Monday, October 15, 2007

stage eight – almost amboy to twenty-nine palms

58.2 miles, 4170' vertical

seven times, our team put an enthusiastic rider on the bike. at the start of each stage, we were itching to go. that streak ended in almost amboy. had someone given me the choice between getting back on the bike and having root canal, i was going with dental surgery.

sunday afternoon, i learned the difference between an endurance event and an ultra-endurance event. i trained for two stages. i knew i could tear up either one of them. fifty-eight miles and four thousand feet vertical? i've done that before breakfast. but riding in a 4x relay team in the 508 is not about riding two stages, it's about riding one event: two stages with a seven-hour recovery. i had the best ride of my life on the graveyard shift out of furnace creek, probably a three- or even four-thousand calorie effort. over the last three stages, i probably managed to consume six or seven hundred calories. didn't think to eat, and didn't feel like it anyway. do the math. i was out of gas at the starting line. endurance athletes need water, salt, and calories... i got two out of three. i was set up for the worst ride of my life, bar none.

riding in a bonk sucks a mop. riding the last stage of the furnace creek 508 in a bonk sucks the mop that just cleaned the floor of the mens' room at the goddam bus station...

what do you want to hear about? the broken pavement and crushed glass on the shoulder of route 66? the high-speed traffic? the way the shoulder disappeared altogether every time the road crossed a dry wash? the railroad crossing gates in amboy that almost clonked me coming down in front of an approaching high speed freight? (my stupidest move, following my crew through the crossing. still, with the train covering my back, i had no traffic worries for a while.) the moonscape vistas? (the eighth is not the prettiest stage.) the way i could only find 60% of my maximum heart rate? how my crew, themselves eager to finish, was pulling their eyes out watching me? how they counseled me to puke? (i know it worked for you, but chad, look, i'm not barfing.) the not one not two but three false summits at the top of the sheephole climb? the passing car that pulled in within inches of my wheel on the 35-mph descent from sheephole summit? the twenty-mile uphill finish? the santa ana headwind? good thing the desert finally started to get hot...

i had nothing to leave on the road, and there was nothing to do about it. just keep it turning and eat as much as you can. at the approach to sheephole summit, forty or more miles to go, deep into counting pedal strokes...

just shoot me. now. please. really, i mean it...

the carbs kicked in. the body is amazing. it won't go without fuel, but when it's gassed up, it almost jumps at the chance. didn't really feel any better, but all of a sudden i could click up a gear. then another. speed went from 10 to 18 mph, began to think i'd finish before dark. there was never any doubt in my mind about finishing. as i told tom later, even at six miles per hour, that's only a ten hour stage, and we had eighteen to finish... the energy hit got me over sheephole summit, catching a few of the teams who had gone by earlier. if ya got it...

lost it again on the rough pavement on the last long gradual desert climb to the finish. just keep turning. my odometer mocked me, refusing to change, then registering distance only grudgingly. using every mental trick i knew by then.

carbohydrate metabolism metaphors: maltodextrins are coal, high-fructose corn syrup is gunpowder. stopped for a coke at mile 490 or so. as soon as i got back on the bike, i had it again, heart rate back up in the 80% range, power in each pedal stroke, speed. ok, so leave it on the road. did for about fifteen minutes, or as long as the 150 calories lasted. then nothing again. gunpowder. i'll probably lay off that stuff in the future. no way animal metabolism evolved to deal with such concentrated energy. it can't be healthy.

mindy was right about the toothbrush. as any endurance athlete will tell you, the biochemical reaction between a sports drink and an energy gel creates wool. each of my teeth dressed up in its own little cardigan sweater...

my kmart buddhism teaches me that the journey is the destination. i confess my heart questioned that tenet, a crisis of faith in the face of ten more miles of 1% grade into a stiff headwind on shitty pavement with the sun in my eyes, sweat and sunscreen dripping in...did i mention the headwind? attitude check: i got your stinkin' journey, yeah, right here, man... it's true, i developed an attachment to the destination. the root of all suffering...

didn't i already ask you to shoot me?

finally on twenty-nine palms highway, only a few miles to go now, sun lower, completely blinding. i could see about fifteen feet ahead, but that was just about enough at six miles per hour...by then i couldn't even get 55% of my max heart rate. i did some mental math...two miles to go, at this speed, let's see, that's only...twenty minutes. be done in no time. at least my electrolytes are ok, i can still think...

a woman waited in her car for me to cross a driveway in front of her. as i passed, i turned to acknowledge and thank her for the courtesy. she made the index-finger-around-ear gesture: you're crazy. i laughed, hard to argue, given the evidence...

still sun-blind, i plowed straight through some pine branches hanging out over the road. blindsided by a plant. ok, people, we really need to finish up here, that tasted like a martini...

i think five teams passed me and stayed ahead on the last stage, and black panther would have caught me but the race was fifty yards too short. sure, this was a race, but no losers here. if you think i'm just blowing smoke, spouting cliches about how all that matters is doing your best, read empress penguin's blog. go ahead and tell me you don't believe she won by DNF at mile 400.

i can't wait to do it again.

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