Another
installment from CER's resident wordsmythe, Jason Stewart. Enjoy!
My
chest heaved up and down in time with my pedals as I inched my way up the
crumbling sandstone face of Rhododendron Trail. I wiped the sweat out of
my eyes and caught sight of House pulling away over the crest, vaporizing
whatever time I just put into him through the last descent. I had pushed
right up to the edge of good judgment on the downhill, keeping off the brakes
and powering through the turns, but I was all out of downhill and it was time
to pay up. I normally look forward to the climbs, but not today.
Definitely not today. I hadn’t put the training in to make a move
on the guy. My first trip up Rhododendron had put me in my pain cave and
now I was back in it again, only deeper. I took a warm swig of
orange/vomit flavored water from my bottle and tried to find a strong gear to
turn over. I couldn’t spin much more than granny gear.
As
I plodded up, up, up, a thought started to form; a description of the suffering
and ultimate silliness that is cross country mountain bike racing. To my
oxygen-deprived mind came an imagined conversation in which I tried to explain
to my wife exactly what I have been doing with my evenings and weekends for the
past five years:
“Honey,
I'm going to go out in the woods and beat myself about the head, neck, and
chest with a stick. This will be painful, but my plan is to keep doing
this a couple times a week until I can go for hours and hours on end without
stopping. Then, when I get really good at it, I’m going to get together
with a bunch of my friends and pay some guy named Gunnar $35 to let me run
around in a circle in his back yard while I beat myself up with my stick.
First person to make two laps around the yard wins. Except for the really
advanced self-whackers; they have to go around three times. ‘Wins what’,
you ask? Why, wins the big race of course.
Further,
this won’t be cheap. As my stick swinging skills improve, I will need to
buy special whacking gloves, shoes and a jersey. Some bibs and a fancy
plastic hat would be nice too. And this stick, this stick is almost a
year old. There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with it, but my friends
all have these new, super light sticks. If I had a stick like theirs, I
bet I could beat the hell out of myself at a fairly high level. I found
one I like, the sticker price is $3500 but I’ve been spending a lot of time in
the stick shop and the owner is going to knock $500 off, just for me.”
Pretty
much sums it up. I entertained myself with my little delusion past Rock
City and down the Ridge Trail chute to the Mont Chateau bridge. Just
before crossing, I heard somebody behind me say “good lines back there,
man”. The rider in the Pro Mountain Outfitters kit then pulled away from
me on up the rocky creek bed, steady and strong, just like I would have done if
I could have.
Past
the Iron Furnace for the second time and up the Rail Grade trail to the
finish. Warhorse and House were both there, looking cool and
composed. “Good job Stew” somebody said as I collapsed into the grass and
gravel, sucking the bottom out of my Camelbak. I composed myself just in
time see Joe climb up past the finish tent; crushing the 5:00 handicap he
hustled out of me right before the start. Damn, I mean, “good job,
Joe”.
My
only shot at a small victory on the day would now depend on whether or not I
beat my nemesis. The dude had trash talked me at the Big Bear Classic
earlier in the year and I had never forgotten it. It was the first time
anyone had ever said an unpleasant word to me on any course. I actually had
people say something to me twice out there this year. Anyway, I remember
passing him on a long gravel climb about halfway into the Classic on that cold
April morning. As I started to pull away he wheezed “you’re breathing
hard”. I grinned and replied “well, I’m working hard”. “That’s
stupid” came his retort, followed by “it’s a long race, see you in a few
miles”. Not exactly hard core stuff, but grudges are light and I carry
them easily. I ended up beating him that day and if I beat him again
today it would be a sweep for the season.
I
searched the results table, ate some pizza, changed clothes, checked the
results, used the facilities and checked the results again. No sign of
the guy. I was certain I had seen him there, I even tried to tail him for
a while until my group left his group behind. I couldn’t find his name
anywhere and it was time to roll out. I congratulated my teammates and
friends and headed back home for a nap and a reevaluation of my chosen leisure
activity.
I
checked the results online the next day and found that I got the dude by over
twenty minutes. Yes. Undefeated against the forces of evil on the
year. Maybe that race wasn’t so bad after all. If I could just put
in some more base miles and not take my customary post XTERRA break, I bet my
fitness would improve. Some new grips would probably help too. And
a fancy new plastic hat. So forth and so on…
No comments:
Post a Comment