06.15.2011 | 8:18 am
A Note from Fatty: This is Part IV of a long series about the 2011 Moab to St. George: Rockwell Relay race. Here’s what you’ll find in each installment:
- Part I: A little about the race, team philosophy, pre-race excitement, and the first two legs of the race covered.
- Part II: The Hammer rips up her first leg of the race, The IT Guy gives Heather motivation to continue by using a novel technique.
- Part III: The night laps begin. I turn off course, nearly hit a deer, and nevertheless love riding this race.
- Part IV: Night laps extract their toll on the team; The Hammer works with Jerry to both their benefit; I show off my Superman jammies; Kenny does a hard climbing lap on a singlespeed.
- Part V: We finish our final legs, going from cold to hot in record time. We collect our prizes and catch up on sleep. We announce our intentions to defend our title next year.
Bring On The Night
It was about 11:00pm when I finished the Boulder Mountain Pass leg of the race and handed the slap-bracelet to The Hammer, so she could begin her night leg — 57 miles of riding, through the darkest part of night.
The temperature had dropped to freezing or near freezing. Once again, it was the women who would take on the most uncomfortable race legs.
Chivalry is dead, I guess. If it were ever alive, I mean.
Jerry, a cyclist from Team Give, started out from the Exchange point at the same time as The Hammer, and they immediately agreed to work together through the leg.
I think I might have made a bad impression on Jerry the first time our van pulled up alongside them. At the time, The Hammer was pulling, so I yelled out at Jerry (using what is known among my children as “Dad’s Angry Voice”), “Hey, you! No passengers! Take your turn pulling!”
Of course I was joking; I had seen him taking a pull mere moments ago.
The problem was, nobody else could tell I was kidding.
The Hammer turned and looked at me with a “What are you saying?!” look. Heather, who was driving, turned and looked at me in stunned disbelief.
Jerry assured me that he had really been taking his turns pulling. And that he had recently started reading my blog and even liked it. And that, honestly, he’d take a pull again in just a minute.
Kenny didn’t say anything.
Realizing that I had done a much more convincing job of sounding like an angry, confrontational dude than I would have ever thought I was capable, I promised Jerry that I had just seen him taking a pull and that I was just being silly.
Then I made a mental note to myself to drop “confrontational comedy” from my quiver of allegedly hilarious party conversational techniques.
The Hammer and Jerry worked together for a vast majority of their cold night lap. This worked out ideally for both teams, with Jerry’s support vehicle swinging by them every couple of miles, and then our van swinging by on alternate miles.
It was cool to see the natural and easy way folks can take work together.
For the rest of the race, any time The Hammer saw Jerry, she’d go give him a hug. And apologize for my behavior.
Evolution of Support
By now we had been racing for sixteen hours or more, and we were starting to feel like old hands at the support game. No longer did we actually get out of the car to support our rider. Instead, we’d pull alongside, ask what the rider needed, and then either pull over or drop behind to dig out whatever the rider needed. Then we’d just pull back alongside and do a through-the-window handoff.
Part of this was for efficiency’s sake. A much larger part, however, was due to the fact that it was cold outside; those of us who were riding didn’t want to leave the comfort of the warm van.
The second part of the evolution of our support strategy can be simply summed up as: Honey Stinger Waffles. Sure, we had gels and bars and everything, but once everyone had tasted the Waffles, that was pretty much all they wanted. “Water and Waffle” became the most common thing a rider was likely to say.
So huge kudos to the Honey Stinger guys. As near as I can tell, they’ve got a huge hit on their hands. I know the four of us on Team Fatty were big fans during this race.
The Goofy Hours
As it got to be around 1:30pm, we began observing strange behavior amongst ourselves. For example, when The Hammer and Jerry caught another rider and had him join their paceline, The Hammer looked over and yelled out to us, “Hey, look! I’ve got myself some domestiques!”
We giggled for about twenty minutes over this. I wonder if The Hammer’s domestiques thought it was as funny as we did.
As for me, I decided it was late enough that I wanted to wear my jammies. Superman jammies, no less.
That’s me doing a Superman pose. Hard to tell, I know.
