Up the road

‘The first thing about racing is actually being there at the end.  Then you can worry about your intervals.’

And there in lies the rub.  Four days of racing at the Steamboat Springs stage race, three days of watching the group ride away from me on a hill and four days of struggling with the pollen in the air.  Frustrating, but motivating.

The road race will be like a training ride.  That was true last year and true for the guys heading out at 8am, but by noon the wind had whipped up to thirty miles an hour and the team with the leader thought it would be cool to bury themselves on the two mile climb leading out to the course.  I stayed in the midst of the pack, visualizing a flat road, focusing on the little Assos label on the butt in front of me, thinking of how difficult it would be on my own… funny how time can slow down, until each moment stretched into a prolonged painful series of gasps, each filament of muscle on fire.  I look up and the road is turning to reveal another mile of the climb.  I push and slide back a wheel.  I push and I’m on the end of the group.  Soon I’m off and staring at three lengths to the back.  Five lengths.  I feel the wind full on now and panic a bit, standing up to try to bring back the group.  It’s strung out, guys are falling off in ones and twos and the wheel van is just behind me.  I glance at the odometer; I’m only four miles into a fifty five mile race. 

Riding alone into a headwind for twenty five miles can be a cleansing experience.  Any pretense at ability is washed away.  At fifteen miles I pass the turn in the road.  An ambulance and course marshal yell encouragement.  I nod weakly.  I can’t hear anything, just the constant rush of wind eliminates thought, just white noise to go with the high desert.  Around the turn is a lone rider, thin and bobbing in the wind.  I’m ok, despite the effort, and slowly bring him back.  It takes three miles, but it gives me something to think about.  I can’t see myself, but I see the pain in his eyes and read that he’s giving up.  Somehow it makes me feel better.  When I come up to him, I give him a little relief from the wind; at last someone more helpless than me.

We ride towards the cone, the spot where the course turn back on itself.  Three miles from the spot, the road turns and offers a respite from the wind.  I hit forty miles an hour for a while down a hill and realize my mate has drifted off the back.  Going downhill is my only super power right now.  Before the turn around, groups of twos and threes from the pack head past, about a mile in front of me.  This makes me feel better.  The first few are actually racing, the rest have various blank looks in their eyes.  Just before the cone, one of my teammates is fading fast and I roll up from behind.  His eyes are completely vacant, streams of dried salt and saliva streak his face.  I shelter him in the crosswind, but he struggles to go slow as we hit the cone. 

I soft pedal through the feedzone, grab and drink a bottle and grab another for the pocket.  I glance back and my teamie is not there.  He must have stopped.

Solo now into the wind for a few miles.  Wind and climbs are de rigueur now.  The countryside is a blur of pain, grunting into a wind and pushing on the pedals.  The turn comes and suddenly the wind is a gift and I’m sailing alone and brightly into the sage and pinon.  I know I’ll finish, because now there is no other choice.