Fear

I think it's fair to say that my fear of a bummer life is alive and well.  What may be hidden from most however these days, is the fear of something more salient, something darker.  It's a fear of failure; specifically, failure to complete The 300.  It's ironic that I'm afraid of this, given that less than 30 individual people have ever finished this ride/race based on my last count.  Apparently, all the cool kids are doing it....and yet I fear.  I fear the weather I can not control.  I fear the knee that may or may not cooperate with me.  I fear the bike mechanical that may or may not come.  I am a ball of worries these days, just a mere 21 days out from my start.  As I write this post and project 3 weeks from now; I will be knee deep in cow shit, dust and sweat; pushing out of the Canelo Hills and into Patagonia for some much needed food before an uncertain late day into the Santa Rita's.  Will it be snowing, or will it be 95 degrees?

I've learned to manage fear somewhat in my time in the mountains on bike and ski.  Bin the fears into one of two boxes:  One box contains the fears you can't control, and the other box holds the items you can control.  Work like hell to understand and then eliminate or mitigate the ones you can control....and hope like hell the box with the items you can't control is light enough for you to carry along the way.  Working like this when the shit hits the fan is also helpful.

When I sheered off my rear-derailleur last summer on a bikepack far from a road sending it and my chain into my wheel; the first thought that went through my head was, "I'm phucked".  A minute later, I was elbow deep in death mud trying to remove my quick link to convert my bike into a single-speed for my egress.  In this cuss-filled, cramp inducing time...I found my new challenge.  The challenge I had set for myself prior to my mechanical was now over....my planned ride was done, dead.  My new challenge was to ride myself out of this muddy pit of failure.  So confident was I in my self-rescue, that I turned down a ride from two hunters on an ATV who showed up a few minutes later.

The fear that consumes me most days is of the unknown, but more importantly; it's the fear of not completing what I say I will complete.  I'm certain I can finish, and yet I'm fairly uncertain if I will.  There is a difference.  As Yoda says....do or do not, there is no try.

I will do until I can do not....and then I will do something else.  I'm not trying to ride the 300....I'm DOING the 300.  How I do it is where the fear resides.  I've seen far better riders wilt on the first day and DNF....for reasons they could not control.  Will I?

The silence after this question....is what I fear.  Because for all the comfort of a cold beer and a nice bar-stool....it still never competes with the feeling I get when I know I've pushed myself further into angst and pain than I did before and still found beauty within it.  This is my letter of intent...I will do the 300.

maadJurguer

Sedona Big Friggin Loop

I'm confused.....I'm laying flat on my chest, bike wrapped up in the manzanita to my right just off of the singletrack....my head took a hit and I'm dazed.  I look over to my right and see my GPS mount cracked, my GPS face banged up and my wheel out of alignment against my handlebars.....it's 8:15 and I'm just 10 minutes into the race.......for a moment, I'm not sure how I got here....the riders I had just passed are now streaming by......

30 minutes prior, the scene outside the Bike & Bean was one of joviality prior to the Arizona Endurance Series: Sedona Big Friggin Loop.  I'm not really feeling it this morning, having still not recovered from a mix of poor judgement and a beatdown the previous weekend along with a healthy mix of poor nutrition and poor hydration all week....but I'm always game for an AES race, even if I'm operating on one leg or one lung.....there's nothing, and I mean NOTHING...like an AES race.

Wiping my chin of the Mars-like Sedona dust that makes its way into every moving part of your bike and body; I straighten my handlebars and rig up an impromptu mount for my GPS....and move on.  I make a note to pay more attention to the tree gaps along the narrow singletrack...my new, and wider, handlebars don't have the clearance as my previous setup.  Stoping at the first overlook on Highline, I shoot riders on the ridge just before the slickrock traverse.....

Early light glows warm in the longer shadows of day and fracture......

After a techy and punchy start....things stretch out in a flowy mess of goodness called Aerie.....I put'er in the big ring and punched this section, banking and yanking with my hips....very little cockpit input required.

I'm not sure where this was taken.....but I remember seeing the clouds and feeling a strong desire to sit down and watch shadow play over rock for the remainder, sun moving overhead.....but I move on.

Overlooking the entrance into Thunder Mountain, I spy the cliffs that mark the eastern boundary of the valley....and the eastern extent of the race....the start of the end is in sight....and yet so many more ups and downs to go.  Just because you can envision the end, should not mean that you should feel you are close at hand to the objective....reason here, is not your friend.....

On the home stretch, the view east from Broken Arrow is one of radiant cliffs in afternoon light set against cool skies colored with smoke and azure.

The scene after the ride (race) is much as it always is......good times, with good (fast) people and good conversation.......