So…Tired…Mustn’t…Sleep
The Hammer finished her leg of the race and Heather started leg 8 beginning at 2:36am– the coldest leg, in the most awful time of the night (day?) to ride, as anyone who has ever done a 24-hour event will agree.
I was driving. Kenny was crewing. The Hammer was trying to catch a little sleep.
I adopted a new driving technique, trying to cope with the sleepiness I was battling:
- Drive 5 minutes.
- Park.
- Fall asleep for a few seconds (minutes?).
- Wake up when Kenny told me Heather had gone by.
- Pass Heather and get her whatever she needed (Water. Waffle.”).
- Repeat forever and ever and ever and ever.
It was around this time that I lost the ability to do even basic math. I’d look at the odometer, ask Kenny to look at the Race Bible and seee how many miles the leg was supposed to be, and then try to do the math to figure out how far Heather had left to ride.
But I’d just churn and churn. Two-digit subtraction baffled me. I couldn’t figure it out.
Another Miss
Heather did an awesome job with her second leg of the race, keeping all other teams at bay.
Unfortunately, when she arrived at the Exchange to hand the slap-bracelet off to Kenny, her crew (i.e., us) was nowhere to be found.
This is because an RV had parked in front of the Exchange sign, obscuring it. So when we left Heather to go ahead and get Kenny ready for the exchange, we drove right past the exchange point, and kept on going…right out of town.
After searching out in the outskirts of Panguitch for five or ten minutes, we came to the conclusion we had somehow missed the sign and came back.
By then, of course, the rider Kenny would have been starting six minutes in front of had gotten a good start on him.
And Heather was sitting in another team’s RV, warming up and wondering why we had abandoned her.
Kenny hopped out of the van and was gone at 5:00am, riding his single speed up the steepest, longest climb of the race: Panguitch to Cedar Breaks Mountain.
We had a contingency plan: if the vertical was too much to deal with on his single, he’d swap out on to my bike. It’d be an easy change since he uses the same kind of pedals I do; just raise the saddle about an inch.
It wouldn’t matter much where the seat was anyway, since he’d be doing pretty much nothing but standing climbing, regardless of what bike he was on.
We never put that plan into effect, though. Kenny’s a proud man. He didn’t want to have to concede that, in fact, a geared bike might make sense in some circumstances.
As the sun came up, we saw that somehow during the night, we had transitioned from sandstone desert to high alpine forests and meadows. When we got to the next exchange point, near the top of Cedar Breaks Mountain, we waited for Kenny. Me ready to ride my final leg of the race. Everyone else bundling up as best as they could.
Kenny finished his final leg of the race, conceding hardly any time at all to the racer in front of him, and handed off the slap-bracelet to me for the last time.
He was cooked.
As anyone who does this kind of race should be.
Continue to Part V (the final part, finally!)
Comments (35)
06.14.2011 | 8:24 am
A Note from Fatty: This is Part III of a long series about the 2011 Moab to St. George: Rockwell Relay race. Here’s what you’ll find in each installment:
- Part I: A little about the race, team philosophy, pre-race excitement, and the first two legs of the race covered.
- Part II: The Hammer rips up her first leg of the race, The IT Guy gives Heather motivation to continue by using a novel technique.
- Part III: The night laps begin. I turn off course, nearly hit a deer, and nevertheless love riding this race.
- Part IV: Night laps extract their toll on the team; The Hammer works with Jerry to both their benefit; I show off my Superman jammies; Kenny does a hard climbing lap on a singlespeed.
- Part V: We finish our final legs, going from cold to hot in record time. We collect our prizes and catch up on sleep. We announce our intentions to defend our title next year.
My sense of time got all jacked up during the Rockwell Relay. I mean, when we started, it was early Friday morning. Then I did some driving and racing, and it’s suddenly the hot part of the day. And then it’s Kenny’s turn to race, and…then it’s my turn to race again, but now — even though it feels like it should still be morning — it’s getting on toward night.
It’s amazing how fast night comes on.
I mean, when Kenny started his lap, it seemed the smartest thing in the world to wear a sleeveless jersey. It was blazing hot out there.
By the time he finished and handed off the slap-bracelet to me, though, it was cold. And starting to get dark.
