|
Adventure Girl: A desk job and the Ultimate Mountain Challenge |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Written by Megan Michelson/special to the World
|
|
Wednesday, 13 June 2007 |
|
|
|
|
I’m crawling up a rocky singletrack, already in my granny gear.
Climbing at 10,000 feet, my lungs are aching almost as badly as my quads.
As I round each switchback, I’m hoping, even praying, that it’ll flatten out — or better yet, descend.
But it doesn’t. It keeps going up, endlessly.
Out of nowhere, a biker comes up behind me, moving steadily. I can hear his breath getting louder. He’s racing for a hefty cash prize, so I quickly get off my bike and step out of his way. He’s wearing an orange and white jersey and he has a goatee.
I recognize his face before I realize who it is: Floyd Landis, 2006 winner of the Tour de France who’s famously awaiting rulings on doping charges.
 “Nice job,” he grunts to me on his way by. Standing in the bushes on the side of the trail, I’m humiliated, shocked, and slightly star struck. I try to mutter something back but before I can think of anything sharp or witty to say, he’s gone, a ghost around the next bend.
The name alone should have deterred me from signing up for the race: The Ultimate Mountain Challenge.
Sounds like something designed for grizzled men who eat raw eggs for breakfast.
Which, of course, is why I had to sign up — if for no other reason than to prove I could do it.
I’m at the Teva Mountain Games in Vail, Colo., a six-year-old event that encompasses everything from kayaking to climbing competitions and draws pro and amateur athletes from around the world. The race I’ve signed up for involves four events spread out during the course of two days.
Saturday, it’s a downriver sprint kayak race on the Class II rapids of Vail’s Gore Creek, followed by a 21-mile mountain bike race. On Sunday, it’s an early morning 10K trail run and then an eight-mile road bike hill climb up Vail Pass.
I should have known that the only people crazy enough to sign up for something like this would be professional athletes.
 At the start line to the mountain bike race, I glance around at my, um, competition. Up toward the front there is Floyd, of course, along with Mountain Biker Hall of Famer and former world champ Ned Overend.
The women’s field is equally intimidating: NORBA veteran Shonny Vanlandingham and 24-hour-mountain bike champ Pua Sawicki, to name a few.
I am — how shall I say this? — completely and embarrassingly out of my league. In case you need further evidence of my incompetence, I have a desk job, which requires me to sit in front of a computer for upwards of nine hours a day, the same amount of time many of these rides spend in the saddle. Believe it or not, I used to think I was a decent mountain bike rider.
Until I came in dead last.
Floyd and the 54 other pro male riders lap me almost immediately, then comes the 25 pro women, who blow past me like I’m standing still. The race is three laps on a seven-mile long singletrack that climbs more than 1,500 vertical feet.
The top riders finish a lap in less than 30 minutes; I take twice as long. Within minutes of the starting gun, I am left in a mist of dust. I ride alone, suffering silently, for two hours.
 As I pass through the start line to begin my third lap, many of the other riders are celebrating at the finish line.
“I’m sorry. You didn’t make the cut off time,” the race director tells me. “You’re nine minutes too late.”
A few other riders were too slow, as well — one overweight guy in baggy shorts, and a couple women who looked like they might have been sick that day. But I felt alone and disappointed. For a split second, I considered doing the third lap anyway, even though it wouldn’t count, just for my pride’s sake. But I didn’t. I went and had a beer instead.
Friends tell me it takes more courage to finish last than it does first. I’m going to pretend that’s true.
— Megan Michelson finished seventh in the Ultimate Mountain Challenge. There were slightly more than seven girls in the race.
Photos by Brian Metzler
Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
|
Last Updated ( Monday, 11 June 2007 )
|
|
|
