NOTE: This post is rated PG-13 for coarse humor and mild strong language.
Introduction
A few days
ago, when my lips were still too sunburned for me to smile comfortably, I
regaled you, or somebody like you, with the exploits of my bike pals and me as
we tackled Stage 1 of the 2013 Everest Challenge stage race. I’ve forgotten half of what happened during
Stage 2 already so I better get to it or I’ll be reduced to the classic
one-line race report, “There was a race and somebody must have won but it sure
wasn’t me,” which could be used for just about any athletic endeavor, come to
think of it.
Pre-race
I slept
pretty well until about 2:00 a.m.
Anybody with such a daunting race ahead of him, and one just as daunting
already behind him, could be forgiven for having night terrors. But I didn’t have night terrors—I had night
bowels. I suppose we should all be
grateful that our bowels shut down and night … when they do. But to whom much has been fed, much is to be
expected. I was up again around 4 a.m.
for another round, and then somebody’s smartphone alarm—something between a purr
and a growl—went off at 4:45 and we were all up and about with our pre-race preparations,
which consisted mainly of groaning, committing brazen acts of flatulence, and
making sophomoric jokes of the very highest (and lowest) order.
Halfway
through my bowl of GoLean Crunch (which I pronounce “Goal-ee-an Crunch” and pretend
is the food they ate in “Star Trek”) I began to hear murmurs from below. They were the non-verbal equivalent of “never
send to know for whom the bowels move; they move for thee.” It was time, once again.
Needless to
say, with four nervous bike racers sharing a motel room, there was no chance of
the toilet being free. I puckered and
squirmed and waited and finally heard the happy gurgle of the toilet
flushing. I was already on my feet when
I heard a cry from the bathroom and one of the guys came staggering out, looking (as another described it later) as though he’d just witnessed a murder. And in a sense he had: he’d killed the toilet. Totally overwhelmed it. Kicked its ass, you might say. The water level had risen to the rim and
beyond, carrying his fecal offspring with it.
This couldn’t be happening! I
needed that toilet! I needed it
now! I was already crowning!
Fortunately,
Paul’s friend Rich had another room just a few doors down, or this report might
move from daytime TV territory into another “Silence of the Lambs” installment. I won’t dwell on the devastating effect this overflow
had on our group other than to say that a) I plunged that bad boy myself once
the maintenance guy dropped off the plunger; b) we tipped the maid very well,
and c) when we got to the race I still wasn’t caught up from that giant dinner
the night before. So I had to brave the
trailer-mounted San-O-Let near the start line.
The line
wasn’t too bad, but the tiny trailer’s suspension was shot and/or its tires
were low, because being in there was like being in a ship during a storm, or
maybe being in a NASA flight simulator.
There was nothing to hold onto and I couldn’t shake the thought that
some mistake might be made and the trailer driven off toward some far-flung
rest stop with me still in there.
Stage 2 – 73 miles, 14,030 feet of climbing
During the
race, I had seven bottles of Cytomax, one bottle of water, one bottle of Heed,
one foil pouch of Capri-Sun, half a banana, and five gels. I thought of the Capri-Sun as a Capri-Sonne;
I first became aware of this beverage in 1981 because they sponsored a pro
cycling team in Europe that rode kickass Koga-Miyata bicycles. (That was, incidentally, the first year
Capri-Sun was sold in the U.S., and the year I got my first Miyata.) During the race, the prospect of a) a drink
associated with a cool pro team, b) a drink that wasn’t Cytomax or Gatorade or
Heed, and c) a drink that might actually be cold, was thrilling to
contemplate. This was at a brutal part
of the race when the temperature was 96 degrees and … wait, I’m getting ahead
of myself.
Imagine
this. It’s the summit of the first
climb, to Glacier Lodge, and I’ve crested it with the leaders! In fact, as they slow to take water bottles,
I cruise right past to take the lead. As
we begin the blazing descent, I look back and yell, “OKAY DUDES! ARE YOU
READY TO SHRED THIS GNAR’?!”