Clothing and equipment were tricky for me for this leg of the race: riding up into the Boulder mountains, and then dropping. For one thing, I’d be starting the ride in the semi light, doing a big climb — where I’d definitely be heating up — followed by a big descent, where I’d definitely be in the cold, total dark of a mountain night.
My solution? Pure brilliance, as you’d expect. I suited up as you see above: shorts and short sleeves. I had my handlebar-mounted lights on and ready to go.
And here’s where the clever part comes in. Pay attention, please.
I told my team that I would want a jacket to wear once I got to the top of the climb. And that I would want more light power then, too, and so I’d want them to plug the battery in to my brand-new NiteRider Pro 1400 LED light I had mounted to my helmet, giving me a huge lighting (and confidence) boost for for the descent.
I know, I know. I’ll give you a minute to consider the elegant brilliance of my plan.
Wherein My Bacon is Saved
Having secured the Slap-Bracelet from Kenny, I took off at full tilt, happy to find that during the eight hours that had elapsed since my last leg (I had finished my first leg at 12:59pm and was starting my second leg at 8:53pm), my legs had recovered. I felt fine. I wanted, once again, to experience the euphoria of passing another cyclist.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Kenny was laying in the parking lot where the Exchange happened, crying genuine tears as his legs cramped up more severely than he had ever experienced in his life.
Of course, if I had known, I would have lent Kenny a hand, in the form of valuable advice such as, “Eat a banana. Or drink something.”
But, as I mentioned, I did not know.
And that was not all I did not know.
For example, I did not know that, as I pedaled my little heart out, head down, mind focusing on turning the cranks in beautiful sine waves, I had blown right through a left turn in the course, and was now officially riding off toward a destination unknown.
Luckily — indeed, incredibly luckily — for me, another team caught site of me before I got too far away and drove up alongside me, saying, “You missed a turn. You should have made a left about a half-mile back.”
I admit: I searched their faces for signs of treachery. For deceit.
Then, having found no such signs, I thanked them, made a U-turn, and started pedaling doubletime. No longer trying for a perfect sine-wave cadence. Mashing in anger.
I have since wondered, several times, how far I would have ridden if this team hadn’t caught and corrected my mistake. The fact is, I don’t even know which team it was. But I owe them a huge debt of gratitude.
Like I mentioned before, everyone competed on the bikes. Once off the bikes, though, everyone acted like incredibly good neighbors. I was glad to be in the middle of such good people.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to outride them.
Oh Deer
Fueled by embarrassment and the realization that I was now a full mile behind where I would have been if I had been paying attention, I got into the drops and resolved to give everything I had on this leg of the race. I would climb so hard that I got tunnel vision. I would descend on the very edge of recklessness.
I would make up the time, somehow, I had lost.
And that’s how I very nearly crashed out of the race.
I was riding on a nice, moderate descent — a good, working descent where you can get into your biggest ring and find out how fast your legs will really take you. I had taken to the middle of the lane, wanting the blinking red light to be as obviously centered in any motorist’s sight as possible.
Watching the wash of my light setup. Intrigued at how tiny my universe had become: my legs, my bike, the 30 feet in front of me and the eight feet to my left and right.
And I was hauling. 38mph, plus or minus a couple mph’s.
And that’s when the deer sprang out in front of me.
I locked my rear brake, giving my front brake considerably less of a squeeze — later, I would think about the kinda cool fact that twenty years of riding has given me a conditioned reflex for the right amount of brake to tug in an emergency.
The rear of the bike fishtailed left, then corrected true as I let the rear brake off a bit.
The deer bounded by. I’d say I missed it by two feet.
Later, I’d hear that another rider hadn’t been so lucky — he also had an encounter with a deer, resulting in a broken collarbone.
Which makes me wonder: how is it possible any deer hunter doesn’t come home with a truckload of venison every autumn?
Taking Flight
Now fueled by 2.5 quarts of adrenaline flowing through my veins, I rode furiously up the mountain, climbing the 3500 feet to the summit without really feeling the climb at all.
Each time my team passed me, they’d yell encouragement. I’d yell back.
It felt great to be alive, fast, on a bike, on the right course, and not T-boned by a deer.
Then, as I got near the summit and stopped, so Heather and The Hammer could help me get my jacket on and battery pack plugged into my NiteRider helmet light, I asked, “Where is everyone?”
