They say that one reason people continue to have kids after the first one is that once you make it through the proverbial valley–the indescribable pain of birth, the sleepless nights, the raw, jolting responsibility of keeping another human alive–that the smiles and “mamas” and “dadas” quietly buff out the scars from the early days, leaving you with the vague sense that it wasn’t actually that bad.
I only have one kid at the time of this writing so I can’t say for sure whether or not that’s true for subsequent offspring, but having just finished a practice stage for my second go at the infamous Pisgah Stage Race, I can say with confidence that that life does play that nasty trick on recreational endurance mountain bike racers.
Last year was my first stage race, and as I chronicled then, I fell even more in love with singletrack that had already won my heart. The trails are amazing, of course, but Todd and the Blue Ridge Adventures also know how to show even the most hardcore of mountain bikers a good time. From how the trail is marked to the aid stations, dinners and time with other riders, you’re pretty much free to enjoy the riding and company without having to worry about anything else.
Which is pretty much the opposite of practice-riding the hardest stage of the race, by yourself, without remembering the exact turns, all while suffering from the self-inflicted pain of not bringing enough food or water.
There was certainly temptation to curse my short memory in the heat of a few brutal climbs, but two reminders helped me keep the rubber side down mentally, so to speak:
First, I’ve been training in the gym all winter. That’s no substitute for not remembering there aren’t aid stations in practice, but if you have to push it, being in shape helps.
The real wind in the sails came during the hardest part of the stage – a brutal hike-a-bike section 30 miles in. My silent uphill pity-party trudging was joyously interrupted by the rattling sound of a fellow stage racer bombing down the hill towards me, practicing the exact same stage.
Recognizing each other, we stopped to shake hands, laugh about meeting in the woods on the same practice run and talk about the upcoming race. After a mutual reflective pause, he said what we were both thinking: “this is way harder than I remember.”
And, just like that, my hearty agreement melted into frothing about the highs and lows of last year and how excited we were to get back after it this year. Somehow my legs didn’t hurt as much. Somehow my car felt closer than it did 10 minutes before.
After goodbyes, as I resumed my hike, I smiled to myself as laughed about how easy it is to forget what the adventure is all about.
Dodds Brothers Racing 