Now forget
that whole vignette because it’s absurd.
Of course that’s not what happened.
In reality I hung with
the leaders only until a good number of riders had fallen off, and then I
backed off my pace, hoping not to waste all my energy early and then utterly
crack on the final climb as I had the previous two years. I think seven or eight guys dropped me. I counted two of them whom I’d beaten the day
before, when I’d placed sixth, so I figured if I didn’t see them again, I’d
slip down in the overall standings. My
hope, of course, is that they were foolishly going out too hard and would pay
later.
On the
second climb, Waucoba Canyon, I was totally alone, and it started to get
hot. Traditionally it hasn’t been such a
bad climb, except that last year they lengthened it (for complicated reasons
you don’t care about). Look, and zoom in: Waucoba is almost
as high as the first climb now (original course is on the left):
I kept my
pace ridiculously mellow, my heart rate in the 130s. It was just a slog. It was the bike racing equivalent of Traffic
School, except more boring. I’ll tell
you the highlight: I was pedaling along,
the air dead still, not a rider in sight, even my breathing so quiet the whole
world around me was one huge hush, and then this giant and very loudly buzzing
fly, probably a horsefly, flew by, from my left side past my face before flying
off to the right, and I got a pitch-perfect example of the Doppler effect. It was as perfect as an animated short
showcasing the THX sound system before a Pixar movie. And then it was over and things got boring
again.
The third
pass, to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, has been accurately described as
a ░░░░. That’s right, a word I can’t even put in this
blog. The climb starts at just under
4,000 feet and finishes at over 10,000 feet (with a demoralizing little
screw-you descent along the way). It’s
always hottest at the lower sections, where there’s usually a bit of
tailwind. It’s a sauna, in short. This is the place where you know whether or
not you’ve saved enough: if you start
crying, you’ve squandered your strength too early. I felt okay and only wished it didn’t go on
so long. Sometimes I’d see somebody up
in the distance and, over a period of five or ten minutes, overtake him. Sometimes somebody would pass me, and ride
away just as gradually. It was like one
of those car race video games, except in super-slo-mo. (I could be blasé about any rider passing me
whose bib number didn’t start with a 4—that is, any rider who wasn’t in my
category.) It was along this section I
got the Capri-Sun. Somebody had brought
it specially for his son, but the son rejected it, the little ingrate, so: my gain.
Dang it was good.
So, did you
notice that just now? How I started the
tale of this race by telling about the Capri-Sun, and then backed up and
started the story from the beginning, and then caught up to the Capri-Sun bit
again? That’s a very sophisticated
literary technique called in medias res
and it’s generally considered a privilege of the élite to get to enjoy such
masterfully constructed narratives. I’d
like to thank my mom and dad for paying for a good bit of the English degree
that makes such things possible.
I had some
trouble with allergies and blew some giant snot comets out my nose. Twice they refused to detach, and flew out
behind me like some grotesque narrow scarf, and I had to pinch them off with my
forefinger and thumb and fling them away.
I pretended I was finally expelling the tapeworms that I (and others)
have long suspected are living in my stomach.
I just kept
pacing myself, going no harder than I needed to, which meant hardly working
except for the really steep sections, which were kind of a treat because I
could just plow over them by digging a bit deeper. This went on until I got to around 7,000 feet
and passed a guy in my category. I
recognized him from the day before when I’d introduced myself to him. I remembered distinctly that he was either
5th or 7th place the day before. (Okay,
I guess that’s not actually remembering it distinctly.) It was one or the other, meaning one of us
could pass up the other in the GC based on this stage. It had taken me awhile to overtake him and I
was level with him long enough to exchange looks. Who knows what my look really said, but to my
mind it was something like “Sorry about this, but sometimes a man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do.” His look was less
inscrutable; it said something like “Damn you all to hell you soulless
life-ruiner.”