As riders come in.....bikes get thrown down on the ground in haste after the ride..........

....because there is serious post-race nutritional needs to be met.......

Legs are shot....the Mars-like Sedona dust covers all but scar tissue.....I have lots of scars.....

Late afternoon light plays the King-maker from the parking lot at the Bike & Bean who hosted the party....there is no better place to start and end a fine ride from.  Thank you, Bike & Bean!

Scott Morris snatches my camera while we talk pixel nerdery........

.....and captures the moment Lee comes in......that's a big grin.....

A Hell of a Time

She says......"Do you need any more food....I mean, you only have a powerbar and a Cliff Bar...."

I say......"Nah....it's only 30 miles....I'm good...I do 60 miles with this food and I'm good"..........I got this, I say.

I'm pre-riding the 1st 10% of the AZT300.....it's 30 miles...it's ONLY 30 miles.....I just want to know how to pace myself when my folly starts on April 13th.......one of the few question marks left on the map......

My buoyant spirt on such a numerically minor ride shows in the happy snaps.  Moments in time are captured in focus....the past and the recently experienced remain fuzzy.  The past is fuzzy because we've over-analyzed things and the original reality is now overwritten by interpretation.  The near present is fuzzy because we've not processed it yet.  The only moment which is clear is the now....the moment the contact patch of tire is pressed into dirt....this is where the proverbial 'rubber meets the road'...the singular moment when the feeling happens....a flash of thought, smell and scene.  It's infinitely complex, and yet singularly complete.  This is the moment......

Blossoming Manzanita give flashes of pink as I fly by....slowing me down to crush their petals in my fingers and smell the metallic sweetness extracted from the volcanic soil...

....the exotically ferrous bark, curling against a new seasons growth, provide wonderful contrast against another bluebird sky in the Sonoran highlands.

Last summers growth still reaches high; standing fast against the daily movement of the bodies in motion beyond our control......

Looking back, the singletrack cuts through the savanna which hides my ride........this is to be the last of the 'happy snaps'...........

#57 was adamant that I go around..... adamant that I not use the gate.... adamant that I bushwack through the chaparall and cholla.  #57 was not to be trifled with,  He sent forth his message to the other beef in my way....do not let this man pass for he enjoys a Dionysian feast of bevo every October.....I struggled against herd of beef all day protecting the newly born of spring.  I guess I'd be obstinate too, if I knew I were malnourished, lacking in higher cognitive functions and destined for the slaughterhouse......

The Canelo Hills are a feature which exhibits none of the topographic bluster found in higher peaks of the region...but makes up for it in sheer beauty.  At their base is a planar grassland atypical of the Sonoran desert which rises gently into a spine of peaks which trend along a NW-SE aspect extending from the US-Mexican border.  The AZT  traverses the spine of this feature.....this means fall-line up....and fall-line down....look for flow elsewhere...this is a land of raw beauty and effort.

Cresting the highest point in the hills, I find evidence of another kind of endurance athlete...the athlete with everything to lose.  I marvel at the nutritional selection they left behind and I wonder if they won their race.  I hope they did....because I think I have to incorporate some of their nutrition into my next ride if they in fact made it......who the hell want's a Cliff Bar when you can have Barbacoa in a can?

As the day wore on, the realization painfully came into focus......the HAB was taking it's toll on my pace and body.  I was getting further and further behind in my planned pickup time.  My average pace was at the 5mph mark.....I'm normally a 9mph kind of guy.....this place is killing me.....and then I see the snows at 9300ft on Mt. Wrightson above the grasslands......I'm fine with dying here....

....but I ride on.....down this spine which went on forever......steep, flowly singletrack etched along a hogback of alluvial remains, covered in grass, buttressed by hidden cholla and not so hidden catclaw which tears at my flesh as I pass. It was bliss.....floating on air, gravity taking hold of my body; a body held somewhere between a sky of blue and terra firma in brown.....

I move on in a fog of nutritional deficit....I've been bonking for 30 minutes at this point, but still chuckling at the irony......It's apparent to me that Delilah has already been here......

As the day wears on....I'm exhausted for the little mileage I've gone, but happy that most of the climbing is behind me and the track has softened......

At the end of my ride....my friend makes sign that my woes are over....I chuckle at the sight, alone....laughing that I just got owned by a measly 30 miles....

....but that's ok...she appears holding an oilcan which I promptly own.  I also own the hell out of a pie at the Velvet Elvis pizza in Patagonia....the world is right once again.  I realize now that to finish the 300, all I have to do is make it through the first day and smile with the realization that the easiest day was yesterday.....not so different than life I guess.....it all sucks, until you review the pictures and realize you had a hell of a time......