Thoughts on Geoff's GDR

A picture of the Canadian crew in Carcross, Yukon. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for showing Alex and me such a great time this past weekend. We rode and raced with mountain bikers from Whitehorse, Victoria, Vancouver and Edmonton, and I've never before felt so comfortable so quickly with a group of people. Thanks especially to Anthony and Sierra for putting me up, yet again, and feeding me home-grown vegetables, yet again. I so owe you guys big time.

I haven't had too many chances to talk to Geoff since he left the Great Divide route. The first time I heard from him was in Kremmling, Colo., after he cut off on the highway to save some time. I thought there might still be a chance to talk him into pedaling back to where he left the route so he could stay in the race. Selfishly, I wanted him to continue. I just couldn't fathom that he was as broken down as he said he was - if only because he had sounded so strong so recently. But after hearing his voice, I knew it was really, truly over. Not because he sounded weak, but because he sounded strong. I knew he had made the choice to stop with a clear head and conscience.

But it was inevitable that he'd begin to second guess himself the very next moment. I can totally relate. I've never finished a race and actually been completely happy with my performance. I instantly recognize my mistakes, my missteps, my moments of weakness. So today Geoff is back in Salt Lake and wishing he was still riding the Divide. "Basically, I quit because I was tired," he told me. A deep and prevailing tired, but only tired just the same. It began from the early days of the race when he couldn't sleep while he was stopped. Then he had a hard time finding good food, or sometimes even food he was even willing to eat. The climbing was everything he'd expected and more. Then he pushed himself until he could barely make the pedals turn. He gave himself a day to rest, but one day wasn't enough. When I pointed out he probably could have afforded several days of rest, he said, "Yeah. But then where would I be?" Not at the front of the race. And, really, that's where Geoff likes to be.

I'm not saying Geoff quit because he wasn't going to win. Actually, quitting a race for that reason is not like him at all. What is like Geoff is to quit a race because it stopped being fun. While he was crossing Montana and Wyoming, he was having a great time - riding his bike all day, eating big meals, chatting up the locals. When he rode, he rode hard, but he took plenty of time out to absorb the experience. In fact, most of the people he talked to who knew about the GDR didn't even believe Geoff when he said he was the second-place racer. They had just watched John Nobile go through - the image of efficiency, John usually rushed in an out of every stop, grabbing a sandwich to go, sleeping for only a few hours, hurrying out the door without saying a word. Geoff, they told him, looked too relaxed.

"I'm convinced that's what you need to do to break the record," Geoff said of John's approach. "You have to focus and be on task all day, every day. But I was never going to do it that way. It wouldn't even be fun."

So when Geoff hit his big wall, I imagine all he could see was an endless number of days without fun. Geoff is not the type of person to race for glory, and even if he was, there is so little glory in being a finisher of the Great Divide Race that if you're not doing it for yourself, I can't fathom how it would even be possible to finish. It's too hard. It's so hard, I think, that even if the Great Divide Race did offer fame and a sizable prize, the only difference you'd see is a much larger DNF list. There are few who want to do a race like this. Fewer still who can.

I believe Geoff can. "The evil curse of these stupid races is that he'll be thinking about coming back within a few days," Pete told me. This may be true. Geoff's preparations before the GDR were almost laughably minimal. Now he's armed with more knowledge and experience than most rookies could ever dream of. Eventually he'll tell the story of his race, and I can't wait to hear it. Because I know it's going to contain plenty of "next time"s.

As for me, I was pleased to discover that I don't require any more recovery time after the 24 Hours of Light. I still feel some aversion to the idea of riding my bike, probably brought on by my first saddle sores in two years, but I set out today for a hike up Mount Jumbo. I was pleasantly surprised when my leg muscles fired up to full strength without hesitation, and up we marched. Annoyingly, the snow line was only a few hundred feet higher than it was three weeks ago. And it was 75 degrees today! Melt already!

I don't have any concrete plans for the rest of the summer. I'd like to ride the Golden Circle again, either as a slower tour than last year, or else essentially "racing" it as a fast-touring time trial. I haven't decided. I'd also like to enter this year's Soggy Bottom 100, which I believe is in early September. Since I finished this race in 2006, just surviving it would not be enough. I would want to really improve on my time. But I'm not sure I have the mental stamina or desire to train for a fast singletrack hundie right now. Especially with next year's Ultrasport already floating through my dreams. A good 2009 race would require I take it really casual for the next few months, hike a lot, and amp the biking back up in the fall. Time will tell. I plan to enjoy the decision-making process.

Some light, some dusk

(Photos of me stolen without permission from the Contagious Mountain Biking photo site.)

