I’m going to tell you all a little story about a small personal triumph. I know that makes most of you want to stop reading and go barf somewhere, but I promise it’ll be mildly entertaining. But before we begin, I need to introduce you to the cast of characters:
Lea- the pro
Becca- the GF
Me- the crybaby
So this little ditty is about the Vermont 50, a 50-mile mountain bike race/ultra run, depending on how flipping nuts you are. Way back in the spring, Becca and Lea peer-pressured me into signing up for this ludicrous event. I was delusional after chauffeuring their sweet ones all over the state for another mountain bike race and my defenses were down. For some reason I said yes, despite the fact that I had never done a bike race longer than six miles in my life.
I spent the summer training and by training I mean eating a half a pint of Ben & Jerry’s every night while I read online gossip sites. So race weekend arrives and I’m moderately prepared. At least I’ve got good cushioning on my gut should I happen to, say, fall onto a tree stump. I’m protecting my core. The night before the race, we had to check in and get our race number and our oversized wool gloves (shwag). So Becca and I drove down to the middle of East Jibip, Vermont and checked in for the three of us (since Lea is a professional athlete, she gets suckers like us to do things for her).
We were supposed to spend the night at Lea’s friend’s house which was practically in Missouri it was so far away from the race. H-E-double hockey sticks no, I told Becca. “We’re staying in a posh hotel, so you better whip out the plastic and pay for this sucker,” is actually what I said. We thought we were being so clever staying at this place. We wouldn’t have to wake up as early and I could have all the free chocolate chip cookies I wanted thanks to a self-serve cookie jar in the reception area. A wrench was thrown in my plan the next morning when I couldn’t figure out how to get out of the town. I must have driven around the world’s most enormous traffic circle 50 times before we figured out where we were going.
This means that we are ridiculously late for the race. We were supposed to meet at 5:30 a.m. to figure out the details for the start. We got there at 5:34 a.m. and had about three nanoseconds to get ready for the race. As I’m putting on my bike shoes at the car, I look across the parking lot at a guy squatting on the ground. Now the only guys who squat on the ground are ascetics who live in caves and dudes who are pooping. This guy was the latter.
Now I’m no stranger to the concept of “When you gotta go, you gotta go,” but literally, he was pooping right in front of me. Then (because I couldn’t stop watching) he stood up and started to wipe his bum. Now it was dark out, but not so dark that I couldn’t see his boy bits and the wads of used toilet paper he was throwing on the ground. That’s how I got to start the race- with the image of a dude pooping burned into my tiny brain.
Boy, this is getting long and boring. Let’s try to speed things up a skoch, shall we?
Anyway, after the poop incident, we pedaled down to the start and tried to figure out where we were supposed to be (since we missed the meeting). I had to find Lea and give her her bib number and Becca had to find some twist ties. But I could barely see two feet in front of my due to the unconscionably early hour, so I just stood there and waited for Lea to find me in the sea of 600 people.
The upshot of all of this (in the interest of time) is that we all missed our start time. I’m pretty sure I started with the elderly clydesdales since those were the only people around me. My wave went off and pretty much immediately we bottlenecked at this nearly vertical hill that had been all chewed up by the riders who went before me. So I got off my bike and began the first of many hike-a-bike fiascos. About five miles into the race, I thought I was going to barf.
As I humped my way up this huge hill right before the second aid station, I heard someone cheer my name. Why, it was my charming GF, who decided not to race, but rather to wait and ride with me. What a gem! All my troubles went away, except for that whole not knowing what I was doing thing.
Here’s us riding together:
Becca and I rode at a pleasant clip until about 20 miles when I had my first drop-out moment. My back was on fire and I had a searing headache. I felt like I was being racked. I had to get off my bike and stretch. And by stretch I mean cry my eyes out. After a few minutes, I turned the waterworks off, slapped on some chamois cream and hopped back in the saddle, with a new resolve not to be a baby. I was good for the next twenty miles, despite getting trapped in the monster mud bogs every two seconds.
That’s when things sort of went to shite. At the rate I was going, 10 miles would take me about 17 hours. I needed to pick up the pace, but there was a faulty connection between my brain and my body. My brain would tell my body to get to pedaling and my body registered that as “get into the fetal position and start sucking your thumb.” The last five miles were agonizing, but I did manage to get a push (or the dude was copping a feel) from a runner who had decided to walk.The last two miles were nearly impossible.
Every time Becca would say anything to me, like “Hey fatty, move your ass,” I’d start to whimper. I barely had enough energy to put one foot in front of the other to push my bike up the K2-sized hills that made up the end of the race. But I did have enough energy for a some serious lip quivering. I have never wanted to move so fast, but actually moved so slowly in all my life. Becca actually fell asleep on her bike as I inched along.
The last few hundred meters of the race were all downhill. “Sweet Christ, I’m nearly finished,” I thought. “Don’t forget to brake.” I coasted over the finish and immediately started blubbering. It was the first goal I set for myself in about five years, and I actually achieved it. And, thanks God, I’m not dead.
Lea won the race convincingly and then waited around for three hours while Becca and I finished. What a sport. I’m not sure I’ll allow myself to get peer-pressured into doing something like that again, but that commemorative finisher’s medal I got does sweeten the pot a bit.
