My friend Monilee is a world-class mountain biker. I’m not. Her husband Fraser has done epic races like Trans-Rockies and Trans-Alps. I haven’t been to the gym in more than three months. The two of them own six bikes, have their garage fully setup for long training rides, and are totally committed to bike racing. My bike has been in storage the last 18 months.
So when they asked me if I wanted to do a 24-hour mountain bike relay race in Spokane, where Sara’s parents live, I said “hell yeah!”.
Stupid stupid stupid. We named our team “Off the Couch Ibuprofin Lovers”. Good name, eh?
We were totally psyched. I bought all new cycling gear. We bought lots of energy drinks and performance enhancing powders. We adjusted the bikes, we talked strategy, we stretched – well, Fraser didn’t, he doesn’t believe in it. We we were ready to kick ass.
We came in dead fucking last. We were in 13th place at 11PM when our lighting system failed and we got five wonderful hours of sleep instead of riding. I went to bed expecting at least one more cold dark ride but didn’t get woken up until early morning. That’s four or five less laps than everyone else. Oh well.
My ass was totally bruised from the seat. My knee got messed up sometime during my third or fourth lap. I could barely walk by the end of the race, it felt like someone was stabbing me behind the kneecap. I read that it’s easy to get this when you “don’t warm up, ride harder than you’ve been training, and overexert yourself”. Mmm.
But I turned in some fast laptimes, didn’t crash (Calvin crashed twice, hahaha!), and talked smack the whole time. I think I gained about ten pounds given all the unnecessary carbo-loading I did before the race, and all the meat-loading I did at the BBQ Sara’s folks threw for us after the race.
Monilee finished first in her division, rode almost all night. She did fourteen laps. I did four. After the race she was hopping around putting bikes away and loading their trailer while I lay groaning in a lawn chair.
Next year Fraser’s going to lose 30lbs and I’m going to ride a bike a few weeks before the race. We’re aiming for a podium finish.