It was lap 10, or maybe it was lap 11, that I pushed my hardest. I had just overcome a six-kilometer walk and a broken chain, finally eaten a real meal, contained most of the blood seeping out of my right knee, guzzled a large box of some strange Canadian banana drink, and set out strong toward the orange light hovering over the horizon. It was probably after midnight. I hammered up the hills and weaved gracefully through the trees. I had learned the length of all the slopes, their gradients, their crests, and their inevitable drops into tight and twisting trails. I had practiced and perfected, and finally felt strong enough to execute my perfect lap. Even as the wavy distortion of a long day of intense focus began to cloud my vision, I knew I had reached peak physical form. "This is it!" I thought. "My 50-minute lap!" All day I had dodged the questions that this lap might answer - "Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? Out here by yourself? Racing against yourself? Why?" I wished I could describe how I felt, the intensity of my emotions and thoughts when I am in the midst of the extremes of my physical ability; the thrill of endorphins pumping fire in my blood stream; the surrealness of even the most mundane aspects of this eight-mile loop when the delirium has set in but fatigue hasn't taken over. I've thought about telling people it feels like being on crack and shrooms at the same time, although I have never done either to really know.

The 24 Hours of Light began at noon Saturday in a light, drizzling rain that seemed to scare off most of the spectators. As team riders huddled in tents the first wave embarked into the howling wind, launching right out of the gate into a brutal climb that never let up. Most of the descents were so tight and root-choked that they made the climbs feel like a break. In the eight-mile loop, my GPS measured about 1,100 feet of elevation gain. My brakes got more mileage than my pedals. But I took the pace easy and didn't take any risks. I still had a bloody sore knee and bruises up and down my legs. I felt stiff and cold, but I expected that to fade as the real pain set in. All in a 24-hour day's work in this type of race. I was amazed how normal this is starting to feel.

I'd like to believe that I always compete against myself and only compete against myself, but it was hard not to have any close competition. The solo boys were laying down 40-minute laps from the beginning. Everyone said the local heroes would never sustain, but I knew Jeff Oatley could. I had no chance of the big win, and the female win was in the bag. It was just me out there, seeing what I could do, but somehow, already knowing that I could do it - that, and so much more. So why was I out there? I needed that carrot hanging from a stick. I set into every lap in search of it. What was it? The fleeting moments of clarity? The cheers from my friends who were smart enough to enjoy the party? The as-yet-unsubstantiated promise of prizes? In my worst moments, I reminded myself that everything I was doing was only a fraction of what Geoff was at that moment trying to do on the Great Divide. And in my best moments, I celebrated the fact that this is what I can do now, this is my life, and it doesn't even feel hard anymore.

I never set my watch at the beginning of lap 10 - or was it 11? - but I was certain I was going to come in around 50 minutes. I launched into the woods with new-found confidence and hard-earned abilities, shimmying my handlebars and even attempting to bunny-hop the larger roots (it's true - to this day, I still can't execute a good bunny-hop.) I came around a corner and heard a loud crack. The bike wheeled around and I lurched forward, far ahead, into a cloud of dust. I had hooked a tree.

Dumb mistake. Another dumb mistake. I allowed myself to sit in the dirt stunned for a while, because no one was around to witness my crash and there was no reason to bounce back up right away. The minutes ticked by. The hours grew smaller. The light dipped lower and shadows began to engulf the woods. I realized I hadn't even seen that tree; it was in fact becoming harder to see anything. The 24 Hours of Light has plenty of hours of dusk; the hours that most sleep; the hours I really was alone. I dusted off my bike and returned to the start, another hourlong lap behind me, an unknown number ahead.

The next two laps were increasingly frustrating. The race has what I assume is a tongue-in-cheek rule of "No Lights Allowed," but I obeyed it and didn't bring lights. The darkening shadows tricked me. I no longer knew the course inside and out. I was starting to see phantom coyotes and bears. I moved slower and slower to compensate for my increasing fear. And all that time, it grew colder. Finally around 2 a.m. I decided I was going to wait out the dusk. I ate another good-sized meal - stupidly caving to cravings and eating a piece of cold pizza, which was a bad, bad idea - and sat at the staging area as my friends snoozed in tents. The chill set in. It grew stronger. Then it turned into shivering, which turned into chattering, which turned into real concern. I had left my sleeping bag locked in Alex's car, thinking I didn't want an excuse to use it, and he was fast asleep in his tent. I didn't want to wake him. But after a half hour, I knew I had to take some kind of action. I wheeled my bike back to the timing tent and announced that I was going to freeze to death if I didn't start moving. My shivering had become so pronounced that I couldn't complete the sentence. It came out something more like "I .... need ... start ... moving ... too .... cold." I must have appeared frozen and frazzled, because the timer looked genuinely alarmed. "Are you going to be OK?" she asked, and without waiting for me to answer started looking around. "Is she going to be OK?" Dennis, the owner of the bike shop in Juneau, stood up for me. "She'll be fine," he said. The timer nodded reluctantly and waved me through.

