So, two weeks later, I can finally discuss Battle of The Bear. If you read my Lookout report, you know that I was not feeling great for the hill climb. “Not feeling great” turned into “feeling real shitty” over the course of the week between Lookout and Bear. The main problem was coughing at night due to sinus drainage. This was leading to little sleep and the drainage issue was leading to lungs filled with a fluorescent green substance that I can only assume was nuclear snot. During the week, I had several nights of persistent coughing, which led to very little sleep and angry half-asleep mumbles from Mindy, including “GOD, WHAT THE F_CK?”. (Editors Note: Mindy disputes this account of the events, as she claims to have been out of the country all week on business and that she arrived home on Friday night after I procured the medicine) On Wednesday, I procured a prescription for Tussionex, a 12-hour release combination of codeine and an antihistamine.
It’s important to note here that I have extensive experience with Tussionex, since I get this same cough every year around this time. When I was about 12, my mom misread the bottle label and gave me a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon. As it turns out, this was a bit too much. I spent most of the night wandering around the house, which I was convinced was Smurf Village. Since I’ve had this cough and the medicine every year since age 12, I’m well qualified to dose myself above what package label recommends. As such, I decided to take a bit more than a teaspoon the night before the race, so that I could ensure good sleep. The nice thing about Tussionex is that even if you are still coughing, you can’t feel it, so you don’t care. At least one person is happy.
Unfortunately, I neglected to remember the “12-Hour Extended Release” part of the Tussionex label. I took the medicine at midnight before the race and woke up stoned. I probably shouldn’t have been driving to the race, let alone racing at 9:00 AM. It didn’t turn out well.
At the race start, I came out of the gate strong and stuck to the wheel of YOA teamate Hillard. All was well, although when we hit the initial fast downhill, I kept thinking how strange it was to be riding a bike floating five feet above myself riding a bike. I was feeling good and passing tons of people, still on Hillard’s wheel. Approaching the first climb, I was still well behind where I needed to be. Strangely, the climb ended up being a rest, since the people in front of me were really slow. Hillard was able to pass a couple of people while climbing on the singletrack, but I was afraid to try. At the summit, I tried to go around two riders in front of me, but got bogged down in the high grass and ended up having to stop. This was my undoing. I had to wait for five or six riders to pass before I could get back on the trail. By this time, Hillard had made significant ground on me and I was feeling a lot of pressure to catch up.
On the back side of the first climb, I decided to go full-throttle to try to catch Hillard and pass all of the people that I had already passed once before. Full throttle was not a good idea, since I wasn’t exactly feeling “connected” to the bike. Apparently, the warnings about operating heavy machinery on the Tussionex label should be extended to operating really light, really expensive carbon fiber mountain bikes. I crashed. Fortunately, I only took myself out and slid far enough off of the trail to be mostly out of people’s way. I got up and waited for a train of about 20 riders to pass before I could get back on the trail. At this point, I was feeling pretty demoralized. Most of the people that I used a ton of energy passing had passed me while I was down. I considered bagging the ride altogether, but I figured I’d just try to pick some people off and maybe get a decent finish.
All went well for the rest of the first lap. I passed a bunch of people on the flats and climbs and I tried to take it easy on the downhills. I was working my way back to a faster group and starting to feel a little better. On the second (and final) lap, I was passing a group of riders on double-track road when another rider decided to come out of the left track to pass and bumped into me while I was passing him and the rider in front of him. Fortunately, there were only two things on the left side of that part of the trail, a river and a huge bush with a shit-load of little prickly thorns. Doing some quick mental risk-reward calculations (drowning vs. pulling little prickly thorns out of my arm for two days) I chose the bush. As before, about 20 people passed me while I was pulling my bike and my body out of the bush.
At this point, I was really close to the parking lot and I thought, “it would be really nice to be not riding right now”. But, I pushed on. I did the same as before, picking people off one by one. This time though, I was bleeding from my knee and my forearm. Wiping the blood from my forearm turned out to be a bad idea though because it just pushed the little pricklies even farther into my skin. Eventually, I was in no man’s land – ahead of the slower riders but with no hope of catching the leading packs. I finished the race alone and demoralized. I was 20th place out of over 31 riders and I finished 2:20 back of Hillard (12th), 5:00 back of DeVoe (9th) and 10:00 back of Matty (2nd). I was really bummed after the race, but I’m pretty much over it now. Results here (BTB Sport Men 30-39).
Here are some pics:
Official Race Photographer, Pdoo. Ladies: he's single!
Left to Right: Somebody who passed me when I crashed, me after crash, somebody who was too slow to pass me when I crashed but is probably frustrated by how slow I'm downhilling.
On the way to the finish, note that no one else is around.
Me post race. Pretty pissed. DeVoe is on the right, ignoring me. He crashed too.