Where Weekend Warriors Fear To Tread

Note: I'm feeling a bit nostalgic lately. I have been wanting to post some of my old silly blogs on here. I think maybe it will inspire me to start writing about silly things again, like I used to do when I was young, and full of life. This blog is sorely neglected. Anyway, I did find this one that I wrote about a horrid, but beautiful mountain bike racing experience I once had at Soldier Hollow. I always have a hard time explaining the love/hate relationship I once had with Mountain Bike racing. This one comes close to saying something. It was originally posted on Myspace on May 19, 20007. My mood was posted as "Chipper".

Soldier Hollow: Forgotten Pain, Forgotten Pleasure: Where Weekend Warriors Fear to Tread

"I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, his greatest fulfillment of all he holds dear, is the moment when he lies exhausted on the field of battle - VICTORIOUS!"

Vince Lombardi said something like that. I think I know what he was talking about. But do you know what I'm talking about? For instance: Can you imagine what it feels like to burn 3000 calories in 3 hours? Most people will never be able to take themselves willingly to that level of masochism, and I truly pity them. It's quite a unique experience in the human condition. I don't even have the words to describe something that awful, and if I did I probably wouldn't tell you because you're happier not knowing. You would have nightmares, and I wouldn't want to be responsible for you losing sleep.

So I'll just say that by the time I reached the nearest Carl's Jr. restaraunt I was literally shaking, and my eyes refused to focus on anything that was moving. Add to that the fact that my face was completely encrusted with layer upon layer of dust, and streaked with mud and salt from the rivers of sweat that had been recently flowing through that barren, desert wasteland. The poor high school kid at the counter wasn't sure wether to take my order or call the manager, or maybe the police, or maybe an elite animal control unit.

My speech was slurred. It was hard to form the words. But somehow I managed to order a Guacamole Bacon Six-Dollar Burger Combo, large size, with a 44 oz. Dr. Pepper, and a side of fried zucchini; a hearty meal that would surely make Morgan Spurlock cry like a doomed baby who had somehow found itself crawling up Parley's canyon, at rush hour, in the fast lane. And I must confess, with absolutely no remorse, that I enjoyed every bite of that slut with the happy knowledge that I will still weigh-in 3 pounds less than last week. And that's not even mentioning the horrid things I ate yesterday. You don't want to know. Let's just say that there is a beautiful practice in the dog-eat-dog world of mountain bloodsport called 'Carbo-Loading', and somewhere in the deepest levels of hell a Dr. Robert Atkins is being forcibly violated, in my honor, by 2 large demons with lightning bolts tatooed on their hairy beer-bellies.

So, after shoveling that garbage into my mouth with wild, reckless abandon, I managed to walk out of the place feeling like a distant relative of the human race. I didn't look back, but if I did I was sure I would see everyone sighing in relief to know that the sweating, stinking phillistine had left the building. They could all feel safe again, but they would be left forever wondering what it was that I had seen, and how much it would cost to get some. I guarantee they couldn't afford it.

It was race #4 at Soldier Hollow that put me in this wretched condition. The race that separates the willing from the able. It separates the clean-shaven and virtuous from the foul and hedonistic, dirt-worshiping adrenaline junkies. I hate Soldier Hollow. Everyone I know hates Soldier Hollow. But those of us who have truly been there will never stop coming back for more. We bash our souls against that mountain year after year after bloody year. It is the first race of the season at high altitude that takes place on something you can actually call a mountain. After Soldier Hollow, you are done with the hills, and must be ready for anything.

Soldier Hollow is not a course to be taken lightly. That third lap took everything I had. The mountain forced its way into all the dark, moist holes in my training strategy. I apologize for getting crude with my analogies, but there's no other way to express the sort of pain and humiliation that I suffered today. But it was okay in the end. I got sixth place, which isn't bad at all considering. And now I know my weaknesses, intimately. The mountain has shown me the path that I must take, and I will not cringe in the face of adversity.

After all that I knew I was pushing my luck when Stephen Brown asked me if I wanted to go for a 3rd lap, after the race awards, but you can never say no to a personal, mano e mano grudgefest with an old foe. In fact when Tinker Juarez descended from Amasa Back with the Ten Commandments of XC Mountain Bike Racing, given to him by a flaming pile of Cryptobiotic Soil, I think it was the first commandment that said "Thou shalt not deny 3rd lap pissing contests with old foes."


The fat is in the fire. The bikefight is on.