Nervous Nellie

When examining something complex, sometimes it's best to break it down into parts. Today's race was a perfect example. To simplify things, we'll look at the best and worst parts. With the good comes the bad, and one cannot exist without the other.

My coach and I had been looking forward to the 7th Annual Darkhorse 40 for a few months now and it was our plan to have me peak for this event. A small part of me wishes I hadn't known that, as was the case in the KVSP H2H Race when I just felt like a million bucks and learned after the fact that I was peaking that day. It put some pressure on me because I was thinking I should have felt better than I was, causing me to second guess myself. Actually, it doesn't really matter now, since my race was practically over before it even began... and it almost didn't even begin. We'll come back to this.

The last three days of training were squeezed into two, resulting in me getting up earlier than normal to do the previous night's ride before work and then doing that day's prescribed ride after work. My diet and fluid intake were the same for the days leading up to raceday as any other, but it was my sleep that ultimately took the back seat on my list of priorities. I only got 4 hours of sleep last night because "Mr. Can't plan anything for shit" decided it was going to take 3 hours to drive to Stewart State Forest in Newburgh, NY, when both other times he went there he got there way too early.

This time was no different. I made it there in an hour and a half and had plenty of time to kill before the race. It was for the best, though, since for some reason I had a lot of anxiety (the bad kind) about this race and found myself with a sour stomach. I made several trips to the port-o's and noticed the abundance of mosquitos as I walked. There was one in my personal space, so before I offered him some tender flesh to sink his teeth into, I launched a preemptive strike. He narrowly escaped three solid attempts at his life by flying out from under my pointed finger. I finally left him alone when I decided my motive was unjust since he showed no interest in biting me in the first place. Instead, he stayed put right on the wall the whole time.

Rewind to the night before the race, which was to be spent packing all my gear, preparing a recovery meal, and making last minute repairs to my bike. I got out of work at 6pm and had full intentions of getting all that done and going to bed by 10pm. Four hours is enough time to do all that, right? Wrong. I didn't get to bed until after midnight and I still hadn't gotten everything done. One major oversight was the new cleats I attached to my new shoes. I will be the first to admit that it's a bad idea to make such a major equipment change mid-season, let alone right before a big race without ample time to break them in. I thought I had positioned my cleats properly and they did feel good when I tested them out, but on this morning's warmup ride, they were too far forward and felt very, very wrong. There was only 15 minutes before we had to begin staging, so I quickly dove into my toolbox and began loosening the screws. First shoe, done. Second shoe... a stripped bolt! NOOOOO! Now I had two unequally adjusted cleats, one with a stripped screw and no way to fix it. I went in search of a mechanic tent, as they are normally present at every race. Why would there be one today? I was forced to fend for myself and used my MacGuyver skills to somehow quickly create a surface on the head of the screw that some tool could fit in. I reached for a phillips screwdriver and my pedal wrench, which I used as a hammer to bang the head of the screwdriver into the screw. It started to work, but not well enough to be able to remove the screw. And even if it did, I would not be able to retighten it anyway. To add insult to injury, I inadvertently mistook my hand for my shoe and gave it a good womp with the pedal wrench. That was it. I'd had enough, I was sweating bullets in my van, the start of the race was minutes away, and I had to just ride with my shoes the way they were.

The course was changed from the usual 2, 20mi laps to 4, 10mi laps consisting of 98% singletrack. This race, being the second longest I've ever done (the longest being the Big Frog 65) was the hardest race of my life. The endless singletrack doesn't give the body any relief in the form of open fireroads to spin the legs out or rest in the form of coasting. From the get go, it was immediately clear that I was unable to pedal efficiently with my feet offset. Furthermore, it was nearly impossible to find my feet every time I had to clip back in because for one, each foot was different, and two, the cleats were new and it takes a little more effort to pop them in. It took a lot of excess pressure and twisting my feet in weird ways to get back in, which caused unnecessary strain on my already tired muscles. I knew if I wanted to finish the race in under 4hrs, I would have to maintain an average speed of 10mph. I succeeded in doing so for lap 1, with an average of exactly 10mph. That scared me because I was riding hard and I knew if I was going to break the 4hr barrier, I would need to maintain that pace the whole time. The goal became further and further out of reach as I saw my average drop over the next two laps. I knew it was a direct result of my shoes and lack of ability to clip in and out easily and that the effects of that were only going to worsen as the race progressed. To add, well, injury to injury, I crashed really hard on the first lap after conjuring up some camera courage for Luke and went hot into a loose corner. I lost the front end and fell, you guessed it, right onto my already bruised hand, jamming my thumb. I bent my brake rotor in the crash and my headset began to creak, so I had to listen to my bike crying the whole rest of the race.

