Masochism

Warning: This entry was composed while in a state of delirium induced by a 6hr solo night trail ride. The thoughts and expressions, while open and truthful, are a little more revealing than that of most entries.

It’s 2:00 am in the morning and I just got out of the shower after a 6hr night ride in the trails. With the looming 24hr event around the corner I thought it would be beneficial to sharpen my night lap skills.

Let me begin with a brief description of the events leading up to this evening’s endeavor. I spent the day with Angela’s family celebrating her birthday. I had ridden to her parent’s house in the morning (45 miles with some ancillary trail stops). The goal of this ride was to get the system adjusted to riding in a state of exhaustion. The day consisted of a barrage of beer, sun by the pool, consumption of three different animal meats, and an ice cream cake with some coffee to wash it down. Essentially, it was a recipe for an epic bowel battle!

At the end of the day as I rolled out to begin my excursion, I kissed Angela goodbye, wished her happy birthday and explained that 97% of the time I love riding my bike. However, this ride was not going to be one of those times.

For those of you who have never ridden trails at night, it is great! Get a few of your friends, roll to your local trail head with some lights and you can make any memorized mundane trail system feel like a completely new experience. The best part is, you can ride the trails backwards whereas during the day it would normally be a big MTB no no.

So riding with your friends at night=fun; riding by yourself at night=a bit downright frightening. That’s right, my first lap was terrifying…I’ll admit it, I’m man enough. The nighttime in the woods is incredibly quiet. Your sight becomes complete tunnel vision and things come up on you very quickly. Couple that with the reflective eyes of assorted night time woodland creatures (raccoon, deer, fox, sasquach, etc.), and the ever present looming threat that there will be some misguided teenagers under the influence of whatever inhalants and pills they were able steal from there local Walgreen’s having a bonfire at the top of Mescaline Mountain and completely lacking sensible judgment. If that is not enough, your thoughts of different scenarios that could happen consume you. For instance, one of my biggest fears is paranormal life. If I told you that the thought that I could rip around a corner and whoosh right through a transparent haunting image of Tara Grant and have her chase me the rest of the lap was not running through my mind constantly, I would be telling a lie!

Before I left for the ride Angela’s mom asked me, “Aren’t you afraid of riding in the woods at night?”. I conjured up the quickest tough guy response that I could think of in my deepest voice, “Not really, I am most afraid of going into this 24hr race unprepared” than I puffed up my chest and walked away on my tiptoes. Although my response was arguably award winning, whom was I kidding, I was terrified.



Perhaps it was nerves, or pre-race anxiety, or the eclectic collage of food dancing around in my gut, but after a few laps in the trails, something happened. My stomach started making noises similar to a clogged garbage disposal. Severe abdominal pains started consuming me and every time I stomped on the pedals I took a risk of a sharting (i.e. combo of shiting and farting) blow out! I tried my best to dismiss the pain and mentally overcome it. Mind over matter can only go so far; at a certain point your intestinal discharge will become involuntary! I began to realize what action was in the cards. Luckily, in college I read the literary masterpiece How to Shit in the Woods by Kathleen Meyer. I was prepared and knowledgeable of how I could make this move go effectively smooth. So I rolled off to the side of the trail, found an inviting tree to lean against, striped down, and began my business…it was not pretty. As I squat, and looked around for the most optimal leafs to complete the paperwork with, the true reality of this entire 24hr tour of duty/vision quest started to really sink in. Call it masochistic perhaps?

In the film 24hr solo, Chris Etough explains that there is no where to hide in a 24hr race, at one point you become face to face with your soul. Well, tonight I caught of glimpse of my soul and left a pile of it lying in the woods.