I pulled
away only gradually, and occasionally I looked back to see where he was, and he
was never very far behind. I feared that
he’d been loafing and only needed a little extra motivation to dig into his
reserves. No matter how long the climb
lasted—and any EC veteran can tell you it’s seemingly endless—this guy was
never far back. He was starting to
really stress me out. I lifted my pace
to where I was starting to suffer properly, and thus to doubt how long I could
keep it up. But he just stayed there
like some Masters 35+ doppelgänger. And
then, horribly, he started to close in.
Suddenly my dream of “touring” the EC was over, and I was actually
racing.
Oh, I did
what I could, my heart rate well into the (gasp!) 140s, the memory returning of
how cruel this climb could be, but there was really nothing I could do to defy
fate. Soon my opponent had teamed up
with some other guy and they were trading pulls in the headwind sections. (Yes, of course there were headwind sections.) And finally, after maybe twenty minutes of
this mutual struggle, he had me. I was
trying to figure out what to say.
“Chapeau” seemed a bit twee, but “Hey, nice job, way to dig deep” would give
him too much encouragement and help seal my doom. Of course, there was always “Damn you all to
hell you soulless life-ruiner,” but that wouldn’t capture the cowardly relief I
got by giving up.
But to my
sudden amazement, as he pulled up alongside, I realized this wasn’t my Masters
35+ opponent at all—it was one of his teammates from another category! Somehow, the two had traded places on the road. I’d been chased up the mountain by a phantom
rival! I could have laughed, except that
this would probably have started a coughing fit.
Now it
dawned on me that I didn’t have to slow down just because I wasn’t being
pursued; I was close enough to the finish to stop saving my legs. It’s kind of like when I ran out of money in college and thought, “Could I use the Uncle John inheritance? No, I’m saving that for college … wait, I’m in college! I can use
it!” So I kept up the higher pace, and
hung with the two guys who’d just caught me.
As we gradually neared the finish we caught a couple more guys.
And then, in
the last quarter-mile, I saw another Masters 35+ rider a ways up the road. How cool would it be, I thought, to pass him
with like fifty meters to go? He’d be
morally shattered, of course. A real
sucker-punch, after all that suffering. Yeah,
I figured, I had to do it. Now, normally
a quarter mile wouldn’t have been enough to overhaul anybody, but the last
quarter mile of this race is special.
It’s over 10,000 feet elevation and you’ve got almost 170 miles of
racing in your legs. A quarter mile is a
vast distance in this case, especially when the guy you’re chasing is totally
blown.
So I dug
deep and started completely drilling it.
I was surprised—pleasantly or not, I couldn’t say—that I could get
enough air to make my legs burn. But
burn they did, and gradually I closed the gap.
I realized maybe I’d actually catch him too soon, and he’d have a chance to react, but once I was upon him
this fear was stamped out because once again I’d hallucinated—this wasn’t a
fellow Masters 35+, just another innocent bystander in another category. I felt like the dog who finally caught the
mailman. But a minute later it was all
over and the race was finished.
A guy I’d
beaten the day before took second on the day, so I slipped to 7th in the
overall. This stage had seemed to take
at least an hour less than it had the year before, but looking back it turns
out I was only like four minutes faster.
And since I went so much faster on Stage 1 last year than this year, my
overall GC time was slower this year.
Lesson learned: suffering
works! Next year I’m going way harder.
For the nerds out there, here are some power and heart rate stats:
- 259 watts at 143 bpm on the first climb (vs. 248 watts at 142 bpm last year);
- 221 watts at 135 bpm on the second climb (vs. 220 watts at 133 bpm last year);
- 232 watts at 136 bpm on the final climb (vs. 220 watts at 136 bpm last year).
Before you get all smug about being way stronger than I, consider that those are “dog-watts”—that is, they’re based on my rate of vertical gain and my weight (from the formula f=mgh) without considering wind resistance, etc. A real power meter would’ve read higher.
For the nerds out there, here are some power and heart rate stats:
- 259 watts at 143 bpm on the first climb (vs. 248 watts at 142 bpm last year);
- 221 watts at 135 bpm on the second climb (vs. 220 watts at 133 bpm last year);
- 232 watts at 136 bpm on the final climb (vs. 220 watts at 136 bpm last year).