The piece of pizza sat like a rock in my stomach as I shivered up the climb. I was nearly halfway through the lap before any semblance of heat returned, only to have it whisked away on the seemingly endless cruel downhills. I was still shivering when I moved through the staging area again, so I ripped open my duffel bag and put on every piece of clothing inside. But I had packed thinking I was riding a hard-effort bike race in June, and didn't have adequate layers. Frosty condensation coated my water bottle. The temperature was just a few degrees above freezing.

Over the next two laps, my condition didn't improve much, and the fatigue and grump set in strong as I struggled to maintain my body temperature. By the time I finally decided I had no choice, I was all but barking at Alex to get out of his tent and give me his keys. I told myself I was just going to crawl into my sleeping bag for 10 minutes until I warmed up. I knew deep down I was going to fall asleep. I was out before I even zipped up the bag.

Around 8 a.m., I stumbled out of the car with the full light of morning on my face. It was cloudy, and still deeply cold. I saw Jeff Oatley walking through the parking lot. He had the win in the bag and was going to get an early start on his drive to Fairbanks. It occurred to me at the time that if I had actually stayed in the race, I might have been the one to keep him on the course. But as it was at 8 a.m., only with an amazing comeback rally did I even stand a small chance of matching my 14 laps to his out-the-door 18. I decided on free coffee and breakfast instead.

As the morning settled in, I realized that I didn't feel too bad. My butt was a bit sore, my knee was a bit stiff, and I could have definitely used more sleep - but my physical state was not too far displaced from a normal morning. That feeling of semi-normalcy was a far cry from how I felt after nearly every long ride I did in 2006, and a good indicator to me of how far I've come in two years. I enjoyed my first hours in the actual party that is the 24 Hours of Light mountain bike festival, and pedaled one more victory lap, a final lap with the be-winged girls of the Fairy, Fairy Fast team.

I thought about Geoff often out on the course. I knew he had been struggling in Colorado. I knew he was thinking about quitting. At my duskiest moments, I thought I might be vicariously experiencing the inner turmoil he was fighting, but I knew, even through my delirium, that my moments were small drops in a dark ocean. I tried to send him positive thoughts, but there were too many thousands of miles between us. I knew it had ended, and I knew that was OK, but it made me feel even more lonely in the dusk of my tiny eight-mile trail somewhere in the Yukon. So when a song came on my iPod that made me think of Geoff, maybe one of the Rusted Root songs we listened to 100 times on the few mixed tapes we had on our cross-country drive in 2001, or some old-school Pink Floyd, I sang ... "How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls living in a fish bowl, year after year. Running over the same old ground - what have we found? Same old fears. Wish you were here."

Hours and light

I just wanted to write a quick update on the 24 Hours of Light for family and others. I'm not going to expand on it too much right now because I am in a pretty somber mood. The friend who I have been coordinating with on the Great Divide Race updates, Pete, was the first on the scene at a horrific bear mauling at the 24-hour race in Anchorage - which was going on at the same time as my race. The attack involved a young girl he knew. I hope everyone involved will fully recover, but that still remains uncertain. Also, Geoff is having pretty serious doubts about continuing with the Great Divide Race. I can only imagine there must be some deep and dark self doubt involved with the decision-making process, but I have as of yet been unable to connect with him to talk to him about it. A bit of a dark day, and I could feel it, I could, even as I was surrounded by the cheery festival atmosphere of my race in Whitehorse.

I won the female solo division of the 24 Hours of Light, which I did by simply showing up. I rode my one required lap and 14 extra victory laps, which netted me second overall in the solo category - 15 laps to Jeff Oatley's 18 laps. I rode about 200 km of rough trail - lots of tight, winding singletrack with ~16,000 feet of climbing in 15 laps. I didn't spend myself. I took lots of breaks and a long nap, ate full dinners and breakfasts and hung out with friends, broke my chain and walked most of a lap after discovering I bucked my chain tool out of my frame bag (the trail was rough. Really rough. My butt misses my softtail.) I could have done more to push harder to reach the private places I seek when I do extreme endurance races. But I didn't dig deep and I'm not necessarily disappointed about it. The race organizers did a great job; besides the chain breaking, everything about the race flowed perfectly; I had a great time riding with friends and netted about $400 or $500 worth of Pearl Izumi schwag for my "win." The fact that I now feel about this race in a similar way that I might if I just went to a fun party or saw a really good movie must mean something. I'm sure I'll explore it more after I have slept a bit and hopefully have a clearer state of mind.