How was the race?  How’d you do?  I’ve gotten this question a dozen times in the last 24 hours and I completely appreciate the question.  It’s the most relevant thing anyone that’s been listening to me for the last 8 months can ask.  So I’ll get it out up front–I quit.  After months of anticipation.  Would I make it into the lottery?  Would I have the right terrain to train on in So California?  Would I react poorly to altitude?  Would my bike make it with no mechanicals on race day?  All important questions and every one of them I answered in advance.  I knew exactly what my race day was going to be.  I stood in the Leadville gym and repeated after Ken “I commit.  I won’t quit!”  I said it a dozen more times on the first half of the race.  But I quit.  Why?

Leadville was the center of my focus in a time when life hasn’t been too fair to me.  I’m in a job that I’m performing below personal expectations, recently found my (now ex) wife was far from faithful, a divorce that’s causing all sorts of financial hell in my life and a (perhaps) premature midlife existential crisis.  So spinning on the pedals and shutting out the world for hours at a time was a great way to escape a lot of this hell.

Excuses are like assholes as they say.  And my excuses seem more like assholes the more I realize I didn’t get done what I came to Colorado to do.  Truth is I was hitting my marks for what I’d calculated to be a 10.5 hour Leadville finish.  I was averaging above 11.3MPH for the first 45 miles of the course and could feel my buckle in my hand.  Unfortunately at about mile 49 I got caught up with the wrong pack of guys and just to prove how much Leadville is really about mental over physical (within reason) I heard a couple of guys saying how they weren’t going to finish under 12 hours and in a moment of weakness I capitulated and believed I wasn’t either.  Out of pure self-sabotage I turned my wheel around at 49.3 miles and headed back down Columbine (ensuring that even if I recovered after the descent I couldn’t go on for having missed the Columbine checkpoint).  Perhaps one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.  Surely one of the stupidest in a race.

So I came across 8 months of training, countless dollars in hotels and airfare, boring friends with talk of Leadville for months, pulled people away from their lives to crew for me, and pedaled 65 miles of 100 in under 7 hours to DNF.  FML!  That’s the most honest version of the story I can give.  I quit the course and I quit myself–for no good reason other than lack of mental fortitude.  I even had moments of self pity.  Recalling Ken’s words about the pain of finishing lasting for the day and not finishing bringing about an everlasting pain.  I convinced myself this was “jock-speak” and that I knew enough permanent pain from this year that one additional bit wouldn’t make a huge difference.

And maybe me giving in to Leadville is what I needed.  I hadn’t closed the door to the car before I felt like I’d made a horrible and preventable mistake. I don’t race endurance to win the race on the course–that’s for many far more talented people than me to do.  I race them to beat myself.  To beat my mind.  To overcome what’s in front of me in the moment and continue on.  It’s a close cousin to life’s other issues in my mind.  And not finishing Leadville made me realize how true Ken’s words are–”You’re better than you think you are and you can do more than you think you can.”  The road back home was a long silent one with a lot of self-reflection.  Yeah, shit’s tough right now.  My house is probably on its way back to the bank.  The map of my life I was so confident in a year ago is a scattered mess.  But that’s the hand I have to play right now and now it’s time to get to playing that hand as best I can.  Failing to finish Leadville made me realize that’s what has to be done.  Take the lumps and get going again.

Kyra and I were sitting in a restaurant for our last breakfast before we left Vail.  There was a sign on a wall that said “Born Free.”  I’ve seen these stickers on cars a hundred times and I never really got it.  But sitting in that diner I realized more fully what it means.  That the encumbrances I have in my life are mine and mine alone.  Nobody’s forced them on me.  Life changes and how you react dictates where you go next.

Hope springs eternal in man. I have friends and my mind; and from there it’s all fine.  What I choose to add to that is what complicates it.  In the same way the only thing I had to do in Leadville was simply keep pedaling, I need to do the same in my “real” life.  So while I failed to finish, and I feel a personal debt to Ken and Merilee, I’m also thankful for the kick in the nuts.  It’s what I needed at the time I needed it most.  I’m not done and if Ken and Merilee will have me back next year, I’ll make it right.

P.S. As for the race conditions and experience, I offer the following less relevant synopsis. It was cold. It was raining. It was early. It was muddy. It was crowded. It sleeted/hailed. And it was the most fun I’ve had on 2 wheels since the training wheels came off my bike as a kid. Of particular note was hauling ass down Powerline. That was so much fun it must be illegal.