The definition of insanity

I honestly don't know why I keep coming back here. There's invisible Velcro under my tires, just like there was in 2015, and I don't understand why my legs are burning. I'm just pedaling — as slowly as possible, really — while wispy clouds strain to capture fading light. The sun set and we're just getting started. I'm already lost in memories. I want to find new experiences, but I keep coming back here. It's inevitable that I'll relive the past. Island Park, Idaho — this is the place where I crumbled in this same 200-mile bike race last year. Two years ago, the Warm River gorge is where I stopped during the Tour Divide, crawled into a clammy sleeping bag, and alternately sobbed and coughed because I'd never felt so weak or hopeless. And yet I here I am. I keep coming back.

The pack fades into the distance and I continue spinning slowly, trying to ignore the tightness I already feel in my chest. This is how it is. This is who I am. I'm going to work with it, use it to find the same joy and awe I've always found on life's outer limit. Night is descending and the temperature follows. It was 2 degrees at the start; five miles later, it's already down to 5 below. I stop to put a fleece jacket on. My water valve is already frozen. Golden-tinted plumes of steam rise from Henry's Fork, billowing around a flock of geese. "Why don't they leave for the winter? I suppose water is warmer than air."

The course winds through Herriman State Park. I burn a few matches propelling myself up steep singletrack. My lungs burn as a mash the pedals. Hard surges are something I promised myself I wouldn't do, but I'm feeling good, and I am at the back of the race, so I can't dawdle too much.

Miles roll by, the Velcro snow becomes stickier, and the night more menacing. After two hours under my armpit, the water valve final opens. I greedily suck water and roll deep-frozen cinnamon bears on my tongue. It's minus 16, then minus 19. Around mile 25 I catch up to Beat, who is miserable in his vapor barrier shirt. He can't tell whether he's wet or cold, and can't strip in these temperatures. "It's minus 24 now," I announce. My feet and hands are toasty, but I can hear a quiet gurgle in my breaths. I know that's the thing that's really not good.

We reach the spur to Mesa Falls, dropping steeply into a gorge for no good reason, but it's part of the race. We walk gingerly along an icy overlook and glance across the canyon. Last year the night was overcast and I couldn't see anything at all, but this year the moon is out. Sheer cliffs are bathed in sliver light. "It's really beautiful," I say to Beat, and we stand a few seconds longer until shivering sets in. This isn't weather for standing still.

The long climb begins, and I'm hunched beside my bike, barely putting one foot in front of the other up impossibly steep slopes. I start coughing and spit up a gob of thick gunk. This is the point I know has no return. I can't recover from this. Perhaps it was inevitable, but there's always hope that I'll beat it. "This is just like the Tour Divide," I think. "Only different."

The night flickers and fades, muted by reduced awareness that I think of as "oxygen deprivation." I try to remind myself to eat, trail mix and cinnamon bears that I have to hold in my mouth for at least five minutes before they're malleable enough the chew. Beat sticks with me even though I'm moving slowly, perhaps too slowly to stay warm, but my head is fuzzy and it's the best I can do. We think the temperature will warm as we climb, but it doesn't feel that way. Finally I check the thermometer, and it's minus 30. Then minus 34. Minus 37. Beat has told me that when it's minus 40, there's always a devil lurking in the shadows. I'm warm but I can sense the devil, stalking through the trees, waiting for that single mistake to strike.

We pedal and walk, mostly walk, because that's all I can manage on even slight inclines. Beat prefers walking. Moonlight fades, and the sky is stars upon stars. The air seems colder. A stiff breeze pushes against us; on bare skin it feels like fire. The windchill is the coldest I've ever felt, but I don't dare check the thermometer. The devil tells me the temperature will just keep dropping, and I don't want to think about that. I can't fish the water hose out of my jacket, so I give up on drinking. I keep eating, as though food could somehow give me the energy I desperately need. I'm coughing. My breathing sounds horrible inside my face mask. It's obstructing the air, so I pull it down. "Nose frostbite isn't really that bad."

There are many quiet hours when I'm certain light will appear on the horizon. It never does. I don't think about the race or the miles ahead, only the need to keep moving, keep breathing. The night is long and expansive, the forest is drenched in frost, the snow is glistening with starlight, and it really is beautiful. It is so beautiful. How could I ever describe it? I cannot. I am oxygen- and sleep-deprived, addled, and know on an intellectual level that this intense beauty exists only in my imagination. But I am happy to be here. Through it all, this is what I came for.

Dawn appears. Beat has drifted ahead. It's still minus 32. Even as orange light dusts the tips of trees, it doesn't warm up. I've already put on my big coat because I wanted to feel toasty, but hints of lucidity return and I regret that I didn't preserve more of a margin for error. I'm coughing more, and in daylight I can see yellow mucous in the snow. I know it won't get better. I know I'll keep moving more slowly, struggling and possibly becoming more sick until time cutoffs force what is now an inevitable DNF. I know I have to stop. This is no sadness or relief in this, just stoic acknowledgement. I'm not really an endurance athlete anymore. I can keep pushing it and I'll probably keep having the same results, unless something changes. But there's no reason I can't keep hoping for change.

The descent is long and I feel like I have to work hard to move forward, even here. Beat waits for me at the bottom. We've both made peace with the fact we're going to stop at mile 80, again. The night was harsh, and most of the field of 25 or so either quit at this point or turned around earlier because of cold concerns or equipment failures. A handful pressed on into temperatures that swung 60 degrees into the low 20s, followed by a stowstorm. Of those, only one man finished. The Fat Pursuit is indeed a hard race, even without Arctic temperatures. Although I may have gone into it with a defeatist attitude, I really did want to finish, to prove to myself I can still be strong, I can still breathe fire, I can still seek intense beauty. But what is it they say about the definition of insanity?

I've said this before, but I really should do some soul-searching about my plans for this year. Regardless of what I decide, I'm not going to sign up for the Fat Pursuit in 2018. Hold me to that. If I want things to change, I need to change.