Subscribe to Outside Magazine
advertisement
Survival Guru

Today's Question
What should you do if you run into a cougar in the backcountry? answer

What is the number one backcountry skill people should learn? answer

Eco Adventurer

Today's Question
What are the five best environmental movies of all time? answer

What are the greenest colleges? answer

Videos Ask Dave
  • What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
  • Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
  • How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries
save this page print this page email this page
  • share this page

Outside Magazine May 2003
Page:
1 2 3 4 5 6 

The Hard Way
Misery Loves Company (Cont.)

DAN RIDES THE SUNRISE lap and rolls in all smiles but wheezing from his asthma.

I ride my fifth lap, starting at 8:20 a.m., only two minutes slower than my first. It's my cleanest run, and my last. Not one crash. I'm actually learning how to ride during the race.

At the end of each lap, I've felt utterly spent. Certain that I went as hard as I could and that I couldn't do it again for another year. Now I don't have to.

Pat storms lap number 18, and then Nat takes off for number 19. Big Daddy Meats is still in seventh place. If Nat rides well, we have a chance of getting in one more lap and maybe even placing in the top three of the expert class. But leaving the gate, Nat doesn't look good; he looks like a cadaver. He's risen above his illness for four rides, but the fifth might nearly kill him.

His previous laps were in the 1:10 range, so after an hour we start looking for him. Little do we know that at the top of the mountain he has bonked and is lying in the first-aid station, his body limp and shivering.

And yet, after 20 minutes of rest, Nat manages to crawl back onto the saddle and ride out the lap.

When he rolls across the finish line, we're exultant. It's 12:40 p.m. and the race is over. We hug just to hold each other up. In the end, we take 13th place out of the 97 teams that finished.




Next Page
Page:
1 2 3 4 5 6