The question was plaguing me. I had been riding so hard. But I had not seen a single other rider. Nobody had caught me. I had caught nobody. Were we the only team riding through the night?
“There’s another rider about two minutes ahead of you. You keep up this pace and you might catch him,” The Hammer told me.
It was all I needed to hear.
I tore off again, wanting desperately to catch somebody on this leg of the race. To show that, even with my big turning error, I was still adding value to the team’s standing.
And, almost at the exact moment I hit the summit, I caught him.
I was unable to contain myself; I howled. Literally. And then, with my lights blazing, I turned downhill.
I had 3500 feet of altitude to shed, and only eight miles to do it. No time to waste.
It was during this eight miles that I fell in love with the NiteRider Pro 1400 LED setup (Full Disclosure: NiteRider provided this light setup at no charge for my use during this race, but now I’m totally going to buy one). It was so powerful. So bright. The light covered such a large area, and so evenly. It felt better than car lights.
“This is amazing,” I thought. “I had no idea bike lights could be this good.”
And then I realized: I had only turned on the “flood” light. This thing wasn’t even going at full power. I pressed the switch again until it was burning at full brightness, at which point the leaves on all nearby trees burst into flame.
My teammates, now concerned about kamikazeIt deer at nighttime, decided a good deer interception strategy would be to drive the van a hundred yards or so in front of the bike. If something was going to hit a deer, better the van than a bike.
This served an awesome dual purpose: it let me know which way the road was going, letting me know early where the curves were coming from.
So I bombed the mountain descent. In the wind and the rain that had just started. With my lights blazing me a perfect view of what was coming up immediately, and the van giving me a good idea of what was coming up next.
Forty-five, fifty miles an hour. Down a mountain pass. At midnight. Laughing all the way.
When I reached my Exchange point, about an hour earlier than we had anticipated, I didn’t even wait for anyone to ask how I felt.
“That,” I said, “Was the single best ride I have ever had on a bike.”
Continue to Part IV
PS: While I was having the time of my life on this leg of the race, not everyone was so lucky. Callahan Williams, the honcho behind Team Give — the charity funding treatment and research for children with rare neurological disorders — hit a cattle guard wrong on this leg and crashed hard; he had to be life-flighted out.
Yesterday, The Hammer, while rounding at the hospital, caught up with Callahan.
His neck is badly injured and he’s scheduled to have surgery later this week.
So, if you would, take a moment to send a good thought or prayer Callahan’s way. And remember that things can go sideways in life at any time (on the bike or off); tell your family you love them often.
Comments (29)
06.14.2011 | 6:50 am
A Note from Fatty: This is Part II of a long series about the 2011 Moab to St. George: Rockwell Relay race. Here’s what you’ll find in each installment:
- Part I: A little about the race, team philosophy, pre-race excitement, and the first two legs of the race covered.
- Part II: The Hammer rips up her first leg of the race, The IT Guy gives Heather motivation to continue by using a novel technique.
- Part III: The night laps begin. I turn off course, nearly hit a deer, and nevertheless love riding this race.
- Part IV: Night laps extract their toll on the team; The Hammer works with Jerry to both their benefit; I show off my Superman jammies; Kenny does a hard climbing lap on a singlespeed.
- Part V: We finish our final legs, going from cold to hot in record time. We collect our prizes and catch up on sleep. We announce our intentions to defend our title next year.
Moab to St. George: Rockwell Relay, Part II
Yesterday, I ended my post with a cheap shot, saying:
I scanned the Exchange area, looking for Lisa, ready to hand the baton/slap-bracelet thingy to her.
But I couldn’t see her anywhere.
I said this because it was true, and I was freaking out, and I wanted to share that freaked-out-ed-ness with you. (And also because a bunch of you recently told me I need to keep my posts down to a reasonable length.)
The thing is, though, the reason I couldn’t see Lisa was that my brain wasn’t working right. Lisa was, in fact, right there. She was on her bike. Rolling forward and ready to take off. Holding out her arm, ready to take the slap-bracelet.
I just didn’t see her, because she was on the left side of the road, and I was looking on the right.
Duh.