I spent at least half of the first three laps unclipped, which means I was only able to exert downward force on my pedals rather than being able to pull up equally and evenly with the opposite leg. This put terrible strain on my quads, and though I never cramped, by the final lap I simply ran out of strength. I did not clip in at all during lap 4 and resorted to walking up almost every climb. On the descents, I used my thighs to squeeze the saddle to stay in control and prevent my feet from slipping off the pedals, making my legs even more sore. Actually, before I even completed lap 3, I debated attempting a 4th lap and almost turned back once I started it, but we won't talk any more of my temporary willingness to give up, since I never wholeheartedly submitted to such a crazy notion. As I was walking on the final lap, I couldn't help but think of Chris Eatough and the film 24 Solo that I had recently seen. He resorted to walking at times, and if Chris could walk, I could walk. I was determined to finish. I had set goals for this race, but they were now traded out for the goal of simply finishing, even if it meant walking across the finish line. Besides, I had noticed that I wasn't at all the only racer who was feeling the effects of the heat and conditions and many were dropping like flies. If I had chosen to throw it in and DNF, I would never know how close I was to actually finishing well if that was the case. Also, many of my friends today crashed and sustained injuries (I'm glad none were too serious) and some couldn't finish. One of my closest friends and teammates, Jim V., was unable to attend this race due to an injury sustained on a training ride and I decided that I was going to finish this race for him. There is another Jim V., (more famously known as "Jimmy V"), who was an inspiration to countless others in his lifetime, whose words were with me while I was out there. I love many of his quotes, but my favorite is perhaps the most simple, "Don't give up. Don't ever give up." As long as my bike was rideable and my muscles worked, I was going to keep moving forward. Even though I was suffering, there were some really fun parts of the course that just HAD to be ridden. One such section was a climb that was short and steep with a giant tree with exposed roots that split the trail in two just before the top, where it got a little steeper. Riders had to choose the left or right fork, but I saw a super fun line that went right up the middle, over a few roots and just to the right of the tree. I cleaned it on every lap and each time destroyed other riders in the process. It was so cool hearing them behind me expressing their astonishment. On the fourth lap, I hammered up it next to a girl riding for Overlook whom I chatted it up with leading to this hill and passed her right at the top using my sick line. I crested it and yelled, "I'm not even clipped in!" and stuck my feet out. She wasn't impressed.

Near the end, I was going so slow that the mosquitos were keeping pace with me, which is pretty sad if you can't outrun tiny winged insects. My slower pace also carried the onset of heat exhaustion, since I was no longer creating the apparent wind to cool me off. I was too nervous to eat all of my oatmeal this morning and knew I needed to replace some calories during the race, but I tried to eat a cookie at a rest stop and I just couldn't swallow it. I did stop at the beer tent on mile 8 for a cold PBR on lap 3 and 4, but couldn't finish either one. I was burping up Strawberry HEED, chocolate flavor Hammer gel, and PBR. Yuck-o. I wanted to hang around and see the results and awards afterwards, but there was little shade and nowhere to sit. I was feeling faint and sick and knew the best thing to do was get the AC cranking in the van to lower my core temperature and once hunger set in, get some food in my system. I know that my body has to feel hunger before I can feed it well after a race, so I kept the fluids flowing and headed to Qdoba Mexican Grill for a celebratory burrito. It hit the spot. Oh, and a few things I learned today about endurance racing: I will never, EVER wear a Camelbak again as long as I live and I will never ride a singlespeed in any race over 30mi. With a geared bike, if you tire out, it's possible to downshift and keep some kind of pace going. On an SS, it's all or nothing. I did give it my all on the homestretch, though. As I emerged from the singletrack, a Darkhorse singlespeeder was right behind me and said, "Come on, Dude!" and launched an attack. He thought we might have a mellow drag race to kind of push each other the last 1,000ft, but I had no idea of his intentions so I clipped in and sprinted for the finish and beat him by about 900ft.

So, all of these aforementioned ramblings sound like they sum up the worst part of today's experience and it may be hard for some to imagine how there even could be a best part. What was the best part? That there was simply nowhere else I would rather have been.

**Update** I learned today that I didn't finish in second-to-last place or even in the back half of the field like I thought I did. My willingness to press on and not quit was almost enough to let me reach one of my goals of getting a top 10 finish. Out of the 31 starters, only 17 finished. I got 11th. Fuck yeah!