Invictus

At the second to last pit, I said to my team “See you at the next pit”.  “OK”.  Sometimes when you’re in a hurry there is not good communication.  They decided to skip the last pit and go right to the finish line to get there before I did.  (Remember they had to drive 520 miles like did.  That’s a long way!)  I should have said, “See you at the next pit where I will need clear goggles”.  They would have said, “You better take them now”.  

I had tinted mirrored goggles on to shield me from the harsh desert sun, but it was getting dark now.  When I arrive at a pit I pull into the gas stop (independent from them) and they are usually there.  The deal is that if they are not there I keep going.  What am I going to do – wait for them?  This is a race!

My tracker was working intermittently (as many friends found out – sorry I know you were worried) and they could not tell where I was either.  I took off out of the pit and it got darker and darker.  It was like wearing sunglasses when driving at night – except if I missed seeing one rock it could be lights out for me.  I heard little tick tick ticks against my helmet.  Was it raining?  It did rain on and off around me during the afternoon – you could see it falling from the clouds in the distance.  But no, it was bugs; swarms of bugs hitting my helmet and goggles making little noises.

This is the worst time for that because I wanted to take my goggles off.  So long as I wasn’t in dust and not going so fast, it should be okay.  I was in a technical rick section so speed was slower.  I left my goggles on for a while longer hoping to ride out of the buggy area.  I tried taking my goggles off, riding with them dangling from my arm.  The little bug swarms came and went.  I slowed and squinted.  It was getting darker by the minute and I didn’t want to put those dark lenses on again.  

A perfect day so far, until now.  I was going so slow because of lost vision.  There were patches of fans on the side of the course watching.  I thought about pulling over and asking some UTV guys to trade goggles.  I should have.  I put mine back on because my eyes were full of dang little bugs.  I descended in elevation slowly because of the bad vision.  Finally, I had to take them off again.  Less bugs here.  I brought it into the finish in 13 1/2 hours in third place.

My knee held up.  No issues.  A pretty good race.

In my 59-year-old mind, who had a rough two years with knee replacement recovery, at least to do what I was accustomed to doing, I thought – “I was back”.

Invictus.