Fear and Loathing in Cool

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” The late Hunter S. Thompson said that about his foray into Gonzo Journalism. I appreciate his insight into things and before the 50 mile race in Cool I typed up another of his great quotes: “Never turn your back on fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might need to be killed,” and taped it to my handlebar. Not that I could really read it while riding, but I knew it was there and I knew what it said. Reminder enough.

But why fear? Fear is not one of those things best overcome. It is probably best something to recognize, acknowledge, accept and not let it control you. Give fear it’s due, but then say, “Yes, I know you; time to move on.” Fear of what? Fear of failure is one option. I’ve had some spectacular fails on races this year, just not being there fully, seemingly not willing to work hard, who knows what. I needed a good showing, for me mostly. That’s part, but the other part was that our old dog, Mica, had been quite sick for a week. She was dealt a real bum hand when it came to her body, her medical history would cover many pages, but she had a great mind, a great nose and a great drive to work. She was triple-certified as a Search Dog, working area (live scent, lost person), avalanche, and human remains (cadaver). Had some amazing finds, things that I (who studies and measures the atmosphere) find nearly physically impossible. Yet she did. The last few years she’s been unable to work and she has been going to work with me and her calm strong demeanor has been a wonderful addition to the office. People have wonderful responses to her. She’s nine and a half and we know the stress her body has been under over these years means she probably doesn’t have much time. A year, maybe two, who knows. Maybe just a week. But when she’s sick and clearly uncomfortable and we can’t do anything for her that’s incredibly frustrating and scarey. As of right now, she’s drinking and eating and farting which is good. First solid food she’s held down in days. Might be back on track. Fear. That’s where I started with this. I was afraid she would die without me next to her; afraid of the stress Mary would be under dealing with her alone as I was off riding another bike race. I talked to Mary and she told me to go, race, and that Mica would be ok. When I talked to her just an hour before the race, she seemed pretty encouraged; we had decided to take her off all the drugs (she was on 7!) except her allergy med and see what happened. Seems to be the right decision now. Who knows.

This was supposed to be a race report, right? I think so. So, the same guy who puts on the Cool 24 hour that a lot of us do has a whole series of events and this was the last of the year. Because of many things I wanted something reasonably long (50 miles counts) and something I could test myself on. Hard. Since I knew that area from previous races there it was an ideal candidate and I went for it. I drove down the day before and pre-rode the course. It was not marked and as it turns out he changed it from May. It was kind of a blend of the May ’08 and ’09 races. I went off course, but had a nice pre-ride. The course was incredibly dry and a bit dusty. For those of us who were there in May 09, that was a mud-fest. The rain just kept coming and coming and we all ruined our bikes and just got messy. This time even the “big” creek crossing (just before that steep uphill) was dry. Not a drop to be seen anywhere. Weather was perfect, bike was running well and I felt good. I spent Friday night at my brother’s house in Nevada City, about an hour from the course, so I was able to get up reasonably, eat, and get down there. I got there about 7:30 and got great parking. There were only about 100 races, and everyone was really relaxed, it was a fun feeling as we were getting ready. Tinker was there and he was just hanging out bs-ing with people; it was just fun. Finally Jim gave us the basic course changes and said he wanted to do a LeMans style start. No real reason, just he had never done one before and there were so few of us. We all laid our bikes out along the “chute” going into the timing area and walked like 100 FEET up to the paved road and he had us run down from there. Kind of silly, but no one minded and we were off. Oh, and there was a group of five unicyclists and a couple of them had two-speed hubs on those things and they were amazing.

Standing around before the run, I noticed that the guy next to me had Bicycle Bananas on his shorts (note to Wolfy: mine were plain black, but, hey, they’re Armani) and we chatted briefly about Reno. I didn’t get (or forgot) his name. Either way when we took off, he was pretty fast, so I hung on his wheel for probably the first half of the first lap before loosing contact. That was really good because he was hammering and I wanted to get out and run hard. Screw the 50 miles part, I was going to go until I blew up and then some. The first lap was fast and I felt good. I rode every inch of every lap, even that steep climb up out of the “creek” crossing. Yes, I did not walk any of it. Better than that, I was passing people on the climbs and on the flats, but not on the downhills, I’m still a bit of a chicken. Except that one fast beat-up dirt road downhill after the paved section. You know, you go down that paved section, do the u-turn and come up that dirt hill that’s steep at the beginning and then eases off. Top of that you do that really steep drop, followed by the hard (watch out!) left then down that rutted road. I really got flying on that and then carried a lot of momentum into the next climb. Sweet. We did the long, stair step climb up and then around and down the usual finish. I did the first lap in exactly one hour and didn’t even stop, just kept riding, never put a foot down until the end of the second lap. Second lap was much like the first I started with a pretty fast guy on my wheel and we traded leads until the single-track climb following that up and down part where I passed him, took off and never saw him again. I just kept riding as hard as I could and finished the second lap in just over an hour. The official time was like 1:03, but that included my pit time since I pitted first before going through timing. I ate and refilled the camelback and took off again. Did all that straddling the bike; the idea was never slow down – race!

Third lap I slowed down a bit. I just noticed that I wasn’t pulling as hard up the uphills, not quite as fast, but I kept pushing it. Did a decent lap, something like 1:10 or 1:15, I have to wait for the official timing since I did a bad job checking lap times. The longer climbs, I found that was starting to cramp if I pushed too hard, so I kind of pushed to the limit and then backed off and then kept going. Right near the top of the final climb, I was passed by Tinker. He’s so nice, he waved and said, “hey!” and just kept on riding. I gave chase. Turned it on and stayed behind him for oh, 1 maybe 2 seconds. As we crested the top and started down, it was like the laws of physics just didn’t apply to him, he just accelerated away from me. Gone. I could see him for a while, but not that long. That’s fun to see a real pro like that in his element. When I finished, I had to clean and lube my chain, as it wasn’t going into the lowest gear and was making some serious noise. I was afraid I’d break it and I didn’t want to do that.

Last lap (these were 12.5 mile laps so 4 made the 50 miles) I started feeling ok, the bit of a break and food and more fluids were doing well by me. I rode off and turned the legs thinking only of riding and riding fast. I did ok, definitely slower on the hills, but still pushing the limit. I also found that standing was a bad idea because that made my quads cramp almost immediately. Sit and spin. I still rode the steep climb out of the creek crossing and everything else. Great feeling coming over the top of that last big climb, the last bit wasn’t much and that very last little climb I really powered over, drove my tempo all the way to the end and was glad to be done. I think this was faster than the third lap, but we’ll see.

Just an awesome event. Cleaned up with a bit of a shower with the hose and then drove back. Sore, tired and happy. I have not ridden that hard for that long in a long time. I needed that in a big way, to get past all the fears, to remember what this “racing” stuff is all about and to remind me how much damn fun this is. I’ll post a link to the results when they get posted, meanwhile you can see my power file here:

Mica is doing much better and ate this morning and may be over this one. We know she won’t be with us forever, but for now we have a happy ending. I like happy endings.

Quick update: Results are posted here:

My lap times were: Lap1: 1:00:29, Lap2: 1:03:20, Lap3:  1:15:51, and Lap4: 1:09:22

Tags: dogs, endurance

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 11th, 2009 at 10:44 am and is filed under bike, bike races. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.