Eventually I did see Lisa, and handed off the bracelet. My leg was over, and now I could rejoin the crewing.
Sexual Discrimination
You may have noticed that I did not mention heat as a factor for my leg of the race. That’s because it wasn’t. Nor was it a problem for Kenny. See, we both rode when it was nice and early in the morning.
Lisa, on the other hand, got about thirty minutes of this nice cool part of the day before the furnace came on.
Intelligently, she wore last year’s white Team Fatty jersey for this leg of the race. And, astonishingly, she’d be smiling pretty much every time we rode by to ask how she’s doing:
Looking pretty hot, if I do say so myself. And not just heat-of-the-day hot, either.
It was on Lisa’s leg of the race that we settled into the pattern that would hold sway for a big chunk of the race. Specifically:
- Drive up to the racer and ask what they need.
- Drive forward a mile or two, pull over, and get ready the food and/or drink the racer wanted.
- Have the racer drop the bottle they want to get rid of right before they get to us.
- Take the food or bottle.
As the day got hotter (and hotter), we didn’t even need to ask Lisa what she wanted anymore. Water. Lots of ice.
Meet the Hammer, Everyone
It was during this leg of the race that I stopped mentally thinking of Lisa as “The Runner” and started thinking of her as “The Hammer.” The truth is, she’s riding incredibly strong this year. She’s a strong climber, descends fearlessly, and can pound the flat miles away.
In spite of the fact that we were a coed team, we were staying right with the top Men’s teams.
Which, as the husband and training partner of The Hammer, I find really gratifying.
The Peculiar Awesomeness of Relay Racing
It was during The Hammer’s first leg that I really started getting a sense of what made this kind of racing really fun. It’s one of those things that is obvious in retrospect, but had never occurred to me before actually trying relay racing.
When you’re relay racing, you get to be involved with every part of a road race, all at once. You’re supporting a racer. Then you’re the racer. Then you’re watching the race from a perspective that most people never get: right in the middle of the race.
You’re so involved with so many aspects of your team, you can’t help but get caught up in the race to a whole new degree.
And it’s not just your own team that you get involved with, either. Without exception, every other team we came across was friendly and helpful. Hey, you’re going to spend the whole day (and night, and the next day) passing and being re-passed by the same RVs, trucks, vans, and campers. You may as well be nice to each other, right?
This neighborliness manifested itself the first time during the race when, after we had shot ahead to get Heather ready for her next stage, The Hammer ran low on water. Team GoFastWeb.com set her up with a bottle, full of ice water.
And we, whenever we drove by a rider on another team, would — in spite of the fact that they were competing against us — cheer them on. Invariably, whoever we cheered for would grin and turn the cranks a little faster for a second.
It’s the kind of neighborliness you’d like to see everywhere.
The IT Guy Provides Necessary Support Services for Heather
This is the person I often refer to in this blog as The IT Guy:
He is The Hammer’s son, is 21 years old, and is registered to do his first Leadville 100 this year. He’s been riding hard and picking up a lot of endurance riding experience this past spring.
He is also, according to Heather, the reason she finished her first stage at all.
The heat was getting truly ugly by the time Heather started her first leg. It was brutal hot, on a climb that’s just enough uphill to make you slow down, while still looking flat. These are, in fact, what I consider to be the worst kinds of roads, because they demoralize you. You can’t see the climb, so you feel like your slowness is your own problem.
Heather was not having fun.
And then The IT Guy (aka “Blake” in real life), who was on Team Lobotomy, caught up with her. And did something all of us on Team Fatty are still trying to wrap our minds around.
He mooned her.
And then he said, “Don’t you want to follow this sexy butt?”
And then he gave her a pull ’til she was feeling good again. At which point they took turns pulling for the rest of the leg.
And The IT Guy now has Heather as a fan forever.
Continue to Part III
Comments (25)
06.13.2011 | 2:25 pm
A Note from Fatty: This is Part I of a long series about the 2011 Moab to St. George: Rockwell Relay race. Here’s what you’ll find in each installment:
- Part I: A little about the race, team philosophy, pre-race excitement, and the first two legs of the race covered.
- Part II: The Hammer rips up her first leg of the race, The IT Guy gives Heather motivation to continue by using a novel technique.
