2016 Rockwell Relay Race Report, Part 14: Birthday Present

07.28.2016 | 1:09 pm

If you ever get the chance to race the Rockwell Relay, you should. And if you get the chance to be the one to choose who rides which legs, you should choose to be racer number 1. 

There are a couple of good reasons for this. 

First, because you race the first leg, you are also the person to race your final leg first. Which means you get to laze about after you’re done, smugly thinking to yourself, “I am so glad I don’t have to go out again anymore,” as the other racers suit up and wade out into million-degree heat.

Second — and more importantly — by being racer 1, you get to be the one to race leg 9 (Panguitch to Cedar Breaks), which is inarguably the best leg of the entire race. You start in the desert, and race into the high mountains, going from one kind of beauty to a completely different kind of beauty. 

It’s a lot of climbing, but so worth it: it’s just inspiringly beautiful. 

First Place

So I was really excited to be showing off this leg to my new friend Tom from the Mike Nosco Memorial team. I knew that he’d love this challenging, gorgeous climb.

But there was a problem: I just couldn’t hang with him.

Second Place

You know how when you’re at your absolute outer limit of what you’re capable? You’re just riding yourself into this incredibly deep hole, and you have no idea how or whether you’ll ever get out? When you’re riding at top speed toward The Cliff of Bonkitude, and keeping your hands off the brakes?

It was like that for me.

Meanwhile, Tom chatted conversationally, joking about how now that I was 50, I could apply to be on his team next year.

“Tom,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I…can’t…keep…this…pace.” Every word on the exhale, because I was breathing as fast as I possibly could. 

“Oh, I can back it off a little bit,” Tom said.

“No, you…should go…on,” I said. “I’m…going to…need to…spend some…time alone in…the pain…cave.

“You sure?” he asked.

“You know how it is,” I said.

Yeah, I think we all know how it is. Pain cave time sometimes needs to be alone time.

Tom rode on ahead, and I entered the peculiar state of suffering. “This is how I’m spending my fiftieth birthday,” I though to myself. “Fastest coed team by far, and ahead of every men’s competitive team in the race. Only guy ahead of me is another guy in his fifties.”

“I’m not doing half-bad,” I concluded.

At the moment, I was thinking about the race, but I think it was true about my life in general.

Third Place

The Hammer, Ben and Lindsey caught up with me, ringing cowbells and shouting — still engaged in and excited about the race into the second morning of this event. Incredible. 

“I’m so lucky,” I thought, and I meant it.

I rode. Time passed. I kept going. My team cheered for me. It got light outside.

“Hey,” said a voice behind me. “How far ahead are the leaders?” 

A rider, from nowhere, bridging from so far back I didn’t know he even existed. I looked back: it was the guy Nathan (of BatB) had joined forces with in the first leg to blow the rest of us out of the water. 

Somehow, I had linked him and Nathan together in my mind, and looked to see if he was there. No. A relief.

But still, this guy had asked about “the leaders,” plural. It didn’t make sense to me. There was just one leader up ahead. Tom. 

“They’re not far,” I said, adopting plural just because this other guy had. It wasn’t a lie, but it also wasn’t entirely honest. I had no idea how far ahead of me Tom had gotten in the time since he had dropped me. Further, I had no idea how long it had been since he had dropped me, nor how far I had ridden.

I was riding hard, but I wasn’t lucid, precisely.

“OK, thanks,” the guy said, and shot forward as if to show his contempt for gravity.

I, on the other hand, had a very healthy respect for gravity.

Second Place

More time passed, I guess. It usually does. I turned off my light; I wouldn’t need it anymore.

There was something way up ahead. A rider? Yes, a rider. The guy who just passed me a few minutes or hours ago? No. Slighter than that.

Tom. 

“Huh,” I thought. “That’s a surprise.” 

I discovered at that moment that I had not previously been going as hard as I could, because I started going faster.

And I caught Tom.

“There’s no air here,” Tom said.

“Welcome to 7500 feet,” I said. Where I live, there aren’t many rides that don’t touch that altitude.

Tour Guide

And then a weird thing happened: I turned into Tom’s tour guide. He hadn’t asked for a tour guide, but I couldn’t help myself for some reason.

I pointed out the amazingly beautiful volcanic rock formations. I pointed out the gorgeous fields. I told him about how many climbs we had left and which ones were excruciatingly hard.

Tom endured it all.

“It’s really cool up here,” he said at one point.

“I know,” I enthused. “It’s just so great.”

“No, I meant that I’m literally cold,” he clarified.

“Huh,” I replied. “But it’s also really cool in the other way too, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Cool in both ways.”

Finish Line

The climb to Cedar Breaks is relentlessly brutal, but only for a while. Then you get some milder climbs, and even some incredibly fun descents.

So I guess it’s not relentlessly brutal after all.

As we got closer, Tom and I emptied ourselves out. We both knew this was our final effort of the race, that there was no reason to be conservative.

But you know, we also hung together. Tom and I had ridden about 2/3 of this race together, I don’t think either of us were now looking for a sprint to victory.

We crossed the line side-by-side, put feet down to have the timing chips moved from our ankles to our teammates’.

I had just ridden my heart out in a beautiful place with a guy who somehow was pretty much exactly my racing match, and we were winning our respective divisions handily. It was over, basically; it was now just a formality to get across the finish line.

Yeah, it was turning out to be a really nice fiftieth birthday.

But I was wrong about the race being over.

Which is where we’ll pick up in Monday’s installment of this race report.