I finished an XC race!
I’ve had the good fortune of not only riding a cycle since the age of 4, but continuing to think its a terrific idea for pretty much my entire life. As a child, the cycle was an achievable symbol of adultness; all I had to do was learn to ride it. As a tween and teenager, it was my chariot to freedom; the boundaries of my exploration were defined by the ability of my skinny legs to propel myself and my bike as far as I dared. As a young adult, getting on my cycle was a defiant, resilient connection to my lush childhood; one that continued to satisfy my mind, body and soul. Fortunately, the adoration of my cycle continued well into my adulthood, as I discovered the art of cycle maintenance to be extremely satisfying. The only thing more satisfying than that was to ride my bike further and further each week…
My friend and I had been getting competent at doing moderate distances of 30-50km per ride. We are also generally the best athletes in our neighbourhood and friend circle, easily out-lasting our competition at whatever sport we decide to play. We let it get to our heads, and we somehow got the hare-brained idea of competing in a cross-country mountain-bike race. On paper, it looked easy enough; 35km length, over a 7km circuit, which we had to repeat 5 times. And it was apparently just at the base of the nearby Nandi Hills. Pfff, not even in the hills themselves? We would surely destroy the competition! So.. off we went.
Reality, however, had a couple of fantastic wake-up calls for us. The first of which was the course itself. Base of the hill it might have been… but the gradient changes were appallingly steep. I was already thanking my stars that I was a solid 18kg lighter than my friend, who would have an even more miserable time hauling his weight up those slopes.
A portion of the 35km circuit that we had to traverse. Brutal!
The other wake up call came in the form of 2 of the competitors. While most of the participants were dressed in sports clothes like us…. three of them were dressed up tour-de-france style, and with good reason. They sported the proverbial Thunder-Thighs; fantastic slabs of muscle where us mere mortals had to do with fat and sinew. These guys looked like they were carrying flywheels between their knees and hips and, in that moment, we both knew that we stood absolutely no chance of beating these guys. We were going to be as effective as scenery against them.
But damn, we were already there, and soon enough we simply erased those guys from our competitor list. Our new target was to beat literally everyone else. Should be possible, considering there were only two others like us in the rest of the entourage.
It was much, much harder than we thought. Downhill was fantastic fun. But hauling ourselves up the backside of that hill was a mighty effort. Our minds were doing their level best not to think about the remaining 4 times we had haul our arses up there. This also proved to be the place where I could make lots of time on the other competitors; I had an excellent operational knowledge about my gear system, and knew exactly what to deploy for each section of the climb. The others meanwhile, struggled with too much effort, or wasting their effort with too short a gear. It gave me a chance to catch my breath at the top of the hill, and shout words of encouragement to the others - after all, we were all really one family, trying to outdo ourselves on the weekend, no? I loved the thought of it :)
Things got progressively more difficult as the laps wore down. By lap 3, I suffered a big puncture while freewheeling down the hill. This brought me immense joy, because I had packed in an extra tyre and repair toolkit, in the off-chance that I might need it. I set to work by the side of the little quarry section, flipping my bike upside down and systematically removing and replacing my wheels’ torn innards. Several of the other amateurs slowed down curiously to see what I was doing; it was just the pro’s that treated me like the competition I was - scenery - and whizzed by without so much as a glance. Except one of them, who gave me a little thumbs-up as he flicked some dirt my way, executing an extravagant 90° turn in the process, and causing me to return the gesture with interest, hahaha!
Despite the setback, I continued to make decent time, compared to the other mortals on the course. At one point towards the end, I even managed to lap a few of them, including my buddy, which pleased the competitor inside me immensely! Of course, we determined to keep that information to ourselves (till today, that is!) and crossed the line together, ahead of everyone else, and incredibly relieved that our bodies had not given up at any point during the event. Because, for sure, they were going to be rebelling against us very, very shortly. But in the meantime, we felt like the proverbial Davids, having just conquered the Goliath mountain course (having completely forgotten our mockery about it not even being inside the hills), and still standing at the end of it all. I think what made us really happy, however, was that we got little medals at the end. God knows we deserved them, having not a single clue what we were signing up for beforehand!
So, what did I learn from all this? Well, for one, I learnt that I need to be far more suspicious of my ego’s ability to gauge what it can and cannot accomplish. I barely got away from that event by the skin of my teeth, and thank god my friend was driving us home, because my legs froze up halfway through the ride back. The event also taught me how to reflect in the moment, as I had never had the need to do so before. This event pushed me so far out of the comfort zone of my stamina that I actually feared for my life at one point, and started carefully observing my body. This has had long-lasting benefits, because it opened a whole new input-channel for me to document, and I use it regularly to pace myself now in all manner of circumstances. I realise that while I have access to an infinite stream of energy, my body has its limits, and I would do well to keep it away from them, for the most part!