- Part III: The night laps begin. I turn off course, nearly hit a deer, and nevertheless love riding this race.
- Part IV: Night laps extract their toll on the team; The Hammer works with Jerry to both their benefit; I show off my Superman jammies; Kenny does a hard climbing lap on a singlespeed.
- Part V: We finish our final legs, going from cold to hot in record time. We collect our prizes and catch up on sleep. We announce our intentions to defend our title next year.
Moab to St. George: Rockwell Relay, Part I
By and large, I’m a comfort-zone cyclist. I ride the same routes all the time. I do the same races each year. And — more or less — I’m happy with that. For me, biking is mostly about the act of riding itself, rather than the location of where I’m riding, or the novelty of racing in a different place.
Hence, I am clearly middle-aged and need to shake things up.
Which is what the Moab to St. George Rockwell Relay did. Big time.
A Little About the Race
Until last weekend, I had never done a bike relay and knew nothing about how they work, so I’m going to assume that you have also never done a bike relay, and know nothing about how they work. Because you and I are exactly alike. I sense this.
So here’s a really quick overview of what a road bike relay — at least, the one I did — is about.
A team — four people, in this case — takes turns riding their road bikes from one official exchange point to the next. As one person rides their leg of the race, the others drive, leapfrogging their rider on the road and acting as crew for the rider.
Then, before the rider can get to the exchange point, the car shoots ahead and the next rider gets out and gets ready to ride, hopefully just in time to get the team baton (in this case, a reflective slap-bracelet) and start the next leg of the race.
The Moab to St. George Rockwell Relay has a total of 12 legs, meaning each rider gets three turns riding. The rider order — in this particular race (I understand this varies from race to race) — stays the same through the entire race. You can substitute order if your only objective is to complete the course, but not if you are competing for a podium spot.
The course is 520 or so miles long, and winds along the backroads of Utah, going from Moab to St. George:
Even the fastest teams will take more than 24 hours to complete this race.
Team Philosophy
I’ve never been one for big surprise endings, and the chances are — if you’ve looked at recent blog posts — you already know that Team Fatty won the Coed division (meaning that we were the first team with both women and men to cross the finish line).
So this story isn’t so much about our race position or who we competed against or stuff like that. It’s more about the ride itself, and the surprising fact that we all had an amazingly good time.
Personally, I think this comes from the fact that Kenny, Heather, The Hammer (formerly known as “The Runner,” but henceforth known as the Hammer, since “The Runner” doesn’t exactly capture the fact that she is kinda killing it on the bike this year) and myself are already all really good friends, and we tend to approach races the same way. Namely, we were all dead serious about riding our hearts out when it came to be our turn to race, but we were entirely relaxed, casual, and probably even slovenly when we were not on the bike.
And in short, we rode hard and otherwise were just there for the fun of being with friends and having a new experience.
In the Beginning, There Was Ebullience
The Rockwell Relay is still a young race; there were only ~160 riders (40 teams). That means that when we rolled up to the starting area on Friday morning, there was no line for packet pickup. We just grabbed our jerseys, t-shirts, and the “Race Bible” — the booklet containing course information, directions, distances, and elevation profiles.
We didn’t realize it yet, but over the course of the next thirty-ish hours, this booklet would become the most important thing to us in the whole world.
And then we sat down to the pancake breakfast.
Have you ever noticed how happy I look when I’m about to eat? ‘Cuz I have.
The race started at 8:00am sharp, with Kenny taking the first leg. As a team solidarity thing, the rest of us rode along with him for the first couple of miles, which was a police-escorted neutral start. Then Kenny — who, as usual, was riding his single speed modified track bike with 50 x 18 gearing, started ramping up the speed, looking to join the lead pack.
Lisa, Heather, and I took this as our cue to turn around and head back to the van. There, we packed and went grocery shopping before driving out onto the course, looking for Kenny to see how he was doing.
As it turns out, he was doing great.
In fact, in spite of the fact that he was riding a bike with gearing that was too light for flats and descents, while being too heavy for hard climbing, Kenny was right with the lead group. We pulled ahead and — for the first time of what would seem to be hundreds of times — we got out of the van and did a bottle handoff.
