: about thirty of them. This would be her first mountain bike race, ever, so really this was just for experience. A chance to find out what mountain bike racing is like.
And so I should not have been surprised — she is, after all, The Hammer’s daughter — when she came flying by me at the beginning of the first lap…in second place.
I let the rest of her wave go by, cheered on the next wave of girls (Freshman, I think?), then picked up my stuff and went course patrolling, looking for things that needed looking after.
Nothing needed looking after. Everything was fine.
After a while I found a good new place to stop for a while and cheer kids on.
The Swimmer was holding on to her second-place position, which I texted to The Hammer, who was volunteering in the feed zone.
Then — and I’m working from third-hand information here, so may not have the details right — The Swimmer crashed. Specifically, at the end of the lap racers go through a tunnel, at the end of which there is running water, because of all the rain we’ve had recently. The Swimmer went to corner out of the tunnel, slid out, and then slid into the water.
Making her muddy, bloody, and soaked, all in one instant.
She hopped back on her bike and charged out. She came into a corner too hot, found out too late that her brakes were still wet, and crashed again.
She then crashed a third time, but honestly at this point I can’t keep track of where or how. The point is, she kept crashing, but kept getting back on and going.
Naturally, she lost a couple places with all those wrecks, but still finished in fourth place in her category.
That’s an incredibly impressive feat for a first race, especially since she hadn’t been on a bike since she crashed out of the Half Ironman about a month ago.
So here’s the damage:
Ouch, huh?
Which makes me think. I don’t really believe “The Swimmer” is a good nickname for The Hammer’s daughter anymore.
I hereby dub her…Scar.
Don’t worry too much about all that mud and blood, by the way. Here she is three hours later:
Her first MTB race, three crashes, and then Homecoming.
Busy day.
PS: Scar has been mountain biking twice since the race. She has crashed both times.
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