Before you get all smug about being way stronger than I, consider that those are “dog-watts”—that is, they’re based on my rate of vertical gain and my weight (from the formula f=mgh) without considering wind resistance, etc. A real power meter would’ve read higher.
Presently
Mike arrived, and before long he started digging through his bag. He pulled out a large shiny foil-wrapped thing
that ended up being leftover pizza.
Amazingly, he had enough to share with Craig and me. Because Mike’s initials are MC, he gets lots
of ad hoc nicknames (e.g., MC Everest, MC Hammer) and through this gesture he
earned the moniker “MC Genius” which seems to have stuck. Here are some photos of us at the top. Paul, Mike, Jamie, Lee, and Craig ... if you don’t know who these guys are, check out my Stage 1 report.
Post-race
For lunch we
went to Erick Schat’s Bakkery in Bishop, a tradition we somehow didn’t follow
last year. In the report I filed two
years ago I called it a Bakery but it’s actually a Bakkery, as Ian pointed out,
or maybe it was Lee. (I was tired and
those British accents all meld together, especially when they’re saying
non-English words like “Bakkery.”) Lee
was all excited about the pastrami sandwich until I pointed out the placard
that says “Note: our pastrami is not
lean.” Amazingly, this turned him off to
it. Obviously he’s got a lot to learn about food, but give him time … he’s
still young.
While we
stood in line at Schat’s, Craig challenged me to a sandwich-eating race. Over dinner the previous night I’d bragged
about my Burrito World Championship victory and I guess he thought it was time for my
comeuppance. He also decided that for
some reason it would be fair for him to get a head start on me and start eating
as soon as he got to the table. Well, I
was delayed finding a fork for my potato salad, and moreover forget all about
the race, and he beat me. Man, was he
stoked. He gloated like he’d just won
Everest. To quote Lermontov, “I feel
that one day he and I will meet on a narrow path, and one of us shall fare
ill.”
During the
drive we stopped at Bridgeport again, at a little shack where we got milkshakes
and whatnot. Look at MC Genius here,
two-fisting it with a shake and curly fries:
The smoke
was just as bad on the drive home. Man,
it stunk. It all but blotted out the
sun—check it out.
In the grim
town of Escalon (at least, it was grim when we rolled through) Paul badly
needed some dinner. I was a bit hungry
myself. We stopped at Taco bell, a good
15 minutes before closing time, but the good-for-nothing staff had decided to
close early. We could see them in there,
cleaning up. I’m sure Paul considered
driving the Intimidation Van through the glass doors at high speed, but was
just too tired. So we did a driving tour
of Escalon, growing increasingly despondent as place after greasy place was
closed. A little cat was lapping water
from a puddle in a parking lot and we slowed to a crawl, considering its
plight. We passed a supermarket. “You could just stop there and buy a big bag
of frozen shrimp,” I offered. Finally we
found a McDonald’s that was open. My
fries came from a totally fresh batch—the fry cook seemed pretty proud of
them—but they were oddly disgusting, even to my starvation-softened
palate. Paul ate some damn thing, I
don’t remember, and everybody else just kept up the post-Everest patter, words
that drifted away instantly, like smoke.
MC Genius
loaned me his truck to drive home. Along
the way, I noticed an ominous dashboard light:
Tailgate Open. I could lose my
bike right out the back! That would be a
disaster, of course, but as I pondered the bruised state of my respiratory
system, and suppressed a coughing fit, I reflected that there would be a silver lining to such a
mishap. I’ve had enough cycling for
awhile....
Postscript
It turns out that, although I was indeed 7th place in the second stage, I maintained my 6th place overall. That does it, I’m going to race again next year! (Actually, this was never in question.)
Postscript
It turns out that, although I was indeed 7th place in the second stage, I maintained my 6th place overall. That does it, I’m going to race again next year! (Actually, this was never in question.)
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