Here’s Heather, ready to hand off the bottle:
And here’s Heather, right after handing the bottle off:
Unfortunately — camera-wise — I’m evidently slow with the trigger, and totally missed having the actual bicycle rider appear in either of these shots.
You know those blogs that have an awesome combination of well-written stories and beautiful photography? This is not one of those blogs.
Anyway, Kenny hammered away, unaware that he was too fast to be photographed. Those of us in the van shot on ahead, and in fact shot right by the first Rider Exchange area.
We figured out our mistake, using the “Well, we’ve driven right through the entirety of the city where the Exchange is supposed to be, so do you think we should turn around?” checkpoint-location method. Highly effective.
This would not be the only time we used this method during this race.
It was my turn to ride. I suited up and posed for a shot at the Exchange:
Kenny arrived, riding hard. We had meant to do a fast baton exchange, but when it came right down to it, the team slap-bracelet-baton talisman thingy wouldn’t come off Kenny’s wrist, and we wound up doing a standstill version of the baton handoff.
Both of us panicked, a little bit. Here we are, trying to successfully (and quickly) make the handoff:
As if, somehow, five extra seconds would affect our standing.
Once I got the bracelet, I took off, riding as if I were going to be going for 4.5 miles, instead of 45.
Leg 2
Within a couple of blocks, though, I was overtaken by a rider. So consumed was I with the fact that I had been passed within two minutes of my first race leg that I didn’t say a word. I just noticed that he was lean, his legs were shaved, and his Cannondale was pristine.
I did the mental math and figured he was a fast guy. I figured the best thing I could do would be to work with him.
I jumped and caught his wheel.
We took turns pulling, but he was clearly anxious to go faster; every time I took a turn pulling, he’d move back to the front within fifteen seconds.
That was OK by me.
Before long, we saw a guy on a Delta 7 road bike, working his way up our first real climb of the day. We reeled him in.
Climbing is kinda my thing (at least, when I’m not 20+ pounds overweight), so I moved to the front, figuring I’d take a good hard, long pull. I didn’t mind doing more than my fair share here, because I planned to sit on the back when we got to the flats.
I didn’t turn around ’til the top of the climb.
They were nowhere in sight.
Ha.
Expecting they would catch me on the fairly flat-to-downhill stretch in front of me, I metered out my pace to something I thought I could do for the next couple of hours.
And then my iPod changed my plan, by serving up two of my power songs in a row. Just because I know you care, these two songs are:
- Le Freak
- Renegades of Funk
Then it served up a twelve-minute remix of Kraftwerk’s “Tour de France,” and my fate was sealed. I was going to ride my brains out.
I caught a guy. Then dropped him before he had a chance to grab on.
And then my team caught up with me, hollering and yelling and just generally making my energy levels surge through the roof, through the atmosphere and punching a hole through the moon.
Here’s a shot they took of me from the van (a 2001 Honda Odyssey, because I know you’re interested in what kind of vehicles I own).
My mouth may be open in this photo due to me breathing as hard as possible, to singing, or to yelling along with my team.
Maybe it’s because my team was there and could see how I was racing. Maybe it’s because I had gotten a taste of speed and had clawed our overall placing to sixth. Maybe it was just the pure joy of an intense effort. Whatever the reason, though, I gave it everything. In the climbs. In the descents. For myself. And for the team.
By the time I finished my leg, I had moved us into fourth place, overall. And I had never enjoyed racing more.
I scanned the Exchange area, looking for Lisa, ready to hand the baton/slap-bracelet thingy to her.
But I couldn’t see her anywhere.
Continue to Part II
Comments (26)
06.12.2011 | 9:42 am
I just slept 12 hours. I can’t remember the last time I’ve done that. On the other hand, I can’t remember the last time I’ve gone so long without sleep, either.
Ill be working on my race report today and tomorrow, but briefly:
1. We finished! And won the Coed division, too.
2. Tyler (pictured with me here before the start of the race, Dan, and all the Rockwell Relay folks put on an incredible race. Really top-notch.
3. Kenny, Heather, The Hammer, and I are already planning on making this an annual tradition. Yeah, just a couple hours have gone by and we want to race it again. Strange.
All four of us LOVED this race. Kudos to the people who planned and executed this epic event.
Comments (13)
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