I’d been riding for 16 hours in the summer sun. The temperature hovered around 95 all day. After arriving at the campsite I found myself sitting on the picnic table; the sweat had stopped flowing hours ago. Knowing where I was I reached out with my phone to snap a selfie. Everything hurt. My head was foggy and my body dysfunctional. I mustered the strength to stand and pulled out my sleeping pad. As I leaned over I was surprised to see a stream of drool fall from my lips; I had assumed all my bodily fluids were being used for basic cellular functions. I wasn’t aware of much but I did know that I left everything I had out there on the road
The day started early. My alarm went off at 6:00 AM and I was on the road 45 minutes later. I had packed Penne the night before with a modified dry bag strapped to her saddle and another dry bag under her aero bars. We were riding from Charlotte to Duck. I had been invited by my good friend Scott to join him and his wife to celebrate Memorial Day 390 miles to the East. They own a beach house on the outer banks and would be coming down from NYC for the long weekend. Remembering that I had been involved with ultra-cycling for three years, I jumped at the idea of a epic training ride. However, I neglected to remember my involvement was largely as a spectator.
By noon I had stopped only once to stave off the heat under a farm-stand awning and to consume a large quantity of watermelon. By three o’clock, however, I had stopped three more times. Once to try and not vomit the large quantity of watermelon I had consumed, a second to reverse my position about not vomiting said large quantity of watermelon. And the third because I either passed out or fell asleep on my bike.
I decided to lie down in the shade for a moment at stop number three. I had only covered 130 miles in 9 hours. Granted 130 miles in the 95 degree sun, loaded for touring over constant rolling terrain, is not too shabby. I wondered when I would finish the other 70 miles I had planned for that day. I had hoped to pull into the campsite around 7:00 PM, that would have put my average speed at just under 17 miles per hour, a feat I believed to be achievable. I was wrong.
At eight o’clock PM I lay useless in a ditch. I was 30 miles from my destination and could not think of getting back on my bike. I couldn’t imagine laying in the ditch either, all I could do was lay down and cry. I had given my all to the road. My rear end was raw, my legs would no longer push, my feet were numb and my back was aching. I couldn’t think of anything else to do but sit there, broken.
After about ten minutes of self pity my phone rang. I answered and heard the voice of my girlfriend June. She was at home, in the air conditioned bedroom, having just finished dinner. I grumbled to her about this and that: the heat, the sun, the wind and the hills. She, being a two time Race Across America crew, told me what I could do with my complaining. “Hey jackass!” She yelled into the phone “You were the one that wanted to go for a 400 mile bike ride. Stop crying like a wimp and drag your lazy ass off the ground!”
After a few more minutes of verbal abuse I wiped the salty tears from my eyes and climbed back on Penne. We started moving and I pushed down on the pedals for about three minutes before I was in tears again. I couldn’t think straight but I knew I needed a simple goal if I was to continue. Three more became my mantra. If I could do three pedal strokes I would keep moving.
I pushed out three good ones, then took a break as I coasted. Three more I thought and my body responded. Three more, three more, three more. That’s how it went for another two and a half hours. Every climb felt like alpe d’heuz and every second was, a moment of hell, frozen in time. I stopped drinking after the first hour. That was a mistake, but I was fixated on three more and nothing else.
I had fallen into the pain cave and I would not emerge until 3:00 AM when I woke with a splitting headache (a by product of moderate to severe dehydration). Every cyclist and endurance junkie finds the pain cave at some point in their life. Some find it right away and others it takes more time, but everyone finds it, how deep you go inside is all up to you.