A few inches from rock bottom

(click here for the first part of this post, Rock Bottom)

It is difficult to say what is the worst part of a day on the Cape Epic, because every moment of the day has something miserable to contribute. In the mornings, the trauma is psychological, the unpleasant airhorn alarm, pushing breakfast into a disinterested body at 5 AM, the humiliating trip to Medi-Clinic, the putting on of tight cycling clothes on a cold morning, the hauling of the too heavy race bag to the transport vehicle, the painful reacquaintance of saddle with back side.

This morning we visited the race office in order to find out how my partner could drop out of the race and find his way back to his vehicle parked at the race start in Knysna. Ostensibly we wanted to make sure that I could legitimately ride on without him -- in reality I would only have made it about one water hole further, once the precedent had been set for dropping out. (There was also my wife on the telephone, "You can't drop out of the race before M!")

It would be necessary for him to start the day - short of riding, the only way to get a ride to the next town was to be picked up by the Medi-Clinic sweep vehicle - there is not much public transport across the blasted landscape of the Little Karoo desert.

Before long he had found his second wind and it was me who was falling apart. Feeling ill from the beginning of the day, I had eaten only a banana for breakfast, which is not the best idea when one plans to ride eight hours and burn some 2500 calories or more. At 6'1" and 145lbs, I do not have any appreciable reserves to call upon.

The world seemed to drag around me, and the few cyclists I had passed in the early minutes were now flying past me. Even the small descents were dizzying, the bike bouncing all over the place in my loose hands, the foggy shouts of riders around me, "Hold your line, #199, hold your line!"

A danger to others and to myself, I kept my mind fixed on my objective -- the porta-potty at the first water hole. After four days of drawing over half my calories from home-made chocolatty soy and wheat germ energy bars, my body's digestive system was staging a protest. What was coming out was beginning to look a lot like what was going in, and demanding to be moved at about the same frequency - one energy bar per hour.

Dramatically, I told my partner that my race was finished, and he was going to have to go on without me. I would make it to the next water hole, but no further. We ceremonially passed tubes, pump and tools from my pack to his so he would be self-sufficient.

With the bittersweet taste of having failed the Cape Epic, I relaxed for the first time in five days, and opened my eyes and ears for my last hours of riding. Still close to our starting point, we were riding through a fabulous terrain of irrigated orchards, on footpaths and jeep tracks between pear and apple trees, scrubby desert mountains looming at our sides. It would be an impressive place to ride, if it didn't hurt so much just to sit on the bike.

Whether it was the temporary peace, or the lightweight pack, an hour and a half later I still found myself within a few feet of my partner, and finishing the day again seemed possible. It helped that by this point in the race, most people in our category (that being Those Who Should Have Stayed Home) were walking their bikes on all the major climbs, and many minor ones as well. This was a saving grace for me, because walking spares the butt from the saddle, and because being pathetically slow does not lose you nearly as much time to a walker as to a rider.

As the desert heat poured into the afternoon, even walking proved difficult, and our arms and legs were glistening with dusty sweat. A rider ahead of me slumped over his bike, and with an expression reminiscent of a painting by Edvard Munch, said, "Are you all experiencing your own personal Hell?" We grumbled our assent and dragged our bikes on up the hill.

In passing, we signed up for this race thinking that it would be fun, or at least that it would have fun moments. And for some riders, perhaps even the majority, it seemed to meet that expectation. For those who finished their days in times of 5 and 6 hours, there was time to relax, have a nap and a massage, stroll through town, drink a beer, spend the afternoon sampling South African pastries in a small town coffee shop. For us, the end of each day's ride was the beginning of an evening race: to find a tent, have a shower, wash and dry our clothes and eat dinner all quickly enough to afford ourselves eight hours of sleep before the next grueling day.

As I dialed my wife that evening, all I had in mind was to let her know that I would be dropping out of the Cape Epic the next day. She, who ten months and 6,000 rand ago, had foreseen that riding this race was an utterly senseless idea, did not sound impressed. "All the people at my work are cheering you guys on! They think you're going to make it." This hardly came as good news, as I had no intention of finishing. Disappointed coworkers. It was just one more thing to be miserable about.

Continued...